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Anti-Semitism in the Russian Federation in 2004. The report was written by the Moscow Bureau on Human Rights as part of a joint

Anti-Semitism in the Russian Federation in 2004
(Report of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights)
"Direct Action"
According to the data of the sociological surveys conducted by the Expertise Foundation in the first half of 2004 already more than 42% of Russian citizens believe it necessary "to limit the influence of Jews in governmental bodies, politics, business, jurisdiction, educational system and show business". At that another 23% were unsure about the answer. And 28% supported the idea of restoring the pale of settlements or, more precisely, the idea of "limiting the area of their residence on the territory of the Russian Federation".
As in the previous year, substantial number of acts of vandalism against Jewish national and religious sites took place in this year.
January 6: A group of teenagers broke the windows in the Or-Hadash synagogue in Omsk.
March 5: blast bomb was exploded near the Mekor Haim Educational Center, commonly known as the CIS Center for Judaism Studies or the Steinsalz Center. Nobody was injured, but material damage was caused to the building of the educational center.
March: The windows of the Tula Jewish Regional Welfare Center were broken twice.
March 28: Two of the three windows of the restaurant "Shalom" (the only Jewish kosher restaurant in St.Petersburg) were broken.
April 11: Around 2 a.m. two bottles with black paint and one bottle with toxic liquid were thrown at a synagogue building in Nizhni Novgorod.
April 14: Windows in the Jewish Or Avner school were broken at night. April 22: Skinheads attacked a Jewish Community Center in Ulyanovsk. Around 3 p.m. eight drunk teenagers broke into the building, among them one girl. First they were shouting anti-Semitic slogans, after that they started tearing off national flags and symbolic and breaking windows. The perpetrators had managed to escape before police got to the center, since a police unit got there only 40 minutes after the call. According to the testimonies of the witnesses on their way out they promised to repeat the attack. It is interesting that the attack happened practically only half an hour later after the withdrawal of a police unit securing building for several days due to the threat of neo-Nazi attack during Hitler's birthday.
May 19: Hanukkah Menorah at the front lawn of a synagogue in Volgograd was broken.
May 22: Attack on a synagogue in Tumen. Four young people arrived in a car and threw Molotov cocktail over the fence. The guard managed to throw the bottle away through the door. The perpetrators tried to repeat the attempt, but were driven away. The accident was recorded by a security camera. According to the information from Raphael Goldberg, the head of public committee of the synagogue, the tape was later transferred to the authorities for investigation.
June 30: Explosive device was found at the gate of the Choral Synagogue of St.Petersburg.
August 10: Attack on a synagogue in Kostroma. A group of three 17-year-olds came to the gate of the synagogue and started throwing stones over the fence. Fortunately, nobody was injured.
February: Jewish tombstones at one of St.Petersburg cemeteries were vandalized.
March: Izhevsk branch of the Russian National Unity (RNE) organization acted out by painting a huge swastika on a fence near the city drama theatre.
March 24: Inscriptions "Skin 88" and "We'll blow it up again" and a swastika appeared at a T-34 tank standing on a pedestal at the territory of the Siege Museum of St.Petersburg.
December 17: Preobrazhenskoye Jewish cemetery in St.Petersburg was vandalized. More than 100 tombstones were vandalized. Nazi swastika, SS symbolic and digits "88" (code - symbol of Hitler's initials) were painted on the tombstones. About 50 tombstones were knocked down and destroyed.
March 31: Jewish cemeteries in Kaluga and Tambov were vandalized. According to certain sources, Alexander Laryutin, member of the Kaluga branch of the National Bolshevik Party, inspired and organized this attack.
April 15: The only Jewish cemetery of Stavropolye region in Pyatigorsk was vandalized. At the eve of the International Day of Commemorating the Victims of Nazism 14 tombstones were vandalized.
April 23: Anti-Semitic inscriptions at the gate of an old Jewish cemetery in Petrozavodsk.
May 2: Jewish and Tatar tombstones were vandalized at the Fileyskoye cemetery in Kirov. Black swastika was painted at the knocked down tombstones.
In 2004 perpetrators attempted to destroy 3 tombstones at the Jewish cemetery in Smolensk.
An original "record" was set by the city of Astrakhan where during the period January - March 2004 four attacks on the tombstones at the Jewish cemetery took place.
Beginning of June: Swastikas painted on the rotunda in the Alexander's Garden - the main architectural monument in Kirov.
