Russia: Holiday Charity (via Egoism)

Global Voices Online
Saturday, December 29, 2007

Russia is embarking on a 10-day national vacation: from Dec. 30 to Jan. 8, the country will be celebrating the New Year's and Orthodox Christmas - and should also have enough time to rest, relax and sober up in between. Charity isn't among the most popular subjects in the Russian blogosphere during the festive season, although some bloggers do discuss ways of helping the poor and needy this year.

Here is what Moscow-based LJ user mymrochka wrote (RUS) on Dec. 23:

I really want to talk about charity on the eve of the Catholic Christmas. But I'll talk about something else.

Imagine this. You've gone out shopping today, to buy New Year's presents. It's totally crazy around you, people are sweeping all there is off the shelves, no one's really paying attention to the price tags anymore, all you want is to be done with buying everything you need and breathe freely, knowing that on Dec. 30 and 31 you won't have to busy yourself with this shopping madness and can instead devote the day to cooking the proverbial [Olivier salad] to have a place to rest your face in when the sound of the fireworks subsides.

How much have you spent? Me, I'm scared to count. I haven't really enjoyed [the shopping experience] - every time I look at a store counter, I get my usual migraine.

And last night, I went into a store near my house and bought everything that my hungry child had been demanding [...]. There, I saw a babushka [old woman] standing by the entrance again. She's been standing there for a few months already, since it got cold. She stands there quietly, doesn't ask for money, helps people open the door. Every time I walk by, I try not to look at her. For some reason, I feel ashamed. I don't know why. Yesterday I made up my mind [...]. I came up to the babushka decisively, squeezed 100 rubles [approx. $4] into her hand and tried to quickly get away. But failed to. She caught my hand, said something that I didn't hear because I was trying hard to get away. "Pardon me," I said. "What was it?" "Again!!!! Once again!!!" - the old woman said. Then she wished me happiness and health and let me go. On the way home, I suddenly recalled that indeed this wasn't my first feat like this. Only before I had somehow managed to get away quickly and to repress the memory of the babushka and the crumpled bill.

It's horrifying, for some reason. I've no idea if this babushka's got kids, I don't know whether they drew her out to the street, or perhaps she's lonely, or maybe even a drunkard and had spent all her money on liquor and thus became homeless. But it doesn't really matter what had happened. It is wrong that a human being has to stand in front of a store all day long, with nowhere else to go to. Because I'm a human being, too, and I feel upset because of us, humans.

So I'll talk about selfishness.

Let's all of us who've read this try to clean our consciousness by the end of the year - out of pure selfishness - so that we could say proudly about ourselves that we are humans, too, and good humans at that. So let's put aside a sum of money sufficient to buy one New Year's present - to make at least one homeless babushka happy. Or a bum. And it's okay if he spends this money on drinks - it's none of our business. Because he'll be happy, right? He'll think: "What a miracle, they are giving me money, and not just 5 rubles [20 cents], but 200 [$8] - maybe the New Year has indeed arrived?" And he doesn't care about our motivations, so give him the money, even if you feel bad about parting with it, or even if you don't believe that he's an authentic homeless, but an eccentric millionaire who prefers to spend his pre-New Year's free time this way. Forget for a while that 5 rubles given from the heart are better than 500 given with regret, and that the best gift is what you create with your own hands. Money, warm clothes, food - this is what a homeless person needs for Christmas, and this little we can provide him with, even though we can's give him a home.

What can be better for such inveterate egoists like ourselves than to have someone believe that we are magicians or God's messengers?

And then it'll turn out that we've been talking about nothing else but charity all along today.

Ukraine: Yulia Tymoshenko and Coal Miners

Global Voices Online
Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Yulia Tymoshenko returned as Ukraine's prime minister on Dec. 18.

Five days later, she was in Donetsk region, visiting the site of Ukraine's worst coal mining accident, the troubled Zasyadko mine.

Taras of Ukrainiana wrote this about the politics of the trip:

[...] One of the major events I missed while being out of town was Tymoshenko’s peace voyage to Donbas. In a move highly reminiscent of the maiden voyage she had pulled on the eve of the Dec. 26, 2004 rerun, weeks before being catapulted to her first PM term, she started her second PM term on a soft, conciliatory note.

With a stronger personal support and a stronger opposition — both in and outside of the Orange Coalition — she faces a reality very much different from the euphoric landscape of the early 2005. The Orange Revolution is now history, but another presidential election is just a dream away. And there she is, ready to make that dream come true, ready to make history. So, the first thing she does as PM — her suitcase full of presidential ambitions — is beard the lion in his own den. [...]

While in Donetsk, Tymoshenko was quoted as saying this (RUS), among other things:

We'll be working on it and will make it so that in our country both young people and children would want to become coal miners.

Here are some reader reactions (RUS) to this statement, selected from the comments section on Korrespondent.net's news item linked to above:

are:

I'll only believe in this when the President's daughter puts on a helmet and drags herself into a coal mine.

***

Guest:

It's simple: she'll make other professions so unappealing that children would rather hope to become coal miners than anything else.

***

Communist:

But this is exactly how it used to be in that great country that you destroyed! In the Soviet Union, children did dream about becoming coal miners, and their work was honorable and safe! Do you remember ever reading about coal mine accidents in Soviet newspapers?! No, because there weren't any!

***

Anna:

Our children are dreaming of being coal miners. Because in our town of Snezhnoye the mines have been shut and now there is no way to make any money at all. We are surviving on bread and water, and it'd be nice to leave, but where to?

***

Peter Pan:

Communist: "Do you remember ever reading about coal mine accidents in Soviet newspapers?! No, because there weren't any!"

Are you so sure? And Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm" didn't exist, either, right?

It was all there. In special depositories. As for points of view that were different from the "leading and guiding one" - you could only hear those on short-wave radio through the wailing of the jamming stations. As Napoleon (not a psycho!) used to say in a well-known joke, "If I had controlled the Soviet press, the world wouldn't have learned about my defeat in the Battle of Waterloo!"

***

Benya na Laden dyshit 2 Communist:

You better remember football broadcasts from Donetsk. The tracks around the field were packed with wheelchairs.

Then they banned these wheelchairs, too.

As for the accidents, no one was reporting on them in the USSR - well, perhaps they did once, when the plane carrying Tashkent "Pakhtokor" [football team] crashed. They had to somehow explain to the people where the old players disappeared and why the backup team members were playing instead.

They didn't report a word on what happened to the Komsomolets submarine, nor did they report on the nuclear accident in the Urals - while it was way worse there than in Chernobyl.

So much for you Communist USSR government.

***

Ъ:

Kids are going to dream of playing for "Shakhtar" ["Coal Miner," a Donetsk football club]. That's for sure.

***

On a different note, the Soviet-time Napoleon joke cited in a comment above seems to have regained its popularity lately. Dmitri Minaev of De Rebus Antiquis Et Novis ran into it at a Russian history forum and posted a translation at his blog:

November 7, the anniversary of the October Revolution. The military parade at the Red Square in Moscow. Napoleon and Murat are among the invited VIPs: ambassadors, chairmen of the communist parties and so on. Napoleon reads "Pravda" newspaper and Murat observes the parade in excitement.

Murat: "Your Excellence, look at these brave soldiers! If we had a battallion of such soldiers, we could have won the battle of Waterloo!" Napoleon keeps reading Pravda. The Kantermirov tank division enters the Red Square.

Murat: "Your Excellence, look at these tanks! If we had one of them, we could have won the battle of Waterloo!" Napoleon keeps reading Pravda. The mobile tactical missiles slowly enter the scene.

Murat: "Your Excellence, look at these missiles! If we had just one of them, we could have won the battle of Waterloo!"

Napoleon raises his eyes, watches Murat sadly and finally utters: "Mon cher, if we had a newspaper like Pravda, the world would have never known that we had lost at Waterloo..."

Russia: Christmas Tree Decorations

Global Voices Online
Sunday, December 23, 2007



Here is a holiday season story (RUS) that's got very little of the traditional holiday spirit in it. Posted by LJ user souffrante and accompanied by Valeriy Leushev's photos, it's as much about Russian bloggers' childhood memories as it is about globalization, consumer nationalism, bad management, labor rights and the power of blogging.

Why one should buy Russian-made glass New Year tree decorations

Do you know how the real [Christmas] balls are made?

