The Caucasus question and Moscow's answer

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Recent scandalous incidents involving people from the Caucasus have led to a massive "cleanup" in Moscow markets and further aggravation of interethnic relations in the Russian capital. In the markets a decriminalization operation began in which several thousand visitors have already been arrested, mostly from Central Asia and the Caucasus, and Vladimir Putin met in Novo-Ogaryovo with heads of the Interior Ministry, the Investigative Committee and the city of Moscow, to clarify the issues of fighting crime in the major shopping points and fight against corruption in law enforcement. According to the president, "the efforts that are being made in this area, are not enough ... We react and attach some speed to the work in this direction only when we have people talking about it directly, and we already cannot tolerate looking at this mess, like in this case, when an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had his head broken - but this is not a normal situation... There is the situation that occurred today in one of the markets of Moscow: the police stood next to the scene of the crime and saw how their colleague was beaten up. Why? Are they such cowards? It is possible, but unlikely. Rather, they work out with their inaction their thirty pieces of silver, which they get from these merchants, and it is clear to everyone, and everyone knows – it is not known only to the Internal Security Ministry. They should function properly. Where are the results of their work? This is the first point. Secondly, we need to take more drastic measures – both the Federal Migration Service and other agencies."


"The toughest lessons have been learned from the situation that occurred: the head of the local unit was dismissed, and a few employees were released. And we will continue to do this work,” the head of the Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltchev reported. “It's not a two-day, three-day sweep, as it is sometimes called. This will be done in a many-sided mode. "


Using the incident as newsworthy, "the first interactive TV channel" OnlineTV.ru has conceived solving the "Caucasus issue" with the help of experts.


Sociologist, expert on ethno-cultural and socio-political problems of modern Dagestan Enver Kisriev said: "There is a need to change the vector of development, political movement. Confusion in high places makes you want to blow up information bombs that distract from the real problems so that people see in front of them not the real problems that we must solve but some such "sensationalism", see the "enemy" that prevents them from living and participative positions of power which are ready to fight this enemy...

We somehow forgot that there was a war in the Caucasus, which began with a major aggression of a group that wanted to rule the country. We could not resolve the problem by tanks only. What is the ideology of the war? Every war has to have an ideology, because people are going to kill and risk their lives. An ideology was created - hatred of other people. We in the Caucasus believe that this war continues.

The state should remain within the legal terms, it has to see like X-rays - through nationality, to see only the legal basis...

In a modern industrial society there must be citizens, not people of different nationalities. If we treat people depending on what nationality they are, we'll go into a blind alley from which there will be no conceptual way out ... The Caucasus issue should be resolved, but like it is now being resolved."


"The information background indicates that the situation is manageable. Officials and agencies decide it under their tasks. The scene in the market was laid down on prepared soil. About a month ago people started to actively write and say that half of the crimes are committed by migrants in Moscow,” the editor-in-chief of VK Alexei Vlasov said. “A whole generation is outside of ideology. They do not know the Caucasus, they are fed up reading blogs. They perceive everything from scratch. The virus of nationalism, not only in Russia, is a natural state. But in Russia it is also transformed into an ideology on the principle of separation. It is fixed in the minds of young people, and these conflicts are repeated, because in the minds of young people there is nothing else ...


If this problem had been resolved systematically, it would be possible to praise the federal channels and all the media that were suddenly actively involved in discussion of this issue. The main thing is that this discussion should not take the format of campaigning ... And the problem of power is a critical shortage of managers who would write good laws and monitor their enforcement."


"We need to carefully study the problem of formation of the Caucasian diaspora,” a senior researcher at the Gaidar Institute Constantine Kazenin said. “The Caucasus becomes a tool of political technologies, and it is currently used by a variety of sides. In this case, the issue of what is happening in the North Caucasus goes away from the information field. In addition to news about the bombings, we do not hear anything about the Caucasus. And we should try to move on to solving the problem. At the heart of many problems associated with people from the Caucasus there are the reasons of non-ideological character. Each ethnic group has a historical trajectory. The phase which is currently in Dagestan is a period that Central Russia experienced in the years of 1920-1930 – powerful urbanization, moving to cities, destruction of traditional rural society. Since the early 1990s, when the federal government withdrew from Dagestan, ethno-parties seized control of the territory, and the young people have now very little social mobility, if they do not fit this clan system.

…The national issue appears in a legal vacuum, so it is necessary to bring legal order to the North Caucasus and to the rest of Russia.