Gagiev: deportation of Chechens and Ingushes was the largest in Soviet history

In the years of Stalin's repressions almost all the nations had suffered, said Oleg Kalmykov, a scientific researcher at the State GULAG Museum. Visingirey Gagiev, President of the Ingush National and Cultural Autonomy of Moscow, agrees with him and adds that the deportation of Chechens and Ingushes was not the first one in the history of the Soviet Union; however, the operation "Chechevitsa" (Lentils) in 1944 to evict the Vainakhs was the largest. This was stated at the Conference "68^th Anniversary of Deportation of Ingush People to Kazakhstan and Middle Asia".

The event was held on February 21 in Moscow at the initiative of the Ingush Branch of the Society "Memorial".

The operation under the code name "Chechevitsa", during which Chechens and Ingushes were deported en masse to Kazakhstan and Middle Asia from the territory of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, was held from February 23 to March 9, 1944. The reasons for such repressions were declared in mass desertion, draft evasion during the war time and preparation of an armed uprising in the Soviet rear. According to the International Society "Memorial" in 1943-44, 485,000 people were deported from Chechnya and Ingushetia, 101,000 people – from Kalmykia; 70,000 – from Karachay-Cherkessia in 1943; and 37,000 – from Kabardino-Balkaria. The number of deportation victims among Meskhetian Turks and other nations of Transcaucasia was 100,000.

In the years of Stalin's repressions, almost all the nations suffered – two million agrarians were dispossessed and six million died of starvation, said Oleg Kalmykov, a researcher from the GULAG State Museum.

"2,706,950 persons became special resettlers and 2.5 million people got to prisons-camps. Such nations, like the Greeks, were repressed three times," said Kalmykov.

The operation to evict Chechens and Ingushes was the largest, said Visingirey Gagiev, President of the Ingush National and Cultural Autonomy of Moscow.

"The first people to get deported back in 1928 were the Finns, followed by Germans, Kalmyks, Greeks, Meskhetian Turks, Koreans and Chinese, but the operation "Chechevitsa" in 1944 to evict Chechens and Ingushes was the largest," said Mr Gagiev.

"I was a second-form schoolboy then; and I remember very well how it all happened, and what hardships our nations had to face in exile. This shouldn't be forgotten, al least because there are people nostalgic for the days of "Stalin's strong hand", and authors of articles in some media try to justify these acts of atrocities committed with small nations," said Visingirey Gagiev.

Talking about the deportation, natives of the Chechen-Ingushetia remember the hardships they had to endure and the fear that haunted them, then children.

A pensioner Adlop Malsagov said that he witnessed the death of an entire family: "We were unloaded amidst bare field. We went to look for some shelter from the frost, and found an abandoned sheep shed. When we returned, we saw a snow hill in the place where the family of our neighbours remained – a mother and five children – was left. We tried to dig them out, but they were all dead. Only a one-year-old girl was still alive, but she died two days later."

"During that first winter, nearly a third of all special resettlers died of typhus, starvation and cold, dead. Many of our relatives died; however, we, children, never saw our mother crying. And only once, when our father Oman died, we saw through a crack in the barn, our mother, who locked herself there, holding back her sobs, was beating herself with a stick trying to suppress her mental pain with the physical one," said a pensioner Gubati Galaeva.