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[KavkazUzel] At a rally dedicated to the 81st anniversary of the deportation of the Vainakhs, Chechen Prime Minister Magomed Daudov demanded that the descendants of the repressed be given back their homes in the former Aukhovsky District of Dagestan.
As the "Caucasian Knot" wrote, today marks 81 years since the beginning of Stalin's deportation of the Vainakhs. A memorial rally in memory of the victims of the deportation was held in Nazran.
On February 23, 1944, Operation Lentil began, during which almost 500,000 Chechens and Ingush were deported en masse from the territory of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR to Kazakhstan and Central Asia. More details about these events and their consequences can be found in the "Caucasian Knot" reference "Deportation of Chechens and Ingush".
An event dedicated to the 81st anniversary of the "deportation of the Chechen people" was held in Chechnya, at which the Chairman of the Government Magomed Daudov raised the issue of restoring the Aukhovsky District, Chechnya Today reports.
"Every year people come out with demands for the restoration of the Aukhovsky District. They say that if there is a law on rehabilitation, and housing was built for those who seized their lands, then the Aukh residents should have the opportunity to return to their homes... Maybe the Dagestani authorities think that we do not notice these appeals or consider the Aukh residents to be distant from us. This is not so. We live in a state governed by the rule of law, and there is a law on the rehabilitation of repressed peoples. Sooner or later, the Chechen people will restore justice in this matter," the agency quotes Daudov as saying.
The deportation of the Vainakhs is directly linked to the unresolved issue of the rights of the Chechens of Dagestan, who have been waiting for the restoration of the Aukhovsky District for about 30 years, according to the "Caucasian Knot" report " The Main Thing About Aukh: What the Chechens Demand from the Dagestan Authorities."
At the same time, it follows from the publication of the state news agency Grozny-Inform that Magomed Daudov made even harsher statements at the rally, speaking about those who live in the territory of the former Aukhovsky district.
"They call themselves Muslims, but they commit a sin that cannot be forgiven. Even a shahid's debt is not forgiven. Someone else's will never be halal for them... By the will of the Almighty, we will achieve justice in this matter: if possible, according to the law of the country or according to Sharia law," Daudov's words are quoted in the publication.
On February 23, 2023, Magomed Daudov also stated that houses in the former Aukhovsky district should be returned to the descendants of the repressed. Daudov's speech was an attempt to speed up the restoration of the Aukhovsky district, but his demand is unfeasible, and the situation can only be resolved by a political decision, experts said. The restoration of the Aukhovsky district, which was planned to be completed by 2025, has actually been stopped for many years, the resettlement of Laks and the construction of new houses have been disrupted, Dagestani activists said in 2024.
Ramzan Kadyrov's Telegram channel published a message today dedicated to the anniversary of the deportation. "Today is a sad date in the history of the Chechen people: on February 23, 1944, by the inhuman order of the damned Joseph Stalin, the Chechens and Ingush were forcibly deported to Siberia and Central Asia. Operation Lentil was led by Lavrenty Beria. This criminal order led to huge casualties: thousands of people died on the road, in the harsh conditions of special settlements, from hunger, cold and disease. Our people were doomed to suffer only by the will of a cruel regime," the publication says.
Recall that the Day of Remembrance and Sorrow was celebrated in Chechnya on February 23 until 2011, until the authorities decided to celebrate all Russian state holidays equally with other regions. In April 2011, a special commission announced that the Day of Remembrance and Sorrow of the Peoples of the Republic would be celebrated annually on May 10 - the day of Akhmat Kadyrov's funeral.
However, in 2020, on Defender of the Fatherland Day, a rally in memory of the victims of repression was held in Grozny, in which Ramzan Kadyrov and other officials took part. Representatives of the Chechen leadership held a small rally in memory of the victims of the deportation on February 23, 2021. Ramzan Kadyrov, who left for a visit to Dubai, did not participate in it. In 2022, on the 78th anniversary of the deportation, no memorial events were held in the republic; officials dedicated only posts on social networks to this date.
Political scientist Ruslan Kutayev, who publicly spoke out in 2014 against the ban on February mourning events, was convicted and sent to prison for almost four years, as noted in the "Caucasian Knot" report " How Kadyrov turned a memorial service into a holiday on February 23."
The Chechen authorities also demanded that residents stop using the term "deportation," replacing it with the words "eviction" or "repression." At the same time, analysts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" noted that the Chechen authorities will not be able to erase the date of the beginning of the deportation from the people's memory.
