The WAC information portal has prepared an essay on the birthday of Yuri Agirbov, an outstanding Abaza scholar and public figure, one of those people who are called the pride of the nation.
Georgy Chekalov
“It’s easy to love the whole world, it’s harder to love your neighbor” - everyone accepts this ironic truth, or almost everyone. And the unique example of the outstanding Abaza, Yuri Agirbov, convinces us that it is possible, indeed, to treat with love and respect both every person who is close by and a whole people.
Pain and gratitude: childhood
Usually a cheerful, optimistic and joyful person, Yuri Agirbov becomes unusually sad when he talks about his childhood.
“I have never in my life said the word “papa”, says Yury Isufovich with pain. The word “mother”, he also spoke a short time.
Yuri Agirbov was born in the village Psyzh of Karachay-Cherkessia two years before the beginning of the Great Patriotic War - in June 1939. His father did not return from the front, his mother died when the boy was 9 years old.
Agirbov's childhood memories are associated with a strong disease and healing goat's milk: Yuri is sure that he survived then only because his grandfather and grandmother gave him goat milk to drink. Throughout his life, he brings in his heart the gratitude to the elderly Russian family of Andrey and Lelya from Cherkessk, who kept a goat at home and shared their milk.
“All the troubles that we had to endure were brought by the war, and I pray to God every day that we do not have more such tragedies,” says Yuri Isufovich.
Yuri Agirbov received his secondary education at the Circassian National Boarding School. He graduated in 1955 with a gold medal and decided to continue his studies in Moscow.
City of generals and students
The rest of Yuri Agirbov’s life, with the exception of a few post-graduate years, was spent in the capital of Russia.
“When I first came to Moscow, I saw a general at the station. Live General! I was so surprised that I probably followed him for about half an hour,” Yuri Agirbov recalls his first day in the capital.
He entered the Moscow Agricultural Academy named after K.A. Timiryazev and graduated in 1960, becoming an agronomist-economist.
Five years of student life were not easy. We had to tighten our belts, save on the stomach. However, these years marked with familiarity with many good people. First of all with Nazir Ekba (prominent Abaza linguist and teacher - ed.). Communication with the scholar gave the student food for thought and helped to adapt to life in a huge city.
“I lived not far from Timiryazevka (Agricultural Academy - ed.), and Yura came to visit me, we communicated in our native language, I tried to support him, to raise the spirit. He treated me with great respect, consulted with me on all issues, I knew about all his movements and even after school. And we still communicate very closely with him,” Academician Ekba later said.
After graduating from the academy, Yury Agirbov worked for two years in the Kustanai Land Management Expedition in Kazakhstan and another five years in his native Karachay-Cherkessia - first in the regional Agricultural Administration, and then in the Agricultural Department of the CPSU regional committee. In 1967, he returned to Moscow, to the Timiryazev Academy, to enter full-time postgraduate study at the Department of Agricultural Economics.
“Oh, there are just a few of you!”: the path of the Abaza scholar
In 1970, Yuri Agirbov defended his thesis for the degree of Candidate of Economic Sciences and remained to work in the same department. Here he went the path from assistant to professor. He was engaged in the improvement of agro-industrial production, development of cooperation and integration in agriculture and others. In 1997, he defended his doctoral thesis “The economic problems of the production and sale of fruits and vegetables.” Yuri Agirbov published 175 scientific and educational works.
The knowledge that Professor Agirbov acquired during the years of study and work, he willingly shares with young people. Many students are happy to write term papers and dissertations under the guidance of Yuri Isufovich. He also had many graduate students: 23 young scientists with whom he worked successfully defended their dissertations.
As an authoritative scientist, he participated in many scientific conferences of all-Union and international scale, visited many countries as part of various delegations.
“Once in China, I was asked: who are the Abaza, how many of you are there? - Yury Isufovich told about one episode from trips abroad. - Well, how could I confess to the Chinese that there are only 30 thousand of us? I lied that we are 300 thousand. “Oh, there are just a few of you,” the Chinese colleagues shook their heads sympathetically.
Always keenly interested in the activities of his compatriots, Yuri Isufovich established a fact that he loved to “trump” on occasion: at the end of the twentieth century, there were more Doctors of Sciences among other Abaza per capita in Moscow than other nations.
“We have five doctors of science in Moscow. This is our master Nazir Ekba, Ruslan Khabatov, Karabit Adzhibekov, Zaur Aysanov. And I am the fifth one,” Yuri Agirbov listed at various representative meetings.
“Leader” of the capital Abaza
Agirbov himself did an incredibly a lot to unite his compatriots. At some point, he became the center of attraction for all Abaza in Moscow. He collected information about all tribesmen living in the capital and its surroundings. Remembering his student years and the help of Nazir Ekba, he found out who was studying in the capital's universities in Abaza, he tried his best to unite them and help them.
