Paul Goble
Staunton, April 14 – The arrest in Moscow earlier this week of a Chinese gang member who was holding other Chinese citizens as hostages called attention to the presence of Chinese organized crime in the Russian Federation, a phenomenon that is now so large that one commentator has suggested it threatens warming ties between Moscow and Bejing.
On Wednesday, Moscow media reported that the Moscow militia had detained a Chinese citizen who was holding at gun point several of his compatriots hostage, including at least one who was reportedly owed a large sum of money to a Chinese organized crime family (top.rbc.ru/incidents/12/04/2011/574906.shtml).
Before storming the apartment where the hostages were located, the Russian militia attempted to negotiate their release. Then, they called a Chinese embassy officer to the scene, and a decision was taken to seize the gun man by force. The Chinese special services said that the man under arrest is a representative of “one of the Chinese organized criminal groups.”
The existence of ethnically based organized criminal groups in the Russian Federation, including those consisting of ethnic Chinese, is hardly news. But over the last several years, they have become increasingly brazen and heavily involved not just in shakedowns like the one just mentioned but also in bilateral trade between Russia and China.
In a report on the Fondsk.ru portal, Nikolay Yershov suggests that the growth of such criminal activity since the early years of the last decade and “especially in the last two to three years” has accelerated to the point that it is undermining what had been warming bilateral economic and political ties (www.fondsk.ru/news/2011/04/07/kitajskie-opg-ugroza-razvitiju-ekonomicheskih-svjazej-rossii-s-knr.html).
Russian law enforcement agencies say, Yershov reports, that that such crime has become a particular problem “in foreign trade with China.” Much of it involves “complete financial schemes and technical cleverness, the use of contemporary Internet technology, electronic payment systems, and a deep knowledge of financial monitoring and exchange procedures.”
The most important reason for “the increased attention of Chinese organized criminal groups to Russian business,” the journalist continues, are “favorable economic conditions and a stable and high interest by entrepreneurs from the Russian Federation in doing business with China.”
Among the largest Chinese criminal groups involved in such activities, officials say, is the Tientsin-Hebei grouping, “which is based in the cities of Tientsin and Shitsiajuan and has ‘branches’ in Beijing, Harbin and Guandung Province. It specializes in extracting money from Russian companies by securing advances greater than the purchase price of the goods to be sold.
This family does so by sending false prices via the Internet, securing the money and then disappearing. Among the sectors most affected by this particular crime are chemical products, but logistics, consulting and management activities are also involved, Yerzhov says. This Chinese crime family also is involved in fraudulent export contracts for Chinese raw materials.
Some of the firms involved in these activities remain under the control of Chinese organized crime for lengthy periods of time, but they too disband very quickly whenever the authorities in either China or Russia begin to look into what they are doing, although they hide behind various false front companies and often escape attention.
A relatively new area of Chinese organized criminal group activity involves the stock and exchange markets. Russians are offered a chance to invest from 500,000 US dollars up and then paid dividends for only a few months before the Chinese criminals declare that the investment has collapsed in value. They then disappear.
“Regrettably,” Yershov says, “the wave of crimes toward Russian participants in the foreign economic activity of China has not generated the necessary reaction from the side of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security,” a body whose initials translated into Russia is the wonderfully named MOB.
Moreover, he continues, the MOB’s “territorial subdivisions” in Tientsin and elsewhere “for reasons that are not understandable refuse to accept declarations and appeals from Russian and foreign citizens” regarding such activities. Some MOB officials say that they won’t get involved unless losses exceed 300,000 yuan – about 45,000 US dollars.
The activities of the Chinese organized criminal groups are inflicting “serious harm to the develop0ment of economic ties between the two countries. [Consequently,] the Chinese sides ignoring of facts of crimes threatens to undermine the reputation of Chinese business both in the Russian business community and in the international arena.”
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Census Didn’t 'Create' Siberians, Rosstat Head Says on His Blog
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 14 – Whatever some in the media or the population may think, Aleksandr Surinov, the head of the Russian State Statistics Committee says, the recent 2010 census did not create any new nationalities such as the Siberians but only held up a mirror to the identities the residents of the Russian Federation currently have.
Surinov, who has been under intense criticism since his statement that those who identified as Siberians should be allowed to declare that as their nationality and that the census would record that fact, has now posted on his blog (www.a-surinov.livejournal.com) a denial that this has created or promoted such an identity.
The press service of the All-Russian Census has picked that post up in a release entitled “The Census is Not Creating a Nationality” which decries “the incorrect assessment of the list of answers of citizens on the question of [their] nationality” and in particular the supposed “appearance of a new nationality, ‘Siberian’” (globalsib.com/10185/).
The census press service did not reproduce all of Surinov’s arguments, but the Globalsib.com portal has and they are given below:
“Some consider that the 2010 census has made the discovery that the population of Russia has declined. This is very strange since all our assessments of the population over the course of the last eight years have given the very same picture. Some others doubt the results since they were not personally counted. And some are arguing about ‘the Siberians.’”
“About the last question,” Surinov said, “I want to say the following. In the census of the population, Rosstat and all the census takers are OBLIGATED to follow the Constitution and other laws of the Russian Federation. Therefore, in the census forms answers to the question ABOUT NATIONALITY are written down STRICTLY ACCORDING TO THE WORDS of the individual questioned. NO ONE has the right to prompt people for an answer on this point, to show doubts about any answer or to insist on a particular answer. If it were otherwise, and complaints suggest that this happened but rapidly, then we census takers will correct ourselves and do apologize. To assess the actions of people we do not have the right, and this is correct. An individual may not have a single drop of Russian blood but be raised in Russian traditions and Russian culture. And he may call himself a Russian if he wants. Or he can refuse to answer this question.”
“Statistical workers must assemble information, process it, and present it to the user in order that he in the first instance can correctly interpret it. And we shall see how will be interpreted the population of Siberians, Pomors, Russians and others by ethnographers. Science does not stand without moving, and there are many scientific schools. Today may be one interpretation, and tomorrow another. But the main thing is that all users have equal access to information and this means equal opportunities for interpretation.”
“For the conduct of the 2010 census, the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences developed a list of possible variants of answers of the population for coding the answers to the question on the census form about nationality by taking into account the self-designations which appeared during the 2002 census. There were more than 1800 such self-designations. But how many nationalities are there in the Russian Federation?”
“This enumeration is needed exclusively for the machine processing of the materials of the 2010 All-Russian Census and the organization of its results on the question of nationality. Each position in this list has its own code number. In this list, a new self-designation may appear on the basis of the results of the last census. Thus, in the 2010 census appeared the Bulgars.”
“In many countries,” Surinov continued, “questions about nationality are not given. And they live no worse than ours. Rosstat will publish the results about the numbers of individuals counted in the census according to their self-designations. But tables about questions of census forms will be published by nationalities. The algorithms of the transition from self-designation to nationality have been worked out by the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Rosstat does not aspire to do this. This is not our task.”
“Now, preparations for the machine processing of the materials of the census are going at full speed. Soon we will begin to process them. I hope our internal resources will be sufficient and we will put out the results according to our plans. Then we can talk about the Siberians. How many of them there are, where they are, and where they live. About unisex and polygamist marriages. [And] about populations of gnomes, elves, and other curiosities.”
In reporting this blogpost, which itself appears likely to give rise to further debate – although possibly shifting its focus from Rosstat to the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology and its oft-criticized director Valery Tishkov, Globalsib.com also queried experts there and elsewhere about the lists of nationalities.
