Republic of Ingushetia

The Republic of Ingushetia (Russian: Респу́блика Ингуше́тия, Respublika Ingushetiya; Ingush: ГӀалгӀай Мохк Ğalğaj Moxk) is a federal subject of Russia (arepublic), located in the North Caucasus region with its capital at Magas. In terms of area, the republic is the smallest of Russia's federal subjects except for the two federal cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg. It was established on June 4, 1992 after theChechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was split in two.^[11] The republic is home to the indigenous Ingush, a people of Vainakh ancestry. Population: 412,529 (2010 Census).^[6]

The name "Ingushetia" is derived from an ancient village of Ongusht (renamed in 1859 to Tarskaya and in 1944 transferred to North Ossetia) and the Georgian ending -eti, all together meaning "(land) where the Ingush live".

Ingushetia is one of Russia's poorest and most restive regions. The ongoing military conflict in neighboring Chechnya has occasionally spilled into Ingushetia, and the republic has been destabilized by corruption, a number of high-profile crimes (including kidnapping and murder of civilians by government security forces^[12]), anti-government protests, attacks on soldiers and officers, Russian military excesses and a deteriorating human rights situation.^[13][14]

Geography

Topographic map of the Caucasus. Ingushetia is located on the center right of the map.

Ingushetia is situated on the northern slopes of the Caucasus. It has an area of c. 4,000 km². It borders Republic of North Ossetia–Alania (SW/W/NW/N), Chechen Republic (NE/E/SE) and Georgia(southwards). The highest point is the Gora Shan^[15] (4451 m).

A 150 km stretch of the Caucasus Mountains runs through the territory of the republic.

[edit]Rivers

Major rivers include:

• Terek River
• Assa River
• Sunzha River

[edit]Natural resources

Ingushetia is rich in marble, timber, dolomite, plaster, limestone, gravel, granite, clay, thermal medical water, rare metals, mineral water, oil(over 60 billion tons), and natural gas reserves.

[edit]Climate

Ingushetia's climate is mostly continental.

• Average January temperature: −10 °C (14 °F)
• Average July temperature: 21 °C (70 °F)
• Average annual precipitation: 450–650 mm (18–26 in).
• Average annual temperature: +10 °C (50 °F)

[edit]Etymology

The Ingush, a nationionality group indigenous to the Caucasus, mostly inhabit the Republic of Ingushetia. They refer to themselves as Ghalghai (from Ingush: Ghal ("fortress") and ghai ("inhabitants", or, according to another Russian interpretation, "citizen"). The Ingush speak the Ingush language, which has a very high degree of mutual intelligibility with neighboring Chechen.

[edit]Administrative divisions

Main article: Administrative divisions of the Republic of Ingushetia

[edit]History

10,000-8000 BCE

Migration of the linguistic ancestors of the Ingush people to the slopes of the Caucasus from the Fertile Crescent. Agriculture, irrigation, and the domestication of animals.^[16]

6000-4000 BCE

Neolithic era. Pottery is known to the region. Old settlements near Ali-Yurt and Magas, discovered in the modern times, revealed tools made out of stone: stone axes, polished stones, stone knives, stones with holes drilled in them, clay dishes etc. Settlements made out of clay bricks discovered in the plains. In the mountains there were discovered settlements made out of stone surrounded by walls some of them dated back 8000 BC.^[17]

4000-3000 BCE

Invention of the wheel (3000 BC), horseback riding, metal works (copper, gold, silver, iron) dishes, armor, daggers, knives, arrow tips. The artifacts were found near Naser-Kort, Muzhichi, Yi-E-Borz (now Surkhakhi), Abi-Goo (now Nazran).^[17]

1239

Destruction of the Alan capital of Maghas and Alan confederacy of the Northern Caucasian highlanders, nations, and tribes by Batu Khan (aMongol leader and a grandson of Genghis Khan).^[18]

[edit]Modern Ingush history

The Ingush are also known by the following names: Ghalghai/Gelgai, Kist/Koost, Gergar/Gegar, Dzoordzook, Glivi, Ongusht, Galash, Tsori, Jairakh, Khamhoi, Metshal, Fyappi, and Nyasareth.^[19] The history of the Ingush is closely related to that of the Chechens. From the 9th to the 12th centuries, Georgian missionaries partially Christianised the Ingush. The remains of several temples, notably the Tkha-bya-Yer-d and the Al-Bee-Yer-d can be found in Ingushetia. Ingush peacefully converted to Islam in the beginning of the 19th century with the help of Shaikh Kunta-Khadzhi, a Chechen Islamic scholar.

