Short answers, pulled from the story.
Nokhchiy is built from nakh (people) and cho (territory or room), translating roughly as "people of the territory." The oldest written record of the name dates to 1310, when the Georgian Patriarch Cyril Donauri listed the "People of Nakhche" among the nations of the North Caucasus.
In 1944, Soviet security chief Lavrentiy Beria carried out Stalin's order to deport the entire Chechen population to the Kazakh and Kirghiz Soviet republics. The Chechen republic was abolished and historical records were severely damaged. At least one quarter, and perhaps half, of all Chechens died in the process.
Imam Shamil was a leader from Dagestan who organized the mountain peoples of the North Caucasus against Russian rule in the 19th century. His leadership marked the peak of Chechen resistance during the Caucasian War, though the Chechens were ultimately defeated in 1861.
Teips are the approximately 130 clan units at the center of Chechen social life, based on territory and single-line descent rather than pure blood relation. They are grouped into larger confederations called tukkhums and subdivided into gar (branches) and nekye (patronymic families). The Mehk-Khel, or National Council, was the governing body that coordinated these clans and held the power to appoint the national ruler.
The vast majority of Chechens are Sunni Muslims, primarily following the Shafi'i school of jurisprudence, which has the longest tradition in the region. About half of all Chechens belong to Sufi brotherhoods called tariqah, with the Naqshbandiyya (strongest in Dagestan and eastern Chechnya) and the Qadiriyya (predominant in western Chechnya and Ingushetia) the two main orders.
Significant Chechen diaspora communities live in Kazakhstan, Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq. Those in Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq are largely descendants of families expelled during the 19th-century Caucasus War, while the community in Kazakhstan originates from Stalin's 1944 deportation. Tens of thousands more settled in the European Union following the Chechen Wars, especially in the wave of emigration after 2002.