Russia: "Football Revolution"

Global Voices Online
Tuesday, June 24, 2008

It was a wild, sleepless night in Russia, following the national football team's 3-1 win over the Netherlands and its advance to the Euro 2008 semi-finals. In the streets of Moscow, some 500,000 fans celebrated this unexpected victory - and similar euphoria engulfed most Russian cities as well.

LJ user vero4ka described (RUS) the scene in Moscow on the night of June 21-22:

Moscow is naked, drunk, all covered in broken glass; figures "3" and "1" have been [snatched away] from all currency exchange displays [...].

[...]

[Tverskaya St.] is cordoned off, girls are lying on car hoods and roofs, people are attacking empty garbage and dump trucks, getting inside, beating on them, screaming; all guys are naked, some of them have beautiful bodies; girls at the sidewalks take their t-shirts off and walk around topless; everyone is impossibly happy, carrying each other on the shoulders, kissing, running to hug with strangers and drivers of the cars passing by; nothing like this has ever happened before, traffic rules are gone to hell, a road hysteria has begun; everyone's singing anthems, [Aleksandr Pushkin monument at Pushkin Sq.] is wearing a fan's scarf, a whole bunch of folks with flags is on [Vladimir Mayakovsky monument at Triumphalnaya Sq.]; if we, God forbid, win this [championship], there'll be a revolution - people will just flood into Kremlin, carry out the tiny, drunk [president Dmitry Medvedev], and carry in someone else, all in a totally casual manner; in the morning we'll wake up in a different country.

What else are we capable of celebrating so universally? The New Year's? May Day? I'm 22, and this is the first time I see my own people going nuts from delight; not a single person standing aside, not even street cleaners and [migrant workers]; hard to believe this is my city, feels like someone is shooting a movie. [...]

LJ user maximkalinov posted photos of the celebration in the Russian city of Tver; the title of his post (RUS) is "Football Revolution."

LJ user mnog spent the night photographing fans in downtown Moscow. The result is this post with over a hundred photos - and over a hundred comments (RUS) to it, some of which are translated below:

trendybrandy:

Damn, there are churki [a derogatory term for non-Slavs] on every second picture! What a [horror] taking place in Moscow. And so many churki when it's a Russian team that's won. What's gonna happen in the streets if they will be celebrating something of their own?! It's gonna be total [mess] [...]. Moscow is no longer Russian ... and this is Russia's capital. [...]

mnog:

There are plenty of ethnic groups in any megapolis. With views like these, you should live in a village.

***

kolengro:

And after something like this they dare ban gay pride parades?

***

algulya:

You're a courageous person, I wouldn't risk going out and taking pictures.

***

nice_scream:

There were loads of cool chicks, by the way )))))

In the morning, LJ user kotjus_sova took a few pictures of the aftermath of the celebrations and posted them in the moya_moskva (My Moscow) LJ community: 10:30 AM on Sunday, Shipilovskaya St. in Moscow, lots of broken beer bottle glass.

One reader asked (RUS): "What happened? A beer truck accident?"

Russia: Dissenters' March in Moscow (1)

Global Voices Online
Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The volume of blog coverage of the weekend's rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg is truly overwhelming - as overwhelming, perhaps, as the number of riot police (OMON) deployed from all over Russia to disperse the opposition's Dissenters' March. But nowhere near as shocking.

Below is the first installment of links, accompanied with snippets of text translated from Russian. (Please note that many entries - arranged in no particular order - link to bandwidth-intensive content.)

- LJ user mnog (photos):

Don't feel like writing.

Photos (more than 50 (about 6 MB) )

- LJ user insie (other bloggers' photos, text):

[...] In the backyards near Tverskaya, I was surprised to discover little streams of people, who chose this path as the best, just like I did. In the backyards closer to Pushkinskaya, I saw trucks with OMON, police officers giving threatening orders via walkie-talkies, fire trucks and an ambulance. People walking nearby were on their cell phones, saying something like this: "See you later, unless I get detained." Made me feel uncomfortable. [...]

- LJ user serni (photos, video, text):

Disclaimer: I was present at the Dissenters' March out of curiousity only.

