Preliminary remark: The situation in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan is a topic that I have been following with interest for some time. What I present here on the events in Bashkortostan on January 17 and 19 of this year is hyper-provisional: I do not refer in detail to linked sources that are available in English, but I do provide translations of Russian texts. I will come back to this topic.
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On January 18, 2024, Anton Gerashchenko published an appeal by a young Bashkir to protest against the conviction of the Bashkir activist Fail Alsynov, who was sentenced to four years in prison. He translated the appeal, I have transcribed its subtitles for better readability:
Nationalism. Incitement of interethnic discord. Our national hero, Fail Alsynov, was sentenced to four years in a penal colony for this.
He fought for the Bashkir language, for the Bashkir lands. Thanks to him we protected our sacred Kushtal mountains.
Thanks to him we were able to stop gold mining in our Bashkir villages.
It was during the people's gathering to defend the Bashkir land that he uttered the words that the visiting gold miners would dig up the land, take the money and leave for their native lands.
And we won't be able to go anywhere.We have to live here. This is our home.
These words are the basis of his criminal case. You can see the details on the Internet.
And we Bashkirs stood up in defense of our hero. Bashkirs took to the streets.
But few people realize that Fail was only a trigger- His trial was the final boiling point.
After all, it had been boiling in our hearts for a long time. What was boiling?Why was it boiling?
Russian nationalism. That's the reason.
Every Bashkir feels it in many aspects of life. The infringement. And why is this happening?
Because the government sees only one people – Russians. Propaganda from every corner tells us «we are Russians».
Bashkirs are sent to Ukraine to die in packs under the slogan «we are Russians». To denazify Ukraine. But we are not Russians.
We are Bashkirs. With our thousand-year history, culture, traditions, language. With our land, after all, which Fail defended.
Why do Russians in Ufa walk around with the words "Russia is for Russians" and they are not imprisoned?
And a Bashkir, who stands up in defense of his people, is imprisoned in his own land? Why? Because we are a national minority.
They can shout «we are Russians» in the whole country, but we can't do it in our own land. Where is justice?
I'm afraid for my life now. I don't know what these Russian officials, nationalists, will do to me.
And at this difficult moment for my people, I cannot keep silent. I take responsibility in my hands and address to Bashkirs and not only, but to the whole mulinational country, to our brothers, Tatars, Buryats, Chechens, Tuvans, Dagestanis, Kalmyks, Yakuts, Mariis, Udmurts, Altaians, all, everyone, everyone, everyone I haven't named yet. Gather, come out to the administrative buildings of your cities.
The first republic in Russia was Bashkir. And later other nations created their own republics. It was a symbol of multinational Russia.
Now the last Bashkir who defended this symbol will be put in jail. This is the end of the multinational country.
I call to come out to buildings of administration of your cities on January 19 at 10:00 a.m. with the demand of freedom in the rights of national minorities in Russia, with the demand of the right to elect heads of regional republics from the people.
And not to put a backed man at the top, which divides people on their own and strangers. We are not only Russians, we are the multinational people of Russia. And we want the law to be equal to all. Freedom to Fail Alsynov, freedom to our national minorities!
Riot police disperse protesters in the town of Baimak on January 17, 2024, where the trial took place
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It is not known who this young Bashkir is and which organization or organizations he represents, but the call was heard: the protests on 19 January 2024 took place in Ufa and other Bashkir cities with thousands of participants:
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, January 19, 2024: Bashkortostan Protests Peel Back The Layers Of Authoritarian Politics In Putin's Russia, with photos and videos:
Hundreds of warmly bundled people, many with small children, were milling about aimlessly in Ufa, the capital of Russia's Bashkortostan region, on January 19. But there was tension in the air.
When riot police warned the strollers to disperse or be arrested for participating in an unsanctioned demonstration, some responded: "We are tourists. We came to look at the statue."
