Kist people

The Kists (Georgian: ქისტები, Chechen: Kistoj, Kisti) are a Chechen subethnos in Georgia. They primarily live in the Pankisi Gorge, in the eastern Georgian region of Kakheti, where there are approximately 9,000 Kist people.

Origins

The Kist people's origins can be traced back to their ancestral land in lower Chechnya. In the 1830s and 1870s they migrated to the eastern Georgian Pankisi Gorge and some adjoining lands of the provinces of Tusheti and Kakheti. Named "Kists" (ქისტები) in Georgian, they are closely related culturally, linguistically and ethnically to other Nakh-speaking peoples such as Ingushs and Chechens, but their customs and traditions share many similarities also with the eastern Georgian mountaineers.

Around the same region of Georgia, there is also a related but still different community of Northeast Caucasian origin called Bats.

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.