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The Meskhetians

Exactly five years ago, something happened in which one might have thought impossible half a century after ’s passing: an entire ethnic group – one which Stalin had accused of treason and evicted from its homeland – was once again forced to change their place of residence. Thousands of , after surviving deportation in the 1940s and Uzbek pogroms in the 1990s, had only just become settled in Krai when, a few years into the 21st century, they were faced with run-of-the-mill nationalism cultivated by those in power and reinforced by . The surge of violence Above: Kushali Dursunov and By Dmitry Shevchenko prompted many Meskhetians to leave for the U.S., under his wife Zulfiya Muradova have decorated the house they rent a special immigration program. And while Russian media in a Turkish manner. Men and Photos by Viktor Paramonov declared that the Meskhetian problem had been women sit separately, and resolved, for many this was not the case: not qualified to most of the living room is taken up by a raised area used emigrate, they now cannot join their families on the for sleeping, eating, and other side of the Atlantic. meeting guests.

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IN THE RECENT PAST, the stanitsa* of Nizhnebakanskaya Turks or from practicing (most are Sunni was, in its own way, the “capital” of a Turkish Muslim). But everything changed when the Bolsheviks community in . That is, until the came to power. In 1928, Georgian authorities required phobias and myths of the Stalin era were resurrected, Meskhetians to adopt Georgian surnames. At the time once again turning Meskhetians into outcasts and of the onset of the Stalinist repression, “Georgification” “agents of foreign espionage.” had become so ramped up that the Meskhetian Turkish Intercity buses normally do not stop at this small ethnic group officially ceased to exist: there were just roadside settlement an hour from the Black Sea coast. isolated families who had previously ranked themselves So we had to leap from a moving bus. Buffeted by a among the Turks. penetrating wind, we stood at the stanitsa’s bus station, Stalin is often said to be the source of the aphorism: waiting for a fellow with a rather exotic sounding name: “No person, no problem.” In fact it was his guiding Kushali Dursunov. principle, since the biggest problem for the Father of Fifteen minutes later, an aging Zhiguli rolled up to All Nations (one of the many appellations given Stalin the station. The driver’s external appearance little in the 1930s and 1940s) was the nations themselves. resembled a Janissary from the time of the Russo- Meskhetian Turks, despite vigorous attempts to turn Turkish War: there was no fez atop his head, nor did he them into , fell beneath the same millstone as sport a mustache. Dark haired and stocky, Dursunov hundreds of thousands of people of other nationalities, more resembled a denizen of Central Asia, newly from Crimean Tatars to Chechens and Kalmyks. After arrived in Russia and looking for work. Fascist Germany attacked the , they all – As we wove our way down the paved highway at a irrespective of age, gender, professional qualifications or respectable clip, Dursunov kept his cellphone pinned to service to Soviet power – were packed up and sent his ear, carrying on simultaneous conversations with the thousands of miles away, accused of being “unreliable.” stanitsa’s ambulance service and with his wife. “Well, It always happened the same way. A or town in where the hell are they?!” he yells into his phone, in the Crimea or Caucasus was surrounded by NKVD Russian. “Mama’s blood pressure spiked last night,” he troops, and the Chekists went from house to house, explained apologetically. “Do you know what that herding men, women and children out of their homes, means for someone who is 90? We called the like cattle. Then they were shipped to Kazakhstan and ambulance this morning, but they still haven’t come. I the rest of Central Asia in cold, wooden train cars, with just called for the fifth time, they said to just wait.” little but the clothes on their back. Dursunov is 100 percent Meskhetian Turk, one of Surprisingly, the Meskhetian Turks were able to cling the few that remained in Krasnodar Krai after the mass to their historical homeland almost to the end of the exodus of Meskhetians to the U.S. And his 90-year-old war, until November 15, 1944, when 120,000 of them father has become something of a local legend. Barely were forcibly deported over two weeks. Prior to this, had he attained American citizenship when he gave up practically all male Meskhetians of draft age had gone everything and returned to Russia, where he had to the front, to fight the Germans. Thus, to suspect absolutely nothing. their families of sympathy for Hitler or Nazism was The historic region of Meskhetia is in present-day absurd… northeast and southern , in the area The real reason for the deportation became known known as Samtskhe-Javakheti (which is part of the only after the fall of the Soviet Union, when mountainous region known as Moschia). Meskhetians at documents of the State Committee for Defense of the one time also occupied the eastern region of Adjara, a USSR were declassified – in particular, Decree No. 6279 Georgian province to the west, along the Black Sea. of 31 July 1944. This is how it explained why an entire There is, however, no universal opinion on the origins people needed to be deported: “In connection with the of the Meskhetians; some say they are descendants of fact that a significant portion of the population was ethnic Turks and Georgians of the Meskhi tribe,† others related to residents of border regions of Turkey, these that they are descendants of Georgian-Meskhi who were family relationships have evoked emigratory Turkefied during the time of the inclinations, charges of complicity with the enemy, (1299-1922), with an admixture of ethnic Turks and contraband activities and have made them recruits for Azerbaijanis. Turkish espionage and bandit groups…” Meskhetian Turks ’t speak “classic” Turkish, but one of its eastern dialects that is very similar to Azeri “WE’RE HERE,” KUSHALI DECLARED. The car was brought and completely unlike modern Georgian. (The to a halt next to a wooden fence covered by grapevines. Meskhetians call their language Ahıska Türkçäsi.) Behind it was a low house of brick and clay, a tiny yard, Up until the beginning of the 20th century, and a similarly tiny garden. In general, a typical home Meskhetian Turks living in what was then the Russian for this Cossack region. It had been in this condition Empire were not forbidden from calling themselves even before Kushali and his wife Zulfia rented it.

