"Traditional values" unleashed: the ultraconservative influence on Russian family policy

Abstract

Family policy in Russia is supposed to translate “traditional values” into practice and to represent the “backbone” of national security, supporting the envisioned recovery of Russia as a global power. Since about 2010, an ultraconservative coalition of the Russian Orthodox Church, civic organizations, experts, and politicians has emerged which manages to mobilize people and influence the lawmaking process. The knowledge networks of these ultraconservative “moral norm entrepreneurs” overlap with those of Russia’s conservative ideologists, but are not identical with them. This chapter analyzes: (1) who belongs to the ultraconservative coalition; (2) the ultraconservatives’ diagnosis of Russia’s crisis and their suggested solutions; and (3) selected attempts by them to influence the political process. Ultraconservatives militate for a return to the multi-child family as social norm and the strengthening of the “natural” family as a fundamental institution—against the individual rights of its members and the state. This family concept includes restrictions on the reproductive rights of women, but also the concept of a caring father. In their emphasis on the “autonomy of the family” they come close to the Christian fundamentalist movement in the US, with which they cultivate contacts despite their anti-Westernism. Despite their increased influence, the coalition is far from determining family policy in Russia.

Full text

11 “Traditional values” unleashed
The ultraconservative inuence on
Russian family policy
Katharina Bluhm and Martin Brand
Introduction
The various new Russian conservatives see their unifying bond in a “social con-
servatism.” Nevertheless, the conceptual ideologists elaborate little on what a
conservative social policy might mean that could cover all welfare- state aspects in
today’s Russia. Social conservatism results, for them, rather from the recovery of
economic and political “sovereignty” and a strong developmental state which will
defend the interests of the locally bound “majority” and national real economy,
over the irresponsible transnational class of “liberal nancialists” (Khazin 2017).
It’s about restoring the distributive power of the state through economic growth
and a return to a progressive income- tax regime (Glazyev 2015). Labor participa-
tion, if mentioned at all, is conceptualized as state- led corporatism.
One eld of social policy, however, has the utmost attention of the new
Russian conservatives: family policy. Family policy is supposed to translate “tra-
ditional values” into practice, to represent the backbone of national security, sup-
porting the envisioned recovery of Russia as global power. This recovery is
pictured as heavily jeopardized by a severe “demographic crisis” caused by the
withdrawal of the state from economic and social policy since the breakdown of
the Soviet Union. Hence, a pronatalist family policy has become the focal point
of conservative social policy and a major battleeld for conservative “moral
norm entrepreneurs” (Stoeckl 2016).
At rst glance, the conservative agenda in social policy has been more suc-
cessful than in economic politics (see Bluhm; Busygina and Filippov in this
volume). Already in 2006, the re- elected president Vladimir Putin activated a
pronatalist policy that departed from the logic of the “negotiated neo- liberal”
program, as Linda Cook put it in her seminal work on Russia’s welfare state
(2007). With the so- called “maternity” or “family capital” that was rst intro-
duced in 2007 for a dened time span in order to stimulate an increase in the
birth rate, in family policy especially, Russia switched from a liberal- minimalist
approach focusing on the poor, back to state intervention that would cover all
strata of the society independent of need. However, as in the eld of economic
politics, the new conservatives did not manage at that point to push through their
entire agenda.

224 Katharina Bluhm and Martin Brand
The arguments in this chapter are twofold. First, the conservative discourse
on family policy is dominated by an ultraconservative coalition surrounding the
Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) that is both anti- Soviet and anti- liberal. This
coalition has been quite successful in spelling out what “traditional family
values” are supposed to mean. However, even in this extreme version of new
conservatism, the ultraconservative re- invention of tradition does not simply
refresh pre- revolutionary values. Second, with the pronatalist turn of Putin’s
administration and particularly after the president’s ofcial commitment to “tra-
ditional values” of 2013, ultraconservative positions and networks have gained
more and more inuence and won important battles over family policy. Yet, the
implementation of their agenda has remained piecemeal, and contested within
the elite.
This chapter proceeds in four steps: in the rst part, we analyze the ultracon-
servative coalition that focuses on family policy. Their networks overlap with
the knowledge networks of the conceptual ideologists of the new Russian con-
servatism, but are not identical (see Bluhm in this volume). In the second part,
we explore the ultraconservatives’ normative agenda and reform ideas and show
how they combine anti- Soviet and anti- liberal positions. The third part relates
the successes, failures, and compromises that have taken place in the translation
of the conservative normative agenda into family politics. The conclusion evalu-
ates the results of our inquiry.
Forging the ultraconservative coalition
The Russian Orthodox Church, which considers family issues part of its “canon-
ical territory” (ROC 2013), is a key moral norm entrepreneur in family policy
and traditional values, but also associates with a wider network of ultraconserva-
tive activists, experts in think tanks and universities, and politicians. We call
these “ultraconservative” because within the camp of the new conservatives they
are the most fundamentalist coalition. The Church organization and the regional
afliations of ultraconservative civic associations have spread their roots widely
in local communities. At the same time there are close ultraconservative ties to
the Moscow elite.
The ROC already acted under the previous Patriarch Alexy II as a norm entre-
preneur, even when their ideas had not yet been bundled under the formula of
“traditional values” and their normative agenda was not yet fully developed. In
the 1990s the ROC and other “traditional religious communities” vigorously
opposed the application of family planning and reproductive rights concepts
propagated by the UN and other international organizations in Russia. They con-
tested the promotion of contraceptives with which the Yeltsin government hoped
to combat the high abortion rate in Russia, and the introduction of sex education
in Russian schools. Diverse congresses and committees, including those of other,
“traditional” religions, devoted themselves to the “protection of motherhood and
the family,” were already opposed to the “liberals,” and had an outspoken demo-
graphic emphasis. In the 2003–04 election campaign for Putin’s second term, the

