The Caucasus with its mild climate, fertile soils and high mountains, which allowed the population to successfully hide and defend themselves from enemies and to extract stone for building dwellings in abundance, has been attracting people for as long as mankind has existed. Already in the primitive era it was inhabited by people of approximately the same anthropological type as the majority of its modern indigenous peoples, which shows how deep in history the roots of those. In addition to the descendants of the ancient population of the Caucasus, who did not mix with other ethnic groups passing through this rich land — peoples speaking the languages of the Iberian-Caucasian family — natives of other regions, attracted by the convenience of the Caucasian land for living and farming, settled in the Caucasus in ancient times.
In the 3rd century A.D. the steppes of the Caucasus were settled by nomadic tribes of Alans and Sarmatians. From that time and before the ancestors of the Balkars and Karachais joined Russia, the Caucasian steppe plains were dominated by various nomadic peoples. In the North Caucasus, the Iranian-speaking Alans and Sarmatians were replaced a century later by the Huns who came from Central Asia. — Turkic-speaking Bulgars and Khazars, and the Khazars were replaced in the 11th century by the Kipchaks (Polovtsians). After the Mongol Empire conquered their lands in the 12th century and formed the powerful state of the Ulus Dzhuchi (Golden Horde) in South-Eastern Europe and North-Western Asia, the Kipchak tribes formed several separate ethnic groups within the Dzhuchi provinces, one of which in the plains steppes of the North Caucasus and in the vast adjacent territories became the Nogais. But throughout the very long period of nomadic domination of the Caucasian plains, separate groups and communities of those peoples moved to the mountainous belt where the ancient peoples of the Caucasus prevailed, or closer to it. There they adopted a sedentary or semi-nomadic way of life (in summer they lived on high-mountain pastures where they moved their cattle, and in winter they descended to low-snow valleys).
Resettlement of representatives of steppe peoples to the mountains could happen for different reasons: someone lost most of his livestock and, in order not to be left completely without means of subsistence, tried farming, someone was saved during devastating wars, especially when one nomadic people replaced in why Karachais and Balkars speak the language of the Turkic language group steppe another (it never happened peacefully). But always mountains gave shelter to settlers: although the areas of lands convenient for farming here were limited by sharp relief, steep slopes and cliffs served as a reliable defense against robber raids. While the enemy cavalry maneuvered heavily among the narrow mountain valleys, one could have time to gather their belongings, hide the household in a secret place and prepare for defense. Having moved to a new place and found themselves in rather unfamiliar conditions, the seekers of a better lot were forced to come into close contact with the local ancestral population, to adopt its economic and cultural achievements, and since the resettlement communities were initially small, in order to avoid incest, to marry the locals. Many settlers completely assimilated into the native mountain environment, adopted local ancient languages, and their descendants no longer considered themselves neither Sarmatians, nor Khazars, nor Kipchaks, but considered themselves to be the ethnos among which they grew up. Even today, among the pure-blooded representatives of the peoples of the Iberian-Caucasian linguistic family there are people with obvious Old Turkic facial features. But some communities of the descendants of settlers, having absorbed all everyday and cultural features of the original mountain peoples over the generations and as a result of mixed marriages no longer differing from them in appearance, have preserved their original languages and identity. The last ethnic or, more precisely, sub-ethnic group that began to settle the lands near the Caucasus mountain strip in search of a convenient place for farming, adopting (though not to the full extent) certain features of the life and way of life of the original mountain peoples, were the local Russian Cossacks who settled the Caucasus from the 16th to the 19th centuries.