Imagine a huge factory, with huge machines puffing, spitting out identical shiny balls, then a conveyer belt with these balls moving on it, and then ultra-modern pulverizers pouring paint over the balls, and then, as they enter a special chamber, special squirts of paint are being sprayed on them from all directions, creating a complex pattern. As the balls continue on their way along the conveyer belt, they get fanned over and dry fast. And finally, at the very end of the conveyer belt, they fall down into boxes in straight rows and are sealed down by a robot, the wonder of modern technology.

And now stop thinking about silly thoughts.

Take a glass ball that was made at Yolochka [Little Fir Tree] enterprise and look at it closely, try to sense WHAT it is that you're holding in your hands. Feel the soul that the Russian women - often disabled - have poured into it, the women who have been working at the Christmas tree decorations factory for many-many years, bringing festivity into every home. These people have made this ball WITH THEIR HANDS. With their hands alone.

So do you know how the real [Christmas] balls are made?

I'll tell you. So that you don't feel like buying ugly Chinese-made plastic [mass-produced trash] anymore.

I think it would be good if you share this with your friends, and we, together, support national producer this way =)

[two photos and text omitted]

By the end of the Soviet period, the factory acquired automatic equipment, but it never got installed and, in the years of the economic decline of the 1990s, it became inoperative.

The factory drops you into the atmosphere of the first [Five-Year Plans], or perhaps even the end of the 19th century. New Year's decorations are being created in the toughest of conditions. It's hard to stand the lack of fresh air and the burning hot air of the tiny rooms where glass forms are blown - yet this is where people spend the whole day working.

Some elderly female worker even like to scare their grandkids this way: "If you don't study well, you'll end up working at Yolochka!"

The first section of the factory is the hot one. Here, 50 female glass-blowers toil in semi-darkness, noise and heat, for 6-8 thousand rubles [approx. $240-320] a month, mouthblowing decoration molds with the help of gas burners. Their workday lasts eight hours. In this time, each worker has to produce 200-250 molds, depending on the form of the future decoration.

[photo omitted]

What's difficult to achieve is the preciseness: the ball's diameter, for example, cannot deviate for more than 1-3 mm. It's impossible to work here without some special instinct. If the result is somewhat distorted, the ball is thrown away. To become a good glass-blower, one has to study for six months and then work for no less than two years.

[three photos and text omitted]

Here, all decorations are painted by the real masters. Hand-painted. Sometimes it takes a few hours to complete one ball, and sometimes the whole day, depending on the complexity of the picture. There is an extreme shortage of masters. It is not easy to learn this craft.

[three photos and text omitted]

The balls are packed and delivered to stores, where they are being pushed away from the shelves by the Chinese plastic that's being produced by millions by the soulless machines.

And these balls are handmade, practically each one of them is unique! Exclusive stuff, being sold for 100 rubles [$4] apiece. Foreigners take away bags of these balls when they come to the factory on a guided tour - in Europe such a miracle would cost [a lot more].

And we don't value them...

[...]

This post has received 467 responses. Below are some of them:

losch:

To avoid offending the Chinese, all this stuff could be hung on their mass-produced artificial fir trees.

***

nmoshina:

Thank you for the story! I'll definitely buy these decorations now!

***

winnie_the_bass:

The make boxer pants the same way. Only there are no glass-blowers there, though the rest is the same: sleepy hens dressed in green robes sit behind sewing machines that grew outdated a hundred years ago, with paint peeling off them, and work with their hands, with their hands - handmade. And the result is the same: pale, unappealing Soviet nothing that no one wants.

***

Anonymous:

Guided tours, yes. It's especially educating for the kids. These balls are sold there, too. [For practically nothing.] So strange: first you see how it is all made, then you learn how much it ends up costing. [...]

***

shakheed:

My mother used to work at a Christmas tree decorations factory in the Soviet times. And until I was 7 or so, I thought that she knew Ded Moroz [Father Frost, Santa Claus] in person.

***

t0syara:

That [Christmas] balls in Russia are made manually is nothing but a sign of backwardness of our industry. Mass production of decorations shouldn't be manual. Only exclusive decorations.

***

mike_steinberg:

[...] But I doubt that many of those present here [...] are ready to pay the real price for handmade goods [...]. That the store/factory doesn't have the energy/brains to organize sales properly - it has nothing to do with the emotional but meaningless story. [...]

***

maxxgol:

Yes, you're right - it would've been easier for them to arrange export of smaller quantities and get a lot more money for it, than force the disabled to toil for kopecks - though [...] where else would a disabled person go. [...] And, just like you, I'm sure no one here would buy one ball for 2,000 rubles [$80].

***

andrey_larin:

In a civilized country, people like these would be living a lot more decently.

souffrante:

Absolutely.

eldhenn

In a "civilized" country people would be living the same way. But the factory would have an owner instead who'd be buying himself a yacht every year. And we'd paying a hundred for a ball, right. A hundred euros.

[...]

yahaha:

The country's not the problem, but this one specific company is. A total lack of normal management. No desire to make production automatic and to develop it. No knowledge of how to encourage workers by means of normal salaries. The lack of a trade union that could have reason with snotty owners. Et cetera...

***

Anonymous:

Thanks you for the story. I've reconsidered the notion of a "Russian patriot." Because here in Ukraine this expression has turned into a swearword a long time ago :( [...]

***

ovalov:

Interesting advertisement for the [Christmas] balls...

souffrante:

I tried hard =P Selflessly, by the way =)

ovalov:

No, no, I'm not hinting at anything. Even if you've been paid to do it, it's still very sincere!

souffrante:

No one paid anything for this, okay... We were just working on an innovation management case at the university, using this company as an example. And we got so emotionally involved with it that we decided to help in some way.

And here is an update (RUS), posted two days later, on Dec. 15:

Yolochka's business will improve.

As of now, my post has been read by 81,936 people at fishki.net site alone. At copypast.ru site - 2,513 people. Plus LJ, LiveInternet and other blogs. [...]

THANK YOU.

[...]

Russia: Putin's Year

Global Voices Online
Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Vladimir Putin has been in the news a lot lately. If it's not the overwhelmingly overwhelming majority of Russians voting for his party, then it's Time Magazine naming him as its Person of the Year.

Below are some initial reactions to today's piece of Putin news from Anglophone Russia bloggers.

Robert Amsterdam:

[...] in general I think that it is a good thing for Americans to start focusing attention on Russia (however I am surprised that no mention was made of Mikhail Khodorkovsky or other similar figures). [...]

Lyndon of Scraps of Moscow:

[...] Brace yourselves for a wave of commentary and opinion pieces with this selection as a "hook," all of which will no doubt note that the honor - once known as "Man of the Year" - has in years past been bestowed on people like Stalin (twice!) and Hitler...

In the comments section to this post, Lyndon and W. Shedd of The Accidental Russophile discuss Putin's Time cover photo and his looks in general:

Lyndon:

[...] I actually think he usually does a fine job of looking sinister (when he's not busy looking borderline goofy doing his "ganksta lean"/"pimp limp" swagger), and that it may be an intentional part of his image, although this particular photo would appear to be editorially selected for maximum sinister-ness.

On the other hand, I think Time used a tightly cropped head shot (and not this "throne" angle) for the cover, which is the more important photo. And I have to give the "throne" shot its due, since it is a great encapsulation of the "tsar"/"gangster" vibe that surrounds Putin these days (again, a vibe that is not entirely invented by the media but is in part self-created), so I'm sure the photog was delighted to capture it.

W. Shedd:

I remember some youtube or rutube clip (likely on some blog, of course) that showed a comic comparison of Yeltsin vs. Putin. Yeltsin of course was shown as a stumbling drunk, the the Putin portrayal showed him as something of a vain fashion horse, walking, posing, and turning like a model, vogue-ing for the camera.

That image of him has stuck with me, as sort of a vain guy and usually trying to appear serious.

Do you think he plays on a sinister look? [...]

Lyndon:

There's actually going to be a talk in DC in Jan. titled "Presentation of Self in Russian Culture: The Case of Vladimir Putin." Should be interesting. [...]

W. Shedd of The Accidental Russophile:

[...] There is always something to be said for being in the right place at the right time. Putin deserves the most credit for simply having clear ideas on asserting Russia's influence on the international stage, now that the nation has resurgent economic prowess.

To commemerate the occasion, I'm sharing the following Putin cut-out figure. Now you too can have a little Putin, Man of the Year, watching over your desk!



[...]

