A new crowdsourced project about people executed under Stalin aims to tell victims’ personal stories, as a way of illustrating the vast scope of the purges, using photos and information submitted by relatives.
Called Immortal Gulag (Bessmertny Barak in Russian), the social networking campaign publishes chilling daily accounts of the tragedies that befell ordinary men, women and children. The name is strikingly similar to the Bessmertny Polk (Immortal Regiment) effort, which saw tens of thousands of Russians (including Putin) marching with portraits of their family members who fought during World War II.
The project’s founders say they object to the country’s victory in the war being used to rehabilitate the role of Stalin. Immortal Gulag, they say, is the unheard side of the story.
At press time, over 3000 people had submitted stories.
facebook.com/immortalgulag
“Нам всем дружно необходимо понять, о каких числах жертв идет речь. Мы должны это знать, мы должны восстановить историю которую у нас отобрали. Мы просто обязаны назвать всех поименно.”
“We keep talking of numbers, but nobody is rushing to publish the numbers from the archives. For a variety of reasons, a lot of information has been irreversibly lost. So we are asking you for help. Together we need to understand what sort of numbers are involved here. We must know this; we must reconstruct the history that has been taken from us. We simply have a responsibility to name every single person.”
– From the Immortal Gulag
Facebook page
A translation by Oliver Ready of Vladimir Sharov’s Before and During received the annual Read Russia prize for best English translation of a Russian work. The jury was unanimous in its selection, saying it “captures the clear voice and confused mentality of the narrator, who is able to love both Christ and Lenin, who prays for the sinner Ivan the Terrible and who tries to unravel the legacy of the Bolsheviks.” Before and During, a work of historical fiction, was published in Russian in 1993 and is Sharov’s first novel to be translated into English. It was published by Dedalus Books. Sharov’s latest novel, Return To Egypt, received the Russian Booker prize last year.
Read Russia is a nonprofit organization that promotes Russian literature and book culture in the English-speaking world.
The widow of acclaimed Russian filmmaker Pyotr Todorovsky, Mira Todorovskaya, has completed a movie that her husband long dreamed of, even though she had to sell the family’s apartment to do so.
Todorovsky wrote a movie script about the end of World War II and his experiences as a 21-year-old soldier in the Red Army unit that met US soldiers on the Elbe River as the war came to a close. He died in 2013, before he could direct the movie himself.
The screenplay has a number of romantic subplots, including a relationship between the protagonist and a young German girl, and it mentions some of the war’s darker aspects, like the rape of local women by advancing Soviet soldiers. As Todorovskaya (who produced several of her husband’s films) told Moskovsky Komsomolets, the culture ministry denied the film funding due to objections over the story. So Todorovskaya launched a crowdfunding campaign and then sold the family apartment to raise enough money for production. The film, Elbe Day, was shot in Poland. It is not clear when and where Russian viewers will be able to see it.
Scientific and philanthropic circles were shaken by the announcement that Dynasty, a foundation set up by IT entrepreneur Dmitry Zimin, had been added to the state’s list of “foreign agents.” The Justice Ministry list includes several dozen NGOs that have received money from abroad (the label, aside from having the ring of Soviet-era defamation, de facto prohibits state institutions, such as schools or hospitals, from working with listed organizations).
Yet Zimin, a relatively low-profile co-founder of Vimpelcom (which owns Beeline mobile), gives out money rather than receiving it, and he is very much a Russian citizen. He does not deny keeping his personal fortune abroad, but, as he pointed out in an interview, that is where the Russian government keeps its cash as well.
Fuming at the news, the 82-year-old Zimin put his foot down by saying he will close the foundation entirely if the government does not remove his fund from the list and apologize. Since 2001, Dynasty has given millions of dollars in grants to support young scientists, scientific conferences, and the publication of popular science books.
What allegedly upset the ministry was Zimin’s funding of the group Liberal Mission, which has organized lectures on politics and civil society (including one called “Why has Russia formed a paternalistic regime?”). Zimin has also given money to media and projects that could be called “oppositionist,” as they have independent editorial views, for example the Rain television channel and TV-2 in Tomsk (already shuttered by the state). So far, the Justice Ministry is standing firm: Dynasty is designated as a foreign agent and must use the label or pay a fine.
When Chinese soldiers marched across Red Square on May 9, during Russia’s Victory Day festivities, it was a vivid symbol of Moscow’s recent embrace of its eastern neighbor in the hope of money, friendship, and diplomatic support. Chinese President Xi Jinping was also perhaps the most prominent foreign leader present at the parade, given that the crisis in Ukraine forced the absence of most Western heads of state.
Xi signed a slew of cooperation deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including one for Chinese investment in agriculture and high-speed rail; another extended a $1 billion line of credit to Sberbank.
Several weeks later, gas giant Gazprom announced that work had started on the construction of a pipeline to transport Russian gas from Western Siberia to China. Crucially, however, there is as yet no deal on the gas that will be pumped through the pipeline. For years, Russia and China have been unable to agree on the price of gas to be sold, and Russia’s bargaining position has become weaker as global petrochem prices have tumbled.
A new law signed by the Russian president threatens the work of all NGOs in Russia that are or have any association with foreign NGOs.
The Duma has passed a new law amending the existing law on “foreign agents” to empower prosecutors and the foreign ministry to freely label any foreign organization “undesirable” if they feel it in some way undermines Russia’s security. The process would not involve the court system and it is not clear how an NGO would be able to fight the designation. An undesirable group would be banned from working in Russia or distributing any material there; its employees could be prohibited from entering the country; and affiliated Russian citizens could face fines or prison. Lawmakers said the move was necessary in “the current political situation,” as Moscow increasingly seeks to isolate itself from Western influences.
