The final solution to the Russian question in Kazakhstan

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Modern Kazakhstan clearly follows the precepts of Lenin and his cohort of fiery Bolsheviks, increasingly moving away from its Russian history. At the state level, laws are being adopted that erase Russia from the memory of the people who owe their statehood to the Russians …

Today, few people will remember that the former capital of the Kazakh SSR, renamed by the communists Alma-Ata(Father of Apples), was once called Loyal, and was founded by Russian Cossacks. Equally, the fact that the apples themselves in this steppe region began to be cultivated by Russian settlers. Nomads - the descendants of the current "titular nation" of Kazakhstan - did not live in those parts, appearing only to barter or bargain for something.

Historical Russian names such as Semirichye, Ore Altai, Southern Siberiadisappeared after the de-Russification of the region carried out by the communists. The Kazakh party elite formed on this wave, which later became the ethnic elite of independent Kazakhstan, continued this process: for example, the cities that bore historical Russian names were renamed (because they were founded by Russians): Guriev- to Atyrau, Semipalatinsk- in Semey, Akmolinsk- to Astana, plus another 60% local place names.

Swallowed the dust of the colonizers

But the “blue” (by the color of the national flag) de-Russifiers are not going to stop there, wanting to surpass even their “red” predecessors. So, among Kazakh nationalists there is a myth that Russians Omsk and Orenburg stand on "historical Kazakh lands" and, accordingly, bear the names Omba and Orynbur. And one could have laughed at this imposingly, fortunately, in the desire to bite off a piece of present-day Russia, Kazakh nationalists are no more original than Estonian or Ukrainian, but a map with "returned cities" was issued exactly a year ago by the state Kazakhstani news agency Kazinform.

Then, however, they promptly removed it, after an appropriate reaction on the Internet - but, as you know, nothing goes missing on the Web. And the name of the editor-in-chief of the agency Askara Umarova, to whom, apparently, even his own surname does not seem to be Kazakh enough, therefore he often calls himself "Askar Kumyran", a former employee of the Nazarbayev administration, as well as some of his statements on the same Internet are also not a secret for anyone. For example, this: "Please do not forget that you are an imposed diaspora here."

The fact that the "imposed" diaspora gave the nomadic people - the direct descendants of their oppressors from the Golden Horde - writing, cities, industry, and, in general, saved from extermination by the Dzungars, is no longer accepted in today's Kazakhstan. And the official speeches of the top officials of this country, which became a country, thanks to the collapse of the USSR and the historical softness of Moscow, are executed in a completely different key:

And this was already said by Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbayev himself. Member of the CPSU since 1962, the Central Committee of the CPSU since 1986. Who (here they love in Moscow the names of the Russian saints who united the Russian state and preserved its spiritual code, to dispose of at random), for a second, the holder of the Russian Order of Alexander Nevsky …

It is not surprising that, with such thoughts, the order bearer Nazarbayev the first of the leaders of the post-Soviet Asian republics to go bowing to Washington, offering Trump to revive the 5 + 1 format, that is, the post-Soviet republics plus the United States and, accordingly, minus Russia; opens Caspian ports for the transit of NATO cargoes and gives the go-ahead to transfer the "title" Kazakh language to the Latin alphabet by 2025. Representatives of his country do not support Russian resolutions on Syria in the UN Security Council (where Kazakhstan became a temporary member, again at the insistence of Russia), signs a five-year plan for cooperation with the Pentagon, according to which the Americans will train Kazakhstani military the military fleet.

Russians are leaving

Today's Kazakhstan is a country where pro-Russian activists are imprisoned: a politician and philanthropist received a 21-year sentence Tokhtar Tuleshov; after serving two and a half years out of four, a blogger and social activist was released Ermek Taychibekov, as well as ordinary Internet users such as Tatiana Shevtsova-Valova and Igor Sychev, after the Crimean events, they discussed on social networks the possibility of returning the Russian territories of Kazakhstan to Russia. Plus the militias who stood up for the Russian Donbass: for this noble cause, the Nazarbayev regime has already condemned and imprisoned the citizens of this country for various rather long terms Evgeniya Vdovenko, Alexandra Urasheva and Timur Lyamina.

Only two years ago - in 2016, they moved to Russia from Kazakhstan 23 thousand 589 Russians … And this despite the fact that the path of our compatriots in the heart of Russian civilization - modern Russia - is not covered with rose petals, but on the contrary, it stretches through all kinds of bureaucratic obstacles. If it were not for which, an order of magnitude more people with Russian surnames or Russian identity would have left Kazakhstan.

