Paul Goble
Vienna, May 10 – Kaliningrad is not a trophy won by Moscow as the result of the Soviet victory in World War II but rather “a Russian city” that became part of the Russian Empire two centuries earlier, according to that city’s mayor. For that reason, he says, it is his personal view that it would not be a problem to restore Koenigsberg as its name.
Indeed, Feliks Lapin said in a wide-ranging interview on Echo Moskvy radio yesterday, Russians should be proud of the fact that Koenigsberg is a Russian city, although he admitted that many people would have problems with this or with calling the entire oblast, created in 1945, Eastern Prussia (www.echo.msk.ru/programs/town/589217-echo/).
Not surprisingly, that comment has attracted the most attention, given the sensitivities of Russia, Poland, Lithuania, and Germany about a region all of whom have a stake in, but Lapin also provided an intriguing perspective about the difficulties Kaliningrad faces as a Russian exclave and about the impact of its propinquity to EU and NATO member countries.
On the one hand, Lapin said, the economic crisis had hit his city harder than many other Russian areas not only because of the downsizing of the military there – he said that Kaliningrad was no longer a military “city” but a military “town” – and the impact of other post-Soviet changes but also because of its being cut off from the Russian Federation proper.
But on the other, he argued that despite the problems he and the residents of his city face, its location and the influence of its neighbors on Kaliningrad have had some positive consequences, making it one of the safest Russian cities at the present time and promoting a more cosmopolitan set of attitudes among residents.
Residents of his city, Lapin said, have been steadfast in the face of the current economic crisis because “all of them understand how complicated things are, because [they] are people who have passed through a crisis much more difficult than was the case” in the remainder of the Russian Federation.
They know that the downsizing of the Russian military which provided much of the life blood of the city earlier has left them with challenges others do not face, Lapin continued, and they understand, especially now, that the completion of some projects, including the building of new housing stocks and highways, will have to be put off.
One of the reasons for their understanding, he said, is that Moscow, “over the last three years,” has lifted many restrictions on the region and allowed it to develop as a special economic zone with ties to Europe. And another is that the situation with regarding crime is much less negative than in other Russian cities.
“Many people say,” his interviewer remarked, “that Kaliningrad is a port city with prostitution, narcotics, HIV/AIDS” and wonder how the people there are coping. To which Lapin responded that “everything [there] is like in a normal big city,” including all the problems his interviewer mentioned.
But he added, there is one dimension on which Kaliningrad is distinguished “from other [Russian] cities in a positive way: [there] city can walk about at night without fear.” And he acknowledged that this was “certainly” the result of what his Echo Moskvy interviewer described as “the influence of the neighbors.”
Those include both the Poles and the Balts, all of whose countries are members of the two key Western institutions, the European Union and NATO. But those memberships do not prevent the Russian residents of Kaliningrad from having regular and positive interaction with members of those nations.
“You know,” Lapin said, “when people talk to one another, no one typically asks whether you are a NATO member or not a NATO member.” Instead, they focus on common issues, including on shared works of art and culture which lay the foundation for “a communion of people and a closeness of people.”
Because that is the case, the mayor continued, how one calls the city he heads matters. Calling it Kaliningrad as now focuses on the events of 1945 while restoring its earlier name of Koenigsberg would serve to underscore the way in which that city has long been part of Russia and of Europe.
Russians have every reason to be “proud that Koenigsberg is a Russian city,” although he noted that many would object and even more would have problems with calling the oblast “Prussia.” It might be better to keep its current name, Kaliningrad oblast, “or call it something else,” such as “Western Russia” (www.rian.ru/society/20090509/170568924.html).
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Window on Eurasia: RusHydro Charges Evenk Dam Opponents with ‘Extremism’
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 9 – RusHydro, which builds and operates hydroelectric stations for the Russian government, has accused a group opposing a dam it wants to build in Krasnoyarsk kray of extremism, a charge that prompted interior ministry officers there to call in representatives of the website of the opposition yesterday for “an explanation.”
But the charge and the expansive definition of “extremism” interior ministry officials have accepted has prompted the Russian section of the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, and other environmental protection groups to denounce the company for engaging in such “black PR” against its opponents(www.plotina.net/rusgidro-obvinyaet-nas-v-ekstremizme/#more-627).
This battle goes back several years. If RusHydro goes ahead with its plans, some one million hectares of land will be flooded, destroying not only a unique natural habitat but also putting at risk the survival of a small ethnic community, the Evenks, who have lived there and depended on that environment from time immemorial.
Earlier this year, the ecological and ethnic objections to this project came together when more than 9,000 Evenks and their supporters wrote an open letter to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in which they reminded him that the UN Council on Human Rights had explicitly called on Moscow to end its support for the construction of this dam.
Despite that, however, RusHydro has pressed ahead, largely because it enjoys the support of Moscow officials who expect to profit from the sale of the electric power to Mongolia and China that such a dam will generate and who feel confident they can ignore an ethnic group few Russians have ever heard about.
Indeed, the acting head of the company, Vasily Zubakin, took the view that RusHydro had nothing to learn from or talk over with its opponents. “We are perfectly justified” in what we are doing, he said. The company’s opponents are simply engaged in “a political game” and thus do not merit attention.
“I am not a supporter of witch hunts and cannot see the hand of [foreign] special services everywhere, but when one observes the increase in the activity of ecological organizations, it is obvious that they are seeking to identify the latest enemy,” pointedly adding that Russians could guess “in what country of the world the site Plotina.net is registered.”
But having gained the support of the environmentalist movement, the Evenks and their local supporters have become increasingly radical in their expressions of outrage about the project. And the expression of this anger reached a new high when a Siberian journalist urged Moscow and RusHydro to back off lest they “force the Evenks to shoot.”
In an April 11th article that was featured on many Runet portals, he recalled that the Evenks are well armed, have a long tradition as sharpshooters – an Evenk was one of the best and most renowned Soviet snipers during World War II – and could be expected to use violence if their views continue to be ignored.
