Paul Goble
Fairfax, March 29 – Preliminary results from the 2010 Russian census highlight some of that country’s most serious underlying problems and thus appear likely to be the subject of intense discussion and debate not only among commentators but also in the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.
The results released yesterday show a continuing decline in the total Russian population, a hollowing out of much of the country, an increase in the gender imbalance Russia has suffered since World War II, and, what is especially disturbing to many Russians, a shift in the ethnic balance of the population as a result of differential birthrates and immigration.
And those trends -- which some observers are already suggesting may be even worse than the official figures show -- help explain why some Russian leaders wanted to put off the census or at least reports of its findings until after the 2012 presidential elections lest the census data call attention to the failures of Moscow’s policies over the last decade.
Yesterday, “Rossiiskaya gazeta” published preliminary results for the 2010 Russian census (www.nr2.ru/rus/325729.html). Even this small sample has sparked widespread discussion as well as reignited suspicions in many quarters that this census like the one in 2002 was distorted by massive falsifications of various kinds.
The three most striking features of these data were first, the overall decline in the population, some 2.2 million or 1.6 percent, since 2002; the worsening of the gender imbalance in the country because of super-high mortality rates among working age men, and the relative decline in the ethnic Russian share of the population, even though ethnic data were not released.
On the one hand, as many commentators noted, non-Russian regions grew while predominantly ethnic Russian ones declined in size, further hollowing out the ethnic Russian core of the country and raising questions in the minds of some about the future of the Russian nation and hence of the Russian state.
And on the other, as other writers noted, the decline in the size of the total population would have been far greater had it not been compensated for by a massive influx of immigrants, few of whom have been ethnic Russians (in contrast to the situation in the 1990s) and many of whom are increasingly culturally and linguistically different from Russians.
Liberal opposition figure Boris Nemtsov was among those who pointed to all these things. He suggested in a comment to Novy region that “citizens of Russia are disappearing at a speed of about 500,000 a year. That is, the total loss [for the intercensal period was at least] five million” (www.nr2.ru/moskow/325874.html).
These population trends, Nemtsov said, “mean one thing:” neither the country nor the state “has a future.” What must be done, he said, is “to reorient resources awy from the special services and the enrichment [of the few] toward health care and a healthy way of life” and to stand the economic policy in the country in order to create a middle class.”
Making those changes requires a change in the country’s leadership, he said. “under the current regime, the withering away [of the nation and hence of Russia’s future] will continue.”
Coming from a different perspective, Moscow commentator Mikhail Delyagin agreed, although he put it somewhat differently. According to him, the withering away of Russia has been stopped at least in official statistics but only at the cost of a change in the ethnic composition of the country (forum-msk.org/material/economic/5842854.html).
According to Delyagin, increasingly social and economic conflicts may soon take the form in Russia “if not of national then of ethno-cultural” ones, and if that proves to be the case, he argued, “this will mark a colossal step toward the degradation and archaization of all of Russian society.”
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Forty Percent of Tajiks Now Have Trouble Getting Safe Drinking Water
Paul Goble
Fairfax, March 29 – Just how serious water problems have become in post-Soviet Central Asia both because of longstanding trends and the current drought is underscored by a report that two out of every five of the residents of Tajikistan, one of only two countries in the region with a water surplus, are now facing difficulties in getting water that is safe to drink.
Moreover, officials at the Tajik state agency responsible for supplying water to the population told CA-News last week, the situation in that 7.5 million-strong republic is even worse in some rural districts, a development that is certain to lead to more outbreaks of disease and spark new political problems (www.centrasia.ru/news.php?st=1300778160).
“Despite an excess of water resources,” a Dushanbe official said, “a difficult situation has arisen in supplying drinking water to the population has developed,” one in which almost three out of every four residents is forced to rely on inadequate water distribution facilities or lack them altogether.
The greater part of the water distribution system in Tajikistan was built 40 to 60 years ago and has not been adequately maintained or updated. As a result, “more than 50 percent” of it is not in working order, with all but a tiny fraction of the remainder at risk of failing in the near future.
According to Tajik officials, the situation is especially bad in rural areas where a shortage of funds and “the liquidation of administrative structures which early were responsible” for maintaining the system has left no one in charge and created a situation where what water and sewage facilities there are “do not correspond to sanitary norms.”
“With the transition to mark relations,” one official says, “the budget for the construction of public works, including water systems, was sharply reduced.” As a result, planned construction was either cancelled or spread over a longer period of time. Now, to bring things up to standard would “require colossal means” and the assistance of foreign governments.
Since 2008, Dushanbe has been attempting to rectify the situation as part of a 12-year-program, but even if that program is successful, it will reduce the share of Tajiks who lack access to potable only from 40 percent to 20 percent, meaning that more than two million people there will still not have safe drinking water.
What makes this lack of potable water so striking is that in the glaciers and lakes of Tajikistan are more than 800 billion cubic meters of fresh water, the source of more than 55 percent of all the water resources of Central Asia, of which Tajikistan historically has taken only 15 percent of the total.
If Tajikistan is forced to take more out of this flow in order to deal with its own water crisis, that will have consequences for downstream countries like Uzbekistan with which Tajikistan does not have good relations even now. And thus water could become the cause of new conflicts, possibly involving the use of military force, between the two.
That water can play that role in international affairs is suggested by yet another report last week: Because of a serious drought, Beijing is now buying land abroad in order to ensure that its farmers will be able to feed the still-growing Chinese population, water-driven purchases that could spark additional conflicts as well (www.ng.ru/world/2011-03-22/1_china.html).
Fairfax, March 29 – Just how serious water problems have become in post-Soviet Central Asia both because of longstanding trends and the current drought is underscored by a report that two out of every five of the residents of Tajikistan, one of only two countries in the region with a water surplus, are now facing difficulties in getting water that is safe to drink.
Moreover, officials at the Tajik state agency responsible for supplying water to the population told CA-News last week, the situation in that 7.5 million-strong republic is even worse in some rural districts, a development that is certain to lead to more outbreaks of disease and spark new political problems (www.centrasia.ru/news.php?st=1300778160).
“Despite an excess of water resources,” a Dushanbe official said, “a difficult situation has arisen in supplying drinking water to the population has developed,” one in which almost three out of every four residents is forced to rely on inadequate water distribution facilities or lack them altogether.
The greater part of the water distribution system in Tajikistan was built 40 to 60 years ago and has not been adequately maintained or updated. As a result, “more than 50 percent” of it is not in working order, with all but a tiny fraction of the remainder at risk of failing in the near future.
According to Tajik officials, the situation is especially bad in rural areas where a shortage of funds and “the liquidation of administrative structures which early were responsible” for maintaining the system has left no one in charge and created a situation where what water and sewage facilities there are “do not correspond to sanitary norms.”
