I need a beat

This is an interesting article from Slate about the similarities between rappers and a certain kind of bloggers (Josh Levin applies the comparison to all bloggers, but I think it is most accurate with respect to the media-watching, wanna-be-newsbreaking US political blog community). Not all blogs feel need to engage in battle-rap-style debates and hyperbole about their own greatness. Let's all take a moment to reflect on the question, if my blog were a rap artist, which rap artist would it be?

Rappers and Bloggers - Separated at birth!
By Josh Levin, Posted Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2005, at 3:28 PM PT

[...] Essentially, blogging is sampling plus a new riff. Political bloggers take a story in the news, rip out a few chunks, and type out a few comments. Rap songs use the same recipe: Dig through a crate of records, slice out a high hat and a bass line, and lay a new vocal track on top. Of course, the molecular structure of dead-tree journalism and classic rock is filthy with other people's research and other people's chord progressions. But in newspaper writing and rock music, the end goal is the appearance of originality—to make the product look seamless by hiding your many small thefts. For rappers and bloggers, each theft is worth celebrating, another loose item to slap onto the collage.

[...] rappers' and bloggers' self-importance also has something to do with the supremely annoying righteousness that rides along with those who believe they're overturned the archaic forms of expression favored by The Man—that is, whitey and/or the mainstream media. Ninety percent of rap lyrics are self-congratulatory rhymes about how great the rapper is at rapping, the towering difficulties of succeeding in the rap game, or the lameness of wanksta rivals. Blogging is a circle jerk that never stops circling: links to posts by other bloggers, following links to newspaper stories about bloggers, following wonderment at the corruptions and complacency of old-fashioned, credentialed journalism.

Sure, there are a few differences between the blogosphere and the blingosphere. Although bloggers have a certain buzz about them these days, they'll never be cool the way rappers are cool. The blogger lifestyle is dangerous—staying up all night and eating Cheetos will eventually kill you—but not sexy dangerous. Rappers can afford to be more conspicuous with their triumphalism because selling millions of records is more financially rewarding than getting millions of hits. But if that blog ad gravy train ever comes in, I guarantee you that Josh Marshall will pick up his mail in a gold-plated tank and Nick Denton will put a hit on any linkmonger who looks at him cross-eyed.

But don't get caught up in those piddling distinctions. Public Enemy's Chuck D once said that rap music was the black CNN. After busting a cap in Eason Jordan's ass, what are bloggers now if not the white CNN? If only the two schools recognized they could inflict more damage with a little teamwork. Today, Mickey Kaus sits alone in Los Angeles, valiantly spewing bile at hidebound East Coast elites. Just think how much more pungent that bile would be with a hot backing track by Dr. Dre. [...]

This article from CNN talks about the less glamorous side of blogging - getting fired. Parenthetically, I don't have much sympathy for bloggers who put their water-cooler gossip on the internet and expect not to get busted - you'll never see me blog about my job, for example - but you should check out this article, if only because it contains the subheading "Bloggers Beseiged."

The Turbulent Dnestr - Elections in Moldova

I have been meaning to post several interesting links to sites about Moldova ever since my sister emailed me a New York Post article written by a couple of American consultants working on the campaign (more on that below). Now that the election is a week away, it seems like an opportune moment. I have not been following the stories behind the campaign very closely, though, so I don't really have any commentary of my own to add - just sources of information and interesting sites I've happened upon.

Perhaps I was inspired to do this today because I happened upon an entertaining site,
Virgin Voter, a Soros-funded site apparently intended to sexualize the idea of elections in order to, um, stimulate turnout among younger voters.

So, without further ado, an eclectic guide to the Moldovan internet:

Website of the Moldovan Democratic Party (PDM) - note the rose logo, an apparent attempt to draw a parallel with Georgia's "Rose Revolution." I can't get the link promising an English-language version to work.

Website of the Moldovan Communist Party (PKRM), the party of President Voronin. No roses here.

Political headlines and articles (in English!) from Moldova Azi (Moldova Today) - "Your Country on the Internet."

A more general news site/portal - Moldova Cyber Community - also in English.

A full list of Moldovan political parties in English, with links to their websites and information on each party.

