A Very Bad Day in Turkmenistan

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 29 – Turkmenistan, far and away the most brutally repressive of any of the post-Soviet states and one whose rulers behave much as the Kims do in North Korea, seldom gets much attention except as being a frontline state facing the Islamist radicals in Afghanistan or as a source of natural gas for the West.

            But no one should forget in their rush to cooperate with Ashgabat on either of these things just how horribly repressive that country now is. The last few days alone have featured five stories that highlight this reality. They deserve mention as part of the continuing tragedy that has been visited on the people of Turkmenistan by its rulers.

            They include:

1.      Ashgabat’s special services now listens to all telephone calls made by anyone in Turkmenistan (http://www.fergananews.com/articles/10037).

2.      The Turkmenistan government is currently going after and seizing satellite dishes in the villages so that people there cannot get television from abroad (fergananews.com/news/30882).

3.      Although Ashgabat has denied, many people find credible reports that the Turkmenistan government is doing all it can to keep young men from fleeing the country by raising prices on transportation and calling them in for “conversations” with the secret police (fergananews.com/news/30870).

4.      The food situation in the Turkmenistan army is so dire that parents of young men serving there now have to take food to their sons lest they starve (fergananews.com/news/30887).

5.      Turkmens studying abroad are complaining that agents of the Ashgabat government are not only monitoring them but engaging them in conversations designed to ensure that they will return home unradicalized (fergananews.com/news/30825).

Most Russians Got Last Names Only a Century Ago

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 29 – The 1897 census found that about 75 percent of the population of the Russian Empire did not have last names, with the share having them somewhat greater in the central part of the country and much lower on the periphery. But with the coming of Soviet power and passportization, everyone had to have a last name.

            In some cases, Irina Shlionskaya writes on the Russian7 portal, they simply added an -ov or -ev ending to what had been their patronymics or nicknames, with Vasily, the sone of Prokpiya, for example, becoming Vasiliy Prokopyev and Fedor the Kosov (Scythe) becoming Fedor Kosoy or Fedor Kosov (russian7.ru/post/familii-kotorye-poyavilis-tolko-pri/).

            In March 1918, Lenin signed a decree “on the right of citizens to change their families or their nicknames” after many people, including whole units in the Red Army, asked for permission to do so. Thus, people with names like Durakov (“of the fools”) wanted to be known as Vinogradov.

            But that was only one of the ways people chose last names. Because of the Soviet system, there arose many neologisms, with some people taking the names of revolutionary heroes like Lenin, Stalin, Kirov or Molotov and others coming up with names from revolutionary slogans or institutions.

            Among these, Shlionskaya continues, were the Avangardovs, the Ateistovs, theWolframovs, the Dekabristovs, the Delegatovs, the Demokratovs, the Deputatovs, the Novomirovs, the Renatovs (from ‘revolution, science and labor”), the Elektronovs, the Yubileynovs and the Yunatovs.

            Meanwhile, in non-Russian areas, patronymics were russified into last names with Abdulla become Abdullayev, Gadzhi Gadzhiyev, and Mamed Mamedov. But it also happened that ethnic Russians in some non-Russian areas adapted their Russian names to non-Russian patterns.

            Thus, in Latvian areas, Russians often changed Petrov to Petrovs, Kuznetsov to Kuznetsoovs, and Fedorov to Fedorovs.  Indeed, the Soviet actress Lyudmila Gurchenko in her memoirs says that her father’s name was Gurchenkov but that living in Ukraine, her family dispensed with the v.

Russians Display Social, Not Ethnic Xenophobia, Commentator Argues

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 29 – A case this week in Balashikha near Moscow underscores something many don’t want to talk about: Most Russians don’t display xenophobia based on ethnicity or race; but they do manifest hostility to outsiders who are without education or high culture, commentator Natalya Rumarchuk says.

            What happened in Balashikha is this: Ten Nigerians arrived for the World Cup having rented a three-room apartment for which they had paid 180,000 rubles (3,000 US dollars) for ten days to another Nigerian who was its owner. But the apartment turned out to have only one room, and the Nigerians were left without housing (publizist.ru/blogs/107563/25705/-).

            Local Russians were appalled and took in those who had been driven into the street and left without documents by the Nigerian owner not only providing them with housing until the end of the World Cup but feeding them as well.

            Why is this noteworthy? The commentator asks rhetorically. For this reason: “There is at the mass level no ethnic xenophobia, but there is a social kind. Our people don’t like uneducated and wild arrivals and don’t want to have anything to do with them whether they are from Tajikistan, Nigeria or even Balashikha itself.”

            Consequently, when “ten normal guests who speak English and have educations and jobs” fly in for three weeks as tourists to another country, “our people are happy to help.” They were indifferent as to whether those who had been cheated were Nigerians, Poles or Romanians,” she says.

            For the residents of Balashikha, “these were people of the same culture as they themselves. Therefore, they helped the Nigerians.” This is in sharp contrast to how these same residents feel about and have dealt with Tajik gastarbeiters who have no schooling but do have four wives.

            “Our responsive people are against the importation of a backward culture,” Rumarchuk says. But “if tomorrow these Nigerians were hired at Gazprom and they remained in Balashikha, having rented apartments, none of their neighbors, I am certain, would have frowned upon that.” Thus, what exists in Russia is not ethnic xenophobia but rather the social variety.