Paul Goble
Vienna, May 4 – In the last ten days, Russian commentators have suggested that Ankara’s recent agreement with Yerevan represents part of a larger Turkish effort to expand Ankara’s influence throughout the Caucasus and thus constitutes a threat to Russia’s position not only in the three South Caucasus countries but in the North Caucasus republics as well.
Now a Moscow specialist on security affairs has suggested that Turkey is making use of the Nurjilar movement, an Islamic group that the Russian Supreme Court declared to be extremist in April 2008, to project power through Azerbaijan into the North Caucasus and especially into Daghestan (www.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=2115).
This timing of this article suggests that it is related primarily to Moscow’s nervousness about the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement and Russia’s interest in torpedoing any progress toward a resolution of the Karabakh dispute, but its specific content points to some more immediate Moscow concerns about developments inside Russia’s borders.
Three weeks ago, Guriya Murklinskaya writes, the FSB arrested the members of an underground Nurjilar cell in the Daghestani city of Izberbash. Of those seized, nine were Russian citizens, seven citizens of Azerbaijan and one Turkish national, Erdemir Ali Ihsan, the coordinator of Nurjilar activities in Russia.
In the course of the ensuring investigation, the FSB reportedly learned that Ihsan had visited Nurjilar groups in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Kazan and Krasnoyarsk, a finding that if true suggests the movement continues to have a brought reach in Russia despite the ban.
And Murklinskaya suggests that Ankara, despite its official opposition to the Nurjilar, is making use of this movement as part of its effort “via the territory of Azerbaijan” to “attempt to take under its control the development of the situation in the North Caucasus” in general and “in the Republic of Daghestan” in particular.
The Nurjilar, a religious group named for its founder Said Nursi, who attracted more than five million followers during his lifetime and whose ideas which focus on the use of education to promote Islamic ideals have been continued by 40 of his students, some of whom have become involved with business and radical politics and, according to some reports, with drug trafficking.
At present, Murklinskaya continues, there are Nurjilar groups in some 87 countries, including clearly the Russian Federation. Their overall spiritual leader today, she writes is Fathullah Gulen, who was forced to flee from Turkey where he has been sentenced in absentia to ten years in prison to the United States where he now lives.
But many commentators, especially in Russia, argue that the Nurjilar are less a spiritual movement than a revolutionary one and that despite the ban on their activity in Turkey, they are in fact agents of influence or even more for the Turkish government as it seeks to expand its influence in the Caucasus and elsewhere.
Zagir Arukhov, the nationalities policy minister of Daghestan who was killed in May 2005, once said, Murklinskaya continues, that “the final goal of the ideologists and followers of the Nurjilar is the establishment in Eurasia of ‘a Turkic empire’ in Eurasia on the basis of ‘an enlightened version of the shariat.”
To that end, Arukhov argued, according to Murklinskaya, the Nurjilar have focused on penetrating existing educational institutions in the Russian Federation or even in setting up schools of their own. In Daghestan and other non-Russian republics, they were successful in doing both.
During the 1990s, she writes, the Nurjilar set up 24 schools, one university, one university branch, and three language institutes inside the Russian Federation. They financed research inside Russia and paid travel costs and stipends to students from the Russian Federation to study in Turkey.
These arrangements, Murklinskaya points out, “created the necessary legal foundation for lengthy stays by an unlimited number of citizens of Turkey on the territory of the North Caucasus as well as favorable conditions for intelligence and diversionary actions” by them and any local people they might recruit.
As their extra-religious activities became more obvious, Russian officials began to move against them, first in Daghestan in August 2002 when the Nurjilar lycees were closed and then in other cities of the Russian Federation. And more recently, the FSB and the MVD have moved to close nominally commercial businesses having Nurjilar links in the Southern Federal District.
These businesses, the Russian intelligence services have established, were being used by Turkish citizens to finance “anti-Russian Turkish general educational centers where the ideas of ‘an Islamic revolution’ and the creation of a ‘Great Turan’ state were propagated,” ostensibly separately from the Nurjilar.
But even though the Nurjilar schools and businesses have been closed, the group identified and arrested in Daghestan last month shows, Murklinskaya argues, that “the graduates and trainees [of these institutions] remain as do the children and relatives of these graduates and certain teachers and graduate students.”
“The majority of them,” the Moscow security affairs analyst concludes, constitute “a ready-made agency of influence for pan-Turkism,” however much they and the Turkish government claim otherwise. And as a result, “the poisonous seeds sown by the Nurjilar activists are continuing to bear fruit.”
Monday, May 4, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Kyiv Disputes Moscow’s Claim Few Ukrainians in Russia Want Native Language Schools
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 4 – Moscow’s assertion that ethnic Ukrainians in the Russian Federation, that country’s second largest nationality, do not have any problems with education in their own national language because they are not asking for it “does not correspond to reality,” according to a spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign ministry.
A week ago, Andrey Nesterenko, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, said, in responding to an OSCE report, acknowledged that there were few Ukrainian language schools but said that reflected an absence of demand by Ukrainians for them rather than a Moscow policy against such schools (rus.newsru.ua/ukraine/27apr2009/ukrschool.html).
The lack of such demands, the Russian diplomat continued, reflects what he described as “the closeness of the Eastern Slavic languages and cultures, the common history (Kievan Rus, the Moscow State, the Russian Empire and the USSR) and the common Christian faith” of the Russians and Ukrainians.
Not surprisingly, Ukrainians and Ukrainian officials were outraged not only because Moscow has always insisted on the provision of Russian-language schools in Ukraine – and complained when any of them are closed – but also because Nesterenko’s claim about the situation in Russia where in fact Ukrainians would like Ukrainian-language schools “does not correspond to the facts” (www.vz.ru/news/4/30/282440.html).
Indeed, Ukrainian commentators have pointed out, Ukraine does support Russian language education in its schools and that last year, the OSCE commissar on national minorities declared after examining the situation there that he did not find “any violation of the rights of the Russian language population in Ukraine” (rus.newsru.ua/ukraine/27mar2008/mova.html).
Vasily Kirilich, a spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign ministry, said that Nesterenko’s statement was intended to mislead the OSCE by creating “the false impression of the supposedly problem-free nature of Ukrainian national cultural development in Russia,” a particular travesty because ethnic Ukrainians at 2.5 million are the second largest national minority there.
He pointed out that in Moscow alone, there are now more than 250,000 ethnic Ukrainians but not a single middle school with instruction in the Ukrainian language, something that creates problems both for the indigenous Ukrainian population of the city and the many other Ukrainians who “work temporarily” there and plan to return to Ukraine.
