Just as a fight in a bar in the Karelian city of Kondopoga in August 2006 helped power a dramatic rise in ethnic Russian activism against immigrants from the Caucasus (see EDM, November 6, 2006), so too local media reports in recent weeks that have... MORE

On February 8, a protest rally took place in the Dagestani capital Makhachkala. The protesters accused the police of discriminating against Muslims in this Muslim-majority North Caucasian republic. “In the past I repeatedly addressed all government offices, asking them to properly investigate the injury inflicted... MORE

At a specially convened press conference, the State Minister for Reintegration Paata Zakareishvili announced that the government approved a bill on making significant amendments to the Law on Occupied Territories, which is often referred to as “the Law on Occupation” (https://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=25727). This legislation (https://www.smr.gov.ge/docs/doc216.pdf) was... MORE

United Russia brought a bill before the Duma for a first reading on January 23, 2013, that would permit regional legislatures to cancel direct gubernatorial elections for the “multi-ethnic” regions of Russia. Instead, parties in regional legislatures would pick three candidates each and present them... MORE

On January 30, a conference on the influence of the Caucasus Emirate in the Volga region took place in Kazan (https://scienceport.ru/). Participants in the conference discussed issues related to the religious influence of the Northern Caucasus on the indigenous Muslim population of the Volga Region... MORE

One of the least noted aspects of the just completed meeting of the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church may prove to be the most significant and explosive of all. In his speech to the Sobor, a formal gathering of Orthodox... MORE

In January, security forces in Tajikistan arrested several suspected members of The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) in Tajikistan’s northern Sughd province (BBC Tajiki, January 28). On January 14, police in Konibodom district pulled over a vehicle for a routine traffic stop. But the driver... MORE

While the new president of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov, is busy looking for an “honest minister of education” (www.yuga.ru/news/285954/), the republic appears to have ignored the change in the leadership. In fact, the people who were dismissed by the previous president, Magomedsalam Magomedov, have already returned... MORE

On January 23, the respected Russian non-governmental research organization the Levada Center held a press conference in Moscow on the socio-political situation in the North Caucasus. Its researchers found that contrary to expectations, poll respondents in the region were more concerned about unemployment and the... MORE

Politics surely makes strange bedfellows: Some Russian nationalists now take positions on the North Caucasus that would logically lead to the independence that many non-Russian nationalists in that region seek—in effect forming an implicit alliance of two nationalisms that most on each side of the... MORE