BY NATASHA ROTSTEIN, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

[to the related story, The Sound of Chechen music]

The opponents' strained, muscular arms locked like horns of fighting bulls as each man struggled to ensure his place in the next round of competition.

A doctor by trade and author of The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire, Baiev witnessed much violence while working in a small village outside of Grozny during the first and second war. He now turns to martial arts to help him cope with the traumatic memories he has of the war.

Dressed in a blue kimono and shorts with the word SAMBO stitched into the material in English along one leg and in Russian on the other, sweat beaded across Baiev's forehead while he shifted his torso.

As Fournet, who was in a red kimono, shuffled his feet, the spectators glimpsed tattoos of red flames licking his right calf and 12 flags - representing the countries he has competed in - on his left leg.

This was a first Freestyle Sambo match for the men. Freestyle Sambo differs from regular Sambo because it is more physical. The fight lasts 10 minutes and the first person to obtain 15 points or pin the opponent wins.

Otherwise, whoever has more points at the end of the match wins.

Baiev's brown eyes didn't wander long enough to examine the art work on Fournet's legs. Instead the 42-year-old father of four breathed, as if exhaling outside influences, and inhaled the fight he needed to beat the 34-year-old Fournet in this Freestyle Sambo match.

After all, he was inside Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn, NY, which with its three fighting rings had attracted the kind of fans many of whom spend their own free time grunting before sending a jab or upper cut toward an Everlast sand bag. More important to Baiev, the gym's claim to fame is Mike Tyson, who once trained there.

"This club is known as Tyson's club," Baiev explained later. "Maybe he trained where I fought last night. Maybe he was in that ring."

So with less than two minutes of fighting left, Baiev held his 2-5 lead and although Fournet fought for one more point, he won 3-5.

Now, he could drink fruit-flavored tea and stretch in an empty boxing ring while waiting for the final round and a chance to compete against Ryan Ahern from New York.

The next one will be easier, he thought, while lying on the blue surface of the ring and staring at the fluorescent light fixtures and dusty ceiling above.

For Baiev, the Judo and Sambo competitions allow him to sweat out and work off the memories of amputating limbs and performing operations with no gloves during war in his native Chechnya.

He was once a plastic surgeon, and was famous for making people look like they always dreamed they could. At war time, the hospital in his home town became a place where Chechens and Russians could seek help. Baiev spent many hours there rinsing his hands in a bucket and washing his scrubs to reuse the next day.

Now he sometimes operates in his dreams, leaving people happy at the end of the surgery, and yearns to leave Boston and return to Grozny so he can be a doctor again. He won't perform amputations though, that he's left behind with the war.

"When people leave the hospital as invalids without a leg or an arm, they are traumatized and you are traumatized too because you see the person's trauma," he said.

The sport keeps him from feeling like a caged animal imprisoned by the war. Even though the war came here with Baiev, as he puts it, the nightmares of snakes and Russians chasing him have become rare since he started participating in martial arts again. Waking up at 2 a.m. with images flashing like snapshots in a camera in his head is no longer part of his nightly routine.

"I keep busy and don't think about the war," said Baiev, who has a thick head of wavy brown hair and charcoal eyes, "but some days you go two, three days without doing anything and then you start to think about the war."

It is this war between Chechnya and Russia that forced Baiev to leave his native Alkhan Kala, which is near Grozny, for America six years ago. With his family still in Chechnya, he observed the peace of Vermont and decided his children could have a future here.

His wife Zara, a petite, 36-year-old woman with dark black hair and a warm, kind smile, along with their three children - Maryam, Islam and Markha -- and his twin brother Hussein's children - Kahava and Adam -- moved to Vermont and later to Needham, outside Boston, where they now have an apartment.

And although the Baievs dream of someday reuniting with relatives and visiting the mountains in Chechnya, they know the past life is left on Ulitsa Alsambeka Sheripova.

Here the road leading to their new home intersects streets with names like Pearl, Chapel and Pond. These streets provide passage between a barber's pole in front of Salvi's Barber Shop, taverns that conjure memories of sharing a pint in a London pub on a rainy afternoon and Karaun Restaurant, which promises live music and belly dancing.

