The events in Yekaterinburg drew public attention to the protests against the construction of churches and inevitably gave rise to a question that was consonant with Elena Vaenga's seven-year-old phrase that has already become a meme: “They would try to do it in a mosque!” to a mosque or synagogue? Especially in the mosque … Because if they got there, they would not have reached the court, the Muslim brothers would have shown them "Christian forgiveness" at once. The gut is too thin to stick your nose into the mosque … But you are welcome to us”.
This idea was most fully expressed by the former DPR Minister of Defense Igor Strelkov, who wrote on May 15 on his official VKontakte page: “Why did the“popular protest”in Yekaterinburg arise only and precisely when they decided to build an Orthodox church? Why is there nowhere else so massively protesting against the construction of mosques? (And if they do protest, the press doesn't pay much attention to it). Intolerant, right? And against Christianity - "opium for the people" in the opinion of many and many - you can protest. If only because a mass of lawyers with accusations of Nazism will not come and Ramzan Akhmadovich from Grozny will not hint at possible unpleasant consequences …"
I will upset Igor Ivanovich, but mass protests against the construction of mosques in recent years in Russia have been more than once, and very resonant, and attracting the attention of the media, but apparently he did not notice them corny, being busy with discussions on the forums of historical reenactors, and just on duty grumbling on topics of intolerance, injustice of the order of the world and other things. Since I, as a journalist, have described such protests more than once, I will try to reveal the topic as fully as possible.
The first high-profile protest against the construction of a mosque took place in Moscow in 1994. I will quote about this an excerpt from the book of the religious scholar (and a member of the World Russian People's Council) Roman Silantyev "The Newest History of Islam in Russia" (2007):
“These events unfolded against the background of a large-scale conflict between Abdul-Vahed Niyazov (head of the Islamic Cultural Center (ICC), focused on Saudi Arabia. - Auth.) And Ravil Gainutdin (Mufti of Moscow, chairman of the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of the Central European Region of Russia) - Auth.), Which was provoked by one interesting initiative of the ICC Russia. In July 1994, representatives of this organization solemnly laid the first stone in the foundation of the Muslim Charitable and Cultural Center of Russia on the street. Ostrovityanov (south-western part of the city), on the territory of which it was supposed to build a mosque, madrasah, library, hotel, orphanage, health-improving complex, workshops with trade rows of artisans, trade and cateringrepresentative offices of the largest firms and banks in the world, residential buildings and even a center for oriental medicine. Meanwhile, the Moscow mufti rightly saw in this project a direct encroachment on his own interests - indeed, with each new mosque in the capital, not under the control of Ravil Gainutdin, his influence in the city fell …
To fight Niyazov, Ravil Gainutdin took an unexpected move, enlisting the support of the Congress of Russian Communities. On September 8, 1994, a joint press conference of the Moscow mufti and the chairman of the executive committee of the Congress of Russian Communities Dmitry Rogozin took place in Moscow, following which a special anti-Yazov statement was adopted. As part of the agreement between DUMTsER and KRO, activists of the latter held several pickets against the construction of the Islamic Cultural Center, which eventually had their effect - Niyazov's large-scale project was curtailed. In the modern history of Russia, these were the first recorded demonstrations of the Russian and Orthodox community against the construction of a mosque, therefore it is quite remarkable that they were inspired by a Muslim spiritual leader."
These events were covered quite loudly in the press at that time, including the liberal ones, such as Moskovskie Novosti (a quote from them is given in Silantyev's book).
We can say that it was a very long time ago, so it does not count. Let's go further.
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At the end of 2005, two protests against the construction of mosques - in Maloyaroslavets and Moscow - caused a great public outcry.
Komsomolskaya Pravda dedicated to the first one on November 17, 2005 a large reportage titled “Why the Russian city is afraid to build a mosque” in its federal issue. It opens with the words of a local resident: “Come soon! We all reared up here! People do not want a mosque! And where they decided to build it - right at the entrance to the city, on a hill, so that it was higher than all the temples! We will not give it!"
The initiator of the protest was the rector of the Kazan Cathedral of Maloyaroslavets, Archpriest Igor Silchenko, who motivated Komsomolskaya Pravda in this way: “It is not the very fact of building a mosque in some city that worries me. I can see quite clearly how the policy of Islam has changed in recent years. This policy is offensive, and we are only defending ourselves, and unsuccessfully. The famous Islamic preacher Heydar Jemal said so: "In 50 years the Islamic factor will dominate!"
