Holidays or Hollow Promises: How Kremlins New Celebrations Mask Indigenous Struggles

Hello and welcome to this week’s issue of Regions Calling, your weekly update on happenings beyond the Russian capital, brought to you by The Moscow Times.

Last week, President Vladimir Putin announced the establishment of two new holidays to honor Indigenous minority groups and their languages in Russia.

In this issue, we explore the Kremlin’s motivations behind these holidays and whether they will provide any real benefits to the numerous Indigenous and marginalized communities across the country.

First, let’s dive into the latest regional news:

Mobile internet access has been restricted in parts of the central Ulyanovsk region for the duration of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, marking Russia’s first permanent internet blackout.

At least 20 regions in Russia, including Bryansk and Kursk near the Ukrainian border, are forming special military units composed entirely of reservists to safeguard critical infrastructure. In the republics of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, these units will specifically work to counter Ukrainian drone attacks targeting local oil refineries and petrochemical facilities.

In Dagestan, a republic in the North Caucasus, five individuals lost their lives when a private helicopter crashed into a house near the Caspian Sea last week. Initial investigations indicate that pilot error was the likely cause of the tragic accident.

Regional lawmakers in the Siberian republic of Buryatia recently passed a contentious law to dismantle the two-tier system of local self-government, despite significant opposition from some local politicians. Meanwhile, residents of the neighboring Irkutsk region are actively protesting against similar proposed changes, submitting petitions and making video appeals to Putin.

In Krasnodar, activists are mobilizing efforts to remove Mayor Yevgeny Naumov from office due to his support for the construction of an Orthodox cathedral in an area designated for natural preservation.

Activists Critique Kremlin’s New Indigenous Holidays as a ‘Distraction from Systemic Challenges’

Recently, President Vladimir Putin signed decrees to establish two new state holidays: the somewhat lengthy Day of the Languages of the People of Russia and the Day of the Indigenous Minority Peoples of Russia.

According to the Kremlin, these new holidays aim to support the preservation of Russia’s linguistic variety, as well as the traditional lifestyles and distinct cultures of the nations recognized as Indigenous.

However, independent Indigenous experts and activists have told The Moscow Times that the Kremlin is leveraging these holidays to obscure its systematic efforts to russify and erase Indigenous identities, and to exert control over the narrative surrounding Indigenous communities as independent movements gain traction.

«This symbolic act serves as a diversion from deeper systemic problems,» remarked Khandama Tudebei, a language activist and teacher of Buryat, a Mongolic language native to southeastern Siberia.

«In light of the ongoing war, military mobilization, and population decline, it reinforces a propagandistic narrative of ‘people’s unity’ while simultaneously constricting the space for political expression among language and cultural activists,» she explained.

Tudebei described the Kremlin’s decision to designate special days for the numerous Indigenous languages as «an illusion of concern» that does little to address the shortage of language classes and education in Indigenous mother tongues nationwide.

According to the Linguistics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia is home to 155 living languages and 15 that are extinct.

The most recent census held in 2021 indicated that nearly all of these languages are experiencing significant declines in their number of speakers.

«To truly preserve languages, systematic support is essential: training teachers, publishing educational materials, producing films and multimedia content, as well as fostering independent media projects in these languages—not merely adding new ‘dates’ to the calendar,” Tudebei stated, highlighting the shortcomings of current government initiatives for minority languages.

The new Day of the Languages of the People of Russia will be observed annually on September 8, coinciding with the birthday of famed Soviet-era Avar poet Rasul Gamzatov.

«Gamzatov considered both Avar, the language in which he wrote, and Russian, which brought his work international fame, to be his native languages,» Putin remarked about Gamzatov earlier this year.

The 1968 Russian version of Gamzatov’s poem «The Cranes,» originally written in Avar, has become one of the most recognizable Russian ballads regarding World War II. Although reportedly inspired by his visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, the poem now serves to bolster Russia’s propaganda-infused annual celebrations of the Soviet victory in World War II.

«Connecting this day to Rasul Gamzatov’s birthday is an affront to all Avars and Indigenous peoples of Dagestan,» commented Avar activist Zarema Gasanova.

«This represents another attempt by Russia to appropriate a foreign culture, a foreign poet, and to distort the significance of his work,” she added, emphasizing that while Gamzatov’s works were widely translated into Russian, Avar was the sole language in which he composed his poetry.

Avar, a Northeast Caucasian language recognized as one of the official languages of Dagestan, is classified as «vulnerable» by UNESCO and has lost over 60,000 speakers between the last two national censuses in Russia.

Global Isolation

In addition to avoiding the UNESCO-established International Mother Language Day on February 21, Moscow also opted not to recognize the UN’s World’s Indigenous Peoples Day celebrated on August 9.

Instead, the newly introduced Day of the Indigenous Minority Peoples will fall on the anniversary of the national law pertaining to Indigenous peoples’ rights established on April 30, 1999.

«This decision aims to communicate to the international community and global actors involved in Indigenous issues that Russia has its own understanding of Indigenous peoples and does not intend to operate within a global framework,» noted Dr. Ekaterina Zibrova, an associate researcher at The Wits Center for Diversity Studies in Johannesburg.

Russia hosts over 180 ethnic groups, most of whom lived in their current territories prior to and during the processes of Russian colonization.

However, the majority of these groups are denied recognition as Indigenous under Russian law. Only minority groups of fewer than 50,000 people residing in parts of the Far North, Siberia, and the Far East who «maintain a traditional lifestyle» are acknowledged as Indigenous by the state.

«Establishing a holiday for communities that comprise less than 1% of the nation’s population reflects the continuation of Russia’s isolationist political strategy and serves as a means to self-validate its misrepresented view of indigeneity,» stated Zibrova.

Prominent Buryat activist and founder of the Indigenous of Russia collective, Viktoria Maladaeva, cautioned that the holiday—and the government funds allocated to it—»will likely be misappropriated or utilized to generate additional propaganda rather than genuinely assist Indigenous communities.»

Zibrova also pointed out that both holidays were introduced less than a year after the Kremlin branded hundreds of independent Indigenous groups as «terrorist.» This move signified yet another attempt by Moscow to frame any public manifestation of non-Russian ethnic identities as a matter of state security, according to Zibrova.

«I perceive these new holidays as part of a sustained and largely effective initiative by Moscow to control the narrative surrounding Indigenous peoples,» Zibrova shared with The Moscow Times.

In response, Avar activist Gasanova remarked that the Kremlin’s actions signify a reaction to the growing influence of decolonial and Indigenous rights movements that have emerged in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

«Establishing such symbolic holidays is a countermeasure that aims to undermine the efforts of Indigenous activists,» she told The Moscow Times.

Buryat language activist Tudebei echoed this sentiment.

«This represents a response to the increasing national self-awareness and self-organization among Indigenous peoples, who are asserting their rights to language, land, and resources more decisively,» she stated.

In a related event, dozens gathered in the small village of Ust-Kan in the Altaian republic last Friday to commemorate the anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917.

Supported by local Communist Party members, the gathering represented a rare authorized protest in the southern Siberian republic, which has seen a crackdown on activists following widespread demonstrations against an unpopular self-governance reform.

Additionally, a local court recently sentenced lawyer Dmitry Todoshev, a key advocate against the reform, to 12 days in jail for disobeying police orders.

On Sunday, supporters reported that the pre-trial detention of prominent activist Aruna Arna has been extended until January 15. Arna, often referred to in the media as the «leader of Altai protests,» was added to Russia’s registry of «terrorists and extremists» earlier this year.