Photo tribute to Caucasus

[Rivkin]

In This series we will try to show some of the attributes of caucasian history and culture.

Trick Riding.

One of the most important attributes for most of caucasian knights is trick riding. While today it's more and more becomes the thing of the past, with the name associated with skillful riders - djigit becoming more and more associated with a caucasian nobleman in general, here we present the traditional meaning of this word:

We start with Georgain riders as part of Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, and end with modern Alanian circus performers.

[Rivkin]

Due to overpopulation from 1300 BC local peasants had to seek the employment as mercenaries in neighboring countries.

Later this practise was replaced by mamluk and janissarian systems. What started as a quest of middle eastern pedophiles to find young and beutiful white boys for sexual pleasures turned into primeral source of military recruitment in the middle east - young boys where kidnapped, and on a rare occasion sold by their parents.
From them the most wild and strong ones where selected to become elite fighters - mamluks. At first the percentage of caucasian per se was relatively small, and most of mamluks where actually kipchaqs - turkish tribe, pushed away by mongolians. Most of mamluks at Ain-Jalat where Kipchaqs. The mongolian army opposing them consisted mostly of georgian and armenian mercenaries.

But soon the situation changed and most of the newly acquired slaves where circassians and georgians (mostly western georgians - megrelians). They never mixed with the local population, maintained their identity, language, and served in squads with people of the same nationality. They often maintained their native religions - till XVII century paganism or christianity, despite being converted into islam.

Overly nationalistic but detailed review can be found here:
http://www.kartuli.com/site/modules....article&sid=74

Enclosed is a portrait of a georgian mameluk in his uniform (short sleeve tunic) and Napoleon's bodyguard armenian mamluk Rustam.

Also see:
http://users.panola.com/AAGHS/manluk.html
http://www.napoleon-series.org/milit...mameluks1.html

[Rivkin]

Native arms of Caucasians are small round shield, small spear, bow and arrows, chain mail, shashka (sabre like weapon with no guard), kindjal - short sword, and very old straight swords - palashes, characterstic to mountainous northern Georgia and southern Chechnya.

Due to decrease in rifle's calibers caucasian where able to create chainmail that at some distance would not be penetrated by most rifles till the second half of XIX century. This is the reason why many of them, mostly georgian-khevsurs did wear chain mails well into XX century.

[Rivkin]

Traditionally Caucasus divided into 2 parts - Northern Caucasus, inhabited mostly by Adygha (Circassian): shapsugs, adighe, kabarda, Dagestani (mostly Vainach) tribes - Dag, Lak, Avar, Lezgin, Turkish tribes - Balkars and Kipchaqs.

Southern Caucaus (TransCaucasian area) is populated by Georgian tribes - Megrels, Svans, Imereti, Guria, Khevsur, Pshav, Kacheti, Kartli per se etc,
Alan tribes - Osetians,
Armenians and
Turkish Azeris.

In between of this division are Chechens, Ingush and other tribes that change their alliance in between of Northern and Southern states.

Enclosed are the symbolics of Adyghe (Black Crosses, 3 arrows), Chechen (Wolf and Green Banner) and Georgian (Cross).

The latter one is from crusaders, who are deeply revered by both muslim and christians on the whole Caucasus. When Caucasus stood on the brink of destruction in front of assaulting turkish tribes, 300 members of the first crusade whent to Caucasus and together with Georgian Kings, who adopted Jerusalem Cross as their symbol they united cacuasian tribes in fight against the enemy.

Till XIX century especially valuable swords made by both muslim and christian weaponsmith would bear the "bee" - cross like shape, coming from tradition to use small parts of weapons of those who fought seljuks 1000 years ago as part of new weapons, supposedly to bestow them with magic powers.

[Rivkin]

Here is an example of typical khevsurian houses. Not made for comfort, made to kill people below. The last one is church (again, made to fight off the enemies after prayers).