Russian historians claim that the Ingush willingly came under Russian rule in 1810 (most of the information sources are based on a report of General-Major Delpotso, 13 June 1810, no. 48). However, on June 29, 1832 Russian Barron Rozen reported in letter No.42 to Count Chernishevski that "on the 23rd of this month I exterminated eight Ingush villages. On the 24th I exterminated nine more villages near Targim." By November 12, 1836 (letter no.560, he was claiming that highlanders of Dzheirkah, Kistin, and Ghalghai had been "partially subdued".

Colonization of Ingush land by Russians and Ossetians started in the middle of the 19th century. Russian General Evdokimov and Ossetiancolonel Kundukhov in 'Opis no. 436' "gladly reported" that "the result of colonization of Ingush land was successful":

• Ingush village Ghazhien-Yurt was renamed to Stanitsa Assinovskaya in 1847
• Ingush village Ebarg-Yurt was renamed to Stanitsa Troitskaya in 1847
• Ingush town Dibir-Ghala was renamed to Stanitsa Sleptsovskaya in 1847
• Ingush village Magomet-Khite was renamed to Stanitsa Voznesenskaya in 1847
• Ingush village Akhi-Yurt was renamed to Stanitsa Sunzhenskaya in 1859
• Ingush village Ongusht was renamed to Stanitsa Tarskaya in 1859
• Ingush town Ildir-Ghala was renamed to Stanitsa Karabulakskaya in 1859
• Ingush village Alkhaste was renamed to Stanitsa Feldmarshalskaya in 1860
• Ingush village Tauzen-Yurt was renamed to Stanitsa Vorontsov-Dashkov in 1861
• Ingush village Sholkhi was renamed to Khutor Tarski in 1867.

Unlike the Chechens who fought the Caucasian War against Russia, Ingush clans resorted mostly to underground resistance.^[20] The Russians built the fortress Vladikavkaz ("ruler of the Caucasus") on the place of Ingush village of Zaur.^{[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]} Russian GeneralAleksey Petrovich Yermolov wrote in a letter to the Tsar of Russia, "It would be a grave mistake for Russia to alienate such a militaristic nation as the Ingush." He suggested the separation of the Ingush and Chechens in order for Russia to win the war in the Caucasus. In another letter from General Ermolov to Lanski (dated 12 January 1827) on the impossibility of forceful Christianization of the Ingush, Yermolov wrote: "This nation, the most courageous and militaristic among all the highlanders, cannot be allowed to be alienated..." The last organized rebellion (the so-called "Nazran insurrection") in Ingushetia occurred in 1858 when 5,000 Ingush started a fight but lost to superior Russian forces. The rebellion signalled the end of the First Russo-Caucasian War. In the same year, the Russian Tsar offered help in the deportation of Ingush and Chechens to Turkey and the Middle East by claiming that "Muslims need to live under Muslim rulers". It seems that he wanted to liberate the land for Ossetians and Cossaks.^[20] Some Ingush willingly went into exile to deserted territory in the Middle East where many of them died. The remainder were assimilated. It was estimated that 80% of the Ingush left Ingushetia for the Middle East in 1865.^[30][31]

After the Russian Revolution of 1917 the Ingush were promised that their villages and towns would be returned. The Soviets broke their promise and confiscated the remaining Ingush properties by collectivization and dekulakization^[32] and unified Chechnya and Ingushetia into Chechen-Ingush ASSR. In 1944 near the end of World War II, the Ingush and Chechens were falsely accused of collaborating with the Nazis and the entire Ingush and Chechen populations were deported to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Siberia on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin; up to 30% perished during the journey or in the first year.^[33][34][35] The Prague Watchdog claims that "in the early years of their exile about half of the Chechens and Ingush died from hunger, cold and disease".^[36] The deportation was classified by the European Parliament in 2004 asgenocide.^[37] They were allowed to return to Checheno-Ingushetia (but not to the Prigorodny District) in 1957, several years after the death of Stalin. Most of Ingushetia's territory had been settled by Ossetians and part of the region had been transferred to North Ossetia. The returning Ingush faced considerable animosity from the Ossetians. The Ingush were forced to buy their homes back from the Ossetians and Russians. These hardships and injustices led to a peaceful Ingush protest in Grozny in 16 January 1973, which was crushed by the Soviet troops^[38] In 1989, the Ingush were officially rehabilitated along with other peoples that had been subjected to repressions.^[39]