A young woman with the words «qara halyq» on a sign taped to her back -- a Bashkir expression for «ordinary people» that literally means «black people» -- was detained and hustled off to a waiting bus. Police also detained a man who had wrapped himself in the Bashkir flag.
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, updated January 19, 2024: Hundreds Gather In Ufa To Support Imprisoned Activist Amid Crackdown, with photos and videos:
The Ufa gathering was a continuation and expansion of protests that began on January 15 in the town of Baimak, more than 400 kilometers to the southeast, over the trial of popular activist Fail Alsynov, a longtime advocate for minority rights and the preservation of the Bashkir language and culture.
As several thousand supporters rallied outside the Baimak courthouse on January 17, Fail Alsynov was sentenced to four years in prison for «inciting hatred or enmity» for a speech in which he used the expression «qara halyq». The phrase, used against Fail Alsynov in his case, was interpreted by investigators as «insulting» even though he and his supporters have insisted on the proper interpretation of the phrase. The day before his conviction, Fail Alsynov was added to the Russian government's list of «extremists and terrorists».
The protest has not been against the Kremlin, but rather an expression of discontent with Bashkortostan head Radiy Khabirov – elected in a tightly controlled 2019 vote after President Vladimir Putin named him acting regional leader – who filed the initial complaint against Fail Alsynov and who has publicly called him a «traitor». Some of the Baimak protesters appealed to Putin to intervene on their behalf.
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The background story of 2020, mentioned in the first of the two linked articles, was widely circulated at the time, as reported by GreenPeace, among others, «Long live Kushtau mountain and its defenders», August 18, 2020:
August 15, 2020, when police violently ended peaceful Bashkir protest activities in Kushtau
Russia’s Southern Ural mountains, in the Republic of Bashkortostan, are known for their picturesque landscape. Shihans – limestone mountains – are the remnants of reefs of ancient seas. They are very different from the surrounding steppe landscapes and unique communities of plants and animals have formed here. It’s a sacred place for local residents, and every mountain has a personal lyrical name. Legend says that the mountains protect the landscape and the residents from big shocks and upheavals.
Unfortunately a decision to extract limestone here was made in the 1950s by soviet authorities. There were four shihans in Bashkortostan but the industrial development of one of them, Shakhtau, completely destroyed it for the production of baking soda, in which limestone is the raw material. Now the work at Shakhtau is almost finished, there are three shihans left and the company has begun to look for a new source of raw materials.
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Who are the Bashkirs?
The Bashkirs, Bashqort [Башҡорт] in Bashkir, plural Bashqorttar [Башҡорттар] are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group in the southern part of the Urals and its western, southern and eastern foothills. Their closest linguistic relatives are the Tatars, and apart from Chuvash, most Turkic speakers understand each other as long as it's about everyday matters.
Of the approximately 1.8 million Bashkirs, 1.6 million live in Russia, where they form the third largest ethnic minority, after the Tatars and Chechens and before the Chuvashes, Avars, Armenians and Ukrainians. Around 1.2 million Bashkirs live in the Russian Autonomous Republic of Bashkortostan, with the remainder living in the neighboring oblasts and in Tatarstan. The largest ethnic group in Bashkortostan are the Russians with 36 %, followed by the Bashkirs with 30 % and the Tatars with 25 %. Only relatively small, mostly immigrant groups live in the other post-Soviet states: 41,000 in Uzbekistan, 24,000 in Kazakhstan (1999) and 5,000 in Tajikistan.
The capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan is Ufa. The city has around one million inhabitants, 49 % of whom are Russian, 27 % Tatar and 20 % Bashkir. Until the mid-1930s, Ufa was on the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway from Samara via Ufa to Chelyabinsk; today's route runs north from Kirov via Perm to Tyumen.
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Who is Fail Alsynov?
Fail Alsynov was born on December 7, 1986 in the village of Yuldybaevo in the Republic of Bashkortostan. He has a degree in history from Bashkortostan State University. He became known beyond Bashkortostan through protests that triggered his conviction in criminal proceedings. He and the inhabitants of various villages had protested against the uncontrolled gold mining that was polluting the environment.
