Window on Eurasia: Rural Poverty a ‘Brake’ on Russia’s Development, Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 17 – Using international standards, approximately one Russian in four still lives in poverty, but the situation is incomparably worse in rural areas, where incomes are on average only about half those of urban residents and where ever fewer people produce their own food rather than relying on store purchases, a trend that makes this situation even worse.

            Indeed, according to an unsigned commentary today on Agronews.ru, rural poverty remains so bad that it now constitutes “a brake” on Russia’s more general economic development, reducing food production overall, imposing stiff demographic costs, and leading to ever more flight from the countryside (www.agronews.ru/news/detail/116882/).

            The very day this week that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was taking credit for the growth in real incomes in the population over the last year and promising that the country would overcome poverty “by the end of this decade,”  the Russian statistical agency Rosstat published its quarterly report on “the incomes, spending and consumption” of rural Russians.

            The data that report provided, the Agronews.ru commentary says, “testify that the village [in Russia] remains a broad territory of poverty on the map of contemporary Russia, a country which nonetheless occupied a noted place in the world ratings as to the number of billionaires” in its urban population.”

            Per capita incomes in rural Russia, Rosstat said, rose 1700 rubles (55 US dollars) between 2010 and 2011, but “nevertheless, the average per capita earnings of a rural resident were 4,000 rubles less than the country-wide average and 6500 rubles less than an urban resident had.” Indeed, “80 percent of rural residents” had less than the average for Russia as a whole.

            Moreover, the Russian government statistical office said, this situation was in fact worse because of a deepening of “a serious differentiation of the incomes of the rural population.”  The poorest ten percent of rural Russians had earnings of 2634 rubles while the most well-off decile had income of 26,576 rubles or “ten times more.”

            And this situation is further exacerbated, Agronews.ru noted, by the reality that compared with the past, “a major factor of rural well-being – income from work on private gardens” – is with each year losing its importance.” Indeed, at present, such earnings are “extremely modest” and constitute only 907 rubles a month – or about 30 US dollars.

            As has long been true, the statistics show, pay in rural areas “remains the lowest among all times of economic activity” with the possible exception of textile workers whose wages have been depressed by “cheap Chinese mass production.” In 2011, that meant that the pay rural residents received was “only 53 percent” of the urban average.

            Widespread assumptions notwithstanding, the cost of living in rural Russia “is hardly less than it is in the city.” Spending on food for rural families now forms 36 percent of household spending on food products because rural Russians increasingly buy food in stores where prices in reality often are higher for these things than in cities.

            For Russian poverty in rural areas to be “liquidated” by 2020 as Putin has proposed will “require a sharp growth in pay in the village.  That is something officials understand and have even tried to achieve in the past, but “for a long time – and despite changes in agrarian policy – pay in the village remains” where it has been, at about 50 percent of the country-wide average.

            Five years ago, Agronews.ru points out, the World Russian Popular Assembly “noted that poverty represents the main obstacle on the path to the modernization of the country.”  And it expressed “particular concern” about “the serious gap in the level of incomes between the city and the countryside.”

            That is because such income differentials are leading to “the outflow of the remaining agricultural population to the city, intensifying the abandonment of the Russian countryside, and [meaning that] the village leads in terms of the level of unemployment.”  Five years have past since those comments were made, “but there has been very little change.”

Window on Eurasia: Mari Association in Russian Capital Marks Tenth Anniversary

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 17 – The Association of Maris in Moscow, a group created to preserve ethnic identity among that Finno-Ugric community, promote ties between the Mari diaspora and the Republic of Mari El, and promote media and scholarly attention to their ethno-national community, has just marked its 10^th anniversary.

            The Mariuver portal this week provides a chronology of 45 events that the association has either sponsored or taken part of, providing an unusual group into one of the many ethnic and regional “zemlyachestvas” in the Russian capital  who are often ignored as an activity and a source (mariuver.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/zemljach-10/).

            As the chronology notes, the Mari Association was established by 55 people living in Moscow and Moscow oblast who were either former residents of Mari El or members of the Mari and other Finno-Ugric peoples at a meeting in the Hungarian Cultural Center in the Russian capital.

