Pavel Kulizhnikov, 22, a speed skater from Moscow Province, has emerged as one of the world’s fastest humans on ice after besting an eight-year-strong 500m world record set by Canada’s Jeremy Wotherspoon.
Kulizhnikov showed promise as a teenage skating prodigy, but was disqualified at 17 because, he has claimed, of something that was in an energy drink he consumed without realizing the substance was illegal, which meant he missed Russia’s Olympic Games in Sochi. The mistake, however, did not set him back, and his return to the ice has been a whirlwind of successes, with two World Championship wins. He broke the world record twice as he improved on his own time and became the first person to finish the event in under 34 seconds.
After years of fending off doping allegations, Russia is facing the prospect of athletes being hit with lifetime bans and/or being stripped of medals won at previous competitions.
The committee investigating Russia’s anti-doping procedures for the World Anti-Doping Agency concluded that the country has a state-orchestrated system of doping in track and field. It covers up doping, destroys positive drug tests, and all but manipulates anti-doping efforts in the country through bribes and infiltration by state security services. WADA accused Russia of having a “fundamentally flawed mindset” in sports, where cheating is widely accepted.
The allegations have been dismissed by Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, but he promised to take appropriate measures, announcing that Russia will follow a roadmap to reform its anti-doping agency, whose chief resigned amid the scandal. Russia also chose not to contest a suspension from upcoming events, hoping that the International Association of Athletics Federations will review its status in time for the Olympic Games in Rio.
Boris Yeltsin’s family oversaw the opening of a museum offering a comprehensive look at the post-Soviet era in his home city of Yekaterinburg. The Yeltsin Center, unveiled in November, aims to study the legacy of Yeltsin in the context of the 1990s.
Despite the fact that the current Russian leadership badmouths the 1990s as an era of rampant crime and poverty that hurt the Russian people and proved that the country does not need Western-style democracy, the Yeltsin Center has received impressive government support. Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov heads its board of trustees, and the opening ceremony was attended by both President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, earning them criticism from Russia’s communists, who called the center a “monument to national betrayal.”
At the core of the center is a museum featuring multimedia installations to convey the spirit of the ʼ90s to an audience of all political leanings. The museum is located in central Yekaterinburg and open every day except Monday from 10 am to 9 pm. Tickets cost R200. yeltsin.ru
The chief editor of Russia’s only independent TV channel, Dozhd (“Rain”), is leaving his post amid rumors that his recent book about Russia’s ruling elite offended top decision makers and would lead to his demotion.
Mikhail Zygar, who unveiled the critically acclaimed Vsya Kremlevskaya Rat (“All the Kremlin’s Men”) is stepping down from his post after more than five years.
Though there have been no publicly expressed criticisms, Zygar’s colleagues have suggested that the channel’s owners were pressured into the move after Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was allegedly offended by some of the book’s content (among other things, Zygar called him “False Dmitry,” after the infamous seventeenth-century royal impostor).
Zygar will be replaced by his former deputy, Maria Makeyeva, one of the channel’s top anchors, while he will continue to work as the host of a history program.
In a more alarming development, prosecutors initiated a check of the channel’s activities in December, to see whether Dozhd is obeying Russia’s anti-extremism, anti-terrorism, and labor laws. The check came a few days after Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny published an in-depth exposé of the criminal ties and suspicious riches of family members of Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, in a film that the channel’s video crew helped produce.
A controversial performance artist, Pyotr Pavlensky, is set to go on trial after he was arrested for torching the main entrance to the Lubyanka, the Moscow headquarters of the feared Federal Security Service (FSB).
Pavlensky, who is seen as continuing Pussy Riot’s tradition of using artistic expression to provoke the political establishment, has so far treated his detention as part of his performance. He insists that his crime of pouring gasoline on the wooden door and setting it on fire be classified as terrorism.
Compared to Pussy Riot’s satirical or heretical actions, the 31-year-old St. Petersburg artist’s performances have been darker and more injurious. In one, Pavlensky lay naked in a tangle of barbed wire; in another, he climbed on the roof of the Serbsky Psychiatry Institute and cut off his earlobe to protest punitive psychiatric treatment. In his most infamous action, he nailed his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square.
Once an aspiring artist in the more traditional sense, Pavlensky switched his focus to performance art after members of Pussy Riot were put on trial, sewing his lips shut to protest the case.
Bikin National Park has been created in the Russian Far East to protect the rare Amur tiger. It includes over one million hectares of untouched taiga on the western side of the Sikhote-Alin Mountains that are historically a habitat for the tigers, as well as other endangered mammals and birds.
The park is believed to be the only large forest range of its kind, and is also important for the local indigenous people, the Udege (see feature story, page 28). The Russian government says the new park is inhabited by some 51 species of mammals and 194 species of birds, as well as 26 species of fish in the Bikin River. It officially opens in 2016.
In related news, WWF Russia has spearheaded the creation of the new, 78,000 square hectare Uftyugo-Ilyeshsky Preserve in Komi, Arkhangelsk Province, which includes the nearly untouched Verkhnevashkinsky Forest.
