#ossetia alania

[bruev]

Река Терек во Владикавказе / The Terek river in Vladikavkaz

[alexxx-malev]

Russia. North Ossetia. Alagirsky District Северная Осетия. Алагирский район

[barbucomedie]

Silver Mounted Khazar Sabre from the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania dated between 500-900 on display at the Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria

Photographs taken by myself 2022

[gregor-samsung]

Разжимая кулаки [Unclenching the Fists] (Kira Kovalenko, 2021)

[russianlanguageday]

Traditionalism vs. Assimilation Among Indigenous Peoples of Siberia.

As is the case for many indigenous groups around the world, native peoples of Siberia struggle to fit into the modern global village while retaining their ethnic identity and cultural distinctiveness. Since the end of World War II, the indigenous peoples of Siberia have had a special legal status which allows for certain “affirmative action”-like quotas and benefits. However, the main aim of these policies was to integrate ethnic minorities into the all-Soviet people and to inculcate the “new Soviet man” mentality. Compulsory boarding schools, where children from different ethnic groups were brought together from the age of seven in a collectivist environment, often served as the hotbed of such Sovietization. The effect on native culture was disastrous. But, as James Forsyth in his A History of the Peoples of Siberia points out, “Russification began even before this, in kindergartens, where most nurses and teachers were Russian speakers. Even where some of them were natives, however, there were cases when children or the nurses themselves were reprimanded for using their native language” (here the parallels with Native North American languages are obvious). In the Soviet Union, it was believed that minority languages and cultures would die out under communism, and that “nationalism can only be bourgeois”. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, a number of new laws have been adopted whose goal is to preserve ethnic distinctiveness of indigenous peoples. But can the tables be turned?

[minowly]

[travelella]

Digora, North Ossetia–Alania Republic, Russia

Evgeny Matveev

[flagwars]

Russian Federal Subject Flag Wars: Round 1

This tournament will focus on the flags of Russia’s 83 federal subjects, which includes 21 republics, 9 krais, 46 oblasts, 2 federal cities, 1 autonomous oblast, and 4 autonomous okrugs. It will not include the flags of the land stolen from Ukraine.

The tournament will be followed by the Regional Flag Wars, a huge competition featuring the flags of regions/administrative divisions, with only one flag per country. Over the past year, I’ve released numerous polls to decide which regional flag will be included for each country. Russia is the final country on the list, and it is receiving its own tournament due to having so many administrative divisions. I hope everyone enjoys this tournament and is looking forward to the Regional Flag Wars! The Russian Federal Subject Flag Wars will begin this week.

Round 1:

1. Tver Oblast vs. Amur Oblast vs. Jewish Autonomous Oblast vs. Kamchatka Krai vs. Karelia

2. Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug vs. Bashkortostan vs. Tambov Oblast vs. Udmurtia vs. Kursk Oblast

3. Samara Oblast vs. Pskov Oblast vs. Adygea vs. Chukotka Autonomous Okrug vs. Khakassia

4. Khabarovsk Krai vs. Kalmykia vs. Altai Krai vs. Zabaykalsky Krai vs. Mordovia

5. Moscow Oblast vs. Dagestan vs. North Ossetia–Alania vs. St. Petersburg vs. Saratov Oblast

6. Primorsky Krai vs. Yaroslavl Oblast vs. Leningrad Oblast vs. Astrakhan Oblast vs. Komi Republic

7. Krasnoyarsk Krai vs. Irkutsk Oblast vs. Omsk Oblast vs. Lipetsk Oblast vs. Kabardino-Balkaria

8. Moscow vs. Ingushetia vs. Kostroma Oblast vs. Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug vs. Tomsk Oblast

9. Perm Krai vs. Orenburg Oblast vs. Stavropol Krai vs. Volgograd Oblast vs. Belgorod Oblast

10. Mari El vs. Kaliningrad Oblast vs. Sverdlovsk Oblast vs. Sakha vs. Arkhangelsk Oblast

11. Krasnodar Krai vs. Penza Oblast vs. Buryatia vs. Nizhny Novgorod Oblast vs. Kurgan Oblast

12. Chelyabinsk Oblast vs. Nenets Autonomous Okrug vs. Karachay-Cherkessia vs. Murmansk Oblast vs. Altai Republic

13. Novosibirsk Oblast vs. Tuva vs. Vologda Oblast vs. Smolensk Oblast vs. Novgorod Oblast

14. Tatarstan vs. Sakhalin Oblast vs. Ulyanovsk Oblast vs. Ryazan Oblast vs. Chechnya vs. Tyumen Oblast

15. Ivanovo Oblast vs. Chuvashia vs. Vladimir Oblast vs. Rostov Oblast vs. Magadan Oblast vs. Bryansk Oblast

16. Kaluga Oblast vs. Kemerovo Oblast vs. Oryol Oblast vs. Kirov Oblast vs. Voronezh Oblast vs. Tula Oblast

[werkot2]

Second Chechen War

On September 1, 2004, a group of more than 30 terrorists seized school №1 in Beslan. (The town of the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania, Russia)⁣⁣⠀⁣⠀

More than 1,000 people were taken hostage, including children. They were held for three days in the school gym without food or water.

The liberation operation began on September 3. 334 people died, including 318 hostages, 186 of whom were children. 10 employees of the FSB, 2 employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and 15 police officers were also killed. 810 hostages, FSB, police, and military personnel were wounded.