            The Maris took the lead, the chronology suggests, in organizing links with ethno-cultural groups of Mordvins, Udmurts, Karelians, Komis, and Ingermanlanders as well as with activists, officials and scholars in the three Finno-Ugric countries, Estonia, Finland, and Hungary as well as with the Russian media and scholarly community.

            One Russian scholar who has focused on groups like the Mari, Yu. Yerofeyev, wrote a book which former Russian nationalities minister V.A. Mikhailov said provides important insights on Russian federalism and ethnic relations by focusing on “the development of national-cultural autonomies and zemlyachestvas.”

            Unfotunately, in the era of Vladimir Putin, the group has been less successful in working with Russian officials.  The presidential plenipotentiary for the Middle Volga promised to carry the Mari Association’s critical ideas back to Mari El but “in practice,” he did nothing to the enormous disappointment of Moscow’s Maris.

            But if the Mari Association has not had great influence with officials, it has played an increasingly important role, the chronology suggests, in preparing and placing articles in the Russian media, print and electronic, and in providing information about the Finno-Ugric nationalities more generally.

            “For the years of its existence” and despite all the difficulties related to funding and housing, “the zemlyachestvo [of the Maris] has become quite widely known in Moscow, the Republic of Mari El, Bashkortostan and in other Russian regions,” its officers say, adding that “they know us in Estonia, Hungary and Finland.”  

Window on Eurasia: Kyrgyz Who Fled Afghanistan to Turkey Now Seek Return to Kyrgyzstan

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 16 – A group of ethnic Kyrgyz, whose ancestors fled to China because of Soviet oppression, then to Afghanistan because of Chinese Communist oppression, and finally to Turkey at the time of the Soviet invasion of that country, has now asked Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atabayev to allow them to resettle in their ancestral homeland.

            On Friday, Kasymbek Shahkir uulu, the leader of the Kyrgyz community in Turkey, travelled to Ankara to meet with visiting Kyrgyzstan President Alazbek Atambayev in order to ask him whether he could assist some of the 600 Kyrgyz families who live near Lake Van and in Istanbul to return to their homeland (kg.akipress.org/news:467581).

            Shakhir uulu told the media that “the life of the Kyrgyz who are now living in the Van region of Turkey was quite good but that they wanted to resettle in Kyrgyzstan because they were concerned about the future of their children and grandchildren,” who might be subject to assimilation.

            If Turkey’s Kyrgyz do return to Kyrgyzstan, that would complete a remarkable odyssey. The forefathers of this group, who participated in the anti-Soviet basmachi movement in Central Asia, fled to China in the late 1920s. Then when the Chinese Communists established their regime, the Kyrgyz then moved again to the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan. invaders, but

            Following the Soviet invasion in 1979, their leader, Rakhmankul, and many of his people – just over 1100 remain in Afghanistan -- subsequently decided to leave.  Initially, they fled  to Pakistan and then sought asylum in Alaska, a place they believed was like the Wakhan, but Washington refused their request. And they moved to Turkey in 1982.

            Ankara settled them in the Lake Van area around the village of Ulupamir in order both to present itself as the defender of all Turkic peoples and to strengthen the Turkic presence in a predominantly Kurdish region. The story of this remarkable people was portrayed in the documentary film, “37 Uses for a Dead Sheep: The Story of the Pamir Kyrgyz.”

Window on Eurasia: Moscow, Regions Destroying Russia’s Nature Reserve System, Greenpeace Says

Paul Goble 

            Staunton, January 16 – Russia’s nature reserves system that was set up just before the February 1917 revolution and once among the best in the world is suffering from neglect and the encroachment of unrestrained economic development, according to Greenpeace on the occasion of the 95^th anniversary of the country’s first national park.

            Russia’s first national reserve was established on January 11, 1917, during the first world war just to the north of Lake Baikal. “Unfortunately,” the ecological watchdog group notes, that park did not survive to see this anniversary because of a 2011 decision of Yury Trutnev, Russia’s natural resources minister (www.greenpeace.org/russia/ru/news/10-01-2012-the-end-of-oopt/).

            In September of last year, the organization says, Trutnev united the reserve into a single structure with the Transbaikal National Park, but this move does not save the preserve bur rather destroys it because the ministry permits “almost any economic activity” on the territory of the national parks, opening the way to “the rapid end of the Russian reserve system.”

