Insight, from "The Union Moujik", into Russia and the Countries of the Former USSR (Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia #Georgia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, kazakhstan, Turmenistan #Uzbekistan, Krygyzstan, Tadjikistan)

 Glossary of "The Union Moujik"

 

 

ABKHAZIA	An autonomous republic in the former Georgia SSR. Now a rebellious secessionist region of Georgia and homeland to a Northwestern Caucasian-speaking people called Abkhazians.
ACRE	A coastal town in Northern Israel.
ADZHARIA	An autonomous republic in the former Georgia SSR in the Southwest. The homeland of the Adzharians, an ethnographic Georgians group that is also found in Turkey.
AFULA	A small city located in the Galilee, Israel.
ALMA-ATA	The capital of the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, which is located in Central Asia.
ARMENIA	A former Soviet Republic and now an independent nation in the Caucasus.
ASHKABAD	Capital of the former Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan, which is located in Central Asia
ASHKENAZIM	Jews descended from Jewish communities in Northern Europe
ASTRAKHAN	A city on the northern shores of the Caspian Sea in the Russian Federation, a center for caviar.
AVAR	A Northeastern Caucasian people living mainly in the Russian republic of Dagestan and in Azerbaijan.
AZERBAIJAN	A former Soviet Republic and now an independent nation in the North Caucasus. Its people are Turkic speaking.
BAKU	The capital of the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, located in the South Caucasus.
BALKARS	A people of the Circasssian or Cherkess group found in the autonomous Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in the Russian Federation, situated in the North Caucasus.
BASHKIRS	A Turkic speaking people of the Russian Federation found mostly in the autonomous republic of Bashkhorstan.
BELARUS	The former Soviet Republic of Byelorussia (White Russia), now an independent country in Eastern Europe. Belarus means “White Rus”.
BELORUSSIA	A former soviet republic to the west, now an independent nation called Belarus or White Rus. It is the homeland of the East Slavic people in the northwestern part of European Russia (Central Russia or Western Russia)
BERBERS	Considered the indigenous peoples of North Africa, west of the Nile Valley, the Berber languages are of the Afro-asiatic linguistic group and their tongues are closely related to Semitic and Chadic languages. They speak a broad range of related dialects called Tamazight of which Tashelhiyt, Tarifit, Kabyle, Tuareg, Riffian, Atlas Tamazight and Shawiya (Chaouïa) are the most popular. Most of the Berber populations of North Africa have been Arabized to the extent that less than thirty percent of Berbers are native speakers of their mother tongue, leaving the number of speakers to range between 30-40 million.
BIROBIDZHN	The capital of the Jewish Autonomous Republic, a remote territory in the Russian Far East.
BULGARS	A people of Bulgarian descent found mostly in Moldavia.
BURYAKS	A people of Mongol stock in the Buryak autonomous Republic in Eastern Siberia and west of Lake Baikal in the Russian Federation.
CAUCASIAN	A native of the Caucasus. Also used to describe a member of the white race or a person belonging to one of the main ethnological divisions of mankind, which is native to Europe, North Africa, Western Asia and Central Asia.
CAUCASUS	A region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea at the southeastern edge of Europe, lying south of the Volga and Don rivers. It is dissected from west to east by the Caucasus Mountain.
CHECHEN	A people speaking the Nakh family of languages that belong to the broader Northeast Caucasian or Nakho-Dagestanian group of languages.
CHECHNYA	A self-declared independent Republic of the Russian Federation and homeland to the Chechen people.
CHEREMIS	Also called Mari, they are a Finno-Ugric speaking nationality of the Volga-Finnic subgroup, found in the Russian Federation.
CHERKESS	Also called Circassians, the Cherkess are the largest family of the Northwest Caucasian or Abkhazo-Adyghean group of languages. It also comprises the Karbadinian and Adyghe speakers, peoples whose autonomous republics are in the Russian Federation.
