Putin called for the development of a law on the Russian nation. Putin called for the development of a law on the Russian nation Who needs a law on the Russian nation

Representatives of which nations should receive Russian citizenship in a simplified manner? How to adapt migrants and is it worth taking an example from Europe in this matter? These issues were discussed at the Council on Interethnic Relations, which took place in Astrakhan. The meeting was chaired by Vladimir Putin. And before that, the president launched oil production at one of the largest Russian fields on the Caspian shelf.

The Astrakhan school named after Heydar Aliyev is preparing for the National Unity Day. A border region inhabited by people of 147 nationalities. The mother of one of the students of the school is a Tatar, married to an Azerbaijani.

- Did you learn Azerbaijani?

“I learned it, since I have been married for 10 years, I already know this language,” Ralina Nasirova admits.

"Is he Tatar? Does he know at least a few words?" the correspondent asked.

"These languages ​​are very similar, so we understand each other," Ralina assures him.

People of different nationalities living in Russia have been able to understand each other all the time that the country has existed.

“It never occurred to me to think about nationality, who my husband should be - Russian, Bashkir, Tatar. After all, the secret of family happiness is in love,” the woman admits.

At a meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations, President Putin states that the national policy strategy approved four years ago is working.

"Almost 80% of the country's citizens, I note this with satisfaction, consider relations between people of different nationalities to be friendly or normal. A few years ago, as polls show, only 55% of our citizens gave such an assessment," Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

This, however, according to Putin, is not a reason to reduce attention to the issue. Moreover, interethnic and interregional contradictions have become sharply aggravated in the world, tension is growing due to the flow of migrants. At the same time, for their compatriots, the participants of the Council said, it is necessary to soften the rules when obtaining citizenship. To do this, they proposed to draw up a specific list of the peoples of Russia.

“Who is ours, who is a stranger, who is ours, who is a stranger, at least, roughly speaking, to determine. I proceed from that European world experience,” suggested one of the council members.

"Let's rely on our own. The European experience is not the best now," Vladimir Putin warned.

"Yes, yes, yes. But on a good one. There is a good experience, although they have a lot of stupid things, but what is good is, at least this," the member of the council continued the thought.

“Listen, nonsense,” Putin was surprised. “In general, you saw what was happening there. An emigrant raped a child in one of the European countries. The court acquitted him on two grounds: he does not speak the language of the host country well and did not understand it was a boy, he objects. It can't even cross my mind what they are doing there. This is the result of the erosion of these traditional national values. And I don't even know how to explain it, a feeling of guilt towards these migrants or something else. What's the matter - even "It's not clear. But a society that cannot protect its children today has no tomorrow, no future. Therefore, their experience, frankly, is not the best. And we have a thousand-year history of the formation of a multinational state."

At the same time, in the country in recent years, according to experts, a "civil nation" has begun to strengthen - a feeling of being part of Russia, part of a country with achievements both in the past and in the present. People of various nationalities are proud to be Russians. Proud to be Russians and the Crimean Tatars. A participant in the meeting, who came from Crimea, said that over the past two years, so much has been done for the Crimean Tatar people that has not been done for 25 years: the key decree on rehabilitation is only a part.

"We've decided on a place for the mosque, haven't we?" Vladimir Putin asked him.

"Yes, they have already laid it down. We are very satisfied, of course," the guest from Crimea admitted.

"Everyone is happy, the place suits, as I understand it," Putin said.

“Of course. You know how many places for this mosque have been chosen over the course of 10 years. They were either given or taken away. Now it has already been laid, the foundation has begun. Thank you very much,” the council member thanked Putin.

Putin supported the proposal to hold a year of unity of the Russian nation, to create a law on the Russian nation - it will help in the development of interethnic relations.

The Astrakhan region, where the council meeting was held, is also a region with a powerful oil and gas complex. On October 31, the President launched oil production at the largest oil field in Russia discovered over the past 25 years. Despite the fact that the platform is located directly at sea, the zero discharge principle applies here.

