Translated material
Save the Russians
On May 18, the Izvestia newspaper published a selection of materials on a competition of school essays on the topic "What does it mean to be Russian today?", which took place in the spring of 2004. The Ministry of Education refused to help the organizers of this competition, but did not ban it. The competition was founded by the Committee for Culture of the State Duma and several non-state structures of a nationalist nature, which, according to the correspondent of the newspaper Izvestia, "do not go through Moscow telephone information at all" .
The competition received 600 essays from 60 regions of Russia, as well as from Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan and the Baltic States. The best among the contestants were selected by Alexander Sevastyanov, co-chairman of the NDPR, president of the League for the Defense of the National Treasure, executive secretary of the Union of Public Associations for the Defense of the Honor and Dignity of the Russian People, an employee of the National Newspaper, a man who openly calls himself a Russian nationalist.
Andrey Polyakov, a tenth-grader from Bryansk, became the winner. The following lines, in particular, testify to the level and mood of the participants in the competition: “In the former Soviet republics they began to destroy Russians, squeeze them into Russia, seizing their apartments, property, insulting and humiliating ... Maybe these republics again want to return to their former feudalism? For example, the Russians taught Uzbek children and the Uzbeks themselves living in rural areas to wipe their buttocks with toilet paper - teaching is not for the future: they still wipe their butts with a sharp stone ... And we are pulling them to developed Europe " .
The correspondents of the newspaper expressed their indignation that the Ministry of Education, knowing in advance about the planned competition, did not inform the school authorities in the regions about its attitude towards it and did not comment on its results. Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Education Leonid Grebnev assessed what happened as a "complete disgrace" , but said that the ministry would react to the current situation only if it received a corresponding "signal" in writing.
The Moscow Bureau for Human Rights responded to the publication of the Izvestia newspaper with an open letter to the Prosecutor General. "Human rights activists are asking to prosecute the organizers of the competition and officials who allowed and supported it for inciting ethnic hatred" .
At the same time, the very idea of the competition did not cause rejection among human rights activists. "They were outraged that "nationalist people" used this contest to promote their views . "
The victory in the competition of a radical author, human rights activists say, was predetermined, since the organizers demanded a birth certificate and data on the nationality of their parents from the contestants, and in response they sent nationalist and chauvinist literature, which gave them the opportunity to orient students in a certain way.
According to Alexander Brod, director of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, "by writing a letter to the Prosecutor General's Office, human rights activists hope to at least draw public attention to this problem. And if they're lucky, they will punish the organizers of the scandalous competition . "
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