Another website "all about the parliamentary elections in Moldova."

Human Rights Watch's Moldova page (I confess that I took the title for this post from a long-ago published HRW pamphlet that I was able to order through Amazon but which you can also order on the HRW website).

The article that got me started on this idea:

Putin's Big Blunder, co-authored by Dick Morris, New York Post, Dec 22, 2004

We are picking up the seismic shock from the streets of Kiev in the little nation of Moldova, where we are helping the pro-democracy forces.

This tiny nation, formerly the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova, was once a province of Romania but was given to Moscow in the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939. Nominally independent since the Soviet Union broke up in '91, Moldova has actually been headed by a communist government that would like to go back under Russian hegemony.

Until November, the communists held a comfortable lead in the coming election. A national poll by the International Republican Institute (an international pro-democracy foundation funded by the U.S. Republican Party) found that voters saw Russia as more of a partner than a threat by the lopsided margin of 68 percent to 25 percent.

But now — in the aftermath of the Ukrainian mess — Moldovans are not so sure: They rate Russia favorably as a partner by only 52-38. Now, the polls show that Moldovans want closer relations with the European Union and the United States more than they want to be tied to Moscow.

This increasing feeling of freedom in the former Soviet empire has roiled Putin and his Kremlin cronies. They're relatively mellow in their international comments — but for Russian consumption, they are breathing fire. [...]

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann are political consultants for Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine and for the pro-democracy forces in Moldova.

If Dick Morris is on the side of Moldovan democracy then there is a lot we should be concerned about. At least he will find inexpensive call girls there. In general, it is amazing that the situation in Moldova doesn't get more coverage in the US/Western press, although it never has. This was (back in December) the biggest mention I had seen in some time, and it was in the NY Post?!

One correction to the characterization in this story - Moldova has not been ruled since 1991 by forces friendly to Moscow (this is implied although not directly stated). There was a very anti-Moscow government until 1996 or 1997, as I recall. And, as demonstrated by Yushchenko's overtures to Moscow after his victory, everyone in the region recognizes (or should recognize) that they have to work in partnership with Russia, if for no other reason than because of the natural gas supply issue.

To end this post on a humorous note, I'd like to share the Three Moldovans website - a humorous site set up by a winery, with some examples of classic stereotypes of Moldovans and a great (if you can get it to work) winery-themed flash game.

Must-read!

A couple of days ago I read Tom Bissell's recently published collection of short stories, God Lives in St Petersburg. This is a book that you have to read if you've spent any amount of time in the post-Soviet region in the past 15 years, and the writing is so good that it may be equally appreciated by people who have never left the North American land mass.

Earlier I posted about a review of this book, and now that I've read it I can confirm that the critical acclaim it's received is deserved. This is the kind of short story collection where you reach the end and wish there were more stories.

My only beef with the book, and it's a pretty minor one and something that my guess is the author had nothing to do with, is that the title on the cover is written out as "GOD LIVES IИ ST. PETERSBЦRG." Why it was necessary to "exoticize" the title by adding nonsense Cyrillic characters is beyond me; this is something I would expect to see in a James Bond film, not on a serious work of literature. At least they didn't substitute a "Я" for one of the R's.

Disturbing contact with the Motherland

This parody piece on Slate - the premise is "If William Faulkner were writing on the Bush White House" - is very, very disturbing. An excerpt:

"Hello Georgie," Condi said. "Did you come to see Condi?" Condi rubbed my hair and it tickled.

"Dont go messing up his hair," Dick said. "Hes got a press conference in a few minutes."

Condi wiped some spit on her hand and patted down my hair. Her hand was soft and she smelled like Xerox copies coming right out of the machine. "He looks just fine," Condi said. [...]

"He needs his makeup," Dick said.

"I'll do it," Condi said. She put a little brush on my check and it tickled and I laughed.

Rummy walked into the room. "Jesus, what's he laughing about," Rummy said.

"Dont you pay attention to him, Georgie," Dick said. "They're going to be asking you all about Social Security. You just remember what we talked about."

"He cant remember anything," Rummy said.

I started to holler. Dick's face was red and he looked at Rummy. "I told you to hush up already," Dick said. "Now look what you've gone and done."

