Kist People - Geographic Distribution

Geographic Distribution

Currently there are six Kist villages in Pankisi: Duisi, Dzibakhevi, Jokolo, Shua Khalatsani, Omalo (different from the village of Omalo in Tusheti), and Birkiani. The Kist community remains quite small and are scattered across northeast Georgia, but in the past decade the number of residents in the Pankisi area has at least doubled due to an influx of refugees from the neighboring Chechnya.

Relationships between the local Ossetians and Georgians and between the Kists and Ossetians have become tense, but remains largely peaceful as of today. The Ossetian inhabitants are sympathetic to the Chechen refugees, whom they see as protecting them against oppression by the Kists. The Ossetians feel pressured by the Kists and have been leaving their villages in the Pankisi Gorge to resettle in Northern Ossetia. Because they often cannot sell their properties, they leave behind cultivated lands and houses built over many generations. Kists and Chechen refugees have settled in these abandoned houses. In this manner, the Ossetian villages of Dumasturi, Kvemo Khalatsani, and Tsinubani were vacated from 1998 to 2002.