One of the areas of the North Caucasus, to which the peoples of the steppes have historically actively migrated, was the Karachay-headwaters of the Kuban River and the lands along the Zelenchuk, Teberda and other rivers flowing into it. In this area, which the steppe Türkic settlers called Karachay («black rivers»), the mountains up to a height of about two kilometers above sea level are covered with especially dense forests, which served as an additional protection from enemy attacks and good material for building dwellings. The settlement of Karachay by people from the steppes began a long time ago: it is believed that the first steppe people who settled here — in close proximity to the ancient tribes of the Caucasus, why Karachais are so called — were Iranian-speaking Alans — contemporaries of the ancient Caucasian peoples of the Greeks and Romans. Then up the Kuban rose up the steppe Azov steppe settled in the VII century Bulgarians, related to the modern Kazan Tatars. And from the 11th century, the upper Kuban River was actively settled by Kipchak Polovtsians, whose language, either because of their large, overwhelming number or because it was a state language and therefore more promising in the Ulus Dzhuchi, which established dominance in the pre-Caucasian steppes from the 12th century, was soon adopted by the descendants of Alans and Bulgarians who settled in the mountains. At the same time, communities of descendants of Alans, Bulgarians and Kipchaks, living in the neighborhood of ancient mountain peoples, mainly Adygs and Svans, constantly concluded mixed marriages with them. Turkic why Karachais and Balkars have Caucasian appearance, men took women from these peoples as wives, who, bringing up children born from these mixed marriages, passed on to them their spiritual values, habits, mentality, told their folk who lives in Karachai-Cherkessia tales. By the time the number of descendants of Alans and Turks who moved to the Upper Kuban and neighboring lands had grown by natural increase so much that they were able to marry in their own environment, they turned into a perfect mountain people, differing from the ancient Kabardino-Balkaria-Caucasian peoples no more than they did from each other. With the same mentality, anthropological type, basic cultural traits. Only their language was Turkic-Kipchak.
Some of the descendants of Alanian and Turkic settlers who adopted the original Caucasian mentality and culture occupied not only the lands of Karachay, but also the mountainous areas lying behind the high ridge of the upper reaches of several rivers flowing into another major North Caucasian river, the Terek, in the east of the Kuban basin. These are the Malka, Baksan, Chegem, Cherek and their tributaries. But they spoke the same language of the Turkic-Kipchak group as the population of Karachay. Around the 13th-14th centuries, the Turkic-speaking descendants of settlers, who mixed with the native Caucasian peoples, were finally formed into a single ethnos — the Taulula (i.e. «highlanders»). Despite the fact that all communities of this people had a common language and identical culture with minor local differences, and realized themselves as a single people, neighboring peoples, probably due to the sharp separation of its separate geographical groups by high mountain ranges, traditionally perceived the Taulula ethnos as several peoples. The population of Karachay was called Karachais, while the population of the western basin of the Upper Terek River was divided into several societies: the Malkars on the Malka River, the Chegems on the Chegeme River, the Bezengians, and others. The Russians who settled the North Caucasus divided the Taulula into two peoples: the Karachais in Karachai and the Balkars (from the name of the Malkars — the Turkic population of the lands along the Malka River) in the Terek basin. At present, the Taulula ethnos is formally divided into Karachais (kъarachaylila) and Balkars (malkarlila).
The main occupation of the Balkars and Karachais, like most mountain peoples of the Caucasus, was herding: in spring, herds of sheep, goats, cattle and horses were driven to high-mountain pastures freed from snow, where temporary camps for shepherds were set up. In the fall, the cattle were driven back to the valleys where the main farms of the inhabitants were located. More or less wide areas of mountain valleys were plowed and sown with millet, oats, barley, wheat and corn. The main crafts were making cloth, felt products, knitting, carpet weaving, leatherwork, as well as wood and stone carving. Karachais and Balkars lived in compact fortified villages, ready to repel an enemy attack in case of danger. The village community, which after the spread of Islam was called «jamagat» or «eljamagat» (from the Arabic «jamaa — group, community»), was the basic economic-productive unit: all its lands, i.e. pasture and arable land, as well as livestock, were in common ownership. The inhabitants of the village jointly managed their households under the guidance of elders.
The dwellings of Karachais and Balkars differed somewhat from the traditional dwellings of other mountain peoples Karachais and Balkars are one people or different in the Caucasus: they were usually built not of stone or clay-lined wattle, but of logs, which were stacked in a log cabin with their ends protruding far beyond its corners. In this way they resembled Russian huts. Probably, this way of building dwellings was brought to the mountains by distant nomadic ancestors of the Taulul from the peoples of the north-east of Europe (Slavs and Finno-Ugrians). The log cabin had a rectangular shape and a gable earthen roof. Inside the dwelling near the wall there was an open hearth — odjak; smoke went through a hole in the ceiling, i.e. the dwellings were heated black. In the room with the hearth lived the eldest man — the head of the family, his wife and small or unmarried children. Married sons and their wives and children had separate rooms, and daughters, after marriage, went to live in the husband’s family. Since joint labor and joint defense against enemies played an extremely important role in the life of Balkars and Karachais, many children were born, and married sons were not in a hurry to separate from their homes. That is why families were very large. A small enclosed yard with outbuildings adjoined the house. After the father’s death, as in all mountain peoples, the sons divided the family property, the eldest with their families built separate houses and farmsteads, and the youngest son stayed with his wife and children in the father’s house, if it was not too dilapidated. Like everywhere else in the Caucasus, the Karachais and Balkars had an inviolable custom of hospitality: any traveler who came to a village could stay in any house for a few days, and the hosts, without even asking him who he was and where he came from, had to feed him to the fullest, create maximum comfort, and in case of danger — protect him even at the cost of their lives. A separate room was set up for guests in the house, and if space allowed, a separate house was built. The guest was received in the main room, where the head of the family honorably seated him in his usual place. At the end of the XIX century taulula sometimes began to build two-storey houses with several rooms.
