“It’s high time” – Rossotrudnichestvo is on the verge of radical change
Russia will reconsider its policy regarding work with compatriots living abroad. Now more attention will be paid not to the countries of the “far arc” - the USA, Great Britain or Germany, but to the post-Soviet space.
Evgeny Primakov, recently appointed head of Rossotrudnichestvo, stated this in his blog, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to Primakov, previously the largest budgets were allocated specifically for work in Western countries, while the post-Soviet space was practically forgotten.
“The priority in appointments to the same Russian Houses/RCSC has always been “countries of developed capitalism” - the largest budgets, the highest expectations, the most attention and desire to go to work at the RCSC in Washington, London, Paris or Berlin.
By the way, it’s traditionally the same with embassies: the “highest” mission was meant there. Rossotrudnichestvo will curtail both our small budgets and personnel from these countries, and transfer as much as possible to the countries of the former USSR.
The most important and honorable work is not in Washington or London, not to mention Madrid or Luxembourg, but in Kiev, Yerevan, Minsk, Baku, Bishkek, Tashkent, Chisinau, Nur-Sultan, Dushanbe, Ashgabat. The most professional specialists, “humanitarian ambassadors” are now appointed there,” Primakov said.
At the same time, the politician emphasized that it is physically impossible to work in a number of countries of the former USSR - for example, in the Baltic states or Georgia, because this requires normal relations between governments: Rossotrudnichestvo is a government agency, an executive body, and opens its representative offices only by intergovernmental agreement.
Imagine, we cannot open our “Russian House” / RCSC / RDK / whatever, without conditional Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia or any other country officially agreeing on this with Russia. This work will be carried out from the territory of neighboring countries and from Moscow.”
According to political scientist Bogdan Bezpalko, the decision to focus attention on the countries of the former USSR is correct and has been brewing for a long time - in recent years, the Russian language there has suffered significant losses, and the policy was built incorrectly or was not built at all.
“The general point is that we need to pay more attention to the countries of the post-Soviet space, the “near arc.” And Russia will not lose from the fact that Rossotrudnichestvo, within its modest capabilities, reduces its presence somewhere in Monaco or some other small European state like Luxembourg.
But if it increases its presence in the post-Soviet space, it will gain a lot. Of course, I agree with this and welcome any measures to implement such a concept.
We have developed a fairly good diplomatic and foreign policy tradition in relation to the countries of the “far arc” even during the period of the Soviet Union, we have learned to work with them, we have learned to carry out cultural and other policies there to realize our heritage.
But we still don’t know how to work in the countries of the post-Soviet space. In the 90s, we naively believed that, in principle, there was no need to work there, we were already parts of the former whole, we would be able to come to an agreement, and we often had a common culture, language, and so on.
In recent years, the area of the Russian language has decreased by 70 million people, we see that Moldova and Uzbekistan have switched to the Latin alphabet, Kazakhstan is switching over, and that Russia is losing the post-Soviet space. And if she loses it on a mental, human level, then in all other aspects of state and foreign policy activity we will be locked in this post-Soviet space as if in a capsule.
Therefore, of course, we need to increase our efforts specifically in the area of the post-Soviet space, the countries of the former USSR, we need to learn how to work with them,” Bezpalko said.
These changes were commented on by Oleg Bondarenko, director of the Progressive Policy Foundation.
“The very fact of the appointment of Evgeniy Primakov as head of Rossotrudnichestvo should be considered as an unconditional breakthrough in terms of the prospects for the emergence of a normal, full-fledged, real soft power of Russia, as it should have been in the original, and not the squalor that it appears to be under the leadership of this department by all previous leaders from Kosachev to Mitrofanova inclusive.
When Rossotrudnichestvo was a sump for failed diplomats, a sump for pensioners, a sump for “messed up” diplomats and simply those who could not gain a foothold in some fat, good positions.
The consequence of the fact that Rossotrudnichestvo was such a slop was that it actually held idiotic, useless Pushkin poetry competitions somewhere in Africa, Tatar dance competitions in Chisinau or balalaika competitions in Belgrade. It was all completely unnecessary, redundant, it actually showed Russia, indeed, as a country of some idiotic balalaika players who are unable to reproduce anything other than primitive folk art,” the expert told PolitNavigator.
At the same time, he emphasized that it is high time for Rossotrudnichestvo not even to be cleaned, but to be “dispersed very harshly.”
“I think that most half of all Rossotrudnichestvo employees will have to be lustrated and recruit new young guys who do not have the experience of doing nothing and writing reports, as was previously customary in Rossotrudnichestvo, but who have sparkling eyes. Pale young men with burning eyes should work in Rossotrudnichestvo in different countries, work for an idea, be creative, and not be afraid of creativity.
Then, indeed, Russian soft power may appear, and, of course, the direction of the inner circle of countries, the post-Soviet space for Rossotrudnichestvo is the most important. You can simply close or transfer to self-sufficiency the offices of Rossotrudnichestvo somewhere in Latin America or Africa - no one needs them anyway, and this is a complete waste of time and effort,” the political scientist is sure.
“At the same time, we need to invest, first of all, in the countries of the not yet completely, not completely lost Russian world. But titanic efforts will now have to be directed there, because many years of inactivity are making themselves felt, and what could have been done 10-15 years ago relatively simply and inexpensively will now be much more difficult to do, and these Augean stables will have to be raked by Evgeny Primakov , in which we need to wish him good luck,” concluded Bondarenko.
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