had copied his style." In 1962 Paskayev was invited to speak at Baikal TV, and after delivering his speech he became widely known throughout the Chechen-Ingush ASSR. He spent much of his youth performing with adults, and wasn't seen playing with other children. That year he also performed at the Great Kremlin Palace and met with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. The following year, Ramzan was also invited into the "Vaynah" dance ensemble. In 1967 Paskayev was called to active duty in the ranks of the Soviet Red Army. However, he was transferred to a military garrison ensemble after the intervention of fellow musician Aslan Gugiev. Afterwards Ramzan would enroll in a professional education at a college in Grozny and then the Krasnodar Institute of Culture. He would join an orchestra, and work there until 1983, when he would return to "Vaynah". With the start of the First Chechen War, Paskayev would move with his family to Moscow. He later commented, "I moved to Moscow from despair. Here, my creativity has become a facelift. As an adult, I became aware that the music is the foundation of our people. Without music, life is impossible. It must rally people to help us live and build. Living in Moscow, I issued six discs. And I realized that was responsible for our musical heritage. Folk art is a very serious genre, and it must be handled with care. During the war years, we lost all music. Many unique records were destroyed, which had its historical value. They simply burned, crushed. It is necessary to restore and re-write the wealth of musical collection that we had." Ramzan Paskayev is highly regarded by many Chechens for his ability to remember countless Chechen folk tunes by heart, which are regarded as the cornerstone of the restoration of Chechen music. He had groomed his son Ruslan, also a talented accordionist, to follow in his footsteps, but on October 12, 2004, Ruslan, a university student in Grozny, was found dead in the nearby village of Kalinina. His corpse showed signs of blows and tortures, and he had been shot in the head. Ruslan's murder was touted as another example of extrajudicial execution by Russian forces. Currently, Paskayev writes music, and was assisted by the late Said Dimayev. His works are included in the repertoires of orchestras in Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, and North Ossetia, and is regarded as one of the