[PGR88]

President Vladimir Putin has promised government backing for Islamic religious education in Russia, in a bid to stave extremism and cater to Russia’s large Muslim community.....Up to 20 million Muslims make up Russia’s second-largest religious minority.

What is your point? There are Muslims in Russia? Its pretty clear to me. Putin intends that his government, and the successors he tries to put in place, controls Islamic religious teaching in Russia, probably even more than the government's control over the Orthodox church. 20 millions Muslims have to be dealt with and governed - no one can just send them away.

[GoldenState_Rose]

Agreed! I accidentally pinged you for this one when meaning to ping WatchungEagle who seems critical of any mention of multiculturalism.

[GoldenState_Rose]

And an interesting development regarding Christian evangelism in Russia’s Muslim areas:

“Russian Orthodoxy Losing Out to Protestantism in North Caucasus”

http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/11/russian-orthodoxy-losing-out-to.html

[cynwoody]

20 millions Muslims have to be dealt with and governed - no one can just send them away.

Really?

Uncle Joe dealt with presumed hostile populations in exactly that way. He migrated them to less threatening locations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Soviet_Union

E.g., I happen to know a real estate agent who is a naturalized American from Russia. She speaks Russian, but looks completely (and beautifully) Korean. Because she is. Stalin deported her folks from the Soviet Far East to Kazakhstan, where her husband, a Korean-American Peace Corp volunteer found her. Stalin had worried that the Koreans in the Soviet Far East were loyal to the Japanese, an enemy of the Soviet Union. So, he moved them to Kazakhstan, isolated in the middle of Asia.