53 * STANITSA: a large Cossack village. russianlife.com | Russian Life † The Meskhi or Moschi were indigenous people of this region of Georgia since before the modern era. 10-05:issue2 4/14/10 12:24 PM Page 54

Immediately upon stepping through the door, we stepped into another time and place. In the middle of the singular room – which served simultaneously as a bedroom, living room and kitchen – was a large topchan* covered with a colorful rug. On the walls were canvases with quotes from the Koran. Typically, a topchan is divided into “male” and “female” sections; in keeping with Islamic tradition, if men and women are in the same space, they should be separated. But not today. The aged mother of our hero was sick and she was being fussed over by Kushali’s wife, Zulfia, his father Kamal, and a female friend of the family. Kamal is the previously noted local celebrity. Neighbors call him “the American” to his face, and local bureaucrats tremble at the sight of the 88-year-old elder sporting a Turkish fez, his threadbare jacket hung with military medals. “He doesn’t have his own home, so he makes himself at home with my mother, with me and Zulfia, in this little detached hut. He is constantly going from office to office, requesting that he, as a veteran, be given an apartment, and they want nothing more to do with him in the administrative offices,” Kushali explained. Kamal is not able to easily express himself in Russian. He discloses his age and the ghastly wounds he suffered in the war. Even through his jacket and vest you can see the cavity where they cut out the bits of shrapnel that tore into him. “Was in Leningrad, in Baltics, in Germany,” Kamal said in broken Russian, ticking off on his fingers the stops on his front line tour. In 1941, as a 17-year-old, he was drafted into the Red Army, and almost immediately sent to the Soviet- German front. Over the next four years, Kamal Dursunov walked several thousand kilometers through Kamal the Soviet Union and Europe, to the very heart of Dursunov do it.’ He took out his pistol, put it to the German’s Berlin. (“The head and pulled the trigger…” American”) News never reached the young soldier that his at the Kamal then heatedly declared to the butcher- family, along with thousands of other Turkish families entrance to lieutenant that, yes, you have to kill at the front, but accused of “emigratory inclinations,” had been shipped the family's not at army headquarters. And he paid for it. Instead of rented house. off to Central Asia. By the end of the war Kamal, a He knew he being sent home for treatment when he was next specialist in anti-tank defenses, had managed to had nothing wounded, his commander ordered him to take part in distinguish himself. He had destroyed two German left in Russia, the storming of Berlin. but still Tiger tanks, received several serious wounds and was decided to Kamal met his future wife, Shakhria, after the war, in celebrated for having, in a hand-to-hand combat, put come back Central Asia. They have been married 63 years. Five of his fist through the metal helmet of a German soldier. after two their sons, two daughters, and countless grandchildren years in Nonetheless, he fell under suspicion of sympathy for the U.S. and great grandchildren have disbursed across the globe, Hitler’s troops. “There was this case in Germany,” from Turkey to the U.S. And now it’s been three hours Kamal recalled. “I was walking along and saw a German since the onset of Shakhria’s high blood pressure attack, in a British coat, clearly on the run. I pointed my gun at and still no ambulance. So Kamal and his son Kushali, him and he cried, ‘Don’t shoot, I have children!’ And I in order to relieve some of the tension, lead us on an didn’t want to kill him. The orders were: take Germans excursion about their yard. prisoner. I took him to our guys, and the lieutenant was “Just don’t help him, don’t give him your arm,” all over me, ‘Why’d you bring this fascist here, why Kushali said. “Let him walk on his own; he needs to didn’t you shoot him?’ He said to me, ‘This is how you keep moving.”

