Comparison with Central Asian Countries Shows Non-Russian Republics inside Russia ‘Price of Dependence,’ Kazakhstan Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 25 – Since becoming independent in 1991, the former Soviet Union republics in Central Asia have their economies grow dramatically, while the former RSFSR autonomous republics that did not gain independence have seem their economic situation if anything deteriorate relative to that of Russia as a whole, Kazakhstan’s Altyn Orda says.

            The portal argues that this highlights “the price of dependence,” something that could trigger a political explosion in the latter if they choose to make that comparison instead (altyn-orda.kz/tsena-zavisimosti-pochemu-tsentralnaya-aziya-rastyot-i-bogateet-a-bashkortostan-nishhaet-i-bedneet/).

            While independence doesn’t guarantee success, Altyn Orda says, it gives those peoples who obtain it a far greater range of choices than is the case of the autonomous republics that remain under the control of a larger state. What is most important is that this “is not a dispute about the merits of peoples: it is a comparison of two political models.”