Indigenous Peoples in Russia

Of the more than 160 peoples inhabiting the territory of contemporary Russia, 40 are officially recognised as indigenous. While the Russian constitution and national legislation set out the rights of “indigenous minority peoples of the North”, there is no such concept as “Free, Prior and Informed Consent” enshrined in legislation and thus, Indigenous Peoples are not recognised by Russian legislation as such. Russia has a multitude of regional, local, and interregional indigenous organisations, but the national umbrella organisation, RAIPON, operates under tight state control.

Russia has not endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, nor has it ratified ILO Convention 169. The country has inherited its membership of the major UN Covenants and Conventions from the Soviet Union: the ICCPR, ICESCR, ICERD, ICEDAW and ICRC. It also has ratified the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) of the Council of Europe.

Indigenous Peoples in Russia

Of the more than 160 peoples inhabiting the territory of contemporary Russia, 40 are officially recognised as “Indigenous Minority Peoples” of the “the North, Siberia and the Far East”. The latter together number around 260,000, less than 0.2% of the total Russian population, of which ethnic Russians account for roughly 80%. One more group, the Izhma Komi or Izvatas, is seeking recognition, which continues to be denied, and at least one other, the Kerek, is already extinct. Seven more Indigenous Minority Peoples live in European Russia.

Larger peoples, for example the Tuvans and Yakuts, are not officially considered Indigenous Peoples, and their self-identification varies. Since the Russian annexation of Crimea, several ethnic groups who self-identify as Indigenous have come under Russia’s control: the Crimean Tatars, the Krymchaks and the Karaim; however, Russia has not recognised this self-identification.

Two-thirds of Indigenous Peoples are rural and largely depend on traditional subsistence strategies such as fishing, hunting and reindeer herding, while Russia as a whole, is a highly urbanised country.

Main challenges for Russia’s Indigenous Peoples

Civil society in Russia is affected by continually shrinking civic space. Since 2012, NGOs that receive foreign funding can be officially classified “foreign agents”, leading many of them to close down in order to minimise exposure to legal risks. Many foreign NGOs have been banned as “undesirable organisations”. Russia’s export revenues are largely generated from the sale of fossil fuels and other minerals, often extracted from territories traditionally inhabited or used by Indigenous Peoples. Like many resource-rich countries, Russia is heavily affected by the “resource curse”, fuelling authoritarianism, corruption and bad governance and which, in many ways, impacts negatively on the state of Indigenous Peoples’ human rights and limits opportunities for their effective protection.

Another struggle for Indigenous Peoples in Russia relates to land and natural resource rights. In 2015, an important article in Russia's legislation in regard to this issue was revoked. The articles stipulated that in places of traditional residence and traditional activities of indigenous peoples, local authorities should decide on the “prior determination of locations for the placing of objects” on the basis of the results of meetings or referenda of the indigenous and local communities. This means that local authorities have now lost most of their legal leverage in terms of being able to protect indigenous lands from incursions by business enterprises and other resource users. In 2015 and 2016, this led to a number of cases of violations of Indigenous Peoples’ land tenure.

The law on Territories of Traditional Nature Use (TTNU) from 2001 is the only federal law affording some form of recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ land tenure. However, the federal government has never confirmed any of the several hundred Territories of Traditional Nature Use (TTNU) created by regional and local administrations, in cooperation with indigenous communities, despite repeated calls from UN treaty bodies, indigenous organisations and human rights experts to do so. Thus, the regionally- and locally-established TTNU has no guaranteed legal status and can be dismantled at any time.

In relation to this topic, one more regulatory change passed in 2017, making fishing applications for members of Indigenous Peoples much more difficult. The legal principles are that they have the right to fish without special permits, but especially in the Pacific region of Russia, where fishing is big business, special rules and regulations require indigenous peoples to go through a tedious application process first, accept the amount, time and place assigned by the authorities for fishing and accept a number of additional restricts.