Notebook

Lights Out 

Moscow fumbles 

in the dark

Lights went out in apartments, mobile phones went silent, trolleys and trams froze, metro trains screeched to a halt, and traffic lights winked out as Moscow’s worst blackout since WWII struck the capital and its suburbs on May 25. Energy authorities said the disaster was caused by a fire at Moscow’s Chagino substation, which was still using 40-year-old equipment.

On what was an unusually hot day (over 30o C), about 20,000 people were trapped for hours in elevators and in dark, stuffy metro cars. Food spoiled at supermarkets. Apartments in some districts were left without water. Tons of raw sewage ended up in the Moscow river.

Television reports showed Muscovites lining up to get taxis, crowding around metro stations and buying drinking water at shops, since none was available in their apartments. 

Many people were quick to blame the crisis on Unified Energy System of Russia (UES) head Anatoly Chubais, long a target of public rancor for his role in Russian privatization. On May 26, Chubais was summoned to the prosecutor’s office and questioned for four hours. He accepted responsibility for the crisis, but said he would not resign, instead leaving the decision up to UES shareholders. The state holds a controlling stake in UES. 

In a rare show of unity, the Motherland, Communist and Yabloko parties all blamed Chubais for the crisis and called for his sacking. Motherland leader Dmitry Rogozin was especially outspoken. “It is time to make up one’s mind about the presence in UES of Chubais’ mafia group,” Rogozin said. However, liberal deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov said Chubais was not to be blamed for the crisis, and that his sacking would be a political move that used the blackout as a pretext. The Duma decided against bringing up a resolution calling for Chubais’ ouster, instead deciding to form an investigative commission. As this issue went to press, on June 4, Mosenergo head Arkady Yevstafyev and his deputy resigned after being harshly criticized by President Putin at a meeting with security officials, a meeting also attended by Chubais.

 

The Right Stuff

Perm politician 

gains top post

On May 29, the liberal political party Union of Right Forces (SPS) selected a new leader at its annual congress. With 155 votes out of 205, Perm Region Deputy Governor Nikita Belykh, 29, was elected chairman of the party council. Council Secretary Leonid Gozman was elected as his deputy. Belykh’s rival in the election was SPS electoral policy chief Ivan Starikov, who nominated himself a month before the congress. Russian media portrayed the Belykh-Gozman duo as less anti-Kremlin than Starikov. Belykh’s candidacy was backed by UES head Anatoly Chubais.

 

Sobering Data

Most Russians favor

less alcohol

Fifty-eight per cent of Russians have a positive view of the prohibition campaign spearheaded 20 years ago by then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (VTsIOM) found. The majority of respondents said that prohibition as an idea was correct, but that authorities went too far with certain actions, such as cutting down vineyards, Vremya Novostey newspaper reported in May. Thirty-seven percent said Gorbachev was wrong and that prohibition was doomed from the start. Sixty-five per cent of women favored prohibition, versus 48 percent of the men polled. 

Gorbachev himself recently condemned Russians’ alcoholism in an interview: “On the one hand, there is a culture that favors consuming alcohol and, on the other hand, Russians drink a lot because they have many troubles; there is no work, so they soothe the pain with drink. So first, social problems should be solved.” 

Prohibition has plenty of precedent in Russia. Tsar Fyodor (1584-1598), who succeeded Ivan the Terrible, led a drive to tear down kabaks where vodka was sold. In 1914, sales of alcohol were banned through until the end of WWI, in an effort to keep recruits sober. When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, they extended prohibition on ideological grounds, arguing that the tsarist state had sought to keep its subjects docile through the liberal distribution of vodka, which may not have been that far from the truth. From 1918 to 1925, even private production of alcohol – samogon – was banned, with strict penalties for transgressors. But, by the late 1920s, the Communists found they needed the revenues which State alcohol production offered, and Stalin ordered an expansion of alcohol production. 

 

Who’s Fascist Now?

