Resolution of the 3th Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples of the Russian Federation
30.10.05
 We the delegates of the 3rd Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples of the
Russian Federation, having heard the report of Executive Committee of the
all-Russian popular movement The Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples of
the Russian Federation as well as the speeches of delegates and participants
in the Congress, establish the following:
The Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples has virtually stopped its activities
after the 2nd Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples of the Russian Federation
held in Kudymkar (Permian Komi Autonomous District) in 1995. This may be
explained, above all, by the active work of the international Consultative
Committee of Finno-Ugric Peoples who, in cooperation with administrations
of Finno-Ugric regions of Russia, participates in programs launched by
the Finno-Ugric countries of Finland, Hungary and Estonia to support their
kindred peoples in Russia by promoting the development of their language
and culture and strengthening the cooperation between all Finno-Ugric peoples;
While the right of peoples to self-determination, unambiguously treated
in international law as the right to freely determine their political
status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development,
is recognized in the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the recent
political reforms tend to establish mechanisms of the managed democracy
and to strengthen the role of political parties in both federal and regional
bodies. Since there are currently no legislative mechanisms to ensure the
appropriate representation of indigenous peoples and national minorities
in elective bodies, this policy has considerably restricted the possibilities
of representatives of the Finno-Ugric peoples to effectively participate
in the government and to influence the decision-making in legislative and
executive bodies at all levels;
In this situation, the task of developing the all-Russian identity
as a basis for consolidating the multiethnic population of Russia into
a united political nation, declared at the federal level, has been perceived
by a part of the political elite as a signal to start eradicating etnicity
in all spheres of public life. This has had its impact:
- on the decisions of federal authorities stripping nongovermental
associations of peoples of the right to directly nominate their candidates
for elective bodies, thus limiting the opportunities of ethnic minorities
to protect themselves by political means;
- on the right of a persons to have his or her ethnic origin indicated
in the identification documents, as stipulated in the Constitution of the
Russian Federation;
- on the reduction of indicators concerning ethnic issues in the public
statistics;
- on the liquidation of the federal body responsible for implementing
the Concept of the Nationalies Policy of the Russian Federation and the
legislative protection of indigenous peoples and national minorities;
- on merging some autonomous regions that were established in the 1930s
to foster the development of small indigenous peoples, into larger administrative
units without giving clearly defined guarantees that these newly established
units of the Federation would implement the constitutional obligations
concerning the preservation and development of their languages and cultures;
All this has seriously undermined the emerging system of public regulation
of interethnic relations, required by the multiethnic character of the
Russian state. The ground was thus laid for liquidation of institutions
responsible for the nationalities policy in some areas of settlement of
Finno-Ugric peoples, or for reorientation of those institutions to merely
organizing traditional festivals and formally supporting cultural organizations
loyal to the local authorities, without the due attention to the needs
of social and economic development of local communities in their traditional
territories;
The situation of Finno-Ugric peoples, who are now minorities in their
own territories, has become in many respects dependent on the attitudes
of and the methods used by their regional authorities in regard to ethnic
policy, as well as on how active are nongovermental organizations who support
the interests of Finno-Ugric peoples. The constitutional principle of the
equality of rights of Russias peoples has thus been undermined and, as
concerns the realization of their legitimate ethnocultural needs, the actual
inequality has been created between peoples and ethnic minorities who have
different status, as well as between groups of same people living in different
regions. In this situation, most vulnerable are those small peoples who
cannot maintain their ethnic entity exclusively by their own means and
who have no mechanisms to protect their interests before authorities at
all levels;
In this connection, the Finno-Ugric peoples deemed it urgent to convene
this Congress of their representatives to discuss these problems and to
seek adequate solutions for improving the coordination among regional nongovernmental
organizations and associations in Russia who support the observance of
rights and freedoms of Finno-Ugric peoples, and to improve their cooperation
with federal and regional authorities.