Elsewhere in the Russian Federation, throughout which ethnic Ukrainians are to be found, the situation is even worse, he said. At present “there is no school” anywhere in the Russian Federation where the entire academic program is conducted in the Ukrainian language. There exists only [a few] schools with an ethno-national (ethno-cultural) component.”
The Ukrainian diplomat was clearly infuriated by the suggestion that Ukrainians living in the Russian Federation were not interested in preserving their own language through the schools and that, to use Nesterenko’s words, “citizens of the Russian Federation of Ukrainian nationality and Russians among citizens of Ukraine are in a different ethno-cultural situation.”
Russian commentaries in support of Moscow’s point of view, such as Aleksandr Karavayev today, have suggested that the Ukrainians have only themselves to blame. Moscow has routinely supported Russian-language efforts in Ukraine, but Kyiv has been largely inactive in supporting Ukrainian-programs in Ukraine (www.ia-centr.ru/expert/4599/).
While there is some truth in what Karavayev says, that claim ignores two longer-standing if unfortunate realities. On the one hand, in Soviet times, Moscow provided Russian-language schools in all republics but did not provide any schools for non-Russians in their language outside their titular territories.
Thus, while Ukrainians living in Ukraine did have schools in Ukrainian, those Ukrainians living elsewhere did not, unlike Russians who in almost all cases had Russian-language schools wherever they lived. The current situation is a survival of that past, one Ukrainians and many other non-Russians decry.
And on the other, this pattern reflects an even older view, long propounded by Russians and accepted by many Western specialists. According to that view, Ukrainians and Belarusians are “byproducts” of Russian ethno-national development, and thus it is entirely appropriate that they be integrated linguistically and politically with the Russian nation and state.
In fact, as the Ukrainians and Belarusians know and, as statements like that of Kirilich last week show, are increasingly prepared to defend, those two nations have a separate and distinct ethno-national and political history, one that deserves equal treatment and respect not only from the Russians but from all members of the international community as well.
Vienna, May 4 – Moscow’s assertion that ethnic Ukrainians in the Russian Federation, that country’s second largest nationality, do not have any problems with education in their own national language because they are not asking for it “does not correspond to reality,” according to a spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign ministry.
A week ago, Andrey Nesterenko, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, said, in responding to an OSCE report, acknowledged that there were few Ukrainian language schools but said that reflected an absence of demand by Ukrainians for them rather than a Moscow policy against such schools (rus.newsru.ua/ukraine/27apr2009/ukrschool.html).
The lack of such demands, the Russian diplomat continued, reflects what he described as “the closeness of the Eastern Slavic languages and cultures, the common history (Kievan Rus, the Moscow State, the Russian Empire and the USSR) and the common Christian faith” of the Russians and Ukrainians.
Not surprisingly, Ukrainians and Ukrainian officials were outraged not only because Moscow has always insisted on the provision of Russian-language schools in Ukraine – and complained when any of them are closed – but also because Nesterenko’s claim about the situation in Russia where in fact Ukrainians would like Ukrainian-language schools “does not correspond to the facts” (www.vz.ru/news/4/30/282440.html).
Indeed, Ukrainian commentators have pointed out, Ukraine does support Russian language education in its schools and that last year, the OSCE commissar on national minorities declared after examining the situation there that he did not find “any violation of the rights of the Russian language population in Ukraine” (rus.newsru.ua/ukraine/27mar2008/mova.html).
Vasily Kirilich, a spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign ministry, said that Nesterenko’s statement was intended to mislead the OSCE by creating “the false impression of the supposedly problem-free nature of Ukrainian national cultural development in Russia,” a particular travesty because ethnic Ukrainians at 2.5 million are the second largest national minority there.
He pointed out that in Moscow alone, there are now more than 250,000 ethnic Ukrainians but not a single middle school with instruction in the Ukrainian language, something that creates problems both for the indigenous Ukrainian population of the city and the many other Ukrainians who “work temporarily” there and plan to return to Ukraine.
Elsewhere in the Russian Federation, throughout which ethnic Ukrainians are to be found, the situation is even worse, he said. At present “there is no school” anywhere in the Russian Federation where the entire academic program is conducted in the Ukrainian language. There exists only [a few] schools with an ethno-national (ethno-cultural) component.”
The Ukrainian diplomat was clearly infuriated by the suggestion that Ukrainians living in the Russian Federation were not interested in preserving their own language through the schools and that, to use Nesterenko’s words, “citizens of the Russian Federation of Ukrainian nationality and Russians among citizens of Ukraine are in a different ethno-cultural situation.”
Russian commentaries in support of Moscow’s point of view, such as Aleksandr Karavayev today, have suggested that the Ukrainians have only themselves to blame. Moscow has routinely supported Russian-language efforts in Ukraine, but Kyiv has been largely inactive in supporting Ukrainian-programs in Ukraine (www.ia-centr.ru/expert/4599/).
While there is some truth in what Karavayev says, that claim ignores two longer-standing if unfortunate realities. On the one hand, in Soviet times, Moscow provided Russian-language schools in all republics but did not provide any schools for non-Russians in their language outside their titular territories.
Thus, while Ukrainians living in Ukraine did have schools in Ukrainian, those Ukrainians living elsewhere did not, unlike Russians who in almost all cases had Russian-language schools wherever they lived. The current situation is a survival of that past, one Ukrainians and many other non-Russians decry.
And on the other, this pattern reflects an even older view, long propounded by Russians and accepted by many Western specialists. According to that view, Ukrainians and Belarusians are “byproducts” of Russian ethno-national development, and thus it is entirely appropriate that they be integrated linguistically and politically with the Russian nation and state.
In fact, as the Ukrainians and Belarusians know and, as statements like that of Kirilich last week show, are increasingly prepared to defend, those two nations have a separate and distinct ethno-national and political history, one that deserves equal treatment and respect not only from the Russians but from all members of the international community as well.
Window on Eurasia: Zyuganov Would Like Moscow to Annex Abkhazia, South Ossetia
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 4 – The leader of the Russian Communist Party said in Strasbourg last week that in his view, it would be “desirable” if Moscow were to annex Abkhazia and South Ossetia, an opinion several Russian commentators said reflected the thinking of many in the upper reaches of the government of the Russian Federation.
Speaking to Georgian journalists on the sidelines of a session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) last week, Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the KPRF, said that “history does not turn backwards” and that Moscow will “not back away from [its] recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia” (www.rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=182666).