In 1991, when the Chechens declared independence from the Soviet Union to form the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, the Ingush chose to secede from the Chechen-Ingush Republic. Thus, in 1992 the Ingush joined the newly-created Russian Federation to try to resolve the conflict with Ossetia peacefully, also in the hope that the Russians would return their land as a token of their loyalty. However, ethnic tensions in North Ossetia led to the outbreak of the Ossetian–Ingush conflict in late October, when another ethnic cleansing of the Ingush population started, with over 60,000 Ingush civilians being forced from their homes in the Prigorodny District of North Ossetia.^[20] As a result of the conflict, Ruslan Aushev was appointed the first president of Ingushetia and partial stability returned under his rule.

In 1994, when the first Russo-Chechen war started, the number of refugees in Ingushetia from both conflicts doubled. According to the UN, for every citizen of Ingushetia, one refugee arrived from Ossetia or Chechnya. This influx was very problematic for the economy, which collapsed after Aushev's success. The second Russo-Chechen war which started in 1999 brought more refugees (at some point there was one refugee for every Ingush citizen: 240,000 from Chechnya plus 60,000 from North Ossetia at the peak in 2000) and misery to Ingushetia. In 2001, Aushev was forced to leave his presidency and was succeeded by Murat Zyazikov, a former KGB general. The situation worsened under his rule. Many young Ingush men were abducted by Russian and Ossetian death squads.^{[40][41][42][43]} according to Human rights watchdogs Memorial ^[44] and Mashr^[45] The Ingush mountains are closed for Ingush nationals.^[46] The number of rebel attacks in Ingushetia rose, especially after the number of Russian security forces were tripled. For example, according to a Russian news agency a murder of an ethnic-Russian school teacher in Ingushetia was committed by two ethnic-Russian and ethnic-Ossetian soldiers; Issa Merzhoev the Ingush Police detective who solved the crime was shot at and killed by "unknown" assailants shortly after he had identified the murderer.^[47] At least four people were injured when a vehicle exploded on 24 March 2008. An upsurge in violence in these months targeted local police officers and security forces. In January 2008, theFederal Security Service of the Russian Federation launched a "counter-terrorism" operation in Ingushetia after receiving information that insurgents had been preparing a series of attacks.^[48] In the beginning of August 2008 the war between Georgia and South Ossetia broke out, in which the Russian Federation subsequently became involved.^[49] After the outbreak of the war, there were virtually no more attacks or abductions of Ingush civilians by "unknown" forces. Most of the Russian forces were transferred to North and South Ossetias^[50] 31 August 2008Magomed Yevloyev, the head of Ingush opposition and the owner the website ingushetiya.ru, was killed by Russian security forces^[51] Shortly before the unrecognised opposition group People's Parliament of Ingushetia Mekhk-Kkhel called for the recognition of the Russian semi-autonomous republic's independence, opposition activist Magomed Khazbiyev proclaimed, "We must ask Europe or America to separate us from Russia." ^[52][53]

On October 18, 2008, a Russian military convoy came under grenade attack and machine gun fire near Nazran. Official Russian reports of the ambush, which has been blamed on local Muslim separatists, said two soldiers were killed and at least seven injured. Reports from Ingush opposition sources suggested as many as forty to fifty Russian soldiers were killed.^[54][55]

On October 30, 2008 Zyazikov was dismissed from his office (he himself claimed he resigned voluntarily). On the next day, Yunus-Bek Yevkurovwas nominated by Dmitry Medvedev and approved as President by the People's Assembly of Ingushetia. This move was endorsed by major Russian political parties and by Ingush opposition.^[56][57] Under the current rule of Yevkurov, Ingushetia seems much calmer, showing some semblance of Russian government. Attacks on policemen have fallen by 40% and abductions by 80%.^[58]

[edit]Military history

According to professor Johanna Nichols, in all the recorded history and reconstructable prehistory the Ingush people have never undertaken battle except in defense.^[20] However, Ingush were hired in a number of wars. For example, when Persians attacked Georgia, King Alexander and his 100 Roman bodyguards took shelter with his wife's Ingush relatives. Half of the Ingush army was sent and defeated the Persians. In II-III BC Georgian kings also received military assistance in their conquest from Ingush people.^[59]

During World War I, 500 cavalrymen from an Ingush regiment of the Wild Division boldly attacked the German Iron Division. The Russian Emperor Nicholas II, assessing the performance of the Ingush and Chechen regiments during the Brusilov breakthrough on the Russian-German front in 1915 wrote in his telegram to the Governor-General of the Tersky region Fleisher:

