RACISM IN RUSSIA
Under the Russian constitution, each citizen is theoretically supposed to be allowed to live where they want but in Moscow citizens are still required to register with the government and have a residency permit to live in the city. People who don't look white and Slavic, have to always keep their passport and documents with them. Without them they risk being arrested. Internal Soviet-era passports identified as person’s nationality (ethnic group).
During the Soviet period there was little open racism. International brotherhood was a key component of Communist ideology. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, true feelings have been allowed to emerge. Russians do not have reputation for being the most tolerant and open-minded people in the world. A surprising number of Russians believe that Russia's problems are the result of Zionist-Freemasons conspiracies. A survey in December 2004, found that 59 percent of Russians sympathize with the notion of “Russia for Russians.”
Racist and anti-Semitic jokes are common in Russia. Police harassment and hate crimes occur with some regularity. Sociologist blame the upsurge of anti-Semitism and racism on a search for a scapegoat for the economic crisis and the hardships people have had to endure. Other say deep-seated racism has its roots in the czarist times when pogroms against Jews left thousands dead and battles against Muslim and people from the Caucasus were at the heart of Russia’s history.
Nationalist politicians have blamed foreigners and non-Russians for a host of problems, including a rising crime rate and the introduction of AIDS. In the early 2000s, there were 200 nationalists publications printed around the country that contained racist massages. The Putin government responded to a wave of attacks against foreigners by pushing a law against extremism through the Duma and closed down publication by extremist and racist groups and imprisoned nationalist writers for inciting violence. But at the same time he did , but has done little to reign in local officials in regions that are cracking down severely on illegal immigrants.
Mansur Mirovalev wrote in the Los Angeles Times:“Officially tolerated expressions of racism ...have nurtured the growing xenophobia and intolerance gripping Russia today. Some 54% of Russians support the idea of "Russia for ethnic Russians," and more than a third would welcome the expulsion of Caucasus and Central Asian Muslims, according to a poll on the matter, a July 2014 survey by the independent Levada Center. [Source: Mansur Mirovalev, Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2015]
Jews and Minorities: Russia’s Exploitive Rich?
Masha Gessen wrote in the New York Times, “A pair of pudgy, hairy man’s hands draped over the back of an ornate chair; two gold rings; a gold watch on a bracelet a bit too tight for the wrist; amber cufflinks pulling together crisp white cuffs that also seem a touch tight. Everything in this picture connotes wealth and excess. To the Russian eye, the dark hair on the hands also connotes someone who is ethnically non-Russian: The hands might belong to a Jew, a Tartar, an Armenian or the representative of any number of other ethnic groups that, according to stereotype, have dark hair. [Source: Masha Gessen, New York Times, November 4, 2014; Gessen is the author, most recently, of “Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot.”]
“This picture of a generic Shylock appeared on Oct. 28 in Lenta.ru, one of Russia’s oldest online publications and arguably the best-read, whose enterprising editor in chief was replaced by a Kremlin loyalist earlier this year, causing the entire staff to walk out. The picture was used to illustrate an article headlined, “Who’s Got It Good in Russia?” The subtitle promised a breakdown of Russia’s richest entrepreneurs by ethnicity. The authors of the article took a list of the country’s 200 wealthiest businesspeople compiled by Russian Forbes magazine and attempted to classify the 199 men and one woman on it by ethnicity.
“The authors acknowledged they were tackling “a delicate issue” — if only because “many people do not advertise their ethnicity and don’t talk about it.” They claimed to have conducted something akin to an investigation by combing through the lists of donors and honorary members of ethnic associations. One suspects they also conducted amateur analysis of the rich people’s surnames. The result was an infographic with the 22 ethnic groups the authors identified among the 200 entrepreneurs, with some helpful statistics, including: the cumulative worth of members of a particular ethnic group on the list, the percentage of the list the group represented and the percentage of the ethnic group in the general population.
“It follows from the infographic that “Jews” (meaning Ashkenazi Jews) hold a disproportionate amount of wealth: They represent only 0.11 percent of the population, but 42 people on the list with a total of more than $122 billion to their names. Then come the ethnic Ukrainians: a mere 1.41 percent of the population but 12 percent of the list, for a total of over $70 billion. The Armenians, the Azeris, the Ingush, the Chechens and even the Arabs have all grabbed more than their fair share. Only the ethnic Russians — with over 80 percent of the population but a mere 44.5 percent of the list and a cumulative wealth of $165 billion — clearly have less than they ought to, statistically speaking.
