Dear compatriots

The Moscow authorities allocate 300 million rubles in 2009 to support the Russian diasporas abroad in 2009 to compatriots abroad will amount to 292.860 million rubles, the government said. The city authorities have already adopted a consolidated plan for the support of Russian diasporas abroad, and the disposal of the funds is entrusted with the Department of Foreign Economic and International Relations, as well as the Department of Education.

153.5 million rubles, that is, more than half of the approved budget for assistance to compatriots, was allocated for international support for the Russian language, culture and education. The second most amount of the amount - 54 million rubles - will go to organizations and associations of the Russian diaspora. 30 million rubles will be allocated for the treatment of compatriots from abroad in Moscow clinics.

The following expenditures are as follows: 20 million rubles - for information cooperation with diasporas, about 15 million - for subsidies to small and medium -sized businesses of Russians abroad.

Another 11 million rubles will be spent on training compatriots in Moscow universities, the city administration says. 9 million rubles will go to foreign parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church, 7 million will support socially unprotected Russians abroad. Finally, 4 million rubles will go to the legal protection of compatriots, and another 3.5 million rubles - for medical equipment of individual use.

The strategic program for assistance to compatriots abroad is not only Moscow, but also federal undertaking. At the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs interprets the concept of “compatriot” extremely widely: as Grigory Karasin, the first deputy minister of foreign affairs, previously stated in an interview with Gazeta, compatriots can be called everyone who was born in the Soviet Union until 1991, as well as their children and grandchildren, if they retained Russian -language culture. Diplomats pay special attention to the fact that the concept of "compatriot" should not be interpreted in an ethnic sense. The Federal Foreign Ministry considers the CIS countries to support the main area of the policy of supporting compatriots. Moscow, we note, in the framework of this program, is still the greatest activity among the Russian regions. So, until the end of 2008, Moscow managed to “invest” into the equipment of its representative offices abroad.

Recall that due to the financial crisis, Moscow had to reduce the expenditure part of the budget by 200 billion rubles - first of all, investment programs fell under the reduction. Against the background of these reductions, 300 million rubles planned to support compatriots abroad do not seem to be a significant amount, and the reduction or elimination of this program could not save the Moscow budget from sequestra. But, officials are sure, the costs of supporting Russian diasporas will pay off as a positive image of the capital as “collectors of land”.

01/19/2009 / Anton Skammannin