On December 1, 2002, the Promotion of Tolerance and Improving Interethnic Relations Project was launched in Russia. It is financed by the European Union as part of its TACIS program. The project will run until December 30, 2004. EAWARN is the beneficiary and the Russian partner in the project. One of the main goals of the project is aiding EAWARN’s organizational and professional improvement. Additionally, the project aims to:

• Troubleshoot the current federal and regional legal system through analyzing it and offering recommendations for improvement
• Enhance the productive potential of administrative structures in charge of regulating ethnic policies, as well as experts and NGOs working in the realm of protecting ethnic minorities’ rights, promoting tolerance, and prevention of extremism

• Introduce new mechanisms for dialog between the authorities and minorities while improving the old approaches
• Develop a package of measures for streamlining public opinion, designed to improve the understanding of culture, ethnic diversity, and legal rights in the Russian society as a whole and in two pilot regions of Russian Federation in particular, the Stavropol krai and the Republic of Chuvashia.

Project Goals

Main Goal:

To contribute to the improvement of ethnic relations by resisting the growing trend of ethnization in Russian political discussion; to contribute to the cultural promotion of tolerance with the purpose of encouraging the peaceful coexistence of various ethnic and religious groups.

Specific Goals:

• To facilitate the creation of a legal system that would prevent ethnic intolerance and strife, in part by altering federal laws to meet Russia’s international human rights commitments.
• To assist in bringing the regional and local legal systems in correspondence with the federal legal system as well as the basic international interethnic relations norms in the two pilot regions.
• To encourage the growth of tolerance, the building of a well-balanced multinational society and the societal recognition ethnic minority rights through cooperation with state institutions and local authorities, as well as individual judges, prosecutor’s office employees, lawyers, law enforcers, and the public.

Within the scope of enhancing EAWARN, three seminars have been conducted: a methodological seminar for EAWARN’s Privolzhski (Volga Region) branch experts (August 2003, Moscow), the 10th Annual EAWARN Seminar (October 2003, Montenegro), the 11th Annual EAWARN Seminar (October 2004, France). EAWARN experts Maya Astvatsaturova (Pyatigorsk) and Ivan Boyko (Cheboksary) are project coordinators in the pilot regions.