PREFACE

This report provides, for the first time, a detailed and organized assessment of the alarming rise in antisemitism, xenophobic extremism, and religious intolerance across the vast territory of the Russian Federation. Based on UCSJ's year-long monitoring, the heart of the report is the presentation of strictly factual chapters assessing 62 of Russia's 89 regions. Additional analytical essays have been added which pull together the information on the influence of the Communist Party, the Russian Orthodox Church, and the neo-nazi Russian National Unity movement. The report's Introduction provides an overview of the whole.

If one had to boil down this comprehensive report to its irreducible essence, one would cite the first of the Conclusions and Recommendations that appear following the Introduction: "There is a dangerous rising tide of antisemitism and religious persecution that is both official and grassroots across the Russian Federation. It is supported by a pervasive and dedicated post-Soviet infrastructure comprising the Communist Party, the corrupt and unreformed organs of the justice system and security apparatus, the neo-fascist Russian National Unity movement, and the Moscow Patriarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church. It operates with complete impunity, sending the message that neither the central nor local government will provide for the physical or political safety of Russian Jews."

This report, which represents a primary activity of UCSJ's activities on the ground in the former Soviet Union, benefited not only from its overseas monitoring network supervised by former Refusenik Dr. Leonid Stonov. The organizational structure and quality control for preparing and disseminating the report was supervised by UCSJ's deputy director, Gideon Aronoff. Sarah Manaker supervised the copy editing and printing process while Robin Biderman organized one of the essays, and designed the text and graphic presentations.

The editorial conception and the writing of the regional chapters were the responsibility of Nickolai Butkevich, the report's editor and senior writer and UCSJ's Director for Research and Advocacy, who also translated much of the raw, Russian-language input. Of course, the report represents the collective capability and expertise of the UCSJ, its headquarters office in Washington, its human rights Bureaus in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, its action councils across the United States, and its veteran, activist board members. All made important contributions. The project could not have been successfully accomplished, however, without the over-arching imprimatur of Nickolai Butkevich.

Students and policy analysts seeking an understanding of the state of democracy and civil society in Russia are invited, as well, to review a companion report, published in September 1999 by the Moscow Helsinki Group and UCSJ, The Human Rights Situation in the Russian Federation: 1998, which assesses human rights through the lens of 30 regional human rights NGOs, a brief summary of which is included in this report.

The Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ) was established in 1970 as the "Voice of the Refuseniks" in the United States. It operates six additional human rights monitoring Bureaus in the former Soviet Union _ in Tbilisi, Lviv, Almaty, Bishkek, Riga, and Minsk. The Harold and Selma Light Center for Human Rights Advocacy located in Saint Petersburg is supervised by UCSJ-affiliate in San Francisco, the Bay Area Council for Jewish Rescue and Renewal. A listing of other UCSJ councils and its board of directors are provided in the report. Primarily through its councils, led by those in Highland Park, Illinois and Miami, Florida, UCSJ addresses the vital concerns of Jewish culture and humanitarian aid through its Yad L'Yad (hand to hand) partnership program that pairs councils and participating synagogues and religious schools in North America with 90 Jewish communities and institutions across the former Soviet Union

All activities and reports of the UCSJ can be found on its site on the World Wide Web at www.fsumonitor.com.

Yosef I. Abramowitz Micah H. Naftalin

President National Director

COMMONLY USED ABREVIATIONS

AFP— Agence France Presse

AP— Associated Press

DPA— The Movement to Support the Army

EWI— East-West Institute

FSB— Federal Security Service (formerly the KGB)

FSU— Former Soviet Union

HIAS— Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society

JTA— Jewish Telegraphic Agency

KPRF— Communist Party of the Russian Federation

LDPR— Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky).

NBP— National Bolshevik Party

NTV— Independent Television

RFE/RL— Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

RNU— Russian National Unity

POPULATION AND ECONOMIC STATISTICS

Population figures are taken from the 1996 Russian Statistical Yearbook, published by GosKomStat— the State Statistics Committee. Estimated Jewish population figures are taken from a variety of sources, mostly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). Because of Soviet era discrimination against Jews, many Jews registered as members of other ethnic groups. Therefore, estimates of Jewish populations in different parts of Russia and the former Soviet Union are of unknown reliability.

Economic statistics are taken from the Investor Guide to Russia, published by the Foreign Investment Promotion Center of the Russian Ministry of the Economy.¹

¹ The Guide is available on the Internet at: http://www.fipc.ru/fipc/regions/regions.html.