SKINHEADS IN RUSSIA
Many of the attacks on minorities in Russia are carried out by skinheads and nationalists. Rather than seeing themselves as criminals or bullies they view themselves as do-gooders who maintain the purity of the Russian race by keeping foreigners out and forcing them to lay low. [Source: Los Angeles Times]
Most skinheads are working class dropouts who find meaning in right-wing ideology and developing a sense of belonging by hanging out in a gang. They are bored, have a lot of energy, lack responsibility and need a way to release their energy. At night the go on "hunts” for victims. They are regarded as cowardly, except when are with their gang.
The common view among many skinheads is that Jews run the government and the economy and deliberately harm Russians. Blacks deal drugs and spread AIDS and other diseases. And people from the Caucasus "come here and behave in a very, dirty way towards our Russian girls." Many skinheads are unemployed. One sociologist said they “want to feel like winner, at least in their own cities.”
“Bigger Than Ben” is an award-winning bestseller by a pair of skin heads, Sergei "Spiker" Sakin and Pavel "Sobakkaa" Tetersky, who describe a trip to London in which they supported themselves by ripping off cell phones and turned into heroin addiction.
By one estimate there were 50,000 skinheads in Russia in 2005, with a large number of them in St. Petersburg. The were blamed for 44 murders and around 300 attacks. Such incidents were rising by about a third every year at that time. Many ordinary Russians regard them as patriots fighting for the purity of the fatherland rather than hooligans.
Attacks on Foreigners
The targets of racism include Asians, "dark-skinned people from Caucasus” and blacks. There is also a Russian prejudice against people from the Baltics and Central Asia. These people—often labeled as “foreigners” even though they are Russian citizens—have to endure widespread and overt prejudice, racist jokes, job discrimination and are even assaulted. There have cases where people have been beat up on the subways of Moscow and no one has tried to help them or stop the attackers. Victims of attacks say they don't bother going to the police because they generally do nothing. Conversely, foreigners charged with crimes like “hooliganism” are given long prison sentences for things like throwing a bottle or simply trying to protect themselves.
The number of fatal attacks on non-Russians and foreigners was 44 in 2004, up from 20 in 2003. A report said the attacks were less spontaneous and more organized and public. Many involved groups of radical nationalists that specifically attacked foreigners. Some blamed the wave of attacks against foreigners on the economic hardship suffered by Russians since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Accurate statistics on attacks against foreigners is hard to come because police are often reluctant to release information on them.
Often the victims have been citizens of former Soviet republics. In 2002, more than a dozen Armenians were hospitalized with smashed faces and broken bones in Krasnoarmeysk, a town north of Moscow. They were attacked by ethnic Russian gangs looking for any Armenian they could find in retaliation for a bar room fight over a women, involving an Armenian, that led to the stabbing of an ethnic Russian. After two Russian men were arrested in connection with the attack, a mob of several hundred Russians formed demanding the release of the Russians and the deportation of the Armenians.
Reuters reported in 2004: According to some estimates, St Petersburg has as many as 20,000 racist extremists. Police admit they have a problem in tackling the extremists, but officers are themselves often implicated in assaults on immigrants from Central Asia, who tend to be Muslim and darker skinned than most Russians.
In Moscow, attacks often take place on nationalist holidays or after sporting events. Certain places are more likely to have attacks. “Like the Metro Green Line,” an African student told the New York Times. “If you want to die, you go there at 6 o’clock.” Sporting events are definitely out of the question. Even going to the movies can be risky.
Arson and Murder of Foreigners in Russia
In November 2003, a fire at a five-story dormitory at People’s Friendship University (formally Lumumba University) in Moscow left 42 dead and 110 injured, some with broken bones by students who had escaped by jumping out of the windows. The dormitory was filled with African and Asian students. Some said the fire was the result of overcrowded rooms. Others said it was a racism-motivated attack. Students said before the attack they was a number of bomb threats.
A student from Liberia told the New York Times, “There were students inside banging on the glass, calling for help. I took a close shot of the hands banging on the glass and then their hands just went down the glass, sliding like that, and they were gone.” The fire was put out about 4:00am. Students were expected to show up for class at 9:00am.
In 2004, a nine-year-old Tajik girl and Vietnamese student were murdered in St. Petersburg. The Tajik girl was stabbed to death in broad daylight in St Petersburg in February. A student from Guinea-Bissau and an Afghan trader were killed in other cities. In 2002, an Afghan man was beaten to death on a Metro, a Jewish boy was badly beaten by skinheads, beer bottles were thrown at a dormitory for Vietnamese workers .
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.”
Attacks Against Jews
Jewish graves have been desecrated and synagogues have been bombed in Russia. Jewish institutions have been vandalized and synagogues have been burnt down. A Jewish American teenager of Russian descent was jumped as he approached a synagogue and was beaten so badly in the face he requires plastic surgery for his nose.
