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Feedback The ADC Memorial continues to address the issues facing indigenous peoples in its anti-discrimination podcast.
The guest of the eleventh episode of “Connected” is Alexandra Garmazhapova, president of the Free Buryatia Foundation. A conference on the rights of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East, organized by Pavel Sulyandziga, took place in Washington, D.C. The second day was devoted to dialogue between representatives of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples, including the Nenets, Udege, and Selkup peoples, and the Russian opposition. Participants included Vladimir and Evgenia Kara-Murza, journalist Mikhail Zygar, political scientist Irina Busygina, and Olga Prokopyeva, a representative of Ilya Yashin’s party.
The main topics of discussion were decolonization and federalism. Alexandra believes that many people in Russia interpret the word “decolonization” as a call for the country’s breakup. She argues that it is more important to talk to people about what genuinely concerns them: the war, the deaths of young men, rising prices, housing and utility costs, and internet restrictions. In her view, people should unite along regional rather than ethnic lines. Irina Busygina examined three possible scenarios for Russia’s future: the status quo continues, the country breaks apart, or it becomes a genuine federation. According to her, Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples would be disadvantaged under all three scenarios. Participants also discussed the right to free, prior and informed consent regarding resource extraction on Indigenous lands, as well as the trauma caused by boarding schools, where children were separated from their families. Olga Prokopyeva drew particular attention to racism, which she said is largely ignored in Russian society.
Alexandra noted that many opposition figures view Indigenous Peoples as something exotic, associating them with “traditional costumes, songs and dances.” They fail to recognize that Indigenous activists have strong international connections and can influence even major corporations. All panelists expressed support for human rights defenders Daria Egereva and Natalia Leongardt, who are being held in pre-trial detention on “terrorism” charges for their work defending the rights of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples.
In the second part of the episode, Alexandra discussed the recent elections in Buryatia. The Free Buryatia Foundation’s publications about the war attracted hundreds of thousands of views. One of them, about 18-year-old young men from the republic who had been killed in the war, was read by approximately 600,000 people. The Yabloko party was barred from the elections, and some Communist candidates took up the anti-war agenda. Bair Tsyrenov, a candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), campaigned under the slogan “Peace to the World” and received more votes than his party did overall in the republic. His opponent, a Hero of Russia who had participated in the invasion of Ukraine, received fewer votes than the United Russia party. According to Alexandra, these results show that people voted in support of an anti-war agenda and that there is no such thing as “100% support” for the war in Buryatia.
Sound design: Ostap Kukhar
You can listen in Russian:
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This podcast episode occasionally includes the term “special military operation” (SMO), which is used in Russia to refer to its criminal war against Ukraine.
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Podcast speakers are free to express their own opinions, which may not necessarily reflect the position of ADC Memorial.
Text version of the podcast
We are publishing the transcript of the ‘Сonnected’ podcast. The text has been slightly edited for readability.
— Hello everyone! You’re Connected and you’re listening to Connected — a podcast from the Memorial Anti-Discrimination Centre about the rights of Indigenous peoples and the struggle for those rights. Joining us today is Alexandra Garmazhapova, President of the Free Buryatia Foundation. Hello, Alexandra.
— Hello.
— You’re speaking to us from Washington, where you’re taking part in a conference. Could you tell us what kind of conference it is and what is being discussed?
— I took part in a conference called the Washington Dialogue, where I was one of the panellists. And the second conference I took part in was held around the same time. It was an event dedicated specifically to the rights of the Indigenous small-numbered peoples of Siberia, the North and the Far East, organised by Batani, and in particular by Pavel Sulyandziga, whom I respect very much — as, I think, many others do. It lasted two days. On the second day, when I took part in the discussion, there was a dialogue between Russian opposition forces and Indigenous small-numbered peoples. It’s very important to note that this conference was not simply dedicated to the Indigenous peoples of Russia, but specifically to the small-numbered peoples. This was also emphasised.
