Which countries helped Dudayev's Chechen separatists . “Kalmyks don’t suffer much from resentment.

At the moment, separatism is potentially more dangerous in national republics. These are not only the Caucasian regions (Chechnya, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Ingushetia, etc.), but also the republics in the center of the European part (Udmurtia, Komi, Mari El, Chuvashia and Mordovia), in particular, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, where there is a very strong separatist sentiments.

The Far Eastern republics (Yakutia, Tyva, Buryatia) and part of the republics of the Caspian region (Kalmykia and Adygea) are weak in the ideas of national separatism due to poor autonomy of local elites, difficult geographical location and economic dependence on the federal center.

The separatist movement needs the idea of ​​national identity:

• Ethnocultural feature of the region (language, religion, cultural traditions and individual way of life, history).
• Economic autonomy from the center.
• Infrastructure development.
• Contrasting the region with other subjects of the federation.
  The national republics already have most of this, each representative of the national minority of Russia feels his connection and attachment to the community of a certain group of people on a national basis.

In this case, there are many questions about Russian separatism in the regions, as the formation of a separate national group. For Russians, it will be more difficult, and the formation of another nation will take longer. The creation of ethno-cultural features, geographical location and separate autonomy from the other part of the Russians will require a serious investment in time and the cultivation of this idea. If desired, of course, this can be implemented.

For example, to spread the theme of North Russian and South Russian ethnographic groups as two different peoples. Then we have not three East Slavic peoples (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian), but 4 (Northern Russian, South Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian). Recall the dialectical features (okaying dialect among the northerners, akay among the southerners); construction features (Slovenian type of houses among the northerners, Polovtsian among the southerners); different ornaments for designing clothes; way of life; geographical location (Novgorod region, Pskov, Karelia, Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Yaroslavl, Tver, Ivanovo, Kostroma, Sverdlovsk, Perm, Kirov regions among northerners; Ryazan region, Penza, Kaluga, Tula, Lipetsk, Tambov, Voronezh, Bryansk, Kursk, Orlovskaya and Belgorodskaya among the southerners), religious schism: the prevalence of the Old Believers among the northerners and Nikonianism among the southerners; one can even dig up the historical continuity of northerners from the Novgorod, Pskov and Vyatka republics; Vladimir-Suzdal, Ryazan and part of the Chernigov principalities belong to the southerners - and we are ready to build two peoples with different national identity. However, the formation of two nations with different national identity is a complex process, and these ideas still need to be introduced to the masses. Therefore, the real outcome of the division is unlikely.

There is an opinion in Russia: the Russian population is oppressed only in the North Caucasian republics. For some reason, it is forgotten that the country consists of many ethnic regions. In some of them, the Russians are almost in a worse position than their relatives in the North Caucasus.

The Russian population of Kyzyl, the capital of the Republic of Tuva, complains about the aggravation of the hostile attitude towards them from the side of the indigenous population. People say that for some time it was relatively calm and suddenly they were again ganged up on.

Relatively calm - does not mean good. On the streets there are angry looks and hissing “orus” – this word means strangers, – says Anna Kazakova, a resident of Kyzyl, a former school teacher of geography. “This has been going on for over 20 years. During the Soviet period, Russians made up 50% of the population of the republic, now - less than 20%. Signs “Russians, get out!” periodically appear on the streets.

As a result, the outflow of citizens of Slavic appearance continues.

In the early 1990s, the Tuva ASSR (now the Republic of Tyva) became famous for the fact that the first “Russian pogroms” in the USSR began on its territory. Tuvan youth began to smash houses in rural areas where Russians lived. Then this stream poured into cities and towns. Real hot spots appeared on the map of the republic - Khovu-Aksy, Sosnovka, Bai-Khaak. There were pogroms with national overtones in Kyzyl as well.

My family left Tuva twice, because it is impossible to live where people hate you just because you are Russian. And my family lived there for almost 50 years,” says Svetlana Arkhipova, an 18-year-old resident of the village of Kuragino in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. - It's a shame that in the new place we are considered strangers, they call us Tuvans. I liked Tyva. It is very beautiful there, unique flora and fauna - you can see both deer and camels. If I had the opportunity, I would never leave my native places. But the fear generated there remains to this day, I can not overcome it.

