Staunton, November 29 – Some in Daghestan now think that it is time for each Daghestani nation to have a separate republic rather than continue to live in a single “all-Daghestan ‘collective farm,’” an attitude that may be indicative of what other larger nations think about their status relative to the Russian Federation.
In a Daghestani Internet forum, Murad Abdullayev says that the current multi-national republic has had its day and that “possibly the time has come” for each of its various peoples to form their own republics within the Russian Federation, given their increasing size and increasing conflicts.
Since the Daghestan ASSR was formed, “the share of the population of [that republic] in Russia has increased by a factor of eight,” and “the current Republic of Daghestan has become a headache for Moscow.” It doesn’t pay its taxes and now owes Moscow more than anyone else except Ukraine, and on its territory, there is a war going on which the leadership change did nothing to stop.
The problem of taxes would be solved if each people had its own republic. “The majority of Avars are too proud to steal and lie; the Darghins are able to divide up their profits, and the Lezgins are law-abiding … Now, [none of them] pays taxes because each thinks that someone else must solve the problem.”
“The Lezgins consider,” Abdullayev writes, “that the Avars must solve the problem because they are ‘in power’ in Daghestan; the Avars think that the Dargins must pay because they live better, but the Dargins respond that the Lezgins are the wealthiest Daghestanis in Russia.”
None of them is prepared to take responsibility for “’the collective farm’” because none of them feels a part of it. Given that, the writer says, they view Daghestan not as a mother but as an evil stepmother, someone from whom it is almost an act of nobility to take something from to help their own.