[Rivkin]

Currently Caucasus is torn apart by wars, terrorism and occupation. Caucasians abroad are sometimes employed by various military organizations.

Examples below - circassian 14th squadron of Foreign Legion - was mostly involved in actions against arab insurgents in Lebanon and Syria, later fought against Germans/Vichy in the Middle East, jordanian honor guard (circassians and chechens) with jordanian royal prince.

[VANDOO]

A VERY INTERESTING, INFORMATIVE AND WELL DONE POST IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT THERE ARE NO TOURING SHOWS FEATURING THE SPECIAL SKILLS OF SOME OF THE ETHINOGRAPHIC GROUPS FROM AROUND THE WORLD TODAY. THE PICTURE OF THE COSSACK TYPE DANCE WITH KINJAHLS LOOKS ABOUT AS DANGEROUS AS THE TRICK RIDING

[Rivkin]

Another nationality present in Caucasus are jews. They are divided into tats (farsi-speaking jews from Iran), Kipchaq jews who migrated with kipchaqs from Asia, Ashkenazi - european jews, and georgian jews.

Also important are muslim clans descending from jews. Approximately 15% of chechens (around Shatoi, Khasa-urt etc.) belong to clans that ether considered to be jewish (zhukti) or in some blood relationship with them. Another example are lezginians from Ahty, while today they are considered muslims and respectively chechens or lezgins they maintain some of their jewish traditions (shabbat etc.).

Enclosed are jewish or circassian (they used to serve in Israel army as mercenaries and later conscripts) in Jerusalem, and a tat couple.

For fun - mountain jews performing in chechen:
http://www.mountain-jews.co.il/Video/Shrek.asx

[Rivkin]

I bring my most sincere apologies to the moderator and esteemed members of the forum for this lengthy post.

Sincerely yours,

Kirill Rivkin

[Jim McDougall]

Apologies??!!!
Rivkin I think these posts are outstanding!!! Thank you for placing them here.
In the west there is little information concerning the Caucusus in world history, which is unfortunate as their history is magnificent and colorful.
I am amazed at these photos and your extremely interesting data on the ethnographic perspective of these fascinating people.

The weapons of the Caucusus are eagerly sought by many advanced collectors and the material you have posted here is extremely well placed. I was aware that Khevsurs wore chain link armour well into the 20th century (as described by Halliburton in his "Seven League Boots" narrative c.1935), but did not realize the application with regard to the firearms caliber. I have often wondered if the Khevsurs still maintain thier 'duelling' tradition with swords, buckler and mail, and if so, are there recent photos?

Well done Rivkin, thank you for sharing a fascinating pictorial of a very esoterically studied ethnographic region!

Best regards,
Jim

[Rivkin]

Glad you liked it. Yes, they still do have these duels, like japanese still have their martial arts, only khevsurs keep it way more "real".

I know that there used to be a documentary made in 1982 on this duels, plus khevsurian boxing and khevsurian kastet (heavy ring actually) fighting. It's hard, but possible to order a copy.

What I really would like to see is a photo of khevsurian house with chopped off hands on it - but it seems that they took down and buried all the hands during 1930s.

But today it's very hard to get to khevsuria - even in summer some of it is covered in snow and the neighbours - chechens have a big war on their hands.

Attached images - megrelian (georgian) assasins, chechen village (tower-houses) on the border with khevsuria and chechen islamists performing islamist's war dance - zikr.

The weapon used is kaldam - adopted chechen version of a khevsurian palash.

[Yannis]

Rivkin thank you very much for all this work. It is amazing!

For the moment please notice my avatar

[Rivkin]

Very rare artifact Yannis, indeed.

The question to all is do they want this series to be continued ? I have a little material left - starts with the blade dancing.

btw, I don't know if the translation into english is any good, but there is _the_ great georgian poet Vazha Pshavela. He created two poems that becailly define khevsurian ideals - "Host and Guest" and "Aluda Ketelauri".

I would guess that commentaries would be needed to understand these poems.