A.ABRAMIAN: PROBLEM OF ETHNIC TENSION REALLY EXIST IN RUSSIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
21.12.2006 16:41 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The main cause of ethnic and religious tension in
Russia is in the fact, that many ethnic groups in Russia continue
to look for national identity, said Ara Abramian, the head of CAR
(Council of Armenians of Russia) during an interview to The Novoye
Russkoye Slovo. In his words, first of all it concerns to Russians,
who, being the core of the Soviet Empire, are trying to define their
place in the Russian State, their interests and goals and build new
relations with other ethnic groups.

"The problem really exists. We can just take the latest example
of obstruction towards people with Georgian nationality. Or the
long-playing problem of monopolization in the food markets by
Azeris. All those issues create a negative background both in home and
foreign policy and harm Russia’s reputation," he stressed. Alongside,
the head of CAR underlined that traditionally Armenians beginning
from soviet times not only were adopted in all those systems, but
also were part of their elite. If we touch the adaptation problems we
can speak about the integration of Armenians of the new wave. The 5th
part of 2.5 million Armenians living in Russia make the so-called new
migrants, who have Armenian passports. And just those we, the Council
of Armenians of Russia, assist first of all. People come from Georgia
to Russia because of the conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia,
from Azerbaijan, fearing from probable new war between Armenians and
Azeris. To tell the truth, the integration process of new migrants
has not gone and is not going without problems. Say, in 1990-ies we
were having serious conflicts with Cossacks in Krasnodar and Stavropol
Territories. But thanks to CAR’s active mediation the degree of that
opposition was greatly decreased. I think, that we would not have such
results, if our organization did not have chambers in 70 regions and
300 towns," Abramian said.