Thus, ethnic groups such as the
Adygei, Chechens, Kazakhs, Tatars, Turkmen and Uzbeks identify themselves as being Muslim "nationalities."
At its start, the jurisdiction of the Caucasus Mountain Administration and of military-civil administration covered Dagestan and Zakatal in the northeastern Caucasus, Terskaia oblast in the central Caucasus (which included Chechnya and Ingushetia), and Sukhumskii otdel (Abkhazia) and Kubanskaia oblast in the northwestern Caucasus (which covered the
Adygei and Cherkess regions, stretching all the way north to the Azov Sea).
Pkhachich-adygskie treshchotki: k 80-letiiuavtonomii
Adygei = Adyghe (Circassian) clappers.
Over the last ten years, minorities such as the Dagestanis,
Adygei and Balkars have rebuilt their national cultures, languages and Moslem religion, which the tsars and the Soviets tried hard to wipe out.
(31) After noting that the initial plan to pacify the western Caucasus entailed resettlement within the empire or in Ottoman lands, Jersild states: "Many regime officials and other Russians in the Caucasus and throughout Russia quite simply believed that the
Adygei [Circassians] and the mountaineers in general did not belong in the empire." (32) He argues that the Russians chose to "cleanse" the region of mountaineers; that is, force them from the body politic.