Paul Goble
Vienna, June 1 – Frustrated that the central Russian government has not been able to approve a nationality policy since 2004, the Moscow city government has come up with its own, one that calls for blocking the rise of ethnic neighborhoods even while admitting the capital is likely to become ever more multi-ethnic.
Today, “Argumenty nedeli” reports, the Moscow city government is considering “a conception of the realization of state policy in the sphere of inter-ethnic relations in the city of Moscow,” a concept city leaders expect other Russian regions and cities to copy (www.argumenti.ru/gorodm/2010/05/62168/).
Indeed, as the weekly points out, “the capital as always is taking the lead in legislation,” although it does not make reference to the city’s most notorious post-Soviet intervention, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s October 1993 decree calling for the expulsion of “persons of Caucasus nationality” from the city.
Experts who have reviewed the new concept give it high marks, “Argumenty nedeli” says, and Mikhail Solomentsev, the head of the city’s Committee on Interregional Ties and Nationality Policy, suggests that such a document is necessary to guide future policy.
Moscow city has long had its own distinctive approach to this question, given that the non-Russian component of the capital’s population has risen from 10percent in 1989 to more than 15 percent now officially and to a far higher percentage according to independent experts.
Moreover, as the Concept document points out, “judging from the practice of several European countries, the prospect of the strengthening of the ethnic mosaic quality of Moscow appears to be completely real,” something likely to be accompanied by the growth of “xenophobia among the indigenous population.”
The city recently polled residents, the weekly reports. Three out of every four Muscovites said that interethnic relations there were “tense,” but at the same time, “only 10 percent of them had directly encountered [problematic] situations” and “more than 70 percent” had a negative attitude toward nationalist groups.
The Concept paper states that “the majority of participants in contemporary migration flows” seek to maintain their own way of life in new circumstances and thus to live in compact neighborhoods or enclaves. But it specifies that the city government views these as “impermissible” and will do what it can to fight them.
“The very term enclave,” Solomentsev argues, “presupposes the opposition of one people to another. The experience of European capitals shows this clearly.” But if Moscow is to avoid the problems of others, it must work to keep nationalities from forming such enclaves or in other ways living separate lives.
“The more nationalities unite around a common activity, the fewer conflicts will arise,” the concept suggests, and it points to the success the Union of Organizations of Students from the Same Region has had since its formation in December 2009.
Moscow city officials note that “the most active participants” of this organization are people from the Caucasus and points out that those who take part in the Union are far more able to adapt to Moscow styles and to integrate themselves into Russian culture.
That becomes obvious if one compares the Caucasians who take part in these groups with those who don’t. Many of the latter, the weekly notes, are in the Russian capital because their parents have influence or “blat” and thus are often neither good students or good residents of Moscow.
The solution to that problem, the Conception suggests, is tighter control over admissions to the capital’s universities. And it also calls for tighter restrictions over migration from non-Russian republics and a greater effort to attract more people from the provinces.
“It is necessary to create all necessary conditions for internal migration, Solomentsev argues, so that more Russians living in poor regions can come to “the more well-off subjects of the Federation.” And to that end, a number of steps need to be taken.
Among them, he suggested, is the need for developing “an effective cadres system” so that a specialist regardless of his ethnicity will find it easy to move from one region of the country to another. If that happens, Solomentsev concludes, then “we will come to the recognition that we are one command, ‘Rossiayane.’”
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Beijing ‘Renting’ Russian Border Area for Chinese Farmers
Paul Goble
Vienna, June 1 – Beijing has rented 426,600 hectares of Russian territory in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast and Khabarovsk Kray for agricultural use by Chinese farmers, the Xinhua News Agency Reports, a 42 percent increase in the size of such Chinese holdings inside Russia and one likely to infuriate many Russian nationalists.
