Akademik

   Ethnic group. The Avars are a Muslim people populating the North Caucasus, principally the Republic of Dagestan where they are the largest ethnic group (758,000). Sizable communities are also resident in Chechnya, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. The Avar language is a member of the Northeast Caucasian (Nakh-Dagestanian) language family. Originally inhabiting mountainous zones adjacent to Chechnya, Avars have increasingly settled in lowland areas of the Caspian basin since the mid-20th century. The Avar ethnonym is used as a collective term by a host of linguistic groups, including Andis, Botlikhs, Karatins, Akhvakhs, Bagulals, Tindins, Chamadins, Godaberins, Tsezs or Didoys, Hvarshins, Genukhs, Bezhtins or Kaputchins, Gunzibs, and Archins. During the Soviet period, the Avars dominated the political apparatus of Dagestan, but were slowly marginalized under the rule of Magomedali Magomedov, an ethnic Dargin, during the 1990s and first half of the 2000s. In 2006, Vladimir Putin appointed an ethnic Avar, Mukhu Aliyev, as the head of Dagestan.