“With the transition to mark relations,” one official says, “the budget for the construction of public works, including water systems, was sharply reduced.” As a result, planned construction was either cancelled or spread over a longer period of time. Now, to bring things up to standard would “require colossal means” and the assistance of foreign governments.
Since 2008, Dushanbe has been attempting to rectify the situation as part of a 12-year-program, but even if that program is successful, it will reduce the share of Tajiks who lack access to potable only from 40 percent to 20 percent, meaning that more than two million people there will still not have safe drinking water.
What makes this lack of potable water so striking is that in the glaciers and lakes of Tajikistan are more than 800 billion cubic meters of fresh water, the source of more than 55 percent of all the water resources of Central Asia, of which Tajikistan historically has taken only 15 percent of the total.
If Tajikistan is forced to take more out of this flow in order to deal with its own water crisis, that will have consequences for downstream countries like Uzbekistan with which Tajikistan does not have good relations even now. And thus water could become the cause of new conflicts, possibly involving the use of military force, between the two.
That water can play that role in international affairs is suggested by yet another report last week: Because of a serious drought, Beijing is now buying land abroad in order to ensure that its farmers will be able to feed the still-growing Chinese population, water-driven purchases that could spark additional conflicts as well (www.ng.ru/world/2011-03-22/1_china.html).
Window on Eurasia: Ingush Now Trust Yevkurov Less than They Do Zyazikov, Poll Shows
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 29 – Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, a professional soldier with a reputation for incorruptibility, who many viewed as the savior of the North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia, is now trusted less by the population there than his discredited predecessor as Ingushetia head, Murat Zyazikov, according to an independent poll.
That survey, conducted by the independent “Dosh” journal, is the latest blow to the hopes of many in Moscow and the region that someone like Yevkurov could establish order there and puts additional pressure on the center to allow these republics to choose their own leaders rather than have them imposed from above (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/182925/).
Some 1500 residents of Nazran and other Ingushetia cities and villages were asked: “Whom do you trust more: Ruslan Aushev, Murat Zyazivok, or Yunus-Bek Yevkurov?” 81.8 percent of those responding named Aushev, 9.5 percent identified Zyazikov but “only 8.7 percent” said they trusted Yevkurov the most.
Israpil Shovkhalov, the editor of “Dosh,” said that what surprised him and his colleagues was “not the high level of trust for the first president Aushev. It has long been known that he is the most popular Ingush politicial. What was surprising was the sharp and almost crushing decline of trust to the present head of Ingushetia,” especially relative to the hated Zyazikov.
When Yevkurov replaced Zyazikov, Shovkhalov said, “his willingness to meet with the people, his accessibility and openness, his opposition to corruption in a literal sense delighted people,” especially in contrast to Zyazikov who was widely suspected of organizing the killing of some of his opponents.
“But how then could it happen,” the “Dosh” editor, asked, “that after less than half-way through the presidential term of the third leader of the youngest Russian republic, [the incumbent] has lost the trust of the majority of his [former] backers?”
Olga Allenova, a special correspondent for “Kommersant,” told Kavkaz-uzel.ru that the Ingushetians may have had too great expectations for Yevkurov and are now not surprisingly disappointed. He arrived as “the new, ‘Medvedev’ candidate and everyone thought well now he will put everything in order, deal with corruption” and everything else.
But many of those problems have been beyond his powers to correct. In addition, many in Ingushetia are furious at Yevkurov for “surrendering” the Prigorodny district to the Osetians, Allenova said, forgetting that he took that step under pressure from Moscow and in order to remove one of the neuralgic situations in the area.
According to the “Kommersant” journalist, however, Yevkurov’s chief failure and hence the explanation for his low rating lies elsewhere, in his inability to deal with corruption endemic to the republic. “But,” she writes, “corruption turned out to be stronger [than he] because the roots of Caucasian corruption are in Moscow and not in the Caucasus.”
According to Olga Bobrova of “Novaya gazeta,” Yevkurov initially benefitted from comparisons with his despised predecessor, but soon it because obvious that he could not end many of the same problems, including violence and kidnappings, that had brought opprobrium on Zyazikov’s head. And then the people turned against him.
Moreover, she added, Yevkurov turned out to be “not free from the vertical” of Vladimir Putin and therefore found out rather quickly that he could not fulfill the promises he made to the people if those promises ran against the interests of those above him in Moscow. That too sapped his authority.
In recent days, Yevkurov appears to be reducing his standing with the population still further. Four days ago, “Kommersant” reported that he had openly justified the use of force against a peaceful demonstration by the Ingush opposition, a statement that has cost him additional support (www.kommersant.ru/Doc-y/1607389).
Staunton, March 29 – Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, a professional soldier with a reputation for incorruptibility, who many viewed as the savior of the North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia, is now trusted less by the population there than his discredited predecessor as Ingushetia head, Murat Zyazikov, according to an independent poll.
That survey, conducted by the independent “Dosh” journal, is the latest blow to the hopes of many in Moscow and the region that someone like Yevkurov could establish order there and puts additional pressure on the center to allow these republics to choose their own leaders rather than have them imposed from above (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/182925/).
Some 1500 residents of Nazran and other Ingushetia cities and villages were asked: “Whom do you trust more: Ruslan Aushev, Murat Zyazivok, or Yunus-Bek Yevkurov?” 81.8 percent of those responding named Aushev, 9.5 percent identified Zyazikov but “only 8.7 percent” said they trusted Yevkurov the most.
Israpil Shovkhalov, the editor of “Dosh,” said that what surprised him and his colleagues was “not the high level of trust for the first president Aushev. It has long been known that he is the most popular Ingush politicial. What was surprising was the sharp and almost crushing decline of trust to the present head of Ingushetia,” especially relative to the hated Zyazikov.
When Yevkurov replaced Zyazikov, Shovkhalov said, “his willingness to meet with the people, his accessibility and openness, his opposition to corruption in a literal sense delighted people,” especially in contrast to Zyazikov who was widely suspected of organizing the killing of some of his opponents.
“But how then could it happen,” the “Dosh” editor, asked, “that after less than half-way through the presidential term of the third leader of the youngest Russian republic, [the incumbent] has lost the trust of the majority of his [former] backers?”
Olga Allenova, a special correspondent for “Kommersant,” told Kavkaz-uzel.ru that the Ingushetians may have had too great expectations for Yevkurov and are now not surprisingly disappointed. He arrived as “the new, ‘Medvedev’ candidate and everyone thought well now he will put everything in order, deal with corruption” and everything else.
But many of those problems have been beyond his powers to correct. In addition, many in Ingushetia are furious at Yevkurov for “surrendering” the Prigorodny district to the Osetians, Allenova said, forgetting that he took that step under pressure from Moscow and in order to remove one of the neuralgic situations in the area.