In an article in “Svobodnaya pressa” today, Andrey Polunin points out that China has been renting land in Siberia and the Far East for some time. “Already at the end of 2009, President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao approved [it within] a program of cooperation between the border regions [of the two countries] for 2009 to 2018.”
For an assessment of what Chinese farmers are doing in Russia, Polunin interviewed Valery Gurevich, the deputy head of the government of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, and Aleksandr Aladin, a Moscow specialist on China, for their reactions to the Chinese who are now living and working inside the Russian Federation (svpressa.ru/politic/article/25865/).
Gurevich was upbeat about the program. He said Chinese farmers had been working in his oblast for almost two decades and that they current rent out about nine percent of its arable land on which they grow soy, grains, and rice and are making plans for developing animal husbandry as well.
“The Chinese,” he said, “both bring in their own technology and make use of ours.” Some of them are employed by Russian agricultural enterprises, and some work for themselves or for Chinese firs. “There hasn’t been any discussion, it goes without saying, about any handing over of land to the Chinese neighbors.”
There are currently “about 2500 Chinese” working in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, roughly the same number as last year, Gurevich continued. And almost all of them are working on the basis of three to ten year contracts, an arrangement that ensures they are committed to developing the land and not just exploiting it.
Some of the production of the Chinese farmers is sent back to China, some is sold in the Jewish Autonomous District, and some is sent to neighboring Russian regions like Khabarovsk kray. Most Chinese farmers keep to themselves, Gurevich continued, and there is little assimilation: “At least, none of them has received [Russian] citizenship anytime recently.”
A different and more alarmist reading of this program was offered by Aladin, who extrapolated from the population imbalance between the Russian and Chinese sides of the border and from Chinese military doctrine to present the arrival of Chinese farmers as the first step toward the Chinese conquest of the Russian Far East.
All of the facts that Aladin pts forward – ranging from demographic statistics to military doctrine to Chinese shipbuilding and civil defense facilities – are true, but the interpretations he gives them prompt Polunin to suggest that his conclusions about Chinese plans verge on the “fantastic.”
This exchange is typical of the way this issue is discussed: Most officials in Siberia and the Far East are not unhappy with the presence of the Chinese. Given ethnic Russian outmigration and demographic decline, they are glad to have the labor force the Chinese provide and even the cross border relations they promote.
But a large number of commentators in Moscow and other cities in European Russia are inclined to make arguments like the one Aladin advances, extrapolating from what are very real Chinese statements and actions to often apocalyptic conclusions about a Chinese land grab in Russia.
Unfortunately, it is often the case that it is the comments of the latter rather than the experience of the former that define the way Russian officials at the center and especially Russian nationalist groups think about this issue, a pattern that seems likely to continue and one that makes the relatively rare comments of local officials like Gurevich especially useful.
Vienna, June 1 – Beijing has rented 426,600 hectares of Russian territory in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast and Khabarovsk Kray for agricultural use by Chinese farmers, the Xinhua News Agency Reports, a 42 percent increase in the size of such Chinese holdings inside Russia and one likely to infuriate many Russian nationalists.
In an article in “Svobodnaya pressa” today, Andrey Polunin points out that China has been renting land in Siberia and the Far East for some time. “Already at the end of 2009, President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao approved [it within] a program of cooperation between the border regions [of the two countries] for 2009 to 2018.”
For an assessment of what Chinese farmers are doing in Russia, Polunin interviewed Valery Gurevich, the deputy head of the government of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, and Aleksandr Aladin, a Moscow specialist on China, for their reactions to the Chinese who are now living and working inside the Russian Federation (svpressa.ru/politic/article/25865/).
Gurevich was upbeat about the program. He said Chinese farmers had been working in his oblast for almost two decades and that they current rent out about nine percent of its arable land on which they grow soy, grains, and rice and are making plans for developing animal husbandry as well.
“The Chinese,” he said, “both bring in their own technology and make use of ours.” Some of them are employed by Russian agricultural enterprises, and some work for themselves or for Chinese firs. “There hasn’t been any discussion, it goes without saying, about any handing over of land to the Chinese neighbors.”
