#9 - JRL 2006-201 - JRL Home
Zyuganov Blames Despair Among Youth for Incidents in Karelia

MOSCOW. Sept 4 (Interfax) - The recent riots in Kondopoga, Karelia, are not of an ethnic nature, but are instead linked with the unemployment of youths, Russian Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said.

"Despair, substandard living conditions, the absence of jobs and respect for the past engender extremism and aggressiveness," he said in Moscow on Monday.

"One tries to transfer these things into the area of ethnic relations, which is very dangerous for Russia, in which every fifth or sixth family is international," he said.

"Three quarters of youths in the North Caucasian region do not have jobs, that is why they follow their noses, and settle elsewhere," Zyuganov said.

"Finally, some of them earn a living where they can, while the rest are organizing criminal groups," he said.

Access to knowledge and work should be given to young people and they should be provided with opportunities to build normal families in order to repair the situation, he said.

"The state needs to provide a young person with stable salary, and then there will be no repeats of the incidents witnessed in Kondopoga," Zyuganov said.