The Black Sea Coast as an Integral Part of Circassia: Past, Present, and Future
The Center for Strategic Studies of the Circassian socio-political organization “Khabze” is launching a series of articles dedicated to historical Circassia, its lost territories, the current situation of the Circassian people, and possible strategies for restoring our presence in the land of our ancestors.
The first article of the series is dedicated to Black Sea Circassia – the coastline from Taman and Anapa to Sochi and the border with Abkhazia. For most people today, these are resorts, ports, military bases, roads, and tourist brands. For Circassians, however, this is not just a Black Sea strip, but one of the key parts of our historical Homeland: a land of exile, the loss of the sea, a devastated demography, and at the same time – a direction for the future return of memory, rights, and presence.
Historical Background
Black Sea Circassia is the key to understanding the entire Circassian catastrophe. As long as the Circassians held the coast, the Northwestern Caucasus had an outlet to the outside world: to the Ottoman Empire and European countries, to trade, diplomacy, weapons, allies, and maritime communications. After the defeat and exile, this door was closed. The Caucasian frontier was transformed into a Russian southern bastion, and the Circassian people into a fragmented population of internal republics, diasporas, and small enclaves. It is exactly with this loss of the sea and the interruption of direct communication with the outside world that it is logical to start the conversation about the modern Circassian question: in the following articles of the series, we will see how this trauma continues in the fate of Adygea, Kuban, Kabarda, and the entire Central Caucasus.
Historically, our ancestors lived in the vast expanse of the Northwestern Caucasus: from the Kuban, the Azov region, and the foothills to the northeastern coast of the Black Sea. Speaking specifically about the Black Sea strip, this is the space from Taman and Anapa through the Tsemes Bay, Novorossiysk, Gelendzhik, Tuapse, Lazarevskoye, and Sochi to the border with Abkhazia. Natukhais, Shapsugs, and Ubykhs lived here; alongside them were Abzakhs and other Western Adyghe groups. The Natukhais occupied the area of Anapa, Taman, Novorossiysk, and the lower Kuban. The Shapsugs lived in the area of Gelendzhik, Tuapse, Lazarevskoye, in the river valleys and foothills. The Ubykhs occupied the southern part of the Circassian Black Sea coast – the area of present-day Greater Sochi, Shakhe, Khosta, Mzymta, and adjacent lands.
These were not random highlanders on the edge of the empire, but the indigenous population of the region, possessing its own social structure, political culture, military tradition, kinship ties, language, customs, diplomacy, trade contacts, and its own understanding of freedom. Circassia was not only a mountainous country. It was a mountain-plain-maritime space, and this is exactly what made it dangerous to imperial logic: a people that has mountains, plains, and a sea is harder to isolate, harder to suppress, and harder to turn into an object of control.
After the Russian-Caucasian War, most of the Circassian population was killed, died of hunger, disease, and deprivation, or was expelled to the Ottoman Empire. The Ubykhs as a Circassian sub-ethnos disappeared from the Homeland. Their language died as a living language as early as the 20th century. The Natukhais were almost completely driven out. The Shapsugs, once one of the most important provinces of Black Sea Circassia, have survived in Russia today only in small groups, mainly in the Krasnodar Territory, in the Tuapse and Lazarevskoye districts of Sochi.
It is the Shapsugs today who remain a living, although extremely small, testament to our presence on the Black Sea coast. Their historical memory is connected with the auls of Bolshoy Kichmay, Maly Kichmay, Tkhagapsh, Kalezh, Lygotkh, Khadzhiko, Nadzhigo, Agua-Shapsug, and other settlements. These are not “ethnographic decorations” of the resort zone, but the remnants of an indigenous people who survived the war, exile, Soviet administrative dissolution, post-Soviet marginalization, and the ongoing pressure of the demographic environment. The Shapsugs had their own national district, created during the Soviet period and liquidated in 1945. The very fact of its existence is important: even the Soviet government at a certain point was forced to recognize the distinctiveness of this population. But then this subjectivity was curtailed again. We will return to the Shapsug question in the next article dedicated to Adygea and Kuban, because it is through it that it becomes clear: the Black Sea region is not only the past but also the last living line of Circassian presence on the western flank of the Caucasus.
