Two years of North Caucasus Federal District

In 2011, to the background of protests, Russian nationalists became more active. They stood under the slogan “Stop feeding the Caucasus!” and persuaded people that huge amounts of money allocated by Moscow for “buying loyalty of the North Caucasus puppet authorities” are being wasted. The appearance of the slogan coincided with the establishment of a new federal policy in the North Caucasus, as a result of which the North Caucasus Federal District was detached from the Southern Federal District.

Almost two years have passed since its establishment. Experts see positive moments in this density, which enables attention to be paid to each republic. As for disadvantages, they state about the readiness of the political elite to accept the disintegration of the South of Russia.

The district became unique, according to many criteria. The NCFD territory doesn’t surpass 1% of the territory of Russia, but most of experts call it the center of Russia’s problems.

The center of the district is in Pyatigorsk. It is the only district center, which is neither a regional center nor the biggest city of a district. The president appointed Alexander Khloponin to the position of the preliminary envoy in the NCFD.

The main thing is that experts cannot solve the “hen/egg” problem: at first security problems, which prevent implementation of economic projects, should be settled or a platform for implementation of the economic projects should be established. Nevertheless, Khloponin had to develop an effective model of solving economic-social problems. The envoy doesn’t control security-service agencies, but tries to fulfill social-political objectives by involving the population into modernization of the region.

In May 2010 the idea of establishing the Public Council of the NCFD was voiced. It was decided to form the council out of three parts: the federal part includes well-known representatives of Russian social organizations (14 people), the district part includes members proposed by the envoy (14 people) and the regional part includes representatives of all constituents of the district (14 people). They deal with defense of human rights, inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations, resistance to corruption, environment protection, education, preservation of spiritual, historic and cultural values, and the mass media issues. However, by the moment the Council has no great achievements in any of these directions.

Within the Public Council the Council of Elders of the NCFD was established. 7 people are members of it – one from each constituent.

As for the youth policy, experts concerned about attitude of the envoy to graduators of foreign universities of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Worrying that the Caucasus young people will bring extremist ideas, Khloponin stated that the authorities cannot forbid foreign education, but they can order not to employ people with such diplomas. Experts believe that such measures will isolate young people, who have already gotten foreign education, from all spheres of life. They suggest using them in prevention of radical ideas among the youth.

However, this task was imposed on the All-Caucasian Youth Alliance – a union of youth organizations, movements and informal groups. It should control self-organization of the youth environment in the NCFD regions, form the system of clubs, informal unions and non-commercial organizations.

At the same time, the NCFD established the Council on the Youth Policy. It has a lot of targets: from promotion of interrelations between the youth unities and the government to improvement of the youth policy by high-tech technologies.

It is difficult to say whether these councils and unities are useful or not, as their activity is not broadcasted at the federal level. Information at the official web-site of the NCFD is rarely freshened, a half of categories are empty. It is not understood why “the effective manager” Khloponin put promotion of the media on a back burner.

Economic projects developed in the NCFD were criticized in 2011 as well. The main of them was the Strategy of social-economic development of the district by 2025, which presupposes 3.9-billion-ruble financing. The program is long-termed, and there are no guarantees that it will be financed by 2025 at the necessary level, considering negative reaction of the Russian society at great inflows to the North Caucasus.

Yekaterina Tesemnikova. Exclusively to VK