A very mild attack of xenophobia

On October 18, 2004, Komsomolskaya Pravda, having made a reservation in advance that its journalists "do not have not only racial prejudice, but even slight bouts of xenophobia" , published an article under the characteristic title "There are no more Russian children in kindergartens ..."

The reason for the article was a letter from one of the readers of the newspaper, who, together with her family, under the new migration law (which, by the way, the State Duma is going to tighten even more), cannot obtain Russian citizenship. In her letter, the woman emphasizes that she is Russian and baptized, which does not prevent officials from refusing to give her Russian documents, while "Caucasians" receive citizenship without any problems.

It is difficult to comment on the letter of a desperate woman. However, the position of the newspaper cannot but cause surprise. The authors of the article claim that "there are now about 15 million foreign migrants in Russia, and 1.5 million in Moscow and the region" , and they conclude from this that "every tenth person in the country is more likely a Chinese or Azerbaijani than a Russian" . It is significant that if "Russian" is citizenship, then "Chinese" and "Azerbaijani" are ethnicity. This is clear, if only from the fact that the reader, whose letter this article was written, and her family are clearly not considered migrants, although formally they are. For the newspaper they are "Russian settlers" .

However, the authors of the article also turned out to have another letter, the author of which warned the journalists who came to him that if the authorities did nothing in relation to migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia, "Krasnoarmeysk will seem like flowers " .

To prove the reasoning of the "reader" that "there are no more Russian children in kindergartens," the journalists list seven regions where in the first half of 2004 the largest number of immigrants were registered (whose children are probably few in kindergartens). And to prove that the authors of the article allegedly do not suffer from xenophobia, they sign as follows from St. : “Migrant from Saransk Vladimir Vorsobin. Migrant Whether they are from Saransk or Petersburg, they are migrants only in the demographic sense of the word.

Once again, Komsomolskaya Pravda raises the problem of migration. And once again the problems of imperfection of legislation, corruption and socialization of newcomers are replaced by ethno-nationalist pseudo-correct arguments under the slogan "come in large numbers here!". This is all the more unpleasant because the authors of the publication themselves are well aware of the moral responsibility that lies on the shoulders of journalists, it is not without reason that the article begins by stating that "today ... when the acuteness of the national question in Russia is measured not in the abstract, but in reality - in TNT equivalent" .

October 19, 2004 "KP" published a continuation of the article.

Sources

• Vorsobin Vladimir, Dobryukha Anna, Steshin Dmitry. "There are no more Russian children in kindergartens..." // TVNZ. 2004. October 18.
• Same // 19 September.