CHUKCHI	The indigenous people of Chukotka Peninsula speaking an ancient language (Chukchi) of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan family of languages belonging to the larger Paleosiberian or Paleoasian group of languages.
CHUMIKAN	A town in the Russian Far East.
CHUVASH	An autonomous Finno-Ugrian republic in the Russian Federation.
COLOURED	Also called Bruin Afrikaners (Brown Afrikaners) in Afrikaans, the term colored is used to describe the mixed-race people in South Africa, who are not fully Black, White, Indian, Asian or Black. The majority are Griqua.
COSSACKS	Derived from a Turkic word meaning “free-wanderer” or “adventurer”, the Cossacks originated from Eastern Slavs who, in search of a new way of life, left the Slav principalities in the Dnieper basin and shared the nomadic way of life with peoples of the steppe, mostly of Turkic origin, with whom they intermarried. Constantly reinforced by escaped Serfs, the Cossacks had already formed nine groupings (voiskoi), each headed by an ataman, before they were absorbed into the Russian empire. The Don voiskoi was the largest and most important. Others included Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan, and Orenburg, Urals, Siberian, Trans-Baikal, Amur and Ussuri groupings.
CRIMEAN TATARS	A Turkic-speaking people of the Crimea Peninsula in Ukraine. They are made up of three sub-ethnic groups speaking different dialects. There is a large Crimean Tatar Diaspora abroad, especially in Turkey.
DAGESTAN	An autonomous republic in the Russian Federation populated by many nationalities in the Caucasus. The different indigenous nationalities are either Turkic speaking (20%) or Northeast Caucasian (Nakho—Dagestanian)
DUSHANBE	The capital city of Tajikistan, a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia and homeland to a Persian speaking people.
DRUZE	A people of mixed descent from Arab, Persian, Canaanite, and other peoples. The Druze people occupy the mountainous districts in the south of Syria and parts of Israel and Lebanon, and practice a religion that contains elements in the bible, in the Koran, and of Agnosticism, etc.
EILAT	A resort town and a bustling port at Israel’s southernmost tip, combining the Red Sea and the Negev Desert.
ESTONIA	A former Soviet republic in the Baltic. Its people are Finno-Ugrian.
EVENKI	A Tungusic people in Eastern Siberia. Formerly known as Tungus.
FALASHA	Semitic-speaking Jews of Ethiopia believed to be the descendants of king Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
FRUNZE	The capital of Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia and homeland of Turkic-speaking peoples.
GAGAUZINS	A Turkic-speaking people that are a minority in Moldavia.
GEORGIA	A former Soviet Republic and an independent Orthodox nation in the South Caucasus.
GERMANS (Volga)	Descendants of the Germanic-speaking peoples who were invited to settle in Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great.
GILYAK	Otherwise known as the Nivkhs, the Gilyaks are an ancient people of North Sakhalin and the estuary region of the Amur river. Their language is often classified as a member of the Paleosiberian group of languages.
GOPAK	A popular Ukrainian folk dance.
GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR	The Second World War (WW II), as it is called by citizens of the republics of the former Soviet Union.
GRIQUA	An Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin that came about from the intermarriages and sexual relations between the early European settlers and the indigenous Khoisan populations.
GROZNY	The capital of Chechnya in the Caucasus of the Russian Federation.
GYPSY (TSYGAN)	A wandering people of Indian origin. Tsygans, Romanis or Gypsies are dark-skinned in complexion and speak a Romany dialect or language.
HAIFA	The largest city in Northern Israel and a major port.
HORA	Jewish folk dance.
INGUSH	A people speaking one of the Nakh family of languages that belong to the broader Northeast Caucasian or Nakho-Dagestanian group of languages.
INGUSHETIA	An autonomous republic in the Russian Federation, found in the Caucasus and homeland of the Ingush people of that region.
