Countries in Organization of Turkic States Adopt Common History Textbook

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 3 – The Organization of Turkic States have adopted a common textbook on the common history of the Turkic peoples, a development that Kazakhstan commentator Seri Maleyev says will create “a common optic” through which these peoples will see their unity as far more important than anything that divides them.

            “The main consequence of the appearance of a common history is the formation of a common cultural code,” one that will unite them in far-reaching ways, he says (altyn-orda.kz/v-shkolah-tyurkskogo-mira-poyavilas-obshhaya-istoriya-pochemu-eto-sobytie-menyaet-uchebnuyu-programmu-navsegda/).

            According to Maleyev, “it is important also that the textbook consciously focuses on period which united and did not divide,” the period before the era of “colonial divisions” of the Turkic world and the conflicts into which some parts of that world were drawn into with other Turkic peoples.

            Whether textbooks alone can achieve the goals the Kazakhstan commentator suggests remains to be seen, But this effort shows that those promoting the re-emergence of a unified Turkic world have already achieved more than Putin in his efforts to promote a common Russian World.

            In Soviet times, Moscow imposed a common history on the various peoples of the USSR. That fell apart in the 1990s when the Soviet Union did. Putin has sought to recreate such a common historical education across the various peoples of the Russian Federation; but he has had absolutely no success in promoting it more broadly.

            And that suggests that those who want to talk about the rise of cultural worlds broader than a single country should be looking at the Turkic one rather than the Russian, even though today Russia because of its nuclear weapons and pretensions invariably attracts more attention in most places.

Russia’s Infrastructure Problems Built Up Over Decades Now So Disastrous that Tariffs are Skyrocketing Beyond Ability of Citizenry to Pay

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 3 – Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and in some cases even earlier, officials did not spend what was necessary to keep power and water infrastructure in good repair; and this winter, an especially cold one in many places, has led to massive breakdowns that are receiving widespread attention in the media.

            But what is really infuriating Russians is not the breakdowns themselves but the decision of the officials to boost communal services tariffs far above the rate of inflation and often the ability of consumers to pay as operators struggle to fix current problems and prevent future ones (newizv.ru/news/2026-02-04/gnilye-truby-za-vash-schet-kak-rossiyan-zastavlyayut-oplachivat-desyatiletniy-iznos-setey-438751).

            In many places, consumers simply can’t pay their bills and aren’t; and as a result, the companies are finding it ever more difficult to come up with the funds to make repairs, utility company officials and academic experts say. And what that means is the situation with communal services in Russia is likely to get far worse before it gets any better.

            Indeed, they suggest, this may become a political problem as people across the Russian Federation are confronted with the twin problems of a collapse of service and higher communal service bills, something that one expert suggests has created “a perfect storm” in the Russian social and political marketplace. 

In Words Kremlin will Welcome, Senior Russian Muslim Leader Says Faithful Should Avoid Praying in Public

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 4 – The approach of Ramadan means that tens of thousands if not more of Russia’s Muslims will gather outside the few mosques the Kremlin has allowed them to open, an event that attracts widespread attention among Russians because it highlights just how many religious Muslims there are in the Russian Federation.

            Moscow officials have tried to discourage the faithful from attending in various ways, but now they have gained an important ally in that effort: Talgat Tajuddin, the head of the Central Muslim Directorate in Ufa, the last Soviet-appointed mufti still in office, and the self-styled Supreme Mufti of Russia.

            The mufti said that while Islam allows for prayer “practically anywhere, believers are required not to inconvenience others and not to disrupt public order,” a statement he made after Dagestan’s nationality policy and religious affairs ministry said that prayer, “not being a political action or missionary work,” is “not a violation of the law” (readovka.news/news/237587/).

            Tajuddin’s position is closer to that of the Russian authorities who are typically upset when thousands of believers come to mosques but are forces to pray outside especially at holidays because the mosques are too small or too few in number to handle believers who want to participate.

             A few muftis in the Russian Federation have taken a similar position, but most have not spoken out on this issue (readovka.news/news/234954/). One creative response to what appears to be government pressure comes from the government of Bashkortostan (nazaccent.ru/content/45103-v-bashkirii-budut-translirovat-pyatnichnye-namazy-iz-mecheti/).

            Ufa promises to televise prayers from the main mosques there so that believers can participate in them without leaving home and going to the mosques where they will spill into the street. Whether such broadcasts will increase or decrease the religious enthusiasm of believers remains to be seen.

Veterans Returning to Impoverished Russian Regions Likely to Have Even More Problems than Those Returning to Most Non-Russian Republics, Rybakova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 2 – Putin’s decision to complect his army from impoverished federal subjects ethnic Russian and non-Russian alike and his demand that these subjects bear primary responsibility for veterans means that such regions and republics will bear a disproportionate burden as soldiers return from the war, Tatyana Rybakova says.

            These federal subjects will have more returnees and fewer resources to help them, making it likely that crime rates will go up far more in them and in the country as a whole, the Not Moscow Speaks journalist says (nemoskva.net/2026/02/02/prishel-soldat-s-fronta-est-li-u-vlasti-plan-ego-adaptaczii/).

