Fedya:
“on the South slopes of the Greater Causcasus, the few “Ossetians” there were originally migrant farm workers, even under Stalin. Stalin simply continued the Czarist practice of moving client populations …. No, there are few Ossettians in South Ossettia. There are many soloviki, however, masquerading as “Ossettians”. ”
————-

I’m curious where you get your version of the facts. Please provide a link.

According to the article in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossetians

there are about 700,000 Ossetians. About 515,000 live in Russia, about 65,000 live in South Ossetia, about 38,000 live in other parts of Georgia (i.e. about 103,000 live in Georgia) and about 100,000 live in Turkey.

Ethnographers have studied and counted these nationalities for many decades. These census numbers were not pulled out of a hat last month. Do you really believe that some significant portion of the 38,000 Ossetians living in South Ossetia are Russian “siloviki” pretending to be fake Ossetians?

If so, then give us your best estimate, Fedya. Do you estimate that, say, about 10,000 Russian siloviki are there pretending to be Ossetians? Or do you think the number is closer to 15,000 or 20,000?

The Ossetian population in Georgia is ancient. One Ossetian tribe, called the Jazones, claims to be descendents of the Jason in the ancient Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts, involving a golden fleece in Georgia.