PILGRIMS FROM RUSSIA SET OFF FOR SAUDI ARABIA








MAKHACHKALA, March 1, 2001. /Dekabr Beibutov, RIA Novosti Correspondent/. Over 1,500 Daghestanis (natives of Daghestan, a Russian constituent republic in the North Caucasus) have set off on a hadj, or pilgrimage, to Saudi Arabia, the Daghestani government's Religious Affairs Department chief, Akhmet Magomedov, announced. The annual mass pilgrimage to Islamic shrines in Mecca and Medina is linked to the venerable Muslim "sacrifice feast", or Kurban Bairam, due on March 5 this year.


	The Daghestani government decreed the Monday following the feast be declared a public holiday in the republic.


	Akhmed Magomedov said most of the festivities in the republic will be held in mosques, whose number currently exceeds 1,500. Most of the functional mosques were restored or erected anew over the decade that has passed since democratic reforms began in Russia.