September: Jewish cemetery in Irkutsk was vandalized.
October 11: A bottle of Molotov cocktail was thrown at the building of Or Avner school in Nizhni Novgorod.
January: In connection with the beginning of construction of a Jewish Community Center in Lipetsk anti-Semitic inscriptions appeared on buildings and fences in town. The mayor's office received an address requesting to stop the construction, since "the overwhelming majority of the population feels dislike towards Jews".
In the Southern Federal Districts all Jewish communities became targets for the hatred of the radical Islamists.
January 25: A bomb was exploded near a synagogue in Derbent.
July 6: 12 tombstones were vandalized at the old Jewish cemetery in Makhachkala. In addition to that, the construction workers who were building the synagogue in Makhachala received threats from people who were promising to blow up the building.
The outbursts of aggressive Islamism led to the fact that of 40 000 Jews who had lived in Dagestan during the 80s only 5000 stayed in the region. March 19: During the semi-final game of the Basketball Cup of Russia the fans of Samara team were shouting racist and anti-Semitic slogans directed against the opponents - players and managers of the Ekaterinburg team. Immediately after the game the heads of the Ekaterinburg team lodged official complain to the Russian Basketball Federation requesting that the Samara team be suspended from playing in Samara at least till the end of 2004 and substantial monetary fine be imposed on those who organized the event. Chief rabbi of Russia Adolph Shaevich turned to Vyacheslav Fetisov, Chairman of the State Sport Committee, and Sergey Chernov, President of thee Russian Basketball Federation, urging them to prevent anti-Semitic manifestations during sport events.
May 1: During the demonstration in Kostroma two speakers were shouting from the tribune: "The country is dominated by Yids". Police officers turned off the mike and drew up a police report.
End of July: A group of teenagers in Kemerovo shouted to the rabbi of Kemerovo: "Yids, get out of Russia".

Autumn of 2004 was marked by the growing level of xenophobia in the Russian society. It immediately reflected of the level of anti-Semitism. Beginning of November: Around 40 skinheads armed with iron rods and metal chains attacked a synagogue in Penza but ran away when police arrived.
September 25: Dmitry Aron, son of the chairman of the Yoshkar-Ola Jewish community Mark Aron, was attacked. He was rushed to the hospital with stub- and incise-wounds.
September 18: Meeting of the local nationalists took place in the centre of Kaliningrad. They adopted the resolution that includes the following demands: "to ban Zionist organizations", "to ban representation of Jews, Chechens, Gypsies and other not local nationalities in the governing bodies of Russian regions" and "to dissolve the Jewish government of Kaliningrad Region and to dismiss the head of administration".

Murder of Nikolay Girenko
Nikolay Girenko, senior research officer of the Anthropology and Ethnography Museum and well-known expert on national and racial issues, was shot through the door of his own apartment on June 19. Over the several last years he acted as the Chairman of the Minorities' Rights Committee at the Scientists' Club of St.Petersburg. On the basis of the Kirov Cultural Center he created "the house of ethno-cultural organizations" granting shelter for the public associations of national minorities that could not afford to rent premises from the city. Altogether he conducted more than twenty expert examinations at the request of law enforcement agencies of Moscow and St.Petersburg.
He has developed a unique methodology that enables to define whether propaganda could be considered criminal and falls within the jurisdiction of the article 282 of the RF Criminal Code. As a result, the article 282 that was practically useless before, finally started to be applicable.
Co-chairman of the unregistered National Sovereign Party of Russia (NDPR) and the half-mythical Federal Russian National Cultural Autonomy association Alexander Sevastyanov responded to the murder of Nikolay Girenko with an article titled "Congratulations with the beginning, comrades!"
Sevastyanov tried to intimidate human rights activists and blackmail the state authorities: "The death of this rascal must give a hint to a lot of people, especially to those (starting with Kremlin puppeteers Surkov and Khinchagoshvili) who is related to court persecutions of Russian national patriots and who tries to force us out of the legal political field. In the nearest future we will publish the short list of most prominent enemies of the Russian people who revealed themselves during the last 15 years. The choice is wide!"
At the end of his article Sevastyanov turned to the murderers of Girenko with the words of support: "I do not know who, confirming my scientific foresight, has committed this act of justified punishment (I hope that his name will remain unknown at least until the expiration of case), but I address to him with respect and gratitude and I want to remind that the road to liberation of the Russian nation will be long and difficult and we are now only at the beginning of this road".