Having discussed and analysed the current situation, the Congress
decided:
1. To intensify the work of the Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples of
the Russian Federation aimed at protecting the rights and interests of
the peoples and ethnic minorities of Russia; to involve the youth in the
work of the Association;
2. To support the initiative of establishing a public advisory council
of Finno-Ugric experts at the Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples of the
Russian Federation, whose purpose would be to evaluate the interethnic
relations in Finno-Ugric regions of Russia and to determine the factors
adversely affecting the ethnic development of Finno-Ugric peoples and causing
reduction of their number. The results of researches and the recommendations
to prevent depopulation of Finno-Ugric peoples must be announced to the
general public and the authorities;
3. To develop ties with national and international organizations, both
governmental and nongovernmental, whose activities promote the ethnic development
of Finno-Ugric peoples, help to strengthen the cooperation between kindred
peoples and protect their legitimate interests;
4. To offer a candidate, on behalf of the Association, to the Public
Council of the Russian Federation and to the National Organizing Committee
of the 2nd International Decade of the Worlds Indigenous Peoples proclaimed
by the United Nations for 2005-2015;
5. To initiate a dialogue with all interested parties for settling the
issues of estimation and compensation of the damage to the environment
and the traditional way of life caused by industrial development of natural
resources;
6. To consider the opportunities to launch an all-Russian Finno-Ugric
newspaper;
7. Within a month, to develop an action plan for 2005-2008 proceeding
from the decisions and proposals by delegates of the Congress.
To recommend the Government of the Russian Federation, and the legislative
and executive bodies of the units of the Russian Federation:
1. To enter the State Duma with the following draft federal laws:
- On the Commissioner on the Rights of Peoples of the Russian
Federation;
- On Ratification of the European Charter of Regional And Minority Languages
of the Council of Europe, signed by the Government of Russia on May 10,
2001;
- On the Status of Representative Institutions of Peoples of the Russian
Federation;
- as well as the amendments: introducing the concept indigenous people
; changing the status of the so-called small indigenous peoples currently
limited to no more than 50 thousand; amending the Law of the Russian Federation
On Public Associations;
2. To strengthen the public regulation of interethnic relations by establishing
a federal executive authority on federation policy and interethnic relations,
manned with the qualified staff including representatives of units of the
Russian Federation;
3. To restore the item Nationalities Policy of the State in the federal
budget. Considering that a large part of the Finno-Ugric population of
Russia are settled outside their administrative or territorial units, to
allot resourses from the federal budget for the aims of supporting and
developing the cultures, languages and traditions of Finno-Ugric peoples
through federal target programs carried out by specialized executive bodies;
4. To charge the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation
with the tasks:
- to launch, with the participation of nongovernmental organizations
of peoples, the monitoring of implementation of the federal and regional
legislations in respect to indigenous peoples, and of the observance of
their rights according to international norms;
- to prepare, jointly with the Executive Committee of the all-Russian
popular movement The Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples of the Russian
Federation, a federal program of ethnic and cultural development of Finno-Ugric
peoples of the Russian Federation;
- to evaluate the progress of the reform of local self-government, and
the results of the so-called optimization of subsidised institutions funding,
with the purpose to prevent closing down small schools in the areas of
traditional settlement of Finno-Ugric peoples;
- to develop a mechanism for the dialogue between indigenous peoples
and interested parties, aimed at launching regional economic development
programs and making ethnologic and environment analyses by public as well
as nongovernmental organizations, with the focus also on issues of providing
jobs in traditional branches of economy and increasing the agricultural
production;
5. To charge the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation with the
task to discuss, jointly with nongovernmental organizations of Finno-Ugric
peoples and experts, the strategy of the education reform and its influence
on the situation of local languages, particularly where the native language
is taught at schools as a separate subject because of the rapid assimilation
or is not currently taught at all;
6. To charge the Ministry of Culture and Mass Media of the Russian Federation
with the tasks:
- to consider an increase in radio and television broadcasting
in local languages by the VGTRK (the All-Russia State TV and Radio Company);
- to provide information on the Collection of Cultural Heritage of Finno-Ugric
and Samoyed Peoples, reportedly under compilation at the Ministry of Culture
and Mass Media, as announced by head of the delegation of the Russian Federation
at the 4th World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples;
7. To urge the State Committee for Statistics to recommence the annual
statistical registration of social, economic and demographic parameters
of Finno-Ugric peoples and ethnic groups who are at the stage of depopulation.
Moscow, 14 October 2005
Translated from
Russian into English by Valeri Kalabugin
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