The Wound Has Not Yet Healed
Today, the situation of the Black Sea Shapsugs shows that the Circassian problem does not belong only to the 19th century. This is not a closed historical chapter, it is a modern reality: weak representation, limited language opportunities, the erosion of auls, economic vulnerability, the pressure of a mass resort and construction economy, the disappearance of toponyms, and poor visibility in the public space. In a region where everything speaks of the sea, ports, tourism, and Russian statehood, very little speaks of those who lived here before the conquest and eviction.
The 2014 Olympics in Sochi became a particularly painful symbol for the entire Circassian world. For the Russian state, it was a celebration of imperial prestige, a showcase of power, wealth, and the ability to host global events; for us, it was the hosting of a global festival on the land of tragedy, in the year of the 150th anniversary of the end of the Russian-Caucasian War and mass exile. Circassians all over the world rightfully expected at least minimal recognition: a mention of the indigenous people of Sochi, a respectful gesture, recognition of historical pain, inclusion of Circassian memory in the narrative about the region – but this did not happen. Alas, in the grand state picture, Sochi turned out to be the land of ancient Greeks, Russian achievements, and an Olympic future, but not the land of the Circassians.
This cold silence was not an accident, but a political signal. If Sochi is recognized as Circassian historical land, the issue of exile must be recognized as well. If exile is recognized, the question of the right to return arises. If the right to return is recognized, questions of demography, land, cultural autonomy, toponymy, representation in governance, and historical justice emerge. That is why they preferred to include Circassians at most as a folklore element, but not as a historical subject. Culture is permissible. Political memory is dangerous.
The Strategic Importance of Western Circassia
The Black Sea lands are important not only for Circassians. They are important for the entire Caucasus. Without an outlet to the Black Sea, the North Caucasus remains strategically locked. Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, and all of historical Circassia (which today includes the territories of republics such as Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, North Ossetia) – all of them in one form or another depend on external corridors, on foreign logistics, on foreign ports, on foreign political decisions. Circassia was that Caucasian space that connected the mountains with the sea. Therefore, the destruction and demographic expulsion of Circassians from the coast changed not only the fate of one people – it changed the balance of the entire Caucasus. In the final article of this series, this thesis will be elevated to a pan-Caucasian level: Circassia is important not only as the memory of the Circassians, but also as the western key to the future Caucasian architecture.
For Russia, this coast is also of immense importance. Novorossiysk (in Circassian – Tsemes) is one of Russia’s key ports, a hub for the export of oil, petroleum products, grain, and containers. Tuapse is an important oil and port center. Taman and Port Kavkaz are elements of southern cargo and grain logistics. Energy routes connecting Russia with Turkey and further to Southern Europe pass through the Anapa and Arkhipo-Osipovka region. After the war against Ukraine and the strikes on Sevastopol, the importance of Novorossiysk as a rear base for the Black Sea Fleet has become even higher. That is, the lands of historical Circassia are not a periphery. This is one of the nerve centers of the Russian economy, military strategy, and geopolitics.
Therefore, it is obvious that the Russian Empire did not come to Circassia for the sake of “pacifying wild highlanders” – it came for the sea, ports, roads, military control, the Black Sea flank, and the ability to close off the Caucasus from the outside world. And today’s Russia holds on to these lands for the same structural reasons. This is too valuable a belt for Moscow to ever voluntarily treat the Circassian issue as a matter of justice.
Proposed Action Program in the Current Circumstances
From what has been said above, it does not follow that we have only to sit in historical resentment and wait for a miracle. Whining, crying, and annual discussions of the tragedy bring nothing back on their own. Memory without organization turns into a ritual of powerlessness. Mourning must produce strategy. If we say that this is our historical Homeland, then we are obliged not only to mourn it but to reclaim our place on our land – through law, knowledge, culture, economy, demography, institutions, and long-term work. This idea will run through the entire series: from the Black Sea coast and Kuban to Kabarda and pan-Caucasian geopolitics – memory must become an infrastructure of presence.
We must immediately abandon two extremes. The first extreme is a utopia: as if tomorrow millions of Circassians from Turkey, Jordan, Syria, and Europe will return to the coast and change reality. This will not happen. The diaspora is huge, but heterogeneous. People have families, citizenship, jobs, property, the language of the host country, and a familiar life. Many love Circassia emotionally, but are not ready for a physical return. The second extreme is capitulation: since it cannot be returned quickly, it means nothing should be done. This is also a disastrous mistake. Between fantasy and capitulation, there is a space for a long-term national strategy, in which we propose to work.
So, what specific steps can be taken?
