Russians Still have Many Ways to Promote Small Positive Changes Even when Achieving Big Ones Now are Impossible, ‘Horizontal Russia’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 20 – According to the Horizontal Russia news agency, achieving major positive changes in Russia anytime soon is an impossibility, according to the Horizontal Russia news agency. But Russians should not despair because there are still many opportunities to promote small changes for the better “without risking one’s freedom.”

            Increasing repression has left many residents of the Russian Federation with the sense with the sense that there is nothing they can do without becoming targets of the regime’s security forces. But in fact, there are many possibilities that give hope for the future that many are already taking advantage of (semnasem.org/articles/2024/03/20/rossiyu-ne-izmenit-eto-ne-tak-vot-idei-bezopasnogo-aktivizma-dlya-nachinayushih-ot-izucheniya-semejnoj-istorii-do-zaboty-o-gorode).

            Among them, Horizontal Russia reports are the following:

·       Participating in Independent discussion groups which exist in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Syktyvkar, and Tver where people can meet and discuss all kinds of issues and thus no longer feel atomized (vk.com/prostpolitika, /t.me/revoltcenter and semnasem.org/articles/2024/02/20/chem-tyazhelee-situaciya-v-rossii-tem-cennee-nash-proekt).

·       Taking part in community efforts to clean up areas around where one lives or to plant trees or maintain gardens (t.me/barnogorod/4, vk.com/parklandekb, vk.com/sadnurova and semnasem.org/articles/2024/02/26/pesochnica-kak-gorizontalnoe-obedinenie-iz-arhangelska-vospityvaet-v-lyudyah-ekoosoznannost).

·       Contributing to other groups of activists who are doing such things like planting trees where there have been forest fires, teaching young people in children’s homes, and restoring decaying buildings (barkingstore.ru/, nash.posadiles.ru/, vk.com/nastavnik.detinashi and t.me/horizontal_russia/8480). Additional ideas for making contributions can be found at nuzhnapomosh.ru/, which continues to work despite being classified as a foreign agent.

·       Researching one’s ancestors and nation to get a better sense of one’s own identity (semnasem.org/articles/2024/02/12/chtoby-ulaalzaj-zacvel-povsyudu-nebinarnaya-hudozhnica-iz-buryatii-prevratili-semejnuyu-istoriyu-v-zin-vot-kak-eto-poluchilos, t.me/nerusmir/826 and  t.me/nerusmir/793).

·       Studying one’s national language, participating in groups sharing a common interest such as feminism, or even joining others to run through one’s regoin (semnasem.org/articles/2023/03/15/kogda-govoryat-takie-zhe-kak-ty-uchastnicy-grupp-podderzhki-soobshestva-feminitiv-o-tom-kak-vstrechi-pomogayut-im-perezhivat-trudnosti, t.me/helpwithoutprejudice, semnasem.org/articles/2023/02/22/spravitsya-s-travmoj-svidetelya-pomozhet-gruppa-podderzhki-kak-sobrat-takuyu-bez-opyta-sovetuyut-aktivistki-proekta-ya-ostayus and vk.com/event217122399).

·       Writing letters to or even better getting together with others to write letters to those who have already fallen victim to repression and are now behind bars (t.me/myagkaya_sila_ru/5518, в Калининграде такие встречи устраивает фем-сообщество «Феминитив». https://t.me/sotavisionmedia/24722 Адреса политзаключенных публикуют правозащитные проекты «Зона солидарности», t.me/solidarity_zone, t.me/deptone, t.me/politzekinfo and semnasem.org/articles/2022/10/18/nasha-cel-pisat).

 

None of these activities is going to change Russia overnight, but all of them can help fight the sense that nothing can be done and thus provide the basis for the survival and growth of a civil society which may be able to change the bigger picture at some point in the future.

Election Over, Putin Regime Turns Its Attention to Nationality Problems

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 20 – Vladimir Putin has always been concerned that elections have the potential to spark nationality problems and has done what he could to prevent that from happening by having his spokesman and the media he controls play down those issues during campaigns.

            But once the elections take place, the Kremlin leader routinely has turned to the nationality problem, an indication of its continuing importance in the minds of Russia’s rulers even if all of them, including Putin, like to suggest that there are no serious ethnic issues and that everything is under control.

            This time around is no different. There have been three noteworthy developments on this front that suggest larger ones may be coming:

First, Vladimir Putin told FSB officers that they must step up work to counter efforts to “provoke a time of troubles, inter-ethnic conflicts ... and use Russophobia and any other form of intolerance” (nazaccent.ru/content/41974-vladimir-putin-prizval-zhestko-presekat-mezhnacionalnye-konflikty-v-rossii.html).

