23 April 2011, 18:30
Moscow hosts rally against subsidizing Northern Caucasus
The participants of the rally started today at 3:00 p.m. near Chistye Prudy metro station are protesting against allocation of budget funds for supporting North-Caucasian republics.
As stated by the National Democratic Movement "Russian Civil Union" - the organizer of the event, within 10 years after the start of the second Chechen war, the expenditures of the Russian budget for supporting Northern Caucasus have increased 12-fold.
"The budgets of the North-Caucasian republics are subsidized by an average of 69 percent; while in Chechnya and Ingushetia the figure reaches 91 percent. Northern Caucasus, inhabited by 6.3 percent of the total Russia's population, spends 22 percent of all the funds allocated by the federal centre for the regions. At the same time, the share of tax revenues coming from the Caucasian republics to the Russian budget does not exceed 0.9 percent," says the official site of the organizers.
"We demand from Russian authorities to redirect financial flows to development of Russian regions, many of which are flooded with poverty and devastation," declares the Movement.
Meanwhile, Alexander Khloponin, Russian president's plenipotentiary in the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) does not think that the state budget provides huge funds for Northern Caucasus. He believes that other regions of Russia receive no less money than the republics of the NCFD.