Officials at the Institute pointed out that the list of names developed by its scholars was “not handed out to the census takers” and is needed, as Surinov said, “only for the processing of materials of the 2010 census and the reporting of results on the nationality composition” and other “demographic and social-economic characteristics of the peoples” of Russia.
Vladimir Zorin, deputy director of the Institute, said that “such a new nationality as ‘Siberians’ could not appear as a result of the census.” Censuses by themselves are not the basis for “creating or destroying a nationality. The task of the census is simply to record accurately the answers, and that is all.”
Meanwhile, however, Leokadia Drobrizheva, the head of the Center for Research on Inter-Ethnic Relations of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (who earlier worked at the Institute of Ethnology), focused on the causes of the appearance of “the Siberians.”
She suggested that there could be several, including “fear about unification and a seeking to distinguish oneself among others, an expression of protest attitudes, and evidence of the development in Russia of regional identities.” But she too said that “the chance of the appearance of a new nationality as a result of the census was ‘not realistic because there are no objective scientific bases for this.’”
Those who identify as Siberians are unlikely to be satisfied with any of this. Some Siberian activists have already complained to Surinov that many census takers refused to write down their self-designations as Siberians accurately or even insisted that “there are no Siberians” and that census takers have been “prohibited” from writing “Siberian” in the form.
Surinov has dismissed their complains and called on those making them to provide specific instances, but neither his response nor his latest post nor the press release from the census appears likely to calm debate on the issue of Siberian identity and hence on the future meaning of Russianness and of Russia itself.
Staunton, April 14 – Whatever some in the media or the population may think, Aleksandr Surinov, the head of the Russian State Statistics Committee says, the recent 2010 census did not create any new nationalities such as the Siberians but only held up a mirror to the identities the residents of the Russian Federation currently have.
Surinov, who has been under intense criticism since his statement that those who identified as Siberians should be allowed to declare that as their nationality and that the census would record that fact, has now posted on his blog (www.a-surinov.livejournal.com) a denial that this has created or promoted such an identity.
The press service of the All-Russian Census has picked that post up in a release entitled “The Census is Not Creating a Nationality” which decries “the incorrect assessment of the list of answers of citizens on the question of [their] nationality” and in particular the supposed “appearance of a new nationality, ‘Siberian’” (globalsib.com/10185/).
The census press service did not reproduce all of Surinov’s arguments, but the Globalsib.com portal has and they are given below:
“Some consider that the 2010 census has made the discovery that the population of Russia has declined. This is very strange since all our assessments of the population over the course of the last eight years have given the very same picture. Some others doubt the results since they were not personally counted. And some are arguing about ‘the Siberians.’”
“About the last question,” Surinov said, “I want to say the following. In the census of the population, Rosstat and all the census takers are OBLIGATED to follow the Constitution and other laws of the Russian Federation. Therefore, in the census forms answers to the question ABOUT NATIONALITY are written down STRICTLY ACCORDING TO THE WORDS of the individual questioned. NO ONE has the right to prompt people for an answer on this point, to show doubts about any answer or to insist on a particular answer. If it were otherwise, and complaints suggest that this happened but rapidly, then we census takers will correct ourselves and do apologize. To assess the actions of people we do not have the right, and this is correct. An individual may not have a single drop of Russian blood but be raised in Russian traditions and Russian culture. And he may call himself a Russian if he wants. Or he can refuse to answer this question.”
“Statistical workers must assemble information, process it, and present it to the user in order that he in the first instance can correctly interpret it. And we shall see how will be interpreted the population of Siberians, Pomors, Russians and others by ethnographers. Science does not stand without moving, and there are many scientific schools. Today may be one interpretation, and tomorrow another. But the main thing is that all users have equal access to information and this means equal opportunities for interpretation.”
“For the conduct of the 2010 census, the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences developed a list of possible variants of answers of the population for coding the answers to the question on the census form about nationality by taking into account the self-designations which appeared during the 2002 census. There were more than 1800 such self-designations. But how many nationalities are there in the Russian Federation?”
“This enumeration is needed exclusively for the machine processing of the materials of the 2010 All-Russian Census and the organization of its results on the question of nationality. Each position in this list has its own code number. In this list, a new self-designation may appear on the basis of the results of the last census. Thus, in the 2010 census appeared the Bulgars.”
“In many countries,” Surinov continued, “questions about nationality are not given. And they live no worse than ours. Rosstat will publish the results about the numbers of individuals counted in the census according to their self-designations. But tables about questions of census forms will be published by nationalities. The algorithms of the transition from self-designation to nationality have been worked out by the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Rosstat does not aspire to do this. This is not our task.”
“Now, preparations for the machine processing of the materials of the census are going at full speed. Soon we will begin to process them. I hope our internal resources will be sufficient and we will put out the results according to our plans. Then we can talk about the Siberians. How many of them there are, where they are, and where they live. About unisex and polygamist marriages. [And] about populations of gnomes, elves, and other curiosities.”
In reporting this blogpost, which itself appears likely to give rise to further debate – although possibly shifting its focus from Rosstat to the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology and its oft-criticized director Valery Tishkov, Globalsib.com also queried experts there and elsewhere about the lists of nationalities.
Officials at the Institute pointed out that the list of names developed by its scholars was “not handed out to the census takers” and is needed, as Surinov said, “only for the processing of materials of the 2010 census and the reporting of results on the nationality composition” and other “demographic and social-economic characteristics of the peoples” of Russia.
Vladimir Zorin, deputy director of the Institute, said that “such a new nationality as ‘Siberians’ could not appear as a result of the census.” Censuses by themselves are not the basis for “creating or destroying a nationality. The task of the census is simply to record accurately the answers, and that is all.”
Meanwhile, however, Leokadia Drobrizheva, the head of the Center for Research on Inter-Ethnic Relations of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (who earlier worked at the Institute of Ethnology), focused on the causes of the appearance of “the Siberians.”
She suggested that there could be several, including “fear about unification and a seeking to distinguish oneself among others, an expression of protest attitudes, and evidence of the development in Russia of regional identities.” But she too said that “the chance of the appearance of a new nationality as a result of the census was ‘not realistic because there are no objective scientific bases for this.’”
Those who identify as Siberians are unlikely to be satisfied with any of this. Some Siberian activists have already complained to Surinov that many census takers refused to write down their self-designations as Siberians accurately or even insisted that “there are no Siberians” and that census takers have been “prohibited” from writing “Siberian” in the form.
Surinov has dismissed their complains and called on those making them to provide specific instances, but neither his response nor his latest post nor the press release from the census appears likely to calm debate on the issue of Siberian identity and hence on the future meaning of Russianness and of Russia itself.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Young Russians Less Tolerant of Non-Russians than are Their Parents, Poll Finds
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 13 – A survey of 1500 Russians conducted by officials Tomsk found that younger people in that city are less tolerant of representatives of other nationalities than are their parents and other older people, according to a press release of the new Children of the Mountains Organization which unites people from the North Caucasus now living in Russia.
Madonna Dunyaeva, the head of the Children of the Mountains group, said that in March, the Tomsk oblast department for youth policy conducted a poll to clarify “the level of tensions in inter-ethnic relations among residents of Tomsk oblast” and that the results have now been released (www.amic.ru/news/146253/).