Influential group

lashes out

The pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi (“Ours” – see Russian Life, May/June 2005) has published a booklet, Not Ordinary Fascism, named after Mikhail Romm’s famous documentary. The booklet seeks to identify fascist tendencies in Russia’s political movements. Nashi said they planned to distribute the 33,000 copies of booklet in schools.

At the booklet’s unveiling, Nashi leader Vasily Yakemenko denounced Russian liberals. “So-called liberals sympathize with organizations that copy Nazi symbols, profess Nazism, and operate as sects,” he said. “Today, we are addressing the parents: save your children.” Yakemenko went on to label liberal politicians Irina Khakamada, Vladimir Ryzhkov, Ilya Yashin, Gary Kasparov and Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlin as fascist sympathizers.

Yakemenko did not limit his attacks to the right, however, and labeled the National Bolsheviks, led by writer and radical Eduard Limonov, a fascism-oriented organization. Speaking on Ekho Moskvy radio, Limonov responded to the charge, saying Yakemenko was himself a fascist and that the Kremlin-backed group Nashi represented “state fascism.” 

Later in May, Nashi took aim at yet another group: bureaucrats. “All bureaucrats over 35 are a generation of defeatists who have done nothing to make Russia competitive,” Yakemenko said, indicating that Nashi would seek to replace aging bureaucrats with members of Nashi. Yakemenko promised to bring tens of thousands of people into the streets “to get one bureaucrat fired.”

Meanwhile, Izvestiya reported in early June that Nashi, alone among “the broad spectrum of youth parties and movements,” had a secret, private meeting with President Putin in May, where about a dozen of the group’s leaders discussed a wide range of political issues with the president. Yabloko deputy head Sergei Mitrokhin castigated the Kremlin for the meeting, Ekho Moskvy reported, saying that the State was “playing with fire,” and that Nashi’s real agenda has nothing to do with youth, but that it was a neo-fascist group intent on creating a paramilitary group along the lines of Mao Tse-tung’s Red Guards.

 

Beg to Differ

Media flourishes

under patronage

The Russian government issued a report in May that asserted that the media is one of the “most promising” sectors of the Russian economy, fueled by liberal media laws, advertising growth and investment. There are some 46,000 periodical publications in Russia, the report said, yet just half of these publish regularly. Yet, at least one leading publisher scoffed at the rosy outlook – in the pages of the report itself. Rafael Akopov, head of Prof-Media, which is owned by Interros (controlled by oligarch Vladimir Potanin), called the Russian newspaper market “highly deformed” and lacking “the prerequisites for market development.” Some 90 percent of Russian newspapers, Akopov said, are subsidized by state organs or private investors (like Interros, for instance).

Meanwhile, the State-owned Gazprom energy monopoly announced its purchase of a controlling stake in Prof-Media’s Izvestiya newspaper early this June. Gazprom-Media already owns NTV channel and Ekho Moskvy radio. Russian opposition and international media described the purchase as yet another step by the Kremlin to tighten control over media.

 

Ulman Acquitted

No conviction

for Chechen crime

On May 19, after a four-month-long retrial, a Rostov-on-Don military court jury acquitted four Russian officers of the murder of six Chechen civilians in January 2002 (see Russian Life, Nov/Dec 2004). The court, which had acquitted the men on the same charges in April 2004, ruled that the officers, led by Captain Eduard Ulman, were innocent, because they had acted on orders from their superiors. The April 2004 acquittal was, however, overturned by the Russian Supreme Court Military Collegium, which then sent the case back for retrial. Relatives of the victims protested the reacquittal, saying there was not a single juror with Northern Caucasian ethnicity on the panel. The Chechen State Council issued a special statement expressing indignation at the court’s decision and requesting that the case be retried yet again, gazeta.ru reported. 

 

Lost Lakes

A lake disappeared overnight from the village of Bolotnikovo [“boloto” means swamp] in central Russia, NTV reported. On the morning of May 19, local fishermen found an empty pit where the lake used to be. 