“Traditional values” unleashed 225
ROC used the opportunity to promote a pronatalist turn, though it took the gov-
ernment until 2006 to take the rst concrete steps in that direction. From that
point on, a coherent demographic and family- political discourse emerged that
before was dispersed among different political, ecclesiastical, and academic
circles.
A catalyst for the development and public visibility of the ultraconservative
coalition were several pro- family congresses, with international participation.
The year 2010 was decisive here. One year after the enthronement of the new
ROC Patriarch Kirill I, Russia’s rst “National Congress on Demography—
Russia’s Sanctity of Motherhood” took place in the congress hall of Christ the
Savior Cathedral in Moscow. The congress was sponsored by the national
program, “The Sanctity of Motherhood” (Svyatost’ materinstva), of a Kremlin-
related foundation, and was organized by the ultraconservative coalition in close
collaboration with the World Congress of Families (WCF ), founded in 1995 by
rightist Christian activists in the US (Levintova 2014).1 The WCF sees itself as
part of an “emerging conservative movement” against the new “cultural imperi-
alism” that seeks to punish countries not embracing the redenition of family.
That rst national demographics congress in 2010 was followed one year later
by a rst “World Demographic Summit: The Family and the Future of Human-
ity” of the WCF at the Lomonosov Moscow State University (MGU) in Moscow,
blessed by Kirill.2 In 2012, a second summit was held in Ulyanovsk. These two
summits were meant to test Russia’s bid to host the WCF World Congress held
annually at various venues.3 The World Congress was indeed scheduled to take
place in the Kremlin shortly after the Sochi Olympics in 2014, but had to be can-
celed under pressure from the US government after the Crimean annexation. The
largest congress sponsor was the investment banker and billionaire Konstantin
Malofeev, who was to assume two- thirds of the congress costs and had previ-
ously participated in nancing the national summits.
With his close relationships to the highest ranks of the ROC, members of the
ruling elite and conservative ideologists, Malofeev is a key broker who bridges
different national and international networks, for which purpose he also uses his
business positions, charity activities, his TV channel Imperial City (Tsar’grad),
and the political- analytical think tank Katehon. In 2007 he founded the largest
Orthodox charity foundation St. Basil the Great (Fond svyatitelya Vasiliya
Velikogo), which supports conservative civil society and is an ofcial partner of
the WCF. The supervisory board includes Bishop Tikhon (Georgy Shevkunov)
and the lmmaker Sergey Mikhalkov (see also Bluhm in this volume). In 2011,
the Saint Basil Foundation established the Safe Internet League—with support
of Igor Shchyogolev, at the time Minister of Telecoms and Mass Communica-
tions. Malofeev became a member of the board of trustees of the League, while
Shchyogolev headed the supervisory board of the League. At the end of 2011 the
League drafted the “Law to restrict the Internet” that was adopted by the State
Duma in 2012 (Shekhovtsov 2018, 182).
Malofeev was also named to the expert council of the Patriarch’s Commis-
sion on “Family Matters, Protection of Motherhood and Childhood” (in the

226 Katharina Bluhm and Martin Brand
following: “Family Commission”) that Kirill created in 2011. The Family Com-
mission became a major player in the conservative pro- family network when the
Holy Synod appointed Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov as its chairman two years
later.4 Smirnov previously headed the Synodal Military Cooperation Division
and has worked for the patriarch’s TV channel Savior (SPAS TV) (founded in
2005 in response to Ukraine’s Orange Revolution), and in church educational
institutions.
A key academic expert in the coalition is the demographer and sociologist
Anatoly Antonov, professor at MGU. In the 1990s, Antonov reached out to
American pro- family activists and—according to self- reports—jointly founded
with them the WCF. One of his allies is the Russian Institute for Strategic
Studies (RISS), the famous think tank of the Russian president. In 2003, RISS
founded the Institute for Demographic Research, whose director became the
young conservative, close to the ROC, Igor Beloborodov. The two experts
created in 2006 the research network demographia.ru that named as partner the
Patriarch’s Family Commission. Conservative child and family psychologists
who infuse pedagogical language into the ultraconservative discourses have
joined the demographers. For a wider public, well known in this regard are Irina
Medvedeva and Tatyana Shishova—leading personnel in the Association of
Parental Committees and Societies (Assotsiatsiya roditel’skikh komitetov i soob-
shchestv, ARKS).5 The two pro- family activists have many other afliations and
ofcial positions. Medvedeva, for example, heads the Institute of Demographic
Security. In this function she is on the board of the Russian Children’s Founda-
tion and vice- president of the International Fund for Socio- Psychological
Support of Family and Child.6 At the same time she is a member of the Central
Committee of the civic movement Narodnyy Sobor—an important link to the
conservative ideologists (see Bluhm in this volume). The two Orthodox women
regularly publish together, on among others the ROC internet journal pravosla-
vie.ru.
One of Antonov’s busiest students is Aleksey Komov, who turned toward
conservatism and Orthodoxy after some career steps in the nancial sector and
as a nightclub owner in the late 1990s. He wrote a doctoral thesis on the ideo-
logical roots of the anti- family worldview under Antonov’s supervision. Having
grown up in London and New York and being multilingual, he became a front
gure for the ultraconservative circles internationally, and in the creation of a
“Conservative Internationale.” According to Shekhovtsov (2018, 181), Komov
is the head of the international department of the Patriarch’s Family Commission
and, among other functions, is a member of the Board of Directors of the WCF,
where he is responsible for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent
States, and WCF ambassador to the UN.7 Komov collaborates with Malofeev as
a foreign projects manager of the Saint Basil the Great Foundation and sup-
ported, as a board member of the Safe Internet League, the censorship of the
internet according to Anton Shekhovtsov (ibid.).
Like Malofeev and Beloborodov, Komov, born in 1971, belongs to the
younger generation of Russian conservatives. With the support of the WCF and

“Traditional values” unleashed 227
Archpriest Smirnov, Komov set up in 2011 his own pro- family foundation (Fond
podderzhki sem‘i i demograi vo imya svyatykh Petra i Fevronii) and the Ana-
lytical Center Family Policy.ru. Later Komov launched together with a close col-
laborator from the Analytical Center an inter- regional NGO “For Family Rights”
(Za prava sem’i). Both are also activists in the Russian home- schooling move-
ment. Between 2011 and 2015 Komov’s think tank acted as an advisor to the
parliament’s committee on “Questions of Family, Women and Children” chaired
by Elena Mizulina.8
Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov, Malofeev, Antonov and Komov, Elena
Mizulina, and the Yakunins constituted the Russian planning committee for the
2014 WCF World Congress that was supposed to take place in the Kremlin
(Levintova 2014).9 Vladimir Yakunin, close St. Petersburg condant of Putin,
can be seen as an important political patron of the ultraconservative coalition.
Although he was at the time of the conference planning still the head of the
Russian railway company, he already headed the foundations Istoki and the
foundation St. Andrew the First- Called (Fond svyatogo vsekhval’nogo apostola
Andreya Pervozvannogo), which had existed since 1992. Since 2006, both
foundations have been active in supporting pro- family projects, anti- abortion
campaigns, and promotion of a “new father role” in families.10 Yakunin’s wife
runs the all- Russian program Sanctity of Motherhood, funded by both founda-
tions. Natalia Yakunina co- organized the national demographic congress in 2010
and regularly invites activists to international forums in close cooperation with
the ROC.11 Her political inuence, however, she draws mainly from her position
in the governing body of the National Parenting Association for Social Family
Support and the Defense of Family Values (Natsional’naya roditel’skaya assot-
siatsiya sotsial’noy podderzhki sem’i i zashchity semeynykh tsennostey, NPA),
which has existed since 2013 and claims to be the largest Russian parents’
organization.
One of the most outspoken gureheads in the ultraconservative coalition in
Russian politics today is the Senator for the Omsk district Elena Mizulina, who
was in the State Duma for the pro- Kremlin center- left party A Just Russia
(Spravedlivaya Rossiya) from 2007 to 2015. The lawyer was and still is active in
several high- ranking committees for the family, children’s rights, and demo-
graphy. In 2008 she became the head of the State Duma Committee on Family,
Women and Children Issues, replacing the chair of the Association of Women of
Russia Ekaterina Lakhova (who conservatives regarded as one of the Yeltsin
liberal clan, and was attacked for pushing forward the introduction of “family
planning” lessons into Russian schools). Under the direction of Mizulina the
Duma Committee launched several legislative projects that aroused heated
public debate. When she became Senator in September 2015, more moderate
female politicians endorsed her positions. Two years later Mizulina left A Just
Russia. The party announced that it is a “secular party” that has long ceased to
support Mizulina’s initiatives.12 Yet she is still the head of the President’s Coord-
inating Council that Putin created in 2010 to implement the National Action
Program for Children 2012–2017.