And then he added that if it were up to him, “I would conduct a referendum and would include Abkhazia and South Ossetia within Russia,” a comment that was posted on the KPRF website last Thursday (kprf.ru/international/66074.html) and one that apparently reflects the generally unexpressed views of many in Moscow.
In reporting Zyuganov’s remarks, the Russkaya Liniya portal -- a Russian Orthodox site with close ties to the Russian government and statist Russian nationalists -- asked several of its regular contacts for their comments about the possibility of such a move, one that would send shockwaves not only in those two breakaway republics but across the post-Soviet space as well.
Vladimir Timakov, a deputy in the Tula Oblast Duma, told the site that Moscow would have “first of all to ask South Ossetia and Abkhazia whether they want to unify themselves with Russia.” From his perspective, Timakov said, such a step “would be completely logical. But in the current environment,” there would be problems.
Such a move, he said, would “be conceived as an annexation by Russia of part of Georgia. [And] therefore it would be more correct to preserve the status quo, as is now being done. But if these states would become part of Russia, this would be a natural course of events,” however much many Georgians and the international community might oppose.
Timakov suggested that another reason for Moscow to go slow is that “one should remember that the Georgians are all the same an Orthodox people and therefore it is necessary to organize things more calmly.” But the Tula deputy continued, as for him, he “would be glad if Georgia itself were to become part of Russia.”
At present, he conceded, that is “impossible, although it is desirable.”
A second Russkaya Liniya interlocutor, former Duma deputy Aleksandr Chuyev said that “the inclusion of South Ossetia into Russia is a question which we will resolve when the time comes.” For now, however, he continued, “besides guaranteeing” these states full sovereignty, Moscow should work to bring their “legislation in correspondence with the Russian.”
That is not a process that should be rushed, because “the republics all the same have lived according to their own laws, and there life is quite different from ours.” Moscow should also work to beef up the external borders of these republics, something the Russian government has already taken steps to do.
“Gradually” and in ways that will “not create unnecessary tensions,” Chuyev suggested, Moscow and the two republics will be able to resolve “more important social tasks” and then will be able “to conduct referenda” because “the idea of unifying Abkhazia and South Ossetia [with Russia] not utopian but not just now timely.”
But a third Russkaya Liniya contact, St. Petersburg political scientist Sergey Lebedev, suggested that the unification of the two republics is “not only desirable but entirely possible:” He called for referenda to unite South Ossetia with North Ossetia and to reaffirm Abkhazia’s quest in 1989 to be recognized as “a union republic of the USSR or part of Russia.”
Arguing that Zyuganov had expressed the right idea, Lebedev said that “it is understandable that the international community will react very nervously to this initiative for the simple reason that it will create the precedent of changing borders. And that means that after
That trend, in turn, “could lead to the reestablishment of historical Russia in the borders of the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union. Strictly speaking, even de jure, these republics today are independent states,” the political commentator from the northern capital continued, “but de facto these are Russian gubernia.”
Such views are often found on nationalist sites, but Lebedev continued by suggesting that “the Kremlin shares Zyuganov’s position although official acknowledgement of the necessity of the unification of these republics is not going to come soon” because while many of the powers that be think that way, they are afraid the West would “freeze their accounts” if they said so.”
Three things are interesting about these comments, even if they do not reflect as broad a consensus in the Kremlin as Zyuganov and his supporters imply. First, these speakers like the Russian government and the West treat Abkhazia and South Ossetia as equivalent situations, something that is not true, with the former far more committed to independence than the latter.
Second, the willingness of Zyuganov to make this proposal and in Strasbourg no less shows that he and others in the Russian capital have no intention of backing away from their commitment to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, whatever some in the West may think, but instead are prepared to press ahead still further.
And third, Zyuganov’s comments may in fact be a trial balloon by Russian officials who are attempting to test the waters for Western reaction. By suggesting that Moscow might go even further than the annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, some in the Russian government may be attempting to gauge whether some in the West are prepared to engage in a grand bargain.
Vienna, May 4 – The leader of the Russian Communist Party said in Strasbourg last week that in his view, it would be “desirable” if Moscow were to annex Abkhazia and South Ossetia, an opinion several Russian commentators said reflected the thinking of many in the upper reaches of the government of the Russian Federation.
Speaking to Georgian journalists on the sidelines of a session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) last week, Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the KPRF, said that “history does not turn backwards” and that Moscow will “not back away from [its] recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia” (www.rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=182666).
And then he added that if it were up to him, “I would conduct a referendum and would include Abkhazia and South Ossetia within Russia,” a comment that was posted on the KPRF website last Thursday (kprf.ru/international/66074.html) and one that apparently reflects the generally unexpressed views of many in Moscow.
In reporting Zyuganov’s remarks, the Russkaya Liniya portal -- a Russian Orthodox site with close ties to the Russian government and statist Russian nationalists -- asked several of its regular contacts for their comments about the possibility of such a move, one that would send shockwaves not only in those two breakaway republics but across the post-Soviet space as well.
Vladimir Timakov, a deputy in the Tula Oblast Duma, told the site that Moscow would have “first of all to ask South Ossetia and Abkhazia whether they want to unify themselves with Russia.” From his perspective, Timakov said, such a step “would be completely logical. But in the current environment,” there would be problems.
Such a move, he said, would “be conceived as an annexation by Russia of part of Georgia. [And] therefore it would be more correct to preserve the status quo, as is now being done. But if these states would become part of Russia, this would be a natural course of events,” however much many Georgians and the international community might oppose.
Timakov suggested that another reason for Moscow to go slow is that “one should remember that the Georgians are all the same an Orthodox people and therefore it is necessary to organize things more calmly.” But the Tula deputy continued, as for him, he “would be glad if Georgia itself were to become part of Russia.”
At present, he conceded, that is “impossible, although it is desirable.”
A second Russkaya Liniya interlocutor, former Duma deputy Aleksandr Chuyev said that “the inclusion of South Ossetia into Russia is a question which we will resolve when the time comes.” For now, however, he continued, “besides guaranteeing” these states full sovereignty, Moscow should work to bring their “legislation in correspondence with the Russian.”
That is not a process that should be rushed, because “the republics all the same have lived according to their own laws, and there life is quite different from ours.” Moscow should also work to beef up the external borders of these republics, something the Russian government has already taken steps to do.
“Gradually” and in ways that will “not create unnecessary tensions,” Chuyev suggested, Moscow and the two republics will be able to resolve “more important social tasks” and then will be able “to conduct referenda” because “the idea of unifying Abkhazia and South Ossetia [with Russia] not utopian but not just now timely.”