"Nothing gets into the sea," the miners emphasize again.

"Excellent. Nikolai Nikolayevich, start," Putin commands.

"The Filonovskoye field has been put into operation," is heard from the loudspeaker.

“I congratulate you. There is a lot of work, Vagit Yusufovich (Alekperov) said, for 50 years. I hope that you will continue to work actively and with the same quality,” Putin continued.

Offshore ice - resistant platforms are being built here in Astrakhan . So sanctions and restrictions on technology do not bother anyone here.

You can see only now the support of the offshore platform. Piles will then be driven into the niches, and the support will lie on the seabed. The huge structure will hold the offshore platform in any weather, in any storm and in any ice.

“For the next 20 years, we plan to build almost 15 platforms annually. Until 2021, we have one platform released every year,” Vagit Alekperov, president of PJSC Lukoil, proudly said.

"This means that there will be orders for metallurgists, for those who produce pipes and cables. And of course, this is a significant contribution to the development of the country's economy as a whole," Vladimir Putin stressed.

This field alone will produce 6 million tons of oil per year.

Does Russia need a law on the Russian nation? What can be offered instead? What is a nation of nations? "RG" tells the doctor of sociological sciences of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a member of the Russian Presidential Council on Interethnic Relations Leokady Drobizhev.

Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Valery Tishkov, that there will be no law on the Russian nation because society is not ready for it. Why are they so wary of him?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: There is wariness even among us, members of the working group preparing the draft law. We are preparing a project to strengthen the civil nation, and suddenly the topic of the law on the Russian nation surfaced.

A law on the nation is not needed?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: I believe that there can be no law on the nation. A nation is formed over centuries. Collective mentality and historical memory are not regulated by law. And we initially said that the law should be called either "On the Foundations of the State Ethnic Policy" or "On the Unity of the Russian Political Nation."

Why did the question of nation come up? Didn't we feel like citizens before?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: But they were not called a nation. In our country, historically, the concept of "nation" is assigned to an ethnic entity. And what about civic consciousness? It is this that unites and creates the political nation. Is it necessary to separate civic identity and political nation? Identity is the awareness of oneself as a Russian (a member of a political community) of people of different nationalities. A political nation is a people that owns and controls the state. It's in that order. I have no irony. Once, in front of my eyes, President Putin was asked: "Who do you work for?" Few people appreciated his answer: "I serve the country." This is what civic consciousness is all about. It forms a civil nation - a community of people not only of different nationalities, but also of different cultures - urban, rural, professional, aesthetic, ethnic, ideological. This community creates a nation.

Doesn't the fact that we, regardless of nationality, feel like Russians, and abroad - Russians, does not mean that we are a nation?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: In the 1990s, when the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences conducted the first polls about whether Russians feel themselves to be Russians and a civil nation, you won't believe it, in Moscow only 27 and 25 percent answered "Yes." Today in the country - 80-75 percent. The highest percentage - more than 91 - is given by the Tomsk region, Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk region, Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Kaliningrad, Astrakhan. The lowest rates - 63-67 percent - where people are far from the centers - the Caucasus, the Far East, Kamchatka. And then, I think, because the questions are not quite understood.

Up to 80% of Russians consider themselves Russians. The highest percentage - more than 91 - is given by Siberia, the Urals, Tatarstan. A photo: reuters

That is, in some regions up to 30-35 citizens do not feel like Russians?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: Not this way. Russian civic identity has regional and intra-corporate hierarchies. According to the RLMS-YSE and IS RAS polls, Kaliningrad positions itself as "we are a bridge with Europe", Yakutia, Chukotka and the Far North - "we are tolerant, you can't survive in another way", Astrakhan - "we are the southern capital of Russia" , Caucasus - "we are the southern gates of Russia", Tatarstan and Bashkiria - "we are the first to introduce innovations." In Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, Sochi, Siberia (Omsk and Novosibirsk), urban or scientific cultural identity may prevail over the all-Russian one. There is a predominance of peasant identity (the villages of the Kuban and the Rostov region, Tuva) or religious over common civil. The task of the new law or by-law on the nation is to sew these hierarchies together.

