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Section: Policy
Nearly 2,000 people
- all under 40 years old
- have signed an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin in May, 2005, concerning the territorial rehabilitation of the Buryat people. This was an unprecedented action in a region known for harmonious ethnic relations and even political passivity.
To be sure, the grievance-filled wave of perestroika and the early post-Soviet period did not miss this area, but it did not hit with the tsunami force that it did elsewhere. Today, many people still refer to the Republic of Buryatia as spakoina (calm) in contrast to other regions of Russia that have more divisive ethnic politics. The open letter was the first grassroots attempt to mobilize ordinary Buryats, and especially youth, for the sake of cultural preservation.
The letter was inspired by a proposed merger of the Ust-Orda Buryat Autonomous Okrug and Irkutsk Oblast as well as discussions that have been under way for years about reducing the number of Russias 89 regions to streamline the federal administration and economy.
The letter-signers were not separatists or radicals, but fear the attachment of Ust-Orda to Irkustk would result in the Russification of the former as has already largely happened in the latter. Instead, they proposed a return to the 1937 borders of the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. They said that at this time the Buryat people were forcibly divided when Ust-Orda, Aga and other traditionally Buryat lands were carved out of the republic.
The text of the letter calls upon President Putin to come forward in defense of our people to exist within the borders of a united Republic of Buryatia. This, they argue, would be a victory of historical justice. The campaigners see the state as having an obligation to protect indigenous cultural interests. To ensure the preservation of the Buryat language and culture without national government autonomy is practically impossible, the letter adds.
The Regional Union of Young Scholars and Scientists, whose head Nikolai Tsyrempilov describes the Buryats and Mongolians as practically one culture with only some regional variations, organized the protest action. The group made the decision to limit signers of the letter to people under 40 years old to show that this issue will not die any time soon, but its effects have already been felt locally.
Local print and broadcast media have covered the story and the government organized a roundtable discussion on the issue last March at which the proposed merger of Irkutsk and Ust-Orda was discussed and criticized. It has been a month since the letter was delivered to the office of the presidential administration in Moscow, but there is still no word from the letters addressee, Mr. Putin. Copies of the letter were also delivered to the State Duma, Federation Council and the Federal Inspector for Siberia. Mum has been the word from all of them. Mr. Tsyrempilov is far from certain that the action will be successful, but he wants to at least show Moscow that we are not a weak nation and we are not indifferent to what happens to us.
Despite the letter and its scores of signers efforts the merger remains in the air. A referendum in Ust-Orda has been proposed for the fall. Anti-merger activists fear that residents will vote to merge for two reasons: the large number of Russians in the okrug and deep poverty. Mr. Tsyrempilov, for one, does not believe that a merger with richer Irkutsk will solve Ust-Ordas economic woes. Its like amputating the hand because there is a cut on the finger, he said, and the result will be the further weakening of the Buryats ancient Mongol culture in the region.
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