The survey showed, she said that “young people of Tomsk are less tolerant to representatives of other nationalities than are adults,” with 15 percent of young people agreeing with the statement that “multi-nationality harms Russia,” 33 percent saying they feel “anger” toward non-Russians there, and 43 percent supporting a ban on immigration.
Moreover, Dunyaeva continued, the poll found that “every third declared that he or she had been a witness in recent times to conflicts on an ethnic basis” and one in every five of those young people said they “support those who took part in the [December 11] demonstration in [Moscow’s] Manezh Square.”
All these figures are higher than those found for older Russians, and the head of the Children of the Mountains Organization, said that “it is necessary to establish an educational course, ‘the peoples of Russia,’ in the schools which would acquaint children with the cultures of various peoples. Only by doing so can be defeat the main cause of xenophobia – ignorance.”
She added that it is also “necessary to establish close cooperation between the higher educational institutions and the diasporas [in order to provide] the diasporas with information on arriving students” because it is precisely these diasporas which can quickly and effectively help [these arrivals] adapt to local culture and to learn the [Russian] language.”
Tomsk Governor Viktor Kress said that he supports this idea. “I absolutely agree with Madonna when she says that it is necessary to study the peoples of Russia. We ought to have such a course not only in the schools” but for the broader population.
The Children of the Mountains Youth Organization was established in Tomsk at the end of January and now has branches in various Siberian cities. Its founding document declares that it seeks to promote “the unity of Caucasus young people on the territory of Russia and also love to the traditions of the culture of the Caucasus” (http://deti-gor.com/site/).
The group, which says it is the “first union of its type” in the Russian Federation, includes all ethnic groups from the region, including ethnic Russians, who “want to jointly resolve pressing issues of Caucasus youth and also to preserve the culture and mentality of the Caucasus and the Trans-Caucasus.”
In a related report, Andrey Smirnov, the director of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in Baku that one of the reasons that there are inter-ethnic problems in Moscow is that there are very few residents of the Russian capital who are genuine Muscovites (www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusnews/15685/).
According to Smirnov, “today fewer than ten percent of the total number of residents of Moscow are indigenous Muscovites, those who have at least one parent who was born and grew up in Moscow.” As a result, Moscow today is “an unstable conglomerate in which there are a large number of migrants.”
“I think,” Smirnov said, reflecting the view of many longstanding residents of the capital, “native Muscovites would never permit themselves” to attack anyone on the basis of religious or ethnic differences. But “of course,” he added, “for today’s Russia, one of the dangers is the disloyalty of certain Russian Muslims.”
Staunton, April 13 – A survey of 1500 Russians conducted by officials Tomsk found that younger people in that city are less tolerant of representatives of other nationalities than are their parents and other older people, according to a press release of the new Children of the Mountains Organization which unites people from the North Caucasus now living in Russia.
Madonna Dunyaeva, the head of the Children of the Mountains group, said that in March, the Tomsk oblast department for youth policy conducted a poll to clarify “the level of tensions in inter-ethnic relations among residents of Tomsk oblast” and that the results have now been released (www.amic.ru/news/146253/).
The survey showed, she said that “young people of Tomsk are less tolerant to representatives of other nationalities than are adults,” with 15 percent of young people agreeing with the statement that “multi-nationality harms Russia,” 33 percent saying they feel “anger” toward non-Russians there, and 43 percent supporting a ban on immigration.
Moreover, Dunyaeva continued, the poll found that “every third declared that he or she had been a witness in recent times to conflicts on an ethnic basis” and one in every five of those young people said they “support those who took part in the [December 11] demonstration in [Moscow’s] Manezh Square.”
All these figures are higher than those found for older Russians, and the head of the Children of the Mountains Organization, said that “it is necessary to establish an educational course, ‘the peoples of Russia,’ in the schools which would acquaint children with the cultures of various peoples. Only by doing so can be defeat the main cause of xenophobia – ignorance.”
She added that it is also “necessary to establish close cooperation between the higher educational institutions and the diasporas [in order to provide] the diasporas with information on arriving students” because it is precisely these diasporas which can quickly and effectively help [these arrivals] adapt to local culture and to learn the [Russian] language.”
Tomsk Governor Viktor Kress said that he supports this idea. “I absolutely agree with Madonna when she says that it is necessary to study the peoples of Russia. We ought to have such a course not only in the schools” but for the broader population.
The Children of the Mountains Youth Organization was established in Tomsk at the end of January and now has branches in various Siberian cities. Its founding document declares that it seeks to promote “the unity of Caucasus young people on the territory of Russia and also love to the traditions of the culture of the Caucasus” (http://deti-gor.com/site/).
The group, which says it is the “first union of its type” in the Russian Federation, includes all ethnic groups from the region, including ethnic Russians, who “want to jointly resolve pressing issues of Caucasus youth and also to preserve the culture and mentality of the Caucasus and the Trans-Caucasus.”
In a related report, Andrey Smirnov, the director of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in Baku that one of the reasons that there are inter-ethnic problems in Moscow is that there are very few residents of the Russian capital who are genuine Muscovites (www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusnews/15685/).
According to Smirnov, “today fewer than ten percent of the total number of residents of Moscow are indigenous Muscovites, those who have at least one parent who was born and grew up in Moscow.” As a result, Moscow today is “an unstable conglomerate in which there are a large number of migrants.”
“I think,” Smirnov said, reflecting the view of many longstanding residents of the capital, “native Muscovites would never permit themselves” to attack anyone on the basis of religious or ethnic differences. But “of course,” he added, “for today’s Russia, one of the dangers is the disloyalty of certain Russian Muslims.”
Window on Eurasia: Real Incomes of 40 Percent of Russians have Fallen Since 1991, Studies Find
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 13 – The real incomes of the two least-well-off quintiles of the Russian population have fallen since 1991 while those of that two best-off have risen significantly, dramatically increasing income differentiation and potentially exacerbating class-based tensions, according to two studies by the Higher School of Economics.
“If one considers the overall figures concerning how Russia lived in 1990 and 2009,” Andrey Polunin of “Svobodnaya pressa” says in reporting on these studies, “it turns out that citizens have only won as a result of reforms. Thus, consumption has gone up overall 1.45 times. But this is like an average temperature in a hospital” (svpressa.ru/politic/article/41896/).
That is the trend Moscow and its supporters normally report, but if one unpacks the figures as the Higher School of Economics experts do in two reports (“The Level and Way of Life of the Population in 1989-2009” and “A Comparative Analysis of Consumption and Expenditures”), Polunin says, the picture is far more complicated and less positive.
The bottom 40 percent of the population has fallen behind over this period, he reports. The level of real incomes for the lowest 20 percent has fallen 1.45 times and the next lowest quintile by 1.2 times. At the other end, the top 20 percent have seen their incomes double, and the next highest quintile had their incomes go up a quarter.
This change in the distribution of real incomes has hit the least-well-off groups especially hard because of the decline in state support for housing, education and especially medicine, with the lower quintiles forced to spend a higher proportion of their incomes for all these things or do without them, the studies found.
The situation in medicine is particularly striking, Polunin observes. In the European Union, for example, individuals directly bear 24 percent of the cost of medical treatment while in Russia that figure is now 40 to 50 percent, a dramatically higher fraction than only twenty years ago.
And this increase is hitting Russians, especially those least well off, because the average rate of illness among Russians rose 43 percent per 100,000 population over the period 1990 to 2008 and because many of the illnesses involved, such as cancer and heart disease, are particularly expensive to treat.