British filmmaker Peter Green-away is working on another Russia film, after completing his controversial Sergei Eisenstein biopic (see Russian Life, March/April 2015). According to a foundation supporting the project, Greenaway is writing a script for a movie based on the Volga River travels of French novelist Alexander Dumas.
Dumas, known best for his series of bestselling novels (The Three Musketeers, et al.), traveled to Russia in the 1850s after being granted permission by Alexander II. After creating a stir in St. Petersburg literary circles, the writer decided to see “the real Russia” and embarked on a journey from Moscow to the Caspian Sea by way of Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan and Astrakhan. He wrote two books: Adventures in Czarist Russia, or From Paris to Astrakhan, and Voyage to the Caucasus. Greenaway’s film will apparently weave together Dumas’ experiences with modern footage.
Russian period detective novelist Boris Akunin announced that his Erast Fandorin series will be adapted for television by a British channel. Writing on Facebook, Akunin declined to reveal which channel has bought the rights, but added that he would be a consultant on the set, to be certain there are no blunders.
Three books: The Death of the Achilles, The State Counselor and The Coronation, will be adapted “since Russian channels have completely lost interest,” wrote Akunin, who openly supports Russia’s opposition politicians.
An online project nicknamed Russian Ebola is chronicling the deaths – usually unexplained and uninvestigated – of people in police custody. Launched earlier this year, the website, created by journalist Maria Berezina, is a blunt chronicle of hangings, heart attacks and mysterious injuries that have occurred in numbers that rival an epidemic, hence the name.
The website compiles cases that have been reported by Russian prosecutors, investigators, or the interior ministry. “People die in police stations in Russia almost daily. We will collect these cases,” the website states.
In May of 2015, 29 people died in police custody, 13 of whom committed suicide, including one who hung himself in the waiting area of a station in broad daylight. There have been 104 deaths in the first five months of 2015. While rights activists call for CCTV cameras to be installed in stations and for cases to be investigated by an outside impartial party, the project invites the public to contribute to research on the epidemic.
rusebola.com
No Russian officials have yet been implicated in the international corruption probe into FIFA, but this has not stopped Russia from assuming a defensive stance and accusing the United States of prosecutorial overreach.
The investigation by US and Swiss officials led to the arrest – just a few days before the reelection of FIFA chief Sepp Blatter – of several football and corporate executives on charges of bribery during the 2010 selection of World Cup hosts, which ended in the event being awarded to Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022).
Some of those indicted are US citizens, and the investigation focuses on murky deals spanning two decades. President Vladimir Putin stopped short of calling the prosecutions a US conspiracy, saying that, “One can presume that someone violated something, but the United States definitely has nothing to do with it.” He compared the prosecution of FIFA to that of whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange.
“Our American partners use these methods to serve their selfish interests,” Putin said. “I don’t rule out that FIFA is another case of this.”
Russian backstroker Arkady Vyatchanin has been granted Serbian citizenship, two years after vowing to never again swim for Russia, due to conflicts with the Russian Swimming Federation. The 31-year-old was born in Russia’s Far North and has won two gold medals in European championships. He also won two bronze medals at the Beijing Olympic Games. Vyatchanin now hopes to swim for Serbia in the 2016 Olympic Games. Interestingly, his mother, the acclaimed swimming coach Irina Vyatchanina, said she also plans to leave Russia to pursue more interesting career opportunities.
The head of the Russian Football Union, Nikolai Tolstykh, was voted out this spring after serving in the post for four years. Unpopular with many sports officials, Tolstykh also clashed with Russian national team coach Fabio Capello, due to Russia’s inability to pay the coach his contracted $7 million salary.
After one complaint by Capello in early May, Tolstykh declared that raising money issues ahead of Russia’s Victory Day celebrations was untimely, and advised the Italian to “compare his income with that of Russians of the same age,” which infuriated Capello.
“I don’t ask for more than what is in my contract,” Capello fumed, adding that Tolstykh was out of line lecturing him about World War II, as Capello’s father barely survived his passage through several Nazi concentration camps. Analysts suggest that Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko is all but a shoo-in for the position.
“Can I be absolutely clear with you? This is not a fight with Russian-backed separatists, this is a real war with Russia.”
Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko,
saying there is sufficient evidence of
regular Russian troop involvement
in the conflict in eastern Ukraine (BBC)
“First of all, we have to recognize that Kiev is fighting its own citizens. They are the ones getting shot at and killed.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov,
on Moscow’s lack of trust in
Ukraine’s current leadership (TASS)
Maya Plisetskaya, a legendary dancer and Russia’s best-known ballerina, passed away at the age of 89. A passionate and interpretive dancer who performed on stage through her 60s, Plisetskaya rose to stardom at the Bolshoi despite her Jewish heritage and despite the fact that her parents had been “enemies of the people” (her father was executed in 1938, during Stalin’s purges).
Perhaps best known for her interpretation of Odette-Odile in Swan Lake (as well as the Dying Swan solo, for which she studied swans in the zoo), Plisetskaya performed the full classical repertoire at the Bolshoi, and many of the roles were choreographed with her in mind.
Plisetskaya said she regretted that she had not being able to dance abroad until 1958, after Khrushchev personally lifted her travel ban; she was also not allowed to work with foreign choreographers until long past the peak of her career. Plisetskaya died of a heart attack in Germany, where she lived with her husband, the composer Rodion Shchedrin.
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