            But she adds that the problems the returning veterans represent are likely to be far higher in impoverished but predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays than they will be in what are often as poor or even poorer non-Russian republics in the North Caucasus and the federal subjects east of the Urals.

            Strikingly and perhaps for most unexpectedly, Rybakova continues, “the fewest problems will probably be faced by those veterans from the North Caucasus. As a rule, people from there have a place to return to and fairly large and close-knit circles of relatives” who will try to help them out.

            The chief problem the veterans returning to the North Caucasus will present, she argues, will be women. “On the one hand, traditional societies there are more tolerant of violence against them; and on the other, those returning from the war will mainly have the opportunity to vent their aggression on the women of their families.”

            In Buryatia and Tuva, the situation is also likely to be less bad than in oblasts and krays where ethnic Russians form the majority. In those to republics, the journalist says, “a cult of war and the military” still exists, and that means that society will help returning veterans to adapt even if officials lack the funds to help.

            The situation in impoverished ethnic Russian oblasts and krays will likely be bad because poverty rates are high and there is little in the way of a tradition for society to help veterans and little money available to the regional governments to take the steps the veterans will need, especially those who have been left handicapped.

            Perhaps the worst situation of all will not be in these two types of regions and republics far from Moscow but in megalopolises like the Russian capital to which veterans who can’t get help in their home regions are likely to flee in the hopes of getting help there. Unsurprisingly, the ethnic Russian veterans are more likely to do that than the non-Russian ones. 

Public’s Fears have Different Political Impact in Democracies than in Authoritarian Systems like Russia’s Today, ‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 2 – When people are fearful, their fears have political consequences, the editors of Nezavisimaya Gazeta say; but these are very different in democracies where the population expects that it will have the chance to change those in charge relatively soon than in authoritarian systems where people have little or no expectation that they can change rulers.

            In democracies, fearful people often blame those in power and seek to replace them, often falling victim to populists who promise solutions but can’t deliver; but in authoritarian systems, the editors of the Moscow paper say, those who fear often rally around the leader even if they blame him or her for their problems (ng.ru/editorial/2026-02-02/2_9428_red.html).

“In systems where power changes little or not at all despite the formal existence of democratic institutions,” they write, “the ruling elite still fears that anxious citizens will behave in the same way as people in the first type of society. Because of this, restrictions may be tightened; and populism or mechanisms of ‘a social state’ may be activated.”

It appears, the paper argues, that “the authorities seem to distrust the stably functioning psychosocial mechanism that they themselves have been preserving and supporting year after year,” one based on the logic that “fear does not lead to questioning the competence of the authorities (except perhaps at a very low level) but on the contrary, to rallying around them.”

As a result, however “paradoxical” it may seem, the paper says, “the approval ratings of the authorities in periods of anxiety in such systems do not decrease, and often even increase.” Moreover, the editors add, such societies if fears intensify, can be “calmed down quite quickly even if the anxiety-inducing context remains unchanged.”

Russian Conservatives See Halal Certification as ‘Threat’ to the State, But Moscow Officials Say It Helps Boost Russian Exports to Islamic Countries

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 2 – Conservatives in the Duma, the Moscow Patriarchate and in Russian society at large say that the practice of certifying foodstuffs and other goods as “halal” and thus cleared for use by Muslims represents “a threat” to Russian national security and to Russian identity more generally.

            In the latest issue of NG-Religii, Andrey Melnikov, the editor of that publication, surveys the statements of several of these nationalists in this latest expression of anger by some members of one group to practices of another; but he says that they are unlikely to get their way, however much noise they make (ng.ru/ng_religii/2026-02-02/9_611_halal.html).

            The reason is simple: Russian officials say that halal certification helps Russia to export foodstuffs and other goods to Muslim countries, something that the powers that be do not want to give up. Consequently, halal products are almost certain to continue to appear on the shelves of Russian stores.

Not One Russian University Remains in World’s Top 200, ‘Krisis-Kopilka’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 2 – Not a single one of Russia’s universities ranks in the world’s top 200. The highest-ranking Russian school is Moscow State University which ranks 227^th, down 12 positions from last year and 29 places from 2021, the year before Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine, according to the annual rating by the University of Leiden.

            Other Russian universities ranked even lower: St. Petersburg State University stood at 533^rd, the Higher School of Economics at 824, the Urals Federal University at 898, Kazan State University at 1053^rd, Novosibirsk State University at 1189, and the Moscow Physical Technological Institute at 1244^th (krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/105337).

            No Russian university made the top 50 in physics or mathematics, traditionally Russian strengths. Moscow State was the highest at 68^th in physics, and the Higher School of Economics was the highest Russian university at 315^th with Moscow State University ranking only 479^th in the world.

            Other studies of scholarly productivity in Russia also show declines since the war in Ukraine began. In 2024, for example, 21,608 patents were issued in Russia, 1800 fewer than the year before and 7100 fewer than in pre-war 2020. An another has been the brain drain as Russian scholars leave to work abroad either because of differences with the regime over policies or because of the insertion of unqualified but well-connected rectors supervising their work.