Syreś Boläeń: I am Syreś Boläeń. Please call me Syreś Boläeń. This is extremely important to me.

The Estonian National Broadcasting Reporter Ode Maria Punamäe used the Russian-language name form Oleskandr Bolkin for her ERR VIII Fenno-Ugria reporting on the the Erza Elders’ Council officially elected elder (Ěrzäń Inäzor). It is still incomprehensible why the ERR has taken the position that the representatives of the Finno-Ugrian people on the VIII Fenno-Ugria should be portrayed with their non-ethnic names and did not even bother to check what name form the representatives of the Finno-Ugrian indigenous peoples from Russia would like to be named.

As a result of the work of ERR and the reporter Ode Maria Punamäe, we contacted Syreś Boläeń directly and asked for clarification on such an important and critical issue. His answer was splendidly accurate and polite: “I am very grateful to you if you will call me by the name of Syreś Boläeń. It is very important to me.”

We remind that Ěrzäń Inäzor Syreś Boläeń, an officially elected elder by the Erzan Elders’ Council, has been prevented by officials of the Russian Federation from entering Russia to prevent him to get back home and live in his native country, the Republic of Mordva, with the capital city of Saransk, thus been forced to live in exile in Ukraine, Kyiv. This is also the reason why he was able to come to VIII Fenno-Ugria because the Ersa delegation was prevented from obtaining visas and the Erzan people on the VIII Fenno-Ugria are represented by people cherry-picked by the officials of the Russian Federation whose names are classified and the lists of the delegation are closed

SA VALDEF believes that ERR, as the core news outlet of the Estonian people, does not have the right to such mistakes and shortcomings in knowledge, and what they have done must begin to make up for and accept the mistakes made and contribute to the struggle of our oppressed and cornered fellow brotherly peoples.

By its deed the ERR has started to carry out the new wave of Russification that took place in the occupied Estonia in the 1970s and ended up with the construction of Lasnamäe and the mass influx of Soviet migrants which led to situation in 1986 of the adoption of the Language Act and the necessity to declare Estonian as an official language as there was palpably real threat the language will be deprived of its status as a language for official conduct.

The fact that the ERR acts like a Soviet migrant to the legitimate representatives of our brotherly peoples is unacceptable behaviour and attitude.