"Dark-skinned" immigrants targetted in Russia

Frequently we hear of racist attacks against Central Asian and Caucasian (Caucasian as in people from the Caucasus) immigrants in the Russian Federation.

Alot of the times reports from agencies and newspapers state that these people are targeted because of their Asiatic looks or their "dark looks."
The first statement is more or less true since the modern-day inhabitants of Central Asia are predominantly Mongoloid, save for a few pockets of European migrants/settlers and Tajiks who seem to be predominantly Caucasoid (Caucasoid in this case refers to skull type).

The second statement is somewhat absurd and ignorant. Aside from many Tajiks, the people of Central Asia and the Caucasus are far from being "dark-skinned" people. Most of the Central Asian immigrants are Mongoloid typically with yellow skin. The immigrants from the Caucasus are predominantly white people ("white" in this case refers to physical appearance) and are indistinguishable from the average European population most of the time.

Below are pictures of Azerbaijanis. Can any "dark looks" be found in them?




Most of Caucasian peoples culture, linguistics and genetics differ from the Europeans, but in appearance, the vast majority of them except for a few mixed ones are as white as Europeans, with a huge percentage having blond hair, blue eyes. Others have red, brown hair with green eyes or blue eyes.
Where are the "dark looks?"

Even the Russian Neo-Nazis who target them, use the term "black" for the immigrants. The whole truth is that the "black" label is applied to people of non-European ethnicity which includes Chinese and other eastern Asian immigrants of non-European origins.

Being a blond-haired, blue eyed Lezghin or Azerbaijani makes no difference to the Neo-Nazi attackers.

Azerbaijani musicians:


Azerbaijani soldier:


Either the media misinterprets this "black" term or out of ignorance leads people to believe that anyone originating outside of Europe is always "dark"/non-white.
A lot of reports also claim that immigrants are prey to attacks due to their non-Slavic appearance.

This is a true statement as well. Though Slavic peoples, Western Europeans and Caucasians are of the same skin complexion, their facial structure generally gives out their racial identity or at least a clue of it.

But the main point is that the people of the Caucasus are predominantly white just as Slavic peoples and other Europeans.
The darker Caucasians are a result of mixing with darker invaders in the Caucasus such as Arabs and Persians.

To label all the Caucasians as "black" or "dark" on the basis of a handful is absurd. By the same contrast, Caucasians could also label Russians as "black" because of Russians like Alexander Pushkin.

Some more Azerbaijanis. Their appearance matches that of most other peoples of the Caucasus:

Is Persia Iran?

For a long time many people used to think of Persian and Iranian to be of the same meaning. But now with the age of the Internet and free flow of information, most people know this to be completely false. For Persian to be the same is Iranian would be like saying Punjabi is an equivalent for Pakistani.

Like Pakistan, Iran is a multilingual country with Persians constituting a little over half the population.
Many people also believe that Persia is an ancient name of Iran. The reason why the name Iran was not used before is because the modern state of Iran was not established before 1935.

Prior to that Iran's Fars province was known as Persia, but the other provinces of Iran home to the various non-Persian populations are not Persia.
It's accurate to say that Persia is not really an ancient equivalent of Iran, but rather a province of Iran; hence Persian history is a part of Iranian history now that Persia is a province of Iran.

Though the name Persia was used in Western terminology, it has it's roots in present-day Iran. The name is said to be derived from the word "Fars" or better the Fars province of Iran. This word sometimes pronounced as Pars (also used to refer to Zoroastrians in Pakistan "Parsi") hence the word "Persia" developed. The word Persia does not refer to the entire Iran. It specifically refers to the Fars province.
Fars=Persian person. Farsi=Persian language. Iranian=Person from Iran be it Kurd, Azeri, Baloch, Fars/Persian etc. Fars province of Iran=Persia.

There was a paragraph I found on http://www.iraninfo.dk/multimedia-videos/videodirectlink-70.html (the site no longer seems to exist) which I wanted to share:

Fars is one of the 30 provinces of Iran. It is in the south of the country and its center is Shiraz. It has an area of 122,400 km². In 1996, this province had a population of 3.8 million people, of which 56.7% were registered as urban dwellers, 41.0% villagers, and 1.4% nomad tribes. Nominally, F?rs is the original homeland of the Persian people. The native name of the Persian language is Farsi or Parsi. Persia and Persian both derive from the Hellenized form ?????? Persis of the root word P?rs. The Old Persian word was P?rs?. Fars province was originally called Pars after the Persians(pronounced Pars in Persian) which settled there. After the Arab conquest of Iran it was renamed Fars. A branch of the Indo-Iranians migrated to Fars in the second millennium BC. The ancient Persians became the rulers of a large empire under the Achaemenid Empire in the sixth century BC. The ruins of Persepolis and Pasargadae , two of the four capitals of the Achaemenid Empire, are located in Fars. The Achaemenid Empire was defeated by Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC. The Seleucid Empire was defeated by the Parthians in 238 BC. The city of Shiraz is located in Fars.