Up through 2001, the crisis center network RACCW and the Moscow crisis center ANNA were intermingled, with overlapping leadership and shared resources, but after criticism from USAID about this organizational structure, the organizations were severed. This change meant that RACCW would have to support itself without the Ford Foundation and the very effective fundraising of leader Marina Pisklakova.54 Although they had received some USAID funds for an antitrafficking hotline, the controversy had closed that door. Fortunately, because of previous transnational feminist networking, RACCW found a new feminist partner, Women’s Aid, the British network of organizations working to end domestic violence, which came with British and EU funding.55 In July 2003, they, in collaboration with a handful of other feminist crisis centers, started a large, multiyear project to target ethnic minorities and migrant communities.
However, from the onset, the project was an odd fit for Russia, where activism against gender violence had only just begun, the rule of law is sketchy, and racism (especially against those from the Caucuses) remained widely accepted even among the intelligentsia. Not understanding the Russian context, British partners were surprised that ethnic groups, especially unregistered immigrants, were particularly resistant to turning to either the NGOs or the state for help, or even to acknowledging that domestic violence existed within their community.56 In Russia, such an admission would legitimate common Russian assertions that ethnic minorities are to blame for society’s ills, especially for violence. Instead of introducing questions of intersectionality—how race and racism might impact gender violence—this approach threatened to foster racist arguments that domestic violence was a problem only for ethnic groups (or a problem related to the Chechen conflict). When the project came up for renewal, EU officials conducted what the Russian activists characterized (in exaggeration, one hopes) as a “nine — month audit worse than the KGB.” 57 Claiming the RACCW had failed to meet its goals—goals that underestimated the obstacles in Russia to shelters and the involvement of policymakers—the Europeans terminated the grant.
The fully autonomous, feminist RACCW was left without support. In the fall of 2005, the center existed only on the volunteer labor and small donations of its two top leaders. All of the paid staff had been let go, and by 2006, they lost their Moscow office. Similarly, autonomous feminist crisis centers with whom RACCW had been collaborating—in Saratov, Kazan, Nizhny Tagil, Voronezh, and Barnaul—lost their primary external funding. Even ANNA, the best-funded example of this kind of organization, was increasingly being drawn away from service provision toward becoming professional feminists disconnected from the women they professed to serve. It was the end of the era of autonomous feminist mobilization against gender violence.
Fatima in Kazan and the Women’s Alliance in Barnaul: Turning to the State
In response to these dire conditions, some formerly autonomous feminist organizations turned to the state. One such organization was Fatima, located in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, an ethnic homeland of approximately 48 percent mostly Muslim Tatars and 43 percent Russian ethnics deep in the heart of Russia. Although the movement had mostly been dominated by Russian ethnics, by 2004, women’s crisis centers had expanded into communities where ethnic minorities have more sway, such as Tatarstan, Buriatiia, Udmurt Republic, and Republic of Komi. Founded as part of the second generation, much like the Women’s Alliance in Barnaul, they had emerged as an active center, quickly joining the RACCW. As Kazan appears to be a hotspot for trafficking women (e. g., to or through Turkey, whose language is similar to Tatar), Fatima tried to secure antitrafficking funds, but got only small grants through RACCW.58 Generous with their time, the Fatima activists were also working with the Angel Coalition affiliate in Kazan. In the summer of 2004, for the one deported trafficked woman staying at the safe house, they were providing psychological support, attempting to find her employment and housing, and trying to keep her from the mafia. Unlike most women’s crisis center leaders, the directors, Venera Ibragimova and Guzel’ Sharapova, were not ethnic Russians, but Tatars, making them good candidates to work with RACCW on the ethnic minority project.
By 2004, they had created a tenuous base of support. The small grants through RACCW gave the directors some compensation for their time, while a sympathetic director of a local social service agency granted them office space. In Kazan, one of the wealthiest Russian cities outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, authorities could afford to be a little generous. But although Angel’s affiliate received foreign assistance, Fatima’s leaders were working for free. Once RACCW’s EU grant was terminated, the state support proved insufficient, the founders left, and the organization turned to antitrafficking funds.
In the southwestern Siberian regional capital of Barnaul, where domestic violence activism had led to the emergence of three entities to address domestic violence, including state-NGO hybrids, by 2005 the autonomous and openly feminist Women’s Alliance was also left virtually unfunded once the EU grant to the RACCW was terminated. In 2003, forced to move when they could not afford the increased rent, the center was struggling to find and maintain office space (Sperling 2005, 173). Their financial problems existed despite their international recognition by American women’s magazine Marie Claire, which in 2004 declared staff member Elena Shitova to be one of the top ten women in the world. As director Natalia Sereda scrambled for financial resources, the regional administration decided to support a government crisis center for women, and eventually invited Sereda to become the new government center’s director.59 Although funding is limited to salaries for a few specialists and the rent, Sereda thought that she could use these resources to continue supporting her advocacy. As a condition for accepting the job, Sereda insisted that she be able to continue her connection with the autonomous women’s movement. However, soon growing frustrated with the state’s focus on only social service provision, Sereda returned to the Women’s Alliance.
Considering Putin’s campaign to establish control over society, moving toward the state may be the only long-term tactic for Russian activists as the state becomes “the only game in town.” But there are huge risks. Government leaders or whims may shift suddenly, as they did for a similar government center in Arkhangelsk. Even if funding continues longer term, in a state so resistant to feminism—and foreign influence—such movement toward the state runs the high risk of cooptation of the activists, bringing them “into the process but. . . not rendering] policy the movement desires” (Stetson 2002, 12).