But the most striking findings of the report concern income differentiation, Polunin suggests. “In Soviet times, the earnings of a worker (120 rubles a month), an engineer (180 rubles a month), and a colonel in the KGB (350 rubles a month) of course were different, but not by ten times as much as is the case today.”
The Soviet system’s commitment to wage equality “froze the development of the economy,” the report says, “but still more abnormal has been the gigantic growth in inequality which the establishment of the market economy has involved.” In Russia, it has been especially severe, eight times more rapid than in Hungary and five times more than in the Czech Republic.
The reports of the Higher Economic School nonetheless generally stress the positive aspects of the changes, something that is not surprising given the liberal views of most of those working there. But they do acknowledge that for many of the poorest in Russia today, the Soviet past does not look altogether bleak.
The reports note, for example, that “Soviet people strictly speaking did not suffer impoverishment. In the USSR [at least at the end of the Soviet period] there was no hunger, the population was guaranteed state services for health and education, often not of bad quality, and practically free housing. Besides, in the USSR there was no unemployment.”
“On the other hand,” the reports say, “there were shortages of practically all consumer goods and those available were not of high quality as a result of the absence of competition.” These conclusions prompted the “Svobodnaya pressa” journalist to ask three people whether people lived better “in the same of the USSR or now.”
Yevgeny Yasin, a former Russian economics minister and one of the senior scholars at the institution which prepared the reports said that “it is incomparable better to live now,” but he acknowledged that was true only for those near the top of the income pyramid and said that if he were had the bottom, he “would certainly have a totally different impression.”
He added that the government should address the consequences of income inequality not only as a matter of justice, something the reports did not address but to ensure propitious macro-economic conditions. Just raising pay will not be enough; productivity must be increased as well, Yasin said.
Aleksey Mukhin, general director of the Moscow Center of Political Information, in contrast, said that “of course, it was easier to live in the middle 1980s. Life was predictable,” although he acknowledged that after 1991, there appeared “greater possibilities for the realization of creative potential.”
But not surprisingly, Oleg Kulikov, a KPRF Duma deputy, argued that “of course, people lived better in Soviet times. Today, life expectancy compared with the Soviet past has fallen by more than ten years,” as has the birthrate, which reflects the fact that people have children only when they have “confidence in the future.”
Kulikov adds, “it is possible to say that now the people are voting for the USSR by their premature departure from life and their decisions not to have children. Moreover, Soviet times lacked many of the features of today: inter-ethnic conflicts, poverty, and bums on the streets,” all developments that make the past look better.
Moreover, he says, “we were certain that the difficulties which did exist were temporary and that the situation would improve. There was hope that this great country could deal with them.” Now, ordinary people do not have that experience or that feeling, he said, and they are understandably upset.
Staunton, April 13 – The real incomes of the two least-well-off quintiles of the Russian population have fallen since 1991 while those of that two best-off have risen significantly, dramatically increasing income differentiation and potentially exacerbating class-based tensions, according to two studies by the Higher School of Economics.
“If one considers the overall figures concerning how Russia lived in 1990 and 2009,” Andrey Polunin of “Svobodnaya pressa” says in reporting on these studies, “it turns out that citizens have only won as a result of reforms. Thus, consumption has gone up overall 1.45 times. But this is like an average temperature in a hospital” (svpressa.ru/politic/article/41896/).
That is the trend Moscow and its supporters normally report, but if one unpacks the figures as the Higher School of Economics experts do in two reports (“The Level and Way of Life of the Population in 1989-2009” and “A Comparative Analysis of Consumption and Expenditures”), Polunin says, the picture is far more complicated and less positive.
The bottom 40 percent of the population has fallen behind over this period, he reports. The level of real incomes for the lowest 20 percent has fallen 1.45 times and the next lowest quintile by 1.2 times. At the other end, the top 20 percent have seen their incomes double, and the next highest quintile had their incomes go up a quarter.
This change in the distribution of real incomes has hit the least-well-off groups especially hard because of the decline in state support for housing, education and especially medicine, with the lower quintiles forced to spend a higher proportion of their incomes for all these things or do without them, the studies found.
The situation in medicine is particularly striking, Polunin observes. In the European Union, for example, individuals directly bear 24 percent of the cost of medical treatment while in Russia that figure is now 40 to 50 percent, a dramatically higher fraction than only twenty years ago.
And this increase is hitting Russians, especially those least well off, because the average rate of illness among Russians rose 43 percent per 100,000 population over the period 1990 to 2008 and because many of the illnesses involved, such as cancer and heart disease, are particularly expensive to treat.
But the most striking findings of the report concern income differentiation, Polunin suggests. “In Soviet times, the earnings of a worker (120 rubles a month), an engineer (180 rubles a month), and a colonel in the KGB (350 rubles a month) of course were different, but not by ten times as much as is the case today.”
The Soviet system’s commitment to wage equality “froze the development of the economy,” the report says, “but still more abnormal has been the gigantic growth in inequality which the establishment of the market economy has involved.” In Russia, it has been especially severe, eight times more rapid than in Hungary and five times more than in the Czech Republic.
The reports of the Higher Economic School nonetheless generally stress the positive aspects of the changes, something that is not surprising given the liberal views of most of those working there. But they do acknowledge that for many of the poorest in Russia today, the Soviet past does not look altogether bleak.
The reports note, for example, that “Soviet people strictly speaking did not suffer impoverishment. In the USSR [at least at the end of the Soviet period] there was no hunger, the population was guaranteed state services for health and education, often not of bad quality, and practically free housing. Besides, in the USSR there was no unemployment.”
“On the other hand,” the reports say, “there were shortages of practically all consumer goods and those available were not of high quality as a result of the absence of competition.” These conclusions prompted the “Svobodnaya pressa” journalist to ask three people whether people lived better “in the same of the USSR or now.”
Yevgeny Yasin, a former Russian economics minister and one of the senior scholars at the institution which prepared the reports said that “it is incomparable better to live now,” but he acknowledged that was true only for those near the top of the income pyramid and said that if he were had the bottom, he “would certainly have a totally different impression.”
He added that the government should address the consequences of income inequality not only as a matter of justice, something the reports did not address but to ensure propitious macro-economic conditions. Just raising pay will not be enough; productivity must be increased as well, Yasin said.
Aleksey Mukhin, general director of the Moscow Center of Political Information, in contrast, said that “of course, it was easier to live in the middle 1980s. Life was predictable,” although he acknowledged that after 1991, there appeared “greater possibilities for the realization of creative potential.”
But not surprisingly, Oleg Kulikov, a KPRF Duma deputy, argued that “of course, people lived better in Soviet times. Today, life expectancy compared with the Soviet past has fallen by more than ten years,” as has the birthrate, which reflects the fact that people have children only when they have “confidence in the future.”
Kulikov adds, “it is possible to say that now the people are voting for the USSR by their premature departure from life and their decisions not to have children. Moreover, Soviet times lacked many of the features of today: inter-ethnic conflicts, poverty, and bums on the streets,” all developments that make the past look better.
Moreover, he says, “we were certain that the difficulties which did exist were temporary and that the situation would improve. There was hope that this great country could deal with them.” Now, ordinary people do not have that experience or that feeling, he said, and they are understandably upset.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Abkhaz Leader’s Visit to Turkey Poses Challenges for Ankara and Moscow, Markedonov Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 12 – The just-completed visit to Turkey by Abkhaz President Sergey Bagapsh represents both a problem and an opportunity for Ankara and Moscow, involving as it does many issues far beyond the question of broader international recognition for that breakaway republic, according to a leading Russian expert on the region.