228 Katharina Bluhm and Martin Brand
The ultraconservative coalition was joined in 2011 by the former political
adviser and TV moderator Sergey Kurginyan and his wife Maria Mamikonyan,
although they are not close to Orthodoxy. Kurginyan advocated for Putin’s third
presidential term on his internet platform Essence of Time (Sut’ vremeni),
founded in 2011. Although Kurginyan’s ideas on state capitalism are close to the
ideas of the new Russian conservatives, he argues for a renewed communism,
which sets him apart from the intellectual movement we are dealing with in
this volume. The couple became inuential norm entrepreneurs when they
founded their own parents’ association called All- Russian Parental Resistance
(Roditel’skoe vserossiyskoe soprotivlenie, RVS/PBC), which successfully
mobilized public outrage against the juvenile justice system in 2012 (see
below).13
The ultraconservative agenda
The major goal of the ultraconservatives is to reconstruct a “modernized tradi-
tional family” for ideological, moral, and geopolitical reasons. In recent years
two topics have preoccupied the norm entrepreneurs: (a) the large family as a
social norm and its support by the state; and (b) the legal status of the family and
the individual family member under the state. Both topics and the suggested
solutions are embedded in a diagnostic frame that equates the “demographic
crisis” to a crisis of the nation and of Russia as a superpower.
The ght against depopulation—large families as a new social norm
The ultraconservatives argue from a diagnosis of three types of crisis: the demo-
graphic crisis, the crisis of the family as an institution, and the national crisis. In
order to counter these three crises in Russia, a thus far disadvantaged family
type—the family with three or more children—must become again the social
norm. The demographers point out that over 50 percent of families should have
three or more children, and ve as an ideal—an extremely ambitious goal, since
this type presently accounts for only 6 percent of Russian families, while
two- thirds raise just one child. For such a turnaround to succeed, the ultra-
conservatives have demanded since the early 2000s extensive social policy
measures—subsidized housing, low- interest mortgage rates, tax relief, pension
amounts dependent on the number of children, and others.
However, all these measures will fail if the values of the younger generation
are not drastically altered. Of what use will even generous state support be, asks
Antonov, if the desire for offspring is already satised with one or two children?
That is why conservatives interpret the demographic crisis as the result of a pro-
found “crisis of the institution of the family.” In addition to social spending by
the state and pro- family propaganda in the mass media, the ultraconservatives
call for a major upgrade in the legal status and social prestige of large families,
such that only families of more than two children are viewed as “complete”
(Antonov and Borisov 2006; Antonov 2007, 2016; Smirnov 2014, 106).

“Traditional values” unleashed 229
Ultraconservatives see in the crisis of the institution of family a long- lasting
consequence of the destruction of the traditional Russian family by the Bolshe-
viks and the Soviet system, as the RISS- demographer Beloborodov (2009) states:
After all, it was the Soviet government that rst legalized abortion, per-
verted the procedure for registering a marriage; a woman who had been cut
off from the family hearth was sent to work “in the name of a bright com-
munist future,” and a father’s role was reduced to that of an insect, which
completely deformed the family structure. In the reign of Tsar St. Nicholas
II, Russia’s population increased by 50 million, and in the Yeltsin and sub-
sequent periods decreased by more than 12 million. Are these gures not
convincing?14
Interestingly, the ultraconservatives blame Lenin and Trotsky for their liberali-
zation of abortion and divorce, while they paint an ambivalent picture of the
Stalinist period by suggesting that forced collectivization, industrialization,
and urbanization was the rst major blow against the traditional (rural) family,
yet they do not criticize Stalin. Smirnov provides a typical argument in this
regard:
When the Bolsheviks set the task of destroying the peasantry precisely as a
class, they inicted irreparable damage to the people. […] And this tragedy
of our people, we still cannot remedy even now. In the very short reign of
Emperor Nikolay Aleksandrovich (he was shot when he was 50, he could
have perhaps lived for another 20 years), the population of Russia increased
by six million people. And now there are exactly as many of us as under
Nikolay Aleksandrovich, that is, in 100 years we have not added anything to
the population, although we should be already six hundred million, and then
we could compete with such countries as India and China. And we would
have twice as many people as the United States, so then the conversation
would be quite different. But we do not now have enough labor in this
country because there was such a destructive policy.
In general, according to the plan of Lenin and Trotsky, the Russian
people were to serve as cannon fodder for the world revolution, they were to
become soldiers of the revolution, and for this it was necessary to change
their consciousness. But it was difcult to make the most conservative part
of the population, the peasantry, succumb to these liberal communist ideas;
they treated communism suspiciously and were therefore destroyed. This
was the rst blow that was inicted. (Smirnov 2017a)
In the perception of the ultraconservatives, the triple crisis of demography,
family, and nation is not just driven by internal causes. The Western- inspired,
liberal reforms of the late 1980s entailed a second blow to the family institution,
bringing crass social inequality, mass consumption, and individualism to Russia,

