[wpspoiler name=”Music from North Ossetia (some good stuff at 3:00)” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]

— North Ossetia-Alania: The republic of North Ossetia-Alania is a Russian Republic in the Caucasus Mountains just across the border from Georgia, which used to be part of the Soviet Union. The area has been in a state of ethnic flux ever since the mid ’40s when Stalin deported the historically and linguistically related Chechen and Ingush people who lived there to Central Asia, accusing them of German collaboration. The mainly Sufi Muslim Ingush were allowed to return in 1957, but when they did they found their land had become part of primarily Christian North Ossetia. They found this quite unpleasant. The substantial ethnic and political reshuffling after the fall of the USSR brought this Ossetian/Ingush conflict to a head. In 1992 there was a brief but brutal war in the formerly Ingush land of East Prigorodny, complete with accusations of Ossetian ethnic cleansing of the Ingush. Tensions rose again after the 1994 , in which over 300 Ossetians died in the Beslan hostage crisis (this summary in the UK’s Guardian is best viewed and/or explained by grown-ups, if such a thing can be explained at all). Amid accusations that some of the Chechen hostage-takers were Ingush, historic Ingush-Ossetian conflicts flared up again. To add to the complexity of the relationship between the Ossetians and Ingush, since the fall of the USSR in 1992 Georgia and Russia have contested the formerly Georgian land of South Ossetia. In 2008, after a Georgian/Russian conflict over the region known as the South Ossetia War, South Ossetia came under Russian control. The question of South Ossetian self-determination is still open, and still the uncertainty threatens to spill over the border into North Ossetia.

[wpspoiler name=”Kalmyk topshur deul” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]

Kalmyk people are descendants of the Siberian Oirats, who originated in Western Mongolia. They migrated to the area known as Kalmykia in 1630 and have maintained a homeland there despite a rocky relationship with Tsarist Russia and a devastating Stalin commanded forced migration back to Central Asia after World War II.

— Krachay-Cherkessia:
A far western republic that is fragile because of tension between the Krachays, a proud Turkic people who survived their own Stalin-era mass deportation to Central Asia, and the predominantly Sunni Muslim Cicrcassians.

— North

— Kabardino-Balkaria:
The Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, found in the Northern Caucasus Mountains in the southwest corner of Russia, changed from Ottoman Turk to Russian hands between the 17th and 19th centuries before becoming an autonomous region after the Bolsheviks took power 1921. Today, living standards among the dominant population of Sunni Muslim Kabardins are low, unemployment is high and opinions about the ruling Russians are mixed at best. Toss in some historic tension with the Turkic-speaking Balkars, who Stalin also accused of collaborating with the Germans and forcibly deported in 1944 (only to allow them to return to their land in 1957), compound that with ever-present potential of flare up of war in nearby Chechnya, and one gets the sense that Kabardino-Balkaria may be facing some difficult times.

[wpspoiler name=”Traditional dance of Bride and Groom in Ingushetia” open=”true”][/wpspoiler]

— Ingushetia:
When Russians started moving into the Caucuses in the mid-1800s some Nakh people resisted, some didn’t. Those who did came to be known as Chechens; they have essentially fought Russia ever since. The Russians called the others Ingush. After World War II Stalin falsely accused the Ingush of collaborating with the Nazis and deported them to Kazakhstan and Siberia. By the time they returned in 1957 most of their territory had become Osset-ruled North Ossetia. That didn’t make them happy.

[wpspoiler name=”Marina Mustafaeva and Moii Izbrannii” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]

— Dagestan:
“Land of dreams and myths,” Dagestan, located in the Northeastern Caucauses is one of the most multiethnic places in the world; it’s home to 36 ethnic groups and over 80 nationalities. Over 90% of Dagestanis are Muslim and view themselves as very separate from the Russians; tension between Dagestanis and the central Russian Federation government runs high.

[wpspoiler name=”Chechen accordionist Deni Satabaev” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]
On February 23, 1944, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin initiated a mass deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people from their homeland in the Caucasus Mountains to Central Asia, accusing them of collaborating with the Germans during the war. They were allowed to return in 1956, but the deportation and subsequent loss of life, land and economic power was devastating. Since the mid-’50s the Chechen people, who are primarily Sunni Muslim, have fought on and off with the dominant Russians for political autonomy. After the fall of the USSR Chechnya attempted to become entirely independent from Russia but the Russians, starting in 1994 and led by the strong hand of then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, sent in the military to crush its rebellion. In 2009 declared the war won and installed a Russian-dominated government. Despite this pause in active fighting, few believe the conflict has come to its final end.

[wpspoiler name=”Adyghe folk muisician Aslan Tlebzu” open=”true”style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]

— Adygeya:
Located in the northwest Caucasus, Adygeya is home to the Adyghe people, a highly stratified, Sunni Muslim group that follows a strict code of honor known as “Adyghe Xabze” which teaches courage, reliability, generosity and extreme hospitality.

The European Republics (mainly in the Caucasus Mountains): Currently a hotbed of inter-ethnic, inter-religious and political separatist tensions, these Russian Republics in the Southeastern European Caucasus Mountains are still reeling from the effects of the devastating forced migrations of 1944-1957, in which Stalin deported millions of Chechen and Ingush people from their traditional homelands to Central Asia as punishment for allegedly collaborating with the Germans.