And what is a civil portrait of a Russian?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: He has three faces - a traditionalist, a modernist and a person in between. This is normal when a civil nation is formed. The forces of traditionalists and modernists are approximately equal: 52% of Russians are convinced that changes are always needed, 48% - "all changes are for the worse." This is due to the way people position their personal interests: 56% consider them the main ones in life, 44% are ready to limit personal interests in favor of public ones.

Split or balance?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: Equilibrium. Approximately equal groups of Russians are the bearers of internal control: we are for prosperity, and not for wealth by any means. One part believes that their fate (big cities) depends on them personally, the other (single towns, rural population) understand that their personal initiative is limited by the objective lack of opportunities or their limited opportunities.

The threat of social storms comes not from lower oil prices and not from nationalists, but from extrajudicial killings

Why stitch together a civilian nation if it evolves?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: The problem is that, according to our measurements, the emerging Russian center of European identity (civil society institutions, small businesses, part of the state employees - doctors, scientists, even clergymen and partly officers) is the leader of opposition mindsets. It is this collective leader, and not the creative opposition, that creates anti-ratings for key societal systems - trade unions, the police, the judiciary, and political parties. According to our research, in the eyes of citizens, the highest rating of distrust is not at all in trade unions (37%) and not in political parties (40%), but in the judiciary - 49%. We have been saying for a long time that the threat of social storms comes not from creative opposition, not from lower oil prices and not from nationalists, but from extrajudicial killings. And the state is fighting for voter turnout, although we have it quite at the level of developed democracies. Or for interethnic and interfaith peace. And we at the Institute of Sociology were amazed when in 2012 and 2015 we received data that in Tatarstan and Bashkiria more than 80% of people trust each other on a national basis. Interreligious trust is even higher at 84%.

Civil responsibility for the norms of the hostel is higher where people are not afraid to form a nation "from below"

Political scientist Mikhail Remizov believes that we are not ready to form a political nation, because we do not have confidence in the institutions of power and the law.

Leokadiya Drobizheva: Trust in the institution of parliament and the judiciary is low, but it exists. We have very high confidence in the president. Interfaith and interethnic trust is much higher than is commonly believed. And vice versa: only 30 percent of citizens feel personally responsible for the fate of the country and understand that it also depends on them. But in Yakutia, for example, this percentage is over 50. So there are elements of trust in the institutions of power and civil society. They need to be developed. For this, a law on the unity of the Russian nation is needed.

I wonder what exactly expresses the personal responsibility of the Yakut people for the fate of the country?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: In Yakutia, in large cities of Siberia or in St. Petersburg, civil liability for hostel standards is higher. There, people are not afraid to take on the burden of forming volunteer or their own mini-communities and organizations. Who was the first in the country to refuse to pay public utilities at inflated tariffs for electricity and heat? St. Petersburg and Yakutsk. This is the understanding of responsibility for one's work and the fate of the country. These are the facts confirming that it is impossible to form a civil nation only "from above". You need a counter movement "from below".

Will the law you are drafting take away the right to identity from ethnic groups?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: It is precisely in order to remove these fears from the peoples of the country that Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Valery Tishkov proposes to name the law "On the Fundamentals of the State Ethnic Policy." State Duma experts - "an act to strengthen the unity of the multinational people of Russia." This suggests that we are moving towards an understanding that we are a nation of nations. No one will take away the concept of nation from the people. But the nation also has the function of uniting people of different nationalities and different cultural interests into a nation of nations.

The same Mikhail Remizov argues that a civil nation is founded and strengthened by the state, while an ethnic nation can be outside the state. Russians live outside of Russia, which does not prevent them from feeling like Russians. But what about the national republics then?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: The civil nation does indeed have one state. And our republics, according to the Constitution, are a "state". But there was a decision of the Constitutional Court that this status does not mean the functions of states. Which, by the way, reflects the prevailing world experience. France, as you know, is a secular state, but there are enclave territories in the country where Sharia law is allowed as an exception. There, a special derogation allows children to go to school in a veil, although, as everyone knows, EU law forbids this.