Writer and blogger Elizaveta Senchina, who was also born and spent her childhood in Tuva, says that it’s scary to come to her native places lately:

At every opportunity I tried to visit this region rich in ancient culture with my husband and children. My relatives live there.

However, after crowds of angry, slovenly dressed people began to walk around the streets of Kyzyl, she decided that it was not worth visiting her homeland. They came from the countryside, unemployed, hungry. They attack those who are not like them. It seems that they are being urged on by some force.

One of my acquaintances, who lives in this city, went to the store at 18 o'clock. The crowd beat him brutally. Another friend of mine said that even in the summer after 5 p.m. it’s better not to show yourself on the street - they can be severely beaten or raped.

"SP": - Do tourists come to Tuva?

Artists and musicians especially love these places. Magnificent region filled with talents. But in recent years, the flow of tourists has declined significantly. Recently I talked with one poet who visited Tuva, he lived in yurts, talked a lot with local residents. The poet said: “I survived by a miracle. They are quick-tempered, something starts again there. ”

Yesterday an acquaintance called from there and said that there are more and more Chinese in Tuva.

Irina Portnova, a resident of Kyzyl, says: “During the period of perestroika, life was difficult for everyone in Tuva. People needed to put the blame on someone. We decided to blame the representatives of another nationality. They fought fiercely, with deafening cries.

Nationalism, of course, is present in our country, but it no longer wears those terrible forms as in the late 1980s and early 1990s,” says Anna Morozova, a resident of Kyzyl. - I'm half Tuvan, half Russian. In Soviet times, the first leaders of power structures were Tuvans, and deputies were only Russians. The latter had more rights and powers. Until now, Russians living here believe that they saved the indigenous population from tuberculosis and syphilis. But the villages were dying out from crop failure and plague, and not just from these diseases.

Judging by the stories of Russian residents of the Republic of Kalmykia, their situation is almost no different from their colleagues in misfortune from Tuva.

Clashes between Kalmyk youth and persons of Slavic nationalities have become constant, while they are attacked by a crowd, beaten with particular cruelty, using rebar and lead clubs, - says Zoya, a resident of the capital of the republic, the city of Elista, who asked not to give her last name. - This is done by groups of Kalmyk youth aged 17-18, who attack a crowd of several dozen people on lonely passers-by or on two or three people of Slavic appearance. It happens that they are beaten to death with stakes.

There is a mass exodus of Kalmyks from the steppe. They come mainly to Elista, where there has been unemployment for a long time. Unable to find work, they drink and rob. Russians are killed just because they are Russians,” says Anton Perevalov, a resident of the Kalmyk capital.

On this occasion, State Duma deputy Nikolai Kuryanovich sent inquiries to the Prosecutor General's Office and the FSB. However, according to the Russian residents of Elista, the situation has not changed.

You are a complete heresy! I am a native Elista, I have never heard of such a thing,” Nikolai Sandzhiev, head of the Public Relations and Information Policy Department of the Office of the Government of the Republic of Kalmykia, shouted into the telephone receiver. “I won't talk about it.

Novosibirsk political scientist Georgy Polyankin says that in the Republic of Buryatia it doesn’t come to that, but nationalists make claims against the Russians there too:

Burnazis are a well-established designation of Buryat nationalists who stand on the positions of separatism and Russophobia.

The Burnazis consider the Russians to be colonialists who have seized their territory. Some Burnazis attribute genocide and the slave trade to the Russians.

They consider today's Russia a state that takes the position of oppression of national minorities in favor of the Russians. Russian burnazis are called carriers of chauvinistic views, therefore they actively sympathize with the North Caucasian separatists and Muslim ethnic organized crime groups.

The Burnazis also accuse the Russians of destroying the Buryat culture: the withering away of the language, the erosion of cultural traditions, isolation from the Mongolian world.

They are very popular among the Buryats. People of Slavic appearance live there in a state of constant anxiety. Everyday nationalism flourishes in this republic: Russians are blamed for all the inconveniences.

From July 11 to July 31, the forum "I am a citizen of the Moscow region" will be held in Volokolamsk. This event has been held for more than a year, while it is favorably received by the Governor of the Moscow Region, Andrey Vorobyov. Within the framework of the same forum, only in 218 he stated: “A popular, important event. I want to thank everyone - both the organizers and the heads of municipalities. I think that this practice of communication with young people is very important. We will continue it. There was a big request to attract foreign guests. I think it needs to be prepared for next season."