Inside Krasnodar:

Congratulations to Mr. Putin and to the country of Russia for being named “The Man of the Year.” While Time is correct to recognize the growing influence and importance of Russia in today’s world, it still fell back on old cliches and tired stereotypes in its cover story. Fortunately, Time magazine also printed the full transcript from its interview with President Putin. I often find that when one actually reads Putin’s words and has direct access to his thoughts and opinions one is surprised at how bright, logical, and insightful he can be. Sure you say but he’s still scary. Really? Read the transcript below and decide for yourself. You might be pleasantly surprised. [...]

Andy Young of Siberian Light:

[...] By dragging Russia kicking and screaming from the post-Soviet anarchy of the Yeltsin era, Putin has single handedly made ‘managed democracy’ a semi-respectable form of government. His success will encourage others to believe that, provided they secure stability and steady economic development for their people, they can rule indefinitely.

Whether this is a positive, or a negative development, I’ll leave you to decide. After all, you were last year’s Time Magazine Person of the Year…

Russia: Voting in Grozny

Global Voices Online
Sunday, December 16, 2007

According to the Central Election Commission's data (RUS), over 99 percent of Chechnya's 580,918 eligible voters showed up for the Dec. 2 parliamentary election - and 99.36 percent of them voted for Vladimir Putin's United Russia party.

According to Reuters, "this was the highest vote for Putin anywhere in Russia, where overall turnout was 62 percent and just over 64 percent of votes were cast for United Russia."

Journalist Timur Aliev - LJ user timur-aliev - wasn't just a voter in this election; he also ran as a candidate for the Union of Right Forces (SPS), a party that came in third in Chechnya, receiving 449 votes (0.08 percent).

Below is Timur's somewhat surreal account (RUS) of what it took to exercise his right to vote in Chechnya's capital Grozny.

The problem with voting for me was that I lived at one address, but was registered at my old address - in the building where the federals from the commandant's office live now. In other words, it was not clear to me where my current polling station was.

I took a taxi, and we began our search. The first obstacle was that the central street was blocked and it was impossible to get to "[Minutka]" directly from the city center. And so we spent about 20 minutes driving around side streets, before we reached my home neighborhood.

We didn't find the polling station where it used to be - and it wasn't at the children's hospital or the prosecutor's office, either. We tried to drive slowly, looking for some [local election committee]'s sign. But in vain.

We tried to search in another part of the neighborhood. We got to Lenin [Avenue] again. School #46 was our next stop. No one there as well. But the guard suggested that we drive over to school #25.

So we went to the very beginning of Lenin [Avenue] - that's basically the city's edge. There was nothing there, a wasteland where the school used to be - and I didn't even know about it, been too long since I was in this area last. We asked the passerby where school #25 was. They waved - and we, following their directions, drove along the narrow, dirty streets. Then we found it - the school was located in the former kindergarten building. And the polling station was there, too.

Inside, there were surprisingly many people - about 7-10 people were crowding around the table with voters' lists. Three of them had arrived right before us, in a Volga. Later I realized they were observers from the CPRF [Communist Party], they were there to let the election committee's officials know that they'd need the protocols, but they were voting there as well.

I glanced through the list of streets whose residents were supposed to vote at this very polling station. My street wasn't there, but the neighboring ones were. I asked the people sitting at the table. One of them turned out to be the head of the [local election committee], and he recognized me and said: "a-a, he is a frequent guest at our TV." He asked if I were a lawyer - because of my very knowledgeable performance during the debates - and wished me good luck, saying - we need people like this at the Duma. I gave him a vague 'hmm' in response.

They handed down the lists to me, so that I could search for my name in them. But I wasn't there. Moreover, of all the buildings that used to stand on our street, there was only one present on the list - the first one. The rest of the people weren't listed. I asked them where they got these data from. From the administration, they'd given it to us, replied one of the committee's members. That is, what happened is that the residents of only one building out of 45 on our relatively short streets had been added to the voters' lists. Even if barely anyone lived there [physically] - but these people hadn't changed their registration addresses, hoping to receive compensation, and they all still live in Grozny - I had seen practically all of them. But still, they were not listed.

Finally, they entered me on the additional voters' list - I was #15 there. I filled in the ballot, and we moved on (but that's a different story).

After some time, as we were driving through "Minutka," I saw yet another man who had voted at our polling station. He was waiting for a [bus] to take him to the center, which meant that he, just like myself, had come over specifically for the vote.

Here's what's interesting - even if I still lived at my old address, would I feel like searching so intensely for my polling station, considering I didn't have a stake in it and it was a 40-minute walk in the mud away (in the Soviet times, one could get there using public transportation - about five stops with one transfer). I doubt it.

But it turns out people have not been deterred - judging by the official results, they all showed up for the vote. Though, to be fair, it should be noted that with the way they were recording voters in the ruined Grozny, when it's not clear where anyone lives, it wouldn't be an impossible thing to show a 200-percent turnout, by including those additional voters' lists, too.

Russia: "Nashi" in Moscow

Global Voices Online
Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The second post-election week in Russia started with an exchange of niceties between president Vladimir Putin and first deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev: on Monday, Putin said he backed Medvedev to become president, and on Tuesday, Medvedev said he backed Putin to become prime minister.

The first post-election week, however, had been marked by increased presence of out-of-town members of the pro-Putin youth movement Nashi ("Ours") in Moscow - and by the first public appearance of a few members of Mishki ("Bear Cubs"), the new children's pro-Putin movement.

Lyndon of Scraps of Moscow wrote extensively about Mishki and the shock they've caused in the Russian blogosphere and the media.

LJ user odalizka wrote (RUS) about her encounters with a group of Nashi kids in Moscow last week:

As we all know, the young Nashi, dressed in red and white raincoats, with a portrait of [the president] and the words "Our Victory" on them, have flooded all of [Moscow's] downtown, beginning Monday. I thought they'd be taking part in meetings and rallies on large streets and squares; but for the past four days a small group of young people with flags has been hanging out near our office, on a small street in the Chistyye Prudy neighborhood.

The rainy Monday proved especially hard for them - they were hiding in our gateway, which we use as a smoking place and where there's also a "bed for an hour" hotel [...]. The young boys and girls evoked extreme pity and a desire to warm them up, wash and feed them. Then it turned out that the office of [Eduard Limonov]'s party was nearby - and yes, this group had been sent here to guard this very office [of Limonov] permanently. To keep [Limonov's guys] from moving forward in one forceful, united front and snitching away our hard-won victory.

[three photos]

As you see [on the photos], they are blocking traffic as they stand on both sides of the road, making something of an arc with their flags above each car that drives by. In general, they act as if they own this city. Victors and occupants. My colleague today tried to drive when the green light was hers - right when a group of young people in raincoats was crossing the street. She honked at them (because it was red light for them), and they surrounded her car and started waving flags around her. She opened the window and said: "Do wipe the car more thoroughly, it happens to be really dirty." They began to laugh and left her alone. [...]

Their eyes are empty. The Tajiks sweeping our backyard look like Sorbonne students in comparison. Their badges say something like, "Yekaterina Sidorova. Vladimir. Ideology." Some are obviously the leaders - they are dressed in warm red jackets with a portrait of you-know-who. At 5 o'clock sharp, they take off. Needless to say, windows of the cars parked nearby are decorated with Nashi's leaflets, famous all around the [blogosphere] by now, with amazing illustrations and text [more on it in this translation, posted at La Russophobe]. [...]

I mean, you get, right? This crowd had to be a) brought to Moscow; b) accommodated; c) dressed in uniforms; d) provided with [leaflets, flags, etc.]; e) fed; f) paid, obviously. Instead, damn it, they should have put them in school classes and educated them - investing this way into the future of our great motherland.

[...] It's unbearable to see for yourself what kind of people the current regime is relying on.

Russia: President Dmitry Medvedev?

Global Voices Online
Tuesday, December 11, 2007

A year and a half ago, Moscow bloggers had to go all the way to the Zoo to yell "Preved, Medved!" to the bears there. Today, they don't even have to leave their computers - all thanks to president Vladimir Putin's pledge of support to Dmitry Medvedev, first deputy prime minister and the likely 2008 presidential candidate.

Medvedev's last name stems from the Russian word for "bear" - medved' - and Yandex Blogs portal (RUS) lists over 1,500 posts in the Russian blogosphere today that greet him irreverently with "Preved, Medved!" (RUS) and over 1,400 more posts that refer to Medvedev in a more reserved manner (RUS), by what appears to be his semi-official title by now - "the successor."

Anglophone Russia bloggers are also discussing the much-awaited announcement of the person who is likely to become Russia's next president. Below are some of the reactions.

