Adygea commemorates Cossacks executed during civil war

Today, the Maikop District of Adygea hosts the traditional Dakhov commemoration of the Cossacks who perished in the years of civil war.

This year is the 90th anniversary of adoption by the Organization Bureau of the Central Committee of the RKP (b) (Russian Communist Bolshevik Party) of the Directive "On De-Cossackization", signed by Yakov Sverdlov, which gave a start to repressions that resulted in destruction of more than 1.5 millions of Don Cossacks.

The annual September commemoration in Adygea starts with a sermon in the temple of the Dakhovskaya village, from where believers, Cossacks and local residents start their religious procession to the valley at the northern entrance to the village - the place where 42 Cossacks were executed. A week ago, on the money raised by donations of people and sponsors, 42 obelisks were erected there, the "YUGA.ru" portal writes.

"During many years Cossacks rally at the monument in the valley to recollect with a kind word innocently perished Cossacks from villages and settlements. In 1920s, 120 villages located on the left bank of the Kuban River were enlisted by the Soviet government as 'unreliable'. Retaliatory squadrons brutally executed the Cossacks who lived there," said Anatoly Studenikin, commander of the local platoon of the Caucasian Cossack Troops.

He has added that today in Adygea Cossacks try not only to keep the memoirs of the tragic history of Cossacks for the descendants, but also to do everything for development of the Cossack culture and traditions.