230 Katharina Bluhm and Martin Brand
including the “contraceptive revolution” of 1997 (ibid.). Russian ultraconserva-
tives reject the existence of world overpopulation as “nonsense” (Antonov 2014;
Beloborodov 2017), following the arguments of radical American pro- family
activists in this regard. Moreover, the conservative Russian norm entrepreneurs
and ideologists have argued repeatedly that family planning, as promoted by the
UN and other international organizations, serves to safeguard Western
supremacy over the global South (see Ivanov 2016; Remizov et al. 2014).
The ultraconservative discourse on the crisis of the “family institution”
includes an anti- capitalist notion. Antonov (2007) argues that capitalism is
“always against the family,” and, “[a]lready Adam Smith wrote that under capit-
alism an employee with one child and an employee with ten children will receive
the same salary.” This criticism repeats the widely used conservative argument,
by which the capitalist market economy rests on external sociocultural founda-
tions that it consumes without renewal (see Hirschman 1992), or as Antonov
again puts it:
The modern family is experiencing a serious crisis, and this is simultan-
eously a crisis of the social order itself and of the civilization. In the institu-
tional value aspect, this is the decrease in the mediatory role of the family in
the interaction of society and the individual (i.e. the weakening role of the
family as mediator in conict between the disparate interests of the indi-
vidual and society, due to the contradictory nature of the market economy,
state and reproduction). (Antonov 2014)15
Russian conservatives of all colors equate the crisis of the institution “family”—
the “reproduction apparatus of the nation”—with the crisis of the “classical mar-
riage” of man and woman, because only from this unication can arise offspring.
“Traditional family values” means, in essence, to cherish the marriage bond as
lifelong, child- rich, and ofcially sanctioned (not necessarily by the Church but
at least by the state). While in European comparison the readiness to marry
in Russia is still signicantly higher than elsewhere in the post- communist
and Western Europe, the preference of young couples not to register their
relationship (this informal bond is called “civil marriage” in Russia), as well as
the high divorce rate in the country (above the EU average rate), alarms the
ultraconservatives.
With the promotion of the “classical marriage,” the idea of a “natural” labor
division between men and women is back, which goes hand in hand with the
rejection of the concept of gender as a postmodern, “radical- feminist” attack on
traditional values.16 Conservatives reject therefore the use of the term “gender”
in any Russian legislation (see e.g. FamilyPolicy.ru 2012, 4–8). In Komov’s
expert report for Mizulina’s Duma Committee, he neatly separates the “old” idea
of gender equality, which opposes negative discrimination, and the new “gender
equality,” which supports only the sexual preferences of a vocal minority and
ignores the social function of the male and female sex (ibid., 7).17 With the

“Traditional values” unleashed 231
argument of equality for both sexes, the ultracons also reject the positive dis-
crimination of women through “gender quotas” and other such measures (which
existed in Soviet times for the regional and national Soviets, though allowing
only a symbolic participation of women in political power).
Even if the suggested tie between the biological sex and social roles is limited
to a few basic tasks, the concept of the traditional (child- rich) family implies for
the ROC a longer or even permanent withdrawal of women from labor markets
in “service to the nation.” For example Kyrill I, through his chair of the Family
Commission, Archpriest Smirnov, has stated:
A woman should not be humiliated in society, but, at the same time, she
should not strive to imitate male aggression, to achieve success on the
professional front, to the detriment of her basic vocation—to be a wife and
mother.18
[…]
A woman is not meant for this. A woman is given the gift of giving birth
to children, the most important gift given to mankind on earth. And this is a
very responsible a very high ministry on earth. The Lord through the
Apostle Paul said that a woman is saved by childbirth, so sending a woman
to some distant wild countries would not be Christian. But such a question,
strange to me, is one posed by the Soviets, for whom a woman cosmonaut,
or woman hammer thrower, or a woman surgeon is a common phenomenon.
However, in fact it is a mockery of the female nature, a violation of it.
[…]
Responding to the remark that “women themselves want this” […] Father
Dmitry said: we must understand that […] women abandoned their fertility
quite recently. In our country, it’s only 100 years old. And there is very little
time left, until the entire Christian civilization will simply perish. There are
a few dozen years left, at most thirty, well, maybe in Russia it will last fty,
no more.” (Smirnov 2017a)
While Mizulina sees no problem in combining family and work if the husband
and the state are supportive,19 the demographers Antonov and Beloborodov share
the doubts of the ROC about its practicability for a child- rich family. They favor
the classic male breadwinner model or at least a modernized version of it, in
which the woman contributes to household income on a part- time basis. It is no
coincidence that the creation of a “family wage” as a norm is one of their key
reform proposals. The idea already emerged during Gorbachev’s perestroika but
was never realized. Antonov and others see in the breadwinner model even a
way to end the “crisis” of Russian men, whose life expectancy drastically fell
during the 1990s and has only slowly begun to recover:
First of all, raise the status of the housewife- mother. Conrm in the public
consciousness the image of a real Russian family in which only the income

232 Katharina Bluhm and Martin Brand
of the father in the employment sector […] makes it possible to maintain
three or four children. Once a man feels that he is rmly on his feet, the
issue of alcohol abuse will disappear by itself. Stories about “Russian drunk-
enness,” in my opinion, are greatly exaggerated; these “reections” have
turned into a kind of myth. I have been in many countries and am convinced
that our people do not drink any more than others. (Antonov 2007)
On the other hand, Antonov does not at all ignore the employment orientation of
Russian women when he proposes to pay women for their reproductive
work—an old demand of Western feminism. However, he is quite alone with
this idea:
Three children is a mini- kindergarten […] and four or ve, even more so.
With so many children, their mother does not “sit at home,” but works
intensively, educating the younger generation, forming souls. I propose to
recognize motherhood as a profession, and to pay mothers an average salary
of 30–40 thousand rubles. (Antonov 2007)
The role of men in the family is, however, more ambitious than the quotations
suggest. Ultraconservatives regard the lack of responsibility of fathers for their
families as a problematic legacy of communism that focused on the working
mother. The upgrade of the father’s role in the family is not limited to the classic
breadwinner model in which the father operates mostly outside of home. The
new attention to families has triggered a debate on the place of fathers in the
education of children, especially of boys, as well. In January 2018 the rst “All-
Russian Soviet of Fathers” took place, to provide mentoring and assistance in
the complex issues related to the well- being of families and children. Not acci-
dentally, the meeting was opened by the presidential Ombudsman for the Rights
of Children, Anna Kusnetsova.
The legal autonomy of the family and children’s rights
The ultraconservative idea of a modernized traditional family not only refers to
values and state assistance, but includes a new movement for family rights. The
key mobilizing dispute with the ultraconservatives arose around the juvenile
justice system (yuvenal‘naya yustitsiya), when President Medvedev launched
several legislative projects in order to adapt Russian family law to international
standards. With these projects the government agreed to implement some
basic norms of the UN Convention on the Rights of Children and the European
Social Charter beyond mere declarations (Höjdestrand 2016; Kravchuk
2009; Stoeckl 2016). Yet, the reforms also meant improving Russian child-
welfare policy, which had become a major concern since Putin’s pronatalist turn
in 2006 (Kulmala 2017). The ongoing reforms from 2010 provided the norm