Mark MacKinnon's Blog:

[...] So all hail President Dmitry. There is, of course, the small matter of elections to be sorted out, but you can be sure that the Kremlin - unless this decision creates a major rift behind the red walls - will make sure Putin's man is elected. The liberal opposition is self-destructing anyway, choosing not one, but three candidates to run for the presidency in April.

[...]

Medvedev owes Putin everything. If Putin asks him to do something - to make him prime minister, or even to relinquish the presidency because Vladimir Vladimirovich misses the comforts of the Kremlin - he'll do it.

Ruminations on Russia:

The Last Act or Just the Prelude

Google News has links to 108 news feeds announcing that Dmitry Medvedev was nominated to be the Presidential candidate for United Russia and other Kremlin-friendly non-jackal parties; and VVP saw the nomination and thought that it was good.

Too easy, its not going to end just like that. That may be a front for being caught off-guard. The rumour doing the rounds in late summer was that Medvedev had been caught with his hands in the cookie jar and would henceforth be the man running the key cookie jar (GAZP) but would not be running the whole damn thing. [...]

Sean's Russia Blog:

[...] This is still an unfolding story and more will be discussed in the coming days. However, even at these early stages, one thing is clear. No matter what Putin does to show that he’s leaving the Presidency, his very own critics just won’t let him go. As Michael Corleone declared in Godfather III: “Just when I think I’m out, they keep pulling me back in.”

Siberian Light:

[...] I’m beginning to wonder (and I don’t think I’m alone), though, whether Medvedev could actually be the real deal - that is, a President who actually leads Russia, as Putin slips gently into an early semi-retirement.

Medvedev’s loyalty to Putin means that he is unlikely to turn on his former boss. And, rather like Putin back in 2000, Medvedev is the man nobody can conceive of as being President - no power base, stuck in the middle of warring clans. The perfect man to hold everything together… [...]

Perspectives on the New Russia:

[...] 4. The Russian blogging community has responded with commentary, some of it fairly cynical. A couple of bloggers have suggested that Putin picked Medvedev because he is the only candidate shorter than Putin, others have suggested that they now will be voting for Gazprom to be the new Russian president.

5. Finally, it turns out that Mr. Medvedev - who is a soft spoken and largely wooden on camera particularly in contrast to the more charismatic leaders like Zhirinovskii - as a youth was a major hard rock fan, loving Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin. He also reportedly loves the sound of vinyl records.

The Accidental Russophile:

[...] I very much doubt it will affect any change in the direction of Russia, Inc. In fact, Medvedev's strong business experience and persona lend itself to Russia as the emerging corporate state, a nation that is run like a business. Most analysts tend to cast Medvedev as a liberal - I think this is a mistake. He simply isn't the sort of Russian man who shoots his mouth off to show what a real man he truly is.

[...]

[...] Medvedev won't lend himself to the easy, knee-jerk, "He's a fascist" kind of blogging. He doesn't appear to be so vain as to appear shirtless for photos while fishing with some prince. He is unlikely to kiss children on the belly.

In short, the man is a professional.

Scraps of Moscow:

[...] The Russian stock market has surged - Gazprom, where Medvedev is Chairman of the Board, is up 3% - and I have to say that in the imperfect world of Russian politics a smooth transition to a Medvedev administration may be the best possible outcome for anyone concerned about continued growth and stability in Russia. Medvedev's involvement in corporate Russia predates his involvement with Gazprom - he was head of legal affairs at SPB-based timbercompany Ilim Pulp for most of the 1990s - and fits with his the "moderate liberal / technocrat" label generally applied to Medvedev's politics.

The market's favorable reaction to this news may also reflect a sense of relief that the succession process is moving forward.

[...]

Looking ahead, this may also be good news for the future of the US-Russian relationship, both because making money is one thing both countries agree on and because of who Medvedev is not - a hawk like Sergei Ivanov. But who knows - the past few months have been all about surprises and the expectation of more surprises [...].

Russia, France: Charmed by Putin?

Global Voices Online
Saturday, December 8, 2007

LJ user favorov writes (RUS) this on Nicolas Sarkozy's much-discussed congratulatory phone call to Vladimir Putin:

Amazing

Putin must possess some truly preternatural personal charm if this is what he does to people after meeting them just once:

There can be no doubts about [the legitimacy of] the results of the Dec. 2 State Duma election, said French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

This from a person who [got elected due to his opposition to Jacques Chirac's pro-Russian policies]...

And here are some comments to favorov's post, which, to some extent, highlight the international dimension of this year's Duma election:

vartanoff:

But isn't it only natural that VVP [Putin] has got at least one friend? If I remember it right, VVP got [Sarkozy] drunk once. And they've been [on friendly terms] ever since that party.

favorov:

VVP's got [plenty] of friends: [Jacques Chirac], [Tony Blair], [Gerhard Schröder], let alone [George W. Bush] and the [CIS] state leaders. There are only [Angela Merkel] and [Lech Kaczyński] that he hasn't yet managed to befriend :)

grdash:

That is, he hasn't yet befriended those who have seen [chekists] before.

favorov:

He hasn't befriended those who had personal rather than ideological reasons to dislike him. [...]

***

trevozhniy:

Yes, it is strange, indeed. They used to scare us - here, he'll definitely stand up to Putin, yes, he will. Well, [Masha Gaidar] has made her ["DYAVOL" video clip. Looks like she was right, after all. )

***

ostap:

The most amazing thing is that France may be the only European country with few reasons to give a damn about Russian gas. It satisfies nearly all its energy needs through nuclear power plants, and gas makes up for 4 percent, I guess, of the overall electric energy consumption. As for the gas for non-energy needs, Algeria supplies enough of it. And as for oil, Russia isn't a monopolist in this area.

So there's nothing but personal charm or a [Helmholtz resonator] to explain this phenomenon.

esya:

So it is about the resonator - because I thought Nemtsov was [joking (RUS)] :) [...]

ostap:

Gazeta.ru makes it sound as if he [Sarkozy] is bragging about it. But according to Le Monde, it's more like he is trying to explain himself: after the cited paragraph, he also says that in his conversations with Putin he always raises important issues, from Chechnya to the killings of journalists, and this is more important than whether he has "congratulated" him or not. He also says that he keeps in touch with Putin regularly on such important issues as the problem of Iran - and it would have been somewhat weird not to call him now.

It still sounds pretty unimpressive, but the tone of his response is somewhat different than what it appears to be if you read the Russian piece.

favorov:

Why unimpressive? It is impressive! It's just funny that he had the guts to act this way, knowing how they are going to grill him about it...

ostap:

Impressive or not - it depends. Judging by the French media reports on the press conference, he was definitely mumbling there. It looks like it wasn't the matter of having the guts - he just said it without thinking first, and now he really regrets it.

listopad:

VVP has promised to send Sarkozy squadrons of [the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi], to calm down public unrest in France.

Russia: More on the Duma Election

Global Voices Online
Monday, December 3, 2007

The previous Global Voices post on the general elections in Russia was a translation of Russian bloggers' views; the post below deals with what some of the English-language Russia bloggers have been writing recently.

On Dec. 1, The Russian Dilettante finally broke his silence with this comment on the upcoming vote:

It's all predictable, yet not quite

No doubt, tomorrow's parliamentary election is not going to be fair or free. But the interesting thing about it that United Russia, the "party of power," is seriously afraid it may not get the majority it wants. (I'm not sure if it is 50% or 75% or some other number between 50% and 100%.) They're sure to fix it anyway, but it may not be the neat job they were hoping for.

Sean Guillory of Sean's Russia Blog wrote this on the eve of the election:

[...] If voter turnout does surprise Russia watchers and ends up low, there is always Plan B. The lack of physical appearance will certainly be supplemented with a flood of absentee ballots. Absentee ballots allow one person to cast several votes in several different polling stations. Police in Komi have already confiscated 60 absentee ballots purchased on Kirov region. Defiant, the Communists have vowed to not stand for the counting of “dead souls.” But in reality, what are they going to do about it? [...]

In a comment to Guillory's post, Tim Newman of White Sun of the Desert described what the election felt like at Russia's - and Eurasia's - easternmost edge:

Election fever in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk consisted of a few individuals - who less like political activists and more as pretty girls paid to distribute flyers - standing about in United Russia bibs. I haven’t heard of a single person mention the election, never mind vote in it. The Russian in my household missed doing her civic duty by spending the entire day in bed sleeping off a mountain of alcohol from the night before. I suspect most Sakhalin Islanders were doing the same. I guess remoteness from Moscow doesn’t help.

