Russia is working on a new culture policy – one that identifies western culture as “foreign and hostile” and seeks to only fund projects that support traditional values.
According to a draft of the policy, published by Interfax, multiculturalism and tolerance are deemed as harmful, while a singular “cultural code” would be created, based on the premise that “Russia is not Europe.”
Foreign cultural values “lead to psychological stress, alcoholism, drug addiction, abandonment of children” and other vices, the policy document states, and must be avoided. Dangerous cultural manifestations would include contemporary art and “at the very least should not receive state support,” the document says, and in the best case “the state must remove the negative influence from the public consciousness.”
Authors of the policy, for which the presidential administration has yet to voice support, contrast Russia's “civilizational” principle with “western liberal” values.
Russia has premiered Orango – an unfinished fantastical opera that Dmitry Shostakovich composed in the early 1930s then abandoned. The work was discovered decades later by an archivist who was examining boxes of materials that Shostakovich's housekeeper had taken from his garbage.
The resurrected orchestral version consists of just a prologue to the story of a half-man, half-ape – the product of scientific experiments in the early Soviet era. The libretto, reputedly based on scientist Ilya Ivanov, who was performing experiments on primates in the Sukhumi Primate Center, was to be a commentary on “human growth during revolution and socialist construction” and to lampoon the bourgeois press. It was to be written by Alexander Starchakov and by Alexei Tolstoy, known for early fantasy novels like Aelita, and would echo Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog.
The satirical opera was commissioned by the Bolshoi Theater and was planned for the 15th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1932, but the librettists failed to deliver their work on time, so Shostakovich put his composing work aside. Instead, he became engrossed in his more important opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1934), a work that was denounced in Pravda by Soviet authorities (some say by Stalin himself) in 1936. By the following year, Socialist Realism totally dominated the cultural realm, Starchakov had been executed in the purges, and satire of state institutions was not welcome.
Lady Macbeth was banned from the stage in Russia for 30 years. Orango was first performed in Russia at this spring's Rostropovich Festival by the London Philharmonic, under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen.
NASA announced it is suspending cooperation with Russia over its actions in Ukraine and Crimea, excepting the “safe and continuous operation of the International Space Station.”
As the majority of Russia-US engagements in space revolve around the ISS, it is not immediately clear what sort of cooperation will be discontinued, but some reports have said that visits by Russian space officials to the US will likely be covered by the new policy.
Moscow officials want to return the Soviet name “VDNKh” (Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy) to the park in northern Moscow currently known as the VVTs, the All-Russian Expo Center.
The park, created in the 1930s, was known for its pavilions showcasing the achievements of Soviet republics, as well as its Stalinist architecture and wide walkways that are now beloved by roller skaters. While the city may want to restore the acronym by which the site was long known, it is less enthusiastic about preserving the historic structures sited there, angering architectural historians.
Alexei Ivanov, whose novel The Geographer Who Drank Away His Globe was made into an award-winning movie last year, has written a new work about the vibrant 1990s in Yekaterinburg, formerly known as Sverdlovsk.
Yoburg (the city's unofficial nickname) is a collection of stories about the particular culture of the capital of the Ural Federal District, which gave the world an array of notable figures, from Boris Yeltsin to rocker Vyacheslav Butusov. The book's subtitle is “To the Courage of the Insane,” and at 600 pages is a veritable encyclopedia of the city, a who's who of anyone lucky enough to be written about by this talented novelist.
Signaling the end of an era, Aeroflot has decided to sell the last Il-96 planes in its fleet. The Il-96, developed in the perestroika period, is a long-haul aircraft known for its huge passenger cabin and roomy seats. But the Il-96 is a fuel hog, so even Russian companies are scrapping it.
For years, Aeroflot used its six Il-96s for long flights around the former Soviet Union, including to Central Asia, and popular destinations like Sochi. The carrier now only has western planes in its fleet, like Boeing and Airbus, supplemented by semi-Russian Superjets.
Eight years ago the Russian government merged the Ilyushin aviation company and Mikoyan, Irkut, Sukhoi, Tupolev, and Yakovlev into a single company named United Aircraft Corporation, consolidating the assets and activities of all aviation design and construction firms.
Russia has adopted new traffic rules that – for the first time – grant greater rights to bicyclists. Unfortunately, however, the rules refer to bike lanes that do not exist in most places.
Under the new rules, bike lanes marked on regular roads are off limits to vehicles. Bicyclists are also able to use bike paths that are duly marked on pedestrian sidewalks, as well as combined pathways shared by pedestrians and bicyclists. Previously, Russian traffic rules offered only vague rules for bicyclists and did not include provisions for bike lanes on roads. Now bike riders can legally travel alongside cars as long as they are at least 14 years old.
Russian search engine Yandex is launching a computer science department at Moscow's Higher School of Economics. The department will teach programming and applied math, as well as big data and information retrieval. Yandex employees will be on the faculty. The department will admit 180 students in 2014, with hopes of meeting Russia's growing need for programmers.
On a related note, Russian hackers outdid other countries in Facebook's “bug bounty” – an initiative of the popular social network that rewards programmers for ferreting out problems with its security. In 2013, Facebook received a total of 14,763 submissions, of which 687 were judged as valid, and the company awarded $1.5 million to 330 hackers around the world. Thirty-eight of the reports coming from Russia and Russian programmers earned the highest average award per bug report: nearly $4,000.
