Paul Goble
Staunton, October 26 – Ivan Sydoruk, the deputy Procurator General of the Russian Federation, told the Federation Council’s Committee on Legal and Judicial Questions yesterday that “the basic part of weapons used by militants in the North Caucasus come from the stores of [Russian] military units.”
Over the last 18 months, he continued, “all attacks on the militia and officials have been committed with the use of contemporary weapons and explosives,” and the number of these attacks has increased dramatically as well, just two of many statements that call into question the optimistic assessments of many Russian and Western officials and experts.
And instead of being degraded as Moscow claims, the militants have become more sophisticated, carefully preparing their attacks and feints and even taking steps to ensure that when they use suicide bombers, as they increasingly do, the latter are destroyed in such a way that their remains cannot be identified (www.interfax.ru/politics/txt.asp?id=161926).
Sydoruk, who oversees the Southern and North Caucasian Federal Districts, said that in 2010, “the number of extremist crimes had increased by more than four times, and that 70 percent of these 352 acts had taken place in Chechnya, belying the upbeat claims of Ramzan Kadyrov, Vladimir Putin and others (www.ng.ru/regions/2010-10-27/6_sydoruk.html).
The Russian force structures have had some successes, he noted, pointing to the destruction of 400 militants over the last nine months, the prevention of “more than 50 terrorist acts,” the seizure of 240 kilograms of explosives, 500 units of fire arms and more than 100 grenades (www.interfax-russia.ru/South/main.asp?id=184636).
But as impressive as these numbers are, Sydoruk suggested, they highlight the extent of the problem, especially since the militants seem quite able to recruit replacements, find money and arms, and enjoy at least some support in the population. And these factors taken together are reflected in the number of losses Russian forces continue to take.
In that regard, historian Vladimir Popov told “Nezavisimaya” that Sydoruk’s figures showed that the militants in the North Caucasus were killing 19 militiamen and soldiers every week last year, but now, this figure has risen to 23. “For peace time,” he continued, “these are very large losses, which can be compared with the losses of the US and NATO in Afghanistan.”
Sydoruk made some even more sweeping conclusions. He said that Russia is losing “the information and especially the ideological” struggle and that in order to regain the initiative, the Russian side must work in close relationship with the Muslim religious leaders in the North Caucasus (actualcomment.ru/news/16595).
He also pointed to the disastrous economic situation. As of July 1, he said, there were 449,000 unemployed in the North Caucasus Federal District, some 40 percent of the population. That situation is a breeding ground for militants and extremists, he said, adding “Give some one of them a 100 dollars and he will do whatever you want.”
And he was equally critical of the militia and its activities. “In the majority of subjects of the district, issues of protecting educational institutions and other socially important objects have not been resolved.” Moreover, militia units often fail to take the most obvious steps to prevent attacks and ensure security.
Sydoruk said that the situation was so bad in MVD units in the North Caucasus that there needed to be a complete “re-attestation” of all its employees in order to “free [the police] from cowards and traitors because we are in possession of factors and criminal cases which confirm the direct betrayal by some employees” (www.interfax.ru/politics/txt.asp?id=161926).
At another level, the prosecutor continued, “one of the chief tasks” Russia must address is “intercepting the money flows of the militants.” They are currently getting money both from domestic sources, often engaging in “open rackets” and also by a tightly controlled system of financing from abroad, one that is very difficult to break into.
Sydoruk’s comments are so much at variance from those of Putin, Kadyrov, and other senior Russian officials that it will be worth watching what happens now, either to his career or to Moscow’s policies in a region that remains far more unstable and violent than is generally believed.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Who’s Behind Stavropol Effort to Exit North Caucasus Federal District?
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 26 – Most Russian commentators have taken the declarations of Stavropol residents that they want to have their kray shifted from the North Caucasus Federal District to the Southern Federal District to avoid being lumped together with non-Russian groups there at face value.
But one Russian analyst, Andrey Samokhin, argues that there may be far more at work and suggests that three different groups, including Russian nationalists, kray officials and even officials in Moscow itself may be behind this effort which is attracting ever more attention in the Russian media (andrei-samokhin.livejournal.com/9768.html).
