Translated material
"Kalinka" and Lezginka
Russians in Russia, according to official statistics, are more than 80%. About the same number as there are Lithuanians in Lithuania, and much more than Latvians in Latvia or Estonians in Estonia. However, the share of the Russian population of Russia (if, of course, it remains within its current borders for the foreseeable historical future) will steadily decline. In other words, Russia, which has existed for centuries as a multinational country, must calmly go through the process of reducing the share of representatives of the “titular nation”. Moreover, with the current obviously growing everyday nationalism, achieve a state where those same young people who marched wall to wall (or, if you prefer, “Kalinka” to Lezginka) near the Kremlin will feel like a single people.
After all, look what happens. Caucasians near the Kremlin dance the Lezginka and pester a guy with a Russian flag: thereby they want to show that they are the same masters of the country and its capital as the Russians. Russians - and by no means only the leaders of ultranationalist organizations - allow themselves to publicly describe the situation in terms of confrontation between peoples. We recently published the words of Nikolai Fedoryak, Deputy Presidential Envoy to the Southern Federal District. The official, commenting on the surge in interethnic tension in the Stavropol Territory (also officially attributed to everyday hooliganism), bluntly stated: “The eastern regions (of Stavropol - - S.N. ) came under the criminal control of immigrants from the Republic of Dagestan, which led to an increase in nationalist sentiments, especially among young people." Isn’t it true that from these words it may seem to a person not familiar with Russian geography that Dagestan and the Stavropol Territory are not only not neighbors, but also not parts of the same country at all?
The Russian authorities do not yet accept either external or internal migration as a natural reality. Although people always and everywhere try to move to places where there is a better chance of feeding themselves. As a result, on the one hand, Russia still has a huge number of depressed regions, including the multinational Caucasian republics. On the other hand, people even from the Russian Caucasus (not to mention migrants from the former Soviet republics) are perceived even at the level of government officials as a threat and a breeding ground for crime for the Russian Stavropol region or Russian Karelia (the skins chanted “Kon-do-po” during the current Moscow fight -ha”, recalling the true reasons for last year’s September pogroms in a Karelian town). Think about it: people from one part of the country threaten stability in another. This is a direct recognition of the lack of full-fledged social and political integrity of the state.
The current “exacerbation of friendship between peoples” is superimposed on the increasingly obvious shortage of labor resources in Russia, which cannot be filled without migration. In addition, the state’s attempts to create a baby boom in the country, by and large, concern precisely the Russian population: among the peoples of the Caucasus, as well as among the second largest Russian national group, the Tatars, no decrease in the birth rate was observed. On the contrary, it grew and grows. And the Chinese, whether we like it or not, will inevitably “spill over” into the territory of the Russian Far East, according to demographers, by 2020-2030 claiming to be the second or third largest Russian ethnic group.
The task of the state is to ensure that representatives of all national groups, different cultures and religions live in Russia according to the secular democratic laws of a multinational country, without trying to divide it into specific principalities or khanates. The policy of transforming the inhabitants of Russia into Russians, into an organic, united historical people, in principle, cannot be built on discussions about “Kalinkas” and “Lezginkas,” about the “dominance of Caucasians” or “oppression of Russians.” Those who are ready to do so should trade in the markets, regardless of their passport. And the police must break up fights regardless of the national composition of their participants.