Passionary potential of the North Caucasus will be in demand

The Moscow Caucasian Club, established in 2015, received a curator. From now on, it will work under the patronage of the Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs. A presentation of the club was held two days ago in Moscow.

"Initially, it was a platform established under president's office in the North Caucasus Federal District and based on the activities of Moscow's permanent missions. Later we transformed. Expert direction received additional development. Public direction also received additional development, since we worked with various youth and social organizations, helped various projects," chairman of the Moscow Caucasian Club Shamil Jafarov said.

"In order to strengthen the status of our events and to receive feedback it is necessary to understand how region lives, what needs people have, what emotions they experience after events occurring both in the region and in Russia as a whole. Work with Federal Agency gave a new impuls, a new life to the work of the Moscow Caucasian Club. Thanks to it we can often go beyond the boundaries of the North Caucasian agenda and discuss problems that concern all citizens of Russia. After all, the problem of interethnic relations exists not only in Caucasus. We make a lot of efforts to harmonize interethnic relations. We receive less and less negative information on this issue.We have gathered and are working as experts, as specialists in various areas on a voluntary basis, without any formalized form of work. This is a community of people who care," Jafarov added.

Head of the Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs, Igor Barinov, said that the agency was initially involved in work of the Moscow Caucasian Club, but it was necessary to institutionalize it: "This club now has its own home, a platform where members of the Moscow Caucasian Club could come, meet, agree on its activities. The Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs will become this home. New format will affect not only those problems that representatives of the Caucasian republics face in the capital, but will also focus on inviting North Caucasus Federal District experts to Moscow to discuss problems faced by the North Caucasus republics and the Stavropol Territory. Solutions that we will jointly develop will become an algorithm for solving common problems."

Barinov announced the list of directions of the Moscow Caucasian Club's work.

1. Interethnic and interconfessional relations.

2. Promoting of Caucasus' positive image, media in Caucasus.

3. Improving investment attractiveness of the North Caucasus Federal District.

4. Youth policy.

5. Interregional cooperation.

6. Interethnic cooperation, cooperation with diasporas and communities.

Mikhail Razvozhaev, Russia's Deputy Minister for North Caucasus Affairs, believes that North Caucasus has the most powerful passionary energy: "It experiences a huge stage of development in all directions. This also concerns tourism and economic potential. There is a huge niche in the economy, especially in agriculture, in the food processing industry. North Caucasus can occupy this niche within the framework of import substitution. In addition, a huge number of young people graduate from higher education institutions, and enter the labor market. Such passionary potential will be in demand in the country... As for the Moscow Caucasian club, this is a great platform. It's great that North Caucasus has its own Valdai Club, where the most important experts can gather, experts in all spheres of life of this region. Now it's possible to receive expert opinion on any issue of a broad agenda. We would like federal media to ask this pool of experts for professional expertise. We hope that the Moscow Caucasian Club will unite these experts under the auspices of the Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs."