The Caucasus is the southern border dividing Europe and Asia. About thirty different nationalities live here.
Its part, the North Caucasus, is almost all part of Russia, and the southern part is divided among such republics as Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
The peoples of the North Caucasus live in the most complexin many respects the region of our country, which includes many territorial entities, formed according to the national type. This densely populated and multinational region with its various traditions, languages, and beliefs is considered to be Russia in miniature.
Thanks to its unique geopolitical andgeocultural position, a relatively small North Caucasus has long been considered a contact zone and at the same time a barrier separating the civilizations of the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and the Near East. This is what determines the many processes taking place in this region.
Most of the peoples of the North Caucasusare the same outwardly: the indigenous people are usually dark-eyed, fair-skinned and dark-haired, they have sharp features, a nose with a hump and narrow lips. Usually the mountaineers are compared to the flat inhabitants of higher growth.
They are distinguished by polyethnicity, religioussyncretism, peculiar ethnic codes, in which certain features predominate due to their ancient occupation, such as terraced farming, alpine cattle breeding, horsemanship.
By their language classification, the peoples of the NorthThe Caucasus belong to three groups: the Adyghe-Abkhazian (in this language the Adygs, Abkhazians, Circassians and Kabardians speak), to Vainakhskaya - Chechens, Ingushs, and to the Kartvelian group, native to the Svan, Ajar and Megrelian.
The history of the North Caucasus is largely intertwined withRussia, which has always associated big plans with this region. From the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, the Muscovite state began to establish intensive contacts with local peoples, especially with the Circassians and Kabardians, helping them in the fight against the Crimean Khanate.
The peoples of the North Caucasus, suffering from aggressionTurkey and Shah's Iranian, have always seen in the Russian real allies, who will help them to remain independent. The eighteenth century was a new stage in this relationship. After the successful Persian campaign, Peter I took many areas under his sovereignty, as a result of which his relations with Turkey sharply worsened.
Problems of the North Caucasus have always been on the firstforeign policy objectives of Russia. This was explained by the importance of this region in the struggle for access to the Black Sea, which is strategically important for the Russians. That is why, in order to consolidate their positions, the tsarist government generously bestowed the mountain princes, who had come over to his side, with fertile lands.
The discontent of Ottoman Turkey led to the Russian-Turkish war, in which Russia managed to win back large territories.
However, the final factor for the final entry of the entire region into Russia was the Caucasian War.
And today in the North Caucasus region, the borderwhich were defined in the nineteenth century, seven autonomous republics of the Russian Federation were located: Karachay-Cherkessia, Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Alania, Ingushetia, Dagestan and the Chechen Republic.
The area on which they are located is less than one percent of the entire territory of our country.
About 100 nationalities live in Russianationalities, and almost half of them are the peoples of the North Caucasus. Moreover, according to estimates of demographic statistics, it is their number that is constantly increasing, and today this figure exceeds sixteen million people.
