Spokesman of the Dagestani leader Rasul Khaybulayev said that the idea to change some ethnic republics in Russia was false, RIA Novosti reports.
Izvestia reported that there was an idea to change names of republics from their ethnic nominations to geographic. Thus, Kabardino-Balkaria would become the Elbrus Republic, Tatarstan the Kazan Republic, Bashkortostan the Ufa Republic.
Abdul-Nasir Dibirov, head of the Dagestani Institute for Economy and Politics, believes that all republics, including the ones in the North Caucasus, are multiethnic and selection of a single nationality would be wrong.
Akhmat Erkenov, an MP from Karachay-Cherkessia, says that there is nothing wrong in having regions of single ethnicities. President of Karachay-Cherkessia formed the Abazinsky and Nogaysky Districts in 2007 to end social tensions in the area.
Valery Tishkov, Director of the Institute for Ethnology and Anthropology of the RAS, a co-author of the strategy for Russia’s national policy, supposes that changing names of republics would cause repercussions, including amendments to the Constitution of Russia. He reminded about examples of ethnic territorial formation in the world, especially in Western Europe.