According to the “Kommersant” journalist, however, Yevkurov’s chief failure and hence the explanation for his low rating lies elsewhere, in his inability to deal with corruption endemic to the republic. “But,” she writes, “corruption turned out to be stronger [than he] because the roots of Caucasian corruption are in Moscow and not in the Caucasus.”
According to Olga Bobrova of “Novaya gazeta,” Yevkurov initially benefitted from comparisons with his despised predecessor, but soon it because obvious that he could not end many of the same problems, including violence and kidnappings, that had brought opprobrium on Zyazikov’s head. And then the people turned against him.
Moreover, she added, Yevkurov turned out to be “not free from the vertical” of Vladimir Putin and therefore found out rather quickly that he could not fulfill the promises he made to the people if those promises ran against the interests of those above him in Moscow. That too sapped his authority.
In recent days, Yevkurov appears to be reducing his standing with the population still further. Four days ago, “Kommersant” reported that he had openly justified the use of force against a peaceful demonstration by the Ingush opposition, a statement that has cost him additional support (www.kommersant.ru/Doc-y/1607389).
Monday, March 28, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Gainutdin Says Moscow Not Muslims to Blame for Islamophobia
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 28 – Ravil Gainutdin, the head of the Union of Muftis of Russia (SMR), says that “today, a much greater threat to the unity of [Russia] comes not from the Caucasus but out of Moscow where at the walls of the Kremlin, at the grave of the Unknown Soldier, thousands of young people under Nazi symbols shout ‘Down with the Caucasus!’”
Gainutdin’s charge, made in a speech to the All-Russian Muslim Conference on Thursday and in an interview with “Novyye izvestiya,” not only over overwhelmed his hopes to use this meeting to promote Muslim unity but also sparked a sharp rejoinder from Kremlin officials, thereby highlighting both divisions within Islam and between Muslims and Moscow.
In his speech, the SMRhead said that he wanted “with the help of Allah to develop a consolidated position of the Muslim community of Russia on the most serious problems of the development of our country,” problems that he said could only be solved by clearly facing up to them (www.muslim.ru/1/cont/33/35/2324.htm).
“The first and most essential threat for all the citizens of our country, not excluding the Muslims” Gainutdin began, “must be acknowledged to be the sharp intensification of xenophobia and chauvinism in Russian society,” and in particular, “the rapid growth of Islamophobia” among Russians.
This “ugly manifestion of intolerance,” the Muslim leader continued, has a long history and specific sources. To a large extent, he said, “the mass media” have played and are playing a negative role, “disseminating false information about Isdlam” and spreading “distrust and hatred among Russians of various nationalities and faiths.”
“Today, when we turn to many Russian media outlets,” Gainutdin said, “we are forced to cite the words of the Most High who said in the Koran ‘Why do you tell lies and conceal the truth when you have already known it?”
Related to this problem, the SMR leader argued, is the “unceasing” banning of “the best models of Muslim spiritual literature by provincial Russian courts.” Recently one of them banned the hadith of the Prophet, an action that shows the way in which anti-extremism legislation is now being used by Russian officials to attack Islam as such.
Other problems connected with this include “the proposals of a number of experts and religious activists” to prevent any graduate of foreign universities fromworking in Russia. This “absurd” idea is directed in the first instance against Muslims receiving training abroad but it will affect everyone – and to Russia’s detriment, Gainutdin said.
Many Russians want to blame Muslims and Islam for the rise in xenophobia, the Moscow mufti said, but this is completely wrong as recent events have shown. “After the bloody terrorist acts in Moscow and the events in the Manezh Square, our society has found itself between two fires,” which threaten to engulf it.
“On the one hand, terrorism and extremism, and on the other, neo-Nazism and chauvinism,” Gainutdin argued. And he concluded: “Today a much greater threat to the unity of the country comes not from the Caucasus but from Moscow,” all the more so because “Muslims are the first target of the terrorists both in the Caucasus and in Russian cities.”
To counter this situation, Gainutdin proposed improving ties with other faiths, ensuring the secular nature of the Russian state and preventing Islam from being politicized, and improving the management of and cooperation among Russia’s Muslim Spiritual Directorates (MSDs),
Gainutdin expanded upon these arguments in an interview with Aleksandr Kolesnichenko of “Novyye izvestiya” (http://www.newizv.ru/razdel/2011-03-25/3/), an interview published to coincide with the Muslim Conference that the Moscow newspaper headlined “The Threat to the Unity of the Country Comes from Moscow.”
Asked why it is that “precisely in the Muslim republics of war a war is going on, one in which [some] are fighting for the creation of an Islamic khalifate,” the SMR leader said that it is not the case that “all who go into the mountains and conduct their anti-government activity under [this slogan].” Many, he said, do so because of the failings of the government itself.
“I was in the North Caucasus, I met with ordinary Muslims and Muslim leaders and I received a clear answer: none of them wants the distintegration of Russia. Russia is out common country, which grew not only from Kievan Rus but also fromt eh Golden Horde and the Imamate of Shamil, the free communities of the Caucasus and the Volga-Siberia khanates,” he said.
“Today,” Gainutdin said, “in the North Caucasus, our brothers and sisters want to live in a great strong sstate where the rights and freedoms of every citizen are respected.” Unfortunately, today that is threatened, not so much by the actions of the few who engage in terrorist acts but from the attitudes of Russians about Muslims.
Consequently, Gainutdin concluded, “a much greater threat to the unity of the country comes not from the Caucasus but from Moscow” itself.
Typically, when a Muslim leader in Russia makes a statement with which the authorities disagree, the latter leave it to people like Roman Silantyev, a specialist on Islam whose opposition to most Muslim leaders and close ties to the Moscow Patriarchate have made him notorious in some quarters, to answer.
But this time, the Kremlin clearly decided more was needed,and Aleksey Grishin, the chief advisor of the Presidential Administration, weighed in with a sharp attack on the argument Gainutdin had made, dismissing it as an effort to explain away the problems of Russia’s Muslim community (www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=dujour&div=374).
According to Grishin, “very often, particularly recently, individual Muslim leadcers try to justify their inactive and inability to solve basic problems of the umma by references to the supposed existence of Islamophobia” in Russian society and particularly among Russian officials.
“This theme is very convenient as well to the enemies of Russia beyond the borders of the Russian Federation,” the Presidential aide continued.
Grishin then pointed out that “the term ‘Islamophobia’ means not opposition to Islam, as many mistakenly use it, but rather fear before Islam.” But whatever “fear” Russians feel about Islam is the result of “bloody terrorist acts which “unfortunately [have taken place] under the green banners of Islam.”
