World Jewish News

Problems of Russian speaking population of Chechnya round table discussion in Moscow.

There have been some strong rumors lately around Chechnya that the Jews are coming back. The locals believe this talks with great pleasure, saying, "it is a good sign that life is getting back on track".
The representatives of the Chechen administration told a correspondent of RUJEN that currently there are between 11,000 and 13,000 Russian speaking people living in this autonomous republic. However, there is no information on how many out of those are Jews. Nevertheless, according to the data provided by the journalists of "Free Chechnya" radio station, more than ten thousand land plots in Moskovsaya street have been sold over the last year. The buyers are mostly Jews who had lived in Grozny before.
The last reliable data date back to the pre-war 1989. Then in Chechnya, there lived 15,000 Jews, mostly Mountainous ones, in Grozny, Gudermes, and Argun. There even used to be "Jewish" neighborhoods.
"The Jews turned out to be the most prescient of all', said the former dean deputy of Chechen and Ingush Pedagogical Institute, and now, a professor and historian Mikhail Parkhomenko, who now works in Moscow. "Their exodus started right after the first Dudayev's public speeches, when the Russians were not even thinking of going away".
A few days ago, a round table discussion was held in the Golden Hall of the "Russia" hotel, in Moscow. The problems of the Russian speaking population of Chechnya were the topic of the discussion, organized by the "Peace, Charity, Morality" foundation based in Nalchick.
Inaugurating the session, the President of the Foundation Hamzat Salamov identified the issue of the Russian speaking population as the most important one in the present day Chechnya.
"I address you, my compatriots", said in his speech the Mufti of Chechnya Akhmed Shamayev. "Russians, Jews, Armenians, Dagestan

Источник: rujen.org