Samokhin points out that the number of people who have signed the Internet petition calling on Moscow to shift Stavropol from the North Caucasus to the Southern Federal District is now approaching 6,000 and concedes that the reasons the petition lists for the change, all linked to the problems of the North Caucasus, are at least plausible.
However, he argues that there is no indication as to how a shift of the kray from one federal district to another will do anything to address what the appeal says is the worsening “criminogenic situation, the level of crime, and the number of conflicts between local and migrant youths.”
“Just what guarantees of defense would Stavropol receive if it were transferred to the Southern Federal District?” Samokhin asks rhetorically. Would someone put up a wall between it and its neighbors to prevent the North Caucasians from coming in? Of course not, he says, given the Constitutional right of Russian Federation residents to move from one place to another.
And because that is so, one needs to enquire as to the real reasons or more precisely the particular forces that stand behind this effort, all the more so since many of the signatories come from far beyond the borders of Stavropol kray. According to Samokhin, there are three groups that may be involved.
The first group that may be behind this effort, the Russian analyst says, includes Russian nationalists. Such a conclusion, he suggests, arises from the call in the appeal to “conduct a number of measures directed at the reduction of migration pressure on the region and to create conditions under which the outmigration of the local population will be reduced.”
That is part of the Russian nationalist agenda not just for Stavropol but for the country as a whole, and the appeal is cleverly cast in language designed to appeal to the largest possible number of supporters of that idea, something that would not have been the case had its authors been more pointed in their remarks about North Caucasians as such.
Samokhin says that in his view, this is the most likely force, all the more so given that members of the “V kontakte” group and other Russian nationalist groups far from Stavropol have issued similar demands in the recent past, including specific calls for doing away with the North Caucasus Federal District.
The second group that may be involved, Samokhin says, involves the powers that be in Stavropol kray itself. They know that the image of the North Caucasus is such that as long as they are linked with it, the possibilities that any outside firm will invest in their kray are very, very limited.
Consequently, they have a vested interest in getting their region transferred so that investors will view it not as part of the turbulent North Caucasus but rather part of the more peaceful, even already prosperous Russian South, an image that the powers that be there are certainly interested in cultivating.
And finally, Samokhin argues, there is a third group that may be involved: the federal powers that be themselves. That might seem counter-intuitive given that Moscow created the North Caucasus Federal District, but there are good reasons to think that many in the Russian capital may now favor transferring Stavropol kray out of it.
Many in Moscow, he says, are tired of trying to pacify and develop the North Caucasus and are interested in “the isolation of that region” rather than in addressing its problems. Russia hasn’t been able to deal with extremism, officials feel, and perhaps, some think, “it is already time to give the Caucasus the official status of ‘a black hole’” about which nothing can be done.
Consequently, Samokhin suggests, some of them may want to move toward separating the North Caucasus out from the rest of the country more definitively. Many viewed the formation of the North Caucasus Federal District earlier this year as a step in that direction, and the current Internet campaign about Stavropol is another testing of public attitudes.
In that event, the appeal and its supporters are showing that Russian society “supports on the whole” isolating and separating out from the rest of the country the North Caucasus. What then remains, the Moscow analyst says, is to “await the realization of the next stage” of this political project.
Staunton, October 26 – Most Russian commentators have taken the declarations of Stavropol residents that they want to have their kray shifted from the North Caucasus Federal District to the Southern Federal District to avoid being lumped together with non-Russian groups there at face value.
But one Russian analyst, Andrey Samokhin, argues that there may be far more at work and suggests that three different groups, including Russian nationalists, kray officials and even officials in Moscow itself may be behind this effort which is attracting ever more attention in the Russian media (andrei-samokhin.livejournal.com/9768.html).
Samokhin points out that the number of people who have signed the Internet petition calling on Moscow to shift Stavropol from the North Caucasus to the Southern Federal District is now approaching 6,000 and concedes that the reasons the petition lists for the change, all linked to the problems of the North Caucasus, are at least plausible.