The Russian opposition was represented, in particular, by Vladimir Kara-Murza, who attended with his wife Evgenia. There was also Mikhail Zygar, a well-known journalist. Irina Busygina, an academic who works on federalism, was also there. Lyubov Sobol was supposed to attend, but she was unable to make it at the last moment. She asked me to pass on her greetings to the conference participants. Olga Prokopyeva, Deputy Chair of the Peaceful Russia party, was also there. She had been delegated by the party, which is headed by Ilya Yashin. Many academics were also present. So it was an interesting dialogue. And personally, one thing that made a positive impression on me was that Vladimir Kara-Murza had promised Pavel Sulyandziga that he would attend the conference for the whole day, and he really did stay for the whole day. It wasn’t a case of him turning up for his allotted hour, saying everything he thought and then leaving. No, he arrived at nine in the morning and left the conference at five in the evening. He attended all the panel discussions and listened very attentively to the representatives of Indigenous small-numbered peoples, including representatives of the Nenets, Udege, Selkup and other peoples.
— Did you feel that you were, so to speak, on the same wavelength as the Russian opposition? Or are there still some disagreements? Because disagreements have existed, and everyone knows about them. There was also an episode involving Kara-Murza himself that people weren’t very happy about.
— I think it’s very important that the people who came to this dialogue were precisely those who were ready to talk. Those in the Russian opposition who weren’t ready didn’t come.
— And what was the discussion about?
— In general, the discussion was about decolonisation and federalism. In particular, Pavel Vasilyevich Sulyandziga and I have a point of disagreement, let’s say, although I genuinely respect him and am always ready to support his initiatives. For him, as a human rights defender, it’s very important to call things by their proper names, to speak directly about decolonisation and not try to obscure it with other words.
For me, on the other hand, as someone who works in the media and was originally a journalist, what matters is how to package a product so that it can be sold, however cynical that may sound. And one of the things I explained at the conference was that, unfortunately, the word “decolonisation” has too many meanings. And one of those meanings is, in fact, the break-up of the Russian Federation into a large number of different states. And this provokes strong rejection among a large part of the Russian audience. Perhaps at this stage it’s important to take more centrist positions and be smarter about it. The subject of decolonisation is, of course, connected to the state of the Russian region today. It’s about the relationship between the metropolis and the periphery, a condescending attitude, an imperial attitude. Of course, in this sense, Russia needs decolonisation. But what we’re saying is that, at this stage, political culture in the Russian Federation is not at a point — again, I’m repeating myself, sorry — where we can talk to a Russian audience using complex terminology.
For example, in Buryatia, people are concerned about the continuation of the war, the deaths of young people, including young men, in the war, rising food prices, housing and utility costs, and internet blocking. These things concern people much more and resonate with them far more than complicated discussions about decolonisation and the use of complex terminology from Western textbooks.
And this was also one of the issues Pavel Vasilyevich and I discussed.
I probably presented a position that wasn’t particularly popular with the audience I was speaking to. But ultimately, what matters more: the wording or actually getting somewhere? I think it’s time to start moving forward and perhaps get closer to ordinary people.
— The agenda you proposed probably resonated with all the representatives of the Russian opposition who attended the conference? Because the war, people’s purchasing power, housing and utility costs, and the internet are, after all, issues that affect everyone.
— They are issues that affect everyone. And in my view, it’s probably important to unite along regional rather than ethnic lines. The ethnic factor leads to division. In Buryatia, 30% of the population are ethnic Buryats and 70% are, broadly speaking, Russians. Of course, there are also descendants of Ukrainians and Poles. There are also Indigenous small-numbered peoples in Buryatia, particularly the Evenks and Soyots. And everyone suffers more or less equally from the war, from everything that is happening, and from Moscow’s colonial policies. When we talk about the disproportionate mobilisation of representatives of Indigenous small-numbered peoples, we do so specifically in the context of the overall size of each people. The Buryats are a large Siberian people, but nevertheless there are only about half a million of us in Russia. And it’s clear that the deaths of several thousand men have a significant impact on the overall demographic situation of the Buryats, because there are far more Russians, and when a certain percentage of Russians die, the impact is less noticeable. But that doesn’t mean that Russians aren’t dying in this war, or that in Buryatia only Buryats are being sent to war while Russians are left alone. Russians from poor families and villages suffer in exactly the same way when they are forcibly sent to Ukraine, including those who were conscripts only yesterday. That is a fact, and we need to talk about it.
