A Longing to Go Home

The despair of a twice-exiled people is etched into Inna Hairadze's tear- streaked face. Together with 100 other Meskhetian Turks, she stands in a thin wool coat on a Moscow street, protesting her people's lot. In 1944, "to strengthen border safety," Joseph Stalin deported the Turks from their mountainous homeland in Georgia to the flatlands of Uzbekistan. Then, last June, the Uzbeks rose up against the Turks, burning houses, belongings, even babies. One hundred people died, and 17,000 Turks were moved out. Authorities in Moscow scattered the refugees across Russia, where they are still denied permanent residence status and thus cannot...

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