St. Petersburg-based Megan Case reflected on political views of the Russians she knows:

[...] If my students are any gauge, this is A-OK with most of the Russian population. One young woman in all seriousness told me that she couldn’t understand why Putin couldn’t run for a third term as president. So many students just said that Putin is the only person who can ensure that the relative stability of the past few years continues. So many people seem to think that the “democrats” or the “westernizers” had their chance in the 1990s and they screwed it all up. I would say they never really had a chance, but try arguing that with someone who lived through the ’90s in Russia.

[...]

Anyway, tomorrow most of my friends will go out and vote for SPS and Yabloko without much hope, but a feeling of responsibility to participate in the shred of democratic process that is left. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but I don’t think it will bring any light at the end of the tunnel for politics in Russia.

Nosemonkey/Europhobia made an attempt to explain the seemingly inexplicable:

[...] The only trouble is that Putin is one of the least understood, most unpredictable political leaders the world has ever seen. Nobody really knows what he’s going to do next. Theories run the full range from him being a mere puppet for shadowy forces behind the scenes to being an autocrat along the lines of Stalin and the Tsars. He may rule the country for decades to come - or he may fade into complete obscurity following March’s presidential elections (at which he must stand down), to be replaced by yet another classic Russian riddle wrapped in an enigma.

The one thing that is certain is that, for the first time in the country’s history, the vast, vast majority of the people of Russia are neither enslaved nor being massacred in their millions. Who can blame them for wanting to keep the status quo?

Mark MacKinnon cited the official results and wrote about the implications of the outcome:

[...] According to official results, his United Russia party won upwards of 64 per cent of the vote in yesterday's Duma elections. According to Vladimir Vladimirovich himself, that translates into 315 of the 450 seats in parliament.

That two-thirds majority in the Duma allows Putin and his acolytes to alter the constitution. They can abolish term limits so that Putin can run again in the presidential vote this spring. They can rename the country Putinistan. [...]

MacKinnon has no doubts "that Vladimir Putin will continue to dominate the Russian political scene after his term ends next year":

[...] If he doesn't find a way to retain the presidency (and I remain convinced that he will), he'll be the most powerful prime minister Russians have had since the post was created. If he's neither president nor PM, he'll be the man who yanks the strings on both. [...]

Perspectives on the New Russia noted that, despite some predictions, four parties instead of just two have made it into the new Duma:

[...] 1. The Liberal Democratic Party, like the Holy Roman Empire (which was neither holy nor Roman), is neither liberal or democratic. Instead, it generally sells its votes to United Russia and is managed by the colorful Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who pontificates and makes alot of noise, ultimately signifying nothing.

2. A Just Russia, a party rumored to have been started by the Kremlin, that is headed by the sycophant Sergei Mironov, who like the Roman senate in the first century BC calling for Caesar to become dictator, is continually calling for Putin to set himself up for a third term...

Thus, in effect United Russia will control almost 80% of the Duma - enough to make any constitutional changes if they so desire. [...]

Guillory's post-election entry ended with a Putin joke:

Putin calls his mother on the phone and says: “Hello mama. It’s me, Vladimir. I won the elections”. Putin’s mother responds:

“Really? Honestly?”. “Mama,” Putin answers. “Can you please not nag me about that.”

Just think. This election was just a dress rehearsal for March. Then, the gloves will really come off.

Russia: Duma Election Notes

Global Voices Online
Monday, December 3, 2007

According to the early official results, president Vladimir Putin's United Russia party has won a landslide victory in the Dec. 2 general elections.

Below is a tiny fraction of the recent election posts by Russian bloggers, translated from Russian.

LJ user brazzaville posts a joke:

Two people meet:

- Who are you voting for?
- United Russia.
- Oh, okay, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to.

In the last sentence of her post, brazzaville may or may not be revealing her voting preference, through what may or may not be an allusion to one of the contenders in this election - Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko ("Apple") party:

I'll eat an apple now and then go cast my vote.

LJ user maliar shares his plans for the post-election future:

When it gets unbearably bad, I'll move into my friend-lenta [LJ friends' feed]. There's civil society in here, and freedom of speech, and democracy, and the absolute victory of SPS [Nikita Belykh's Union of Right Forces].

SPS and Yabloko are not expected to get past the 7-percent eligibility threshold in this election.

LJ user lit_wonder posts this report from her polling station in Moscow:

Civil Duty

At the polling station, there's a line for cheap pastries. They are also selling silver and imitation jewelry there.

Observers don't look older than 18.

A woman is making a scene: "Why are you writing me down, you've written my number down and now you'll be able to trace down who I've voted for! I wanted to [vote], but now I'm not going to!"

No one wrote down my number - but I'm not making a secret of it: [I am] for Yabloko.

In a comment, LJ user vladimir_morf writes about who the observers are most likely are:

First- and second-year students. Paid 2,000 rubles [$80]. A bus takes them there and a bus takes them back. Food is included.

LJ user favorov explains his voting choice:

I'll vote for SPS, though it's not as easy for me as it was four, eight, 12, or 16 years ago (no matter what [SPS] was called then).

Because this is how I've always done. Because this is where [Anatoly Chubais] is. Because I do not see a better option. Because someone somewhere has completely lost it, and I'd like to drop him a hint.

As for the rest of it:

Lately, there's been one thing that's beginning to frighten me: logic has disappeared from the regime's actions. The logic that I can understand, that is - I disagreed with them on certain things before, but I could always understand their reasoning.

I don't understand why Putin is so scared, why [United Russia] is overreacting like this, why they are strangling SPS, who needs such an exaggerated image of the enemy.

The only possible - though not universal - explanation is that the West and [a collective Sechin], acting spontaneously together, have chased [Putin] into the corner.

I still hope - even though it's getting more and more difficult to have hope - that he'll leave. I'm positive that he wants to leave.

Something along these lines.

LJ user puschaev_y posts this comment to favorov's entry:

Don't you think that he really cannot leave [...] - and one of the reasons is that he needs guarantees that [Mikhail Khodorkovsky] will remain in prison. And he's the only person who can provide such guarantees to himself - and only if he stays, one way or another. Otherwise, he risks switching locations with [Khodorkovsky]. Basically, the year 2008 was predetermined by the year 2003 [the year Khodorkovsky was jailed].

LJ user mcmamus posts a photo of a rather huge United Russia's campaign ad, seen on the election day at Manezh Square in downtown Moscow. LJ user kuteev, in a comment, reports that such ads have not been taken down all over the Russian capital, in violation of the election law.

LJ user ervix shows off a smiley that he put in the United Russia box on his ballot (see photo).

LJ user karimova responds, in a comment:

Up until this moment, I did not believe in the existence of the people who vote for United Russia.

On her own blog, karimova writes:

I text-messaged the family we are helping and asked: "How is it going? Did you go to the polling station?" The head of the family replied: "Yes, we did. I've voted for United Russia, because I'm a member of this party and I'm obliged to."

Damn. They live a half-hungry life, their house is half-ruined, the state is throwing miserable bits their way. They are now re-registering disability status for their boy, and that's why they cannot count on getting pension money in the next few months. If it hadn't been for the volunteers with their humanitarian aid, I can't imagine how they would've survived.

The conditions they live in are nightmarish, a child with oncology should not live in such quarters. In addition to this, they've got a grandmother there who can't get up from her bed, and the toilet, please excuse me, is outdoors. I decided that we should somehow try to get them a new house next year. That we should write to the governor, demand something from the local authorities. I asked one experienced person whether it is true that the officials might respond that since the boy is severely ill and would die sooner or later, they have no reasons to give them a new house. Is it possible that they might respond this way? "Yes, they might." This is how they respond more often than not.

Why are they voting for United Russia? I don't understand this.

It's making me feel utterly discouraged. Volunteers and charity foundations have to mend the holes created by the state, and people who are suffering and need help don't even understand what's going on.

Ukraine: Thoughts on Yushchenko's Bloc

Global Voices Online
Wednesday, November 28, 2007

It's been nearly two months since the Sept. 30 snap parliamentary election in Ukraine, and although there are plenty of "democratic coalition" promises and hopes in the air, it has yet to materialize. Or not.

