Revival of Cossacks Casts Muslim Group Out of Russia to U.S.

In June 1989, Soviet authorities ordered the evacuation of the Meskhetian Turks from Uzbekistan after they became the target of ethnic rioting there. About 12,000 moved to Krasnodar; many others went to central Russia.

In 1991, Russia passed a law that all former Soviet citizens who lived permanently in Russia when the law came into effect were deemed Russian citizens, as long they didn't renounce that right within 12 months. In most parts of Russia, Meskhetian Turks became citizens.

In Krasnodar, however, officials balked and denied official residency papers to the Meskhetians, the prerequisite for citizenship applications, said Ossipov, who has written extensively about the plight of the group for Memorial, a Russian human rights group, and the U.N. refugee agency.

Meskhetians say local officials also have blocked implementation of a more recent law that on paper makes it easier for them to obtain Russian citizenship.

The officials say the Meskhetians are citizens of Uzbekistan who spurned their chance to become Russian citizens. "Theirs is not a problem with the Krasnodar region, it's a problem of their own creation," said Valery Ostrozhny, deputy head of the Department for Monitoring Migration in the Krasnodar regional government.

In meetings of international organizations, Russian officials have said that the Meskhetian Turks should be repatriated to Georgia, their historic homeland. Memorial and other groups insist that any return to Georgia should be voluntary and should not be used to deny Meskhetians their rights in Russia, including citizenship.

Without residency permits, the Meskhetians in Krasnodar became isolated in their towns and villages. According to reports by Memorial, their homes were labeled illegal, they could not legally hold jobs, their marriages were not recognized and the births of their children were not officially recorded, extending the state of limbo into succeeding generations.

"It's impossible to live here," said Rustam Zautadze, 35, also from Varenikovskaya, who is moving to Baltimore soon with 17 other family members, including his wife and three children, his parents, his siblings and their children. "Several times, Cossacks and police came to my house and asked for our papers, which of course we don't have. And then they fine us. If they catch you on the street, they arrest you. I've spent several weeks in detention centers."

Local officials said such cases are rare. "Where the local authorities did something wrong," Ostrozhny said, "the courts ruled against them. But there aren't many of those cases."

The region's top leadership appears to endorse administrative harassment. "Most of the Meskhetian Turks do not want to get out of our territory," Gov. Alexander Tkachev said in a speech in September 2001. "I think all available mechanism of pressure and persuasion will be employed to make the number of departing guests rise."

In a speech a year later, Tkachev, who some analysts see as a possible presidential candidate in 2008, said: "We must protect our land and the native population. This is Cossack land and everyone knows it."

The Cossacks are descended mostly from Russian serfs who fled to the south in the 16th century to escape czarist authority. Later, they became a special military community for the czars, producing generation after generation of soldiers famed for their bravery and horsemanship.

As the czar's cavalry, they helped in the conquest of Siberia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Most famously, they harassed Napoleon's troops during the French retreat in 1812. After the Russian revolution in 1917, the Cossacks fought against the Red Army. That brought on severe repression that led thousands of them to side with the Nazis during World War II .

That is a period Cossack leaders prefer to forget. Vladimir Gromov, chieftain of the Cossacks in the Krasnodar region, instead holds forth on how the Cossacks saved Europe from "Islamic aggression." They were instrumental in defeating the invading Turks at Vienna in 1683, he contends.

Gromov said that Russia again needs to be protected from Muslim outsiders. "Meskhetian Turks and other ethnic groups should live in their historical birthplace," he said. "Not here."

"I have to save my family from the persecution," Tedorov said. He said he will be moving to Phoenix this month with his wife, two of his children, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. They will join two of Tedorov's daughters already living in Arizona.

Vadim Karastelev, director of the Human Rights Center in Novorossiisk in the Krasnodar region, expressed concern that with the Meskhetian Turkish population dwindling, the Krasnodar authorities will turn their attention to other ethnic minorities -- Batum Kurds, Armenian Khemshil and the Yazidis.

The Batum Kurds and the Yazidis have already written the American embassy seeking refugee status in the United States, citing "endless persecution, repression and humiliation."