[...] When people moved forward, trying to break through, yelling, "There are more of us," the regime's forces produced sticks right away and started beating everyone who was in their way. It was the first time that I saw the enraged OMON fighters, walking towards me with sticks in front of them, beating everyone left and right. By miracle, I avoided the blows. It felt like a parachute dive. [...]

- LJ user dolboeb (photos, text):

Some OMON fighters, in the Ninja Turtles' outfits, looked appropriately intimidating and photogenic, but the pointlessness of their being there, their walking back and forth, seemed to tire both them and the audience. [...] As background for portrait shooting, the police looked great, I think.

- LJ user plushev (photos, text):

[...] We only got there at the very end of the rally, when they were no longer detaining or beating anyone - all were polite and respectful. The main and, basically, the only impression that I had the time to get was that they send A LOT OF young [police] women to work at rallies. Students of the police school, that is. Many were very beautiful, even in their ugly uniforms. Didn't manage to get a close shot of anyone - [my camera is too slow], and the girls were shy, they were turning away and asking not to photograph them.

- LJ user m_gaidar (text):

When they were taking me away, I called 02 [an equivalent of 911] and told them that I and a group of 20 people have been unlawfully kidnapped by people in uniform. The girl [operator] got very frightened and asked: "Where are you?" In a bus near Pushkinskaya, I replied, and the girl just hung up on me. I called again and asked her to introduce herself and register my call, because people in camouflage were taking us all in an unknown direction. She asked again where we were detained. I said, on Pushkinskaya, and she sign with evident relief and said: "Well... you know... here... We are just having a special operation there! Nothing to be scared of." A special operation against whom - against me?!!!!!! And what do you mean it's nothing to be scared of - for whom nothing scary? For you or for whom?!!! The girl was definitely feeling uncomfortable... said, please call the boss [starshiy]. "What boss?" I asked. "The one in camouflage," she replied. Okay, I see, you are all together in it, I said and hung up on her myself this time.

Anyway, I've now got a phone call from the prosecutor's office and they invited me to come tomorrow at noon to 19 Petrovka, to Boluchevskiy Sergei Anatolyevich and answer questions about my phone call. I said I'd come with journalists and a lawyer. They replied: "Yes, sure! Come with whoever you want..." Anyway, if anyone want to come along - write me. [...]

[A RIA-Novosti photo of m_gaidar's detention is here.]

- LJ user okalman (text):

I'm going to the March tomorrow... For many reasons. I disagree with the Other Russia, too, among other things, but I'm still going. [...] I don't like Kasyanov, nor do I like Kasparov, and even less so do I like Limonov. But if in the 1990s everyone wisely concluded that Yeltsin was a [Communist] party official and why would I go to the White House "for Yeltsin"? - then we'd still be living under Communists. [...]

Russia: LJ and Politics

Global Voices Online
Saturday, October 28, 2006

On October 25, International Herald Tribune published Evgeny Morozov's opinion piece on the recent developments in the Russian blogosphere. On his blog - Sharp & Sound: Perspectives On Modern Politics - Morozov wrote:

[...] I’ve been surprised how little coverage the story has received in the Western media…Hm, virtually none…

Russian bloggers, unlike the world media, have been all over the controversial Six Apart-Sup deal in the past few weeks - and some, including Maxim Kononenko (LJ user mrparker, creator of Vladimir Vladimirovich™ spoofs on Vladimir Putin), have also been monitoring what little is being written outside Russia. Never too congenial, Kononenko passed an extremely harsh judgment (RUS) on Morozov's piece - and Morozov provided a translation:

I’m honoured: Mr Parker, one of the most odious figures on the Russian blogosphere, has just awarded with “prize of the month” for “the most clinical idiotism, which can only be reached in analytic journalism”.

Coming from him, it’s equivalent to Nobel Prize in literature… ;-)

I’m anxious to see other prizes from the Russian bloggers.

[...]

What unnerved Kononenko was Morozov's assertion that Anton Nossik - LJ user dolboeb, "a former associate of Gleb Pavlovsky, the Kremlin's spindoctor" and the "chief blogging officer" of the company taking over LJ's Cyrillic sector - may be aiding the Kremlin "in destroying a viable and vibrant public forum."