Foreign guests and work with youth is, of course, very good. Only confuses the name of the forum, which is repeated from region to region and does not lead to anything good. Because there are no "citizens of the Moscow region", or "citizens of Moscow", or "citizens of Adygea" or citizens of "Karelia", but there are citizens of Russia.

No, it is clear that young people need to be involved, including in politics. Simply because if the state does not do this, then the non-systemic opposition will, and then there will be unauthorized rallies, arrests and a host of other unpleasant things.

However, talking about "citizens of the Moscow region" is also going into politics. Only some destructive.

Because, for example, there was (and maybe there is) such a project as "I am a citizen of Tatarstan." And we tactfully do not recall the celebration from the "Tatar extremists" of the conquest of Russian cities by the Golden Horde. By the way, was at least one of them, these extremists, brought to administrative responsibility?

No, let's remember what is there, in Tatarstan, with the teaching of the Russian language in schools. There is either a conflict, or there is no Russian language there, to put it briefly and succinctly. The citizens of Tatarstan in this respect and in this context - well, approximately, like the citizens of Ukraine. Whatever, just outside of Russian culture and outside of the Russian language.

We go further: "I am a young citizen of the Republic of Dagestan." Excellent youth and school program. Maybe. Only 2018 and 2019 showed that the children who grew out of this program, who are now quite young men and men, go to armed clashes, to “throw the feds with sticks, stones, bricks.”

And, here, for example, the program "I am a citizen of Chechnya." The goals of this project are also outlined, at first glance, coolly: “Private members of club formations will learn about the events of 2000-2003 that took place on the territory of Chechnya, about the counter-terrorist operation throughout the region and about constitutional reforms.

An exhibition of photographs and other publications will be opened, telling about the revival of the socio-economic sphere of the republic, about people who restored the economy destroyed by the war, about how the forced migrants returned to the Republic.

The head of the club, Fatima Saralieva, will talk about the Constitution of the Chechen Republic, about the main articles that every citizen of Chechnya should know.”

Pay attention to the last lines. Not about the constitution of the Russian Federation, but about the Constitution of Chechnya, the younger Chechen generation will learn. Well, the fact that sometimes Chechen youth outside of Chechnya behaves in such a way that Ramzan Kadyrov has to intervene is, in general, also a well-known fact.

In 2017, there was a whole republican action “I am a citizen of Kalmykia” in the republic of the same name. Maybe they taught, after the Kalmyk "Gascons". The noble Kalmyk "Gascons" in 2006, to make it clear, set themselves the noble goal of killing Russians. Well, it happens, yes. But all the same, contests and forums are "a citizen of Kalmykia." No, not Russia, namely Kalmykia. Probably, within the framework of strengthening multinational unity.

But more and more it seems that the most daring concepts of dystopias are coming to life. Now, at the suggestion of Mr. Vorobyov, we have "citizens of the Moscow region." Probably, there will be citizens of Tver, the Urals, then the Cossacks will unite into a separate community and the people. And the further, the merrier.

Although Russia has something that will never betray it. “On June 10, the registry office of the Suojärvi district hosted a holiday “I am a citizen of Karelia, I am a citizen of Russia!”. Its main characters are 14 fourteen-year-old residents of the city and settlements of the Suojärvi region. In a solemn atmosphere, each of them received a document proving the identity of a citizen of the Russian Federation.

And, actually, the question is - all this is happening after dozens of meetings in the Kremlin and trainings by the presidential administration with deputy governors for politics. Interestingly, is it incompetence or something worse to ignore such ideological separatism before the transfer of power?

Who does not remember the fairy tale about the kolobok that left his grandmother, left his grandfather, but failed to escape from the fox? Today, this character is strongly reminiscent of the ex-head of the KGTRK, Yevgeny Unkurov, who betrayed Kirsan Ilyumzhinov with rottenness, calmly rolled into the camp of the head of Kalmykia, Alexei Orlov, and then rolled out of his advisers in disgrace for complete unsuitability.

Now he works in a dirty company of aggressive Kalmyk nationalists, who at the end of last year, with the explicit approval of Feathered (as Mr. Orlov is called with contempt in the republic; ed.), carried out the so-called. Chuulgan is a congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk people.

As a result, semi-marginal individuals who came to the covered market in the center of Elista (it was there that the self-proclaimed “congress” took place) listened to laudatory speeches addressed to Alexei Orlov for several hours in a row. Many of them could not even stand such clowning and, not understanding what the khan-father Orlov and the “revival of the Kalmyk language” had to do with it, they went home.

By the way, about how exactly they are going to return the language lost by the Kalmyks, which, for information, no one took away from the people (Stalin's exile will not work for an excuse, since many peoples were expelled, but at the same time everyone speaks both their native language and state Russian), not one of the participants in the congress could give a clear answer.

But much has been said about the "sovereign Kalmyk state". One of the participants in the congress, the historian of the KSU bottling Arslan Gordeev (who in real life works ... as a meat cutter), in a private conversation shouted to the point that “Kalmykia is a separate state” and “Russia should not interest anyone here, let him live separately” ( !).

The paradox is that almost all hard-core nationalists in the Republic of Kazakhstan are graduates of the history department of the Kalmyk State University. Either they passed history, their main subject, under some kind of clear cut only to them, or they completely passed by it, going from two to three in a university that was not quoted by the standards of Russia. Nevertheless, there is blatant ignorance, to say the least.

Everyone knows that the Kalmyks themselves, voluntarily, became part of the Russian Empire in 1609. And with what fright suddenly one of the 85 Russian regions is proclaimed by individuals as an independent state - a normal person cannot understand. I remember that the separatists of neighboring Chechnya were re-proclaimed in the 90s. Soaked them in the toilet, and that's it.

What the “kolobok” Unkurov forgot in such a strange company also remains a mystery. Maybe the history faculty surfaced in his memory, which he hardly graduated - along with the same drunk Lari Ilishkin and Baatr Boromonnaev? By the way, the last of them organized something like a headquarters for separatist gatherings, where, along with the rest of the “defenders of the Kalmyks”, Mr. Unkurov methodically visits.

As they say, it would be funny if it were not so sad. Against the backdrop of the general impoverishment of the inhabitants of Kalmykia during the years of Orlov’s rule, when every third inhabitant of the Republic of Kazakhstan leaves in search of a better life outside the region, the rise of terry-nationalist unrest threatens to leave a scorched semi-desert in place of the once oasis in the steppe...

Angelina BAKLANOVA

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The Kalmyk ASSR was abolished on December 28, 1943, shortly after the complete liberation of the Caucasus and the Lower Volga region. The resettlement of Kalmyks from there and from neighboring territories to the Altai, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Krasnoyarsk Territory was carried out on the basis of the relevant resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of December 29, 1943. It was the Ulus operation, developed jointly by the NKVD and the NKGB in November-December 1943.

According to various estimates, from 92 to 94 thousand Kalmyks were evicted; from 2,000 to 3,300 Kalmyks died and went missing in the process of deportation (from the point of expulsion to the point of settlement, inclusive). According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, “in 1947, 91,919 relocated Kalmyks were registered; the number of dead and deceased (including those who died of old age and other natural causes) since the beginning of the deportation amounted to 16,017 people.” The government decision of 1943 was canceled only on March 19, 1956.

Many experts believe that the main reason for the national deportations (essentially ethnic cleansing) from the North Caucasus and the Lower Volga region at that time was not only and not so much the “total” collaborationism of a number of local peoples. It seems that the internationalists in the Kremlin sought to Russify, or, as they themselves believed, more reliably Sovietize those vast regions. This version is confirmed not only by the settlement of the "liberated" regions by Russian and Russian-speaking contingents, but also by the inclusion of most of them in the adjacent Russian territories and regions.

So, up to 70% of the territory of the former Kalmyk ASSR, including its capital Elista, was annexed to the Astrakhan region of the RSFSR; moreover, Elista was returned for some time to the Russian (until 1921 incl.) name - the city of "Stepnoy", as this settlement was called until 1921. The rest was distributed among Stavropol, Stalingrad, Grozny and Rostov regions. The same, by the way, is evidenced by the creation in 1944 of the Grozny region of the RSFSR, formed from most of the former Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which received a wide outlet to the Caspian Sea.