Little is known about the cultural and environmental organizations, Kuk-Bure and Bashkort, in which he was or is significantly involved, but this could soon change with the public interest in the unrest in Bashkortostan.
The disputes over the mining of lime at Toratau Shikhan began in 2014. As the de facto leader of Bashkort, he was one of the organizers and participants in the protests to protect the Shikhan. In the end, he succeeded in preventing the mining project. In 2020, Fail Alsynov and members of Bashkort, which was already banned at the time, took part in protests at Kushtau Shikhan, which had become a target of the lime mining lobby after the Toratau Shikhan.
In April 2023, he took part in protests in the village of Ishmurzino in the Baimaksky district of Bashkortostan against geological exploration work near the village in the Irendyk Mountains. In October 2023, due to his speech in Ishmurzino, he was accused by the governor of Bashkortostan of holding negative views on people of Armenian, Caucasian and Central Asian nationality, with the claim that «qara halyk» is a xenophobic statement against other minorities of the Russian Federation.
On January 17, 2024, Fail Alsynov was sentenced to 4 years in prison by the Baymak court. On the same day, protests began in front of the court building, with clashes with law enforcement forces lasting several days and arrests of participants and supporters. According to estimates, the number of protesters reached about 10,000 people, while the population of Baymak is 17,700. Two days later, on January 19, protest demonstrations took place throughout Bashkiria.
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«Kuk-Bure» was a Bashkir national organization founded in 2006, according to other sources 2007, and existed until 2014/2018. It advocated secular liberal nationalism and national democracy and organized rallies and pickets:
1. The Bashkir people is a formed nation. Bashkirs as a nation have equal rights with other nations, including the right to self-determination.
2. The basis of the Bashkirs' national self-consciousness has always been the realization of their ethnos as a distinctive free people of the Southern Urals, a full-fledged heir to the land of their ancestors.
3. The main principle of Bashkir liberal nationalism is the preservation and development of the Bashkir people: protection of the sovereignty of the Republic of Bashkortostan, population growth, strengthening of the physical and spiritual health of the nation, preservation of language, culture and identity, ensuring the rights and opportunities of every Bashkir for self-realization. It is the duty of every Bashkir to realize the rights of his nation to the extent required by the principle of preservation and development of the Bashkir people.
4. The modern Republic of Bashkortostan is a form of realization of the Bashkir nation's right to self-determination.
5. Bashkirs, defending their rights on the land of their ancestors, through the defense of the sovereignty of the Republic of Bashkortostan, in no way infringe upon the rights of other peoples living in the republic. The benefits of economic sovereignty will be distributed equally among all residents of the Republic of Bashkortostan.
6. It is necessary to create corporate groups based on representatives of the Bashkir people. To prevent individual Bashkirs from using the national idea to realize their narrow selfish interests and to carry out activities to the detriment of the interests of the Bashkir community.
7. Bashkirs should give priority to everything Bashkir, at the same time they should not direct all their efforts against other peoples. The golden rule should be observed: «What you do not wish for your people, do not wish for the other people».
8. The legitimacy of the leadership of the Republic of Bashkortostan lies in its ability to protect the development of the cultural and social life of the Bashkir people.
9. Federalism is the basis of interaction between the Bashkir people and the Center. Violation of the principle of federalism by the central government entails the loss of its legitimacy before the Bashkir people.
10. Support of the democratic principles laid down in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Bashkortostan. It is inadmissible to absolutize liberal democracy. The power of the majority must always take into account the interests of minorities, including national minorities. Therefore, it is necessary to develop legal mechanisms to ensure the participation of ethnic minorities in the formation of the minority, including quotas at all levels of the Russian Federation.
