Trampolines, Lava and the Constitution

Trampoline to Space

One small tweet for a man…

A jocular, years-long online feud between the head of the Russian Space Agency, Dmitry Rogozin, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has finally come to an end.

Rogozin, who is uncharacteristically outspoken for a bureaucrat, was thrust to the leadership position at Roscosmos in 2018. In 2014 he famously quipped on his personal Twitter account that, in the absence of a manned spaceflight program, the US might as well “use a trampoline” to get its astronauts to the space station. At the time, Russia was the only country able to blast humans into orbit, and the US was passing biting sanctions (following the Russian annexation of Crimea) that in part affected Russia’s space industry.

When SpaceX successfully launched its first manned reusable rocket in May, Musk had the last laugh: “The trampoline is working,” he said.

Roscosmos, which cannot claim any remarkable achievements of late, was trolled mercilessly for days. It did not help that the agency announced shortly after Crew Dragon’s launch that it would start manufacturing elevators with the voice of Yury Gagarin, the first earthling in space, announcing the closing of doors.

“It’s a symmetrical response to Elon Musk, after all, the elevator is also relaunchable, like the rocket,” quipped comic Ivan Urgant on his evening show.

The banter on Twitter ended when Rogozin’s Twitter account was rebranded as a Roscosmos corporate account in early June, a few days after the Crew Dragon mission. And the trampoline tweet was unceremoniously deleted (but is reproduced here for posterity).

Ousted Rebel

Disgraced governor sues Putin

In the first such legal gambit, a governor sacked by President Vladimir Putin has sued, saying the decision was unfair. Mikhail Ignatyev headed the Chuvash Republic until his firing in January due to “loss of trust,” as stated in the presidential decree giving him the axe.

Ignatyev’s recurring gaffes and tone-deaf behavior have triggered a number of media firestorms. For example, instead of handing an Emergencies Ministry employee the keys to a new fire engine, the governor dangled them in the air as if he were teasing a dog with a treat, forcing the man to jump for them.

The ex-governor has challenged the decree ordering his dismissal in the Supreme Court, though he has not publicly commented on this move as he is in the hospital battling the novel coronavirus. While the chances of a successful lawsuit against Putin are miniscule, lawyers did point out that “loss of trust” is not technically a legal term.

Lava Land

Tourists visiting the Kamchatka Peninsula will be able to witness lava streaming down the side of the Klyuchevskoy volcano, which began erupting in November 2019. The lava began to flow in April, just as the Volcanoes of Kamchatka Nature Park, where it is located, was closed due to public health measures in response to the pandemic. But the park does expect visitors this summer and has cautioned tourists to observe the eruption from a safe distance. The park says its Apakhonchich field station – a facility for volcanologists – can be used to watch the spectacle and as a point from which the park’s various trails can be accessed.

The Vote is On

Russians to vote for constitution

After a delay due to the pandemic lockdown, Russia is now gearing up to vote on President Putin’s proposed constitutional amendments, including the crucial provision that would allow him to run for president again.

The amendments, drafted in record time and rushed through parliament, include a hodgepodge of measures, from areas like animal rights to patriotism to the declaration that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. The public vote has been set for July 1, and state television promptly began airing advertisements with celebrities talking up the importance of voting in the plebiscite.

Some observers have said that the extended lockdown, which severely impacted ordinary Russians’ economic stability and left many unemployed, may have undermined Putin’s plan to quickly construct a new constitutional reality.

The opposition, meanwhile, has argued that the celebrity advertisements were effectively campaigning for an “in favor” outcome, and demanded air time for an opposing view. They were denied.

In Moscow, about 200 council members – low-level elected officials – called on Muscovites to vote against the amendments. But it is unlikely these dissenting views will be widely heard. Observers, like the voting rights group Golos, said the Kremlin doesn’t want a real vote, merely a rubberstamp of an already approved decision.

MeToo MGU

Students expose sexual harassment

Sexual harassment at universities, long an ignored subject in Russia, is coming into the spotlight after an investigation and a report by the student media outlet Doxa led to a professor quitting his job at Moscow State University (MGU).

Students in MGU’s philology faculty, which is overwhelmingly female, said there have been 28 reported cases of harassment of students by faculty members. An open letter asking the university to take action has 2,500 signatures, including students and alumni.

Meanwhile, MGU’s faculty union, University Solidarity, issued a letter of its own to the institution’s leadership, asking it to enact internal rules that condemn all violence and sexual harassment, and that the school take a firm stand that is clear to both students and staff, in order to prevent future abuse.

Russian universities are dismissive of the lengths Western institutions go to in their anti-sexual-misconduct efforts, and flings between professors and students are often an open secret that sometimes result in serious long-term relationships and children. But last year’s gruesome murder of a young graduate student, Anastasiya Yeshchenko, by the acclaimed history professor Oleg Sokolov, who had served as her lecturer and advisor, opened up the conversation about the dangers inherent in faculty-student liaisons.

“Lack of a clear position by MGU leadership on these issues does not help ensure the safety of students and employees,” said University Solidarity, “and it seriously hurts the image of the university” both nationally and internationally. Though the Russian Education Ministry has condemned sexual harassment, MGU leadership has yet to make a public statement on the subject.

Big Brother

The Russian government is taking new steps to gather and catalog data on Russian citizens, a trend that has alarmed many and taken center stage during the pandemic. Specifically, citizens were forced to install glitchy quarantine monitoring apps on their smartphones and were issued fines automatically based on data from street surveillance devices.

Meanwhile, the Duma has passed a new bill that creates a register of all information about Russian citizens: marriage, citizenship, birth and death. Government agencies will begin feeding the register data in 2023. At press time, President Putin had yet to sign the bill into law.

In a related development, the Interior Ministry wants to create a smartphone app that foreign workers would be required to install so as to track their health, legal status and their “social trust rating.” The essence of this app has not been adequately described (although a famous Black Mirror episode might give people an idea), yet Russian media have cautioned that such technology would eventually lead to a China-style ratings system, which tracks individuals’ trustworthiness based on their voting patterns and participation in protests.

Moscow’s Art Deco

Moscow’s legendary Central Telegraph building, just a stone’s throw from Red Square on Tverskaya Street, will be completely renovated. The iconic landmark, built in 1927, will be repurposed by British architect David Chipperfield, who is known for designing several European museums.

Though it is not entirely clear how the current owner intends to use the building, Chipperfield promised he would “give Muscovites the opportunity to feel pride and enjoyment” in the huge corner site.

The Central Telegraph building, a main postal hub and one of the few places in the Soviet era that one could make or receive international calls, has of late housed offices and a large co-working space called Di Telegraph.

The Art Deco building was one of the last projects designed by Ivan Rerberg, a civil engineer who also designed the capital’s Kiev Railway Station and helped build the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.

Overheard