The people who commimt them, of course, Grishin continued, “are not Muslims because they are criminally using Islam for their own purposes,” and it is against that misuse of religion that “we must direct the basic strike in the struggle with Islamophobia. People are afraid of Islam because of [that].”
It is completely inappropriate to charge the Russian state with Islamophobia, the Kremlin official said. “In what other country can one see a 70 times growth in the number of mosques over the last 20 years!” Or seen the growth in the number of Islamic educational institutions from zero to 95?
And much of this growth has taken place with the active support, including financial assistance, of the Russian state, Grishin said. But “how hav e Muslim religious public organizations responded? With legal nihilism. Despite numerous warnings, they are systematically failing to obey the laws of the Russian Federation.”
Moreover, “when the state begins to struggle for the observation of law, the theme of persecution of Muslims again arises, Grishin said (www.regions.ru/news/2347224/). What should be happening instead, he argued, is that Muslims should focus on their own problems rather than blaming everyone else.
Various nominally Muslim structures have been created with false documentation, Grishin said, including media outlets “which openly stir up national and religious hostility.” Muslims should focus on struggling with them. “There was a portal called Islam.ru which among the people everyone called Islam.vru [Islam Lies].”
Fortunately, after having been closed, it will reopen under new leadership and with new ideas, the Kremlin aide continued.
But in his most widely cited comment, Grishin noted that much of the money given by the state to Muslim organizations is being used “ineffectively” or even criminally. “We have reports about mosques purchasing toilets for 42,000 rubles (1400 US dollars).” The Kremlin aide said he would like to have a look at such facilities.
Staunton, March 28 – Ravil Gainutdin, the head of the Union of Muftis of Russia (SMR), says that “today, a much greater threat to the unity of [Russia] comes not from the Caucasus but out of Moscow where at the walls of the Kremlin, at the grave of the Unknown Soldier, thousands of young people under Nazi symbols shout ‘Down with the Caucasus!’”
Gainutdin’s charge, made in a speech to the All-Russian Muslim Conference on Thursday and in an interview with “Novyye izvestiya,” not only over overwhelmed his hopes to use this meeting to promote Muslim unity but also sparked a sharp rejoinder from Kremlin officials, thereby highlighting both divisions within Islam and between Muslims and Moscow.
In his speech, the SMRhead said that he wanted “with the help of Allah to develop a consolidated position of the Muslim community of Russia on the most serious problems of the development of our country,” problems that he said could only be solved by clearly facing up to them (www.muslim.ru/1/cont/33/35/2324.htm).
“The first and most essential threat for all the citizens of our country, not excluding the Muslims” Gainutdin began, “must be acknowledged to be the sharp intensification of xenophobia and chauvinism in Russian society,” and in particular, “the rapid growth of Islamophobia” among Russians.
This “ugly manifestion of intolerance,” the Muslim leader continued, has a long history and specific sources. To a large extent, he said, “the mass media” have played and are playing a negative role, “disseminating false information about Isdlam” and spreading “distrust and hatred among Russians of various nationalities and faiths.”
“Today, when we turn to many Russian media outlets,” Gainutdin said, “we are forced to cite the words of the Most High who said in the Koran ‘Why do you tell lies and conceal the truth when you have already known it?”
Related to this problem, the SMR leader argued, is the “unceasing” banning of “the best models of Muslim spiritual literature by provincial Russian courts.” Recently one of them banned the hadith of the Prophet, an action that shows the way in which anti-extremism legislation is now being used by Russian officials to attack Islam as such.
Other problems connected with this include “the proposals of a number of experts and religious activists” to prevent any graduate of foreign universities fromworking in Russia. This “absurd” idea is directed in the first instance against Muslims receiving training abroad but it will affect everyone – and to Russia’s detriment, Gainutdin said.
Many Russians want to blame Muslims and Islam for the rise in xenophobia, the Moscow mufti said, but this is completely wrong as recent events have shown. “After the bloody terrorist acts in Moscow and the events in the Manezh Square, our society has found itself between two fires,” which threaten to engulf it.
“On the one hand, terrorism and extremism, and on the other, neo-Nazism and chauvinism,” Gainutdin argued. And he concluded: “Today a much greater threat to the unity of the country comes not from the Caucasus but from Moscow,” all the more so because “Muslims are the first target of the terrorists both in the Caucasus and in Russian cities.”
To counter this situation, Gainutdin proposed improving ties with other faiths, ensuring the secular nature of the Russian state and preventing Islam from being politicized, and improving the management of and cooperation among Russia’s Muslim Spiritual Directorates (MSDs),
Gainutdin expanded upon these arguments in an interview with Aleksandr Kolesnichenko of “Novyye izvestiya” (http://www.newizv.ru/razdel/2011-03-25/3/), an interview published to coincide with the Muslim Conference that the Moscow newspaper headlined “The Threat to the Unity of the Country Comes from Moscow.”
Asked why it is that “precisely in the Muslim republics of war a war is going on, one in which [some] are fighting for the creation of an Islamic khalifate,” the SMR leader said that it is not the case that “all who go into the mountains and conduct their anti-government activity under [this slogan].” Many, he said, do so because of the failings of the government itself.
“I was in the North Caucasus, I met with ordinary Muslims and Muslim leaders and I received a clear answer: none of them wants the distintegration of Russia. Russia is out common country, which grew not only from Kievan Rus but also fromt eh Golden Horde and the Imamate of Shamil, the free communities of the Caucasus and the Volga-Siberia khanates,” he said.
“Today,” Gainutdin said, “in the North Caucasus, our brothers and sisters want to live in a great strong sstate where the rights and freedoms of every citizen are respected.” Unfortunately, today that is threatened, not so much by the actions of the few who engage in terrorist acts but from the attitudes of Russians about Muslims.
Consequently, Gainutdin concluded, “a much greater threat to the unity of the country comes not from the Caucasus but from Moscow” itself.
Typically, when a Muslim leader in Russia makes a statement with which the authorities disagree, the latter leave it to people like Roman Silantyev, a specialist on Islam whose opposition to most Muslim leaders and close ties to the Moscow Patriarchate have made him notorious in some quarters, to answer.
But this time, the Kremlin clearly decided more was needed,and Aleksey Grishin, the chief advisor of the Presidential Administration, weighed in with a sharp attack on the argument Gainutdin had made, dismissing it as an effort to explain away the problems of Russia’s Muslim community (www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=dujour&div=374).
According to Grishin, “very often, particularly recently, individual Muslim leadcers try to justify their inactive and inability to solve basic problems of the umma by references to the supposed existence of Islamophobia” in Russian society and particularly among Russian officials.
“This theme is very convenient as well to the enemies of Russia beyond the borders of the Russian Federation,” the Presidential aide continued.