However, he argues that there is no indication as to how a shift of the kray from one federal district to another will do anything to address what the appeal says is the worsening “criminogenic situation, the level of crime, and the number of conflicts between local and migrant youths.”
“Just what guarantees of defense would Stavropol receive if it were transferred to the Southern Federal District?” Samokhin asks rhetorically. Would someone put up a wall between it and its neighbors to prevent the North Caucasians from coming in? Of course not, he says, given the Constitutional right of Russian Federation residents to move from one place to another.
And because that is so, one needs to enquire as to the real reasons or more precisely the particular forces that stand behind this effort, all the more so since many of the signatories come from far beyond the borders of Stavropol kray. According to Samokhin, there are three groups that may be involved.
The first group that may be behind this effort, the Russian analyst says, includes Russian nationalists. Such a conclusion, he suggests, arises from the call in the appeal to “conduct a number of measures directed at the reduction of migration pressure on the region and to create conditions under which the outmigration of the local population will be reduced.”
That is part of the Russian nationalist agenda not just for Stavropol but for the country as a whole, and the appeal is cleverly cast in language designed to appeal to the largest possible number of supporters of that idea, something that would not have been the case had its authors been more pointed in their remarks about North Caucasians as such.
Samokhin says that in his view, this is the most likely force, all the more so given that members of the “V kontakte” group and other Russian nationalist groups far from Stavropol have issued similar demands in the recent past, including specific calls for doing away with the North Caucasus Federal District.
The second group that may be involved, Samokhin says, involves the powers that be in Stavropol kray itself. They know that the image of the North Caucasus is such that as long as they are linked with it, the possibilities that any outside firm will invest in their kray are very, very limited.
Consequently, they have a vested interest in getting their region transferred so that investors will view it not as part of the turbulent North Caucasus but rather part of the more peaceful, even already prosperous Russian South, an image that the powers that be there are certainly interested in cultivating.
And finally, Samokhin argues, there is a third group that may be involved: the federal powers that be themselves. That might seem counter-intuitive given that Moscow created the North Caucasus Federal District, but there are good reasons to think that many in the Russian capital may now favor transferring Stavropol kray out of it.
Many in Moscow, he says, are tired of trying to pacify and develop the North Caucasus and are interested in “the isolation of that region” rather than in addressing its problems. Russia hasn’t been able to deal with extremism, officials feel, and perhaps, some think, “it is already time to give the Caucasus the official status of ‘a black hole’” about which nothing can be done.
Consequently, Samokhin suggests, some of them may want to move toward separating the North Caucasus out from the rest of the country more definitively. Many viewed the formation of the North Caucasus Federal District earlier this year as a step in that direction, and the current Internet campaign about Stavropol is another testing of public attitudes.
In that event, the appeal and its supporters are showing that Russian society “supports on the whole” isolating and separating out from the rest of the country the North Caucasus. What then remains, the Moscow analyst says, is to “await the realization of the next stage” of this political project.
Window on Eurasia: Siberian Nationalists Seek Alliance with Ethnic Ukrainians in Far East
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 26 – A group of Siberian nationalists has called on ethnic Ukrainians living in the Far East, a community the Siberians note that currently has fewer opportunities to preserve its national culture than do the indigenous Siberian peoples, to join the Siberian nationalist movement.
In an indication of seriousness, the Siberian Popular Assembly, fresh from its effort to have people east of the Urals declare “Siberian” as their nationality in the just-completed Russian Federation census, has published an appeal to the Siberians of the Russian Far East and done so in the Siberian, Ukrainian and Russian languages (www.verkhoturov.info/content/view/1016/1/).
“Brother Ukrainians!” the appeal begins, “at this historic moment of the awakening of the Siberian nation, we Siberians extend to you the hand of friendship. There are scarcely any other peoples closer than we are by their historical fate,” one of colonization, persecution, and russification.
The appeal continues by saying that “we intend to build our future in peace and cooperation with all peoples, respecting the right of every nation to self-determination,” and that includes respecting the “many-thousand-strong” Ukrainian diaspora in the Far East, known historically as “Gray and Green Ukraine.”