But a third Russkaya Liniya contact, St. Petersburg political scientist Sergey Lebedev, suggested that the unification of the two republics is “not only desirable but entirely possible:” He called for referenda to unite South Ossetia with North Ossetia and to reaffirm Abkhazia’s quest in 1989 to be recognized as “a union republic of the USSR or part of Russia.”
Arguing that Zyuganov had expressed the right idea, Lebedev said that “it is understandable that the international community will react very nervously to this initiative for the simple reason that it will create the precedent of changing borders. And that means that after
That trend, in turn, “could lead to the reestablishment of historical Russia in the borders of the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union. Strictly speaking, even de jure, these republics today are independent states,” the political commentator from the northern capital continued, “but de facto these are Russian gubernia.”
Such views are often found on nationalist sites, but Lebedev continued by suggesting that “the Kremlin shares Zyuganov’s position although official acknowledgement of the necessity of the unification of these republics is not going to come soon” because while many of the powers that be think that way, they are afraid the West would “freeze their accounts” if they said so.”
Three things are interesting about these comments, even if they do not reflect as broad a consensus in the Kremlin as Zyuganov and his supporters imply. First, these speakers like the Russian government and the West treat Abkhazia and South Ossetia as equivalent situations, something that is not true, with the former far more committed to independence than the latter.
Second, the willingness of Zyuganov to make this proposal and in Strasbourg no less shows that he and others in the Russian capital have no intention of backing away from their commitment to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, whatever some in the West may think, but instead are prepared to press ahead still further.
And third, Zyuganov’s comments may in fact be a trial balloon by Russian officials who are attempting to test the waters for Western reaction. By suggesting that Moscow might go even further than the annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, some in the Russian government may be attempting to gauge whether some in the West are prepared to engage in a grand bargain.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Six Months After Zyazikov’s Ouster, Ingushetia Remains Unstable
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 1 – On October 31 of last year, Moscow dismissed Murat Zyazikov, the widely despised president of Ingushetia, and installed Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, a much-decorated Ingush colonel in the Russian Army, in his place, a move that many both in that North Caucasus republic and more generally marked the dawn of a new day there.
Now, six months later, Kavkaz-uzel.ru has offered an assessment of what has changed and what has not, concluding that while Yevkurov has been far more effective in working with the population and with Moscow than his predecessor, the republic he heads is still “far from stable” and in some respects may be getting even less so (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/153606).
Because Zyazikov sought to suppress all independent media, falsified election results and other data, and is widely suspected of ordering the killing of at least one major opposition figure, many Ingush were prepared to see almost anyone else as an improvement. At the very least, they were ready to give the new man the benefit of the doubt.
Yevkurov, the Caucasus news service points out, made the most of this. He “began a dialogue with the opposition” and even appointed some of its members to senior positions in his administration. He developed good relations with the human rights community. And he worked hard to end blood feuds among the Ingush taips.
Moreover, Yevkurov purged the organs of power, using charges of corruption as the basis for ousting many of Zyazikov’s people. And because of his actions in reaching out to the population and fighting corruption, the current president was far more successful in getting federal funds, something that by itself helped him to build authority.
During the last few months, Kavkz-uzel.ru continues, Yevkurov has begun to purge the law enforcement agencies, many of which had become little more than Zyazikov’s personal hit squads. Yevkurov set up a hot line for Ingush to telephone in complaints about the violation of their rights by these groups.
Even more important, the new president set up a Societal Commission on Human Rights and included in its membership “deputies of parliament, representatives of the force structures, as well as leaders of non-governmental organizations and ordinary citizens of the republic,” an institution that marked a clean break from Zyazikov’s approach.
On one of the most sensitive issues, the question of the Prigorodny district from which many Ingush were forced to flee more than 15 years ago, Yevkurov made it clear that he did not intend to try to change its borders but that he supported “the most rapid return of Ingush refugees to the places of their former residence on the territory of North Ossetia.”
But at the same time, the Internet news portal continued, Yevkurov “has not yet been able to establish complete control over the situation in the region” or limit the upward trend of some of the most disturbing measures of violence in that republic which, prior to Zyazikov was an island of stability, but now ranks among the most unstable.
According to the Memorial Human Rights Center, the number of killings is up sharply so far this year. Since January 1, 21 civilians, 12 officials of local force structures, and six military personnel from the outside have been killed, and over the same period, the force structures have killed 20 militants. Moreover, kidnappings have remained frequent.
. (Figures from the republic’s interior ministry are slightly different but also worrisome. During the first quarter, it reports, the authorities killed 27 militants, losing 18 uniformed law enforcement officers and two civilian officials.” In addition, the ministry said, some 44 people on the government side had been wounded during militant attacks.)
But if the statistics tell one side of the story, the attitudes of the population tell another. One Ingush man told Kavkaz-uzel.ru that Yevkurov “really enjoys the sympathy of the population. He travels throughout the republic, tries to listen to all, and gives people the chance to openly express themselves on the most pressing problems.”
Those were steps Zyazikov never took, and they are welcome. But now six months into his presidency, many in Ingushetia appear to be concerned that however open Yevkurov is to contacts with the population, he has not been able to reduce the level of violence. And with each passing week, more of them are likely asking whether openness, however welcome, is enough.
Vienna, May 1 – On October 31 of last year, Moscow dismissed Murat Zyazikov, the widely despised president of Ingushetia, and installed Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, a much-decorated Ingush colonel in the Russian Army, in his place, a move that many both in that North Caucasus republic and more generally marked the dawn of a new day there.
Now, six months later, Kavkaz-uzel.ru has offered an assessment of what has changed and what has not, concluding that while Yevkurov has been far more effective in working with the population and with Moscow than his predecessor, the republic he heads is still “far from stable” and in some respects may be getting even less so (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/153606).
Because Zyazikov sought to suppress all independent media, falsified election results and other data, and is widely suspected of ordering the killing of at least one major opposition figure, many Ingush were prepared to see almost anyone else as an improvement. At the very least, they were ready to give the new man the benefit of the doubt.
Yevkurov, the Caucasus news service points out, made the most of this. He “began a dialogue with the opposition” and even appointed some of its members to senior positions in his administration. He developed good relations with the human rights community. And he worked hard to end blood feuds among the Ingush taips.
Moreover, Yevkurov purged the organs of power, using charges of corruption as the basis for ousting many of Zyazikov’s people. And because of his actions in reaching out to the population and fighting corruption, the current president was far more successful in getting federal funds, something that by itself helped him to build authority.
During the last few months, Kavkz-uzel.ru continues, Yevkurov has begun to purge the law enforcement agencies, many of which had become little more than Zyazikov’s personal hit squads. Yevkurov set up a hot line for Ingush to telephone in complaints about the violation of their rights by these groups.
