Number of Maris in Sverdlovsk Oblast who Speak Their National Language has Fallen by 40 Percent over Last Decade, Academy of Sciences Study Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 24 – Most data on declines of native language use come from the republics where it is falling rather than from the large communities of such people who live outside the borders of those republics and who in almost all cases are suffering from even more intense assimilatory pressures than their co-ethnics within their titular republics.

            That makes the findings of a large Academy of Sciences study of the fate of the Mari language in Sverdlovsk Oblast, a massive study carried out by the Moscow Institute of Linguistics especially important. (For the complete text of the study, see ling.tspu.ru/files/ling/PDF/articles/kutsaeva_m.v._49_61_2_52_2026.pdf; for a discussion of its key findings, see mariuver.eu/2026/06/24/ural-mari-vymirajut/).

            Those conducting the study visited three districts in the predominantly ethnic Russian federal subject and found that the Maris are increasingly using Russian even in completely Mari families. In fact, the study said, the national language is now used there “only by older and middle-aged people” and not even all of them.

            “Young people,” the study continued, “massively go to the cities and completely switch to Russian. At the same time, parents often do not pass the language themselves to children because of its low prestige. They are afraid that doing elsewhere will  unnecessary difficulties for their children in schools.”

            As ever fewer Maris speak Mari – and 40 percent fewer do now than only a decade ago – officials find it easier to close local schools offering courses in that language, a practice that only accelerates the demise of the Mari language outside the Mari El Republic, the Moscow linguists say.

Even Though Moscow has Not Yet Annexed South Ossetia, Some are Now Asking Whether It will Absorb Abkhazia Next

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June  24 – Whenever one country annexes part of another as Russia did with Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, many observers immediately ask whether such moves presage the opening of a new era in which annexations will become more common. Now although Moscow hasn’t yet annexed South Ossetia, some are already asking about the future of Abkhazia.

            In most cases, it becomes obvious that any annexation does not lead immediately to more but rather delays any further moves in that direction not only because conditions in other potential candidates for absorption are different but also because the international community makes it clear that it opposes any such actions.

            Now, it appears that Moscow is close to annexing South Ossetia, a territory Russian forces carved out of Georgia in 2008, with both the Russian and South Ossetian sides apparently on track to take this step, long rumored because South Ossetia has so few attributes of an independent state, sometime in the near future (jamestown.org/south-ossetia-and-russia-make-further-steps-toward-annexation/).

            Georgia would certainly be infuriated if Moscow and Tskhinvali take that step. Indeed, it could put on hold any hopes Moscow may have making more progress to returning Georgia to its fold. But given the size of South Ossetia and the fact that many in the West have assumed Moscow would eventually take this step, it is not clear how Western governments would react.

            But even before Moscow makes such a move, some are speculating that the Kremlin will follow this step by annexing Abkhazia, which also achieved the status of a partially recognized state in 2008 as a result of the Russian invasion of Georgia, although even those who do are saying Moscow would face more problems with the Abkhaz case than the South Ossetian one

            One observer in the region, Ruslan Magomedov, says that no one should forget that Abkhazia represents a much different situation than does South Ossetia, something many are inclined to do because for them the two attracted attention as Russian-sponsored breakaway states at the same time (akcent.site/novosti/45307).

            According to that commentator, “Abkhazia’s political circles are actively discussing the scenario of the republic joining Russia. This discussion has become inevitable against the backdrop of developments in South Ossetia, which could culminate in that republic’s integration into Russia.

            But he stresses, Abkhazia is very different. It has a border on the Black Sea. Its own people worked far more actively to achieve independence even before the Russian invasion. And “it is a region with a far more complex elite structure” and with a far more ramified legal system allowing elites to control the situation.

            Many in the Abkhazian elite “are not as heavily dependent on direct subsidies from Moscow as their South Ossetian counterparts and are prepared to aggressively defend their autonomy. They have their own economic interests which do not always align with Russia’s” and have shown themselves capable of blocking Moscow moves they oppose.  

