Hello and welcome to Regions Calling, The Moscow Times’ weekly newsletter helping you understand the key trends and events shaping life and politics in Russia’s regions.
In this edition, MT’s Indigenous special correspondent Leyla Latypova zooms in on the events surrounding the Circassian Day of Mourning marked by both the vast Circassian diaspora and the community that remains in Russia.
Subscribe here so you never miss an issue.
On May 21, more than 1,000 people walked through central Nalchik, the capital of the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, to mark 161 years since the end of the Russo-Circassian War and pay respect to its victims.
Carrying Circassian flags and wearing traditional clothes, the crowd walked along the central Lenin Avenue toward the Tree of Life, a memorial to victims of the 19th-century Russian invasion of the North Caucasus, where they were joined by 1,000 other people for commemorative events, according to regional news outlet Caucasian Knot.
