Urals Identity Combines Desire to Support Russia and Desire to Be Recognized and Respected for Doing So, Tveritina Says

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 16 – Vladimir Solovyev’s attacks on people in Yekaterinburg and the Urals region more generally has attracted the attention of many to the nature of the identity there which sets it apart from the pan-Russian identity Moscow seeks to promote and the separatist attitudes in some parts of the country which are alien to Urals people, Yuliya Tveritina says.

            In a nearly 8,000-word essay for the Liberal Russia portal, the Urals native explains that the identity most people in the Urals region feel has long combined two elements that many elsewhere see as in conflict with one another (liberal.ru/povestka/takoj-opornyj-i-ne-opornyj-ural-trudnye-razmyshleniya-ob-uralskoj-identichnosti).

            On the one hand, people of the Urals view themselves as an important support for the Russian government and Russia as a whole; but on the other, Tvertina points out, they want to be recognized and respected for what they do in support of the center and the country rather than treated as a province Moscow can treat with contempt or worse.

             When someone from the center treats them in the way Solovyev has, the Urals native continues, people in the region grow more hostile to the center and even to the country than they are inclined to be. But when the center respects them as an important part of the state, they are proud to identify as such.

            Tvertina traces the history of Urals identity over the last several hundred years, insisting that the people of the Urals are loyal but want respect, an attitude that is likely to be found in many other regions of the Russian Federation but a combination that appears more firmly rooted in the Urals than in other areas. 

            She makes clear that Moscow and Russians elsewhere must understand that a demand for respect is not the first step toward separatism and secession. Instead, if Moscow offers that to the people of the Urals, they will redouble their efforts in support not only of the capital but of Russia as a whole.

            But if Moscow fails to provide such support, Tvertina indicates, there is a danger that the demand for respect, having been rebuffed or even insulted, may grow into something else that could under certain conditions grow into precisely what some like Solovyev have called hostility to Moscow and a desire to exit the federation entirely.