There are currently “about 2500 Chinese” working in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, roughly the same number as last year, Gurevich continued. And almost all of them are working on the basis of three to ten year contracts, an arrangement that ensures they are committed to developing the land and not just exploiting it.
Some of the production of the Chinese farmers is sent back to China, some is sold in the Jewish Autonomous District, and some is sent to neighboring Russian regions like Khabarovsk kray. Most Chinese farmers keep to themselves, Gurevich continued, and there is little assimilation: “At least, none of them has received [Russian] citizenship anytime recently.”
A different and more alarmist reading of this program was offered by Aladin, who extrapolated from the population imbalance between the Russian and Chinese sides of the border and from Chinese military doctrine to present the arrival of Chinese farmers as the first step toward the Chinese conquest of the Russian Far East.
All of the facts that Aladin pts forward – ranging from demographic statistics to military doctrine to Chinese shipbuilding and civil defense facilities – are true, but the interpretations he gives them prompt Polunin to suggest that his conclusions about Chinese plans verge on the “fantastic.”
This exchange is typical of the way this issue is discussed: Most officials in Siberia and the Far East are not unhappy with the presence of the Chinese. Given ethnic Russian outmigration and demographic decline, they are glad to have the labor force the Chinese provide and even the cross border relations they promote.
But a large number of commentators in Moscow and other cities in European Russia are inclined to make arguments like the one Aladin advances, extrapolating from what are very real Chinese statements and actions to often apocalyptic conclusions about a Chinese land grab in Russia.
Unfortunately, it is often the case that it is the comments of the latter rather than the experience of the former that define the way Russian officials at the center and especially Russian nationalist groups think about this issue, a pattern that seems likely to continue and one that makes the relatively rare comments of local officials like Gurevich especially useful.
Window on Eurasia: Protestants Now Outnumber Russian Orthodox in Russia’s Borderlands, Moscow Sociologist Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, June 1 -- Members of Protestant churches now outnumber those affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church both in Siberia and the Russian Far East and in Karelia and Kaliningrad, according to a prominent Moscow sociologist of religion.
In an interview carried on the Religiopolis.org site, Elena Kublitskaya, a senior researcher at the Institute of Social-Political Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says that this reflects intense Protestant missionary work in these places (www.religiopolis.org/religiovedenie/506-religija-v-rossii-vzgljad-sotsiologa.html).
Specifically, she says, “the number of believing Protestants exceeds the number of Orthodox believers in “Siberia, Buryatia, the Komi Republic, the Sakha Republic, Primorsky and Khabarovsk krays, Amur and Irkutsk oblasts, Sakhalin, Yamalo-Nenets district, the Karelian Republic and Kaliningrad oblast.”
And that pattern, the result of often intense missionary work by Protestant groups, “is capable of leading in the future to a sharpening of inter-confessional relations and conflicts on the basis of the dissatisfaction of the Russian Orthodox Church.”
Russian Orthodoxy “will not give up its positions in the European Center, but in Siberia, it is facing solid competition from the Old Believers, major Catholic centers in Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, and Khabarovsk,” as well as from Protestant groups like the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Adventists, and the Pentecostals.”
These trends are taking place, she said, at a time when the overall growth of religiosity among Russians is slowing. From 1983 to 1993, that growth was so great that many spoke of “a religious renaissance,” but since then, religiousness has stabilized at “from 40 to 70 percent” of the population depending on region.
And that in turn means that there are ever more cases when an individual shifts from one religion to another, actions that have become increasingly common and that in areas where the Protestants are active and the Orthodox are not typically mean a gain by the former and a loss by the latter.
In other comments, Kublitskaya says that there are three reasons why Russians have become more religious over the last 25 years. First, as is true everywhere, people growing through social and economic cataclysms of various kinds often ten to religion for sustenance.
