You know Zhirinovsky has something planned behind these economic reform. Remember when Burbilus mentioned Zhirinovsky's "Palestine Plan" in part ten? Well, we are about to find out what that is...
Zhirinovsky's Russian Empire
- Thread starter Pellegrino
- Start date
You know Zhirinovsky has something planned behind these economic reform. Remember when Burbilus mentioned Zhirinovsky's "Palestine Plan" in part ten? Well, we are about to find out what that is...
Orville_third
Banned
How will Russian expatriates (or those from other areas of the UDR) view the changes? Would some speak out?
A lot of them will be more pro-Zhirinovsky for reasons we see shortly. But as mentioned in the post above, there will be more to that story as well.
Orville_third
Banned
There m,ay be some who might be apolitical who might become defacto spokespeople for anti-Zhirinovski movements. (I nominate the late Mary Tamm (of Estonian (and some White Russian) descent) for one.)A lot of them will be more pro-Zhirinovsky for reasons we see shortly. But as mentioned in the post above, there will be more to that story as well.
Well, there will be a strong anti-Zhirinovsky faction emerging all over the world. But Zhirinovsky is going to try and woo the west one more time. But I like your idea of Mary Tamm as a spokesperson. I might have to incorporate that into the TL.
Nazi Space Spy
Banned
I am confused. Is Russia trying to create a UDR like Union while still in the UDR? Great update however
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
One question: in case of a Russian defeat, would we see the other ex-Soviet republics expelling their Russian minorities in a similar manner to how the Serbs in Croatia got expelled?
I am confused. Is Russia trying to create a UDR like Union while still in the UDR? Great update however
It is a bit confusing, but what he is doing is basically trying to usurp Alksnis. Right now Alksnis is backed into a corner, agree to these terms or come up with a counter proposal, which he doesn't seem to want to do at the time. In OTL we saw Yeltsin doing this to Gorby with the CIS forming while the USSR was still round. This is sort of the same thing. We are seeing the seeds of how the UDR will become the UIS and how the Russian president becomes the defacto leader of the whole UIS. He basically turns The UIS into a federation that looks like the rump Yugoslavia under Slobo. Slobo was president of the Republic of Serbia, but really leader of the entire country.
Yes and no. In Tajikistan, we are already seeing something like this, but in those republic's that directly border Russia, it will be a much different story. And the question becomes, when will the UDR be ready to restore authority over central Asia? In a nutshell, Tajikistan is sort of like Slovenia in 1991. Distant enough from Belgrade to push out the JNA in 10 days. But Croatia and BiH, which bordered Serbia, had a much tougher fight on their hands. In Yugoslavia there were not a lot of Serbs in Slovenia, but when the Croats overran Krajina, it led to a mass exodus of Serbs. In the UDR, the Russians will be fleeing places like Tajikistan (at least at first) but the question is if they go to Russia, or if this "Palestine Plan" comes into play. And at what point will the Russians quell the Tajik rebellion (or if they ever quell it)
Just finished reading all these updates, and I must say that this is really good. It's the sort of thing that people would say to be implausible normally but the way you set it up and clarify the events involved makes it work.
Thanks!
I admit, it is a challange. I think Zhirinovsky becoming president of Russia is close to ASB, and I really needed to focus on the "how". But in 1993 his party captured almost 23% of the vote, so I do think that in the early 90s, before people started realizing what he really is about, that there was a very small window for him to emerge.
I sort of think of it similar to how Karadzic and, to a lesser extent, Slobo and Tudman, emerged in the former Yugoslavia. I think people didn't really focus on the extreme nationalist rhetoric in 1991, a lot of people just sort of brushed them off. And had they not taken power at that point, they probably would have simply emerged as minor nationalist politicians much like Zhirinovsky in OTL.
PART SEVENTEEN: FREE MARKET FASCISM
PART SEVENTEEN: FREE MARKET FASCISM
PART SEVENTEEN: FREE MARKET FASCISM
We see Zhirinovsky now regroups from the troubles in Tajikistan to focus on Kazakhstan and Moldova. Some new names in this update:
Jarmakhan Tuykbay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarmakhan_Tuyakbay
CNN interview with James Baker, former Secretary of State under President George H.W. Bush
July 13, 1997
CNN: Why did the Bush administration authorize over five billion dollars in aid to the Zhirinovsky regime right after the Azerbaijani conflict? Wasn’t that rewarding bad behavior on the part of the Russians?
