A NATIONALIST political party is running a television advertisement that issues a thinly veiled call for residents of the Russian capital to rid their streets of immigrants from the Caucasus region.

The 30-second commercial shows four dark-skinned men eating watermelon in a park, before a blonde Slavic woman pushes a pram over their discarded rinds. It then cuts to Dmitri Rogozin, head of the Rodina (Motherland) Party, who tells the men to pick up their mess.

“Do you understand Russian?” another Rodina leader asks them before the advertisement concludes with the slogan, “Let’s clean the city of rubbish”. The campaign was launched last week as part of Rodina’s campaign for elections to the Moscow Duma (council) on December 4.

To a Russian eye there is no doubt that the dark-skinned men are meant to be immigrants from the Caucasus region and the message is that they are “rubbish” that should be cleared away.

The Central Election Commission asked the Prosecutor’s Office last week to investigate whether the clip violated laws against inciting ethnic violence.

While waiting for a decision, the clip will continue to be shown two or three times daily as Rodina laps up publicity from the controversy that it has generated. Liberal politicians and human rights activists accuse Rodina of staging a cynical publicity stunt ahead of the elections for the city legislature, which is dominated by the pro-President Putin United Russia Party.

While liberal Muscovites may be outraged, the advertisement has struck a chord with those residents who blame immigrants from the Caucasus, especially Chechnya, for rising crime and recent terrorist attacks.

Rodina denies being racist and claims that it simply wants tougher immigration controls. A spokeswoman said: “We meant only what we said: that the city must be clean.”

But critics say Rodina is encouraging ultra-nationalists. There were 44 racially motivated murders in Russia last year.

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