Even more important, the new president set up a Societal Commission on Human Rights and included in its membership “deputies of parliament, representatives of the force structures, as well as leaders of non-governmental organizations and ordinary citizens of the republic,” an institution that marked a clean break from Zyazikov’s approach.
On one of the most sensitive issues, the question of the Prigorodny district from which many Ingush were forced to flee more than 15 years ago, Yevkurov made it clear that he did not intend to try to change its borders but that he supported “the most rapid return of Ingush refugees to the places of their former residence on the territory of North Ossetia.”
But at the same time, the Internet news portal continued, Yevkurov “has not yet been able to establish complete control over the situation in the region” or limit the upward trend of some of the most disturbing measures of violence in that republic which, prior to Zyazikov was an island of stability, but now ranks among the most unstable.
According to the Memorial Human Rights Center, the number of killings is up sharply so far this year. Since January 1, 21 civilians, 12 officials of local force structures, and six military personnel from the outside have been killed, and over the same period, the force structures have killed 20 militants. Moreover, kidnappings have remained frequent.
. (Figures from the republic’s interior ministry are slightly different but also worrisome. During the first quarter, it reports, the authorities killed 27 militants, losing 18 uniformed law enforcement officers and two civilian officials.” In addition, the ministry said, some 44 people on the government side had been wounded during militant attacks.)
But if the statistics tell one side of the story, the attitudes of the population tell another. One Ingush man told Kavkaz-uzel.ru that Yevkurov “really enjoys the sympathy of the population. He travels throughout the republic, tries to listen to all, and gives people the chance to openly express themselves on the most pressing problems.”
Those were steps Zyazikov never took, and they are welcome. But now six months into his presidency, many in Ingushetia appear to be concerned that however open Yevkurov is to contacts with the population, he has not been able to reduce the level of violence. And with each passing week, more of them are likely asking whether openness, however welcome, is enough.
Window on Eurasia: Saudis Turn Down Moscow’s Request to Boost Russia’s Haj Quota
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 1 – The Saudi officials responsible for setting national quotas for Muslim pilgrims to Mecca announced the allocation of 20,500 slots for hajis from the Russian Federation in 2009, the exact number that country is supposed to have on the basis of existing formulas but 4500 fewer came from Russia last year and fewer than Moscow wanted to send this.
The Saudis have long allocated haj quotas on the basis of one-tenth of one percent of the estimated number of Muslims in a particular country, but in recent years, the Russian government has sought and received a higher allocation, arguing that there is pent-up demand because few Muslims were able to make the pilgrimage during Soviet times.
Saudi deference to the Russian government on this point in the past, however, angered Muslims in other countries, many of whom have been forced to wait years if not decades for the change to make the haj required of all believers capable of going on it at least once in the course of their lifetimes (www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusnews/8445/).
But Moscow’s failure to get a higher quota this year creates three problems for the Russian government. First, given that many more Muslims in the Russian Federation want to go than there are slots, at least some of them are going to see the new lower number as an indication that their country did not press hard enough.
That is especially likely because a majority of Russian hajis come from the North Caucasus -- and especially from the extremely unstable republics of Chechnya and Daghestan. Indeed, it is almost certain that anti-regime activists will point to this decline in the haj quota as one more reason for local people to support them.
Second, the number of Muslims from Russia who will actually perform the haj is likely to be larger than the number of slots, creating a problem for both Moscow which will thus be faced with losing control of the situation and the Saudis. Indeed, in announcing quotas this year, the Saudis said that Moscow must ensure that all hajis from Russia return when the haj is over.
Indeed, in both of the last two years, there were problems with Russian hajis who came on their own, did not march under the Russian flag, and sometimes remained long after the haj was completed, creating problems for all concerned and prompting the Russians to beef up their offices in Saudi Arabia to deal with the problem.
And third, both because Moscow wants to present its Muslim face to the Islamic world and because Muslims in Russia want larger quotas, the latter are likely to press for an acknowledgement by Moscow that there are in fact more than the 20.5 million Muslims in Russia the current haj quota is based on.
That sets the stage for a serious debate between Russian nationalists and the leaders of the increasingly influential Russian Orthodox Church who want to minimize the size of the Islamic community in Russia and the increasingly numerous Muslims who want recognition of the growth of their community.
As Moscow discusses plans for a census next year, such discussions are likely to intensify because given recent cutbacks in the amount of money allocated for that enumeration, there will be pressure from many Russians to eliminate questions that would highlight the growth of the Muslim community and alternatively from Muslims to do the opposite.
Meanwhile, in another development in the Muslim world that is likely to resonate in the Russian Federation, officials at the Organization of the Islamic Conference have announced plans to “impose order” on the increasing flow of fetwas, legal opinions about particular cases for Muslims but documents often treated by others as having broader applicability.
This week, at the 19th conference of the OIC’s International Islamic Academy of Fihta (IIFA), officials and scholars said they wanted to end “the current chaos in the publication of fetwas, which in part contradict one another” and thus represent a source of confusion rather than guidance for the faithful (www.islam.com.ua/news/6122/).
Whether the OIC can achieve its goal in this regard is far from clear given that the number of fetwas being issued around the world is now running at the rate of 1600 a week, according to scholars at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University who are computerizing them but without yet making a concerted effort to prioritize them.
But this action of the OIC is likely to find an echo in the Russian Federation where both the Russian government and the leaderships of the Muslim Spiritual Directorates (MSDs) are certain to see this effort by the Islamic community abroad as both a model for and a justification of greater control over fetwas, both those issued in Russia and those from abroad.
And to the extent that Russian officials and Russian Muslims do so, that could lead to a tighter “power vertical” within the Islamic community of that country, contradicting the radically decentralized nature of the Muslim faith and reinforcing the government-backed MSDs at a time when ever more Muslims there are asking whether they should continue to exist.
Vienna, May 1 – The Saudi officials responsible for setting national quotas for Muslim pilgrims to Mecca announced the allocation of 20,500 slots for hajis from the Russian Federation in 2009, the exact number that country is supposed to have on the basis of existing formulas but 4500 fewer came from Russia last year and fewer than Moscow wanted to send this.
The Saudis have long allocated haj quotas on the basis of one-tenth of one percent of the estimated number of Muslims in a particular country, but in recent years, the Russian government has sought and received a higher allocation, arguing that there is pent-up demand because few Muslims were able to make the pilgrimage during Soviet times.