Baker: It was clear that there was a power struggle in the weeks immediately after the Azerbaijani war, with the hard-line Viktor Alksnis on one side and the reformers, whom we believed Zhirinovsky was among, on the other. Zhirinovsky was proposing some pretty significant reforms, and we wanted to see to it that the reforms succeeded. Because if they failed, then we feared that the country could have ended up ruled by the unrepentant communist Alksnis. It seemed like the lesser of two evils.
CNN: Does it trouble you to know that the term “Baker Plan” has such negative connotations today?
Baker: We had the best of intentions with the plan. At the time there was never any question that the Baker Plan was in our best interest. Even Senator Kerrey supported it. The money was being used exclusively for privatization, for building these “Novo Gorods” as they came to be called. And the Russians were eager to use American companies to do the construction and development. It looked like a win-win for us. We were helping destroy communism and also making money at the same time. It wasn’t until 1992 that we started noticing that these settlements were being used as a political weapon.
Zhirinovsky and Luzhkov signs Guarantees of Private Land Ownership for Russia and UDR
Landmark decree tackles a key barrier to free market.
December 23, 1991
SAM J. ZEFREN | PORTLAND TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
MOSCOW — Seventy-four years after Vladimir I. Lenin confiscated all private property, Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky and UDR Prime Minister Yuri Luzhkov signed a decree Monday guaranteeing Russians the right to buy and sell private land.
The landmark order is seen as the first step towards creating a full system of private ownership in which Russian corporations and individuals would be allowed to partition, inherit, mortgage or rent land. And it specifies that the government may not confiscate land without fair market compensation.
The move is seen as an attempt to further limit the authority of the UDR president, Viktor Alksnis, who has clashed with both Luzhkov and Zhirinovsky since the fall of the communist government in August. However, with much of the private property formerly held by the Communist Party now controlled by the Zhirinovsky-dominated Liberal Democratic Party, most experts expect a phased entry into the free market.
“We will start privatizing land immediately,” said a LDP spokesperson, “but we do not wish to create problems for those Republics that are not yet equipped to handle the changes.”
Many Russia experts see the statement as an olive branch to the Republic of Belarus, whose leadership made clear that they did not want to undertake market reforms when they signed a union pact with the Russian, Armenian, and Ukrainian republics. The LDP indicated that they will begin privatizing LDP held property in Kazakhstan and Moldova in the coming weeks.
“My Russia- An Autobiography by former Russian Prime Minister Gennady Burbulis”
Published by Interbook, © 1998
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Luzhkov was in a panic, things were not going according to plan. He, like many of us, believed that once privatization was implemented that Russians would be signing up to own land. But we underestimated what 60-plus years of communist propaganda did to people. Nobody seemed interested in land ownership. Nobody, that is, except the radicals who Zhirinovsky rallied behind his Palestine Plan. Naturally Zhirinovsky planned it that way. Word of mouth spread quickly: if you went into a LDP office to try and buy land in Russia, you were out of luck. They didn’t have anything for you…but that had tremendous opportunities in Moldova and Kazakhstan. You could get a house in Moldova, all you had to do was evict the Romanians living there and it could be yours. Or you could get a plot of land in the novo gorod being built in Kazakhstan. And the Americans would build your house for you! Luzhkov wanted to believe that the changes would be embraced by the ordinary Russian, but it was becoming clear to us that we had created a new Palestine. A new Tibet. A new Kazakhstan. It was never about private property with Zhirinovsky. It was always about Greater Russia. And Luzhkov was played by the master manipulator in turning the free market into the fascist market.
CNN interview with Jack Matlock, former ambassador to the USSR
August 18, 2000
CNN: How did Zhirinovsky so effectively hijack the reform movement and turn it into a weapon of Russian nationalism?
Matlock: Although he agreed with Alksnis on many issues, he needed to keep Alksnis on his toes lest he become too powerful. By supporting the liberal Luzhkov on this issue, he weakened the office of the presidency of the UDR and maintained the status quo that he really wanted, with a Prime Minister and President engaged in a deathly struggle for control of the UDR while he played kingmaker. Also, most politicians in Russia and the UDR saw how he nearly destroyed the goodwill the post-communist UDR picked up with the west after the war in Azerbaijan. They figured that as long as there were some reforms, some “privatization,” that the west would forget about Azerbaijan. Tragically for us, they were correct. The West fell in love with Zhirinovsky all over again after this.