If this practice is transferred to Russia, can Muslim headscarves be allowed to be worn at school by a special decree?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: Scarves have nothing to do with a civilian nation. It is a matter of law enforcement and dialogue. Even in the USSR there were laws that were implemented in certain areas in a mild form. For example, in the USSR people got married at the age of 18. And in Central Asia, where girls mature earlier, special by-laws were adopted that allowed the creation of a family from the age of 16. Same with scarves. They are not an element of religion, but of national culture and tradition. Ethnicity and religiosity are closely linked. For example, the Tatars say that it was Islam that helped them preserve and strengthen their ethnic identity, otherwise they would have lost it under Soviet conditions.

Why, for example, the United States or France does not pass the law on the nation?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: I wouldn't compare us to America. There, the vast majority of people have immigrant roots. States where the situation is close to the Russian one - France, Great Britain, Spain. These countries adopted many by-laws that stimulate civil unity. The experience of British identity, for example, softened the post-colonial situation, but did not save from the Northern Irish conflict, and fears of new influxes of migrants affecting the identity of the British became one of the incentives for Brexit and the country's exit from the EU. Why not a strategic change of course through a changing law?

There is the experience of France, where a political nation has developed. The quality of society there is such that the nation is experiencing not only excesses with arson of cars, but massive terrorist attacks of the underground. I think Russia is closer to the experience of Spain. There are nations of Catalans, Castilians, Basques, and all together they are Spaniards. And most of us are indigenous peoples. Therefore, in Spain and here we are talking about the formation of a nation of nations.

Will the status of the ethnic majority - the Russian people - be reflected in the law?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: In the structure of nations, the Russian people are the rallying core. His positions largely determine the readiness of citizens to take responsibility for the fate of the country. At the same time, the ethnic well-being of Russians is a litmus test for the well-being of other peoples. According to our research, 80% of Russians experience a sense of unity with people of their own nationality, and 83-87% of Russians of other nationalities. Research has also established the high importance of religious identity. Closeness with people of their faith is experienced by 69% of Russians and 75% of foreign citizens. This value community raises the question of the role of ethnic solidarity. Ethnic solidarity of all peoples is, as studies show, a resource for the future.

Abroad, as a rule, everyone calls us Russians. And who do the Russians themselves consider Russian?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: In determining who today can be called Russian, citizens of all nationalities most often use the sign of cultural affiliation. The most popular answer of our research is "one who grew up in Russia and was brought up in the traditions of Russian culture." Subjectively, I really like it. Objectively: there is every reason to believe that Russian culture acts as an integrator of Russian civil society.

When will the civil nation law come into force?

Leokadiya Drobizheva: The nation of nations must be sought within oneself. In self-perception and actions. Those that would show our ability to live according to the rules adopted by us, and not interfere with the lives of others. But we don’t talk about it, neither at school, nor in the media, nor in the family. Here in Georgia, for example, everyone knows about Queen Tamara, in Armenia - about Noah's Ark at Ararat. You ask the kid - he will answer. This is the element of laying down citizenship from an early age. In our country, only scientists talk about civic consciousness.

Astrakhan was symbolically chosen for the meeting of the council. With a population of 530 thousand people, representatives of more than 100 nationalities and 14 religious denominations live in this city. However, before dealing with interethnic problems, he paid attention to business ones. Before the meeting of the council, he managed to solemnly put into commercial operation the field named after. V. Filanovsky, owned. The president began the meeting of the council with a positive note, saying that largely thanks to the implementation of the State National Policy Strategy, Russia is successfully countering "global threats" in the face of extremism and terrorism.

