Karaketov: if not for deportation, 400,000 Karachais would have lived in Russia today

If in the days of the USSR thousands of Karachais had not been deported, now the population of this nation in Russia would have made some 400-450 thousand persons, that is, twice as today. This was stated by Professor Murat Karaketov, Doctor of History.

On November 2 and 3, Karachai-Circassia held events dated to the 66th anniversary of deportation of Karachai nationals to Central Asia.

In November 1943, when over 15,000 Karachai men fought at the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War, 70,000 old men, children and women were deported for accommodation to Kazakhstan and Kirghizia. They were accused of complicity to Hitlerite troops. Most of the repressed persons, namely, over 43,000, including 22,000 children, died on the way and in places of resettlement from famine, cold and diseases. The exile continued for 14 years and was abolished only in 1957.

According to the USSR census of 1939, the region was inhabited by 79,000 Karachais. "If we outgo from the mid-annual population increase during the decade prior to the deportation, which made two percent per year, by 1959 the population would have reached 108,000 persons. But in 1959 the Karachai population was only 81,000 persons," said Professor Karaketov.