Karachay family
Unlike the majority of the Caucasian peoples who lived deep in the mountains, the Balkars and Karachais had a sharp class stratification similar to that of the peoples of the Caucasian foothills. Most likely, this was a consequence of the influence of the neighboring Adygs (especially Kabardins), with whom the Karachais and Balkars had close feudal and trade relations. The social and class structure of Karachai-Balkar society in the olden times basically coincides with that of the foothill and plain Adygs. The Karachais and Balkars had two main social classes, whose way of life differed sharply. The privileged class was the tribal nobility, which performed the main military functions, protecting the people from enemy invasions and representing their political interests. The aristocrats did not work themselves and lived off the labor and taxes of the common people. From early childhood, noble men were accustomed to military service and to endure the hardships and deprivations associated with military life, for which boys from noble families were usually given to experienced warriors — atalyks — at an early age. Upon reaching adulthood, the young warriors were solemnly returned to their father’s house, and a strong friendship was established between their family and the atalyk’s family. At the top of the class hierarchy stood the princes — taubiyas, who were the military and political leaders of the people. The head of the princely family was in fact politically independent, ruled over the affairs of the people under his control, could at least enter into an alliance, or feud with other taubias and leaders of other peoples. At the same time, he had to strictly follow the unwritten customs that had developed over the centuries, preserve his honor and dignity in order not to lose the respect of the nobles who served him and were his main support. The nobles — uzdeni, served the taubiy, in return using the land received from him with the common people who lived on it and bore the duties in relation to them. Commoners constituted the second main class, the most numerous, of Karachai-Balkar society. They were mainly engaged in labor and economy, were brought up from childhood in the parents’ house and, although they received from their fathers some military skills necessary for restraining an unexpectedly attacked enemy until the princely army arrived, or covering the striking forces of the army consisting of the nobility in the offensive, they were more accustomed to agricultural work and shepherding. The majority of the common people were represented by free rural communities — karakish («black people»), who paid taxes to taubis. Below them in the social hierarchy were the Azats — land dependent (who did not have their own land and therefore worked for pay or taxes on the lands of the nobility) inhabitants, descended from freedmen. In general, the land of nobles was cultivated and the Caucasians herded cattle belonging to them by serfs — Chagars, who had no right to leave their masters, but used the land and property provided to them. At the lowest level were slaves — karauashi («black-headed»), who fully belonged to their masters: both noble and common people, served their households, and had no property and families of their own. The identity of slaves was not protected by anyone except their masters, and the master could do whatever he wanted with them. Slaves came from prisoners of war and from people who had been converted into slavery for some misdemeanor. The class inequality was very pronounced. The common people did not sit next to the nobility in assemblies; noble people were punished for crimes more mildly than common people; marriages were almost always concluded only between representatives of equal class.
Balkar settlements were characterized by crowdedness and overcrowding: in the Terek basin there were much fewer forests that prevented the advance of enemy troops, and people had to settle in a very limited territory surrounded by a fortified wall. The streets of Balkar villages sometimes resembled narrow and dark passages, and the population was so densely settled that some sources call these villages «towns». In Karachai villages were more spacious. The Taubians lived in castle houses built of stone, with a watchtower from which sentries warned of the enemy’s approach, and archers fired with precision.