“As a result, almost 80% of the country’s citizens—I note this with satisfaction—consider relations between people of different nationalities benevolent or normal,” Putin cited the statistics, adding, not without pride, that a few years ago there were only 55% of such people.

However, as it turned out, there is no need to relax, especially when in the modern world “tendencies are growing to blur traditional values”. The positive was followed by the negative. Repeating several times that interethnic relations are a “delicate and sensitive” area and that work is required there, Putin said that coordination between the authorities implementing national policy has not yet been established. Further, the President noted the sphere of "social and cultural adaptation of migrants." According to him, at present this sphere is not provided with sufficient "legal norms, organizational and economic instruments."

“It is necessary to determine the federal body responsible for this area,” Putin said.

As if in response to this remark, the head of the Federal Agency for Nationalities Affairs (FADN) entered the discussion. Recall that the department was formed about a year and a half ago. Then it caused a big stir in the media, but after a while the attention to the agency weakened.

Now Barinov told Putin that the FADN is actively working in the very areas he indicated. Barinov also spoke about the established interaction with the expert and scientific community, and about the “system for monitoring interethnic relations” already being implemented.

“Even now, despite the realization of only a tenth of the potential capabilities of our system, it is very likely to prevent large-scale conflicts at an early stage, such as those that occurred on Manezhnaya Square, in Biryulyovo or Kondopoga,” the head of the FADN proudly said and asked the government to include the full launch of this system is on the list of priorities.

Now the government is working on transferring to the agency the necessary “staff” and “federal budget funds” to implement the task of social and cultural adaptation of migrants. If this task is implemented, Barinov promised that the agency would take up this area, that is, the federal body that Putin spoke about.

After Putin and Barinov, experts entered the conversation. Leokadiya Drobizheva, head of the Center for the Study of Interethnic Relations at the Institute of Sociology, spoke about the need to overcome ethnic stereotypes, and also about the fact that the Russian nation is glorified not only by athletes, but also by scientists who make discoveries. asked the president to give a special instruction to promote the ideas of scientists and university workers in the international sphere to the teaching and teaching masses.

Putin liked the idea. “Combining your work with the practical activities of universities is extremely important,” the president praised the undertaking, noting that it would allow “putting a foot on the idea.”

Once the head of state intervened in the discussion. One of the participants proposed to follow the path of Western countries and create a unified register of ethnic groups of the Russian nation that can apply for preferential citizenship. The President noted that in all practices it is not worth focusing on the West, since not everything is good in their interethnic policy.

However, some ideas also found Putin's approval. In particular, holding the Year of the Unity of the Russian Nation: "You just have to choose this year."

But the most important thing that the president emphasized was the creation of a law on the Russian nation. It should be based on the Strategy of the state national policy. Putin referred to the creation of this law as one of the things "that definitely need to be implemented." At a meeting of the council, this idea was proposed by the head of the department, the ex-Minister for Nationalities. His version of the name of the law is "On the Russian nation and the management of interethnic relations." In his speech, he said that the law should finally reveal this concept. Many participants in the discussion spoke about the need to separate the concepts of “nations” and “ethnoi”.

During the meeting, the first deputy head of his administration sat to the right of the president. He did not make a speech, but at least once the cameras recorded that Putin had a lively conversation with him.

Vladimir Mukomel, head of the sector of migration and integration processes at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, expressed the opinion in an interview with Gazeta.Ru that the law should have wide practical application. “If it is about the fact that everyone needs to be friends, it will not work. The law must clearly regulate the legal relations between Russian citizens and representatives of different ethnic groups - without this, it will remain declarative, ”the expert says, noting that in Russia there is no anti-discrimination legislation as such.

Mukomel believes that despite the fact that the civic identity in the country is quite high, the problem of forming a “civil nation” in Russia is faced with rather strong xenophobic sentiments: “It seems that certain representatives of the authorities support these sentiments from time to time.”

The head of the Political Expert Group believes that the announcement of the law on the Russian nation is a continuation of the ideas of the “Russian spring”, which gained momentum after the annexation of Crimea.

