MOSCOW -- Caucasian warlord, mixed martial arts enthusiast, scourge of any opposition -- Ramzan Kadyrov, the autocratic leader of a turbulent mountain republic, wants to convince the rest of Russia that its image of him is all wrong.
Borrowing from Donald Trump's playbook, Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, is starring this fall in a reality TV competition called The Team. In a format that echoes The Apprentice, the show that enhanced Trump's fame, Kadyrov is winnowing a group of 16 telegenic young Russians down to one who will become his assistant.
The stocky, ginger-bearded Chechen leader -- perhaps the highest-profile Russian political figure besides Russia's President Vladimir Putin -- starts one episode by explaining why his image needs a makeover.
"People believe my image that was created by the liberals, that I am frightening, that I will kill whoever says anything about me, that I will put them in a dungeon and stab them," Kadyrov says, steering his SUV through a breathtaking landscape of jagged peaks.
"That was invented by enemies of the people, enemies of our state, who know that as long as I am in the Caucasus, the Western, European special services will not manage to change the situation here," he says, riffing on the official conviction that the West seeks to engineer regime change in Russia.
"That is why they want to make the Russian people have a bad attitude toward me. They want to make an enemy of the people out of me. On the contrary, people run to me. They hug me."
Kadyrov, 40, is clearly getting a hug from the Kremlin, with state-run television running what amounts to a weekly infomercial. The reason for it is less obvious.
The first possible reason is economic.
Chechnya, with a population of 1.4 million, costs the Kremlin about $1 billion in annual subsidies, the newspaper RBC calculated. Moscow recently announced that persistent economic problems meant the republic would face federal budget cuts like all government entities.
The show appears to be aimed at persuading more investors and Russian tourists to open their wallets in Chechnya so that Moscow will not have to. "I thought soldiering was the most difficult part, but attracting investment is," Kadyrov laments in one episode, bragging about his role in fighting Russian forces before his father led the clan to switch sides.
The show may also be an attempt to groom Kadyrov for a national role.
"They are aware of the experience of Trump; they are aware of the experience of other people who have used media stereotypes for their political careers," said Grigory Shvedov, the editor of Caucasian Knot, a web-based news service. "This is clearly political PR."
The Team depicts Kadyrov, often dressed in various shades of camouflage, as a kind of cuddly teddy bear. He expounds on all manner of village traditions and his own biography: what he learned at his father's knee, how he wooed his wife, why he loves trees.
At the same time, speaking in staccato, heavily accented Russian, he dispenses a stream of action-hero philosophy, like the belief that any man should be able to ride a horse, shoot a weapon and swim.
With Russia marketing itself globally as the anti-Western beacon and the home of conservative values, Kadyrov is portrayed as a charismatic man rooted in family, nature and tradition.
He is "absolutely not a radical," gushes a contestant named Andrei, 31, a businessman from Moscow.
In many ways, The Team follows a standard reality show format. The contestants, mostly Russians with marketing experience, are divided into two teams and compete in every episode to fulfill a task, like producing a video promoting Chechnya. They make scathing remarks about one another, and Kadyrov sends at least one packing weekly, scrawling the person's name with a gold pen.
Various Russian politicians and pop stars make cameo appearances, developing a side competition in praising Kadyrov.
What distinguishes the show is that it stars a compelling character working hard to drown his brutal reputation in a tidal wave of charm. Persistent Islamic militancy and Kadyrov's own Islamization campaign are glossed over.
Here he is releasing a herd of deer into the wild; there, collecting a wildflower bouquet. When not showing various gilded, marbled meeting rooms, the producers intersperse gorgeous shots of Chechnya, using drone footage that caresses glittering new skyscrapers, soaring mountains, pristine lakes and historic stone towers. All that is missing is Kadyrov bursting into the theme song from The Sound of Music.
"It creates an image of a person and a republic that does not exist," said Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, who analyzes the Caucasus for the International Crisis Group. "The business, political and social environment that we are being shown is just shocking compared to the reality."
Chechens are accustomed to seeing Kadyrov on television. First, he uses it to flaunt his daily doings. Second, in a far grimmer reality, he seeks to stamp out dissent by publicly humiliating anyone who dares utter even vague criticism of his rule. Abuse is rife, as a recent Human Rights Watch report detailed.
Worse happens off camera: Critics disappear, and some turn up dead. Bloodshed is not limited to Chechnya. Chechen security forces have been linked to assassinations in Russia and abroad. The most recent was the killing of Boris Nemtsov, a leading Putin critic gunned down near the Kremlin in February 2015.
The Chechen leader targets journalists in particular. In September, Zhalaudi Geriev, a reporter for Caucasian Knot, was jailed for three years for possessing marijuana. His lawyer said the drugs had been planted and that a confession had been extracted under torture.
Some nongovernmental organizations no longer feel safe holding conferences in Chechnya, so they host them in Moscow, where critics can speak freely.
"In the Chechen republic, there is an unwritten law: It is called 'Ramzan said,' and it is above all other law," said one participant in a conference on women's rights this year, not wanting to be named out of fear of violent retribution.
Inevitably, some actual reality creeps into the show.
The four women among the 16 contestants on The Team were quickly eliminated. "Women are natural housewives," Kadyrov says.
Kadyrov also supports polygamy in Chechnya, even though it is illegal in Russia.
He communicates with the world mostly through Instagram, where he has more than 2 million followers. One way he drives traffic, opponents say, is by forcing every government entity to open an account and "like" all his posts.
The show makes light of some sinister Chechen practices. Chechens have a reputation for using thugs with guns to seize lucrative businesses, for example, even in Moscow.
At one point, the master of ceremonies tells Kadyrov what a successful businessman Andrei is in Moscow. The contestant scoffs at the compliment. "Don't worry, we are not going to take it away from you," Kadyrov responds to widespread laughter.
Television critics pan the show for treating Kadyrov with kid gloves. They accuse the boyishly handsome, blond emcee, Boris Korchevnikov, a Russian talk show host, of acting like a puppy. Similar comments pop up on social media, but there are also those who hail Kadyrov as a "hero of Russia."
The show is not among the 100 most-watched programs on Russian TV, but it does OK for its late-night slot. Rossiya 1, the channel that broadcasts it, declined requests to interview Korchevnikov or to witness any filming in Chechnya.
Whatever the purpose of The Team, most analysts will tell you that the barriers to Kadryov's becoming the president of Russia are just too high for a Muslim and nonethnic Russian.
Putin has no anointed heir, however, and some imagine that if a succession proves chaotic, Kadyrov could swoop in with his 20,000-strong Praetorian Guard and claim to impose order for the good of all Russia.
Repeated wars in the North Caucasus have inspired generations of Russian artists, from Mikhail Lermontov to Leo Tolstoy to the modern writer Zakhar Prilepin. They helped to typecast the region in the Russian psyche as eternally violent, and it is not clear that one reality show can erase that.
The more lasting impression might be summarized by a Lermontov poem titled To the Caucasus, which begins: "Caucasus! A land far away! Home to a simple freedom! And you are full of sorrows and stained with the blood of war."
Information for this article was contributed by Ivan Nechepurenko and Oleg Matsnev of The New York Times.
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