I listened to Dima's words with amazement. "I want us to toast those of us without whom our aid work would be impossible and who take all the risks to make it happen. I respect your courage and I want us to drink to that," he said in a measured voice as he raised his glass to the visitors from the Caucasus. In my time here, this seemed like the first instance I had heard a Russian use, and mean, the word "respect" when talking about Chechens.

Prejudice is not always crude and insulting, even here in Russia, but also among those one expects to be civilised and educated, sympathy for the plight of the Chechens is awarded patronisingly, as if talking about a wayward child. Except that this child shoots back.

It had been a long two days of planning meetings for which seven of our co-workers had come up to Moscow. Having brought to an end 6 weeks of detailed assessments and preliminary distributions throughout Chechnya, and in the process covering quite a lot of ground in the territory, we were now ready to plan the next phase. And what needed doing was not necessarily what actually we would able to realise. No, it hadn't been simple and straight forward to elaborate plans and determine where to put our efforts, but we had worked out where the priorities should lie for the coming time. And now we had deserved ourselves a shared moment to take a breath and remind each other why we were together.

Ton had the word next, and in spite of his being no longer involved with the programme, he had caught the mood of the moment. "I have been with this aid organisation in the order of 10 years and in the course of that have managed a few programmes in distant corners of the world, but I just wanted to tell you that you represent the essence of our work everywhere in the world. This idea is about being right there, where people are suffering the worst of crisis and making a difference for them. And, no mistake, you are there."

Ruslan had already ensured that everybody's vodka glass was again up to the required "50 gram" level, and all raised their glass once more.

When the visitors had made the two-hour plane journey from Ingushetia and had arrived, there was palpable excitement in the air. But while the occasion of the planning-sessions itself had meaning after all these weeks of rushing, nevertheless for any Chechen a visit to Moscow these days is like a hiking trip in Africa --- it should be safe but you never know what you might encounter around the corner.

There are at least a hundred thousand Chechens in Moscow, many have been here for years. Do they worry as much as our visitors did about simply walking out on the street?

As the glasses got emptied, there were repeated calls for Movsar to give the next toast. Demurely he acquiesced. "I want to tell you a story my father told me and that his father told him in his time. It is a story that has given me much courage recently.

"In times long ago, a young merchant was for the first time travelling to a distant land. He was passing through fields when he came across a man with a whip who was supervising a slave. The slave was straining hard to pull a load of rocks up an impossible slope. As he struggled, he slipped again and again, but didn't relent. The merchant took pity on the slave and walked across the field and up to the slave-owner.

" 'Tell me what this slave is worth to you. I will pay you the amount you say in order for you to release him.'

"But before the man could answer, the slave interrupted, and said 'Do not waste your money stranger. Everything passes, and so will this.'

"It was several years before the merchant returned to this distant land again. He had brought more trade goods and in due course found buyers for them. After he had concluded his business, he needed to finalise the contracts made and for this reason went to see the Vizier of the town in which he was. But to his astonishment, he recognised no other than the ex-slave who now turned out to be the authority in this town. Seeing the surprised face of the merchant, the Vizier explained, 'Yes, it was indeed me that you tried to buy free. And now look at me - I have done well for myself and here you see me as the Vizier of this town. But everything passes, and so will this.'

"When many years later the merchant next met the ex-slave again, it was on the occasion of an audience with the emperor of that land, who turned out to be that ex-slave and ex-Vizier. And again the merchant was told: 'Everything passes, and so will this.'

"It was a long time before the merchant found himself once more in that distant land, and of course he asked after the ex-slave, ex-Vizier that had become the emperor. When he was taken to the tomb of this man, on it was written: 'Everything passes, and so will this.'

"The merchant chuckled and said to his companions: 'He may have been a slave that became Vizier and ended up as emperor, but here he lies now, and this will not pass.'

"The merchant was an old man when he returned for the last time. After concluding his business, something drove him to seek out the grave of the slave that had become emperor. But to his amazement, where the graveyard had been, there the sea had encroached and only waves could be seen washing over the site. " 'Ahh!' the old man conceded, 'Everything passes, and so did this.'"

After Movsar had finished, there was a moment's silence, but no round of cheerful applause followed. Later, when, as protocol dictated, I was asked to propose the last toast of the evening, I could only add: "Everything passes .. that this war, too, may soon pass."