Window On Eurasia: Russians Marrying Fewer Foreigners Than In The Past, Justice Ministry Figures Show
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posted by eagle on December, 2009 as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Paul Goble
Vienna, December 13 – Beginning in Soviet times, Russians have often pointed to the percentage of non-Russians speaking Russian and the number of marriages between Russians and non-Russians as key indicators of the level of integration and the potential for assimilation of non-Russian groups.
Over the last year, Russian commentators have focused on the often dramatic declines in Russian-language instruction and use in the former Soviet republics and called on Moscow to do more to defend Russian speakers and to promote Russian language knowledge in these countries as part of a broader effort to defend what they call “the Russian world.”
But now new data show that the number of Russian citizens marrying foreigners is declining as well, a trend that reflects both shifts in attitudes toward foreigners and toward particular countries and nationalities and also changes in relative opportunity as the numbers of those communities with whom Russians ...
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Window On Eurasia: Mapping Of Russia’s Religious Communities Sparks Controversy
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Paul Goble
Vienna, December 12 – Both an interactive online atlas launched with much pomp in Moscow this week and two books on which it is based that were released at a scholarly conference there have sparked controversy among experts not only because of numerous errors of fact but also and especially because of the political agenda of their authors.
On the one hand, the new works have been compiled in order to suggest that adherents of the so-called four “traditional” religions – Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism -- make up 95 percent of all believers, a conclusion that dramatically understates the number of Catholics and Protestants but one that can be expected to be used to justify Moscow’s policies.
And on the other, these atlases include what might be called “the dead souls” of Orthodoxy, the numerous churches listed as working so that the Patriarchate can maintain its control of the buildings but that ...
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Deutsche Welle: Russia | 11.12.2009 Medvedev's push for control of Russian military unsettles Caucasus
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posted by circassiankama on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Russia | 11.12.2009
Medvedev's push for control of Russian military unsettles Caucasus
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has announced that he has requested
the right to send troops into other countries in cases of emergency
without consulting parliament. The proposed plan is causing regional
concern.
Under existing law, Russia can send troops abroad only to defend
its citizens and allies, fight piracy or protect shipping routes.
Medvedev cited this law when he sent troops into the ex-Soviet state of
Georgia in August 2008 after Tbilisi launched a military assault on the
pro-Moscow rebel enclave of South Ossetia. But in the aftermath of the
five-day war, the Russian president urged changes in the legislation.
In November, Medvedev successfully amended the law to allow a
broadened range of "emergency situations" in which Russian forces could
be deployed abroad, but had to agree to a proviso which required him ...
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The Other Russia: Who Is Mister Medvedev?
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
May 28th, 2009 In the wake of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s first year in office, Russia’s pundits have discussed the changes in Russia’s political system at length. Many have pointed to certain steps taken by Medvedev -such as meeting with human rights activists and granting an interview to the openly critical Novaya Gazeta newspaper- which seem to indicate that a liberalization is on the horizon. Questioning this conclusion, commentator Irina Pavlova compares these fleeting signals with actions taken on Medvedev’s watch that have already had a profound effect on Russia’s future. The article first ran in the Grani.ru online newspaper.
Who is Mister Medvedev?
May 27, 2009
Irina Pavlova
Grani.ru Plenty has been said and written about the recent anniversary of Dmitri Medvedev’s presidency. The apologists sing their praises for the appearance of a tandem, seeing in it the signs of a new style of Russian politics and the seed of a future separation of powers. The critics, both in Russia and the West, conversely lend the heaviest ...
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Window On Eurasia: Islamization Is Transforming The North Caucasus Into Russia’s ‘Internal Abroad,’ Malashenko Says
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Paul Goble
Yorktown, December 5 – The growing influence of Islam in the North Caucasus, a reflection of increasing disillusionment with the Russian political system, is transforming the region into Russia’s “internal abroad,” where people “have portraits of Putin and Medvedev [on their walls] but are for shariat law,” according to a leading Moscow specialist.
In a speech last week, Aleksey Malashenko, a scholar at the Moscow Carnegie Center, says that this trend, rather than support for separatist movements is behind what he says is a nearly equal “civil war” there, between those who want the imposition of Islamic law and those who back Russian legislation (www.slon.ru/articles/203931/).
Six or seven years ago, the Moscow analyst said, few people responded to calls for the imposition of shariat in these republics, but “now certainly have of society is demanding” that, not because they want independence from Russia but because they want a system ...
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