Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 8 – The billions of
rubles Moscow sends annually to the North Caucasus may indeed keep local elites
loyal but they have not solved the social problems of the region that prompt
many North Caucasians to move to Russian cities or be open to the appeals of
radicals of one kind or another.
That is the conclusion that springs
from an investigation by Vlada Voloshina of The Caucasus Post who notes
that over the last year, despite the billions Moscow sent to the region,
unemployment fell only 0.7 percent and remains the highest in Russia at 10.3
percent (capost.media/special/obzory/pochemu_dotatsii_ne_menyayut_situatsiyu_skfo_bet_rekordy_po_bezrabotitse/).
In
the past year, Moscow sent the republics of the North Caucasus Federal District
more than a trillion rubles (16 billion US dollars), but unemployment there
fell only slightly. Chechnya was given more than 27 billion rubles,
Kabardino-Balkaria more than 11, Ingushetia, 9.1 billion, and North Ossetia 8.9
billion. Moreover, all are slated to get more this year.
But
the impact on the population was small. If Russia-wide unemployment is
approximately 4.5 percent, in Ingushetia, it exceeds 26 percent; in Daghestan,
it is 13.7 percent; in Chechnya, 13.6 percent; in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, 12.2
percent; in Kabardino-Balkaria, 10.9 percent; and in North Ossetia, 10.5
percent.
In
part, Voloshina says, this reflects the unwillingness of private investors to
put money into the troubled region; and in part, it is also a product of
statistical difficulties of counting unemployment in a place where many people
can subsist on their own land without actually having a formal job.
However,
it is overwhelmingly the result of money from Moscow now reaching the
population but getting only as far as the national elites. They may indeed stay
loyal as long as this money keeps flowing in; but no one can say the same about
the populations living under their kleptocratic rule.
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