family's ancestral homeland, chechnya, today also a part of russia. >> translator: he could radiate light and warmth. >> reporter: his extended family in dagestan welcomed him warmly. >> translator: he smiled a lot, and i asked him, is this your customary american smile? he was more of an american. >> reporter: much of what tamerlan tsarnaev did here remains a mystery. we know he stayed for some weeks here at his parents' home, keeping mostly to family and friends, helping his father out in his businesses around town, and often sleeping in. the tsarnaev family is part of the chechen community here. like many other chechens displaced from their homeland. after the second world war tens of thousands of chechens perished in a mass deportation ordered by joseph stalin. in the 1990s chechens fought and won a bloody war for independence from russia.