Russian Germans want normal conditions for development

The Russian Germans aspire to creation of normal conditions for their cultural and social development, not re-establishment of territorial autonomy, said on Wednesday Vladimir Bauer, the President of the Russian Germans' Federal National-Cultural Autonomy (FNCA).

He recalled that the presidential programme for the Russian Germans had been adopted seven years ago and urged to more active implementation thereof - opening German schools, publishing periodicals in German.

The FNCA President believes that the Russian Germans as one of Russia's peoples must be represented in the bodies of power at the federal and local levels.

According to Bauer, about 860,000 Germans live in Russia, 75% of them - beyond the Urals. In addition, there are two areas compactly inhabited by Germans - the Azov district of the Tomsk region and the German national district of the Altai Territory, where about 120-130,000 ethnic Germans live.

Bauer added that the governors of the Kaluga and Tula Regions had proposed that vacant lands should be granted to those Russian Germans who desire to re-settle from Siberia and Kazakhstan to the central Russia.