JEW	A person of Hebrew descent or an adherent of Judaism, one of the world’s monotheistic religions.
KALMYKS	The only Mongolic people or people of Mongolic nationality in Europe. Their homeland is today an autonomous republic northwest of the Caspian Sea in the Russian Federation.
KARACHAI	A Turkic-speaking people of the north Caucasus. Found in the Karachay-Cherkessia Autonomous Republic in the Russian Federation that they share with the Cherkess or Circassians.
KARBADIANS	A people of the Circassian or Cherkess family of the broader Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Abkhazo-Adyghean. Found mostly in the autonomous republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in the Russian Federation.
KARAKALPAK	A Turkic people in Northern Uzbekistan with a homeland in an autonomous republic of the same name.
KAZAKHSTAN	A former Soviet Republic and independent nation in the north of Central Asia and parts of Europe. Ethnic Kazakhs are Turkic speaking but are more Mongolic in genetic composition.
KAZAN	Capital and largest city in the autonomous Republic of Tatarstan in the Northern Volga region of the Russian Federation.
KIEV	The capital city of Ukraine and seat of the first East Slavic empire—Kievan Rus (Kievan Russia).
KYRGYZSTAN	A former Soviet Republic in Central Asia. Ethnic Kyrgyzs are Turkic speaking.
KHARKOV	Second largest city in Ukraine and the first industrial city, with a majority population of ethnic Russians.
KISHINEV (CHISINAU)	The capital of the former Soviet republic of Moldavia in Eastern Europe.
KOMI	A Finno-Ugrian people with an autonomous republic in the north of European Russia, in the Russian Federation.
KOREANS	Found mostly in Central Asia, they were transferred from Asia, around the Primorski territory during the Second World War. They are a Mongoloid people.
KORYAK	A closely related people to the Chukchi, found mostly in the Kamchatka peninsula in the Far East of the Russian Federation. Koryaks speak a Palaeosiberian language.
KUMYK	A Turkic-speaking people in the Russian Caucasus.
KURDS	An Iranian-speaking people in the Middle East, with a few thousand in the former Soviet Union, mostly in the South Caucasus.
KUBAN	Name of a River and Cossack group in the Northern Caucasus.
KVAS	A Russian beer made from black or regular rye bread.
KUKINGRAD	The capital of the Soyuz Republic.
LAK	One of the several nationalities of Dagestan Republic in the Russian Federation, speaking the Lak language, which forms an isolated family in the Northeast Caucasian languages, also called Nakho-Dagestanian.
LATVIA	A former Soviet Republic in the Baltic. Its Lettish people are of Lithuan origin.
LITHUANIA	A former Soviet republic in the Baltic. Ethnic Lithuanians are related to the Latvians.
LVOV (LVIV)	A city in the northwest of Ukraine in the Carpathian and stronghold of Ukrainian nationalists.
MAGADAN	A city and capital of Magadan Oblast in the Russian Far East. It is also a major fishing center in the North Pacific.
MAGYARS	The peoples of Hungary and elsewhere of Finno-Ugric speech. Found as a substantial minority in neighboring Slovakia, Rumania and Serbia.
MARI	An autonomous republic in the Russian Federation. Also called Cheremis, they are a Finno-Ugrian people in the northern Volga region.
MAZEPA, IVAN	A Zaporozhian Cossack and Hetman of the Left Bank Ukraine Hetmanate, he later switched his loyalty against the Russian Czar, siding with Sweden. He ended up in exile where he died.
MAZURKA	A popular Polish folk dance.
MESKHETS	A Turkic-speaking people of mixed Turkish and Georgian descent (from the ancient Meskhi tribe) who were deported by Iosif Stalin to Central Asia, accused of collaborating with the Germans.
MESKHETI	A region of the ancient Meskhi tribe, that exists known today as the Georgian province of Samtskhe-Javakheti, known for having ethnic Armenians as the majority of its population.
MIZRAHIM	Near-eastern or Oriental Jews, or people who descend from ancient Jewish communities in Muslim lands.
MOLDOVIA	Former Soviet republic in Eastern Europe. Ethnic Moldovans are Latin speaking and are related to Rumanians.
MONGOLIC	An Altaic group of languages spoken in scattered patches across the Eurasian landmass, with Mongolia being the center and the Kalmyks being the westernmost fringe.
