11:29, 12 May 2022

Mourning for Akhmat Kadyrov fails to replace Memory and Sorrow Day for Chechens

Laying of flowers to the Memorial to Akhmat Kadyrov, 2021. Screenshot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=YtVL7keYltw&feature=emb_logo

Residents of Chechnya have formally treated the Memory and Sorrow Day timed to the anniversary of Akhmat Kadyrov's funeral; they continue commemorating deportation victims on February 23, the human rights defenders interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" have pointed out.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 10, the Memory and Sorrow Day of Chechen people, which is marked on the anniversary of the funeral of Akhmat Kadyrov, the first president of Chechnya, his memory was honoured in his ancestral village of Akhmat-Yurt and in the house of the head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov.

The Memory and Sorrow Day is marked in Chechnya on May 10. This date was set by Ramzan Kadyrov in 2011 as an alternative to mourning for the victims of Stalin's deportation. The date coincided with the funeral of the first president of the republic, Akhmat Kadyrov, who was killed in a terror act committed at the Dynamo Stadium in Grozny on May 9, 2004.

For most Chechens, only February 23 has remained and remains a memorable date, Oyub Titiev, a rights defender, believes. "For me, February 23 is a day of mourning and the hardest day of my life. I myself was born in deportation; my parents were deported. We have lost many relatives," he told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The Day of Memory and Sorrow marked in May is treated by the Chechen people as formal. "May 10 was appointed by the republic's leadership as a mourning day," Mr Titiev has explained.

On February 23, 1944, the operation “Lentil” was started, during which almost 500,000 Chechen and Ingush people were deported from the territory of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to Kazakhstan and Central Asia. According to various estimates, 10,000 people died on the way, and during the first years after the eviction, 100,000 people died.

These different remembrance days have no common associations and emotions, Ruslan Kutaev, the president of the Assembly of Caucasian Nations, believes. "Chechens don't associate May 10 with the mourning day for deportation victims," he has added.

However, Mr Kutaev does not rule out that May 10 is the Sorrow Day for some residents of Chechnya. "For some people, this is a mourning day related to the death of Akhmat Kadyrov. First of all, for the authorities who idealize him, and for those who were close to him. But the Chechen people as a whole have nothing to do with this Chechen authorities' coven. Many don't understand at all why the Remembrance Day the Deportation Victims was tied to this day (May 10)," Ruslan Kutaev has concluded.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 12, 2022 at 01:11 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Source: CK correspondent