Silchenko was then publicly supported by the abbess of the local nunnery, who said that there were not enough Muslims in the city to claim their temple.
As a result, as Radio Liberty reported on December 16, 2005:
“In Maloyaroslavets, Kaluga Region, the authorities did not give permission for the construction of a mosque to the local Tatar community. The reason is that a petition from the townspeople was submitted to the city administration, under which there were about a thousand signatures (Silchenko himself had previously told Komsomolskaya Pravda that “maybe five thousand, maybe ten” signatures had been collected. - Author) … The Muslim community Maloyaroslavets appealed to the city administration with a request to allocate a plot of land for the construction of a mosque in June. In the city, anonymous printed leaflets appeared on the posts and fences, calling to protest against the construction. Unknown authors in the leaflet asked rhetorical questions “Do you want Maloyaroslavets to turn into a Wahhabite center? Do you want a repeat of the Beslan events for our land?"
It is noteworthy that readiness was also declared for a forceful confrontation in the event. All the same Komsomolskaya Pravda report:
“At parting, we asked:
- Father Igor, what if the mosque is built? What will you do?
The priest thought for a second - should we say this? Then he removed his mighty steel cross under his cassock and said - as he had sealed:
“And if, nevertheless, people do not listen and a mosque is built here, ten strong Orthodox men will have to suffer for their faith …”
Simultaneously, protests began in Moscow, where in May 2005 Mufti Gainutdin announced that he was negotiating with the mayor's office on the allocation of sites for the construction of mosques in the areas of Lyublino and Entuziastov highway.
The initiator of the protests was the Russian National Union (RONS) * of Igor Artyomov, who in 2005 for some time became in Moscow the main force on the far-right flank, collaborating with the largest capital brigade of skinheads City Hunters (for example, that year they jointly organized a big concert for right youth "SKAzhi Oi!"). Soon other national-Orthodox organizations, for example, the Union of Orthodox Citizens, joined the RONS. Here is a statement from the last organization published on December 20, 2005 on the Pravaya. Ru website:
“In Moscow, a fifteen-minute drive from the Kremlin, it is planned to erect a gigantic complex, including a mosque, madrasah, training center, etc., according to the RONS website. According to information received from the Moscow mayor's office, Luzhkov has already signed an order on the allocation of a vast plot of land for this purpose right next to the Shosse Entuziastov metro station. The customer is a certain Islamic “religious organization named after Shamil”.
Who and why needed to erect such structures in the center of Moscow?.. Synchronicity of recent events in the country and in the world (senseless and comical riots in France and Australia, preparation of a migration amnesty in Russia, proposals to remove the cross from the state emblem and rename Grozny to Akhmadkadyr), heating up the already strained interethnic relations, suggests their external coordination.
The appearance in Moscow of a religious complex of this magnitude will mean the end of the already shaky "ethnic truce" … In connection with the above information, the Russian National Union announces the creation of an organizing committee and the start of a wide public campaign to counter the construction of a religious-ethnic complex by the "Shamil organization" in the center of Moscow … The press service of the Union of Orthodox Citizens does not just share the concern of RONS with the construction of a huge mosque near st. m. "Enthusiasts Highway" … Against this background, the creation of an Islamic proselyt center looks even more challenging … We do not just support the position of RONS, but demand the construction of temple complexes accommodating thousands of people, spiritual and educational centers, at every metro station from the Enthusiasts Highway to Novogireevo, and in all new districts of Moscow."
As we can see, as in the case of Maloyaroslavets, protests against the construction of mosques (in one case by the Tatar, in the other by the North Caucasian community) were motivated not by local realities, but by reasoning about the unrest of Arab youth in Paris and Sydney, the "offensive nature" of Islam, etc. etc. It seems that a huge role in this was played by the position of the then semi-official Russian media, which filed the aforementioned protests abroad exclusively in the context of the "war of civilizations", and the noisy presentation of Elena Chudinova's book "Notre Dame Mosque".
