Women’s rights is probably the most controversial topic in Dagestan, Russian’s North Caucasus republic. Svetlana Anokhina, a women’s rights activist and journalist, who had fled the republic after receiving a death threat, now carries on with her work from far away.

In July 2020 Svetlana Anokhnina a women’s rights activist and journalist based in Dagestan, received a telephone death threat as part of a wider “sorting out the feminists” campaign taking place in the republic. This was not the first threat issued to Svetlana but, unlike before, this time the caller tried to reach her by phone several times, making sure she received his message. And he took no effort to hide his own identification. Svetlana tracked the cell phone number and established the name of its owner. She passed this information to the police. After the investigation had been completed, Svetlana hoped that justice would be fast. Yet, soon after the detective set a meeting with the caller, the local police abruptly stopped providing updates on her case.

An interview with Denis Sokolov, a Russian expert on North Caucasus. Interviewer: Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska.

AGNIESZKA PIKULICKA-WILCZEWSKA: As someone who specialises in the North Caucasus and has done a lot of work in Dagestan, how would you describe the youth there? What kind of dreams do young Dagestanis have?

DENIS SOKOLOV: Certainly everyone has a different dream, but I would say that young people in Dagestan are rather ambitious and they dream of success, which means different things for different people. One can also notice some divisions among young Dagestanis. Most of the youth there are increasingly oriented towards the Arab world, towards the world of Islam, especially the descendants of those who came from rural communities and the mountainous parts of Dagestan. They dream about having a career or owning a business because financial success and the ability to feed your family are very important. Today’s youth adhere to family values, Islamic traditions and, in some degree, the values of Dagestan’s rural communities, although they are gradually disappearing.

Women in the Russian republic of Chechnya have never been under such pressure as they are today. Yet not much has been written about their role, their place in society, and their rights in Chechnya and in other North Caucasus conflicts.