Tradition of opening gates becomes way for residents of Chechnya to remember victims of deportation

The initiative of residents of Chechen-Aul to open gates on the anniversary of the deportation, as is done on days of mourning, has become a way for the people to pay tribute to the memory of the victims of deportation in the absence of the opportunity to organize mass events, human rights defenders note.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in 2023, no official events were held in Chechnya to mark the 79th anniversary of the deportation of the Vainakh people. On that day, Ramzan Kadyrov limited himself to voicing curses against Joseph Stalin.

The information stating that “the gates will be open in all yards for the whole day” in the village of Chechen-Aul on February 23 as a sign of memory and grief for the victims of deportation has been posted on the Instagram* public account “Chechen-Aul – Nacha-Checha”.

The people’s initiative suggests that no one has forgotten the tragedy, believes Ruslan Kutaev, the president of the Assembly of Caucasian Nations. “As a rule, when someone has mourning events, someone died, people open the gates of their yard and keep them open for three days, as other people come to offer their condolences ... This is a fairly common tradition in the Chechen society,” Ruslan Kutaev said.

A human rights defender, an employee of the “Memorial” Centre for Defence of Human Rights, considers the open-gate action described above a manifestation of the memory of the people. According to him, since the action has been taking place for the second year already, this means that the authorities are not against the open-gate action and are not putting pressure on people for that.

The initiative of the Chechen-Aul residents is a popular form of holding an action in conditions where it is dangerous for people to gather in groups together, believes Svetlana Gannushkina**, the chair of the “Civic Assistance Committee”**.

At the same time, there is a certain message in the open-gate action, the human rights defender believes. “Perhaps, the residents ... demonstrate that they do not entirely agree with the authorities’ policy of not holding public events. But under the current conditions, they cannot afford actions other than the open-gate initiative,” the human rights defender noted.

*On March 21, 2022, the Tverskoi Court of Moscow banned the activities in Russia of the Meta Company, owning the Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, in connection with extremist activities.

**Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.