In Dagestan, protesters demand to open Chirkata-Gimry Tunnel

The village of Gimry, Untsukul District of Dagestan, hosted a rally, which was attended, according to organizers, by about five thousand people. The participants adopted a resolution demanding to open the tunnel, which connects nine mountainous districts of the republic with its lowland part.

The rally lasted for six hours and passed, as its participants assert, surprisingly peacefully.

After the action, nine activists (one delegate from every district), accompanied by militaries, drove through the tunnel to the other side of the Gimry Ridge and headed to Makhachkala to convey the resolution demanding to open the tunnel personally to President of Dagestan Magomedsalam Magomedov.

"Every speaker, and there were many of them, appealed to the president for opening the tunnel and stop torturing peasants. No other claims were put forward," a hydro energy specialist and tunnel worker named Magomed told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"At the rally, there was not a single representative of the authorities! If our demand is not heard, people are ready to march to Makhachkala," said the journalist Magomedbek Saltinskiy. He added that the republic's authorities are ready to meet the organizers of the rally.

Muslim Gadjiev, an employee of the division for working with citizens' applications of the presidential administration of Dagestan, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that he knew nothing about the rally.

The decision to open the motor traffic through the Gimry Tunnel for only one summer month, which had previously been made as a result of lengthy negotiations between the delegation of protesters with the head of Dagestan Magomedsalam Magomedov, did not satisfy the participants of the rally.