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In the spring of 2023, the Baymak district in Bashkortostan, where Alsynov would later be sentenced to four years in prison, was the scene of two major protests against proposed gold mining projects. In the second, in which several thousand more people gathered in the village of Temyasovo, Alsynov joined them from the regional capital of Ufa and, as one of the most prominent activists present, addressed the crowd.
The Bashkirs, Alsynov told the protesters, no longer had their own land, their own language, and their own president. “Our boys,” he added, “are dying” instead of protecting their own land. Alsynov blamed the disorders on “foreigners” who, he said, were “taking our lands”: Armenians, Russians, Tatars, and Kara Khalyk, a word that literally means “the blacks,” but which Alsynov said used to refer to “unskilled workers. ” (Independent Russian media outlet Agentstvo reported that the term has a meaning close to that of “ordinary people” or “simple people” in Bashir’s fashionable language. )
“This is our land!” Alsynov told his fellow protesters: “We will go anywhere!The Armenians will return to their country, the Russians will go to Ryazan, the Tatars will go to Tatarstan, Kara Khalyk will return home. We, [however], have nowhere else to go: our home is here. »
In October 2023, the Bashkortostan prosecutor’s office charged Alsynov with “inciting ethnic hatred” for his speech in Temyasovo; linguists who “analyzed” the activist’s words concluded that the term “kara khalyk” amounted to hate speech and that Alsynov had been referring to Central Asian migrants. The case against Alsynov came in response to a request from Governor Radiy Khabirov himself.
On January 15, when Khabirov was to be sentenced, between 2,000 and 5,000 more people gathered in front of the Baymak courthouse, where they chanted slogans such as “We are kara khalyk!and “Freedom!” and demanded Khabirov’s resignation. The course of the case adjourned the hearing until 17 January.
The authorities took advantage of the following two days to prepare for the backlash, detaining prominent activists for questioning and recruiting religious leaders to spread the message that Sharia prohibits protesting. Meanwhile, Alsynov’s supporters created WhatsApp groups, where they helped people find rides to the next protest, advised demonstrators on what to wear to stay warm, and coordinated meal planning so that the protesters wouldn’t get hungry.
Activists also distributed the protest rules and asked participants not to incite the police, shout anti-government slogans, or wear the symbol of Bashkortostan’s official tricolor flag outside.
By the time Alsynov’s sentence was handed down, the crowd of protesters numbered about 3,000 more, and growing. News temporarily spread that the activist had been sentenced to four years in prison, more than prosecutors had requested. on social media, but many of his followers were incredulous. Eventually, Alsynov’s lawyer walked out of the courtroom and showed the news, provoking the fury of the protesters.
Reporters at the hearing asked Alsynov to comment on the thousands of people who came to help him. “A huge thank you to everyone. I will never do this,” he said, adding that he maintained his innocence and did not expect such a harsh sentence.
Half an hour later, security guards tried to take Alsynov out of the courthouse in a police van, but the crowd surrounded the vehicle, preventing him from moving for several hours. Riot police attempted to clear the road by beating protesters with rubber batons, arresting other people, and throwing tear gas canisters into the crowd. In response, protesters covered their faces with scarves, but many still refused to leave.
In the afternoon, police threw stun grenades to force others out of the courthouse, but to no avail. Protesters started throwing snowballs at them, and in response, police beat them with batons. In the end, Fail Alsynov’s father gave the impression from the crowd and proposed a deal: the crowd would let the police van pass in exchange for the release of those arrested by the authorities. The police agreed to release four other people and the protesters began to disperse reluctantly.
Soon after the commotion died down, the Bashkortostan Investigative Committee announced it had launched a criminal case in response to the protests. Local Telegram channels that had covered the protests were shut down. Ruslan Gabbasov, Alsynov’s associate who now lives in Lithuania, released a “video message to the Bashkir people.” In it, he called on Russian citizens to “join the act of disobedience.”
Fail Alsynov is one of the leaders of the nationalist Bashkir movement, the most serious opposition force in Bashkortostan. The movement has been replacing itself since the 1990s, with its original leaders replaced by new ones and its rhetoric gradually shifting from radical to more measured, but it has still never lost popularity.
In the 2010s, Bashkir nationalist activists kept their demands relatively subdued, never directly advocating Bashkortostan’s secession from Russia, and directed their complaint to local, not federal, authorities. However, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has had a radicalizing effect on his rhetoric. The motion strongly condemned Moscow’s motions and called on Bashkirs not to participate in the war. Because he remained in Russia, Fail Alsynov himself did his best not to speak publicly about the war, but his partner Ruslan Gabbasov, as well as all Telegram channels related to Bashkir nationalists, began to write about the evolution of the war in Ukraine. “It’s not our war. “
Russian losses in the war, involving at least many other Bashkortostanians, have led the Bashkir nationalist movement to become even more critical of the government. Its members began to speak brazenly about the desire to secede from Russia, advising Bashkirs to recover mentally. ready for a war of independence.
Fail Alsynov, who did his best to continue cautiously, did not impede his political activity. He continued to attend the network’s regular meetings on environmental issues, and his fellow Bashkirs continued to regard him as a leader of the nationalist movement.
After the government filed a complaint against him, Alsynov became more active on social media, launching a channel on Telegram that temporarily amassed more than 4,000 fans and sharing the main points of his case on VKontakte, where he had around 8,000 fans.
Many of Bashkortostan’s best-known figures have spoken out about the activist, including Raufa Rakhimova, editor of the local newspaper Bonus and niece of Bashkortostan’s first president, Murtaza Rakhimov.
According to Ruslan Gabbasov, Alsynov’s popularity is partly due to his modest lifestyle: “He drives a Škoda, has an apartment in Ufa, has never been involved in any corruption scandal and has not been observed to have any engagement with the authorities. . »
“No crowd this large has ever attended hearings against politicians, neither in Ufa nor in Moscow,” Gabbasov told Verstka. “How many other people turned to the Russian nationalist [Igor] Strelkov?A few hundred, not a few thousand. This shows not only the respect that Fail Alsynov enjoys among the Bashkir people, but also the abundant prospects for protest in Bashkortostan. “
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Story by Darya Kucherenko and Verstka’s editors
Abridged Edition via Sam Breazeale
Underrated stories. New perspectives. From Budapest to Bishkek. Protected via reCAPTCHA and Google’s privacy policies and terms of service apply.