Russian Far East Not Some African ‘Colony’ as Some Moscow Officials Appear to Believe, Kamchatka Residents Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 18 – The Moscow official responsible for preventing the spread of disease in animals and plants suggested in language that was both incautious and revelatory that the center should block individuals from carrying caviar to the Far East in their luggage just as one would expect any government to do about antelope meat in luggage going to Africa.

            Not surprisingly, the words of Sergey Dankvert, the head of the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Monitoring, struck a nerve and prompted both the regional media and the population to denounce his analogy (vostok.today/53561-dalnij-vostok-ne-kolonija-on-chast-rossii-s-kamchatki-otvetili-glave-rosselhoznadzora.html).

            In an open letter to Dankvert that Vostok.Today has published and that the Tallinn-based regionalist portal Region.Expert has picked up to highlight, the people of Kamchatka made it clear how angry they are not just about his words but about the habit of mind of many in Moscow that lies behind them:

Respected Sergey Alekseyevich!

Your comparison of the Far East with Africa and red caviar with dried antelope meat has become a clear example of how bureaucrats in the capital talk about the regions which feed them. Allow us to explain something to you.

You speak about our products as if they were contraband from the third world. But Kamchatka, the Primorye, and Sakhalin are also Russia just like Moscow. The difference is only that we harvest the fish, oil, gas and forest and you use them.

If one fears parasites, then one should be looking not in caviar but in the corrupt schemes which for decades you have taken our resources in exchange of misery payments.

You praise Europe for its control over products. But somehow European officials don’t compare their regions with Africa – perhaps because their regions don’t feed the capital but instead live in a worthy fashion themselves?

You prohibit carrying caviar in baggage but you take no notice of the fact that tons of seafood products are going to China via various ‘gray’ schemes … In this way, you are struggling not with parasites but with ordinary people who want to bring caviar as a present.

You talk about ‘government spending’ on cures but for some reason don’t remember that the Far East gives Moscow enormous sums through taxes and in return gets impassable roads, dying villages and the outflow of the population. Our salaries are low and our prices are high. You ban people bringing in caviar but don’t provide normal air tickets or other necessities of development.

If you want to find parasites, then perhaps you should begin with those who sit for 20 years in government offices and give back to the country only reports full of pretty words.

You demand that we not carry caviar to Moscow, but when we ask for normal roads, pay and air tickets, you act as if the Far East is somewhere in a parallel universe.

If you want to struggle with something dangerous, then you should look at your salaries which are ten times those of fishmen, at your reports, and at your logic which compares Kamchatka with Africa and Moscow apparently with Switzerland.

If you are so afraid of parasites, then invest in labs in the regions … and give the regions more rights so that we ourselves can decide how to develop fishing and stop exporting our natural resources for next to nothing.

And if you aren’t prepared to do that, well, then, the next timeyou want to compare the Far East with Africa, look in the mirror. Immediately, you’ll see that very “exotic guest.”

            The authors of this letter don’t say but they clearly feel as have many people east of the Urals have for two centuries of more that the central government really does view their regions as colonies and themselves as natives. At a time when many are talking about decolonization, statements like Dankvert’s risk provoking more people about taking more steps in that direction.