"Go and get him Saddam's gun," Condi said. "You know how he likes to hold it."

Dick went to my desk drawer and took out Saddam's gun. He gave it to me, and it was hot in my hands. Rummy pulled the gun away.

"Do you want him carrying a gun into the press conference?" Rummy said. "Cant you think any better than he can?"

Like I said, disturbing. Good thing it's all, um, just a parody...

End of the Line #5 - Юго-Западная

The southern end of the red line - Yugo-Zapadnaya

Another installment in the series where I ride the metro to the end of the line and check out what's going on out there so that you, dear reader, don't have to. Yugo-Zapadnaya is, as the name suggests, in the southwestern part of Moscow, out past Moscow State University and the Luzhniki Sport Complex. All of these photos were taken last Saturday, February 19, between 2 and 3pm.


Stenciled sign on the wall of the underground
street crossing/metro exit, advertising the
location of a stop where one can catch privately
operated buses running to nearby auto and
clothes markets.


A stray dog surveys a snowy field.


Stray dog next to vacant gambling hall and faded ads for Rifle jeans.


Poster advertising the Russian-language version of Mel
Gibson's epic about Jesus - here it's called "Christ's Passions,"
although I guess that's just a matter of translation - next
to a sign advertising a currency exchange.


Pigeons vie for the spot atop the metro sign
as snowboarders and others wait for the bus.


On the platform.


On the platform.

Contact with the motherland - disappointment, not surprise

An interesting clipping from the Feb. 18 issue of USA Today has been making the rounds of several East European weblogs:


What's wrong with this picture? The country labeled on the map as "Slovakia" is actually Slovenia. It's easy to have a field day with this because it echoes the apparently multiple occasions on which President Bush has confused the two countries(the gaffe is mentioned but buried in all three of the linked articles).

We have it on the authority of the Slovak Spectator that this map is not a hoax designed to make Americans look ignorant, it's the real deal.

The fact that this would happen in USA Today - a paper that my high school girlfriend (and editor back in the day at Young DC newspaper) used to always refer to as McPaper, although I'm sure that wasn't her coinage - is disappointing because the paper has such wide circulation, but it's not a surprise because of the paper's generally low production values. If it's any reassurance to my non-US readers, no member of the US intelligentsia (if you're willing to acknowledge such a thing exists) would put much stock in anything they see in USA Today. Not that most of them could find Slovakia on a map, but they might look it up if they were assigned to do a newspaper graphic on it.

Will US bloggers focus on this like they did on the comments made at Davos by CNN's Eason Jordan which eventually got him fired? Is some poor map designer about to get tossed from his cubicle at Gannett headquarters? I doubt it - remember, Jordan's comments were offensive to conservative American bloggers because he impugned the honor of the US military (and I do agree that his throwing assumptions around as fact in a public forum should have been a firing offense), whereas this map boo-boo was just an honest, albeit careless mistake - unfortunately, it's one which has allowed a lot of non-Americans to reinforce their opinion of Americans as self-centered and ignorant of the rest of the world.

Note that USA Today did issue a correction in the issue of the paper immediately following the one in which the incorrect graphic ran (I know this thanks to a helpful comment made by one Owen V. Johnson on the Slovak Spectator article linked to above); however, the online version of the correction does not have the corrected map graphic. Presumably it was there in the print version.

Is that legal?

I was just watching the 10pm news on NTV, and they showed a segment from Chechnya, where a group of Chechen fighters had been apparently defeated in battle by Russian forces. One wounded Chechen remained alive, and they showed video of a Russian officer telling this wounded guy, who was lying on a cot and looked pretty far gone, that he had two choices: he could talk and be taken to a nearby field hospital, or he could keep quiet and go nowhere. As it turned out, according to the reportage, the Chechen talked but subsequently died anyway. I guess I don't know much about the laws of war, but it doesn't seem like that is the sort of treatment of a captured enemy you would want to have broadcast on national television.

In other news tonight, Boris Berezovsky, a.k.a. Platon Elenin (only BAB would go to the trouble of getting his name changed and get it changed so that he's named after Plato) is in Latvia, stirring up controversy by pontificating on the legacy of WWII as well as by continuing to suggest he might move to Ukraine soon after all.

