Caucasian ballast on Russian shoulders
Now a few months after the events at Manezhnaya Square and the “Enough to feed the Caucasus!” Rallies in Russia, the next election campaign culminates. storieswhich, as before, is tied up in the Caucasus and “Russian fascism”. According to the old custom, the season started shooting, the so-called "rogue colonels" - at the moment it was Yuri Budanov.It is safe to say whoever killed the former officer Budanov, a recognized military attacker, this case, obviously, will still spill gasoline into the slightly extinguished fire of inter-ethnic “friendship” in the Russian Federation. In general, in our state, there is rarely a social consensus on what matter. However, the separation of the Caucasus from the Russian Federation long ago became a matter of fact: as innumerable populist polls on this sensitive topic indicate, the absolute majority of those who voted are definitely in favor. For example, the corresponding survey of the Noviy Region publication for December 2010. The results, to put it mildly, do not shine with novelty, and no matter what, innovations - 73% of respondents from approximately 11,5 thousand voters voted for the separation of all North Caucasian republics from Russia without exception. There is no categorical total of 17%, the rest fluctuate.
Of course, you can still conduct hundreds or thousands of polls, but the results will not change significantly.
Enumerate the reasons for which many of the inhabitants of the state think so, to no avail. According to human rights activists, this is a recurrence of Russian fascism, in the opinion of Caucasians themselves - a manifestation of imperial, great-power chauvinism, and in the eyes of ordinary Russians and a number of other peoples of the Russian Federation, the Caucasus long ago and is closely associated with the real “black hole”, which is irrevocably flowing away billions of budget dollars, and where does crime come from as an export? But at the same time, if we consider that even in such a state as Russia, where social judgment is equivalent to zero, for many years there is a similar notion, this indicates the seriousness of the process. And sooner or later, he will take some real shape. Denying this is absurd, even if you want the opposite.
It is fascinating to see what the Kremlin offers, which has long been the most problematic region in the Russian Federation, the Kremlin. What future plans does he have with him, how is he going to solve all his questions? A careful analysis becomes clear, and it infuriates that in any way. For example, the authorities of the North Caucasian Federal District and the presidential administration of the Russian Federation proceed from a primitive or never from a working postulate that by luring private investors into the Caucasian republics and adding budget funds there, as a result, if not to a prosperous Switzerland, then that degree, in the likeness of Slovakia. However, investment requires security guarantees. In the 3 scenarios of the formation of the Caucasus before 2025, which are contained in the government program, there is not a word about how this hitch will be solved. In other words, the dreamers from Moscow and Pyatigorsk, unfortunately did not even bother with this much bother.
The result is a vicious circle - multi-million investments can solve the problems of the Caucasus, but investors do not want to go there, because it’s dangerous, and the federal center cannot or does not want to restore order in the Caucasian republics. Or do not know how. Consequently, all the tasks of the past 10 years are plainly flooded with a stream of budget money. In 2010, the average tier of subsidies to the subjects of the federation in the republics of the Caucasus was 66% (the leaders here are Ingushetia 89% and Chechnya 87%), and in its pure form, the Russian Federation invested there naturally more than 6 billion. costs). This is taking into account the fact that the share of the North Caucasus Federal District in Russian GDP is only 179%, in the national volume of all tax revenues - less than 2,1%, in the foreign trade cycle of the Russian Federation - 1%.
Comical is also the fact that due to the degradation of the state apparatus in the North Caucasus, Moscow doesn’t even have narrowly primary statistical information about the real state of the economy in the region. The legal and profitable economy in the Caucasus is actually dead, there is enormous unemployment in the republics, and at the same time the underground, shadowed and at the same time highly profitable economy flourishes there, it is almost unthinkable to assess the annual turnover. In the end result, the tactics of Moscow of the last 10 years only aggravated the existing problems of the Caucasus, turning it into a parasitic, dependent region, whose elites are fighting to separate transfers from the federal budget. Often using the help of militants and terrorist acts, which, incidentally, no one is amazed.
The alarming bell for the Kremlin and those who are convinced that a similar policy must be pursued further is the fact that Russia simply does not physically “pull out” the Caucasus in its current form. In 2009-2010, President Medvedev and the Ministry of Finance have repeatedly made it clear that the North Caucasian republics need to increase their self-sufficiency. And at 2011, there has been a slight decrease in transfers from the federal budget to unprofitable republics of the region. The reason is that Russia - despite the second place in the world in terms of the number of billionaires, the country is rather poor, entirely dependent on the price situation for hydrocarbons. In addition, after all, in addition to the North Caucasus, Moscow has many other “plans” that require significant investments. In addition to holding the Winter Olympics in hot Sochi, the senseless and completely unnecessary APEC summit in Vladivostok, and so on, the federal center plans to allocate huge subsidies to a number of Siberian regions, and also entirely contains “independent” Abkhazia and South Ossetia. For example, only in 2011, Moscow planned to invest more than 200 million in South Ossetia (with a population of the republic in 35 thousand people). It is also necessary not to forget about the Pension Fund, the budget deficit of which for the second year in a row amounts to 1 trillion rubles ...
Based on this reduction in budget payments to the North Caucasian republics, inevitably. But if it happens, it will lead to another round of social collapse, the growth of terrorism and tensions in the region. It can be assumed that even the new war. The result is again a vicious circle.
The Caucasus is won by many representatives of the government elite, the huge financial flows constantly disappearing as if in a “black hole” are bringing crazy criminals to dishonest officials. Russia does not hesitate to give China islands located on the Amur, a large part of the Barents sea area in neighboring Norway, or through the mouth of Dmitry Medvedev, suggests that the vacant territories of the Far East and Siberia be populated by Japanese. But when it comes to the North Caucasus, here, for the sake of a couple of unwanted patches of land, Moscow is ready to spit even on the CIS countries ’approval of the CIS republics approved by 1991-1992 by the CIS countries. It turns out that the Kremlin is ready to keep the North Caucasian republics under its wing until the last fiscal ruble, to the last innocent soldier and able-bodied security officer (not able to move to a comfortable and quiet London). Until then, simply put, until the Russian Federation itself falls.
Taking into account such an approach, it can be said with confidence that Russia currently has no hope for any constructive and justifiable solution of the tasks of the Caucasus. An exceptional method, one that would theoretically be able to somehow untie the Gordian knot, which was made up, is the gradual decolonization of the Caucasus, following the example of France’s behavior in West Africa. Here it is necessary to proceed from the fact that each of the republics of the North Caucasus has already reached a certain acceptable stage in the formation of its own statehood, and they are quite ready to switch to associate relations with Moscow. And after that - to the formal, and later the actual autonomy. This way seems quite logical, considering that a significant part of the population of the North Caucasus is not in favor of decisive separation from Russia.
The proposed way of developing relations in the Caucasus provides for the transfer of powers to local authorities, some decentralization of leadership and, finally, the use of modern methods of control and management, rather than archaic relationships in the morally obsolete format of the "vertical" that exist today.
But there is another side to this issue. Today, some of the population of the Caucasus seeks separation from Russia, but what will happen to their desire to be independent, when the flow of money from the pockets of Russians is blocked, when they will have to survive on their own without hope of a strong shoulder? Yes, today Western countries are investing billions of dollars in the destabilization of the situation in the North Caucasus. The same Georgia gets weapon from the US as humanitarian aid. But this is so far, when the overseas friends still achieve their goal, that is, the doubt that their money source will not run dry. And because today's friends, tomorrow they will build their military bases in the Caucasus for ordinary Caucasians, it will not be easier for them to live.
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