54 Russian Life | May/June 2010 * TOPCHAN: a cross between a large bed and a low couch. 10-05:issue2 4/14/10 12:24 PM Page 55

The yard creates a depressing impression. Behind a anyone. My entire childhood I lived alongside ,” half-collapsed wooden shed is a tiny garden piled high Khalima said. “Went to school with them, then worked, with dried up branches and trash. You could film a celebrated with them, visited in each other’s homes.” horror movie here. In fact, the entirety of the Dursunov Then, as if to illustrate her story, she placed on the table family’s life is a horror film: no permanent work, and a large plate of authentic Uzbek plov, which she had the only regular source of income is the parents’ prepared in front of us. “How do they put it in Asia? If pension. And that is barely enough to rent this I die, then let it at least be after the plov,” she laughed. ramshackle little house without any modern Table customs are tell-tale proof that the Meskhetian conveniences. Turks assimilated many traditions from the locals during There is no running water in Nizhnebakanskaya their Central Asian exile. Today, for instance, a guest in stanitsa, and the residents have to obtain water on their a Turkish home can seriously offend his host if he own. Those who have means drill wells; those who are refuses to consume several portions of plov, to drink the less well off must use common wells. Until recently, required green tea, or to sample the thick soup, the Kushali hauled water from one such well, but this main ingredient of which is something akin to pelmeni. winter it was destroyed when the river overflowed its In Khalima’s family photo album, there is a gap in banks. Now he has to pay for water from his neighbor. the chronology: there are black and white photos of Despite these day-to-day struggles, when Kushali’s Khalima and her former husband, taken in the Soviet brothers left Krasnodar Krai five years ago for the U.S., Union, and then there are the very recent color photos along with thousands of their kinsmen, it was not such of some sort of park with rides, a beautiful young struggles they were trying to escape. But Kushali refuses woman and a fun-loving little boy. to talk about what it was that led thousands of “This is my daughter, Asya, and my grandson. They Meskhetian Turkish families to pick up and leave for are in New York state now,” Khalima says in a far from another country, as if it were the time of the Stalinist happy voice. “When the Uzbeks attacked our home in deportations. “Politics,” is what he calls it. “And I don’t Pskent, my daughter was very young… I feared for her mess around in politics; I have to live here,” he said. most of all. I thought: ‘I will give up everything, run away anywhere at all, if only the children can be saved.’ KHALIMA BADALOVA, a friend of the family who lives in In the store where I worked back then, I had a good the neighboring settlement of Novoukrainskoye, also boss. He paid me my back wages and even gave me has no love for politics, but she is much more willing to some food for the journey. We took off, not knowing recall the events which forced her to come to the where we were headed. The only information I had was Kuban. Khalima’s family lived in , where her that, after the massacres, some Turks had gone to parents had been sent after Stalin’s deportations. In Russia, to the Kuban. So I thought, ‘Let’s just get on a May and June 1989, Uzbek pogroms suddenly gripped train and go in search of our people.’” the Fergana Valley. There was chaos in Khalima’s hometown of Pskent. Uzbek nationalists attacked the AFTER THE NATIONALIST UPRISING in Central Asia, the homes of Meskhetian Turks. She and her husband, Soviet government was seriously bewildered by the along with her mother-in-law and their three children, mass exodus of Meskhetians. For the late Soviet Era, were saved from the impending massacre by hiding in such an en masse, uncontrolled migration of citizens the home of their neighbor, the head of the local was something completely new and strange. For that militia. reason the leaders were frightened, and they sought to “They hid us in the back room,” she recalled, “and somehow control the migration process. all night long we heard someone tossing stones onto The government decided that refugees from Central the roof and calling out, ‘We know you have Turks in Asia would be allowed to settle only in Russia’s central there!’” regions, in Orlov, Voronezh and Kursk oblasts. They To this day, it is not clear what brought on these supposed that the Turks would only settle in Russia events, which have come down in history as the temporarily, while the groundwork was laid for their “Fergana massacre” and the “ massacre” (some repatriation to their historical homeland, in Georgia. Of are of the opinion that the nationalists simply took course the government’s decision was poorly executed; advantage of Uzbeks’ dissatisfaction in their poverty no one thoroughly monitored where the refugees and lack of rights). But the facts remain: barely had actually went and where they settled. Gorbachev’s reforms begun, when the Meskhetian The first Meskhetian Turk families arrived in Turks, who lived for many decades in Central Asia, Krasnodar Krai after the pogroms in Fergana. Soon suddenly became outcasts. Some 90 thousand others were drawn here as well – people who had tried Meskhetians were forced to flee Uzbekistan in fear for unsuccessfully to settle in other Russian regions. “We their lives. really can’t live without land, without our farms,” “Allah is my witness, we have never feuded with Khalima explained. “We’ve tilled the land for several

