Council of Elders of the Balkar people is preparing claims of compensation for moral damage caused by Stalin’s repression

Council of Elders of the Balkar people started collecting documents of ethnic Balkars who underwent repression during the period of Stalin’s rule in order to submit a claim of compensation for moral damage to court. As of the moment, 400 persons submitted their documents.

Activists of the Council of Elders of the Balkar People (CEBP) defined the sum of their claims to the state as five million rubles to each person.

“Over a period of 13 years we lived in terrible conditions. All the time we were under law enforcement bodies’ control, underwent humiliation, they called us traitors of our country and the fascists’ accomplices”, member of CEBP Tamara Gerieva said.

According to Hakim Kuchmezov, leader of Kabardino-Balkar branch of “Yabloko” party, in 2000 the Balkars already received a compensation of 10 thousand rubles. “But this is a scanty compensation compared to what the people have gone through”, the politician considers.

On March, 8, 1944, the Balkar people in full force, 37317 persons all in all, were deported to Central Asia. 562 of them died on the way. 13 years later, in 1957, the Balkars were rehabilitated and allowed to return home.