Racism in Russia

Racism in Russia appears mainly in the form of negative attitudes and actions by some Russians toward non-ethnic Russian citizens, immigrants or tourists. Traditionally Russian racism includes anti-Semitism, anti-Ukrainian sentiment, and Tatarophobia, as well as hostility towards the various peoples of the Caucasus, Central Asia, East Asia and Africa.

According to the United Nations, Russia's immigrant population is the world's third-largest, numbering over 11.6 million. Due to the country's declining population, and the low birth rates and high death rates of ethnic Russians, the Russian government has tried to increase immigration to the country in the last decade; which has led to millions of migrants flow into Russia from mainly post-Soviet states, many of whom are illegal and remain undocumented.

Under serious police pressure, the number of racist acts started to decline in Russia from 2009. In 2016, it was reported that Russia had seen an “impressive" decrease in hate crimes.

Xenophobia

In the late 19th century, especially after nationalistic uprisings occurred in Poland, the government expressed xenophobia in its hostility towards ethnic minorities which did not speak Russian. The government decided to reduce the use of other languages, and it insisted that minorities which did not speak Russian should be Russified.

By the beginning of the 20th century, most European Jews lived in the so-called Pale of Settlement, the Western frontier of the Russian Empire which generally consisted of the modern-day countries of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and neighboring regions. Many pogroms accompanied the Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing civil war, an estimated 70,000 to 250,000 Jewish civilians were killed in atrocities which were committed throughout the former Russian Empire; the number of Jewish orphans exceeded 300,000.

In the 2000s, tens of thousands of people joined neo-Nazi groups inside Russia. Racism against both the Russian citizens (peoples of the Caucasus, indigenous peoples of Siberia and Russian Far East, etc.) and non-Russian citizens of Africans, Central Asians, East Asians (Vietnamese, Chinese, etc.) and Europeans (Ukrainians, etc.) is a significant problem.

In 2016, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that "Researchers who track xenophobia in Russia have recorded an "impressive" decrease in hate crimes because the authorities appear to have stepped up pressure on far-right groups".

Using information which was collected during surveys which were conducted in 1996, 2004, and 2012, Hannah S. Chapman, et al. reports a steady increase in Russians' negative attitudes towards seven outgroups. Muscovites especially became more xenophobic.

Public sentiments and politics

In 2006, Amnesty International reported that racism in Russia was "out of control." Russia also has one of the highest immigration rates in Eastern Europe.

Between 2004 and 2008, there were more than 350 racist murders, and Verkhovsky, the leader of the anti-racist SOVA organization, estimated that around 50% of Russians thought that ethnic minorities should be expelled from their region. Vladimir Putin meanwhile was deeply critical of the view that Russia should be "for ethnic Russians", citing the need to maintain harmony in a multiethnic federation. Western commentators have noted that during this period, racist and ultranationalist groups may have been the most significant right-wing opposition to Putin's government.

On 20 April 2011, Konstantin Poltoranin, spokesman for Federal Migratory Service, was fired after saying the "survival of the white race was at stake."

On 24 October 2013, speaking during the ''Poedinok'' programme on the Rossia 1 television channel, the leader of Russia's extreme nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, known for his headline-grabbing outbursts, called for imposing limits on the birth rate in the Muslim-dominated North Caucasus region of Russia, and restricting the movement of people from that region across the country. These outbursts occurred shortly after the terrorist attack in Volgograd, which left several Russians dead. Zhirinovsky later apologized for his words.
During the programme, there was a live population poll conducted via text messaging and the internet. Zhirinovsky won that popular vote, with over 140 thousand Russians voting in favour of him. Some Russian nationalists believe the best way to stop the uptick in Muslim migration is by using oppressive tactics to "stem the tide". In 2006, in the town of Kondopoga, Karelian republic, a brawl in a café involving Chechen migrants and local Russians turned into a massive riot that lasted for several days.

Racism by targeted group

Africans

Official attitudes towards African people were generally neutral during the Soviet Union, because of its internationalist agenda. As a part of its support of decolonization of Africa, the Soviet Union offered free education for citizens of African states. African students (as well as other international students) were placed in many higher education institutions throughout the country, most famously at Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, then known as the Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University, after the Congolese revolutionary and prime minister.

In 2006, some exchange students claimed, "monkey" insults were so frequent that students ceased reporting them.

In 2010, Jean Sagbo became the first black man in Russia to be elected to government. He is a municipal councillor in the village of Novozavidovo, north of Moscow.

In 2013, Member of Duma Irina Rodnina has publicly posted a picture showing Obama with a banana on Twitter.

A Tatar owned supermarket in Tatarstan sold calendars with images of American president Obama depicted as a monkey and initially refused to apologize for selling the calendar. They were then forced to issue an apology later.

In mid-2016, after tensions rose between the US and Russia, a Tatarstan ice cream factory produced "Obamka" (little Obama) ice cream with packaging showing a black child wearing an earring; the move was seen as an illustration of both anti-Americanism in Russia and enduring, Soviet-era racism in the country. The company, which stated that the ice cream was not intended to be political, halted production of the line shortly after the controversy arose.