CNN: How did he convince the hardliners who were opposed to privatization to come on board?
Matlock: By either creating new property in the form of a novo gorod, where it didn’t have to be privatized per se but just developed, or by taking it from a hostile republic like in Moldova. You notice that none of the State owned enterprises were nationalized in 1992 or 1993? It was all a sham, from the start. It was always about Russian nationalism and not true reform.
Kazakhstan goes to the polls as fears of terrorism rise
by Terry Davis
Detroit Free Press, November 8, 2004
Ethnic Kazakhs were detained in Astana today during the national elections
Kalashnikovgrad, Kazakhstan — In what was promised to be the first free and democratic election in Kazakhstan’s history, voters took to the polls today across the Republic. However, critics have already derided the election process as flawed. Despite promises of an election that would usher in a “new era of freedom and openness in Kazakhstan”, international observers are already condemning today’s elections in the second largest Republic in the UIS. International observers noted the flood of reports of government brutality and voter intimidation allegedly going on as Kazaks and Russians took to the polls today. Citing numerous terrorist threats, the “National Anti Terrorism Unit” of the UIS Federal Police Force (ATU-FPF) rounded up hundreds of “people of interest” in the hours leading up to the voting. Others found themselves detained and questioned as they approached voting centers. One Kazakh who elected not to vote told the Red Cross that a Russian neighbor warned him that “The ATU-FPF will assume that any Kazakh who goes out today is a terrorist wearing a suicide belt under his or her coat.” UIS President Alexander Lebed unveiled a plan earlier this year to loosen federal control over the outlying republics, giving hope to many ethnic Kazakhs that true democratic reform was soon to follow. Kazakhstan is one of only three Republic’s in the UIS in which Russians make up a majority of the population according to the most recent 1999 census. However, the contention that Russians are a majority in Kazakhstan remains a source of bitterness with ethnic Kazaks. At least 1.5 million Russians immigrated to Kazakhstan in early 1992 as part of what was referred to as the “White March” by then Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky. However, many Kazakhs criticized the government for creating the predominantly Russian settlements, including noted Kazakh nationalist leader Zharmakhan Tuyakbay, who famously dubbed it “free market fascism.”
The settlements, which are referred to as “novo gorods” in the UIS, popped up all over the northern regions of the Kazakhstan starting in 1992, predominantly in areas where Russians were already the majority. Inspired by government subsidies for free land and coupled with an influx of western money to assist in the building of the settlements, the “novo gorods” soon began accommodating not only ambitious Russians looking to capitalize on the free market reforms, but also extreme nationalists who made up part of “The Greater Russia Movement” as well as Russian refugees from other Central Asian Republics where Federal government control was tenuous. In the city of Kalashnikovgrad, over 100,000 residents claimed to have come from Tajikistan in the months following the catastrophe of Dushanbe, where ethnic Russians were targeted in a violent pogrom. However, many Kazakhs claim that the population numbers are grossly inflated, and that the novo gorods are used to disenfranchise the local Kazakh population.
Former President Carter condemns Kazak elections; claims massive voter fraud
December 1, 2004|By Scott Sutcliffe | Dallas Morning News
DUTOVGRAD, UIS — Former President Jimmy Carter said Saturday that monitors noted numerous serious violations during Kazakhstan’s elections last month, and called on UIS President Alexander Lebed and the international community to condemn the actions of the Liberal Democratic Party and to nullify the election results. However, President Lebed has indicated that the Kremlin found that the vote was generally acceptable and the irregularities won't impact the final results. He also indicated that he will not set aside the election results, raising fears that the Kazak Republic may descend into violence and ethnic strife, and dashing hopes for the emergence of democracy in the former Soviet Union.
The Atlanta-based Carter Center had 307 monitors at polling centers across Kazakhstan for the landmark vote — the first since longtime leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky was ousted last year in a mass uprising.
Carter said his group was not given access to voter lists, and that his observers were often denied access to voting centers. The Carter Center said in a statement that the observers were not able to review the ballots and compare them with voter lists in Russia, which they said "severely undermines the overall transparency of the election results."