The official reason for the Kalmyk deportation is still the same: Kalmyk cooperation with the Nazi occupiers and aiding them in the period from September 1942 to March 1943 inclusive. That is, until the liberation by the Soviet troops of almost 75% of the territory of the Kalmyk ASSR, captured by the German-Romanian troops in the fall of 1942. But after all, the fact that after the liberation of the region, “collaborationism” in Kalmykia, even if not universal, did not go away, also played a role. Indeed, by the end of 1943, the NKVD, together with front-line counterintelligence, managed to neutralize up to 20 rebel detachments and clandestine nationalist groups. Those first collaborated with the invaders, and then were left by them as mothballed anti-Soviet cells.

The origins of anti-Russian sentiments and tough opposition to the monarchist and Soviet statehood have a long history in Kalmykia. Even before the inclusion of the Astrakhan Tatar-Nogai Khanate into Russia (1556), Kalmyks were aggressively baptized, converted to Islam, or simply recorded as "Tatars". The nature of ethno-confessional assimilation was then very peculiar. Therefore, the Kalmyks, for the most part, welcomed the abolition of this strange state.

Then, for more than a century, from 1664 to 1771, in the lower reaches of the Volga, the Kalmyk Khanate, autonomous from Russia, existed, the territory of which basically coincided with the territory of the former Kalmykia as part of the Astrakhan region in 1944-56. But its liquidation for the first time marked, let's say, a centrifugal underground in this region. By the way, the Kalmyks were among the main continent of the rebel troops, which were created and led by Emelyan Pugachev during the notorious peasant war.

Only in 1800, Emperor Paul I decided to restore the Kalmyk Khanate, but already in 1803 Alexander I abolished it again. So the discontent of the Kalmyks "smoldered" for many decades. And it is not surprising that most of them supported the establishment of Soviet power in the region, which immediately declared the autonomy of the Kalmyks. And almost 100% - within the boundaries of the ancient autonomous Kalmyk Khanate.

By the summer of 1920, the Bolshevik troops occupied almost the entire territory of the “Steppe region of the Kalmyk people” that they proclaimed at the same time. And on November 4, 1920, we note that the first national autonomy in Soviet Russia was proclaimed: the Kalmyk Autonomous Region. With the center in Elista, as part of the Nizhnevolzhsky Territory. In 1934, this region was included in the Stalingrad Territory, and at the end of 1935, the Kalmyk ASSR was proclaimed.

On the one hand, such decisions strengthened the position of the Soviet government in Kalmykia. But on the other hand ... As noted in the materials of the Munich Institute for the Study of the USSR (1969) and the bulletins of the emigrant "Union of the Kalmyk People" (Warsaw, 1934-35), "carried out in the region by the Soviet authorities, especially since the early 30s, forced settlement, collectivization, Russification of the leading cadres and anti-religious measures caused growing discontent among the Kalmyks.

Many preferred to ignore the aforementioned decisions, disobey them, retreat to the remote steppes, and so on. The liquidation of illiteracy was accompanied by the fact that the Kalmyk alphabet was transferred from Latin to Cyrillic by directive. But the anti-religious policy quickly supplemented the daily atheistic propaganda with repressions against believers and especially against the clergy, the destruction of temples, the seizure of objects of national worship, the compulsion to sign receipts for renunciation of faith, etc.”

The answer was numerous excesses with political overtones that took place back in 1926-27, and then in the early 30s. It is quite characteristic that such actions are also mentioned in the Soviet specialized publication of the period that was by no means perestroika: I.I. Orekhov, "50 years of Soviet power in Kalmykia", Scientific notes of the Kalmyk Research Institute of Language, Literature and History, Vol. 8. "History Series", Elista, 1969

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the real political climate in Kalmykia could be said to be predisposed to anti-Soviet activity. However, even on the eve of the brutal German-Romanian occupation of the region, more than 60% of the Kalmyks living in the republic initiated the collection of money, food, woolen, leather products, traditional medicine to the Fund for Assistance to Soviet Soldiers.

Many dozens of Kalmyk soldiers and officers were awarded orders and medals for military merit; 9 became heroes of the Soviet Union: for example, Oka Gorodovikov, Colonel General, first commander of the Cavalry Mechanized Corps, and then a representative of the Cavalry Headquarters. True, he received the title of Hero only in 1958, but he was awarded many orders and medals during the war. In 1971, a city in the north-west of Kalmykia was named after him.

It is impossible not to recall Mikhail Selgikov, one of the leaders of the partisan movement in the Bryansk region, as well as Lieutenant General Basan Gorodovikov, and finally, Major Erdni Delikov, the first Kalmyk to be awarded this title in 1942.

