Window on Eurasia -- New Series

Monday, June 2, 2025

Tyva, Praised by Putin for Its High Birthrate, Plagued by Flood of Underground Abortions

Paul Goble

Staunton, May 30 – Tyva, a Buddhist republic east of the Urals, has one of the highest birthrates of any federal subject and has been praised by Vladimir Putin for that. One reason that its birthrate is so high, he and others appear to believe, is that at present, Tyvan women can get abortions at only one clinic there.

But a new study by the Wind Project which tracks women’s health finds that what the absence of medical facilities to get legal abortions has led to is a growing number of underground abortions women are performing on themselves with drugs they obtain via the internet (veter.info/posts/2LeplejbeHbH reposted at novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/05/30/na-kazhdom-shagu-vashi-tabletki).

Many of these medications do not in fact lead to abortions and often leave the women with more serious medical problems, especially because they are taken secretly and without medical supervision. The Wind Project report thus documents what is likely to be the real consequence of the Putin regime’s war on legal abortions: more suffering and more tragedies.

Sunday, June 1, 2025

The Other Tatars of Ukraine

Paul Goble

Staunton, May 30 – When anyone speaks about the Tatars of Ukraine, they almost invariably focus on the Crimean Tatars. But there are other Tatars in that country, although their numbers, once large and important in many cities have declined since the disintegration of the USSR with many having emigrated either to Tatarstan or the West.

In its continuing survey of Tatars living beyond the borders of Tatarstan, the Milliard.Tatar portal has now featured an article on these other Tatars in Ukraine and their numbers from the late nineteenth century to today (milliard.tatar/news/tatary-na-ukraine-perepisi-rossiiskoi-imperii-i-sssr-7570).

Of the quarter million Tatars who lived in Ukraine at the end of the 19^th century, approximately 30,000 were Tatars from the Middle Volga and Siberia. They mostly came in search of work but some, especially in the Donbass, decided to settle permanently. And as early as 1905, this Tatar community built a mosque in Kharkhiv.

In the first Soviet census in 1926, these Tatars were counted separately from the Crimean Tatars and numbered 22,281. As migrant workers from what had become the RSFSR, they were disproportionately male. By 1937, their number had increased slightly to 24,242. The larger figures from the 1939 Soviet census were clearly falsifications.

The 1959 Soviet census counted 61,527 Tatars, of which only 193 were Crimean Tatars. The overwhelming majority of the latter remained in Central Asia to which they had been deported by Stalin. And in the 1970 Soviet census, there were 76,212 Tatars, of which only 3554 were Crimean Tatars.

In the last two Soviet censuses, in 1979 and 1989, the Tatars continued to increase, with their number rising to 90,542 in the former, of which 6336 were Crimean Tatars, and with their total being 133,682, of whom more than 45,000 were Crimean Tatars, the Milliard.Tatar portal reports.

Since 1991, ever more Crimean Tatars have returned to Ukraine; but many of the other Tatars have left for Tatarstan or further abroad. They likely number fewer than 70,000 at the present time, far smaller than the Crimean Tatars but a significant community that deserves to be remembered and supported.

Ukrainian Far Eastern Republic Recalled on Anniversary of Its Founding in 1919

Paul Goble

Staunton, May 30 – On this date in 1919, Ukrainians living in the far east proclaimed the formation of the Ukrainian Far Eastern Republic, a political entity which was suppressed by Moscow in November 1922 but that still exerts a powerful influence on Ukrainian thinking and alarms many in Moscow.

In the last decade, as Russian pressure on Ukraine has intensified, Ukrainian officials and activists have devoted increasing attention to ethnic Ukrainian areas within what are now the borders of the Russian Federation. Among these, known as wedges, the Green Wedge as the Ukrainian Far East is known, is by far the largest and potentially the most important.

Not only is the Ukrainian government focusing attention on the Green Wedge and other Ukrainian areas in the RF, but there is growing attention to them by Ukrainians more generally. The Green Wedge has its own website (zelenyiklyn.com/), and Ukrainian outlets have given attention to it on this anniversary (https://abn.org.ua/en/news/may-30-independence-day-of-the-ukrainian-far-eastern-republic/).

The most comprehensive discussion of the Ukrainian Far Eastern Republic is Ivan Svit’s Ukrainian-Japanese Relations (in Ukrainian, New York, 1972, 381 pp.) and John Stephan’s The Russian Far East (Stanford, 1994. Other sources are cited in abn.org.ua/en/history/the-ukrainian-far-eastern-republic-legacy-of-the-ukrainian-resistance-in-the-far-east/).

Neo-Communist and Neo-Soviet Regimes Both Descend from Soviet System But, Despite Similarities, are Fundamentally Different, Savvin Says

Paul Goble

Staunton, May 30 – Many observers currently use the terms “neo-communist” and “neo-Soviet” as if they were interchangeable; but in fact, Dimitry Savvin says, although both kinds of regimes have their origins in the Soviet system and share much in common, they are fundamentally different.

Savvin, editor of the Riga-based conservative Russian portal Harbin, continues his effort to promote a more serious form of Sovietology and thus contribute to the understanding of post-Soviet states by discussing the genesis, similarities and differences of these two regimes (harbin.lv/neokommunisticheskie-i-neosovetskie-rezhimy-genezis-skhodstva-i-razlichiya).

Both neo-communist and neo-Soviet regimes share much of the pattern of rule they inherited from the Soviet Union, but their “main difference is that “the first have officially declared their rejection of Marxist-Leninist fiction … while the second retains this fiction in one or another form.”

