Nova Science Publishers, Inc. Art Director: Christopher Concannon Graphics: Elenor Kallberg and Maria Ester Hawrys Book Production: Michael Lyons, Roseann Pena, Casey Pfalzer, June Martino, Tammy Sauter, and Michelle Lalo Circulation: Irene Kwartiroff, Annette Hellinger, and Benjamin Fung Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Vachnadze, Georgii Nikolaevich Russia’s hotbeds of tension / George N. Vachnadze p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1560721413: $59.00 1. Russia (Federation)—Ethnic relations. 2. RegionalismRussia (Federation). 3. Russia (Federation)Politics and government — 1991 I. Title. DK510.33.V33 1993 9321645 305.8’00947~dc20 CIP © 1994 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. 6080 Jericho Turnpike, Suite 207 Commack, New York 11725 Tele. 5164993103 Fax 5164993146 EMail [email protected] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means: elec tronic, electrostatic, magnetic, tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without permission from the publishers. Printed in the United States of America TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Russia to follow the path of the USSR 1 PART ONE REGIONS THREATEN MOSCOW WITH DIVORCE URALS. Nuclear Discharges in Kyshtym Equals 24 Chernobyl Accidents 13 SIBERIA. Petrodollars Prolonged the Agony of Communism for 30 Years 25 RUSSIAN NORTH. Genocide: From Stalinist Camps to Nuclear Dumps and Testing Ranges 50 FAR EAST. In One Boat with the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese and Americans 66 PART TWO REPUBLICS WITH LITTLE IN COMMON WITH ORTHODOX CHURCH LEGACY OF COMMUNISTS AND GOLDEN HORDE BASHKORTOSTAN. Overwhelming Catastrophes 77 BURYATIA. Buddhism Revived 84 CHUVASHIA. Famous Dark Beer 90 KARELIA. Ruined Part of Finland 91 KOMI. Gulag Homeland 94 MARIY EL. Munitions industry 99 MORDOVIA. Arzamas16. Nuclear Research Center 100 TATARSTAN. Capital of Moslem Russia 203 TUVA. Without Russians 114 UDMURTIA. Chemical Weapons Arsenal 116 YAKUTIASAKHA. The Land of Gold and Diamonds 121 SECOND CAUCASIAN WAR BEGINS DAGHESTAN. Twelve Official Languages 130 KABARDINOBALKARIA.100Year war with Russia 13 2 KALMYKIA. AIDS and Uranium Mines 135 NORTH OSSETIA. Russian Army’s Bridgehead in the Caucasus 137 CHECHENINGUSH REPUBLIC. Under siege 142 NORTHERN CAUCASUS. Vietnam, Lebanon and Afghanistan put together 154 PART THREE POWER POWER LAND POWER. Nuclear Bombs for Export 171 SPACE POWER. Nuclear Reactors in Space 277 NAVAL POWER. Neglected Aircraft Carriers 184 POWER IN CENTRAL RUSSIA. DefenseOriented Industry and Science 187 POWER AND HUMAN RIGHTS. No Decent Life with Censorship and Unlawfulness 196 TELEVISION IN RUSSIA, UKRAINE, BELORUSSIA, LITHUANIA, LATVIA AND ESTONIA. The Rise of Independent Television in Russia 206 Legal Arbitrariness 208 ChannelI: Ostankino 211 Can We Trust the Ostankino Anchormen? 215 Channel: Rossiya 219 TV ChannelV: Russian Federal TV and Radio Broadcasting Service 222 ChannelVI: Eduard Sagalayev and Ted Turner 223 Demonopolisation of the Television Network in Russia 227 Ukraine 229 Belarus 231 Lithuania 231 Latvia 232 Georgia 235 THE WORD OF AN OPPONENT INSTEAD OF AN EPILOGUE THE OPINION OF YEVGENY AMBARTSUMOV 237 APPENDIX RUSSIAN FEDERATION — RUSSIA General Information. Administrative Division 241 Republics within the Russian Federation 244 National Territorial Entities 252 Territorial Entities 256 Regions within the Russian Federation 259 Having rejected the USSR, communism and the Cold war, Russia has embarked upon the path of cutting down her military forces, disarmament conversion and privatization.. This book views Russia’s future from the vantage point of the inter ests of dozens of her economic and national regions, republics, influen tial political forces. Former smalltime petty bosses in these outlying provinces have now become presidents, MPs, mayors and have thus gained independ ence from Moscow. But they are now under the influence of their con stituencies. The fates of politics and business are no longer decided in Moscow’s corridors of power, but directly in the geographic localities of Russian Eurasia where, until yesterday, a foreigner has never set foot. A close insight into what used to be Russia’s backwoods provinces is therefore a promising adventure full of surprises. INTRODUCTION RUSSIA TO FOLLOW THE PATH OF THE USSR ational republics and autonomous areas of the Russian Federation are determined not to pay taxes to the central government in NMoscow and establish full control over all natural resources, land and production capacities in their sovereign territories. The ageold Russian territories in the Urals, Siberia and the Far East also united to press for full independence. The regions which have not yet demanded independence account if only for one eighth of the Russian territory. The rundown environment, hopelessly neglected social sphere and grinding poverty make for a dangerous political setting. If the central authorities commit a few more mistakes, the entire Russian empire will collapse like a cardcastle, breaking into a number of small states as was the case in the 1920s. During