That was too much for RusHydro, and three days after the article appeared, its officers sent a letter to the officials within the Krasnoyarsk internal affairs department responsible for countering terrorism, denouncing the article as a clear call for violence and demanding that the authorities move against plotina.net (www.plotina.net/pdf/RusHydro_PlotinaNet.pdf).
RusHydro apparently singled out Plotina.net because it has regularly featured articles critical of the company. Indeed, in its complaint about the April 11th article, the company appended a six page list of articles it had produced on its own or carried from other sites such as Kasparov.ru, Babr.ru and Radio Liberty.
Yesterday, in advance of Victory Day and perhaps expecting that few would notice this latest example of official misuse of Russia’s counter-extremism laws, the Krasnoyarsk militia called in Plotina.net. But the quick reaction of environmental groups shows that in the age of the Internet, those who think they can hide such actions for long are almost certainly wrong.
Vienna, May 9 – RusHydro, which builds and operates hydroelectric stations for the Russian government, has accused a group opposing a dam it wants to build in Krasnoyarsk kray of extremism, a charge that prompted interior ministry officers there to call in representatives of the website of the opposition yesterday for “an explanation.”
But the charge and the expansive definition of “extremism” interior ministry officials have accepted has prompted the Russian section of the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, and other environmental protection groups to denounce the company for engaging in such “black PR” against its opponents(www.plotina.net/rusgidro-obvinyaet-nas-v-ekstremizme/#more-627).
This battle goes back several years. If RusHydro goes ahead with its plans, some one million hectares of land will be flooded, destroying not only a unique natural habitat but also putting at risk the survival of a small ethnic community, the Evenks, who have lived there and depended on that environment from time immemorial.
Earlier this year, the ecological and ethnic objections to this project came together when more than 9,000 Evenks and their supporters wrote an open letter to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in which they reminded him that the UN Council on Human Rights had explicitly called on Moscow to end its support for the construction of this dam.
Despite that, however, RusHydro has pressed ahead, largely because it enjoys the support of Moscow officials who expect to profit from the sale of the electric power to Mongolia and China that such a dam will generate and who feel confident they can ignore an ethnic group few Russians have ever heard about.
Indeed, the acting head of the company, Vasily Zubakin, took the view that RusHydro had nothing to learn from or talk over with its opponents. “We are perfectly justified” in what we are doing, he said. The company’s opponents are simply engaged in “a political game” and thus do not merit attention.
“I am not a supporter of witch hunts and cannot see the hand of [foreign] special services everywhere, but when one observes the increase in the activity of ecological organizations, it is obvious that they are seeking to identify the latest enemy,” pointedly adding that Russians could guess “in what country of the world the site Plotina.net is registered.”
But having gained the support of the environmentalist movement, the Evenks and their local supporters have become increasingly radical in their expressions of outrage about the project. And the expression of this anger reached a new high when a Siberian journalist urged Moscow and RusHydro to back off lest they “force the Evenks to shoot.”
In an April 11th article that was featured on many Runet portals, he recalled that the Evenks are well armed, have a long tradition as sharpshooters – an Evenk was one of the best and most renowned Soviet snipers during World War II – and could be expected to use violence if their views continue to be ignored.
That was too much for RusHydro, and three days after the article appeared, its officers sent a letter to the officials within the Krasnoyarsk internal affairs department responsible for countering terrorism, denouncing the article as a clear call for violence and demanding that the authorities move against plotina.net (www.plotina.net/pdf/RusHydro_PlotinaNet.pdf).
RusHydro apparently singled out Plotina.net because it has regularly featured articles critical of the company. Indeed, in its complaint about the April 11th article, the company appended a six page list of articles it had produced on its own or carried from other sites such as Kasparov.ru, Babr.ru and Radio Liberty.
Yesterday, in advance of Victory Day and perhaps expecting that few would notice this latest example of official misuse of Russia’s counter-extremism laws, the Krasnoyarsk militia called in Plotina.net. But the quick reaction of environmental groups shows that in the age of the Internet, those who think they can hide such actions for long are almost certainly wrong.
Window on Eurasia: ‘Russia is on the Brink of Sectarian War,’ Moscow Lawyer Warns
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 9 – Even though rights activists almost unanimously have denounced his appointment, Aleksandr Dvorkin, the new head of the religious expertise council, retains the support of the justice ministry and some international groups, a situation that leaves Russia “on the brink of a sectarian war,” according to a Moscow attorney.
In an article on portal of the Slavic Centre for Law and Justice this week, Inna Zagrebina, a legal affairs expert at the Moscow Institute of Religion and Law, argues that the backing the self-described “anti-Sectarian” is receiving “not only undermines inter-confessional accord in the regions and leads to discrimination, but crudely violates national and international legal norms.”
Since his appointment last month to head the justice ministry’s council on religious expertise, Dvorkin has been attacked by religious and human rights activists not only because he tends to distinguish among all non-Orthodox faiths but rather frequently appears to call for an undifferentiated form of struggle against them (www.sclj.ru/news/detail.php?ID=2369).
Such criticism, however, much of it from extremely distinguished experts in the field, has not dissuaded him or his backers. And now, the Russian justice ministry and the European Federation of Investigative and Information Centers about Sectarianism (FECRIS) are holding a conference this coming Friday and Saturday in St. Petersburg in support of Dvorkin’s approach.
Not only will the Russian justice minister speak but Dvorkin himself is slated to deliver the keynote address – and FECRIS, which does not enjoy a good reputation among rights groups, will provide both with the kind of international cover for their ideas about attacking people of religious denominations the Russian state does not like.
The titles of the presentations suggest the direction the meeting will take. Dvorkin’s will speak on “Destructive Cults and Human Rights;” Ryazan Mayor Oleg Shishov on “The Violations of Human Rights by Cults in Ryazan Oblast;” and Saratov anti-sectarian Aleksandr Kuzmin on “Threats to Russian State Security from the Cult of the Neo-Pentecostals.”