A wide range of bizarre theories about the lake’s mysterious disappearance were voiced at the villagers’ meeting – someone even suspected the U.S. was involved. Locals maintain that the lake first appeared in the time of Ivan the Terrible. One woman said that once a church stood on the spot, but that it was swallowed up by the waters. Village leaders also recalled how, 70 years ago, several houses in Bolotnikovo mysteriously disappeared. 

Meanwhile, U.S. scientists – according to the magazine Science – report that, due to global warming, 125 large lakes have disappeared from the Siberian Arctic over the last 30 years, while another 11,000 have shrunk by over 6%.

 

Yukos Drags On

The trial is over

Bickering continues

Pro-Kremlin politicians praised it. The U.S. government and the Russian Communist Party decried it. Many saw conspiracies in its execution, and rumors began to fly of a backroom pardon deal immediately after it was over. But the starkest reality may be that it – the Yukos Affair – is far from over. Appeals are pending and new trials of co-conspirators (as well as new charges against both Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his co-conspirator Platon Lebedev) are presumably planned. After a marathon reading of the 1000-plus page verdict which spanned more than a week, in May the Meshchansky court handed down 9-year prison sentences for both defendants. Many observers are now calling the trial a watershed in the recent history of Russia. The only question is which way things will flow in its aftermath. Interestingly, politicians on both the right and the left called the trial an act of intimidation and scapegoating. Only those closely allied with the Kremlin dared call the verdict just. And, predictably, firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky called the sentences “too lenient.” RIA Novosti reported Zhirinovsky as saying, “our president is too much a democrat, and the prosecutor-general is too soft.” The public, meanwhile, has little faith in judicial independence (see statistics, page 9).

 

White Flag

President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in April granting Russian citizenship to Marina Antonovna Denikina, daughter of General Anton Denikin, a leader of the Whites who fought against the Soviets during the Civil War, Russian media reported. Denikina, who was born in Russia’s Krasnodar Region in 1919, has lived in France since 1926. She has authored several books about her father. 

 

Dollar Returns

In May, the Duma adopted in its first reading amendments to currency control legislation which will allow foreigners to pay for services at hotels, airports and train stations in foreign currency, Vremya Novostey reported. The amendments will also make it legal to bring up to $10,000 in cash into Russia undeclared; the present limit is $1,500. If the amendments are passed in their final reading, it will also be possible to take up to $10,000 out of Russia, or up to $3,000 undeclared.

 

Russian for Russia

On June 2, President Putin signed a law that establishes Russian as the official State Language throughout the Russian Federation. The bill had been two years in the making. On the same day, RIA News Agency reported, Putin signed an amendment to the Law on the Formation of the Russian Government that requires the prime minister to be a citizen of Russia.

 

this time he means it

The Soros Development Fund, controlled by American billionaire George Soros, in April sold off the last of its assets in Russia, Kommersant-Daily reported. That asset was a 42 percent share in KMB Bank. A Soros representative said the fund had decided to leave Russia for the foreseeable future. George Soros lost billions in the Russian crash of 1998 and at that time said he was swearing off Russia. But a year later he was back, investing in a number of business and philanthropic ventures, nonetheless critical of Russian government policies all the while. 

 

 

Bronze Honor 

After defeating Finland in the quarterfinals of the World Ice Hockey Championship, Russia succumbed to Canada 4-3 in the semifinals (managing to almost stage a comeback from a 4:0 deficit). Canada ended up being beaten by the Czech team in the finals. But the Russian team bounced back and defeated Sweden 6-3 in the consolation match for third place. What would have been considered a fiasco two decades ago is now seen as an improvement (Russia failed to medal at last year’s championship in Prague). This is Russia’s second World Championship medal in the last 12 years. Russia won the silver in 2002. Observers hailed the Russian team’s improvement  and even a tough critic like Sports Minister Vyacheslav Fetisov (a multiple World and Olympic Champion and Stanley Cup winner) praised the team for its performance, saying that, after the semifinals against Canada, both the players and their coaches have a right to be proud of themselves.  

