Last modified: 2003-01-25 by antonio martins
Keywords: kabard-balkaria | elbrus | caucasus |
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(Note: You need an Unicode-aware software and font to correctely view the cyrillic text on this page. See here transliteration details).
Kabardino-Balkaria, in the north Caucasus, borders
Karachay-Cherkassia to the west,
Georgia to the south and
North Ossetia to the east.
Kabardian is a Caucasian language, very closely
related to Circassian (Cherkess), more distantly to
Abkhaz and Adygei, and more
distantly still to Georgian. Balkar, on the other hand,
is a Turkic language very closely related to Karachay.
Vincent Morley, 19 Nov 1997
An autonomous province was established for the Kabardians in 1921
and a year later this was extended to include the Balkarians. In 1936, the
status of the region was upgraded to that of an ASSR. This, in turn,
declared itself a Union Republic in 1991.
The image above is the one that best fits the (quite
blurred) color plate of the book Winds of Change
António Martins, 19 Apr 2000
The flag was adopted by Republican Supreme Council
on the 21st of Jule, 1994 alongside with its coat of
arms. It consists of three equal-sized horizontal stripes:
sky-blue over white over green. The center of flag is
charged with the circle crossed by sky-blue and green
fields. On a sky-blue field there is white (snow-white)
stylized picture of Elbrus mountain (the highest peak of
Caucasus moutains — 5642 m).
Andrew Rukkas, 28 Feb 1999