There is very little "racism" in Russia, as I have said before, because there is very little concept of "race." "Race" is a shitty Western invention. What there is xenophobia (being directed against outsiders, including by the way me) and interethnic hostility (being directed as people belong to an ethnicity branded as negative), both of which are different from "racism."
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This is interesting.
The BBC piece -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/assignment.shtml
- starts with a focus on anti-Black words and actions but builds upon this to explore the broader xenophobia and inter-ethnic hostility you're describing.
I was particularly fascinated by the statements of several Russians (the Dean of the Moscow college where a suspicious fire claimed the lives of approx. 41 African students, a police officer, etc.) who clearly linked this problem to the deteriorated material and social conditions of the post-Soviet era.
One interviewee (the Dean I believe) even went so far as to blame the elevation of competition - for jobs, social status and so on - as the natural mode of life for these conflicts.
Also intriguing were the statements of a representative of a 'nationalist' party who, on the one hand, made 'Russia for Russians' sort of noises while, on the other hand, stressed he was not refering to a genetic or 'racial' definition of Russian-ness but a purely cultural one. He had no trouble imagining Black Russians so long as they thought and acted Russian.
It's difficult to imagine a similar American group with a comparably regressive yet open-ended definition for group membership.
Obviously a very tangled thicket of ideas here.
DRM