the past 70 years, this conglomerate of lands and peoples was held together by bayonets and a veil of absolute secrecy. But there is no money left to maintain this Gulag anymore. The army is falling apart while the secret documents are being declassified. Browsing through Russian newspapers of 1992 may makes one’s flesh creep. What have we done to our own people? Solzhenitsyn described the horrors of Leninist and Stalinist concentration camps. It takes anoth er Solzhenitsyn to describe what the Soviet people did to their own coun try during the 1950s1990s. The militaryindustrial complex crushed 2 George Vachnadze down people, nature and resources. But as soon as we started winding up military production, the economy fell apart. In the 1980s, Russia buried Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko. In 1991, it banished Gorbachev and elected Yeltsin president. Each change of the supreme leader was followed by a lengthy reshuffling of officials from a minister to a superintendent. Following the disintegration of the USSR, power in Russia was wielded by dabblers who committed as many errors and crimes as the old party nomenklatura did. Russia is still plundered by those who administer its natural resources and factories. In the past, raw materials and weapons were exported in order to meet the needs of the world revolution and to keep the ailing national economy afloat. Now, crude oil, timber piling, Kalashnikovs and Sukhoi fighters, uranium and Russian brides are exported mostly to replenish the foreign bank accounts of several thousand Russian nou veaux riches. Incidentally, the emergent «barons» in Russian provinces do not abase themselves to the democratic rulers in Moscow. A Gift for the Defence Industry. On September 15, 1992 the ITAR TASS agency reported that the government of the Russian Federation had endorsed state defence orders for 1993 in amounts greater than this year. Traditionally, the militaryindustrial complex has absorbed the lion’s share of labour, foreign exchange and production assets. It is precisely this sector that accounted for a large percentage of civilian output, includ ing cars, machine tools, irons and casseroles. What’s more, a defence order has always been top priority and a must for any civilian enterprise. And the military has always been a generous customer. Today, defence factories and other enterprises still prefer to get con tracts for nuclear submarines or satellites rather than take pains over a civilian product which can be neither exported due to its poor quality or sold on the domestic market because of the high production cost and sweeping poverty dogging this country. The army also cheered up by the end of 1992. After having dawdled in the Baltic states like a bull in a china shop, the Moscow generals have focused their attention on the Caucasus and Central Asia. Many mili tary commanders have carved out careers for themselves and made a fortune in Afghanistan. They have developed a taste for this sort of things and now are doing the same in the southern regions of the former USSR. They are selling major batches of tanks and aircraft to the war ring parties in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan and Transdniester. The lineup of the defence ministry remained virtually intact, and so did the two powerful and autonomous agencies, the GRU and the KGB. Their psychology has not changed either. Thousands of generals and mil lions of officers who are just wasting taxpayers’ money are still ready to serve the Russian imperial idea. Did the life of Poles, Finns, Estonians, Letts or Lithuanians worsened after they broke with Russia in 1917? Or will the Russian nation become poorer if it loses Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Transcaucasia and the Russia’s Hotbeds of Tension 3 Chechen republic? Why should the Russians have interfered in all European conflicts during the past two centuries? Why should so much Russian blood have been shed to conquer the Northern Caucasus in all innumerable wars fought in the 19th and 20th centuries? Why should we have responded to the West’s provocations and let them drag us into the ruinous arms race? Why do we lack guts to stop the military machinery of death and why should we continue building ever new warships, manufac turing thousands of tanks and developing superexpensive weapons sys tems, our starving and inflationrobbed people notwithstanding? The Russian empire was built over centuries. Tens of nonRussian peoples contributed their efforts to that endeavour, which did not ben efit the Russians however. Russian czars and general secretaries of the Communist party preferred to design all kinds of geopolitical plans with regard to foreign territories rather than to raise the living stan dards at home. The only difference is that the Bolsheviks developed the imperial plans of the Russian monarchy to the point of absurdity. The ideas of communism cost one hundred million lives, as Dostoyevsky predicted. The central authorities in Moscow demonstrate ever more graphically their inability to act in the interests of those people who live in the provinces.