Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

Federal discourses, minority rights, and conflict transformation 61Tatars (5 million), the Chuvashians (1.6 million), the Bashkirs (1.6 million)and the Chechens (1.1 million). Additionally, there are many people with a‘motherland’ outside Russia, among them Ukrainians, Armenians,Azerbaijanis or Belorussians. Altogether these groups comprise 20.2 per centof the populace of Russia. The cohort with a size between 0.5 and 1 millionpeople consists of Germans, Udmurts, Mari, Kasakhs, Awars, Jews andArmenians. Twenty-two ethnic groups have a size between 100,000 and 0.5million people, 28 groups a size of 10,000 to 100,000, and 24 ethnic groupscomprise less than 10,000 people. Republics comprised of a majority ofthe titular ethnic group or groups include: Chechnya (93.5 per cent),Dagestan (95 per cent), Ingushetia (77 per cent), Tyva (77 per cent),Chuvashiya (68 per cent), Kabardino-Balkariya (67 per cent), NorthOsetiya-Alaniya (63 per cent), Kalmykiya (53 per cent), Tatarstan (53 percent) and Karachaeva-Cherkessiya (50 per cent). All in all, in ten out oftwenty-one republics the titular ethnic groups forms the majority. Amongthe autonomous districts, not a single one has a majority of the titularethnic group.Among the smaller populations there are the indigenous peoples of the farNorth, Siberia and the Far East – officially 45 registered peoples of roughly275,000 individuals who are distributed over 27 regions. Ten of these indigenouspeoples have an autonomous region of their own. The largest groupare the Nenets (41,000), among the smaller groups are the Krymchaks andOriks with less than 200 people each. The active command of the indigenous‘mother tongue’ as a central feature of group identity is rapidly decreasingamong the indigenous groups. Of the 28,000 Chants in Russia only one fifthspeaks the ‘mother tongue’ fluently, whilst among the 2,900 remainingTeleuts only every tenth person speaks the ‘mother tongue’. 27 The change oftraditional ways of production, mixed marriages, migration processes and aconstant assimilation contribute to the disappearance of traditional lifestyles,cultures, traditions and indigenous languages.4 Conflicts among non-dominant groupsConflicts with and among non-dominant groups in Russia can be found invarious forms:1 Conflicts between titular ethnic groups in autonomous regions and nontitulargroups who feel politically under-represented or discriminatedagainst in economic life.2 Conflicts between non-Russian ethnic groups over the ethno-territorialboundaries inside or between autonomies, for example between NorthOssetians and Ingushetians over the Prigorodny rayon, which is governedby Ossetians but mostly populated by Ingushetians.3 Demands by ethnic groups, who are part of existing autonomies, for aterritorial autonomy of their own, for example among the Nogay who are