What we have here is a direct incitement to murder, including murder of the representatives of government authorities.
Marginal extremist Russian Republic organization has claimed responsibility for this murder. This organization has published at its web-site the "directive of the Supreme Ruler" Vladimir Popov declaring the death sentence for "the traitor of Russian people". However, the site was deleted two days after this publication.
Russian human rights organizations have turned to RF President Vladimir Putin requesting active and persistent prevention of extreme forms of nationalism in Russia and thorough investigation of Nikolay Girenko's murder and other crimes caused by national, racial or religious hatred.
Nikolay Girenko's murder was not the only attempted attack on anti-fascists.
April 29: juvenile skinheads attacked anti-fascist movement activist Alexey Kozlov. He was meeting with his acquaintances when two passing-by teenagers started throwing stones at him shouting "kill the anti-fascists". As it turned out later, the teenage skinheads were under intoxication. According to Kozlov they shouted "Death to Niggers and Jews". Kozlov received minor injuries and managed to call police. Five minutes later police officers detained the teenagers.

Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia in mass media

The Velikie Luki Nad Lovatyu newspaper published by the city Communist Party Committee included in its January issue "Catechism - the rules of conduct for a Jew in USSR", which caused an outrage of the local Jewish community. Chairman of the Menorah Jewish Community A.Kunitza turned to the Velikie Luki Prosecutor's office requesting suspension of publishing activities of the Nad Lovatyu newspaper until the change in editorial policies.
The Krasnoyarsk Krasnoyarsk Newspaper published a series of anti-Semitic articles in January.
On April 8, 2004 the Gorno Altaisk Postscript newspaper published an article "Peculiarities of anti-Russian hunt - 2" written by the chairman of the republican public political Slavic World organization Yuri Pozdeev. According to him, the essence of the article could be formulated as "the domination of representatives of Jewish nationality at the key positions in economy and politics" of the modern Russia on one hand and "the infringement of rights of Russians and other local nations" on the other hand.
The Altai Territory Television continued to broadcast a Russian Issue program dedicated to proving the Jewish guilt in Russian troubles (author of the program: Dean of the Sociology Department of the Altai State University Svyatoslav Grigoryev). In February of this year in the For Science newspaper in his article "Acute problem: Zionist threat in Russia" he, in particular, has declared the following: "Zionist threat is not less dangerous than the communist threat. My concern - concern of a sociologist, of a citizen, of a Russian person - is absolutely justified both in historical context and today, first of all because the power and property takeover carried out by the Jewish minority in the 90s led to the current conflict situation. In May S.Grigoryev was appointed vice-governor of the region.
The Kovrov official Znamya Truda newspaper (Vladimir region) practically in every issue in its Spiegel column stresses the "Jewish roots" of different politicians and public officials.
At the end of April the Ivanovo Cursiv Ivianovo on-line newspaper published the article of its editor Vladimir Rakhmankov "Peculiarities of the Russian Yidness" - article of explicit anti-Semitic nature that also includes derogatory remarks about other nations. The Jewish community of the city turned to the regional prosecutor's office requesting to bring criminal charges against the newspaper for ethnic strife kindling. Regional prosecutor's office accepted the petition but later refused to bring an action. On April 26 the on-line newspaper published materials interpreting Jewish community petition to the prosecutor's office as blackmail. In June yet another anti-Semitic material was published at this web-site.
"Patriotic" web-sites are also engaged in distribution of books from "The library of Russian patriot" that includes mostly anti-Semitic and xenophobic literature. One of these lists includes the following publications: Slavic Vedas by A.Belogorov, Yids by V.Gladki, Zionists and Masons in Japan by A.Klimov, Jews in Russian History by Y.Ivanov, Academician on Trial by V.Korchagin, Jewish Fascism in Russia by V.Pugachev and International Jewry by Henry Ford. Absolutely all those list include Protocols of Elders of Zions and other anti-Semitic frauds, such as 100 Laws of Talmud. Hitler's Mein Kampf in these lists is presented for disguise as My Fight by A.Shiklgruber. The lists are accompanied by the following commentary: "Dear comrade! Please contribute to the fight for liberation of Russia from Jewish and Caucasus occupation by forwarding this mail to everybody in your address book. Signed: Director of the Vityaz publishing house V.Korchagin". In May the official NDPR web-site published O.Karataev's article "National dictatorship is of urgent necessity. On legitimacy of proportional national representation in power structures". In his other articles using absolutely false sources he tries to accuse Jews of "genocide of Russian nation" and to substantiate the Russian nationalists' right to rebellion.