The clothes of the Balkars and Karachais corresponded to those of other mountain peoples of the Caucasus: a paper cloth shirt, men wore pants that tapered downwards, convenient for riding, and women wore long pants tucked into their shoes. Men wore a beshmet, a half-sleeved half-coat with a standing collar, women wore a dress with long and wide sleeves, with a neckline on the chest. In public gatherings, during work, on a military campaign, men wore over the beshmet a cherkeska — a narrow caftan without a collar with a long neckline on the chest, on both sides of which there were pockets where wooden cartridge cases (gaziri) were inserted after the spread of firearms. They were belted with a narrow leather strap, from which smaller straps hung down. Free men always hung a dagger on their belt — a necessary item not only for noble men who were constantly on military campaigns, but also for rural laborers who sometimes had to fight off wild animals that attacked livestock, robbers or enemy soldiers. Men wore cloth hats with fur trim, villagers wore felt hats. In winter men wore wide felt hats — papakhas, in frost and wind covered with a cloth cap and scarves — bashlyk. In rain and moderate cold men covered their shoulders with a wide felt cloak — burka. In cold winter time Balkars and Karachais wore warm sheepskin or fur coats. Men’s clothes looked modest enough, women’s clothes were decorated with galunov patterns.
Until the 18th century, the Balkar and Karachay princes were a very influential force in the North Caucasus. The main trading partners of the Balkars and Karachais were Kabardins, Svans and Rachins, who lived on the other side of the glacier-covered Main Caucasus Range, and Ossetians-Digorians. In the 16th-17th centuries, the Karachais and Balkars, who had previously practiced the cult of the heavenly god Tengri (Teiri) inherited from their ancestors — steppe nomads, adopted Islam. A number of Islamic precepts entered the civil law of the Taulula people, and Sharia courts were established to deal with cases related to inheritance of property, marital relations, and so on. However, Sharia law did not affect the social structure of Karachai-Balkar society, which continued to be regulated by unwritten age-old customs. In 1639 — 1640 Russian ambassadors Yelchin and Zakhariev traveled to Georgia through the Baksan Gorge inhabited by Balkars, carrying on trade and taking advantage of hospitality of local people. In the 50s of the XVII century Russian merchants also traded in the Cherek Gorge. In 1657, the Balkar taubi Aidabolov arrived in Moscow as part of the embassy of King Teimuraz I of Kakheti, where he was warmly received by Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.
At the end of the 18th century, a devastating plague epidemic swept through the Balkar and Karachay lands, as a result of which the population declined very sharply. From that time on, the power and influence of the Taubis declined. With the beginning of the Caucasian War in the XIX century, when the Russian Empire began active military colonization of the mountainous strip of the Caucasus, the Karachais had to declare neutrality, because after the epidemic the combat-ready population was not enough for prolonged military operations. The Balkars, fearing invasion of Russian troops, in 1827 sent a delegation to Stavropol, where the main headquarters of the Russian military contingent in the North Caucasus was located, and expressed a desire to voluntarily become Russian subjects on condition that they retained the right to the Islamic religion and to conduct internal affairs according to their religious and national customs. The Russian administration accepted their conditions, but as a pledge of loyalty they began to take amanats from the noble Balkar families — boys and young men who were brought up in Russian fortresses and usually then entered the Russian military service. Other noble Balkar men were also required by the Russian authorities to perform military service. In 1828, having suspected the Karachais of violating their declared military neutrality, in particular, of participation in the attack of the mountaineers on the Cossack village of Nezlobnaya on the Podkumok River, the Russian command introduced troops under the command of General G. Emmanuel into the territory of Karachai. On October 20, 1828, in a brutal battle at the Khasauki Pass, half a thousand Karachay warriors under the command of the Supreme Taubiy Islam Krymshamkhalov and Karachay and Balkars at war with Russia under his friend Kazbek Bairamkulov fought for 12 hours against the expedition of G. Emmanuel, which outnumbered them more than three times in number and was equipped with ten guns. In the end, under the onslaught of superior forces, the Karachay army was forced to retreat; I. Krymshamkhalov was wounded. Later the Karachai nobility recognized themselves as subjects of the Russian Emperor Nicholas I, but due to the strong forestation of high and steep Karachai mountains, which made it difficult for Russian troops to maneuver, this dependence remained only formal for several years. Only in 1834 the Karachai princes submitted to Russia finally. In 1855 troops of General V. Kozlovsky laid a road into the wooded mountains of Karachay, the main purpose of which was, of course, to create convenient conditions for suppression of possible rebellions, but this road was also allowed to be used by Karachais themselves for trade purposes. The famous product of the Karachay national cuisine — kefir — first came from the mountains to the Russian markets along this road. It was in Karachay that kefir starter was invented in ancient times, which, as legend has it, was discovered quite by accident in the burdock of a shepherd. Kefir fungi, which had not been found anywhere else until then, were sold to the Russian dairyman N. Blandov, or rather, to the famous technologist I. Sakharova, who was sent to the Caucasus by him, by the Karachay uzden Bekmurza Baichorov. In 1867 slavery and serfdom were abolished in Balkaria and Karachai by the Russian authorities.
