Military psychologist, participant in the two Chechen wars and a team which worked on eliminating the consequences of terrorist attacks in Kizlyar, Buynaksk, Kaspiysk, Vladikavkaz and Beslan, Alexei Zakharov, told Vestnik Kavkaza that people in the Caucasus strive to live in peace.
He noted that people in the Caucasus are no different from people from other regions.
He believes that one of the reasons behind the negative image of Caucasians is the complex geopolitical, unstable situation in the region.
He lamented on the negative effect of stereotypes: "We are used to saying "Caucasian", "a person of Caucasian nationality." If a bad person commits a crime, all the other people - decent, normal people - get the blame as well."
"There are a huge number of different peoples here, including a lot of Russian Caucasians, who are very different from Russians from central Russia... These people are able to get along just fine with Chechens, Ossetians, Ingush, Kabardinians, the peoples of Dagestan," Zakharov said.
To be born in the Caucasus means to be born a warrior, but to be a warrior does not mean to be a barbarian or a scoundrel, Zakharov concluded.
