The Caucasus is the southern border dividing Europe and Asia. About thirty different nationalities live here.
Its part, the North Caucasus, almost all of it is part of Russia, and the southern republic is divided among themselves by such republics as Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
The peoples of the North Caucasus live in the most complex region of our country in many respects, which includes many territorial entities that have formed according to the national type. This densely populated and multinational region with its various traditions, languages, and beliefs is generally considered to be Russia in miniature.
Due to its unique geopolitical and geocultural position, the 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 Western Asia. This is precisely what determines many processes taking place in this region.
For the most part, the peoples of the North Caucasus are identical in appearance: the indigenous people are usually dark-eyed, fair-skinned and dark-haired, they have sharp facial features, a nose with a hump and narrow lips. Usually highlanders compared with the flat inhabitants of higher growth.
They are distinguished by multi-ethnicity, religious syncretism, peculiar ethnic codes, which are dominated by certain traits, due to their ancient occupations, such as terraced farming, alpine cattle breeding, horse riding.
According to their linguistic classification, the peoples of the North Caucasus belong to three groups: Adyghe-Abkhazian (Adyghes, Abkhazians, Circassians and Kabardians speak this language), Vainakh - Chechens, Ingushs, and the Kartvelian group, native to the Svans, Adjars and Mingrelians.
The history of the North Caucasus is largely intertwined with Russia, which has always associated big plans with this region. From the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, the Moscow 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 the aggression of Turkey and the Shah of Iran, have always seen the Russians as real allies that will help them to remain independent. The eighteenth century was a new stage in this relationship. After a successful Persian campaign, Peter I took over many areas under his sovereignty, as a result of which his relations with Turkey sharply worsened.
The problems of the North Caucasus have always been in the foreground of Russia's foreign policy tasks. This was explained by the importance of this region in the struggle for access to the Black Sea, which is strategically important for Russians. That is why, in order to consolidate its position, the tsarist government generously endowed the mountain princes who came over to its side with fertile lands.
The discontent of Ottoman Turkey led to the Russo-Turkish war, in which Russia managed to recapture large territories.
However, the Caucasus war became the final factor for the final entry of this entire region into Russia.
And today in the North Caucasus region, the borders of which were determined in the nineteenth century, there are seven autonomous republics of the Russian Federation: 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 one hundred nationalities and nationalities live in Russia, and almost half of them are the peoples of the North Caucasus. Moreover, according to demographic statistics, it is their number that is constantly increasing, and today this figure exceeds sixteen million people.