Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 2 – Like their Soviet predecessors but with less justice, Russian officials and following them Russian scholars have long insisted that there are no ghettoes in the cities of the Russian Federation even though the influx of migrants from Central Asia, the Caucasus and parts of the Russian Federation has such denials unsustainable.
Some Russian writers have used the euphemism, “ethnic enclaves,” instead (ng.ru/politics/2022-07-21/1_8493_enclave.html). But even that has remained controversial. (On these debates, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/02/kremlin-edges-toward-admitting-russian.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/02/ghettos-without-borders-appearing-in.html, and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/02/window-on-eurasia-ghetto-for.html.)
Yesterday, at a meeting of the Duma Committee on Nationality Affairs, deputy Anastasiya Udaltsova spoke about “ethnic enclaves” and the need to ensure that they don’t prevent the spread of the Russian language and Russian values to immigrant communities (nazaccent.ru/content/39925-v-gosdume-obsudili-protivodejstvie-sozdaniyu-migrantskih-anklavov.html).
Her words appear to lend legitimacy to this latest case of Russian newspeak and also to show exactly why the powers that be in Moscow are sufficiently worried about the emergence of what almost everyone else would call ghettoes to talk about them under this term in the highest legislative body.
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