55 The famous Georgian poet is reputed to have come from Meskhetia. russianlife.com | Russian Life 10-05:issue2 4/14/10 12:24 PM Page 56

generations. And the Kuban had the best conditions for Meskhetian Turks and the Kuban administration since farming, better than anywhere else in Russia. Lots of the beginning of the 1990s. The entire time, the our people were immediately drawn here and they were organization has sought to have the Russian and our relatives, our acquaintances. The ‘Sarafan Radio’ Georgian governments revive their original plan to network sprang into action.” return the Meskhetian Turks to their historic homeland. As Khalima remembers it, at that time most of the In the mid-1990s, Georgia submitted an application for population of Krasnodar Krai was very poor. As in all entry to the Council of Europe, the main demand from other parts of the former USSR, there were grave whom was the speedy repatriation to Georgia of peoples shortages of foodstuffs, which could only be purchased deported by Stalin. with ration coupons distributed at one’s place of “But the issue died after Georgia was admitted to the employment. And it was especially difficult to find Council of Europe,” Gaskevich said. “On the other work, particularly in such a rural location, so many hand, the administration of Krasnodar Krai had no emigres began to work for intention of waiting. Their logic themselves, doing backyard was simple: since the Meskhet- farming, raising vegetables, greens ians are leaving soon, everything and potatoes for sale at local should be done to make it farmer’s markets. And, insofar as happen as quickly as possible. (according to definitions which First of all they complicated the existed at that time) they did not procedure for legalizing refugees have any official workplace, they and strengthened passport could not get foodstuff coupons. controls. In order to legally reside When the emigres in Russia, every six months the nonetheless asked the local Meskhetians had to obtain a authorities to give them coupons certificate on temporary for sugar, butter and soap, it residency. But such documents caused friction with the Russian- were provided only upon speaking population, who were presentation of a receipt proving dissatisfied that the immigrants one had paid taxes, plus a whole (who in their eyes were living on Kushali packet of medical and other “non-labor income”) wanted what they themselves Dursunov's certificates. The passport-visa service did not demand desperately needed. It was almost an exact repeat of the parents, anything like this from any other foreign nationality.” photographed situation at the beginning of the pogroms in in Central Asia Uzbekistan, where local nationalists, playing on the in the 1950s. KHALIMA BADALOVA FEELS in her bones what it means to local population’s emotions, blamed people of a live in Russia as an “illegal.” In the first few years after different nationality for all their problems: “while we she arrived in Krasnodar Krai, she used her old Soviet were bent over in the cotton plantations, the Turks were passport and, like many of her compatriots, sought a trading in the bazaars.” certificate of temporary residency. “I simply had to live But, in contrast to Uzbekistan, the Kuban here legally,” she said. “After all, I was traveling to the administration did not at all try to extinguish the source city to work, and constantly had to deal with the of hatred toward the migrants. Lots of refugees, from all police.” Yet soon Khalima was condemned to several corners of the expiring Soviet Union, were descending years of unemployment when she lost her papers. on Krasnodar Krai at that time, and the battle with “Did you not leave the house out of fear of the “uninvited guests” became the favorite hobby horse of police?” I asked. regional politicians. “What do you mean, police!” she replied. “They “This is explained by the fact that local were