Putin has always relied on the FSB as his key vehicle for managing nationality policy, but this address to senior officers of that agency is in some ways his most serious because he links efforts to promote inter-ethnic conflicts and Russophobia to the idea that outside forces are trying to push Russia into a new time of troubles.

Second, Gennady Semigin, head of the Duma’s nationality affairs committee, called for the adoption of “a new national project – Multi-National Russia,” to resolve “problems of interethnic relations” in the Russian Federation (nazaccent.ru/content/41982-gennadij-semigin-predlozhil-sozdat-nacproekt-mnogonacionalnaya-rossiya.html).

Doing so would be to create the sixth such project, alongside the family and other issues. The prospects for this at least under the title Semigin proposes are somewhat problematic as many in the Putin regime want to stop talking about the multinational population of the Russian Federation and instead stress its common Russianness.

And third, Samigin told the Duma that according to “our information, [Putin] has given approval” to his proposal to re-establish a ministry for nationality affairs, an institution that would be directly subordinate to the president and very powerful (nazaccent.ru/content/41987-v-gosdume-zayavili-o-neobhodimosti-sozdaniya-ministerstva-po-nacionalnoj-politike-rf.html).

The deputy also called for the creation of a coordinating council on nationality policy that would include representatives of the Presidential Administration, the Russian Security Council, the government and other organs,” something that along with the new ministry would put the administration of nationality policy alongside the force structures.

 

Declining Precipitation This Year Threatens Tajikistan with Food Shortages, Rakhmon Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 20 – The amount of snow and rain Tajikistan has received this year is 70 percent less than last, that country’s president Emomali Rakhmon says, placing it among the more than 80 countries that face problems producing enough food this year and raising the specter of food shortages and even hunger.

            Rakhmon issued that warning in his message on Navruz (tass.ru/obschestvo/20290775), an annual holiday marking the arrival of spring and typically an occasion for upbeat statements. That makes his words about hunger especially worrisome coming as they follow similar warnings elsewhere in Central Asia (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/water-surplus-kyrgyzstan-increasingly.html).

            The Tajik president said that agricultural workers in Tajikistan must use what water they have as efficiently as possible; but if the shortfalls in precipitation are as great as he says, they face real challenges if they are to produce as much food as they have in the past. And any food shortages could both trigger more outmigration and political instability.

Some Russian Prison Camps to Be Shuttered as Recruitment of Convicts to Fight in Ukraine Reduces Number of Incarcerated

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 20 – So many Russian convicts are being recruited to fight in the Russian army in Ukraine that Moscow is planning to close a number of camps and prisons in Krasnoyarsk Kray, and a new Duma measure may increase the number of prisoners freed to fight and penal institutions closed.

            The Russian government has cut back on information about the recruitment of prisoners perhaps especially because some of them on their return from Ukraine have committed new crimes, but the size of the recruitment effort is reflected in this decision to close prisons and camps in Krasnoyarsk later this year (kommersant.ru/doc/6581322).

            Exactly how many will be closed has not been formally announced, but for the Kremlin, this is a win-win situation. It can proudly claim that it is reducing the number of those incarcerated and save money by closing down facilities needed to house them, and it can, despite some problems, get more cannon fodder for its war in Ukraine.

            But some experts are saying that such closures are a mistake because when the war ends, Russian society will return to what it was and there will be a need for these prisons and camps, forcing the authorities to reopen what they are now planning to close – and thus this action will cost more than keeping the facilities open (sibreal.org/a/32871567.html).

            At the same time, the Duma has approved a new bill that will likely boost the number of prisoners signing up as well as insulate Vladimir Putin from public criticism that he is releasing murderers and rapists to fight his war in Ukraine, criticism that only increases every time one of those released to fight in Ukraine and then commits new crimes after returning home.

            Up to now, the status of these people was defined by secret decrees issued by Putin himself or, since last month, they were declared “provisionally freed.” Under the new bill, if a prisoner agrees to join the Russian army, his sentence will be suspended (sibreal.org/a/gosduma-razreshila-osuzhdyonnym-uhodit-na-voynu-bez-pomilovaniya/32868665.html).

Moscow ‘Benefits from Mass Unemployment in North Caucasus,’ Lipshits Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 19 – The sources of mass unemployment in the North Caucasus are multiple and often cited: a high birthrate, widespread corruption, a large shadow economy, and instability; but in addition, Marina Liptshits says, there is another: Moscow benefits from this situation and isn’t doing anything to change it.