The number of anti-Semitic publications increased in autumn, as well as the level of their aggressiveness. On September 21, 2004 the Samara Russian Community newspaper published in its special issue the article of S.Anikin "Sobriety is a national feature of the Russian people". Grounding his statements on carefully selected and biased testimonies of historians, the author claimed that alcohol abuse in Russia had been deliberately promoted by Jews. The Vechernyaya Samara newspaper (Saturday addition to Volzhskaya Zarya) on September 25, 2004 published an article of V.Plotinkov "There is no place for a Russian:" The author declared that the disintegration of the USSR was organized by "the international backstage" (steady euphemism for "the international Jewish conspiracy") that deliberately promoted terrorism in order to create dictatorship.
On September 4, 2004 the Mariyskaya Pravda newspaper (official newspaper of the government and the State Assembly of Marii El Republic) published an article "Do skinheads want to do away with Aron?" that practically called for "doing away" with the leader of Marii El Jewish community. On September 27, 2004 the Marii El Patriot newspaper published an article "Beslan: origins of the tragedy" where the author blamed for the tragedy "the democrats of Zion brethren who destroyed the KGB".
In September in a Vladimir TV broadcast ABC for Grownups: Jews that was aired on the eve of Rosh-ha-Shanah the word was given twice to Igor Artyomov, well-known not only in the Vladimir Region anti-Semite, leader of the Russian National Union organization and deputy of the regional Legislative Assembly. As a result he received the opportunity to use this broadcast as a tribune for propaganda of his views, declaring that "the negative role of Jews in the history of Russia was evident" and demagogically speaking about the total Jewish control over the Russian economy.
Starting from October the official NDPR site has been regularly publishing the series of articles "Life of the country: news from the madhouse or digest of Jewish mass-media". The articles includes rough anti-Semitic rhetoric, when all public figures disliked by the author are declared Jewish. The author accuses Jews of taking over all "key posts" in Russia: "In the government, in the National Bank of Russia, in mass media all roles are taken by obedient marionettes of the USA and Israel". The author also accuses Jews of "creating the Holocaust myth" and of deliberately overrating the number of Holocaust victims along with standard accusations of genocide after the 1917 revolution. Those materials also include anti-Christian commentaries, such as calling Christ "a Jewish martyr" and comparing him to Satan.

Government Action
Government officials' reaction to anti-Semitic statements and actions in general was of sporadic nature and usually related to certain high-profile crimes.
During the court trial of Orel RNE members the situation was, to put it mildly, "strange". The defendants were persecuted under the article 282 of the RF Criminal Code. In many regions of Russia Party's leaflets indicating the home address and telephone number of human right activist, witness in this case Dmitri Krayukhin were distributed. He received threats and insults over the phone at home and in the office. Party members accused Dmitri Krayukhin and local prosecutors of heresy, declaring in the leaflets that the fate of heretics (death) awaited them. However, the judge Igor Paukov refused to provide witness protection that should be granted under the law and instead advised to the prosecutor to exclude this key witness from the list of witnesses to be summoned for this trial.
Not less "strange" was the position of the Ivanovo prosecutor's office that in June declined the petition of the local Jewish community. The community demanded bringing an action against editor of the Cursiv Ivanovo on-line newspaper V.Rakhmankov. Petition was declined on the basis of the "expert examination" that evaluated that the word "Yidness" was not derogatory. In July the prosecutor's office of Tambov's Oktyabrsky district also declined the petition to bring action against the distributors of nationalistic leaflets. As a result of expert examination conducted by Krasnoarmeyski Internal Affairs Department in Volgograd the decision was made not to bring action against the unregistered Dolya newspaper, well-known for its anti-Semitic contents. According to experts, there was nothing derogatory for RF citizens of Jewish nationality and there were no elements of ethnic strife kindling. However, the situation is gradually changing for the better. On February 2, 2004 the Deputy Minister (now Minister) of Internal Affairs for the first time openly admitted that groups with practically fascist ideology were active in Russia. He said that the fight against those actions would be among the priority tasks of the Foreign Affairs Ministry. In some regions government officials started dealing with xenophobia and anti-Semitism long before the Minister's address.