not what was scary; scary was when the Cossacks administrations could hang any of their failures on the started going house to house. This is what would migrants,” said Victor Gaskevich, a board member of happen: early in the morning, two or three people in the Krasnodar division of the human rights Cossack uniforms – often drunk – kicked on our doors, organization Memorial. “They could be blamed for the in general acting rude and demanding that we show increases in poverty, unemployment, crime. It reached them our passports. Once, several Cossacks went to the absurd levels: in several regions, the local leaders home of my distant relative. They saw his son in the blamed the Turks for the fact that, since they had yard, squatting down and working on something. One started trading their greens and vegetables at the Cossack goes up to him and yells, “Stand up!” The boy markets, prices for these items fell, causing local talked back somehow, and the Cossack smacked him peasants to suffer.” across the face as hard as he could. The father came Memorial has been monitoring the conflict between running out when he heard the cry… Luckily, some

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Teary-eyed neighbor called the police: a horrible fight started and Khalima as the ideological inspiration for “anti-immigration they would have killed each other. The Cossacks didn’t Badayeva raids.” “This issue is far from something I worry about,” showing stop fighting until the police arrived. But none of them photographs he said. “As far as I know, there is no longer any were punished.” of her children conflict.” There were plenty of similar situations in and grand- Polina Potsebneva, press secretary for the Kuban children, who where the Meskhetian Turks settled. One story now live in Cossack Troops said she was rather interested to know, became something of a local parable: during one of the United “who will benefit from this publication,” and declared the Cossack’s raids to uncover “illegal immigrants” States. that the present leadership of the regional Cossack in a village not far from Anapa, the Cossacks, armed organization “does not feel it has a right to discuss the with rubber whips, rubber truncheons and gas actions of its predecessors.” pistols, broke into a private homeowner’s yard and, When you put these questions to ordinary Cossacks upon seeing a clay stove for baking lepeshki,* in Nizhnebakanskaya stanitsa, they, on condition of declared to the homeowner, “We need to set you on anonymity, admit that they never had anything against fire right here, douse you in gasoline and set you on Meskhetian Turks. They also admit that, yes, the “raids” fire…” went overboard, but back then, they say, the governor The fascinating thing about this situation is that the spoke rather often about battling against illegal Cossacks had no legal authority to check documents. In immigration, and the Cossacks could not remain on the Russia, only the police has such authority. But the sidelines. police did nothing to hinder the Cossacks in their raids. It is certainly true that ten years ago everyone and And why did the Cossacks themselves need this? How their brother in Krasnodar Krai was talking about the were they bothered by this tiny diaspora of Meskhetian evils of immigration, which were personified in the Turks? And who issued an order to the Cossacks to Meskhetian Turks. And the local media constantly break the law, to stand in for the officials that are quoted Governor Alexander Tkachev, who promised supposed to safeguard our rights? to organize charter flights to send the Meskhetians Vladimir Gromov, the former leader of the Kuban back to Uzbekistan, who called on the Cossack Cossacks, declined to answer any questions of this sort. citizens’ brigades to “activate” and conduct passport Gromov is the person many Meskhetian Turks point to checks “not just every day, but every night as well.”

