Circassians Protest Winter Olympics Being Held At Sochi Genocide Site. KFAR KAMA, Israel – The news from Sochi, Russia, and the Winter Olympics is rife with ugly images: Overflowing toilets, filthy hotels, out- of- control budgets, unfinished athletic facilities, legions of prostitutes and violent anti- gay hooliganism. But what about the mass graves? ![]() That is the question on the minds of Circassian activists whose ancestors were exiled from Sochi 1. Winter Games' bewildering mix of bureaucratic corruption and stunning athletic displays, including Alpine skiing, luge and team figure- skating competitions.“It is a shame to hold the Olympics there,” said David Schawgen, who is among a few thousand Israelis of Circassian descent who trace their provenance to Sochi but now live in this small city in northern Israel. Of course not.”Schawgen, 3. Circassians living in Kfar Kama and Rehaniya, another village a few kilometers to the north, who still yearn for their motherland in the Russian Caucasus 1. For them, hosting the Olympics on a sacred ancestral site is both an insult to their memory and an opportunity to bring renewed attention to a longstanding yet largely ineffective movement to reclaim their homeland. Archivist David Shawgen of the Circassian Heritage Center in Kfar Kama, Israel, sees holding the Olympics in Sochi as an outrage. Photo: Circassian Heritage Center. According to Schawgen, an archivist at a museum in Kfar Kama, the Olympics- designated Mountain Cluster at Krasnaya Polyana - - among five competition venues – is a painful reminder for the people whose ancestors lived in the formerly independent country known as Circassia and who were exiled following their conquest by Russia in 1. The descendants, who remain defiantly devoted to their long- lost country, still rankle at the very mention of Sochi, where an infamous massacre took place. The Olympic Games will return to the networks and digital platforms of NBC Universal when the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games commence in February 2018. Meryl Davis and Charlie White might not be competing in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, but they’re definitely not retired. The reigning Ice Dance Olympic. ![]() The mass graves were allegedly defiled by the Russian occupiers, and their exact location in Krasnaya Polyana is unknown. Krasnaya Polyana, whose mountains rise to 6,6. Russian President Vladimir Putin. These days it is crowded with tourists, Olympic officials and athletic competitors. For the Winter Games, its slopes provide venues for luge, bobsled, cross- country and Alpine skiing and snowboarding competitions. ![]()
![]() Beneath the overlay of commercial development, the history of Krasnaya Polyana runs deep, encompassing the ruins of 2. Circassians who died during the mid- 1. As one Russian Circassian, Muhammed Cherkesov, told Reuters during a previous push to recognize the site’s significance in October 2. Photo: Reuters/Thomas Peter. By contrast, Kfar Kama, though home, represents a kind of way station. In the late 1. 9th century, Kfar Kama was a village at the periphery of the Ottoman Empire where a few hundred exiled Circassians were resettled as border guards, far from the shores of their native Black Sea. Today, Israel’s Circassians are mostly Sunni Muslims, and though all serve in the Israeli military (unlike Arab Muslims), some have protested what they see as their second- class status in the country - - protests that have in the past resulted in confrontations with Israeli police. Kfar Kama is today a sleepy town dominated by a black and white minaret a half- hour’s drive from the Sea of Galilee. Here, as well as in Rehaniya, two dates are circled on the 2. Feb. 7, the opening day of the Olympic Games in Sochi, and May 2. Circassian diaspora – the 1. Circassians call the mass killings, deaths from starvation and deportations that took place during and after their ancestors’ “1. Years’ War” against the Russians. Our genocide, sadly, was prior even to the Armenian and the Jewish ones, which happened in the 2. But world leaders won’t go against Putin and his dream of a Russian Caucasus.”Putin has received his share of criticism over the Winter Olympics, and Schawgen and other Circassian activists would like to see his perceived insensitivity toward their ancestors’ plight added to the list. The Russian president has spared no effort or money to make the Winter Games a symbol of Russian pride, though based on most Western media accounts, that has been an uphill battle. Infrastructure remains incomplete even after the Games have started, and much of what is complete is shoddy. The initial budget for the Games - - $1. USD, ballooned in seven years to more than $5. Olympic record. Putin has meanwhile been roundly criticized for human rights violations in Russia, such as discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Some believe a global campaign against Russia's LGBT rights record in 2. U. S. President Barack Obama, not to attend the Games. The Games are also troubled by terrorist threats from Chechen and Dagestani groups who claimed responsibility for several suicide bombings in Russia last year. And there is the current, unresolved confrontation in neighboring Ukraine, which erupted into violence after the Kiev government bowed to Russian pressure and abandoned an economic cooperation agreement with Europe. Then there is the matter of Sochi’s subtropical climate, which rarely results in snow at lower elevations. A reported 2. 30 million gallons of water have been used to make snow for skiing and snowboarding competitions at Sochi, and machine- made and natural snow differ in consistency, which matters to competitors. Cable cars are seen at the resort of Krasnaya Polyana, site of the 1. Circassian genocide, Jan. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Demianchuk. All of those concerns have overshadowed the other opposition to the Games – what’s known as the “No Sochi 2. Circassian community, which started in Turkey, where most of the surviving Circassians – 3 million of them - - live. Using the Games as a springboard, demonstrators around the world have repeatedly called for international recognition of the genocide and for support for a “free Circassia” and the right of Circassians to return to their homeland. The movement, whose name is technically moot now that the Games have begun, seeks to counter Putin’s push for further Russification of the Caucasus, exemplified, they say, by his reference in an International Olympic Committee speech to the ancient Greek presence in Sochi while ignoring centuries of Circassian residence there. During the last winter Olympics, in Vancouver in 2. Circassians from New Jersey and California undertook a preemptive protest of the planned 2. Four years later, the re- energized movement remains largely peripheral, hampered by numerous factors, including that Circassians are widely dispersed. Other than in Kabardino- Balkaria - - the only place where Circassians are a majority, and in Israel, where Adyghe – the traditional Circassian language - - is one of three languages taught in the Circassian villages’ primary schools, very few people worldwide speak the hissing and slightly onomatopoeic language of the Circassian tribes, which has several dialects. It has only been through the Internet, the use of English as a lingua franca, and a passionate nationalism spurred by Sochi that the community has achieved what little recognition it has. In Kfar Kama, the nationalist spirit is still evident in the privately owned Circassian Heritage Center, where Schawgen works as an archive manager. The center, which opened in 2. Zoher Thawcho.“We came up with the idea of collecting our memories in 2. Thawcho recalled. As Thawcho observed, “I have never heard a word about the genocide from my grandfather or anybody. They were shy. To understand how to build and preserve our collective memory, I had to learn from those around us, from the Jewish experience.”Meanwhile, the hidden burial ground at Krasnaya Polyana is this week shrouded in snow, over which Olympic hopefuls are performing their athletic feats, largely unaware. Skiers inspect the course before beginning a freestyle skiing mogul training at the 2. Sochi Winter Olympics, Feb. Photo: Reuters/Mike Blake. Pyeong. Chang Olympic Games.
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