On this moment, separatism in national republics is potentially more dangerous. These are not only the Caucasian regions (Chechnya, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Ingushetia, etc.), but also the republics in the center of the European part (Udmurtia, Komi, Mari El, Chuvashia and Mordovia), especially Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, where there is a very strong separatist sentiments.
The Far Eastern republics (Yakutia, Tyva, Buryatia) and part of the republics of the Caspian region (Kalmykia and Adygea) are weak in the idea of national separatism due to the poor autonomy of local elites, difficult geographical location and economic dependence on the federal center.
The separatist movement needs the idea of national identity:
- Ethnocultural characteristics of the region (language, religion, cultural traditions and individual way of life, history).
- Economic autonomy from the center.
- Infrastructure development.
- Contrasting the region with other subjects of the federation.
The national republics already have most of this; every representative of a national minority in Russia feels their connection and attachment to the community of a certain group of people along national lines.
In this case, many questions arise regarding Russian separatism in the regions, as the formation of a separate national group. For Russians it will be more difficult, and the formation of another nation will take longer. The creation of ethnocultural characteristics, geographical location and separate autonomy from other parts of the Russians will require serious investment in time and the cultivation of this idea. If desired, of course, this can be implemented.
For example, to spread the topic of North Russian and South Russian ethnographic groups as two different nations. Then we have not three East Slavic peoples (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian), but 4 (North Russian, South Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian). Remember the dialectical features (the northern dialect, the southern dialect); construction features (Slovenian type of houses for northerners, Polovtsian for southerners); different patterns of clothing design; way of life; geographical position(Novgorod region, Pskov, Karelia, Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Yaroslavl, Tver, Ivanovo, Kostroma, Sverdlovsk, Perm, Kirov regions among northerners; Ryazan region, Penza, Kaluga, Tula, Lipetsk, Tambov, Voronezh, Bryansk, Kursk, Oryol and Belgorodskaya among southerners), religious split: the prevalence of Old Believers among northerners and Nikonianism among southerners; it is even possible to dig up the historical continuity of the northerners from the Novgorod, Pskov and Vyatka republics; Vladimir-Suzdal, Ryazan and parts Chernigov principalities among the southerners - and we are ready to build two peoples with different national identities. However, the formation of two nations with different national identities is a complex process, and these ideas still need to be introduced to the masses. Therefore, the real outcome of separation is unlikely.
Compared to the Mongols, the Kalmyks live in another part of the world, but are their closest relatives. During times Russian Empire these people were revered as brilliant warriors and devoted allies of the Russian army. But another empire - the Soviet one - declared them traitors, organizing a full-fledged genocide. What are the reasons for such a cruel policy?
There is a version according to which the Russian battle cry “hurray” comes from the Kalmyk “uralan”, that is, “forward”. Most likely, this is just a legend, but its roots are clear: for many years, Kalmyks were a reliable support of Russia, where they were extremely valued as brave warriors and excellent horsemen.
Oirats or Western Mongols began to move to the Russian kingdom in late XVI century, which was a consequence of the conquest of the Mongolian lands by Qing China. Their Turkic neighbors called them “Kalmaks”, that is, “breakaways” - those who did not convert to Islam and retained the Buddhist faith, hence the word “Kalmyk”. Already in the early 1600s, settlers swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar, and subsequently founded the Kalmyk Khanate (Khalmg Khana Ulus) - a self-governing part of the Russian state, which regularly supplied the Russian army with well-trained fighters who proved themselves in many wars. This continued even after Catherine II liquidated the Khanate, which became an inevitable consequence of the tragic events known as the “Dust Campaign”.
But the relationship between the Russian branch of Genghis Khan’s descendants and the Soviet government, on the contrary, did not work out right away. Kalmyks are one of the few Russian peoples (including repressed ones), whose numbers during the years of the USSR did not increase, but decreased. According to the 1989 census, 174 thousand Kalmyks lived in the country, and according to the 1897 census - more than 190 thousand (modern figures are somewhere in the middle).
