Расизм, ксенофобия, антисемитизм, этническая дискриминация в Ро

Racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and ethnic discrimination in the Russian Federation in 2005

Review of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights

Author of the review: Semyon Charniy

Editors: Igor Yevdokimov, Tatiana Zhurcheva

Head of the project under the auspice of the European Union: Alexander Brod

2.2. Administrative measures undertaken in response to extremist manifestations of xenophobia

4. MANIFESTATIONS OF XENOPHOBIA IN THE ACTIVITIES OF POLITICAL PARTIES, PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS

4.1. Usage of anti-fascist and civil rights rhetoric for ethnic strife kindling and discrediting true anti-fascists and human rights activists

The second year of implementing the project “Public campaign for combating racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and ethnic discrimination in the multi-ethnic Russian Federation” has come to an end. Monitoring carried out in all regions of Russia throughout this year allowed to reveal a significant number of cases of manifestation of racial and ethnic bigotry in varied forms in various segments of Russian society.

The purpose of the following report is to give an overview of the current situation as to the extent of xenophobia in Russia in 2005 and to analyze major trends in this area.

The overall level of xenophobia in the country remains invariably high - around 60% of the entire population support to greater or lesser extent nationalistic viewpoints. More than 100 newspapers promoting nationalistic slogans are being published; hundreds of web-sites propagating ethnic hatred could be found on the web. Open calls to violence are heard in the country and the desire of certain political circles to legitimize it becomes evident.

Numbering already 50000 skinhead movement is on the rise spreading from major regional centers over small towns and settlements.

At that the number of attacks and murders on ethnic grounds decreased in comparison to 2004 (approximately 25 murders as against 40 such cases in 2004).

At the same time despite a number of resulted in convictions trials over offenders charged with ethnic strife kindling (about 40 offenders were convicted for ethnic strife kindling in 2005; more than half among them are affiliated with radical Islamist organizations) the major ideologists and inspirers of ethnic violence remained unpunished. It might have been caused by law enforcement agents' and prosecutors' considering their activities harmless, as well as by law enforcement officers' supporting such viewpoints.

This feeling of impunity led to the efforts of a number of nationalistic organizations to get into the “big politics” and boosted the aggressiveness of their rhetoric. 2005 witnessed many public actions of xenophobic nature, the most large-scale of which was "the Right-wing march" that on November 4 walked along the streets of Moscow under racist and xenophobic slogans.

Another consequence of this feeing of impunity is the emerging appeals to forming paramilitary units and the threats of physical violence against those considered adversaries by nationalists (with the attempted attack on A.Chubais and the attempt to blow up a train on the route Moscow – Groznyy as physical realization of these appeals), as well as the attempts to justify murders committed on ethnic grounds. NDPR, the Military Sovereign Union (retired servicemen association), the Movement against Illegal Immigration, the Slavic Union (SS) and a number of other organizations stepped forth with similar declarations.

Another dangerous trend is “pulling" xenophobic rhetoric into political discussion. Starting with the notorious letter of 500-5000 a number of federal politicians (mostly State Duma deputies) have been trying to turn xenophobic myths into subjects for political dialogue. At least 7 political organizations active on federal level (including represented in the Parliament parties) use xenophobic slogans in their programs thus attracting the votes of adhering to nationalistic views voters. The response of authorities remains in many respects sporadic and inconsistent.

At the same time the monitoring revealed growing resistance to xenophobia in the society: power structures, public organizations and common citizens more and more demonstrate not only their concern with ethnic and religious problems, but their striving for finding efficient solutions for these problems.

The present report is to contribute to prevailing of tolerance over xenophobia in Russian society.

According to the survey conducted by the Levada-Center in November, 55% of the respondents agreed that the number of Russians adhering to extreme nationalistic viewpoints has grown over the past years. 38% think that "Russian authorities fight against extreme Russian nationalism"; 25% believe that “authorities encourage extreme Russian nationalism and promote its spreading”.

Ethnic tensions are mostly acknowledged by the respondents in the Central Federal District (32%) and in Moscow (54%), with country average at 26%.

The slogan “Russia for Russians” is fully supported by 16% of respondents; 37% support it with certain reservations (“should be done but within reasonable limits"); 23% oppose it (“it is clearly Nazism") and for the remaining 25% it is either irrelevant or different to say. The “most disliked” nations could be put in the following order. The strongest negative emotions (51%) are targeted against Chechens and Gypsies (such high level of dislike towards Gypsies remains since 2002; towards Chechens since 1996). Azerbaijani follow them with 32% of respondents disliking them (level unchanged over the past nine years except for fluctuations towards more or less) preceding Arabs (22). Americans are on the third place (19%), Jews and Estonians follow them at 13%, Germans and Japanese at 9%^¹.

These data confirm that the “focal point” of xenophobia in Russia has shifted towards Caucasus-phobia and China-phobia that shoved anti-Semitism to the second place – the fact that does not render it less dangerous, especially with the today’s attempts to institutionalize it.

2005 has become a heyday for public actions of anti-Semitic nature. On March 5 an RNE (Russian National Unity) column marched along the main street of Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi Republic^².

At the end of April on the eve of Jewish Pesach in Tambov a crowd of skinheads verbally harassed the chairman of community and Yeshiva students. When seeing them going to the Seder in traditional clothing skinheads started shouting: “Kikes!” and “Jude Schwein!”^³

On May 9 RNE members in full uniform participated in the joint demonstration of the left-wing opposition in Moscow^⁴. RNE pickets regularly distribute leaflets on Sundays in Ryazan, Bryansk and Orel^⁵.

At the end of April 34 RNE activists from Orel, Bryansk, Belgorod and Kursk organized a picket in support of their companion currently standing trial. On May 9 Barkashev’s affiliates carried out mass distribution of leaflets.

The active in Kurgan Russian National Cultural Autonomy (RNKA) openly distributes nationalistic and xenophobic literature in the city center, in the same place where RNE pickets regularly distribute their leaflets^⁶.

On August 27 in Kurgan during the Russian Championship football match “Tobol – Neftekhimik” (2^nd division) local skinheads were shouting anti-Semitic slogans instead of usual support slogans^⁷. On November 6 during the football match “TsSKA – Dynamo” the fans of the both playing teams started shouting "Moscow without Churkies (derogative for migrants from the former southern republics)"^⁸.

On September 18 the meeting of "united national opposition" "in support of Russian military officers and political prisoners” took place on Slavyanskaya (Slavic) Square in Moscow. In fact the meeting concerned Spetsnaz (Special Forces) colonel V.Kvachkov and his accomplices accused of murderous assault on A.Chubais, RAO UES Chairman. The speakers at the meeting accused the power structures of state treason and called for "purging Russia of the Kikes' yoke”. Head of the Officers Union, NDPR Co-chairman S.Terekhov declared referring to the attack on Chubais: "If not at the first attempt then at the second, the third Chubais will be punished. This scum must know that he is aimed at". L.Ivashov said that "Chubais must not be killed but taken alive, so his skin could be torn into vouchers".

On November 4, 2005 a so-called Right-wing March took place in the center of Moscow gathering around 3000 participants affiliated with different organizations (ESM, DPNI, NDPR, RONS, “Pamyat", ROD, internet-community “Russian order”, “National Patriots of Russia”, Spartak football team fan club) under racist and xenophobic banners. Adhering to national-socialist ideology NSO members who joined the DPNI column at the meeting were instructed “to inflict gravest possible up to lethal injuries on the opponents in case of clashes with anti-fascists”^⁹. D.Demushkin claimed that up to 300 his associates walked in the march, however it is difficult to verify. He did not deny that it was his group that "shouted the most strait-out slogans accompanying them by Aryan saluting with the right hand”^¹⁰.

Organizers of the Right-wing march shamelessly tried to deny xenophobic and Nazi slogans being shouted during the event claiming that walking in the columns marchers had shouted something like "Ziga-Zaga" or "Zig-Oy" misheard as “Zieg Hail” by some bystanders^¹¹.

At the held on November 9 press-conference DPNI leader A.Potkin declared the establishing of an organizational committee for the preparation of the Russian march – 2006 nationalists are planning to carry out in a number of cities. They evidently see this march as a show of strength and, at the same time, a tool for attracting associates.

However, according to the survey conducted by the All-Russian Poll Center, 52% of the respondents spoke negatively about the Right-wing march and its slogans (of them 24% - distinctly negative) and only one third of the respondents did not condemn this kind of events^¹². On November 4 similar mass actions also took place in St.Petersburg (300 participants) and Syktyvkar (where nationalistic meetings also took place on November 20 and December 4). The attempt to use authorized meetings for distributing xenophobic leaflets were cut short by police in the city of Pskov^¹³.

Such actions, as well as their striving for establishing legal political parties testify to the radical nationalists’ aspirations to join the big politics and to their growing true (and not merely propagandistic) belief in the possibility of gaining mass support for their actions.

2005 featured yet another gathering momentum trend in the activities of right-wing radicals: establishment of paramilitary units. First the All-Russian Officer Assembly stepped forth with such appeal (to form “People’s militia”) on February 2005. Later the Military Sovereign Union headed by retired general L.Ivashov stepped forward with an open appeal to form parallel power structures in the form of "Soviets of representatives of labor and military collectives (SPVTK)”. In addition to that it was proposed to establish parallel punitive structures in the form of People’s Tribunal that “would examine the charges against those officials who committed state treason and were engaged in activities aimed at disruption of the state".

Shortly after that D.Demushkin, head of the propagating “mystical national-socialism” ultra-nationalistic organization “Slavic Union”, addresses to his affiliates demanding to purchase licensed firearms (when denying his intention to "rewrite the war" Mr.Demuskin said in his interview that "Hitler's writings were the works of white mankind" and that "the swastika was a traditionally Russian symbol”^¹⁴). On April 20, 2005 the Movement against Illegal Immigration joined the decision to create “People’s Militia”. In the published on the DPNI web-site decision of its Central Committee it was proposed to develop a network of underground cells of 5 members “on the principal of compact residence and vehicle ownership”. All units numbering 50 or more members were advised to “start in the immediate future organizational activities on the basis of information about military ranks, combat experience, firearm skills, physical fitness and vehicle ownership". Among the declared grounds for creating the network were “possible aggravation of internal political situation in Russia, possibility of mass riots and aggressive actions of foreign states”. N.Kuryanovich, State Duma Deputy from LDPR, supported this address.

In June the In the Era of Russia newspaper published by the nationalistic “Russian Republic” organization (last year its representatives claimed responsibility for the murder of anti-fascist scientist N.Girenko) published an appeal to the Russian armed forces “to swear allegiance to the Russian people… and immediately disarm punitive police and federal security forces guilty of establishing a regime of genocide of the Russian nation".

At the meeting on November 7 V.Popov, leader of the Russian national-cultural autonomy in Kurgan, called for rallying a “militia”^¹⁵. Arrested leader of the skin-gang “Schulz-88” D.Bobrov in his interview given to the NDPR representatives in October 200 shortly before his conviction called for creation of “the Russian republican army – military guerrilla formation of the Russian national liberation revolution” for fighting against “the Zionist occupant government"^¹⁶.

In the published in issue 3 of the Tomsk NDPR Narod (Nation) newspaper the author claimed that “the power structure of neo-Khazar kaganate had been formed in the country...and the primary task was to do what prince Svyatoslav had done at his time: he destroyed the kaganate and opened a perspective of successful development to the Russian state”.

At the held on December 3 NDPR congress (NDPR was registered in October 2005 as the interregional public movement “National Sovereign Way of Russia”) the participants were advised to “purchase firearms (Saiga Carbine etc.) with the purpose of self-defense within the permissible limits and prevention of pogroms like those happened in Paris. Another clause of the adopted by the congress resolution charges well-known anti-Semite and neo-pagan V.Korchagin with “educating officer corps of the Russian security structures”^¹⁷. Later the NDPR web-site published instruction on legal firearms purchase drawn up by V.Korchagin^¹⁸.

On December 18 NDPR Adygea department leader Yu.Kanatov addressed his allies with an appeal to purchase weapons “for the protection of national interests of the Russian nation both in Russia and abroad"^¹⁹.

The growing number of open appeals to violence and attempts to legitimize it are clearly a very alarming trend. A number of regional nationalistic newspapers published (sometimes without indicating the authors) the last year’s article of A.Sevastyanov “Great start” that expressed support for the murderers of N.Girenko and predicted new loud political assassinations of the enemies of “patriots”. At that nationalists shamelessly claim that “Girenko was killed in “a clash with his own people”^²⁰.

Published by another NDPR co-chairman S.Terekhov Russian Front newspaper featured and article “Let’s protect our people” containing unconcealed threat of physical violence against prosecutors investigating cases under the article 282. The article lists the cases of law enforcement agencies' persecution of "patriots" and declares that “NDPR Central Political Council supported its allies in their relentless fight against Judo-Nazis… and the venal prosecutors executing the Zion’s orders on prosecuting Russian patriots would soon get their fairings”. According to some sources, during the court trial in Novgorod Veliky RNE leaders tried to threaten the judge who was hearing the case^²¹.

The NDPR web-site repeatedly features appeals to “establishing of the People’s Tribunal” and to physical violence against “enemies of the Russian nation"^²².

The materials published in the Brown Time also contain threats to the human rights activists. Its representatives declare: “Actions of the enemies of the Russian nation will not be left unpunished – the already executed death sentences to “anti-fascist expert Nikolay Girenko (St.Petersburg) and judge Natalia Urlina (Dolgoprudny) testify to that. The people’s wrath is such that none of reformers’ henchmen will escape deserved punishment”.

After the attempted assault on A.Chubais the Russkoye Delo (Russian Cause) web-site published an article "This time he got away". The anonymous author rejoices at the very fact of assault at the same time condemning the “servility” of witnesses whose testimonies helped police to get on the tracks of the suspected attackers. The article was summarized by the following declaration: "God give us to see the long-awaited Russian upraising. It will not be senseless, as they want us to believe. But it will be merciless – the way it should be”.

The representatives of the pro-Nazi National-Socialist Organization have also published at its web-site the promise "to slaughter" hostile to them officials and politicians "who have betrayed their blood and conscience". The site also justifies murders and beatings committed by racists claiming that "this was a war toll since soon there apparently would be no other means to protect your homeland except for the street terror"^²³. A New Year address at the Russkoye Delo web-site featured a statement that “Russians would swear to bathe usurpers and their accomplices in their own blood"^²⁴.

Radical right-wing neo-pagan group “Spiritual-tribal Sovereign Russia” headed by O.Popov also threatened “stooges of Judo-Nazism”. For instance, in April it declared death sentence to Vice Prime Minister A.Zhukov.^²⁵.

Another today's sad feature is compiling and posting along with similar declarations of the lists of "enemies of the Russian nation". For instance, such list titled "Non-Aryans: the list of fascist Zionist organizations engaged in anti-Russian Kike-sponsored subversive activities at the territory of Russia” was posted at the web-site of the “Slavic Union”.

The black list of "enemies of the state promoting the values incompatible with survival of the Russian people, adhering to Russo-phobic viewpoints and supporting the acceleration of migration processes" appeared at the DPNI web-site. DPNI now has mounted to new culminations in inciting hatred to “aliens”. The article concerning the 2004 murder of two migrants from Dagestan in the Moscow Region was titled “A small occasion to rejoice”^²⁶. The movement responded to one case of illegal detention of a person in Dagestan with an article “Thousands of Russian slaves are held by Caucasians in their republics”^²⁷.

The skinhead movement numbering 50000 members (according to expert in Russian youth movements A.Tarasov) continues to expand. Now it reaches relatively remote places. In December 2005 skinheads appeared in the small settlement of Chagoda (Vologda Region)^²⁸.

On November 21 the “Reconstruction Congress of the Union of Russian People” organized by sculptor V.Klykov took place in Moscow. Instead of the Christ the Savior Cathedral where it was originally planned the organizers had to content themselves with the Gorbunov Palace of Culture. The “Reconstructed” union immediately aspired to be the center of all anti-Semitic forces in Russia^²⁹.

Radical Islamists known under the name of Wahhabits are active in a number of regions of Russia. Their cells function in more than 50 regions, practically in all Federal Districts with the exception of North-Western and Far-Eastern. These are mostly members of the international extremist Islamic organization “Hizb ut-Tahir” banned by the RF Supreme Court on February 14, 2003. Unauthorized meetings in support of arrested Islamists took place in Ufa and Tuymazi in early March. They were organized by “Hizb ut-Tahir” activists who interpreted those arrests as persecution of Muslims. On the other hand, the threat of Wahhabism is used by the adversarial groups within the Muslim communities. For instance, Mufti of Tatarstan was already accused of “supporting the Wahhabits". Nizhniy Novgorod Muslim Spiritual Leadership demanded to introduce confessional quotas for Muslims for the government offices, including the office of Vice President. Later this demand was supported by R.Gainutdin, head of the Council of Muftis.

U.Idrisov, Head of the Nizhniy Novgorod Regional Moslem Spiritual Leadership, personally participated in the election campaign in the Krasnooktyabrski District accusing his opponent of persecuting Islam and giving preference to Christians. Later the supporters of the "pro-Islamic" candidate who lost the election with minimal gap blocked the roads and even called for "an Islamic revolution". Shortly before that the Leadership held a congress of Tatars of Nizhniy Novgorod, participants of which articulated the demands to create a Tatar electoral district^³⁰. October 13 attack on Nalchik was another open demonstration of Islamic extremism. In October 2005 the radical Islamist association “Shariat” threatened with death to the members of Dagestan Muslim Leadership for cooperation with authorities^³¹. The attempted arson of the building of the Armenian Cultural Center was also Islamists’ doing^³².

Extremist organizations claiming to represent ethnic minorities also intensify their activities. The VIII congress of the All-Tatar Public Center took place in Kazan on April 2. Executive of the Executive Committee of the World Tatar Congress T.Bariyev who sees as one of his tasks uniting all Tatar movements under the umbrella of the Center and achieving Tatar dominance in the political and public life of the republic was elected a new head of the Center. The book of one of the activists of the Tatar Public Center F.Bairamova was published to time the 1000 anniversary of the city of Kazan. The book titled “Nuclear archipelago or atomic genocide against Tatars” claimed that Soviet authorities had been intentionally locating nuclear plants in the regions populated by Tatars^³³. In the middle of October the Center organized yet another Tatar Memorial Day under “anti-colonial” slogans^³⁴.

Active in Yakuta “People Front Yakutia – Alrosa” regularly conducted (with implicit support or at least non-interference of local establishment) mass protests against the intention of the federal government to increase its interest in the Alrosa Diamond Company to controlling. The declarations about the Federal Center robbing Yakutia contributed to the aggravation of ethnic tensions in the republic. As a result, more than 40% of the population believes that the republic does not have enough independence; 44% are ready to participate in the protests against increased share of the Russian government in Alrosa Diamonds^³⁵.

In December 2005 during the evaluation of the candidates for the office of the Head of the Mountain Altai Republic prone to nationalism representatives of Altai elite demanded to appoint an aboriginal Altai resident as the Head of Republic (at that ethnic Altai people form a minority in the republic)^³⁶.

Pandido Khambo-lama D.Ayushev declares his aversion to nationalism in politics at the same time openly (even in his interviews) expresses his outrage with “unequal representation of ethnic Buryats in law enforcement agencies”^³⁷

In attempt to revive the worst traditions of national movements of the early 90s the Circassian Congress (Adygea) demanded to acknowledge the genocide of Adyghes during the Caucasian War^³⁸.

