A Rare Report from ‘The Blue Wedge’ – a Ukrainian Region in Russia Just North of Kazakhstan

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 10 – The places in what is now the Russian Federation where Ukrainians resettled at the end of imperial times are referred to as “wedges” (kliny). The largest and most famous of these are in the Far East (“the green wedge”) and in the Kuban (“the almond wedge”). But those are far from the only such wedges of this kind.

(For more on the wedge issue in general, see jamestown.org/program/kyiv-raises-stakes-by-expanding-appeals-to-ukrainian-wedges-inside-russia/, jamestown.org/program/kremlin-worried-about-ukrainian-wedges-inside-russia/  and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-real-wedge-issue-ukrainian-regions-in.html and the sources cited therein.)

            Russian officials typically suggest that these regions are fully integrated and that those who were Ukrainian in the past have assimilated, but sometimes these officials express fears that Kyiv will exploit these communities against Moscow, comments that suggest that even Moscow doesn’t fully believe its own claims.

            But lest these claims be challenged, Russian officials have done what they can to restrict investigations and reports about the wedges. And thus any reporting about them is precious, especially when it concerns wedges other than the green in the Far East and the almost in the Kuban which remain far better on.

            One wedge that has suffered from a lack of coverage in particular in the Blue Wedge which is located in Omsk Oblast just north of the Russian border with Kazakhstan. Two years ago, a few articles appeared (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/06/kyiv-seeking-to-use-ukrainian-blue.html) and now a major one has opened a window on this region.

            Now, Marina-Maya Govzman, a journalist with the independent Ovdi information portal offers one of the most comprehensive portraits of that wedge where most people still speak Ukrainian and see themselves as part of Ukrainian culture but are divided by the war with some going off to fight and others are resisted despite police pressure (en.ovdinfo.org/gordienko).

            Among the many fascinating comments she collected from local residents, the following are especially instructive as to what is going on in the Blue Wedge:

·       “Welcome to Khokhland! That’s what we call it here.”

·       “In some villages, if you speak Russian, they immediately figure you aren’t from around here … In Blagodarivka, children couldn’t understand the young Russian-speaking teachers from the city, so retired teachers had to go back to work.”

·       Many in the Blue Wedge nonetheless have accepted Moscow propaganda and say, in Ukrainian, that they are fighting Nazis there. But there are also anti-war activists who have been subject to official persecution.

·       «Our grandchildren speak mostly Russian, but our children can also speak Ukrainian! As for us, we love both languages».

·       The head of the local village government says that “half of the people here speak Ukrainian. Just go to the store and listen. And they also speak Kazakh. We have many ethnicities here. Speak whatever you want. No one prohibits it, unlike in Ukraine.”