Migration in Russia's Kuban

Author: Evgeni Nikolaychuk, exclusively to VK


In Russia, obligatory courses for harmonization of international relations for the officials and managers at various levels responsible for national policy in their regions can be established. This idea can be implemented within the development strategies of national policy. Apparently, above all, we are talking about local authorities in townships, villages and towns, because they are considered a weak spot where ethnic conflicts occur. At this level, it is important to be able to anticipate a conflict situation; this requires certain competent people that would constantly monitor this issue in their territory. Unfortunately, local officials responsible for national, ethnic and cultural policy, are often not quite competent in the subject.


 Experts advise them to study history, ethnic geography, and cultural peculiarities of the region as compulsory subjects in order not to repeat in future the mistakes of the political governor of the Krasnodar Territory Alexander Tkachev, who demonstrated not only ignorance of the ethnic history of the native land, but also ignored one of the fundamental laws of human relations in multinational Russia by his reckless statement. On August 2, at the expanded board of the head department of Ministry of Interior in Krasnodar, Tkachev urged to "expulse" migrants, including representatives of the peoples of the North Caucasus, from the region.

The reason for such a negative attitude of Alexander Tkachev towards migrants was, in his words, the expansion of the residents of neighboring Chechnya, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria in the region, and as a consequence - the oppression of the indigenous population of the region. "I have thought that we still have time; there is a filter between the Caucasus and the Kuban – this is Stavropol. But now I see that this filter does not exist. We are the next. And who will be responsible for the first blood which will shed here, for ethnic conflicts? And sooner or later it will occur, "- Tkachev said, obviously not thinking that such a statement can cause a similar reaction of expulsing the Russian population from the North Caucasus.

The governor of Kuban wants to charge Cossack warriors with resolving the problem of "expulsing" the migrants, ignoring not only the historical way of life of the Kuban Cossacks, but also elements of control over migration processes. These elements are known to have become part of a national policy of the Russian state, by which the governor has been appointed to his post. The same policy specifies that any law-abiding citizen of Russia has the right to live anywhere in Russia of his own choice.

The governor of the neighboring Stavropol Region Valery Zerenkov answered rather sharply to the statement of Tkachev: "I am a motorist, and I know what a filter is. This is a spare part. We've never been and will not be a spare part for anybody. I would say that no governor has right to make such statements. No one will be expulsed, we will work with everyone. If somebody arrives, that’s good, but he should not break the order which was installed over the years. "

It is strange that Tkachev’s initiative of “expulsing” the representatives of the North Caucasus from Kuban has been supported by a number of well-known patriotic Russian public figures. Such support would be appropriate only if he had said that any Russian settling in one of the North Caucasian republics would be under his personal protection. Meanwhile, it seems that Tkachev, feeling the dissatisfaction of the residents of Kuban with the inaction of local authorities of fixing the effects of flooding in Krymsk and with dominance of criminal groups bonded with the power, as well as the growing discontent of the federal authorities, decided to play the ethnic card.



Tkachev apparently believes that in this situation the Russian president will not be able to dismiss him, because, speaking on the side of international peace, Putin will speak on the side of the Caucasus against the Cossacks. As for "expulsing" the Caucasians, the kinds of "cleansing" and other coercive methods are related to hostilities and are not provided by legal mechanisms in peacetime. The words of the Governor Tkachev sound like a provocation.

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A Russian citizen can live wherever it sees fit to live. Nevertheless, if a citizen violates administrative or criminal law, law enforcement system must immediately stop it and use all possible means to prevent this from happening in the future. If, however, in the Kuban region some citizens violate the laws without punishment, this is not the issue of the Caucasian peoples, Armenians or Russians. This question is for the regional departments of Ministry of Interior and personally to the Governor Tkachev who is their head.



Therefore, at the cabinet meeting Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called for radical changes in the management of migration processes in the country, stressing that we should not be afraid of migration, but it must be a managed process. "The key task is to create a civilized and balanced labor market and to provide our economy with skilled labor force," - the head of government said. He also noted that the concept of migration policy in the period up to 2025, which was previously discussed at the meeting of the Security Council this April and was now approved by the president, aimed to improve the management of migration, and demanded to prevent the formation of enclaves of migrants in Russia.



The words of Tkachev about the "expulsion" of Caucasians are widely seen as a "stab in the back of Russia", while the Russian political leadership tries to keep the fragile ethnic peace. We should only hope that Russian peoples, taught by bitter experience, would not allow the ethnic slaughter, and the Cossacks would not allow to be involved into other people's political games and would become the center of self-organizing Russians in Kuban in order to protect their interests, but within legal methods.