Kist people

The boxes (Georgian ქისტები, kistebi, Russian kist, kistin, kistinets ) are an ethnic minority in Georgia. She lives mainly in the Pankisi Gorge in the administrative region of Kakheti. In 2004, she was, according to official figures, a total of 12,000, according to unofficial estimates 8,000 people, of whom about 6,000 lived in the Pankisi Gorge. The boxes are committed in the majority Sunni Islam.

History

The boxes are among the Vainach peoples and come from Chechen and Ingush tribes from who immigrated in the 1830s and 1870s in the then uninhabited Pankisi Gorge. The evacuees from the north came mostly out of economic necessity, because of persecution of vendetta or as religious refugees before from Dagestan to Chechnya geschwappten Islamisierungswelle. The first kistische settlement was the village Chorbalo. In 1873 there were 865 cases in the Pankisi Gorge, in 1901 there were 1,352, in 1979 6,000.

Religion

Initially, the boxes known to Christianity. The governor of the district Tianeti, Prince Tscholoqaschwili had made his permission for the settlement of a transfer of immigrants to Christianity depends. Only in the second half of the 20th century changed the majority of the boxes to Islam. Until a few years ago were still living non-Islamic boxes in the village Dschoqolo.

Language, culture

The boxes speak a language of, is also widespread in Chechnya ( wei) nachischen family. The language is almost only spoken, but not written, because it is supposedly not taught in regional schools, for lack of teachers.

Kistische women smoke usually not in public and drink, if at all, only symbolic. Are they married, carry most of the headscarf. The ethnic minority marry mostly among themselves. Marriages with Georgians are rarely discussed, but occur, particularly with neighboring ethnic groups such as the inks.