“Traditional values” unleashed 233
entrepreneurs with the opportunity to form an “Anti- YuYu” movement that they
later attempted to export to Europe, for example to Germany. Three Russian
reform projects became major battleelds: a specialized court system for young
criminals; the criminalization and decriminalization of domestic violence
reforms; and the reform of the Russian system of social assistance and child pro-
tection (ongoing since 2013).
The arguments of the Anti- YuYu activists are in all three cases almost
identical. They reject not only the “Western” origin of the projects, but above all
oppose the violation of the “autonomy of the family” and parental rights. The
Russian conservative sociologist Leonid Ionin distilled the key arguments,
writing in Update Conservatism (2010). To paraphrase Ionin, the “children’s
rights” approach represents for Russia an entirely new denition of “the social
and legal status of the child” following a “radically individualistic approach.”
The doctrine knows only two agents: the child and the state, and assumes that
(again) the state knows better than the family what is best for the child (Ionin
2010, 205). The “articial tension between the rights of children and of the
parents,” the undermining of the rights and authority of the parents, and the
already weak public image of the family institution are standard criticisms in
almost all conservative statements. There is even a call for a new family code
that re- establishes “the family” as a legal entity of its own (Smirnov 2016).
In one of the many statements of the Patriarch’s Family Commission,
Smirnov outlines the Church’s concerns as follows:
The modern approach of a number of countries to juvenile justice (which
includes law enforcement practice as well as the legal and social culture that
is being formed) is characterized by an articial opposition of the parents’
rights to the rights of the child, giving the latter an unconditional priority,
which contradicts the biblical foundations of family relations, because the
rights of children cannot be broadened by narrowing their parents’ rights,
articially contraposing the rights of some to the rights of others. Along with
the rights of children, their duties, including those in relation to parents and
family, must be recognized. There can be no rights of children to spiritually
and morally unjustied disobedience to their parents, to immoral actions and
sexual promiscuity, to disrespect toward elders and peers, or bad behavior.
(ROK 2013)
The question of the introduction and dissemination of a juvenile justice system
affects many countries located on the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox
Church. In a number of these countries, the implementation of the juvenile
justice system is contrary to the basics of national law that equally guarantees
the protection of the family, motherhood, and childhood. Legal guarantees of the
rights of the child are based in these countries on the principle of supporting the
family in the upbringing of children and the protection of their rights. The family
laws of these states also result from the need to strengthen the family, and the
inadmissibility of arbitrary interference by anyone in its affairs. Moreover, even

234 Katharina Bluhm and Martin Brand
if the juvenile justice system does not contradict national legal standards, it is
necessary to correlate its implementation with the traditional understanding of
family values, the positions of religious communities, and the opinions of the
population (ROC 2013).
The ght initiated by the ultraconservative coalition against the new foster-
care system in particular caught the Russian government off guard. In the 2008
document “The concept of long- term socio- economic development of the
Russian Federation for the period until 2020,” the Russian Federation announced
its intention to reduce the high number of institutionalized orphans, especially
“social orphans” who were being deprived of parental care (Kulmala 2017).
Many regional projects followed that would replace the Soviet system of state
custody by a system of paid foster families and professional social assistance
(Höjdestrand 2016). Moreover, the ban on adoption to the US (in 2012) and to
countries with legalized same- sex marriage laws met the patriotic mood of the
ultraconservatives. In Russia, gay couples are also explicitly excluded from the
simplied adoption rules and the foster- care regime. And yet, it was over
the same foster- care reforms that the conict between the ultraconservatives and
the state administration escalated. Repeatedly, the ROC and its allies have criti-
cized on the one hand the vagueness of the criteria on which authorities can
remove children from their families of origin, which (they claim) opens the door
to corruption and child abuse.20 On the other hand, they demand that the money
the state spends on the professional foster- family system should go straight to
the children’s poor families of origin and their close relatives. In May 2017
Maria Mamikonyan in an open letter accused Anna Kuznetsova, the new
presidential Ombudsman for Children’s Rights, of not understanding the
issues—although Kuznetsova herself belongs to the ultraconservative camp:
Obviously, you absolutely do not understand the western model of “juvenile
justice,” what role interests play in its organization in private hands, you do
not understand the involvement of power structures. You are developing a
system of foster families, creating a demand for intervention in the families
of origin, and taking away their children—in favor of a nancially motiv-
ated “paid parenting,” where the child receives dozens of times more money
than ordinary low- income families. That is, you are helping those whose
strange privilege—to educate children and not work anywhere else—is built
on other people’s misfortunes and is already becoming a cancerous tumor of
the budget of Russia and the regions. Nothing stops you on this path, not
even when the latest cases show that other people’s children have become a
business for many, and that the pathology of the “market” attitude toward
children is leading to severe mental pathologies and often to the death of
such children.21
It is difcult to assess how widespread the described abuse of the new child-
protection regulations is. Given the proliferation of corruption and arbitrariness
of the bureaucratic apparatus, concerns about the widening opportunities for

“Traditional values” unleashed 235
interference and exploitation in family affairs might have some truth. The
endemic distrust toward the state, but also misinterpretations and open falsica-
tions in the media, may have contributed to the remarkable mobilization
achieved by the norm entrepreneurs (Höjdestrand 2016, 17–18). The core argu-
ment of the ultraconservatives, however, is not restricted to Russian particulari-
ties but can also be found in the West. They reject the extension of human rights
and a concept of child welfare that has developed over the last two or three
decades in the transnational community as state of the art. In doing so, the
Russian ultraconservatives refer to the Russian Constitution—otherwise not very
popular among them—and to the original UN Convention on Human Rights
from 1948, because both documents emphasize the autonomy of the family and
parents’ sovereignty over the education of children. As the Association of Paren-
tal Committees and Societies puts it: in solving its natural tasks, and in par-
ticular, issues of birth, upbringing, education, and protection of children’s health,
the family has priority over all other institutions, including the state.22
Translation into politics: successes and limits
The pronatalist turn in 2006 can be seen as a rst important victory for the
conservative agenda against the “demographic crisis.” Already in his presiden-
tial address to the Federal Assembly in 2006, Vladimir Putin laid out the low
birth rate and the dominant one- child family type as a serious national challenge
to be overcome by raising the prestige of mother- and fatherhood (Putin 2006).
At the same time, he sees combatting the high mortality rate in Russia and sup-
porting migration as important countermeasures. In 2010 President Medvedev
pointed to expert opinions on the need for a “radical increase in the number of
families with three and more children” as the “main way to overcome the demo-
graphic crisis” (Medvedev 2010). In a similar vein, Putin emphasized in his
address of 2012 that in Russia the family with three children should become the
norm (2012). Despite these statements, conservative norm entrepreneurs have
not stopped criticizing the administration, as we have illustrated in the previous
section. Hence, we need to discuss in the nal part of our chapter their actual
impact on family- related laws and state measures. For this we concentrate on
three major issues: (a) nancial support to larger families; (b) reproduction rights
and gender equality; and (c) the need to maintain the autonomy of the family.
We chose these—aware that we can provide only a rough sketch—because the
government and the ultraconservative coalition devotes to them substantial atten-
tion, and evidence indicates that the growing ultraconservative inuence on Rus-
sia’s family policy is not just rhetoric.
Conservative contributions to Russia’s turn toward the family
In the above- mentioned programmatic presidential address to the Federal
Assembly, Putin spelled out a range of measures to increase the birth rate.
Among them were a housing program for young families and a “maternity

