Galashki

Galashki is a rural locality (a selo) in Sunzhensky District of the Republic of Ingushetia, Russia, located on the left bank of the Sunzha River near the border with the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania. Its population was about 9,000 people in 2009. Galashki forms the municipality of the rural settlement of Galashki as the only settlement in its composition.

Etymology
Some researchers translate the name of the village of Galashki from the Ingush language as "to the Galais", based on the assertion that the representatives of the Galai clan (teip) are the founders of the village.

Geography
Galashki is situated on the left bank of the Assa River, approximately 30 kilometers southwest of the regional center, Sunzha, and 32 kilometers southeast of the city of Magas (by road). The nearest settlements to Galashki are the village of Alkhasty to the north, the village of Dattykh to the northeast, the village of Muzhichi to the south, and the village of Komgaron to the southwest.

History
The village was founded by the clan (teip) of Galai who migrated from Galanchozh. In the second half of the 18th century (1770s), the German researcher J. A. Güldenstädt indicated Galashki among the total number of Ingush villages and districts. Galashki as Ingush village was mentioned by S. M. Bronevsky in 1823. Ten years later, I. F. Blaramberg indicated Galashki as Ingush village too in his fundamental work “Historical, topographical, statistical, ethnographic and military description of the Caucasus”, written in 1834 as a result of his business trip and expedition in the Caucasus. Gradually by the name of the village in the 19th century, in official and literary sources, the terms "Galashian society" and "Galashians" are fixed, as one of the territorial societies of the Ingush.

The village was considered a large village in the foothills in the Caucasian Imamate and played an important strategic role, as it closed the exits from the mountains to the plain. During the existence of Caucasian Imamate, Galashki was the center of a separate Galashkinskoe naibstvo, which was ruled by naib Dudarov, and also Muhammad Anzorov-Mirza.

It was a site of two raids by Chechen separatists during the Second Chechen War, the Galashki ambush in 2000 (from Chechnya) and the Battle of Galashki in 2002 (from Georgia).

Notable people

 * Laysat Baysarova (1920 – 2005), an Ingush abrek and insurgent.
 * Ruslan Khuchbarov (1972 – 2004), an Ingush militant notorious for his leading role in the Beslan school hostage crisis.
 * Shirvani Kostoev (1923 – 1949), an Ingush pilot and flight commander.