Today,  it is the 18th anniversary of the day when Chechen nation restored independent statehood of Chechen Republic Ichkeria.

On September 6 1991, the All-National Congress of the Chechen People (OKChN) declared the national sovereignty of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria. And September 6, was marked as the Chechen state’s Independence Day and a National Holiday since 1991.

The first large-scale celebration of  Independence Day took place in 1992. It involved a military parade and special concert in one of the Chechen capital’s sports stadiums.

The Independence Day of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria was even marked in September 1995, despite the fact that a large number of Russian soldiers and officers of various law enforcement agencies were located in Grozny. On that day tens of thousands of the republic’s residents took to the streets of Grozny and marched through the centre of the Chechen capital holding Ichkeria flags, portraits of Dzhokhar Dudaev and banners, and demanding an immediate end to the war and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the republic’s territory.

September 6 was also declared as a national holiday in 1996, since only a few days earlier that year Aleksandr Lebed, and Aslan Maskhadov had signed a treaty in the Daghestan city of Khasavyurt, thus bringing an end to the “First Russian-Chechen war”.