Translated material
Non-Russian nesting doll
The idea of consolidating Russian regions has not yet taken hold in the Caucasus
The referendum that took place last Sunday on the issue of unifying the Irkutsk region and the Buryat Ust-Orda Autonomous Okrug coincided with a political crisis in the westernmost of the North Caucasus republics - Adygea, which until now was seen as one of the most likely sites for a federal experiment (or even strategic line) for further consolidation of regions.Let us remind you that along with the Sunday plebiscite, four unification referendums have already been held in Russia: in the Perm region and the Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug, in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Evenkia and Taimyr, in the Kamchatka region and the Koryak Autonomous Okrug. But recent events in Adygea have shown that the process of uniting the subjects of the federation will not always be reduced to an obedient vote “for”, as it has been until now. After the meeting of the President of Adygea Khazret Sovmen with Vladimir Putin, which, as the Vremya Novostey newspaper wrote, took place last Monday, Mr. Sovmen’s administration announced that the issue of a possible merger of the republic and the Krasnodar Territory was actually removed from the agenda. According to the law, in order to launch the unification procedure, it is necessary that both regions turn to the Russian president with a corresponding request. But no such request was received from the Republic of Adygea.
In recent years, several different “unification” projects concerning the North Caucasus have emerged, and all of them, to a greater or lesser extent, met with sharp resistance from regional elites. The first “post-war” president of Chechnya, Akhmat Kadyrov, almost immediately after his election in October 2003, proposed to recreate the Chechen-Ingush Republic, which existed for about ten years before Stalin’s deportation of the Vainakhs to Kazakhstan and Central Asia, and then from the rehabilitation of these peoples in 1957 until actual separation in 1992. In response, the President of Ingushetia, Murat Zyazikov, firmly stated several times that the Ingush will forever remain a fraternal people for the Chechens, but at the same time they are not going to give up their status as an independent republic. From the Ingush point of view, only the Chechens would benefit from unification. In addition to a piece of territory unaffected by the war, they would have received additional oil fields and oil refining capacities, and at the same time would have solved the territorial problem associated with the lack of a legally approved border between the republics. In any case, the project of a Chechen-Ingush unification, which Akhmat Kadyrov actively lobbied for, “froze” after his death as a result of the terrorist attack on May 9, 2004. Even the statement made several months ago by the current Prime Minister of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, about a possible revision of the borders of the republic towards their expansion is usually interpreted rather as a desire to finally approve the existing de facto administrative borders.
Simultaneously with Akhmat Kadyrov’s project, a “big unification” project appeared, one of the authors of which was another Chechen - the current coordinator of United Russia for national policy and interaction with religious associations, Abdul-Khakim Sultygov. The project was designed for much larger-scale tasks: its authors, not without reason, believed that the existing borders between the republics in the North Caucasus had long since turned into quasi-state ones and were actually tearing apart the unified political and legal fabric of the Russian state. They considered unification in the spirit of the pre-revolutionary Caucasian region or the re-creation of the Mountain Republic that existed in the first years after the Civil War as a way to “shift” the ineffective and corrupt Caucasian elites that had emerged in the 90s.
This project, already in the preparation phase, was criticized by representatives of regional authorities, and therefore was never documented. After the terrorist attack in Beslan in September 2004, the federal center chose a different way to build its relations with regional elites. Already in three regions of the North Caucasus (North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Dagestan), the replacement of the leader was carried out according to the scheme of his actual appointment by the president. But the consolidation of regions, although not so comprehensive, was still considered as one of the options for solving the problem of governability of the North Caucasus.
Some experts believe, for example, that reducing the importance of administrative boundaries could be much more effective in resolving the complex border conflict between North Ossetia and Ingushetia over the ownership of the Prigorodny district than the formal return to the region of ten thousand Ingush refugees who left it after the clashes of 1992. The project of uniting Adygea with Krasnodar was considered officially launched.
Apparently, it will now be postponed - at least for a year, until the end of the powers of Khazret Sovmen, whom the Kremlin has just refused to resign. The idea of uniting Adygea and the Krasnodar Territory looks quite justified both economically and politically. The Adyghe economy ranks fourth in the Caucasus in terms of subsidies, although, unlike Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan, there were no wars there. Politics is dominated by the Adyghe ethnic elite, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the population - over 64% - are Russians. President Sovmen, who, however, spends most of his time not in Maikop, but abroad in Russia, did not himself react particularly sharply to the idea of unification. However, Adyghe rallies against the merger, at which the most energetic participants threatened the federal center with almost a resumption of the Great Caucasian War, took place, according to Vremya Novostey, not without his support. Thus, the Kremlin’s current decision to leave Mr. Sovmen in office until the official expiration of his powers looks precisely like a concession to the regional ethnic elite on the very significant issue of unification.
Undoubtedly, the project of “annihilation” of Adygea as an independent republic aroused the keenest interest of the Circassian public. All Abkhaz-Adygs living in Russia call themselves Circassians: the Adygs of Adygea proper, the Shapsugs of the Krasnodar Black Sea region, the Circassians in Karachay-Cherkessia and the Kabardians in Kabardino-Balkaria. Over the past decade and a half, Circassian ethnic leaders have spoken many times about the need to “reformat” the North Caucasian “matryoshka dolls” created back in the USSR - Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia: from the point of view of ethnic kinship, the Kabardians are much closer to the Circassians, and the Karachais - Balkars. Any careless move by the federal center in Adygea could lead to the resuscitation of this idea and cause a new series of ethno-territorial conflicts.
But refusing to unify is unlikely to benefit the federal government, which is still not satisfied with the current state of affairs in the Caucasus. They will return to the Adyghe consolidation project, and it is possible that soon. As the Vremya Novostei newspaper has already written, although Mr. Sovmen’s powers expire only next year, the presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District, Dmitry Kozak, is ready to begin consultations in Maykop regarding the candidacy of a new, less eccentric and more accommodating republican leader.