“The authors of the article specifically point to Mountain Jews — an ethnic group distinct from the Ashkenazi Jews who have historically lived in Russia and Ukraine, these are Jews from the North Caucasus — as being overrepresented among the rich: with six men (and over $10 billion) on the list when the total population of Mountain Jews in Russia, according to the piece, is 762 people. Predictably, the authors also point to ethnic Ukrainians as having too much money.”
A Need for Scapegoats In Modern Russia
Masha Gessen wrote in the New York Times, “Ethnicity has been and continues to be one of the key identifying characteristics of human beings,” the authors write, explaining the importance of their undertaking. “No less interesting is the question of the ethnic makeup of the ruling elite.” In other words, they are presenting the article as a social service and perhaps even an educational tool. [Source: Masha Gessen, New York Times, November 4, 2014 ]
“Those claims are not entirely absurd: Russia is casting about for new enemies, and the media appear to feel the need to contribute to the search. For two months now the state propaganda machine has been pulling back from the intense anti-Ukrainian rhetoric that dominated the spring and summer. In Moscow, city authorities have even painted over at least one Crimea-themed mural, replacing aggressive military images with video game characters. The rhetorical withdrawal from Ukraine probably has two goals: forestalling further Western sanctions and perhaps reversing some that have been imposed, and diverting Russians’ attention from a war that risks becoming too costly.
“But toning things down has a side effect: Vladimir Putin’s popularity rating, which shot up in the wake of the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Ukraine, started slipping as soon as the Kremlin agreed to a cease-fire. With oil prices down and the Russian economy threatened with stagflation, there is little Mr. Putin can do to try to boost his popularity. What lifted his numbers after a slump of several years was the war in Ukraine. To get another fix, he needs to wage another war, at least in the media. For that, Russia needs a new enemy.
“Several candidates have been floated. Mr. Putin himself has made remarks that seemed to put Kazakhstan on warning and, apparently, threaten the Baltic states. The state media have also continued their onslaught on people and groups the president has termed “national-traitors,” such as human rights activists. One recent item that was widely republished even accused the “liberal opposition” of wanting the biggest Russian air carrier to fail — implying ill will for the entire country and its economy. Now Lenta.ru is providing ammunition to those who like to identify their enemies by their ethnicity.
“It is impossible to say which enemy Mr. Putin will choose for the next stage of his war. Domestic enemies, however, offer some clear benefits: Going to war against your own people costs less, both in direct expenditures and in potential penalties. In addition, with the Russian economy shrinking rapidly, the wealth pie is getting smaller — and the desire to reapportion it is growing stronger. It is not a good time to be a moneyed member of an ethnic minority in Russia. Then again, it is never a good time to be a poor member of an ethnic minority there.”
White Supremacists in Russia
Mansur Mirovalev wrote in the Los Angeles Times: Russia's far right isn't limited to a few marginal figures. It is a vortex of militant gangs, movements and political parties that enlist tens of thousands of members who are also among those most loudly applauding President Vladimir Putin and his strong-arm policies against Ukraine and other former Soviet republics. The conservative and immensely powerful Russian Orthodox Church, resurgent czarist-era paramilitary Cossacks, and right-wing parties represent the largest players in the field of official, Kremlin-sanctioned nationalism. [Source: Mansur Mirovalev, Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2015 ==]
“Its superstar is Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a veteran politician who served as a deputy speaker of the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, and heads the LDPR party that holds 56 of the 450 Duma seats. The flamboyant 69-year-old ran for president five times, campaigning on promises to expel non-Russians, install barbed wire around Chechnya and Dagestan, Russia's violence-plagued Muslim provinces, and "return" Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states to the Russian empire. ==
“But his pledges and party are widely seen as pseudo-opposition, a Kremlin tool to "sterilize nationalist voices," says Andrey Kolesnikov, a political analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Center think tank. "Just because the state wants to preserve its monopoly on nationalism — and this is one of the most important political aims because such ideology is popular and it, among other [factors], keeps Putin's ratings high — it responds very harshly to any manifestations of nationalist extremism," Kolesnikov said. ==
History of White Supremacists in Russia
Mansur Mirovalev wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “The Kremlin cracked down on right-wing radicals who emerged after the 1991 Soviet collapse and mushroomed in the 2000s in response to Islamist terrorism attacks and the influx of millions of migrants from Central Asia and Russia's mostly Muslim Caucasus region, where two wars in Chechnya fueled racism and unrest. [Source: Mansur Mirovalev, Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2015 ==]
In the 1990s, the National Bolsheviks — whose red flag is modeled on a Nazi banner with a hammer and a sickle replacing the swastika — advocated armed revolts to carve out regions of Ukraine, Latvia and Kazakhstan that are largely populated by ethnic Russians. In 2006, a neo-Nazi group organized seven bombings across Moscow, one of which killed 14 people at an outdoor market, including two children. Most of the victims were foreign labor migrants. ==