The Jewish community of Kostroma made an arrangement with the law enforcement agencies that wiould grant protection to the community. Kostroma regional United Russia organization promised its support in promoting tolerance programs and removing xenophobic graffiti (head of the region is E.Trepov).
Court hearings started in Novgorod Veliki on September 21, 2004. Distributors of nationalistic literature and authors of neo-Nazi graffiti are on trial under the following articles of the RF Criminal Code: 280 "Public appeals to extremist actions", 282 "Ethnic strife kindling and derogation of human dignity", 282.1 "Organization of extremist association". Practically the local branch of RNE is on trial. N.Gorenko was engaged in this case as an expert. On February 20, 2004 the city court declared the verdict in the case of 55-year-old editor and founder of the Novgorod Russkoye Veche newspaper Pavel Ivanov accused of ethnic strife kindling. The court declared that with his publications P.Ivanov deliberately promoted hatred to Jewish nation, abused the right of free press and used his newspaper for extremist operations against Jews. The court suspended his right to engage in editorial activities for three years.

In Ryazan after numerous petitions of the local Jewish community police was instructed to prevent appearing of xenophobic graffiti and the existing graffiti was removed by joint efforts of the Jewish community and the city authorities.
In May Rybinsk officials issued a directive to remove anti-Semitic inscriptions.
In Moscow since the local law enforcement agencies declared a war on skinheads under the directive "from above", all Moscow prosecutor's offices are investigating criminal cases where there is even a slightest hint on nationalistic grounds for the grime and are actively bringing actions under the article 282 of the RF Criminal Code.
In Omsk a group of teenagers was sentence to a fine for breaking windows in a synagogue. Police post was installed next to the synagogue with assistance of Governor of the region L.Polezhaev.
The case of well-known nationalist, editor of the Russkaya Sibir newspaper Igor Kolodzenko accused under the article 282.2 was transferred to the court. On April 5, 2004 the Novosibirsk court brought in a verdict: to close the Russkaya Sibir newspaper for promoting ethnic and religious hatred. On May 12, 2004 Altai Republic Prosecutor Andrey Volkov issued a warning to N.Vitovtzev, editor of the Postscript newspaper who had published a xenophobic article. In this warning Prosecutor stressed that any violation of the Law "On counteraction to extremist activities" is inadmissible and explained to the editor the definition of extremism as interpreted in this federal law. Prosecutor warned that if another fact of extremism appears in the newspaper within a year from the date of Prosecutor's warning, publication of the newspaper could be suspended by a court verdict. Prosecutor's office of the Tomsk Region resumed the investigation of the criminal case of booby-trapped xenophobic sign explosion in July 2002. In September Omsk Central Region Prosecutor's office brought action against distributors of Islamist literature of anti-Semitic nature.
Court trial of Sergey Lukyanenko, editor of the Khabarovsk Nazia newspaper, accused under the article 282.1 is in progress. Court hearings started in May. Though police detained two participants of the attack on a synagogue in Penza in the beginning of November, representatives of the local Department of Internal Affairs declared that there had been no attack and tried to reduce the incident to common hooliganism.
The Court in fact set free V.Korchagin, well-known anti-Semite and anti-Christian. While prosecutor T.Kondratyeva demanded three years in prison and two-year suspension of publishing activities for him, Timiryazevskiy District Judge on November 24, 2004 sentenced him to two years of probation and immediately relieved him of the sentence due to expiration of the period of limitation of article 282. At that A.Sevastyanov, public defendant of the defendant and co-chairman of NDPR interpreted this sentence as a victory. However, on December 23 the Moscow City Court cancelled the decision of the District Court and transferred the case for further investigation.
Igor Kolodezenko, publisher and editor of the anti-Semitic newspaper Russkaya Sibir got away with probation, though Prosecutor demanded the sentence of three years in prison. On December 20, 2004 the Novosibirsk's Central District Court found him guilty in ethnic strife kindling and sentences him to 2.5 years of probation with two-year trial period. In addition to that, though the Court admitted that the articles kindling ethnic strife had been written or published in the newspaper by the defendant, the Court, as in Korchagin's case, decided not to suspend his publishing activities.