Grishin then pointed out that “the term ‘Islamophobia’ means not opposition to Islam, as many mistakenly use it, but rather fear before Islam.” But whatever “fear” Russians feel about Islam is the result of “bloody terrorist acts which “unfortunately [have taken place] under the green banners of Islam.”
The people who commimt them, of course, Grishin continued, “are not Muslims because they are criminally using Islam for their own purposes,” and it is against that misuse of religion that “we must direct the basic strike in the struggle with Islamophobia. People are afraid of Islam because of [that].”
It is completely inappropriate to charge the Russian state with Islamophobia, the Kremlin official said. “In what other country can one see a 70 times growth in the number of mosques over the last 20 years!” Or seen the growth in the number of Islamic educational institutions from zero to 95?
And much of this growth has taken place with the active support, including financial assistance, of the Russian state, Grishin said. But “how hav e Muslim religious public organizations responded? With legal nihilism. Despite numerous warnings, they are systematically failing to obey the laws of the Russian Federation.”
Moreover, “when the state begins to struggle for the observation of law, the theme of persecution of Muslims again arises, Grishin said (www.regions.ru/news/2347224/). What should be happening instead, he argued, is that Muslims should focus on their own problems rather than blaming everyone else.
Various nominally Muslim structures have been created with false documentation, Grishin said, including media outlets “which openly stir up national and religious hostility.” Muslims should focus on struggling with them. “There was a portal called Islam.ru which among the people everyone called Islam.vru [Islam Lies].”
Fortunately, after having been closed, it will reopen under new leadership and with new ideas, the Kremlin aide continued.
But in his most widely cited comment, Grishin noted that much of the money given by the state to Muslim organizations is being used “ineffectively” or even criminally. “We have reports about mosques purchasing toilets for 42,000 rubles (1400 US dollars).” The Kremlin aide said he would like to have a look at such facilities.
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Colonial Rule of the North Caucasus Approaching Its End, Israeli Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 28 – Russia’s “system of administration and organization of life in the North Caucasus has completely exhausted itself,” an Israeli analyst says, and as a result, “the 200-year colonial presence of the Russian Empire [in that region] is moving toward its logical end.” The only remaining quesiton is how much more blood will be shed.
In an analysis postred on APN.ru at the end of last week, Avraam Shmulyevich, an independent scholar, developed this idea, one that is attracting particular attention in Russia because it coincided with a visit to Moscow by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(www.apn.ru/publications/article23896.htm).
Shmulyevich begins his essay with a discussion of a report in a Stavropol newspaper concerning a discussion earlier in the week of Moscow’s continuing financial support of the various republics of that region by the collegiums of the Accounting Chamber of the Russian Federation (http://www.opengaz.ru/issues/10-451/vne_zoni_deistviya.html).
According to the Accounting Chamber, Moscow is providing “about 90 percent” of the budgets of Chechnya and Ingushetia, 75 percent of the budget of Kabardino-Balkaria, and 55 percent of the budgets of North Osetia-Alaniya and Karachayevo-Cherkessia.
Moreover, the Chamber said, “the share of inter-budget transfers per capita in the North Caucasus (with the ex caption of Stavropol) is almost twice that of the all-Russian average. Last year, the federal center allocated 41,000 rubles per person in Chechnya, 20,000 in Ingushetia, 17,000 in Daghestan, and 13,000 to Kabardino-Balkaria.
This means, the Chamber continued, that last year, Moscow allocated 129 billion rubles (4.2 billion US dollars) to the region, with more than 40 percent of that going to Chechnya and the rest divided among the other five republics of the North Caucasus Federal District.
This enormous investment, the Chamber concluded, has not paid off. Unemployment, even as officially calculated, is more than twice the all-Russian percentqage, and those without work are younger by more than a decade (22 to 25) than their counterparts elsewhere in the Russian Federation. Moreover, productivity is lower and the state structure larger.
“It would be incorrect,” Shmulyevich argues, “to say that the abovefigures give us a portrait of a sick society.” No, “this is a dead society, a dead economy,” one that can continue to limp on only by the introduction of massive outside funds in much the same way that an oxygen machine can keep an individual alive when his organs are failing.
Russia’s arrangements in the North Caucasus have thus “completely exhausted themselves,” the Israeli analyst says, “and the 200-year-long colonial presence of the Russian Empire in the North Caucasus is approaching its logical end,” however much many in Moscow and elsewhere want to deny that fact.
“A colony is a territory which is sharply disgtringuished from the metropolitan center by the national and/or religious composition of the population, which belongs to a different culture, and which is politically administered from the metropolitan center and is economically dependent on it,” Shmulyevich says.
That is precisely what the North Caucasus has become over the last two decades, a contrast from the Soviet period when it “was not a colony in the full sense of the word.” All colonial powers, “except the Russian Federation,” he continues, have recognized that such a system no longer works and have dispensed with their empires.
“Soviet power,” Shmulyevich points out, “within the framework of the bolsheviks’ forced modernization program tried to put an end to the colonial inheritaqnced of the Russian Empire, to change the colonial status of the borderlands, including the Caucasus, and to include them in on an equal basis within a single state organism.”
“This goal was realized only partially,” he notes, and then, as a result of “the primitization and archaization which came after the collapse of the USSR, the North Caucasus over the last two decades was again converted into a colony” in the sense of the term that Shmulyevich uses.
Theoretically, he writes, there are two ways out of this situation for Russia. On the one hand, Moscow could adopt “a complete change of the situation of administration and the relationships between ‘the center and periphery’ throughout [Russia], the complete modernization of the Russian economy … [and] real democratization of the political system.”
If all those things were to happen, Shmulyevich says, “then the North Caucasus would have the chance to be included on an equal basis in this new life.” But for obvious reasons, there is no reason to expect “such changes” either in the North Caucasus or in the Russian Federation as a whole.
And on the other hand, there is “the second possible variant,” the one that European countries have followed, and that is “decolonization, that is, the separation ofr the North Caucasus from Russia.” According to Shmulyevich, “this process is inevitable” because “it is dictated by objective historical and economic laws.”
“No decisions of the conference of the United Russia Party, no directives of the Russian government and – it is terrible to say – even no personal declarations of Mr. Vladimir Putin personally are in a position to overturn these laws.” Consequently, the only question remaining is how long this process will take.
Will it occur “quickly, in a centralized fashion and voluntarily as the British Empire departed from the greater part of its colonies,” Shmulyevich asks, “or will it occur slowly, bloodily and painfully as was the case of France’s departure from Algeria and Indochina?” In sum, the Israeli analyst suggests, the real question is “at what price in blood” will it happen.