The Ingush regiment pounced upon the German "Iron Division" like an avalanche. It was immediately supported by the Chechen regiment. The Russian history, including the history of our Preobrazhensky regiment, does not know a single instance of a horse cavalry attacking an enemy force armed with heavy artillery: 4.5 thousand killed, 3.5 thousand taken prisoner, 2.5 thousand wounded. Less than in an hour and a half the "Iron Division" ceased to exist, the division that had aroused fear in the best armies of our allies. On behalf of me, the royal court and the whole of the Russian army send our best regards to fathers, mothers, sisters, wives and brides of those brave sons of the Caucasus whose heroism paved the way for the destruction of German hordes. Russia bows low to the heroes and will never forget them. I extend my fraternal greetings, Nicholas II, August 25, 1915.^[60]

In 1941, when Germans attacked the USSR, the whole Russian front was retreating 40 km a day. Out of 6,500 defenders of Brest Fortress6,000 Soviet troops capitulated. 500 troops were fresh conscripts of Ingush and Chechen origin. Defenders held the fortress for over a month against the Germans and even managed to stage several attacks from the Fortress. The last defender's name has been unknown for a long time; his documents identified him as a man called Barkhanoyev. Decades later, official records revealed it was Umatgirei Barkhanoyev from the Ingush village of Yandare. Recently, the memoirs of Stankus Antanas, a Lithuanian national and former Waffen SS officer, were published in Ingushetia. He recalls that in July 1941, his regiment was ordered to "finish off" the remaining Soviet soldiers in the fortress. When the Nazisdecided that no defenders had been left alive, an SS general lined up his soldiers on the parade ground to award them with decorations for capturing the fortress. Then, a Red Army officer came out from the fortress's underground bunker:

He was blind because of his wounds and walked with his left arm extended forward. His right hand rested on a gun holster. He walked along the parade grounds wearing a ragged uniform, but his head was held high. The entire division was shocked at the sight. Approaching a shell-hole, he turned his face toward the west. The German general suddenly saluted this last defender of the Brest Fortress, and the rest of the officers followed suit. The Red Army officer drew a handgun and shot himself in the head. He fell on the ground facing Germany. A deep-drawn sigh aired over the parade grounds. We all stood 'frozen' in awe of this brave man.^[61]

In 1994–1996 Ingush volunteers fought alongside Chechens in the Russian-Chechen war. Besides few incidents (including the killings of Ingush civilians by the Russian soldiers), Ingushetia was largely kept out of the war by determined policy of non-violence pursued by President Ruslan Aushev.^[20]

This changed after the beginning of the Second Chechen War, and especially since the rule of President Murat Zyazikov in 2002. The first major rebel attack of the conflict, in which a military convoy was destroyed occurred in May 2000 and caused the deaths of 19 soldiers. In the June 2004 Nazran raid, Chechen and Ingush guerillas attacked government targets across Ingushetia, resulting in the deaths of at least 90 people, among them the Republic's acting interior minister Abukar Kostoyev, his deputy Zyaudin Kotiyev and several other officials. In response to a sharp escalation in attacks by insurgents since the summer of 2007,^[62] Moscow sent in an additional 2,500 interior ministry troops, more than tripling the number of special forces in Ingushetia in July.

[edit]Civil disorders

A number of insurgency and terrorist attacks started again in 2008.^[63]

Here is a list of recent attacks:

On September 30, 2008, a suicide bomber attacked the motorcade of Ruslan Meiriyev, Ingushetia's top police official.

On June 10, 2009, snipers killed Aza Gazgireeva, deputy chief justice of the regional Supreme Court, as she dropped her children off at kindergarten.

On June 13, 2009, a gunman fatally shot Bashir Aushev, a former deputy prime minister, as he stood outside his home in Nazran.

On June 22, 2009 the president of the republic Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was badly hurt when a suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives as the president's convoy drove past. The attack killed three bodygards ^[64]

On August 12, 2009, Gunmen killed construction minister Uslan Amerkhanov in his office in the Ingush capital, Magas.

On August 17, 2009, a suicide bomber killed 21 people in Nazran after he drove a truck full of explosives into a police station.

On April 5, 2010, a suicide bomber injured three police officers in the town of Karabulak. Two officers died at the hospital as a result of their injuries. While investigators arrived on scene, another car bomb was set off by remote. Nobody was hurt in the second blast.^[65]