The neighborhood has a park with a swirly slide and tire swing for the children to twist on. And at night the stars peek through the pines behind the three-unit building the Baievs live in.

On days when Kahava, 19, is at work, the kids' eyes sparkle as they giggle during games of tag in the four-bedroom apartment hallway. Between games the girls sneak to their room. Maryam, 12, shares a room with 7-year-old Markha. Bunk beds are pushed against a wall. Figurine wolves, the national symbol of Chechnya, sit on the shelves. One poster on a wall next to the bedroom's door reads "Chechnya--just remember my Country."

Next door live the boys, 11-year-old Islam and 12-year-old Adam. The room is equipped with a television for the kids to play Judo on Nintendo GameCube. Medals from Judo competitions hang on a wall in front of a Chechen flag, which is green with one red stripe between two white ones across the bottom.

The kids chat about Super Bowl Sunday, the Boston Red Sox and of course the Curse of the Bambino.
They are no longer white from terror and the grayness is gone from their faces. The war is forgotten to them, and only subtle reminders creep up at unexpected moments.

"Islam is 11, his birthday is December 11" says Maryam.

"But it is recorded wrong," Islam suddenly explains. "I was born in the middle of the war and they wrote it down wrong, as January 11."

Often, the neighbor's grandson, 5-year-old Shamil Imakaev, walks through the front door without knocking to play with the Baievs. He is over so much it is easy to mistake him for one of the Baiev's kids.

The Baievs believe someday they will return home. But in the meantime, Baiev is glad that noises don't scare his children anymore, that they can sleep through the night and have toys to play with.

Zara, who works as a cashier at 7-Eleven, doesn't need to run toward her children's school when she hears bombs.

The kids too, have only vague recollections of teachers watching for airplanes through shattered windows in classrooms. Instead, they recount running home for tea during recess, something they can't do here.

This world is an ocean away from the Chechnya they remember. Here they attend a well-equipped school where the teachers are calm and carefree. Three times a week they dress in kimonos and attend Judo practice with Baiev, who teaches them to cherish it as a Chechen tradition.

Like him, they save their medals and prominently display them in their rooms.

And Baiev dares to close his eyes and picture his children as adults. He envisions Islam going to Harvard University or Maryam becoming a successful attorney.

It is one of the reasons he competes in Judo and Sambo, so his children understand the importance of sports.

He teaches his children that winning is not what matters. What's most important is to train and have the desire to compete. If you lose, it is no big deal. You compete so next time you are stronger so you can win.

Sometimes he rises at dawn, as he did the day he competed in Brooklyn's Freestyle Sambo competition, to take a bus to New York from Boston.

He eats little, with the exception of some potatoes and chicken, so he can meet the weight requirement when he strips down to his grey bikini underpants and steps on a scale prior to a fight.

After winning his first round against Fournet, Baiev patiently spends three hours walking around the gym, occasionally stopping to watch others in the ring, while waiting to fight his 24-year-old opponent, Ryan Ahern.

When the two men finally appeared at the opposite ends of the mat, it was 11:48 p.m.

Distinguished by his spiked blonde hair and red kimono, Ahern approached Baiev. Their feet thumped against the ground as their bent arms locked. The two stared in each other's eyes.

As the 10-minute match progressed, fans offered some coaching expertise from their seats.

"Kick him."

"C'mon, fight."

"Don't give up."

Baiev pinned Ahern to the floor several times, pushing his chest against the younger man's body. Ahern flailed his arms at Baiev's sides in a futile attempt to move from under his opponent.

But Baiev felt he would win because he watched Ahern's tactics earlier that night. He didn't allow Ahern a single point and won the match with a score of 0-8.

Along with a sore knee, pain in his left shoulder and a small cut above the left brow, Baiev now has a black championship belt with a golden eagle across the front - resembling a prize a heavyweight boxer might receive - to bring home for his children to try on.

"I need to pass [sports] on to my children to show them that hard work is important and so they grow up strong and healthy," he said. "Chechen lives are full of hardship. There's always a glass ceiling and that's why our lives are tragic. Sports helped me live though it."

June 2006

[to the related story, The Sound of Chechen music]

28-Jun-06 | 1:55 PM
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