At the present time, the appeal states, Ukrainians there are “deprived of the right even to education in their native language, not to speak of the use of their tongue in business and legal affairs.” That is because, the appeal says, “the Russian powers that be consider any citizen of the Russian Federation ‘a Russian.’” In this respect, Ukrainians and Siberians are in the same boat.
The self-proclaimed Council of the Siberian People, the appeal says, is “a political organization which seeks the establishment of a future flourishing Siberia and the happiness of all Siberian peoples, including the Ukrainians and the Siberians themselves,” and insists on the right of Siberian Ukrainians to have schools in their native language.
And the appeal concludes with an appeal to the Ukrainians of the Far East to disseminate further information about this cause and to join with the Siberian nationalists in this cause. To that end, it calls on the Far Eastern Ukrainians to get in contact with the Siberian nationalists via the email address, sibveche@gmail.com.
The Ukrainians of the Far East came into existence as a distinctive community at the end of the nineteenth century when the tsarist authorities provided free transportation and free land to Ukrainians suffering from famine. Several hundred thousand Ukrainians took advantage of that offer and called the land they settled in the “Zeleny klyn” or Green Triangle.
The population grew rapidly and by the time of the first Soviet census in 1926 ethnic Ukrainians formed almost half of the population in the area within the triangle formed by Vladivostok, Nakhodka and Khabarovsk, and in the years of the Russian Civil War, it played a key role.
Indeed, one of the causes of the defeat of the Russian White Movement in the Far East was the opposition of its leaders to any concessions to the non-Russians and especially to the Ukrainians, whom most of the White leaders refused to acknowledge were a separate and distinct nation.
The Bolsheviks exploited that and promised the Ukrainians in the Far East native language schools and broad cultural autonomy, but having defeated the Whites, the Soviet government reneged and promoted the thorough-going russianization and russification of the ethnic Ukrainians.
As a result, by the end of the Soviet period, the percentage of people in the Russian Far East who declared themselves to be Ukrainians as opposed to Russians had declined to the single digits in most places, but the share of the population in that region as a whole with Ukrainian roots is certainly more than half.
The Zeleny klyn Ukrainians, however, even at that time did claim one remarkable distinction. In the mid-1980s for a brief time, the United States broadcast to them in Ukrainian, the only time during the Cold War when the West broadcast to an area not defined by the Soviet system as being of that language community, at least formally.
In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, some Ukrainians in Kyiv attempted to reach out to the Zeleny klyn and some Ukrainians there organized, but little came of either effort, the victim of more pressing immediate problems and the enormous distance separating Ukraine proper from the Ukrainians in the Far East.
The new Siberian nationalist appeal may not be crowned with immediate success, but this effort to form a supra-national Siberian identity represents a challenge to the way Moscow has been doing business for almost a century. As a result, it is likely that this move by the Siberians will provoke a greater response from the center than anything the Siberians have yet done.
(The most important study of the Ukrainians of the Zeleny klyn is Ivan Svit’s “Zelena Ukraina. Korotkyi istorchnyi narys ukrains’koho politiychnogo i hromads’kogo zhytiia” in Ukrainian, New York, 1949. For an English language introduction, see especially John J. Stephan’s “The Russian Far East,” Stanford, 1994.)
Staunton, October 26 – A group of Siberian nationalists has called on ethnic Ukrainians living in the Far East, a community the Siberians note that currently has fewer opportunities to preserve its national culture than do the indigenous Siberian peoples, to join the Siberian nationalist movement.
In an indication of seriousness, the Siberian Popular Assembly, fresh from its effort to have people east of the Urals declare “Siberian” as their nationality in the just-completed Russian Federation census, has published an appeal to the Siberians of the Russian Far East and done so in the Siberian, Ukrainian and Russian languages (www.verkhoturov.info/content/view/1016/1/).
“Brother Ukrainians!” the appeal begins, “at this historic moment of the awakening of the Siberian nation, we Siberians extend to you the hand of friendship. There are scarcely any other peoples closer than we are by their historical fate,” one of colonization, persecution, and russification.