There are several reasons for this. In the years Civil War The territory of Kalmykia was greatly battered - it found itself between a hammer in the form of the Red Army and a hard place in the form of the armies of Krasnov and Denikin. Subsequently, its population suffered greatly from the famine of 1921–1924 and 1932–1934 (that is, from the same events that in Ukraine are considered genocide of the Ukrainian people). And the most severe blow was Stalin’s forced resettlement to Siberia during the Second World War - the so-called NKVD Operation “Ulus”, as a result of which the Kalmyk people were reduced by at least a third, and according to some estimates - by half.
Council Resolution people's commissars“On the eviction of Kalmyks living in the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic” was published exactly 75 years ago - on December 28, 1943. In March 1956, the Kalmyks were rehabilitated, allowing them to return to their homeland. A year later, their autonomy was restored. In 1989, the Supreme Council of the USSR proclaimed the deportation “a barbaric action of the Stalinist regime.” Finally, the law adopted in the RSFSR in April 1991 recognized the Kalmyks as victims of genocide.
In modern Kalmykia, December 28 is celebrated as the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Deportation of the Kalmyk People, and it is a day off.
Despite all this, the deportation of Kalmyks is somehow not widely known - it is remembered much less often than the deportation of Chechens, Germans, Balkars or Crimean Tatars. Its stated reasons and background are rarely discussed. And the backstory is this.
Among the national military formations created by the Soviet government in the terrible November 1941 was the Kalmyk 110th Cavalry Division. It performed excellently in the first period of the war during the defense of the Caucasus and the Don, but in the summer of 1942, when the Germans captured Rostov for the second time and greatly exhausted the division, cases of desertion sharply increased in it. Around the same time, the Nazis occupied most of Kalmykia itself.
Returning to their small homeland, the fugitives, as they would have put it then, “spread panic and defeatism,” and already in Kalmykia, some of them joined the ranks of local collaborators. In parallel, the so-called The Kalmyk National Committee is something like a government in exile, after which the Kalmyks began to be positioned as allies of the Reich in the fight against the Bolsheviks.
Thus, the Kalmyks became a “traitor people” who were supposed to be evicted, divided and completely deprived of their national and cultural autonomy. As emphasized in Soviet propaganda, forever.
What happened has no justification: the Soviet government promoted internationalism, but manifested itself in exactly the same way as the Nazi government manifested itself (they did not yet know about the Holocaust - the peak of terror based on ethnicity).
Yes, there was Dr. Doll’s Kalmyk unit, but there was also a partisan movement in Kalmykia. History remembers Abwehr agent Basang Ogdonov, but also remembers the hero of the USSR Erdni Delikov. There were Kalmyk white emigrants who went over to Hitler’s side, but there were also volunteer intelligence officers who were transferred to the rear of the Wehrmacht in the winter of 1942.
And the Soviet government repressed all Kalmyks, including those awarded military orders and medals. The only exceptions were those who managed to change their nationality in their passports, and Kalmyks who were married to people from other nations (instead of them, they settled in Siberia and Central Asia the wives of ethnic Kalmyks, including Russians, went).
For the sake of deportation, Kalmyks were even recalled from the front, but several thousand of them in the end, as they say, still “went through the entire war.”
That is, it was a real ethnic cleansing, from which an entire nation has not yet recovered, although 75 years have passed, and the Kalmyks were rehabilitated in the USSR several months earlier than other resettled peoples.
On the policy of genocide in Stalin era They don’t like to talk now. And the point is not so much in the “whitewashing of the era”, but in the fact that this is pressure on a sore point that is splitting society.
But it is even more dangerous when our complex society, living in a multinational country with national republics, begins to split along ethnic lines. And this is exactly what happens when the descendants of repressed Kalmyks, who, as a rule, are well aware of the history of their people (and this applies to almost the entire Kalmyk intelligentsia), witness how fans of the mustachioed generalissimo justify Stalin’s policy of ethnic cleansing, much less extol it.
Such “patriots” harm the idea of the country’s territorial integrity, sometimes even more than all Western propaganda combined.
The Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was abolished on December 28, 1943, shortly after complete liberation Caucasus and Lower Volga region. The resettlement of Kalmyks from there and from neighboring territories to Altai, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Krasnoyarsk Territory was carried out on the basis of the corresponding resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated December 29, 1943. This was Operation Ulus, developed jointly by the NKVD and the NKGB in November-December 1943.
According to various estimates, from 92 to 94 thousand Kalmyks were evicted; Between 2,000 and 3,300 Kalmyks died or went missing during the deportation process (from the point of deportation to the point of settlement inclusive). According to the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, “in 1947, 91,919 resettled Kalmyks were registered; the number of dead and deceased (including those who died from old age and other natural causes) during the period since the beginning of the deportation amounted to 16,017 people.” The government decision of 1943 was canceled only on March 19, 1956.
Many experts believe main reason national deportations (essentially ethnic cleansing) with North Caucasus and the Lower Volga region in that period was not only and not so much the “universal” collaboration of a number of local peoples. It seems that the internationalists in the Kremlin sought to Russify or, as they themselves believed, it would be more reliable to Sovietize those vast regions. This version is confirmed not only by the settlement of the “liberated” areas by the Russian and Russian-speaking contingent, but also by the inclusion of most of them into the neighboring Russian territories and regions.
Thus, up to 70% of the territory of the former Kalmyk ASSR, including its capital Elista, was annexed to the Astrakhan region of the RSFSR; Moreover, for some time Elista was returned to its Russian (until 1921 incl.) name - the city of “Stepnoy”, as this settlement was called until 1921. The rest was distributed across Stavropol, Stalingrad, Grozny and Rostov regions. The same thing, by the way, is evidenced by the creation in 1944 of the Grozny region of the RSFSR, formed from most of the former Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which received wide access to the Caspian Sea.
Kalmykia simply did not exist on the maps in Stalin’s atlases
The official reason for the Kalmyk deportation is still the same: the cooperation of the Kalmyks with the Nazi occupiers and their complicity in the period from September 1942 to March 1943 inclusive. That is, until the liberation by Soviet troops of almost 75% of the territory of the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, captured by German-Romanian troops in the fall of 1942. But the fact that after the liberation of the region, “collaborationism” in Kalmykia, although no longer universal, did not go away, also played a role. Indeed, by the end of 1943, the NKVD, together with front-line counterintelligence, managed to neutralize up to 20 rebel detachments and clandestine nationalist groups. They first collaborated with the occupiers, and then were abandoned by them as mothballed anti-Soviet cells.
The origins of anti-Russian sentiments and harsh opposition to monarchical and Soviet statehood have a long history in Kalmykia. Even before the inclusion of the Astrakhan Tatar-Nogai Khanate into Russia (1556), there were aggressive attempts to baptize Kalmyks, convert them to Islam, or simply register them as “Tatars.” The nature of ethno-confessional assimilation was then very peculiar. Therefore, the Kalmyks, for the most part, welcomed the abolition of this strange state.
Then, for more than a century, from 1664 to 1771, in the lower reaches of the Volga there existed the Kalmyk Khanate, autonomous from Russia, whose territory largely coincided with the territory of the former Kalmykia as part of the Astrakhan region in 1944-56. But its liquidation marked the first time, let’s say, a centrifugal underground in this region. By the way, the Kalmyks were among the main continent of rebel troops, which were created and led by Emelyan Pugachev during the notorious peasant war.
Only in 1800, Emperor Paul I decided to restore the Kalmyk Khanate, but already in 1803 it was abolished again by Alexander I. So the discontent of the Kalmyks “smoldered” for many decades. And it is not surprising that most of them supported the establishment of Soviet power in the region, which immediately declared the autonomy of the Kalmyks. Moreover, almost 100% - within the borders of the ancient autonomous Kalmyk Khanate.
By the summer of 1920, Bolshevik troops occupied almost the entire territory of the then-proclaimed “Steppe Region of the Kalmyk People.” And on November 4, 1920, we note, the first national autonomy was proclaimed in Soviet Russia: Kalmyk Autonomous Region. With its center in Elista, part of the Lower Volga region. In 1934, this region was included in the Stalingrad region, and at the end of 1935 the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed.