236 Katharina Bluhm and Martin Brand
(family) capital” benet.23 With its implementation in January 2007, the two- or
more- child family became the state- supported ideal image of the family: the law
(which does not cover families with one child) assures women giving birth (or
adopting) a second or further child, a one- time benet of currently 453,026
rubles (about 8,000 US dollars). Since 2007 the benet amount of this maternity
(or family) capital has been slightly above the annual gross value added per
capita. In many Russian regions the payment even exceeds the annual regional
economic output per capita. In 2012 most of the Russian federal subjects intro-
duced a regional maternity (family) capital, which complements the federal
program.
In spite of the signicant investment, ultraconservatives have often criticized
the measures as insufcient and half- hearted for two main reasons: rst, because
these do not promise a long- term support for young couples and therefore will
hardly give them an incentive to start a large family with more than two chil-
dren. Until today Russia has provided no universal, monthly paid child allow-
ance such as for example Poland does, where since 2016 parents can get a
monthly child allowance for the second and further child up to age 18 regardless
of their income.24 Second, for ultracons the “maternity capital” resembles a
Soviet- style state paternalism over women and that furthermore mostly ignores
the fathers. The addition of the name “family” capital is merely symbolic.25
Beneciaries are the mothers only, who have the right to decide how to use the
capital within a predetermined set of possibilities ranging from housing and
education to savings for the mother’s pension. One constant ultraconservative
demand has been, therefore, to transform the “mothers’ capital” into a true
“family capital”—but this has yet to happen.
However, since 2006 the range of possible elds in which the “material
(family) capital” can be invested has been extended, and in spite of the economic
crisis after 2013, the government has prolonged the program until 2021. Origin-
ally it was set to run for 10 years (2006–16). Besides the extensive but one- time
assistance of maternity capital, in Putin’s third term of presidency (2012–18)
additional means- tested monthly benets for families with children were intro-
duced. In May 2012, the re- elected president issued a decree urging the heads of
the federal subjects to pay a monthly child benet equal to the regional minimum
subsistence level for every third or further child up to age three, if the family is
in need. According to Labor and Social Affairs Minister Maksim Topilin, 60 of
the 85 Russian federal subjects had followed this request by the end of 2017. In
preparation for the presidential election in March 2018, the Russian government
has further expanded its support of poor families with children. From 2018
mothers in vulnerable families can get children’s allowances at the regional sub-
sistence level for the rst and second child up to the age of 18 months. However,
while this children’s allowance for the rst child is actually a new benet, the
allowance for the second child is not an additional social benet, since it is paid
out as part of the maternity capital.
Although the government had already provided some support to improve
housing for families since 2006, conservative criticism of these measures

“Traditional values” unleashed 237
prompted it in late 2017 to take a more decisive step. With the 2018 presidential
election in mind, the government passed a decree relieving two- and three- child
families of the high mortgage rates in Russia. That is, the state will take over
interest payments of more than 6 percent for up to three years together with the
second child, and for up to ve years with the third child.26 Without changing the
high interest rates of banks in general (which face constant criticism from
the conservative ideologists and other groups), the government has decided to
subsidize selected types of bank customers also in order to stimulate building
investment.
Reproduction rights and gender equality
As the rst country in the world, the Soviet Union legalized abortion in 1920 as
a cornerstone of women’s reproduction rights (though from 1936 to 1955 it
again penalized abortion). Because of the lack of contraceptives and liberal regu-
lations, the Soviet Union and post- Soviet Russia had one of the highest abortion
rates worldwide. Since 1993 the abortion rate has been continuously declining—
from 235 abortions per 100 births in 1993 down to 44.6 in 2016. Yet this number
is still high in international or European comparison and fuels the conservative
discourse about the demographic crisis.
Although the conservatives have thus far failed with their agenda on fully
delegitimizing abortion, the passed legislation has gradually set up new hurdles:
1 In 2011 the law “On the Foundations of the Health Protection of Citizens of
the RF ” introduced the so- called “Week of Silence.” Accordingly, there
must be at least seven days (from the 8th to 10th week of pregnancy) or 48
hours (in the 4th to 7th and 11th and 12th week of pregnancy) between the
rst consultation with a doctor for the purpose of an abortion and the actual
surgery. Doctors received the right to refuse to perform an abortion.27 The
main demand of the conservatives—to exclude abortion costs from the
statu tory health insurance coverage, or a ban on the sale of emergency
(“morning- after”) contraceptive pills without a doctor’s prescription—
became mired in the legislative process. The same fate has met the idea for
a law that a husband must agree to the wife’s abortion.28
2 Since 2012 the law requires women to consult a psychologist or social
worker before abortion. Furthermore, recently some—heretofore permitted
—social reasons for late termination of pregnancy (loss of child custody,
imprisonment, death or disability of the husband) have been abolished. Only
in case of pregnancy resulting from rape can abortions be procured up to the
22nd week of pregnancy.
3 In order to “protect pregnancy” and enhance “moral pressure” on pregnant
women, women have been required since 2016 to look at the ultrasound
image of the embryo and listen to its heartbeat before they can get permis-
sion to undergo abortion.
4 From late 2017 only specially licensed clinics may perform abortions.29