In an essay carried by the “Novaya politika” portal yesterday, Sergey Markedonov argues that Bagapsh’s April 7-10 visit to Turkey must be put in this broader context rather than seen as only an effort to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough for a country that is only “partially recognized” (novopol.ru/-turetskiy-voyaj-sergeya-bagapsha-text99510.html).
Ankara both through its embassy in Tbilisi and its foreign ministry have made clear that Bagapsh’s visit does not represent a change in Turkish policy and that Turkey “does not intend to recognize Abkhazia as an independent state.” Indeed, the Turkish foreign office said it continues to view Georgia as “a strategic partner,” something that recognizing Sukhumi would destroy.
As Markedonov points out, Bagapsh was the guest in Turkey not of the government but of the Federation of Abkhaz Associations and the Federation of Caucasus Associations, two umbrella groups which unite many of the large Caucasian diasporas living in the Turkish Republic.
As Turkish Foreign Minister Akhmet Davitoglu said in September 2009, Markedonov continues, Ankara “does want to become acquainted with Abkhazia and seek to regularize its relations with Georgia,” a statement that is part of the reason why many now call him “the Turkish Kissinger.”
Markedonov suggests that no one should see Ankara’s stance as “altruistic.” Instead, it reflects Turkey’s longstanding desire to “have contacts with all the players,” not only because it wants to exert its influence in the Caucasus more than in the past but also because of the large Caucasian diasporas in Turkey itself.
Such people, the Russian analyst continues are “voters” but “not only that.” Among them are “military men and employees of the special services and experts and journalists.” Consequently, “from a pragmatic point of view, it is wrong to ignore their positions.” And thus any effort to block the Abkhaz leader’s visit could have serious negative consequences at home.
But, Markedonov continues, this is precisely the reason why “Ankara is not recognizing the independence of Abkhazia.” That would create the kind of “precedent of ethnic self-determination” that it opposes. If it acted differently, then “representatives of the Circassian, Chechen and Crimean Tatar diasporas could demand” similar treatment from Ankara.
Moreover, if Turkey recognized Abkhazia, it would find itself at odds with Moscow, Kyiv and its partners in NATO and the European Union. “Striving to enter ‘a single Europe’ is also as strong as the desire not to allow the use of an Abkhaz precedent by Kurdish separatists” in Turkey itself, Markedonov points out.
At the same time, however, “Turkey is in a position to broaden ‘the Abkhaz window’ and to force Tbilisi to be more correct in issues concerning the detention of Turkish ships and in general in the struggle with ‘Turkish contraband,’ as the actions of Turkish sailors in Abkhaz waters are described officially by Georgia.”
Abkhazia and Bagapsh personally benefited from the visit, given the centrality of the diaspora in the thinking of Abkhazian leaders. But at the same time, the visit may complicate the relationship of this breakaway government with its Moscow sponsors who may not be entirely pleased to see Abkhazia behaving so independently.
That is at least in part because Moscow, after the events of August 2008, had won greater support among many of the North Caucasus diasporas in Turkey, some of whose leaders have refused to support calls to declare the events of 1864 a genocide or to take part in Circassian efforts to block the Sochi Olympics.
But however that may be, Markedonov concludes, “on the eve of the Sochi Olympiad [scheduled for 2014], the ‘Circassian quesiton’ is becoming extremely important.” Consequently, establishing “constructive relations with the Caucasus diasporas of Turkey with Abkhazia’s help could be an extremely important task for Moscow.”
Staunton, April 12 – The just-completed visit to Turkey by Abkhaz President Sergey Bagapsh represents both a problem and an opportunity for Ankara and Moscow, involving as it does many issues far beyond the question of broader international recognition for that breakaway republic, according to a leading Russian expert on the region.
In an essay carried by the “Novaya politika” portal yesterday, Sergey Markedonov argues that Bagapsh’s April 7-10 visit to Turkey must be put in this broader context rather than seen as only an effort to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough for a country that is only “partially recognized” (novopol.ru/-turetskiy-voyaj-sergeya-bagapsha-text99510.html).
Ankara both through its embassy in Tbilisi and its foreign ministry have made clear that Bagapsh’s visit does not represent a change in Turkish policy and that Turkey “does not intend to recognize Abkhazia as an independent state.” Indeed, the Turkish foreign office said it continues to view Georgia as “a strategic partner,” something that recognizing Sukhumi would destroy.
As Markedonov points out, Bagapsh was the guest in Turkey not of the government but of the Federation of Abkhaz Associations and the Federation of Caucasus Associations, two umbrella groups which unite many of the large Caucasian diasporas living in the Turkish Republic.
As Turkish Foreign Minister Akhmet Davitoglu said in September 2009, Markedonov continues, Ankara “does want to become acquainted with Abkhazia and seek to regularize its relations with Georgia,” a statement that is part of the reason why many now call him “the Turkish Kissinger.”
Markedonov suggests that no one should see Ankara’s stance as “altruistic.” Instead, it reflects Turkey’s longstanding desire to “have contacts with all the players,” not only because it wants to exert its influence in the Caucasus more than in the past but also because of the large Caucasian diasporas in Turkey itself.
Such people, the Russian analyst continues are “voters” but “not only that.” Among them are “military men and employees of the special services and experts and journalists.” Consequently, “from a pragmatic point of view, it is wrong to ignore their positions.” And thus any effort to block the Abkhaz leader’s visit could have serious negative consequences at home.
But, Markedonov continues, this is precisely the reason why “Ankara is not recognizing the independence of Abkhazia.” That would create the kind of “precedent of ethnic self-determination” that it opposes. If it acted differently, then “representatives of the Circassian, Chechen and Crimean Tatar diasporas could demand” similar treatment from Ankara.
Moreover, if Turkey recognized Abkhazia, it would find itself at odds with Moscow, Kyiv and its partners in NATO and the European Union. “Striving to enter ‘a single Europe’ is also as strong as the desire not to allow the use of an Abkhaz precedent by Kurdish separatists” in Turkey itself, Markedonov points out.
At the same time, however, “Turkey is in a position to broaden ‘the Abkhaz window’ and to force Tbilisi to be more correct in issues concerning the detention of Turkish ships and in general in the struggle with ‘Turkish contraband,’ as the actions of Turkish sailors in Abkhaz waters are described officially by Georgia.”
Abkhazia and Bagapsh personally benefited from the visit, given the centrality of the diaspora in the thinking of Abkhazian leaders. But at the same time, the visit may complicate the relationship of this breakaway government with its Moscow sponsors who may not be entirely pleased to see Abkhazia behaving so independently.
That is at least in part because Moscow, after the events of August 2008, had won greater support among many of the North Caucasus diasporas in Turkey, some of whose leaders have refused to support calls to declare the events of 1864 a genocide or to take part in Circassian efforts to block the Sochi Olympics.
But however that may be, Markedonov concludes, “on the eve of the Sochi Olympiad [scheduled for 2014], the ‘Circassian quesiton’ is becoming extremely important.” Consequently, establishing “constructive relations with the Caucasus diasporas of Turkey with Abkhazia’s help could be an extremely important task for Moscow.”