But the conference also touched on another issue that I consider very important and that few people talk about. In particular, we discussed possible scenarios for the future of the Russian Federation: whether everything will remain as it is, whether it will break up into many different states, or whether federalisation will eventually take place. And Irina Busygina made a very important point: unfortunately, under all three scenarios, it is the representatives of Indigenous small-numbered peoples who always end up losing out. And I think this is something we should all be discussing as well. Because very often, larger Indigenous peoples raise the issue of Indigenous peoples and violations of their rights, but they also very often draw most of the attention to themselves, while the small-numbered peoples remain in the shadows.
I think it’s very important that Pavel Sulyandziga and his colleagues are drawing attention specifically to the problems of Indigenous small-numbered peoples. And they spoke about these problems. They talked about how they have no right to control their own resources, and how, under international law, Indigenous small-numbered peoples should give their free, prior and informed consent before mineral extraction takes place on their territories. They also spoke about how Russian companies certainly don’t treat them with much consideration, and European companies, in fact, didn’t treat them with much consideration in the past either. So this is a global problem. They also spoke about boarding schools, where members of Indigenous small-numbered peoples were sent to study and are still being sent today, separating them from their families and thereby causing enormous trauma to members of small ethnic groups.
Vladimir Kara-Murza said that he had known practically nothing about all this, that he was listening with great interest and understood that the problems of Indigenous small-numbered peoples were not some secondary issue, but something fundamental to building Russia’s future. Because all of this is directly connected to federalism, the regulation of mineral extraction and local self-government. In other words, the agenda of Indigenous small-numbered peoples touches on an enormous range of issues across the country as a whole. So it shouldn’t be dismissed. And Vladimir Kara-Murza said this in his closing remarks.
— That’s a very interesting reaction from Kara-Murza. In fact, that was going to be my next question: to what extent did you feel that the problems of small-numbered peoples, and Indigenous peoples more generally, are important to the Russian opposition in its plans for the future? Were they among the main issues discussed, or were they somewhere around tenth on the list?
— It depends on the representatives of the Russian opposition. They’re all so different. And although we like to talk about the Russian opposition as something monolithic, they’re all very different, I repeat. Vladimir Kara-Murza is someone who takes an interest. He can make mistakes, like everyone else, but he is someone who takes an interest. And he didn’t look like some important figure who had come to a minor event, sat looking at his phone and waited for it all to be over. He wasn’t distracted at all. He listened very attentively to everything and took notes. You could see that he was learning, discovering things he hadn’t known before. It was also very important that Mikhail Zygar has always supported conversations and discussions about Russia’s imperial past. He has made many videos about it. And on the sidelines of the conference, Mikhail Zygar spoke with Nenets.
— What was decided at the end of the conference? Will there be any further meetings?
— In fact, I think the main purpose of this conference was to give representatives of Indigenous small-numbered peoples an opportunity to tell representatives of the Russian opposition themselves what they want. And from that point of view, the goal was more or less achieved. Why do I say “more or less”? Because this happens very often, and it happened at this conference too: when representatives of Indigenous small-numbered peoples are asked what they actually want and what the ideal structure of the state should be, unfortunately, because for many years no one has asked them anything or taken an interest in their opinions, there is still a kind of minority complex, so to speak. They feel uncomfortable speaking up and very often remain silent. And at one point there was a discussion — I won’t say between whom — between two prominent experts who started arguing about whether democratisation should come first and federalism afterwards, or federalism first and democratisation afterwards. And at that moment, representatives of Indigenous small-numbered peoples were sitting there, silently watching it all. And Evgenia Kara-Murza said that she would, of course, be interested in hearing from the representatives of Indigenous small-numbered peoples themselves, to learn about their point of view. She wasn’t so interested in what the federal-level experts from Moscow had to say, because she had already heard all of that.
And Pavel Vasilyevich and I also discussed how we would like Indigenous small-numbered peoples to learn to stand up for themselves, including at major forums, to learn to advocate for themselves and to represent themselves. And, of course, this also requires a great deal of work, because for now they are very often reluctant to speak up. But that is not their fault; it is the fault of the environment in which they grew up. And among the Russian opposition, it is also very important that there are people who consistently support representatives of Indigenous small-numbered peoples and Indigenous peoples more generally. Lyubov Sobol was unable to attend, but she always supports what representatives of Indigenous small-numbered peoples are saying. At the first conference, it was also not the case that she just sat looking at her phone. They were adopting a resolution in which she supposedly had no involvement. No, she was actually involved in editing that resolution.