238 Katharina Bluhm and Martin Brand
Closely linked to the debate on abortion is the question of “baby- hatches.” Ultra-
conservatives proposed a ban on these facilities where mothers can bring new-
borns and abandon them anonymously in a safe place to be cared for. Such a bill,
put forward by Senator Mizulina, did not get through parliament in 2017. There
is still no legal regulation on the baby- hatches, which have existed since 2011 in
some regions of Russia. The State Duma is currently debating whether to allow
the regions to regulate this, which could lead to baby- hatches being allowed in
some regions, while banned in others.
In the eld of gender equality, a similarly indecisive picture emerges. While
ultracon demographers and the ROC conclude that the child- rich family as
dominant family type can best be restored when women return to their “natural
role” at home, the Russian government shows little intent to strengthen the
housewife status. It even has no problem in combining the propaganda for “tra-
ditional values” with extensive investments in public childcare. Since 2012 the
care of preschool children in kindergartens has been massively expanded.
According to vice minister- president Olga Golodets, from 2012 to 2014 the
Russian government spent 135 billion rubles (approximately US$2.4 billion) to
create 1.36 million additional kindergarten places.30 By 2021 the Russian gov-
ernment also intends to have created the presently lacking 272,000 nursery
places.31
The ofcial strategy papers, however, lack a clear direction in gender- equality
policy. A draft law on gender equality has been stuck in the legislative process
since 2003. In 2017 the Russian government at least demonstrated concern for
how to better combine women’s career ambitions with family life. The National
Strategy of Actions in the Interests of Women addresses such problems of com-
patibility of family and career—if a bit vaguely.32 Despite the cautious formula-
tions and a lack of legal power for the National Strategy, the ultraconservative
parental association ARKS was outraged about the term “gender equality” alleg-
edly used in the paper. It considered it a rst step toward the Western “ideolo-
gies” of homosexuality and transgender, failing to outline how to defend the
interests of pregnant women and mothers of small children.33 The term “gender,”
however, does not even appear in the strategy, only the notion of “equality
between men and women.” Parallel to the work on this Strategy, a “Concept
Paper of the State Family Policy in the Russian Federation until 2025” (initiated
by Mizulina) has been passed that emphasizes “traditional family values and the
traditional family way of life” as well as the “preservation of spiritual and moral
traditions in family relationships and family education” (Mizulina 2014).
Foster care and domestic violence: battleelds of family autonomy
As outlined above, the government and its experts scarcely foresaw the confron-
tation with the ultraconservative coalition. The latter stepped in as systemic
change was already well under way. While in the Soviet Union and through the
1990s orphans were primarily kept in institutions, by the mid- 2000s the state had
started to promote family- based care in the form of both unpaid guardianship

“Traditional values” unleashed 239
and paid foster families. With this de- institutionalization of the foster care
system, Russia undertook a paradigm shift following an international trend
(Kulmala 2017; Biryukova et al. 2013).
The ultraconservatives reject this shift from state institutions to private fam-
ilies, in spite of the fact that it is supposed to ease the state’s interference in fam-
ilies, delegating state functions toward non- state actors. At rst glance the data
indicate that the coalition mobilization efforts against removal of children from
parental custody seem to show some effect. The number of children whose
parental rights were terminated or limited has decreased by a third since 2007
(Biryukova and Sinyavskaya 2017, 373). This may be seen as a success of pre-
ventive social work within families, but also as a growing reluctance of the state
to meddle in parental rights as demanded by the ultracons.
Yet, from the legal perspective, the ultraconservative norm entrepreneurs
have not managed to restrict the range of criteria in the family codex justifying
state intervention in the autonomy of the family. They were also unable to cut
back the paid foster care. On the contrary, the number of children placed in
foster families has grown more than tenfold from the mid- 2000s up to today
(while in 2005 only 2 percent of all children without parental care were placed in
foster families, in 2015 it was 24.4 percent). And the share of children returned
to their biological families has been steadily declining since 2011 (ibid., 378).
There are also few signs that the government administration plans to cut back
on the professional care system of state and non- commercial actors that super-
vises and accompanies the foster parents. Instead, in order to reduce social
spending and still increase the quality of social services, the Russian government
has announced a steady growth in third- sector non- private organizations and
private enterprises. In his presidential address of 2015 Putin asked the regions
and municipalities to gradually appropriate up to 10 percent of their social ser-
vices budgets to, among others, such non- prot organizations (Putin 2015).
In another eld, the ultraconservatives were much more successful in their
struggle against the alleged crisis of the family. In February 2017 Putin signed a
law that decriminalizes some forms of domestic violence—which the coalition
had vehemently campaigned for—because the criminalization of domestic
violence is perceived as an inadmissible interference in family matters. Just
seven months earlier, this criminalization of domestic violence had found its way
into the Criminal Code on the initiative of NGOs and feminist activists. For the
rst time in Russian history, battery—a lesser crime than assault—perpetrated
by family members became a more serious offence than it would be if committed
by strangers (Johnson 2017). This interim success of women’s rights activists
led to an outcry from the ultracons, who nally won the battle. The All- Russian
Parents Resistance in particular collected more than 213,000 signatures protest-
ing the “anti- family provision” of the 2016 reform.

240 Katharina Bluhm and Martin Brand
Conclusion
Putin’s conservative turn from 2011–13 and the subsequent systematic suppres-
sion of liberal forces has unleashed an ultraconservative and in some regards
fundamentalist movement in Russia. Though this movement, including the ROC,
parents associations, and other civic organizations, has solid roots in the regions,
it can hardly be described as grassroots, since it essentially is rather a mobiliza-
tion from above (see Höjdestrand 2016). The mobilizing coalition of ultracon
norm entrepreneurs has close ties to the ruling elite and is involved in internal
elite battles. Its members show, in principle, loyalty to Putin and also play an
active part in promoting Russia’s “conservative soft power” abroad.
However, the ultracon movement is not directed by the Kremlin administra-
tion. The ROC and its associated experts, activists, and politicians already
formed their coalition before Putin’s third presidential term. They interpret and
translate the “traditional values” in their own, more radical way, which fuels
internal elite conicts not only with the “system- liberals” but also with the social
and political technocrats whose ideas for solving the demographic crisis do not
always mix well with the ultracons’ agenda- setting. The ROC as a player in its
own right (see also Köllner in this volume) also cannot be underestimated here.
The ultraconservative translation of “traditional values” into politics is driven
by an authoritarian anti- liberalism and anti- communism (to an extent not shared
by other elite factions). Its anti- liberalism ts into the Russian discourses of the
new illiberal conservatism of the ideologists, favoring collective (family and
nation) rights over individual rights. Moreover, the norm entrepreneurs gave this
concept a more powerful voice in the wider public. The same holds true for
“anti- genderism.” To some extent, the ultracons are more coherent in their
agenda than the Russian government, as they detect liberal and neoliberal ele-
ments in Russia’s social policy even when those elements are no longer framed
as such. They deeply distrust the state’s overwhelming and corrupt bureaucracy
as well as its ongoing attempts to outsource state functions to a loyal third sector
and commercial actors. Many of the ultraconservative sociopolitical suggestions
tend to promote an increase in state paternalism. Yet, in their emphasis on the
autonomy of the family—sanctied as canonical territory of the Church—they
reject a Soviet- type liberation of women as working mothers, and the paternal-
ism of the Communist Party that allowed the party- state to intervene in families
and family- based education in order to create a “new man.” In this regard, they
resemble the Christian fundamentalist and right- wing pro- family movements in
the US to which their relations are well established in spite of the general anti-
Western, anti- American tone of the ultraconservative movement in Russia.
Despite the ultracons’ successes in dominating the Russian public (media)
discourse and in promoting their agenda in several legislative processes, they
can hardly be taken as the main agenda- setters in Russia’s social policy as a
whole. The reasons for this are threefold at least: rst, because they are just one
player (though loud and powerful) among others. Second, their agenda as such is
restricted to a few well- worn topics around which they argue and mobilize.

