Pilgrims of Dagestan get ready for protest actions

Magomed Mutaelumov, a resident of Makhachkala, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent today that the pilgrims of Dagestan who failed to make their hadj because of the red tape with drawing their documents are preparing protest actions.

The source has added that in total there are more than two thousand such unhappy pilgrims.

He has also explained that he gave his foreign passport for processing two months ago, but in the evening yesterday, on November 18, he had a call from the head of the group who said that the embassy of Saudi Arabia had failed to put visas on their documents; therefore, the hadj was cancelled.

"My expenses on the failed hadj made 33 thousand roubles. I accumulated money for the whole year; now, I don't know, where it is, although they promised to return it," said Mutaelumov.

Musa Yusupov, head of one of the groups, has complemented his story. "I had 2000 foreign passports of the pilgrims who wanted to go by land. Within a short time all the visas were in place, but for Saudi Arabia. The documents were in the embassy of this country in Moscow for a week without any motion; now, a refusal has arrived. I don't know the reason, but rumours circulate that the delay stemmed from the conflict between the embassy officials and Tatarstan Mufti Usman Iskhakov, who had expressed discontent because of the protraction with documents of Tatar pilgrims," said Mr Yusupov.

Advocate Gazimagomed Khiriev said that many pilgrims' problems were caused by their legal illiteracy. "Technically, hadj is a purely tourist trip. Therefore, pilgrims need to find a responsible tour operator and an agent, with whom they should sign a contract, having discussed all the details, including sanctions for various omissions. But nothing of this is done; and travel companies are interested in commercial profits only; therefore, they never evade signing contracts and get under legal shelter," he has noted.

Yukridin Salimkhanov, head of the "Dzhaga" tourist agency, expressed his opinion on the incident. "Pilgrims are guilty themselves. They give their documents to unknown people who are ready to earn on everything," he said.

Mr Salimkhanov also said that the Russian quota on pilgrims was not exhausted. "Russia was granted the quota of 24,000 pilgrims. Under my information, much less people went to Saudi Arabia. Several months ago, the Russian Board on Hadj Matters distributed the quota among the regions. For some reason, Dagestan was allotted only 6000 tickets, although everyone knows that over 80 percent of Russian pilgrims were usually the natives of the republic. Dagestan residents were forced to make their documents outside the republic, which caused plenty of inconveniences and disputed situations," the head of the tourist agency has added.

Another pilgrim - Nurmagomed Dibirov - finds the Russian Board on Hadj Matters to be guilty of the incident. "This Board is responsible for the whole organization of the hadj, but nobody knows the principles of its work. From year to year it concludes contracts with unknown tour operators, who are seeking only their commercial benefits. The hotel services in Saudi Arabia are evaluated as one thousand dollars, although everyone knows that during the pilgrimage owners of certain hotels take nothing for accommodating pilgrims. From Dagestan, only officially 5000 persons went by land transport; however, many of them, as the practice shows, sleep at night in their cars," said Mr Dibirov.

It proved impossible to get any official comments on the topic both in Makhachkala and in Moscow. Nobody refused to talk, but sources asked not to name them. They reported, on the conditions of anonymity, that the Russian Board on Hadj Matters is a public organization. Its work is to distribute the quota among tour operators. The latter are chosen exclusively by Spiritual Departments; nobody knows under what criteria. The quota was distributed uniformly across the whole of Russia under the principle: one pilgrim per one thousand of population. The deficit of pilgrimage tickets made over 4000 persons. The reduction of the Dagestan quota was explained by purely commercial interests: the income of a travel agent from one pilgrim, under most conservative estimates, is thousand roubles; nobody knows how much tour operators get, but certain experts think that millions of dollars are in play.