Paul Goble
Staunton, Apr. 17 – The Russian media has been filling up with reports about the police and investigative services solving more and more cold cases, bringing to justice people who committed crimes 20, 30 or even 40 years ago, the result of the spread of facial recognition technology, other technical innovations, and new structures in the interior ministry.
In the past, officials say, many who committed crimes assumed they could hide out for decades and that after a certain time, the authorities would stop trying to solve the crimes. But now that has changed, and no matter how old a crime is, the authorities continue to look (versia.ru/pochemu-u-pravooxranitelnyx-organov-ne-ostalos-besslednyx-prestuplenij).
The three biggest innovations that have led to this development have been the spread of facial recognition cameras to ever more Russian cities and even villages, the use of dogs and technology to track people, and the formation in militia offices of special divisions devoted to solving crimes of long ago.
This trend gives new meaning to the idea that “nothing will be forgotten” and that no one will escape punishment despite their ability to hide out for years or decades. What is interesting is just how much credit the interior ministry seems to be getting for this approach in Putin’s Russia.
Sunday, April 20, 2025
New Technologies Helping Russian Authorities to Solve More and Ever Older Cold Cases, Officials Say
RF Regions’ Promoting Teenage Pregnancies Pushing Them Up among Central Asian Migrants but Not among Ethnic Russians, ‘Yury Dolgoruky’ Telegram Channel Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Apr. 18 – Moscow’s decision to urge the governments of Russia’s federal subjects to boost pregnancies among Russian schoolchildren is backfiring, the Yury Dolgoruky telegram channel says. The program is boosting births among Central Asian immigrant girls but not among ethnic Russian natives.
As a result, and contrary to Russian law and interests, the telegram channel says, Moscow and the regional governments which are following its orders – about half of all the regional and republic governments have – are increasing the burden on Russian taxpayers without addressing Russia’s real demographic needs (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-04-17/telegram-kanal-yuriy-dolgorukiy-kto-rozhaet-v-rossii-v-14-15-let-5371946).
That is because this program, under the terms of which the regional governments pay up to 150,000 rubles (1600 US dollars) to any young woman who gets pregnant, is enormously expensive but is helping boost the number of immigrants but not the number of ethnic Russians.
For a discussion of this ill-advised and incredibly poorly designed program which Moscow called for but may now be backing away from giving criticism and even anger like that of this telegram channel, see jamestown.org/program/many-russians-outraged-by-government-promotion-of-underage-pregnancy-to-boost-birthrate/.
Paul Goble
Staunton, Apr. 18 – Moscow’s decision to urge the governments of Russia’s federal subjects to boost pregnancies among Russian schoolchildren is backfiring, the Yury Dolgoruky telegram channel says. The program is boosting births among Central Asian immigrant girls but not among ethnic Russian natives.
As a result, and contrary to Russian law and interests, the telegram channel says, Moscow and the regional governments which are following its orders – about half of all the regional and republic governments have – are increasing the burden on Russian taxpayers without addressing Russia’s real demographic needs (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-04-17/telegram-kanal-yuriy-dolgorukiy-kto-rozhaet-v-rossii-v-14-15-let-5371946).
That is because this program, under the terms of which the regional governments pay up to 150,000 rubles (1600 US dollars) to any young woman who gets pregnant, is enormously expensive but is helping boost the number of immigrants but not the number of ethnic Russians.
For a discussion of this ill-advised and incredibly poorly designed program which Moscow called for but may now be backing away from giving criticism and even anger like that of this telegram channel, see jamestown.org/program/many-russians-outraged-by-government-promotion-of-underage-pregnancy-to-boost-birthrate/.
School Problems in Areas Far from Major Cities in Central Asia Undermining Unity of Titular Nations and Threatening Survival of Minorities
Paul Goble
Staunton, Apr. 17 – The low quality of schools in rural areas far from Central Asia’s largest cities is leaving young people in rural areas isolated and increasingly far behind their counterparts in urban areas and threatening the survival of the smaller ethnic minorities of these countries as well.
And according to two new articles on the Bugun news portal, the only possibility that these trends will be reversed will occur if there is a massive increase in spending on education and cooperation among regional governments, international organizations, and local communities (bugin.info/detail/tsifry-trevogi-obrazovate/ru and bugin.info/detail/iazyki-na-grani-kak-molod/ru).
