Kabardino-Balkaria: Violence Affects North Caucasus

June 08, 2011 | Pulitzer Center

The central mosque in Nalchik, the capital of the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. Its mufti, a moderate, was assassinated in December 2010 by Islamist militants who accused him of collaborating in persecution of conservative Muslims. Image by Tom Parfitt, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, 2011.

Friday prayers at Nalchik’s main mosque. Image by Tom Parfitt, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, 2011.

Arsen Tukov and Larisa Dorogova. Tukov is the father of a young rebel fighter who was killed when he and scores of other Islamists attacked police stations and military buildings in Nalchik in 2005. Dorogova, a lawyer, says the men decided on the raid because they were beaten and tortured by police. Image by Tom Parfitt, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, 2011.

Tsatsa Tsipinova holds a newspaper commemorating her son, Aslan, an ethnographer and scholar who was murdered by Islamist militants near Nalchik in December 2010. The militants accused him of promoting pagan beliefs after he organized festivals celebrating the customs of the Kabardin people. Image by Tom Parfitt, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, 2011.

Tsipinov’s son, Ozdemir, 19, with his father’s horse, Makhosh. Image by Tom Parfitt, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, 2011.

The northern part of Kabardino-Balkaria, where Kabardins predominate, is flat, but the south – where Balkars are in the majority – is mountainous. Image by Tom Parfitt, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, 2011.

One of the biggest Balkar settlements is a large village called Verkhnyaya Balkaria. Image by Tom Parfitt, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, 2011.

Magomed Atabiyev, 83, a survivor of the mass deportation of the Balkar people from the North Caucasus to Central Asia in 1944. He is pictured at his home in the village of Verkhnyaya Balkaria. Image by Tom Parfitt, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, 2011.

Mukhadin Murtezov, 108, was sent to exile in Kazakhstan. The deportation is a painful memory for many Balkars which feeds into wider dissatisfaction over negligent local authorities. Image by Tom Parfitt, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, 2011.

A girl in the Balkar village of Verkhnyaya Balkaria makes khychiny: traditional, flat pies stuffed with meat and other fillings. Image by Tom Parfitt, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, 2011.

The villagers survive by growing and selling cabbages, and by keeping livestock. Image by Tom Parfitt, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, 2011.

This republic, positioned at the centre of Russia’s North Caucasus, briefly attracted international scrutiny in 2005 when scores of fundamentalist Muslim gunmen stormed the city, attacking law-enforcement buildings. At least 142 people perished in the raid.

A low level Islamist insurgency in the years that followed was not comparable to the greater bloodshed in Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan – other Muslim republics gripped by guerrilla war to the east. However, the militants ramped up their activity in late 2010 and early 2011, assassinating a series of policemen, and civilians accused of idolatry.

The rebels claim they are persecuted by security forces for their belief in Salafism, a pious form of Islam.

Historical grievances in the North Caucasus also feed into wider discontent over lack of jobs, arrogant local authorities and rampant corruption. One node of pain is the memory of Joseph Stalin’s deportation of four Caucasus nations to Central Asia at the end of the Second World War.

Kabardino-Balkaria: A New Wave of Violence