Window On Eurasia: Non-Russian Republics Expand Networks Of Representative Offices
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posted by eagle on October, 2009 as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, October 24 – The establishment this week of a permanent representation of the Republic of Ingushetia in Sverdlovsk oblast in order to oversee a program of resettling Ingush workers there calls attention to a broader phenomenon: Russia’s non-Russian republics are setting up such offices now not only in Moscow but in many other regions and republics.
Such institutions, which have their roots in Soviet times, have both practical and symbolic importance. On the one hand, the “permanent representations” of Soviet republics in Moscow lobbied on behalf of their governments, assisted travelers and students, and ensured communication between the center and the periphery.
And on the other, because of their quasi-diplomatic functions, they symbolized the self-standing nature of the republics on whose behalf they worked, a symbolism that was given real content when following the collapse of the Soviet ...
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Prague Watchdog: Where Does Russia End?
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Where does Russia end?By Demis Polandov, special to Prague Watchdog
Chechnya is the leading candidate for secession from the Russian empire. With its mono-ethnic population, today’s Chechnya makes one think of an overseas colony. The region has a clearly-established ethnic border. All the institutions of statehood have been created. They do not function as they ought to, in many of their manifestations they are inhumane, but they exist. The people, including the president, are replaceable. The rotation of officials is painless and organic. Of course, similar institutions also existed in the ChASSR (Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic), but during the deportations of the Chechens and Ingush they were almost completely destroyed. The deportations led to an enormous collapse in the level of educational attainment, and the development of the intelligentsia and the bureaucracy was stunted for an entire generation. The total nature of ... |
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Window On Eurasia: Non-Russian Units In Amalgamated Federal Subjects Want The Rights They Were Promised
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, October 17 – In order to secure approval of popular referenda amalgamating small non-Russian districts with larger and predominantly ethnic Russian federation subjects, Moscow promised that the former units would become “administrative-territorial units with a special status.”
But in the eight years since this process begun, neither the central Russian powers that be nor the leaderships of the newly amalgamated subjects have lived up to these promises, leading to demands by the non-Russians that the situation be rectified, putting at risk any further amalgamation, and exacerbating centrifugal forces in the country as a whole.
In an analysis of this problem posted on the Irkutsk portal Babr.ru, Anton Uvachan provides a detailed description of promises not kept, rising anger among the non-Russian communities and the political difficulties Moscow and the new regional elites are ...
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Window On Eurasia: Rather Than Invade, Moscow Will Seek To Destabilize Ukraine From Within, Georgian Official Says
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, October 20 – The Government of Georgia is convinced that Russia will not invade Ukraine, a country immeasurably stronger than Georgia, the vice premier of that South Caucasus republic said yesterday, but rather that Moscow will employ “the most clever means” of destabilizing Ukraine from the inside during the ongoing presidential campaign there.
Georgy Baramidze, who also serves as Georgia’s minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, said that Russian forces could not hope to defeat Ukrainian ones and therefore will “attempt to blow up [the Ukrainian] state with [Ukraine’s own] forces’
(ru.tsn.ua/ukrayina/gruziya-predupredila-chto-rossiya-poprobuet-podorvat-ukrainu-iznutri.html).
Moscow, he said, will try to “create controlled chaos and an atmosphere of hatred,” to play off one group of Ukrainians against another in order to “inflame” the situation. Indeed, Baramidze said, “Russia will support everyone who supports the escalation ...
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Window On Eurasia: Russia’s Governors Retain Real Powers despite Putin’s Power Vertical, Moscow Scholars Say
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, October 8 – Although Russia’s governors are now appointed by Moscow rather than elected by the voters of their regions, they in many cases have remained extremely powerful and even independent because of their length of service and ability to rely on “a complex balance of interests,” according to new research organized by a Russian Internet journal.
In the current issue of “Russky reporter” posted online today, its journalists say that scholars have concluded that “despite the fact that direct elections of the heads of regions were eliminated in 2004 and even that in the course of the next year, the terms of [many] run out, the powers that be in the subjects of the Federation represent a most influential level in Russia.”
Many of the federal subject heads have been in their ...
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