Carter also cited reports coming out of the city of Dutovgrad, in northern Kazakhstan, where monitors witnessed hundreds of busses arriving from the north, and then dropping off what monitors claimed were thousands of people at voting centers.
“According to the most recent census in the UIS, Dutovgrad has a population of nearly 75,000 people,” Carter said in his report, “and yet all evidence indicates that the city’s population is at most 20,000 people. However, according to the most recent election, the city had nearly 65,000 voters turn out for the election. Clearly this is a cause for concern and should be seriously investigated by President Lebed and the international community.”
The city of Dutovgrad was one of nearly a hundred that sprung up across the UIS in 1992 when then President Zhirinovsky instituted privatization of government held property. It was named after a noted anti-communist general during the Russian Revolution, but like many of the “Novo Gorods” that sprung up in early 1992, they are widely criticized by international observers as means of disenfranchising non-Russians living in the UIS.
“If you look at Kazakhstan you can see the impact of the Novo Gorod,” commented Carter, “a country where the native Kazak population is now relegated to minority status, and further disenfranchised by a local government dominated by Russian émigrés who are imposing laws that look almost identical to the Jim Crow laws of the American South in the early 20th century.”
The official election results showed the Lebed-dominated Liberal Democratic Party capturing over 67% of the seats in the Kazakh Parliament, while the pro-Zhirinovsky Radical People’s Party captured 15%. The Kazakh Nur Otan party took third with 13% while the Bolshevik Party took 2%. Many supporters of the Azak Party, the second largest pro-independence party behind Nur Otan, called for a boycott of the election.
“We are second class citizens in our own country,” commented a young Kazakh man who wished to remain anonymous, “but sooner or later we will take control of our country again. And when that happens the first thing we will do is make sure those busses never come back.”
Younger Russians not opposed to leaving Kazakhstan
By James Wills
Washington Post
July 10, 2008
Yuri Dimitriov at his home in Yeltsingrad
(YELTSINGRAD, Kazakhstan) - For 29-year old Yuri Dimitriov, it was never about Russian nationalism or ethnic pride.
“It was always about money,” the construction worker said with a laugh, “there were no jobs in Russia, so I took up the offer to come here to help the Americans build this city. And I never left.”
Dimitriov, and the thousands like him, might just be the last hope for a lasting peace in the UIS Republic of Kazakhstan. He is one of a growing number of Russians who immigrated to Yeltsingrad, and Kalashnikovgrad, and hundreds of other newly constructed bastions of capitalism solely for financial purposes. He could not care less about the Greater Russia movement, and admits that he’d be happy to go back home to Moscow…for the right price.
“I own a home here in Yeltsingrad that would be the envy of many in America,” Dimitriov said as he showed off his swimming pool in the back yard, “and it cost me almost nothing. If I were to sell this and move to Moscow, I’d be lucky to afford a one bedroom apartment. But pay me for a house like this in Russia and give me a job in Russia and I’ll be happy to move. I don’t care where you send me, I’ll even move to Chechnya!”
Hopes for a negotiated settlement continue to stall over the status of the Russian émigrés, who number between one and two million. Along with ethnic Russians who lived in Kazakhstan prior to 1991, they make up over 55% of the total population and often are the most radical supporters of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the nationalist former President of the UIS. Most came from other republics in Central Asia where they were often targeted because of their ethnicity during the early years of the UDR and UIS, and many hold a deep-seated grudge against the native Asians in Kazakhstan. Others were Russians who made up what is still referred to as the Zhirinovsky Bloc: Radical nationalists who want to finalize their long held dream of turning the UIS into “Greater Russia.” However, more than a few are men like Yuri Dimitriov, men who jumped on favorable government subsidies and incentives who can just as easily be persuaded to leave. Kazakh nationalist leader Zharmakhan Tuyakbay recently suggested that, if independence is realized, that he would not oppose a plan that would pump over twenty billion USD into resettling those Russians who would be willing to relocate out of an independent Kazakhstan. However, others wonder if it will be enough.
“Even if the Turks can buy a few Russians with 30 pieces of silver, they will be replaced with 300 men who will fight any die for the Russian nation,” controversial politician Eduard Limonov said in a television debate recently.
Still, Dimitriov dismissed talks of violence from his fellow Russian.
