Ukraine: Politics on Twitter

Global Voices Online
Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Ukrainian president Victor Yushchenko has an official Twitter account now: there's a Twitter link on the righthand sidebar of his official website (UKR) (the Russian- and English-language pages haven't been updated yet, however). The president's tweets (UKR) mirror daily schedule announcements and latest news items that are featured on the official website as well.

Twitter user roxolanus wrote this about the launch of Yushchenko's Twitter "office":

man, twitter's exploding in Ukraine after today's announcement that our President joined it @President_UA

And this, somewhat later:

well, times change quickly, guys, if even Ukrainian politicians turn to social media as a tool and announce it on the news

In between these two tweets, Kotusenko posted this comment about the president's social networking skills:

wondering why @President_UA does not want to subscribe to anybody in twitter. Nothing like what Obama did

At that time, 276 people were subscribed to the presidential Twitter, but the president was not following anyone yet. Now, a day or so later, however, Yushchenko's got 325 followers and is following 281 people.

Another prominent Ukrainian politician who seems to be on Twitter is former parliament speaker and former foreign minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk: even though a press service representative of Yatsenyuk's political movement has refused to confirm the authenticity of yatsenyuk Twitter account, this user has 714 followers right now, is subscribed to 662 people him/herself, and is also soliciting ideas (UKR) from people familiar with social networking sites, among other things.

The first tweet (UKR) of Twitter user yatsenyuk, posted on Jan. 12, 2009, reads:

I'm beginning to prepare for the elections

Ukraine's next presidential elections is expected to be held on Jan. 17, 2010. The snap parliamentary vote was first scheduled for Dec. 7, 2008, then re-scheduled for Dec. 14, and finally postponed to an unspecified date in 2009.

Following the launch of Yushchenko's Twitter account, Twitter user yatsenyuk wrote (UKR):

People who surround Victor Andriyovych [Yushchenko] do not understand the meaning of internet technologies correctly

Earlier this month, Yatsenyuk wrote (UKR) about the cancellation of his account:

Someone did a cruel prank on me. Account was suspended. So we had to prove to the support service that I am [actually] who I am. [...]

There is, indeed, a number of Ukrainian political impersonators on Twitter, all of them very recent arrivals, whose first tweets were posted either today, or yesterday: yanukovich (former prime minister Victor Yanukovych), chernovetskiy (Kyiv mayor Leonid Chernovestsky), lytvyn (parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn), BYuT (The Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko), Ushenko (president Victor Yushchenko), Viktor_Baloga (head of Presidential Secretariat Victor Baloha).

Here is how Twitter user ruda_ganna reacted (UKR) to the launch of Yulia Tymoshenko's (fake) Twitter account yesterday:

[...] They're fighting for the electorate!!! [...] Perhaps it'll make sense to create a virtual politician of my own, too?

Ukraine: "Russophone Ukrainian Nationalists"

Global Voices Online
Tuesday, February 24, 2009

In this post (RUS), which has generated over a hundred comments and is now listed as the 4th most popular item on Yandex Blogs, LJ user alek-ya explains what a "Russophone Ukrainian nationalist" is:

Hard to believe that it is possible, but such people do exist. I'm one of them, I may say.

[...]

* These are the people who often spend their whole lives speaking Russian, but who think of themselves as Ukrainians and consider Ukraine their Motherland.

* We effortlessly switch from one language to another in conversation: we have friends in all parts of the country.

* When we are abroad and someone asks, "Are you from Russia?" we respond, "No! I'm from Ukraine."

* To another question: "What is your native language?" we reply: "I'm bilingual: Ukrainian and Russian."

* After watching a movie, we try hard to recall what language it was in, Russian or Ukrainian.

* Our keyboards have three [character set options]: Ї [UKR], Ы [RUS], S [ENG].

* We are happy to have our children attend Ukrainian[-language] kindergartens and schools.

* Aggressive attempts by some of our [...] officials to impose Ukrainian language frightens us first of all because it may scare people away from Ukrainian.

* For us, [Taras Shevchenko], [Ivan Franko], [Les' Kurbas] (the list is endless) are [as important] as [Mikhail Lermontov], [Aleksandr Pushkin], [Mikhail Bulgakov].