On the one hand, such decisions strengthened the position of Soviet power in Kalmykia. But on the other hand... As noted in the materials of the Munich Institute for the Study of the USSR (1969) and the bulletins of the emigrant “Union of the Kalmyk People” (Warsaw, 1934-35), “carried out in the region by the Soviet government, especially since the early 30s, forced segregation, collectivization, Russification of leadership and anti-religious measures caused growing discontent among the Kalmyks.
Many preferred to ignore the said decisions, disobey them, go into the wilderness, etc. The elimination of illiteracy was accompanied by the fact that the Kalmyk alphabet was directly translated from Latin to Cyrillic. But anti-religious policies quickly supplemented daily atheistic propaganda with repressions against believers and especially against the clergy, destruction of churches, confiscation of objects of national worship, forcing people to sign statements of renunciation of faith, etc.”
The answer was numerous excesses with political overtones that took place back in 1926-27, and then in the early 30s. It is very characteristic that such actions are mentioned in a Soviet specialized publication that is not at all from the perestroika period: I.I. Orekhov, “50 years Soviet power in Kalmykia”, Scientific notes of the Kalmyk Research Institute of Language, Literature and History, Vol. 8. “Series of History”, Elista, 1969
To the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the real political climate in Kalmykia could be said to be predisposed to anti-Soviet activities. However, even on the eve of the harsh German-Romanian occupation of the region, over 60% of the Kalmyks living in the republic initiated the collection of funds, food, wool, leather products, and traditional medicine for the Fund for Relief of Soviet Soldiers.
Many dozens of Kalmyk soldiers and officers were awarded orders and medals for military merit; 9 became heroes Soviet Union: for example, Oka Gorodovikov, Colonel General, first the commander of the Cavalry Mechanized Corps, and then the representative of the Headquarters for cavalry. True, he received the title of Hero only in 1958, but he was awarded many orders and medals during the war. A city in the north-west of Kalmykia was named after him in 1971.
Oka Gorodovikov - commander at Budyonny, dashing corps commander in the Patriotic War
One cannot help but remember one of the leaders partisan movement in the Bryansk region, Mikhail Selgikov, as well as Lieutenant General Basan Gorodovikov, and finally, Major Erdni Delikov, the first Kalmyk awarded this title in 1942.
At the same time, according to both Soviet and German sources, there were numerous cases of Kalmyks evading conscription into the army in 1941-43. Unfortunately, the voluntary surrender of Kalmyk soldiers into captivity was not uncommon. Already in the summer of 1942, the Wehrmacht created the Kalmyk Cavalry Corps, which participated in combat operations on the enemy’s side until the late autumn of 1944.
In the spring of 1942, the Kalmyk National Committee (Kalmükischen Nationalkomitee) and its local executive body, the Kalmyk Khurul, were created in Berlin. Dozens of Kalmyks also served in the First Cossack Division, the Turkestan Legion of the Wehrmacht, as well as in the SS police units in Kalmykia, Rostov region, Stavropol region.
In occupied Elista, there were two newspapers and one weekly, financed and controlled by the occupiers. In July 1943, the Kalmyk editorial office of Radio Berlin was created, the broadcasts were daily for several hours: the first broadcast was broadcast on August 3, 1943. At the same time, this editorial office made an appeal to the Kalmyks of the USSR, calling for them to join the ranks of the German and Romanian troops, “whose victories will accelerate the independence of the Kalmyk and other peoples, trampled under the Bolshevik dictatorship.”
It was these facts and factors that predetermined the “Note-Recommendation of the Board of the NKVD of the USSR to the State Defense Committee of the USSR (August 16, 1943 No. 685/B) “On the advisability of eviction from the territory of the North Caucasus and the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of German collaborators, bandits and anti-Soviet persons” . From 6 to 7 thousand Kalmyks performed military, police and civil service on the side of Germany directly in Kalmykia. Not counting political figures of varying status in the pro-Nazi Kalmyk emigration.