On December 1 2005 the official web-site of the Adygea Public Parliament of the Black Sea Adyghes and the Shapsug newspaper published materials accusing the authorities of discriminating against Adyghes and Northern ethnicities on the basis of different quotas of forest exploitation^³⁹.

Two terrorist attacks organized by radical nationalists were registered in 2005: the attempted attack on RAO UES Chairman A.Chubais (March 18) and the attempt to blow up a train on the route Moscow – Groznyy (June 40)^⁴⁰. Thus we witness the emerging of new trend - ultra right-wing terrorism.

Altogether 25 murders and more than 200 attacks on ethnic hate grounds were registered in 2005. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs more than a half of the crimes against foreigners were committed in 2004-2005 in Moscow, St.Petersburg and the Northern Caucasus. However, the real scope of violence is much greater than registered by the official statistics.

On January 2 Meskheti Turk A.Tedorov was killed in the town of Varenikovsk (Crimean Region of the Krasnodar Territory)^⁴¹.

In the beginning of May Astrakhan skinheads massacred a Dagestan family murdering two victims. A two-year-old was saved by a miracle after having spent two days alone with the bodies of his parents^⁴². A migrant from Kazakhstan and several migrants from the Caucasus were stabbed or beaten to death in one of the Astrakhan parks (the latest accident happened at the end of May)^⁴³.

A group of four skinheads foully murdered three Armenians in the town of Verkhnyaya Pyshma (Sverdlovsk Region) at the end of May^⁴⁴.

Two Tajik construction workers were killed in early June in the village of Moskovschina in Irkutsk Region (some local residents blamed on them the mysterious death of several young villagers who had hanged themselves on shoelaces)^⁴⁵.

A family from Dagestan was massacred in the suburbs of Voronezh on August 10. On August 17 a migrant from Northern Osetia was killed in Voronezh. On August 18 in Yaroslavl one Turk was killed and three others hospitalized with different injuries after being attacked^⁴⁶.

On September 14 student from Congo R.Eposaka attacked by skinheads on September 9 died of injuries in St.Petersburg^⁴⁷.

On November 9 Voronezh skinheads murdered student from Peru Enrique Angeles Urtado and injured two his friends – students from Peru and Spain^⁴⁸.

In October a 19 y.o. student of the Nizhniy Novgorod Water Transportation Academy stubbed to death two citizens of Korea^⁴⁹.

On November 13 a group of skinheads attacked two students - anti-fascists in the center of St.Petersburg. One of them – T.Kacharava – was murdered. His friend M.Zgibay was hospitalized with grave injuries^⁵⁰. As it turned out later, it was the second attack on T.Kacharava – he was already attacked in October^⁵¹.

In the beginning of December an Azerbaijani was killed in Nizhniy Novgorod – as a result of an argument about national issues^⁵².

On December 24 skinheads attacked students from Africa in St.Petersburg. Leon Kanchem from Cameroon was murdered; a student from Kenya was hospitalized with grave injuries^⁵³.

On January 1 L.Tysyachny, Moscow citizen of Jewish nationality, was beaten at the Pushkinskaya subway station. January 14, 2005 Rabbis A.Lakshin and E.Fomiury were beaten in the center of Moscow^⁵⁴. On January 30 six young people attacked two migrants from the Caucasus at the Moscow subway station “Dynamo”. Defending themselves, the migrants pulled out their knifes and wounded two of the attackers. The fight was stopped by the police patrol^⁵⁵.

In Moscow skinhead attacks on “non-Russians” were registered on: March 6 (2 persons injured)^⁵⁶, May 9 (at least 4 victims)^⁵⁷, November 4 (2 persons injured)^⁵⁸, September 8 (the victim was a Turk)^⁵⁹, September 10 (2 victims; an employee of the Japan Embassy was beaten)^⁶⁰, October 12, 18, 20 and 22 (two victims in the latest case), November 2, 12 and 27 (two victims in each case) and December 3 and 5^⁶¹. On December 18 skinheads attacked a group of participants of an anti-fascist march in Moscow^⁶².

On February 8, 2005 a group of youngsters organized a Gypsy pogrom in the village of Parkhino (Novgorod Region). A series of arsons of Gypsy houses in the village of Iskitim (Novosibirsk) left several hundred people homeless. Perpetrators accused Gypsies of making a living on drug dealing^⁶³. Similar attempt was registered in February in Cherepovets^⁶⁴.

On February 26 skinheads attacked two groups of Chinese (altogether 5 persons) in Blagoveschensk^⁶⁵.

On April 8 skinheads attacked a Yakut couple in Yekaterinburg mistaking them for Chinese^⁶⁶.

On April 16 two members of the Voronezh Youth Human Rights Group were attacked, presumably for their anti-fascist activities^⁶⁷.

On April 19 three hooligans inflicted grave injuries on an Armenian in Tolliati^⁶⁸.

On April 21 two 16 y.o. skinheads attacked a migrant from Peru, now a holder of Russian citizenship, in Murmansk.

On May 10, 2005 a skinhead gang ferociously beat a young Armenian. His father and several persons who tried to save him were also beaten^⁶⁹.

On June 29 a skinheads attacked a policeman in the presence of a crowd of bystanders^⁷⁰.

On June a skinhead gang numbering more than 40 committed two attacks on football fans in Khabarovsk^⁷¹.

In May a visitor form Africa was foully beaten in St.Petersburg^⁷². In the night of August 1 three watermelon vendors from Azerbaijan were beaten and their stall was destroyed^⁷³.

On June 1 Rwanda citizen Josef Khabimana who has been living in a village in Voronezh Region for several years was beaten and robbed in Voronezh.

Information was received about an attempted murder of “an alien” that took place in Kurgan this summer^⁷⁴.

On October 14 a gang of 8-10 skinheads broke into a Moslem house of prayer in Sergiyev Posad (Moscow Region) and beat Arslan-Hazarat Sadriyev, the Head of the local Moslem community, and several worshipers^⁷⁶.

In late Novembers football fans of the Spartak football team attacked the Gypsies spending the night at the railway station in Yaroslavl. Police prevented a large-scale fight^⁷⁷. The next day the same fans started a fight in the city of Yaroslavl^⁷⁸.

In autumn (presumably in November) affiliates of the Slavic Union beat an anti-fascist in Irkutsk^⁸⁰.

Skinheads attacked not only "non-Russians" but the fans of “the wrong music" and the musicians themselves as well (on March 26 in Kirov, April 3 in Moscow, May 19 in Kaliningrad, June 14 in Rostov-on-Don and September in Moscow)^⁸¹.

On May 27 Yoshkar-Ola (Republic Marii El) skinheads beat 15 Marii artists - participants of the festival of amateur artists of the Morkinsk District of the Republic^⁸².

On November 6 skinheads attacked the spectators of the festival "We are different" dedicated to the International Tolerance Day. Two participants of the festival were hospitalized with grave injuries, two others declined to be hospitalized^⁸⁴.

Attacks on the foreign students studying in the Russian universities continued throughout the year 2005.

Sad championship in this statistics belongs to St.Petersburg where skinheads’ attacks on foreign students were registered on January 7, 15, 18, 30, February 11 and 22, March 26, April 8, September 9 and 23, October 13 and 22 and November 9. Altogether 17 persons – students from African states, China, Southern Korea, Jordan, Germany, Palestine and Israel – fell victims to the attacks^⁸⁵. According to the statistics of the City Prosecutor’s Office around 30 crimes of extremist nature were committed against foreigners during 9 months of 2005^⁸⁶. At that according to surveys only 4% of the residents of the northern capital oppose foreigners’ studying in the city universities, only 1% approve of attacks on foreign students and 3% speak in support of the doings of extremist gangs. 96% of the respondents condemn the fact of youth extremist groups’ attacks on foreign students^⁸⁷.

Outbreak of violence against foreign students was registered in May - beginning of June in Rostov-on-Don: On May 10 a group of youngsters attacked a student from India. On May 21 skinheads broke into the dormitory of the medical university and severely beaten three foreign students^⁸⁸. On June 1skinheads nearly killed a student from Africa. In the evening of June 4 skinheads attacked foreign students simultaneously in two locations^⁸⁹. Such coordination testifies to the presence of a coordinating center. On October 20 a student from Cameroon was attacked. Altogether 3 attacks were registered in October (one of them involving air-gun)^⁹⁰.

Yet another regional center where attacks on foreign students were common occurrence is Voronezh, a city notorious in this regard after the murder of Guinean student A.Lima in 2004. Students from Guinea Bissau (January 30), Zambia (February 18), Albania (April and October 18), Kenya (May 17), China (June 15), France (June 28) and Rwanda (July 3) were attacked^⁹¹. Altogether 13 persons were injured. This outbreak of violence resulted in a decline in number of foreign students desiring to study in St.Petersburg, Rostov and Voronezh.

Similar attacks also occurred in other cities. On February 22 a group of youngsters attacked two African students – citizens of Congo and Mauritania studying in the Nizhniy Novgorod Architecture Academy. On October 25 Cameroonian student (aged 22) of the Nizhniy Novgorod Polytechnic University was attacked and beaten. On November 27 a student from Mauritius was beaten^⁹². In December skinheads beat and robbed a Tunisian student in Nizhniy Novgorod^⁹³.

On March 14 Mali citizen Maiga Abu Bakara, freshman of the Language Department of the Lipetsk State Pedagogical University, was beaten at a bus stop.

On March 21 a group of around 20 youngsters attacked 10 students of the Kaluga branch of the Bauman Technical University, citizens of Myanmar.

On March 26 a group of youngsters foully beat two foreign students – citizens of Syria and Lebanon in front of the central entrance of the Kuban State University.

On May 1 skinheads beats two Algerian citizens – students of the RF Armed Forces Academy at the Moscow subway station “Vorobjevy Gory”^⁹⁴. On July 25 three unemployed men attacked student from Morocco Myinu Reda^⁹⁵. On October 20 unidentified criminals stabbed a Vietnamese in Moscow. The following day a citizen of Congo – freshman in the Moscow State University was beaten^⁹⁶.

In May a group of youngsters beat two Chinese students of the Perm State University at the dormitory entrance in the city of Perm^⁹⁷. On August 2 a student from Morocco was beaten^⁹⁸.

On September 16 student from Kyrgizia Eldos Kobonov was beaten in Yekaterinburg^⁹⁹.

On July 1 unidentified perpetrators threw several bottles with Molotov cocktail into the rooms of students from India in the dormitory of the Volgograd Medical University. Luckily, nobody was injured^¹⁰⁰.

A number of attacks were committed in Kursk. On October 18 a skinhead gang beat a student from Malaysia. Three foreign students – two from Yemen and one from Syria – were beaten on December 5 and 13^¹⁰¹.

On December 26 a student from Malawi was beaten in Velikiy Novgorod^¹⁰². For the first time such attack was registered in Abakan: on December 28 two Chinese students were beaten^¹⁰³.

Police timely prevented several such actions. In January 2005 in Bryansk police detained a group of skinheads numbering 18, among them 4 minors. They were armed with metallic rods and baseball bats and evidently they were heading "into action"^¹⁰⁴. On November 24 police detained the skinheads attempting to set afire the dormitory accommodating foreign students in Rostov-on-Don^¹⁰⁵.

At that it must be stressed that many such crimes are qualified as hate crimes only much later; sometimes their "ethnic component" is fully ignored during the investigation and the trial. For instance, according to the human rights activists from the city of Osh (Kyrgyzstan) skinheads killed more than 30 Kyrgyz migrant workers in Russia (mostly in Samara Region where Kyrgyz Diaspora is the largest) in January – September 2005. None of the cases was registered officially^¹⁰⁶.

Lacking the capacity to recognize Jews in the crowd, nationalists target synagogues and buildings occupied by other Jewish structures. Jewish community in Saltycovka (one of the Moscow’s satellite towns) was repeatedly attacked by nationalists. In the night of January 1 unidentified perpetrators set the synagogue afire. By miracle nobody was harmed. In February anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas appeared on the walls of the town and on the synagogue fence. At that, when erased, they appeared again^¹⁰⁷.

Skinheads attacked synagogues in Moscow’s satellite Perovo (February 15)^¹⁰⁸, Samara (March 8)^¹⁰⁹, Vladimir (June 3),Borovichy (October 5)^¹¹⁰ and Nizhniy Novgorod (September 5)^¹¹¹, vandalizing the buildings with anti-Semitic graffiti. In the evening of March 2 “unknown artists” spray-painted a swastika and an appeal to kill Jews on the entrance of the Jewish Cultural National Autonomy in Syktyvkar. Shortly later similar graffiti appeared near the republican printing house in the city center^¹¹². On March 10 unidentified persons painted a swastika accompanied by threats to Petrozavodsk Jewish community leader D.Tsvibel on the former building of a Jewish community center^¹¹³. On May 26 a “phone terrorist” claimed he had planted explosives in the Jewish community center in Yekaterinburg^¹¹⁴.

On June 30 two youngsters in gas masks broke into the only kosher food store in Moscow (located next to the Maryna Roscha Jewish community Center), threw a gas pot with unidentified gas and looted the place shouting “Kill kikes – save Russia” and “Heil Hitler”.^¹¹⁵.

The Kosher restaurant “Shalom” in St.Petersburg was attacked twice – in September and early October^¹¹⁶.

Vandals attacked mosques in Nizhniy Novgorod (late October), Penza (in the night of August 22) and Syktyvkar (December 2)^¹¹⁷. Offenders desecrated the houses of prayer of Church of Mother of God (Moscow, February 8 and 15), Catholics (Tver, April 8) and Mormons (Saratov, June 12)^¹¹⁸. On November 13 a bottle of Molotov cocktail was thrown into the window of the Armenian Cultural Center in Pyatigorsk^¹¹⁹. On June 12 vandals desecrated a Russian Orthodox chapel in Kamensk-Uralsk (Sverdlovsk Region)^¹²⁰.

On November 14 a 36 y.o. resident of the Smolensk Region blew up the Russian Orthodox chapel at the “Memory Field” near the town of Vyazma "because of his dislike for the Russian Orthodox Church^¹²¹.

On December 16 local businessman A.Nikitin broke into the “Word of Life” church of the Christians of Evangelic Faith in Nizhnevarovsk (Khanty-Manssiysk Autonomous District). He was shooting in the air declaring that “he, an Orthodox Christian, would shoot all non-Orthodox” and then he pointed his gun at Vasili Vituk, bishop of the Khanty-Manssiysk Association of churches Evangelic Faith. Only the timely arrival of police saved the worshippers^¹²².

At least twice swastikas appeared on the gates of a priest's house in Rostov-on-Don. Police suspects the affiliates of Satanist organizations^¹²³.

Another alarming occurrence of this year is the emerging of an organization openly claiming responsibility for the murders of “aliens”. The marginal ultra right-wing “Party of Freedom” has claimed responsibility for the murders of R.Epossaka and A.Urtado allegedly murdered by a "White Patrol” formed by the Party^¹²⁴. Later an article titled “Kill yet another anti-fascist” appeared on the web-site of the Party of Freedom. The article related to the murder of “anti-fascist rascal" T.Kacharava describing it as “appropriate consequence his thoughtless actions and his excessive activity in the field of anti-fascism" and "as an example for every Russian of what to do when seeing such anti-fascist scum on the street”. The article practically supports such murders and calls for their repetition^¹²⁵.

During the New Year holidays residents of the Tatar village Yeluzan organized pogroms in the nearby villages Chaadayevka and Arkhangelskoye mostly populated by Russians^¹²⁶. However, another version of events suggests that it was an ordinary fight among young people without any national implication^¹²⁷.

On March 22 the local Cossack organizations of Novorossiysk organized a pogrom of Armenians. The fight between Cossacks and Armenians that had happened in the evening of March 21 triggered the pogrom^¹²⁸.

The Oseti-Ingush conflict around the Prigorod District that had practically “died out” suddenly intensified. On March 28 and April 30 the “Aki-urt” movement standing in opposition to the Ingush authorities organized meetings demanding the restitution of the district Ingush residents had been driven out from after the conflict between Osseti and Ingushs in 1992. On March 29 mass clashes between Osseti and Ingushs were registered in the village of Dolgaron of the Prigorodny region^¹²⁹.

On June 22 a mass fight between Russian and Adygea youth took place in the village of Vesyoli of the Shovgen Region. Participants resorted to fire arms^¹³⁰.

On June 29 around 200 representatives of the Abasin ethnic group of Karachayevo-Cherkessia broke into the republican parliament demanding to repeal the law, according to which 600 hectares of land was transferred from the Abasin village Kubina to the town Ust-Jegut populated mostly by representatives of the Karachaev ethnic group^¹³¹. These clashes resulted in the held on December 25 referendum on formation of a new territorial entity - the Abasin National Region. However, the referendum has led to further complication, since the located practically in the middle of the future national region village with mostly Karachayev population voted against the formation of the national region^¹³².

In August the settlement of Remontnaya and the village of Yandyki of the Astrakhan Region were stirred by the clashes between the local population and the Chechen migrants. The clashes were fused by the allegation that one of the Chechen residents of the settlement had raped the daughter of one of the local atamans. Authorities’ timely intervention prevented large-scale clashes. According to the official version, in the village of Yanyki disturbances began after N.Boldyrev, ethnic Kalmyk, was deadly wounded in a fight in the night club. After his burial on August 18 the local residents started mass disturbances beating Chechens and setting their houses afire. As a result of the clashes involving more than 300 participants 6 persons were injured, 5 houses set afire and more than 10 vehicles damaged^¹³³. What's really cased the clashes was the probation sentence passed by the local court on three Chechens who had vandalized the local cemetery in February 2005.

On September 6 a mass clash between Kalmyks and Chechens was registered in the settlement of Pody (Astrakhan Region)^¹³⁴. On September 23 more than 100 persons participated in the mass clashes between Chechen and Kabardin youth in the city of Nalchik. The “reinforcement” from Chechnya arrived to help Chechens. In their turn, Kabardins demanded to deport all Chechens from the city. Authorities have managed to restore peace through negotiations; a part of the "reinforcement" was detained^¹³⁵.

The Altai Republic became yet another arena for ethnic clashes. On June 14 the Altai public organization “Ene Til” stepped forth with protests against the alleged plans of creating a Kazakh national region and against “Kazakh expansion” in the Koshachag region of the republic.

The growing number of ethnic clashed is a very alarming symptom since it indicates that local populations have entirely lost their trust to the authorities as the force capable of resolving ethnic conflicts.

Jewish tombstones were desecrated in Moscow (May 14, Vostryakovo cemetery)^¹³⁶, Kazan (May 25)^¹³⁷, Tver (August 6)^¹³⁸, Tambov (in the night of August 29 and in the night of August 31)^¹³⁹, Velikiye Luki (September 20)^¹⁴⁰, St.Petersburg (October 6 and 16)^¹⁴¹, Kostroma (October)^¹⁴² and the settlement of Khokhryaki near Izhevsk in Udmurtia (November 9)^¹⁴³.

Armenian tombstones were vandalized in the Krasnoyarsk Territory settlements Verchniy Urt (June 29), Razdolnoye (August 13), Babushovka (August 20) and Progress (August 30) and in the Stavropol Territory village of Nadezhda (December 4)^¹⁴⁴.