[...]

Hungary: The Roma and the Killing of Marian Cozma

Global Voices Online
Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Marian Cozma, a Romanian handball player, was killed in a nightclub fight in Veszprém, Hungary, on Feb. 8. Here's some of what's been written by bloggers about the circumstances of Cozma's death.

Eva Balogh of Hungarian Spectrum:

Saturday night the members of the Veszprém handball team decided to have a celebratory night out. One of their colleagues, Gergő Iváncsik, and his wife had just had a baby. They picked a bar/disco sometimes called Skorpió, sometimes Patrióta. [...]

The day before a young man from Enying (Fejér county) exchanged some harsh words with F.B., a well known thug in town. This man most likely was Iván Sztojka. Sztojka wanted to retaliate against F.B., this time with a show of force. He enlisted a group of fifteen or twenty friends and relatives who went to Veszprém in search of F.B.

They first went to the bar and ordered drinks, but F.B. wasn't there. For whatever reason, they decided not to pay their tab. The barmaid demanded that they settle up. In response, they grabbed her by the hair and banged her head a couple of times on the counter. According to some reports she broke her jaw. At this point some of the handball players came to the girl's assistance. A fight ensued, during which one of Sztojka's cohorts smashed a chair on the head of Zarko Sesum, a Serbian player. He was the luckiest of the three players. The attacking group either forced two of the players outside or they were foolish enough to follow them, but by then knives were drawn. Marian Cozma, a Romanian player, received a mortal stab wound directly through his heart while Ivan Pesic, a Croatian who tried to help Cozma, was stabbed in the back. As a result, he lost one of his kidneys. Cozma is dead, Sesum and Pesic are in the hospital.

[...]

By this afternoon the police identified two men, both Gypsies, as the alleged perpetrators. [...]

The police might be able to round up the guilty ones but that won't resolve the real problem of the growing anti-Gypsy sentiment. [...]

Andy Hockley of Csíkszereda musings:

[...] I have to confess that one of my first reactions on hearing this tragic story (when all I knew was that a famous Romanian handball star had been killed in Hungary), was to fear that he had been murdered by some crazy Hungarian nationalist intent on somehow getting his own back for Trianon or some such. Not that the manner or motive for the killing would matter to Cozma or his family or friends, but that if it were a hate crime, then it could turn into something more widespread and have long term political ramifications. As far as we know this wasn't the case and the team just got attacked for being in the wrong place at the wrong time while what amounted to a local gang/mafia type grudge was being played out.

However, the case is not without its ramifications and ethnic overtones. The men accused of killing Cozma are, you see, Rroma. So large swathes of the Hungarian press and its right-wing politicians have seized on this as clear evidence that this is an ethnic problem, and that "Gypsies" in general are to blame. A newspaper writer, for example, described gypsies as "not human beings, but animals". [...]

Antal Dániel of Central Europe Activ:

[...]

A little bit of contextualization: The citizens of Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Serbia did not get on very well with each other. All relatively new nation states with a strong nationalistic sentiment that has been surpassed by Communist ‘internationalism’: the past decades have seen a lot of verbal assaults against each other. When the otherwise marginalized Hungarian far-right has set up a uniformed group under the name of ‘Hungarian Guard’ Slovakia cried fool and even accused Hungary for not fulfilling her obligations under the Paris Peace Treaty to wipe out fascist paramilitary groups. But these were just provocations. The Hungarian Guard, now banned by Hungarian law after a proper process in court, was not a paramilitary group, and certainly it had no intention to harass Slovaks or Romanians. It is a new manifestation of racism. The Hungarian Guard has one single activity: to threaten Roma communities within Hungary. [...]

Earlier I noticed that things have changed a lot with the EU accession of the group. Romanian-Hungarian relations are on a historical all-time high. Hungary with Austria are the most firm supporters of Serbia’s and Croatia’s European integration. Slovakia has some extremists in the government coalitions, whose provocations are sometimes verbally met by Hungarian politicians out of mere pride, but I think the people are getting well with each other. Unfortunately, all these nations have found a common enemy: their shared Gypsy minorities, which belong to a number of groups, mostly including the Roma.

[...]