Staunton, March 28 – Russia’s “system of administration and organization of life in the North Caucasus has completely exhausted itself,” an Israeli analyst says, and as a result, “the 200-year colonial presence of the Russian Empire [in that region] is moving toward its logical end.” The only remaining quesiton is how much more blood will be shed.
In an analysis postred on APN.ru at the end of last week, Avraam Shmulyevich, an independent scholar, developed this idea, one that is attracting particular attention in Russia because it coincided with a visit to Moscow by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(www.apn.ru/publications/article23896.htm).
Shmulyevich begins his essay with a discussion of a report in a Stavropol newspaper concerning a discussion earlier in the week of Moscow’s continuing financial support of the various republics of that region by the collegiums of the Accounting Chamber of the Russian Federation (http://www.opengaz.ru/issues/10-451/vne_zoni_deistviya.html).
According to the Accounting Chamber, Moscow is providing “about 90 percent” of the budgets of Chechnya and Ingushetia, 75 percent of the budget of Kabardino-Balkaria, and 55 percent of the budgets of North Osetia-Alaniya and Karachayevo-Cherkessia.
Moreover, the Chamber said, “the share of inter-budget transfers per capita in the North Caucasus (with the ex caption of Stavropol) is almost twice that of the all-Russian average. Last year, the federal center allocated 41,000 rubles per person in Chechnya, 20,000 in Ingushetia, 17,000 in Daghestan, and 13,000 to Kabardino-Balkaria.
This means, the Chamber continued, that last year, Moscow allocated 129 billion rubles (4.2 billion US dollars) to the region, with more than 40 percent of that going to Chechnya and the rest divided among the other five republics of the North Caucasus Federal District.
This enormous investment, the Chamber concluded, has not paid off. Unemployment, even as officially calculated, is more than twice the all-Russian percentqage, and those without work are younger by more than a decade (22 to 25) than their counterparts elsewhere in the Russian Federation. Moreover, productivity is lower and the state structure larger.
“It would be incorrect,” Shmulyevich argues, “to say that the abovefigures give us a portrait of a sick society.” No, “this is a dead society, a dead economy,” one that can continue to limp on only by the introduction of massive outside funds in much the same way that an oxygen machine can keep an individual alive when his organs are failing.
Russia’s arrangements in the North Caucasus have thus “completely exhausted themselves,” the Israeli analyst says, “and the 200-year-long colonial presence of the Russian Empire in the North Caucasus is approaching its logical end,” however much many in Moscow and elsewhere want to deny that fact.
“A colony is a territory which is sharply disgtringuished from the metropolitan center by the national and/or religious composition of the population, which belongs to a different culture, and which is politically administered from the metropolitan center and is economically dependent on it,” Shmulyevich says.
That is precisely what the North Caucasus has become over the last two decades, a contrast from the Soviet period when it “was not a colony in the full sense of the word.” All colonial powers, “except the Russian Federation,” he continues, have recognized that such a system no longer works and have dispensed with their empires.
“Soviet power,” Shmulyevich points out, “within the framework of the bolsheviks’ forced modernization program tried to put an end to the colonial inheritaqnced of the Russian Empire, to change the colonial status of the borderlands, including the Caucasus, and to include them in on an equal basis within a single state organism.”
“This goal was realized only partially,” he notes, and then, as a result of “the primitization and archaization which came after the collapse of the USSR, the North Caucasus over the last two decades was again converted into a colony” in the sense of the term that Shmulyevich uses.
Theoretically, he writes, there are two ways out of this situation for Russia. On the one hand, Moscow could adopt “a complete change of the situation of administration and the relationships between ‘the center and periphery’ throughout [Russia], the complete modernization of the Russian economy … [and] real democratization of the political system.”
If all those things were to happen, Shmulyevich says, “then the North Caucasus would have the chance to be included on an equal basis in this new life.” But for obvious reasons, there is no reason to expect “such changes” either in the North Caucasus or in the Russian Federation as a whole.
And on the other hand, there is “the second possible variant,” the one that European countries have followed, and that is “decolonization, that is, the separation ofr the North Caucasus from Russia.” According to Shmulyevich, “this process is inevitable” because “it is dictated by objective historical and economic laws.”
“No decisions of the conference of the United Russia Party, no directives of the Russian government and – it is terrible to say – even no personal declarations of Mr. Vladimir Putin personally are in a position to overturn these laws.” Consequently, the only question remaining is how long this process will take.
Will it occur “quickly, in a centralized fashion and voluntarily as the British Empire departed from the greater part of its colonies,” Shmulyevich asks, “or will it occur slowly, bloodily and painfully as was the case of France’s departure from Algeria and Indochina?” In sum, the Israeli analyst suggests, the real question is “at what price in blood” will it happen.
Window on Eurasia: MGIMO Meeting Highlights Russian Worries about Circassian Campaign against Sochi Games
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 28 – Although a Carnegie Moscow Center seminar three weeks ago concluded the Circassians “do not pose a serious threat to the Olympics in Sochi,” a conference at the Russian Foreign Ministry’s training academy held last week on the very same subject suggests that many in Moscow remain extremely nervous on this score.
A majority of participants at a March 3rd conference at Carnegie’s Moscow Center entitled “The Circassian Question and the Olympics at Sochi” concluded that “at the present moment ‘the Circassian question’ does not represent a serious threat to the Olympic Games in Sochi,” although some said it could become one (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/182443/).
That meeting was held because of the increasing efforts by Circassian activists and their supporters in the United States, Georgia and other countries over the past several years to shift the venue of the 2014 games because the competition would take place on the site of the Russian genocide of the Circassians in 1864.
Like the Carnegie Center conference, most analysts have dismissed this Circassian effort as an irritating distraction given Putin’s commitment to the games and the money and time that Moscow has already invested in transforming the southern Russian city of Sochi into the site of a winter Olympiad.
But some in Moscow are now clearly worried that the Circassian campaign, along with the danger that militants from nearby regions of the North Caucasus, could in fact disrupt the games or at least cause some potential participants and attendees to decide not to come to Sochi in 2014.
Last Thursday, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), the prestigious training academy of the Russian foreign ministry, held a conference on “’The Circassian Question’: Historical Memory, Historiographic Discourse and Political Strategies” to examine this issue yet again (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/182789/).
Most of the participants who included leading scholars from around the Russian Federation focused on the events of the 19th century, but as Kavkaz-Uzel.ru noted, “particular interest” was generated by the presentation of Aleksandr Cherevishnikov, an MGIMO scholar, who talked about current Circassian political strategies.
He argued that “hardly anyone” thinks that the Circassians will be able to block the games – “although Russia has many weakspots,” including the decision to hold the games on the 150th anniversary of the Circassian tragedy—the Circassians won’t be able to achieve even that level of resistance that there was in Beijing because “Russia is not China.”