Second, with the end of communism, religious organizations were able to become more active, and many Russians viewed a return to religion as part of a general turning away from the Soviet system when the government actively promoted atheism.
And third – and she suggests that this is “a very essential aspect” – “the information openness of the first years of perestroika” meant that individuals learned about and often were attracted to religious groups about which earlier they had not heard or had heard only negative reporting.
The rise of some Protestant groups that Kublitskaya points and especially their prominence in Siberia too may soon attract attention for another reason: the increasing number of young men from that region seeking alternative service on the basis of religious convictions.
Yesterday, the Siberian Military District of the Russian military reported that the number of draftees seeking alternative service in Siberia and the Transbaikal had nearly doubled this year to 58, approximately two-thirds of whom were either Baptists or Jehovah’s Witnesses (www.rian.ru/society/20100531/240761713.html).
Given the difficulties the Russian military is having with reaching its draft quotas, it appears likely that the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church will seek to get government support for its campaign against missionary work by pointing to this development.
Vienna, June 1 -- Members of Protestant churches now outnumber those affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church both in Siberia and the Russian Far East and in Karelia and Kaliningrad, according to a prominent Moscow sociologist of religion.
In an interview carried on the Religiopolis.org site, Elena Kublitskaya, a senior researcher at the Institute of Social-Political Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says that this reflects intense Protestant missionary work in these places (www.religiopolis.org/religiovedenie/506-religija-v-rossii-vzgljad-sotsiologa.html).
Specifically, she says, “the number of believing Protestants exceeds the number of Orthodox believers in “Siberia, Buryatia, the Komi Republic, the Sakha Republic, Primorsky and Khabarovsk krays, Amur and Irkutsk oblasts, Sakhalin, Yamalo-Nenets district, the Karelian Republic and Kaliningrad oblast.”
And that pattern, the result of often intense missionary work by Protestant groups, “is capable of leading in the future to a sharpening of inter-confessional relations and conflicts on the basis of the dissatisfaction of the Russian Orthodox Church.”
Russian Orthodoxy “will not give up its positions in the European Center, but in Siberia, it is facing solid competition from the Old Believers, major Catholic centers in Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, and Khabarovsk,” as well as from Protestant groups like the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Adventists, and the Pentecostals.”
These trends are taking place, she said, at a time when the overall growth of religiosity among Russians is slowing. From 1983 to 1993, that growth was so great that many spoke of “a religious renaissance,” but since then, religiousness has stabilized at “from 40 to 70 percent” of the population depending on region.
And that in turn means that there are ever more cases when an individual shifts from one religion to another, actions that have become increasingly common and that in areas where the Protestants are active and the Orthodox are not typically mean a gain by the former and a loss by the latter.
In other comments, Kublitskaya says that there are three reasons why Russians have become more religious over the last 25 years. First, as is true everywhere, people growing through social and economic cataclysms of various kinds often ten to religion for sustenance.
Second, with the end of communism, religious organizations were able to become more active, and many Russians viewed a return to religion as part of a general turning away from the Soviet system when the government actively promoted atheism.
And third – and she suggests that this is “a very essential aspect” – “the information openness of the first years of perestroika” meant that individuals learned about and often were attracted to religious groups about which earlier they had not heard or had heard only negative reporting.
The rise of some Protestant groups that Kublitskaya points and especially their prominence in Siberia too may soon attract attention for another reason: the increasing number of young men from that region seeking alternative service on the basis of religious convictions.
Yesterday, the Siberian Military District of the Russian military reported that the number of draftees seeking alternative service in Siberia and the Transbaikal had nearly doubled this year to 58, approximately two-thirds of whom were either Baptists or Jehovah’s Witnesses (www.rian.ru/society/20100531/240761713.html).
Given the difficulties the Russian military is having with reaching its draft quotas, it appears likely that the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church will seek to get government support for its campaign against missionary work by pointing to this development.
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