— What you’re saying and describing is very encouraging, given the general tensions both between different parties and between different representatives of the opposition. Of course, that’s wonderful.
— I’ll just add that Olga Prokopyeva from the Peaceful Russia party spoke about the problem of racism in Russia, which exists but is ignored. It’s a problem that many actors fail to notice. And perhaps, in order to achieve genuine decolonisation of Russia, it is necessary to acknowledge this problem, which exists and which has permeated, so to speak, Russian society through and through. It was especially valuable to hear this from, let’s say — perhaps I’m not putting this quite correctly — a white representative of the Russian opposition, who, I think, has never personally experienced this. But she was the one who raised the issue.
Although many representatives of Indigenous small-numbered peoples didn’t even raise this issue, because they feel it has already been discussed many times, Olga drew particular attention to it. Perhaps my description of the Russian opposition’s behaviour sounded a little too positive in places. But it would probably be too rosy a picture if I said that complete consensus had been reached. I don’t mean the conference itself, but the preparations for it. In particular, I know that Pavel Vasilyevich invited his colleague on the Russian platform at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Garry Kasparov, to the conference. Kasparov read the message but didn’t consider it necessary to reply and demonstratively ignored it. So unfortunately, as I said, representatives of the Russian opposition are different. There are those who try to understand these issues, but there are also those who make a point of showing, in every possible way, that from the height of their status, so to speak, none of this matters to them.
— So, in general, there’s still work to be done?
— To put it mildly. Because I also said at this conference that some participants say we need to engage with the Russian opposition. But many representatives of the Russian opposition look at us as if we were some kind of substance — although I used a ruder word there. Of course, you can imagine what that word was. It made the participants laugh, so to speak, because they actually agreed with it. Indeed, many representatives of the Russian opposition see Indigenous small-numbered peoples, in particular, as something exotic. And they don’t even realise that Indigenous small-numbered peoples, and particularly activists who work at international platforms, have very extensive connections with representatives of other Indigenous small-numbered peoples from all over the world.
This is actually a very close-knit and highly influential community that also works directly with major businesses. Because major businesses understand that it is important for them to engage with representatives of Indigenous small-numbered peoples, since these peoples live in many regions where extractive companies operate, extracting natural resources that major businesses subsequently work with directly. And Indigenous small-numbered peoples have strong international connections and can influence even major corporations. And it’s important to be on good terms with them, so to speak. This is actually a very large field. But representatives of the Russian opposition sometimes think it’s exclusively about traditional costumes, singing and dancing, and discussions about abstract decolonisation. They don’t even realise that this is, in fact, a very large and highly influential force.
So perhaps, if many of them looked at the situation from a completely different angle, they would realise that they themselves sometimes resemble, so to speak, the very people they imagine Indigenous small-numbered peoples to be: supposedly people in traditional costumes, with no rights, no authority and no connections.
The conference also separately discussed the situation of Daria Egereva and Natalya Leongardt, human rights defenders who remain in pre-trial detention on completely absurd terrorism-related charges for defending the rights of Indigenous small-numbered peoples. And each panellist spoke separately about this situation and about how, of course, we must do everything we can to ensure that these great women — I’m not afraid to use that word — these human rights defenders, are released.
— We have a little time left. I’d like to ask you a question that has nothing to do with the conference. As we all know, elections have just taken place in Russia. And I’m sure you followed the results in Buryatia. You were once one of the leaders of Yabloko’s youth wing in St. Petersburg.
— Yes, we at the Free Buryatia Foundation followed the elections in Buryatia very closely. We published a great deal about these elections, and our posts received hundreds of thousands of views. One of them reached 600,000 views. That post was about 18-year-old young men from Buryatia who had died in the war. It was called “Born under Putin, Died under Putin”. Around 600,000 people read it, and I should remind you that Buryatia itself has a population of about one million.
And it was clear that there was very strong demand for an alternative agenda.
