Descendants of Dagestanis deported to Kyrgyzstan want to return to Russia
Several thousand citizens of Kyrgyzstan, whose families were deported from Dagestan in the 1930s, are preparing an appeal addressed to the Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request for assistance in their return to Russia. President of Federal Lezghian National Cultural Autonomy NGO Arif Kerimov reported.
According to him, representatives of various nations were deported from Dagestan, their number in Kyrgyzstan now reaches more than 25,000 people, who have prepared an appeal.
«You will probably get it soon: they want to return to their historical homeland,» Arif Kerimov said, addressing the Russian president at a meeting of the Council on Interethnic Relations.
He also asked Vladimir Putin and the Russian government, together with the government of Dagestan, to prepare long-term measures, «because it is impossible to immediately resettle 25,000 people to their historical homeland.»
Arif Karimov believes that to resolve this issue, it will be necessary to expand existing programs to provide support to compatriots living abroad or adopt additional ones.
In 1936 the USSR adopted a decree (dated May 21, No. 911-150 ss) «On the resettlement of 1,000 kulak households from Dagestan and the Chechen-Ingush Oblast», on the basis of which several thousand people were deported to the Kyrgyz SSR.