It was also noted that the German authorities are using the so-called “revival” of religion and the Latin alphabet among the Kalmyks to promote these “examples” among Soviet prisoners of war of non-Russian ethnic groups and in the occupied areas of the Rostov region and the North Caucasus. Some sources also reported that, allegedly due to the passivity of some military units, formed from Kalmyks, German-Romanian troops in September 1942 found themselves only 50 km from the Caspian Sea (area of the village of Utta), and there was no defensive line in this area. But the aggressors, they say, did not expect such a “gift.”
It is possible that these messages were not a reflection of reality, but part of the preparation of a large-scale plan for the deportation of Kalmyks. Although on military maps of 1942-1943. positions Soviet troops not marked in that area. Apparently, the deportation of the Kalmyks was a foregone conclusion.
And only on March 19, 1956, we repeat, this decision was canceled, and almost 10 months later the Kalmyk Autonomous Region was proclaimed as part of the Stavropol Territory. Its territory at that time was no more than 70% of its pre-war and modern territory. The repatriation of the Kalmyks was accompanied by mass letters to Moscow about the restoration of the national Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within its former borders.
There is seemingly unconfirmed documentary information that members of the Roerich family also expressed their word in defense of the deported people. But there is quite accurate data that the demands in favor of repatriation were supported by none other than the Tibetan Dalai Lama XIV (Ngagwang Lovzang Tenjin Gyamtsho) - the religious and spiritual head of the Kalmyk Buddhists, then still very young. Moreover, from the second half of the 1950s, as is known, he was in confrontation with the PRC authorities, and until May 2011 he headed the “Tibetan government in exile.”
Dalai Lama XIV - none of the current “rulers” can compare with him in terms of service life
However, it is obvious that the connection between Kalmyk activists, in addition to ethno-emigration, also with Tibetan separatists, was unlikely to suit Moscow. Therefore, on July 26, 1958, the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed within its former pre-war borders.
There are practically no nationalist manifestations in modern Kalmykia. But fertile ground for their “maturing” or resuscitation somewhere is the socio-economic situation. And according to RIA “Rating” (2018), Kalmykia has been among the worst subjects of the Federation in terms of quality of life for many years now. When compiling the rating, experts focus on 72 key indicators. Among the main ones is the level economic development, population income, security different types services, level of development of small businesses, socio-economic development of the territory, development of transport infrastructure, state of the environment.
By the way, numerous ecological problems are still relevant here, especially with regard to salinization and the transformation of already limited agricultural lands into deserts, the shortage and low quality of water supply, the complete absence of forests on the territory of the republic and other chronic consequences of traditionally extensive agriculture and livestock raising.
In Russia there is an established opinion: Russian population oppressed only in the North Caucasus republics. For some reason we forget that the country consists of many ethnic regions. In some of them, Russians are in perhaps a worse position than their relatives in the North Caucasus.
The Russian population of Kyzyl, the capital of the Republic of Tyva, complains about the worsening hostility towards them on the part of the indigenous population. People say that it was relatively calm for some time and suddenly they were up in arms again.
Relatively calm does not mean good. On the streets there are angry looks and hisses of “orus” - this word means strangers,” says Anna Kazakova, a resident of Kyzyl and a former school geography teacher. - This has been going on for more than 20 years. IN Soviet period Russians made up 50% of the republic's population, now they make up less than 20%. Signs “Russians, get out!” periodically appear on the streets.
As a result, the outflow of citizens of Slavic appearance continues.
In the early 1990s, the Tuva Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (the current Republic of Tyva) became famous for the fact that the first “Russian pogroms” in the USSR began on its territory. Tuvan youth began to destroy houses in rural areas where Russians lived. Then this stream poured into cities and towns. Real hot spots appeared on the map of the republic - Khovu-Aksy, Sosnovka, Bai-Khaak. There were pogroms with national overtones in Kyzyl as well.
My family left Tuva twice, because it’s impossible to live in a place where they hate you just because you’re Russian. And my family lived there for almost 50 years,” says Svetlana Arkhipova, an 18-year-old resident of the village of Kuragino, Krasnoyarsk Territory. “It’s also a shame that in our new place they consider us strangers and call us Tuvans.” I liked Tyva. It is very beautiful there, unique flora and fauna - you can see deer and camels. If I had the opportunity, I would never leave my native place. But the fear generated there remains to this day, I cannot overcome it.