Across the region, these articles report, members of the titular nationalities living in distant rural areas are being provided with significantly lower quality education; and that in turn is contributing to poverty, early marriages, emigration and other social problems far greater than in the cities where better schools are available.
This is such a large problem that even the expansion of internet education and the creation of mobile schools will do little unless there is a major increase in spending on education, something the government of this region currently don’t have the funds for and that international donors haven’t yet made a major investment.
But as serious as the problems are for members of the titular nationalities in the Central Asian countries, those facing the members of small ethnic groups like the Pamiri nationalities in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are far worse and more immediate. Not only are they falling behind because of poor quality schools, but the survival of their languages and nations is at risk.
In many cases, what is being done for them is being carried out by foreign universities and even individual emigres, some of whom engage in crowd-funding to provide textbooks to groups like the Shughni and Yagnob who, international bodies predict, may not survive until 2100 if more is not done.
Slavery in Russia Far More Widespread than Moscow Admits or Many Acknowledge, ‘To Be Precise’ Portal Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Apr. 17 – No one knows precisely how many people are working as slaves in the Russian Federation. International human rights activists offer numbers ranging from 7,000 to two million. Moscow says there have been only 53 cases of slavery over the last 15 years; but in fact, it has brought to justice 17 times that number but hid this crime behind other charges.
Modern forms of slavery are extremely diverse, and there are at least four different paragraphs of the Russian legal code under which people might be charged, Anastasiya Larina of the To Be Precise portal says (tochno.st/materials/za-15-let-v-rossii-zaregistrirovali-53-dela-ob-ispolzovanii-rabskogo-truda-my-nasli-v-17-raz-bolse-takix-slucaev-v-prigovorax-po-drugim-statiam).
Over the last 15 years, some 880 Russian residents have been charged with slavery under these other paragraphs of the criminal code, 17 times more than the Russian government admits when it uses only the primary paragraph banning slavery. But even that larger figure ignores the amount of slavery, many cases of which the powers ignore or even are complicit in.
The real number of Russian residents who are victims of slavery or slavery-like exploitation certainly numbers in the thousands, Larina continues; and she cites the conclusion of the Global Slavery Index which in 2021 said there were 1.8 million victims in Russia – or 13 for every 1000 residents (cdn.walkfree.org/content/uploads/2023/05/17114737/Global-Slavery-Index-2023.pdf).
Central Asian Countries Signal Their Re-Orientation by Foreign Languages They Promote
Paul Goble
Staunton, Apr. 16 – When the Soviet Union disintegrated, the countries of Central Asia like the other former Soviet republics chose to promote the study of languages other than Russian for their rising generations to study. Many assumed they would all move in more or less the same direction, but they haven’t, Rafiz Abazov says
The political scientist who now teaches at Columbia University says that each of the five countries in Central Asia has gone in a different direction. Kyrgyzstan has promoted English and Chinese, Uzbekistan, Japanese; Turkmenistan, Turkish; Tajikistan, Russian; and Kazakhstan, both English and Russian (orda.kz/pochemu-v-uzbekistane-uchat-japonskij-a-v-kyrgyzstane-kitajskij-rafis-abazov-o-jazykovoj-politike-ca-400563/).
Abazov suggests that this focus says more about the direction each of these countries is heading in the long term than do the frequent declarations of their political leaders.
Kazakhstan and Karelia -- Two Cases of ‘Stalinist Nation Building’ that Still Resonate Today
Paul Goble
Staunton, Apr. 17 – The Putin regime is not the only group in the former Soviet space looking to the Soviet past. Many non-Russians inside the current borders of the Russian Federation and many in the now independent non-Russian countries surrounding it are doing so as well, less in their cases as models than as warnings about what might happen again.
This week, there have been two important articles in this regard, one about how Kazakhstan became Kazakhstan but with very different borders (spik.kz/2215-sezd-kotoryj-nachalsja-kak-kirgizskij-a-zakonchilsja-kak-kazahskij.html) and a second about how Moscow created and then disbanded the Karelo-Finnish SSR (apn-spb.ru/publications/article39076.htm).
The details in each will be fascinating to experts, but the messages they send will reach a far larger audience by reminding all concerned not only that in Soviet times, Moscow frequently changed the borders of Soviet republics but even was prepared to create and abolish them as needed for foreign policy purposes.
