The problems of Kelderary Roma mentioned in this policy paper are of complex  character. It is obvious that one problem most often leads to another one – evictions mean the end of school education ; low education logically leads to unemployment ; unemployement leads to poverty and marginalization that is directly connected to segregation in housing and lack of documents, which in their turn make the community face evictions again. Each part of this chain is determinated by racism and discrimination. The result is the structural discrimination that is clearly present in the life of every single Kelderary community in the Russian Federation.    

In the same time, we must conclude that the life of Kelderary communities is so specific and different in its traditional ways from the life of every other minority in Russia and meanwhile each of these communities leads such a similar life to one another, that it’s necessary to develop a special approach dedicated solely and completely to overcoming this structural and omnipresent discrimination in breaking the vicious circle.  

Opposing the structural discrimination by bringing each particular case to the court is definitely useful, but insufficient as a method for a number of reasons : one of the problems is the difficulty of continuous legal work with uneducated people, that are traditionally avoiding conflicts ; another reason is the weak position of jurisprudence and the fact that the Russian authorities have more trust in political decisions ; last but not least the attempt to solve all the problems purely individually would take enormous time and efforts. 

The problems, that Kelderary Roma face are so similar, that one federal action plan could be developed for the whole Russian Federation in order to provide guidelines for regulating and improving the living conditions of the Kelderary Roma, that live in compact settlements.

 Additional federal coordination of such a plan by representatives of the national government would prevent the risk of failure on a local level caused by corruption.

The action plan should be first of all focused on ensuring non-discrimination and implementation and enforcement of human rights.  Apart from that, some improvements could be recommended in the fields of housing, access to resources and education. 

I.      It is necessary to compile realistic statistics on Kelderary Roma communities, as NGO and independent research shows, that there is a clear lack of trustworthy information about these communities.  

II.      A special law on the regulation of housing and land should be designed and adopted, like has been done recently with summer cottages (so called “Dacha Amnesty”)[77]These regulations permitted the real owners of the cottages to go through the reduced and simplified formal privatization process without spending as much time and money as it coasted before. In this way, the houses and land belonging to the Kelderary Roma settlements could be legalized in some given time period (for example 10 years) and treated as their property. Additionally, these houses should be mapped and their inhabitants registered. 

III.     A guideline should provide that every person (child or adult) has to be registered in the houses where he or she lives (whether private or rented) that would enable the person in question to receive the social benefits, that he or she is entitled to. In addition, the solution should be to ensure access to social benefits of those who, for whichever reason, cannot be registered and linked to one particular place of residency.   

IV.    The local police offices should be obliged to issue Russian passports of a modern type to all the citizens living in Roma settlements and still using their old Soviet-type passports. Those Roma who live in Russia for years in a legal way, but have a foreign citizenship should be allowed to receive a resident permit.  

V.      Measures to support self-governing and autonomy should be adopted, in order to strengthen intercultural relations and economic development i.e. not basing self-government on racial exclusion and segregation but on the realization of political participation of all neighbors in a mixed neighborhood. Participation of Kelderary Roma in local politics (Leskolovo, Chapayevsky) has been a rare phenomenon so far, but where it did take place, it certainly has contributed to the involvement of Kelderary Roma in the caretaking of their area and simultaneously it has led to a certain commitment towards the Roma by local councilors. 

VI.    A guideline should also be adopted to legalize the use of water, electricity and gas including the installation of meters that indicate the actual consumption. This would secure the access to these resources for the Kelderary Roma community, just as it would secure the companies that supply water and energy from theft and abuse of these resources.

VII.   Education has to be considered a key important matter requiring a complex approach. On one hand measures should be taken to ensure access to schools that offer primary and secondary education, in the vicinity of the compact settlements. If there is no such school, the community should be provided with free school busses to encourage parents to send their children to school. Schools should have evening classes for those who missed some years and special preparatory classes to prepare Kelderary Roma children for the Russian language.

On the other hand, the risk of discriminatory segregation in school should be considered as a serious danger. When separate schools for Roma are determined by geographical reasons, it must be recommended to control the quality of the education and meanwhile to provide school children with additional language education and other related subjects. Additional education for teachers on Roma culture language and history should be available to enable teachers to understand the background of their pupils in a better way.

Meanwhile, the motivation of Roma families to educate children should be supported and wherever possible the economic burden of educating children should be relieved. The examples of schools, offering Roma pupils such economic benefits as free school dinners, paid school clothes and books should be followed.

It should be controlled that Roma children don’t automatically end up in compensation classes for the mentally disabled.

 VIII.   Access to health-care and social benefits should be secured and controlled.  The separation of Roma by ethnic profiling in hospitals has to be strictly abolished. There is a clear need in improving the health control – especially of women and children (vaccination, medical check-up for pregnant women etc). The best solution would be organizing special mediation service in order to strengthen contact of Roma with local hospitals. 

IX.     The problem of unemployment among Roma needs a special attention. Most of Kelderary-Roma men are capable craftsmen, but they lack formal status and recognition and therefore get not enough clients; offering them this status and permitting to legalize properly their cooperatives could be well complimented with a special credit-program. This solution would bring benefit to the economic autonomy of Kelderery and simultaneously support their cultural inheritance. 

X.     The existing practice of violent evictions should be strictly forbidden. The use of the police and military troops against Roma-settlements inhabitants must be minimalized and limited to the most dangerous and criminal situations, there should be no use of these forces just for dealing with a problem of illegal housing-construction,  excessive use of water or gas etc.

неясно одно слово on the vicious circle : * law enforcement officers are hostile towards Roma; *Therefore Roma fear to complain against them, and vulnerable. à Link recommendation X to XI – these problematics are interconnected.

 XI.    The most strict police control and measure have to be organized on the problem of hate-crime against Roma. Each case has to be investigated and given serious attention.

The logical outcome of such an action plan would be a clear benefit, both for the Kelderary Roma communities, living in compact settlements as well as for the local authorities, governing them, without proper financial and administrative means. It is of utmost importance to recognize the fact that Kelderary Roma Roma lack mediation to successfully promote their interests. The expert work on the action plan could provide and support this mediation.