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Residents of the North Caucasus Federal District honored the memory of the victims of the Vainakh deportation
Events dedicated to the anniversary of the deportation of the Vainakhs were held today in Chechnya, Ingushetia and other regions of the North Caucasus Federal District. In addition to official rallies, local residents honored the memory of the victims of the deportation with religious, educational and home meetings.
As the "Caucasian Knot" wrote, today marks 81 years since the beginning of Stalin's deportation of the Vainakhs. A memorial rally in memory of the victims of the deportation was held in Ingushetia, and at a rally in Chechnya, the republic's Prime Minister Magomed Daudov voiced a demand to return housing in the former Aukhovsky District of Dagestan to the descendants of the repressed. A memorial rally on the 81st anniversary of Stalin's deportation of the Vainakhs was also held in the Novolaksky District of Dagestan.
On February 23, 1944, Operation Lentil began, during which almost 500,000 Chechens and Ingush were deported en masse from the territory of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR to Kazakhstan and Central Asia. More details about these events and their consequences can be found in the "Caucasian Knot" reference "Deportation of Chechens and Ingush".
Today is the hardest day for Chechens and Ingush, a representative of the Memorial Human Rights Defense Center, familiar with the situation in Chechnya, told a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.
"There has been no information about unofficial actions this year. There has also been no information about pressure," he noted.
According to the speaker, "any action on this day, of course, if it is not an entertainment event, is a manifestation of grief." "Such actions today are more likely to have the character of disagreement with the authorities, since the authorities have long forgotten this day as a day of grief," he emphasized.
Chechen resident Yuni, in turn, noted that he does not show any particular interest in official events.
“And people, as usual, remember their relatives who suffered from deportation by holding events at home and distributing sadaqah in villages,” he said.
Another resident of Chechnya, a lawyer, noted that various organizations, including the Chechen Bar Association, had distributed the message. "In it, along with grief over the tragic day for the Vainakhs, there are also congratulations on the day of the Russian army. It's two in one," he said.
According to the speaker, many people mark the day of mourning with religious events. "In our villages, last night, on the eve of Ramadan, people gathered for dhikr, made dua in honor of those who passed away during the deportation," he said.
The head of the human rights organization "Mashr" Magomed Mutsolgov published a post in his blog on the "Caucasian Knot" dedicated to the anniversary of the deportation of the Vainakhs.
"On February 23, 1944, the Ingush and Chechens, without exception, from the youngest to the oldest, were exiled by the Stalinist regime to the cold steppes of Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The Vainakhs, basely deprived of their homeland, shared the fate of other peoples, unjustly doomed to death," he wrote in the post " 81st anniversary of the deportation of the Vainakhs!". "We remember those innocently killed in the cold steppes of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, because this is the tragedy of every family of our peoples. Our ancestors survived a tragedy that should never happen again, never and to no one."
More than 200 residents of the Nazran district gathered today in the mosque of the Ingush village of Ali-Yurt to remember and pray for the victims of the 1944 deportation. At the event, representatives of the older generation shared stories that they heard from eyewitnesses of those tragic events. After the conversation, those gathered read the movlid and prayed for the victims of the deportation.
In Nazran, on the day of the deportation of the Ingush people, a charity event was also held, within the framework of which more than 300 families received meat from sacrificial animals, the city mayor's office reported. In particular, assistance was provided to large and low-income families, as well as to relatives of killed soldiers and participants in the special military operation.
Commemorative events were also held in Stavropol Krai. Thus, in Pyatigorsk, the deportation of the Vainakhs was remembered with the participation of students from the North Caucasus Institute of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Pyatigorsk State University and the Medical and Pharmaceutical Institute. The events were organized by representatives of the national-cultural autonomy "Magas" and the Ingush representative office in Stavropol Krai. At the meeting, representatives of various regions heard testimonies of eyewitnesses who survived the forced displacement, the Ingushetia newspaper's Telegram channel reports.
Let us recall that the reasons for the deportation were mass desertion and preparation of an armed uprising in the Soviet rear, although the territory of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was practically not under occupation, and by February 1944 the Wehrmacht had already been thrown back hundreds of kilometers from the Caucasus. According to historians, mass arrests, deportations and executions based on nationality were widely practiced under Stalin, which is confirmed by numerous documentary evidence, as stated in the "Caucasian Knot" reference " 10 myths about Stalin's role in the Great Patriotic War".
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