The monument to Armenians "Founding Fathers of the City of Holy Cross” was vandalized three times (in February, July and November) in Budyonovsk^¹⁴⁵. In the night of December 26 perpetrators destroyed the khachar (Armenian memorial cross) erected in Syktyvkar. Nationalists reacted to the destruction of the khachar with an article mockingly titles “Armenian monuments unstable on the Russian soil”. The article advised Armenians “to take into consideration the opinion of the local population”, under which definition nationalists usually mean only themselves^¹⁴⁶.

On October 10 Gypsy tombstones were vandalized at one of the cemeteries of Novosibirsk. In the night of February 22 three young Chechens desecrated tombstones at the village cemetery in the village of Yandyki (Liman District of the Astrakhan Region).

In the nights of June 22 unidentified vandals knocked down more than 60 tombstones in the Russian section of the Malakhovka cemetery in the Moscow Region^¹⁴⁷.

At the end of April in Ulan-Ude (Buryatia) unidentified perpetrators smeared with black the Memorial to the USSR Heroes at the military cemetery of the WWII soldiers who had died in the hospitals during or after the war.

In the morning of May 9 a spray-painted inscription “Heil Hitler – Liberator” appeared on the memorial to the fallen in the WWII^¹⁴⁸.

On June 28 the monument to the warriors faller in the WWII was desecrated in the settlement of Migalo (Proletarsky District of Tver)^¹⁴⁹.

On August 2 German tombstones were desecrated at one of the Syktyvkar city cemeteries in the suburban village of Kochpon ^¹⁵⁰.

Mass attacks of hackers adhering to nationalistic viewpoints on the “hostile" web-sites is a new feature of 2005. On March 18 they hacked the web-site "Jewish Life in St.Petersburg” (www.spbjewish.ru). The hacker deleted all news and forums and added anti-Semitic statements. On April 21 nationalists blocked the mail box of the Informational - Analytical Center "Sova"^¹⁵¹.

On June 6 hacker attacked disabled the web-site of the Jewish News Agency^¹⁵².

On June 10 pro-Nazis hacked into the web-site Jewish.ru and posted on its opening page the slogan “Tomorrow belongs to us” and the drawing of an armed men wearing SS arm-band (SS here is an abbreviation for Slavic Union, organization adhering to national-socialist ideas)^¹⁵³. In the evening of the same day perpetrators hacked the web-site of the Moscow Helsinki Group.

On December 1 the web-site of the Eurasian Union party was hacked^¹⁵⁴. The web-sites of St.Petersburg (December 2) and Altai (December 23) SPS branches were hacked (SPS: the political party Union of Right-wing Forces). On December 22 perpetrators hacked the web-site kommunar-press.ru; on December 31 – the web-site www.rkka.ru.

Nazi hackers have even achieved international scale: they hacked the site www.antifa.net and posted the lists of its visitors on the Internet^¹⁵⁵.

The hackers were affiliated with structures related to the Slavic Union. On November 29 the Slavic Union even declared the intention to form its own “SS IT Safety Department”.

2005 witnessed dramatic increase in the number of authorities’ declarations concerning the necessity to combat xenophobia. One can speak about "tolerance coming into fashion" among top officials who probably regard anti-xenophobic rhetoric as on of the image features of a modern western-style leader. The appropriate example was set by RF President V.Putin. On January 27 he spoke at the 60th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz – a concentration camp that had become one of the symbols of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. The Russian leader declared: “Even in Russia that contributed the most for defeating Nazism and for liberation of Jews we still witness the symptoms of this decease and we are ashamed of it".

Similar declarations demonstrating the deep concern of the Russian power with the growing xenophobia and anti-Semitism followed in a number of occasions. At his meeting with Chief Rabbi of Russia Berl Lazar in the beginning of March President Putin said that Russian authorities intended to continue the fight against anti-Semitism, as well as against "chauvinism and anti-Russian trends”. He made yet another declaration of this kind when summarizing his talks with Israeli President M.Katsav during his visit to Israel at the end of April.

President's comments during the "Direct phone line with the RF President" on September 27 also featured anti-xenophobic statements. However, having declared the possible strict measures authorities and law enforcement agencies are ready to undertake “to erase fascist elements from the country’s political map", he preferred to explain the growth of xenophobia in Russia as a part of world-wide trend^¹⁵⁶. The latest statement of this kind in 2005 was his speech at the reception dedicated to the Security Officers Day on December 20, 2005. He declared that “in all times Russia strength was ensured by the unity of numerous residing in it peoples”. He stressed that “militant nationalism, xenophobia, appeals to violence and ethnic strife threaten the very stability of our multinational state”. “It is necessary to be more resolute both in preventing such crimes and in uncovering their ideological inspirers and organizers”, said President Putin.

Speaker of the Council of Federation S.Mironov participated in the events dedicated to the Tolerance Day organized in St.Petersburg on November 16. He declared: “In our defeated fascism country now fascism is raising head in its ugliest form: I speak about the murder of a foreign student committed the other day in the city. This is clearly a political murder. This is how it must be prosecuted – not hiding from the problems that exist^¹⁵⁷.

After the publication of “the letter of 500” and the scandal it caused the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stepped forth with harsh criticism of the authors. Their petition was regarded as "openly anti-Semitic". In the official address issued by the Ministry it was stressed that "the position of those deputies had nothing to do with the official position of the Russian leadership that resolutely condemned all manifestations of ethnic hatred and xenophobia, including anti-Semitism”.

On February 4 the State Duma issued a statement condemning the “letter of 500” and its authors (voted for by 306 deputies). The statement read that despite the fact that the Prosecutor’s petition was later recalled “the very appearance of such petition raises concern of the State Duma”. And the “citizens’ address to the Prosecutor General with the demand to conduct audit of all religious and national Jewish organizations functioning in Russia, bring proceedings and ban their activities” received wide negative public resonance”. “Clearly anti-Semitic nature of these petitions causes outrage and sharp condemnation”, stressed the statement.

The State Duma resolutely condemns not only such actions, but such viewpoints as well. "There must not be place for anti-Semitism, national and religious strife in Russia. All actions kindling ethnic or religious strife and bigotry must be immediately stopped”, stressed the deputies.

Stressing the “provocative nature of this petition” the State Duma urges all governmental bodies, public associations and religious organizations in Russia to especially focus on the task of strengthening national and religious consent in our state. In his speech at a State Duma session S,Popov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on public and religious organizations, declared: “We cannot regard it but as a certain provocation, an attempt to defy one of the traditional confessions of Russia constituting an integral part of the cultural and historical heritage of our peoples”^¹⁵⁸. State Duma Vice-Speaker V.Pekhtin urged to "resolutely combat all manifestations of nationalistic ideology" and expressed his hope that "uncivilized demarches - provocations against our country would not repeat themselves”^¹⁵⁹. On February 9 the Council of Federation also stepped forth condemning "the letter of 500".

On April the statement of the A.Yakovenko, official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed that “authorities’ intention to root out ethnic and religious bigotry and kindling of anti-Semitism remains persistent and invariable”.

On June 1 RF Internal Affairs Minister Министр R.Nurgaliyev spoke at the enlarged session of the panel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs dedicated to the fight against terrorism. He admitted that at least 150 extremist groups including around 5000 members function in Russia.

R.Nurgaliyev said that it concerned, in the first place, the skinheads and added that "despite the quite negligible statistics of the crimes committed by extremists one must not underrate their negative impact". He also admitted that “taken to extremes, the ideology of extremist actions possesses immense power of destruction"^¹⁶⁰.

RF Deputy General Prosecutor V.Kolesnikov declared that shortcomings of the state structures and of society as a whole caused the skinhead movement. He believes that “the best way to prevent Nazism is working with youth promoting awareness that all citizens of Russia are one ethnic group”^¹⁶¹.

After the murder of A.Urtado V.Lukin, Civil Rights Commissioner in RF, urged to resolutely stop extremist chauvinistic and xenophobic actions in Russia. “If we do not cut off the oxygen to the extremists of chauvinism and xenophobia, we will not be able to achieve the great historical goal of reviving Russia as a strong, healthy, open and respected by the international community state”, he declared. He also urged to reveal the inspirers and instigators of such crimes^¹⁶².

On June 15 the regional board of Ugra executive federal agencies under the RF President’s plenipotentiary in the Urals Federal District gathered in the Khanty-Mansy Autonomous District and discussed the issues of combating xenophobia and extremism^¹⁶³.

In his address to the ombudsmen conference (June 2005) in Kazan S.Kiriyenko, RF President’s plenipotentiary in the Privolzhsky Federal District, stressed that state bodies must respond to all cases of manifestation of nationalism, condemn them, clearly qualify them and bring legal action against the offenders^¹⁶⁴.

Moscow Mayor Yu.Luzhkov often adhered to anti-xenophobic rhetoric in his public statements. However, in his case these declarations were a part of propaganda coverage of the municipal authorities’ efforts to beautify Moscow^¹⁶⁵.

Moscow authorities quite efficiently responded to the case of xenophobia in one of the Moscow schools: they fired the director who “advised” a girl entering the 10^th grade “not to wear national clothes … in a Russian school”^¹⁶⁶. With similar efficiency they reacted to the meting organized by DPNI in front of the school 223. Mayor’s press-secretary S.Tsoy called this action “a provocation"^¹⁶⁷.

Tatarstan leader M.Shaimiyev stepped forth with declarations condemning xenophobia and supporting tolerance in June and at the end of December. In particular he said that “in the republic there was no place for parties in one or another form infringing upon the interests of other nations”^¹⁶⁸.

A.Kanokov, new president of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, declared that he believed necessary to "settle the conflict between the Moslem Spiritual Leadership and young Moslem believers"^¹⁶⁹.

On May 25 Kazan Municipal Council adopted special resolution condemning desecration of Jewish graves at the Arsk cemetery^¹⁷⁰.

In the signed on July 7 “Charter of broadcasters against violence” the heads of the six major Russian TV Channels in particular pledged “not to promote racism and extremism”^¹⁷¹.

On November 3 the Moscow City Duma Deputies addressed the RF President demanding “to undertake additional measures for combating manifestations of ethnic bigotry against the representatives of other nationalities including the foreign citizens residing in Russia and studying in the Russian educational institutions, to point out the unsatisfactory work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in revealing the instigators of youth participation in nationalistic actions and to render assistance to the RF Ministry of Education in allocating additional funds for enhancing ethnic tolerance awareness in the youth. ^¹⁷².

On November 24 the Komi Republic Council Deputies urged the prosecutors’ office to combat manifestations of extremism more actively^¹⁷³.

On November 29 the deputies of the Kabardino-Balkaria Parliament stepped forth with the proposal to introduce addendum to the Russian legislation envisaging, in particular, for longer prison terms for ethnic hatred kindling and for organization of extremist associations. The deputies also demanded to introduce administrative penalties for the propaganda of religious preponderance and religious bigotry and for defying (of the appeals to defy) federal and local authorities when exercising religious rites.^¹⁷⁴.

This "tolerance trend" also touched upon the pro-President "Nashi" (Ours) movement that on December 22 informed about its preparations for the end of April: they plan to hold “a multi-national meeting” gathering 100 000 participants, “friendship lessons” in schools and a number of anti-fascist meetings and demonstrations^¹⁷⁵.

Unfortunately, practically all those declarations (with rare exception) were rather general and undirected, failing to mention the concrete groups and individuals inciting ethnic hatred. It is not clear, to what extent those declarations reflected the real concern with the situation and to what extent they were but propaganda response to the “loud” actions of racists.

The absence of declarations condemning Caucasus-phobia and Chinese-phobia speaks in favor of the latter version: the Western Countries are more lenient in this regard than in case of anti-Semitism. The attempts to provoke anti-xenophobic declarations of the Russian establishment concerning the situation in the Baltic States also testify in favor of this version. At the 3^rd Committee of the UN General Assembly the RF delegation actively supported by Byelorussia and Cuba presented the resolution on unacceptability of escalation of the modern forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related to them bigotry. The resolution (it was later adopted) specifically focused on “the case of glorifying the Nazi movement and the former members of the "SS Waffen" organization including through monuments, memorials and public demonstrations glorifying the Nazi past, Nazi movement and neo-Nazism” clearly referring to the Baltic States^¹⁷⁶.

Despite the fact that the discriminating practices of the government of the Krasnodar Territory was repeatedly condemned (even in the report of the Civil Rights Commissioner A.Lukin, where it was stressed that such actions undermined the prestige of Russia and in the speech of the Civil Rights Supreme Commissioner A.Hil-Robles) V.Putin at his meeting with Krasnoyarsk Territory Governor A.Tkachev referred to “his approach to that rather acute issue” as “partly justified".

A little earlier, on March 11, in response to the reports of the human rights watchdogs the Information and Media Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stepped forth with angry commentary accusing Georgia of all problems of Meskheti Turks^¹⁷⁷.

Though, according to some sources, the Prosecutor’s decision "to investigate the validity of claims in the letter of 500 about the man-hating nature of "Kitsur Shulkhan Arukh” shocked practically all top officials^¹⁷⁸ none of them stepped forward publicly condemning the case. Even Prime Minister M.Fradkov limited himself to general words on unacceptability of anti-Semitism when this issue was raised during his talks with Israeli vice Prime Minister E.Olmert^¹⁷⁹.

The State Duma resolution condemning "the letter of 500" was adopted only 8 days later after the comment of V.Piligin, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on constitutional legislation who declared that “all of it the way it happened - the time, the form and the presentation of information were unacceptable"^¹⁸⁰ and more than a week later after the letter had been recalled from the Prosecutor General. At that, the deputies – signatories of the letter were not mentioned the resolution – the fact that rendered it formal. The concrete measures for combating the spreading of xenophobia and anti-Semitism in the lower chamber of the Russian Parliament also were not mentioned.

And the meetings of D.Rogozin and V.Zhirinovsky with Chief Rabbi of Russia Berl Lazal finally confirmed that under "xenophobia" the Russian political elite means first of all anti-Semitism. Caucasus-phobia is not among the viewpoints improper for a public political figure (both of them - the leader of Rodina and the leader of LDPR failed to meet with the representatives of Caucasian Diasporas to clear themselves from the accusations in xenophobia).

The speech of V.Surkov, Head of the Presidential Administration, at the session of the “November 4 Club" (pro-Kremlin circle of experts) seemed to go beyond general phrases. He outlined two major dangers Russia was facing: the restoring of the oligarch style of governing and the trend of new isolationism perceived as the slogan "Russia for Russians”^¹⁸¹. However, it is too early to understand whether this speech would bring about a real turn in the policy or it was but another “smoke screen”.

2.2. Administrative, law enforcement and legal measures for combating the manifestations of xenophobia

2005 court practice demonstrate that the courts started to pass harsher sentences on those found guilty of crimes on ethnic hate grounds. Altogether in 17 trials that reached the verdicts in 2005 52 persons were convicted for attacks and murders on ethnic ground. The sentences varied from one year of colony-settlement to life imprisonment^¹⁸².

Two of the defendants - Novosibirsk skinhead leader M.Rodoshkevich and 22 y.o. skinhead O.Tugaryov who had attacked popular singer P.Narciss were found insane and referred for compulsory medical treatment^¹⁸³.

On December 19 the Kominternovsky Circuit Court of Voronezh sentenced 25 y.o. citizen of Voronezh who beat and robbed an Albanian student to 2 years of probation. The district prosecutor appeal against the verdict as too lenient^¹⁸⁴.

Several sentences were passed on the members of Islam extremist organizations, mostly the “Khizb-ut-Takhir” party. Altogether 15 persons were sentenced. The sentences varied from fines to 5 years of imprisonment. The cases of Islamists necessarily included the article 282 of the RF Criminal Code^¹⁸⁵.

In addition to that, 8 members of the criminal group that combined robbery and religious extremism of Islamist nature were sentenced in Ulyanovsk^¹⁸⁶.

In October the case against one of the members of “Khizb-ut-Takhrir” was transferred to court in Chelyabinsk. He was charged with participation in the activities of religious organization banned by the court for its extremist activities (article 282.2 of the RF Criminal Code)^¹⁸⁷.

The Supreme Court has overruled the “non-guilty” verdict the jury had passed on July 1 on two former policemen Blokhin and Kovalenko charged with battery against migrants from the Caucasian republics and remitted the case for further examination.

On October 27 the court hearings against RONS leader A.Artyomov charged with battery (on October 13, 2005 he attacked the local Komsomol leader M.Akhmatov) started in Vladimir. V.Artyomov repeatedly demonstrated his aggressiveness. At the press-conference on November 9 dedicated to the results of the “right-wing march” he urged to “punch all enemies in the face”. “Next time it is necessary to break through the police cordons and to show who is the master in Moscow”, he said.

To its credit it be said, the court withstood the brute pressure of the “patriotic public” that included deputy N.Kuryanovich and sculptor Klykov^¹⁸⁸.

Another trial is underway in St.Petersburg. 7 youngsters are defendants in the case of 7-year-old Tajik girl H.Sultanova murdered in February 2004^¹⁸⁹.

St.Petersburg prosecutors transferred to the Smolninsky Federal Court of St.Petersburg the case of nationalist A.Vtulkin. He is suspected of posting last summer "the death sentence" to Governor Valentina Matveyenko for her "anti-Russian policies” on one of the internet-forums"^¹⁹⁰.

On December 27 the case brought in connection with desecration of the Jewish cemetery in St.Petersburg was transferred to the court^¹⁹¹.

Today 14 members of the extremist organization “White energy" are facing criminal charges in St.Petersburg. The organization had attained its ill fame after the murder of a Vietnamese student in October 2004^¹⁹².

Criminal case was brought against the St.Petersburg branch of the international Nazi skinhead organization Blood&Honour^¹⁹³.

On December 13 the case brought in connection with the attack (December 2003) on local TV Channel journalist M.Adams, born in Somali, was transferred to the court. At that the defendants are charged under the article 282.2 of the RF Criminal Code^¹⁹⁴.

On November 23 hearings started in the Tukayev District Court of Tatarstan over the Satanists from Naberezhnye Chelny accused of desecration of graves^¹⁹⁵.

On December 29 the 32 y.o. skinhead gang leader Yu.Krivodubsky was arrested. Criminal charges were brought against him under the articles 213 and 282: he is charged with organization of assault on a refugee from Congo at one of the Moscow subway stations in April 2005^¹⁹⁷.

Deputy General Prosecutor in the North-Western Federal District I.Kondrat declared at the expanded session of the Council of Federation legislation committee in St.Petersburg that a special interdepartmental task force of security structures was formed in St.Petersburg. In addition to criminal investigations the task force would also monitor mass media to reveal the publications of nationalistic nature^¹⁹⁸.

Law enforcement agencies quite promptly detained the suspects in the murder cases of R.Epossaka, E.Urtado and T.Kacharava^¹⁹⁹. Unfortunately, not always they respond this way. For instance, the skinheads detained for attacking “non-Russians” at Arbat were released several hours later without being charged^²⁰⁰.

Sentences passed on the “ideologists” or on entire gangs are much more seldom occurrences. When in the first half of 2005 the courts started to pass such sentences (case of A.Skosyrsky, Syktyvkar, February 21; case of D.Chuprunov, Kemerovo, March 17; case of the Novgorod RNE branch, May 31; case of R.Latypov, Khabarovsk, July 20) the courts preferred to limit themselves to probation sentences. And on December 8 R.Latypov was cleared from criminal charges due to expiration of the statute of limitation^²⁰¹.