“It was precisely on these events that Putin's rating greatly increased. And now there are attempts to consolidate this electoral support,” the political scientist sees the pragmatic sense in the initiative, recalling the presidential elections in 2018.

The idea of ​​institutionalizing the Russian nation is extremely popular with nationalists. Another thing is that they may not like the final version of the law, since Putin, according to Kalachev, positions himself as a “civil nationalist”: “They will most likely say that these are half measures.”

In addition, the details of exactly what criteria will determine the nation are not yet fully understood. Kalachev believes that it is not worth copying the American idea of ​​a single nation with many nationalities without taking into account Russian specifics.

In addition, there are questions whether the declared law will really improve something in the sphere of interethnic relations. “Recently, Yakutia was recognized as the homeland of the Yakuts. Russian patriots were envious. But what has really changed? - Kalachev is ironic.

Council for Interethnic Relations discussed, among other things, the development of the so-called "law on the Russian nation." Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a corresponding instruction.

The order itself sounds cautious, and rightly so, since we are talking about extremely complex matter. The assertive comments that appeared on the Internet, the head of the RANEPA department Vyacheslav Mikhailov, the author of this initiative, Vyacheslav Mikhailov, alerted me. It is clear that since he voiced such an initiative, there should be complete clarity in his personal vision of this problem. But he speaks as if the fact that he was appointed head of the relevant expert group automatically means that this vision should prevail. I don't think it would help the cause, and here's why.

At one time, a well-known historian, a student of Lev Gumilyov and simply a wise man Vladimir Makhnach said that one of the key mistakes of the communists in the USSR was a superficial attitude to national politics. He consistently criticized the Soviet leadership for neglecting the huge heritage of Russian thought in the field of national identity, insisted on a respectful attitude towards the people's beginning.

He considered the formula "a new multinational community - the Soviet people" to be the quintessence of amateurism in the field of science about ethnic groups, emphasizing that the formulation "multinational (polyethnic) community - the Soviet nation" would be correct from a scientific point of view and it would put a lot in its place.

The Soviet nation has existed since at least 1941, and with all the recognition of the greatest contribution to the victory of the Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Kazakh and any other people of the USSR, it was she who won the Great Patriotic War. It would be strange, however, to consider that it was not a socio-political, but an ethnic community.

By the 1980s, the foundations of this nation, as a result of external influence and internal decay, were significantly undermined, and it was unable to maintain the unity of the country. In turn, the Russian people, as an ethnic and cultural-historical community at the same time, was not endowed in the USSR with the proper status and resources to carry out the mission of "holding" on the territory of the entire country.

In none of the newly independent states did there exist single political nations. Therefore, in all of them there was a potential for interethnic conflicts. Somewhere they found an intermediate solution, somewhere they did not find any solution at all and, judging by a number of signs, they are unlikely to find it if the political circumstances in general on the territory of the former USSR remain unchanged.

Elaboration of the correct formula of national unity based on respect for the identity of all the peoples inhabiting our country will not be an easy task.

Here, first of all, it is necessary to overcome the narrow understanding of nationalism, which transforms it into chauvinism and ethno-radicalism. But it is also necessary to overcome primitively understood internationalism, whose supporters reduce the essence of this concept to a prefix, forgetting that the main meaning of any word is concentrated at the root.

Without love for your people, without respect for their traditions, there will be no love for other peoples inhabiting your country, no respect for their traditions. Accordingly, there will be no sincere love for the country as a whole, respect for the political nation as a community of citizens of one state, but children of different nations. National self-consciousness and patriotism are not contradictory, but complementary phenomena.

During the existence of our country in the form of the USSR, emphasis was placed on the socio-political basis of national unity. Complete denationalization, however, did not happen, and could not happen, since ethnos is not so much a cultural, historical and social category as a natural one.