The appeal continues by saying that “we intend to build our future in peace and cooperation with all peoples, respecting the right of every nation to self-determination,” and that includes respecting the “many-thousand-strong” Ukrainian diaspora in the Far East, known historically as “Gray and Green Ukraine.”
At the present time, the appeal states, Ukrainians there are “deprived of the right even to education in their native language, not to speak of the use of their tongue in business and legal affairs.” That is because, the appeal says, “the Russian powers that be consider any citizen of the Russian Federation ‘a Russian.’” In this respect, Ukrainians and Siberians are in the same boat.
The self-proclaimed Council of the Siberian People, the appeal says, is “a political organization which seeks the establishment of a future flourishing Siberia and the happiness of all Siberian peoples, including the Ukrainians and the Siberians themselves,” and insists on the right of Siberian Ukrainians to have schools in their native language.
And the appeal concludes with an appeal to the Ukrainians of the Far East to disseminate further information about this cause and to join with the Siberian nationalists in this cause. To that end, it calls on the Far Eastern Ukrainians to get in contact with the Siberian nationalists via the email address, sibveche@gmail.com.
The Ukrainians of the Far East came into existence as a distinctive community at the end of the nineteenth century when the tsarist authorities provided free transportation and free land to Ukrainians suffering from famine. Several hundred thousand Ukrainians took advantage of that offer and called the land they settled in the “Zeleny klyn” or Green Triangle.
The population grew rapidly and by the time of the first Soviet census in 1926 ethnic Ukrainians formed almost half of the population in the area within the triangle formed by Vladivostok, Nakhodka and Khabarovsk, and in the years of the Russian Civil War, it played a key role.
Indeed, one of the causes of the defeat of the Russian White Movement in the Far East was the opposition of its leaders to any concessions to the non-Russians and especially to the Ukrainians, whom most of the White leaders refused to acknowledge were a separate and distinct nation.
The Bolsheviks exploited that and promised the Ukrainians in the Far East native language schools and broad cultural autonomy, but having defeated the Whites, the Soviet government reneged and promoted the thorough-going russianization and russification of the ethnic Ukrainians.
As a result, by the end of the Soviet period, the percentage of people in the Russian Far East who declared themselves to be Ukrainians as opposed to Russians had declined to the single digits in most places, but the share of the population in that region as a whole with Ukrainian roots is certainly more than half.
The Zeleny klyn Ukrainians, however, even at that time did claim one remarkable distinction. In the mid-1980s for a brief time, the United States broadcast to them in Ukrainian, the only time during the Cold War when the West broadcast to an area not defined by the Soviet system as being of that language community, at least formally.
In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, some Ukrainians in Kyiv attempted to reach out to the Zeleny klyn and some Ukrainians there organized, but little came of either effort, the victim of more pressing immediate problems and the enormous distance separating Ukraine proper from the Ukrainians in the Far East.
The new Siberian nationalist appeal may not be crowned with immediate success, but this effort to form a supra-national Siberian identity represents a challenge to the way Moscow has been doing business for almost a century. As a result, it is likely that this move by the Siberians will provoke a greater response from the center than anything the Siberians have yet done.
(The most important study of the Ukrainians of the Zeleny klyn is Ivan Svit’s “Zelena Ukraina. Korotkyi istorchnyi narys ukrains’koho politiychnogo i hromads’kogo zhytiia” in Ukrainian, New York, 1949. For an English language introduction, see especially John J. Stephan’s “The Russian Far East,” Stanford, 1994.)
Window on Eurasia: Yet Another ‘Far from Ideal’ Russian Census, Moscow Analysts Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 25 – The just completed 2010 Russian census was “far from ideal,” according to most Moscow commentators, with many census takers again as in 2002 falsifying reports to minimize the size of the decline of the country’s population and to maximize the share of ethnic Russians in the country as a whole and of non-Russians in particular republics.