Queen of Brindisi

Russia was down 0-1 in the Davis Cup singles rubber with Italy, after Dinara Safina lost her opening match to Francesca Sciavone. The match was being held in the small Italian town of Brindisi, and none of the team’s top players – Anastasia Myskina, Maria Sharapova or Svetlana Kuznetsova – could make it to the quarterfinal match. So captain Shamil Tarpishev called on Yelena Dementieva, who did not make the team last year, so tough was the competition. Dementieva thrashed Tatyana Garbin and then the top-ranked Sciavone (in a breathtaking three-setter) to flop the score to 2-1. Then Yelena Bovina stepped in to finish off the match by upsetting Maria-Elena Kamerin. The doubles final was therefore just a dead rubber, but the Russian team (Dushevina/Safina) won anyway. This means Russia will next face the U.S. in the semifinals, to be played on clay at Moscow’s Olympic Stadium July 9-10. If the U.S. team brings its strongest players – the Williams sisters and Lindsay Davenport, it could be a very exciting match. Meanwhile, the following week, July 15-17, Russia’s men’s team will host France in Davis Cup competition.

Huge Soccer Win

CSKA Moscow beat Sporting Lisbon 3-1 in a historic UEFA Cup final, resulting in the first-ever UEFA Cup won by a Russian team. Russian football will never be the same and local observers see this as a sign of things to come: “Russia won her first European trophy last night,” Sports Express proclaimed. “Remember this date: May 18, 2005. It will be written in all the football books. Why don’t we acquire a taste for big wins now?” CSKA will next play a UEFA Super Cup game against Liverpool – the winner of the Champions League. After a difficult first half in the final match, CSKA came back in the second half with goals by the Russians Alexei Berezoutsky, Yuri Zhirkov and CSKA’s Brazilian legionnaire, Vágner Love.

Plushenko Back, to Wed

Three time world champion in figure skating Yevgeny Plushenko has recovered from the groin surgery he underwent in Germany and in May began training in St. Petersburg. Plushenko had to pull out of the Moscow World Championship in March. “It is premature to say how long it will take Yevgeny to get in top shape again,” said coach Alexei Mishin. “He has been skating for some time, so now we are discussing new ideas for his program. Then we intend to participate in an exhibition performance in Japan.” Mishin also confirmed rumors that his charge was going to wed. “Plushenko will get married on June 18,” Mishin said.    

 

 Sharapova Aims for #1

Maria Sharapova failed twice in May to capture the #1 world ranking in tennis, after losing to Patty Schnyder in the semifinals of the Italian Open. Top-seeded Sharapova, who turned 18 in April, lost her first chance at the German Open. “I’ve said it before, there’s no rush,” Sharapova said of becoming Number 1. “I’m not disappointed. I’d rather play better at a Grand Slam.” 

Meanwhile, Britain’s Ace magazine has just published its traditional Hot List, featuring the sexiest tennis players in the world. Maria Sharapova and Marat Safin ran away with the votes to top the list as the two hottest players on the circuit. “I want to thank Ace magazine and all of my fans that voted for me,” Sharapova said. “Hopefully at the end of the year, I will be No. 1 in the tennis rankings as well.” “I am very happy that Ace makes me their No. 1 Hot Man!” Safin said, echoing Sharapova’s focus on the real rankings that matter. “But for now, it is important that I work hard on my game so they can also make me No. 1 for my tennis.”

