10:50, 4 May 2020

Karachays commemorate deportation victims with social network posts

The Memorial to Repression Victims of in Karachaevsk. Screenshot of the post on rashidtemrezov's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/B_uJc1OguF9/

On the Revival Day of the Karachay Nation, residents of the Karachay-Cherkessian Republic (KChR) pay tribute to victims of deportation online; rallies are banned due to quarantine introduced because of coronavirus. Rashid Temrezov, the head of the republic, has visited the Memorial to Repression Victims of in Karachaevsk.

On May 3, 2019, about 2000 people took part in the march in Cherkessk on the Revival Day of the Karachay Nation. The Karachays' rehabilitation was incomplete, as their autonomy has not been restored, Mukhammad Karachay, an activist, has noted.

The deportation of Karachays was launched in the USSR on November 2, 1943; and as a result thereof, 69,267 people were evicted. Most of them – over 43,000 people, including 22,000 children, died on the way and in the resettlement places.

Ismail-Hadji Berdiev, the Mufti of the KChR, "committed a dua (prayer) for those who died on the way and in a foreign land and failed to experience the joy of returning to homeland."

According to the head of the republic, "it is important that children know their history, remember what victims of political repression had to go through."

In the opinion of Murat Karaketov, a historian, if not for the deportation, by 2009, the Karachays' population in Russia would have been twice as large and would have amounted to 400-450 thousand.

A campaign was held in social networks, in which residents told about their relatives who survived the deportation, and posted their photos.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 3, 2020 at 08:35 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.