The owner of a shop producing and selling clothes with Kalmyk ethnic symbols from Russia's Kalmykia region has fled the country amid fears over his safety after he created a brand to take on xenophobia.
Aldar Eredzhenov, the founder and owner of 4 Oirad, told RFE/RL on April 24 that he and his clothing business had to move to Mongolia from Moscow after he started receiving anonymous threats over his latest brand, "Nerussky" (Non-Russian).
Eredzhenov said he started the brand after an ad campaign by the government to commemorate the illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea, saying "we are all Russians."
He said the campaign gave him a "feeling of injustice" because he felt he and other minorities in Russia should be proud of their origins, even as they often face intolerance in the country.
"First of all, I am a Kalmyk, then a citizen of Russia. These words do not in any way belittle Russian culture, are not meant to offend the nation, they do not contain negativity. This is a statement of fact," he said.
"Many people living in Russia are non-Russians by blood. We should not be ashamed of this. I wanted the word 'non-Russian' to be a sound without negativity, so that these people would not be embarrassed to be non-Russian."
Some Russians did take offense, however, and Eredzhenov, who says he encountered ethnic discrimination when doing things like trying to find housing in Moscow after moving his company there, said that since the launch of the clothing line he had received threats for the brand, and feared that he would be the target of attacks similar to other activists in Kalmykia.
"We don't feel safe in Russia," he said, and moved his entire operations, including equipment, to Mongolia.
"There is a problem to which the country's leadership turns a blind eye, television propaganda repeats that there aren't ethnic conflicts in Russia. But this is just cynical hypocrisy," he said.
The company used to have its own production workshop and a store in Elista, the capital of Kalmykia, which is located north of the North Caucasus region.
In 2019, the company came under pressure from local authorities after it openly supported protests against the appointment of the mayor of Elista because he was a former leader of Kremlin-backed separatists in Ukraine's Donetsk region.
Eredzhenov then moved his business to Moscow, where he had many clients.
He said the idea of the brand Non-Russian came after billboards, saying, "I am a Kalmyk, but today, we are all Russians!" appeared across Kalmykia following the start of Russia's attack on Ukraine.
"I am not Russian. And openly stating that does not diminish Russian culture, does not offend the state-founding ethnic group. There is no negative connotation in that. Because I, like Daghestanis, Chechens, Buryats, Yakuts, Bashkirs, and many other ethnic groups in Russia, am not Russian by blood. We do not have to be ashamed of that," Eredzhenov said, adding that the idea of the Non-Russian brand was to challenge xenophobia among Russians.
Kalmyks are a Mongol-speaking and predominantly Buddhist ethnic group.