According to Cherevishnikov, too much has been made of the Circassian effort against the Sochi games. Relatively few people are involved, and Turkey, in which many of them have placed such hope because of its large Circassian population, is unlike to put pressure on Moscow in this regard.
And he concluded that “if the [Circassians] abroad cannot do anything, then local activists will not be able to create serious problems.”
A second speaker, Naima Neflyasheva, a senior scholar at the Academy of Sciences Center for Civilizational and Regional Research, said that one of the major reasons that political groups were able to exploit the Circassian quesiton was because “information about the tragedy of the Adygs [Circassians] has been limited.”
While Soviet guidebooks noted that Circassians once lived in these regions and created a great culture, she continued, “today however it is said that the territory is rich in archaeological monuments which belonged to some people or other,” without any clear designation that it was precisely the Circassians who were involved.
And a third speaker, Samir Khotko, a senior scholar at the Adygey Republic Institute of Humanitarian Research, touched on another theme Circassian activists have raised. He noted that the Russian authorities have not done anything to help those Circassians who would like to return from the diaspora.
“Undoubtedly, there are not so many who want to come back,” he said, “but people nonetheless must be offered this opportunity.”
The conference participants adopted a declaration calling for further academic research on what it called “the tragedy of the autochthonian Circassian population of the North Western Caucasus” in the 1860s which was “ended by the forced mass exodus of the Circassians” (www.elot.ru/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2320&Itemid=1).
“Forgetting this tragedy is impermissible,” the declaration continued. “What is required is its careful and what is extremely important professional study and assessment. In this, it is necessary to isolate the work of professional scholars and experts from current politics. This will enrich both science and political practice.”
The declaration also noted that the participants had agreed to form a working group of Caucasus specialists “which will consider all approaches” to the Circassian issue and offer “paths of its resolution” by “formulating concrete proposals which will make possible the reduction of the sharpness of the political conflict around the Circassian question.”
“Without pre-deciding the results of this activity,” the participants concluded, “we note thatwe consider its final result as part of a large work directed at the strengthening of the [non-ethnic] Russian civic nation and the resolution of the contradictions which inevitably arise in a spirit of solidarity, responsibility, constructive cooperation, and dialogue.”
This MGIMO conference would never have taken place and its declaration would never have been issued if the Circassians in the diaspora had not launched their drive to shift the venue of the 2014 Olympics away from the site of the 1864 genocide, and consequently, this event represents a breakthrough victory for those activists, even if it does not yet pre-ordain a final one.
Staunton, March 28 – Although a Carnegie Moscow Center seminar three weeks ago concluded the Circassians “do not pose a serious threat to the Olympics in Sochi,” a conference at the Russian Foreign Ministry’s training academy held last week on the very same subject suggests that many in Moscow remain extremely nervous on this score.
A majority of participants at a March 3rd conference at Carnegie’s Moscow Center entitled “The Circassian Question and the Olympics at Sochi” concluded that “at the present moment ‘the Circassian question’ does not represent a serious threat to the Olympic Games in Sochi,” although some said it could become one (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/182443/).
That meeting was held because of the increasing efforts by Circassian activists and their supporters in the United States, Georgia and other countries over the past several years to shift the venue of the 2014 games because the competition would take place on the site of the Russian genocide of the Circassians in 1864.
Like the Carnegie Center conference, most analysts have dismissed this Circassian effort as an irritating distraction given Putin’s commitment to the games and the money and time that Moscow has already invested in transforming the southern Russian city of Sochi into the site of a winter Olympiad.
But some in Moscow are now clearly worried that the Circassian campaign, along with the danger that militants from nearby regions of the North Caucasus, could in fact disrupt the games or at least cause some potential participants and attendees to decide not to come to Sochi in 2014.
Last Thursday, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), the prestigious training academy of the Russian foreign ministry, held a conference on “’The Circassian Question’: Historical Memory, Historiographic Discourse and Political Strategies” to examine this issue yet again (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/182789/).
Most of the participants who included leading scholars from around the Russian Federation focused on the events of the 19th century, but as Kavkaz-Uzel.ru noted, “particular interest” was generated by the presentation of Aleksandr Cherevishnikov, an MGIMO scholar, who talked about current Circassian political strategies.
He argued that “hardly anyone” thinks that the Circassians will be able to block the games – “although Russia has many weakspots,” including the decision to hold the games on the 150th anniversary of the Circassian tragedy—the Circassians won’t be able to achieve even that level of resistance that there was in Beijing because “Russia is not China.”
According to Cherevishnikov, too much has been made of the Circassian effort against the Sochi games. Relatively few people are involved, and Turkey, in which many of them have placed such hope because of its large Circassian population, is unlike to put pressure on Moscow in this regard.
And he concluded that “if the [Circassians] abroad cannot do anything, then local activists will not be able to create serious problems.”
A second speaker, Naima Neflyasheva, a senior scholar at the Academy of Sciences Center for Civilizational and Regional Research, said that one of the major reasons that political groups were able to exploit the Circassian quesiton was because “information about the tragedy of the Adygs [Circassians] has been limited.”
While Soviet guidebooks noted that Circassians once lived in these regions and created a great culture, she continued, “today however it is said that the territory is rich in archaeological monuments which belonged to some people or other,” without any clear designation that it was precisely the Circassians who were involved.
And a third speaker, Samir Khotko, a senior scholar at the Adygey Republic Institute of Humanitarian Research, touched on another theme Circassian activists have raised. He noted that the Russian authorities have not done anything to help those Circassians who would like to return from the diaspora.
“Undoubtedly, there are not so many who want to come back,” he said, “but people nonetheless must be offered this opportunity.”
The conference participants adopted a declaration calling for further academic research on what it called “the tragedy of the autochthonian Circassian population of the North Western Caucasus” in the 1860s which was “ended by the forced mass exodus of the Circassians” (www.elot.ru/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2320&Itemid=1).
“Forgetting this tragedy is impermissible,” the declaration continued. “What is required is its careful and what is extremely important professional study and assessment. In this, it is necessary to isolate the work of professional scholars and experts from current politics. This will enrich both science and political practice.”
The declaration also noted that the participants had agreed to form a working group of Caucasus specialists “which will consider all approaches” to the Circassian issue and offer “paths of its resolution” by “formulating concrete proposals which will make possible the reduction of the sharpness of the political conflict around the Circassian question.”
“Without pre-deciding the results of this activity,” the participants concluded, “we note thatwe consider its final result as part of a large work directed at the strengthening of the [non-ethnic] Russian civic nation and the resolution of the contradictions which inevitably arise in a spirit of solidarity, responsibility, constructive cooperation, and dialogue.”