According to official statistics, in 1989 on the territory of the Kazakh SSR lived 2 million Russians and 6, 5 million Kazakhs. By 2016, the picture had changed dramatically, now Kazakhs in Kazakhstan - 11, 5 million, and Russians - 3, 5 million. And, apparently, this gap will grow further: Russians, who now have no place in state and administrative management, as well as in big business, will leave, and Kazakhs will come from other countries of Central Asia, as well as Mongolia, China and Afghanistan.

Such visitors in Kazakhstan are called "oralmans", noting their, to put it mildly, not very civilized behavior and extremely Russophobic mood. Along with the gentle squeezing of Russians from key positions in the life of the country, the behavior of southerners is one of the reasons why Russians leave the land where their ancestors lived for generations.

The return of Crimea for some time gave the Kazakh Russians the hope that their native lands would either return to Russia, or they would have their own autonomy within Kazakhstan, as the Russian inhabitants of the southeast of Ukraine wanted. At that time, the city of Petropavlovsk, where Russians still make up the majority of the population (about 61%), even became a kind of capital of Russian Kazakhstan, where people took to the streets with Russian tricolors. However, the defeat of the "Russian Spring" throughout Novorossia, the war in the Donbass, the freezing of the situation with the LPNR deprived people of hope, and the mood of the local Russians again became "suitcase."

Read also: The Forbidden History of Kazakstan

New theomachists

Now, the Nazarbayev regime, along with the translation of the Kazakh language into the Latin alphabet, is preparing another step that can lead to the final solution of the Russian question in this state. Astana wants to turn the Orthodoxy professed by Russians into a kind of decorative religion, a kind of spiritual and cultural ghetto, the presence of which can be passed off to distinguished guests for showing tolerance. But which will be deprived of the right to a mission, and, consequently, of its very apostolic basis, commanded by the Lord: "Go and preach to all nations …".

Already in September, the Kazakh parliament will consider the bill "On Amendments and Additions to Certain Legislative Acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Religious Activity and Religious Associations" approved by Nazarbayev. In fact, the Law on Religious Activities and Religious Associations, which restricts religious freedoms, was adopted in Kazakhstan back in 2011 and became Astana's response to the penetration of Islamic radicalism into the republic from the south. However, everyone fell under the distribution, and the Orthodox did not meekly puzzled by the question of why the crimes are committed by Muslim radicals, and everyone gets the "hat".

Proceeding from the new law, which rather rigidly established the norms of the "secular state", the church had to close all churches and prayer rooms in hospitals and colonies, taking the prayed images out of these "state institutions". Since the dissemination of "religious symbols" was henceforth prohibited outside the walls of the temple, the corresponding incidents began to occur: a resident of Pavlodar was sentenced to a fine for spreading the life of Sergius of Radonezh, and a resident of Ust-Kamenogorsk - for placing an advertisement on the Internet for the sale of the image of the Mother of God embroidered with beads.

At the same time, based on the State Concept of State Policy in the Religious Sphere, officials, teachers and athletes were now prohibited from demonstrating their belonging to a particular confession, that is, no more icons and images on desktops and prayer services during significant events. Teachers, however, were strongly encouraged to form in children and youth "Secular worldview".

Whoever got out of these ideological clutches - as expected, fell under the pressure. Thus, the priest, Father Vladimir Vorontsov, was almost imprisoned for going with the pupils of the Sunday school to the mountains, where they, among other things, read prayers. Only thanks to the caused information resonance, the court acquitted the priest.

The current amendments were provoked, again, by an attempt by armed Islamists in 2016 to seize the arms of a military unit in Aktobe. After which, the Kazakh authorities were expected to get scared. And therefore, already in September, the Kazakh parliament will consider and, most likely, approve rather amusing amendments. For example, “failure by the leader of a religious association to take measures to prevent minors under 16 years of age from participating in divine services” unaccompanied by one of the parents, close relatives or legal representatives is proposed to be punished with a fine of fifty “calculated indicators” and the suspension of the activities of the religious organization for three months.

And for the creation of "organizational structures of religious associations" in government agencies, healthcare and educational institutions - a fine already from one hundred (for individuals) to two hundred (for legal entities) of these very "monthly calculation indices." The bill also prohibits the distribution of religious literature to minors, except for the one used by their parents or their teachers in Sunday schools. And also to demonstrate the external attributes of "destructive religious movements", the affiliation to which will be determined not even by the court, but by the national security and internal affairs bodies. And those, as you know, act on orders from above.

Thus, following the language lever, the Kazakh ethnocracy will also have a religious lever. Because, no matter what all sorts of ideological atheists or neo-pagans who were born out of nowhere say, outside of Russia Russian communities live only where Orthodox churches operate. Gathering Russians of different generations, turning into spiritual and cultural centers of the Russian diasporas, territorially divorced from the metropolis.

See also: Forgotten Vѣrny