Ingushetia Won’t Get Better Until Powers that Be in Moscow are Changed, Tatarnikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 11 – The people of Ingushetia, one of the most impoverished federal subjects, must recognize that no republic head will be able to correct the situation unless and until there is a change in composition and attitudes of the powers that be in Moscow, Fortanga commentator Yevgeny Tatarnikov says.

            The Ingush, he says, “are the victims of the existing system of relations between the federal center and the regions.” They are thus in exactly the same situation as the rest of Russia.  And “no head of the republic will be able to change the situation for the better” until there is “radical change” in Moscow (fortanga.org/2020/08/ingushetiya-svodki-pikiruyushhej-ekonomiki/).

            Consequently, Tatarnikov argues, if they want to have a better life, they must shift from focusing on getting a new leader in Magas and work with the peoples of other regions and republics to get a new leader in Moscow, a shift that has become especially important now because the situation in Ingushetia and elsewhere is getting worse.

            In recent years, “practically all socio-economic indicators of Ingushetia” have shown a sharply negative decline. In 2012, 12 percent of the republic’s population was below the poverty line; now 30 percent is.  And that figure would be still worse if it weren’t for government subsidies, an indication that the economy has almost ceased to work.

            But if there are more poor, he continues, there is also a greater disparity between the top and the bottom. Officially, the top decile earns 14 times what the bottom does; unofficially but accurately, the real difference is 50 to 100 times. That compares with figures in Western Europe of two to three times.

            Many Ingush can’t afford to buy good quality food or clothing.   Thirty percent of them are unemployed, six times the all-Russian average; and the real figures for unemployment and under-employment are far higher. At the same time, more than 80 percent who do have jobs are bureaucrats, siloviki and others employed by the government.

            According to statistics, it takes an Ingush family from 13 to 15 years to earn enough money to purchase an apartment, a figure whose tragic consequences is concealed by the fact that it takes even longer for people in the neighboring republics of Chechnya, Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Daghestan to do so.

            Up to now, most Ingush have accepted the notion that their republic is responsible for all this, that any problems are those of their regional leaders or themselves. But, Tatarinkov argues, they must see that their situation reflects what Moscow is doing or not doing and work to change things first and foremost not in Magas but in the Russian capital.

            To the extent that the residents of Ingushetia and other federal subjects reach that conclusion, Moscow will face a very different challenge than the ones it has so far, a challenge in which the peoples of the periphery will see that the arrogation of power and wealth by those in the capital is why they are suffering so much.

            In connecting these dots, the peoples of the periphery will come together as a united front against the center rather than remaining as they typically have been in the past divided and riven by the sense that they are not Moscow, despite all the center’s claims of all-powerfulness, are to blame.