The more things change, the more they remain the same.
That appears to be the case in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, where officials are employing the centuries-old practices of anti-Semitism and employing Cossacks to impose law and order on the region’s minorities.
Indeed, the situation has gotten so bad that an advisory body to Russian President Boris Yeltsin recently called for federal authorities to intervene.
The most recent of these practices occurred when Krasnodar authorities refused to return a building to the Jewish community that once housed a synagogue.
The city’s only synagogue, built in the 1880s, was confiscated by the Communist authorities in 1936.
In a recent letter to the city’s Jewish community, officials said Jews could not lay claim to the synagogue because the Jewish community was disbanded by the authorities in 1950.
Yuri Teitelbaum, who heads the Krasnodar chapter of the Russian Jewish Congress, said this reasoning is “ridiculous.”
The real reason for the decision is that officials in Krasnodar — as both the city and region are known — do not want to return houses of worship to minority groups, Teitelbaum said in a telephone interview. He added that the Russian Orthodox Church has regained most of its properties in the city.
The move is just the latest troubling decision emanating from Nikolai Kondratenko.
Kondratenko, 58, who was elected governor of this largely agricultural region on the Black Sea in December 1996, heads an anti-reform alliance of ultranationalists, Communists and Cossacks. The coalition has moved quickly to impose Soviet-style rule over its 5.5 million residents.
Human rights activists have charged that official racism has run rampant in Krasnodar since Kondratenko’s election.
Kondratenko has adopted a new regional charter that declares Krasnodar the “place of residence for the [ethnic] Russian people.”
The local government has employed some 300,000 Cossack troops to enforce law and order. The Cossacks, a group whose traditional rights and paramilitary formations have been recognized by Yeltsin, often inflict violence and intimidation against non-Russian minorities.
The Cossacks, who descend from escaped serfs, led pogroms against Jews during czarist times.
An October 1997 report by the Russian human rights group Memorial condemned Krasnodar officials for “encouraging radical nationalist groups,” including the Cossacks and “inciting them to violence” against ethnic minorities.
Some 20,000 Meskhetian Turks living in the area have been among the prime targets of intimidation. Members of this historically persecuted group are denied basic rights in Krasnodar — they cannot register their marriages and are refused access to social service programs, for example.
Krasnodar’s Jewish leaders say the 3,000 Jews here have received better treatment than other ethnic and religious minority groups. Several Jewish institutions have been officially recognized by the authorities and are functioning openly.
“We try not to pay attention to the rhetoric [Kondratenko] is using,” says Galina Gonik, director of the Krasnodar Jewish Culture Center.
But that rhetoric is decidedly anti-Semitic.
People close to Kondratenko say he strongly believes in the existence of a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world.
Addressing a recent youth conference, Kondratenko said the essence of Russian history is the Russian battle against Jewish domination.
He blamed Zionists for the recent war in the southern Russian breakaway republic of Chechnya, for the destruction of the Communist Party, for attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church and for introducing homosexuality in Russia.
He added that Jews and Zionists control the mass media and the Kremlin, and he charged that Jewish women were on a secret mission to marry Russian men to ensure that the children will be Zionists.
“Jews have not become objects of violence yet,” the Jewish community’s Teitelbaum said. “But anything can happen when the governor publicly incites the people to violence.”
Last September, the Russian Jewish Congress sent a letter to the Kremlin denouncing Kondratenko’s overt anti-Semitism — Russian officials have yet to respond.
But his comments have not gone unnoticed in Moscow.
His recent youth conference speech generated front-page reports in Russian newspapers.
“The speech, which is typical for Kondratenko, was addressed to the young people and therefore poses a threat to the present and future of Russia,” said Izvestia, a leading Moscow daily newspaper.
Repeated warnings from Russian, Jewish and international human rights groups about the situation have drawn the attention of the Human Rights Chamber of the Russian president’s Political Consultative Council, an advisory body.
Earlier this year, the chamber organized hearings on the situation of ethnic and religious minorities in Krasnodar.
The chamber — which consists of lawmakers and human-rights activists – – demanded that Russian law enforcement agencies intervene in Krasnodar and that criminal proceedings be launched against those responsible for persecuting Krasnodar’s minorities.
Experts say, however, that it is unlikely the Kremlin will take these steps. The Kremlin has never criticized Kondratenko’s ultranationalist views and he remains one of the strongest supporters of Yeltsin in Russia’s provinces.
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