Paul Goble
Staunton, November 7 – Russian census officials have hidden the “catastrophic” decline in the population of the Russian Federation over the last decade by counting as permanent residents gastarbeiters who may in fact spend only part of the year in the Russian Federation and who consider somewhere else their homeland, according to a Moscow analyst.
In its report on the preliminary findings of the 2010 census released this week, Rosstat said that it had received 141,183,200 census forms, a figure that was in fact 700,000 lower than the one it had put out in May and one that is more disturbing in other ways, Lev Ivanov writes in yesterday’s “Svobodnaya pressa” (svpressa.ru/society/article/34973/).
As is explained on the census website (www.perepis-2010.ru/history/russia/chapter-5.php), Ivanov says, those who conducted the census said that “in contrast to former censuses, when the present and permanent population was counted, the 2002 enumeration counted only the permanent population as is customary in the majority if countries of the world.”
Under those definitions, the census site continues, “citizens of the Russian Federation, foreign citizens and persons without citizenship constantly living on the territory of the Russian Federation and also located on the territory of the Russian Federation on the date o fhte census but permanently residing on the territory of other states.”
The 2010 census followed the same rules and thus within the 141.18 million people Rossat claims, there are “both citizens of Russia and also migrants (in the majority of cases gastarbeiters or persons without citizenship)” registered as required with the Federal Migration Service.
Anatoly Vishnevsky, the director of the Institute of Demography of the Higher School of Economics, confirmed to Ivanov that migrants were part of the 141 million figure and that it is “possible” to define that number, subtract it from the total, and thus get a population figure for the Russian Federation comparable to the figures of the 1989 and earlier enumerations.
That is what Ivanov has done. Vishnevsky himself suggested that the number of migrants who would be counted would number approximately five million. If that number is used, the Russian population for comparison with past counts is approximately 136 million. But other experts put the migrant number higher and consequently, the Russian total, far lower.
According to Daniil Kislov, the editor in chief of Fergana.ru, there are at least four million Central Asian migrant workers “constantly living on the territory of Russia.” To that figure, Ivanov says, one must add roughly 2.5 million Azerbaijanis, of whom 1.8 to 1.9 million do not have Russian passports.
Mikhail Khubutiya, president of the Union of Georgians in Russia, says his homeland has given the Russian Federation one million immigrants. There are also in Russia today about 700,000 Armenians, 200,000 Moldovans, and two million Ukrainians, according to government institutions and academic specialists in their countries of origin.
Moreover, there are other groups, involved: ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese, and a number of others. If one adds those to the other nationalities whose numbers he has sought to define, Ivanov says, the total comes to 9.2 million. That means that the real population of the Russian Federation for comparative purposes is 132 million.
But in fact, the numbers may be even more dire than those. On November 25, Konstantin Romodanovsky, the head of the Federal Migration Service, told the duma that some 12.3 million foreigners now live in Russia. Of those, 3 to 3.5 million are living in Russia illegally. If his number is used, then the census should show a real Russian population of about 129 million.
Anatoly Antonov, the head of the chair of sociology and demography of the family of the sociological faculty of Moscow State University, suggested that officials are trying to hide the size of the decline by such machinations, a decline that points to even larger fall offs in the future.
Recently, he told Ivanov, “the leadership of Rosstat had a meeting” with him and other scholars. The officials “refused to give even the most preliminary results of the Census.” That was striking, and he said that it shows that “the population must be essentially less than 141 million,” the figure Rosstat eventually came up with.
It was clearly important for the bureaucrats, Antonov continued, that “the number of constantly living in Russia not decline on paper,” even if it is declining in reality. But this new scissors crisis will only get worse as Moscow makes plans on the basis of its own projections but has to deal with the actual situation.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Recreating the Very Situation that Led to the Collapse of the USSR, Expert on Federalism Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, December 7 – Moscow currently is trying to run Russia as if it were a unitary state while leaving it federation “on paper,” thereby re-creating the conditions which led to the collapse of the USSR when Gorbachev’s attempts at modernization and reform caused those federal institutions to take on a life of their own, according to a leading expert on federalism.
On the one hand, Vladimir Gelman says, that means that any plans to modernize or liberalize the country will be resolutely opposed by those who fear that such changes will tear the Russian Federation to pieces a la Gorbachev, something few in the center are prepared to see happen (www.saltt.ru/node/5975).