And earlier meetings Dvorkin has conducted around Russia indicate how this one is likely to be used. After these meetings have taken place, he and his followers have published pamphlets and given interviews with “in a tendentious fashion” suggesting that Russians must be on guard against all groups. The St. Petersburg meeting is likely to produce the same.
The upcoming conference, however, is different in two important respects. On the hand, it will send the clearest message yet that Dvorkin and his followers enjoy the backing of the Russian justice ministry and consequently that their statements have an official imprimatur even if the earlier claims of the “sektoveds” have routinely been shown to be false.
And on the other, the involvement of a group of European anti-Sectarian activists – FECRIS is based in Paris – will not only further legitimize in the eyes of many Russians what Dvorkin and his backers want to do but also tend to limit foreign criticism of him and foreign support for his Russian critics.
All this, Zagrebina concludes, makes it clear why senior officials included not only Dvorkin but other “like-minded people” in the ministry’s experts council: This is “an attempt to make Dvorkin’s approach to sects, one that she argues inevitably exacerbates inter-religious hostility, the religious policy of the state.”
Those who are doing that and those who fail to speak up against it need to reflect on what the policies of such “inquisitors” will have on a “multi-national and multi-confessional country like Russia. If Dvorkin isn’t stopped, the lawyer warns, Russia could soon be in the grip of “a sectarian war,” a conflict neither people like Dvorkin nor believers nor the country can survive.
Vienna, May 9 – Even though rights activists almost unanimously have denounced his appointment, Aleksandr Dvorkin, the new head of the religious expertise council, retains the support of the justice ministry and some international groups, a situation that leaves Russia “on the brink of a sectarian war,” according to a Moscow attorney.
In an article on portal of the Slavic Centre for Law and Justice this week, Inna Zagrebina, a legal affairs expert at the Moscow Institute of Religion and Law, argues that the backing the self-described “anti-Sectarian” is receiving “not only undermines inter-confessional accord in the regions and leads to discrimination, but crudely violates national and international legal norms.”
Since his appointment last month to head the justice ministry’s council on religious expertise, Dvorkin has been attacked by religious and human rights activists not only because he tends to distinguish among all non-Orthodox faiths but rather frequently appears to call for an undifferentiated form of struggle against them (www.sclj.ru/news/detail.php?ID=2369).
Such criticism, however, much of it from extremely distinguished experts in the field, has not dissuaded him or his backers. And now, the Russian justice ministry and the European Federation of Investigative and Information Centers about Sectarianism (FECRIS) are holding a conference this coming Friday and Saturday in St. Petersburg in support of Dvorkin’s approach.
Not only will the Russian justice minister speak but Dvorkin himself is slated to deliver the keynote address – and FECRIS, which does not enjoy a good reputation among rights groups, will provide both with the kind of international cover for their ideas about attacking people of religious denominations the Russian state does not like.
The titles of the presentations suggest the direction the meeting will take. Dvorkin’s will speak on “Destructive Cults and Human Rights;” Ryazan Mayor Oleg Shishov on “The Violations of Human Rights by Cults in Ryazan Oblast;” and Saratov anti-sectarian Aleksandr Kuzmin on “Threats to Russian State Security from the Cult of the Neo-Pentecostals.”
And earlier meetings Dvorkin has conducted around Russia indicate how this one is likely to be used. After these meetings have taken place, he and his followers have published pamphlets and given interviews with “in a tendentious fashion” suggesting that Russians must be on guard against all groups. The St. Petersburg meeting is likely to produce the same.
The upcoming conference, however, is different in two important respects. On the hand, it will send the clearest message yet that Dvorkin and his followers enjoy the backing of the Russian justice ministry and consequently that their statements have an official imprimatur even if the earlier claims of the “sektoveds” have routinely been shown to be false.
And on the other, the involvement of a group of European anti-Sectarian activists – FECRIS is based in Paris – will not only further legitimize in the eyes of many Russians what Dvorkin and his backers want to do but also tend to limit foreign criticism of him and foreign support for his Russian critics.
All this, Zagrebina concludes, makes it clear why senior officials included not only Dvorkin but other “like-minded people” in the ministry’s experts council: This is “an attempt to make Dvorkin’s approach to sects, one that she argues inevitably exacerbates inter-religious hostility, the religious policy of the state.”
Those who are doing that and those who fail to speak up against it need to reflect on what the policies of such “inquisitors” will have on a “multi-national and multi-confessional country like Russia. If Dvorkin isn’t stopped, the lawyer warns, Russia could soon be in the grip of “a sectarian war,” a conflict neither people like Dvorkin nor believers nor the country can survive.
Window on Eurasia: Draft Bill on ‘Rehabilitation of Nazism’ Embodies the Totalitarianism It Denounces, Moscow Commentator Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 9 – Draft legislation introduced in the Duma this week intended to prevent “the rehabilitation in the new independent states on the territory of the former USSR of Nazism, Nazi crimes and their accomplices” embodies “the totalitarian terrorist method of rule” that the bill specifically denounces, according to a Moscow commentator.
In an article posted on the Kasparov.ru portal yesterday, Aleksandr Kramov says that the measure, which is almost certain to pass given United Russia’s support, represents the latest effort by the powers that be “to restore the Soviet empire under the cover of the struggle with ‘those who are rehabilitating Nazism’” (www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=4A040F67237CF).
The measure sets fines of up to 500,000 rubles (14,000 US dollars) and imprisonment of up to five years for “actions directed at revising the results of the International Military Tribunal at Nurenburg and also any actions or inactions directed at … the restoration of the reputations of Nazi criminals, the accomplices of Nazism, and their organizations.”
No one is talking about revisiting the Nuremberg trials, Kramov says. Instead, the measure is clearly directed at those who, from the Kremlin’s point of view, are engaged in “the rehabilitation of the accomplices of Nazism, including the governments of Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine and “its own citizens (for example historians and researchers).”
The bill defines “accomplices of Nazism” as including those “who cooperated with the occupation administration on the territory of the USSR,” whether this cooperation was voluntarily or involuntary and regardless of whether those who cooperated did so “not out of a desire to fight for Hitler and Nazism but [because of] hatred to Stalin and Soviet totalitarianism.”