The trend to pass probation sentences on the leaders and ideologists was broken by the so-called “Schulz case”. On December 9 the Leninsky Federal Court of St.Petersburg sentenced D.Bobrov, organizer of the Nazi skinhead gang "Schulz-88", to 6 years of imprisonment^²⁰². However, taking into consideration that the prosecutors appealed against this sentence as too lenient and that other gang members got away with probations or were cleared of charges due to insufficient evidence, it is yet to be seen if it is a new trend or just a single case.

On December 14 the sentence was passed on the members of the Mad Crowd gang who were found guilty of inciting ethnic, racial and religious hatred related to acts of violence committed in organized group. Five offenders were sentenced to 1 to 3 years in colony-settlement, another one, a minor, was sentenced to probation^²⁰³. The criminal proceedings against these gangs highlighted one of the problems of current legislation on extremism: short expiration periods. Both D.Bobrov and Mad Crowd members were cleared of the charges under the article 282.1 and 282.prim due to expiration of the statute of limitation^²⁰⁴.

The launched in October 2003 court trial over the group of Novosibirsk skinheads continued throughout the year^²⁰⁵. On October 26 a resident of Verkhnyaya Pyshma was sentenced to 6 months of imprisonment for posting the leaflet with xenophobic slogans in December 2004^²⁰⁶.

In October the Leninsky Circuit Court of Kirov sentenced 19 y.o. leader of the local NNP (People’s National Party) branch to a fine in amount of 45 000 rubles. Major part of the fine was to be spent on elimination of nationalistic graffiti. Unfortunately, since the copy of the sentence is lacking it is impossible to define whether he was charged under the article 282 or under the "hooliganism" article^²⁰⁷.

On June 9, 2005 the Khamovnichesky Circuit Court of Moscow turned down the filed in 2001 petition of neo-pagan anti-Semite publisher A.Aratov. He filed the petition against the editors of the “International Jewish Newspaper” and against writer A.Recumchuk accusing them of libel and claiming moral damages on the grounds that A.Rekumchuk had called him “one of the leader of fascist movement in Russia”.

In January 2005 criminal procedures under the article 282 were brought against NDPR activist Yu.Slobozhanov charged with distributing materials of xenophobic nature via Internet^²⁰⁸.

At the end of April after a number of petitions from the local human rights organizations and from Regional Duma deputies charges were finally brought under the article 282 against V.Levchenko, the leader of the "Regional Cultural Autonomy of Russians in Kaliningrad Region". He is believed to be "the author and inspirer" of loud xenophobic actions such as, for instance, distribution of materials on "the Jewish government of the Region"^²⁰⁹.

On June 1 St.Petersburg prosecutors brought charges under the article 282 against Yu.Belyaev, the leader of the radical right-wing “Party of Freedom”. This launched in autumn of 2004 criminal case was based on the xenophobic declaration in the party newspaper “Our public observer”^²¹⁰.

On October 7 the criminal case against S.Lukyanenko brought under the article 282 in connection with publishing of his Natsiya (The Nation) newspaper was transferred to the Central District Court of Khabarovsk^²¹¹.

On April 25 the Chertanovo District Prosecutors’ Office of Moscow brought criminal action under the article 282.1 (“actions targeted at inciting hatred and strife and humiliation of dignity”) against A.Aratov for the article of V.Istarkhov “Major commandments of Jesus Christ" published in the Russkaya Pravda (Russian Truth) newspaper. The article was declared inciting ethnic hatred. On December 16, 2005 the Prosecutors’ Office of the South-Western Autonomous District of Moscow re-qualified the case under the article 282.2.b (“actions targeted at inciting hatred and strife and humiliation of dignity involving offender's abusing of his administrative position"). Such re-qualification envisages, in particular, for the longer (6 years) period of expiration rendering useless all defendant’s attempts to delay the process. Judging from more and more hysterical statements of Mr.Aratov the prosecutors are now really serious about the case and the notorious publisher for the first time faces real penalty^²¹².

The Prosecutors’ Office of the Komi Republic brought criminal action under the article 282 against Yu.Yekishev, leader of the “Union of National Revival” and organizer of the meetings in the center of Syktyvkar^²¹³.

In Karelia legal action was brought against the commercial ads newspaper for publishing xenophobic announcements on apartment rentals^²¹⁴.

In May 2005 the Povolzhye department of the Federal Agency for supervision of legislation observance in the field of mass communications and cultural heritage issued a warning to the newspaper " I am Russian in Samara" in connection with its anti-Caucasian and anti-Semitic publications. Today it editor tries to appeal against it in court.

The Za Russkoye Delo (For the Russian Cause) newspaper attempted to appeal against the warning issued by the St.Petersburg City Prosecutors’ Office in connection with publishing of the “letter of 500” The newspaper demanded to lift the warning on the basis of the RF Prosecutor’s General refusal to bring criminal charges against M.Nazarov. However, on December 14, 2005 the Admiralteysky Circuit Court rejected the newspaper’s petition as ungrounded”. On December 21 one of the issues of the Rus Pravoslavnaya (Orthodox Russia) newspaper was arrested in the framework of criminal investigation^²¹⁵.

At the end of September Nizhniy Novgorod police stopped an unauthorized skinhead demonstration^²¹⁶. Police acted quite harshly cordoning the “Right-wing march”. According to some sources, around 50 members of the Slavic Union were detained.^²¹⁷. Policemen who participated in the “Right-wing march” were discharged from the force^²¹⁸.

On December 6 law enforcement officers raided the storage of Nazi literature in Yekaterinburg^²¹⁹. According to some sources, another such storage was shut down in Verkhnyaya Pyshma^²²⁰.

Unfortunately, the Prosecutors’ Office rejected numerous petitions of human rights activists that demanded to bring criminal action against such nationalists as anti-Semitic and anti-Christian publisher V.Korchagin, columnist and author of “the letter of 500” M.Nazarov and others.

Paradox as it may seem, actions not related to direct combating xenophobia and extremism turned to be much more effective in the fight against extremists. For instance, the Volgograd organization “Union of the Russian people – Russian community” dissolved itself when the city mayor demanded from them to pay rent for 1500 square meters it was occupying in the center of the city.

Providers closed down the web-site of the Rus Pravoslavnaya (Orthodox Russia) newspaper for "distributing nationalistic spam” (www.rusprav.ru)^²²¹.

At that the law enforcement agencies continue to qualify ethnic hate crimes as routine violence. After the murder of R.Epossaka policemen claimed that the victim had among his friends marginal elements and participate in drinking parties; the official representatives of the prosecutor’s office declared that the murder could have been caused by hooliganism or personal motives^²²². After the murder of E.Urtado Deputy Head of Internal Affairs Department V.Bezborodov commented: "The foreigners often provoke such crimes themselves: they push drugs and have sexual relationships with minors”^²²³. Another representative of the Voronezh law enforcement – City Internal Affairs Department Head A.Dementyev declared literally the following: “Don’t hang about at the streets during the night” meaning that the foreigner had to certain extent provoked the crime by “roaming about at night”^²²⁴.

In his turn, Voronezh Region Governor V.Kulakov declared that “the perpetrators were just a group of marginal elements that attacked foreigners just for fun”^²²⁵. As a result criminal charges under the article 105.2.l (murder on ethnic and racial hatred grounds) were brought against only one of 14 defendants in the murder case of A.Urtado. The other 13 defendants were charged with inflicting bodily harm on citizens of Peru and Spain^²²⁶. Nationalistic mass media used these discrepancies to propel the version that R.Epossaka and A.Urtado were drug dealers killed “for drugs”^²²⁷.

“Patriots” justified the murder of T.Kacharava as “the revenge for earlier anti-fascist’s unmotivated attack on skinheads”^²²⁸. DPNI also tried to justify all attacks against foreign students by the myth that “they are one and all drug dealers (“allegedly, Blacks and Asiatic control 90% of drug traffic in the student environment”; at that such declaration did not have reference to the source of information) and criminals (as a proof the "patriots” in every possible case boost case of rape they claim was committed by a student from Guinea)^²²⁹.

Very often criminal cases in connection with such attacks are brought under the articles that have nothing to do with reality. For instance, the case about the attack on a student from Congo on October 21 was brought under the article “attempted robbery”^²³⁰. The attack on a student from Malawi committed in December 2005 in Velikiy Novgorod was qualified as robbery^²³¹. The attack on a student from Cameroon in Nizhniy Novgorod was qualified under the article 115 (“deliberate infliction of bodily harm”). The criminal action against the skinhead gang that in October had attacked D.Bitsoyev, son of the commercial director of the Novye Izvestiya (New Newspaper) S.Bitsoyev and his friend A.Martirosyan was brought under the article 111^²³².

Sometimes the attempts to conceal the "nationalistic component" lead to ridiculous situations. For instance, on December 2, 2005 RNE leader A.Barkashov was arrested for hooliganism^²³³. On the other hand it is possible that his arrest and charges brought against him were a demonstrative action aimed at giving a message to the potential “field commanders”.

The most widespread “routine" article used by law enforcement agencies for prosecuting ethnic hate crimes is the article 213 of the RF Criminal Code (“Hooliganism”). The skinheads who had attacked two rabbis in January were charged with hooliganism. Criminal proceedings under this article were brought against the skinheads who had beat the imam of the Moslem praying house in Sergiyev Posad and the offenders who attacked a student from Cameroon in Rostov-on-Don on October 20. Attacks on foreign students in Kursk were also not qualified as ethnic hate crimes^²³⁴. Even the murderers of T.Karachava were charged under the article 105.l (“Murder on the grounds of hooliganism”).

Unexplainable lenience of the law enforcement officers towards the criminals charged with ethnic hate crimes is another rudiment preserved until now. In March 2004 the sentence was passed in Tambov on the defendant charged under the article 282. He was found guilty of battery against a Vietnamese student in June 2004 in Tambov. However, though the deliberate nature of the attack was proven, the criminal got away with only 1 year of colony-settlement.

The Krymskiy Circuit Court (Krasnodar Region) displayed similar strange “lenience" towards I.Naumov who had murdered A.Tedorov. On June 24 the murderer was sentenced to 3,5 years of imprisonment. Only when the district prosecutors’ office appealed the case, on September 7 the Krasnodar Territory Court remitted the case for further investigation^²³⁵.

The original response of the authorities to the “Right-wing march” was very faint. The Moscow authorities authorized the procession on November 4 appealing to the fact that the structures that applied for the authorization were nominally not prohibited^²³⁶. Later State Duma Deputy from United Russia I.Barinov even declared that the march was authorized since “the democracy implied freedom of speech and the right to personal opinions”^²³⁷.

Only on November 8, allegedly after the outraged demands of Russian and foreign mass media in connection with prolonged silence around the “Right-wing march” the United Russia finally reacted. The march was characterized as “unprecedented manifestation of nationalism, chauvinism and racism”. Member of the party General Council A.Isayev called this march “a slap in the face to the modern Russian society”^²³⁸. State Duma speaker B.Gryzlov declared that such action must not have been organized on the National Unity Day. “Such declarations and forms of manifestation are inadmissible. This was not the day for making such statements", said the speaker^²³⁹. Only after that Moscow Mayor Yu.Luzhkov promised "to curb the outburst of marginal forces"^²⁴⁰.

Power structures and law enforcement agencies attempt to establish cooperation with human rights activists in the field of combating xenophobia and extremism. One of the examples of such cooperation is set in the North-Western Federal District where the "Strategy" center and the law enforcement agencies are involved in the joint project "Power vertical and society horizontal”. In the framework of the project 2-3-day seminars of tolerance awareness are organized for the middle management of the Internal Affairs agencies: district police officers, road police, migration and passport services, investigators etc. At that the priorities of each region are taken into consideration. For instance, on May 18-19 the partners held the educational seminar “Development of mechanisms of interaction of the Novgorod Regional Internal Affairs Department with human rights and other public organizations”^²⁴¹. The next step will be engaging Internal Affairs colleges and higher educational institutions in this project.

The regional Internal Affairs Departments continue to open anti-extremism units. In May 2005 such unit was formed in the Magadan police^²⁴².

It was decided that the Federal Target Program "Education" would envisage for financing for tolerance development programs in 2006-2010^²⁴³.

On November 2 the public committee for combating racism and bigotry was formed at the RF Presidential Council for promoting civil society structures and civil rights^²⁴⁴.

At the end of November a new administrative position – city mayor’s advisor on relations with foreigners – was introduced in Voronezh^²⁴⁵. The authorities also promised to open a monument at the murder site of A.Urtado (This intention, however, could be regarded as Mayor’s attempt to avoid the law suit from the parents of the murdered student. According to some sources, they demand 3 million Euro in moral damages)^²⁴⁶.

In early November an inter-ethnic consultation committee was established at the administration of Seversky District (Krasnodar Territory).

Conferences and sessions on combating extremism and promoting tolerance were held in a number of regions under support of regional authorities (Ryazan, June 22; Velikiy Novgorod and Barnaul, October 27; St.Petersburg, November 15; Rostov-on-Don, November 16-17 and 19-20; Belgorod, November 16-24; Tula, November 22; Kazan, November 28; Kurgan, December 1; Cheboksary, December 8; Kemerovo, December 14)^²⁴⁷

The festivals of national cultures remain the most large-scale form of interaction between regional authorities and national minorities. Several such festivals (Days of German culture, Days of Chuvash culture etc) were held in Orenburg, Ryazan^²⁴⁸, Voronezh^²⁴⁹ and Volgograd^²⁵⁰. The action “Peace for the Caucasian children” was launched in the schools of Vladikavkaz at the end of September under the auspice of the City Board of Education. In the all-Russian children center "Ocean" one of the shifts was dedicated to ethnic diversity and relations in Russia^²⁵¹. The first multi-ethnical New Year celebration in the history of Yekaterinburg was held on December 30, 2005.

The regional program “Forming of tolerant consciousness and extremism preventing in Belgorod Region" was implemented in the Belgorod Region. The results of this program were summarized at the conference “Tolerance as an imperative of the modern society” held on December 22 in Belgorod^²⁵².

This year was declared the Year of international friendship in Mozdok^²⁵³. Regional and local authorities organized a number of events (most of them of cultural and educational nature) on November 16 (Tolerance Day). Roundtables dedicated to the issues of tolerance were held on the same day in Kursk and Novgorod.

The roundtable “National schools in St.Petersburg: needs and perspectives" was held in “Rosbalt” on September 29. At the roundtable Head of Modernization of Education Committee of the City Board of Education L.Ilushin declared that authorities of St.Petersburg were interested in increasing the number of national schools and schools with national-ethnic component. Such schools will promote integration of different cultures and contribute to combating xenophobia", stressed L.Ilushin^²⁵⁴.

However, anti-extremist activities of authorities often have clearly nominal nature. For example, Deputy Governor of Rostov Region A.Bedrik declared: “We try to work, but everything remains on paper”^²⁵⁵. When discussing the city program of youth patriotic upbringing for 2006-2010 St.Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko said that “skinheads and neo-fascists needed especially delicate and accurate approach”^²⁵⁶. The program will be developed only by the summer of 2006^²⁵⁷. The representatives of the regional administration prefer to resort to general phrases about strengthening law and order and to promises to “evaluate the submitted proposals”^²⁵⁸.

By now the foreign students are the only group certain measures are undertaken to protect. The memo for foreign students on the rules of conduct and on safety measures was promptly reprinted (it was already once distributed among the foreign students in St.Petersburg after the murder of Vietnamese student Wu An Tuan in autumn 2004)^²⁵⁹.

The rules of anti-criminal self-defense and the useful telephone numbers of law enforcement agencies were distributed among the foreign students in Belgorod. The distribution was accompanied by trainings covering the rules of conduct in public transport and at the streets in day and night time, recommendations on physical training and basic self-defense^²⁶⁰. In the higher educational institutions of the Urals newly arrived foreign students are instructed on how to communicate with police officers and avoid falling victim of street hooligans^²⁶¹.

In Kursk authorities reinforced police units patrolling the campus of the University and promised to install surveillance cameras^²⁶². Similar security system involving police officers and private security firms and university patrolling units was established in Nizhniy Novgorod^²⁶³.

Since November mounted police patrols the territory of the Voronezh resort where foreign students were attacked^²⁶⁴.

In the Nizhniy Novgorod Region juvenile issues officers of the regional Foreign Affairs Departments organized about 2000 meetings with youngsters explaining unacceptability of ethnic strife kindling^²⁶⁵.

One must stress the xenophobic activity of politicians, of whom many adhere to xenophobic rhetoric that earlier was a realm of marginal political figures with no chances to join the big politics.

The representatives of KPRF and LDPR resorted to xenophobic rhetoric particularly often. At the State Duma session that condemned “the letter of 500” Deputy from KPRF T.Pletneva proposed to include Zionism into the list of negative phenomena that, according to the deputies, must not take place in Russia. She explained: “Nothing appears for no reason. This petition also has not appeared out of nowhere"^²⁶⁶.

Later the KPRF representatives in the best traditions of the Soviet state anti-Semitism proposed to distinguish between “separate Zionists inciting ethnic hatred in the interests of oligarchic capital” and “honest workers of Jewish nationality”^²⁶⁷. Interesting that contrary to the Rodina deputies, who practically all withdrew their signatures, four of the five KPRF signatories confirmed their affiliation with the spirit of this "document".

When commenting on the attacks on foreign students State Duma Deputy from LDPR A.Mitrofanov declared that “attacks on blacks were mere hooliganism”^²⁶⁸.

On May 16 the roundtable “National issue in the strategy of development of Russia” organized by the LDPR faction took place in the RF State Duma. Leader of this faction L.Zhirinovsky repeated the tale about “90% of Jews in culture and law and on Jewish dominance in the first Bolsheviks’ governments and in the responsible for the reforms office of E.Gaidar”. State Duma Deputy from LDPR S.Abeltsev accused Jewish people of “humiliating” Germans seeing it in the Holocaust Victims Memorial unveiled in May 2005 in Berlin.

In autumn, in his interview to the Daily Telegraph reporter V.Zhirinovsky declared: “Moscow became black, migrant children beat Russian boys. Migrants have occupied trade, hotels… they have occupied the city”^²⁶⁹. In the article “One must live… and must not die for the green color of Islam, as well as for the red of communism and the brown of fascism” published on October 3 in the Bryansk Liberal Messenger newspaper he openly declared that murders on ethnic grounds :are not fascism but simple self-preservation of the nation”^²⁷⁰.

State Duma Deputy from LDPR N.Kuryanovich was especially notable for his xenophobic and racist statements in 2005. It could be probably linked to his aspiration for an independent political career. At the press-conference held on May 31 in the Irkutsk Region N.Kuryanovich declared that the draft of the law envisaging for denaturalization of Russian citizens marrying foreigners and for confiscation of their property is being prepared for introduction to the State Duma. He explained the appearance of this draft by the intention "to avoid wasting the gene pool”. At that in one of his interview he declares in line with classical racists that even a woman who decides to dissolve her marriage and to return to Russia will be denied citizenship, since this will still be the case of “rotten gene pool”^²⁷¹.

He also proposed to prohibit Chinese immigrants to settle in the Irkutsk region and to apply for Russian citizenship.^²⁷². He also contributed to the development of the issue of “Russian women raped by aliens" addressing a deputy’s inquiry to the Minister of Internal Affairs, to the Minister of Education and to the head of the Federal Migration Service. In the inquiry he slanderously claimed that aggravated ethnic tensions are cased by a tremendous number of crimes allegedly committed by the migrants and attempted to inflate into a big scandal the case of a “Russian student girl”^²⁷³. N.Kuryanovich has also sent an open letter to the Ambassador of Tajikistan. In the letter on the basis of randomly selected facts he attempted to create an impression that all migrants from Tajikistan who come to Russia were criminals^²⁷⁴. Speaking at the roundtable "Fascism in the modern Russia" he declared that "alien ethnic elements raped Russian girls"^²⁷⁵.