How the protest in the capital took place and how it ended can be found in a message on the RONS website in February 2006 (the site was deleted long ago, but a copy remained on the Internet):
“The organizing committee immediately started its work, widely informing the residents of the Eastern District of Moscow about the plans of the Islamists. Not wanting to be close to aggressive foreigners, who took the name of one of the most vicious enemies of Russia and the Russians for their organization, Muscovites en masse put their signatures under an appeal to the authorities demanding not to allow the construction of a Wahhabite outpost near their homes. At the same time, our associates conducted convincing conversations with responsible persons in the prefecture of the district and other authorities. And the results were not slow to appear.
An official letter was sent to Luzhkov from the prefecture of the Eastern Administrative District of Moscow substantiating the impossibility of building an Islamic complex in the district. The Russian people won a victory, forcing the authorities to reckon with their opinion … The Russian National Union announces: the work of the organizing committee does not stop. We will closely monitor the attempts of the Islamists to nestle in the capital of Russia and will give these attempts a decisive rebuff, wherever they are noted.
Okay, one can argue that this was also a long time ago, and here it did not come to public speeches (and only a massive collection of signatures took place). Well, let's move on.
On September 11, 2010, residents of Tekstilshchiki and Ryazansky districts of the South-Eastern District of Moscow took part in a rally to protect green spaces near their houses, where they were going to build a huge mosque. “The first case was in Tekstilshchiki, when there were protests from the local population. There was no earlier, "Silantyev noted on December 7, 2010 on the air of" Echo of Moscow " Although he previously described in his book the 1994 protests against the construction in the Moscow region of Konkovo.
A spontaneous rally in Tekstilshchiki was attended by several hundred people who filled the entire green zone, I can say this as a journalist who was directly present at the scene at that time. Some part was made up of nationalists who came from all over the city (mainly young people), but the overwhelming majority were local residents.
The conflict, which dragged on for several months, until the end of November (during this time, the protesters held several more actions in the park, a car rally and collected about 9 thousand signatures, and also opened their own website mecheti.net), turned out to be very loud. Protest leader Mikhail Butrimov gave interviews literally every other day, not only to Russian, but also to foreign (even Japanese) popular publications.
The Muslim community, supported by Mufti Gainutdin, for a long time refused to take into account the opinion of the residents, stating that only “Islamophobes” were protesting against the construction of the mosque (the Orthodox Christians would later build their “temple-phobes” from this term), “fascists” and all kinds of “marginalized”. All this, insulting local residents, only strengthened the protest and its support in society.
There were also demands to crack down on the protesting police forces (at first, local Islamists tried to exert pressure). Here is a quote from an article by Orkhan Dzhemal, published on September 21, 2010 in the Russian Newsweek magazine: “Muslims stand their ground. “We have legal permission. Even if 20,000 people come out to protest [against the mosque], the authorities should use truncheons to suppress such sentiments,”says the head of one of the spiritual administrations in an unofficial conversation.
Muslims threatened, tried to carry out alternative actions (to which a handful of old people came), collect signatures for the construction of a mosque, but they were completely unsuccessful.
It is characteristic that Orthodox Christians supported the protest against the construction of the mosque, and very actively. The first information about the rally on September 11, 2010 was thrown into blogs by the moderator of the Orthodox community ustav in LiveJournal Igor Gaslov, who was called the “patriarchal blogger” due to his inclusion in the patriarchal pool of journalists.
Then, Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society of the Moscow Patriarchate, spoke in support of the Tekstilshchik residents. “The rich practice of building Orthodox churches in countries dominated by non-Orthodox denominations, as well as Islam and Buddhism, shows that conflict situations can be easily avoided if the construction site, size of the temple and its architectural features are agreed with all stakeholders, including local residents. I am convinced that it is necessary to do the same in Moscow - first of all, through informing residents and organizing public hearings,”says his official response to the appeal of residents of Tekstilshchik, published on September 20, 2010 on the website of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Activists of the National Orthodox "People's Council" arrived at Tekstilshchiki to collect signatures against the construction of the mosque, and their leader Vladimir Khomyakov said at a meeting of one of the Moscow City Council commissions in October 2010: "Practice shows that decisions of this level are taken without discussion in the worst way."
A loud and resonant conflict (it was covered by all the leading mass media of the country, discussed in blogs and forums) eventually ended with the victory of the inhabitants of Tekstilshchikov over the most powerful Moscow muftiat, who then claimed leadership over all Muslims of Russia, which caused a real hysteria of the mufti Gainutdin about the "Islamophobes" … I think it was this protest that inspired residents across the country for future protests against religious buildings, making them believe in themselves.