Soviet propagandists, Kramov continues, “loved to talk” about “those who betrayed ‘the Soviet motherland’ out of a desire to save their own skins. But for millions of people, no ‘Soviet motherland’ existed.” Instead, there was only “a prison house of peoples from which they wanted to escape by any means.” The German occupation gave them “a convenient chance.”
And it is those feelings rather than any desire to support the Nazis that explain “the completely unheard of extent of collaborationism of the population of the USSR during the war years,” the Moscow commentator writes, as many historians have pointed out and as any careful and unbiased investigation of the facts will show.
As an example of the opposition to Stalin rather than support for Hitler, Kramov points to what happened in Estonia in 1944 when “Estonian soldiers, seeing that the German units were evacuating and leaving them to their Soviet ‘soldier-liberator,’ engaged in a battle with the Germans in order to get weapons and ammunition in order to resist the Red Army on their own.”
Such people, seeking to defend the independence of their country which Stalin had earlier occupied as a result of a deal with Hitler, can hardly be called “accomplices of Nazism,” although that is exactly what the new Russian measure would identify them and many others who found themselves in an equally tragic predicament.
“Stalin and his marshals without pity sacrificed millions of their soldiers’ lives not to unselfishly ‘liberate people from the fascist yoke.’” Instead, “having liberated territories from German occupation, the Soviet forces brought a Soviet occupation.” That Soviet empire died “20 years ago, but its ghost continues to float above Russia.”
Kramov argues that “the Kremlin no longer can intimidate its independent neighbors with armed interference” – although the case of Georgia would appear to raise doubts on that score – but it can and does use its control of gas and its ability to selectively employ memories of World War II in order to try to regain some of the influence it has lost.
Consequently, the commentator continues, Moscow’s current and much ballyhooed struggle AGAINST “the rehabilitation of Nazism” as exemplified in this latest piece of legislation must be seen for what it is: the current Russian regime’s struggle FOR “the rehabilitation of the Soviet and [in particular the] Stalinist past.”
“The Kremlin wants to ban respect for the memory of those who struggled with arms in their hands against the Soviet empire because up to now it has not given up the idea of reestablishing it in one form or another on the post-Soviet space,” he writes. And thus what the backers of the new bill want to defend is not the Nurenburg court “but Stalin.”
And to that end, the supporters of this effort are prepared to hand over “the interpretation of history” not to historians but rather to “prosecutors,” an approach to Russia’s own history that is “one of the signs of ‘the totalitarian terrorist method of power’ which is how the [pro-Kremlin] deputies define Nazism.”
Vienna, May 9 – Draft legislation introduced in the Duma this week intended to prevent “the rehabilitation in the new independent states on the territory of the former USSR of Nazism, Nazi crimes and their accomplices” embodies “the totalitarian terrorist method of rule” that the bill specifically denounces, according to a Moscow commentator.
In an article posted on the Kasparov.ru portal yesterday, Aleksandr Kramov says that the measure, which is almost certain to pass given United Russia’s support, represents the latest effort by the powers that be “to restore the Soviet empire under the cover of the struggle with ‘those who are rehabilitating Nazism’” (www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=4A040F67237CF).
The measure sets fines of up to 500,000 rubles (14,000 US dollars) and imprisonment of up to five years for “actions directed at revising the results of the International Military Tribunal at Nurenburg and also any actions or inactions directed at … the restoration of the reputations of Nazi criminals, the accomplices of Nazism, and their organizations.”
No one is talking about revisiting the Nuremberg trials, Kramov says. Instead, the measure is clearly directed at those who, from the Kremlin’s point of view, are engaged in “the rehabilitation of the accomplices of Nazism, including the governments of Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine and “its own citizens (for example historians and researchers).”
The bill defines “accomplices of Nazism” as including those “who cooperated with the occupation administration on the territory of the USSR,” whether this cooperation was voluntarily or involuntary and regardless of whether those who cooperated did so “not out of a desire to fight for Hitler and Nazism but [because of] hatred to Stalin and Soviet totalitarianism.”
Soviet propagandists, Kramov continues, “loved to talk” about “those who betrayed ‘the Soviet motherland’ out of a desire to save their own skins. But for millions of people, no ‘Soviet motherland’ existed.” Instead, there was only “a prison house of peoples from which they wanted to escape by any means.” The German occupation gave them “a convenient chance.”
And it is those feelings rather than any desire to support the Nazis that explain “the completely unheard of extent of collaborationism of the population of the USSR during the war years,” the Moscow commentator writes, as many historians have pointed out and as any careful and unbiased investigation of the facts will show.
As an example of the opposition to Stalin rather than support for Hitler, Kramov points to what happened in Estonia in 1944 when “Estonian soldiers, seeing that the German units were evacuating and leaving them to their Soviet ‘soldier-liberator,’ engaged in a battle with the Germans in order to get weapons and ammunition in order to resist the Red Army on their own.”
Such people, seeking to defend the independence of their country which Stalin had earlier occupied as a result of a deal with Hitler, can hardly be called “accomplices of Nazism,” although that is exactly what the new Russian measure would identify them and many others who found themselves in an equally tragic predicament.
“Stalin and his marshals without pity sacrificed millions of their soldiers’ lives not to unselfishly ‘liberate people from the fascist yoke.’” Instead, “having liberated territories from German occupation, the Soviet forces brought a Soviet occupation.” That Soviet empire died “20 years ago, but its ghost continues to float above Russia.”
Kramov argues that “the Kremlin no longer can intimidate its independent neighbors with armed interference” – although the case of Georgia would appear to raise doubts on that score – but it can and does use its control of gas and its ability to selectively employ memories of World War II in order to try to regain some of the influence it has lost.
Consequently, the commentator continues, Moscow’s current and much ballyhooed struggle AGAINST “the rehabilitation of Nazism” as exemplified in this latest piece of legislation must be seen for what it is: the current Russian regime’s struggle FOR “the rehabilitation of the Soviet and [in particular the] Stalinist past.”
