VZCZCXRO7379
OO RUEHDBU RUEHLN RUEHPOD RUEHSK RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHMO #1156/01 1260744
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 060744Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3162
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 001156 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM PHUM KIRF PINR RS
SUBJECT: RUSSIA: THE SITUATION IN KALMYKIA IS ANYTHING BUT 
CALM 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  The predominantly Buddhist Republic of 
Kalmykia in Russia's Southern Federal District, headed by a 
chess-obsessed autocrat, has not been spared the corruption 
endemic to the rest of the country or the ethnic strife found 
in the nearby North Caucasus republics.  Both the mayor of 
its capital Elista and one of his deputies have been charged 
with corruption and, at least temporarily, removed from their 
positions.  Tension between the majority Kalmyk and minority 
Dagestani communities boiled over April 1-3 in the republic's 
southern city of Artesian and the Russian Orthodox Church has 
pressured minority Christian denominations even as it pays 
lip service publicly to religious tolerance.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) An April 21-23 visit to the southern Russian 
republic of Kalmykia found a sleepy province with an 
undercurrent of political intrigues typical of an 
authoritarian backwater.  Elected shortly after the breakup 
of the Soviet Union, Kirsan Ilyumshinov has been president of 
Kalmykia since 1993.  By most accounts, he has done little 
for the republic other than enjoin everyone to play chess. 
The republic, with an official population of around 300,000 
inhabitants, is largely agrarian, although there are some 
deposits of poor quality oil and associated gas that the 
Russian company Lukoil is developing deep underground near 
its southern border with Dagestan.  Its capital Elista is a 
run-down city with gutted roads even in the city center that 
prides itself on the building of Europe's largest Buddhist 
temple and a Potemkin-style Chess City, meant to attract the 
world's best chess players and their fans.  The republic's 
rural population is moving to the capital, where Soviet-era 
factories have largely been shuttered, or elsewhere in the 
Russian Federation. 
 
Tug of War Between the Republic's Two Leading Personalities 
--------------------------------------------- -------------- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) A political tug of war has broken out between 
Kalmykia's President Kirsan Ilyumshinov and Elista's deposed 
mayor Radiy Burulov.  In February, Kalmykia's Supreme Court 
released Burulov on a two million ruble bail after he was 
arrested in March 2008 on suspicion of giving a municipal 
contract in January 2006 to a building supply company 
indirectly owned by him.  As a result of this contract, 
according to the internet-based Caucasian Knot media outlet, 
the city suffered losses of almost 700,000 rubles.  On March 
12 Burulov appeared before the Elista City Council, denied 
the charges made against him, accused Ilyumshinov of pressing 
for his resignation and demanded that he be "rehabilitated" 
and allowed to take up his duties as mayor once more.  The 
city council voted overwhelmingly in favor of Burulov.  Local 
newspapers quoted one pro-Burulov councilman as stating that 
"over the 16 years of Ilyumshinov's reign, Kalmykia has 
reached a state of total collapse and bankruptcy" and that 
with Ilyumshinov in power "Kalmykia has no future." 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Burulov is not the only municipal official to have 
found himself in trouble with the law.  On April 18, police 
in Kislovodsk in Stavropol Kray arrested Vladimir Tomutov, 
Elista's vice mayor for construction and capital investment, 
for whom an international arrest warrant had been issued. 
Tomutov, under suspicion of stealing 13 million rubles of 
city funds that were to have been used to construct a 
children's hospital and schools, had left Kalmykia in 
September 2008 in violation of a court order for him not to 
leave the republic.  Police returned him to Elista the 
following day, according to the spokesman for the republic's 
Ministry of Internal Affairs. 
 
Simmering Ethnic Tensions Boil Over in Southern Kalmykia 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Although Kalmykia's population is at least half 
ethnic Kalmyk, there is a large ethnic Russian minority 
approaching 40 percent.  The next largest minority ethnic 
group is from nearby Dagestan and includes citizens of 
Kalmykia as well as temporary residents who have gone there 
to find work.  Included in this group, according to Magomed 
Umalogov, the head of the Dagestani diaspora in Kalmykia, are 
herders who rent land in southern Kalmykia on which they 
maintain their livestock. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) According to Umalogov, on April 1 members of a 
criminal gang operating in the southern part of Kalmykia 
attacked two such herders from Dagestan to try to force them 
off the land they had rented.  He said that on April 2, after 
the two were secretly brought to Dagestan for medical 
treatment, around 100 of their relatives and other residents 
of the Dagestani town of Khasavyurt, including at least two 
dozen women as well as its mayor and the local head of the 
 