            Over the last few years, Greenpeace says, the Russian authorities “have not developed” the nature preserve system but destroyed it” by “changing borders” of the reserves, “the seizure of territory, illegal use, changes in general legal norms, the driving out of qualified specialists” from the field “and so on.”

            One of the “hottest of the hot spots” on the nature reserve map of Russia is the Caucasus, the organization says, where Moscow appears to have developed new “methods for a struggle against reserve territories and also against those who defend them,” all in the name of economic development.

            Four of the planned five new ski resorts in the region, in which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has displayed a particular interest, are on the territories in whole or in part of federal nature preserves.  Moreover, the Caucasus has its own “road to nowhere,” one to a non-existent meteorological station.

            The reason for that road, Greenpeace says, has nothing to do with weather monitoring. Instead, it is “connected with the construction of the latest government residence, ‘Lunnaya polyana,’” and will have serious ecological consequences despite claims by Moscow and regional officials.

            President Dmitry Medvedev has made this destruction of nature reserves easier with the signing of a new law on November 30, 2011, which allows the construction of “any touristic and sport facilities  on the biosphere segments of the biosphere nature reserves and also allows for land it them to be rented out. More than 40 biosphere zones are at risk as a result.

            Sometimes in order to avoid legal restrictions, Greenpeace says, Moscow officials simply change the borders of the reserves even though such steps often destroy the most important parts of them and thus violate the spirit if not the exact letter of the law. Among the worst cases of this concerns Gazprom construction in the Altay region, a step actively opposed by UNESCO.

            “Unfortunately,” Greenpeace adds, “in all the  recent scandals” connected with Russia’s nature preserves, “the law enforcement organs have been inclined to support ‘the strong of this world’ instead of standing up on the side of the law.”  That in itself, the organization says, sends a message that even more violations will be tolerated in the future.

            And what is especially disturbing is that the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources is now purging from its ranks those specialists who want to defend Russia’s natural heritage.  Last year, a group of worker from the Baikal National Park sent a joint letter to President Medvedev calling on him to protect them in their efforts to enforce the law against the bureaucracy.

 But instead of taking up their case, Medvedev’s office turned their appeal over to the very people against whom the signatories had appealed, and in the months since, “repressions against those who signed” the appeal to the president have begun in that national park. Indeed, “practically all” who signed “have either been removed or forced to retract their opinion.”

            Last year, “despite the claims of federal bureaucrats,” Greenpeace points out, “not a single nature reserve or national park was created,” and many of the existing parks were “destroyed by fires, logging or the seizure of land.”  And, the nature defense group says, in many parts of Russia, regional officials are not lagging behind in such destructive actions.

Window on Eurasia: Tatarstan Ulema Head Equates Islamic Modernists with Wahhabis

Paul Goble

Staunton, January 13 – Rustam Batrov, the chairman of the Ulema Council of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of the Republic of Tatarstan, says that that Islamic modernism in the form of the jadids opened the way to widespread atheis there and that, in the words of one commentator, “the jadids are the same as the Wahhabis who are the same as the godless ones.”

Batrov’s attack on jadidism, the modernist form of Islam developed in the Middle Volga at the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th centuries, came in the course of his review of a play about Mukhlisi Bubi, the first female Kazi in the world who was shot by Stalin in 1937 because of her work with Muslim women (islam-portal.ru/communication/blog/Batrov/138.php).

But as Tatar historian Aydar Khabutdinov points out in a commentary today, Batrov’s “strange equation” reflects the Tatarstan MSD’s increasing tilt, backed by Moscow, toward “the rural Kadamist [traditionalist] and Soviet model” of Islam, one that “does not allow the restoration of the urban jadid model” (www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusmonitorings/19872/).

“With the dying out of the last students of the jadids,” Khabutdinov says, “ever more recedes into the past the model ofTatar urban development.” In its place is “the so-called ‘shyrygdan’ (that is, rural Kadaist) model” whose adoption will “only push away the urban Tatar majority from national-religious tradition.”

That is precisely why the Kadamist model is supported by the Russian Orthodox Church, Russian officials, and Russian writers like Roman Silantyev, the Tatar professor says. Such people do not want any part of “an attractive model for the teaching of the Tatar language, literature, and history of the Tatars in the predominantly Russian-language milieu of Tatarstan.”