FSB officer Maxim Razumovsky is a hero of the Beslan, who received the nickname "Russian Tank". Maxim, being wounded during the assault, returned at school again and again, and carried the wounded and hostages in his arms. His elder brother, Dmitry Razumovsky, will die on the same day during the liberation of children from a school seized by Chechen terrorists.

Back then the Western press portrayed the terrorists as victims and the Russian leadership as incompetent monsters. Western journalists said that the militants treated the hostages with respect. However, in reality, as witnesses of what happened would later say, the terrorists were extremely cruel from the very beginning, and almost from the first minutes of the capture they began shooting the hostages. The terrorists told their victims that the Russian authorities were to blame for their suffering, as they didn't want to fulfill the terrorists’ demands.

NATO openly supported the Chechen side, supplied them with weapons, trained leaders of "fighters for freedom of the Chechen nation", who in fact were ordinary terrorists. Mercenaries from NATO countries and Eastern Europe, including Ukrainians, fought on the Chechen side. They happily indulging in their Russophobia and desire for US dollars "for the defense of democracy". Some of these "leaders" fled to Europe after the war. Most of them were liquidated by Russia in those countries. Some of them are still sitting in Russian supermax prisons, where they will die.

Beslan was not the first and not the last terrorist attack on Russian territory after 1991. The second Chechen war ended in 2009 with the victory of the Russian army. Today, Chechens are serving in the Russian army and helping to protect Russia from those who want to destroy us.

[happypuppypuppy]

🇷🇺 North Ossetia-Alania freestyle wrestling team training in 2024 (credits to wrestling_beslan)

[jojotichakorn]

Hey! Can you please explain why it's wrong to use Caucasian to mean white? I tried to google it but all I found were explanations of how we started using it.

yeah, sure!

so the word "caucasian" comes from the caucasus, which is a mountainous region between the black and caspian seas bordering turkey and iran in the south. the territories situated in that region are: the countries of azerbaijan, georgia, armenia, and the territories which were colonized and are still occupied by russia to this day, which are adygea, dagestan, ingushetia, kabardino-balkaria, karachay-cherkessia, north ossetia - alania, and chechnya. the ethnic groups native to those regions are: azerbaijanis, georgians, armenians*, abkhazians, cherkess/circassians, avars, dargins/dargwa, kumyks, lezgins/leks, laks, nogais, rutuls, ingush, kabardians, balkars, karachays, ossetians/alans, and chechens.**

*azerbaijanis, georgians, and armenians have certain ethnic subgroups but i believe they have all historically been joint by their respective ethnic group for a long time and do not separate themselves from each other outside of having small differences in traditions - if someone knows differently, please do correct me

**sorry if i forgot someone and do let me know if i did

now, here are some examples of what people of some of those ethnic groups look like:

chechen activist tumso abdurakhmanov, ossetian comedian ariana lolaeva, half-georgian singer valery meladze

just looking at these people, you can probably already take a guess at why it is at the very least silly to point at blonde becky born in ohio and call her caucasian. but there is also a reason why i took the time to list every single ethnic group that lives in the caucasus region (apart from trying to generally educate you) - i listed them because these groups are objectively the only ones, who can be called caucasians. moreover, not only are actual caucasians in a weird spot in terms of whether they can even be called white or not (as i said, it is a relatively small mountainous region that borders iran, and i believe no one would call iranians white), but even if you do consider them white, there is an enormous variety of other ethnic groups under the white label AND the majority of white americans' ancestors are NOT caucasians.

apart from the fact that using caucasian as a synonym to white is kind of nonsensical, it is also just unnecessary. there is no context in which the usage of the word caucasian provides any additional information - you can always replace it with the word white and the meaning would remain the same. (btw, as a linguist, this is actually a little hint from the language itself that something isn't right with the way you are using the word - no two words can be fully synonymous in a language, there is always some subtle difference in meaning, but with the way americans use caucasian and white - there is none).

finally, and to my mind most importantly, by using caucasian in the way that americans use it, you are stripping actual caucasians of the ability to talk about their identity in english, THE international language of the world. this is already offensive enough, but considering the colonization of the caucasus by the russian empire throughout the 19th century, the horrors and genocides performed by russians in the region, and the continuous oppression of caucasians in russia today, you are effectively silencing a whole bunch of ethnic groups on their past and the things their ancestors suffered, and helping russia erase that part of history from the general knowledge of the public by co-opting the word you don't need that is so central to the identities of these ethnic groups.

[bruev]

Ночной Владикавказ / Vladikavkaz at night

[alexxx-malev]

Russia. North Ossetia. Alagirsky District Северная Осетия. Алагирский район

[barbucomedie]

Bronze Figurine of a Rider from the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania dated between 500 - 900 CE on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria

Photographs taken by myself 2022

[gregor-samsung]

Разжимая кулаки [Unclenching the Fists] (Kira Kovalenko, 2021)

[cacatoto-2024]

Vladikavkaz 

Vladikavkaz (bahasa Rusia: Владикавка́з; bahasa Ossetia: Дзæуджыхъæу, "Dzæudjyqæu", "permukiman Dzaug" – Vladikavkaz bearti "permukiman Kaukasus") ialah ibu kota Republik Ossetia Utara–Alania, Rusia selatan.