Udmurt Case Suggests Putin May No Longer Be as Committed to Naming Outsiders as Heads of Russia’s Federal Subjects

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 30 – When Putin accepted the resignation of Udmurtia head Aleksandr Brechalov just before the Duma election and then named as his successor Olga Abramova, Russian analysts focused on the problems Brechalov has had in that Middle Volga republic and his much hinted at desire to move back to Moscow.

            But an émigré analyst suggests that the key to what has unexpectedly taken place at least as far as its timing is concerned may have been provided by Putin’s greeting to Abramova when he first met with her (wschody.net/game-changer-kak-kampaniya-za-nezavisimost-udmurtii-vybila-iz-kremlevskoj-kolody-regionalnogo-tuza/).

            When Abramova entered Putin’s office, Andrey Grigoryev says, the Kremlin leader greeted her with the words “you were born in Udmurtia, right? And then worked there almost all the time?” – inquiries that Putin may be more inclined to appoint locals as governors than he has up to now. 

            Not only does that background make Abramova very different from Brechalov who was parachuted into Udmurtia by Putin as what Russians call “a Varangian” or outsider, but it also and apparently not coincidentally comes after moves by the Udmurt opposition abroad to promote the idea that only Udmurts can understand Udmurt problems and only they have the right to resolve them.

            Earlier this summer, Grigoryev points out, “a group of political emigres from the republic initiative the Udmurtia is a Free Country campaign” to promote the idea that their homeland must escape from Moscow’s control. To that end, the group announced as an alternative to the Duma vote, the election of an independent council of the peoples of Udmurtia.

            That vote is slated to take place the same day Moscow will be holding all-Russian Duma elections; but this special Udmurt election will feature one major difference: Its organizers say that “only those who are directly related to Udmurtia and the Udmurt nation have the right to decide the fate of the republic,” the commentator says.

            Putin’s words to Abramova seem to be a kind of Kremlin response to this move and an indication that in the face of political pressure from below, the Russian president may be less committed to appointing outsiders than he has been up to now lest that practice spark more resistance to them and to himself than would otherwise be the case.

            If that proves to be the case, then what has happened in Udmurtia may be “the game changer” that Grigoryev suggests.