Russians Outside of Moscow Identify Very Different Stories as Important than Do Muscovites

Paul Goble

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

    Staunton, Dec. 31 – Not surprisingly, in any large country, people in one part of it identify as the most important stories a very different list than do people in other parts. In Russia, this divide is less among the regions than it is between the regions and Moscow, whose residents and rulers set the weather as far as most people are concerned.
    That makes a list of stories the readers of the NeMoskva portal selected as the most important for them particularly significant because it shows that many beyond the ring road have a very different image of what has been going on over the last twelve months than do people in the capital and those who rely on them (nemoskva.net/2024/12/31/oglyanemsya-na-2024-j/).
    It is not based on anything like a representative sample: readers of the portal wrote in with their choices. But it is a useful correction to the end-of-year lists that are now filling up the Russian and Western media about what Russians consider important. Most of them reflect what Muscovites may but not what other Russians do.
The list as reported and described by NeMoskva includes:
•    Turning point of the year: invasion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces into the Kursk region
•    Line of the year: farewell to Alexei Navalny in Moscow
•    Protest of the year: street protests in Baymak, Bashkortostan   
•    Aggravation of the year: terrorist attacks in Moscow and Dagestan and conflicts on ethnic grounds in different regions of Russia
•    Disasters of the year: floods and forest fires across the country
•    Solidarity of the year: “Day of Unity of Ingushetia”  
•    Breakthroughs of the year: pipes and dams are breaking all over the country
•    Disasters of the year: the crash of a plane flying to Chechnya and tankers in the Kerch Strait
•    Spit of the year: closure of a center for children with disabilities in Kemerovo Novokuznetsk
•    Resignations of the year: fall of governors in the regions
•    Flashbacks of the year: the return of cards in Kaliningrad and the remains of a murdered journalist in St. Petersburg
•    Attempt of the year: installation and demolition of pillars in memory of those repressed in Tomsk
•    Clash of the year: the dismissal of a teacher from Khabarovsk for dancing in heels - and speeches in his defense
•    Surprise of the year: acquittal of a Buryat human rights activist
•    Trip of the year: Siberian circumnavigation