SRC Winter Symposium Socio-Cultural Dimensions of the Changes in the Slavic-Eurasian World ( English / Japanese )

Sergei Arutiunov
(Institute of Ethnography, RAS)

Copyright (c) 1996 by the Slavic Research Center( English / Japanese ) All rights reserved.

3. Local differences in Caucasus

Although Caucasus is not very large territorially (a little smaller than France) it is very heterogeneous, not only as concerns its population but also from the point of view of its physical geography.

The whole of the Caucasus can be divided in two ways. One distinction can be made between the Northern Caucasus, which is politically a part of the Russian federation, and the Southern Caucasus, or Transcaucasia, which consists of the three newly independent states of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaidjan. The native population of the North Caucasus, though divided into more than forty ethnic groups of several linguistic families, has many common ethnographic features and, with the exception of the majority of Ossetians and some other very small groups, belongs to Sunni Islam. The Southern Caucasus is much more heterogeneous in cultural and religious profile, though the number of ethnic groups here is smaller, and the three leading nations are highly consolidated in their own realms. Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia in Georgia and the northern montainous areas of Azerbaidjan, immediately adjacent to the Mountain Range of the Great Caucasus, and populated by emigrants from neighboring Daghestan, or by small nationalities and tribes of Daghestanic linguistic sub-family, (Hinalugs, Udins, small peoples of the so-called Shah-Dag group etc.), are, however, ethnically and culturally closer to the Northern Caucasus. As concerns the differences between East and West of Caucasus, both in the North and in the South, they are of considerable importance for both parts of the Caucasus, but one cannot divide the area into the Eastern and Western parts. Rather there is, while we move from the shores of the Black Sea to the shores of the Caspian Sea, a gradual decline in the "western" features both in the nature and in the culture, and a similarly gradual increase in "eastern" features which replace "western" ones.

Generally speaking, the 'western' features include dense and beautiful forests and an obvious richness of the natural vegetation, including pastures; the fertility of soil and availability of arable lands, which contain the world's most fertile black soils in most of the north-western plains in Krasnodar and Stavropol' territories and in the adjacent lowland parts of all republics west of Daghestan.

There are also very fertile red soils in subtropical Western Georgia, turned now into plantations of tea, citruses and other commercial warm-climate crops. Humidity is rather high in the North-West and extremely high in the South-West, on the Black Sea shore and generally the mildness of climate is remarkable, which makes many areas in the Western and Central Caucasus excellent climatological health resorts. One may add to this the long strips of quite good beach resorts of the Black Sea shores, though mostly made of pebbles and not of sand; in the mountains surrounding the highest peak of the Caucasus, Mt. Elbrus and in other places there are hill slopes suitable for mountain skiing and other recreational activities. Nature in the eastern parts of the Caucasus is less attractive for ordinary tourism, due to its higher aridity, but it has a number of advantages and attractions, too.

Concerning the culture, the traits characteristic for the 'West' include first of all the high percentage of immigrant of the so-called "Russian-speaking" population. It is absolutely predominant in Krasnodar and Stavropol territories; Russians and other non-Natives make nearly 6o% in the Republic of Adygeia; they number about 40 % in Karachai-Cherkessia, more than 30 % in Kabardin-Balkaria and Ossetia- Alania. The percentage of Russians and other immigrant groups drops sharply in Ingushetia and Chechenia, where it used to be about 20 % but now is much lower due to a mass exodus of Russians caused by the Chechenian War, and finally this percentage is less than 10 % in Daghestan.

In Transcaucasia, Russians made about 15 % of the total in Abkhazia, though the Georgian-Abkhazian War has undoubtedly reduced their numbers; Russians are less numerous but still obviously present in Adjaria; their numbers can be evaluated today as 4-5 % in Georgia proper, negligible in Armenia and very low in Azerbaidjan.

Tbilisi and Baku, as large industrial cosmopolitan centers in the past, possessed a considerable Russian population, but today practically everybody who can afford it has emigrated.

Together with the percentage of the Russian and generally immigrant population, the degree of urbanization, education and westernization is diminishing from the west to the east and the level of industrialization is lower in the east.

The petrochemical region of Baku, together with many industrial towns in its vicinity, is, of course, an important exception, but in Northern Azerbaidjan and in Southern Daghestan very near to this region, we find a rather underdeveloped rural area.

The percentage of the rural population increases in most districts in the east of the Caucasus, and also increasing is the more recent phenomenon of the area, the relative and absolute unemployment, although the exact numbers are not available.

The 'eastern' features are: an increasing aridity, a more and more continental climate, ever-increasing deforestation, much more evident traditional features in all spheres of everyday life, including the much less favorable position of women, the greater role of cattle-breeding in the rural economy, and the increasing importance of Islamic faith. Altogether the population in the East is much more tradition-oriented, highly alienated from modern forms of political activity, but this does not mean that in a sense it is less entrepreneurial than in the West . With agrarian overpopulation and scarcity of arable lands, (which is not a recent phenomenon, but was evident still two hundred years ago), the local people have developed habits of going to far away regions of the central and even North-Western Caucasus, in search of jobs as masons, smiths, tinkers, goldsmiths and other artisans and craftsmen. Today they are engaged in commerce, small scale production and farming in many adjacent areas, including the Republic of Kalmykia and other areas of Southern Russia. In particular,the Laks of Daghestan are famous for their orientation to education, and many of them live today in Moscow, St.Petersburg and other large cities of Russia as lawyers, doctors, scholars etc. However the entrepreneurial activity of people of the Eastern Caucasus has a distinct 'eastern' tune, with more reliance on clan and family ties, than in the West.

Traditional values are better preserved in the East than in the West, and respect for elders, which is generally rather high in the Caucasus, is especially high here. Many features of the traditional culture in customs, festivals, relics of pre-Islamic cults and beliefs, even the use of some elements of traditional costume and head-dress, the prevalence of traditional food and other traits in the material culture are also much stronger the East, than in the West, where people have for a long time mostly substituted by borrowing, Russian and generally European habits, costumes, food items and other cultural elements, especially in larger cities.