Nevertheless, during the tsarist regime, the Balkars and Karachais, like all mountain peoples of the North Caucasus, suffered severely from small landholdings and remnants of the feudal era, because of which their farms could not successfully compete with the latifundia of Russian noblemen and merchants and the farms of wealthy Karachais and Balkars with the same language. Therefore, in the first decade after the 1917 revolution, the majority of the Taulula, as in other mountain peoples of the Caucasus, supported Soviet power. Karachais and Balkars took an active part in the fighting on the Caucasian front of the Civil War on the side of the «Reds». Many local Bolshevik leaders (M. Eneev, Y. Nastuev, K. Ulbashev and many others) emerged from their midst. In 1922, the Karachai-Cherkess Autonomous Oblast was formed as part of the Kuban-Black Sea Oblast (an early Soviet administrative-territorial unit in the North Caucasus), where the Karachai-Cherkessians, along with the neighboring Circassians (western Kabardins), received state self-government. In the same year, the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Oblast was formed as part of the Tersk People’s Republic, in which the Balkars, along with the eastern Kabardins, were granted state self-government. In 1936, the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Oblast was transformed into the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic). In colloquial speech, the autonomies of Kabardians, Balkars and Karachais were called Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachai-Cherkessia. The Soviet power, having eliminated class distinctions in society, actively pursued a policy of enlightenment and involvement in public and state life of all peoples of the USSR formed in 1922. In the early 1920s, in Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, as well as throughout the country, urgent measures were taken to teach literacy to the illiterate population. Cultural and educational institutions were opened in Nalchik and Cherkessk (formerly Batalpashinsk), the capitals of the autonomies. Ordinary Balkars and Karachais gained access to education, and general education for children became compulsory and was organized by the Soviet state. Representatives of the Karachais and Balkars appeared among what Soviet power brought to the Karachais and Balkars among the students of Russia’s largest universities in Moscow and Leningrad. In what are the famous figures of the Balkar and Karachai people early Soviet period actively develops and modernizes the culture of the people of Taulula. At this time, a number of talented national poets and writers, such as K. Mechiev, S. Shakhmurzaev, were engaged in creative work. The standard of living was rapidly increasing, medicine was developing, to which all the population had free access, roads were being laid, new lands were plowed with the help of mechanized labor, new factories and plants were opened. old photos of Karachai-Cherkessia
However, since the early 1930s, due to the increasing influence of Stalin, who pursued a policy of cultural unification of the peoples of the USSR, the expansion of state terror and, in fact, the forced collectivization of rural farms, the attitude of the Balkars and Karachais, as well as other mountain peoples, towards the Soviet authorities began to change rapidly. Although formally measures to develop national culture continued to be implemented (in 1940, for example, the Balkar Drama Theater was established), the autonomies were no longer managed in national, but in the interests of the party and nomenklatura, with the aim of completely subordinating all peoples to the growing Soviet totalitarianism. In 1930 in the Chegem Gorge there was a mass protest of villagers dissatisfied with the rude actions of the Soviet party leadership in the creation of collective farms (kolkhozes). In the following decade, repressions against the young Karachai-Balkar intelligentsia, who continued to defend national interests of party workers and paid too much attention to the identity of national culture, unfolded, during which practically all of them, except those who were ready to support Stalinist totalitarianism in everything, were shot or exiled to camps. The masses of the Karachai-Balkar people were finally pushed away from Soviet power by the merciless anti-religious policy that began, during which spiritual leaders and simply very religious people were subjected to repression, mosques and texts of the Koran were desecrated, and religion was presented to mountain children in schools as evil and a means of exploitation of the working people. In response, mass demonstrations and protests began in the Balkar and Karachay villages, many people went to the mountains and started guerrilla warfare, attacking police stations and Red Army columns, killing party workers, and taking from Soviet services the collective farm agricultural products collected for delivery to the state. Troops were sent to fight the mountain partisans (abreks), who were widely supported by the local population. With the beginning of the Second World War and the approach of German troops to the mountainous area of the Caucasus, the Soviet bodies of internal affairs and state security unleashed a real terror against the Karachai-Balkar population, which, as they feared, would support the Wehrmacht and facilitate the Germans’ passage through the high mountain passes into Transcaucasia, despite the fact that the majority of able-bodied men were mobilized at the beginning of the war and fought diligently in the Red Army. Particularly dramatic events were played out in 1942, before the arrival of German troops, in the Cherek Gorge, where NKVD troops carrying out an operation to clear the mountains of abreks shot several hundred civilians, including women, children and the elderly, and burned several Balkar villages.
