Khabarovsk is further east than Pyongyang in North Korea and has a population of only around 570,000. It is reported to be a region that is economically better off by Russian standards. Yet the majority of those who have turned up to protest against the arrest of Sergei Furgal on 9 July, the region’s popular governor, are not the well-heeled, urbane liberals more often seen taking to the streets in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
And the protests continued into August extending them to three weeks.
I noted the unhappiness out there with Putin's targeting of their elected governor and the wider implications.
And I've noted that Moscow sucks resources from the Far East that the locals might grow to resent in dangerous ways.
Interestingly ironic times for a Russia pointlessly alienating NATO in order to appease China for the purpose of preserving their Far East holdings from China.
UPDATE: Yeah:
The protests in Khabarovsk and other Russian cities in Siberia and the Far East over the last month (see EDM, August 3) have called attention to something that has been a problem for the central Russian government since at least the 19thcentury and will persist even when the current wave of demonstrations ebb. Russia east of the Urals is simply too big in size and too small in population; too economically important and too central to the self-conception of Russians everywhere; too far away from Moscow and too close to China and the Pacific; and yet, too culturally different from Russians in the European portions of the country. Moscow is already more concerned about Siberian regionalism than ever before. But now, the Siberians themselves—ethnic Russian and non-Russian alike—are giving the center more compelling reasons to worry.
The article discusses the long history of separatism in the region and the growing appeal of Chinese economic success that counters Moscow's efforts to bind Siberians to Russia with fear of China. Oddly it doesn't raise the fact that a massive chunk of the Far East was seized from China in the 19th century.
Meanwhile Russia focuses on fighting for a fragment of the fading industrial Donbas region seized from Ukraine in 2014 and provoking NATO into seeing Russia as a threat.
#WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings
