One of Russia’s poorest regions, Dagestan, is also the region that has lost the most men to the war in Ukraine. “There are so many funerals that one runs into them by accident,” heitmannnanna and keithgessen write.
The first Russian soldier officially killed in action in Ukraine was a square-jawed twenty-five-year-old named Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov. According to the Ministry of Defense, he was caught in an ambush during the initial phaseand blew himself and the surrounding Ukrainians up with a grenade. When President Vladimir Putin announced that he was awarding the country’s highest honor—a Hero of Russia medal—to Gadzhimagomedov, he stressed that the senior lieutenant was from Dagestan.
A traditional mourning gathering held two weeks after the death of Gasanbek Agabekov, a twenty-four-year-old contract soldier.The Moscow-based photographer Nanna Heitmann recently travelled to Dagestan to talk with families and friends of the deceased. She found people who were deeply traumatized by loss, but who for the most part kept up a patriotic front. Parents, in particular, were adamant that their sons had died in a heroic cause.
Khadizhat Saikumov is a schoolteacher, in her late forties, who lives in the beautiful hillside village of Verkhneye Kazanishche, about an hour’s drive from Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala. She and her husband, Rasul, live in a house flanked by fields of chamomile and grazing cows. Both are mourning their eldest son, Makhach, who joined the military right out of high school. In January, Makhach got married, and he could have declined to join the invasion.
Khadizhat is more stoic. In her large, tidy home, she said that she supported the war simply because Makhach had fought in it. “Makhach was a very religious boy,” she said. “If it wasn’t a just operation, he would not have gone to fight.” Her explanations aligned with Kremlin messaging—the Ukrainians were Nazis, and they wanted to spread homosexuality to Russia. “I love Ukraine and Ukrainian culture,” Khadizhat said. “They’re a very good people. But the ones who have taken over there . . .
It had been two weeks since Gasanbek’s funeral. According to the local imam, fifteen other men from the area had died in the war. In Dagestan, family members of the deceased meet at regular intervals to grieve, and more than a dozen were now present for a memorial service. In a nearby cemetery, the imam recited suras from the Quran as everyone prayed. “The Almighty is the One who created life and death,” the imam said. “Only for this, to test man.
Chokhkommuna is a small village that lies high up in the mountains in the center of the republic. The roads there wind up and down steep serpentines. From parts of the village, you can look down at Gunib, a picturesque fortress that featured prominently in the Caucasian War of the nineteenth century. Imam Shamil, the leader of the Chechen and Daghestani tribes, made his last stand against the Russians at Gunib, before surrendering on August 25, 1859.
The parents of Gusein Gasimov, a twenty-three-year-old war casualty, received an Order of Courage after his death. They had begun building a house for their son, and aim to finish it.Abraham Arabchanov, an imam and teacher, lost his son, Kemran, in March. Kemran left behind a wife and two daughters.
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