            The Moscow economist says that despite the Kremlin’s frequent promises to address unemployment in the North Caucasus, it is not doing anything effective about it because the situation allows it to buy the loyalty of the elites there and provides an additional influx of workers into central Russia (kavkazr.com/a/federaljnomu-tsentru-eto-vygodno-bezrabotitsa-na-severnom-kavkaze/32869697.html).

            The outflow of workers from the North Caucasus will continues “at least for the foreseeable future,” Lipshits continues, even as birthrates and the relative size of the workforce there decline, something that despite denials all around both Moscow and the elites in the North Caucasus republics benefit from.

            Indeed, she argues, “the authorities in the regions of the North Caucasus Federal District have no incentive to encourage entrepreneurship” and the growth of employment.” They are quite happy to divert money from Moscow into their own hands and that of their supporters and Moscow is comfortable with this situation because it keeps them loyal.

            There is no possibility of correcting the problem of mass unemployment in the North Caucasus “without correcting it in the country as a whole,” Lipshits says; and that can’t happen without the kind of changes that the Russian powers that be are doing everything they can to prevent.

      In this article at least, Lipshits does not address another result of Moscow’s policies. If the Kremlin can’t or won’t address mass unemployment in the North Caucasus, the center in effect is guaranteeing the influx of ever more people from that region into the cities of central Russia, whose residents are already angry about the arrival of such culturally different people.

            Consequently, the strategy the Kremlin has adopted to ensure that it has the loyalty or at least passivity of the elites in the North Caucasus is in fact ensuring that it is sparking ever more xenophobia and ethnic conflict in the cities, developments that corrode what authority the powers that be have. 

Belgorod Residents Speak Their Own Language, Even Russian Linguists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 19 – Because of drone and now ground attacks, Russia’s Belgorod Oblast, which is located on the border with Ukraine, has attracted unprecedented attention in recent weeks; but one aspect of its situation has not: Many Russian linguists say that it is appropriate to call what they speak not just a separate dialect of Russian but a second language altogether.

            Reporting on this phenomenon, the Russkaya Semerka popular history portal says that it is incorrect to think of what the Belgorod residents speak as being typical of the mixture of languages often found in border regions. Its distinctiveness has much deeper roots than that (russian7.ru/post/belgorodskiy-dialekt-samyy-neobych/).

            It is a much more ancient dialect, the porta says, which has “preserved in itself aspects of the Old Slavonic languages of Russian, Little Russian and Polish,” even those the Old Slavonic has disappeared elsewhere. And that is reflected in the fact that the Belgorod language although not officially recognized uses 39 letters, some of which don’t exist in Russian.

            According to Russkaya Semerka, only a small fraction of the population in Belgorod Oblast – about 3,000 -- speak this language in its purest form; but a much larger portion of the residents there retain some of its vocabulary and structure, something that sets them apart from both Russian and Ukrainian tongues.

            For background on this phenomenon, see fonar.tv/article/2016/10/03/shibko-belgorodskiy-kak-govoryat-belgorodcy, solncesvet.ru/opublikovannyie-materialyi/svoeobrazie-dialektizmov-belgorodskoy-ob.9161026502/ and pikabu.ru/story/belgorodskiy_yazyik_pochemu_yazyik_i_nemnogo_o_mrakobesii_10237035.

Kazakhstan Arrests More Karakalpak Activists But Isn’t Deporting Them to Uzbekistan

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 19 – Karakalpakstan, a Muslim Turkic autonomous republic in Uzbekistan that was once part of Kazakhstan, continues to present problems for both countries with Kazakhstan serving sometimes as a place of refuge when Tashkent represses the Karakalpaks and Kazakhstan as an uncertain one because Astana does not want to spark a conflict with Tashkent.  

            In the past, Karakalpaks fleeing Uzbek repression have expected to find a home with the Karakalpak community in Kazakhstan only to be arrested and deported. But following international criticism and a decision by the European Human Rights Court condemning such actions, Astana stopped the deportations.

            More recently, after the mass protests in Karakalpakstan in 2021 and 2022 against Tashkent’s repression led to the arrival of more and more radical Karakalpaks in Kazakhstan, Astana has taken a harder line, arresting more Karakalpaks, pleasing Tashkent, but not deporting them, avoiding angering the West (vlast.kz/obsshestvo/59282-pod-ugrozoj-zizn-karakalpakskoj-diaspory-v-kazahstane.html).

            However, this new toughness frightens Karakalpaks in Kazakhstan, many of whom had viewed Kazakhstan as a second homeland and even believed that it might be possible for their home republic to escape Uzbekistan and form close ties with or even become part of Kazakhstan. The new arrests likely put a damper on any such thinking.