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Epilogue
Mediakratia, National Association of Journalists, established in 2005, «the youngest and most progressive association of journalists in the country», [snark tag omitted], January 17, 2024:
The regime knows no mercy – extremist Alsynov received four years in prison
The 30s of the last century are considered by historians-propagandists to be the embodiment of hell on Earth. Half of the country then, as we know, was in jail, and the other half was guarding the first half. When you look at the actions of today's Russian oppositionists, you begin to realize that the repression of almost a century ago did not arise out of nothing and not because of the desire of law enforcement officers to serve. Both then and now there is a stratum in society that is ready to do anything nasty to Russia for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver. On January 17, Fail Alsynov, one of such promoters of the people's good, received a four-year sentence in Bashkiria for making nationalist remarks at a rally. Alsynov's supporters attempted to stage a mini-maidan outside the courthouse, but as darkness fell, several thousand protesters went home.
Conscience of the Bashkir people
Fail Alsynov's biography is typical, as they call it. Having graduated in 2008 from the History Department of Bashkir State University, the young man immediately went neither to graduate school nor to school. At the age of 22 he was so imbued with Bashkir national consciousness that he got a job – if such activity can be called a job – in two Bashkir national organizations at once. There is no point in giving their names – the material would swell with references to extremism and mention of foreign agents.
True, Alsynov did not think about the welfare of the Bashkir people. It doesn't matter what he was against. The leitmotif of his political activity was the statement «Baba-Yaga is against it!» Soda mining on the sacred mountain, migrants, geological exploration – everything that came to hand was used. In October of last year, Alsynov's tongue failed him. A criminal case was brought against him for his remarks about newcomers and the local «bulls», under which the fighter against the regime received a four-year sentence on January 17.
Bashkir-style Maidan
As is customary among the Russian or Bashkir opposition, Alsynov dragged many more people to the zone with him. About three thousand people gathered in the town of Baymak near the courthouse to find out in person that their idol had received a real sentence. After the announcement of the verdict, they were indignant and even threw snowballs at the police. The police prudently dispersed the crowd, detaining several people.
The organizers of the demonstration via Telegram channels are free of bribes – they are sitting on the territory of Ukraine and will remain there until known times.
But the citizens who organized a snowball fight outside the Baymak court building will be unpleasantly surprised when men with stern faces knock on their doors. Criminal proceedings under two articles at once have already been instituted. A snowball fight is simply a snowball fight in the yard of a house or school. If a chain of police officers is in competition, the snowball thrower quickly becomes a rioter and a perpetrator of violence against police officers. It is better to confess to violence against policemen – there you can get off with a couple or three years in a penal colony. For mass riots you can go to sew mittens for eight years. The consolation prize may be the title of civil activist and a mention on resources recognized as extremist.
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Footnotes
1. On the mutual intelligibility of Turkic languages: A Turkish doctor in Helsinki was astonished to come across a carpet store with a Turkish owner and went into the store to chat with him. When she realized that the supposed Turk was showing her books printed in Arabic script in Finland, she reacted indignantly: since Atatürk's reforms, the Latin script has been mandatory in Turkey.
The supposed Turk was not a Turk, but a descendant of Volga Tatars who had served as Russian soldiers in Helsinki in the 19th century and remained in the country: he did not speak Turkish with her, but Tatar, which obviously caused no problems with communication.
The main obstacle to mutual understanding is the vocabulary of modern life, partly language-specific neologisms, partly borrowings from different languages, in the Russian Federation mainly from Russian. This leads to communication problems when a Turk speaks to a Kazakh or Uzbek, but not between Kazakhs and Uzbeks.
2. On «qara halyq», another example of encroachment when speakers of majority languages want to make it clear to minority speakers what their words mean:
In the uppermost village in the Ladin Fassa valley in the Italian Dolomites, Italian local councillors had reported a Ladin colleague for calling them «bastards». But what he was accusing them of in Ladin was something else: they should not behave like children, and the local Ladin word for children was «bastèrt»...
3. KyivPost, January 31, 2024: Opinion: Upheaval in Bashkortostan Signals Beginning of the End of Putin’s Russia. Why the situation in Russia’s Muslim republic of Bashkortostan deserves our attention.
