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Hinduism has been spread in Russia primarily due to the work of missionaries from the religious organization International Society for Krishna Consciousness from the West and by itinerant swamis from India. There is an active Tantra Sangha operating in Russia.

Hindus in Russia are being subjected to discrimination by a corpus made of the Russian Orthodox Church and the State. There are over 5,000 Hindus from India and 10,000 Hindu converts from the local Russian population in Moscow.

Hindu temple in Moscow

A large centre is being built in Moscow, which was initially opposed by the Orthodox Church. Hinduism has over 100,000 followers in Russia.

In 2003 the authorities asked devotees to vacate their temple in exchange for a piece of land on which they could build a bigger temple. This was followed immediately by mass protests orchestrated by the Russian Orthodox Church which did not want land given to a temple that was "converting Russian Christians to a Hindu way of life". Hindus were victimised, threatened, bullied, beaten and subject to violence. A misinformation campaign was launched against Hindus by the Orthodox Church . Finally, on November 2005, the Mayor of Russia cancelled the land order and took away the piece of land given for the construction of the Hindu temple. Russia also has a history of passing laws that discriminate against minority faith communities.

On January 14th 2006, The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone handed over letters expressing concern about the harassment of Russian Hindus by the Moscow Government and the Russian Orthodox Church to the visiting Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov in London, even as British Parliamentarians led by Ashok Kumar MP, Lord Dholakia and Baroness Flather got ready to host the launch of the Defend Russian Hindus campaign at the House of Commons on 18th January of the same year. British Parliamentarians and members of the Hindu, Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities will adopt a resolution at the Defend Russian Hindus launch at the House of Commons, urging the Moscow Government to stop harassment of minority religions in Russia. Parliamentarians from all three parties will later hand a copy of this resolution to the Russian Ambassador in London .

At the same time, the construction of the Sikh temple and cultural centre in Moscow did not involve any controversy. Dr. Igor Kotin from Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of Russian Academy of Sciences commented that the hostility towards the Krishna temple issue has not been directed towards the traditional Vedic culture, but rather towards its Western interpretation by ISKCON .

External links

• Tantra Sangha
• Row over the Moscow temple

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