“Limonov is one of a dying breed,” he laughed, “if only radicals lived here then this city wouldn’t have over 100,000 people living here. We care more for employment than rhetoric.”
Some estimate that over one million of the Russian émigrés might be economic migrants, who fled Russia during the years of economic turmoil after the West imposed sanctions on Zhirinovsky’s UIS. Many noted that the sanctions had the unintended consequence of strengthening the novo gorods in Kazakhstan and Moldova, since the government still subsidized the settlements even in the direst years of the Russian economic collapse, when hyperinflation and economic contraction were widespread.
“Hitler wouldn’t give up the concentration camps, even when they became a liability to the war effort,” commented Vladimir Putin in an interview with the BBC last year, “and Zhirinovsky wouldn’t give up the novo gorods even though we couldn’t afford them anymore. Those created more economic turmoil then the sanctions.”
It is a fact not lost on Dimitriov, who notes the resentment that Russians back in Moscow hold towards him.
“At first, they use to treat me like some great patriot whenever I went home,” Dimitriov said, “but then they started to resent me and try and pick fights with me on the street. I feel more worried about my safety in Moscow than I do in Astana.”
PART SEVENTEEN: FREE MARKET FASCISM
We see Zhirinovsky now regroups from the troubles in Tajikistan to focus on Kazakhstan and Moldova. Some new names in this update:
Jarmakhan Tuykbay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarmakhan_Tuyakbay
CNN interview with James Baker, former Secretary of State under President George H.W. Bush
July 13, 1997
CNN: Why did the Bush administration authorize over five billion dollars in aid to the Zhirinovsky regime right after the Azerbaijani conflict? Wasn’t that rewarding bad behavior on the part of the Russians?
Baker: It was clear that there was a power struggle in the weeks immediately after the Azerbaijani war, with the hard-line Viktor Alksnis on one side and the reformers, whom we believed Zhirinovsky was among, on the other. Zhirinovsky was proposing some pretty significant reforms, and we wanted to see to it that the reforms succeeded. Because if they failed, then we feared that the country could have ended up ruled by the unrepentant communist Alksnis. It seemed like the lesser of two evils.
CNN: Does it trouble you to know that the term “Baker Plan” has such negative connotations today?
Baker: We had the best of intentions with the plan. At the time there was never any question that the Baker Plan was in our best interest. Even Senator Kerrey supported it. The money was being used exclusively for privatization, for building these “Novo Gorods” as they came to be called. And the Russians were eager to use American companies to do the construction and development. It looked like a win-win for us. We were helping destroy communism and also making money at the same time. It wasn’t until 1992 that we started noticing that these settlements were being used as a political weapon.
Zhirinovsky and Luzhkov signs Guarantees of Private Land Ownership for Russia and UDR
Landmark decree tackles a key barrier to free market.
December 23, 1991
SAM J. ZEFREN | PORTLAND TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
MOSCOW — Seventy-four years after Vladimir I. Lenin confiscated all private property, Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky and UDR Prime Minister Yuri Luzhkov signed a decree Monday guaranteeing Russians the right to buy and sell private land.
The landmark order is seen as the first step towards creating a full system of private ownership in which Russian corporations and individuals would be allowed to partition, inherit, mortgage or rent land. And it specifies that the government may not confiscate land without fair market compensation.
The move is seen as an attempt to further limit the authority of the UDR president, Viktor Alksnis, who has clashed with both Luzhkov and Zhirinovsky since the fall of the communist government in August. However, with much of the private property formerly held by the Communist Party now controlled by the Zhirinovsky-dominated Liberal Democratic Party, most experts expect a phased entry into the free market.
“We will start privatizing land immediately,” said a LDP spokesperson, “but we do not wish to create problems for those Republics that are not yet equipped to handle the changes.”
Many Russia experts see the statement as an olive branch to the Republic of Belarus, whose leadership made clear that they did not want to undertake market reforms when they signed a union pact with the Russian, Armenian, and Ukrainian republics. The LDP indicated that they will begin privatizing LDP held property in Kazakhstan and Moldova in the coming weeks.