Today, Anton Razmakhnin of “Svobodnaya pressa” surveys the shortcomings of the just-completed enumeration (svpressa.ru/society/article/32562/), while Russian experts describe similar problems in 2002 (versia.ru/articles/2010/oct/25/vserossiyskaya_perepis_naseleniya-2010).
In addition to failing to include all residents of the country, many of whom appear to have refused to take part, the 2010 census was “far from ideal” with regard to declarations about nationality, Razmakhnin says, noting that many non-Russians feared Russification and many Russians feared both overall decline and declarations of regional identities.
Reports from various parts of the Russian Federation suggest that many census takers recorded what they wanted to or were ordered to rather than what individuals declared. Thus, some enumerators refused to list Cossack or Siberian as a nationality even though that is what people said they were.
In addition to such direct distortions, others were created by language issues. Ramay Yuldash, a Tatar activist, said that individuals declared themselves to be this or that nationality in the language of that nationality but census takers decide that some other nationality is correct. And such changes will only be magnified as the census is processed, he argued
Konstantin Krylov, the head of the Russian Social Movement, told Razmakhnin that he had information that “in the last days of the census,” officials were so concerned about the fall-off in the population they had found and the share of ethnic Russians that orders had come down to “list everyone as a Russian.”
He suggested that one of the reasons the powers that be had decided to take such a step is that “the entire mythology of the state is based on the idea that Russians are despite everything a majority. If it suddenly turned out [otherwise], then the Russians could demand for themselves the right of a minority.”
At the same time, Razmakhnin notes, non-Russian republic leaders have sought to boost the share of their titular nationalities, mayors and regional heads have tried to increase total populations, and central officials have sought to reduce the number of migrants counted, each group for its own purposes.
Reporting from across the Russian Federation is already confirming that pattern, and more such stories are certain to emerge in the coming days and weeks, a trend that will lead many to become even more skeptical about this latest Moscow statistical effort and some to dispute its specific findings.
Meanwhile, “Versiya” provides a selection of expert opinion about the census and its problems. Vladimir Sokolin, who supervised the 2002 enumeration, says that the current census is focusing on migrants because Russia needs to know “where migrants live and work, what they are doing,” and how long they are staying in Russia.
But as he and other experts concede, counting migrants is among the most difficult tasks. Many of them want to avoid being counted at all, numbers are problematic because many of them come and go, and all these figures are highly political with both opponents of migration and supporters having a major stake in the numbers reported.
Problems in the non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation continue. In 2002, Nikita Mkrtchyan of the Moscow Institute of Demography says that republic elites often manipulated the numbers in order to get more money from Moscow. And Aleksandr Khloponin, Presidential Plenipotentiary for the North Caucasus, expects that to continue.
But it is not only the non-Russians who are playing games with the figures. The mayor of Volgograd, for example, openly said that the city must demonstrate that it has a million people in it – even if that is not the case – because its economic and political well-being depends on that number.
Anatoly Vishnevsky, director of the Moscow Institute of Demography, agreed. “This kind of falsification is connected,” he said, “with chances for budget financing. If the population is greater, one can ask for more subsidies for the region, the republic or the oblast.” He suggested that this time around, Moscow and North Caucasus republics will all falsify their numbers.
Given what happened in 2002, however, many people will be watching Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, where regional elites appear to have done everything they could to boost the numbers of the titular nationalities even at the cost of undercounting subgroups like the Kryashens in Tatarstan or other groups, such as the Tatars in Bashkortostan.
And ethnic Russians are concerned about falsifications of their numbers in the North Caucasus. Some Slavic groups in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, for example, think they will be undercounted because the republic’s head, Boris Ebzeyev, a Karachay, supposedly has given an order to “boost the share of the Karachay population up to 51 percent.”
While some results from the 2010 enumeration will be released within months, the final figures are not scheduled to be published until 2013 – that is, after the presidential elections – and as happened in 2002, officials will again have yet another opportunity to falsify this already “far from ideal” count.
Staunton, October 25 – The just completed 2010 Russian census was “far from ideal,” according to most Moscow commentators, with many census takers again as in 2002 falsifying reports to minimize the size of the decline of the country’s population and to maximize the share of ethnic Russians in the country as a whole and of non-Russians in particular republics.
