On November 2, 1943, one of the most tragic pages in the history of Karachay-Cherkessia began - the deportation of the Karachay people. On this day, tens of thousands of men, women, children and the elderly were forcibly transported to Kazakhstan and Central Asia for 14 long years.

The deportation affected more than 68 thousand people, 43 thousand died from hunger and deprivation. At the same time, thousands of Karachai men fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War for the USSR.

The USSR authorities accused the Karachais, like many other peoples, of treason. One of the decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Council stated that many residents “behaved treacherously” during the Nazi occupation: they helped the Germans and joined detachments to oppose Soviet power. Before their rehabilitation, the Karachay people had to wait for the Khrushchev “thaw”. However, the rights of the Karachais were fully restored only in 1991.