“My Russia- An Autobiography by former Russian Prime Minister Gennady Burbulis”
Published by Interbook, © 1998
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Luzhkov was in a panic, things were not going according to plan. He, like many of us, believed that once privatization was implemented that Russians would be signing up to own land. But we underestimated what 60-plus years of communist propaganda did to people. Nobody seemed interested in land ownership. Nobody, that is, except the radicals who Zhirinovsky rallied behind his Palestine Plan. Naturally Zhirinovsky planned it that way. Word of mouth spread quickly: if you went into a LDP office to try and buy land in Russia, you were out of luck. They didn’t have anything for you…but that had tremendous opportunities in Moldova and Kazakhstan. You could get a house in Moldova, all you had to do was evict the Romanians living there and it could be yours. Or you could get a plot of land in the novo gorod being built in Kazakhstan. And the Americans would build your house for you! Luzhkov wanted to believe that the changes would be embraced by the ordinary Russian, but it was becoming clear to us that we had created a new Palestine. A new Tibet. A new Kazakhstan. It was never about private property with Zhirinovsky. It was always about Greater Russia. And Luzhkov was played by the master manipulator in turning the free market into the fascist market.
CNN interview with Jack Matlock, former ambassador to the USSR
August 18, 2000
CNN: How did Zhirinovsky so effectively hijack the reform movement and turn it into a weapon of Russian nationalism?
Matlock: Although he agreed with Alksnis on many issues, he needed to keep Alksnis on his toes lest he become too powerful. By supporting the liberal Luzhkov on this issue, he weakened the office of the presidency of the UDR and maintained the status quo that he really wanted, with a Prime Minister and President engaged in a deathly struggle for control of the UDR while he played kingmaker. Also, most politicians in Russia and the UDR saw how he nearly destroyed the goodwill the post-communist UDR picked up with the west after the war in Azerbaijan. They figured that as long as there were some reforms, some “privatization,” that the west would forget about Azerbaijan. Tragically for us, they were correct. The West fell in love with Zhirinovsky all over again after this.
CNN: How did he convince the hardliners who were opposed to privatization to come on board?
Matlock: By either creating new property in the form of a novo gorod, where it didn’t have to be privatized per se but just developed, or by taking it from a hostile republic like in Moldova. You notice that none of the State owned enterprises were nationalized in 1992 or 1993? It was all a sham, from the start. It was always about Russian nationalism and not true reform.
Kazakhstan goes to the polls as fears of terrorism rise
by Terry Davis
Detroit Free Press, November 8, 2004
Ethnic Kazakhs were detained in Astana today during the national elections
Kalashnikovgrad, Kazakhstan — In what was promised to be the first free and democratic election in Kazakhstan’s history, voters took to the polls today across the Republic. However, critics have already derided the election process as flawed. Despite promises of an election that would usher in a “new era of freedom and openness in Kazakhstan”, international observers are already condemning today’s elections in the second largest Republic in the UIS. International observers noted the flood of reports of government brutality and voter intimidation allegedly going on as Kazaks and Russians took to the polls today. Citing numerous terrorist threats, the “National Anti Terrorism Unit” of the UIS Federal Police Force (ATU-FPF) rounded up hundreds of “people of interest” in the hours leading up to the voting. Others found themselves detained and questioned as they approached voting centers. One Kazakh who elected not to vote told the Red Cross that a Russian neighbor warned him that “The ATU-FPF will assume that any Kazakh who goes out today is a terrorist wearing a suicide belt under his or her coat.” UIS President Alexander Lebed unveiled a plan earlier this year to loosen federal control over the outlying republics, giving hope to many ethnic Kazakhs that true democratic reform was soon to follow. Kazakhstan is one of only three Republic’s in the UIS in which Russians make up a majority of the population according to the most recent 1999 census. However, the contention that Russians are a majority in Kazakhstan remains a source of bitterness with ethnic Kazaks. At least 1.5 million Russians immigrated to Kazakhstan in early 1992 as part of what was referred to as the “White March” by then Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky. However, many Kazakhs criticized the government for creating the predominantly Russian settlements, including noted Kazakh nationalist leader Zharmakhan Tuyakbay, who famously dubbed it “free market fascism.”