“The Kremlin wants to ban respect for the memory of those who struggled with arms in their hands against the Soviet empire because up to now it has not given up the idea of reestablishing it in one form or another on the post-Soviet space,” he writes. And thus what the backers of the new bill want to defend is not the Nurenburg court “but Stalin.”
And to that end, the supporters of this effort are prepared to hand over “the interpretation of history” not to historians but rather to “prosecutors,” an approach to Russia’s own history that is “one of the signs of ‘the totalitarian terrorist method of power’ which is how the [pro-Kremlin] deputies define Nazism.”
Friday, May 8, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Moscow’s Policies Pushing Russia’s Muslims toward a United ‘Front,’ Tatar Activist Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 8 – Moscow’s plan to cut the regional component in most school programs this fall is likely to lead Muslim nations within the borders of the Russian Federation to come together in a united “front” to press for the reversal of that policy through international courts and via other means, according to a leading Kazan Tatar activist.
In an interview posted online yesterday, Damir Iskhakov, a leading theoretician of the Tatar national movement, warned that the Russian government’s “harsh” insistence on taking this step will thus have “negative consequences for the state interests of Russia” and present the center with a challenge it will find hard to counter (www.apn.ru/publications/article21587.htm).
“I would prefer a more democratic path in which all national groups would be given greater opportunities for development, but at present, I do not see such a possibility in Russia.” And he urged the central authorities to rethink their “harsh” position before it unintentionally generates an equally “harsh” response.
Already, Iskhakov said, “there are proposals to create a federal party which would have a clearly expressed national, regional and religious component. Yes, this is banned by existing laws, but there are many ways of getting around such prohibitions,” including establishing a “Eurasian” party whose goal would be to promote the interests of national groups.
One must adopt a patient approach to the consideration of the internal situation of Russia, Iskhakov said, noting that “it isn’t too glorious and at present is obviously getting worse.” Consequently, “the activization of the most varied political forces with which the Tatars might form a bloc is possible.”
Indeed, Iskhakov argued, “the appearance of a so-called parliament and government of Tatarstan in exile is a signal which means that abroad there are sufficiently powerful forces interested in the establishment of such groups. [And] Moscow circles need to think how they will defend their state interests” in this new environment.
Given his willingness to form a “front” on a Muslim basis, Iskhakov was asked what future political Islam has in Tatarstan. He noted that “Islam is part of [Tatar] national consciousness, closely connected with identity. Many [Tatars] who consider themselves Muslim by birth are trying to give this word content,” something that he said is no quick or easy task.
But over time, he suggested, Tatars become Muslims “qualitatively different from the present-day one, and there will emerge a real Islamic umma which will recognize its own interests and rally around them. But [at the same time], the ethnic factor will not disappear. For Tatars, it exists in close relation to a religious foundation.”
Iskhakov continued by observing that as a result, “the religious foundation will acquire ever greater importance.” That will not necessarily lead to “confrontations with non-Muslims, but almost certainly it will mean that “the number of mixed marriages will be less,” because a Muslim parent will insist that children be raised in the faith.
Iskhakov’s warning is interesting for three reasons. First, it highlights just how angry many non-Russians are about the central government’s decision to reduce many of the hours devoted to local culture, history, and language in the regional school programs. Many people have complained; this is the first time someone prominent has made such a serious threat.
Second, Iskhakov’s comments suggest that the Kazan Tatars are already in close touch with other non-Russian groups, the neighboring Bashkirs and other peoples of the Middle Volga in the first instance but also with Muslim nationalities in the North Caucasus, with whom they have not had the same kind of relationship in the past.
And third, although the Kazan Tatars have long dominated Islamic institutions in what is now the Russian Federation, they have generally been extremely careful about playing any Islamic card since the 1920s when one of their co-ethnics, Sultan Galiyev, was denounced for attempting to organize what Stalin denounced as “Muslim national communism.”
Iskhakov’s argument clearly show not only that ever more Kazan Tatars are becoming more Islamic but also that they are once again prepared to use Islam as the basis for the formation of a broader political alliance, something few would have predicted as recently as a decade ago but a development that Moscow’s own heavy-handedness has helped to bring about.
Vienna, May 8 – Moscow’s plan to cut the regional component in most school programs this fall is likely to lead Muslim nations within the borders of the Russian Federation to come together in a united “front” to press for the reversal of that policy through international courts and via other means, according to a leading Kazan Tatar activist.
In an interview posted online yesterday, Damir Iskhakov, a leading theoretician of the Tatar national movement, warned that the Russian government’s “harsh” insistence on taking this step will thus have “negative consequences for the state interests of Russia” and present the center with a challenge it will find hard to counter (www.apn.ru/publications/article21587.htm).
“I would prefer a more democratic path in which all national groups would be given greater opportunities for development, but at present, I do not see such a possibility in Russia.” And he urged the central authorities to rethink their “harsh” position before it unintentionally generates an equally “harsh” response.
Already, Iskhakov said, “there are proposals to create a federal party which would have a clearly expressed national, regional and religious component. Yes, this is banned by existing laws, but there are many ways of getting around such prohibitions,” including establishing a “Eurasian” party whose goal would be to promote the interests of national groups.
One must adopt a patient approach to the consideration of the internal situation of Russia, Iskhakov said, noting that “it isn’t too glorious and at present is obviously getting worse.” Consequently, “the activization of the most varied political forces with which the Tatars might form a bloc is possible.”
Indeed, Iskhakov argued, “the appearance of a so-called parliament and government of Tatarstan in exile is a signal which means that abroad there are sufficiently powerful forces interested in the establishment of such groups. [And] Moscow circles need to think how they will defend their state interests” in this new environment.
Given his willingness to form a “front” on a Muslim basis, Iskhakov was asked what future political Islam has in Tatarstan. He noted that “Islam is part of [Tatar] national consciousness, closely connected with identity. Many [Tatars] who consider themselves Muslim by birth are trying to give this word content,” something that he said is no quick or easy task.