President Victor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense Bloc (NUNS) and that of his Orange Revolution ally Yulia Tymoshenko have a slim parliamentary majority; pledging to form a government together had been a significant part of their campaigns this past fall. On Friday, however, eight newly-elected lawmakers from NUNS failed to sign a coalition agreement. Prime minister Victor Yanukovych, who has already surrendered his powers, hopes to join the coalition with NUNS, too - and if that happens, the coalition would be known as "broad" rather than "democratic." Obviously, Yulia Tymoshenko is opposed to this.

Here is what Ukrainian journalist Andrei Smirnov wrote (RUS) about the possible future of NUNS on his blog at Korrespondent.net on Nov. 26:

It's rainy and slushy outside, and the New Year's isn't here yet, so let's talk about politics a little. About the true [Ukrainian] politics - about NUNS. A lot depends on them now, but they aren't moving anywhere (as always). And it's perfectly logical - the bloc consists of small parties, and each one denies itself (because they can't afford to get into the [parliament] on their own) - and denies the bloc, because, having already gotten into the [parliament], they tend to exaggerate their role in the collective success. It is all but impossible to carry out any constructive work with such an inner duality.

Below are a few comments to this post:

Alexandr_1100:

How do you this this will end?

andrey-smirnov:

If they don't create a single party, they'll become irrelevant.

Topor:

On the one hand, it's all very good. It's so much better than what we are now seeing in Russia [...].

But here's what I'm afraid of: that the country would get tired of all this before it all grows civilized, and that the country would want something simple and easy to understand. "A strong hand." "Order." And all that. People at NUNS can't agree about small things and risk losing something bigger. We've seen this happen before, a thousand times.

[...]

Gm:

Topor, and maybe let them (NUNS) lose their "power"? What do they need it for when they are doing everything to avoid working for Ukraine :)

Ukraine: Holodomor

Global Voices Online
Sunday, November 25, 2007


Last year's Holodomor memorial at Sofiyivska Sq. in Kyiv (Nov. 25, 2006) - by Veronica Khokhlova

This year, Nov. 24 was the day to remember the victims of the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine - Holodomor - and here is a selection of posts by Ukrainian bloggers.

LJ user diana-ledi (UKR):

[...] Shall I tell you about my grandfather, the first one in the village to join [Komsomol] - and the first head of the first [collective farm]? When it became clear that the famine was inevitable, here is what he did! One evening, he locked himself in with the agronomist and spent a long time calculating something. They discovered that sowing winter crop grain not as thickly could be the way out. No one would notice, and the grain that remained would help people survive winter. And that was what they did. But they did not distribute what remained among the houses, the way people were expecting. Because my grandfather knew that not every mother would tear a piece of bread from herself and give it to her children. Some [mothers] would hide [bread] even from their kids - my wise grandfather knew this.

And he came up with a dining hall, where every villager could get just one plate of that [soup] a day, with a few drops of oil floating in it and, sometimes, a few tiny bits of fried lard. And one piece of bread made of [seed coverings and small pieces of stem or leaves that have been separated from the seeds] - black bread of the hungry year. But thanks to that dining hall not a single person in the village died that winter. Think of it - not a single person! While whole villages were dying out all around, no one did in ours! They were swelling from hunger, yes, but they weren't dying. And every day, my grandfather would ride around the village [...], entering each house, checking whether they were alive, whether they were strong enough to survive - or perhaps they needed to be rescued by then. The weakest ones were given a little bag with "additional food allowance." Others were saying: "Move on, Anriyovych. We are holding on." When I was listening to this stories, I couldn't believe people were saying that. "They were," my grandmother would reply. "Because they knew that the family of the head [of the collective farm] was the hungriest of all at that time. My children and I swelled the most then."

And when spring came, someone from the rescued villagers reported my grandfather [to the regime] - for the thinned out winter crops. This is how my grandfather ended up in Siberia for the first time. Had he known that this would be how it would all end? Of course.

Or, perhaps, shall I tell you about my other grandfather? That one was a [kulak], the rich one. He escaped the purges miraculously, giving away his wealth to the [collective farm] in time and promptly joining the ranks of the Communist Party. And when the most horrible winter of the 1930s began, he left his family and went to his relatives at the rich farmsteads. My grandmother, surrounded by a crowd of hungry children, was sentenced "for a wheat spike," as they used to say then. For some grains in her pocket that she had collected from the road. Five kids were left on their own. One was 14, the oldest - 16. The aunts didn't desert them, came over and took them in ... the oldest two. Because these ones had grown up already and would be able to work around the household. "What about the younger ones?" I'd ask, horrified. "The younger ones were left behind - because the aunts had small kids of their own," they'd explain to me calmly. [...]

My father (aged 12) spent that whole winter feeding his little brother and sister (aged 4 and 6). What was he giving them? Here, listen: frozen vegetables found miraculously in other people's gardens; cats who were so trusting at first that they would jump into your arms; crusts of bread that he earned or asked people to give him. And as spring grew closer and there was no more of that "food" left, he discovered a hiding place inside the house. My grandfather was wild and ruthless - but in love with agronomy, and he had hidden some [high quality grains]. They were cooking it and eating - and survived thanks to that. When they were almost done with it, grandfather showed up at the house. He beat the children to near death, especially the oldest one, my father. Battered, my father ran to the train station, jumped into the freight train - and off he was to Tashkent. [...]

[...]

In 500 days (from April 1932 to November 1933), nearly 10 million people died of starvation in Ukraine. In spring 1933, 17 people were dying every minute, and 25,000 were dying every day...

... The regions that were hit the hardest are today's Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr and Kyiv oblasts. Here, death rates were 8-9 times the average... [...]

LJ user otets-lisiy (UKR):

What do I know about Holodomor? I myself am from Cherkasy region, and it was my grandmother and grandfather who told me about this horror.

My grandmother told me how from her family of nine children only five survived. She told me how they ate [ocheret - reed] and rotten potatoes. How the Commies were taking away all wheat and farm animals, and how at night they gathered wheat spikes at the field and some of them survived thanks to that. She told me about the village cannibals and one person who ate her own child. She told me about the man who had lost his mind and was chasing them around with an ax, and how she had barely managed to escape...

It's a sad date today. Eternal memory...

LJ user alenka14 (RUS):

I talked to my grandmother about Holodomor today. She was 7 in 1932-33. She remembers a lot from that time. Even 75 years later she can't think about that time without tears. When I was little and refused to behave, refused to eat, she would tell me stories from that time, when there was no food and it was called 'holodomor.' I thought of her stories as some kind of a fairy tale then. My grandmother has also survived the war, was captured, but she can't talk about Holodomor without tears in her eyes. [...]

LJ user fantasma_ (UKR):

My great-grandmother used to call the famine of 1933 "holodovka" [starvation, hunger strike], when I was still 4 or 5 years old. I only remember bits from those stories, as I didn't really undestand what she was tlling me about... "the man lying just off the road was dead" ... "the post-war holodovka wasn't as terrible as the one in the 1930s." I only understood what she meant by this when I accidentally recalled these story bits in the 11th grade when we were studying the 20th century... [...]

LJ user essy-aka-tigra (RUS):

I've written about Holodomor before, more than once. I'm okay with having opposing views on politics with [the people I know online and offline] - it's not something that would keep me from staying in touch with them. But I can never remain calm when I think of Holodomor.

There's such a thing as ethnographic expeditions. Ordinary stuff for history students. A gang of young students arrives in a village and walks around the houses with tape recorders.

Old men and women spoke calmly about [raskulachivaniye - persecution of kulaks, collectivization], about the war, about DneproGES [Dnipro Hydroelectric Station] construction. No big deal, they were saying, it was tough, but it was a long time ago, and tears and grief tend to get erased from memory.

But as soon as you asked them a question about the Holodomor of 1932-33, these ancient men and women, who had seen lots of horrors, began to cry. Just cry. Some refused to talk - they had no energy to tell anything about it.

I've seen it. I grew up in a village, my ancestors are village people, too. I've read and heard about it since childhood.

I don't give a damn about bills and resolutions. I just know what the truth is. [...]

Russia: "Dirty Tricks" and Opinion Polls

Global Voices Online
Thursday, November 22, 2007

Ten day to go before the Russian Duma election, and here is the third quick blogosphere roundup (the first one is here, the second one - here).

Dmitri Minaev of De Rebus Antiquis Et Novis reports on the "dirty tricks" used in this year's campaign. Here is one:

I was told yesterday of new leaflets posted on the walls in one of the districts of Samara. The text was like this: "Dear citizens, the Union of the Rightist Forces (SPS) informs you that we have asked AIDS-infected people to participate in our campaign to disseminate printed materials and to participate in the public opinion polls as interviewers. Please, be tolerant towards them."