Today, Anton Razmakhnin of “Svobodnaya pressa” surveys the shortcomings of the just-completed enumeration (svpressa.ru/society/article/32562/), while Russian experts describe similar problems in 2002 (versia.ru/articles/2010/oct/25/vserossiyskaya_perepis_naseleniya-2010).
In addition to failing to include all residents of the country, many of whom appear to have refused to take part, the 2010 census was “far from ideal” with regard to declarations about nationality, Razmakhnin says, noting that many non-Russians feared Russification and many Russians feared both overall decline and declarations of regional identities.
Reports from various parts of the Russian Federation suggest that many census takers recorded what they wanted to or were ordered to rather than what individuals declared. Thus, some enumerators refused to list Cossack or Siberian as a nationality even though that is what people said they were.
In addition to such direct distortions, others were created by language issues. Ramay Yuldash, a Tatar activist, said that individuals declared themselves to be this or that nationality in the language of that nationality but census takers decide that some other nationality is correct. And such changes will only be magnified as the census is processed, he argued
Konstantin Krylov, the head of the Russian Social Movement, told Razmakhnin that he had information that “in the last days of the census,” officials were so concerned about the fall-off in the population they had found and the share of ethnic Russians that orders had come down to “list everyone as a Russian.”
He suggested that one of the reasons the powers that be had decided to take such a step is that “the entire mythology of the state is based on the idea that Russians are despite everything a majority. If it suddenly turned out [otherwise], then the Russians could demand for themselves the right of a minority.”
At the same time, Razmakhnin notes, non-Russian republic leaders have sought to boost the share of their titular nationalities, mayors and regional heads have tried to increase total populations, and central officials have sought to reduce the number of migrants counted, each group for its own purposes.
Reporting from across the Russian Federation is already confirming that pattern, and more such stories are certain to emerge in the coming days and weeks, a trend that will lead many to become even more skeptical about this latest Moscow statistical effort and some to dispute its specific findings.
Meanwhile, “Versiya” provides a selection of expert opinion about the census and its problems. Vladimir Sokolin, who supervised the 2002 enumeration, says that the current census is focusing on migrants because Russia needs to know “where migrants live and work, what they are doing,” and how long they are staying in Russia.
But as he and other experts concede, counting migrants is among the most difficult tasks. Many of them want to avoid being counted at all, numbers are problematic because many of them come and go, and all these figures are highly political with both opponents of migration and supporters having a major stake in the numbers reported.
Problems in the non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation continue. In 2002, Nikita Mkrtchyan of the Moscow Institute of Demography says that republic elites often manipulated the numbers in order to get more money from Moscow. And Aleksandr Khloponin, Presidential Plenipotentiary for the North Caucasus, expects that to continue.
But it is not only the non-Russians who are playing games with the figures. The mayor of Volgograd, for example, openly said that the city must demonstrate that it has a million people in it – even if that is not the case – because its economic and political well-being depends on that number.
Anatoly Vishnevsky, director of the Moscow Institute of Demography, agreed. “This kind of falsification is connected,” he said, “with chances for budget financing. If the population is greater, one can ask for more subsidies for the region, the republic or the oblast.” He suggested that this time around, Moscow and North Caucasus republics will all falsify their numbers.
Given what happened in 2002, however, many people will be watching Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, where regional elites appear to have done everything they could to boost the numbers of the titular nationalities even at the cost of undercounting subgroups like the Kryashens in Tatarstan or other groups, such as the Tatars in Bashkortostan.
And ethnic Russians are concerned about falsifications of their numbers in the North Caucasus. Some Slavic groups in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, for example, think they will be undercounted because the republic’s head, Boris Ebzeyev, a Karachay, supposedly has given an order to “boost the share of the Karachay population up to 51 percent.”
While some results from the 2010 enumeration will be released within months, the final figures are not scheduled to be published until 2013 – that is, after the presidential elections – and as happened in 2002, officials will again have yet another opportunity to falsify this already “far from ideal” count.
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