Saudi deference to the Russian government on this point in the past, however, angered Muslims in other countries, many of whom have been forced to wait years if not decades for the change to make the haj required of all believers capable of going on it at least once in the course of their lifetimes (www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusnews/8445/).
But Moscow’s failure to get a higher quota this year creates three problems for the Russian government. First, given that many more Muslims in the Russian Federation want to go than there are slots, at least some of them are going to see the new lower number as an indication that their country did not press hard enough.
That is especially likely because a majority of Russian hajis come from the North Caucasus -- and especially from the extremely unstable republics of Chechnya and Daghestan. Indeed, it is almost certain that anti-regime activists will point to this decline in the haj quota as one more reason for local people to support them.
Second, the number of Muslims from Russia who will actually perform the haj is likely to be larger than the number of slots, creating a problem for both Moscow which will thus be faced with losing control of the situation and the Saudis. Indeed, in announcing quotas this year, the Saudis said that Moscow must ensure that all hajis from Russia return when the haj is over.
Indeed, in both of the last two years, there were problems with Russian hajis who came on their own, did not march under the Russian flag, and sometimes remained long after the haj was completed, creating problems for all concerned and prompting the Russians to beef up their offices in Saudi Arabia to deal with the problem.
And third, both because Moscow wants to present its Muslim face to the Islamic world and because Muslims in Russia want larger quotas, the latter are likely to press for an acknowledgement by Moscow that there are in fact more than the 20.5 million Muslims in Russia the current haj quota is based on.
That sets the stage for a serious debate between Russian nationalists and the leaders of the increasingly influential Russian Orthodox Church who want to minimize the size of the Islamic community in Russia and the increasingly numerous Muslims who want recognition of the growth of their community.
As Moscow discusses plans for a census next year, such discussions are likely to intensify because given recent cutbacks in the amount of money allocated for that enumeration, there will be pressure from many Russians to eliminate questions that would highlight the growth of the Muslim community and alternatively from Muslims to do the opposite.
Meanwhile, in another development in the Muslim world that is likely to resonate in the Russian Federation, officials at the Organization of the Islamic Conference have announced plans to “impose order” on the increasing flow of fetwas, legal opinions about particular cases for Muslims but documents often treated by others as having broader applicability.
This week, at the 19th conference of the OIC’s International Islamic Academy of Fihta (IIFA), officials and scholars said they wanted to end “the current chaos in the publication of fetwas, which in part contradict one another” and thus represent a source of confusion rather than guidance for the faithful (www.islam.com.ua/news/6122/).
Whether the OIC can achieve its goal in this regard is far from clear given that the number of fetwas being issued around the world is now running at the rate of 1600 a week, according to scholars at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University who are computerizing them but without yet making a concerted effort to prioritize them.
But this action of the OIC is likely to find an echo in the Russian Federation where both the Russian government and the leaderships of the Muslim Spiritual Directorates (MSDs) are certain to see this effort by the Islamic community abroad as both a model for and a justification of greater control over fetwas, both those issued in Russia and those from abroad.
And to the extent that Russian officials and Russian Muslims do so, that could lead to a tighter “power vertical” within the Islamic community of that country, contradicting the radically decentralized nature of the Muslim faith and reinforcing the government-backed MSDs at a time when ever more Muslims there are asking whether they should continue to exist.
Window on Eurasia: Duma Draft Law Against Rehabilitating Fascism Dangerous Nonsense, Moscow Commentator Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 1 – A bill under consideration in the Duma designed to counter “the rehabilitation in the new independent states of Nazism,” likely to be passed and signed into law in the coming weeks, makes no sense in legal terms, is historically “stupid,” and opens the door to a dangerous form of “political theater,” according to a leading Moscow commentator.
In an article in today’s “Yezhednevny zhurnal,” Yevgeny Ikhlov writes that while neither he nor anyone else is against standing up against any recrudescence of totalitarianism, this particular piece of legislation is hardly the way to go about doing that. Instead, it has the capacity to make its authors and supporters look ridiculous (www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=9034).
First of all, he points out, the draft bill is “a legal nonsense” because, by imposing penalties on those who express a different view on the history of World War II, it directly contradicts an 11-year-old ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, whose decisions Moscow is committed by treaty to respect and implement.
In September 1998, the Strasbourg court held in the case of Lehideux and Isorni v. France that “the presentation of a point of view on historical events which does not correspond to an officially adopted one does not represent a misuse of freedom of speech,” and consequently, anyone charged under the terms of the new bill would certainly invoke that in his defense.
Second, Ikhlov continues, the draft legislation is “a historical stupidity. “ Instead of focusing attention on Nazism, the bill has the effect of focusing attention on the Soviet past and especially on the Stalinist period.
The bill defines “Nazism (national socialism) [as] a totalitarian ideology and the practice of its application by Hitlerite Germany, its allies, and its accomplices” that involved “totalitarian terrorist methods of power … the propaganda of the supremacy of some nations over others, the committing of military crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.”
“Doesn’t this remind you of something?” Ikhlov asks his readers, and he cites the following decision of the Russian Constitutional Court from November 30, 1992, which defined the nature of the Soviet system.
“In the country,” the Russian court held, “over the course of a lengthy period of time ruled a regime of unlimited power of a small group of communist functionaries … who used force. … the leading structures of the CPSU were the initiators and their local structures carried out repressions against millions of Soviet people, including those peoples who were deported.”
“We see,” Ikhlov continues, “that in correspondence with Russian law, in the course of a lengthy period of time … on the territory of the USSR operated a totalitarian terrorist regime. But making a hero out of it is in no way prohibited.” Instead, President Dmitry Medvedev has again made November 7th, when the Soviet state was founded, a national holiday.
Can it be, Ikhlov asks, that “the entire difference is that Nazism ranked nations and not classes?” But that too is nonsensical from the point of view of history. “Hitlerism never drew up a precise hierarchy of ethnoses, [because] it never entered into the heads [of the Nazis] to consider Jews and non-Aryans nations.”
“The sad truth of history,” the Moscow writer suggests, “is that on the territory of the USSR, France, Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece, the Second World War was accompanied by [a series of] domestic civil wars,” conflicts that broke out because the German military gave rightist opponentts of leftist governments a chance to fight the latter.
“The hundreds and hundreds of thousands of armed collaborationists were not a form of betrayal; they were a front in a civil war,” Ikhlov says. It is thus “stupid and shameful” to fix “by law the correctness of one of the versions of this civil war, where various peoples were tragically caught “between two, let us use the words of the laws, totalitarian terrorist regimes.”