He also participated in the meeting dedicated to the 100^th anniversary of “The Union of Russian People” in the Gorbunov Palace of Culture, in the “Right-wing march” and in the DPNI meeting against a memorial to G.Aliyev^²⁷⁶. In his interview about the latter occasion he repeated practically all mass xenophobic stereotypes: a significant part of Azerbaijani lives illegally in Russia; migrants export significant amounts of money (25 billion dollars over 10 years) etc. The deputy also had a meeting with the pro-Nazi Slavic Union organization greeting its representatives with Nazi greeting. At that, after the letter from Chief Rabbi of Russia Berl Lazar V.Zhirinovski declared that Mr.Kuryanovich's cooperation with skinheads is caused by LDPR’s intention "to take the youth from the streets and give them a chance to participate in politics and state and society development in a civilized way"^²⁷⁷.

In addition to N.Kuryanovich another State Duma Deputy openly expressed his sympathy to national-socialists. Deputy from LDPR S.Ivanov gave an interview to the representatives of the National Socialist Organization at the eve of the New Year. He declared that the National Socialist Organization openly declaring its allegiance to national-socialist ideology “could become the beginning of the renewed Russia where Russian people would be happy”^²⁷⁸.

A number of other deputies – first of all, S.Baburin and V.Cherepkov from the Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) party have met with D.Demushkin.

D.Rogozin, leader of the Rodina (Motherland) party openly supported the Movement against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) and called it “a partnering movement”^²⁷⁹. He used the murder of a student from Peru to once again convey his xenophobic view about “ethnic groups” killing people and “occupying markets”^²⁸⁰.

Two State Duma Deputies (I.Zhdakayev from KPRF, deceased on 12.14.2005 and O.Maschenko from Rodina) responded positively to the anti-Semitic film of K.Dushenov “Russia stabbed in the back"^²⁸¹.

At that, such statements could be also heard from some deputies from United Russia. At the State Duma Session in connection with attacks on foreign students Deputy from United Russia V.Zhidkikh declared that “it was unacceptable to move this issue from criminal field to political”. His colleague M.Magdeyev in his interview to the internet portal KM.ru declared that “in case of murders and beatings of foreigners a minor problem was boosted” and resorted to nationalists’ arguments about “routine fights" and “provoked” clashes with foreigners^²⁸².

On April 11-12 Deputy Chairman of the Tula Region Duma and leader of the nationalist movement "Frontier" V.Timakov spoke at the scientific conference “Christian Orthodoxy and Russian Military” dedicated to the 60^th anniversary of the victory over fascism. He dedicated a part of his speech to prince Svyatoslav’s victory over the Khazar Kaganate repeating the anti-Semitic myth that this victory liberated the European nations of being enslaved by the ideology of preponderance of a “higher race over the lower” thus linking Judaism practiced by Khazars to Nazism^²⁸³.

On June 14 during the discussion about studying religion at school in the Tula Regional Duma deputy O.Senin declared that “Russian children must be taught Orthodoxy, which lays in the basis of their culture, and not Islam or Judaism". “Without it the nation would be deprived of its historical roots”, added the deputy^²⁸⁴.

On January 29 in the 11^th issue of the Vladimir Molva (Rumor) Regional Legislative Assembly Deputy, leader of the unregistered nationalist organization RONS I.Artyomov declared: “The role of Jewry for the Russian history is catastrophic. It is clear that everybody is responsible for himself, but there is also a collective, national responsibility. Today in our country Jews manage Russian mass media, dictate the policy to the television, newspapers and radio and rule the banks. It is unacceptable and I strongly object to it”.

Deputy Chairman of the Vladimir Regional Legislative Assembly, first secretary of the Vladimir Regional KPRF Committee A.Sinyagin published his verses in the Vladimirskiye Vedomosti (Vladimir News) newspaper. In his poetry he blamed "loathsome forces - Judas's justice-hating tribe” for the destruction of the state.

In Tver the regional administration financed the publishing of collected articles of well-known anti-Semite, Tver Regional Legislative Assembly deputy V.Yudin "Where motherland starts...”^²⁸⁵.

The Moscow authorities refused to authorize the anti-fascist march planned for November 27. The same day police dispersed the anti-fascist picket in front of the Mayor’s Office^²⁸⁶. Around 100 participants (practically half of participants) were detained, but later a lot of them were released. 52 persons were sentenced to fines^²⁸⁷.

Vice Mayor of Perm V.Starikov who supervises the city department of culture and mass communications on November 4 promised to charge higher rent for one of the main concert venues of the city “from the performers positioning themselves as representatives of sexual minorities”^²⁸⁸.

Very often local authorities undertake violent measures against gypsies explaining it with the necessity to fight against drug dealing all gypsies are allegedly involved into. In December Tver Governor D.Zelenin demanded from police to “bring to order" the gypsies who settled in the center of Tver^²⁸⁹.

In Yaroslavl local municipality deputy S.Krivnyuk (who had repeatedly called for gypsy pogroms in 2004) in April organized a “Che Gevara people’s militia”. Armed with baseball bats militia started to crash the windows in the cars of alleged drug dealers^²⁹⁰.

In Archangelsk local authorities practically drove a gypsy tabor out of the city. With great difficulties the gypsies obtain permission to stay till spring^²⁹¹. At that they were not even reimbursed for their expenses on ameliorating the locations they were settled on^²⁹².

In the settlement of Dorozhny (near Kaliningrad) the Goryev Regional administration without waiting for a court ruling demolished around 20 buildings of gypsies justifying it with the necessity to fight against drug mafia^²⁹³.

On March 12 the representatives of the "Youth communistic militia for law and order" together with the officers of the regional Internal Affairs Department raided the Central Market in Voronezh. The purpose of the raid: prevention of terrorist attacks, cutting off illegal channels of financing, curbing gang activities, revealing the violations of passport legislation, migration rules and trade legislation. The whole complex of measures related only to the representatives of Caucasian and Central Asian ethnic groups^²⁹⁴.

If on November 4 and December 4 the meetings of the members of the “National Revival Union” who call themselves “Russian fascists” were stopped by police in Syktyvkar, on December 20 nationalist managed to hold a meeting^²⁹⁵. At that Syktyvkar Mayor, Rodina member S.Katunin authorized the meeting two times. He was dismissed at the end of November^²⁹⁶.

Nine of 16 suspects in Iskitim arsons are still at large and continue to threaten gypsies. Police even decided not to arrest the perpetrators guilty of the arsons in November claiming that the Iskitim population was concerned with drug dealing in the region and extremely interested in gypsies’ leaving the region. At that the officials dealing with drug issues declare that gypsies' share in drug traffic does not exceed 8-9%^²⁹⁷.

The adopted by a number of parties (KPRF, Rodina), national-cultural autonomies and major religious confessions declaration dedicated to marking one year after the Beslan tragedy contained the following appeal: "We must firmly show their place to the impertinent "national chiefs" of the neighboring states who constantly provoke tensions in the Caucasian region and use terrorists in their selfish interests"^²⁹⁸.

Newspapers with nationalist articles were distributed at the session of the Consulting Committee on ethnic issues at the Volgograd Regional Committee of ethnic and Cossack issues held on November 23^²⁹⁹.

In the first half of 2005 “xenophobic resource" was actively used in a number of election campaigns to the regional parliaments. After the adoption of President’s “September initiatives”, (according to which the heads of the regions today are appointed by the President and approved by the regional parliaments) the significance of deputies’ chairs dramatically increased. Xenophobic resource was used in the city of Shakhty (Rostov Region, February 2005), in Vladimir, Ivanov and Voronezh Regions (February- March), in the city of Volzhsk (Volgograd Region), at the elections to the Moscow City Duma and to the Tambov Regional Duma (December)^³⁰⁰.

In Tula the Frontier newspaper published by the nationalist organization of the same name that participated in the elections in the Rodina block focused on Jewish origins of one of the candidates for the office of Mayor and his alleged ties with “Jewish oligarchs”^³⁰¹.

Candidate to the post of the Mayor of Ivanovo G.Vavilov and candidate to the Ivanova City Duma Yu.Lebedev also resorted to nationalistic rhetoric^³⁰².

Moreover, one of the followers of radical anti-Semite B.Mironov colonel Kvachkov (who had made an attempt upon the life of A.Chubais) and national-socialist A.Nazarov ran for the State Duma in additional elections in the electoral district 199. At the end of November A.Nazarov withdrew his candidacy under the strong pressure from the election headquarters of V.Kvachkov^³⁰³. All election campaign of V.Kvachkov consisted of extremist and populist slogans. His campaign leaflets contained the verses justifying his participation in the attack on Chubais and calling for murder of A.Chubais. At the held on December 4 press conference head of his election headquarters (and the mother of another defendant in the Chubais case) T.Mironova accused Tajik janitors of destroying Kvachkov’s campaign material. The published by the Algorithm publishing house campaign leaflet of V.Kvachkov “Dangerous because loyal to Russia” features the anti-Semitic myth about the Jewish organization "Beitar" engaged in elimination of "patriots". It also features V.Kvachkov's interviews to the Zavtra (Tomorrow) newspaper and his statements about "aliens' occupation of Russia” and the necessity to “destroy occupants and their accomplices” and to “court marshal the criminals guilty of destroying the country”. He interpreted his attack on Chubais as “the first action of the national liberation war".

Rodina and LDPR extensively used xenophobic rhetoric. At that more and more often xenophobia is used as a key message of the program attracting the voters. Two attempts of LDPR leader V.Zhirinovsky to unite under his party a number of small nationalistic organizations including DPNI and SS (October 9 and November 6) testify to the growing role of xenophobia^³⁰⁴. DPNI leader A.Potkin gave the following description of the impact of such cooperation for any political force: “Those who get involved with us will never get rid of us”^³⁰⁵. He probably plans to use LDPR resources for his own “breaking into the big politics”. D.Demushkin also expects to use LDPR resources^³⁰⁶.

RONS leader I.Artyomov participated in the elections of the head of Petushinsky District (Vladimir Region). He lost the elections with a minor gap (7%) receiving 30% of votes^³⁰⁷. At that he was stopped by the local KPRF department and by not the democratic forces^³⁰⁸.

One of the leaders of Samara nationalists V.Guzhov ran for the position of the Mayor of Buguruslan (Orenburg Region). NDPR members participated in the elections of the Council of Deputies of the town of Tosnya (Leningrad Region) on October 9^³⁰⁹. In all these cases nationalists deliberately used the elections for promoting their ideology.

Publisher of the radical Echo of Russia newspaper, Supreme Ruler of the self-proclaimed “Russian Republic” V.Popov who in June 2004 had claimed responsibility for the murder of N.Girenko ran for the Moscow City Duma in the Avtozavodsky electoral district No.8 as an independent candidate.

It is known about the contacts of SS head D.Demushkin with State Duma Deputies Cherpakov, Savelyev, Kuryanovich and Baburin. D.Demushkin tried to present his organization as a major nationalistic force numbering 44 branches^³¹⁰. Now he contemplates the possibility to run for the State Duma^³¹¹. One of the priority tasks of NDPR is registering as a political party with the Ministry of Justice.

The right-wing radical “Party of Freedom” also started demarches towards the status of a legal political party. They plan to hold their constituent congress in March 2006. At that the party management openly admits its intention to participate in the State Duma elections in 2007^³¹².

At the end of June Karelia skinheads declared their intention to form a political party^³¹³.

A.Potkin tries to establish a legal political western-style organization (with transparent budget regularly posted on the web-site) on the basis of DPNI. At that the private sponsors and not the corporations are chosen as the core source of financing. To all appearances, DPNI nationalists resorted to raising donations from potential supporters (they raised 169 000 rubles in August - December) after the successful campaign of raising funds for A.Ivannikova^³¹⁴.

Officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, including some top officials, also resorted to xenophobic rhetoric. Head of the Moscow Region Organized Crime Department V.Gerasimov declared that members of 47 ethnic crime groups allegedly functioning in the Moscow Region dividing the region into the zones of influence committed up to the half of all registered crimes^³¹⁵.

Anti-gypsy rhetoric was used very often. Head of the Regional Drug Control Agency of the Volgograd region V.Kruglikov declared at the press-conference at the end of May that “ethnic groups” are responsible of drug dealing in the region specifically focusing on gypsies. In particular, he said: “And in terms of gypsies today practically all of them are involved in drug trafficking and sometimes whole families are sent to prisons. They practically stopped to be engaged in honest labor for public benefit. Some of them open small commercial firms, but usually it is just to cover their drug business. It is not a nationality anymore but rather a specific criminal way of life. Bearers of this gypsy mentality (not necessarily ethnic gypsies) will never work”^³¹⁶.

In December Head of the 1^st Unit of Novosibirsk Department of the Federal Drug Control Agency R.Matyushenko declared: "Today in our country gypsies play key role in drug dealing". Another officer of the Agency, Deputy Head of Regional Department A.Dmitriyev said in his turn: “Yes, in Novosibirsk region we have gypsies who do not sell opium. These are the gypsies who sell heroin. The rest are only a few”^³¹⁷.

In their publications mass media even quoted referring to the Novosibirsk Department of the Drug Control Agency: 70% of detained drug dealers are gypsies. At that head of the Agency’s press service in Novosibirsk region declared in his interview to the Novosibirsk MK newspaper: “The agency does not monitor whether the dealers are gypsies or not. Besides, it is often not possible to define: most of them have Russian last names”^³¹⁸.

At the “grassroots” level the xenophobic attitude of the law enforcement officers reveals itself in ethnic-biased document inspections that remain common occurrence in all regions.

According to all surveys, the highest level of xenophobia is registered among the law enforcement officers. In the survey conducted by Levada-Center they demonstrated the highest level of negativism (73%) towards non-Russian migrants.

One can speak about laws enforcement agencies partially infected with Islam-phobia. In Kabardino-Balkaria the fight against radical Islamism merged into systematic persecutions of the Moslems who do not support the official mufti council, which only aggravated the situation.

In December 2005 police detained a group of young Moslems returning fro a Moscow in Maykop. They were accused of “Wahhabism”. They were beaten and released. Adygea Internal Affairs Minister V.Smirnov publicly apologized for the actions of officers^³¹⁹.

In Astrakhan the case of businessman M.Shangareyev launched in the beginning of the year became the symbol of such “side effects”. They even organized a meeting that demanded expelling “Wahhabits” from one of the settlements. The reason for the prosecution of M.Shangareyev was his dispute with the local mufti^³²⁰. Finally he was charged with illegal firearms ownership and drug possession and sentenced to the minimal term - three years in the settlement - colony for prisoners^³²¹.

Discrimination on ethnic ground also wormed into schools conveyed by the teachers. At the end of March in Novorossiysk in front of the class a teacher said to his student, a Crimean Tatar: “We will get rid of you as Russia once got read of Mongol-Tatars”^³²².

In April a teacher in one of the schools of Astrakhan beat in classes her students – migrants from the Caucasus, tied their hands and forced to put clothes-peg on their mouths^³²³.

In June the director of one of the Moscow schools refused to accept a girl to the 10th grade despite her good school record articulating her refusal in a rather rude form. Expressing her discontent with the appearance of the student she said: “You come here dressed in national clothes. This is not how one should be dressed in our Russian school"^³²⁴.

In Bryansk the director of school No.52 the Jewish Or-Avner school rents its premises from demands higher rent payments (2,6 times more in comparison with other tenants) from the Jewish school^³²⁵.

In the Krasnodar Territory local authorities continue to oppress Meskheti Turks, which resulted in their mass immigration to the USA. More than 5 000 Meskheti Turks moved to the USA with refugee status over the past year; 4 400 received their immigration permissions; today American immigration services evaluate another 7 000 applications. ^³²⁶. On September 28 in the settlement of Varrennikovskaya a group of Cossacks led by the Deputy District Ataman attempted to confiscate the footage filmed by a group of English reporters about the life of Meskheti Turks^³²⁷.

In addition to Meskheti Turks local authorities also discriminate (regular "document inspections”, refusals to accept children to local schools etc.) against residing in the area Batumi Kurds Yezid Kurds and Khemshils (converted into Islam Armenians). For instance, an Armenian student of the Kuban State University had to pass the test tree times, at that professor openly expressed his belief that the students of Armenian Diaspora academically fell behind Russian students so the delayed test was a natural occurrence^³²⁸.

At the same time the Kuban Cossack Forces Ataman Gromov declared that Russia again must be protected from Moslems and that “Meskheti Turks must live in their historical motherland and not here”^³²⁹.

On the other hand, the students from the other “dangerous” locations are being transferred to the higher educational institutions of the Krasnodar Territory^³³⁰. Besides, the Territory authorities participated several times in the seminars organized by the Novorossiysk Committee on civil rights^³³¹.

The discrimination against “non-traditional” religions continued in the country. On December 1 Igor Ivanov, Head of the RF Security Council, declared that the recent years were characterized by the growing religious expansion from abroad and linked this “expansion” to the propaganda of terrorism^³³².

Despite the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church repeatedly stepped forth condemning xenophobia it became evident that its tolerance has defined limits and extends only on the members of “the elite club of traditional confessions”. It was clearly demonstrated by the events unfolded around the issue of construction of a Krishna temple. On November 1 on the basis of the objection of the Moscow City prosecutors the Moscow government cancelled its own decision to allocate a land plot for a house of prayer to the Krishna Consciousness Association to replace the one that will be demolished^³³³. At the same time archbishop Nicon (Vasyukov), the head of Ufim and Sterlitiamak Eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church addressed to the Moscow authorities demanding to deny permission to build a Krishna temple. In this petition he called the Krishna temple “satanic abomination” and “heathen place” and demanded of the Moscow mayor “to resist to the pressure of “false human rights activists” whose activities are somehow always “anti-Russian” and “anti-Christian”, since the construction of a Krishna worship house “is an insult to our religious believes and scoffing at the millennium-old religious culture of Russia”^³³⁴.

When Krishna worshippers demanded apologies from arch-bishop Nikon he published his second address where he accused them of distortion of facts, hypocrisy, oppression of Christians in India etc. and call worshipping Krishna “a demonic religion”. Among other the address featured a story about a mythical ritual murder allegedly committed by a Krishna worshipper in 2000 (in reality the murder was committed by an insane person who imagined himself a Krishna follower). Arch-bishop Nikon also proposed to comply with “the principle of proportionality": the size of the temple must be proportional to the percentage of Krishna followers among the religions Muscovites (at that the Russian Orthodox Church is extremely outraged when limiting the space of its cult structures is at question). He also proposed to build the temple at the land lot bought at market price and in the place where the residents would confirm their informed consent with such neighbors (meaning nowhere, since at least a small non consenting group will be in any location)^³³⁵.

As a result on December 29 the head of the Moscow Krishna Consciousness Association filed a petition with the Moscow Court of Arbitration accusing municipal government of hindering the construction of “a center of Vedic culture” in Moscow^³³⁶.

On October 5 in his interview to the French Diplomacy magazine Smolensk and Kaliningrad Metropolitan Kirill declared that “it would be useful to stipulate in the legislature the special role of the four traditional religious confessions - “Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism”^³³⁷.