MOSCOW 00001156  002 OF 003 
 
 
FSB, drove across the border to Artesian to demand that the 
attackers be brought to justice.  Umalagov was in Artesian on 
the afternoon of April 2 when the brief altercation came to a 
head and helped to diffuse it by having the Kalmyk 
authorities promise to conduct an investigation.  He told us 
April 22 that no such investigation had been conducted. 
Analyst Andrey Serenko told Caucasian Knot that the conflict 
was a fight between rival Caspian Sea fish poachers and the 
law enforcement agencies that supported them.  According to 
Serenko and Umalagov, the two areas in Kalmykia with the 
greatest amount of lawlessness are the Chernozemelskiy and 
Laganskiy regions along the Caspian coast. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Umalogov was full of invective for ethnic Kalmyks. 
He painted a picture of them that was as far as possible from 
the peace-loving people you are led to believe when touring 
Elista's Buddhist Temple that dominates the central part of 
the capital, completed in 2005 and the largest in Europe.  He 
said they treat members of Dagestan's ethnic groups poorly 
and often tell them to return to Dagestan because "Kalmykia 
is for Kalmyks."  He noted that this is the second time that 
Kalmyks from Artesian had attacked non-Kalmyks.  In October 
2007, locals attacked a Tyumen-Baku train when it arrived in 
Artesian after a fight broke out in the restaurant car 
between Kalmyks and ethnic Azeris.  Umalogov said that 
Kalmyks do not have a high tolerance for alcohol and drink 
too much of it.  During our meeting over lunch, Umalogov 
received a call from the local FSB warning him about "saying 
too much to a visiting American diplomat." 
 
Protestant Minorities, Muslims Face Difficulties 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Despite the recent creation of a Board for 
Religious Tolerance in which the leaders of Kalmykia's 
Buddhist, Russian Orthodox and Muslim communities participate 
and a highly publicized attempt to bridge the differences 
between the Russian Orthodox Church and small Protestant 
denominations, religious minorities have continued to face 
difficulties.  The 60 members of the Seventh Day Adventists 
Church (14 of whom are school-age children) have been singled 
out for the harshest treatment.  They have been attacked in 
the local press as a "religious sect" and in March the city 
of Elista's Commission on Youth Affairs fined three parents 
100 rubles each for refusing to send their children to school 
on Saturday.  According to the Adventists' pastor Vitaliy 
Tikhomirov, in past years the city had been satisfied with a 
statement from the parents stating that their children would 
be under parental supervision attending church services 
during the mandatory half-day of classes on Saturday. 
Tikhomirov said that things may have changed and Adventist 
children targeted when a new elite high school named after an 
Orthodox saint went into operation this year and Russian 
Orthodox Church hierarchy led by Elista Archbishop Zozima 
stated that all children there should attend Saturday classes 
to achieve higher standards of education.  He noted that the 
case had received wide (and mostly negative) publicity in the 
local media.  Tikhomirov pointed out that the principal of 
the new school, an ethnic Kalmyk, had been interviewed on 
local television saying he supported mandatory attendance, 
although as late as last year when he was the head of another 
school he had supported Adventist children being allowed to 
attend Saturday church services. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) On April 24, the city court in Elista ruled that 
the three parents did not have to pay the 100 ruble fine 
levied against them by the city.  A lawyer from the Slavic 
Law and Justice Center's St. Petersburg office represented 
the church member, an ethnic Azeri who became an Adventist 
several years ago and who brought the appeal of the 
administrative fine.  While in Elista we had raised this case 
with the Ombudsman of the Kalmyk Republic, Vladislav Savisko, 
an ethnic Russian originally from Siberia.  He was unaware of 
the case, because unlike the local 100-strong Jehovah's 
Witness church, the Adventists had never come to him with a 
problem.  He agreed, however, that as Ombudsman he should 
protect the right of the Adventists to practice their 
religion without government interference.  We suggested that 
although his small six-person office was busy on April 24 
conducting a conference on the rights of handicapped people, 
someone should attend the court proceedings and report back 
to him.  We do not know if anyone from the office was able to 
attend the proceedings.  Tikhomirov's wife told us on April 
29 that local representatives of the FSB visited the church 
and asked about our meeting with her husband and our interest 
in the church.  Tikhomirov told us May 5 that he has again 
been summoned to appear before the Commission on Youth 
Affairs on May 7 and that Savisko had promised that someone 
from the Ombudsman's office would also be present. 
 
MOSCOW 00001156  003 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Although they represent about five percent of the 
population, Kalmykia's Muslims have been stymied in their 
desire to build a mosque there.  We visited a small prayer 
room outside of Elista, one of several in the republic. 
Umalogov and the proprietor of the Dagestani restaurant next 
to the prayer room (who had actually paid for most of its 
construction), complained that Kalmykia's mufti, 
Sultan-Akhmed Karalayev, had not yet convinced the government 
to allow the construction of a larger facility.  Karalayev is 
based in Langan, situated on its small Caspian Sea coast, and 
failed to appear at our scheduled meeting in Elista. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶11.  (SBU) An undercurrent of tension remains in Kalmykia, 
exacerbated by the lack of competent local leadership. 
Eventually Medvedev will probably be forced to make the hard 
choice of getting rid of Ilyumshinov and replacing him with 
someone better suited to running the republic.  We will 
continue to monitor the plight of religious minorities there 
and consult with the local Ombudsman if necessary. 
BEYRLE