But over time, he suggested, Tatars become Muslims “qualitatively different from the present-day one, and there will emerge a real Islamic umma which will recognize its own interests and rally around them. But [at the same time], the ethnic factor will not disappear. For Tatars, it exists in close relation to a religious foundation.”
Iskhakov continued by observing that as a result, “the religious foundation will acquire ever greater importance.” That will not necessarily lead to “confrontations with non-Muslims, but almost certainly it will mean that “the number of mixed marriages will be less,” because a Muslim parent will insist that children be raised in the faith.
Iskhakov’s warning is interesting for three reasons. First, it highlights just how angry many non-Russians are about the central government’s decision to reduce many of the hours devoted to local culture, history, and language in the regional school programs. Many people have complained; this is the first time someone prominent has made such a serious threat.
Second, Iskhakov’s comments suggest that the Kazan Tatars are already in close touch with other non-Russian groups, the neighboring Bashkirs and other peoples of the Middle Volga in the first instance but also with Muslim nationalities in the North Caucasus, with whom they have not had the same kind of relationship in the past.
And third, although the Kazan Tatars have long dominated Islamic institutions in what is now the Russian Federation, they have generally been extremely careful about playing any Islamic card since the 1920s when one of their co-ethnics, Sultan Galiyev, was denounced for attempting to organize what Stalin denounced as “Muslim national communism.”
Iskhakov’s argument clearly show not only that ever more Kazan Tatars are becoming more Islamic but also that they are once again prepared to use Islam as the basis for the formation of a broader political alliance, something few would have predicted as recently as a decade ago but a development that Moscow’s own heavy-handedness has helped to bring about.
Window on Eurasia: Guns Illegally in Private Hands in Russia Now Sufficient for ‘a Small Civil War,’ Moscow Paper Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 8 – While the number of guns illegally in private hands in the Russian Federation is miniscule in comparison to weapons having that status in the United States, Russians today have far more such guns than ever before and now have enough to “conduct a small civil war,” according to an investigation by a Moscow journalist.
In an article in today’s “Novaya gazeta,” Sergey Kanyev, who writes frequently on crime in the Russian capital, says that there are approximately 170,000 pistols and automatic weapons in the hands of those who are “not the best part of the population” and who obtained, retain and can be expected to use them illegally (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2009/047/00.html).
The Moscow journalist began looking into the matter when, after a militia officer shot up a supermarket there, “some sources asserted” that the officer had stolen his weapon from a fellow soldier in the Chechen campaign while others “wrote that the pistol has disappeared from the stocks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.”
The latter suggestion, Kanyev said, raises the question of how many guns may be missing from official stocks and how often they are being tracked down and returned to safe keeping. The statistics, he continues, make “an impression,” but “a still greater” one is produced by the lack of correspondence between the number “lost” and the number “returned.”
“As a result of corruption and the sloppiness of the force structures,” he writes, “the population of Russia” is now in a position “to conduct a small civil war.” And while that may seem to be a journalistic exaggeration to people in countries with far more guns in private hands, for Russians, who in Soviet times had little access to guns, it may be shockingly appropriate.
Not surprisingly, officials at the FSB, MVD and Ministry of Defense are not willing to provide any details, the “Novaya gazeta” reporter says, but “it is sufficient” to talk to any traffic policeman, and he will allow you to copy a compact disk containing a data base on weapons that are missing or stolen and that the militia hopes to recover.
The traffic police use this list, Kanyev says, when they are checking cars they have stopped for moving violations. And while the list is almost certainly incomplete and not reflect many weapons that have been lost or recovered, the journalist says, it is “none the less” a very useful place to start.
According to this data source, from 1951 through 2008, on the territory of the USSR and then on that of the Russian Federation were stolen in one way or another 182,114 guns of various types. In addition, he says, “166,265 guns were seized by MVD and FSB officers from criminals and ordinary citizens.” But the actual difference between those lost and found is far larger.
The largest “source” of such weapons is the defense ministry, Kanyev says. While in Soviet times, the military was generally able to prevent the loss of weapons except during conflicts like Afghanistan, “beginning with the 1990s, the situation sharply changed [and] out of the army arsenals, arms flowed out in quantity.”
During the two Chechen wars, the journalist says, the military officially lost 4,456 weapons, although the actual number was certainly higher given seizures by the Chechens, guns improperly listed as lost or destroyed, and generally chaotic accounting methods. Moreover, FSB officers serving in the combat zone lost weapons and ammunition as well.
Interior ministry officials and the militia have often “lost” weapons, he continues. In 80 percent of the cases in Soviet times, the officers involved were drunk. Unfortunately, those guns continue to go off “up to now.” Indeed, he suggests that many actions that Moscow has branded as terrorist may have been conducted by people with stolen weaponry.
Moreover, he continues, it is an open secret that militiamen sometimes trade in arms, something they can easily do given that “according to unofficial data of operational officers, 70 percent of the arms taken from criminals are not recorded in the militia files.” As a result, today there are “approximately 170,000 pistols and automatic weapons” now in private hands illegally.
Other officials, including prosecutors, have also “lost” or “sold” weapons, and it is entirely possible that that pattern may explain recent reports that the defense minister has issued an order banning officers from carrying weapons without explicit permission, something that has infuriated many officers but may help prevent more guns from falling into the wrong hands.
Vienna, May 8 – While the number of guns illegally in private hands in the Russian Federation is miniscule in comparison to weapons having that status in the United States, Russians today have far more such guns than ever before and now have enough to “conduct a small civil war,” according to an investigation by a Moscow journalist.
In an article in today’s “Novaya gazeta,” Sergey Kanyev, who writes frequently on crime in the Russian capital, says that there are approximately 170,000 pistols and automatic weapons in the hands of those who are “not the best part of the population” and who obtained, retain and can be expected to use them illegally (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2009/047/00.html).
The Moscow journalist began looking into the matter when, after a militia officer shot up a supermarket there, “some sources asserted” that the officer had stolen his weapon from a fellow soldier in the Chechen campaign while others “wrote that the pistol has disappeared from the stocks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.”
