The bodies have been cleared from the streets of the southern Russian city of Nalchik. But the tensions and resentment remain.

The attack by Islamist militants on the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, an internal Russian republic 150km from Chechnya, on October 13 demonstrated not only the instability sweeping across Russia's northern Caucasus but highlighted the socio-political importance of Russia's fast-growing Muslim population and the potential for friction as non-Muslim numbers decline.