In the beginning of December a scandal broke around the book of the Executive Secretary of the Russian Religious Council R.Silantyev “Newest History of the Islam community of Russia”. Representatives of a number of Moslem considered this published in October book Islam-phobic. For the first time this issue was raised at the held on November 2 press-conference dedicated to the National Unity Day.

Metropolitan Kirill, head of the Public Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchate promised "to look into this matter and to pronounce the judgment”. And the Head of staff of the Muftis Council of Russia Kh.Saubyanov declared that such publication did not honor anybody”^³³⁸. The Muftis Council even threatened with recalling its representatives from the Russian Religious Council because of this publication and demanded to convene a special session of the Religious Council for discussing this issue.

The scandal was finally stopped only after the official statement of the Church External Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchate that the book of R.Silantyev did not reflect the position of the Russian Orthodox Church towards Islam^³³⁹.

On the other hand the authorities of a number of "national republics” continue their discrimination policies. For example, the official position of Bashkotorstan authorities is “to ensure every kind of protection for Bashkirs in Bashkotorstan"^³⁴⁰. The percentage of Bashkirs in government structures grew from 26,5% in 1990 to 67% in 2003; in the local governments from 29,4% in 1990 to 58% in 2003 (at that, according to the 2002 census, Bashkirs comprise only 29,8% of the republican population)^³⁴¹.

4. MANIFESTATIONS OF XENOPHOBIA IN THE ACTIVITIES OF POLITICAL PARTIES, PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS

4.1. Using anti-fascist and human rights rhetoric for ethnic strife kindling and discrediting true anti-fascists and human rights activists

In 2005 the organizations and parties that try to gain the trust of population to their xenophobic activities and attract the citizens unsatisfied with current Russian reality but abhorring aggressive nationalistic slogans continue to actively use anti-fascist and human rights rhetoric and petition campaigns. Among the organizations actively exploiting such methods one can mention the Interregional association of human rights organizations “People’s defense”.

Nationalists even launched the web-site "People's defense" on the net (http://rusza.nm.ru/), where they gathered materials about some of the article 282 court trials underway now in Russia. The site includes advising potential defendants on the right conduct in court and selection of proper attorneys. The address on the first page demagogically reads that criminal cases under the article 282 of the RF Criminal Code are opened on "the Russian people who fight for their nation, their land and the future of their children" and that “the ruling regime manipulates the courts, which driven by fear and hatred towards unyielding nation use fabricated charges to intimidate and destroy those Russians whom they failed to kill with alcohol, drugs, famine and poverty”.

Back in November 2004 the youth department of NDPR in St.Petersburg established a support committee of D.Bobrov, leader of the Nazi skinhead gang now standing the trial in St.Petersburg City Court. At its web-site the committee published a number of appeals for financials support^³⁴².

The headed by Vladimir Regional Legislative Assembly deputy I.Artyomov movement “Russian All-national Union” denied registration by the RF Ministry of Justice filed a complaint against state authorities with the European Court in Strasburg.

A number of “patriotic” web-sites posted the article, in which the author distorting the facts claimed that representatives of the Caucasus and Central Asia ethnicities fought on the German side in WWII (the author failed to mention police forces, Vlasov’s troops and Wehrmacht auxiliaries staffed with Slavs). On the basis of this strained interpretation the author demagogically declares that driving “watermelon vendors out of Russia” is, in fact, an act of anti-fascism^³⁴³.

Another new trend surfaced in 2005: certain government or close to the government structures use accusations in xenophobia to discredit potential opposition. Mostly for this purpose they equate the opponents with fascists, since as a result of the monstrous atrocities committed by fascists in WWII and terrible memories of the human loss this word evokes strong negative feelings in the majority of Russian population. Moreover, such accusations are introduced to maximally discredit the opposition in the eyes of the West, which, as a part of Russian elite sees it, is the major "support group" of the opposition. For the first time these political technologies were applied in 2004 in Ukraine.

The emerged in the spring of 2005 youth movement “Nashy” (Ours) was exploiting this tactics the most. From the very beginning the movement positioned itself as anti-Fascist. In the beginning of May the Nashy released a booklet titled "Unusual fascism" accusing of fascism all those in opposition to the authorities. The authors lumped together into the single "pile of enemies" such political figures as anti-Semite general A.Makashev, leadership of the Rodina party and of the KPRF, I.Khakamada, members of the Yabloko party and Committee-2008, B.Berezovsky and E.Limonov.

In autumn the campaign continued focusing that time mostly on Yabloko. For instance, at the held in RIA Novosti roundtable "Fascism in modern Russia” Director of the Agency form political and economical communications D.Orlov spoke about “the strange unnatural alliance between explicit fascists - Limonov's national-Bolsheviks and the oldest democratic party Yabloko^³⁴⁴. Similar publications appeared on a number of web-sites. Furthermore, the Svobodnaya Rossia (Free Russia) party was used for attacks on Yabloko and accusing it of fascism: its members repeatedly stepped forth with declarations of that kind.

Article 282 of the RF Criminal Code (ethnic strife kindling) was used for bringing criminal proceedings against S.Dmitriyevsky, Director of the Nizhniy Novgorod Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship. The charges against him were based on the publication of the address of A.Maskhadov and A.Zakayev calling for peaceful resolving of the Russian – Chechen conflict in the newspaper of the Society^³⁴⁵.

Top government officials also resort to such rhetoric. For example, Head of Presidential Administration D.Medvedev and Deputy Head of the External Church Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchy V.Chaplin declared at the June 1 session of the RF President’s Committee on religious associations that “certain malicious forces could use religious strife for destabilizing the situation in the country". The adopted at the session resolution contains the following thesis: “To achieve its criminal goals international terrorism strives to sow discord among the people of different religions and nationalities”. “Certain forces in the country and abroad in their narrow group interests are ready to cynically use religious and ethnic tensions. We believe that mutual bigotry and xenophobia present great danger for the unity of multinational Russian society, for the very existence of our country. We resolutely reject all religious and ethnic strife as radically contradicting to peaceful and humanistic spirit of practiced in our country religions and to Russian centuries-old traditions of being good neighbors”, stressed the adopted declaration^³⁴⁶.

D.Medvedev’s deputy V.Surkov in his interview to the Spiegel magazine characterized national – Bolsheviks as “chauvinistic pro-fascist forces” whose activity might provoke "an outbreak of Islamic extremism"^³⁴⁷.

In such a way two major phobias of Western countries are combined here to justify authorities' policy of suppressing the opposition: the fear of ultra-nationalists' victory in Russia and the fear of onslaught of aggressive Islamist fundamentalism.

It is necessary to mention that the forces in opposition to the Russian power structures also resorted to such political tool as accusing their opponents of xenophobia and ultra-nationalism.

One of the leaders of the democratic opposition G.Kasparov at the end of April during Mr.Putin's visit to Israel accused President Putin of encouraging ultra-nationalists with the intention "to scare the public with ultra-nationalist threat and to present himself as the only person capable of stopping them”^³⁴⁸.

Similar tactics was used by the head of Latvia delegation in EU Assembly A.Berzinsh. On July 23 in his official speech he accused Russia of crimes against ethnic minorities declaring that xenophobia and anti-Semitism existed in Russia^³⁴⁹.

In this connection one must can also mention the campaign organized by the opposition of Marii El the attempted to present the actions of authorities as prosecution on ethnic grounds and managed to have the issue examined by EU Assembly and the European Commission (the latter expressed concern with the situation in Marii El in March 2005). The European Parliament confirmed the fact of discrimination against Marii in its resolution of May 12, 2005 “On human rights and democracy violation in the Marii El Republic of the Russian Federation”. The RF Ministry of Foreign Affairs evaluated the position of the European Parliament as incorrect and accused the deputies of desire to "distract the attention of international community from the poor situation with the human rights, first of all, of the Russian-speaking minority, in the Baltic States”^³⁵⁰. The general attitude of the Russian ruling elite to such declarations was expressed by the Deputy Head of Presidential Administration V.Surkov at the closed meeting of the General Council of the businessmen association “Business Russia”. He said that concern about the destiny of Finno-Ugric ethnicities was demonstrated only because they populated oil-bearing regions^³⁵¹. However, after the Ambassadors of Estonia, Finland and Hungary visited Marii El and expressed their satisfaction with the situation in the Republic the conflict faded away^³⁵².

The Union of Right Forces (SPS) and Yabloko accused Moscow Mayor Yu.Luzhkov who practically authorized the "Right-wing march" of conniving at fascism^³⁵³.

In January mass media published a letter to the RF Prosecutor General drawn up by publicist M.Nazarov and signed by 500 persons, 19 of them State Duma deputies.

For the first time several various anti-Semitic myths circulating for tens of years in the "patriotic" environment were compiled in one document. In particular, the document claimed that practicing of Judaism envisages for disdain for representatives of other religions. The old and repeatedly refuted label about ritual murders allegedly committed by Jews also was included in the letter^³⁵⁴. Though the unfolding large-scale scandal made many deputies recall their signatures, seven of them - A.Krutov, V.Kashin. A.Savelyev, A.Makashev, S.Sobko, N.Kndratenko and N.Yezerski have not withdrawn. On February 4 speaking in the State Duma Mr.Krutov accused Jews of “cultivating ethnic hatred towards other nations of Russia at the expense of tax payers" and repeated several arguments from “the letter of 500"^³⁵⁵. On March 21 the second variant of this letter, this time bearing 5000 signatures mostly gathered by sympathizing with M.Nazarov Orthodox priest was filed with the Office of Prosecutor General. Later the collection of signatures continued; by the end of 2005 it was possible to sign “the letter of 500”, by that time "the letter of 500 - 5000", via Internet^³⁵⁶.

In the published on May 12 article “To live without fear of Jews" M.Nazarov exploited yet another anti-Semitic myth about the alleged ritual murder of five children who disappeared in Krasnoyarsk in April 2005. On May 29 the ritual murder version was ventilated by neo-pagan and chauvinist V.Korcagin^³⁵⁷ at the "patriotic” meeting at Pushkin Square^³⁵⁸. Later in addition to the above claims M.Nazarov accused Hasidic Jews of the ritual murder of three children who disappeared in the Istra District of the Moscow Region and of the murder “for apostasy” one of his allies, converted Jew and signatory of the letter S.Kizelstein and demanded from the law enforcement agencies to thoroughly investigate these cases^³⁵⁹.

In Saratov 8 representatives of the “local patriotic community” (among them the former leader of the local RNE branch) drew up their own letter to the Prosecutor’s Office taking "the letter of 500” as an example. This letter was published on February 17 at the press conference in the Zemskoye Obozreniye (Local Observer) newspaper. Contrary to the “letter of 500” it failed to cause noticeable reaction despite the fact that On March 15 Ren-TV broadcasted a report about it^³⁶⁰.

On July 7 a group of little known fundamentalists sent a letter to Patriarch Alexii II demanding to break off all contacts between the Russian Orthodox Church and Judaism. Three months later this letter was published in the Rus Pravoslavnaya (Orthodox Russia) newspaper. As in “the letter of 500" with the help of numerous distortions the authors strived to present Judaism as a man-hating religion not related to “the religion of prophets” and accused Jews of ritual murders^³⁶¹.

On July 17 M.Nazarov filed a petition with the Basmanny Court of Moscow demanding to bring criminal proceeding against Jewish organizations in Russia “that follow the man-hating moral of Shulkhan Arukh” and to declare this book extremist. In the petition he again accused Jews of ritual murders and, in particular, attempted to distort the conclusions in the Beilis case^{^} (according to him Bailis was acquitted due to insufficient evidence, at that the jury ruled that a ritual murder indeed had taken place^³⁶²). At that several times he expanded the list of defendants adding to the heads of major Jewish organizations and Director of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights A.Brod the editorial office of the Kommersant (Businessman) newspaper, the informational agencies Interfax and Regnum that, in his opinion, had published insulting him statements.

The court decided that Mr.Nazarov was not able to clearly articulate his demands in the petition. At that as an argument in his favor Mr.Nazarov tried to use the decision of Cheremushki District Prosecutors’ Office that refused to bring criminal proceedings for ethnic strife kindling against him. He was trying to persuade the court that this decision is absolute. Speaking at the held on November 25 in Kiev “scientific conference” “1917 Jewish Bolshevik coup d’etat as precondition for Red terror and famine” he again accused Jews of aspiring at world dominance, of the centuries-long anti-Slavic conspiracy planned by Marx and Engels in their “Manifest of Communist Party” and of unleashing terror and famine”^³⁶³. At the conference dedicated to the 100^th anniversary of the Union of Russian Nation held on October 28 in Moscow he proposed the following “solution for the Jewish question: to recreate Orthodox fundamentalist state with full deportation of Jewish population. He also declared that “as a service from “useful idiot” Holocaust had worked for the benefit of Jews since it helped international Jewry to crush international resistance to Jewish dominance"^³⁶⁴.

Chief Editor of the Rus Praoslavnaya (Orthodox Russia) newspaper in autumn 2005 started to develop the topic of “Russian Orthodox Church being saturated with kikes” and “the dominance of Jews among priests". He declared that Talmud contained direct instructions for the kikes to enter Russian Orthodox priesthood with the purpose of desecration of sanctuaries and altars and for corrupting priests and parishioners"^³⁶⁵.

He openly declares that he and his allies are “anti-Semites, Black Hundred supporters and kike-haters"^³⁶⁶.

In autumn another false accusation aimed at proving the key role of Jews in the unrests in France surfaced in nationalistic circles: it was a letter allegedly circulating in the Jewish communities of Western Europe. The letter was afire with hatred towards the French and called for boycotting France thus reviving the old libel about the key role of Jews in all unrests and revolutions^³⁶⁷.

Since similar ideas (about Jews “using” the Moslem diasporas to "punish France for anti-Semitism") were also articulated by one of the nationalist publicists A.Sevastyanov^³⁶⁸, one could presume with great likelihood that he was the author of this “letter”.

At the end of November sculptor V.Klykov, one of the signatories of “the letter of 500” was planning to erect a memorial dedicated to prince Svyatoslav’s victory over the Khazar Kaganat, a part of the political elite of which was practicing Judaism. In the composition of the memorial prince’s adversary has a magen-David on his shield as a symbol of original hostility of Jews towards Russia. After the protests from Russian Jewish organizations Belgorod authorities hastened to assure the public that the issue of installing such memorial in the city center had been never discussed: it had been planned to erect a sculpture in one of the villages, at that with different appearance^³⁶⁹.

Russian nationalists yield the following reaction: "Everybody perfectly understands what kind of Khazars Svyatoslav tramples with his horse. The time will come and the tanks of new Svyatoslavs will crush the synagogues - it is just the matter of time"^³⁷⁰.

In January 2005 loud presentations of the book of the NDPR Co-chairman A.Sevastyanov “Time to be Russian” containing a number of anti-Semitic articlesВ and the book of former NDPR leader B.Mironov (despite the fact that he is on police’s “wanted” list) “Jewish Yoke” took place in Moscow. Publishing houses Vityaz (Knight), Peresvet, Algorithm, Russkaya Pravda (Russian Truth), Yauza and others regularly release books of anti-Semitic nature.

Anti-Semitic materials including the “letter of 500” were regularly posted on the web-site of the Rus Pravoslavnaya (Orthodox Russia) newspaper. In autumn the editors of this newspaper started spamming the proposal to purchase the film "Russia stabbed in the back: Jewish fascism and genocide against Russian nation". This clearly xenophobic and anti-Semitic film was created by K.Dushenov, Chief Editor of the newspaper^³⁷¹.

“The letter of 500” (abstracts or in full) was reprinted by a number of newspapers of "patriotic” orientation: Velikolukskaya Pravda (Truth of Velikiye Luki, Velikiye Luki), Za Russcoye Delo (For Russian Cause, St.Petersburg), Zasechny Rubezh (Frontier, Tula), Zemskoye Obozreniye (Regional Review, Saratov), Premier (Vologda), Yuzhny Ural (Southern Urals, Orenburg), Russkiy Front Moskovii (Moscow Russian Front) and Molodaya Gvardia (Young Guard) magazine.

In addition to the listed above the newspapers Novaya Sistema (New System), Za Russcoye Delo (For Russian Cause) and Noviy Peterburg (New St.Petersburg) promoting xenophobia and racism continued in St.Petersburg. In the beginning of 2005 two newspapers of this kind - Slavyanski Nabat (Slavic Alarm, Vologda) and Russkoye Veche (Russian Forum, Novgorod) resumed their publishing activities.

The newspapers Kolokol (Bell), Izhevskaya Divizia (Izhevsk Division) and Alex-Inform (Samara) published in Privolzhsky Federal District promote xenophobia, extremism and racism.

Similar newspapers are published in the Siberian Federal District: the Russiky Vostok (Russian East, Irkutsk) and the Russkaya Sibir (Russian Siberia, Novosibirsk) newspapers.

Xenophobic viewpoints are often expressed on the radio-wave "People's radio" broadcasting on short and medium waves and in the Internet. In January of this year the radio gave the floor to M.Nazarov who was promoting “the letter of 500"; this spring the radio featured a series of broadcasts where mathematician I.Shafarevich summarized the content of his book "A three-millenniums-old mystery. History of Jewry from the viewpoint of contemporary Russia” packed with various anti-Semitic myths^³⁷². In November one of the broadcasts featured A.Sevestyanov articulating his xenophobic and migrant-phobic fantasies (including calculating the percentage of non-Russian blood in Moscow Mayor Yu.Luzhkov)^³⁷³.

St.Petersburg nationalists attempted to use the murder of Olympic champion in cycle racing D.Nelubin committed in the night of January 1, 2005 by migrants from the Caucasus allegedly on ethnic grounds. Nationalists compared it to the murder of 9-year-old Tajik girl H.Sultanova committed in February 2004 by skinheads. The nationalistic "Russian Information Agency" published extensive commentary, the bottom line of which was accusing "the Caucasians” of “killing a lot of people” and enslaving Russians and the authorities of ignoring the problem. The commentary also drastically distorted the facts of the murder of H.Suptanova: it repeated the false statement that the girl's father was a drug dealer and blatantly claimed that the investigation was unable to reveal “of what kith or kin were the bastards who killed the girl" (though already the sixth suspect in this case was detained at the end of December 2004^³⁷⁴). The "patriotic” internet forums presented information on sportsman’s murder in mach harsher phrasings: "Khachi killed a Russian sportsman”, “Another victim of Khachi” (Khachi – derogative for the migrants from the Caucasus), “Caucasians foully murdered our Olympic champion in St.Petersburg”^³⁷⁵.

Another medium for penetration of xenophobic propaganda into mass media was the case of A.Ivannikova who in December 2003 had murdered the Armenian driver of the cab she took who allegedly had been trying to rape her. Despite the evident "ambiguity” of the case nationalists turned her into a role model of “Russian woman resisting to a Caucasian". Mass media were widely covering the launched in the 2005 court hearings, as well as the nationalistic pickets in her support. State Duma Deputy N.Kuryanovich put direct pressure on law enforcement agencies demanding to acquit A.Ivannikova. First she was sentenced to 2 years of probation for the murder committed in the state of temporarily insanity, than the case was reviewed and when the prosecution decided to drop the charge she was acquitted on November 23. However, the plaintiff's attorneys appealed with the Moscow Panel of Judges demanding to overrule the verdict of the Lublinsky Court of Moscow and to remit the case to the prosecution to bring charges under the article 111.4 of the RF Criminal Code (deliberate inflicting of grave bodily harm resulted in death)^³⁷⁶.