This MGIMO conference would never have taken place and its declaration would never have been issued if the Circassians in the diaspora had not launched their drive to shift the venue of the 2014 Olympics away from the site of the 1864 genocide, and consequently, this event represents a breakthrough victory for those activists, even if it does not yet pre-ordain a final one.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Patriarch Kirill Moves to Expand His Role in the North Caucasus
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 27 – Just as he has done in so many other spheres of Russian life, Patriarch Kirill last week moved to expand the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the North Caucasus through the use of the two tools at his disposal: the reorganization of the church’s structure there and meeting with senior Russian officials.
But at least one commentator notes that in taking these steps, Kirill is walking a fine line between satisfying the needs of his own institution and those of the Russian state, a reflection of what that writer suggests is “the systematic crisis” in the Russian Federation with the increasing tensions among various parts of the bureaucracy, secular and religious.
At a meeting last Tuesday, the Holy Synod disbanded the former Stavropol and Vladikavkas archbishopric which had overseen Stavropol kray and the North Caucasus republics of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Osetia, Ingushetia and Chechnya and sent its head Archbishop Feofan to Chelyabinsk (www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1434630.html).
In place of the disbanded archbishopric, the Synod created three new sees with three new leaders:
• the Pyatigorsk and Cherkess bishopric which will be headed by Smolensk and Vyazemsk Bishop Feofilak and will include the parishes of Mineralovod, Predgorny and Kirov districts and also the respublics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia;
• the Vladikavkaz and Makhachkala archbishopric which will led by Elista and Kymyk Archbishop Zosima and include Orthodox congregations in North Osetia-Alania, Daghestan, Ingushetia, and Chechnya; and
• the Stavropol and Nevinomyssky archbishopric which will include the remainder of the previous Stavropol and Vladikavkaz archbishopric and will be headed by Bishop Kirill of Pavlovo-Posadsky, who will retain his position as head of the Synod Committee on Relations with the Cossacks.
At the same session, the Synod expressed its “gratitude” to Baku and Caspian Bishop Aleksandr for his supervision of the Orthodox parishes in Daghestan and his “support of Orthodox-Muslim cooperation.” But it eliminated his role there, reducing his sphere of activity to Azerbaijan and changing his title to the bishop of Baku and Azerbaijan.
Also at that meeting, the Holy Synod thanked Feofan “for his many efforts to strengthen church life in the North Caucasus” and his “conduct of dialogue with Muslim communities directed at the establishment of peace and concord in the multi-national society” of that part of the Russian Federation.
Feofan, who earlier served as patriarchal representative to Africa and the East and who who has been viewed as a rising star in the Church, will now seek to promote Orthodoxy in the much-troubled see of Chelyabinsk (www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/31190.html and ura.ru/content/chel/24-03-2011/articles/1036256292.html).
In a related development, Patriarch Kirill on Friday received Aleksandr Khloponin, the Presidential plenipotentiary representative for the North Caucasus, a meeting at which the Church leader explained these administrative changes and the political one expressed the hope that they would help fill “the spiritual vacuum” there (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=47448).
Three aspects of these moves are worth noting: First, they reflect Kirill’s effort to create a power vertical within the church. Second, they reflect his desire to bring religious and political borders into correspondence. And third, they suggest he will pursue a more differentiated policy in the North Caucasus, with more attention to the Cossacks.
But as the editors of Religiopolis.org note, this combination of “bureaucracy and politics” may not work as any of its participants hope. Both the Church and the government are pursuing their own bureaucratic interests, and this combination may end by harming both of them and the interests of believers as well (www.religiopolis.org/news/2275-bjurokratija-i-politika.html).
Staunton, March 27 – Just as he has done in so many other spheres of Russian life, Patriarch Kirill last week moved to expand the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the North Caucasus through the use of the two tools at his disposal: the reorganization of the church’s structure there and meeting with senior Russian officials.
But at least one commentator notes that in taking these steps, Kirill is walking a fine line between satisfying the needs of his own institution and those of the Russian state, a reflection of what that writer suggests is “the systematic crisis” in the Russian Federation with the increasing tensions among various parts of the bureaucracy, secular and religious.
At a meeting last Tuesday, the Holy Synod disbanded the former Stavropol and Vladikavkas archbishopric which had overseen Stavropol kray and the North Caucasus republics of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Osetia, Ingushetia and Chechnya and sent its head Archbishop Feofan to Chelyabinsk (www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1434630.html).
In place of the disbanded archbishopric, the Synod created three new sees with three new leaders:
• the Pyatigorsk and Cherkess bishopric which will be headed by Smolensk and Vyazemsk Bishop Feofilak and will include the parishes of Mineralovod, Predgorny and Kirov districts and also the respublics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia;
• the Vladikavkaz and Makhachkala archbishopric which will led by Elista and Kymyk Archbishop Zosima and include Orthodox congregations in North Osetia-Alania, Daghestan, Ingushetia, and Chechnya; and
• the Stavropol and Nevinomyssky archbishopric which will include the remainder of the previous Stavropol and Vladikavkaz archbishopric and will be headed by Bishop Kirill of Pavlovo-Posadsky, who will retain his position as head of the Synod Committee on Relations with the Cossacks.
At the same session, the Synod expressed its “gratitude” to Baku and Caspian Bishop Aleksandr for his supervision of the Orthodox parishes in Daghestan and his “support of Orthodox-Muslim cooperation.” But it eliminated his role there, reducing his sphere of activity to Azerbaijan and changing his title to the bishop of Baku and Azerbaijan.
Also at that meeting, the Holy Synod thanked Feofan “for his many efforts to strengthen church life in the North Caucasus” and his “conduct of dialogue with Muslim communities directed at the establishment of peace and concord in the multi-national society” of that part of the Russian Federation.
Feofan, who earlier served as patriarchal representative to Africa and the East and who who has been viewed as a rising star in the Church, will now seek to promote Orthodoxy in the much-troubled see of Chelyabinsk (www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/31190.html and ura.ru/content/chel/24-03-2011/articles/1036256292.html).
In a related development, Patriarch Kirill on Friday received Aleksandr Khloponin, the Presidential plenipotentiary representative for the North Caucasus, a meeting at which the Church leader explained these administrative changes and the political one expressed the hope that they would help fill “the spiritual vacuum” there (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=47448).
Three aspects of these moves are worth noting: First, they reflect Kirill’s effort to create a power vertical within the church. Second, they reflect his desire to bring religious and political borders into correspondence. And third, they suggest he will pursue a more differentiated policy in the North Caucasus, with more attention to the Cossacks.
But as the editors of Religiopolis.org note, this combination of “bureaucracy and politics” may not work as any of its participants hope. Both the Church and the government are pursuing their own bureaucratic interests, and this combination may end by harming both of them and the interests of believers as well (www.religiopolis.org/news/2275-bjurokratija-i-politika.html).
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