              As a result, what is most likely to happen in the near term, regardless of any moves in South Ossetia will be “a faster harmonization of the tax and legal systems of Russia and Abkhazia” and ones that will involve not “a landing party’ of Russian officials … but rather “the cultivation of a loyal pro-Russian pool of administrators.”

              That will serve Russia’s interests without the problems that an attempt at annexation would cause and over the longer term could help make Abkhazia a stronger candidate for emerging from its partially recognized status to a more normal position in the international order, a development some in Moscow may see as the most useful.

Russian Couples who “Live Together Outside of Marriage Threaten Country’s National Security,’ Deputy Justice Minister Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 24 – Apparently because couples who live together without getting married have fewer children than those who do tie the knot, Vadim Balanin, the deputy justice minister says that those who live together but don’t get married “threaten Russia’s national security” as do those who marry and then divorce.

            The deputy minister made those remarks at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum and suggested that the government must do more to limit cohabitation and promote marriage as part of Putin’s much-ballyhooed program of supporting traditional values against the nefarious influence of the West (rbc.ru/society/24/06/2026/6a3b8e149a7947a63e54e6a4).

            Belanin’s suggestion has attracted much criticism, including by a Moskovsky Komsomolets journalist who says that the deputy minister fails to recognize that those who live together without formal marriage nonetheless produce 23 percent of all Russian children (mk.ru/editions/daily/2026/06/24/sovokupivshikhsya-posredstvom-bluda-luchshe-razluchat-kak-vlast-budet-borotsya-s-vnebrachnymi-svyazyami.html).

            Those who live by themselves rather than cohabiting produce far fewer and so, according to the journalist, the government should be supporting cohabitation as better than single life styles as it is giving the Kremlin some if not all of what it wants. Belanin’s failure to talk about that raises questions about what he wants to do.

            The deputy justice minister says his agency is monitoring closely changes in the family code to try to address the situation, but unless he is prepared to take really draconian and deeply unpopular steps such as compelling people to marry, he is unlikely to achieve the demographic outcomes he hopes for.

            The journalist then suggests that what Belanin is really interested in is a Russia where everyone follows the same path and subordinates himself or herself to what the Kremlin prefers, the West will exploit that – and the risk that it will do so is the real threat to Russian national security that the deputy minister is so concerned about.

United Russia Routinely Blocks Public Efforts to Protect the Environment, New Report Shows

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 24 – Russians are increasingly concerned about the degradation of the environment, but they are seldom able to get the Russian Duma to pass legislation to protect the air and water around them, according to a new report by the DumaBingo project in advance of Russian parliamentary elections in September.

            Novaya Gazeta has published the 5,000-word report. It shows that the Kremlin and the United Russia super majority in the Duma work together to advance and protect business interests by blocking public efforts to achieve greater protection of the environment (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/06/24/eko-nevidal).

            DumaBingo considered 73 proposals for environmental reform over the last 30 months. “More than half” of these were advanced not by environmental groups but by businesses. Only 16 percent of the bills received the backing of the ecological community, “and only two of these became laws.” 

            “This imbalance,” DumaBingo says, “is the direct result of the lack in Russia of a law on lobbies and the lack of transparency of the profile committee on ecology where decisions are often taken without the participation of independent experts and scholars” but instead reflect whatever United Russia and the Kremlin want.

            That is something Russian voters concerned about protecting the environment should remember when they go to the polls.

For First Time, UN Body Puts Russian Forces in Ukraine on Its List of Worst Perpetrators of Sexualized Violence

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 25 – The UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexualized Violence in Conflict for the first time ever has included Russian armed and security forces operating in Ukraine on its list of those guilty of sexualized violence in conflicts around the world.

            The UN body has documented more than 300 such cases since Putin began his expanded invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, although experts say that the actual number of rapes and other forms of sexual violence by Russian forces there is far larger (svoboda.org/a/rossiyskaya-armiya-v-chernom-spiske/33788780.html).

            That is because many victims are afraid or unwilling to come forward and because Russian commanders either ignore or even sanction such actions as part of an effort to intimidate the population and make it conclude that any dissent will be brutally and even illegally suppressed and that those who engage in such actions won’t be punished.

