On December 27, the Russian government decreed that the Stavropol region will join the grand North Caucasus tourism development project. What is intriguing about the decision is that the predominantly ethnic Russian-populated Stavropol region had periodically signaled that it did not want to be associated... MORE

On January 9, President Vladimir Putin proposed amendments to existing legislation that are widely seen as tightly restricting movement within the Russian Federation. The new amendments will apply to foreign migrant workers and Russian citizens alike. Russian citizens will have to register with the government... MORE

The First World War, which resulted in independence for some non-Russian peoples of the former Romanov Empire, also awakened a striving for sovereignty among the peoples of the Caucasus, which had gone dormant after the 1905 revolution. The Caucasian peoples’ potential to the Central Powers’... MORE

Out of 137 official news releases in connection to the armed opposition’s activities in Chechnya in 2012, 71 were about the arrests of rebel supporters. One-third of those arrested on charges of providing support to the rebels were women. Meanwhile, 28 militants and 42 service... MORE

At the start of 2013 it makes sense to summarize the events of the previous year. The official figures from 2012 suggest that the Republic of Dagestan today is the primary base of the armed resistance in the North Caucasus: 262 terrorism-related crimes were committed... MORE

From the start of the crisis in Syria in 2011 and especially in 2012, Circassians discovered there were an estimated 100,000 of their ethnic brethren living in that war-torn country. Circassian activists expended much effort in 2012 trying to convince the Russian authorities to help... MORE

The North Caucasus is far more unstable and more threatening to Moscow’s control than it was a year ago, despite widespread acceptance of Vladimir Putin’s assertions to the contrary. There are three reasons for that conclusion: First, across the region, Islam and nationalism are reinforcing... MORE

A most unusual event took place in Kabardino-Balkaria in June 2012, when a group of 100 Russian special forces servicemen and investigators descended on the republic’s capital Nalchik. The investigators arrested the head of the republican president’s administration, Vladimir Zhamborov, several other top Kabardino-Balkarian officials... MORE

Early December saw multiple victims of the armed confrontation in the North Caucasus, as had the previous weeks of this year. According to independent sources, eight people were killed, one injured and four kidnapped in the region during the week of December 3–9 (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/216978/).On December... MORE

Dagestan’s state news agency reported a killing on the Kavkaz federal highway near the village of Agachaul on December 7 under a strange headline. According to RIA Dagestan, unknown assailants fired shots at a car in which Abakar Sulebanov, the former chief of a bread... MORE