Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 3 – The
approximately 900,000 ethnic Russians still living in Uzbekistan feel themselves
to be “second or even third-class” residents of that Central Asian country and
thus under increasing pressure to leave, according to new journalistic investigations
reported in the Moscow media this week.
In an article posted on the “Svobodnaya
pressa” site yesterday under the title “Who Will Save the Uzbek Russians?”
Vitaly Slovetsky suggests that most of the Russians in Uzbekistan are now in
such a desperate situation that they dream only of the day when they will be
able to return to the Russian Federation (svpressa.ru/society/article/66300/).
They increasingly are fired without
cause or explanation, lose their apartments, and face prison if they make any “attempt
to raise the issue about the status of ethnic Russians” in that Central Asian
state, the Moscow journalist says. Many left for political reasons after 1991
and for economic reasons later, but now they want to go because of open
discrimination.
At the end of Soviet times, there
were 1.66 million Russians among the 20 million people of Uzbekistan. Now,
there are only 900 thousand among the 30 million of that country, with most
concentrated in Tashkent, its immediate environs, and in “small ‘Russian
islands’ in Fergana, Samarkand and Navoi.”
Many of Uzbekistan’s Russians are
angry about Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that “those who wanted to left long
ago, and those who remained are only those who were happy” with their situation. That is simply not the case: They mostly
remain because they cannot afford to move and because Moscow has not provided
them with enough assistance.
One indication of the problems they
face is their demographic behavior, Slovetsky continues. Officials in
Uzbekistan say that ethnic Russians there are marrying much less often and
having fewer children, a reflection of their lack of hope for their own future
and that of their community.
According to one Russian woman in
Tashkent, “the Uzbeks consider us to be ‘guests’ or ‘colonizers.’” And both Uzbek officials and ordinary Uzbek
citizens routinely complain that the Russians are still there and occupying
housing or jobs that should go to Uzbeks.
Moreover, and in contrast to some other countries, the status of the
Russian language is declining there as well.
Most Russian-language schools have
been closed, she says, and getting work, “even if you speak Uzbek not badly,”
is often extremely difficult. And if a
Russian does get a job, another Tashkent resident complains, he or she is
likely to be paid less than an Uzbek would.
But it is the actions of government
officials that are most infuriating, Uzbekistan’s Russians say. Uzbekistan is the only Central Asian country
to have a museum in memory ofhte victims of communist repressions. “In fact, this is an occupation museum,” one
says, to which Uzbeks are brought to inculcate anger about “Russian conquerors
and oppressors.”
Another adds that streets are regularly
renamed to eliminate “’non-Uzbek’ names,” boks in Russian and Tajik “are
destroyed, and “the leadership of the country not openly but clearly
demonstrates that [in its opinion] Uzbekistan is for the Uzbeks” and not for
anyone else.
Specialists like Aleksandra
Dokuchayeva agree, noting that this propaganda has had its effect not only in
increasing negative views about Russians among Uzbeks but even their feelingss about
the Russian language, which in contrast to some other post-Soviet states has
lost its former attractiveness in Uzbekistan.
Moscow does not appear to understand their plight,
the Russians of Uzbekistan say, and its programs to resettle them are entirely
inadequate because as housing prices are so low in Central Asia, Russians
cannot hope to buy an apartment anywhere in the Russian Federation from what
they would receive for selling their residence in Uzbekistan.
A second article yesterday, this one
prepared by the Rosbalt.ru news agency and already being repeated on Russian
portals, makes similar points. It says that ethnic Russians and Russian
speakers across Central Asia are under pressure to leave but nowhere more than
in Uzbekistan (rosbalt.ru/exussr/2013/04/01/1112454.html
and rus-obr.ru/ru-web/23495).
One
Russian resident of Tashkent, who refused to give her last name because she
said she “has to live here for awhile yet,” said that Uzbekistan officials had
been conducting “a broad and very harsh” effort to “drive out ethnic Russians
from all spheres of life” and thus leave them with little choice but to move
away.
This
special pressure against ethnic Russians is sometimes missed, Nikolay Polyakov
of the Memorial human rights center says, given the surrounding “corrupt,
extraordinarily harsh, and authoritarian regime” in Tashkent which because of
its “arbitrariness” has left all residents of that country “defenseless”
against its depradations.
And
the special problems of ethnic Russians there have been ignored by Moscow which
in the pursuit of short-term goals has sought to establish good relations with
Tashkent, other Russians living in Uzbekistan say, pointing to the diplomatic
help the Russian government offered Tashkent in the wake of the Andijan rising.
Only
when relations between Moscow and Tashkent are bad, Aybek Sultangaziyev, an
expert on the region told Rosbalt.ru, does Moscow display much concern about
what is happening with the ethnic Russians in Uzbekistan, a pattern that the
Russians there and elsewhere fully understand and resent.
That
pattern will cost Russia dearly in the future Sultangaziyev says, because the
ethnic Russian diasporas could be an important lever for Moscow to promote its
influence. The Russian government should change course, he says, adding that
those in the Russian capital should “learn from the Chinese” in this regard.
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