And on the other, he continues, the awareness of these tensions means that Moscow is likely in the near term to continue to seek to reduce the vestigial powers of federal institutions such as republics and even the Federation Council, even though that too will make the situation untenable because a country as large as Russia can only be effective as a federal state.
That danger is pushing some among the powers that be to try to find ways to destroy the last vestigial institutions of federalism, but each such step, Gelman argues, entails its own risk because a country as large and diverse as Russia needs some form of federalism if it is to survive and flourish.
A decade ago, he says, Russia was “both formally and in fact a federation,” with a division of power between the center and the subjects of the federation. Moscow has “very few possibilities to influence the decisions taken [by the regions] within the competence of the latter.” And even though the regions varied in these powers, the country “was a federation.”
But over the past ten years, the situation has changed with Vladimir Putin and now Putin together with Dmitry Medvedev pursuing a course intended to create a tight “hierarchy” in which each level is subordinate in all things to the one above it” and thus one in which the regions, while having some space for maneuver, are not able to make decisions Moscow can’t reverse.
This system, Gelman continues, is not so much “the power vertical” everyone talks about but rather “a chain of hierarchical commands and mixed mechanisms of control,” mechanisms that involve giving people access to wealth even more than putting them at risk of punishment, as long as they do what Moscow wants or at least proclaim loyalty.
Prior to the last presidential elections, he argues, the center was “extremely interested” that all governors attach themselves to United Russia … in order to minimize all political risks connected with the conclusion of the presidential cycle of Putin.” And to that end, Moscow was prepared to crack the whip.
That is because “the federal powers that be [remembered and remember to this day] the experience of the 1990s when the republics” sought an expansion of their powers when they saw that Moscow was weakening. In 2007 and 2008, Moscow replaced numerous republic heads in order to “reduce to zero” the risks for the regime.
Since that time, Moscow has continued that approach and expanded it as well, creating institutions that have drained even more content from the federal system and undermining others. Thus, Gelman says, the Presidential plenipotentiaries first sought to rein in the regional governments but that task became less meaningful with the end of elections for regional heads.
As a result, Gelman continues, he does “not exclude that at some time, in the final analysis, the plenipotentiaries may be disbanded because the federal powers that be have not given them any other tasks.” And other “federation” institutions, like the Federation Council, may follow because it no longer plays even the limited role envisaged for it.
Consequently, he suggests, “if tomorrow the Federation Council were shut down and its members sent off to some resort for the remainder of their terms, for certain, no one except journalists would take note of it.”
“In the Kremlin,” Gelman continues, many people would like to have fewer federal subjects than the current 83. No one can easily know all the leaders. But doing anything about that, he says, is “not a simple task” because there are “natural limitations:” the existence of ethnic republics and the inequality of the resources of the various regions.
As a result, the push to cut the number of federation subjects down has slowed, but that has not ended Moscow’s interest in finding some way to reduce them. That explains, Gelman says, Medvedev’s recent proposal to organize 20 agglomerations in place of the existing structures.
But Gelman points out that “it is impossible to create agglomerations from above. They are created or not created regardless of what Putin, Medvedev or someone else wants.” Moreover, Russia can’t do this because there are simply too few major urban centers that could serve as the nuclei of such entities.
Eventually people will understand that for their country, federalism “is something inevitable simply because Russia is a large and varied country. Without the mechanisms which allow the regions themselves to solve their own problems, it will be extremely difficult to secure the development of the country and, more than that, to preserve it into the future.”
And Russians today should reflect on the Soviet experience at the end> “There was the Soviet experience of federalism, when on paper the country was a federation, but in fact was deeply unitary and highly centralized. When political liberalization began, all these contradictions came into view and the country ceased its existence.”
Staunton, December 7 – Moscow currently is trying to run Russia as if it were a unitary state while leaving it federation “on paper,” thereby re-creating the conditions which led to the collapse of the USSR when Gorbachev’s attempts at modernization and reform caused those federal institutions to take on a life of their own, according to a leading expert on federalism.
On the one hand, Vladimir Gelman says, that means that any plans to modernize or liberalize the country will be resolutely opposed by those who fear that such changes will tear the Russian Federation to pieces a la Gorbachev, something few in the center are prepared to see happen (www.saltt.ru/node/5975).
