Kadyrov's criticism of name of Tsentaroi contradicts historians' data

At the gathering on May 21, villagers of Tsentaroi (Khosi-Yurt) themselves demanded to rename the village in honour of Akhmat Kadyrov, said Ramzan Kadyrov, who had announced that the founder of the village was not a Chechen.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the Chairman (Speaker) of the Chechen Parliament suggested renaming Tsentaroi, the ancestral village of the current head of the republic, to Akhmat-Yurt - in honour of Akhmat Kadyrov, Ramzan's father. On May 21 it was announced that villagers at the gathering unanimously voted to rename their village after Akhmat Kadyrov.

On May 21, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, wrote in his Telegram channel about the gathering held in his ancestral village. "I was informed that it was unanimously decided to rename the village into Akhmat-Yurt. (...) The initiators of renaming the village have also stated that ancestors of Akhmat-Khadji first settled in this place and founded the village. As for Khosi Umakhanov, whose name the village had carried, specialists know that he was not born in this village, he was not a Chechen, and even not a native of Chechnya," the head of Chechnya has stated without specifying the source of this information.

According to Akhmad Suleimanov, a local lore researcher, the village founded in the second half of the 19th century was named "after the first village elder, who was invited by residents from the village of Oisungur."

The name "Tsentaroi" was fixed to the village under the Soviet time; and it comes from the name of the teip Tsentaroi, Movsar Ibragimov, the head of the division of national history of the Chechen State University (ChSU), told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. "And Khosi-Yurt is the original name of the village in honour of its founder, which was in everyday use," said the historian.

"Khosi-Yurt (Tsentaroi) is not Kadyrovs' ancestral; their patrimonial village is Benoi in the Nozhai-Yurt District, from where they descended to the village founded by another Chechen teip – Tsentaroi; therefore, the village has been called Tsentaroi during all these centuries," a Chechen historian told earlier the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent on condition of anonymity.

Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, Director of the Centre for Conflict Analysis and Prevention, is confident that "renaming the village can be called an injection of Kadyrovs' cult in Chechnya." She believes that this trend will survive and continue.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 22, 2019 at 08:13 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.