A Russian record label is using what its founders call ‘punk ethnography’ to document the music of the Circassian people, a culture threatened by erasure. Ored Recordings, founded by Bulat Khalilov and Timur Kodzoko in 2013, records religious chants, laments and displacement songs at family gatherings and local festivals in the Caucasus region.
Circassia once stretched from the Black Sea to the Greater Caucasus Mountains, but after Russia invaded in the 18th century and systematically killed or displaced about 95% of its people, the region now exists as fragmented territories within Russia. Diaspora communities live in Turkey, the Middle East and Europe.
The label’s ‘punk ethnography’ approach aims to counter Soviet and post-Soviet attitudes that framed local culture as backward. Circassian music is shaped by voice, memory and social function, featuring solo or small-group singing with instruments like the pkhachich and shichepshin supporting the vocals. The music avoids western harmonic development, relying on modal melodies and subtle ornamentation.
Ored Recordings releases a record each year around 21 May, the Circassian Day of Mourning, marking the end of the Russo-Circassian war in 1864. The releases foreground diaspora voices and frame the day as a living ritual, using music to mourn loss and assert continuity. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Khalilov says the label’s work has become more urgent, imagining a future where different communities coexist safely.