“At the peak of racially motivated violence in 2008, at least 110 people were killed and 487 wounded, according to Sova, a Moscow-based hate crimes watchdog organization. Such crimes have declined sharply since a crackdown on ultranationalists began about five years ago. In the first half of this year, four people died and 37 were wounded in racial violence, Sova reports. But even as the Kremlin sought to rein in the violent right, it also incorporated elements of the nationalist agenda as part of its anti-Western and isolationist ideology that praises the "unique Russian civilization" devoid of "decadent" liberalism. “
White Supremacist Rally in Russia
Mansur Mirovalev wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “The protesters, several thousand strong and surrounded by hundreds of armed police, chanted nationalist slogans and racial slurs, occasionally raising their right hands in a Nazi salute. It was the 10th annual gathering of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and far-right nationalists, held in Moscow in November” 2014. [Source: Mansur Mirovalev, Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2015 ==]
"Nationalism has a bright future in Russia," said co-organizer Dmitri Demushkin, 36, a former skinhead and ex-leader of the Slavic Union, a banned group whose Russian initials, SS, intentionally mimic those of the Nazi paramilitaries. "We will either win or the Russian people will die." "The current government partially declares the imperial slogans we declared almost 25 years ago," said Eduard Limonov, a novelist and leader of the now-banned National Bolshevik party.
“The very existence of homebred neo-Nazis and racists, made graphically clear each year in what is known as the Russian March, is still shocking to many in Russia, a multiethnic country that once professed to be building an internationalist, communist utopia and still prides itself on the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.” ==
White Supremacists and the Ukraine Conflict
Mansur Mirovalev wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “Far-right nationalists have been polarized in the Ukraine conflict, with some fighting on each side, Sova reports. "They all are doing military training, all of them. It has become very trendy," Sova director Alexander Vekhovsky said. "All the time, trainings, musters, camps. And this is very concerning, because it's not going to end well." [Source: Mansur Mirovalev, Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2015 ==]
“Half a dozen pro-Kremlin youth movements emerged after the 2005 pro-West "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine. Created to counter opposition street rallies in Russia, they recruited racist soccer fans and ultranationalists and used their slogans, according to rights groups, anti-Nazi bloggers and Russian media. The founder of a brutal neo-Nazi gang recently claimed to have "cooperated" with two such groups. Ilya Goryachev was sentenced to life to prison in Russia in late July after a jury found him guilty of establishing BORN, or the Military Organization of Russian Nationalists. ==
Unlike other neo-Nazi gangs that preyed on dark-skinned non-Russians, the group mostly targeted "traitors of race," or ethnic Russians who stood up to the far-right ideology, and planned to seize power to turn Russia into a neo-Nazi "Fourth Reich." From 2008 to 2010, BORN militants killed 10 people, including a federal judge who had sentenced several ultranationalists to jail, a human rights lawyer, a journalist and three anti-Nazi activists. Its militants also killed a Muay Thai world champion and a Tajik man whose severed head was planted in a government office with a note promising more killings. ==
“Several BORN activists have already been sentenced to lengthy jail terms or life. Goryachev testified against them, pleading not guilty at his own trial and claiming he was merely a publicist. He told the court last month, "I was talking about the things that are now broadcast on the Russia television channel," a state-run national network.” ==
Racism and Politics
The nationalist parties were very strong in Russia in the 1990s and still enjoy support by certain sectors of the Russian population. Important issues for them include cracking down on big business, foreign investment and the oligarchs (tycoons), countering Western expansionism, bringing back the glory days of both the Soviet and the czarist eras and protecting Russians abroad.
There is an overt racist angle to many of nationalist positions: a mistrust of foreigners, suspicion of minorities and dislike of Jews and Muslims. Many Russian nationalists believe that Russia’s problems can be blamed on Zionists and freemasons. Anti-Muslim feelings have been stoked by the war in Chechnya and other troubles in the Caucasus region. The tsar's symbol—the double headed eagle had—adorns the nationalist flag. The nationalist slogan is “Russia is for Russians.”
Motherland, or Homeland, Party (Rodina) was influential party that won 9.2 percent of the vote and 37 of 450 seats in the 2003 parliamentary elections. It was led by two articulate members of parliament: Dmitry Rogozin, a moderate nationalist, and Sergei Glazyev, a former Communist. The party itself was a mix of nationalists and Communist and was deliberately launched to steal the thunder from the Communist Party. Its platforms included making the Orthodox Christian the state religion and returning more control of the economy to the state. It had been supported by Putin and got a fair amount of air time on television before the 2003 parliamentary election. Even though it was created only months before the election its finished in third place. But after 2003 divisions in the party and attacks from other parties led to its demise.