In June 2005 DPNI even presented A.Ivannikova with an award in amount of 50000 rubles practically as an incentive for the murder^³⁷⁷. For a period of time Mrs.Ivannikova turned into a political figure signing petitions in support of colonel Kvachkov etc^³⁷⁸.

Hate speech penetrated practically all federal mass media. The Northern Caucasus Press Union even established an “anti-award”: “Black pen of Russia” for ethnic strife kindling and chauvinism. 2005 anti-award winners are the Moskovsky Komsomolets (MK, Moscow Komsomol) newspaper, the internet portal APN.ru and TV journalist Mikhail Leontyev^³⁷⁹.

The following case clearly demonstrates such infestation. Under the pen of irresponsible journalists a routine fight between African students and local youngsters that broke out in the night of November 11 in St.Petersburg has turned into “Africans’ attack on local residents”, their revenge for racist attacks etc^³⁸⁰. The most exaggerated phrasing belonged to the reporter of RIA Novosty informational agency who wrote: “A group of Africans walked with baseball bats and attacked passers-by". Later other mass media quoted exactly this report^³⁸¹. Nationalists presented this piece of information as “two drunken blacks detained for attacking people”^³⁸².

One must mention the extremely negative role of the Komsomolskaya Pravda (Komsomol Truth) newspaper regularly publishing xenophobic materials aimed at proving the reality of "migrant danger". Covering the conflict in the settlement of Yandyki its reporters quite often resorted to xenophobic stereotypes about Chechens as “slave-owners, hooligans etc”.

On December 16 the newspaper published the article of O.Vandysheva “Moscow in hidjab”. Already in the very first line the author tries to persuade the readers that “Moscow is in the focus of Moslem attack” presenting all Moslems as one organized structure^³⁸³. In January and March 2005 the Komsomolskaya Pravda of Ryazan published several articles presenting “non-Russians” as despot who beat their wives and prohibit them to study^³⁸⁴.

In October 2005 the Tribune newspaper published the article of A.Polynski "Who needs Russian nationalism”. The author claimed that the cases of attacks on "non-Russians” are artificially boosted even when the victims themselves were guilty. Later this article was re-printed by the Yuzhny Ural (Southern Urals) newspaper^³⁸⁵.

The Literaturnaya Gazeta (Literature Newspaper) became a mouthpiece for A.Sevastuanov who published a number of his articles there.

Under the management of Chief Editor I.Yanin the Gudok (Siren) newspaper has shifted to "patriotic" viewpoints^³⁸⁶.

On June 10 the Moskovski Komsomolets (Moscow Komsomol) newspaper published an article of V.Rechkalov “Close-ended Chechnya”. The article accused all Chechens residing in Russia in intentional ignoring the laws contradicting to the Adat (clan code of laws)^³⁸⁷.

The Independent Military Review published a eulogistic article about V.Menshov, radical publicist in the beginning of XX century, member of the Black Hundred. The author demagogically claims that Mr.Menshov's position was different from Black Hundred's^³⁸⁸.

Journalist B.Klin published his article "Seven mosques of Penza's Mecca”. In the articles he repeats the declarations of “official” Islam about “mass wahhabization” of the largest in Europe Tatar settlement Srednyaya Yeluzan (Penza Region) and the declarations of law enforcement agencies about mass participation of settlement's residents in stealing petroleum and cattle. The readers are intimidated with the threat of new "Wahhabism settlements" appearing in Penza Region the same way it was happening in Dagestan^³⁸⁹.

In January the Moskovski Komsomolets (Moscow Komsomol) of Ryazan newspaper published the article of S.Meteleyeva where she presented practically all Chechens as separatists' accomplices^³⁹⁰. In June the same newspaper published the article “Peter’s upraising” that focused on the violations of construction regulations committed by a construction team of Azerbaijani in the construction in the center of the city^³⁹¹.

In September the Bryanskaya Pravda (Bryansk Truth) newspaper published a number of articles of xenophobic nature. One of the articles praised "anti-Zionist" activities of Stalin, among them the launched by him repressions. In August – September 2005 the Kurgan and Kurgantsy (Kurgan and its citizens) newspaper regularly published Caucasus-phobic and Islam-phobic materials^³⁹².

On August 11 the Altai Delovoy Kuryer (Business Courier) newspaper published the article of A.Pologia “Anti-Semitism: a term or an interjection?” The author claimed that Jews kindled anti-Semitism themselves. On November 17 the Delovoy Kuryer published the article of D.Sizov “A concert for a bear with orchestra”. The bottom line of the article is the policy of genocide against Russian nation allegedly conducted in Russia. Another Altai newspaper Vityaz (Knight) in its September issue tried to persuade the readers that the word "Jid" concerned only Jewish usurers. It also published an article in support of A.Prokhozhev, author of the ati-Semitic, "anti-Zionist" book "Shadow people"^³⁹³.

In October 2005 the published by LDPR magazine “On behalf of Russian Nation" was distributed in Tambov. In his published in the magazine interview V.Zhirinovsky declared that “budget in Russia is formed on the national basis and “Russian” regions received five times less than national formations^³⁹⁴.

Anti-gypsy articles presenting gypsies as all to man criminal nation were registered in the mass media of Belgorod, Vologda, Penza and Orenburg Regions and in the Komi Republic.

In April – June and December of 2005 several newspapers of Northern Osetia – Alania (“Osetia: free viewpoint”, "Vladikavkaz” and “Osetia today”) published a number of anti-Ingush articles on allegedly natural for all Ingush people negative traits such as covering the Ingush criminals and mass participation in terrorist organizations^³⁹⁵. These publications were probably related to the resumed Ingush leaders’ claims on the Prigorodny Region of the Northern Osetia.

Chief Editor of the Echo of Moscow radio station repeatedly declared that “the entrance to the radio station was closed only for fascists" meaning under this definition the extremists of all kinds. However, this emphatic pluralism led to the situation when tolerance was not among the characteristics of some broadcasts: they regularly give floor to A.Prokhanov; in autumn 2005 the Echo of Moscow web-site published the given to A.Prokhanov interview of V.Kvachkov packed with xenophobic slogans^³⁹⁶.

Aggressive xenophobic rhetoric also penetrated TV broadcasting. The Stolitsa (Capital) TV Channel regularly airs talk-show with participation of Mr.Sevastyanov^³⁹⁷.

In the town of Ozersk the local Videokanal TV Channel demonstrated the anti-Semitic film “Russia stabbed in the back” on November 11^³⁹⁸.

Xenophobic motives often piggyback on any topic: even in the article on the teachers' strike in Bryansk^³⁹⁹ the author mentions "non-Russians occupying the markets”^⁴⁰⁰.

Demonstrated on TV series “Esenin” gave rise to a number of anti-Semitic publications in the press. On November 16 the Tula Zasechny Rubezh (Frontier) newspaper published an article featuring a ritual murder version of his death^⁴⁰¹.

The personnel of the AiF-Ryzan newspaper give a positive example against such background. On May 5 the journalists organized an action to remove Nazi swastikas from the city streets^⁴⁰². In May – June 2005 the newspaper published a number of articles of M.Kolker that promoted respectful attitude towards national minorities in the region^⁴⁰³.

An attempt of aggressive propaganda was registered at the “neutral” web-sites in Velikiy Novgorod. According to some sources, O.Savelev, one of the defendants in the Novgorod RNE branch case, was behind this action.

In the beginning of December the polemics broke out in connection with the demand of representative of radical Islamist circles G.Jemal, Head of the Karelia Moslem Spiritual Leadership A.Bardvil and Head of the Moslem Spiritual Leadership of the Asian part of Russia N.Ashirov to change the RF National Emblem removing from it Orthodox symbolic^⁴⁰⁴.

In response to this proposal Deputy Chairman of the External Church Relations Department of Moscow Patriarchy V.Chaplin declared that society and the leadership of traditional Moslem organizations must pay serious attention to the activities of radical Islamic and related to Islam publicists. He said that the proposal to remove associated with Christianity symbolic from the Emblem was in the interests of "the forces who want to provoke a religious conflict and to deprive the Moslem community of Russia of its traditional leadership”^⁴⁰⁵.

The Union of Christian Orthodox Citizens stepped forth with the declaration on its readiness to protect the Russian symbolic and accused “wahhabit fellows” N.Ashirov and G.Jemal of “undermining the sovereignty of our state”^⁴⁰⁶. The both sides of the conflict therefore failed to demonstrate tolerance necessary in arguments on such delicate issues.

At the end of the year a competition for the university textbook on the history of Russian people was declared under the auspice of a number of half-mythical nationalistic organizations (all of them somehow related to NDPR Co-chairman A.Sevastyanov). Given that the name of one of these organizations is the Moscow Humanitarian University has the same abbreviation as the Moscow State University and the competition announcement was posted, among others, in the Literaturnaya Gazeta (Literature Newspaper) there is a chance that in the regions it will be considered an official event and the future nationalistic textbook will end up in educational institutions as supported by MGU^⁴⁰⁷. At that, lectures of nationalistic nature were given in the MGU. In late November member of the “Unity of Nation” foundation V.Belokur gave his lecture dedicated to development of national idea at the sociology department, the dean of which participated in preparing and carrying out of the lecture. Xenophobic literature was and out as preparatory materials; the lectors tried to convey to the students (who were skeptical about the message) the image of Russia as a fortress under siege surrounded by enemies, among which there were Caucasian diasporas and certain “Judaic sects”^⁴⁰⁸.

In 2005 such form of combating nationalism as meetings of democratic and human rights forces became much more wide-spread.

It is sad but necessary to admit that the efforts of the democratic parties to organize an anti-fascist march in Moscow were less effective that the efforts of their opponents. On December 18 anti-fascist meeting in Moscow gathered 1500 – 2000 participants. Besides, contrary to the "Right-wing march" the majority of participants were middle-aged and elderly. In the framework of the march participants managed to stop the provocation of "patriotic" organizations that tried to join the march with the slogans "Long live Russia! Down with fascist occupants!” and “Russo-phobia is fascism!”^⁴⁰⁹

On November 7St.Petersburg anti-fascists managed to organize an anti-fascist march equal in number of participants to the local “Right-wing march”^⁴¹⁰.

On November 9 the Karelia Department of the Youth Human Rights Group organized a march against racism and xenophobia^⁴¹¹.

On December 24 a protest action under the slogan “USSR passports cancelled – people forgotten” took place in the settlement of Bzhedukhovskaya (Krasnodar Territory). The action was related to the problem of a number of ethnic groups the local authorities refuse to issue new passports for therefore turning them into persons without domicile since January 1, 2006^⁴¹².

On October 16, after the murder of A.Urtado a march against racism organized by the Youth Human Rights movement took place in Voronezh^⁴¹³.

The murder of T.Kacharava triggered uniting of St.Petersburg anti-fascist forces: they organized a meeting of protest and declared the establishment of anti-fascist confederation comprising a number of representatives of democratic and left-wing organizations^⁴¹⁴. 3000 signatures were gathered under the petition to the authorities with the demand to monitor the investigation^⁴¹⁵. In fact, such meetings and petitions present a rather alarming symptom since they reveal population growing mistrust to the authorities. Improvised tribunals or retaliation actions of anti-fascists could be the next step. The first examples of such actions were registered on November 4 in Moscow and St.Petersburg: representatives of left-wing groups tried to block the way to the columns of “patriots”^⁴¹⁶. According to some sources, in autumn 2005 representatives of radical anti-fascist groups several times attacked the gathering points of radical nationalists^⁴¹⁷.

Foreign students in Voronezh already declared that they were ready to form self-defense units and be responsible for the order at the territory of campus^⁴¹⁸.

Meetings and open petitions of the foreign students after every “loud” murder became common occurrence (St.Petersburg, March, September and December). They testify to students' frustration and distrust to the authorities' promises to establish order and out an end to the attacks. In fact, today only one threat could make authorities undertake real measures: substantial financial loss incurred in connection with foreign students’ leaving Russian educational institutions and penalties for the failure to ensure security. These are exactly the leverages officials and students start to resort to. In the address adopted at the December 27 meeting in St.Petersburg the students demanded from their governments to urge Russian government to ensure their security and to pay compensations to the victims or their relatives^⁴¹⁹.

After the murder of A.Urtado RF Minister of Education A.Fursenko even promised to review the list of universities entitled to accept foreign students^⁴²⁰. Though the list of higher educational institutions open for foreign students was only slightly changes, the fear of loosing the students made a number of university administrations redouble security measures.

The Moscow territorial department of all-Russian Azerbaijani Congress addressed to Aserbaijani residing in or visiting the capital of Russia urging them not to travel alone in the city, to move in big groups when it is possible, to avoid the streets during the night time, to avoid crowds and to avoid traveling to certain areas of the city^⁴²¹.

Festivals and concerts started to act as yet another form of public resistance to xenophobia. In May St.Peterburg human rights activists organized a contest of political posters and cartoons “Watch out: Nazism!"^⁴²². Similar exhibitions featuring more than 100 works took place in the beginning of May in the Novgorod State University^⁴²³.

In April the Ryazan Youth Palace housed the first festival of national cultures designed by the local national and human rights organizations to promote and enhance tolerance^⁴²⁴.

On April 23-24 the 1^st International Festival “For the sake of life: culture against terrorism and extremism and for human rights” set up by the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, the Russian Section of the International Society for Human Rights and the Center of social research and innovations took place in St.Petersburg. The festival was carried out with the support of St.Petersburg government and under the patronage of Governor V.Matviyenko. The roundtable “Lessons of war and the problem of neo-Nazism in modern Russia” was organized in the framework of the festival. Chairman of the St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly V.Tulpanov greeted the festival. His address included, in particular, the following lines: “You are doing extremely great and important job: you create the environment of peace and tolerance. You help the state to find the optimal equilibrium of public accord and social trust. You have managed to convey to the wide sectors of civil society and to the branches of power that human rights and tolerance became integral components of the efficient development of the state, economic growth, social stability and individual safety…”

On May 8, 2005 Samara youth of different races and nationalities gathered in the Zvezda (Star) night club for the progressive youth party "Down with neo-fascism and xenophobia" to demonstrate unity among nations and desire to live in peace and accord and to condemn racism, neo-fascism and xenophobia in the modern world^⁴²⁵.

On June 25 the IV Festival of ethnic cultures “Celebration of Earth” took place in the town of Chernushka in the framework of the interregional "Neighbors' forum" project. The goal of the festival is to preserve the culture and originality of the ethnicities of Kama basin, to promote the ideas of tolerance and inter-ethnical cooperation through art and creativity and to exchange experience. The program of the festival featured a grand concert of professional and folk groups on the main stage and performances of amateur artists on the national stages: Slavic, Udmurt, Tatar, Bashkir and Chuvash where one could not only attend the performances, but learn about the culture and everyday life of different ethnic groups and taste their national meals.

In May the Krasnodar territorial public organization “Youth group for tolerance ETHNIKA” declared opening of the Youth Public Consultation in partnership with the human rights ombudsman in the Krasnodar Region. The following major directions of its work are planned: jurisdictional, educational and civil involvement. The project is aimed at alleviating ethnic tensions in the youth community of the Krasnodar Territory^⁴²⁶. In the framework of this project on May 16 the roundtable “Problems of interaction in the multicultural youth environment” was organized under the support of the International Relations Department of the Kuban State University. The purpose of the roundtable was to reveal in the process of discussion the circle of problems in the multicultural youth environment and their origins^⁴²⁷.

At the end of April in the framework of the educational project “Tolerance: my input” the Rostov Youth Human Rights Group published the booklet “Tolerance: opinions and practicing” that included the articles of students – participants of the educational project^⁴²⁸.

On March 21, the International day of combating racial discrimination, the Karelia regional branch of the interregional youth charitable organization “Youth Group for Human Rights” held a public action “Down with racism!” in Petrozavodsk. In the process of action participants burned two straw figures: “Mass Stereotype” and “Racial Discrimination”^⁴²⁹.

In December the concert against violence and racial discrimination was organized in the cultural center of the St.Petersburg Internal Affairs Department^⁴³⁰.

Another direction NGOs and representatives of democratic public actively worked in is organizing petition campaigns demanding from law enforcement agencies to curb the activities of extremists and participating in the court trials against extremist organizations.

Famous medical doctor L.Roshal in his speech at the grand meeting dedicated to the 60th anniversary of victory over fascism demanded to revoke deputy immunity of the lower chamber deputies who had signed “the letter o 500”^⁴³¹.

On May 22 St.Petersburg Youth Union “Yabloko” filed a petition with the city prosecutors’ office demanding to investigate the activities of more than 50 web-sites and internet forums, which, according to petitioners, incite ethnic strife, xenophobia and fascism.

Furthermore, Yabloko representatives listed several addresses of the buildings fascist inscriptions on their facades and demanded to undertake immediate measures for removing these inscriptions displayed in the vicinity of residential buildings and educational institutions^⁴³².

Representatives of human rights and national organizations filed more than 10 petitions demanding to bring criminal proceedings against the authors of the "letter 500 - 5000" with a number of prosecutors' offices of different level.

A number of proceedings were brought on the basis of petitions filed by the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights: proceedings against the nationalistic newspapers Za Russkoye Delo (For Russian Cause, St.Petersburg, January 14, 2005) and Nashe Otechestvo (Our Fatherland, St.Petersburg, January 17, 2005), against S.Terentyev, editor of the Kolokol newspaper (The Bell, Volgograd, beginning of April) and against militant neo-pagan A.Aratov (April 25, 2005).

Also upon the petition of filed by MBHR on January 19, 2005 prosecutors’ office of the Orel Region started investigation into the negligence of the law enforcement authorities that failed to undertake measures against the perpetrators who were threatening human rights activist S.Krayukhin, witness in the court trial over the local RNE branch.

On June 23 a group of representatives of the St.Petersburg intelligentsia (actor O.Basilashvili, writers K.Azadovsky and N.Katreli, human rights activists A.Nikitin and Yu.Rybakov, historians Ye.Anisimov and R.Ganelin, film director A.German, painter D.Shagin and others) addressed an open letter to the RF President protesting against the free sale of racist literature in the central book stores of the city and against the authorities' indifference to that fact.

The address was finalized with the following appeal: “Mr. President! Russian citizens must know your attitude, as a guarantor of Constitution, towards the propaganda of racism that inevitably leads to kindling of hatred towards “aliens” and to murders of people of different color of skin. We urge you to loudly and clearly express your opinion on this issue^⁴³³. A number of human rights organizations including MBHR joined this petition.

On November 18 and 19 Chairman of the “Public input" Committee S.Gannushkina addressed open letters to the Mayor of Moscow and to the RF Prosecutor General demanding to initiate the procedures for banning DPNI.

Russian Jewish Organizations - the Federation of Jewish Communities (FEOR), the Congress of Jewish Religious Communities and Organizations (KEROOR), the Russian Jewish Congress repeatedly protested against the anti-Semitic actions of "patriots" such as “the letter of 500 - 5000", publishing of school note-books with promoting skinhead ideology design on the covers, desecration of the Russian section of the Malakhovka cemetery etc^⁴³⁴

Chief Rabbi of Russia (FEOR) B.Lazar during his public appearances and meetings with top state officials repeatedly urged to bring to justice the authors of racial texts and the organizers and inspirers of xenophobic actions^⁴³⁵. On October 12 the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia appealed to the five internet providers hosting the most odious web-sites and demanded to close down these web-sites^⁴³⁶.

