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How Chechen refugees reside within the Pankisi Gorge

Conversation with a Sufi

The Pankisi Gorge is a Muslim enclave in predominantly Orthodox Georgia. In addition, the gorge, which is 30 km lengthy and 5 km broad, is the birthplace of the Kists, the Chechen ethnic minority professing Islam. Pankisi girls go to the mosque usually. After a conventional Sufi ceremony within the village of Duisi, they meet to debate the most recent information.

How Chechen refugees reside within the Pankisi Gorge

Hotel in Jokolo: Pankisi girls enterprise

Leila Achishvili (middle) was kidnapped in her youth and brought to Chechnya by her future husband. But she managed to go away him and return to Georgia. In the Pankisi Gorge, 53-year-old Leila opened a small resort along with her daughter Mariam within the village of Jokolo. Tourists from Poland, Belgium and different European nations typically come right here.

How Chechen refugees reside within the Pankisi Gorge

Georgian delicacies for European company in Pankisi

Leyla Achishvili and her daughter Mariam Kebadze will deal with company to khinkali – a dish of the nationwide Georgian delicacies. Leila had two extra sons. They left to battle on the aspect of the Islamic State militants and died in Syria. Leyla Achishvili tries not to consider it and look forward. “Today I am grateful that I can be independent,” she says.

How Chechen refugees reside within the Pankisi Gorge

Dream of one other life

For Mariam, the daughter of Leyla Achishvili, there are nearly no prospects in Pankisi. It’s boring right here, she laments. “Girls do not go out in the evening. It is customary because society in the Pankisi Gorge is patriarchal,” says Mariam. “But I love the night. My dream is to live freely, somewhere in the mountains, for example, in Switzerland.”

How Chechen refugees reside within the Pankisi Gorge

Guests from Chechnya go to kinfolk

Mariam Kebadze is joyful when kinfolk from Grozny come to go to her. Thousands of Chechens fled from Chechnya within the 90s to the Pankisi Gorge, fleeing the warfare. Many of them nonetheless have shut contacts with their homeland. There is a big Chechen diaspora in Pankisi. But the area has a foul popularity. Many take into account it a refuge for Islamic terrorists, so Russia has repeatedly threatened to strike on the gorge.

How Chechen refugees reside within the Pankisi Gorge

A breath of freedom for Pankisi girls

Women residing within the Pankisi Gorge try to realize no less than some type of freedom. A good friend of Leyla Achishvili’s after her husband died within the warfare in Syria, opened a small health room. Not many ladies within the gorge come right here to play sports activities. Leila makes use of this chance. This is likely one of the locations the place girls can meet one another and care for themselves.

How Chechen refugees reside within the Pankisi Gorge

“I need to ship her to check overseas”

Mariam Kebadze lives in a small condominium along with her mom and grandmother. Leyla Achishvili needs a greater future for her daughter. “I would like to support my daughter in everything,” she says. “I will try to send her to study abroad. Here in Pankisi there are almost no prospects for her.”

Author: Lisa Henel, Natalia Pozdnyakova