By the way, when a year later they decided to build an Orthodox church on the same place in the park, the residents were also against it - including many of those who in 2010 protested against the construction of a mosque there. Because it is against the construction of something, and not out of a feeling of xenophobia (but, by the way, some of those who in 2010 were motivated precisely by xenophobia towards Muslims supported the construction of the temple).
On November 28, 2010, a motor rally from Tekstilshchik to the center of Moscow took place - the last protest action - and on December 12, 2010, a rally against the construction of a mosque in the Yuzhny Park in Kaliningrad took place. Again, it was not nationalists or activists of Orthodox organizations that came out to protest, but local residents, including mothers with children in strollers, concerned that on December 9, 2010, construction equipment began to barbarously destroy, uprooting, century-old trees in the park.
Subsequent protests, which gathered an average of 100-150 people, took place on December 19, 2010 and January 9, 2011, but the city administration refused to take them into account, even when 1.5 thousand signatures were collected, and on June 22, 2011, the Central District the Kaliningrad court confirmed the illegality of the allocation of a site for construction As a result, the regional government intervened in the situation, on November 30, 2013, the already almost built mosque was sealed, and in the spring and summer of 2014, local courts of different levels declared the construction illegal. The conflict dragged on for several more years, accompanied by complaints from Muslims about "Islamophobes" to all instances up to the country's president, as a result, the Kaliningrad authorities in 2017 handed over a building to the community for prayer next to an unfinished mosque, which was never allowed to be erected in the city.
Someone will say - so what, do you think, one hundred - two hundred - three hundred people? This is not the scale of Yekaterinburg, where thousands came out to protest against the church. Well, there were some.
On the night of September 19-20, 2012, in the Moscow district of Mitino, several thousand people came out to protest against the construction of a mosque on one of the green vacant lots. It so happened that I was the only journalist from all the Moscow media who went there (instead of falling onto the sofa after work, like others) and described everything in the material that hit the top of all news the next morning. “After a spontaneous rally for 3000 people, supported by deputies from all sides, Sobyanin canceled even construction plans the next morning,” recalled Vladimir Demidko, the then municipal deputy of the Mitino district.
Three thousand (Demidko notes that there is also an official certificate from the Ministry of Internal Affairs with this figure) in one specific residential area on the outskirts of the capital. Without a long "swing", the situation was discussed at most for several days at the regional Internet forum.
There were also protests in the regions. Without listing those that took place in the format of discussions on social networks, collecting signatures or polling local residents, which ended with the refusal of local authorities to build mosques (this was the case in 2013 in Tambov, Khabarovsk and Bratsk), I will mention the events in Novokuznetsk, where March 3, 2013 During the past year, about a hundred people took part in an unsanctioned protest organized by the Russian Patriotic Club, who were dispersed and detained by the police. The next action of the nationalists took place on March 17, 2013 and also ended in detentions. After that, in early April 2013, the mayor announced that the site for the mosque had not been allocated. In 2015, one of the muftis complained that “a group of radical activists who have settled under the guise of a patriotic club have been blocking the construction of a city mosque for a long time,intimidating local residents and officials by claiming that a Muslim temple would become a breeding ground for terrorism."
We can also mention the protests (with pickets and other things) against the construction of a mosque in the Novosibirsk district of Rodniki, organized in winter 2013-2014 by local nationalists and ended with Muslim refusal to build a religious building.
The most recent examples include the May protests of local residents against the construction of a mosque in the Kazan region "Aviastroitelny". I think that if you search more, and there are many, many more examples.
What conclusions can be drawn? Firstly, protests against the construction of mosques began in Russia earlier (they began to wave in the fall of 2010) than against the construction of Orthodox churches (which began mainly in 2012-2013). Secondly, protests against mosques were in fact often motivated by the protection of parks and simply green areas, which are very few in residential areas.
And the main conclusion common to any protests against the construction of religious buildings is an attempt to immediately declare the protesters marginalized, xenophobes, to confront them, most of all inflates the protest, because these accusations are unfounded and offend residents, showing an unwillingness to take their interests into account. And the logic of "muscle flexing" and the attempt to "go into a counterattack" is not at all suitable here.
* The organization is banned in Russia by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
Author: Vladislav Maltsev