At the same time, according to both Soviet and German sources, there were numerous cases of Kalmyks evading conscription into the army in 1941-43. It was not, alas, a rarity and the voluntary surrender of Kalmyk soldiers into captivity. Already in the summer of 1942, the Kalmyk Cavalry Corps was created by the Wehrmacht, which participated in combat operations on the enemy's side until the late autumn of 1944.

In the spring of 1942, the Kalmyk National Committee (Kalmükischen Nationalkomitee) and its local executive body, the Kalmyk Khurul, were established in Berlin. Dozens of Kalmyks also served in the First Cossack Division, the Turkestan Legion of the Wehrmacht, as well as in SS police units in Kalmykia, the Rostov Region, and Stavropol.

In occupied Elista, there were two newspapers financed and controlled by the occupiers, and one weekly. In July 1943, the Kalmyk edition of Radio Berlin was created, the programs were daily for several hours: the first broadcast went on the air on August 3, 1943. At the same time, this edition addressed the Kalmyks of the USSR, urging them to join the ranks of the German and Romanian troops, "whose victories will hasten the independence of the Kalmyk and other peoples, trampled on by the Bolshevik dictatorship."

It was these facts and factors that predetermined the “Note-recommendation of the Collegium of the NKVD of the USSR to the State Defense Committee of the USSR (August 16, 1943 No. 685 / B) “On the expediency of evicting German accomplices, bandits and anti-Soviet-minded persons from the territory of the North Caucasus and the Kalmyk ASSR” . Military, police and civil service on the side of Germany carried from 6 to 7 thousand Kalmyks directly in Kalmykia. Apart from politicians of various status in the pro-Nazi Kalmyk emigration.

It was also noted that the German authorities use the so-called "revival" of religion and the Latin alphabet among the Kalmyks to promote these "examples" among Soviet prisoners of war of non-Russian ethnic groups and in the occupied areas of the Rostov region and the North Caucasus. Some sources also reported that, allegedly due to the passivity of some military units formed from Kalmyks, the German-Romanian troops in September 1942 were only 50 km from the Caspian Sea (near the village of Utta), and there was no defensive lines. But the aggressors, they say, did not expect such a "gift."

It is possible that these reports were not a reflection of reality, but part of the preparation of a large-scale plan for the deportation of the Kalmyks. Although on military maps of 1942-1943. the positions of the Soviet troops in that area are not marked. Apparently, the deportation of the Kalmyks was a foregone conclusion.

And only on March 19, 1956, we repeat, this decision was canceled, and after almost 10 months the Kalmyk Autonomous Region was proclaimed as part of the Stavropol Territory. Its then territory was no more than 70% of the pre-war and modern. The repatriation of the Kalmyks was accompanied by mass letters to Moscow about the restoration of the national ASSR within its former borders.

There is seemingly unconfirmed documented information that members of the Roerich family also expressed their word in defense of the deported people. But there is quite accurate evidence that the demands in favor of repatriation were supported by none other than the Tibetan Dalai Lama XIV (Ngagwang Lovzang Tenjin Gyamtsho), the religious and spiritual head of the Kalmyk Buddhists, then still very young. Moreover, since the second half of the 1950s, as is known, he has been in confrontation with the authorities of the PRC, and until May 2011 he headed the "government of Tibet in exile."

However, it is obvious that the bond between the Kalmyk activists, in addition to ethno-emigration, also with the Tibetan separatists, hardly suits Moscow. Therefore, on July 26, 1958, the Kalmyk ASSR was proclaimed within its former pre-war borders.

There are practically no nationalist manifestations in modern Kalmykia. But a fertile ground for their "ripening" or resuscitation anywhere is the socio-economic situation. And according to RIA "Rating" (2018), Kalmykia has been among the worst subjects of the Federation in terms of quality of life for many years now. When compiling the rating, experts are guided by 72 key indicators. Among the main ones are the level of economic development, the volume of income of the population, the provision of various types of services, the level of development of small businesses, the socio-economic development of the territory, the development of transport infrastructure, and the state of the environment.

By the way, numerous environmental problems are still relevant here, which in particular concerns salinization and the transformation of already limited agricultural lands into deserts, the shortage and poor quality of water supply, the complete absence of forests on the territory of the republic and other chronic consequences of traditionally extensive agriculture and animal husbandry.