An American Jew who visited the city of Birobidzhan— on the Trans-Siberian Railway, close to the border with China—in the mid 1990s wrote in National Geographic: "I experienced the taunting of the Jews by the non-Jewish population. My friends and I were surrounded and verbally assaulted by young toughs. By their silence the older population in attendance almost encouraged these actions. I can see why so may Jewish people have left Birobidzhan."
In January 2005, two rabbis were attacked in a Moscow underpass by a gang shouting “Kill the Yids.” One of the victims said that when he went into a shop to seek help he was told to leave. In 2002, someone hung a sign that read “Death to Yids” along a road about 20 miles south of Moscow. Motorists drove by it for about a day without doing anything. Finally Tatyana Sapunova, a 27-year-old Christian Muscovite, got out of her car to pull it down. The sign it turned out was booby-trapped As she tore it down it explosives were set off that ripped wounds in legs, hands and face.
Racism and Violence Against Blacks in Russia
Racism against blacks is common. A student from Cameroon told the Los Angeles Times that he rarely goes through a day in which he is not beaten, spat on, scorned or disrespected in some way. He said he once started a lecture before a class of murmering 150 students and turned around and saw a large sheet with hand-painted swastika held up by a group of students. He said he fears violence every time he enters a subway station or walks through a park.
There are no rules as to what is considered bad taste. Comedians perform in black face and make racist jokes. One of the biggest pop hits in 1999, “They Killed a Black Man”, as a string a racial stereotypes chanted to a reggae beat by an all white group. The lyrics included" A dead snake doesn't hiss, a dead goldfinch doesn't chirp, a dead black man doesn't go play basketball."
There have been numerous attacks on blacks. Most attacks are against students although diplomats, businessmen and soldiers at the American Embassy in Moscow have been victims. Many of the attacks are committed by skinheads or members of white supremacist groups.
In 2005, a student from Guinea-Bissau was killed in Voronezh in the heart of European Russia. In 1992 a black student was killed. In 1998 an editor of a neo-fascist newspaper attacked an off-duty U.S. Marine. He was arrested, convicted of incitement of racial hatred and released. In August 2002, the son of a Cameroon diplomat was badly beaten by a half dozen men.
An immigrant from Madagascar told the Los Angeles Times he was jumped one night while he went to get some milk for his daughter. He said he was beaten and kicked by skinheads for five to 10 minutes. A Ugandan said he was hospitalized for 12 days after being attacked by 20 to 30 youths on a subway car for about eight minutes and ended with a beer bottle being broken over his head. One black Russian told AP, he was assaulted by a mob of teens returning from a soccer match and was left with a broken arm and dislocated shoulder.
A young man from the Cameroon, who had been a student at People’s Friendship University for five years, told the New York Times he had been abused, beaten and even shot. “At any hour you must be ready to fight. On the Metro, on the road, on the street, everywhere. So every morning you have to do your 100 push-ups. “
In 2001, ambassadors from 37 African nations appealed to the Foreign Ministry for protection of their citizens. Authorities are not very sympathetic. A common view among bureaucrats and police is: "They are not Russians. They belong in Africa." Some police have been accused of harassing blacks and calling them monkeys. Some blacks have reported ordinary Russians coming to their rescue on subway attacks.
Racist Attacks Against Asians
In January 2005, two teenage North Koreans were shot and stabbed in St. Petersburg. The same year another North Korean was beaten to death in Vladivostok. In Indian student told The Economist that he was so fearful of skinhead attacks he walked around alone, even in his own neighborhood, only in the morning and only traveled into the city center of Moscow with a large group.
In the summer of 2003, a 19-year-old medical student from Malaysia was beaten at a McDonald’s apparently because she was a Muslim. She told the New York Times, “They were just laughing, laughing. It was because of my head scarf. They didn’t like me wearing this.”
In 2004, Reuters reported: “Racists stabbed a 20-year-old Vietnamese student to death in the city of St. Petersburg, police said in the latest violence blamed on extreme Russian nationalists. “Police said Vu Anh Tuan's body was found with at least five knife wounds after a group of 15 to 20 youths attacked him late at night. Prosecutors said 15 people had been detained. Around 100 Vietnamese students gathered at the murder scene to protest against the killing and demand protection from the police against racist attacks, which are linked to a growing number of fascist and racist organizations. [Source: Reuters, October 14, 2004 ]
"We came to study in this country, which we thought was a friend of Vietnam. We do not have drunken fights, we do not steal, we do not sell drugs and we have the right to protection from bandits," said one demonstrator. Students who witnessed the stabbing said the attackers wore semi-military uniform, leather jackets and boots, and had shaven heads.”
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