Racism in Russia

Official attitudes towards African people were generally neutral during the Soviet Union, because of its internationalist agenda.[24] As a part of its support of decolonization of Africa, the Soviet Union offered free education for citizens of African states.[25] 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.[26]

In 2006, some exchange students claimed, "monkey" insults were so frequent that students ceased reporting them. [27]

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, 100 kilometres (62 mi) north of Moscow.

In 2013, Member of Duma Irina Rodnina has publicly posted a picture showing Obama with a banana on Twitter.[28]

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.[29][30] They were then forced to issue an apology later.[31]

In mid-2016, after tensions rose between the U.S. 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.[32][33][34] The company, which stated that the ice cream was not intended to be political, halted production of the line shortly after the controversy arose.[35]

Tatarophobia towards Crimean Tatars was state-enforced during the Soviet era through the racially-based special settlement system, which curfewed the deported Crimean Tatar nation into small perimeters within Central Asia and the Mari ASSR and deprived them of a variety of civil liberties that other peoples had.[36][37] 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.[38]

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.[39][40] While the word black in itself is not racist, the racist synonym for it is "chernozhopy" (черножо́пый, trans. black arsed).[41] 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.[42]

On 21 April 2001, there was a pogrom in a market in Moscow's Yasenevo District against merchants from the Caucasus.[43] 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.[44] In September 2006, major ethnic tensions between Russians and Caucasians took place in Kondopoga.[45] In 2006, the crisis in Georgia–Russia relations resulted in the deportation of Georgians from Russia.[46] The Russian side explained the process as law enforcement towards illegal immigrants, whereas the Georgian government accused Russia of ethnic cleansing.[47] 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.[48]

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.[49] The trigger was the murder of Egor Sviridov, a Russian association football fan, in a street fight on 6 December.[50] 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.[51] 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.[52] Later, the police chief in Moscow said that civil liberties were a hindrance in security and that migration should be restricted.[53] 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."[51]

In 2016, Kyrgyzstan's President Almazbek Atambayev urged Russians to show respect to his countrymen after an assault on two migrants in Moscow.[54]

On 11 January 2006, Alexander Koptsev burst into Bolshaya Bronnaya Synagogue in Moscow and stabbed eight people with a knife.[55] In March, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison.[56] In 2008, allegations of blood libel appeared in posters in Novosibirsk.[57] 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.[58]

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.[59]

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.[60]

In October 2004 Russian skinheads stabbed and beat a Vietnamese student named Vu Anh Tuan, killing him.[61][62][63][64][65][66] 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.[67]

In Moscow on Festivalnaya Street in 2008 group of young men stabbed a Vietnamese woman who was 35 years old and she died of her wounds.[68]

In 2005 in Moscow, three Russians stabbed a 45-year-old Vietnamese man named Quan to death.[69][70]

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".[71][72]

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.[73][74][75][76][77][78]

• On 19 June 2004, Nikolai Girenko, a prominent ethnologist and adviser in 15 ethnic hate crime trials, was shot to death in his Saint Petersburg apartment.[99] On 14 June 2011, members of neo-Nazi gang Mad Crowd were sentenced to jail for a number of killings including Girenko.[95]
• On 13 November 2005, murder of Timur Kacharava, a Russian anti-fascist of Georgian descent took place.[100] On 7 August 2007, Alexander Shabalin was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his murder.[101]
• On 19 January 2009, while leaving a news conference, a human rights lawyer and journalist Stanislav Markelov was gunned down in Moscow.[102] Anastasia Baburova, a journalist for Novaya Gazeta who tried to come to Markelov's assistance, was also shot and killed in the attack.[103] On 6 May 2011, the court sentenced two radical nationalists, Nikita Tikhonov and his girlfriend Yevgenia Khasis, to life imprisonment and 18 years in prison, respectively.[104]
• On 16 November 2009, Ivan Khutorskoy, former punk singer and head of security for anti-fascist shows, was killed in a suburb of Moscow.[105] He was known for organizing self-defense classes for anti-fascists individuals and providing security at press conferences of Stanislav Markelov.[106]

On 21 August 2006, a home–made bomb exploded in Moscow at the Cherkizovsky Market, which is frequented by foreign merchants.[107] On 15 May 2008, eight people of Russian radical nationalist organization Spas were found guilty for their roles in the attack that left 14 dead.[108] Semyon Charny from the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights says: "The fact that this case found its way to court, and the example of people sentenced to life for the Cherkizovo market blast shows that we are moving in the right direction – but there's still a lot to do."

Execution of a Tajik and a Dagestani (Russian: Казнь таджика и дагестанца) is a video clip that was distributed in the Russian Internet segment in August 2007, showing the beheading of a Russian citizen of Dagestani origin and the shooting of a Tajik immigrant by Russian neo-nazis.

The video sparked active discussions in the Russian media. On 17 March 2008, the District Court of Novgorod ruled the video as extremist, and banned its distribution in the Russian Federation.[109]

The video was posted on behalf of the National Socialist Party of Rus' (Russian: Национал-социалистической партии Руси) on the personal livejournal blog of Adygean college student Viktor Milnikov.[110] After a few days, he was arrested and later sentenced to one year of corrective labour by Maykop court.[111]

On 5 June 2008, scenes of decapitation on video were identified as authentic by the Russian Investigation Committee.[112] On the same day, one of the victims on the footage was identified by his relatives as Shamil Odamanov, a native of Dagestan.[113]