The Khwarshi people are a
North Caucasian people living in
Dagestan, in several small settlements. The Khwarshi are originally from the southeastern part of
Tsumadinsky District, where seven Khwarshi settlements are located:
Upper- and
Lower Inkhokwari village (iqqo),
Kwantlada village (kʼoλoqo),
Santlada village (zoλuho),
Khwarshi village (aλʼiqo),
Khonokh (honoho) and
Khwayni village (ečel). They do not have an
ethnonym for themselves as a united people, but instead they refer to themselves according to the settlement they are from. Thus they call themselves the Inkhokwari people (ixizo), the Kwantlada people (kʼoλozo), the Santlada people (zoλozo), the Khwarshi people (aλʼizo), the Khonokh people (honozo) and the Khwayni people (ečezo).
During August 1944, the Khwarshi were deported to
Vedeno
Vedeno (russian: Ведено; ce, Ведана, ''Vedana'') is a rural locality (a '' selo'') and the administrative center of Vedensky District, Chechnya.
Administrative and municipal status
Municipally, Vedeno is incorporated into Veden ...
and
Rityalb, but by 1957 30% of them had returned to the traditional settlements again, while the rest had emigrated to the
Kizilyurtovsky- and
Khasavyurtovsky districts, meaning that today there is also Khwarshis to be found in
Komsomolskoe and
Kizilyurt in Kizilyurtovsky, and in
Oktyabrskoe,
Pervomayskoe and
Mutsalaul in Khasavyurtovsky. In fact, today the majority of Khwarshis, some 7,000, live outside the traditional settlements, while the remaining 1,500 live in the settlements.
They speak
Khwarshi, a
Tsezic language. They are traditionally
Sunni Muslims,
living off
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khwarshi People
Ethnic groups in Dagestan
Peoples of the Caucasus
Muslim communities of Russia