Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 27 – Just how absurd
and unjust the Putin regime has become has been highlighted by the actions of
officials and business interests in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District: they
have brought charges against a reindeer herder who met with a handful of his
colleagues literally in the middle of nowhere for holding “an unsanctioned
meeting.”
Reindeer herders and fisherman meet
all the time, sometimes brought together by accident and at other times by
Internet posts suggesting they get together at particular map coordinates to divide
up their herds, talk about life and common problems, and sometimes discuss appealing
to the authorities about them.
This has been going on for generations,
although the use of the Internet is new. But now restrictive Russian laws and Moscow’s
insistence that one size fits all and that regulations that might make sense in
large cities are entirely appropriate for people who live far from any village
let along urban center.
It is out of just such absurdities
that popular anger grows because it shows just how frightened officials and
business interests are of any action they don’t sanction and control, how much
contempt they have for the population, and how the powers that be are driven by
what they can easily find online rather than by anything else.
Yuliya Starinova of the Sibreal portal tells the story. “On the Yamal peninsula,” she writes, “the
police have handed over to the court a case about the organization of an
unsanctioned meeting that took place at the end of March in the middle of the
tundra … At this ‘action’ 36 reindeer herders and fisherman assembled” (sibreal.org/a/29896978.html).
Eyko Serotetto,
who edits the Voice of the Tundra site on VKontakte, called on his fellow
followers of traditional ways of life to meet at particular map coordinates. That’s
normal now and the only way people can be sure of coming together in the vast unoccupied
lands of the Russian North.
Thirty-six of them
with more than 600 reindeer in tow came together to talk about the problems
they face in their lives, the depradations that are being visited upon them by
oil and gas companies, and their fears about the future, the kind of things all
people talk about, and they decided to write a letter to the governor.
That was too much for Russian
officialdom, and the wheels of police administration – one can hardly say justice
in this case – began to spin. Serotetto found out two weeks later that he was
being charged with organizing an unsanctioned meeting – even though he and his
fellows had met like this many times before in the middle of the tundra without
any problems.
He suspects that at least three
factors are at work: the authorities’ desire to show Moscow that they are
acting on its orders, oil and gas companies who have a cozy relationship with the
powers that be and don’t want to hear from the population, and a rapidly
declining standard of living among these traditional ways of life.
Seretotto and his friends are
undeterred despite charges against him and attempted interrogations of the
others, all of whom refused to cooperate with the police. They held a second meeting eight days ago at
which there were eight people, six dogs, and 600 head of reindeer. No charges have been filed about that session
at least not yet.
The activist says he plans to hold “yet
another meeting. Those of us who live in the tundra always have problems to
discuss. Who will come to it? I think, 800 reindeer and about ten reindeer
herders.”
All of this brings to mind Edward
Topol’s wonderful novel, Red Snow, about
how the reindeer herders supposedly organized to bring down Moscow’s power in the
North in Soviet times. Clearly there are some in the Putin regime now who think
that such a fictional scenario could become real. At least, they seem to be
doing everything they can to promote that outcome.
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