Horrors from Komsomolskaya Pravda

On February 28, 2006, Komsomolskaya Pravda published Dmitry Polukhin's article "Half of all Chinese in Moscow live in Izmailovo", the general pathos of which boils down to the banal "come in large numbers here!" and the less banal "Moscow is a zone of potential inter-ethnic clashes."

The material itself is a list of statistical data on the percentage of "Russian" and "non-Russian population", and is accompanied by an "ethnic map" and a diagram of "non-Russianness" of Moscow. It is not known by whom and on the basis of what data the map and diagram were compiled (although the text of the article mentions the 2002 census). Note that this map contradicts another "apocalyptic" publication (also illustrated with a map) published by Komsomolskaya Pravda a year and a half ago.

The article begins with the statement of Irina Subbotina, an employee of the Center for the Study of Interethnic Relations of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, that " according to research, the risk of interethnic conflicts is very high already at 10.5% - 11.5% of non-Russians or 3.5 - 4 5% of Caucasians. And in some places the proportion of ethnic minorities is more than 40%!" . Who is Irina Subbotina and why exactly her statement became the starting point for listing further statistics for readers of the electronic version of the newspaper, by the way, remains a complete mystery.

We note that if the words of I. Subbotina are reproduced correctly (and this is not quite obvious, especially in the case of Komsomolskaya Pravda, which distorts the results and conclusions of ethno-sociological studies not for the first time ), then the ethnologist shows a greater fear of "non-Russians" than even police general Vyacheslav Postavnin, who declared "20% comfort" .

Enumeration of "alarming" statistics ( "representatives of the peoples of Transcaucasia and Central Asia make up 11.5% of the population of the region, which is 3.5 times higher than the average Moscow figures", "by the way, in general, residents of non-Russian nationalities in this region already make up 41.8% of the population!", "In Eastern Degunin, the share of Azerbaijanis is more than 5 times higher than the average values, and the total share of the Transcaucasian peoples is 7.7%! This is three times higher than the average figures for Moscow"), divided by subheadings like "Kurkino - Mecca for Uzbeks " or "In the north - the friendship of peoples?" , apparently, in itself should create a feeling of discomfort in the reader.

The balanced comments of specialists - a psychologist, an official and a policeman - probably designed to "dispel" the apocalyptic picture skillfully created by a journalist, are unlikely to be able to fulfill this role, since they only explain xenophobic sentiments ("Most of the traders in the markets are visitors of non-Russian nationality, and therefore the image of an unscrupulous in the view of Muscovites, the seller merges with certain ethnic groups: it is not the SELLER who deceives, but the CAUCASIAN or ASIAN. That is, the classic conflict between the buyer and the trade worker goes into the field of interethnic relations "), but (which is quite natural) they do not talk about the very legitimacy of such an appeal to statistical data. And the policeman's commentary, for example, is generally presented in such a way that it immediately raises doubts about the speaker's sincerity or his competence ( "POLICY COMMENT: We don't have a single skinhead" ).

The way this material will be perceived was demonstrated on the same day by the Newsru.com website, which reproduced only the "statistical" component of the publication, changing the title to a more aggressive one ("Migrants have changed the ethnic composition of the population of Moscow: who lives in which areas " ), and replacing arguments about "non-Russians" with arguments about "migrants".

Sources

• Polukhin Dmitry. Half of all Chinese in Moscow live in Izmailovo // TVNZ. 2007. February 28.
• Migrants have changed the ethnic composition of the population of Moscow: who lives in what areas // Newsru.com. At the same time.