Writer and blogger Elizaveta Senchina, who was also born and spent her childhood in Tuva, says that in Lately It’s scary to come to your native places:
At every opportunity I tried to visit this region rich in ancient culture with my husband and children. My relatives live there.
However, after crowds of angry, unkemptly dressed people began to walk the streets of Kyzyl, I decided that it was not worth visiting my homeland. They came from the countryside, unemployed, hungry. They attack those who are not like them. It seems that certain forces are pushing them to do this.
One of my friends, who lives in this city, went to the store at 6 p.m. The crowd beat him severely. Another friend of mine said that even in the summer after 17:00 it’s better not to show yourself on the street - they could be severely beaten or raped.
"SP": - Do tourists come to Tyva?
Artists and musicians especially love these places. A magnificent region filled with talent. But recently the flow of tourists has decreased significantly. I recently spoke with a poet who visited Tyva; he lived in yurts and communicated a lot with local residents. The poet said: “It was a miracle that he survived. They are hot-tempered, something is starting again there.”
Yesterday, an acquaintance from there called and said that there are more and more Chinese in Tyva.
Kyzyl resident Irina Portnova says: “During the period of perestroika, life was difficult for everyone in Tuva. People needed to place the blame on someone. They decided to blame it on representatives of another nationality. They fought fiercely, with deafening screams.”
Nationalism is, of course, present in our country, but it no longer bears those terrible forms as in the late 1980s and early 1990s,” says Anna Morozova, a resident of Kyzyl. - I am half Tuvan, half Russian. IN Soviet time the first heads of power structures were Tuvans, and the deputies were only Russians. The latter had more rights and powers. To this day, the Russians living here believe that they saved indigenous people from tuberculosis and syphilis. But villages died out from crop failure and plague, and not just from these diseases.
Judging by the stories of Russian residents of the Republic of Kalmykia, their situation is almost no different from their unfortunate colleagues from Tyva.
Clashes between Kalmyk youth and people of Slavic nationalities have become constant; they attack in crowds, beat with particular cruelty, using rebar and lead batons,” says Zoya, a resident of the capital of the republic, the city of Elista, who asked not to use her last name. - This is done by groups of Kalmyk youth aged 17-18 years, who attack in a crowd of several dozen people on lonely passers-by or on two or three people of Slavic appearance. It happens that they beat people to death - with stakes.
There is a mass exodus of Kalmyks from the steppe. They come mainly to Elista, where there has been unemployment for a long time. Unable to find work, they drink and rob. Russians are killed only because they are Russians,” says Anton Perevalov, a resident of the Kalmyk capital.
Regarding this, State Duma deputy Nikolai Kuryanovich sent inquiries to the Prosecutor General's Office and the FSB. However, according to Russian residents of Elista, the situation has not changed.
You are talking complete nonsense! “I’m a native Elista, I’ve never heard of this,” Nikolai Sandzhiev, head of the Department of Public Relations and Information Policy of the Government of the Republic of Kalmykia, shouted into the telephone receiver. - I won't talk about it.
Novosibirsk political scientist Georgy Polyankin says that in the Republic of Buryatia this does not come to this, but nationalists there make claims against the Russians:
Burnazis are an established designation for Buryat nationalists who take positions of separatism and Russophobia.
Burnazis consider Russians to be colonialists who seized their territory. Some Burnazis attribute genocide and the slave trade to the Russians.
They consider present-day Russia to be a state that takes the position of oppressing national minorities in favor of Russians. Burnazis call Russians carriers of chauvinistic views, therefore they actively sympathize with North Caucasian separatists and Muslim ethnic organized crime groups.
Burnazis also accuse the Russians of destroying the Buryat culture: the dying out of the language, the erosion cultural traditions, isolation from the Mongolian world.
They are very popular among the Buryats. People of Slavic appearance live there in a state of constant anxiety. Everyday nationalism flourishes in this republic: Russians are blamed for all inconveniences.
