158th anniversary of the Circassian Genocide

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21 May marks the anniversary of Circassian genocide and exile of 1864.

The Circassian genocide was the Russian Empire's systematic mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and expulsion of 80–97% of the Circassian population, around 800,000–1,500,000 people, during and after the Russo-Circassian War (1763–1864). Russian generals such as Grigory Zass described the Circassians as "subhuman filth", and glorified the mass murder of Circassian civilians, justified their use in scientific experiments and allowed their soldiers to rape women.

During the Russo-Circassian War, Russian Empire employed a genocidal strategy of massacring Circassian civilians. Only a small percentage who accepted Russification and resettlement within the Russian Empire were completely spared. Circassian villages would be located and burnt, systematically starved, or their entire population massacred. Sir Pelgrave, a British diplomat who witnessed the events, adds that "their only crime was not being Russian."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_genocide

Might be interested:@Gov Hooka

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My ancestors. I went to visit one of the first houses my great great great parents had built when they were one of the luckier ones to survive the way to Turkey, once. Only one of the original houses survived to this day, but it felt weird, seeing literal history right in front of my eyes. 

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I find unnerving the lengths to which some are going to play ''devil's advocate'' for Russia'', including the ones on the left. Russia is the colonial empire that got away with being a colonial empire and didn't even gave up of its possesions. Russia had the advantage to colonized Eurasia and not ovearseas islands (Siberia is NOT Russian native land, Siberia was and is still originally inhabited by Turkic and Uralic indigenous populations).  On the same note, Russia is also the country that got away with its WW2 crimes as it happened to be in the winning side (though they were Nazi-allies in the beginning and launched a joint invasion with Germany in Poland). There are numerous accounts of Soviet soldiers raping women and killing civilians and the opression didn't only happen during wartime, but during the entire Soviet rule - unlike the Nazi, they were spared by widespread international juridic repercussion and the world didn't fully ackowledged their crimes.