The small fascist People’s National Party has a Swastika-like cross on its flags and banners. Members, many of whom are skinheads and young people, give “Seig-Heil”-like salutes when they greet one another. They are initiated with a Ku-Klux-Klan-like ritual, complete with a burning cross and an oath to of loyalty to “the triumph of the white race.” The group was founded by Alexander Ivanob-Sukharevsky, a former film director and admirer of Jean-Marie Le Pen of France. Some of its members have called Hitler a “political genius” and have met with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. The Russian National Unity is a larger neo-Nazi party.
Anti-Muslim feelings were stoked by the war in Chechnya and terrorist attacks by Chechen fighters in the 1990s and early 2000s. Muslims that live in places where they are a minority are harassed, humiliated and talked about by non-Muslims in muffled whispers.
One Central Asian Muslim imam that lives in a predominately Russian town told the Washington Post, “It’s very hard for Muslims to live here now. In Russia, we have this problem—we are always looking for an enemy. It used to be the Jews, now they have all gone to Israel. So the politicians see the Muslims—we are poor, we have no power. Instead of Jews, they attack Muslims. They incite the crowd. ‘Beat the Muslims!’ We are the new Jews.”
In a poll released in July 2005 by the Pew Research Group, 84 percent of those surveyed said that they were concerned about the rise of Muslim extremism in their country and 72 percent said that they felt that Muslim immigrants wish to remain distinct from their society.
In the earyly 2000s, Russian newspaper ran pictures of local Muslim leaders next to pictures of Osama bin Laden. Hate crimes and attacks are directed at Muslims. Putin has called for tolerance and stated that Islam is a peaceful religion but at same time he has characterized the war in Chechnya as battle between Christians and Muslims and has said, “If you are a Christian you are in danger.”
Racism Against People from the Caucasus
Prejudice towards dark-skinned from the Caucasus and southern Russia is common. Regarded as criminals and often referred to as "blacks" or “chernozhopy” (“black asses”), they include people from Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and other regions in the Caucasus Mountains. Both Muslims and Christians are discriminated against although Muslims get the worst of it in part because there are more of them.
Hundreds of thousands of "dark skinned" people from the Caucasus live in Moscow, many without permits. They are objects of discrimination and abuse and are often the targets of round-ups of "illegal" residents without residence permits. In one two week campaign in the early 2000s, 9,000 people, most from the Caucasus, were forcibly deported and another 10,000 left of their own. One migrant from the south told Newsweek, "When the police see our dark skin, they stop us and fine us for not having a residence permit."
People from the Caucasus are shunned by landlords and milked for extra high bribes by authorities and officials. They are blamed by nationalist groups for taking jobs away from ethnic Russians, dominating markets, harassing women and not paying taxes. A leader of a nationalist group told the Washington Post, “They don’t wash themselves, they don’t clean up, they sleep 10 to 15 in a small room. They bring their dirty culture here.”
Police routinely stop people suspected as being from the Caucasus on the streets and extract a bride even when all their papers are in order. Dark-skinned men with beards are particularly suspected. They are shouted down in the streets with the call, “Eh, Shamil!,” a reference to the 19th century Chechen leader Shamil Basayev.
Chechens are arguably the most hated people in Russia. Animosity towards them has been extrapolated to other peoples of the Caucasus, even Christians, who are also reviled. Harassment and attacks of people from the Caucasus increased after terrorist attacks involving Chechens.
Attacks on People from the Caucasus
After the bombings in Moscow in 1999, which were blamed on Chechens, dark-skinned people Caucasus were afraid to leave their homes in Moscow except for brief dashes to buy food. Numerous callers to radio talk shows said all people from the Caucasus should be deported from Moscow. Graffiti in Moscow reads "Kill the blacks."
Chechen and Azerbaijani street traders have had their goods and money seized and their kiosks bulldozed by Russian authorities. A Chechen refugee went to Red Square to meet his girlfriend and was slapped and stabbed through the heart by a Russian nationalist.
On Hitler's birthday (April 21), 2001, 300 young hoodlums ransacked stalls at a Moscow market, belonging mostly to people from Caucasus region and Central Asia, killing three people—a Tajik, Azerbaijani and an Indian. On the same day an 18-year-old Chechen was stabbed to death by skinheads outside the Kremlin.