MOSCOW	The capital city of the former Soviet Union and the capital city of the Russian Federation.
MUSCOVY	The principality of Moscow that was expanded under the Rurikovich dynasty and transformed through further expansions into the Russian empire under the Romanov dynasty.
MORDVINIA	An autonomous republic in the upper Volga region in the Russian Federation. Its people are Finno-Ugrian.
NAKH	The family of languages spoken by the Chechen, Ingush, Bats and Kist people of the Caucasus. It is recognized as a branch of the Northeast Caucasian group of languages.
NAKHICHEVAN	An Azerbaijani enclave and autonomous republic located between Armenian and Iranian territories.
NARGONYY	A new settlement in Southern Yakutia.
NARGONY- KARABAKH	An Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan that was wrestled from Azerbaijan by ethnic Armenians following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is an unrecognized state today and constitutes one of the frozen conflicts in the post-Soviet world.
NENET	A Samoyedic people of northern Siberia.
ODESSA	A seaport on the Black Sea. It is also the capital of the Odessa region. The city was built and settled by a multinational population from all over the world, and was once the third city in the Russian Empire after Moscow and St. Petersburg. Odessa also exported its population back from where it had come from.
OSSETS	A Caucasian people with an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation and an autonomous area in Georgia (Southern Ossetia).
OSTYAK	Any of the members of the Finno-Ugric peoples inhabiting Western Siberia. They are divided into the Khanty, Yenisei, and Samoyedic Ostyaks.
PENZHINO	A town in the Kamchatka.
PONTIAN GREEKS	The Hellenic peoples of the Soviet Union mostly concentrated around the Black Sea shore, especially in Odessa in Ukraine. They are also scattered all over the former Soviet Union.
PUGACHEV, EMELYAN	Don Cossack revolutionary leader who led a peasant uprising against the Russian monarchy in the 18th century.
RAZIN, STEPAN	Don Cossack revolutionary leader who led a peasant uprising from the Volga region in the 17th century.
RIGA	The capital city of the former Soviet republic of Latvia.
RODINA	A Russian word for “Motherland.”
ROSH PINNA	A town in Northern Galilee, Israel.
RUSSIA	Former Soviet republic, former empire—successor to Kievan Rus and today an independent country called The Russian Federation. Ethnic Russians, otherwise known as Great Russians are the distinct people who evolved from the East Slavic or Rus peoples of Central Europe.
SABRA	An Israeli born Jew.
SAFED	A town in Northern Galilee, Israel.
SARANSK	A city in the Volga region in the Russian Federation.
SEPHARDIM	Jews from Spain, Portugal, North Africa, and other Mediterranean areas.
SERBS	A Southern Slav people in Yugoslavia with pockets found in parts of the former Soviet Union.
SLAVS	People of Slavic speech, a division of Indo-European tongues. Divided into Eastern, Western and Southern Slavs.
SORBS	A Western Slav people found mostly in the eastern parts of Germany.
SOUTH OSSETIA	A de facto independent republic within Georgia, which declared its independence in the 1990s, although its separation from Georgia has not been recognized by any other country.
SOYUZGRAD	The word means “Union city” in the Russian language.
STAVROPOL	A Russian city and oblast in the north Caucasus. Birthplace of Mikhail Gorbachev.
SUKHUMI	The capital of the Abkhazia Republic that seceded from Georgia.
TABASARANS	A nationality in the autonomous republic of Dagestan in the Russian Federation. The people speak Tabasaran, which is considered a language in the Lezgic family that belongs to the broader Northeast Caucasian languages, also called Nakho-Dagestanian.
TALININ	The capital of the former Soviet Republic of Estonia.
TASHKENT	The capital of the former Soviet Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan.
TATARS	A Mongolio-Turkic people of the former Soviet Union. Found mostly in Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. They comprise Volga (Kazan) Tatars, Crimean Tatars, Lipka Tatars and Siberian (Baraba) Tatars.
TBILISI	The capital of the former Soviet republic of Georgia in the Caucasus.
