President Vladimir Putin has tried to exploit the underlying xenophobia, casting himself as a leader defending a special country — built on Christian Orthodox tradition — from a predatory and dissolute world. At the same time, he sounds inclusive regarding the 10 percent of the population that identifies as Muslim, speaking of Russia as a tolerant and multicultural society. It’s a feat of balance that is beginning to show deep strains.
In mid-October, ethnic Russians rioted at a vegetable market in the southern Moscow neighborhood of Biryulyovo, hunting down mostly Muslim migrants from within Russia and without to attack. The unrest was set off by the killing of an ethnic Russian, but it revealed a deep sense of resentment among the young and underemployed.
On Oct. 24, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a populist member of the lower house of parliament and head of the Liberal Democratic Party, told the main television channel that the North Caucasus — a part of Russian territory containing Dagestan and Chechnya — should be fenced off with barbed wire. Births there of a third child should be taxed, he said, to discourage large families.
The Day of National Unity, which Putin made a holiday in 2005 to replace the annual celebration of the Bolshevik Revolution, officially commemorates the victory over Poles who invaded Moscow in 1612. It was meant to inspire Russians, reminding them how they came together as a people to overcome a foreign enemy.
Instead, Nov. 4 has become a day for "Russian Marches” where the black-and-gold flag of the old Russian Empire is raised along with Orthodox banners and the occasional swastika by marchers chanting "Russia for Russians” along with anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish slogans.
The Moscow Russian March this year drew a crowd police estimated at 8,000, fewer than expected as a cold, slanting rain kept up a steady assault. Police detained about 30 people for wearing masks or carrying swastikas and other banned objects.
A poll by the independent Levada Center in October found that 66 percent supported the idea of Russia for Russians. So far, only a few lonely voices have been speaking up to counter the simmering ethnic tension, including Mikhail Prokhorov, the billionaire owner of the Brooklyn Nets, who urged people to stay away from Russian Marches.
Last week, a wealthy businessman named Viktor Bondarenko said he was forming a new party called Russia for All to combat racism and extreme nationalism.
