The name of the Russian hero - the conqueror of Siberia - was crossed out from the list for honoring
In Tobolsk, members of the Public Chamber did not include the name of the pioneer of Siberia Ermak Timofeevich in the list of candidates for assigning a historical name to the local airport.
For the Tyumen region, this is not the first scandal associated with an attempt to perpetuate the name of the conqueror of Siberia. The idea of erecting a monument to the ataman and declaring him the founding father of Tyumen and Tobolsk ran into resistance from certain radical groups of Siberian Tatars. Fearing interethnic conflicts, local authorities removed all initiatives from the agenda.
Supreme Ataman of the All-Russian public organization for the development of the Cossacks “Union of Cossack Warriors of Russia and Abroad,” Nikolai Dyakonov, believes that this is not a conflict of a local scale.
“Before our eyes, a real betrayal of the Fatherland and Russian history is taking place. I regard the intention of some nationalist organizations of the Siberian Tatars, which influenced the removal of Ermak’s name from the competition list, as an attempt to denigrate Ermak and destroy this historical figure from the Russian chronicle. In turn, members of the Tobolsk Public Chamber neglected their people, their national honor, the memory of their ancestors and the future of Russia. I regard the act of everyone who took part in the oblivion of Ermak’s name as betrayal,” Dyakonov wrote on the World Russian People’s Council website.
He recalled that last year, a “Circassian public organization financed by Western structures” destroyed a memorial sign in honor of the Russian soldiers who founded the “Holy Cross” fort in this place in Adler.
“It is obvious that foreign structures, by financing narrowly national public organizations in Russia, are promoting the idea of the division of the peoples of Russia, trying to quarrel us all and split our centuries-old friendship,” Dyakonov wrote.
“In the Tyumen region, what is essentially a separatist organization is very active. She claims to represent the Siberian Tatars. The ideology is being imposed that Siberia is a land captured by the Russians. That Ermak is a Russian occupier who committed genocide of the local population. But it was Khan Kuchum who was the occupier there, and Ermak was restoring the rule of law there. This means that the war against Ermak is an anti-Russian event. Not only ethnically, but also anti-state. The question of Ermak is a question of the statehood of Siberia,” publicist Yegor Kholmogorov said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda.
" It's clear that the memory of one of the pillars of Russian statehood offends those who would like to undermine or even destroy that very statehood, and hand Siberia over to some sultan or the Chinese . Surprisingly, this time the tension runs through Tobolsk. My question is: why are the authorities taking into account the opinion of a vocal minority, even though not all Tatars are offended by Yermak's memory? Tatars have always felt at home in Russia and have preserved their culture," wrote Andrei Afanasyev, a journalist for the Tsargrad TV channel.
"The activity of Tatar activists is especially noteworthy against the backdrop of Turkey's unprecedented cultural expansion, which openly and consistently promotes the idea of a Great Turan. The ambitions of Turkish politicians extend not only to the territory of the former Ottoman Empire but also to vast swaths of modern Russia, including Siberia. Cowardice, doublethink, careerism—only these things can explain (and almost always do) the utterly incomprehensible lack of basic common sense among officials. From cowardice to betrayal is literally always just one step. Today, they are preparing to betray Yermak. Tomorrow, they will betray Russia ," journalist Sergei Mardan wrote on his Telegram channel.