Do You Know Who the Circassians Are?

Adygeyan problem did not darken Putin's visit to Jordan

In the television reportings about the Putin's meeting with the king of Jordan Abdallah, broadcasted by all Russian central TV-channels, the journalists especially accented on that the king's personal guards consist of the Circassian descendants which in the XIX century left Russia.

TV- cameras demonstrated straight-standing dark-haired moustached handsome men, dressed in the Circassian military dresses of the time of the Great Caucasian war.

However the Russian audience, spectators and readers learned nothing about the "not taken place" meeting of president Putin with the Jordanian Circassians.

The information that it had been prepared, being the subject of the expectations of the Circassian Diaspora influential in the Near East, had been widespread with the efforts of the same Diaspora before the Putin's visit to Jordan.

The essence of the information report which, probably, all the Russian mass-media had unintentionally ignored can be briefly shown to the Adygeyan problem which the Diaspora hoped to discuss during the recent Vladimir Putin's visit to Jordan (where live about 75 thousand descendants of Circassian muhadjeers (refugees who left Russia in the XIX century during the persecutions against them).

The question of returning to the historical native land of the Circassians living in the countries of the Near East, according to information of some western mass-media, should be discussed during Vladimir Putin's meeting with representatives of the Central Khase of Jordan.

The reference or the letter to the president of Russia on behalf of over 2 million Circassians living abroad, the native descendants of the muhadjeers had been preparing not one day, coordinating the text with the Circassian Diasporas of Israel, Syria, Turkey and Jordan.

Circassians considered as necessary to make the following demands to the Russian state:

1. To simplify the procedure of granting the Jordanian Adygs with residence permit in Russian Federation, having cancelled the practice of unreasonable delays and preliminary conditions.

2. To give the Jordanian Adygs the unconditional right to get the Russian citizenship with simultaneous keeping after them their citizenship of Jordan.

3. To create the simplified procedure of giving out the Russian visas to representatives of the Adygeyan Diaspora of Jordan on the basis of a recommendation of a Circassian (Adygeyan) charitable society.

4. To solve positively the problem of full restoration the Russian citizenship for the Jordanian Adygs who expressed will to return to the historical native land for the constant residing, according to the operating Russian legislation.

5. To give the Jordanian Adygs the right to purchase a habitation and commercial objects in the territories of Russian Federation with the right of use them for residing, tenancy, tourist activities or for industrial purposes.

6. To give the Jordanian Adygs the right to free purchase of land areas in the territories of Russia: agricultural lands, sites under construction of any kinds of objects – commercial, industrial, tourist, etc.

7. To reconsider the positions of the Russian legislation on investments to facilitate for the Jordanian Adygs the opportunity of capital investing in the Russian economy.

8. To open regular (weekly) air flights between one of cities of the Northern Caucasus and Jordan which would stimulate development of the trade communications, tourist exchange, support of interactions among the relatives living in the opposite sides of the state borders.

The question on opening similar flights could be solved urgently - by coordination with the Jordanian airlines or the Aeroflot of the question on forming additional point of landing in the flights Amman- Moscow and Moscow-Amman in the cities of Nalchik or Maykop.

If landing in the capitals of the Adygeyan republics for any reasons would be complicated, it could be possible to take advantage of the Mineral Waters international airport. And this is all! In the foreign Circassians' opinion, their requirements are absolutely lawful from the position of the historical truth.

In the legal relations the truth is based on the Decree of the president of Russian Federation from June 22nd, 2006 - # 637:

"About measures on assistance to voluntary resettlement to Russian Federation for compatriots living abroad".

Besides there is also the federal law, interpreting the term "compatriots": " they are the persons born in one state, living or lived in it and have attributes of the common language, religion, cultural heritage, traditions and customs, as well as the descendants of the specified persons according to the direct descending relate line".

Here are the lines, called to restore justice, to return peace into the souls of the exiles. But alas. The leader of the Russian state Vladimir Putin had not learned what the compatriots (not so native for many years) applied to.

The descendants of the muhadjeers met the heads of Adygeya and Kabardino-Balkaria Aslan Tkhakushinov and Arsen Kanokov which had arrived to Jordan several days earlier the visit to the country of the president of Russia.

They tried to convince the foreign Circassians to not hasten with Adygs' requirements to Putin, and suggested them to sign for a beginning a cooperation memorandum and to limit that cooperation by the triangle, formed by Kabardino- Balkaria, Adygeya and the Circassian organization in Jordan "Aman".

While the Diaspora had the complex negotiations with the leaders of the Northern Caucasian republics, Vladimir Putin had left Jordan. He had not had an opportunity to familiarize hinmself with the special letter in which the descendants of the muhadjeers tried to inform the Russian president the truth about the sad destiny of Circassians in the imperial Russia.

More than a hundred years ago when the Russian armies were conquering the Northern Caucasus Circassians being for that moment the most numerous ethnos in Caucasus (about 1,5 million people), were exterminated by half, and the survivors (except for several tens of thousand people) were deported to the Ottoman empire.

From there the suffering muhadjeers dispersed all over the Near East.

After Putin, Arsen Kanokov and Aslan Tkhakushinov left Jordan, too, not having signed the Memorandum of cooperation with the Diaspora. But, despite of such malicious joke played with Circassians, all of them are still sure that the Memorandum which they worked out with such inspiration and hopes, will have been yet signed by the heads of Kabardino-Balkaria and Adygeya and the `straight road' to Vladimir Putin will be open then.