In the summer of 1942, the territory of Karachay-Cherkessia and, to a large extent, Kabardino-Balkaria was occupied by German troops of Army Group «A» under the command of W. List. In the mountains, and especially on the high mountain passes separating Karachay from Georgia and Abkhazia, there were fierce battles between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army units, which sought to prevent the Germans from breaking through into Transcaucasia. It was in the Karachay mountains that the famous mountain rifle division of the Wehrmacht «Edelweiss» mainly operated. Despite the long and fierce onslaught in Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, the German troops, whose actions were also constrained by the red partisans hiding in the mountains, failed to overcome the stubborn resistance of the mountain units of the Red Army, and in the fall they retreated to the valleys, and after the defeat of the Wehrmacht group at Stalingrad, the German command, fearing a vast encirclement in the Caucasus, began to hastily withdraw troops from the Caucasus.
After the occupation of Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria by Soviet troops, the party leadership, who evicted Karachais and Balkars to Central Asia under the direct leadership of the head of the NKGB V. Merkulov and the head of the NKVD L. Beria, began to develop a plan to cleanse the mountainous strip of the Caucasus from the population disloyal to Soviet power. On November 2, 1943, more than 53 thousand troops of the NKVD and the Red Army entered Karachay under the inspection of the NKGB (People’s Commissariat for State Security) and occupied Karachay villages. Having forcibly loaded their entire population — mostly women, children and old people, as most of the able-bodied men were at the front — into trucks, the Soviet troops transported them to pre-prepared and equipped railway stations, from where several trainloads of almost all Karachay people were deported to special settlements in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. On March 8, 1944 the same fate befell the Balkars. The formal reason for the deportation were reports of NKGB agents about active cooperation of many Balkars and Karachais with the German administration during the occupation. It is impossible to establish the degree of reliability of this information in our time to explain the deportation of Karachais and Balkars. Forced resettlement in conditions of cold weather, overcrowding in closed freight cars with poor medical care and food supply led to mass death of the population. Following the civilian population were recalled from the front and also deported to Central Asia Red Army soldiers of Karachai and Balkar nationalities. In Central Asia Karachais and Balkars were settled in special settlements located far away from each other, mixed with settlements of local residents, which, according to the Soviet leadership, should have contributed to their ethnic assimilation. At the same time, the special settlements were subject to a strict administrative regime aimed at isolating their inhabitants; in particular, they were not allowed to go further than a certain minuscule distance from the outskirts of the special settlement without special permission.
The peoples deported from the Caucasus remained in exile for 13 years. Only on March 28, 1957, four years after Stalin’s death, the arrest and execution of V. Merkulov and L. Beria, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decided to consider the repression against the Balkars and Karachais, as well as other peoples of the Caucasus (on February 23, 1944 Chechens and Ingush were also deported) as criminal and unjustified. The deported peoples were allowed to return to their homeland and were legally restored to all civil rights. However, informally, the Soviet leadership continued to pursue a policy of restricting their participation in public and political life (their representatives were admitted to higher educational institutions and prestigious government positions in a «strictly rationed» manner, and the Karachais and Balkars were recruited into elite military units). For most of the Soviet period, Kabardino-Balkaria was an autonomous republic within the RSFSR (Soviet Russian Federation), and Karachay-Cherkessia was an autonomous oblast within the Stavropol Krai. After the collapse of the USSR in December 1991, centrifugal forces quite sharply engulfed Karachay-Cherkessia, which, in addition to Karachais and Circassians, is populated by many Russians, Abazins and Nogais. Representatives of its most numerous peoples declared their intention to create several national republics on its territory. However, the division of Karachay-Cherkessia did not happen. On April 21, 1992, the Congress of People’s Deputies of the RSFSR introduced an amendment according to which the Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Oblast received the status of an autonomous republic. The Constitution of the Russian Federation adopted on December 12, 1993 (which came into force on December 25), now in force, confirmed its republican status. where kefir was invented.
Currently, the Karachayevs number about 225,000 people, of which in Karachay-Cherkessia, where they are the largest ethnic group, about 194,300 (41%). The number of Balkars is about 125,000, in Kabardino-Balkaria about 108,500 (12.7%).