The comments in the YouTube page (and similar pages) are in Hungarian, Romanian, English, Croatians and Serb. They show grief, solidarity and every second calls for revenge on Gypsies.

The different Gypsy groups in all these countries are segregated, discriminated in schools and on the workplace and mainly live on the black market, social benefits and crime. As a visibly different native minority, their chances of assimilation is minimal. It is very ironic, that 20 years ago it could have been impossible that a Romanian sportsman is making a successful career in Hungary and becomes a favorite of his township, or a leading Hungarian professional sports club is a mix of Hungarian, Serb and Romanian players. It is a very sad irony that part of this new-found friendliness lies on a commonly shared racist attitude towards to Roma.

Russia: Reflections on Recent Murders in Moscow

Global Voices Online
Sunday, February 8, 2009

According to this roundup that appeared on Robert Amsterdam's blog on Feb. 6, the past week hasn't been too peaceful in Moscow and Moscow region:

[...] A former deputy mayor of Grozny was gunned down early yesterday morning in western Moscow in what authorities said appeared to be a contract murder. Yuri Grachev, the 72-year-old editor-in-chief of a [Solnechnogorsk] newspaper critical of the authorities, suffered concussion after being beaten near his house. The editor in chief of the independent Ekho Moskvy radio, Aleksei Venediktov, says he found a chunk of timber with an ax embedded in it outside his apartment door in Moscow yesterday. [...]

In another post on Robert Amsterdam's blog, James wrote this about the official response to the situation:

[...] But the state doesn't seem too happy to have Moscow pitch itself into a downward spiral toward 1990s-style gangland shooting gallery.
Today President Dmitry Medvedev made it clear to the country's security organs that their focus must be on "extremism," as "this type of legal violation inflicts colossal damage and is a systemic threat to national security."

But more than an effort to protect his own citizens, these comments appeared to include permission for a crackdown on any unrest related to the economic crisis:
"We are falling under the influence of the global crisis -- a worsening problem of unemployment and other social issues. At such a time one encounters those who wish to speculate -- to use the situation. So one can't allow an already complicated situation to deteriorate."

LJ user kozenko (Andrey Kozenko, journalist for the Russian daily Kommersant) posted this morbid mock letter to "out-of-town relatives" (RUS) on his blog, in which he described the situation in the Russian capital:

[...]

All is well here in Moscow. Only three high-profile murders in the past day - former vice mayor of Grozny, a businessman [Kakha Kalandarishvili] and an institute's director [Leonid Baron]. And only two of them can be considered contract killings. And this time no one was killed in the middle of the day. In general, everything is as usual and it's not even interesting to talk about it.

Remember how completely different it was in the wild 90s. Say, two killers would enter an office of "Thunder" company, [boom] - and there are 13 corpses. Gravestones made of black granite, and on them, along with the portraits of the guys, there are [VAZ-21099] cars, which they rode. Though, considering the [lavish spirit] of those times, the guys could be buried right in these ["nine-nine" cars]. But they were probably too shy.

Well, in our remote lands, my dear, it was scary in those 90s - something happens and then it takes a month for the whole city to recover its senses. And here it all happens every day, so it's not scary. Recently, everyone was discussing a girl who wrote on her blog: "My classmate was killed today. Ah, but I bought myself..." Can't remember now what it was that she bought. Nail polish or something... They were right to criticize her. But if you think hard, it's totally possible to understand her, too.

So this is the way we live now. Lots and lots of work. But these aren't the times to complain about it. People are more likely to brag about it now. So I'll finish working around 9 PM, as usual, and will go home. I'd like to watch some kind and good movie tonight, to get myself distracted. I'm trying to decide between [The Omen] and [Hostel]. I guess I'll go for The Omen. We've got enough of blood here already, but there's a lack of the devilish stuff. Nothing but a gray routine.

Kisses to you, take care and don't worry. A.

Ukraine: Victor Yushchenko's Popularity Waning

Global Voices Online
Sunday, February 8, 2009

According to a poll carried out last month, Ukraine's president Victor Yushchenko "would have won less than 2.9% of the vote if the presidential elections were held in late December 2008 or early January 2009." Among reasons for such low approval ratings is "the relentless infighting" between the president and PM Yulia Tymoshenko.

