Feet are tapping the floor in rhythm, unique sounds of rapidly plucked strings of a three-string Chechen phandar resound the room. People all around me clap their hands to the music, deep men's voices sing of love, pain, happiness and sadness. The music sweeps me away, I find myself singing along with everyone, without even knowing a word in Chechen. A couple enters the small dance floor. They dance together, yet without any touch, not even their hands have any contact. Instead, each of them seem to play a role in this dance: The man dances with march-like steps, showing gestures of strength, sometimes tapping his fist vigorously against his chest. He seems to want to impress her by the power and straightness of his movements, sometimes offering her an outstretched arm to guide or to protect her. The women, in contrast, glides gracefully across the dancefloor with almost floating steps. Here and there she follows elegant circles, seemingly to avoid the man or to make him follow her across the dancefloor. Just a few hours ago, my travel companions and I arrived in a small village in the middle of the Chechen mountains. One after another the inhabitants came out of their houses to welcome us with great curiosity. They invited us to sit and eat with them, even to stay with them overnight. What a special warmth and incredible hospitality these people carried out! Foreigners rarely travel to this region in the south-eastern Caucasus, which had repeatedly come into conflict over the past centuries; the caucasus wars, the second world war, the first and the second Chechen war. When was there not any war here? The treasure of the region is oil. Oil made the region very prosperous; by the end of the 19th century the most important trading center in the Caucasus. However, the nature of this region is breathtaking: wherever I looked, I saw endless different shapes, soft waves and hard ankles of various beautiful shades of green peaks and valleys. From there, mist ascended in clouds, slowly climbing over the mountains. Unimaginable, that an entire era of war was taking place here, which only just ended a few years ago. At the dinner table in the village, I noticed that I was the only woman sitting with the eldest men of the village. They wore long beards, and were dressed in traditional Chechen clothes. The Chechen culture is completely different from everything that I know from Western Europe. Not only do the people here belive in Islam with great importance, discipline and respect, they also follow a strict code of roles for men and women. The women prepared and served us Zhizhig Galnish, a traditional Chechen dish from lamb, self-made noodles, broth, fresh tomatoes and potatoes from their garden. The smell was so tempting, the taste was unforgetable, pure deliciousness! The meat was tender and juicy, the tomatoes so fresh, so sweet, I had never tasted tomatoes as good as these. We talked about the situation in Chechnya in the past and today. I remembered a situation a few days ago: I met a man about 68 years old, who was missing four front teeth. In fact, as one of the elders said, many Chechens, were captured during the war, tortured and had their teeth pulled out. The memory of that time caused a self-silencing expression on his face. “And how is the situation in Chechnya today?” I asked. “Today, of course, it’s much better: we have peace, thanks to our president, and we live here quite well.” It occurred to me that I saw several pictures in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, showing Putin, the president of Russia, Akhmad Kadyrov, the first president of the newly independent republic of Chechnya in 2003 and his son Ramzan Kadyrov, the current president of the region. “The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” one of the men giggled, and everyone laughed. At the end of our evening I got to talk to the women of the village for the first time, of course about love, marriage, life and many other cultural differences. “What an exchange, what a great experience”, I thought as I finally fell asleep.