On May 29, the village of Terekli-Mekteb in the Nogaysky District of Dagestan hosted a congress dedicated to the problems of the Nogai people living in Russia. The delegates of the congress demanded that a decree, issued by the Supreme Soviet in 1957, should be declared unconstitutional since it divided the traditional territory of the Nogai people between Dagestan, Chechnya, the Astrakhan Oblast, and the Stavropol Krai. The congress also proposed the creation of a committee to discuss the establishment of a new administrative-territorial unit in the Nogai people’s historical homeland.

The Turkic-speaking Nogais are descendants of the Golden Horde and according to the 2002 census, there are approximately 90,000 Nogais living in Russia. Historically, they have lived nomadic lives in the lowlands of Dagestan and the neighboring republics. However, harsh socio-economic conditions have resulted in considerable migration to other parts of Russia and nowadays a significant part of the population works in the oilfields of Western Siberia and Yakutia. Moreover, the conflicts over land originating from the migration or resettlement of highlanders to the Nogai steppe during the Soviet era are still affecting the Nogais in the region and the question of land ownership was addressed at the congress. However, the key issue of the congress had to do with the Municipality’s and the Republic’s plans of letting the American company AMITY Technology build a sugar beet plantation in the district. Even though the impoverished region is in desperate need of large scale foreign investments, the fact that the 100,000 hectare plantation would require almost half of the arable land in the district is dissatisfying the Nogais.

500 people were reported to have participated in the congress. Besides Nogais from different parts of Russia, Dagestan’s Minister for national policy and members of organizations representing other ethnic groups were in attendance. The Nogaysky authorities initially declared the congress illegal and tried to stop participants from entering. However, the head of the district later appeared at the congress where he responded to allegations of nepotism and defended his plans of turning the district into a major sugar producer.

It is very unlikely that the Nogais will manage to get their own autonomous district, but if the legitimacy of the local and federal authorities keeps falling, the Nogai congress may become part of an incipient political trend towards more mobilization along the numerous ethnic lines of Dagestani society. In other, less multi-ethnic, parts of the Northern Caucasus, ethno-nationalism has become a potent force. Nonetheless, the Dagestanis still appear reluctant to destabilizing their complex system of ethnic balance and in Dagestan, radical Islam has proven a much stronger unifying force than ethnicity.

Nevertheless, the group of Dagestani Avars, who lives in the Khrakh-Uba enclave in Azerbaijan, protested in Makhachkala on May 18 as well as May 23. The Khrakh-Uba Avars claim that Azerbaijani authorities are pressuring them to renounce their Russian citizenships and criticize Dagestani and Federal Russian authorities for being unwilling and incapable of helping them resettle in Russia.

A somewhat similar case is that of the Didos, who once again voiced their demands of ethnic recognition in May. The Dido people lives along the border of Georgia and, much like the Nogaysky district in the north, that part of Dagestan has been largely ignored by the republic’s central government. While the Dido are one of fourteen smaller linguistically independent groups who are administratively considered to be Avars, they oppose this and seek to maintain their own distinct ethnicity. As a means to that end, their previous spokesperson Magomed Gamzatov turned to the Georgian government for help in promoting their ethnic identity. Since this happened in December 2010, Gamzatov’s sudden death in February 2011 naturally led to numerous speculations.

On April 12, representatives of the Avars, which is the largest ethnic group in Dagestan, announced the cultural autonomy of the Avar nation. The newly elected head of the new congregation explained the proclamation by stating that the purpose is to promote Avar language and history.

Finally, on May 16, the National Movement of the Kumyks held a congress at the Tarki Tau Mountain outside Makhachkala. The Kumyk congress also focused on the strengthening of their language and the importance of historiography as justification for territorial claims was discussed. The Kumyks are the third largest ethnic group in Dagestan and, like the Nogais, they speak a Turkic language and live on the plains and foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. The Kumyks generally consider themselves to be underrepresented within the Dagestani leadership and in April, large numbers of Kumyks demonstrated in support of more Kumyk influence over Makhachkala’s gas business.