Subsidies to Regions for Nationality Policy Suggest Where Moscow Thinks It has the Most Problems

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 5 – The Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs has announced its subsidies to the 69 federal subjects which applied; and if one excludes those with high earnings from oil and gas production, its awards provide a useful ranking of the places where Moscow is most concerned about ethnic issues.

            The seven republics to which FADN is giving the most money in rank order are Bashkortostan which will receive 16.6 million rubles (250,000 US dollars), Daghestan, North Ossetia, Mari El, Karelia and Tatarstan (10.8 million rubles (160,000 US dollars)) (fadn.gov.ru/system/attachments/attaches/000/029/662/original/П-14_от_09.06.18.PDF?1529673116).

            The smallest subsidies went to petroleum rich regions which presumably can afford to finance activities like Days of the Russian Language on their own. They received from 998,000 rubles (17,000 US dollars) in the case of the Khanty-Mansiisk AO to 729,000 rubles (12,000 US dollars) for the Nenets AO.

            Significantly near the bottom were the republics of the western portion of the North Caucasus and the republics of southern and eastern Siberia.

            Many predominantly Russian federal subjects like Kursk, Kaluga, Kirov, Ivanovo, Vologda, Kemerovo, Leningrad, and Penza oblasts and Perm Kray are very unhappy with being left out in the cold, according to Nazaccent (nazaccent.ru/content/27632-regiony-prosyat-eshyo.html). Moscow is clearly overlooking Russian areas, they complain.

            In response to a Nazaccent query, FADN said that 60 percent of its money had gone to the non-Russian republics, 18 percent to krays or cities of federal importance, and 22 percent to oblasts and autonomous districts.  But it pointed out that the number of federal subjects receiving grants had nonetheless risen from 43 in 2015 to 62 this year.