Window on Eurasia: Kazan Parents’ Call for Studying Russian Not Tatar Sparks Conflicts about More than Language
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 12 – Six hundred mothers of middle school pupils in Kazan have called on the Russian education minister to reduce or even end obligatory instruction in Tatar to all students in their republic, the latest effort to reduce the ethnic content of Russian Federalism, has triggered a debate between Russians and Tatars over far more than language.
Many of those signing this appeal are themselves ethnic Tatars, a fact that has led some in that Middle Volga republic to talk about the existence of “a fifth column” working against the interests of the Tatar nation. But it has also become the occasion for Russians there and elsewhere to demand that instruction in Tatarstan be in Russian not in the national language.
The original appeal suggested that “the study of Tatar interferes with the mastery of Russian, that learning Tatar is very difficult and that in general it is useless for the future of the child,” all contentions that Tatar intellectuals, like writer Tufan Minnullin, have dismissed as absurd or worse (www.intertat.ru/rus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1642:-q&catid=119:2010-11-30-19-29-29&Itemid=501).
Minullin, who is also a member of Tatarstan’s State Council, said on Kazan television that he might have understood such calls if they came from ethnic Russian parents but “when Tatars reject the language of their ancestors and write complaints to Moscow [he] would call this a denunciation of one’s own people.”
According to Minullin, these parents have “the baseless and strange” conviction that “instruction in Russian is the key to the success of a child and that it will allow him to become a big boss.” In fact, he continues, that is absurd, as even the most superficial examination of conditions in Kazan will show.
“If in contemporary society, the Russian language were the chief and main condition for the achievement of the top positions, then ever Russian would be a boss, and there would not be drunkards and criminals on the streets.” But of course, “the issue is not about language;” it is about “the tragedy of the [ethnic] Russian people.”
Everyone knows about this even if few talk about it, Minullin suggests. “In our Tatar schools there is not a single drug addict, and yet how many problems there are in Russian language schools?!” And “how many Tatars who do not know and have not learned their native language … are sitting in prisons or suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction?”
“Moscow does not need out native language just as America, Germany or the others do not need it. We need our language,” Minullin says, “and therefore we will defend it.” That means seeking the repeal of the “barbaric” federal law “which was adopted against all the peoples who live in the Russian Federation” and which limits non-Russian languages.
Up to now, Moscow hasn’t pushed the law forward because people in the Russian capital have recognized that it was a mistake, but now it appears some there want to push things further. Minullin says that he agrees with one historian who noted that “we trust the state too much, but the government has its own problems and tasks.”
Consequently, the Tatar writer continues, “only the people can defend its language.”
Another Tatar commentator, Murza Kurbangali Yunusov, in response to the appeal of the 600 Kazan parents explicitly has addressed the question of “who needs the Tatar language?” (http://www.intertat.ru/rus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1673:2011-04-01-12-51-04&catid=119:2010-11-30-19-29-29&Itemid=501%20%20).
“What has led these mothers to speak out against the enlightenment and education of their children in the state language?” During the war, one could understand opposition to “the language of the fascists.” But Tatarstan is today “one of the most stable, tolerant and multi-national and multi-confessional republics of a federative state.”
Yunusov says he was particularly struck by this because he had just been in Kazakhstan where the national language is “being reborn.” Ever more people there “are beginning to understand and what is the main thing speak it,” even though in the recent past, the status of Kazakh was “much worse” than that of Tatar.
If the Kazan mothers and their Moscow backers have their way, he continues, “a time will come when Kazakhs will instruct Tatars in their native language just as a hundred years ago the Tatars instructed the Kazakhs.” Indeed, he points out, even the Russian Empire did not block non-Russians from studying native languages and foreign ones as well.
Tragically, it appears that many now think Tatar isn’t important given that neither the president of Russia can read a Tatar text written out for him or the senior officials of Tatarstan use the language in public, but that is all the more reason why “the letter of the 600 must become the litmus test for citizens of Tatarstan and the Russian Federation as a whole.”
“The Russian Federation,” Yunusov points out, “is a federative state, and it is required to introduce Tatar as the second state language. The president, the cabinet of miners, the parliament and local organs of power are required to ensure genuine bilingualism in the republic,” speaking in Tatar but ensuring simultaneous translation into Russian.
Those “citizens of Tatarstan who do not know Tatar should be given special assistance in order to master [it], such as the support that existed in the years of the formation of the republic [in the 1920s]. And they should be regularly reminded that all “the false prophets” and “grave diggers” of the language have proved to be wrong.
Other writers, Tatar and now, have added their voices to this defense of Tatar both on constitutional grounds and because the loss of any language is a loss of a perspective on the world which cannot be had any other way (http://www.peoples-rights.info/2011/04/pora-vernut-gospodderzhku-prepodavaniyu-tatarskogo-yazyka-v-tatarstane/).
But the Kazan mothers have received support from the Society of Russian Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Regnum news agency which often takes an [ethnic] Russian position on developments in non-Russian countries and non-Russian republics now within the Russian Federation.
Regnum has published an appeal by the Society which reads in part “Citizens of Russia, did you know that in the schools of a subject of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tatarstan, half of the population of which consists of ethnic Russians, the Russian language is not taught as a native one?!” (www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1393502.html).
“Children during the entire period of instruction receive not 1200 hours of Russian but only 700 hours; that is, 500 fewer than their fellows in other regions of Russia.” The Society calls for “supporting the demands of parents in the defense of Russian in the schools of the republic,” a call that sets the stage for more controversy in Kazan and not just about language.
Staunton, April 12 – Six hundred mothers of middle school pupils in Kazan have called on the Russian education minister to reduce or even end obligatory instruction in Tatar to all students in their republic, the latest effort to reduce the ethnic content of Russian Federalism, has triggered a debate between Russians and Tatars over far more than language.
Many of those signing this appeal are themselves ethnic Tatars, a fact that has led some in that Middle Volga republic to talk about the existence of “a fifth column” working against the interests of the Tatar nation. But it has also become the occasion for Russians there and elsewhere to demand that instruction in Tatarstan be in Russian not in the national language.
The original appeal suggested that “the study of Tatar interferes with the mastery of Russian, that learning Tatar is very difficult and that in general it is useless for the future of the child,” all contentions that Tatar intellectuals, like writer Tufan Minnullin, have dismissed as absurd or worse (www.intertat.ru/rus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1642:-q&catid=119:2010-11-30-19-29-29&Itemid=501).
Minullin, who is also a member of Tatarstan’s State Council, said on Kazan television that he might have understood such calls if they came from ethnic Russian parents but “when Tatars reject the language of their ancestors and write complaints to Moscow [he] would call this a denunciation of one’s own people.”
According to Minullin, these parents have “the baseless and strange” conviction that “instruction in Russian is the key to the success of a child and that it will allow him to become a big boss.” In fact, he continues, that is absurd, as even the most superficial examination of conditions in Kazan will show.
“If in contemporary society, the Russian language were the chief and main condition for the achievement of the top positions, then ever Russian would be a boss, and there would not be drunkards and criminals on the streets.” But of course, “the issue is not about language;” it is about “the tragedy of the [ethnic] Russian people.”
Everyone knows about this even if few talk about it, Minullin suggests. “In our Tatar schools there is not a single drug addict, and yet how many problems there are in Russian language schools?!” And “how many Tatars who do not know and have not learned their native language … are sitting in prisons or suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction?”
“Moscow does not need out native language just as America, Germany or the others do not need it. We need our language,” Minullin says, “and therefore we will defend it.” That means seeking the repeal of the “barbaric” federal law “which was adopted against all the peoples who live in the Russian Federation” and which limits non-Russian languages.
