Are threats to Russian unity real?

By Vestnik Kavkaza

“Are threats to Russian unity real? Where do our politics lead us to?” Permanent residents of the North Caucasus republics, politicians, representatives of various social organizations and media, social activists, scientists, and writers tried to answer these questions at the round table at the Dagestani mission in Moscow. Any person could contribute to settlement of the discussed problem, using modern media tools and gadgets.

“For Russia with its variety of languages and traditions, ethnic groups, and cultures the ethnic issue is fundamental without any doubts,” Vaki Magatayev, the first deputy of the permanent resident of Dagestan, stated. “Any responsible politician, social activist should realize that one of the main conditions of our country’s existence is civil and inter-ethnic consent. Historic Russia is not a monoethnic state or the American melting pot where everybody is a migrant. Russia have been forming and developing as a multinational state for centuries.”

“The topic is not simply painful. It is a factor which can literally destroy our unity,” Alexander Ibragimov, the member of the Commission on Mass Media of the Public Council in Dagestan mission, says. “It is a weak link which can undermine the Russian statehood. It is the disease which if you don’t treat it, we will find ourselves in Yugoslavia’s situation or even in a worse situation.”

“In Soviet times we used to have a united center. Today we can see politicians who instead of being involved into right settlement of migration problems misinform us and don’t realize that Russia is unified when it is multinational,” Vakha Yeloyev, the permanent resident of Ingushetia, thinks. “Today we see that ahead of the Olympic Games, all regions of Russia are happy that the Olympics will take place in Sochi. When Russian citizens win Olympic medals, we don’t know their ethnicity, but we know that they are Russian citizens and are proud of this.”

Tatyana Sukhomlinova, the deputy envoy of North Ossetia, noted the specificity of the media presence of Russian regions, including the North Caucasus republics, in federal TV-channels: “The North Caucasus appears in the media field only under the label of “stop feeding…” or “lezginka dancing on Red Square” or something like that… And it concerns every region of our country.”

Ali Totorkulov, the chairman of the Board of the Russian Congress of the Caucasus People, defended the Caucasus young people: “I want to say that our young people are wonderful. There are morons everywhere… We should not blame the young generation for everything.”