Of course, among the citizens of Russia there are those who over the past decades, under the influence of globalist ideas, have fenced themselves off from their ethnicity, but such a minority. There is always a desire in people to maintain the unshakable foundations of their being, and national self-consciousness, paternal tradition is one of the most important in this regard.

So, the national unity in our country, as I see it, is already being formed and will continue to be formed in many stages, that is, not by uniting individual representatives of the various peoples inhabiting it into some kind of non-national community (such a community would be a chimera), but on an interethnic basis.

All ethnic groups in our country are equal, and it would be inappropriate to talk about some special position, special privileges for one of them. At the same time, due to objective reasons, some ethnic groups are endowed with special responsibility. Here I do not mean the desire to take on this responsibility - many can and should wish to do this - but the ability to carry out this responsibility on a national scale.

I see the Russian people in this capacity of a "core ethnos" (the definition is taken from the book by Vladimir Makhnach and Sergey Elishev "Politics. Basic Concepts"). And I stand on this position not because I myself am Russian, but simply objectively embracing with my eyes both the centuries-old history of our country and its modernity.

Saying this, I want to emphasize once again: talking about the "core ethnos" is not talking about special rights and a special position in the general system, but about special duties, about cultural and historical duty, if you like.

Assessing the new initiative in the field of national policy from the point of view of what has been said, I will call it the positive side that the question of developing a law "for the Russian people" was not raised. As a Russian person, I would never agree with this. Russian and Russian are just different categories, one cannot be replaced by another here, how not to replace the Russian language with the “Russian” language. This, by the way, was attempted by Mikhail Lomonosov together with Catherine II, moreover, during the period of the most active imperial construction, but they did not succeed. The history of the long-suffering 20th century unambiguously testifies: the less Russian remained in the Russian, the closer we stood to the edge of the cultural and historical abyss.

It would be correct, in principle, to make a new approach to improving the strategy and legislative framework of the state national policy.

At the same time, some comments made at the end of the Council meeting are alarming. Among them, I include, for example, the idea of ​​"the need to close the unity of civil-political and ethnic nations" and thereby "reach the level of the European legal field", as well as the thesis of the possibility of "managing interethnic relations."

And, of course, as is clear from what I said above, I categorically cannot agree with the interpretation of the concept of "Russian nation" as an ethnic concept. It must be considered purely in the civil-political and cultural-historical planes. Otherwise, the cause of interethnic harmony in our country will be seriously damaged.

Someone, perhaps, will say: "Why is it that a non-specialist undertakes to evaluate such an important legislative initiative"? I will answer. I don't really have a degree.

But, firstly, I have twenty-five years of service in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs behind me, ten of which I dealt with international and interethnic relations in the post-Soviet space, and the subsequent decade of participation in Russian domestic political life taught me a lot. And secondly, I am the future subject of this law. Not an object, I emphasize it again, but a subject. I live by it, I reap its fruits. Therefore, what it will be to me, and to all of us, should not be indifferent.

ALL PHOTOS

Russian President Vladimir Putin came up with an initiative to designate a federal body that would be responsible for the social adaptation of migrants in Russia. The head of state stated this while speaking at a meeting of the council for interethnic relations in Astrakhan, Interfax reports. In addition, the president proposed the creation of a law on the Russian nation.

"Currently, this area is not provided with sufficient legal, organizational and economic instruments. It is necessary to determine the federal body responsible for this area. Specialized specialists are also needed," Putin said.

He stated that Russia would oppose the tendencies to foment inter-ethnic conflicts and erode traditional values. He noted at the same time that "the key role here belongs to the social, spiritual unity of our people."

"Another important topic is support for non-profit organizations whose activities are related to interethnic organizations, interethnic cooperation, the preservation and protection of the culture, traditions, languages ​​of the peoples of Russia, and the social adaptation of migrants," Putin continued.

He noted that the services provided by such NGOs are not included in the list of socially useful and cannot have the same bonuses that socially oriented organizations have. According to Putin, "this can be a problem, in any case, a deterrent."

