A gathering of elders in Dagestan put tradition and Russian unity at the centre of its programme. Residents and activists say it left the issues confronting households outside the room: sharply higher utility charges, struggling public services, poverty and complaints about citizens’ rights.
The dispute is not only about one three-day event in Makhachkala. It raises a more basic question about representation: what authority does a council claiming to speak for local communities retain if it avoids the disputes that matter most to those communities?
The message from the stage
The Southern Russia Forum of Elders, titled “The Wisdom of Generations – in Russia’s Unity”, was held in Makhachkala from 29 to 31 October 2026. It took place under the patronage of Dagestan’s Ministry for National Policy and Religious Affairs.
Residents criticised the forum as a formal gathering financed with public money. Their complaint, reported on 31 October by Kavkazkiy Uzel, was that participants spoke about tradition and unity while failing to confront the social and economic pressures facing people across the republic.
Among the issues cited was an almost twofold increase in utility tariffs from October. Residents and activists also pointed to difficulties facing low-income families, a crisis in housing and communal services, and alleged violations of citizens’ rights. The available reporting presents those figures and descriptions as claims by local critics; it does not independently establish their scale.
That qualification does not remove the reason for the anger. A message about national cohesion offers little practical help to a household facing a much larger bill, unreliable services or difficulty securing redress. The criticism is therefore aimed at the gap between the forum’s public language and the problems people say they are being asked to endure.
A forum of elders might be expected to carry local experience into official discussions, particularly when its programme is backed by a regional ministry. Instead, critics say, the event treated unity as a safe subject and left accountability, costs and administrative failures largely untouched.
Who gets to speak for Dagestan?
Activists also challenged the make-up of Dagestan’s Council of Elders. They said it consists mainly of former officials and representatives of local elites. In their view, that background makes the council more responsive to established political and administrative circles than to residents dealing with poverty, rising charges and deteriorating services.
The activists further argue that the council tends to support initiatives associated with the federal authorities rather than raise uncomfortable questions on behalf of the population. That is a political assessment by the council’s critics, not proof that the body is formally directed by Moscow or carries out specific instructions from the Kremlin.
But the composition of a representative body matters even without evidence of a formal chain of command. Former officials and elite figures may bring experience and access, yet they can also be perceived as speaking from within the system they are supposed to scrutinise. If the same institution is expected to preserve tradition, maintain social cohesion and convey public grievances, its credibility depends on whether it can perform the last of those functions when the grievances are politically awkward.
The question is particularly sharp where the official vocabulary is built around loyalty and unity. Those ideas can provide a common language for a diverse region, but they can also narrow the space for disagreement if criticism is treated as a threat to cohesion. The residents’ complaint is that the forum’s emphasis on unity did precisely that: it displaced discussion of the consequences of policy.
When consensus replaces a hearing
State-supported civic bodies often occupy an ambiguous position. They can preserve customs, give older generations a public role and help authorities communicate with local communities. They may also be expected to demonstrate stability and support the wider political order. Those roles do not automatically conflict, but they do when an institution’s public legitimacy depends on appearing united with the authorities.
In that situation, a meeting can look participatory without becoming a genuine hearing. Speeches about heritage and national solidarity create the appearance of social dialogue, while the subjects most likely to expose failures or competing interests remain off the agenda. The result is not necessarily evidence of direct control; it is a problem of what the institution is willing, or able, to make visible.
For the critics in Dagestan, the forum’s official sponsorship reinforced that concern. They see a council dominated by former public officials and local elites, operating in a political environment where support for federal initiatives is safer than challenging them. Their conclusion is that the council’s public representation is largely symbolic.
The available information does not establish that the forum is part of a formally integrated federal structure, nor does it verify every complaint raised by residents. It does show a conflict over legitimacy. The council presents itself through the language of community, experience and unity; its critics judge it by whether it confronts higher charges, failing housing and communal systems, hardship among poorer families and reported rights violations.
That test is concrete. If the council takes those matters into its discussions, it may begin to look like a channel through which local concerns reach power. If it continues to speak mainly in the language of unity, residents are likely to see the forum not as a place where problems are aired, but as a ceremonial endorsement of an agenda already set elsewhere.
