Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Interaction, migration and change
260 Melissa L. Caldwell al differences (Boym 1994:85; Ries 1997:152-154). During the Soviet period this diversity was officially recognized and institutionally managed through the “nationality” designation that appeared in Soviet citizens’ internal passports, as well as through the forced integration of minority groups. Quotas ensured the equitable distribution of different populations in universities, government agencies, the military, and the workplace; and various state-sponsored initiatives were enacted to preserve and celebrate the many ethnicities represented among the Soviet populace. At the same time, educational and cultural programs sponsored foreign students, from African and Asian countries in particular, to come to the Soviet Union to study, typically with the implicit goal of retaining influence among countries that were sympathetic to the Soviet Union (see McClellan 1993). Thus, in many ways, Soviet Russia was a multiethnic and multicultural entity, even as that diversity was carefully cultivated and managed from the top. Today, however, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent financial crises that have affected the region, official policies regarding racial and ethnic diversity and tolerance have increasingly diverged with popular views about difference. For Muscovites who are worried about the weakening of an essential Russian nation through the influx of foreign products, ideologies, and people, nonwhite outsiders have become convenient scapegoats (Lemon 1995; Ries 1997).7 Popular views hold Jews, Roma, people from the Caucasus regions, Asians, and Africans responsible for problems ranging from the dissolution of a pure Russian “blood" to the corruption of Russia’s economy (Rainsford 2001; Ward 1994).8 Similarly, the Muscovite director of one of the cafeterias contracted to provide foodservices for the CCM soup kitchens articulated her grievances against the program in racial terms. When CCM staff caught the woman engaging in illegal business transactions and threatened to conclude their dealings with her, she vowed to retaliate by spreading rumors throughout the larger aid community in Moscow about the unethical and corrupt activities of the