One skinhead who claimed his girlfriend was killed in the bombing of the Moscow apartments in 1999, which were blamed on Chechens, told the Washington Post, “The Dark ones, I hate them. I don’t consider them human. It doesn’t just burn me up, it drives me crazy. I look around and if I don’t see any obstacles, I’ll go beat up this guy and maybe even kill him and I’ll have as much joy as if I bought a car.”
Russian Views Towards the Chinese
Many Russians are worried that too many Chinese will move into the thinly-populated Far East, outnumber the Russians and eventually take over. Russians envision a slow decline of the Russian population and control and a rise in Chinese influence. They like to poit out that in entire Russian Far East there are only about 6.7 million people while in the three provinces of northeastern China are home to 150 million people.
One Russian Vladivostok resident told the Independent, "They spread like jellyfish, penetrating everywhere—and gradually you find that without a shot being fired they've simply taken over." Another Vladivostok resident said, the Chinese "behave as though they own the town. If Russia is not strong, there is a threat that we will lose this territory."
One resident of border town Blagoveshchensk told the Los Angeles Times, "I feel hatred for the Chinese all the time. They are shouting at us, shouting that we work badly, and we should work more and more and more. All the time in our history we are trying to get ride of them...And now they are our masters.”
The Chinese don’t have such great opinions about the Russians either. One Chinese worker told the Los Angeles Times, “Russians are no competition for me. They’re lazy. They drink their vodka and they don’t want to work...They say we must go away because we prevent them from enjoying being lazy.” Chinese also complain they are routinely shaken down for bribes by corrupt police and government officials.
Anti-Semitism in Russia
Although official anti-Semitism has ceased and open acts of anti-Semitism have been rare in Russian society since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Jews have remained mindful of their history in Russia and skeptical of the durability of liberalized conditions. Traditional anti-Semitism in the Russian Orthodox Church and the increasing power of ultranationalist and neofascist political forces are the principal causes of concern; Jews also fear that they might become scapegoats for economic difficulties. [Source: Library of Congress*]
Anti-Semitism has long been a fixture of Russian culture. Jews were anathema to the tsars. Some historians have even suggested that Hitler got his ideas from Russia monarchy and the holocaust was an "unanticipated consequence of the Russian revolution."
Zhid and Yid are derogatory terms for Jews in Russia. In a 1995 poll, 25 percent of Russians said that they would prefer not to have Jewish neighbors, compared to 5 percent in the U.S. Many Jews that emigrated from Russia have said anti-Semitism is one of the reasons they left.
At rallies in the 1990s protesting the government’s delay in salaries and pensions, many protestors blamed their troubles on Jews, who they claimed were running the government even though no members of the legislature or bureaucracy were Jewish. "Down With the Government, Zionist Know-It-Alls," read a sign carried by one demonstrator.
Some Russians blamed the collapse of the Russian ruble in August 1998 on the Jews. A member of the Communist Party said: “Usury, deceit, corruption, and thievery are flourishing in the country. That is why I call the reformers Yids.”
Anti-Semitism and Russian Politics
Anti-Semitic banners often mix with pro-Soviet signs at Communist rallies. Members of the Communist party blamed Russia's economic problems on the "yids" and a "Jewish-Masonic conspiracy." Although he claims not to be anti-Semitic, Communist Party leader Gennadiy Zyuganov said that Jews “control the world's economy." Albert Makashov, a former Red Army general and member of Parliament, called Jews "yids" and "bloodsuckers" and blamed the economic crisis in 1998 on them. He also called for "quotas" on the number of Jews in the government.
The bookstore at the Duma (the Russian legislature) sold out of copies of a Russian translation of an anti-Jewish book by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Nationalist politicians such as Vladamir Zhirinobsky refused to stand to to honor victims of the Holocaust at a ceremony in the Duma because millions of Russians were killed by Nazis too.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the controversial leader of Russia's nationalist neofascist party, said he would replace Jewish television announcers with blued Russian ones and said 90 percent of the first Soviet government was Jewish, adding that Russia must deal with ethnic minorities as America did with the Indians and Germany did with the Jews."
In the early 2000s, member of the pro-Orthodox Rodina party said that all Jewish ethnic and religious organizations should be banned as “extremist.” In January 2005, several politicians called for all Jewish groups to be banned. Putin has spoken out against anti-Semitism. The Russian Orthodox patriarch Alexei made a conciliatory speech before a group of rabbis in New York in 1991.
Image Sources:
Text Sources: “Encyclopedia of World Cultures: Russia and Eurasia, China”, edited by Paul Friedrich and Norma Diamond (C.K. Hall & Company, Boston); New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, U.S. government, Compton’s Encyclopedia, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.
Last updated May 2016