And on the other, he continues, the awareness of these tensions means that Moscow is likely in the near term to continue to seek to reduce the vestigial powers of federal institutions such as republics and even the Federation Council, even though that too will make the situation untenable because a country as large as Russia can only be effective as a federal state.
That danger is pushing some among the powers that be to try to find ways to destroy the last vestigial institutions of federalism, but each such step, Gelman argues, entails its own risk because a country as large and diverse as Russia needs some form of federalism if it is to survive and flourish.
A decade ago, he says, Russia was “both formally and in fact a federation,” with a division of power between the center and the subjects of the federation. Moscow has “very few possibilities to influence the decisions taken [by the regions] within the competence of the latter.” And even though the regions varied in these powers, the country “was a federation.”
But over the past ten years, the situation has changed with Vladimir Putin and now Putin together with Dmitry Medvedev pursuing a course intended to create a tight “hierarchy” in which each level is subordinate in all things to the one above it” and thus one in which the regions, while having some space for maneuver, are not able to make decisions Moscow can’t reverse.
This system, Gelman continues, is not so much “the power vertical” everyone talks about but rather “a chain of hierarchical commands and mixed mechanisms of control,” mechanisms that involve giving people access to wealth even more than putting them at risk of punishment, as long as they do what Moscow wants or at least proclaim loyalty.
Prior to the last presidential elections, he argues, the center was “extremely interested” that all governors attach themselves to United Russia … in order to minimize all political risks connected with the conclusion of the presidential cycle of Putin.” And to that end, Moscow was prepared to crack the whip.
That is because “the federal powers that be [remembered and remember to this day] the experience of the 1990s when the republics” sought an expansion of their powers when they saw that Moscow was weakening. In 2007 and 2008, Moscow replaced numerous republic heads in order to “reduce to zero” the risks for the regime.
Since that time, Moscow has continued that approach and expanded it as well, creating institutions that have drained even more content from the federal system and undermining others. Thus, Gelman says, the Presidential plenipotentiaries first sought to rein in the regional governments but that task became less meaningful with the end of elections for regional heads.
As a result, Gelman continues, he does “not exclude that at some time, in the final analysis, the plenipotentiaries may be disbanded because the federal powers that be have not given them any other tasks.” And other “federation” institutions, like the Federation Council, may follow because it no longer plays even the limited role envisaged for it.
Consequently, he suggests, “if tomorrow the Federation Council were shut down and its members sent off to some resort for the remainder of their terms, for certain, no one except journalists would take note of it.”
“In the Kremlin,” Gelman continues, many people would like to have fewer federal subjects than the current 83. No one can easily know all the leaders. But doing anything about that, he says, is “not a simple task” because there are “natural limitations:” the existence of ethnic republics and the inequality of the resources of the various regions.
As a result, the push to cut the number of federation subjects down has slowed, but that has not ended Moscow’s interest in finding some way to reduce them. That explains, Gelman says, Medvedev’s recent proposal to organize 20 agglomerations in place of the existing structures.
But Gelman points out that “it is impossible to create agglomerations from above. They are created or not created regardless of what Putin, Medvedev or someone else wants.” Moreover, Russia can’t do this because there are simply too few major urban centers that could serve as the nuclei of such entities.
Eventually people will understand that for their country, federalism “is something inevitable simply because Russia is a large and varied country. Without the mechanisms which allow the regions themselves to solve their own problems, it will be extremely difficult to secure the development of the country and, more than that, to preserve it into the future.”
And Russians today should reflect on the Soviet experience at the end> “There was the Soviet experience of federalism, when on paper the country was a federation, but in fact was deeply unitary and highly centralized. When political liberalization began, all these contradictions came into view and the country ceased its existence.”
Window on Eurasia: For First Time since 1994-95, Russian Internal Forces to Have Artillery Units in North Caucasus
Paul Goble
Staunton, December 7 – When reports surfaced that the United States was sending tanks to Afghanistan, international reaction was shift and nearly unanimous: US forces there, commentators in both Russia and the West suggested, are going the way of their Soviet predecessors and now face defeat.