The Kazakhstan case is the less well-known but possibly the more important. In 1925, as a result of pressure from Moscow and pressure from Kazakh nationalists, the Kazakh republic, then within the RSFSR, was renamed the Kazakh ASSR, having been the Kyrgyz ASSR the previous five years.
The republic changed its capital from the predominantly ethnic Russian Orenburg first to the predominantly Kazakh Ak-Mechet and then to Alma-Ata. The reason for this was to make Kazakhs feel more in control of the situation by accepting their historical name in place of a Russian given one and also to end any confusion with the Kyrgyz republic.
But perhaps even more important in terms of what may happen in the future, the Kazakh ASSR (which became a union republic a decade later) was dramatically expanded and included Karakalpakistan, which is now a restive autonomy within Uzbekistan – a reminder of how often that land has shifted between Kazakhs and Uzbeks.
The history of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, which was created in 1940 at a time when Stalin hoped to extend the borders of the USSR to include Finland which had been part of the Russian Empire and then disbanded in 1956 when Khrushchev decided to disband it as part of his effort to smooth relations with Helsinki and the West is better known.
But at the end of the new article about it, its author poses a question with broad implications. He asks: “What would have happened had [the Karelo-Finnish SSR] not been liquidated? That would have meant that it would automatically have gained independence in 1991.”
“Separatism would have developed there; and then the Murmansk region would have become an enclave, cut off from Russia, like Kaliningrad.” Given that possibility, some are today inclined to say “thank you” to Khrushchev, arguing that “he may have given Crime to Ukraine but he did restore Karelia to Russia.”
Kremlin to Unite Nenets AD with Arkhangelsk Oblast But Only After Carefully Preparing Ground, ‘Nezygar. Telegram Channel Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, Apr. 17 – The Nezygar telegram channel, one of the best connected in Moscow, says that two of its sources say the Kremlin has already taken the decision to amalgamate the Nenets Autonomous District with Arkhangelsk Oblast but to do so only after it carefully prepares the ground for that.
According to these sources, Arkhangelsk is “quite positive” about such a move because the amalgamation will give it an advantage over Murmansk Oblast in Arctic development (t.me/s/russicaRU?q=Решено+не+торопиться+и+максимально+тщательно+подготовить+процесс https://indigenous-russia.com/archives/43267).
But in the Nenets AD, these sources say, “’the overwhelming majority of the residents’ and almost the entire local elites do not want to lose their independent status.” Among the opponents was Yury Bezdudny, who gave up his governorship rather than agree to carry out unification.
The Kremlin reportedly is considering two possible scenarios: the creation of a matryoshka arrangement like the one in Tyumen, in which the Nenets AD would formally remain a federal subject but in fact become part of Arkhangelsk Oblast or simply to deprive the Nenets AD of any such status.
The new governor Irina Gekht has been charged with transforming the Nenets AD elites so that one or the other of these possibilities can be pushed through. If she succeeds in the next year or two, she will then leave and receive a position as governor of a more important federal subject, possibly Chelyabinsk, the telegram channel says.
In 2020, Putin tried to amalgamate these two federal subjects but faced such strong opposition among the Nenets population that he had to back down, although he and others were able to blame the onset of the covid pandemic rather than admit that they had been defeated by an enraged population and the prospect of losing any referendum on amalgamation.
On what happened in 2020, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/11/some-in-arkhangelsk-by-hook-or-crook.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/07/russian-writer-says-moscow-must-push.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/07/another-singing-revolution-breaks-out.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/07/being-nenets-or-nenets-resident-no.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/06/moscows-moves-against-nenets-and-,komi.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/pandemic-has-achieved-what-protests.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/most-in-working-group-that-called-for.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/moscow-now-wants-to-merge-not-just.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/05/nenets-residents-start-organizing.html, severreal.org/a/30624537.html.
In the years since, Moscow has not given up on the idea of amalgamation but hasn’t pressed the issue, almost certainly because its attention is focused on the war in Ukraine and because opposition in the Nenets AD has if anything become even greater (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/moscow-may-restart-regional.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/local-resistance-spreads-and.html).
If the Kremlin does push ahead now or even in a year’s time, the Nenets are likely to protest not only in the streets but in the halls of power in that federal subject. Moscow of course will get its way in the end but only if it is willing to pay a high price not only there but in other non-Russian areas where amalgamation is still a possibility.