The latter suggestion, Kanyev said, raises the question of how many guns may be missing from official stocks and how often they are being tracked down and returned to safe keeping. The statistics, he continues, make “an impression,” but “a still greater” one is produced by the lack of correspondence between the number “lost” and the number “returned.”
“As a result of corruption and the sloppiness of the force structures,” he writes, “the population of Russia” is now in a position “to conduct a small civil war.” And while that may seem to be a journalistic exaggeration to people in countries with far more guns in private hands, for Russians, who in Soviet times had little access to guns, it may be shockingly appropriate.
Not surprisingly, officials at the FSB, MVD and Ministry of Defense are not willing to provide any details, the “Novaya gazeta” reporter says, but “it is sufficient” to talk to any traffic policeman, and he will allow you to copy a compact disk containing a data base on weapons that are missing or stolen and that the militia hopes to recover.
The traffic police use this list, Kanyev says, when they are checking cars they have stopped for moving violations. And while the list is almost certainly incomplete and not reflect many weapons that have been lost or recovered, the journalist says, it is “none the less” a very useful place to start.
According to this data source, from 1951 through 2008, on the territory of the USSR and then on that of the Russian Federation were stolen in one way or another 182,114 guns of various types. In addition, he says, “166,265 guns were seized by MVD and FSB officers from criminals and ordinary citizens.” But the actual difference between those lost and found is far larger.
The largest “source” of such weapons is the defense ministry, Kanyev says. While in Soviet times, the military was generally able to prevent the loss of weapons except during conflicts like Afghanistan, “beginning with the 1990s, the situation sharply changed [and] out of the army arsenals, arms flowed out in quantity.”
During the two Chechen wars, the journalist says, the military officially lost 4,456 weapons, although the actual number was certainly higher given seizures by the Chechens, guns improperly listed as lost or destroyed, and generally chaotic accounting methods. Moreover, FSB officers serving in the combat zone lost weapons and ammunition as well.
Interior ministry officials and the militia have often “lost” weapons, he continues. In 80 percent of the cases in Soviet times, the officers involved were drunk. Unfortunately, those guns continue to go off “up to now.” Indeed, he suggests that many actions that Moscow has branded as terrorist may have been conducted by people with stolen weaponry.
Moreover, he continues, it is an open secret that militiamen sometimes trade in arms, something they can easily do given that “according to unofficial data of operational officers, 70 percent of the arms taken from criminals are not recorded in the militia files.” As a result, today there are “approximately 170,000 pistols and automatic weapons” now in private hands illegally.
Other officials, including prosecutors, have also “lost” or “sold” weapons, and it is entirely possible that that pattern may explain recent reports that the defense minister has issued an order banning officers from carrying weapons without explicit permission, something that has infuriated many officers but may help prevent more guns from falling into the wrong hands.
Window on Eurasia: Inter-Ethnic Marriages Increase in Moscow, Fall in North Caucasus
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 8 – The percentage of marriages between people of different nationalities has risen in Moscow since the end of Soviet times, but the share of such marriages has fallen in the North Caucasus, a pattern that appears to be extinguishing “the fire under ‘the melting pot’” many expected to produce a single integrated people.
When the Soviet government began to talk about the creation of a “new Soviet people” in the 1970s, Aleksandr Vladimirov writes in today’s “Vestnik Kavkaza,” government ideologists and academic experts viewed inter-ethnic marriages as both a contributing factor to and an indication of progress toward that goal (www.vestikavkaza.ru/node/256).
In Soviet times, the Rostov-na-Donu expert notes, Russian women in Moscow and other major cities “most often married Ukrainians, Jews, Belarusians, Armenians and Tatars,” but now as a result of migration, such women are marrying “Georgians, Azerbaijanis, Daghestanis, Chechens and Ingush.”
If the percentage of inter-ethnic marriages in the Russian capital has increased from 22 to 25 percent over the last decade or so, Vladimirov observes, the share of such marriages in Russian regions adjoining the North Caucasus is falling every year and in non-Russian regions there has declined almost to zero.
This difference in the pattern of inter-ethnic marriages between Moscow and the Russian south, he continues, leads him to have “mixed feelings,” not only because Muscovite women are increasingly marrying men culturally dissimilar from themselves but also because the situation in the south points to a hardening of distinct identities among Russians and non-Russians there.
Until 1992, Vladimirov says, ethnically mixed marriages were relatively common in Rostov, with roughly two of them taking place each week between Russian women and Georgian, Azerbaijani, Chechen and other Caucasian men, but now there are far fewer, perhaps no more than 10 such marriages annually out of a total of 1200.
One group where the shift has been particularly noticeable has been among the Cossacks, traditionally a group in which mixed marriages were relatively common. Vladimir Voronin, the chief ideologist of the Don Cossacks, for example said that his community was always “a melting pot” for people of different nationalities.
But now the situation has dramatically changed. Cossacks are increasingly xenophobic in large measure, Vladimirov insists, because of clashes in the eastern portions of Rostov oblast between members of that community and non-Russians from Chechnya and Daghestan who have moved into the area because of troubles in their homelands.
The Meskhetian Turks, some 18,000 of whom have moved into Rostov oblast in recent years, present a particular problem, Vladimirov and the Cossacks say. The number of marriages between them and local Russians “can be counted on one’s fingers,” and many Cossacks fear that eventually that will lead to a Kosovo-type situation there.
Indeed, many people in Rostov point to the rise of “mini-enclaves” of non-Russians inside Rostov oblast who live apart in what are effectively “societies closed” to outsiders like the Russians, most of whom are now moving out of such districts into areas where there is a Russian plurality or majority. That too is pushing down the number of inter-ethnic marriages.
Over the same period, the number of inter-ethnic marriages in the non-Russian republics of the North Caucasus has declined sharply. Such marriages have become “unpopular” and where they do take place they are among people of different Muslim nationalities rather than between representatives of these communities and ethnic Russians.