The settlements, which are referred to as “novo gorods” in the UIS, popped up all over the northern regions of the Kazakhstan starting in 1992, predominantly in areas where Russians were already the majority. Inspired by government subsidies for free land and coupled with an influx of western money to assist in the building of the settlements, the “novo gorods” soon began accommodating not only ambitious Russians looking to capitalize on the free market reforms, but also extreme nationalists who made up part of “The Greater Russia Movement” as well as Russian refugees from other Central Asian Republics where Federal government control was tenuous. In the city of Kalashnikovgrad, over 100,000 residents claimed to have come from Tajikistan in the months following the catastrophe of Dushanbe, where ethnic Russians were targeted in a violent pogrom. However, many Kazakhs claim that the population numbers are grossly inflated, and that the novo gorods are used to disenfranchise the local Kazakh population.
Former President Carter condemns Kazak elections; claims massive voter fraud
December 1, 2004|By Scott Sutcliffe | Dallas Morning News
DUTOVGRAD, UIS — Former President Jimmy Carter said Saturday that monitors noted numerous serious violations during Kazakhstan’s elections last month, and called on UIS President Alexander Lebed and the international community to condemn the actions of the Liberal Democratic Party and to nullify the election results. However, President Lebed has indicated that the Kremlin found that the vote was generally acceptable and the irregularities won't impact the final results. He also indicated that he will not set aside the election results, raising fears that the Kazak Republic may descend into violence and ethnic strife, and dashing hopes for the emergence of democracy in the former Soviet Union.
The Atlanta-based Carter Center had 307 monitors at polling centers across Kazakhstan for the landmark vote — the first since longtime leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky was ousted last year in a mass uprising.
Carter said his group was not given access to voter lists, and that his observers were often denied access to voting centers. The Carter Center said in a statement that the observers were not able to review the ballots and compare them with voter lists in Russia, which they said "severely undermines the overall transparency of the election results."
Carter also cited reports coming out of the city of Dutovgrad, in northern Kazakhstan, where monitors witnessed hundreds of busses arriving from the north, and then dropping off what monitors claimed were thousands of people at voting centers.
“According to the most recent census in the UIS, Dutovgrad has a population of nearly 75,000 people,” Carter said in his report, “and yet all evidence indicates that the city’s population is at most 20,000 people. However, according to the most recent election, the city had nearly 65,000 voters turn out for the election. Clearly this is a cause for concern and should be seriously investigated by President Lebed and the international community.”
The city of Dutovgrad was one of nearly a hundred that sprung up across the UIS in 1992 when then President Zhirinovsky instituted privatization of government held property. It was named after a noted anti-communist general during the Russian Revolution, but like many of the “Novo Gorods” that sprung up in early 1992, they are widely criticized by international observers as means of disenfranchising non-Russians living in the UIS.
“If you look at Kazakhstan you can see the impact of the Novo Gorod,” commented Carter, “a country where the native Kazak population is now relegated to minority status, and further disenfranchised by a local government dominated by Russian émigrés who are imposing laws that look almost identical to the Jim Crow laws of the American South in the early 20th century.”
The official election results showed the Lebed-dominated Liberal Democratic Party capturing over 67% of the seats in the Kazakh Parliament, while the pro-Zhirinovsky Radical People’s Party captured 15%. The Kazakh Nur Otan party took third with 13% while the Bolshevik Party took 2%. Many supporters of the Azak Party, the second largest pro-independence party behind Nur Otan, called for a boycott of the election.
“We are second class citizens in our own country,” commented a young Kazakh man who wished to remain anonymous, “but sooner or later we will take control of our country again. And when that happens the first thing we will do is make sure those busses never come back.”
Younger Russians not opposed to leaving Kazakhstan
By James Wills
Washington Post
July 10, 2008
Yuri Dimitriov at his home in Yeltsingrad
(YELTSINGRAD, Kazakhstan) - For 29-year old Yuri Dimitriov, it was never about Russian nationalism or ethnic pride.
“It was always about money,” the construction worker said with a laugh, “there were no jobs in Russia, so I took up the offer to come here to help the Americans build this city. And I never left.”
Dimitriov, and the thousands like him, might just be the last hope for a lasting peace in the UIS Republic of Kazakhstan. He is one of a growing number of Russians who immigrated to Yeltsingrad, and Kalashnikovgrad, and hundreds of other newly constructed bastions of capitalism solely for financial purposes. He could not care less about the Greater Russia movement, and admits that he’d be happy to go back home to Moscow…for the right price.