On September 7, 2004 the Leninsky District Court in Vladimir after 6 years of court proceedings dismissed the claim of journalists N.Novozhilova and E.Lerner (E.Lerner died in 2001, A.Novozhilova presented his interests in the case) who had demanded to bring action against the published by the regional administration Vladimorskiye Vedomosti newspaper and its correspondent A.Bureev. The journalists claimed that his article "The thief shouts: "Catch the thief!" insulted their dignity and tarnished their business reputation. In this article Bureev attacked anti-fascist opinions of the journalists, called RNE members "the boys concerned with the troubles of their poor motherland", accused the plaintiffs of acting by an order of "certain circles" (meaning Jewish as evident from the text), accused them of being fascists and attributed to them a number of nonsensical statements. During the process he published a number of articles related to the same issue, two of which were added to the journalists' claim. In one of them he explicitly accused Novozhilova and Lerner of "provoking nationalistic attitudes". The judge openly sympathized with the defendant and granted a verdict, according to which everything Bureev had written should be regarded as his personal opinion and not as information to be refuted. Despite of a special address of the Jewish community to the officials of Marii El Republic in connection with a publication in the Mariiskaya Pravda newspaper the authorities responded only with formal reply. The Jewish community demanded "to find and punish those responsible for the publication" and "to ensure safety of Jewish Community chairman Mark Aron and his family".
However, not everywhere anti-Semitism is tolerated with such indulgence. Kaliningrad Region Prosecutor's office brought action against Vladimir Levchenko, publisher of the Danger, Zionism newspaper and chairman of the Russian Autonomy organization of the Kaliningrad Region. Novgorod Prosecutor's office transferred to the court the case of defendant who had threatened two times to blow up the city synagogue in September 2003. At the same time legal action against members of the local RNE branch progressed in Novgorod.
Kaluga Region Court found two people guilty of vandalizing tombstones at the Jewish cemetery in April 2004 and sentenced them to two years of probation.

Extremist and Xenophobic Actions of Officials

Sometimes the actions of officials looked like encouraging anti-Semitism. At the Forum "Peoples of Southern Russia" the delegation from Volglgrad Region included as a national cultural autonomies and associations representative Stanislav Terentev, head of the extremist Union of Russian People organization and publisher of the nationalistic Kolokol newspaper. In his interview to the local Postscript newspaper pub
lished on April 5, the First Vice Prime Minister of the Mountain Altai Republic Vladimir Torobkov negatively commented on Vladimir Putin's decision to appoint Mikhail Fradkov Prime Minister: "What was the need to bring into such country as Russia for the position of the head of the government an unknown person from abroad and of Jewish nationality? I am especially stressing it, since don't we have enough talks about international conspiracies?"
Four days after this publication Torobkov was dismissed without any official explanations or comments. However, immediately after the dismissal local nationalist and Kazak organizations - both Russian and Altai - raised in support of the former assistant of M.Lapshin. Leaders of the Russian Center organization Mikhail Paklin and Yuri Posdeev and one of the heads of so-called Kurultai of Altai People association issued a joint statement, in which they called Torobkov's dismissal "grave violation of the person's right to free expression".
On the other hand, Chief Rabbi of Russia Berl Lazar addressed with the words of gratitude to M.Lapshin. "On behalf of the Jewish Community of Russia and on my behalf I want to express our gratitude for your courageous civic action in the so-called "Torobkov case. Your decision to dismiss one of the top officials of republican government for an anti-Semitic statement regardless of professional qualities of this official deserves great respect", - said Berl Lazar in his address. Prosecutor's office of Mountain Altai started investigation of the statements of the dismissed Vice Prime Minister and now the charge of kindling ethnic strife might be brought against the official.
The first reading of the new constitutional law "On Russian People" took place in the State Duma. In the explicatory note accompanying the document it is stated that the law "is designed to lift the certain complex of infringement a lot of ethnic Russians are suffering from recently, to strengthen their national self-consciousness, to provide the state and society with a tool for neutralization of Russophobia. The text of the document defines the legal basis of the status and development of the Russian people "who played the most historically important, uniting role in creation of the single multinational Russian state and continues to be the basis of this country comprising overwhelming majority of the population of the country". The definition of Russian People given in the law: historically formed steady ethnic group of people united on the grounds of common origin and historical destiny, Russian national self-consciousness, Russian language, customs and traditions. The historical motherland of the Russian People is Russia". The law reads: "Russian nation is indigenous nation that constitutes majority in the Russian Federation. It is acknowledged as self-determined throughout the entire territory of the Russian Federation. It is prohibited to subject Russian people, as well as representatives of other equal in rights nations, to discrimination in regard to the right to be represented in the legislative and executive governmental bodies and to the right to land and natural resources under the article 9 of the RF Constitution.