First of all, we must return the map of historical Circassia and Black Sea Circassia to the consciousness of our people and the whole world. It would be good to create a professional atlas: Adyghe toponyms, old auls, lands of the Natukhais, Shapsugs, Ubykhs, Abzakhs, battle sites, eviction sites, cemeteries, sacred places, deportation routes, modern ports, roads, pipelines, military bases, demographic changes. We consider this project quite feasible both financially and professionally. We are talking about a serious, factually justified, scientific and political tool in the Adyghe, Russian, Turkish, English, and Arabic languages. Whoever does not have a map of their land gradually loses the right to speak about it.
The map of historical Circassia must be popularized in every possible way – we should not be ashamed of our history. Without historical justification, we will not be able to claim a future.
Secondly, it is necessary to systematically support the Black Sea Circassians (Shapsugs). This is the frontline remnant of the Circassian presence on the coast. They cannot be left alone with demographic and administrative pressure. We need language programs, legal aid, media support, cultural projects, ethnographic tourism under the control of the Shapsugs themselves, restoration of toponyms, political lobbying and protection of auls from dissolution, work with the youth, scholarships, connections with the KBR, Adygea, KChR, and the diaspora. The Shapsugs are a symbolic and real bridge of the Circassians to the Black Sea.
Thirdly, explanatory and organizational work together with the diaspora is needed to strengthen the demography of Circassians in the Homeland. Not slogans like “we are millions,” but an assessment of real potential: who knows the language, who knows their tribal origin, who is ready to come for a month, a year, or forever, who is ready to invest, who can work as a lawyer, teacher, journalist, entrepreneur, lobbyist, translator, researcher. The national movement must stop counting mythical maximums and start gathering an organized core. Ten thousand disciplined people will do more than several million passive observers. At this stage, it is extremely important to enlist the support of lobbies and attract lawyers to accompany the processes of crossing borders and adaptation.
Repatriation must be built in small, sustainable waves. Not from fantasies of mass return to Sochi or Anapa, but from realistic directions: Shapsug districts of the Krasnodar Territory, educational centers, small businesses, housing, jobs, language adaptation. Return is not an emotional impulse, but an infrastructure, and among us must be those who are capable of organizing it competently.
Fourthly, an economic presence should be created. A people that talks about the land but does not have houses, plots, foundations, schools, cultural centers, cooperatives, media, and legal organizations on it remains a people of memory, but does not become a people of action. Accordingly, educational foundations, research centers, grant programs, tourist routes, publishing houses, documentary films, legal teams, and international ties must be created in the region. We need to secure our hold on the land. Memory must turn into assets.
Fifthly, we must speak with the other peoples of the Caucasus not in the language of exclusivity, but in the language of a common strategic reality. Yes, the Black Sea region is the historical Homeland of the Circassians, this must be stated directly and recognized. But the significance of this issue is broader, and without the Circassian maritime dimension, the Caucasus remains a locked space. Any serious conversation about the future subjectivity of the peoples of the Caucasus inevitably runs into the issue of the sea, corridors, ports, and external relations. Therefore, the Circassian issue is not a narrow ethnic whim, but a part of a large Caucasian geopolitical problem. Our task is to convey this idea to our neighbors.
At the same time, one should not speak the language of revenge and expulsion of the current population – this would be morally wrong and strategically destructive. Our position should be more mature: not the expulsion of others, but the return of ourselves; not chaos, but law; not revanchism, but historical justice; not a threat, but the restoration of the legitimate presence of the indigenous people on their land. We must not copy the logic of those who once deprived us of our Homeland.
Summary
Our main task today is to turn the Circassian Black Sea coast from a theme of pain into a theme of strategy. Sochi, Tuapse, Gelendzhik, Novorossiysk (Tsemes), Anapa, Taman must re-enter Circassian thinking not as resort names on someone else’s map, but as parts of the historical space of the people. Not in order to announce impossible plans tomorrow, but so that a generation later no one could say: “What do Circassians have to do with this?”
Let us be straightforward: there will be no easy victory and quick return. The state that controls these territories will not give up the symbols, ports, coast, and history voluntarily. But a people that remembers, studies, organizes, supports its own, creates institutions, and works for decades has a chance for a real return of influence.
We need to become a people of long-term strategy. A people that remembers the sea not only as a loss, but as a direction for the future.
The Circassian nation lives!
Center for Strategic Studies of the Circassian socio-political organization “Khabze”.