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Konstantin Kazenin, deputy editor-in-chief of Information Agency REGNUM
In my opinion there are four main problems in the sphere of land in the North Caucasus.
The first one is the absence of legal market of agricultural laws
which is related to the prohibition of its privatization
which was introduced in all republics of North Caucasus except for Karachay-Cherkessia.
Second, the emergence of alternative administrative institutions regulating the use of land.
Third, the uncertainty regarding land problems which appeared in the course of Stalinist deportation
and return of peoples after the deportation.
Fourth, the ideologization of land problems with the help of local scientists,
national public figures and others.
I will give short examples to illustrate my points.
The moratorium on privatization of agricultural lands
was introduced in all republics except for Karachay-Cherkessia after 2002 when the federal law
gave the right to republics to choose the date when to launch the privatization process.
Nowadays there is not much sense to talk about reasons for introducing the moratorium back then.
Mostly, it was supported by those heads of republics that are mostly not in power anymore,
but the consequences of the moratorium are seen even today.
I am talking about difficulties faced by farmers in planning their businesses,
their lives and perspectives, since lands are rented only for short periods.
I am talking about financial losses related to high rents of lands, middlemen appear often.
In one of the republics recently it became known about a similar situation
when a significant piece of pastoral land was rented to a certain structure
which has never acted before in this republic, and local residents were forced to pay extra rent.
A number of regions, especially Kabardino-Balkaria are actively discussing about the early annulment
of the moratorium on privatization of agricultural lands.
The most acute problem related to the absence of market of agricultural lands
appear in those republics where in addition to the moratorium on privatization
there are additional restrictions concerning the use of lands
which were introduced with the help of republican laws.
Not only it is only allowed to rent lands, there are also restrictions regarding who can rent the lands,
what can be done with these lands, etc.
One of the most revealing examples in this regard is Dagestan.
It has a special regime for plains which in the Soviet times were given to mountainous households.
These lands are almost one million hectare.
It is truly a lot, stretched almost across the whole territory of Dagestan
from the Nogaysky region to Derbentsky region and probably even to the Magaramkentsky region.
It is necessary to focus on this issue for a minute in order
to demonstrate the outcome of an excessive administrative regulation of the land market
and its actual absence.
At the moment these lands can be rented only by the mountainous households
of regions to which they were assigned.
It is possible to rent these lands only with the help of republic's apparatus
and through to a very complicated procedure.
Then it becomes known that the majority of buildings on these territories
is illegal and can be destroyed at any time.
This year I learned about 3 cases when court officers attempted to destroy a settlement of 300 households.
These are people who came from mountains to settle in these areas.
Due to the legal order, this settlement is illegal.
Court officials come and try to destroy the whole settlement
which of course leads to wild tensions.
And there are dozens of such settlements in Dagestan.
What does it lead to? Why did I choose this example?
Because it leads us to a second problem
which I mentioned before when such extremely complicated regulations in the administration of land
lead to the emergence of alternative legal systems regulating the use of lands.
In Dagestan there are instances when two village families living on these special territories
I've talked about, mountainous and pastoral lands, ignore all the norms of republican laws
and sign agreements in mosques which regulate all the conditions of the use of lands.
When people decide to act this way, there is no ideology behind it.
It is just an attempt to find an easier system of regulating the use of land.
Spontaneous emergence of a parallel legal reality is a problem for a government
but one has to understand what it is caused by.
And it is caused by extremely sophisticated regulations of land relations provided
by means of republican laws.
The third problem as I have said are consequences of deportations.
Most often people talk in this instance about Prigorodny District of North Ossetia.
In fact there is a land problem there, even on two levels:
it is a problem of borders and a problem of land provision to Ingush displaced persons.
However, I would not focus on Prigorodny District talking about consequences of deportations
because in my opinion the problem of it is the most important one today
and it is not a land problem, but a general problem of return of displaced persons
and it evokes not only the problems related to the use of land but also a number of other questions
in the field of humanities.
The problem of return of deported people is wider; it was almost always accompanied by problems.
For instance, when people returning from deportation changed the area of their settlement.
For example, when the Karachay came back to Karachay-Cherkessia from deportation
they have considerably moved deeper in plains as compared with the area of settlement
they used to have before 1943 which lead to a considerable redistribution of land resources.
Deeper and more complicated consequences of deportations are seen in Dagestan.
It is a paradox since there were no deportations in Dagestan
if we do not count the Chechens who used to live on the Dagestani plain.
However after the deportation of Chechens about 16 thousand of Dagestani mountainous households
were in fact forced to resettle on territories which were vacant after the deportations of Chechens,
on the Dagestani plane as well as on territories of Checheno-Ingushetia
which was in the process of liquidation.
In 1957 when the Chechens came back, these settlers had to go back,
but not to mountaints, to the Dagestani plane.
This resettlement had very serious consequences since all the interested parties
had every right to consider themselves as affected:
twice deported mountainous hill people as well as residents of plains
who had to give up large pieces of lands to new settlers and sometimes even shared their houses with them.
Every time when today in Dagestan there are land conflicts between new and authentic villages,
the memory of the past emerges immediately and aggravates the situation.
I saw in one of the new settlements in Dagestani mountains in the pastoral Khasavyurtovsky region
where land conflicts with other neighbouring settlements have been ongoing for already almost 20 years,
that the head of this settlement has documents from the 1950s.
These documents prove that residents of his settlement moved from Chechnya to the plain
were not dependant on the local population, came with their own possessions and cattle.
Thus, the memory of the past becomes an argument in contemporary controversies.
It happens quite often in regard to territories where the ethnic component
has changed as a result of deportations and returns from deportations.
The example I have just given demonstrates a more general problem -
the problem of ideologization of land controversies and its immediate enrichment with interethnic component.
Sometimes it emerges from very small problem.
For instance, I will not even mention the name of the region because
so far luckily this instance has not yet been covered by federal media and did not receive
any coverage which usually is only harmful for conflicts.
I will give the example without mentioning geographical location.
In one of the North Caucasian republic recently new municipal regions have been created
and between two settlements which happened to be in two different regions
there is an on-going twenty years old land controversy for 500 hectares of pastures and hayfields.
The border of regions separated one of the villages from the controversial piece of land.
Immediately and naturally this controversy became more acute and received new meaning.
Not only did the land pass to another village, but also to another region.
There is also a danger of fulfilling this controversy with an ethnic component.
Any decisions regarding land in North Caucasus even a very technical
one can have rather dangerous consequences.