On Feb. 5, Tymoshenko's cabinet survived a no-confidence vote in parliament: the motion won 203 votes in the 450-seat assembly; a minimum of 226 votes is required for a motion to pass. LEvko of Foreign Notes wrote this about the implications of the vote for the president and his political allies:

Only 10 [NUNS] deputies supported a [PoR]-sponsored no confidence motion in the Tymoshenko-led government in the Ukrainian parliament today. Amongst the 10 were presidential secretariat head Viktor Baloha's 'Yedyniy Tsentr' group, and Yushchenko's brother Petro.

The numbers are very bad news for the president. The pro-presidential NUNS entered the current parliament with 72 deputies in Autumn 2007. With an ever-receding power base, the chances of a second presidential term for Yushchenko are almost nil. [...]

Also on Feb. 5, LJ user kotyhoroshko wrote this (UKR) about the president:

A way out for the country

Yushchenko now has a historically ideal opportunity to resign.

His resignation will partly solve the political crisis.

He will avoid the unnecessary trouble related to the [upcoming presidential] election campaign.

He will not drown in the [fecal matter of discrediting information on him].

Perhaps, in some 20 years, he will be remembered as not the worst president. People's memory is short.

Below are some of the comments to this post (UKR):

marmuletka:

Unfortunately, Yushchenko isn't reading your LJ [blog].

***

ukrainietis:

He will be idolized again not in 20 years but in two or three years. Because those who will replace him will most likely be [extremely inadequate]...

***

gonchar73:

The problem is that Yushchenko's orbit is comprised of those who are profiteering from their proximity to the president. It's them who are holding him by the throat, singing panegyrics to him and are assuring him with foam at their mouths that [he] hasn't fulfilled his mission yet. And this is why Yushchenko's circle will not allow this to happen. But I agree - it's a very good time to at least declare this: "I'm not going to run for a second term and I will not create obstacles for the government until the end of this term. But from now on, all responsibility for the state of things is exclusively on [the government]."

***

irishhighlander:

The best option is this: let these non-traditionally gifted people collectively lead the country to default. And then leave. All of them - Yushchenko, and Tymoshenko, and [Yanukovych], and the whole [parliament]. And even better - a collective hara-kiri.

Russia: A Day of Rallies

Global Voices Online
Sunday, February 1, 2009

It was sunny in Moscow on Jan. 31, with temperatures around minus 14 degree Celsius/7 degrees Fahrenheit, but despite the cold, the city saw a number of anti-government rallies - and some fighting. Below are a few accounts, some photos, videos, and links.

LJ user drugoi posted nine photos from the opposition rally on Bolshaya Polyanka and wrote this (RUS):

Young opposition activists have once again succeeded in marching down a Moscow street today. This time it was Bolshaya Polyanka, and the participants of the rally [...] were getting there in roundabout ways, switching trains on the metro. Today, however, it turned out that the regime had some volunteer (or, perhaps, hired) assistants. [...]

The moment the column of approximately 50 to 80 "dissenters" with flags and banners started moving along Polyanka, a few cars drove up from behind and - with the words, "Why aren't you letting us relax, assholes?" - some 10 or 12 people got out, dressed uniformly: in jogging pants, jeans and hooded jackets. Without delay, the gang started beating the protesters, and a pretty serious fight began.

There was some initial confusion in the "dissenters"' ranks, but then they were quite organized and tough as they fought the attackers back. Among the protesters, there were people with blood on their faces, one of the reporters had a stone thrown at his camera, but the attackers were forced to run away and would have been chased if the opposition activists hadn't decided to continue on their march.

At the end of the fight, those who were covering their faces with scarves sprayed some tear gas around. Many of those who were affected had to wash their eyes.

Riot police showed up only after the rally was over, and the work of all the law enforcement organs had to be done by two police [officers] from a nearby station, under the sharp eye of a dark-blue police helicopter hanging over Polyanka.

Several times they jumped bravely into the protesters' crowd, trying to take the banners away. It was causing some serious resistance, but the protesters had more people and [the police officers] obviously didn't have the guts to face up to them.

