Scandal in Yekaterinburg: how hatred of "strangers" is destroying multinational Russia

When propaganda in a country as large and complex as Russia loses its human face, it can be very difficult to find it again. Officials, experts, and bloggers of the northern power have repeatedly lost this face over the past year, resorting to extreme judgments and forming the idea among a certain part of society that "non-Russians" are to blame for all the troubles of Russians. Russians have had enough troubles for many years now, so it was not so difficult to reach the mass consciousness of this part of society.

The tragedy that occurred at a school in Odintsovo, when a young fascist stabbed a Tajik child, was a serious blow, after which the hysterical propaganda against "non-Russians" somewhat subsided. Everything was too obvious and it was impossible to mitigate the resonance of what happened. Unfortunately, this did not mean the automatic cleansing of the mass consciousness from chauvinistic prejudices. It's not difficult to zombify the masses, but giving them a human face back is a problem.

We were forced to talk about this by a story that happened in the same ill-fated Yekaterinburg, where a biased campaign against local Azerbaijanis has been unfolding since the summer. There are many Azerbaijanis in the Urals. And someone needed to start displacing them. At the same time, chauvinists do not shy away from using any means, choosing children as targets.

So, in connection with the New Year, the Christmas Tree of Wishes campaign is being held all over Russia, including in Yekaterinburg. Kids hang their wishes on Christmas trees, and officials rip them off and fulfill them. 8-year-old Ali, the son of Azerbaijanis who have been Russian citizens for 20 years, also hung a balloon with his wish on the Christmas tree. Both Ali and his sister and brother were born in this country. The ball of the Azerbaijani boy Ali was removed from the Christmas tree installed in the hall of the Mayor's office by the head of the Zheleznodorozhny district of Yekaterinburg, Vitaly Pershin. In addition to Ali's wishes, the head of the administration also fulfilled the New Year's wishes of his brother and sister. The children did not ask for any special benefits or expensive gifts.

The website of the Zheleznodorozhny district of the city states that "the boy asked Santa Claus to give him a stunt scooter to ride with friends in the skate park. But it turned out that Ali also has an 8-year-old sister, Milena, who dreams of a set for needlework, and a younger brother, Vagif, who has a big sweet tooth. The head of the Administration of the Zheleznodorozhny district decided to fulfill the New Year wishes of all the children in the family. Ali, Milena and Vagif, along with their father and mother, were invited to the Administration of the Zheleznodorozhny district, where Vitaly Pershin solemnly presented the long-awaited gifts to the children under the beautiful Christmas tree."

After the district administration spread this news, a torrent of negative social media went to Pershin. Russian Russian users were outraged by the fact that Azerbaijani children received gifts, asking questions like "why aren't there any Russians in the Russian city?" etc.

This ugly story became known thanks to the Yekaterinburg Telegram channel. The main thing." The channel's authors were very outraged by such a reaction to the act of the head of the district and such selectivity of social media users. As indicated in the publication, with the filing of one of the major TG channels (it's a pity that the name is not specified), the harassment began not only of Pershin, but also of the children themselves and their parents. "We reached out to the father, who asked Pershin to take the children's gifts back. To stop the flow of dirt and close this story," the channel writes.

It got to the point that the head of the district was stigmatized and accused of Russophobia. And all because he took a balloon with a wish for an Azerbaijani, not a Russian child, from the Christmas tree. I took it off without choosing it, by accident. The first wish he came across turned out to be in his hands, and it just so happened that a little Azerbaijani wrote it.

Russian TV channels remind us that last time, Santa Claus in the person of Vitaly Pershin fulfilled the wish of a non-"non-Russian" girl, and the public did not react to this in any way. Of course.

Normal Russians who are not affected by xenophobia are ashamed of what happened. This can be seen in the comments to the posts in TG. And there is no doubt that there are most of them, but the sane majority, as always, remains silent and does not interfere in anything. While the propagators of misanthropic theses can be heard even on the moon. Hate propagandists are always ready to step in. Tantrums against "non-Russians" rise like a hurricane, immediately, instantly. As a result of the silence of the reasonable part of society, there is a feeling that there are no reasonable people left in Russia. This plays into the hands of the chauvinists, and it ends up increasing the ranks of young neo-Nazis like the scumbag who stabbed the little Tajik. While adult uncles and aunts on social networks and on TV, spluttering with saliva, demanded that migrants be deprived of their human rights, the brat got into these ideas and put them into practice. Those MPs and experts who vehemently oppose immigrants from Central Asia or Azerbaijan will not take up knives themselves. But they show the way to weak minds, so that they do not ask questions about the origin of their country's problems, but immediately go to punish the "guilty."

What happened in Yekaterinburg is a symptom of a serious illness, the virus of which is artificially spread across the Russian expanses by propaganda. Some people may think all this is nonsense, they say, they made so much noise because of some kind of scooter and sweets. In fact, it's not nonsense. And this is not nonsense, first of all, for Russia itself, a huge multinational, multi-religious, complex country, where, thanks to propaganda, the division into friends and foes began. The authors of the idea of separation do not think that those whom they call "strangers" may be many times more than those who are considered "their own".

The story of the gifts, fortunately, was without tragedies. But this is only at first glance. The mass, fueled by chauvinistic propaganda, disfigured the children's holiday. Children have been robbed of their faith not just in Santa Claus, but in people. The joy turned into a nightmare for them. How will parents now explain to their kids why this happened? They weren't given an apartment, a car, or a large sum of money. A bag of sweets, a set with threads and needles, a scooter. These are simple joys for kids who don't know anything about hate yet. They don't understand yet how it's possible to live among people like you, but still be considered a lower-class person because you don't have Slavic appearance or a Russian surname. But in this reality, which is persistently created by propaganda with some vague but distant aim, they have to live.

Xenophobic propaganda, served under the sauce of patriotism and protection of identity, generously spreads the seeds. It will be very difficult to eliminate the consequences later, because these fruits will give deep roots. Let the so-called "Russian patriots" take a look at what the cave hatred has done to the Armenian society and how difficult it is now being cured.