“I own a home here in Yeltsingrad that would be the envy of many in America,” Dimitriov said as he showed off his swimming pool in the back yard, “and it cost me almost nothing. If I were to sell this and move to Moscow, I’d be lucky to afford a one bedroom apartment. But pay me for a house like this in Russia and give me a job in Russia and I’ll be happy to move. I don’t care where you send me, I’ll even move to Chechnya!”
Hopes for a negotiated settlement continue to stall over the status of the Russian émigrés, who number between one and two million. Along with ethnic Russians who lived in Kazakhstan prior to 1991, they make up over 55% of the total population and often are the most radical supporters of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the nationalist former President of the UIS. Most came from other republics in Central Asia where they were often targeted because of their ethnicity during the early years of the UDR and UIS, and many hold a deep-seated grudge against the native Asians in Kazakhstan. Others were Russians who made up what is still referred to as the Zhirinovsky Bloc: Radical nationalists who want to finalize their long held dream of turning the UIS into “Greater Russia.” However, more than a few are men like Yuri Dimitriov, men who jumped on favorable government subsidies and incentives who can just as easily be persuaded to leave. Kazakh nationalist leader Zharmakhan Tuyakbay recently suggested that, if independence is realized, that he would not oppose a plan that would pump over twenty billion USD into resettling those Russians who would be willing to relocate out of an independent Kazakhstan. However, others wonder if it will be enough.
“Even if the Turks can buy a few Russians with 30 pieces of silver, they will be replaced with 300 men who will fight any die for the Russian nation,” controversial politician Eduard Limonov said in a television debate recently.
Still, Dimitriov dismissed talks of violence from his fellow Russian.
“Limonov is one of a dying breed,” he laughed, “if only radicals lived here then this city wouldn’t have over 100,000 people living here. We care more for employment than rhetoric.”
Some estimate that over one million of the Russian émigrés might be economic migrants, who fled Russia during the years of economic turmoil after the West imposed sanctions on Zhirinovsky’s UIS. Many noted that the sanctions had the unintended consequence of strengthening the novo gorods in Kazakhstan and Moldova, since the government still subsidized the settlements even in the direst years of the Russian economic collapse, when hyperinflation and economic contraction were widespread.
“Hitler wouldn’t give up the concentration camps, even when they became a liability to the war effort,” commented Vladimir Putin in an interview with the BBC last year, “and Zhirinovsky wouldn’t give up the novo gorods even though we couldn’t afford them anymore. Those created more economic turmoil then the sanctions.”
It is a fact not lost on Dimitriov, who notes the resentment that Russians back in Moscow hold towards him.
“At first, they use to treat me like some great patriot whenever I went home,” Dimitriov said, “but then they started to resent me and try and pick fights with me on the street. I feel more worried about my safety in Moscow than I do in Astana.”
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Now that's rich. I have never heard of anything much like the "free market fascism" you came up with, and it actually seems scarily plausible, like many other parts of this TL. So the "Palestine Plan" is pretty much to spam Russians into non-Russian areas?
Would it be bad taste to have an event analogous to the Pussy Riot trial happen in alt-Russia? Not necessarily taking place in alt-2012, but perhaps under similar circumstances?
You know when Jimmy Carter denounces an election as unfair that's it. Do over or lose worldwide respect.
I feel sad for Kazakhstan. Independence may mean losing the whole northern half of the former SSR in order to half an ethnic majority in their state. And I imagine tiny Moldova is even worse. Like Kalingrad now.
How is Ukraine handling the UDR? It has a huge population and developed economy, making it the most capable of acting independent of Russia by far. Though Z's novo gorods in Moldova and the large Russian minority in it's eastern half dangerously box it in...
I was just listening to an NPR story on the close relationship between the Russian state and the Orthodox Church patriarch. ITTL it'll be interesting to see that dynamic play out with Mad Vlad.
I feel sad for Kazakhstan. Independence may mean losing the whole northern half of the former SSR in order to half an ethnic majority in their state. And I imagine tiny Moldova is even worse. Like Kalingrad now.
How is Ukraine handling the UDR? It has a huge population and developed economy, making it the most capable of acting independent of Russia by far. Though Z's novo gorods in Moldova and the large Russian minority in it's eastern half dangerously box it in...
I was just listening to an NPR story on the close relationship between the Russian state and the Orthodox Church patriarch. ITTL it'll be interesting to see that dynamic play out with Mad Vlad.