This veritable campaign against jadidism and the kind of Islamic modernism that attracts the young far more than radicalism does, Khabutdinov continues, has won several victories in Tatarstan recently, most prominently in the decision of the new mufti, Ildus Fayzov, to pull his MSD out of the more modernist Council of Muftis of Russia (SMR).

Weakening the SMR has been a major goal of Silantyev and the Moscow Patriarchate with which he has long enjoyed close ties. And promoting the kadamist, as opposed to the jadid positions has been taken up as well by Rais Suleyanov, the director of the Volga Center for Regional and Ethno-Religious Research of the Russian Institute of Strategic Investigations.

Clearly, Batrov and his supporters believe that any increase in the influence of jadidism among the Tatars would lead to an increase in the number of convinced Muslims there and that defeating jadidism will prevent that, a calculation which parallels the one that Soviet anti-religious activists made during the last century.

But as Khabutdinov suggests and as historical experience confirms, attacking modernist Islam may not cause people in historically Muslim regions to turn from religion. Instead, it will likely open the way to  growth in underground radicalism, just as in late Soviet times -- precisely the outcome those attacking Islamic modernism say they want to avoid.

Window on Eurasia: No Crisis Exists in Russia But Dangers Abound, Pavlova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 13 – Irina Pavlova, one of the most thoughtful observers of the Moscow political scene, says that despite “the euphoria” of those who have taken part in the recent demonstrations, she “does not see in Russia a political crisis;” and for precisely that reason she sees chaos or neo-totalitarianism ahead.

            In an essay on the Grani.ru portal, Pavlova argues that “there is no crisis “because “those who have taken part in the meetings have not met even that minimum condition necessary for putting non-violent pressure on the powers that be” that analysts agree are necessary to move from dictatorship to democracy (grani.ru/opinion/m.194777.html).

            In Russia, she points out, the meetings “have stopped,” rather than continued as in Ukraine or Egypt. The “atomization of those protesting” had not been overcome; instead, it has only deepened” to the point where “literally a war of all against all has begun.” There is no common strategy, and there is “no unity” on the issue of “the monopoly of power.”

            According to Pavlova, the December protests do reflect “the general state of Russian society,” that she says is “just as in 1991, pseudo-democratic.” There has been one major change, however. Twenty years ago, there was support for both “Western democratic ideals and eastern totalitarian habits.” Now, support for the former has fallen, while backing for the latter has risen.

            Russian society, she continues,” perhaps really has fallen out of love for Vladimir Putin and is dissatisfied with its life, although this fact says more about the nature of society itself, in which all of three years ago was observed a diametrically opposed picture with almost 80 percent being satisfied with their lives.”

            But then and now, the demonstrators put their hopes in “the powers.” “Without Putin but with the Powers.” Regardless of their place in the political spectrum, left, right or center, “everyone awaits for the moment when the Power will finally display ‘political will,’” something the demonstrators have not yet shown.

            “That is why, despite the curses directed against ‘the national leader,’ Russia is condemned to have a new vozhd.” Indeed, Pavlova says, “one thing is clear: the new turn of historical development of the country dictates the strengthening of traditional Russian statehood and the enslavement of society with all the consequences that flow from that.”

            A “democratic” alternative is simply not in view; it isn’t even in its cradle. Instead, few would dispute that “no democratic revolution took place in August 1991, although then too everyone was in a euphoric condition. But in the following years, the Russian power only strengthened its position,” subordinating all including “’the new Russians.’”

            That is because the latter, while becoming rich through the possession of state property never had clear title to it as property owners. As a result, in “an irony of history,” these new Russian wealthy have found themselves in the position of “servants to the supreme power” rather than a new autonomous class.

            That allowed “the power corporation, which also became a property owner to put under control not only the force structures but society as well, having made it into the object of its own manipulations,” Pavlova argues. And that is also true of the protesters whose meetings “play into the hands of the Power because they legitimate the election campaign in the eyes of the West.”

            Consequently, she says, “the main question” now is whether the country can escape from a repetition of the Russian past. Can it avoid both a new “time of troubles” such as the one that it experienced in 1917 or a new wave of totalitarianism like the one that engulfed Russia in 1929?

