11:45, 3 November 2019

Residents of Karachay-Cherkessia pay tribute to deportation victims

Screenshot of the post on the Instagram page of the Congress of Karachay Nation with a message of the leader of the organization. https://www.instagram.com/p/B4Wl8Eag6AE/

Hundreds of residents of Karachay-Cherkessia have commemorated those who died in exile as a result of the deportation of the Karachay people in 1943.

In the USSR, the deportation of Karachays began on November 2, 1943; as a result thereof, 69,267 people were resettled. Most of them perished on the road and in resettlement places.

The main mourning events were held in Karachayevsk at the memorial to the victims of deportation of the Karachay people, the "Interfax" writes.

"In our time of peace, it's difficult to assess the scale and the pain of the tragedy. The deportation policy was accompanied not only by deprivation of food and shelter, but also by deprivation of basic human civil rights. The culture of the deported nations was deliberately liquidated," Rashid Temrezov, the head of Karachay-Cherkessia, has stated.

Dagir Smakuev, First Deputy Chairman of the Karachay-Cherkessian National Assembly, has noted that "the deportation consequences were disastrous for the nation." "40 percent of Karachays could not survive these trials: the hard way and life in a foreign land, in the most severe conditions. It's hard to pronounce these numbers now, but 22,000 children died as a result of the exile," he has stated.

The trials that befell Karachays forced them to understand the need to coordinate their efforts for the development of their cultural and historical heritage, said Kyady Hadji Khalkechev, the Chairman of the Congress of Karachay Nation.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on November 2, 2019 at 09:06 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.