Creating a pan-Russian identity

By Vestnik Kavkaza

The round table discussion "The implementation practice of the State National Policy Strategy by the national public associations of Moscow" took place in the office of the Union of Georgians in Russia at the initiative of the Moscow department of inter-regional cooperation, national policy and relations with religious organizations. The participants discussed various issues relating to the relations between nationalities.

“We should get together as often as possible,” Aly Totorkulov, Chairman of the "Russian Congress of the Peoples of the Caucasus" board, told Vestnik Kavkaza. “Russia alone has about 200 different nationalities. And if we do not come together, we do not listen to each other, then we will never have anything in common. I'd like to say that today we were guests of the "Union of Georgians in Russia." The positive changes in relations between Georgia and Russia make us, Caucasians, very pleased, because we cannot imagine the Caucasus without Georgians. Generally, there is no force in the world that can hurt us, if we are together.”

Meanwhile, according to Aly Totorkulov, the "Congress of the Peoples of the Caucasus" is the only Russian organization uniting the peoples of the Caucasus: “It was created with an aim to consolidate the Caucasian peoples, to improve the image of Caucasians in Russia and throughout the world, to fight Caucasophobia in Russian society.”

“We can and should create a pan-Russian identity while retaining the diversity of ethnic, religious, and cultural identities,” Madrudin Magomed-Eminov, chairman of the NCA "Moscow Lezghins" and the Club of Lezghin Intellectuals, thinks. “And in this situation there are several issues that I believe to be more general. The fact is that many organizations imagine the preservation of their culture as the preservation of a fossil, a vestigial, archaic, museum phenomenon. On the other hand, there are young people - many people who live in Moscow with their own life-style, and build their own future. That is why, the strategy, which presupposes the answer to the task of preservation of ethnic cultures in the framework of the development of an all-Russian national identity, together with adaptation and integration, are faced with this problem. That is to say, people who are associated with the government have no influence over these active members of the diaspora.”

The participants shared their experience, and future plans. Mikhail Khubutia, president of the "Union of Georgians in Russia", said that he was building a school for talented but poor children: “We have almost created the basic scheme of how we will select these children. Children of absolutely different nationalities, but those who are in a disadvantaged position. I assure you, bright kids are born throughout Russia, but there is no one to take this kid, so to speak, and move the story forward. Honestly, my heart bleeds. Each of us contributes.”