The research organisation SOVA reported that that there is growing support for xenophobic attitudes and normalisation of nationalist language in 'mainstream society', which creates the basis for a more serious proliferation of racism. Indeed, 2013 saw a return to rising numbers of racist attacks in Russia (21 dead and 178 injured, mainly people from the Caucasus and Central Asia), with no corresponding increase in criminal prosecutions for this. This rise infects other walks of life: an increase in racism at university among students, officials and staff, or the abuse of black footballers Roberto Carlos, Christopher Samba (banned for gesturing back to the crowd), Hulk (abused by Spartak fans and not welcomed by his team's own). These incidents also show that the problem relates to both racism and xenophobia.
Politically, SOVA also note the shift in government policy and tactics by increasing the number of raids for illegal immigrants but point out that the police and immigration service involve far-right groups in these inspections. This idea of officials working with such groups is happening in conjunction with the governing political party, Edinaya Rossiya. Putin's party is centrist overall but its policies on immigration do not extend to integration. Russia does have a mainstream xenophobic, nationalist political party, the highly ironically-named Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, though its 10% of the vote can largely be attributed to the bluster and populist outrage of its charismatic leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The Communist Party at one point wanted to have ethnicity stated on on passports, as there had been in the past. Even the face of the liberal anti-Putin movement, Alexei Navalny, is at best (and perhaps deliberately?) ambiguous - meeting with leaders of different communities but speaks at nationalist rallies, promising to prevent "the illegal migration orgy". So politically, Russia doesn't have an ideologically or practically pro-immigrant view. How genuinely xenophobic it is is another question; compare the UK's current race to the bottom on this issue as each political party tries to outmanoeuver the others' increasingly anti-immigration stance.
In terms of migration statistics in Russia, Russia has the second highest number of migrants in the world (11 million, officially-speaking), with 1.8 million immigrants working legally and 3 million more illegally. If there's no integration, there's ghettoisation and the accompanying tensions of a mass culture clash. Large groupings of one migrant culture can make certain behaviours acceptable within that community but not outside of it (just think about the Brit's reputation abroad) and this is what the head of Russia's Federal Migration Service (FMS) says leads to complaints about how the migrants behave. It also contributes to tensions between communities and large-scale outbreaks of violence: July 2013 - a fight over a girl, not race, led to a man being stabbed by a Chechen but was followed by vigilante attacks on the Chechen community and protests for them to be removed from the city; October 2013 - an ethnic Russian was murdered in Moscow by a 'non-Slav' and 400 were arrested after locals' and extremists' protests; December 2013 - a similar incident in Arzamas involving a 1000 protesters.
Russia is not unique. This is a Europe-wide trend at the moment: political parties representing anti-immigration or isolationist views are doing better in the polls. In France, the Front National is on the rise, coming first in the 2014 European elections. The UK Independence Party has just got its first MP by virtue of a defecting politician being re-elected after a by-election. The Hungarian, nationalist Jobbik party has gone from 2 to 20% at the polls in 8 years. The neo-fascist Golden Dawn party saw its popularity rise to 10% in the last European elections. And so on.
UNESCO give two causes of xenophobia: changes in migration pattern leading to a defensiveness among the receiving populace and the subsequent sense of a need to protect yourself against the newcomers; secondly, as globalisation brings about greater competition, services in welfare, education and health are reduced to save money. This leads to poorer people in society suffering further and using immigrants as a scapegoat. The recent economic situation has brought financial woes and uncertainty to society, leading to parallels with the rise of fascism following the Great Depression.
Russia's period of uncertainty began well before ours [the fall of communism, Yeltsin, a new hope with Putin] and has seen both financial and social upheaval. Some people have done very well out of the changes, but many haven't. With the continuing influx of migrants, this provides the perfect breeding ground for resentment, for example people who now feel in a demographic minority, and for nationalists to prey on the emotions of the disillusioned, those in unfortunate circumstances and the marginalised. A 2013 poll of Muscovites found that 55% thought there were too many migrants.
From what I've seen and heard; yes, attitudes to people from the southern, Asian, former Soviet republics are not positive overall. From experience, I find it hard to discern what is inherently xenophobic and what is an unfavourable opinion brought about by negative experiences and, of those, what is really personal experience and what is hearsay become reality, a 'it happened to a friend of a friend of a friend of...'. However, a couple of times I've witnessed the kind of behaviour complained about - men whose ethnicity is non-Slavic making offensively crude suggestions to Slavic women. In the interest of fairness of reporting, I've also sat with such migrant workers, had a beer and a chat - enjoyable. I've also heard Russians complaining about 'foreigners begging'; to date in Russia, I've seen three kind of people begging: little old ladies, amputees/ war veterans and, yes, people of one specific non-Slavic background.
I've heard outright racism based on black people's appearance, from a friend and colleague. I also remember talking about football with someone I met for the first time at a party. He'd shown his excessive interest in English football hooligans so I'd already decided that he was a bit of wanker. My assessment was proved correct when he asked me, "What do you think about that f*****g Jew [Roman] Abramovich?" I walked away.
What I find personally troublesome is the question as to how such views can be compatible with my general experience of Russians - warm, friendly and welcoming, even amongst those who initially seem somewhat gruff. Overall, most xenophobia I've witnessed relates to people from the Caucasus and Central Asia. To me, this links in to UNESCO's reasons for this attitude: it doesn't appear to be directed at westerners generally, people from places where many Russian aspire to visit or live and whose culture is popular, so there isn't an inherently universal hatred of foreigners. Rather it's the problems both real and perceived, on the doorstep and the scapegoat for society's plentiful ills.
The solution isn't easy. How Russia learns to deal with immigrants is a pressing issue and while prominent political figures and parties have anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, there will be no change in public attitude. Likewise, a political failure to either work towards integration or solve other, non-related issues that negatively impact on people's daily lives will only see the problem worsen as migration and misdirected frustrations grow. That integration process also requires work on both sides, with migrants living and behaving within the cultural framework of their current surrounds and Russians appreciating that migrant workers are actually needed, therefore valuable to the country, which might be a start. It's going to take time, but time is not enough alone; there also needs to be action.
Here's a Russian social advert in which parents pass a number of stereotype comments about the Asians, with clear results...
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