Encyclopedia

The history of kidnappings, torture and murders of gays in Chechnya has touched on not only men, many of whom left Russia or went, well in advance, to study and work in other regions. The fate of a woman of non-traditional sexual orientation is entirely in the hands of her relatives; and they are no less cruel than law enforcers. The "Caucasian Knot" tells about what queer women face in Chechnya.

At the request of the "Caucasian Knot", a GIS expert, a graduate of the Cartography and Geoinformation Division of the Geography Department of the Moscow State University has analyzed, on the condition of anonymity, the maps of the Chechen Republic and the Republic of Ingushetia in the light of the agreement on the exchange of territories signed on September 26, and made a new map depicting the Ingush-Chechen border.

A Russian MMA fighter, a native of Dagestan. After a battle with Al Iaquinta in April 2018, Khabib Nurmagomedov became the first Russian citizen in UFC with a champion title. On October 6, 2018, he defeated Conor McGregor at UFC 229 tournament in Las Vegas.

On July 9, 2013, Akhmednabi Akhmednabiev, our colleague, a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, was killed in the suburb of Makhachkala.

He defends human rights, investigated a mass execution in Chechnya, and made efforts to make socially important problems public.

He made public facts of violations during the pre-election campaign in Armenia.

He has made public an important public issue by publishing his investigation into kidnappings of journalists in Azerbaijan.

More than 50 international and Russian human rights, media and internet freedom organisations have united behind a call for Russia to stop its attempts to block the instant messaging application Telegram and for the country’s authorities to cease their broader crackdown on Internet freedom and digital privacy.

Two years have passed after the “four-day war”, but shelling and explosions on the demarcation line between Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and Azerbaijan never cease. Military and civilians are still dying. The “Caucasian Knot” has analyzed more than 500 reports of the Ministries of Defense of all parties to conflict and compiled a calendar of military operations for the second year of the so-called truce in the conflict zone.

“By all appearances Oyub Titiev’s case is fabricated as a revenge for his human rights work. We demand Russian authorities to drop charges, immediately release Oyub Titiev, and guarantee his safety. Russia’s international partners should keep a close watch on the situation and demand Russian authorities to free Oyub Titiev,” said Joanna Kurosz, Eurasia programme director at Civil Rights Defenders.

We are troubled by the news that the head of the local Chechen branch office of the Russian human rights NGO Memorial, Oyub Titiev, has been arrested. This is the latest in a string of reports of alarming recent human rights violations in Chechnya. We call on Chechen authorities to immediately release Mr. Titiev.

Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), voiced serious concerns regarding the arrest and detention of Oyub Titiev, Director of the Memorial Human Rights Centre in Chechnya, in the North Caucasus republic of the Russian Federation.

The blood feud is a custom that had formed during the clannish social system as a universal means of defending the honour, dignity and property of the clan. It implies the duty of casualty's relatives to take revenge on the killer or his relatives. In recent months, several reasons have appeared to make sure – in Northern Caucasus, the blood feud is by no means a part of history; it continues acting as an actual social mechanism.

In France, billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, a senator from Dagestan, detained on November 20 at the Nice airport, was charged with laundering money through real estate transactions. For the investigation period, the French court released Suleiman Kerimov on bail of 5 million euros, banned him from leaving the Alpes-Maritimes Department and obliged him to regularly attend the police.

25 years ago, on August 14, 1992, the war in Abkhazia began. The conflict broke out after the Supreme Soviet of the Abkhaz ASSR, having restored the Constitution of Abkhazia of 1925, proclaimed the independence of the republic. The State Soviet of Georgia abolished this decision and deployed the troops of the National Guard of Georgia in Abkhazia.

The "Caucasian Knot" has gathered information about victims of conflict in Chechnya from among alleged militants – about those, who were killed or wounded in clashes with law enforcers and in committing terror acts in 2015 and 2016.

On March 20, 2017, the account "Chechen News" on the YouTube posted a video entitled "Meeting of Military Jamaat of Ichkeria". According to the captions to the video, it shows former fighters of the grouping "Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, who had fought in Syria. In the video, armed people, whose faces are masked, discuss how they will "gather Muhajids."

Svetlana Anokhina, a journalist from Dagestan, has published a book "There Was Such A City. Makhachkala". In 2015, she continued her publicist project in other books of the series. Ms Anokhina is widely known as the author of the Daptar.ru portal, which posts resonant stories of Caucasian women.

Gerbert Gevorgyan is a member of Yerevan art group “Counterstrike”, which responds to resonant events in the society, both in Armenia and abroad. In 2015, he actively participated in graffiti actions in support of employees of the “Nairit” Factory, Shant Arutyunyan, the organizer of the “Million Mask March”, and other political activists.