TEL-AVIV	Meaning “hill of spring,” it is the first all-Jewish city in modern times. Originally named Ahuzat Bayit in 1909 when it was founded by 60 families in 1909. The name was changed to Tel Aviv in 1910.
TEMANIM	Yemeni and Omani Jews.
TIBERIAS	A town in Israel situated at the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, in a depression 205 meters below sea level.
TIRASPOL	Industrial heartland of the former Soviet republic of Moldavia and capital of the breakaway republic of Transnistria.
TRANSNISTRIA	A breakaway territory from the former Soviet republic of Moldavia.
TREPAK	A Russian-Ukrainian dance of Cossack origin, performed in a quick duple manner.
TUNGUS	The old name of the Evenks in Siberia and the Russian Far East. The Evenks, along with other Tungusic peoples, speak languages and dialects that are all part of the Altaic linguistic branch.
TURANIAN	A term formerly used in grouping together the Korean, Japanese, Caucasian, Dravidian languages; and the larger Ural-Altaic language division comprising Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, Samoyedic, and Finnic speakers.   The term is used also for the Paleosiberian speaking populations of north-eastern Siberia and some parts of the Russian Far East. Their languages do not have any linguistic relationship to each other, but are known to predate the more dominant Tungusic and latter Turkic languages that swept over the area.
TURKIC	A branch of the Ural-Altaic languages, stretching from modern day Turkey all the way to the Sakha Republic in the Russian Far East.
TUVA	An autonomous republic in the Russian Federation. Even though ethnic Tuvas or Tuvinians are Turkic-speaking, they are Mongolic, Turkic, and Samoyedic in descent.
VOLGA TATARS	Volga Tatars constitute a majority in the autonomous republic of Tatarstan in the Russian Federation, whose capital is Kazan. They are a mixed Mongolio-Turkic people considered to have descended largely from the historic Volga Bulgars.
UDMURT	A Finno-Ugrian people of Central European Russia. They also constitute an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation.
UFA	A town in the Bashkir autonomous republic in the Russian Federation.
UIGHURS	A Turkic-speaking people found in the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, while the majority live in the Uighur homeland in the Sinkiang province in China.
VILNIUS	The capital of the former Soviet republic of Lithuania.
UKRAINE	A former Soviet republic, the heartland of the first Russian empire (Kievan Rus). Ukrainians or Little Russians are the distinct peoples who evolved from the East Slavic people of that area.
YAROSLAVL	Ancient Russian town and principality in the Russian Federation.
YAKUTIA (SAKHA)	An autonomous republic in the Russian Federation, named after the indigenous Yakut people.
YAKUTS	A Turkic speaking people of the Russian Far East, mostly in the Yakutia Republic, known today as the Sakha Republic.
YAKUTSK	The capital of the Yakutia (Sakha) Autonomous Republic in the Russia Federation.
YEREVAN	The capital of the former Soviet republic of Armenia.
YUKAGHIR	A Paleosiberian-speaking people with a uniquely unrelated language, inhabiting the extreme northeast of Siberia, in the Russian Far East.
ZAPOROZHIAN COSSACK	The Cossack group, host or voiskoi of Zaporozhia in Central Ukraine. It was first formed by former dwellers of Kievan Rus prior to and after the Mongol invasion, who found sanctuary in the steppes of the lower Dnieper region. Their numbers were swollen over the years by escaped serfs from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and from the growing Czarist Russia.
ZULU	The largest African or Bantu ethnic group in South Africa, speaking a language that belongs to the Nguni subgroup. Brought to prominence as a warrior people by the legendary Shaka, they spread beyond their homeland in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, to other parts of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Swaziland.

 

 

The Union Moujik

by Janvier Chando, 

TRUMP, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, AND THE MILLENNIAL WAR ON RUS: And The Path to a New Ukraine

Ukraine: The Tug-of-war between Russia and the West

by Janvier T. Chando, Tisi Books, et al.