Moscow’s System of Special Benefits for Northern Peoples Not Working as Advertised

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 10 – Russian law extends special benefits to the numerically small peoples of the Russian North so that members of these communities can continue their traditional way of life, one based on hunting and fishing.  But the law isn’t working: these non-Russians aren’t getting the advantages they are supposed to, and Russians are upset they are getting any.

            Instead, regional governments under pressure from often more numerous ethnic Russian communities in these regions and the federal government working hand in glove with outside Russian corporations are undermining Russian law and putting the numerically small nations of this region on the path to further impoverishment and even extinction.

            Rodion Sulyandziga, director of the Center for the Support of the Indigenous Numerically Small Peoples of the North which Moscow disbanded last week (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/11/moscow-shuts-ngo-that-defended-northern.html, says this combination has deprived these communities of their rights “for decades” (mbk-news.appspot.com/suzhet/kak-rabotayut-lgoty-dlya-korennyx-narodov/).

             What the law declares and what happens on the ground are different things, and this is “the most significant problem,” the activist says. Federal laws often are contradicted by local and regional regulations and by the ability of corporations or larger ethnic communities to ignore both the letter and the spirit of legislation, Sulyandziga continues.

            Not only do local officials ignore the rights that members of these communities have but they act in ways that mean that those from these nations who try to exercise their rights are treated as criminals, accused of poaching when in fact they have the right to fish and hunt and deprived of access to land where they can engage in their traditional ways of life.

            The northern peoples in the past did not divide up the land, but with the expansion of Russian industry into their regions, many of them are finding that outsiders view them as the interlopers rather than themselves. And these corporations supported by the political authorities and the Russian population often deny the right of people to claim membership in these nations.

            Two years ago, an effort was launched to give members of these communities a special document that would allow them to exercise their rights, but so far, Sulyandziga says, that measure which seemed to promise a way out has stalled, the victim of Russian government and corporate opposition. (On this proposal, see tass.ru/obschestvo/4805956.)

            Outside companies get away with destroying the habitats of the creatures the peoples of the North rely on to survive. As a result, not only do the creatures die off but the survival of these peoples at least if they want to retain their traditional way of life is put at risk, the embattled ethnic activist says.

            In general, these peoples, who number in total fewer than 250,000, find less than full support from surrounding Russians who resent that the non-Russians get benefits they do not and from the Russian government which regularly makes positive pronouncements but then doesn’t follow through.

            One example of that, Sulyandziga says, concerns pension ages. Moscow agreed to have the pension age for numerically small peoples to be lower than for others, 55 for men and 50 for women. Russians object to that, but the numerically small peoples do not get much benefit from it. At present, men from these communities die on average at 47, eight years before that standard.

            But what is especially disturbing is that some Russians seek to get these benefits by reidentifying themselves as members of these numerically small peoples even though they have no basis for doing so. Moscow has passed a law against this, but up to now, it isn’t being universally enforced. (On that problem, see kommersant.ru/doc/4046399.)

            The biggest problem the numerically small peoples of the North have is one they share with all Russian citizens, Sulyandziga says. The entire political system is based on “the exploitation of natural resources.” The peoples of the North are often the first victims of this, but they are not the only or the last.