In this civil war, the Moscow commentator continues, “some ‘defended’ Auschwitz and Baby Yar; others Kolyma and the Butovo polygon.” And the draft bill’s constant but quite often incorrect reference to the decisions of the Nurnberg tribunal at the end of World War II ultimately cannot obscure that reality.
“The tragic truth of history is that all participants in World War II committed crimes of war. But the crimes of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition were called that only by historians and publicists; they were never assessed” by a duly constituted international court, and the proposed Russian legislation would not do that either.
And third, Ikhlov continues, the bill is a piece of “political theater,” intended to make propaganda points rather than become part of the rule of law, and one that appears set to serve as “a false pretext for dimwitted censorship and idiotic conflicts with the neighbors” of the Russian Federation.
On the one hand, the law contains a large number of assertions about the legal standing of the Russian Federation which are simply untrue, including the remarkable and absurd suggestion that “the Russian Federation is the continuer [rather than legal successor] of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
And on the other, this bill could lead to absurd cases in which leaders of neighboring states – Ikhlov cites the president of Ukraine and the prime minister of Estonia – are charged with violating the law, convicted by a Moscow court – since that is where their embassies are – and where the sentence is enforced by Gazprom cutting off the gas to their countries.
Despite these problems, Ikhlov says, the bill is likely to be passed by the Duma and signed by President Medvedev because no one in the Moscow political establishment will want to say anything that their opponents could and would construe as a defense of the totalitarianism of another state. Defending such a system at home, of course, is another matter entirely.
Vienna, May 1 – A bill under consideration in the Duma designed to counter “the rehabilitation in the new independent states of Nazism,” likely to be passed and signed into law in the coming weeks, makes no sense in legal terms, is historically “stupid,” and opens the door to a dangerous form of “political theater,” according to a leading Moscow commentator.
In an article in today’s “Yezhednevny zhurnal,” Yevgeny Ikhlov writes that while neither he nor anyone else is against standing up against any recrudescence of totalitarianism, this particular piece of legislation is hardly the way to go about doing that. Instead, it has the capacity to make its authors and supporters look ridiculous (www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=9034).
First of all, he points out, the draft bill is “a legal nonsense” because, by imposing penalties on those who express a different view on the history of World War II, it directly contradicts an 11-year-old ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, whose decisions Moscow is committed by treaty to respect and implement.
In September 1998, the Strasbourg court held in the case of Lehideux and Isorni v. France that “the presentation of a point of view on historical events which does not correspond to an officially adopted one does not represent a misuse of freedom of speech,” and consequently, anyone charged under the terms of the new bill would certainly invoke that in his defense.
Second, Ikhlov continues, the draft legislation is “a historical stupidity. “ Instead of focusing attention on Nazism, the bill has the effect of focusing attention on the Soviet past and especially on the Stalinist period.
The bill defines “Nazism (national socialism) [as] a totalitarian ideology and the practice of its application by Hitlerite Germany, its allies, and its accomplices” that involved “totalitarian terrorist methods of power … the propaganda of the supremacy of some nations over others, the committing of military crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.”
“Doesn’t this remind you of something?” Ikhlov asks his readers, and he cites the following decision of the Russian Constitutional Court from November 30, 1992, which defined the nature of the Soviet system.
“In the country,” the Russian court held, “over the course of a lengthy period of time ruled a regime of unlimited power of a small group of communist functionaries … who used force. … the leading structures of the CPSU were the initiators and their local structures carried out repressions against millions of Soviet people, including those peoples who were deported.”
“We see,” Ikhlov continues, “that in correspondence with Russian law, in the course of a lengthy period of time … on the territory of the USSR operated a totalitarian terrorist regime. But making a hero out of it is in no way prohibited.” Instead, President Dmitry Medvedev has again made November 7th, when the Soviet state was founded, a national holiday.
Can it be, Ikhlov asks, that “the entire difference is that Nazism ranked nations and not classes?” But that too is nonsensical from the point of view of history. “Hitlerism never drew up a precise hierarchy of ethnoses, [because] it never entered into the heads [of the Nazis] to consider Jews and non-Aryans nations.”
“The sad truth of history,” the Moscow writer suggests, “is that on the territory of the USSR, France, Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece, the Second World War was accompanied by [a series of] domestic civil wars,” conflicts that broke out because the German military gave rightist opponentts of leftist governments a chance to fight the latter.
“The hundreds and hundreds of thousands of armed collaborationists were not a form of betrayal; they were a front in a civil war,” Ikhlov says. It is thus “stupid and shameful” to fix “by law the correctness of one of the versions of this civil war, where various peoples were tragically caught “between two, let us use the words of the laws, totalitarian terrorist regimes.”
In this civil war, the Moscow commentator continues, “some ‘defended’ Auschwitz and Baby Yar; others Kolyma and the Butovo polygon.” And the draft bill’s constant but quite often incorrect reference to the decisions of the Nurnberg tribunal at the end of World War II ultimately cannot obscure that reality.
“The tragic truth of history is that all participants in World War II committed crimes of war. But the crimes of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition were called that only by historians and publicists; they were never assessed” by a duly constituted international court, and the proposed Russian legislation would not do that either.
And third, Ikhlov continues, the bill is a piece of “political theater,” intended to make propaganda points rather than become part of the rule of law, and one that appears set to serve as “a false pretext for dimwitted censorship and idiotic conflicts with the neighbors” of the Russian Federation.
On the one hand, the law contains a large number of assertions about the legal standing of the Russian Federation which are simply untrue, including the remarkable and absurd suggestion that “the Russian Federation is the continuer [rather than legal successor] of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
And on the other, this bill could lead to absurd cases in which leaders of neighboring states – Ikhlov cites the president of Ukraine and the prime minister of Estonia – are charged with violating the law, convicted by a Moscow court – since that is where their embassies are – and where the sentence is enforced by Gazprom cutting off the gas to their countries.
Despite these problems, Ikhlov says, the bill is likely to be passed by the Duma and signed by President Medvedev because no one in the Moscow political establishment will want to say anything that their opponents could and would construe as a defense of the totalitarianism of another state. Defending such a system at home, of course, is another matter entirely.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Moscow has ‘Cast Aside’ Siberia, Threatening Russia’s Future, Scholar Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 30 – For the first time in more than a century, a Moscow-based politician and scholar from the Altai says, Russia’s central government has “cast aside” Siberia, a region that is not only rich in natural resources but whose unique spirit is critical for reform, thus putting the future of Russia as a whole at risk.
