Why does Russia have 'Autonomous' Republics?

There are 21 Republics in Russia that were created to give its ethnic minorities some degree of autonomy within the Russian Federation. Each Republic represents a specific ethnic group, who in many cases makes up the majority of the Republic's population. The extent to which they are autonomous has changed through history, but ever since Putin took office, he has been gradually stripping away their power in an effort to centralize all power in Moscow.

FULL TRANSCRIPT + SOURCES:

MAIN SOURCES:

The Rise and Fall of Power-Sharing Treaties Between Center and Regions in Post-Soviet Russia (

Korenizatsiya: The Soviet Nationalities Policy for Recognised Minorities

Autonomy in the Russian Federation: Theory and Practice (JSTOR):

#RussianRepublics

[Screwycummings]

It's ironic that Stalin promoted Russification even though he was Georgian himself.

[SolomonHjerte-li]

Why does America has states? That is how it sounds. Russia has Autonomous Republicas, because it's not called Russia officially, but Russian Federation. It's that simple.

[deniskhafizov]

You forgot to mention such administrative unit as "автономный округ", usually translated as "autonomous area", "autonomous region" or simply "okrug". These are parts of regions, or "oblast", usually split from them for marking territories of ethnic minorities. Of course, they have even less autonomy then the autonomous republics, but they have a significant part of territory and population of Russia. For example, Tyumen oblast almost fully consists of Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets okrugs.

[chairmanrosethewisegentleman]

At least Russian today respect local native government of different ethnic background and culture other than Russia. Unlike the So called Most democratic nations that jail their natives in Reservations and Refugee.

[sherrrainbow]

Sorry to see your video get botted. I'm from Russia and I enjoyed your video.
However, there are some problems i'd like to mention:
1) Crimea wasn't Ukrainian until 1954
2) Do not mix up Turkish and Turkic. the exonim Yakuts is not of Turkish origin, it's related to the Turkish word, but both were derived from an earlier word of the ancestor language of Turkish and the exonim most likely didn't even come directly from a turkic language

[Pythoner]

The EU has been centralizing more and more and assuming powers away from its member states too. Maybe talk about that.

[darkmatter]

Creator keeps mentioning "separatist movements" even among Tatars when there is none in reality. You just know the script came directly from US State Department. 😅

[SPetrosyan]

The point of this video was to show how bad Putin is or how kakistocratic his government is.

In the video, there are no links or words of any of the people mentioned, even the reverse, it shows how happy they are with their identities and cultures.

When I lived there before, I never saw any animosity between the people until the West entered the pit they had created.

A totally dishonest report. It's just a propaganda piece, as someone below said.

[gnosticbrian]

Crimea was NOT part of Ukraine until the Ukrainian head of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, "gifted" Crimea to Ukraine. It was not his to "give" away and the population was and remains overwhelmingly ethnic Russian.

[Icemoiseture]

idk if this video is positive or for cultural knowledge but it seems to divide russia as nation itself subconsciously especially for viewers who are easily affected by emotions and to be honest there are a lot videos like this swarming in the net but for those western countries its not that dramatic compared to their counterpart.... Religions, Cultures, Nationalities, History... very good topic to instigate division, conflict, and hatred.

[kotenoklelu]

In winter temperature in republic Sakha drops to -45°C and it lasts for month or two. It can get to -60°C in some places. -35°C is misleading. -45°C feels colder and need another set of clothes to meet the demand. Under -50° cars may broke. You mislead people.

[wmchan]

A common language that can unify all the many minorities into the motherland is therefore vital to the nation's survival.
Many countries including China and India had numerous minorities having their own language and culture.
Russia is not the only country with this issue.

[EvreyNaZarplatke]

It's important to understand that the low percentage of the Russian population in Chechnya, mentioned in the video, is linked to the anti-Russian pogroms that occurred in the republic before the attempt to secede. In 1959, the Russian population made up nearly half of Chechnya's population, and then the percentage of Russians gradually decreased. By 1989, they made up 25%, but starting from 1991, Russians began to be "eliminated, " leading to a rapid outflow of the population. This led to the statistics presented by the author.

[h_fx]

6:23 Crimean Tatars weren’t the only minority deported from their land, but Azerbaijanis, Balkars, Romanians, Chechens, Estonians, Finns, Kalmykians, Karachays, Koreans, Kumyks, Latvians, Lithuanians, Meskhetians, & Poles. Majority of the minorities listed were deported for a similar reason the Crimeans were, for *allegedly* helping the Germans during Operation Barbarossa.

[andraslibal]

Imagine the same about what the US did to the American Indians.

[norlex]

6:32 we have many proofs that some Crimean tatars collaborated with Nazis but the problem is that it was not even 1/10 of the Tatar population

[aylayilmaz]

Despite todays condition, what russian has done with those minorities are more better than what american done with their Indian population..

Russian, at least, still keep them and their traditions and most of their way of live alive within Föderation..
Meanwhile the You know the stories of it

[SPetrosyan]

there are too many inaccuracies and biases in this video

[dimadima]

We don’t like these videos because they are almost completely superficial, incompetent and with an undoubted overtone of negativity towards the Russian government. It's no secret that the actions of the authorities since 2000 have only strengthened and increased the richness and diversity of Russia's regions... but an English-language resource, by its nature, cannot present the material unbiasedly. You know the context well enough
and Stalin, to quote him with a negative connotation? Have you gotten rid of the phobia that Putin causes you in order to at least somehow, impartially mention his personality and politics? If not, then why are you doing this?

[Ese_osa]

This shows you know nothing about Russia. Stick to content about the USA which you know well