Day of Unity

Tomorrow's my birthday, fun fun! November 7th, anniversary of the October Revolution and up until recently a national holiday in Russia, meaning I would have had the day off to celebrate! Unfortunately (for my birthday plans) the Soviet Union fell apart and they scrapped the holiday, replacing it two years ago with a new one on November 4 called Day of National Unity or something wishy-washy sounding like that, not half as cool as Day of the Revolution. I got the feeling that no-one really does much for this holiday, since its so new and doesnt mean that much - no impressive military parades through Red Square with masses of flag-waving troops and tanks marching past Lenin's Mausoleum like the old days...

Unfortunately November 4th seems to have become a rallying day for ultra right wing groups in Russia, who tried on Saturday to gather together and hold marches in all the major cities to protest immigration of non-Russians into their country. The marches were banned by the authorities so they were trying to organize them covertly - earlier in the week I'd noticed propaganda stickers all over the Metro inviting local facists to join the protest, some with images of Nazi banners and a towering skeleton in a coal-scuttle helmet, rather scary. I've heard Saint Petersburg is supposed to be the most racist city in Europe and certainly there has been a history of racially-motivated violence here in recent years, almost exclusively against people from Africa or Central Asia. The latest big event to hit the news was the murder in September of an Indian medical student who was studying in Petersburg and stabbed to death just outside his dorm late one night. I think I would be very worried living here if I looked different then everyone else, there are so few non-Russians here it would be easy to be targetted.

I havent seen any real acts of racism myself (thank goodness), though there's an awful lot of racist grafitti scrawled on buildings around town, like the giant slogan "Russia for Russians!" daubed on a billboard just outside the city's only mosque. As is appropriate for our computer age, alot of the grafitti are internet addresses for the websites and chatrooms of local fascist groups like the NBP, who seem to have a particularily active advertisement campaign in the area where I live. Interestingly there's also a lot of grafitti by anti-racist, anti-facist organizations like the student group Antifa, who go around painting "No fascism, No fascists!" and "Antifa" where groups like the NBP have made their mark. These anti-fascists also take a more active stance, as on Saturday when they violently confronted the ultra-nationalists. Despite the official ban on the protest march, about two thousand people showed up, the strangest mix of racists, from your typical skinhead types to ultra-conservative Orthodox faithful and even priests, who marched beside the neo Nazis under a banner depicting Christ! The anti-facist counter protesters intercepted the marchers and things turned violent, dissolving into a vicious street brawl I watched that night on TV. In Moscow, a similar rally was broken up by force by police. Racism is a big problem here in Russia, and isn't something thats bound to go away while most people remain poor and resentful.