The Bolshoi Theater has not renewed its contract with ballet chief Sergei Filin, who continues to receive treatment for horrific burns following an acid attack by a dancer in 2013.
The legendary theater is hiring Makhar (or Makharbek) Vaziev, a former star and later ballet director of the Mariinsky Theater, who spent many years leading La Scala’s ballet troupe. Acclaimed for his ability to boost talented dancers to global stardom – both Diana Vishneva and Ulyana Lopatkina came to prominence when he was director – Vaziev will arrive at a Bolshoi bruised by the Filin scandal and the cutthroat environment it exposed.
In December, HBO is showing a documentary about the theater, Bolshoi Babylon, zooming in on the character of Filin. Vaziev, meanwhile, starts work in March.
Есть время для закручивания или откручивания
“There are times for tightening and for loosening [the screws], but in any case, when we need to tighten them, we must do so, because, in service of the common good, we can forgo something, infringing on citizens’ rights and responsibilities less than what they would suffer from any dangerous situation.”
Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, on Russia’s proverbial tightening of screws. (NTV)
Каждый купленный в «Ашане» или на рынке турецкий помидор — это вклад в очередную ракету, которая будет стрелять по нашим ребятам.
“Every Turkish tomato bought at an Auchan [supermarket] or a bazaar goes toward yet another rocket that will shoot at our boys.”
Gennady Onischenko, former head of Russia’s consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, on the danger of buying certain goods, after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane over the Turkish-Syrian border. (RIA Novosti)
Мы должны здесь, в России, осуществить лучшие идеалы Святой Руси, халифата, СССР, то есть тех систем, которые бросают вызов несправедливости и диктату узких элит над волей народов.
“We must fulfill here, in Russia, the ideals of Holy Russia, of the Caliphate, of the USSR, that is those systems that challenge injustice and the dictates of narrow elites over the will of the people.”
Vsevolod Chaplin, spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church (Interfax)
За допинг опять должен ответить я. Все в кусты, а я — отвечай. Если они «шуры-муры» делают, я не могу об этом знать.
“Again I’m the one who has to answer for doping. Everyone runs for the bushes and I’m left to answer for things. If they’re up to some sort of hanky-panky, there is no way I can know about it.”
Vitaly Mutko, minister of sports, commenting on his role (or lack thereof) in the latest doping scandal. (R-Sport)
Если высшее политическое руководство Турции об этом ничего не знает, то пусть узнает.
“It’s not just oil in these barrels, but the blood of our citizens. Because the terrorists buy weapons with this money and then organize bloody attacks, including on our plane over Sinai, and in Paris, and in other world cities. If the top leadership in Turkey does not know anything about this, then they should find out.”
President Vladimir Putin, on Turkey’s alleged ignorance of the import of banned oil from ISIS-controlled Syria. (Kremlin.ru)
За границей я вижу, что миллиардеры не кичатся своим богатством, женщины не носят там огромные камни, не ездят на огромных машинах.
“I notice that abroad billionaires don’t show off their riches, women don’t wear enormous gems, and they don’t drive around in huge cars.”
Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, advising his citizens to learn to handle wealth with style. (Interfax)
Eldar Ryazanov, creator of some of the Soviet Union’s most seminal films, passed away in Moscow at the age of 88. Ryazanov, arguably Russians’ favorite filmmaker, entered the State Institute of Cinematography on a whim during World War II and had an active career that spanned five decades.
He rose to prominence after making Carnival Night – a fun-filled musical starring the young, bright-eyed Lyudmila Gurchenko – about a group of youngsters who try to hold a New Year’s concert in spite of the actions of a dour bureaucrat who believes the event should be filled with educational presentations. Like many Ryazanov films, the comedy was a bellwether of the country’s societal changes.
Ryazanov always put the human story ahead of larger political issues, and his films have a heavy dose of satire, highlighting the absurd realities of the Soviet state, while showcasing typical Soviet characters, like members of the technocratic intelligentsia or the stone-faced bureaucracy. And, like Alfred Hitchcock before him, Ryazanov cast himself in cameos in most of his films.
Whether it is because of their specificity to Soviet life or because of some short-sighted governmental decision, Ryazanov’s films remain little known in the West, while inside Russia many can recite their scripts from beginning to end, and everyday language is often peppered with one-liners from their dialogues. On New Year’s Eve, most families have his romantic comedy The Irony of Fate playing as a background to their festivities.
Ryazanov continued to make films until late in life, though his later movies did not achieve the popularity of those made in the Soviet era. He was also deeply involved in the film community and taught at his alma mater. He was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery, alongside other notable political and cultural figures.
Yury Mamleyev, a writer known for his esoteric philosophy, died at the age of 84.
A deeply anti-Soviet thinker and monarchist who ran a dissident club of like-minded Muscovites in the Soviet era, Mamleyev taught math for a living. He also wrote books in what he called the “metaphysical realist” style, populated by grotesque, unpleasant, self-destructive characters. Some critics have called him the first Soviet post-modernist.
Mamleyev was forced to leave the USSR in 1975, returning after the Soviet Union fell apart. His writing finally received wider recognition in the colorful post-Soviet era, particularly his novel Shatuny, published in 1996.
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