30 April 2018, 07:40
Nalchik celebrates Balkar People's Revival Day with horse and auto race
Celebrations in honour of the Balkar People's Revival Day were held in Kabardino-Balkaria. 80 horsemen and 100 car drivers took part in horse and car race.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the holiday was postponed from March 30 to late April in connection with the mourning because of the tragedy in Kemerovo, where 60 people were killed by fire in a shopping centre.
The holiday was established in 1994 in memory of the deportation of Balkar people to Kazakhstan and Central Asia in 1944. Then 37,713 Balkars were evicted.
Yuri Kokov, the leader of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR) congratulated residents on the holiday. According to him, the holiday "embodies the triumph of historical truth and justice towards the Balkar people, who 74 years ago, as a result of the monstrous arbitrariness and inhumanity of the ruling regime, was subjected to forcible deportation."
During the Yuri Kokov's ruling, the authorities restored a number of cultural objects related to the history of the Balkar people, poet Akhmat Sozaev said.
According to him, first of all, among them there is a monument to poet Kaisyn Kuliev in Nalchik, who after World War went to Kyrgyzstan, a place of expulsion for the Balkar people. There, the poet wrote verses in support of his people.
Akhmat Sozaev called Kaisyn Kuliev "a symbol of freedom and disobedience of the Balkar people."
Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.