We also made public appeals to Alexey Tsydenov, the head of Buryatia, and to State Duma deputy [name inaudible], who actively supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
And we specifically reminded them that they have adult sons. And it’s very strange that their sons are still not at the front, considering how Tsydenov himself and deputy [name inaudible] urge everyone to fight on Russia’s side in Ukraine.
And these posts also reached very large audiences. Because apart from the fact that they actively encourage people to take part in the war, their children live outside Buryatia, for example. The eldest daughter of [inaudible passage] lives in Moscow, and the son studies at a Moscow university. Alexey Tsydenov’s son has also graduated from a Moscow university and lives in Moscow. People were genuinely angered by this contrast. They were angered by this hypocrisy.
In effect, the role of Yabloko, which had unfortunately been barred from the elections by the Supreme Court of so-called Buryatia, was taken on by the Communist Party, which has actually always had a very strong position in Buryatia.
And in this respect, Moscow-based experts — returning once again to the subject of Moscow-centrism — very often, when discussing electoral results in Buryatia, said that United Russia would receive a very large number of votes there, because these regions were supposed to make up for the shortfall in votes in other regions where fewer people vote for United Russia.
To be frank, I even found this analysis rather amusing. It didn’t even irritate me any more. Because Buryatia has always been part of the “Red Belt”, where people voted for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and United Russia has never received 80, 70 or even 60 per cent there. This time they managed to push it up to 50 per cent. Nevertheless, it’s very important to note that the Communists ran a very respectable campaign. And the Communists themselves said that there were different views within their party, including people who opposed the war.
For example, Bair Tsyrenov, a deputy of the People’s Khural of Buryatia who stood for the State Duma in a single-member constituency as a Communist Party candidate, built his entire campaign around anti-war rhetoric. In particular, his campaign video features the slogan “Peace to the World”. It also asks: when will the “special military operation” end, why is the internet being blocked, and why are taxes going up? In other words, he addressed the issues that genuinely concern the people of Buryatia. And the Communists themselves admitted in anonymous interviews that they had travelled all over Buryatia, visiting its districts, and everywhere they went they were asked the same question: when will the “special military operation” end? Even in remote villages. They gave an example of how, in one village, an elderly local man asked them: “Why was the Yabloko party barred from the elections?”
So even in a remote village in Buryatia, people knew that an anti-war party had been barred from these elections. And that makes the result in Buryatia all the more important, because the authorities are trying to portray the republic as an overwhelmingly pro-war region where everyone supports the war. But United Russia, despite all the falsification and vote-rigging, received 51% in Buryatia. Meanwhile, the Communists received around 24%. That is almost twice the share of the vote that the Communist Party received nationwide. And it’s very important to note that. He is a Hero of Russia and took part in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He was also standing in a single-member constituency and was Bair Tsyrenov’s rival. Bair Tsyrenov, incidentally, repeatedly challenged him to debates.
And it’s telling that Buryatia, a region that is supposedly very pro-war, if we are to believe the official propaganda, should have voted overwhelmingly for a Hero of Russia. But interestingly, the Hero of Russia actually received about one percentage point less than United Russia did overall in Buryatia. Meanwhile, Bair Tsyrenov, the anti-war Communist Party candidate, received, I think, two and a half percentage points more than the Communist Party did overall in Buryatia. And that shows that people were voting for an anti-war agenda. And that makes the reaction in anonymous pro-government Telegram channels all the more interesting: you can see how furious they are. It was clear that the Buryatian administration was certainly not happy about what had happened. Well, and they saw what people really thought. Because, in effect, they had atomised society. People are afraid to talk to one another about their political views. But many of them went to the polling stations, and it became clear that there is, in fact, no 80, 90 or 100 per cent support for the war in Buryatia.
— Against the backdrop of the overall situation in the country, that is, of course, very positive news. Thank you very much, Alexandra, for joining us and for these very fresh and interesting reports from the ground — both from Buryatia and from Washington. And thank you to our listeners.
The ‘Сonnected’ podcast series highlights the project ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Rights for a Democratic Future’, which is being implemented by INFOE (Institut für Ökologie und Aktions-Ethnologie e.V.), ICIPR (International Committee of Indigenous Peoples of Russia), the Never Again Association and the ADC Memorial, with the support of the German Federal Foreign Office.