At his meeting on April 27 with the OSCE plenipotentiary on the issues of anti-Semitism G.Weiskirchen Chief Rabbi of Russia (KEROOR) A.Shaevich declared: "I have an impression that not only the outbreaks of "grassroots" anti-Semitism are out of control – they are encouraged by certain top officials from the state structures, since there are people in the political elite infected with the virus of anti-Semitism"^⁴³⁷.

The Union of Orthodox Christian Citizens actively participated in the court hearings over V.Korchagin. On June 7, after the trial in the Timiryazevsky Court the Union of Orthodox Christian Citizens published the statement protesting against the passed by Judge Ryzhikova verdict that practically cleared V.Korchagin of all charges. In the statement the verdict was called “an example of legal and common ignorance”. The Union of Orthodox Christian Citizens demanded to review the verdict. Representatives of the Union also insisted on bringing to justice A.Arbatov (a criminal case against him was also brought on the basis of MBHR petition). “Orthodox Christians cannot calmly and indifferently observe their faith and sacred objects being publicly desecrated”, stressed the petition^⁴³⁸.

As yet another form of combating extremism national and human rights organizations started organizing conferences for exchanging experience. On November 25-26 the interregional conference "Effective strategies of interaction of NGOs, authorities and higher educational institutions in the field of combating racism and xenophobia" took place in the Voronezh University. The conference was organized by the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, the Foundation "For Environmental and Social Justice", the Moscow Helsinki Group and the Russian Section of the International Society for Human Rights.

Krasnodar human rights activists from the Novorossiysk Committee for Human Rights and Novgorod City Public Charitable Organization “Frodo” carried out a number of seminars and trainings^⁴³⁹. On December 30, 2005 the “hotline” for foreign students started working in Krasnodar.^⁴⁴⁰.

On November 16 the seminar “Hate speech and the rights of gypsies” took place in Novosibirsk gathering the representatives of gypsy public associations and mass media. The seminar was summarized by a roundtable that discussed the issues related to hate speech in mass media regarding the vulnerable groups of population including ethnic gypsies^⁴⁴¹.

The human rights organizations now carry out their actions on removing xenophobic graffiti from the walls of cites and towns on a grand scale. Such actions were organized in Volgograd (April 21), Krasnodar (May 5 and December 11), Petrozavodsk (March 10) and Syktyvkar (May2 and June 22). In some places they were timed to May 9 and June 22 (the last and the first day of the Great Patriotic War). Often instead of concealing the xenophobic graffiti the participants of the actions transform them into peaceful pictures^⁴⁴². At that during one of the “cleaning” actions in Syktyvkar several neo-Nazis were about to attack the human rights activists^⁴⁴³.

Not only human rights activists were erasing nationalistic graffiti. The members of the Union of Communist Youth also carried out such actions in Smolensk (May) and Samara (December)^⁴⁴⁴. In October 2005 the Informational Center on Holocaust, anti-Semitism and xenophobia was opened in Karelia on the basis of the M.Kolbe Nazi Victims Memorial Museum.

In Rostov the activists of the Center for development of local communities and volunteer initiatives “Help with advice” launched the project "Integration” targeted at integration of foreign students into the local society.

Summarizing the results of the year 2005 it could be said that the situation with escalation of xenophobia and anti-Semitism continued to remain stably alarming - the fact that could be explained with high level of xenophobia in the country (more than 60% to lesser or greater extent support xenophobic slogans). On the other hand, a certain decrease in the number of hate crimes could be explained by the absence of "active triggers" such as a chain of terrorist attacks in August - September 2004, as well as by the strong response of judicial system to such crimes.

At the same time one must note the attempts to employ xenophobia in political argumentation of some represented in the Parliament parties. It was especially noticeable with "the letter of 500" and with xenophobic rhetoric used in Moscow City Duma election campaigns.

In addition to "legalization" of xenophobia one can observe the parallel process of "legalization" of marginal groups aspiring to enter the big politics and conducting public action on larger scale, the most significant of which was the “Right-wing march” on November 4. Such zeal demonstrates that nationalists are probably planning to participate in the 2007 elections using them (and, in case of success, the Parliament tribune) for promoting their ideas and undermining “the hostile regime”.

In this connection the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights recommends to the authorities and law enforcement agencies to intensify their activities on combating political extremism and xenophobia through efficient usage of the existing legislation that so far remains to a considerable degree “dormant”. MBHR welcomes as a positive trend the launched in 2005 court trials over the ideologists of skinhead gangs who so far remained unpunished. At that the Bureau believes that in addition to punitive measures today it is necessary to launch a large scale campaign of promoting tolerance in schools and higher educational institutions.

The RF Government must adopt the Federal Program for promoting tolerance and allocate its financing from the state budget. госбюджета. Russian business should also participate in financing of this program. In the framework of this project the RF Ministry of Education and Science must expand the complex of measures targeted at promoting tolerance in schools. The program of leisure time structuring and job placement for the youth must be developed and implemented. It is necessary to publish in large numbers the books that convey the culture of dialog among nationalities and unmask chauvinistic myths. Special TV and Radio programs must appear to cultivate in the society aversion to racism, xenophobia and other forms of ethnic hostility and to promote successful experience of peaceful coexistence of nations, cultures and traditions.

The program of migrants’ integration into the Russian society must be adopted. It should include such elements as immigration amnesty, free Russian language courses and obligatory school attendance for the children of migrants.

The RF State Duma must pass legislation toughening the punishment for manifestations of xenophobia and for ethnic strife kindling.

Law enforcement and registration agencies must apply the current legislation more actively and efficiently to bring radical nationalists to justice, to curb their activities and to stop the release of chauvinistic newspapers and books. Mass media journalists and editors must not give floor to racist and xenophobic elements in their publications; they must resist to o hate speech.

Human rights organizations must ensure public control over the functioning of law enforcement agencies, work in closer cooperation with them on combating xenophobia, provide experts, point out the ideologists of chauvinism, provide informational and methodological literature, present the international experience in combating racism and discrimination and empower Russian intelligentsia involving them in anti-fascist activities.

The project “Public campaign for combating racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and ethnic discrimination in the multinational Russian Federation is implemented under the support of the European Union. Moscow Bureau for Human Rights is alone responsible for the contents of this publication. The publication does not necessarily reflect the position of the European Union.

5 Report of V.Gorbanyov, MBHR monitor in the Bryansk Region, January-June 2005. S.Ivanova. Monitoring of Ryazan regional mass media. May 2005.

6 Report of G.Isakayev, MBHR monitor in the Kurgansk Region, August 2005. Report of G.Isakayev, MBHR monitor in the Kurgansk Region, September 2005..

15 Report of G.Isakayev, MBHR monitor in Kurgan Region, November 2005.

21 Report of V.Isakov, MBHR monitor in Novgorod Region, November 2005

28 Report of the MBHR monitor in Vologda Region V.Lyndirik, March 2005.

30R.Saretdinov “Small Chechnya of a big region”, Leninskaya Smena, issue 43 of 27.10

32 http://www.annews.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=21221

33 Report of MBHR monitor in Kurgan Region G.Isakayev, August 2005

34 Report of MBHR monitor in Tatarstan G.Davletshina, October 2005.

37 A.Mahakcheyev. “Khambo-lama D.Ayushev on fight against bureaucrats”, Informpolice, issue 41 of October 12, 2005

39 Report of MBHR monitor in Krasnodar Territory V.Karastelev, December 2005

41 Report of MBHR monitor in Krasnodar Territory V.Karastelev, September 2005

42 Report of MBHR monitor in Astrakhan Region O.Lyubimova, May 2005

43 Interview of MBHR monitor in Astrakhan Region with the head of the local Jehovah witnesses community.

45 Report of MBHR monitor in Irkutsk Region I.Smirnova, June 2005

52 Report of MBHR monitor in Nizhniy Novgorod Region Ye.Borisova, December 1-15, 2005

53 www.regnum.ru/news/565636.html, http://www.globalrus.ru/news/779979/

63 www.regnum.ru/news/475341.html, Report of MBHR monitor in Novosibirsk Region I.Muravyeva, April-May 2005.

64 Report of MBHR monitor in Vologda Region V.Lyndirik, April 2005.

69 Report of MBHR monitor in Astrakhan Region O.Lyubimova, May 2005

77 “Bloody weekend”, Tribune, Moscow, Issue 208 of November 3, 2005

78 “Bloody weekend”, Tribune, Moscow, Issue 208 of November 3, 2005

80 http://www.demushkin.com/engine/?module=downloads&a=showfile&id=21

81 http://www.jewish.ru/news/cis/2005/09/news994224912.php, Information from MBHR monitor in Kirov Region A.Grkhin of March 28, 2005, Streltsov "Spring crisis of patriotism", Gazeta, April 19, 2005, (http://www.gzt.ru/rub.gzt?id=64054900000052440), www.regnum.ru/news/457558.html, http://www.jewish.ru/news/cis/2005/07/news994221866.php.

83 http://www.km.ru/news/view.asp?id=C31E3FB785B34D4CA4C82D85DDAEC8E1

89 http://kavkaz.memo.ru/newstext/news/id/813660.html, A.Orlova, article in Novuye Izvestia, June 9, 2005 (http://www.newizv.ru/print/?id_news=25936)

101 http://top.rbc.ru/index.shtml?/news/incidents/2005/12/14/14190202_bod.shtml

104 Report of MBHR monitor in Bryansk Region V.Gorbanyov, June 2005

116 http://www.annews.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=18330

117 http://www.islam.ru/press/world/2005-08-22/?single=9055, Борисова Е. Мониторинг нижегородской прессы за февраль 2005 г., http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=7889

119 http://www.annews.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=21221

121 http://www.sedmitza.ru/index.html?sid=158&did=28580&call_action=popup1(topic)

123 Report of MBHR monitor in Rostov Region S.Velikoredchanina, August – September, 2005

124 http://www.ndpr.ru/news/?nid=848, http://www.nrpr.ru/articles/vor.htm

126 Report of MBHR monitor in Penza Region V.Bychkov, January 2005

127Kevorkova “No entrance for Moslems”, Gazeta, December 23, 2005

128 Report of MBHR monitor in Krasnodar Territory V.Karastelev, March 2005

138 www.regnum.ru/news/495379.html, http://www.aen.ru/ru/found.php?id=tape&article=33598

142 Report of MBHR monitor in Kostroma Region A.Osherov, October – November 2005

144 http://www.annews.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=23425

145 http://www.annews.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=21081

158 RF Stated Duma adopted a declaration condemning anti-Semitism

(http://www.svoboda.org/ll/soc/0205/ll.020505-1.asp).

165 http://www.mosinform.ru/news.php?id=14283, http://www.rian.ru/society/life/20050517/40365839.html

183 http://www.annews.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=23556

187 Report of MBHR monitor in Chelyabinsk Region M.Rykalina, October 2005.

195 Отчет монитора МБПЧ в Республике Татарстан Ф. Киселевой за ноябрь 2005 г.

201 Report of MBHR monitor in Khabarovsk Territory A.Bekhtol, Septeber – October, November – December 2005 http://www.hro.org/actions/nazi/2005/03/04.php, http://www.webplanet.ru/news/lenta/2005/3/17/kemerovo.html, Report of MBHR monitor in Kemerovo Region V.Pyl, May 2005, http://www.regnum.ru/news/474133.html,

Report of MBHR monitor in Novgorod Region V.Isakov, May 2005

205 http://www.annews.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=23556

207 Report of MBHR monitor in Kirov Region A.Grukhin, October 2005

209 Media review of the MBHR monitor in Kaliningrad Region I.Gertsik, April 2005

211 Report of MBHR monitor in Khabarovsk Territory A.Bekhtol, September – October 2005

213 Report of MBHR monitor in Komi Republic I.Sazhin, November—December 2005

216 Unauthorized skinhead action in Nizhniy Novgorod stopped by police, Vsya Rossiya, Regional News, issue 173 of September 28, 2005

227 http://www.ndpr.ru/news/?nid=848, http://www.nrpr.ru/articles/vor.htm

228 Poklonsky A “St.Petersburg: a war on Russian youth", Novy Peterburg, issue 51 of December 15, 2005

234 http://top.rbc.ru/index.shtml?/news/incidents/2005/12/14/14190202_bod.shtml

235 Report of MBHR monitor in Krasnodar Territory V.Karastelev, September 2005

247 http://www.nakanune.ru/news/v_kurgane_proxodit_nauchnoprakticheskaja, S.Ivanova. Monitoring of Ryazan regional media, June 2005, http://www.bel.ru/news/2005/11/16/16617.html, Report of MBHR monitor in Tatarstan F.Kiseleva, November – December 2005, Report of MBHR monitor in Kemerovo Region K.Pyl, December 2005, www.regnum.ru/news/543036.html., http://www.panram.ru/ar_5465930

253 Under the sign of friendship of nations, Northern Osetia, November 29, 3005

255 http://www.dontr.ru/Environ/WebObjects/dontr.woa/wa/Main?textid=16165

257 http://www.interfax.ru/r/B/sz/172.html?menu=32&id_issue=11421177

266 RF State Duma adopted declaration condemning anti-Semitism

(http://www.svoboda.org/ll/soc/0205/ll.020505-1.asp).

267 Nevskaya T, Falyakhov R, Kevorkova N, “Edited extremism”, Gazeta, March 24, 2005

268 Ye.Dobryukha, M.Romanov, Ye.Deeva,, “Skinhead factory”, Moskovsky Komsomol, November 24

270 Media Monitoring of MBHR monitor in Bryansk Region V.Gorbanyov, October – November 2005

282 http://www.km.ru/news/view.asp?id=E87B73A14C3646129A1AFB400FE1C530

289 Report of MBHR monitor in Tver Region V.Sharipova, December 2005

290 Евгеньев Бита за порядок (http://rg.ru/2005/04/27/druzhinniki.html).

294 Manifestations of xenophobia and administrative resource usage in the Voronezh 2005 elections (special report of the Foundation for Environmental and Social Justice)

295 Press-release of MBHR monitor in Komi Republic I.Sazhin of November 20, 2005; Press-release of the Komi Human Rights Committee “Memorial”

298 Report of MBHR monitor in Orenburg Region V.Kochkin, September 2005

299 Report of MBHR monitor in Volgograd Region Ya.Yoffe, November 2005

300 Information from MBHR monitor in Rostov Region S.Velikoredchanina, February 2005; Report of MBHR monitor in Vladimir Region I.Novozhilova, March 2005; Manifestations of xenophobia and administrative resource usage in the Voronezh 2005 elections (special report of the Foundation for Environmental and Social Justice);

A.Serenko, “Volgograd citizens under siege”, http://www.dpni.org/index.php?0++1909; Report of MBHR monitor in Tambov Region V.Pomogayev, December 2005

301 Report of MBHR monitor in Tula Region S.Bragilevsky, September 2005

304 http://www.newizv.ru/news/2005-11-08/34812, Р. Фаляхов Охота за голосами //"Газета" №211 от 08.11.2005г

307Report of MBHR monitor in Vladimir Region N.Novozhilova, November 2005

308 Report of MBHR monitor in Vladimir Region n.Novozhilova, November 2005

316 Report of MBHR monitor in Vologda Region V.Lyndirik, May 2005

317 “Torching tabor”, Vecherniy Novosibirsk, December 17, 2005

319 Report of MBHR monitor in Adygea Republic V.Salnikov, December 2005.

322 Report of MBHR monitor in Krasnodar Territory V.Karastelev, March 2005.

323 Report of MBHR monitor in Astrakhan Region O.Lyubimova, May 2005

325 V.Illarionov, “Pedagogic Odyssey of Mr.Gladkov”, Bryanskoye Obozreniye, issue 4016, December 2005

327 Report of MBHR monitor in Krasnodar Territory V.Karastelev, September 2005

331 http://www.asi.org.ru/ASI3/main.nsf/0/5F733F9B87A48948C3257098002C6043

337 Ivan Vasilyev, “The best confessions: Ortodox priests advised the state on who deserves legislative support", Kommersant, issue 188, October 6, 2005

340 Report of MBHR monitor in Bashkotorstan K.Potnin: Situation in Bashkotorstan in July 2004—August 2005

341 “Ethno-social processes in Russian Regions”, Nauka, 2004; http://www.tatarlar.ru/new/241204-1.html.

343 Sherbatov, “Who are anti-fascists and with whom Russians fought in 1941 and 1945 (.http://ari.ru/doc/?id=2528)

355 State Duma adopted declaration condemning anti-Semitism

(http://www.svoboda.org/ll/soc/0205/ll.020505-1.asp).

360 Report of MBHR monitor in Saratov Region Yu.Chernyshev, February 2005; Report of MBHR monitor in Saratov Region Yu.Chernyshev, March 2005

 Kiev Jew M.Beilis was accused of committing "a ritual murder". The hearings took place in Kiev in 1911-1913. Accusations were framed-up by authorities. He was acquitted thanks to support of the top figures of Russian intelligentsia

370 http://www.demushkin.com/engine/?module=news&a=print&id=1125397482

377 M.Deich, “Award for murder", Moskovsky Komsomol, of December 10, 2005, www.regnum.ru/news/550302.html

383 O.Vandushev, “Moscow in Hidjab”, Komsomolskaya Pravda, December 16, 2005.

384 Media review of MBHR monitor in Ryazan Region, January 2005 and March 2005

385 Report of MBHR monitor in Orenburg Region V.Kochkin, Octoboer 2005

390 Media review of MBHR monitor in Ryazan Region S.Ivanova, January 2005

391 Media review of MBHR monitor in Ryazan Region S.Ivanova January 2005

392 Report of MBHR monitor in Kurgan Region G.Isakayev, September 2005

393 Report of MBHR monitor in Altai Territory A.Goncharenko, August – November 2005

394 Report of MBHR monitor in Tambov Region V.Pomogayev, October 2005г.

395 “Ingush recurrence after unlearned lessons”, Pulse of Osteia, issue 36, December 2005

396 “On radio, TV and not only them”, Literature Newspaper, issue 40, September 28, 2005

399 S.Furman , :How a trade union organized a meeting”, Bryanskiye Budni, October 27, 2005

400 Media review of monitor of Bryansk Region, October – November, 2005.

401 Report of MBHR monitor in Tula Region S.Bragilevsli, November 2005.

408 I.Vasyunin, “Looking for national idea"(http://2005.novayagazeta.ru/nomer/2005/82n/n82n-s11.shtml)

412 Report of MBHR monitor in Krasnodar Territory V.Karastelev, December 2005

413 R.Prytlov, “March against racism”, Gazeta, issue 196 of October 17, 2005.

426 http://www.asi.org.ru/ASI3/main.nsf/0/90FE575D48F9C8D9C3256FF600302B13

428 http://www.asi.org.ru/ASI3/main.nsf/0/EF00F19C8B12EBEAC3256FF00028B828

439 Press-release of the Novorossiysk Human Rights Committee of October 12, 2005; Report of MBHR monitor in Krasnodar Territory V.Krostelev, December 2005.

440 Report of MBHR monitor in Krasnodar Territory V.Krostelev, December 2005

441Report of MBHR monitor in Novosibirsk Region I.Muravyeva, December 2005

442 http://www.komiinform.ru/?id=34430, http://www.regnum.ru/news/448405.html,

: http://www.jewish.ru/994220123.asp, http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=3200, Regions.Ru / Россия. Регионы 16.12.2005 г.

444 http://www.tv.podolsk.ru/index.php?categoryid=1%26p2_articleid=839%26PHPSESSID=20499473b3b6fc03428a77af38f8f6ae