From July 11 to July 31, the forum “I am a citizen of the Moscow region” will be held in Volokolamsk. This event has been held for several years now, and has been favorably received by the Governor of the Moscow Region, Andrei Vorobyov. At the same forum, only in 218, he stated: “A popular, important event. I would like to thank everyone - both the organizers and the heads of municipalities. I think that this practice of communicating with young people is very important. We will continue it. There was a great demand to attract foreign guests. I think this needs to be prepared for next season.”
Foreign guests and working with young people are, of course, very good. The only thing that confuses me is the name of the forum, which is repeated from region to region and does not lead to anything good. Because there are no “citizens of the Moscow region”, or “citizens of Moscow”, or “citizens of Adygea” or citizens of “Karelia”, but there are citizens of Russia.
No, it is clear that young people need to be involved, including in politics. Simply because if the state doesn’t do it, then the non-systemic opposition will, and then there will be unauthorized rallies, arrests and a lot of other unpleasant things.
However, talking about “citizens of the Moscow region” is also going into politics. Just some kind of destructive one.
Because, for example, there was (and maybe there is) such a project as “I am a citizen of Tatarstan.” And we tactfully do not remember the celebration from the “Tatar extremists” of the conquest of Russian cities by the Golden Horde. By the way, was at least one of them, these extremists, brought to administrative responsibility?
No, let’s remember what’s going on in Tatarstan with the teaching of the Russian language in schools. There is either a conflict, or there is no Russian language, to put it briefly and succinctly. Citizens of Tatarstan in this regard and in this context are, well, approximately the same as citizens of Ukraine. Anything, just outside Russian culture and outside the Russian language.
Let's move on: “I am a young citizen of the Republic of Dagestan.” Excellent youth and school program. Maybe. Only 2018 and 2019 showed that children who grew up from this program, who are now quite young men and boys, go into armed clashes, to “throw sticks, stones, bricks at the federals.”
And, for example, the program “I am a citizen of Chechnya.” The goals of this project are also outlined, at first glance, coolly: “Private club formations will learn about the events of 2000-2003 that took place on the territory of Chechnya, about the conduct of a counter-terrorist operation throughout the region and constitutional reforms.
An exhibition of photographs and other publications will be opened telling about the revival of the socio-economic sphere of the republic, about the people who restored the economy destroyed by the war, about how the return of internally displaced persons to the Republic proceeded.
The head of the club, Fatima Saralieva, will talk about the Constitution of the Chechen Republic, about the main articles that every citizen of Chechnya should know.”
Pay attention to the last lines. The younger Chechen generation will learn not about the Constitution of the Russian Federation, but about the Constitution of Chechnya. Well, the fact that sometimes Chechen youth outside Chechnya behave in such a way that Ramzan Kadyrov has to intervene is, in general, also a well-known fact.
In 2017, there was a whole republican action “I am a citizen of Kalmykia” in the republic of the same name. Maybe they taught it after the Kalmyk “Gascons”. The noble Kalmyk “Gascons” in 2006, to be clear, set themselves the noble goal of killing Russians. Well, it happens, yes. But still, competitions and forums mean “citizen of Kalmykia”. No, not Russia, but Kalmykia. Probably as part of strengthening multinational unity.
But more and more it seems that the most daring dystopian concepts are coming to life. Now, at the suggestion of Mr. Vorobyov, we have “citizens of the Moscow region.” Probably, next there will be citizens of Tver and the Urals, then the Cossacks will unite into a separate community and people. And the further, the more fun.
Although Russia has something that will never betray it. “On June 10, the registry office of the Suoyarvi district hosted the holiday “I am a citizen of Karelia, I am a citizen of Russia!” Its main characters were 14 fourteen-year-old residents of the city and villages of the Suoyarvi region. In a solemn ceremony, each of them received a document identifying himself as a citizen of the Russian Federation.”
And, in fact, the question is - all this happens after dozens of meetings in the Kremlin and training sessions between the presidential administration and deputy governors on politics. I wonder if not noticing such ideological separatism before the transfer of power is incompetence or something worse?
