4° Edition
Chechnya : Spasibo
In Grozny (Chechnya), rebuilt with sinister tackiness, the photographer Davide Monteleone managed in 2012 to convey the silence of a people frightened and infantilised by the despot Ramzan Kadyrov.
Security forces attending the 10th annual celebration of Constitution Day. In the background, the five gleaming Grozny-City Towers, the heart of the reconstruction of Grozny and a symbol of the city’s recovery following the destruction wrought at the beginning of the millennium. Grozny, 23 March 2013.
© Davide Monteleone for Fondation Carmignac
Chechnya remains, after the conflicts of the previous two decades, a scene of deep human suffering. Davide Monteleone stayed there from December 2012 to April 2013 and chose to depict the erosion of Chechen identity behind the façade of prosperity maintained by Ramzan Kadyrov’s regime, which has crushed all dissent.
Alternating, in black and white, between solemn portraits, images of a rebuilt Grozny, and landscapes scarred by war, the photographer exposes the realities concealed beneath the coerced “thank you” (spasibo) to the tyrant.
Galia Ackerman“We know of spectacular cases, like the murder of the well-known journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 or that of the heroic defender of human rights, Natalia Estemirova in 2009, but Russian NGOs, like Memorial or the Committee against torture, cite hundreds of cases of kidnappings, torture, assassinations perpetrated by Kadyrov’s death squads, with complete impunity.”
Shatoy, Republic of Chechnya, Russia, March 2013. Inside a bus, Rada, 14, tries on a wedding dress designed by her sister for a film shoot on the Chechen deportation.
© Davide Monteleone for Fondation Carmignac
Today, investigations by Human Rights Watch and the Memorial Center confirm that Kadyrov’s regime has institutionalized terror: abductions, torture, and the persecution of all critical voices — notably LGBTQ+ individuals — are tools of governance exercised with total impunity.
Reporters Without BordersIn 2025, as Russia ranks near the bottom of RSF’s World Press Freedom Index (171st out of 180 countries), Chechnya — a republic of the Russian Federation — exemplifies the systematic eradication of any independent media space. The judiciary, under the orders of Ramzan Kadyrov, delivers verdicts dictated by those in power against anyone who “discredits the army” or “offends religious feelings,” while the few critical journalists who venture into the territory are publicly threatened and even assaulted.
DAPHNÉ ANGLÈS Picture Editor at The New York Times in Paris
MARI BASTASHEVSKI Photojournalist
CHRISTIAN CAUJOLLE Journalist, exhibition curator, and founder of the VU’ agency and gallery
ELENA CHERNYSCHOVA Russian photographer
MARIELLE EUDES Editorial Director at AFP
ROBIN HAMMOND Documentary photographer, winner of the 2011 Carmignac Prize
WALTER KELLER Publisher, director of the eponymous photography gallery in Zurich
OLIVIER LAURENT Online Editor at the British Journal of Photography
NATALIE NOUGAYRÈDE Director of the newspaper Le Monde