Desperate, one of the policemen rushed to a group of soldiers he saw standing on the sidewalk, and begged them to join in the difficult task of protecting public order. The cadets reluctantly shifted from one foot to the other, but didn't go against the people's will.

All in all, the Dissenters' March has again taken place, and there was more than enough drive today. Riot police units, which showed up belatedly [...], seized whoever was within reach - a cameraman, for example, with a huge Betacam on his shoulder - placed them into the [police van] and drove away. Somewhere above the square a new police helicopter hung still - all it had left to do was register the fact that the "dissenters" have managed to achieve what they wanted today.

LJ user zyalt posted nearly 30 photos from the same rally in the oppositional namarsh_ru LJ community.

Russian photographer Oleg Klimov posted a few pictures of the National Bolshevik leader Eduard Limonov, who made an attempt to hold another rally on Jan. 31 - a follow-up to the protest by the Communist Party at Triumphalnaya Square. Here're some of Klimov's observations (RUS):

[...] Triumphalnaya Square, in front of the monument to [poet Vladimir Mayakovsky], was cordoned off by riot police - and empty. There was a crowd by the entrance to the metro, though, not allowed to come to the stone "revolutionary poet" - and the loudspeaker kept addressing them loudly: "The rally is over! Go home!" Most of these people were journalists and they didn't want to disperse. They were waiting. Waiting despite the fact that the [National Bolshevik activists] and other young people had already been arrested and squeezed into [police vehicles].

We walked out [from the opposite side of the square] and it seemed as if nobody noticed us. Limonov started his speech by the monument to Mayakovsky. The crowd by the metro got somewhat excited, but riot police were holding them tough. Some of the journalists managed to break through, however, and ran towards Limonov. Riot police ran after them. Things were happening around the revolutionary writer [Limonov] as well. He continued talking, most likely about "freedom, fraternity and equality," surrounded by his personal guards, but at some point two huge plainclothes guys pushed over simultaneously on Limonov's bodyguards and hit one of them right into his nose. It was just an ordinary fight. Limonov was thrown on the asphalt, but, as an experienced revolutionary, he managed to take his glasses off, to keep them from being broken, obviously. The guards did their best to protect him, but the riot police were there soon, and it all ended the way it always does - the doors of the [police vehicle] [...] were shut close.

The crowd was just staring at what was going on - with obvious pleasure, it seemed. No one said anything. No one yelled anything. No one cursed anyone... the crowd was observing, along with the journalists. Observing lawlessness and impunity of the "cats" who didn't like one "little mouse" that was not gray.

There was a feeling of sadness because of this, and a terrible embarrassment, because, as Johann Goethe, I guess, said - "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

Below is a video of the events at Triumphalnaya Square, posted by LJ user zlaya-uchilka:



According to LJ user alaverin (RUS), Eduard Limonov is to spend the night and part of Feb. 1 at the police department.

A pro-Kremlin rally took place just off Red Square on Jan. 31, too. LJ user drugoi posted a photo of one of the banners from that event: "We believe!" - underneath the portraits of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin. Some of drugoi's readers thought the banner looked familiar, in two different ways:

cab9:

I thought at first that this was an Obama poster.

***

filaretus:

Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin.
Long live CPSU.

How deep must the USSR still be in the people that even after nearly 20 years the same style of banner design comes up.

dont_ban_me_mo:

It never went away anywhere, they've just done a little re-branding, Putin instead of Lenin, [Medvedev] instead of Stalin, and the CPSU has renamed itself into [the United Russia party].

LJ user mutin2007 posted a sheep cartoon, on which the animals hold banners thanking the regime for price hikes and layoffs, among other things.

Also, LJ user mutin2007 posted a photo from a rally that took place on the same day all the way across Russia, in Vladivostok: a group of protesters there carried a banner with the words "Putler kaput!!!" on it.

LJ user bwm posted 16 more photos from the Vladivostok rally, organized by the Communist Party and the Community of Activist Citizens of Russia (TIGR), and wrote this (RUS):

[...] The march turned out to be pretty strange because [TIGR activists] didn't really have anything in common with the Communists - neither in their appearance, nor in their [political views].

But most of the protesters were people who did not belong to any political movements, but were just not indifferent to the realities around them. [...]