In an interview in “Baikalskiye vesti” yesterday, Vladimir Ryzhkov, currently a professor at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, says that “Siberia, which for the course of a century was celebrated not only for its natural but its human wealth has been converted into an ever poorer kray, forgotten by God and Moscow” (www.politirkutsk.ru/view.php/276/1.php).
The region’s population is not only declining, he says, but its level of education and culture is falling as well, trends that mean “if the political elite does not recognize fully the seriousness of the situation, it will soon become too late to engage in any talk about ‘the fates of Siberia.’”
Ryzhkov says that he is talking about Siberia as “a geographic term,” the two federal districts that extend from the Urals to the Pacific that constitutes 80 percent of Russia’s territory, 22 percent of the country’s population, and is responsible for 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
But the population is declining. Since 1990, five million of its residents have died or left. As a result, the population of Chukotka has fallen by more than half, of Magadan by 40 percent, Kamchatka by 18 percent, and so on. And this is happening despite the wealth of the region and security considerations with regard to China with its enormous population next door.
What is surprising, Ryzhkov says, is that this trend reverses the one that the Russian government had promoted in the past. “From the beginning of the conquest of Siberia,” he notes, “that is the region to which came the strongest, most progressive, and most freedom-loving people.”
Until the 1980s, the average income of Siberians was higher than in Central Russia, the share of those with higher education was greater, and the fraction who subscribed to newspapers was also larger. “In a word,” he says, Siberians were “a highly educated, cultural, dynamic and urbanized” people.
Ryzhkov acknowledges that some of the current problems of the region reflect the fallout from Soviet economic development strategies, strategies that promoted the company towns whose basic industries are failing without their managers or workers having any other economic options in the same place.
But now the collapse of these cities has been accelerated by Moscow policies which mean that it is cheaper to fly from Moscow to Western Europe than it is to fly from the Russian capital to Vladivostok. As a result, Ryzhkov points out, “six of the ten poorest regions of the Russian Federation are Siberian.”
Asked whether there is any “way out” from this situation, Ryzhkov says that there is but that the political elite in Moscow, which he notes includes “few Siberians” besides Sergey Shoygu, must begin to focus on the region and recognize that Moscow must “leave a greater part of the taxes collected there” to Siberia.
In addition, he argues, Moscow must come up with a special program to transform company towns, something that does not exist at the federal level, so that the people who live in them will not flee but redirect their energies to new purposes for their benefit and the benefit of the country as a whole.
Moreover, he says, Moscow should intervene to make sure that no private company has a monopoly on air travel so that Siberians don’t have to pay such high prices for tickets. And he suggests that the Russian Federation should “restore the Soviet system” of quotas for students at higher educational systems so that those from areas far from Moscow will get a chance.
But Ryzhkov’s most important comments concern what he called “the special qualities” of Siberians. Unlike Russians in the European portion of the country, “in whose blood is the memory of serfdom,” Siberians never knew landowners, and consequently, they are “more brave and direct in politics and in life.”
Moreover, he says, “they are very entrepreneurial, show initiative, and are businesslike. It is no accident that an enormous number of businessmen [in Russia] are Siberians.” And Ryzhkov concludes, if everything else were equal, “the first who would run ahead [in that sector and presumably many others] would be the Siberians.”
Vienna, April 30 – For the first time in more than a century, a Moscow-based politician and scholar from the Altai says, Russia’s central government has “cast aside” Siberia, a region that is not only rich in natural resources but whose unique spirit is critical for reform, thus putting the future of Russia as a whole at risk.
In an interview in “Baikalskiye vesti” yesterday, Vladimir Ryzhkov, currently a professor at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, says that “Siberia, which for the course of a century was celebrated not only for its natural but its human wealth has been converted into an ever poorer kray, forgotten by God and Moscow” (www.politirkutsk.ru/view.php/276/1.php).
The region’s population is not only declining, he says, but its level of education and culture is falling as well, trends that mean “if the political elite does not recognize fully the seriousness of the situation, it will soon become too late to engage in any talk about ‘the fates of Siberia.’”
Ryzhkov says that he is talking about Siberia as “a geographic term,” the two federal districts that extend from the Urals to the Pacific that constitutes 80 percent of Russia’s territory, 22 percent of the country’s population, and is responsible for 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
But the population is declining. Since 1990, five million of its residents have died or left. As a result, the population of Chukotka has fallen by more than half, of Magadan by 40 percent, Kamchatka by 18 percent, and so on. And this is happening despite the wealth of the region and security considerations with regard to China with its enormous population next door.
What is surprising, Ryzhkov says, is that this trend reverses the one that the Russian government had promoted in the past. “From the beginning of the conquest of Siberia,” he notes, “that is the region to which came the strongest, most progressive, and most freedom-loving people.”
Until the 1980s, the average income of Siberians was higher than in Central Russia, the share of those with higher education was greater, and the fraction who subscribed to newspapers was also larger. “In a word,” he says, Siberians were “a highly educated, cultural, dynamic and urbanized” people.
Ryzhkov acknowledges that some of the current problems of the region reflect the fallout from Soviet economic development strategies, strategies that promoted the company towns whose basic industries are failing without their managers or workers having any other economic options in the same place.
But now the collapse of these cities has been accelerated by Moscow policies which mean that it is cheaper to fly from Moscow to Western Europe than it is to fly from the Russian capital to Vladivostok. As a result, Ryzhkov points out, “six of the ten poorest regions of the Russian Federation are Siberian.”
Asked whether there is any “way out” from this situation, Ryzhkov says that there is but that the political elite in Moscow, which he notes includes “few Siberians” besides Sergey Shoygu, must begin to focus on the region and recognize that Moscow must “leave a greater part of the taxes collected there” to Siberia.
In addition, he argues, Moscow must come up with a special program to transform company towns, something that does not exist at the federal level, so that the people who live in them will not flee but redirect their energies to new purposes for their benefit and the benefit of the country as a whole.
Moreover, he says, Moscow should intervene to make sure that no private company has a monopoly on air travel so that Siberians don’t have to pay such high prices for tickets. And he suggests that the Russian Federation should “restore the Soviet system” of quotas for students at higher educational systems so that those from areas far from Moscow will get a chance.
But Ryzhkov’s most important comments concern what he called “the special qualities” of Siberians. Unlike Russians in the European portion of the country, “in whose blood is the memory of serfdom,” Siberians never knew landowners, and consequently, they are “more brave and direct in politics and in life.”
Moreover, he says, “they are very entrepreneurial, show initiative, and are businesslike. It is no accident that an enormous number of businessmen [in Russia] are Siberians.” And Ryzhkov concludes, if everything else were equal, “the first who would run ahead [in that sector and presumably many others] would be the Siberians.”
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