Between Syria and Sochi

16th October 2012 / CIS News / Comments are Disabled

Circassian relations with Moscow can not be called simple, however, as the relationship of all other peoples of the North Caucasus from the Russian government, says Volker Pabst in the material published on the website Neue Zuercher Zeitung. Meanwhile, in connection with the events in Syria and the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, which will be held in 2014, the “Circassian question” is becoming increasingly important.

“Circassian issue” goes back long before the then Russian Empire consolidated its position in the North Caucasus, writes the Neue Zuercher Zeitung. By the end of the Caucasian war, most of the Circassian population left the inhabited earth, moved mainly to the Ottoman Empire. In this case, the North Caucasian peoples managed to maintain national identity and part of language, despite the fact that a change of at least six generations. Joseph Stalin further weakened the position of remaining in the historic homeland of the Circassians, divided into a number of nations. The current strength of the Circassian diaspora in Russia is about 70 thousand people, not counting those who have decided to return to Russia because of the war in Syria.

And come back and want to stay forever, many, says Volker Pabst. “Since the beginning of the conflict in the Middle Eastern country several hundred Circassian families moved to Russia – continues Pabst. – Moreover, the local diaspora demands that Moscow evacuation remained in Syria compatriots and simplified entry to Russia.” Perhaps just Circassians in solidarity with their compatriots, and maybe the fact that due to the influx from abroad of North Caucasian peoples to regain its former strength, notes Neue Zuercher Zeitung.

In any case, many believe in the Caucasus, Moscow is morally obliged to render the necessary assistance to the civil war hostages despite the fact that these people do not have a direct relationship to Russia. “However, Moscow, in contrast to the Caucasus region, in no hurry to take any steps,” – says the author. Local authority, as the newspaper writes, prefer to work: North Caucasian republics charters booked for evacuation, placing immigrants in local health centers through private donations and build settlements for them. Circassian immigrants first appeared in the North Caucasus in 1998 – then they left Kosovo.

“Moreover,” the Circassian question “has another face, and here it is in the city of Sochi, site of the Winter Olympic Games in 2014 – continues to Pabst. – The mere fact that Russia will hold this game 150 years after the victory of the war in the Caucasus, is a provocation to many Circassians. ” The very name of Sochi, as well as many other place names in the region, has a Circassian origin. City, now inhabited mainly by Russian and Armenian, even as the last capital of the “free-Cherkessia”, and it is here, not far from Krasnaya Polyana, Russian troops completed in 1864, the Caucasian War. According to legend, Krasnaya Polyana is the so called because of the blood into the ground, the newspaper notes.

So some Circassian organizations acting with slogans such as “Sochi – the land of genocide,” demand boycott of the Olympic Games, citing the fact that “the ski slopes are in mass graves.”

Recruitment Neflyasheva, an employee of the RAS, has Circassian roots, wanted the Circassians, like the Indians of the Olympic Games in Vancouver, served as host the Games, said Neue Zuercher Zeitung. “But it is unlikely to expect such gestures from Moscow – says Naima. – Instead of building Sochi Administration symbolic flag flutters Kuban Cossacks are on the side of the tsarist government and played a key role in the Caucasian War.”

According Neflyasheva, ignoring the “Circassian question”, “Moscow itself deprived of the chance to woo the North Caucasian peoples,” which is so necessary to the Kremlin on the eve of the Olympic Games in Sochi. After Sochi, as the newspaper writes, is geographically the center of the troubled North Caucasus. A clash between the feds and Islamic separatists increasingly shifting to the west – to the volatile Dagestan now added another, and Kabardino-Balkaria, and from its capital, Nalchik, to Sochi, just 300 km, the newspaper notes.

Inopressa

Tags: between Sochi Syria