But Nossik is not alone in the Russian blogosphere when it comes to having ties to one of Putin's chief image-shapers: Kononenko co-hosts a political TV show with him, and there are also Marina Litvinovich (LJ user abstract2001) and Marat Guelman (LJ user galerist), who were both closely linked to the Kremlin and Pavlovsky in the past - and are in opposition now, to various degrees.

Guelman - a gallery owner, among other things - founded the Foundation for Effective Politics think tank together with Pavlovsky in 1995 (and Pavlovsky is still its president). Litvinovich - founder of PravdaBeslana.ru, among other things - served as the head of the Foundation's Internet department (Pavlovsky doesn't seem to have a blog).

Guelman has been having an eventful time lately. First, on Oct. 20, Russian customs officials at Sheremetyevo-2 airport seized 11 photo collages by Blue Noses that were being transported from the Guelman Gallery in Moscow to Matthew Bown's gallery in London. On his blog, Guelman posted reproductions of two collages created five years ago and depicting Vladimir Putin, George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden lounging together in underwear (here and here). He also wrote (RUS) that the authorities were threatening to persecute him for offending the Russian president, and noted that some media, both local and international, were using his blog to gather information:

[...] Others called me and Matthew, but one way or another, 13 publications[,] two radio stations and [R]euters - [their] source was LJ. Who needs press conferences ;))

The following day, on Oct. 21, a group of men described as skinheads burst into Guelman's gallery, destroying paintings by an ethnic Georgian artist Aleksandr Dzhikia and beating Guelman up. In his journal, he later posted a brief note (RUS), which received 287 comments, most of them "get well" wishes:

;alive and in one piece)

LJ user mnog posted photos of the gallery after the pogrom (150 comments, RUS).

Litvinovich, like Guelman, had been attacked and badly beaten earlier this year; like Guelman, she posted a brief update on her blog shortly after the incident took place in March and received some 500 "get well" comments from her readers.

Lyndon of Scraps of Moscow was following the story at the time and, among other things, he provided some background information on Litvinovich and her involvement with Gleb Pavlovsky:

Perhaps the powers-that-be are even more angry at Litvinovich because, years before her recent attempt to get possible Putin successor Sergei Ivanov booted from his job as Defense Minister, she seemed to be on their side. Without wanting to call her opposition cred into question, it seems relevant to mention that she got her start working for Kremlin spin-doctor Gleb Pavlovsky's Fond Effektivnoi Politiki, though, to be fair, I think back in '99 Pavlovsky wasn't considered to have gone over to the dark side - actually, back in '99, concern about the Putin administration becoming a "dark side" was rather muted overall.

Recently, Litvinovich has posted photos from her visit to Chechnya soon after the beating - here, here and here: ruins again and again, ads calling people to "come out of the shade" and pay taxes, Ahmad Kadyrov's monument in Grozny - "The only monument I know of a man with prayer beads." On several photos, one can still see scars on Litvinovich's face.

Also recently, Litvinovich posted photos from her visit to the Korallovo children’s home and lyceum, founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky. She wrote (RUS):

Have been to the birthday party of the Podmoskovny Lyceum in Korallovo. As you know, orphans live and study there. Including many children from [Beslan], orphans of [Nord-Ost], the fallen planes, children of the border guards, etc.

The lyceum is still under arrest. Nevertheless, they exist and continue to develop. Few people know, but the lyceum's motto is "Duty. Honor. Fatherland." They say it as part of the lyceum student's oath, too.

Last I was there was three years ago, with Mikhail Borisovich [Khodorkovsky], a week before his arrest. Today, only [Khodorkovsky's mother] Marina Filippovna was there. [Khodorkovsky's fahter] Boris Moiseyevich was in the hospital.

The children performed a wonderful concert. If you are interested, you can see the photos I took (part 1 and part 2).

God willing, all should be good for them and the lyceum.

Russia: "And You Call It A Gay [Pride] Parade?"

Global Voices Online
Tuesday, May 30, 2006

This past Saturday marked the 13th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Russia, and a number of people attempted to take part in a gay pride parade in Moscow - despite the ban by a city court and mayor Yuri Luzhkov's words from the day before: "As long as I am mayor, we will not permit these parades."

Orthodox Christians, Russian ultra-nationalists and skinheads attacked a handful of gays who showed up by the Kremlin to put flowers to the Unknown Soldier Memorial. Riot police detained up to 120 people that day, among them journalists and human rights activists, many of whom now intend to file a complaint to protest their unlawful detention and harsh treatment.