            Theoretically it can, but still only theoretically, the Russian analyst suggests, because “there are still no signs that businessmen are capable of challenging the supreme power and demanding from it guarantees of the rights of private property.” Instead, “all of them remain quiet.”

            “No one even is trying to raise the principle question about the review of the results of privatization of the beginning of the 1990s and the establishment of honest rules of the gae. No one is trying to establish a normal liberal party. [And] no one is requiring a review of criminal cases and the freeing of thousands of prisoners who are serving time for economic crimes.”

            Instead of doing that, the businessmen “preparing to buy property abroad, to throw money to the wind, and to invest the in football clubs no one needs rather than invest the in the development of their own country.” That helps the Kremlin “hold the in its power by cultivating their guilt complexes.”

            Pavlova argues that “world history does not know any other path of establishing democratic procedures and institutes except for the affirmation of the right of private property.” That creates “the basis of the legal state in the West,” and without it, there will not be one in Russia anytime soon.

            Consequently, to demand in the current circumstances honest elections, elections to a pseudo-parliament in which pseudo-parties sit is nonsense, a contradiction in terms, not to mention that these demands only help the powers to strengthen the façade of imitation democracy that they have thrown up.”

            If things are to change, the Grani analyst continues, Russian society which “is interested in the free development of the country” must turn to the businessmen, “enlightening, organizing and educating their civic consciousness, convincing them to come out from under the wind of the powers that be.” 

            “Any other path is a path to neo-totalitarianism,” Pavlova continues, “with computers, I-phones, I-pads, with a new industrialization, but also with the traditional supreme power and a new enslavement” of the population.

Window on Eurasia: Less than One Russian in 12 is Middle Class by European Standards, Moscow Sociologists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 12 – Only six to eight percent of Russians are members of a genuine middle class, a group that has provided most of the protest energy in the country in recent months and one in which so many have placed their hopes for the political modernization of the Russian Federation,  according to researchers at the Moscow Institute of Sociology.

            Instead, 59 percent of the population, “the silent majority,” are poor, according to a book, “Russian Society as It Is” (in Russian; Moscow: Novy khronograf, 2011, 1000 copies), and worse yet the sociologists say, “Russian poverty has not fallen even in the relatively well-off years” (http://ttolk.ru/?p=9100).

            According to the “Tolkovatel” report about it which has been picked up by various Moscow outlets, the Academy of Sciences sociologists divided their mass sample into ten strata. The two lowest, the scholars said, are below the poverty level and together formed 16 percent of the population.

            The third and fourth strata, the book said, include the 43 percent of the population which are “balanced at the edge of poverty.”  The researchers continued, “Tolkovatel” stressed, that the fourth strata is the “modal” group in Russia; that is, the one that predominates and brings the total poor of Russia to 59 percent.

            The fifth through the eighth of the strata for an additional 33 percent of the population and thus are “the so-called ‘middle strata of Russian society,” but the sociologists stressed that if one applies the standards of Western countries, the only Russians are who really “middle class” are the six to eight percent in the ninth and tenth strata.

            The sociologists found that members of the Russian poor tend to be older (47 on average) than those in the middle class (42) and the average member of the wealthiest group (33). Moreover, “Tolkovatel” reported, “the greatest conception of poverty among young people is found in worker settlements” where 25 percent of the people live at or below the poverty line.

            Workers for the largest share of the poor, accounting for 63 percent of all people in that category.  Office workers form only 10 percent of the poor. In this sense, Russia is following a pattern typical of many Western countries: most of those in poverty have jobs and thus form the new “working poor.”

            The authors of the book, however, stressed that there is one huge difference between the situation in Europe and that in Russia. In Europe, surveys show, most people lay responsibility for anyone’s poverty on the individual in question; but in Russia, most blame others for such things as non-payment of wages and insufficient state support.

            According to the sociologists, “the basic cause of the appearance of poverty in Russia consists of macro-economic factors and the situation of the labor market. But they also pointed to another factor: there is a very large share of Russians – some 27 percent --who have higher and incomplete higher education but who are found among the poor.

            In addition to the size of their residences, Russians in the poorer groups are distinguished from those in the upper groups by their access to computers only six percent of the poor have a computer compared to an average for all Russians of 19 percent.  Specifically, among the poor only 19 percent use a computer, while 38 percent of the population as a whole does.