“Traditional values” unleashed 241
Third, the academics engaged in and advisors to the coalition have not managed
to develop sufcient expertise for detail beyond the core topics of their camp.
Hence, the government administration still seems in many elds of social policy
to trust more its own pragmatic and technocratic advisors.
Notes
1 Medvedev’s wife, Svetlana Medvedeva, opened the conference, see: http://en.kremlin.
ru/misc/9621/photos, accessed 5 September 2017.
2 See more http://worldcongress.ru/демографическийсаммит/, accessed 4 September
2017.
3 The WCF also met in Western Europe and Latin America. The post- communist region
is well represented among its organizers of the annual international conferences. The
rst took place in 1997 in Prague. The Czech capital was followed by conferences in
Warsaw (with an address by Polish President Lech Kaczyński), Tbilisi and Budapest,
where Viktor Orbán gave the opening speech.
4 Smirnov became also the deputy chairman of the Patriarch’s Bioethics Commission.
5 The head of the ARKS is Olga Letkova, who among her other functions is also dir-
ector of the ARKS Center for Legal Expertise and chairman of the ARKS Council for
the Protection of the Family and Traditional Family Values that acts as an advisory
working group to the Children’s Rights Commissioner for the President of the Russian
Federation. See: www.arks.org.ru, accessed 16 March 2018.
6 Irina Shishova is vice- president of the foundation Socio- Psychological Support of
Family and Children.
7 www.worldcongressoffamilies.org/directors.php. Komov is also honorary president of
the Lombardy- Russian Cultural Association and has close links to the Lega (Nord) in
Italy (Shekhovtsov 2018, 175–89).
8 Komov also founded a consulting company which offers a variety of services from
business development to market research. Larry Jacobs, once vice president of the
WCF, is a partner, though he says he draws no salary, describing the title as a ourish
to signal nancial expertise when he and Komov consult with “family values” start-
ups outside of Russia (Levintova 2014).
9 Antonov, Komov and N. Yakunina had already organized the national summits in
2011 and 2012.
10 See http://istoki- foundation.org/en/program/all- russian-programme- sanctity-of- mother
hood/, accessed 16 March 2018.
11 See https://mospat.ru/en/2015/11/27/news125573/; www.motherjones.com/politics/
2014/02/world- congress-families- us-evangelical- russia-family- tree/, accessed 16 March
2018.
12 See www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/5885a32b9a7947751b653476, accessed 16 March 2018.
13 See http://rvs.su/rvs, accessed 27 February 2018.
14 See also Beloborodov (2017).
15 Very similarly argues, for example, the parent association ARKS. See http://arks.org.ru/
index.php/deyatelnost- arks/nashi- proekty/108-proekt- vozrozhdenie-semi- v-rossii- na-
osnove- traditsionnykh-dukhovno- nravstvennykh-tsennostej, accessed 16 March 2018.
16 See, for example, http://arks.org.ru/index.php/zashchita- traditsionnykh-semejnykh-
tsennostej/natsionalnaya- strategiya-dejstvij- v-interesakh- zhenshchin-na- 2017–2022-
gg/698-gendernye- teorii-kak- orudie-unichtozheniya- traditsionnykh-tsennostej, accessed
16 March 2018.
17 See http://familypolicy.ru/rep/rf- 12–029, accessed 16 March 2018.
18 See http://demographia.ru/articles_N/index.html?idArt=1565, accessed 16 March
2018.

242 Katharina Bluhm and Martin Brand
19 See interview with Mizulina https://iz.ru/news/556354, accessed 16 March 2018.
20 See, for example ROC (2013), http://arks.org.ru/index.php/yuvenalnaya- sistema-v-
rossii/iz- yatie-detej- iz-semi/802-nuzhdayushchimsya- semyam-nuzhno- pomogat-a- ne-
otbirat- u-nikh- detej. In expert opinions by “FamilyPolicy.ru” for the Duma Committee
on Children’s Rights, the experts argue that in foster families violence is employed
toward the foster children much more often than in families of origin. The “analytic
text” pleads then for the rejection of an introduction of broadened rights for the state
to intervene in the family (FamilyPolicy.ru 2011).
21 See http://rvs.su/statia/vremya- trebuet-otchyotlivosti, accessed 16 March 2018.
22 See http://arks.org.ru/index.php/deyatelnost- arks/nashi- proekty/108-proekt- vozrozhdenie-
semi- v-rossii- na-osnove- traditsionnykh-dukhovno- nravstvennykh-tsennostej, accessed
16 March 2018. (See also Smirnov 2017b).
23 Federal Law No. 256-FZ of 29 December 2006 “On Additional Measures of State
Support for Families with Children.”
24 However, the Russian government provides a subsidy of 40 percent of the monthly
salary of the childcarer, for children up to 1.5 years, if the carer was previously for-
mally employed. Furthermore, there are targeted monthly social benets for families
with children (level and need criteria are determined regionally), as well as social
benets related to childbirth.
25 Fathers are only entitled to maternity (family) capital benets if they are the sole
adoptive parent, or if the mother dies or loses custody of her child.
26 Order of the Government of Russia No. 1711 of 30 December 2017.
27 Federal Law No. 323-FZ of 21 November 2011 “On Fundamentals of Protection of
Public Health in the Russian Federation.” Art. 56.2, and Art. 70.3.
28 See www.gazeta.ru/social/2011/06/01/3636057.shtml?updated, accessed 27 February
2018.
29 Order of the Ministry of Health No. 572n of 1 November 2012, paragraph 104, www.
rosminzdrav.ru/documents/5828-prikazminzdrava- rossii-ot- 12-noyabrya- 2012g-572n,
accessed 27 February 2018.
30 Transcript of the parliamentary session on 8 February 2017, http://transcript.duma.
gov.ru/node/4593/, accessed 27 February 2018.
31 See http://tass.ru/obschestvo/4892489, accessed 27 February 2018.
32 Resolution of the Government of Russia No. 410-r of 8 March 2017.
33 See http://arks.org.ru/index.php/zashchita- traditsionnykh-semejnykh- tsennostej/natsional
naya- strategiya-dejstvij- v-interesakh- zhenshchin-na- 2017–2022-gg/705-za- chto-
borolis- premer-podpisal- natsionalnuyu-strategiyu- dejstvij-v- interesakh-zhenshchin,
accessed 27 February 2018.
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