Most of the dead Russian soldiers in Ukraine are from Buryatia. This is evidenced by data from open sources. Against this background, immigrants from this republic founded the Free Buryatia Foundation, an international anti-war foundation that sets itself several goals at once. Among them are the cessation of the war, the fight against Kremlin propaganda and the deliverance of the Buryats from the stigma of "the main defenders of the Russian world." Farida Kurbangaleeva spoke with the foundation's president, journalist Alexandra Garmazhapova, about why the Buryats are so willing to go to fight in Ukraine, about chauvinism and xenophobia in Russia, and about how far Buryat activists' desire to be free extends.
Spoiler:
Buryatia is a very poor region, and in principle, men have two main ways to earn money. Either go on a rotational basis to work in the North, or go to contract service. When we look at the data of the Buryats who died in Ukraine, we see that everyone has certain villages written in the column “place of birth”. That is, these are guys from the outback who, as they thought, were trying to earn money. Many signed contracts because this is the only chance to get housing. They could take out a so-called military mortgage to buy real estate in Ulan-Ude, which is very expensive for them.
- According to data from open sources, 100 people associated with Buryatia died. This is a very large number. Many now write that Dagestan is the leader in terms of deaths, but you need to understand that there are Buryats living in other regions. First of all, this is the Trans-Baikal Territory and the Irkutsk Region, we also watch ethnic Buryats from there. At the same time, in the Irkutsk region, many Buryats are baptized, and they have Russian names. We may even miss someone. Our analyst Maria Vyushkova believes that in percentage terms per capita of the Buryat population, we are ahead of everyone else in this sad statistics.
Perhaps a psychological factor is at work. It seems to the Buryats that participation in the war gives them the opportunity to “rise” to the level of Russians. They are ready to forget this discrimination so that in the fight against the "bad Ukrainians" the Russians will recognize them as equals. I can't explain it otherwise.
- Have you decided what else you will do besides recording videos?
— Of course, we have identified several directions. The first is the provision of legal aid. Because after the first videos, a lot of mothers, wives and sisters of Buryat contractors began to write to us, who asked: “My son, for example, does not want to sign a contract. How can he refuse it? Is it possible to do this if he is already on the territory of Ukraine? Would that count as desertion?" Then we actively searched for lawyers who understand military law, and we found several such specialists.
The second direction is research. We are preparing a report on losses among ethnic minorities in Ukraine. Accordingly, we need to keep clear statistics. We compare our data with the materials of human rights activists and investigative journalists. For example, we want to understand what happened in Bucha, because information was launched on the pro-Kremlin telegram channels that the Slavs could not treat the Slavs so cruelly. And then Arestovich helped us a little when he said that quite strong Slavic guys committed atrocities there.
We are not saying: let's blame everything on the Slavs. But we want to fight back against the narrative promoted by the Kremlin. And we want to make a full-fledged report on the losses, which we can distribute through the media and provide to international authorities. We believe that, in addition to the destruction of Ukrainians, Russia is also destroying its own population. We want to show these dead. When we hear that one Buryat died or two died, this information does not add up to one big picture. But when a hundred people - it's completely different. It's like a terrorist attack in the center of Ulan-Ude and 100 people died. Probably, it will have a stunning reaction. And I think that we should evoke this reaction.
And a third direction. We are in favor of sanctions against the leadership of Buryatia. We believe that they are directly responsible for what is happening. The function of the head of the region is to protect his citizens. Aleksey Tsydenov clearly cannot cope with this function. On the contrary, he encourages people to die. Accordingly, he is the direct culprit of this tragedy. Therefore, we are now compiling sanctions lists, which will also be submitted to international authorities.
- You are great fellows for talking about this, but you cannot influence what is in the minds of the inhabitants of Buryatia. Especially when you are abroad.
Why can't we? Buryatia is small. If we convince someone from our audience, then he will continue to convince the rest. It will slowly work like word of mouth. Even our video "Buryats against the war" is a fight against propaganda. In it, Ukrainian Buryats say that no one is oppressing them and there is no need to protect them.
After we organized the fund, a lot of Buryats began to contact us. I receive messages from them every day and have never seen bad ones. People write: "I thought I was alone, I'm so tired of having these letters Z around me, thank you for saying what I think." It seems to normal people that there are few of them, because they are scattered, but in reality this is not so.
Asians of Russia -tili Instagramissa pitää kirjaa burjaatti- ja tuvalaiskaatuneista. Seurasin tiliä jo ennen sodan syttymistä ja se postaili enimmäkseen hassuja videoita ja epäpoliittisia meemikuvia.
Jos on sellaiset kielet käännettävänä, joita DeepL osaa, suosittelen lämpimästi sitä kääntämiseen Googlen sijaan. On nimittäin parempi. (Tosin verkkosivuja ei suoraan käännä, vaan pitää copypasteilla, mutta kuitenkin.)
Just gimme a scene where the music is free
And the beer is not the life of the party
There's no need to shit talk or impress
'Cause honesty and emotion are not looked down upon
Jos on sellaiset kielet käännettävänä, joita DeepL osaa, suosittelen lämpimästi sitä kääntämiseen Googlen sijaan. On nimittäin parempi. (Tosin verkkosivuja ei suoraan käännä, vaan pitää copypasteilla, mutta kuitenkin.)
Kiitos vinkistä. Testasin lauseella, joka sisälsi sanan jonka tiesin menevän pieleen Google Translatessa, ja DeepL käytännössä vain translitteroi sen - mikä on toki parempi kuin virheellinen käännös. Kyseessä siis нацмен, kansalliseen vähemmistöön kuuluva henkilö, joka Google Translatessa vääntyi "nationalistiksi".
Toihan on kulttijohtajilla ammattitauti että vaikka kuinka kyynisen laskelmoivasti alottaa, niin siihen paskaan vaan alkaa ite uskoa kun tarpeeks kauan uskovaiset sitä ympärillä toitottaa. Sama mekanismi toiminee tässäkin.
Tätä minäkin veikkaan. Tottakai on joku sekoitus kansallis- ja ylimielisyyttä vielä taustalla.
Jos on sellaiset kielet käännettävänä, joita DeepL osaa, suosittelen lämpimästi sitä kääntämiseen Googlen sijaan. On nimittäin parempi. (Tosin verkkosivuja ei suoraan käännä, vaan pitää copypasteilla, mutta kuitenkin.)
P ei ole ns. hullu, vaan Venäjä-ideologiaansa lujasti uskova ikääntyvä kaveri jolla on kova halu jäädä historiaan suurmiehenä
kompensoidakseen lyhyyttään
Napoleon-syndroomaa on joskus pidetty järkevänä asiana, mutta lienee pelkkä myytti. Lyhyys ei siis ole relevantti asia tässä, kuten Putinin paras kaveri Lukasenka sen osoittaa
Eka oli Ukrainan maidanit ja sitten Valko-Venäjän protestit, niin ehkä se alko kelailemaan, ettei kahta ilman kolmatta.
Ja sitten tuli Kazakstanin tammikuun hulinat.
Mut Kazakstanin tammikuun hulinat ei johtuneet kansannoususta vaan sisäpoliittisista valtataistelusta ex ja nykyisen pressan välillä. Oman osansa toi myös energian hinnannousu johon liittyi killerinä se, että Kiinan kiellettyä kryptorahanlouhinnat niin louhintafarmit oli kätsy siirtää Kazakstaniin kun siellä oli sopivasti halpaa sähköä jota ostaa/varastaa.
Pitää kokeilla
