Samashki

Geography

Samashki is located on the left bank of the Sunzha River. It is 9 km north of the town of Achkhoy-Martan and 30 km west of the city of Grozny.

From the north, the hills of the Sunzhensky ridge reach the village, and from the south, the Samashki Forestry and the Sunzha River.

The nearest settlements to Samashki are Raduzhnoye to the north-east, Zakan-Yurt to the east, Novy Sharoy to the south, Davydenko to the south-west, and Sernovodskoye to the west.

Name

The name of the village comes from the , which translates roughly as "the place of deers".

History

Samashki was founded in 1851, as a part of the Sunzhensky Cossack line, on the site of the destroyed Chechen village of Lower Samashki. In 1920, the entire Cossack population of the village was evicted by order of Sergo Ordzhonikidze. The village was then given back to the Chechens, who repopulated it.

In 1944, after the genocide and deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people and the abolition of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, the village of Samashki was renamed and settled by people from other ethnic groups. From 1944 to 1957, it was a part of the Novoselsky District of Grozny Oblast.

In 1958, after the Vainakh people returned and the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was restored, the village regained its old name, Samashki.

Samashki in the Chechen Wars

During both Chechen Wars the village suffered greatly from the hostilities, most notably in the notorious April 1995 incident known as Samashki massacre committed by the Internal Troops of Russia which resulted in the deaths of 100 to 300 civilians.

In March 1996 another attack on the town took the form of a full-scale assault with apparent disregard for civilian lives; according to Human Rights Watch, Russian forces used civilians as a human shields on APCs. Reports suggested some 500 civilians were killed as a result of the April 1995 and March 1996 attacks. The next month, Russian journalist Nadezhda Chaikova, who had filmed the effects of the 1996 attack, was killed execution-style in Chechnya.

A devastating artillery and rocket attack on Samashki took place in October 1999 at the beginning of the Second Chechen War, despite the demilitarization of the village, killing or injuring dozens of residents on October 27, 1999 alone, according to HRW. At the time, the deputy commander of the North Caucasus Military District announced that there were only "bandits and terrorists" in Samashki, but a report for the British parliament claimed civilians were killed in revenge for the heavy casualties suffered there by Russian forces during the first war.

Federal forces reported a large-scale operation in Samashki in May 2000.

Population

• 1979 Census: 9,185
• 1990 Census: 9,945
• 2002 Census: 10,824
• 2010 Census: 11,275
• 2019 estimate: 12,597
• 2021 estimate: 12,769

According to the results of the 2010 Census, the majority of residents of Samashki (11,263 or 99.9%) were ethnic Chechens, with 12 people (0.1%) coming from other ethnic backgrounds.

Teips

Members of the following teips (clans) live in Samashki:

• Nashkhoy
• Zandak
• Sharoy
• Zumsoy
• Terloy
• Nuokhoy
• Galay
• Akkiy
• Keloy
• Cheberloy
• Dai
• Nizhloy
• Gukhoy
• Kesaloy
• Khimoy
• Khakmadoy
• Shikaroy
• Chanti
• Buosoy

Famous natives

• Lyoma Satuyev, Honored Artist of the Chechen Republic, theater and film actor;
• Usman Dadayev, tightrope walker, People's Artist of the Chechen Republic, Honored Artist of the Republic of Ingushetia;
• Mikhail Ivanyukov, Hero of Socialist Labor;
• Prokofi Kalashnikov, Hero of the Soviet Union, colonel, tanker;
• Shumisat Khazhmukhambetova, sambo wrestler and judoka, champion of the USSR, silver medalist of the Spartakiad of the peoples of the USSR, master of sports of the USSR in sambo and judo.

Transportation

The R217 federal highway "Caucasus" passes 4 km south of the village. Also, a railway line from Nazran to Grozny passes through the village. Part of the village is located beyond the railway.

References

References

1. "Ярташ".
2. "Сельское поселение Самашкинское (Чеченская Республика)".
3. "Карта Чеченской республики подробная с районами, селами и городами. Схема и спутник онлайн".
4. "Основные сведения о Терской области. ч.3".
5. (1860). "Кавказский календарь на 1860 год". Tipografiya kantselyarii Ye.I.V. na Kavkaze, kazenny dom.
6. "ПРИКАЗ № 01721 оп - ЛЕТКА".
7. "Потери вооруженных сил России и СССР в вооруженных конфликтах на Северном Кавказе (1920–2000 годы)".
8. "О восстановлении Чечено-Ингушской АССР и упразднении Грозненской области".
9. [https://www.theguardian.com/international/story/0,,252669,00.html Chechen villagers ask, why us?], ''[[The Guardian]]'', November 17, 1999
10. [https://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/russia2/Russia-06.htm ACCOUNTABILITY By the Russian Side], [[Human Rights Watch]], 1997
11. [http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/3623.html##3 Russian bombardment sows terror in town], ''[[Boston Globe]]'', 13 November 1999
12. [http://www.cpj.org/deadly/1996_list.html Journalists Killed in 1996: 26 Confirmed], [[Committee to Protect Journalists]], December 31, 1996
13. [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/543493.stm How war came to a Chechen village], [[BBC News]], 1 December 1999
14. [http://hrw.org/english/docs/1999/11/04/russia1965.htm Many Civilians Killed in Samashki Village, Chechnya], [[Human Rights Watch]], November 4, 1999
15. [https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/rp00-14/ The Conflict in Chechnya], [[Parliament of the United Kingdom]], 2000
16. [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/770766.stm Top Russians killed in Chechnya], [[BBC News]], 31 May 2000
17. "Наши издания - Архивное управление Правительства Чеченской Республики".
18. (11 April 2017). "Municipality level Russian Census data 2002 and 2010".
19. "ВПН-2010".
20. Комитет Ставропольского края по делам архивов, Государственный архив Ставропольского края. (2008). "Административно-территориальное устройство Ставрополья с конца XVIII века по 1920 год". ОАО «ИПФ „Ставрополье“».