Up to now, Moscow hasn’t pushed the law forward because people in the Russian capital have recognized that it was a mistake, but now it appears some there want to push things further. Minullin says that he agrees with one historian who noted that “we trust the state too much, but the government has its own problems and tasks.”
Consequently, the Tatar writer continues, “only the people can defend its language.”
Another Tatar commentator, Murza Kurbangali Yunusov, in response to the appeal of the 600 Kazan parents explicitly has addressed the question of “who needs the Tatar language?” (http://www.intertat.ru/rus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1673:2011-04-01-12-51-04&catid=119:2010-11-30-19-29-29&Itemid=501%20%20).
“What has led these mothers to speak out against the enlightenment and education of their children in the state language?” During the war, one could understand opposition to “the language of the fascists.” But Tatarstan is today “one of the most stable, tolerant and multi-national and multi-confessional republics of a federative state.”
Yunusov says he was particularly struck by this because he had just been in Kazakhstan where the national language is “being reborn.” Ever more people there “are beginning to understand and what is the main thing speak it,” even though in the recent past, the status of Kazakh was “much worse” than that of Tatar.
If the Kazan mothers and their Moscow backers have their way, he continues, “a time will come when Kazakhs will instruct Tatars in their native language just as a hundred years ago the Tatars instructed the Kazakhs.” Indeed, he points out, even the Russian Empire did not block non-Russians from studying native languages and foreign ones as well.
Tragically, it appears that many now think Tatar isn’t important given that neither the president of Russia can read a Tatar text written out for him or the senior officials of Tatarstan use the language in public, but that is all the more reason why “the letter of the 600 must become the litmus test for citizens of Tatarstan and the Russian Federation as a whole.”
“The Russian Federation,” Yunusov points out, “is a federative state, and it is required to introduce Tatar as the second state language. The president, the cabinet of miners, the parliament and local organs of power are required to ensure genuine bilingualism in the republic,” speaking in Tatar but ensuring simultaneous translation into Russian.
Those “citizens of Tatarstan who do not know Tatar should be given special assistance in order to master [it], such as the support that existed in the years of the formation of the republic [in the 1920s]. And they should be regularly reminded that all “the false prophets” and “grave diggers” of the language have proved to be wrong.
Other writers, Tatar and now, have added their voices to this defense of Tatar both on constitutional grounds and because the loss of any language is a loss of a perspective on the world which cannot be had any other way (http://www.peoples-rights.info/2011/04/pora-vernut-gospodderzhku-prepodavaniyu-tatarskogo-yazyka-v-tatarstane/).
But the Kazan mothers have received support from the Society of Russian Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Regnum news agency which often takes an [ethnic] Russian position on developments in non-Russian countries and non-Russian republics now within the Russian Federation.
Regnum has published an appeal by the Society which reads in part “Citizens of Russia, did you know that in the schools of a subject of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tatarstan, half of the population of which consists of ethnic Russians, the Russian language is not taught as a native one?!” (www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1393502.html).
“Children during the entire period of instruction receive not 1200 hours of Russian but only 700 hours; that is, 500 fewer than their fellows in other regions of Russia.” The Society calls for “supporting the demands of parents in the defense of Russian in the schools of the republic,” a call that sets the stage for more controversy in Kazan and not just about language.
Window on Eurasia: Russian Federation on the Way toward Final Disintegration, Kashin Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 12 – The process of the disintegration of the Russian empire will finally conclude sometime in the next few years until what some may still want to call Great Russia with a capital in Moscow will be limited to the space between Smolensk and Vladimir, according to Oleg Kashin.
But this development, the Russian journalist says, will have less to do with the actions of nationalist groups, Russian or non-Russian, than with the rise of a generation for whom Moscow is increasingly irrelevant to their identities and concerns, much as the Soviet center became irrelevant to the union republics a quarter of a century ago.
In a March 24 speech in Moscow that has been posted online and sparked widespread discussion, Kashin argues that it is instructive to consider Russia today by recalling how people “looked at the Soviet Union in 1983,” a time when “it was difficult to guess that eight years later it would not exist” (www.openspace.ru/society/russia/details/21660/).
Kashin points out that “in the Putin decade, the unity of Russia cased to be an absolute value,” and “for many Russia ceased to be a value in general because these by the millions each year have been leaving” to take up residence abroad, “from which they will not return in the near future.”
As a result of the declining significant of Russia and Moscow as sources of identity and influence, “the centers of the federal districts, and also places like Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg in principle [today] occupy just the same place that Kyiv, Minsk and Tbilisi occupied in the Soviet Union,” that is, as “potential new capitals of other countries.”
Because that is the case, the Yekaterinburg journalist argues, the ongoing disintegration of the Russian Federation is occurring along “purely political lines” and in ways that recall the Belovezha accord by which the leaders of the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus put an end to the USSR.
“Somewhere in some park will assemble a few key governors, they will sign a second Beloveshchaya accord, and that will be that,” Kashin continues. “The destruction of the Soviet Union was legally accomplished when the delegations of [the three Slavic republics] left the Supreme Soviet of the USSR” and the latter no longer had a quorum.
The sense of Moscow’s and even the Russian Federation’s growing irrelevance to people in many parts of the Russian Federation is clear to anyone who travels about the country, the journalist says. “It is especially felt” in large regional centers where “Moscow is ceasing to be the place towards which they are oriented as an economic and mental source.”
“We,” Kashin suggests, “are an empire that has not yet fallen apart.” But “sooner or later this process of disintegration must be concluded.” It is “completely wild,” he says, “that in the framework of one country should live such varied, literally, states as St. Petersburg and Daghestan.” This place is “already not one country;” these are “different countries.”
Kashin stresses that this process has less to do with ethnic conflicts than with political ones. “In contemporary Russia,” he suggests, there are no strongly felt inter-ethnic contradictions. If tomorrow the police disappeared from the streets and a public murder day began, it is hardly the case that this would take the form of ethnic cleansings.”
Instead, he argues, these conflicts would be “not inter-ethnic but rather between representatives of different social classes.” And he continues, within any of the national state formations, what is happening now is this: “the new generation of local residents is being educated not in the spirit of separatism [as such] but in that of the denial of Russia.”
Young Tatars, for example, are now focusing on Mintimir Shaimiyev’s refusal to sign the federal treaty in 1992 as “a colossal step in the development of national sovereignty an d a step toward future independence.” When this generation takes power there, Kashin says, “Tatarstan just like the Caucasus will cease to be part of Russia.”
Even in nominally ethnic Russian regions, the journalist continues, ever more people feel alienated and apart from Moscow and from Russia. One official in Kirov oblast, for example, said he hoped for a new “big war in the Caucasus” because that would allow more parts of the federation to escape and possibly have “a good life.”
Some may think that Moscow television is unifying people “populating the space from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok.” That is nonsense, Kashin says, noting that in his native Kaliningrad, people look to Europe rather than to Moscow, view Russia as foreign. “Moscow is needed only by the Muscovites,” they now believe.
And as these developments take place, Kashin argues, identities will shift. After the collapse, “the Central Federal District lacking oil will feel itself somewhat worse than it does not, but everything will be fine in the Khanty-Mansiisk district.” And “sooner or later,” people who now call themselves Russians will describe themselves as “some kind of Khanty.”
