The Krasnodar region is a wealthy province in southern Russia with a population of over five million. Located on the Black Sea coast, it borders Ukraine, Georgia (the breakaway region of Abkhazia), and Russia’s own North Caucasus. The region has highly productive agriculture, a major military port (Novorossiysk), and a large tourist sector that includes the resort of Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics. The region was incorporated relatively late into the Russian state—only in the 19th century, after years of “frontier” conflict between the Russian imperial army (and Cossacks) and indigenous Circassians. The final Russian conquest was the 1864 Battle of Kbaada (Krasnaya Polyana), which was accompanied by a mass expulsion of the local population leading to an irrevocably changed ethnic map. Today, the population of Krasnodar is roughly 85 percent ethnically Russian, and even Adyghea (nominally a Circassian enclave within Krasnodar) has an ethnic-Russian majority. […]
Memo #:
191
Series:
2
PDF:
PDF URL:
http://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/ponars/pepm_191.pdf
