About This Web Page

Welcome and thank you for visiting my web page. This site is dedicated to the memory of those brave eleven Israeli athletes who lost their lives during Munich Olympic games in September 1972 .

I first learned about the Munich massacre after reading a fascinating book called "One day in September" by Simon Reeve. (Now an Academy Award - Winning Film.)
Most of the info in this site was borrowed from Mr. Revee's book.
I became extremely interested in what happened during the 1972 Olympics and tried to find out more information. However, I was shocked by the ignorance of the ordinary people, only a few people are aware of what actually transpired that fateful day. This page will give those of you who do not know the facts everything you would need to know about the Munich massacre.

However, this site deals with more than just one event, it also contains a number of very fascinating Articles, that deal with subjects that are of great importance to anyone who follows current and past events that affect and shape Jewish Issues, Arab-Israeli conflict, Terrorism and Middle-East.

About Me

I was born in the Republic of Dagestan. Located between Caspian sea on the East and Caucasus mountains on the West. Makhachkala (the capital) and Derbent are the chief cities. Its area is close to that of Scotland. With population of just above 2 million people, Dagestan is the homeland to over 36 different nationalities, and each one of those nationalities has its own unique language. Such combination of languages, cultures, types of landscape and customs makes it a one of a kind place in the world.

Jewish population has considerable dwindled in the Republic of Dagestan in the last decade. Jews from Northern Caucasus or (Mountain Jews) numbered approximately 26,000; in 1959 about 15,000 lived in Dagestan (the Russian Federation total was 16,707) and more than 10,000 in Azerbaijan. In 1979 the overall number of Jews in Dagestan was 19,000 and 35,000 in Azerbaijan. The Mountain Jews belong to the Iranian division of the Indo-European languages. They speak Tat, a dialect of New-Persian. In terms of ethnic origin, it is assumed that the Mountain Jews have inhabited Caucasia for a long time. Their distant forefathers once lived in southern Azerbaijan, the north-western part of present-day Iran.

An ancient area of human settlement, Dagestan belonged to Caucasian Albania in the 1st millennium BC It was later invaded by Huns, Persian Sassanids, and, in the 7th cent. AD, by Arabs, who introduced Islam. Taken by the Turks in the 11th cent. and the Mongols in the 13th cent., the region became the center of a struggle between Turkey and Persia in the 15th cent. It was a Persian province when Russia annexed it by the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813. Muslim mountaineers resisted Russian domination until 1859, and a new revolt erupted in 1877, during the Russo-Turkish war of that year.

Dagestan came under Soviet rule in 1920 and in 1921 was made an autonomous republic. In 1991, the parliament of Dagestan declared the republic to be of full republic status. Dagestan was a signatory to the Mar. 31, 1992, treaty of federation that created the Russian Federation. These days, however, Dagestan is going through the times of heavy unrest, both political and ethnical.

Click here to view pictures of Dagestan

In 1999 several thousand armed members of a Chechen Muslim fundamentalist group, whose aim was to merge Dagestan with neighboring Chechnya in a single Islamic state, invaded S. Dagestan from Chechnya. Russia responded with ground and air attacks by federal troops, and the militants retreated; the incident contributed to Russia's decision to invade Chechnya later in 1999.

Please feel free to send me your comments, and/or any other photos and details you would like me to incorporate into this site.

Thanks you very much

Rafayel Nagdimov
Sincerely, Raf Nagdimov
October, 2003

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