The director of the Karachay-Cherkess Republican State Abaza Theater, Umar Kishmakhov, made friendly relations with his fellow villager when he studied at GITIS (State Institute of Theatrical Art – ed.).
“For five years I felt his attention and care, and not only me, - Umar Kishmahov confesses. - He took care of us - the Abaza students, like an older brother.”
Yuri Isufovich, however, was always worried that the young generation of Abaza, who were born in the capital, do not know their language. He put a lot of work to open a school for teaching Abaza language in the capital. The Abaza were among the first to manage to organize such a school in Moscow. The first teacher in this school was Academician Nazir Bekmurzovich Ekba himself.
The authority of Yuri Agirbov among the capital of the Abaza Diaspora grew day by day. Soon he became the elected leader. And not only among the Abaza, but also in the entire Abaza-Adyg Diaspora. Yury Isufovich, who always loved humor, liked to say: “I am the leader.” And to his 60th birthday anniversary, Kabardian friends made him an original gift, releasing the “new brand” vodka “Leader” especially for the holiday table with a portrait of the hero of the day on the label. Few people managed to taste it - almost the entire batch was sold as a souvenir.
By the way, on that anniversary a large delegation arrived in Moscow - a whole bus - from the Abaza of Karachay-Cherkessia. This was a testament to the tremendous respect for Yuri Isufovich in his small homeland.
Merits of one indifferent person
Yuri Agirbov - Doctor of Science, Professor, Academician of the International Academy of Informatics at the UN, Chairman of the Council of Veterans of the Russian State Agrarian University - Moscow Agricultural Academy named after K.A. Timiryazev, a member of the Academic Council of the University. Agirbov - the winner of many government awards, the highest public award of the Caucasus “Golden Pegasus”, he was awarded the gratitude of the President of the Russian Federation. Cavalier of the Order of Friendship, II degree “Order of Honor and Glory”, of the Republic of Abkhazia, Honorary Worker of Higher Professional Education of the Russian Federation, Honored Scholar of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic,
Republic of Adygea, Kabardino-Balkarian Republic and Republic of Ingushetia, Honored Economist of the KChR. The format of this essay does not contain the description of all the merits of this outstanding professional in a variety of areas, a bright and caring person.
Becoming a famous scholar, Yuri Agirbov worked in the expert councils of the USSR State Planning Committee, USSR Minzag (Ministry of Procurement - ed.), Government of the Russian Federation, was a member of the expert council of the Committee on Nationalities of the State Duma of Russia. To this day, he is regularly invited to meetings and commissions of the Office of Internal Policy of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Central Federal District, the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the Moscow House of Nationalities.
He is not just present at these events, but actively participates in the discussion of problems concerning, as a rule, issues of strengthening friendship and harmony among nations, national policy in the regions of the North Caucasus. Yuri Agirbov took an active part in the development of several federal laws relating to inter-ethnic relations, including the law “On guarantees of the rights of indigenous minorities of the Russian Federation”.
For 25 years, Yury Isufovich was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of the Abkhaz-Abaza (Abaza) people (IAAAP, now the World Abaza Congress - ed.), has been a member of the Executive Committee of the International Circassian Association for a long time. Being the closest associate of IAAAP President Taras Shamba, Yuri Agirbov traveled with him to many countries resided by the Abaza-Abkhaz Diaspora in order to establish links between the Abaza and the Abkhaz of the whole world. Today Agirbov is an active participant in the Abaza-Abkhaz social movement, the chairman of the Council of Elders of the Moscow Abaza-Abkhaz and Adyg Diaspora.
“I never forgot that I am Abaza”
On the last round number, the 70th anniversary of Yuri Isufovich in 2009, Doctor of Medical Sciences Boris Daurov left a memorable record about him: “Yuri Isufovich is a man and a citizen: a romantic and a dreamer, always ready to help, always near in sorrow and joy , full of attention to man. He is available to all: senior and junior, student and scholar. And for everyone he always has kind words and smart advice. His keen mind, subtle humor made him the soul of any company - be it business, scientific or friendly meetings. Always obsessed with pathos of friendship, gentle attention to people, tremendous kindness, sincere generosity and surprising simplicity in communicating with people. A real man. Modest and simple, sympathetic and kind, he always admires us with his high culture and decency and is a role model.”
Anyone who is familiar with Yuri Agirbov can subscribe to these words. Yuri Isufovich absorbed the best qualities of his people and through his whole life carried the Abaza code of honor - Abazara.
“I spent most of my life away from my native lands, but I never forgot that I was Abaza,” he says with pride.
He and his wife Galina instilled moral ideals of their people in their daughters - Kamila, Karina and Leyla. Therefore, mutual understanding and mutual respect always reign in their home. Yury Isufovich meets the next anniversary in a warm circle of people close to him.
Dear Yuri Isufovich, accept the warmest and sincere congratulations on your day!
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