Considering the AIDS-phobia, imagine the reaction of the average people when an SPS interviewer would knock their doors... I've never heard of such tricks before.

And here are a few more, from Dmitri's rather comprehensive follow-up post:

[...] In St.Petersburg, the city officials campaign for the pro-Putin Yedinaya Rossiya (United Russia) even in churches. When the activists of Fair Russia asked about 10,000 citizens of St.Petersburg whether they felt any kind of pressure from the officials demanding them to vote for United Russia, 35% said yes, and 32% more said that they heard such stories from their friends or relatives. In Mozhaisky Military Academy the students are informed that their future job will depend on who they vote for. Workers of kindergardens report that the officials oblige them to participate in advance voting and to fill the election bulletins at work, in the presence of the superiors. The Vaileostrovsky regional health service offices demand the physicians to carry on propaganda for the United Russia. The local administration of Kalininsky district threatened to fire the school teachers who will not vote for the UR.

The director-manager of the "Siberian Coal Energy Company" Alexander Loginov received the following letter from the Kemerovo regional office of the United Russia:

"Your refusal to financially aid the the regional office of United Russia in the election campaign to the 5th State Duma is considered as a refusal to support President V. V. Putin and his creative policy.

I feel obliged to inform the President's Administration and the Governor of Kemerovo region on your position."

The letter is written on the official blank of United Russia, has the signature of the regional party leader, the official stamp and the registration number. [...]

This last item has been the subject of discussion on other blogs, too.

La Russophobe provides the translation of the letter - as well as one Russian blogger's commentary (LJ user sergeyhudiev):

I don’t know whether V.V. Putin would be pleased to have his name used as part of a racketeering/”ironing” enterprise. Perhaps he would not be pleased - judging from his comments about “impostors” (prokhodimtsi). This is, however, an unavoidable consequence of his cult of personality - this is the identity the impostors will use for their fraudulent ends. And it is for this purpose that a cult is established.

TOL's Elections in Russia offers more details on the letter scandal:

[...] It turns out that the executive director of the Siberian coal company, Alexander Loginov, has worked in the coal mines all his life and is a traditional supporter of the left wing parties. [...]

Siberian Light reports that, judging by the results of Levada Center's opinion poll, "only two of the ‘major’ parties are likely to scrape together the seven percent of votes needed to gain any seats in the Duma - United Russia, and Communist Party of the Russian Federation."

LJ user drugoi, a top-ranking Russian blogger, has conducted a poll of his own (RUS) on his blog - and the results are quite different.

If the Russian electorate was comprised of bloggers reading drugoi's journal, then three parties out of eleven would make it into the next Duma - SPS/Union of Right Forces (15.9% - 892 votes), Yabloko (8.6% - 484 votes), and Vladimir Putin's United Russia (7.0% - 391 votes). Although the Communists aren't among these three, they are really close, just two votes behind the United Russia: 6.9% - 389 votes.

The percentage figures in drugoi's poll are, of course, misleading - primarily because bloggers who are going to skip the vote altogether (31.2% - 1755 votes) or to spoil their ballot (18.1% - 1017 votes) are counted along with those who plan to cast their votes for a certain party.

But, as LJ user turchanovo wrote in a comment, "any sample is representative. What matters is what exactly it is representative of."

Overall, this polling post by drugoi has received nearly 600 comments (RUS), and below are a couple of them:

obrut_mra:

Internet audience is the most passive. "I will not go to the polling station" means that the government will be chosen for you by your grandmother - who has been instructed by the TV who the right candidate is. [...]

***

norlink:

It'd be interesting to conduct this kind of an opinion poll - "Among your acquaintances, is there one person who is voting for [the United Russia]?", "Are there two people...?", et cetera.

chernovv:

Why get yourself disappointed in people? :)

***

kociak:

Isn't there an "against all" option at the Duma election?

drugoi:

Not anymore.

kociak:

No wonder I've a feeling that something's missing! :)

kociak:

P.S. I hope they'll at least keep this option at the presidential election?

hedyn:

They've canceled it everywhere.

[...]

agent_008:

Soon there'll be a "FOR EVERYONE!" voting option :)

Russia: To Vote, or Not To Vote?

Global Voices Online
Saturday, November 17, 2007

To vote - or not to vote? To "vote with your feet" - or to follow Mikhail Khodorkovsky's advice (RUS, translated here) and vote for one of the smaller parties that you don't "despise"? To boycott the election - or to spoil the ballot? To be proper and check one of the ballot's squares - or to get mischievous and write a swear word across the page?

These are the questions that quite a few Russian bloggers seem to be considering right now.

Half a month ago, LJ user tvoron saw a handmade poster at a bus stop in Moscow, which, in a rather crude language, urged voters to write a three-letter Russian obscenity on the ballots, in order to protest, among other things, the elimination of the "against all" option and the minimum voter turnout requirement.

Below is an exchange (RUS) between two of tvoron's readers:

odalizka:

You know, I totally agree with the authors of this creation. I myself am going to do something similar, if I go there at all. [...]

jarud_bra0n:

Do you realize that the more ballots get spoiled, the more seats go to the [pro-Kremlin United Russia]?

odalizka:

What's that, some new law that we've got? Interesting.

But even if it is so, what do you suggest? To go and vote for [Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko]? Honestly, I'm not going to vote at all - let this farce - whose results are known in advance - is taking place without me. And the United Russia will get what it needs anyway.

jarud_bra0n:

Yes, this is the law. Whoever hasn't showed up, or spoiled the ballot, or cast a vote for a non-winning party - this person has given his/her vote to the leader as a gift (in our case, to the United Russia).

I suggest to vote for any other party that's likely to get past the [7-percent eligibility threshold], preferably for the one that'll come in second or third. They are all bad. But the only way to protest is to vote for them.

I guess I'll vote for the vegetables - [the Communist Party of the Russian Federation]. Even though a few years ago I would've given myself a beating for this. [...]

odalizka:

[...] Well, thank you, young man, but I wasn't reading [samizdat copies] of [Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn] and [Joseph Brodsky] throughout the night as a kid to vote for the Communists when I'm 37. No way.

Russia: Non-Vegetable Voters and Other Election News

Global Voices Online
Thursday, November 15, 2007

Two weeks remain before the Russian Duma election, and the presidential vote isn't too far, either. Below is the first quick review of the blogosphere's election coverage.

TOL's Elections in Russia blog translates Russian bloggers' views on what kind of people may be responsible for the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party's extraordinary expansion:

They say this party already has 1,7 million people. Approximately. At least they say so, and probably it is true. Who are these members? Parasites, cynics and idiots. [...]

Also at TOL's Elections in Russia, a link to a YouTube video of the commercial whose purpose is to inspire the electorate to show up at the polling stations on Dec. 2. Here's its slogan:

“The Russian constitution forbids the vegetables to vote. Don’t be a vegetable, vote!”

Moscow Through Brown Eyes writes about the "heteronormative" election ads and the ongoing "pro-natalist" campaign in Moscow:

But I can't figure out if it's an advert for voting at the ballot box, or in the sack.

Sean's Russia Blog translates a letter by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, currently serving a 9-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion, written in response to a Russian blogger who intended to either write "against all" on his ballot, thus spoiling it, or ignore the vote altogether:

[...] That is, who votes “with their feet”, still to a large degree is who votes for [the United Russia], and encourages the bureaucratic class toward despotism and contempt for the “herd.”

Therefore it is imperative that you vote not for those who evoke contempt, it’s better to vote for any of the small parties. This will be Your own clear and personal gesture: I am a citizen, I have the right to vote and will, I am not a slave and I am not cattle.

Khodorkovsky's lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, reports on one Russian party's attempts to keep the Russian president from running as another party's #1 candidate:

The Union of Right Forces has asked a court to disqualify President Vladimir Putin from a parliamentary vote next month, saying that his job gives him an unfair advantage. [...]

James Joyner of Outside the Beltway reports on Putin's "plans to use next month’s elections as a referendum on his continued dominance of Russian politics well beyond his constitutionally-mandated exit from office":

[...] Informal dominance after stepping down from power is not unheard of, with Communist China perhaps the most notable example. Still, this announcement will strengthen skepticism about Russia’s transition to democratic institutions.