Хотелось бы знать, что они имеют в виду: действия некоей пятой колонны – разного рода «национал-предателей» – или рассчитывают, что смогут ухудшить социально-экономическое положение России и тем самым спровоцировать недовольство людей?
“We will obviously encounter pushback from the outside, but we have to decide for ourselves whether we are ready to stand up for our national interests or be constantly ceding them, retreating who knows how far. Some Western politicians are even trying to scare us not only with sanctions, but with the prospect of internal problems. I'd like to know just what they have in mind: action by some fifth column – some sort of ‘national traitors' – or are they assuming that they can provoke unrest by undermining Russia's socioeconomic situation?”
Vladimir Putin's March 18 speech to the nation.
Over the past two years, Moscow and other cities have resurrected the Soviet era “Druzhina” – red-armbanded volunteer citizen street patrols, including patrols that accompany police officers (above). In fact, the idea of citizen patrols was first used in the Russian capital in 1881, to help preserve public order in times of “special need.” The current druzhina force numbers some 19,000 volunteers.
The city of Moscow has demolished 5,350,000 m2 of housing under its program to replace “khrushchyovkas” – the notorious housing projects of the Khrushchev era – with modern and spacious buildings. There is more to be done, however. Another 271 buildings await demolition, scheduled for completion in 2015.
On March 24, President Vladimir Putin thanked Russian athletes and Olympic officials for what he called a “firework of medals” and bestowed the country's top civilian awards upon Russian officials tasked with organizing the Sochi Olympics for their role in ensuring the success of the Games. The Sochi Winter Olympics were praised as one of the most successful in history, including by International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, who called them a true “athletes' Games.”
Russia topped the medal count for both the Olympics (with 13 golds and 33 medals overall) and the Paralympics (a total of 80 medals, including 30 gold, more than any country in history).
Meanwhile, Russian Olympic Committee chief Alexander Zhukov has become the head of the IOC Evaluation Commission that will choose the site of the Olympic Winter Games in 2022. As head, Zhukov must pick the three best cities bidding to host the games. The host city will be announced at an IOC session in Kuala Lumpur in 2015.
Russia finished in second place in the medal count at the 2014 IAAF World Indoors Track and Field Championships in Sopot, Poland. Russian athletes particularly distinguished themselves in jumping events, gleaning three golds and two silvers. Yekaterina Koneva was unbeatable in the women's triple jump, Maria Kuchina clinched the world title in high jump, and Lyukman Adams, Russia's first black track and field athlete (son of a Nigerian father and a Russian mother), grabbed gold in the men's triple jump.
Football's world governing body FIFA will not ban Russia from playing at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, nor does FIFA intend to strip Russia of the right to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup, The Wall Street Journal reported.
USsenators Mark Kirk and Dan Coats had requested Russia's suspension after the Crimea Crisis, but FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke said in a letter to the senators that participation in the World Cup is based on sporting merit and only a violation of FIFA statutes and regulations could lead to a suspension from competition.
In this year's World Cup, which kicks off in June, Russia will be in Group H, alongside Belgium, Algeria and South Korea. Russia and the US could meet in the knock-out round of 16.
Fifteen-year-old ice skater Yulia Lipnitskaya won silver in the ladies singles event at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships held in Saitama, Japan. Lipnitskaya won gold in the Olympic team event in Sochi but buckled under pressure in the singles event. The gold went to Mao Asada of Japan, and Carolina Kostner of Italy came in third.
Russia took another silver in pairs, where Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov (who won silver at Sochi) finished behind the German pair Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy (bronze went to Canadians Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford).
Russia's gold medalists at Sochi, singles skater Adelina Sotnikova and pairs team Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov, all chose not to compete in Japan. Volosozhar and Trankov did however, announce that they will continue competing through the next Winter Olympic Games, to be held in 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
“Anyone who has not walked the trails of Crimea has not experienced patriotism and heroism the way they do in Sevastopol.”
Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov, urging Russians to vacation in Crimea (Interfax)
“We will be paying hundreds of billion of dollars for this turn of events. But I don't think this is critical… society is willing to pay the price.”
Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, on how Western sanctions may impact Russia. (Interfax)
“If there is nobody to fight alongside you, take up your gun and go it alone. If they kill you – well, we'll all get there some day. But your friends and your sons will not be ashamed of you.”
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, on the options of Ukraine's ex-president Viktor Yanukovych, who fled from Kiev to Russia and was effectively deposed. (First Channel, Ukraine)
“Sanctions could be a positive thing; the way things go, when the roast rooster begins to chirp, even if he's not pecking, that's when we get some discipline around here.”
Andrei Belousov, aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, mixes idiom with folklore while commenting on the hidden value of Western sanctions. (RIA Novosti)
“Threats, blackmail, dirty tricks against individuals – that attests to weakness. Which is humiliating for self-respecting countries.”
Igor Sechin, president of state oil giant Rosneft, on the Western sanctions. (Prime Agency)
“If you think that your visa sanctions have saved you from the torment of seeing me and my colleagues where you live, I assure you that the Russian military-industrial complex has plenty of other ways of traveling around the world beside tourist visas.”
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. (Twitter)
“What can we suggest to our American colleagues? To spend more time outdoors, practice yoga, separate their food groups and perhaps watch situation comedies on television... childish tantrums, tears and hysterics will not help matters.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. (Interfax)
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