Pavel Martynov exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
Russian public activists ask the Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu to restore the North Caucasus Suvorov Military School (NCSMS). According to the chairman of the Public Chamber Committee on National Security, Alexander Kanshin, in 2009 the Defense Ministry announced a reduction of admissions to the school, and in 2011 they stopped completely.
Kanshin travelled to North Ossetia in late May and was shocked – the Officer’s Club, which holds the history of Vladikavkaz, was electronically tendered, while the school lost its former status and turned into a cadet corps financed by the republic. When Shoygu was appointed Defense Minister, Moscow agreed to pay a fifth of the expenses, but didn’t return federal status to the school.
“We are interested in an army succession because our Suvorov Military School has a rich history. Guys of more than 20 ethnic groups are studying in the school, most of them are sons of deceased warriors, members of special forces, and law-enforcement agencies. The republic sponsors the Suvorov school, but we need the status – we want our children to be under the Defense Ministry, for they understand that after graduation they would go to military colleges. We need an opportunity to tell them: guys, you can be officers of the Russian army. However, without the status, children get general school certificates, and that’s the end,” the head of North Ossetia Taymuraz Mamsurov says.
According to him, there are only 8 regions in the country with such schools, but when it is about the South of Russia, the Caucasus, the presence of the Suvorov School is the best answer to “stop feeding the Caucasus.”
Considering the importance of the school on training military staff from young people of the North Caucasus republics, Alexander Kanshin requested Shoygu to restore the NCSMS under the jurisdiction of the Defense Ministry and increase subsidies to it by the military ministry.
The current developments in the North Caucasus and the history of the school make them hope that Shoygu will fulfil the request. The Vladikavkaz Cadet Corps was founded by order of Nikolai II in 1901 – for sons of the military serving in the Caucasus, the local nobility and children “selected by the commander of the army.”
The Corps was opened the next year and devoted to the 100th anniversary of Georgia joining Russia. The Vladikavkaz Cadet Corps existed till 1917 in the way it was established. The military school was restored in 1947 and had the name of the North Caucasus Suvorov Military School.
Among 81 natives of the North Caucasus who became Heroes of the Soviet Union, 60 of them graduated from the Suvorov school. Those who stand for returning the status of the Suvorov Military School to the Vladikavkaz Cadet Corps state that its importance in the North Caucasus is hard to exaggerate – it depends on geopolitical, inter-ethnic, and religious conditions in the region.
