Federal Lezghi
National and Cultural Autonomy

To Derbent through Baku

About influence of Azerbaijan in Dagestan

  Ruslan Gereev 

Last month we learnt that official Baku intends to invest in economy and infrastructure of the most ancient city of Russia. Hotels, football stadium with the capacity of 7 thousand places, a gym, tennis courts, a shopping center, a school, a logistics center, cannery, a national park, a friendship avenue, and cableways are planned to be built in Derbent. Some building sites are also intended to be constructed in the area of the Naryn-Kala fortress. At the same time some archeological excavations will be continued at the site. The beginning of the construction is scheduled for April 2014, and is planned to be completed at the end of 2015.

Why does the neighboring state invest money to the border Russian city? What is the aim of such investments?

We talked about it to Ruslan Gereev, a well-known Dagestani politician and academician, the director of the North Caucasian Islamic Research Center. During the conversation the expert said that the development of the situation in the East Caucasus is disturbing as Shia Islam is spreading in the region and the outflow of the Dagestan population from the Northern Azerbaijan is increasing. At the same time Ruslan Gereev urged not to blame Azerbaijan "for all the sins" and pointed to the problems that Dagestan has to resolve on its own.

Ruslan, how do you think, will the implementation of the investment projects in Derbent entail political gain of Baku in Dagestan?

Of course it will affect the political situation in the region. Any capital investments of the adjacent republic to the Southern Dagestan currently characterized by poverty and the lack of internal investments will give political preferences to Azerbaijan. It is the obvious fact. Derbent is the southern outpost of Russia, it is impossible to allow that the total amount of investments in the region from the adjacent republic exceeds the amount of investments coming from Russia. It is inadmissible for Russia from the political point of view. Makhachkala doesn't pay any attention to the south of the republic, there is a permanent growth of unemployment rate and the society is being constantly criminalized. And Azerbaijan is going to occupy it.

 

 Derbent 

For the last 20 years no one enterprise was constructed by the state in the Southern Dagestan.  There are just some private productions, but their owners do not provide any social guarantees that meet the requirements of employees and their families who work only for the enrichment of the owners.  In view of the above the huge investments coming from Azerbaijan can become deteriorating for the political situation in the region as the local population will favor the neighbouring country.

How can it affect to upcoming elections of the mayor of Derbent?

Derbent is the strategic city, elections of the mayor will always infringe on the interests of law-enforcement structures. They will be always coordinated with the Kremlin, with the intelligence services. But it doesn't mean that the local Azerbaijanian can't become the mayor. Nowadays the Azerbaijani community is the most powerful in the Southern Dagetsan.

They have very serious political and economic levers. Law-enforcement system, heads of investigation departments, departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Southern Dagestan – in all these sectors the Azerbaijani influence is very great. It is the powerful ethno-clan which is equitable to the interests of the adjacent republic.

Now nobody pays attention to the Lezghin interests. Besides, the permanently growing migration flows of the youth from the Southern Dagestan are still not prevented by the authorities. There is a desertification of the territories. The situation is similar in the North of Azerbaijan where Dagestani peoples live. The Azeri authorities are settling the region historically inhabited Dagestani peoples by Kurds, Nakhichevanis and the Karabakh refugees.

 

The protest against the pumping of groundwater from the Samur forest 

It is known that in the north of Azerbaijan there is a high level of unemployment, people go from there to Baku or Russia. How do you think, why the Azerbaijani authorities, having such problems within the country, invest huge amounts of money into the economy and infrastructure of the foreign city?

Exporting oil and gas Azerbaijan receives huge amounts of revenues coming from abroad. Mass injection of the money in theirown economy will generate hyperinflation and the money will simply be gone. Therefore, Azerbaijan set the goal to strengthen their political and economic influence in our region. And generally, they have already openly declared that it is their territory, and the Russian-Azeri state border should be transferred to the Kayakent region of Dagestan.

This idea is expressed practically at all levels. Yes, unemployment in Azerbaijan is very high, but the departure of the Dagestani people doesn't affect in any way the official statistics of Azrebaijan because the emptied municipalities become populated by Nakhichevanis and Kurds. Such development of the situation is in compliance with the political project of official Baku.

After the deportation of Lezghins from Khrakh-Uba, the village was renamed into Palydly,

and the new inhabitants of the village became Kurds from Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic 

How do you think, is there a concern about the Baku investments into Derbent among the authorities in Makhachkala or Moscow?

Today the authorities don't cope with their responsibilities to provide citizens with normal infrastructure and workplaces. Therefore, they look for support from anywhere.

As for the federal authority, now Moscow is busy with the Crimea, rather than Dagestan. But at the same time we understand the importance celebration the anniversary of Derbent. Officials have already sounded that they failed to meet the deadline scheduled for the celebration and would like to postpone it to 2017.

To meet the newly established deadline they asked for help the Azerbaijani authorities and now jointly prepare for the anniversary. But I would also like to mention that although the Azerbaijani side makes loud statements about the scale of the investments in Derbent, we don't see any embodiment of these plans. It isn't excluded that all these projects are simply a planned information campaign.

Ali Gadjiev

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