            Russian forces have behaved in a similar way in the past, including in Chechnya, Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch says; but the Ukrainian situation is much larger and the willingness of women and men to come forward to report such abuse is greater than was the case in the two Chechen wars.

            Nevertheless, she says, the UN figures represent only a portion of this form of inhumane violence. What is needed is a change in orders from the Kremlin not to engage in such practices. Were those to be given and then enforced, the problem would be much reduced. That they haven’t been means that much of the blame for such crimes rests on Putin and his entourage.

If Current Trends Continues, the Tatar Language will Disappear in 45 Years and the Survival of the Tatar Nation will be at Risk, Lobova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 25 – If  knowledge and use of Tatar decline at the same rate they have over the last decade, Elizaveta Lobova says, then in 45 years, the Tatar language will disappear and the survival of the Tatar nation will be at risk, remaining at best an identity without much content and subject to market forces and political decisions.

            The author of the Tea with Tatar telegram channel says that what is happening now is that Tatar identity is separating from the Tatar language, raising the existential question: “can culture exist without language or is it transformed into another culture?” (milliard.tatar/news/i-tugan-tel-i-matur-tel-tri-mogily-dlya-tatarskoi-identicnosti-9906).

            Lobova suggests there are three possible paths forward. The first makes identity “a consumer choice,” one in which what survives is anything that “can be bought and sold quickly.” Because language requires study, it isn’t one of those and thus may only survive in a narrow circle like Latin in medieval times, “prestigious but dead.”

            That is the preferred outcome as far as Moscow is concerned, she suggests, because it allows the market to do the assimilatory work and destroys the basis of national culture and thus resistance to the wholesale destruction of minority nations like the Tatars within the Russian Federation.

            The second scenario is a national “renaissance from below” in which Tatars save the language by forming social networks and promoting its use even if it is driven out of the schools and most public forums. But that is only a beautiful dream, Lobova says, given that even in rural areas, young people now don’t speak their national language.

            And the third is that without a language to support it, Tatar identity will turn into a souvenir to be dragged out a few times a year but otherwise neglected, something that will lead to its death as well. Moscow will like this scenario best of all because it will insist that it isn’t destroying nations. Instead, they are destroying themselves.

            In the current environment, Tatars who care about their identity must care about their language and seek ways to reverse the current decline, including but not only by restoring the place of the Tatar language in the school system so that the language and as a result their nation will have a future.

Online Sales of Books Especially Important for Non-Russian Peoples in Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 24 – During the first quarter of this year, one in four books in foreign, national or ancient languages was purchased by people living in Russian towns with populations of less than 50,000, places where such books are not available in local bookshops, many of which have closed, and that means that online sales are especially important.

            Over this period, Kommersant reports, demand for books in Udmurt, Mari and Vepsy more than tripled, a sign not only that online sales are especially important to such communities but that despite expectations to the contrary, hard copy books remain in demand despite the rise in electronic versions (kommersant.ru/doc/8760489).

            Measured by the amount of money spent on them, books  retain their dominance in the Russian book market, although such a measure overstates their significant overall because hard copy books in almost all cases cost more than electronic versions; but the Moscow paper insists that hard copy books have retained their niche.

            According to Irina Antonova of the Alpina publishing group, “for the past few years, the Russian book market has exhibited a curious paradox: the total number of titles is rising and the average print runs are falling, but the average prices are increasing,” something that suggests there will be demand for hard copy books well into the future.

            One reason for that pattern, she and others in the publishing industry say, is that young adults now dominate the market for hard copy books, care especially about the physical qualities of the publications, and see books as something of an investment for the long term at a time when there are few others they feel confident will rise in value.

            Konstantin Anokhin of Kommersant concludes: “The printed book has neither defeated digital services nor lost out to them; instead, it has carved out its own niche alongside them. Digital formats do offer speed and convenient access to content, whereas the printed book offers something else.”

Specifically, he continues, they give purchasers “the chance to immerse oneself more deeply in a subject, build a personal library, derive aesthetic pleasure from the physical volume itself, or share the reading experience with others. Consequently, the question of the printed book’s survival is no longer a pressing issue.”

That appears to be especially true in non-Russian regions.