57 * LEPESHKI: round breads typical of Central Asia. russianlife.com | Russian Life 10-05:issue2 4/14/10 12:24 PM Page 58

Nizhnebakan- The anti-Turk hysteria even overflowed onto national skaya stanitsa In protest, some 200 Meskhetians declared a hunger television. One station aired a report, clearly intended is considered strike, demanding that they be immediately granted the unofficial for “sensational” effect, which alleged the Meskhetian “capital” of Russian citizenship. They did not achieve their goals, Turks had moved to Krasnodar Krai on the orders… of Meskhetian but they did attract the attention of international Turkey’s intelligence services, which were interested in turks in the human rights organizations and the Directorate for the Krasnodar increasing their influence in southern Russia. How is it region. It is UN High Commission on Refugees. possible not to be reminded of the justification given for also a typical A representative of Amnesty International turned to Stalin’s 1944 deportation of Meskhetians? rural, southern the U.S. Department of State and asked that it consider Russian The family of Sakhid Mailov, a resident of settlement. granting refugee status to those of the Meskhetians who Nizhnebakanskaya stanitsa, did not escape the attention wanted it. A commission comprised of representatives of television reporters seeking sensationalism. “I was from the OSCE, the UN, the Council of Europe and constantly surprised that this one journalist kept asking the U.S. visited Krasnodar Krai. As a result, the U.S. kids to make faces, and then the cameraman would take State Department gave its approval to a resettlement their picture.” Sakhid said. “Then I watched the report plan for Turkish communities in 2004 and 2005. The and learned that we Turks are very aggressive, that even International Organization on Migration (IOM) headed our children have evil faces.” up the effort. “We immediately went to IOM,” said Mailov. “Not THE PEAK OF THE CONFRONTATION between Meskhetians everyone was able to go to the States, only those who and local authorities came in 2002, immediately after a could prove that they had lived for an extended period new regional law on immigration was passed in in Krasnodar Krai. For this, one had to either have Krasnodar Krai. The law made it possible to detain Russian citizenship or no citizenship at all. And many illegal immigrants in special centers, until the issue of in our region had Uzbek passports. I myself had to go their forcible eviction was resolved. At that time, some to Uzbekistan to get a local passport, so that I could 15,000 Meskhetian Turks lived in Krasnodar Krai, and live legally in Russia. So I was not eligible for this of those, according to official data, no more than 4,000 program.” held Russian citizenship. The remainder were under But Mailov’s 26-year-old daughter Adelya threat of the governor’s “charter flights.” successfully navigated the interview and flew to Indiana.

