Putin cracks down against calls for greater autonomy in Siberia [View all]
Source: GlobalPost
Dan Peleschuk October 28, 2014 00:21
NOVOSIBIRSK, Russia — When Alexander Bakayev mentions Moscow or any other city west of the Ural Mountains, he speaks of “Russia” as if it were another country.
This place, some 1,800 miles east of the capital, is simply “Siberia.”
“Siberians are different,” says the social activist and filmmaker. “They stand out.”
People here have felt freer from Moscow’s control for centuries.
Just don’t tell the Kremlin, which is trying to ensure any notions of regional freedom stay well within a small circle of artists and activists lobbying for greater recognition — political, cultural and otherwise — for this vast Russian expanse.
Despite Moscow’s support for the separatist rebels who have seized swaths of eastern Ukraine and demanded independence, officials have made it clear they’ll tolerate no such movement at home by stifling even the faintest calls for more rights in Russia’s regions.
Read more: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/russia/141024/siberia-novosibirsk-activists-federalization-putin
Czar Vlad doin' his thing. Again.
= new reply since forum marked as read