Perspectives on the New Russia believes there's no clear indication yet that Russia is going to say good-bye to Putin the president:

[...] Evidence of the fact that a third term is still in the cards is the increasing number of staged meetings (Putingi as they are being called) where people are lobbying for a third term. Also, there still has been no mention of a successor - time is growing short and I do think that the Kremlin (and Putin) are keeping their options open in order to be able to respond to events. [...]

Eternal Remont writes about the "Puting" phenomenon, too:

At this point, it almost feels like slow motion dentistry. A new group called “For Putin” claims to have 30 million signatures begging the President to stay on as “national leader.”

National Führer? Sweet lord. We could have picked something less tacky. [...]

Russia: Chewing Gum in the Soviet Union

Global Voices Online
Monday, November 12, 2007

Like a million other things, chewing gum wasn't freely available in the Soviet Union: a true defitsit item, zhvachka was not something to be taken for granted - especially if you were a kid.

In the post translated below (RUS), LJ user tvoron recalls a childhood experience that appears comical now, but must have been rather traumatic at the time, 30 years ago:

In 1977, when our class was preparing for the "Farewell to the ABC Book" holiday, a group of French visitors arrived to our school.

It happened during the long break. The French were walking down the hallway, giving presents to the kids.

The French knew very well what the kids lacked, what kept them from being totally happy. We lacked chewing gum...

Actually, some of us could've been missing it, but I, aged seven and a half, haven't even tried it once, even though I was rather knowledgeable about the subject and had even seen it more than once in the possession of my friend Natasha: with obvious pleasure, she was sending Tutti-Frutti sticks - bought by her parents [on checks at Beryozka store] - into her mouth. Natasha wasn't greedy: sometimes she'd take a little white ball out of her mouth and offer it to me to finish chewing on it. But, for some reason, I was too squeamish...

Finally, though, the great moment arrived. The French were offering sacred stuff to the kids. Some received dragées, others - stick gum, still others - little balls, and some - little cubes... And I got a strange flat round thing that looked like a little medal, from a smiling elderly lady...

Chocolate medallions wrapped in gilded foil weren't new to me, but it was for the first time in my life that I was seeing a medallion-shaped chewing gum. Well, that made it even more interesting. I tried to scratch the foil off the coveted chewing gum, but in vain. And only when my teeth squeaked in a mean way a couple times as they touched the little medal did I realize that it wasn't a chewing gum. It was some junk with a profile of some unknown guy engraved on it, that's what it was...

I sat shocked throughout the last class and the whole time after school, and only in the evening, when I entered the apartment, I wept out loud. I was bemoaning all the hopes that hadn't come true and didn't listen to my parents' consolation attempts. And I absolutely didn't care about the anniversary medal issued to mark 200 years since the birth of Napoleon...

Here's part of the discussion of this sad story:

tvoron:

[...] The pseudo-zhvachka is still there, by the way - at a closer look, it turned out to be extremely nice ;)

roma_2:

Yes, that's what I wanted to ask: what's become of it?
Today's first-graders wouldn't cry if given a medallion, I guess, quite the opposite :)

tvoron:

It's been lying in a box for 30 years already. Sometimes I take it out and look at it.

ukropinka:

Poor child.

tvoron:

It's okay. My parents, deeply affected, bought me a whole pack later, from the Arabs at the [Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University dorm]. [...]

mamzik21:

[...] Someone gave me a bubble gum cigarette in 1966, when I was in the second grade, and I was totally excited. I was extremely proud, and the girls envied me. I was biting off small pieces and chewed and chewed and chewed on them, and then I kept this bubble gum in a candy wrapper for a long time... :)

tvoron:

Oh, how familiar it is: to chew - to save it - then to chew again. Bubble gum cigarettes, they were made in Czechoslovakia, no?

mamzik21:

I don't remember - I mean, I don't know. A girl named Irochka Ushakova gave it to me. Her parents worked either at the [Ministry of Foreign Trade] or the [Ministry of Foreign Affairs].

multi_mouse:

How horrible. It's nothing but a tragedy when you're seven.

One of my mama's patients presented her with a large pack of chewing gum, and mama used to give me one every Saturday after checking my [grades] - and only if every single grade of the week was an A, I'd receive this joy. There was an educational element present in it. But from the health point of view it was harmful, because I used to chew this gum for three or four and sometimes even five days, since I knew that I wouldn't get another one until next Saturday. And it's terrible unhealthy - you can only chew one gum for half an hour, or an hour at the longest, and not for over 70 hours, and it ended up turning black and melted away like burned cellophane, and, most likely, turned into some horrible poison.

***

To learn more about chewing gum in the Soviet Union, read Alex Novikovski's pieces at Gum Wrapper Times: the Online Chewing Gum and Wrappers Collector's Newsletter - here and here.

To see the wrappers of Soviet-made chewing gums, click here.

A YouTube video of the Soviet-time Estonian chewing gum commercial is here.

Russia: Aleksei Pichugin's Trial Blogger Nominated for the BOBs

Global Voices Online
Friday, November 9, 2007

For the second year in a row, LJ user sivilia-1 (Russian journalist Vera Vasilieva) is competing for Deutsche Welle's Best of the Blogs Awards (the BOBs). Last year, she was nominated in the Reporters Without Borders category; this year, she is shortlisted for the Best Weblog Russian.

Her blog (RUS) - http://sivilia-1.livejournal.com/ - is devoted to coverage of the case of Aleksei Pichugin, former security chief of former oil giant Yukos, sentenced to life in prison for involvement in at least three murders (not to be confused with Aleksandr Pichushkin, recently sentenced to life in prison for at least 48 murders). Pichugin's arrest in 2003 marked the beginning of the Kremlin's attack against Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

In the post translated from Russian below, sivilia-1 explains to her critics the choice of her blogging subject matter:

There's an ongoing discussion in the blogosphere of the 2007 Best of the Blogs competition, in which I am taking part. I've read comments of some of the readers who claim that I'm "on the payroll" and am not really voicing my opinion, because I simply do not have one. Like, the content of my web journal can be summarized in one phrase: "Putin is bad" (and some also add: "Berezovsky is good"). And they also claim that it's not surprising that I've made it into the final cut - after all, the competition is organized by a Western radio station.

It was very interesting to read the discussion of my blog. Criticism is great! But it's a pity that those commenting are guilty of what they are accusing me of - something that can be summarized in one phrase: "Vera Vasilieva is bad, she works for money rather than expressing her personal point of view!"

This ain't so. Apparently, those who write this have not familiarized themselves with my blog. Because I have explained more than once the reasons for my principal subject matter and why I've picked my blog as the medium for it.

Well, okay, I'll explain it once more - to those who are willing to listen.

You are free to disagree with my point of view - [that's up to you]. But to claim that I don't have one is totally wrong. As is the assertion that I'm doing it for the money I've been paid.

The main topic of my blog is the trial of Aleksei Pichugin, the former Yukos employee. I started blogging about it because this topic deeply affected me after my first visit to courtroom, and I couldn't find the objective coverage of the trial in the mass media. My intention has been to have the minimum of personal commentary, I've been placing the emphasis on what was taking place, on the facts, regardless of my personal attitude to them. And I was doing it all absolutely for free. I worked at an IT publication then. By the way, because of my blog reports on the trial, I was forced to leave this publication. Just as I had to leave another job, which I landed after the dismissal. Then I was invited to the Human Rights in Russia portal, where I've met wonderful people, friends who share my views.

Yes, this is where I work as a correspondent now, for a salary. But, dear readers, aren't you getting paid for the work you do?! I'm not selling my position, my views. I write about what I think and I'm earning my money honestly. You are free to hate my point of view. But do not distort the facts.

Thank you for your attention.

Here are some of the comments to this post:

red_andr:

Ignore them. When there are no arguments of substance, they start these attacks, claim that [you are] corrupt, on the CIA's payroll, and a spy for the Western intelligence in general.

ivansim:

Oy, they understand it all perfectly well :) But they'll never admit that they are writing all their "exposé" simply because this is their job and not because this is what they really mean :)

[...]

crazy_lusinoid

Your hobby is the same as your job - it doesn't happen often, but it does happen ;))) For example, astronomers often sell telescopes, booklovers sell books, and good cooks work in restaurants. ))) [...]

[...]

alogic:

Vera, you are one of those rare journalists who are actually doing what their profession obliges them to do - you are uncovering the facts despite the unfavorable conditions. There was no one but you at the trial. An honest critic would agree with it, while the dishonest ones aren't worth paying attention to. Wishing you victory in the competition - and recognition.