Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 21 – In Soviet
times, many Russians referred to the occupied Baltic countries as “our abroad”
because the three, so different from their own world, could be visited without
permission from the USSR or a visa from another country. Now, some in Moscow
are thinking about setting up a similar internal “abroad” in the Russian Far
East.
According to an article in “Izvestiya”
by Petr Kozlov, the Russian Ministry for the Development of the East is
considering a variety of options in order to reverse the decline in the
population of the Far East Federal District and even boost it from the current
six million to ten million residents over the coming years (izvestia.ru/news/562806).
Most of the
proposals under discussion are conventional: tax breaks and subsidies for
businesses, construction of new housing and the like. The problem with these is
that they all have high price tags and may be beyond Moscow’s capacity at a
time of increasing budgetary stringency.
That makes the others, which
ministry officials are calling “the New Holland” option, more intriguing. They
involve making legal in the Far East things that are illegal or restricted
elsewhere in the Russian Federation. If adopted, these would effectively make that
enormous region an internal “abroad” for a new generation of Russians.
Among the ideas being floated in
this regard, Kozlov says, are lifting restrictions on prospecting for gold and
other valuable minerals, tax-free sale of alcohol and cigarettes, the opening
of casinos and gaming houses, and perhaps most intriguing of all “the opening
of gay clubs and bordellos.”
Another proposal calls for freeing
from military obligation young men who agree to work in the Far East, a deferment
that would last as long as they remained in that region, “Izvestiya” says. And
still more, the ministry is considering plans to establish universities and
research institutes there to make the Russian Far East a center of creative
life.
As President Vladimir Putin
indicated in his recent message to the Federal Assembly, developing the Russian
Far East will be a Moscow priority throughout the 21st century. In
October, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called for the development of a
government strategy to do that. And the current swirl of ideas appears to be
part of that process.
Officials of the ministry speaking
on the record sought to disassociate their institution from the most radical
ideas, suggesting that they were the product of brain-storming sessions of
outside experts. But one anonymous source there told “Izvestiya” that such
ideas are being discussed inside the ministry although he suggested that they
might not reach the top.
Three aspects of such discussions
are worthy of note. First, they are an intriguing indication that many in
Moscow are quite prepared to violate Putin’s much-ballyhooed commitment to “a
common legal space” across the entire Russian Federation if that is the only
way to develop key regions.
Second, going forward with some of
these ideas in one region of the Russian Federation could ultimately force
Moscow to allow them elsewhere. If Russians learned that people in the Far East
were living more freely than themselves, some might go there, but others might
demand that the center extend similar freedoms to themselves.
And third, at a time when regional
identities are strengthening, a decision by Moscow to make the Russian Far East
this different from the rest of the country could trigger secessionist demands
there. That would be especially ironic
but in one sense historically consistent: The Soviet Union’s “internal abroad”
after all was the first part to escape Moscow’s control.
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