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His brother and family also headed to the other side of them for being Turks. They will say no.” the ocean. More dramatic events occurred in Khalima Nuffadin’s son and daughter are in primary school Badalova’s family. As she was wracking her brains trying and speak very good Russian, giving the impression to figure out how to get her lost Soviet passport that they could give their heavily accented father reissued, her children and grandchildren all flew off to some Russian lessons. Ye t ten years ago accusations the States, leaving their mother and grandmother flew that the children of Meskhetian Turks could not completely alone. study in Russian schools because they did not know Then there is the orphan of Nizhnebakanskaya, the language. Rashid. His entire family left for America, including his Mursalimov’s wife shows off her miniature farm: two wife’s parents. He was reportedly left behind due to cows, which they keep in the backyard, and a small some problem with his documents. garden. Of course, the children help with the farming. As soon as the refugee quota set by the U.S. State In the winter, the Mursalimovs take their “vacation,” Department was filled, the since they only have to look after immigration program was shut their cows. But in the spring down, and the Meskhetians who Mursalimov’s wife goes to the remained in Krasnodar Krai Coming to America local administration to re-request When the 11,250 Meskhetian-Turks emigrated to the United (from one to three thousand, by States, they were disbursed to communities throughout the country. the rental of their land plot, in different estimates) could only In 2005-2006, over 100 were resettled in central Vermont, in order to plant vegetables and hope to be reunited with their communities surrounding the state capital of Montpelier, where greens for sale. relatives through private means. Russian Life has its publishing offices. The Mursalimovs were truly Among those left behind Gulzada Shaibov was a teenager when her family resettled to surprised by Kushali Barre, Vermont. In 2008 she graduated from Spaulding High School there circulate rumors that they and soon married Raim Kachaliyev, whose family (including his Dursunov’s father, Kamal. The didn’t get through the IOM parents and brothers) had also resettled here. By all appearances old man could have lived out program because lots of just two families have stayed in Central Vermont. his days in calm and comfort in Meskhetian Turks from the “Almost all the families have moved away, to other states” the States, yet he up and regions of Voronezh, Rostov Gulzada said. “Some have moved because of jobs, some because it returned. Kushali’s parents and is just too expensive to buy a house in Vermont, so they moved to and Astrakhan got through, places like Michigan, where it is cheaper.” three of his brothers moved to even though the program was Jobs are also hard to come by in Vermont’s economy, but then Idaho. But his father had lived specifically for the evacuation they are hard to come by for native-born Americans as well. Still, in the U.S. for barely two years of Meskhetians living in Gulzada and her family have been able to find some part-time work. when he asked his sons to put Krasnodar (due to the fact that She trained in cosmetology but works a couple of days a week in a together the money for his Price Chopper grocery store. Other family members work at a there was not a single serious Montpelier hotel. “My father-in-law can’t find a job,” Gulzada said, return ticket to Russia. “America case of ethnic violence against shushing her crying baby. “He’s not that old or anything, but without is alright,” he said, offering a Meskhetians in any other English, it’s kind of hard.” typically sparing summary of region). Allegedly, Meskhetians Does the family get nostalgic for Russia or Uzbekistan during the his life as a political immigrant. from “better” regions succeeded cold Vermont winters? “A bit,” Gulzada admits, saying her mother “But I couldn’t get the traveled this winter to visit Gulzada’s sister and uncles, who still live in bribing Krasnodar in Krasnodar Krai. language.” bureaucrats to receive “But it’s only good to visit for a few weeks,” Gulzada continued, Kamal and Shakhria certificates stating that they had “not to go back to live there. It’s much harder to live there than it was returned, one might say, to lived for a long time in the a few years ago.” subsist on ashes. Their only Kuban. Of course, there is no remaining son in Russia, proof that any such Kushali, did not have a home machinations took place. or stable work. But they had nowhere else to go. For After the mass exodus of Meskhetians to the U.S., two years now, Kamal has been darkening the the Krasnodar administration unexpectedly softened doorways of local administrators and veterans in their treatment of those left behind. All were given organizations, demanding that they provide him the Russian passports; the Cossack raids and xenophobic entitlements promised all veterans – most press hysteria faded into the past. When asked if they importantly a place to live. would like to leave for the U.S., to be with their Recently, Kamal even wrote a letter to President relatives, many reply that they would prefer it if their Medvedev, in which he reminded him of “the relatives returned to Russia. responsibility of the state to guarantee veterans’ “I don’t even know whether I would want to go social securities, as stipulated in the Constitution.” there,” confessed vegetable farmer Nuffadin The president has so far not replied, and the old Mursalimov. “On the one hand, my whole family is in warrior continues to joust with the windmills of the America; on the other hand, no one is bothering us Russian bureaucracy, which, it turns out, are more here. Ask my children if anyone in their school insults tenacious than a German Tiger tank. RL

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