 

Russians trapped in elevators during May 25 blackout: 1,500

 

People who ride the Moscow metro at least once a day: 2,780,000

 

Applause interruptions during President Putin’s 48-minute State of the Nation address: 26

 

Grant to be given by the Presidential Administration to author of the best plan to revamp the Russian Academy of Sciences: R1.5 million

 

Annual damage from spring floods: R40 billion

 

Value of cash Russians have hidden in their homes: $25-50 billion

Value of Russian-Chinese trade turnover, according to Russia: $15 billion

according to China: $21.2 billion 

 

Annual cost of one State Duma deputy plus assistant: R250,000

 

Salary of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov: R117,482 

 

Annual per capita income in Russia: $2,610 (R73,000)

 

Marriages registered in Russia in 2004: 630,000 ...in 2003: 800,000

Divorces granted in 2004: 979,700 ...in 2003: 1,090,000

 

Annual budget of TsSKA soccer club: $20 million

 

Number of Russians who die each day in traffic accidents: 95

Number of Russian road signs failing to meet international standards: 40%

 

Number of servicemen who committed suicide in 2004: 246

 

Number of abortions performed in Russia each year: 2,000,000

Number of live births: 1,500,000

 

Percent of Russian children born out of wedlock: 30%

 

Estimated number of extremist organizations in Russia: 150

...total estimated membership: 5,000

 

“Russia has talented people, especially when it comes to stealing public funds.”

Gennady Raykov, State Duma deputy (Itogi)

 

“I understand that there should be no trusting a bureaucrat, especially a minister. All bureaucrats are bastards.” 

Andrei Fursenko, Russian Minister of Education and Science
(Argumenty i Fakty)

 

“Let’s have a woman for a prime minister everywhere, at least for six months.” 

Gennady Zyuganov, Communist Party leader (Itogi)

 

“The country will not consume more vodka than it
buys in its shops.”

Mikhail Grishankov, first deputy chairman of the
State Duma Committee for Security (Itogi)

 

“Of course, hatred towards the US cannot be a unifying [idea] for Russia. That’s clear. Only love towards [Chukotka Governor and oligarch Roman] Abramovich can be unifying.”

Alexander Prokhanov, writer (Ekho Moskvy radio)

 

“All religious movements registered in our country
are wonderful.” 

Vladimir Ustinov, Russian Prosecutor General (Itogi)

 

“Don’t tell me, a former Russian bureaucrat, that we cannot steal something. We can steal anything.”

Mikhail Delyagin, chairman of the advisory board
of the Institute for Problems of Globalization (Itogi)

 

“I don’t know how to do anything other than prosecute.”

Vladimir Ustinov, Russian Prosecutor General (Itogi)

 

“Revolutions should be carried out peacefully and
with dignity.”

Gennady Zyuganov, Russian Communist Party leader (Itogi)

 

“A post such as the Presidency is given at birth.”

Pavel Borodin, state secretary of the Unified State of Russia and Belarus,
about Belarusan President Alexander Lukashenko (Itogi)

 

Russians who:

 

feel the government uses the courts for political ends:

constantly 14%

frequently 36%

rarely 20%

never 6%

 

fear most:

economic collapse 70%

terrorist attacks 67%

ecological catastrophe 59%

Russia’s demographic disappearance 58%

end of Russia’s natural resources 47%

political collapse 46%

loss of Russian territory 42%

unrest or revolution 20%

 

feel the problem of lawlessness in law enforcement agencies is very serious
or fairly serious 83%

 

would not like to serve on a jury 80%

... would like to 8%

 

would like their children to 

be billionaires 44%

would not 50%

not sure 16%

 

live on less than $36 per month 1.1%

earn more than $250 per month 37.7%

 

are not afraid of old age 58%

are afraid of old age 31%

 

said the cash-for-benefits reform
had no impact on them 59%

 

MUSCOVITES WHO:

 

say the person who will listen to and understand them during difficult times is: 

a doctor 2.1%

a priest 4.5%

a dog 4.6%

friends at work 5.5% 

parents 53.7%

 

planned to celebrate May Day 57%

celebrated Easter 80%

celebrated Victory Day 71%

 

are children and have tried smoking

boys 71%

girls 62%