The head of state stressed that Russia needs professional specialists in the field of relations between different peoples and different faiths. According to him, not only religious figures are needed, but also secular people who understand inter-ethnic and inter-confessional problems.

Putin supported the beginning of the development of the law on the Russian nation

Russian President Vladimir Putin at the same time supported the proposal to create a law on the Russian nation. “But what exactly can and should be implemented is exactly what you need to think about and start working on in practical terms - this is the law on the Russian nation,” the head of state said (quoted by Interfax).

According to him, a strategy for the development of national relations in Russia could grow into such a law. "Our strategy, which we worked out together, should be transformed - but only this needs to be worked on properly, too," the president said.

Putin also supported the proposal of the meeting participants to hold a year of unity of the Russian nation. “It could be a good event. With the involvement of everyone who has gathered here today in this hall, so that we can work together with you. But you just need to choose this year,” the president said.

He explained that the year of the unity of the Russian nation should be chosen so that it does not overlap with the already announced all-Russian thematic annual events.

Putin approved the creation of a law on interethnic relations

Within the framework of the meeting, in which the head of state took part, a proposal was made to "go from strategy to federal law", which should incorporate all the innovations related to interethnic relations.

The author of this idea was the head of the department of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration Vyacheslav Mikhailov. He also proposed the name of the law - "On the Russian nation and the management of interethnic relations," TASS reports.

Putin approved the idea of ​​creating a separate federal law dedicated to interethnic relations. "Good suggestion," he commented.

“The fundamental issue is the coordination of the authorities that implement the state national policy. There are more than ten of them at the federal level alone, plus structures in the regions and municipalities. But the interaction between them is sometimes extremely low and inefficient, and constant cooperation with scientific and expert organizations has not been established. Will these issues be resolved? I know that certain hopes are pinned on the profile state program, which is now being prepared by the government," Putin said.

“Of course, it needs to be developed in such a way that it becomes a truly single main document for everyone involved in the implementation of the national policy strategy, but this program can be solved only by uniting, as I have already said, efforts, coordinating the efforts of all relevant structures. to do - the question remains open, although I do not think that there are any insurmountable difficulties here," the president added.

Putin criticized the European experience in the field of migration policy

The President of Russia also urged not to rely on the experience of Europe in building migration policy. "Russia has a thousand-year history of the formation of a multinational state, we have a much deeper experience," Putin stressed (quoted by TASS).

"An immigrant raped a child in one of the European countries. The court acquitted him on two grounds: he does not speak the language of the host country well and did not understand that the boy, and it was a boy, is objecting. It cannot enter his head what they are doing there" , - the president gave an example.

A society that "doesn't have the ability to protect its children today" has no future. Therefore, "their experience, frankly speaking, is not the best," Vladimir Putin added.

Earlier, an expert in the field of demography, scientific director of the Center for Migration Research at the Institute of Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Zhanna Zaionchkovskaya, predicted that as a result of an increase in the migration flow from China, by 2050 the Chinese could become the second largest people in Russia and bypass migrants from Central Asia.

She explained this process by a decrease in migration flows from the countries of Central Asia after 2030, since a large proportion of the young population of these countries has already left to study and work in neighboring states.

Now the main "donors" of Russia are Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, a significant part of the population comes from Ukraine. "If we think about other" donors "and, of course, Russia will have to, in order to develop normally economically, receive population from other countries, then here, apart from China, I see no alternative," Zaionchkovskaya noted in the report "Possible Options for the Development of Migration processes in the post-Soviet space".

Meanwhile, from the report of the Expert Analytical Center of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, it followed that by 2016 migration to the Russian Federation from China had given way to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Ten years ago, the leaders in the export of legal migrants were China (21%) and Ukraine (18%).

In the first half of 2016, the Moscow budget received 6.8 billion rubles from migrants, more than from the oil and gas industry. In the first half of 2016, the Moscow Migration Center issued 195,000 patents, among labor migrants who legally received patents, most Uzbeks (43%), Tajiks (30%) and Ukrainians (16%).