This is obvious if one considers some examples, Savvin sys. The “classical” case of a neo-Soviet system is Turkmenistan which has kept the same elite in power, remains committed to authoritarian rule, uses the Stalinist model of the peoples democracies, and fills the vacuum left after the rejection of Marxism-Leninism with “populist demagogy and mythological notions.”

“The Turkmenistan model,” Savvin continues, is typically viewed as something exotic; but in fact, it is one shared by the Russian Federation, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, set apart only because it made that tradition far faster than they did from Soviet to neo-Soviet forms.

In Turkmenistan and all these other cases, “we see authoritarian regimes, the nucleus of which is the Soviet ruling stratum and apparatus of power, a political system arranged in the way of Stalinist peoples democracies … gradual re-statification of the economy, and the elaboration of neo-Soviet mythology.”

The chief model of a neo-communist regime is that of China. It has not rejected Marxism-Leninism and the changes it has made in economic arrangements are nothing more than an updated of the New Economic Policy which Lenin himself introduced when the application of Marxist principles failed.

North Korea which is often lumped together with China as neo-communism is in fact a combination of neo-communism and neo-Sovietism, with elements of both rather than being as more or less clear choice as is the case elsewhere. according to the conservative Russian commentator.

Except on the question of the continuing centrality of Marxism-Leninism, both neo-communist and neo-Soviet regimes are “in fact identical. They are each aware of this commonality, view liberal and law-based societies as their natural enemy, and now are in the process of forming a coalition against this enemy” and seek global dominance.

Saturday, May 31, 2025

565,000 More Migrants Entered Russia than Left in 2024, Reducing Overall Population Decline to Only 31,000, ‘To Be Precise’ Says

Paul Goble

Staunton, May 28 – Rosstat has not yet published any data on immigrants to Russia in 2024, but the To Be Precise portal has been able to determine that there were 565,000 more migrants entering the country than leaving during that year, reducing the decline in Russia’s population to 31,000, far below the falloff of 296,600 of 2023.

While the Kremlin is certainly pleased about the latter trend, it has not advertised the growth in the number of migrants given evidence that large numbers of Russians and even some Russian leaders would like to see more restrictions placed on immigration (tochno.st/materials/stolko-sostavil-migracionnyi-prirost-za-2024-god).

But the extent to which net migration has compensated for the excess of deaths over births among Russians may be overstated, experts say. Rosstat and other Russian agencies have changed the way they monitor immigration and there is likely to be an unknown amount of double counting (tochno.st/materials/v-2024-godu-v-rossiiu-vieexalo-rekordnoe-cislo-migrantov-kak-minimum-za-poslednie-26-let-veroiatno-eto-sviazano-s-izmeneniiami-uceta).

800,000 Russians Dying from Heart Disease Each Year, Many of Whom Might have Been Saved had They been Able to See a Cardiologist in Time, Galkin Says

Paul Goble

Staunton, May 28 – Some 800,000 Russians are currently dying from heart disease and circulatory problems each year, many of whom might have been saved had they been able to get an appointment with a doctor, according to German Galkin, a journalist with heart problems who was told he’d have to wait three months to see a specialist.

Galkin says that his problem is minor and so the delay in getting an appointment is more an annoyance than anything else; but he says he believes the reductions in the number of cardiologists especially outside of major cities is costing the lives of others who have more serious problems and might have been saved (svpressa.ru/society/article/466119/).

In his region, the Southern Urals, there is a severe shortage not only of cardiologists but of therapists, pediatricians, and psychiatrists. This reflects both the privatization of health care, the decisions of doctors to move to cities where they can make more money, and Putin’s healthcare optimization program which has reduced the number of such doctors.

According to Galkin, officials in his region say that “residents are massively complaining about the inaccessibility” of medical institutions and doctors. These complaints are especially numerous in rural areas which have seen their hospitals and medical points close, but they come from urban residents as well.

For discussions of how this shortage of medical personnel is affecting Russians, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/nearly-90-percent-of-russians-say.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/05/making-putins-healthcare-optimization.html, and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/10/mobilization-order-hurting-russian.html.

Orthodox Christian Russians Must Not Marry Muslims Lest Russia Become an Islamic State, Russian Orthodox Prelate Says

Paul Goble

Staunton, May 28 – A senior Russian churchman in St. Petersburg says that no Orthodox Christian should marry a Muslim not only because such inter-faith unions have been prohibited by the Orthodox church since ancient times but also because radical Muslims hope to use such marriages to transform Russia into an Islamic state.

Archpriest Kirill (Ivanov) who is pastor at a major church in St. Petersburg, says that the issue of such inter-faith marriages is becoming ever sharper more seirous because radical Muslims “are seeking to make Russia an Islamic state through marriages with ‘our girls’” (stoletie.ru/lenta/protoijerej_rpc_kirill_napomnil_o_zaprete_braka_s_musulmanami_296.htm).

The archpriest says that yet another reason Russian women have to avoid marriages with Muslim immigrants is that the latter often have wives in their homelands. Because the Koran allows Muslims to have four wives, the Russian spouses of these Muslims may find themselves in a subordinate position.

Other Orthodox priests acknowledge that inter-faith marriages are increasingly common. Hieromonk Ioann (Anisimov), a Russian Orthodox priest who serves in Dagestan, says that it would be better for people to marry only those who share a common faith but that in a poly-religious country like Russia that will not always be the case.

In his view, Ioann says, “mixed marriages are completely acceptable if the spouses respect the religious views of one another” and do not try to convert each other … The ancient Hebrews had strict bans n such marriages. But we are not an Old Testament religion; we are Christians.”