“Of course, in this hypothetical collapse of Russia, the Far East will become very important for China, Japan and America and perhaps will life quite well. Because, of course, Russia now in essence doesn’t have it, and no one [in Moscow] needs it,” something people there strongly feel.
Twenty years ago, Moscow couldn’t prevent the disintegration of the country. “We saw,” Kashin says, “how the Kremlin reacted in 1991 – it introduced tanks in Vilnius and in Baku. Did that save the Soviet Union? Obviously, not.” And today’s vaunted “power vertical” has no better answer.
Indeed, the construction of that institution may have made the end closer, Kashin suggests. “When there was a strong regional power … the country was more stable. But in that same Vladivostok, when two years ago were revolts of car owners against increased fees, Moscow had to send in the Moscow OMON” because it couldn’t rely on local forces.
“This step means much more as far as the future hypothetical disintegration of Russia is concerned than any declarations of local politicians,” Kashin says.
Recent coverage of Gorbachev’s 80th birthday, Kashin says, has suggested to many in the Russian Federation that “the main beneficiary” of the end of the USSR was Estonia, “which got into the Euro zone first.” Clearly, some of “our oblasts,” such as Petersburg or Novgorod or Kaliningrad, are wondering whether they will be able to follow.
Although few are taking this possibility seriously just as few took Andrey Amalrik’s essay “Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?” when it was written, Kashin says, history is moving quickly, and the end of the Russian Federation is likely to take place sometime in the next five years or at least “during the life of our generation.”
In that event, Kashin concludes, Great Russia will be reduced to the space “from Smolensk to Vladimir.” Makhachkala, the capital of Daghestan, “will be on that side of the border. As will Kaliningrad [the already non-contiguous part of the Russian Federation], and as even more will be Vladivostok,” the major port on the Pacific.
Staunton, April 12 – The process of the disintegration of the Russian empire will finally conclude sometime in the next few years until what some may still want to call Great Russia with a capital in Moscow will be limited to the space between Smolensk and Vladimir, according to Oleg Kashin.
But this development, the Russian journalist says, will have less to do with the actions of nationalist groups, Russian or non-Russian, than with the rise of a generation for whom Moscow is increasingly irrelevant to their identities and concerns, much as the Soviet center became irrelevant to the union republics a quarter of a century ago.
In a March 24 speech in Moscow that has been posted online and sparked widespread discussion, Kashin argues that it is instructive to consider Russia today by recalling how people “looked at the Soviet Union in 1983,” a time when “it was difficult to guess that eight years later it would not exist” (www.openspace.ru/society/russia/details/21660/).
Kashin points out that “in the Putin decade, the unity of Russia cased to be an absolute value,” and “for many Russia ceased to be a value in general because these by the millions each year have been leaving” to take up residence abroad, “from which they will not return in the near future.”
As a result of the declining significant of Russia and Moscow as sources of identity and influence, “the centers of the federal districts, and also places like Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg in principle [today] occupy just the same place that Kyiv, Minsk and Tbilisi occupied in the Soviet Union,” that is, as “potential new capitals of other countries.”
Because that is the case, the Yekaterinburg journalist argues, the ongoing disintegration of the Russian Federation is occurring along “purely political lines” and in ways that recall the Belovezha accord by which the leaders of the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus put an end to the USSR.
“Somewhere in some park will assemble a few key governors, they will sign a second Beloveshchaya accord, and that will be that,” Kashin continues. “The destruction of the Soviet Union was legally accomplished when the delegations of [the three Slavic republics] left the Supreme Soviet of the USSR” and the latter no longer had a quorum.
The sense of Moscow’s and even the Russian Federation’s growing irrelevance to people in many parts of the Russian Federation is clear to anyone who travels about the country, the journalist says. “It is especially felt” in large regional centers where “Moscow is ceasing to be the place towards which they are oriented as an economic and mental source.”
“We,” Kashin suggests, “are an empire that has not yet fallen apart.” But “sooner or later this process of disintegration must be concluded.” It is “completely wild,” he says, “that in the framework of one country should live such varied, literally, states as St. Petersburg and Daghestan.” This place is “already not one country;” these are “different countries.”
Kashin stresses that this process has less to do with ethnic conflicts than with political ones. “In contemporary Russia,” he suggests, there are no strongly felt inter-ethnic contradictions. If tomorrow the police disappeared from the streets and a public murder day began, it is hardly the case that this would take the form of ethnic cleansings.”
Instead, he argues, these conflicts would be “not inter-ethnic but rather between representatives of different social classes.” And he continues, within any of the national state formations, what is happening now is this: “the new generation of local residents is being educated not in the spirit of separatism [as such] but in that of the denial of Russia.”
Young Tatars, for example, are now focusing on Mintimir Shaimiyev’s refusal to sign the federal treaty in 1992 as “a colossal step in the development of national sovereignty an d a step toward future independence.” When this generation takes power there, Kashin says, “Tatarstan just like the Caucasus will cease to be part of Russia.”
Even in nominally ethnic Russian regions, the journalist continues, ever more people feel alienated and apart from Moscow and from Russia. One official in Kirov oblast, for example, said he hoped for a new “big war in the Caucasus” because that would allow more parts of the federation to escape and possibly have “a good life.”
Some may think that Moscow television is unifying people “populating the space from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok.” That is nonsense, Kashin says, noting that in his native Kaliningrad, people look to Europe rather than to Moscow, view Russia as foreign. “Moscow is needed only by the Muscovites,” they now believe.
And as these developments take place, Kashin argues, identities will shift. After the collapse, “the Central Federal District lacking oil will feel itself somewhat worse than it does not, but everything will be fine in the Khanty-Mansiisk district.” And “sooner or later,” people who now call themselves Russians will describe themselves as “some kind of Khanty.”
“Of course, in this hypothetical collapse of Russia, the Far East will become very important for China, Japan and America and perhaps will life quite well. Because, of course, Russia now in essence doesn’t have it, and no one [in Moscow] needs it,” something people there strongly feel.
Twenty years ago, Moscow couldn’t prevent the disintegration of the country. “We saw,” Kashin says, “how the Kremlin reacted in 1991 – it introduced tanks in Vilnius and in Baku. Did that save the Soviet Union? Obviously, not.” And today’s vaunted “power vertical” has no better answer.
Indeed, the construction of that institution may have made the end closer, Kashin suggests. “When there was a strong regional power … the country was more stable. But in that same Vladivostok, when two years ago were revolts of car owners against increased fees, Moscow had to send in the Moscow OMON” because it couldn’t rely on local forces.
“This step means much more as far as the future hypothetical disintegration of Russia is concerned than any declarations of local politicians,” Kashin says.
Recent coverage of Gorbachev’s 80th birthday, Kashin says, has suggested to many in the Russian Federation that “the main beneficiary” of the end of the USSR was Estonia, “which got into the Euro zone first.” Clearly, some of “our oblasts,” such as Petersburg or Novgorod or Kaliningrad, are wondering whether they will be able to follow.
Although few are taking this possibility seriously just as few took Andrey Amalrik’s essay “Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?” when it was written, Kashin says, history is moving quickly, and the end of the Russian Federation is likely to take place sometime in the next five years or at least “during the life of our generation.”
In that event, Kashin concludes, Great Russia will be reduced to the space “from Smolensk to Vladimir.” Makhachkala, the capital of Daghestan, “will be on that side of the border. As will Kaliningrad [the already non-contiguous part of the Russian Federation], and as even more will be Vladivostok,” the major port on the Pacific.
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