This paper illustrates how a mega-sports event such as the Sochi Olympics can generate renewed spaces for production of knowledge and counter-branding for marginalized groups. As the indigenous people of the area, the Circassians in different ways, locally and transnationally, used the 2014 Sochi Olympics to promote greater knowledge of local Circassian history. Such knowledge was for many decades suppressed, during the Soviet period as well as afterwards, in the Russian Federation. This paper discusses cases of Circassian counter-branding of local history that were observed in connection with the Sochi Olympics and in opposition to the Russian Olympics project. The paper contends that the processes of counter-branding made visible local indigenous knowledge that even the authorities in Sochi have gradually come to accept.

The significantly increased production of Circassian content on the Internet could be labelled as a form of virtual re-territorialisation of Circassia – especially considering the strong focus on identity and history. I apply the label ‘iCircassia’ as an addition to the classical understanding of the Circassian World as consisting of Circassians of the homeland and the diaspora. I suggest to apply the term ‘digital capitalism’ as an update of the terms ‘print capitalism’ and ‘electronic capitalism’ used by Benedict Anderson and Arjun Appadurai, respectively, to assign earlier periods of mediated mobilisation among nationalities – with or without a nation-state. In the case of the Circassians this is not just exemplified by the many different Circassian websites but also by the Circassian’ use of social media such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter (Web 2. 0) – transnational and (partly) interactive by definition. A concrete empowerment of Circassian actors through the Internet is taking place. This illustrated how the development of ‘digital capitalism’ has both quantitatively and qualitatively new implications for a dispersed people such as the Circassians compared to earlier periods.