Yesterday, Russia’s Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev announced that the internal troops were re-introducing artillery units to combat militants in the North Caucasus, the first time the Russia side has done that since 1994-95 in the course of the initial post-Soviet Chechen war which Russian forces decisively lost (www.ng.ru/nvo/2010-12-06/1_nurgaliev.html).
And while the introduction of artillery units may not presage the same outcome in the current fighting, Moscow’s decision to employ such weaponry both highlights the strength of the opposition forces it faces and undercuts its claims that Russian forces are making progress against them and bringing peace to the region.
But perhaps even more indicative of the deteriorating security situation Moscow faces in the region is these the new units will be responsible not just for Chechnya but for the entire North Caucasus “except Stavropol” and that they have been charged with ensuring security for the Duma elections there next year.
The decision to exclude Stavropol represents a concession to officials and the population in that kray who are angry that their predominantly ethnic Russian region has been included in the North Caucasus Federal District rather than as it was before the NCFD was restored in the Southern Federal District.
The new units, the 46th brigade based in Chechnya and the 450th battalion in Daghestan, will assume some of the responsibilities that regular army artillery units have played in the past, “Nezvisimoye voyennoye obozrenie” commentator Vladimir Mukhin says, but how effective they will be remains to be seen, especially the latter given that it consists of local people.
According to the military experts with whom Mukhin spoke, this step constitutes “a recognition by the generals” that their subordinates now need to use artillery more frequently, something that they say shows that the supposedly “disappearing” militants are currently capable of mounting a well-organized and powerful resistance to Russian forces.
The interior forces actually have significant experience in this regard on which to draw. Not only did MVD units employ artillery in the first post-Soviet Chechen war but 1500 internal troops took part in fall exercises in Rostov oblast recently in which they practiced with armored vehicles, helicopters and artillery.
In his remarks, Nurgaliyev tried to put the best face on things, recounting how many militants have been neutralized and arms seized over the past year. But he acknowledged that there are as many as 500 “armed bandits” who are continuing to offer resistance to federal authorities and who must be suppressed by the use of artillery so that elections can take place.
Staunton, December 7 – When reports surfaced that the United States was sending tanks to Afghanistan, international reaction was shift and nearly unanimous: US forces there, commentators in both Russia and the West suggested, are going the way of their Soviet predecessors and now face defeat.
Yesterday, Russia’s Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev announced that the internal troops were re-introducing artillery units to combat militants in the North Caucasus, the first time the Russia side has done that since 1994-95 in the course of the initial post-Soviet Chechen war which Russian forces decisively lost (www.ng.ru/nvo/2010-12-06/1_nurgaliev.html).
And while the introduction of artillery units may not presage the same outcome in the current fighting, Moscow’s decision to employ such weaponry both highlights the strength of the opposition forces it faces and undercuts its claims that Russian forces are making progress against them and bringing peace to the region.
But perhaps even more indicative of the deteriorating security situation Moscow faces in the region is these the new units will be responsible not just for Chechnya but for the entire North Caucasus “except Stavropol” and that they have been charged with ensuring security for the Duma elections there next year.
The decision to exclude Stavropol represents a concession to officials and the population in that kray who are angry that their predominantly ethnic Russian region has been included in the North Caucasus Federal District rather than as it was before the NCFD was restored in the Southern Federal District.
The new units, the 46th brigade based in Chechnya and the 450th battalion in Daghestan, will assume some of the responsibilities that regular army artillery units have played in the past, “Nezvisimoye voyennoye obozrenie” commentator Vladimir Mukhin says, but how effective they will be remains to be seen, especially the latter given that it consists of local people.
According to the military experts with whom Mukhin spoke, this step constitutes “a recognition by the generals” that their subordinates now need to use artillery more frequently, something that they say shows that the supposedly “disappearing” militants are currently capable of mounting a well-organized and powerful resistance to Russian forces.
The interior forces actually have significant experience in this regard on which to draw. Not only did MVD units employ artillery in the first post-Soviet Chechen war but 1500 internal troops took part in fall exercises in Rostov oblast recently in which they practiced with armored vehicles, helicopters and artillery.
In his remarks, Nurgaliyev tried to put the best face on things, recounting how many militants have been neutralized and arms seized over the past year. But he acknowledged that there are as many as 500 “armed bandits” who are continuing to offer resistance to federal authorities and who must be suppressed by the use of artillery so that elections can take place.
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