Crimean Tatars

Tatarophobia towards Crimean Tatars was state-enforced during the Soviet era through the racially-based special settlement system, which confined the deported Crimean Tatar nation in small perimeters within Central Asia and the Mari ASSR and deprived them of a variety of civil liberties that other peoples had. While no longer officially a state-mandated institution, prejudice and negative attitudes against Crimean Tatars remain pervasive throughout government and society; a notable example being when Russian consul Vladimir Andreev demanded that none of the invited Russian citizens attend the debut of ''Haytarma'', a film about Crimean Tatar twice Hero of the Soviet Union Amet-khan Sultan, claiming that the film could not possibly be accurate because it was directed by a Crimean Tatar.

Peoples of the Caucasus

In Russia, the word "Caucasian" is a collective term referring to anyone descended from the native ethnic groups of the Caucasus. In Russian slang, Peoples of the Caucasus are called ''black''; this name-calling comes from their relatively darker features. While the word ''black'' in itself is not racist, the racist synonym for it is "chernozhopy" (черножо́пый, trans. ''black ass''). (This word is also used against Black African peoples) Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the rise of the Muslim population in Russia and the Second Chechen War, many Russian radical nationalists have associated Islam and Muslims with terrorism and domestic crimes. In 2010 Julia Ioffe wrote that this was similar to stereotyping faced by Italian Americans in historical eras.

On 21 April 2001, there was a pogrom in a market in Moscow's Yasenevo District against merchants from the Caucasus. Ethnically motivated attacks against Armenians in Russia have grown so common that the president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, raised the issue with high-ranking Russian officials. In September 2006, major ethnic tensions between Russians and Caucasians took place in Kondopoga. In 2006, the crisis in Georgia–Russia relations resulted in the deportation of Georgians from Russia. The Russian side explained the process as law enforcement towards illegal immigrants, whereas the Georgian government accused Russia of ethnic cleansing. The European Court of Human Rights concluded that the detention and collective expulsion of Georgian nationals in 2006 violated the European Convention of Human Rights and ruled, in 2019, that Russia had to pay 10 million Euros in compensation.

In December 2010, there was a massive outbreak of hostility towards Caucasians, culminating in nationalist protests at Manezhnaya Square in Moscow and in other cities. The trigger was the murder of Egor Sviridov, a Russian association football fan, in a street fight on 6 December. On 11 December, thousands of nationalist rioters, outside the Moscow Kremlin building, screamed racist phrases, cried for a "Russia for Russians" and a "Moscow for Muscovites," attacked Caucasians and other minority groups who passed by, and some – including children as young as fourteen – made the Nazi salute. The next day, a similar riot was held in Rostov-on-Don, and afterwards, the city's government banned Caucasians from performing Lezginka, their traditional dance, in the city. Later, the police chief in Moscow said that civil liberties were a hindrance in security and that migration should be restricted. Vladimir Kvachkov, a major Russian nationalist leader of the organization People's Liberation Front of Russia (which says its major goal is to "free" Russia from Caucasian and Hebrew "occupiers"), made the following statement: "We Russian nationalists, the initiators of the people's front, we are telling you that the events of 11 December are the beginning of the revolutionary changes in Russia, the first outbursts of the approaching Russian revolution... You are the ones who can participate in it."

People of Central Asia

In 2016, Kyrgyzstan's President Almazbek Atambayev urged Russians to show respect to his countrymen after an assault on two migrants in Moscow. Racial discrimination of work-migrants from Central Asians (called ''gastarbeiters'', rus. гастарбайтеры) became a systematic norm after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Jews

On 11 January 2006, Alexander Koptsev burst into Bolshaya Bronnaya Synagogue in Moscow and stabbed eight people with a knife. In March, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. In 2008, allegations of blood libel appeared in posters in Novosibirsk. The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia expressed their concern about a rising number of attacks targeting Jews, calling it part of "a recent surge in anti-Semitic manifestations" in Russia.

In 2019, Ilya Yablogov wrote that many Russians were keen on antisemitic conspiracy theories in 1990s but it declined after 2000 and many high-ranking officials were forced to apologize for the antisemitic behavior.

The 2019 Pew Research poll found that 18% of Russians held unfavorable views of Jews, the number has dropped from 34% in 2009.

Vietnamese

Amid hostility towards migrant workers, around 600 Vietnamese were rounded up in Moscow and placed in tents while waiting to be deported from Russia in August 2013.

On 9 January 2009 a group of strangers in Moscow stabbed a Vietnamese student named Tang Quoc Binh who was 21 years old and the wounds were fatal resulting in his death on 10 January.

In October 2004 Russian skinheads stabbed and beat a Vietnamese student named Vu Anh Tuan, killing him. Vu Anh Tuan was 20 years old when he was killed in St. Petersburg. In October 2006 the 17 skinheads who were on trial for his murder were acquitted by a court.

In Moscow on in 2008 group of young men stabbed a Vietnamese woman who was 35 years old and she died of her wounds.

In 2005 in Moscow, three Russians stabbed a 45-year-old Vietnamese man named Quan to death.

A protest was held by 100 Vietnamese against the murder of Vu Anh Tuan, and a protestor said "We came to study in this country, which we thought was a friend of Vietnam. We do not have drunken fights, we do not steal, we do not sell drugs and we have the right to protection from bandits".

In Moscow on 25 December 2004 a crowd of people used clubs and knives to attack 2 Vietnamese students at the Moscow Energy Institute, Nguyen Tuan Anh and Nguyen Hoang Anh and they suffered severe injuries and were hospitalized.

Association football

After it was announced that Russia will host 2018 FIFA World Cup, a head of UEFA FARE Monitoring Centre, Dr. Rafał Pankowski

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