Local Circassian reactions to the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games

Abstract

This paper illustrates how a mega-sports event such as the Sochi Olympics can generate renewed spaces for production of knowledge and counter-branding for marginalized groups. As the indigenous people of the area, the Circassians in different ways, locally and transnationally, used the 2014 Sochi Olympics to promote greater knowledge of local Circassian history. Such knowledge was for many decades suppressed, during the Soviet period as well as afterwards, in the Russian Federation. This paper discusses cases of Circassian counter-branding of local history that were observed in connection with the Sochi Olympics and in opposition to the Russian Olympics project. The paper contends that the processes of counter-branding made visible local indigenous knowledge that even the authorities in Sochi have gradually come to accept.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Sochi is located in the Caucasus and this region quickly became known around the world as a place of many different groups that began new, often conflict-laden, processes of re-identification after many years under the Soviet regime.

2. Kuban is the popular name for roughly the same region as Krasnodar Krai.

3. Also earlier visits to the area in 2009, 2011, 2012 – and earlier in 2001 and 1989 – and visits to the Kuban/Krasnodar Krai in 1998. Many field visits to the North Caucasus in general and to the million-strong Circassian diaspora since 2008.

4. Partly inspired by the ‘Shapsug National District’ (raion) that existed from 1924 to 1945.

5. The first Circassian post-Soviet revival took place in the early 1990s.

6. The 33 Waterfalls are located along the Dzhegosh Creek running into Shakhe, and are referred to as a ‘natural monument’ by the Sochi National Park. (2006 folder of postcards: ‘Dolina Legend’).

7. For instance in books published by the Sochi branch of the Russian Geographical Society, in which local history is dealt with more seriously, and in a Sochi National Park publication.

8. The choice of a folder is also a response to a folder earlier published by the authorities that ignored the Circassian version and was available to tourist by the tree.

9. From 2012, unarmed Kuban Cossacks in uniform have been allowed to patrol many cities in Krasnodar Krai (Popov 2014).

10. ‘nash krai rodnoi’, http://kubanovedenie.ru/.

11. Youtube.com.

12. http://adigasite.com/archives/543 (29 March 2012/22 May 2015).

13. A local Shapsug organization has financed a publication that is for sale in Bolshoi Kichmai in relation to various ethno-touristic events: ‘The Ancient Traditions of Sochi’, written and illustrated by Aisa Khapisht, published in Maikop, Adygea in 2010.

14. ‘Prometheus was Sochi’s first Olympic guest. Host city showcases long history of mythology, hospitality’, headline of article (Luchianov 2013).

15. On the website of the Sochi City Administration the story, this is presented as an ancient legend (my translation) ‘told by the indigenous inhabitants of the Black Sea coast in the Caucasus which resonates with the ancient Greek myth about Prometheus’ sochiadm.ru/sochi/lions/peshekhodnye-marshruty/detail.php?ID = 19092, accessed 23 May 2015). Still, at the end of the one-page article it is noted that, this version as well as the statue probably mainly were made to attract tourist.

16. One of 25 so-called ‘hospitality houses’ located with the Olympic Park.