Olga Allenova

A Russian journalist and author of the book Chechnya Nearby. War Through a Woman’s Eyes. She graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at North Ossetian State University. Since 1993, she worked as a freelance contributor for the regional newspapers Severnaya Osetia and Slovo. Since 2000, she has been a special correspondent for Kommersant publishing house. During the second Chechen war, Olga Allenova was in the combat zone as a journalist. Olga Allenova covered the terrorist attacks at Nord-Ost and in the city of Beslan, and wrote about events in Ingushetia, South Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Georgia, Abkhazia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh. She is currently a special correspondent for the Kommersant publishing house and a columnist for the Orthodoxy and Peace portal. In January 2007, Olga Allenova became a laureate of the Iskra national press award for a report from Lebanon. In December 2008, for a series of reports from the combat zone in South Ossetia, she was awarded the silver Order For Sacrificial Service by the public movement Orthodox Russia.