LJ user mnog was at the scene with a camera and posted a three-part photo series - part one, part two, part three) - entitled "And You Call It A Gay [Pride] Parade?"

LJ user onair described the failed event this way (RUS):

Moscow is the world's only city where a gay [pride] parade took place in the absense of the gays themselves. That is, there were a lot fewer of them on Tverskaya [Street] yesterday than there are at 7 PM on any workday. [...]

LJ user lev4enko provided a short analysis of what happened (RUS):

[...] What took place on Saturday very much resembled a well-managed riot (unlike [the World Cup one on Manezh Square in 2002]). Every such event is, for those who inspire these marches (fascist marches, I mean), yet another training. And it's clear that they are preparing for the [presidential election] campaign of 2007.

It's obvious that since there was not a single object of attack, they were forced to satisfy themselves with attacks on journalists. [...] What remains unclear: why Moscow OMON [riot police] a) didn't interfere when the red-brown instigators were attacking journalists, b) why, at the same time, did OMON detain and placed onto buses those very journalists who were peacefully fulfilling their professional duty, and c) why did these same OMON detain fascists very selectively and in small numbers? Do the aggressive skins [...] and pseudo-patriots have a lot more rights to walk freely in the city's center than the generally peaceful sexual minorities with flowers in their hands? [...]

Aidar Buribayev (LJ user aidar_b), a Russian Newsweek correspondent who got detained on Saturday, wrote this about his detention - and about the march (RUS):

[...]

5. [...] spent all five hours at the [police] department. It was prohibited to sit down and lean on the walls. Neither was talking allowed, and cell phones had to be turned off.

6. First, they let the nationalist ideologue Krylov go, then - skinheads, then - the homophobes who didn't look like skinheads, then - gays, then - their defenders, and they kept us, journalists and human rights activists, till the very last.

[...]

8. It's the first time that I didn't understand what they detained me for. I was leaving the square, when the cops stopped me, checked my papers and dragged me into the bus. Somewhat strange.

9. Gay pride organizers consciously chose to escalate the conflict! They needed a loud scandal. I'm sure they did.

10. There were practically no gays and lesbians on the square. And if the gays were [too scared] to attend the march, this means they don't deserve equal rights with the heterosexual majority. Let them squeeze like rats around basements and clubs. [...]

Roughly a month earlier, on May 2, the same person (aidar-b) commented on his own homophobia (RUS):

homophobic

I've always considered myself a homophobe, always disliked gays, and every time I could, I used the forceful [offensive slang synonyms for "gay;" three of them used in the original sentence]. Sometimes, I was beginning to worry that maybe I couldn't stand them so much because I myself was a latent [homosexual]?!

It looks like I worried in vain. I feel terribly sick of these homophobic pogroms; there's more and more greyness around.

A constructive discussion ensued between two readers of aidar-b's LJ:

mike67: All correct and normal. To recognize [gays] as people with equal rights, you don't have to love them. We should work not on lowering the levels of homophobia, but on rising the levels of tolerance.

schukina_irina: I agree. One thing left to do is explain to the Orthodox [believers] what tolerance is. The question is HOW?

mike67: Yes, this is a problem. I'm trying but with no results so far.

schukina_irina: You are trying? In what ways, if this isn't a secret?

mike67: In what way? Through conversations. By attempting to figure out the situation to an extent that would allow me to explain it to the people with various degrees of preparedness. This, unfortunately, is the only way I can do it. I don't have access to the serious mass media.

schukina_irina: Does it work? I'd join you even... I wonder how such people react to all this, what they do, whether it is possible to explain anything to them. Often, they are impenetrable. I'm even interested in this as a future sociologist.

mike67: It's totally okay to have discussions on it in LJ - especially taking into account that it's here that all new ideological trends will be developed, one way or another. As for the opponents' "impenetrableness" - I wouldn't be so categorical. We are all "impenetrable" when it comes to this or that. An average skinhead is possibly as concerned about things as an average liberal. That's why it's better not to think that we are better in some way. And if we think they're mistaken, we should fight not with the people, but with their convictions. Though it's hard to implement it all in practice. Sometimes it turns out to be impossible, but so what?