For nearly three years Chrystal Callahan was the only westerner in the Russian republic of Chechnya—or at least the only one with a permanent address and a government job. As a host for an English program on Grozny TV from 2009-2012, she became a public face for the post-war nation, reading the news and doing features on cultural events with an audible Canadian accent, her long black hair swooped back in a scarf. In a report for Russia Today, the newscasters concluded: "It is hoped that the Canadian face
of Chechnya's English news program will attract attention across the globe. It's the first regional project of its kind in Russia and it's producers are proud pioneers." Some people considered her presence as propaganda. Others insinuated she must be a spy.
"I just saw it all," Callahan said in a recent interview with ELLE.com. When she returned to her native Canada, she began to process her experiences—the violence, abuse, and fear she had witnessed in the recovering country—and turned to art to cope. She described the experience as being like a soldier returning from war.
The result is a semi-autobiographical photo collection, The Dirty War, in which Callahan, now 32, chose to turn the lens back on herself. In a series of graphic, high-quality "selfies", Callahan depicts the stories of Chechen women: stories of fear-mongering, revirginization, rape, homophobia, and muted exterior lives. In the opening image of the series, the statuesque Callahan—a former model—is seated with her bare legs splayed and a gun in each hand, one pressed inside white underwear, her finger on the trigger, while a sniper riffle rests against her thigh. Her expression is on the brink of ecstasy.
"I've lived in this oppression. I've seen what these girls go through," Callahan explained. "And I did feel guilty because I could leave—they are stuck there."
Callahan identified with feeling trapped. When she was 18 she left Canada for a modeling contract in Tokyo. She graced the pages of Vogue Japan and posed 20-feet tall on billboards for Tommy Hilfiger, but she found the lifestyle and excessive wealth extremely oppressive. In Japan she felt an expectation to be the beautiful arm candy of a wealthy boyfriend, instead of an independent person.
Callahan had always dreamt of being a documentary filmmaker. In 2008, intrigued by the Black Widows she'd read about in the news, she used her savings to fly to Chechnya, where she made a documentary about how a Greco-Roman wrestling club was helping young boys avoid joining terrorist organizations. She was only there for a month but remained fascinated by the culture—and the women who were borne from it. Specifically, she wanted to understand the female jihadists, commonly referred to as black widows, who make up 40 percent of all terrorists in the region. What would make a woman strap a bomb to her chest or hold a school full of children hostage (as they had during the Beslan school siege of 2004)? "I figured there was a lot of pain," she said.
Callahan moved back to Chechnya in 2009, the year Russia announced that the country was 'normalized' after nearly two decades of war between Russian forces and Chechen separatists. She arrived at an opportune moment in history. After years of war, tens of thousands of deaths had left more women than men in the country (these losses also led to the term 'Black Widows' for the female jihadists). Following Soviet control, the country and surrounding regions grew increasingly Islamic and implemented a government-enforced dress code as part of a "virtue campaign" for women. As a television presenter, Callahan wanted to shine light on the more joyous parts of the culture, like traditional dance, song, and art. However, the women she met led highly censored lives as they adjusted to a new code of conduct—they were often shot with paint pellets for wearing short sleeves.
"The [Chechen] women were so brilliant. They could speak so many languages and they were so funny behind closed doors…and they couldn't be that in public," Callahan said. "With the art that I did—and this isn't just specific for Chechen women—I just wanted to put this out there for women in any situation to see: You are not the only person going through something, you are not alone."
Each selfie is framed by a short story that details different elements of what it means to be a woman in Chechnya. In several shots she wears a veil to depict the "ideal" chaste bride. In another, she stands naked before a wall of other nude selfies—images of actual Chechen women with their faces blurred out (these images are complied from "sexts" — something a woman in Chechnya could be prosecuted for). In her essays she discusses how a woman is defined by her husband and the difficulty of divorce. Because sex before marriage is also taboo, she write about the commonality of revirginization surgery and the shaming of rape victims. Each of these stories come from the experiences of women Callahan encountered.
"It is mental slavery thinking 'I have to be with this man [and] I can't make it on my own'…if a man doesn't desire me than I'm not really a woman," Callahan said. Through The Dirty War, and an upcoming memoir, she hopes to take away some of this shame and express the contrast between the public and private lives of Chechen women.
"In Chechnya, I'm a foreign woman and I have an American passport, so I am not a woman from that region," she explained. "I am not a man—but I am more a man than a woman."
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