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    </NOINDEX>Photo: Reuters

Photo: Reuters
Racism in Russian

Created: 05.07.2005 19:28 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 19:29 MSK > document.write(get_ago(1120577342)); </SCRIPT> , 17 hours 40 minutes ago

Alexei Terekhov, Anastasia Berseneva

Novyie Izvestia

On Sunday in Voronezh a citizen of Rwanda studying at a local institute was beaten and robbed. This is just another episode in a long chain of attacks on foreign students that happen in various Russian cities almost every day.

Three months ago, Novyie Izvestia wrote that many young people having come from Africa and Asia to study are ready to leave Russia forever unless law enforcement here starts taking their security seriously. Since then, a large number of students, paying considerable money for their education, have left the country. However, it turned out that federal authorities consider the problem exaggerated in the minds of the public, and do not intend to take special measures to protect foreign students.

“It only seems as though the number of attacks against foreign citizens has increased, but in reality there are fewer of them,” a high-placed source in the Interior Ministry told Novyie Izvestia on conditions of anonymity. “The problem is that practically every incident involving a foreign student gets wide public resonance, and that’s why it seems there are so many.”

A number of embassies, however, would find that arguable. “We continuously remind our students that they are under a constant threat,” said a representative of the Indian embassy. “Every April we send out a special letter to schools and colleges where we warn about neo-Nazi aggression. Even in India they know about attacks on students, the press writes about it all the time. And that is why citizens of our country refuse to go to Russia. But a lot of students, despite their fear, still travel to Russia. Higher education is valued in India, especially medical education....”

A representative at the Guinea-Bisau embassy said that the diplomats are also informed about frequent attacks on students, as well as the students themselves. Still, they inform newly arrived students of the danger. “We warn them, give them advice on how to act, not to go out late at night, avoid conflicts,” a source at the embassy said. “But what can a young person do if he is attacked by a whole crowd?”

The Federal Education Agency, which advises foreign students, is aware of the problem, but talk about the issue with care. “We have no instructions on providing security to foreign students, and it is not our duty to inform them of any danger,” said international education vice director Viktor Petrenko. “This is the job of law enforcement authorities and embassies. After all, we can’t tell students that they’re going to get killed here. We only send out lists of necessary documents, medical information, and the amount of money they need to take with them.”

Education officials admit that regular attacks against students can provoke massive departures. “Many are already picking up their documents and asking to be transfered. So far, only to other cities. A majority of these requests are coming from Voronezh and Rostov,” said Petrenko. “However, apart from attacks, students’ decisions are also influenced by other factors. For example, after the fire at the International Friendship University many picked up their documents and returned to their home countries. But the number of people who want to study in Russia is not decreasing, if not increasing. Every year, foreign students bring about $200 million into Russia. And we have to admit that if there’s a massive withdrawal, this number will decrease. But right now this is not happening.”

The <NOBR>State Duma</NOBR> also believes that so far the issue of providing security to foreign students has not reached the federal level.

“There is a security problem with foreign students in separate regions, in Moscow and Voronezh, for example,” said Viktor Ilyukhin, deputy chairman of the parliamentary security committee. “But on a whole, there is no such problem in Russia. In Siberia, for example, guests are treated warmly, it’s calm there. So it’s not necessary to view students as a specific category needing special protection. All the problems should be resolved on a regional level.”

Although Voronezh has good grounds to be counted among the most dangerous cities for foreign students, while local racists and hooligans attack anyone from Africans to Chinese to French, Voronezh authorities have no realistic program for protecting them. Plans are very broad and are mostly words, while representatives in the mayor’s office and the police cannot name any measures to prevent attacks.

No massive departure of students from Voronezh has yet been noticed. But two Chinese students who survived an attack by football hooligans said that they’re leaving for their vacation, and they don’t know if they’ll return to Voronezh or not.

“Attacks against students in Rostov happen constantly. Only the police doesn’t care,” said Alex, a black student from Congo. “Recently skinheads broke into a dormitory of a medical university. They blocked the front door and beat up anyone who didn’t hide. We didn’t call the police – we know from experience that it’s useless.”

However, the rector of the Rostov Medical University, Viktor Chernyshov, rushed to assure Novyie Izvestia that law enforcement authorities guard the dormitory. In response to that, the student laughed: “A policeman appeared only after the June 4 incident,” he said. “Before that, there was no one but a woman porter.”

“We have documented complaints of racism from foreign students,” said a source at the local police precinct. “But you have to understand that we can’t put a policeman beneath every window.”

“When I was coming to Russia, I couldn’t imagine that just because my skin is black, I was someone’s enemy,” said Lamar Crawford, an African American from Pennsylvania who is studying Russian at the Volgograd State University. “I can’t say I’m afraid to study here. But it is scary to go out at night.”

In Vladivostok, it’s usually Chinese and Japanese students that come under attack. In March of 2002, Japanese student Furakawa Takasi was found killed in his own apartment. Three days earlier, he had met three young people, who later killed him for his camera and lap top. After the incident, a part of the foreign students at the Far East State University picked up their things and went back home. The next year, the university experienced a shortage of students – many simply refused to come to Vladivostok.

But one of the most dangerous places for foreign students is St. Petersburg. After the killing of Vietnamese student Wu An Tuan, his teacher, Natalia Rusakova, said that the attacks have been going on for years.

In early March, the foreign students sent an open letter to the St. Petersburg governor, the regional police chief, and the prosecutor, telling of yet another attack on three students from the Pavlov Medical University on February 22, on the same block where Wu An Tuan was killed. The students demanded that at least a police post be set up on the square, so that those under attack knew whom to turn to for help. But neither the police, nor prosecutors, nor university authorities have taken any measures.

The full original, in Russian, can be found here.

http://www.mosnews.com/feature/2005/07/05/nazi.shtml