Integral responsibilities of the Russian State necessarily include satisfaction of needs and promotion of interests of Russian people through federal and regional target programs and taking into consideration of these needs and interests in political, economical and cultural life of republics, territories, regions, federal cities, autonomies and autonomic counties of the Russian Federation. The programs for ethno-demographic increase of Russians in the population of Russia are of particular importance. In order to develop such programs necessary governmental and public structures are created at the Presidential Administration and in the framework of the RF Government. According to the law, citizens of the Russian Federation, citizens of foreign states and individuals without citizenship (representatives of Russian Nation who permanently reside abroad) could be considered Russians. Federal authorities, authorities of the RF subjects and local authorities are to ensure documentary certification of affiliation of individuals with Russian nation. Federal authorities, authorities of the RF subject and local authorities are responsible for "carrying out the necessary measures for creation a developed system of national education and upbringing, for development of children preschool institutions, primary and secondary schools with Russian ethno-cultural component, advanced studies in Russian language, history, literature, spiritual culture, traditions and customs of Russian people". The notorious proportional national representation in the government bodies is also not forgotten in the law.
The law acknowledges that the Russian people found itself in a position of a divided nation. First of all, this is due to the fact that substantial part of the Russian nation regardless of its will found itself abroad as a result of disintegration of the USSR, including the areas of compact residence of Russians at the territories bordering on contemporary Russia. The law practically calls far reconsidering the existing borders.
Standup comedian Mikhail Evdokimov who had been elected in May the Governor of the Altai Territory has appointed as his deputy dean of Altai State University sociology department Svyatoslav Grigoryev who heads the nationalist Slavyanskoye Obshestvo association (for Grigoryev's activities see above in mass-media chapter) and is famous for his fierce anti-Semitism. He ignored the protests of human rights organizations against this appointment.

State Duma deputy representing the Motherland Block Nikolay Pavlov on May 21 stepped forward with a proposal to invite at the "government hour" in Duma one of the "social ministers", for example, the minister of culture. Pavlov said: "Today we have nothing on TV except violence, sadism, perversions and open Russophobia initiated by two Jews - Posner and Shuster, nothing more. Absolutely nothing. Plus Shvydkoy, plus Solovyev who boasts to the whole country that he is Jewish and declares that most of all he is afraid of Russian nationalism. Today, when Russians die out at the rate of one million per year". The heads of Duma, however, did not react appropriately to those declarations.
In July 2004 the deputies of Kirov City Duma refused to transfer on a gratis basis the premises on Podgornaya, 18 to the religious Habad Kirov Jewish Community organization for a synagogue, though the governor and the mayor of Kirov had promised to transfer the premises in exchange for large parcel of humanitarian aid.
Bryansk authorities, who at first had welcomed the opening of a Jewish school in their town in September 2003, later started anti-Semitic attacks against the school. The deputies of the Regional Duma launched an inquiry whether a Jewish school is necessary at all. A new director was appointed in the school 52 where the Jewish school was renting the premises. She persistently carried out the policy of driving out the tenants. On August 26, 2004 a committee comprising Regional Duma deputies (including the Chairman of Duma Education, Science and Public Associations Committee V.Kravchenko) and the local authorities from Department of Education visited the school. The members of the committee accused the Or Avner school of "having failed to get necessary certificates for reconstruction of the premises". Bryansk Rabbi I.Roytman interpreted these actions as "a shift from adolescent windows breaking in the Jewish school to official - at the level of legislative authorities - "suffocation" of this educational institution. At the Bryansk Region Education, Science and Relations with Public Association Committee meeting on September 2, 2004 V.Kravchenko declared that "existence of a Jewish school next to a Russian school promoted ethnic hatred kindling and nothing prevented Jewish children from studying in ordinary Russian schools. He proposed to put to the vote the appropriateness of existence of this Jewish school and not to prolong the school's lease contract in December.
Present report is published with the support of the European Commission. Moscow Bureau for Human Rights is responsible for the content of the publication. Publication does not necessarily reflects the opinion of the European Commission.

Источник: fsumonitor.com