One reason that the decline in the number of inter-ethnic marriages in Rostov has attracted some attention is that there have been some much-publicized unions between ethnic Russian women and Muslim men from Turkey, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria and Morocco, even if there are almost none between Russian women and local Muslims.
Rostov Mufti Jafar Bikmayev points out that he often officiates at such marriages, which are indeed “inter-ethnic” but not in the way most Russians have traditionally defined them. But because many of the men in such marriages insist on their wives converting – even though Islam does not require that – these unions are likely to affect the ethnic balance as well.
According to Vladimir Alekseyev, a Rostov psychologist, “it is a difficult matter to decide whether inter-ethnic marriages are a good thing or not.” Such unions, he says, have both “positive and negative sides.” On the positive side, they lead to bilingualism, but on the negative, people in them sometimes fail to remember which nation they are members of.
At the conclusion of his article, Vladimirov provides a selection of comments on the Internet about such marriages. They provide a window on shifts in attitudes on these unions that may be even more important to the future evolution of ethnic identity than any of the other details the Rostov expert offers.
According to one, “only in marriages within one’s own nation is it possible to preserve its customs, religion and the like, After all, ‘between a bird in the sky and a fish in the sea, there cannot be a union.’” But while some other agreed with that view, one took a diametrically opposite position.
That individual posted a comment saying that “many peoples whose representatives now reject inter-ethnic marriages [forget that] at one time they arose thanks to the mixing of other peoples” through intermarriage,” a more open sentiment but one that it appears ever fewer people in the Russian Federation appear to share.
Vienna, May 8 – The percentage of marriages between people of different nationalities has risen in Moscow since the end of Soviet times, but the share of such marriages has fallen in the North Caucasus, a pattern that appears to be extinguishing “the fire under ‘the melting pot’” many expected to produce a single integrated people.
When the Soviet government began to talk about the creation of a “new Soviet people” in the 1970s, Aleksandr Vladimirov writes in today’s “Vestnik Kavkaza,” government ideologists and academic experts viewed inter-ethnic marriages as both a contributing factor to and an indication of progress toward that goal (www.vestikavkaza.ru/node/256).
In Soviet times, the Rostov-na-Donu expert notes, Russian women in Moscow and other major cities “most often married Ukrainians, Jews, Belarusians, Armenians and Tatars,” but now as a result of migration, such women are marrying “Georgians, Azerbaijanis, Daghestanis, Chechens and Ingush.”
If the percentage of inter-ethnic marriages in the Russian capital has increased from 22 to 25 percent over the last decade or so, Vladimirov observes, the share of such marriages in Russian regions adjoining the North Caucasus is falling every year and in non-Russian regions there has declined almost to zero.
This difference in the pattern of inter-ethnic marriages between Moscow and the Russian south, he continues, leads him to have “mixed feelings,” not only because Muscovite women are increasingly marrying men culturally dissimilar from themselves but also because the situation in the south points to a hardening of distinct identities among Russians and non-Russians there.
Until 1992, Vladimirov says, ethnically mixed marriages were relatively common in Rostov, with roughly two of them taking place each week between Russian women and Georgian, Azerbaijani, Chechen and other Caucasian men, but now there are far fewer, perhaps no more than 10 such marriages annually out of a total of 1200.
One group where the shift has been particularly noticeable has been among the Cossacks, traditionally a group in which mixed marriages were relatively common. Vladimir Voronin, the chief ideologist of the Don Cossacks, for example said that his community was always “a melting pot” for people of different nationalities.
But now the situation has dramatically changed. Cossacks are increasingly xenophobic in large measure, Vladimirov insists, because of clashes in the eastern portions of Rostov oblast between members of that community and non-Russians from Chechnya and Daghestan who have moved into the area because of troubles in their homelands.
The Meskhetian Turks, some 18,000 of whom have moved into Rostov oblast in recent years, present a particular problem, Vladimirov and the Cossacks say. The number of marriages between them and local Russians “can be counted on one’s fingers,” and many Cossacks fear that eventually that will lead to a Kosovo-type situation there.
Indeed, many people in Rostov point to the rise of “mini-enclaves” of non-Russians inside Rostov oblast who live apart in what are effectively “societies closed” to outsiders like the Russians, most of whom are now moving out of such districts into areas where there is a Russian plurality or majority. That too is pushing down the number of inter-ethnic marriages.
Over the same period, the number of inter-ethnic marriages in the non-Russian republics of the North Caucasus has declined sharply. Such marriages have become “unpopular” and where they do take place they are among people of different Muslim nationalities rather than between representatives of these communities and ethnic Russians.
One reason that the decline in the number of inter-ethnic marriages in Rostov has attracted some attention is that there have been some much-publicized unions between ethnic Russian women and Muslim men from Turkey, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria and Morocco, even if there are almost none between Russian women and local Muslims.
Rostov Mufti Jafar Bikmayev points out that he often officiates at such marriages, which are indeed “inter-ethnic” but not in the way most Russians have traditionally defined them. But because many of the men in such marriages insist on their wives converting – even though Islam does not require that – these unions are likely to affect the ethnic balance as well.
According to Vladimir Alekseyev, a Rostov psychologist, “it is a difficult matter to decide whether inter-ethnic marriages are a good thing or not.” Such unions, he says, have both “positive and negative sides.” On the positive side, they lead to bilingualism, but on the negative, people in them sometimes fail to remember which nation they are members of.
At the conclusion of his article, Vladimirov provides a selection of comments on the Internet about such marriages. They provide a window on shifts in attitudes on these unions that may be even more important to the future evolution of ethnic identity than any of the other details the Rostov expert offers.
According to one, “only in marriages within one’s own nation is it possible to preserve its customs, religion and the like, After all, ‘between a bird in the sky and a fish in the sea, there cannot be a union.’” But while some other agreed with that view, one took a diametrically opposite position.
That individual posted a comment saying that “many peoples whose representatives now reject inter-ethnic marriages [forget that] at one time they arose thanks to the mixing of other peoples” through intermarriage,” a more open sentiment but one that it appears ever fewer people in the Russian Federation appear to share.
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