February 23 protests

February 23 used to be Soviet Army Day. Now it is a Russian federal holiday called "Defender of the Fatherland Day," and while it still has considerable significance as a celebration of the military, it's also taken on the role of the male equivalent to March 8th - International Women's Day.

This year, Tverskaya and other downtown streets were closed off not for the parade celebrating the military one might have expected but for numerous groups to come out and demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the government's current course of reforms. I spent some time in the streets today with the disenchanted. Actually, since it was a sunny day, many people looked as if they were having a good time.

The elderly contingent was able to nostalgically remember the Soviet demonstrations of yore; and the many of the younger protesters - especially those demonstratively turned out by the Communists to counter claims that their support is strictly with the elderly population - did not seem to be taking things too seriously, chanting things like "Lenin! Stalin! Che Guevara!" as well as the old chestnut "Lenin! Partiia! Komsomol!" They cut closer to the quick with some other chants, though, such as "Rossia bez Putina!" ("Russia without Putin!") and "Putin vrag naroda!" ("Putin is an enemy of the people!").

The demonstration on Tverskaya, which started shortly after 10am, seemed to be structured with the fringe groups bookending the Communist Party (KPRF). Thus, some of the more crazy anti-Semitic signs came first (although there were many that I saw throughout the day, more than I expected, which was a bit disturbing), as well as a couple of marginal communist-identifying groups - including one that's hijacked the abbreviation the Communists used during the early Soviet period, VKP(B), which at the time stood for All-Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) but now stands for All-Russian Communist Party of the Future - along with a plethora of Russian Orthodox Church symbols focused around a call to free convicted rapist Col. Yuri Budanov.

Then came the KPRF, young and old alike. And then came the National Bolsheviks (NBP), who also chanted "Russia without Putin!" - they seem to think they invented the phrase - but also had more hostile messages such as "Putina - mochit' v sortire!" ("Kill Putin in an outhouse!" - a reference to Putin's infamous remark about Chechen fighters), "Revolution!" and "We hate the government!"

Without further ado, some photos from the day's festivities:


"Lukashenko - keep up the good work!"
Triumfal'naia Square, 10:30am.

Police cordon trailing one of the earlier groups in the procession. Approaching Pushkin Square, 10:45am.

Lone communist ahead of the pack.
Between Triumfal'naia and Pushkin Squares, 11:15am.

The "Red Youth Avangard" movement. Their banner reads, "The authorities are dangerous. To arms!"
Between Triumfal'naia and Pushkin Squares, 11:20am.


"Nats Boly idut!" goes the chant - "The National Bolsheviks are on the march!" Their banner reads "Serve Russia, not Putin." Between Triumfal'naia and Pushkin Squares, 11:45am.


NBP marchers reflected in the window of the Sbarro restaurant on Tverskaya, 11:59am.


The red masses on Tverskaya approaching the Kremlin, 12:05pm.


NBP Marchers in front of the State Duma, 12:20pm.

"Is Putin a fool? No, he's the enemy!" Teatral'naia Square, 12:27pm.

"Putin - out of office!" Teatral'naia Square, with the Bol'shoi Theater in the background, 12:34pm.

A few hours later, the less organized or perhaps simply less popular "right" opposition organized a sparsely attended anti-Chechen-war rally on Lubyanka Square, in front of the famous building housing the Soviet and now Russian security services.


"Putin is killing our freedom - Chechnya, freedom of speech, elections," 4:01pm.


The Lubyanka has seen a lot, but I think "Iron Felix" Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the precursor organization to the KGB, was rolling in his grave as the flags of the Transnational Radical Party and independent Chechnya flapped in the breeze. 4:06pm.


"Moving without Putin," a counter-organization with a name that plays on the name of the pro-government youth group "Moving Together." The smaller sign reads "Putin - terrorist #1," and these young people also had a sign (not pictured) reading "Students are not cannon fodder!" 4:29pm.

Bolshoi Gorod blogger/photographer Nikolai Danilov (a.k.a. Norvezhskii Lesnoi) has an excellent photo essay about today's events that's definitely worth checking out.

Semionovskaia

I got off the train to take a look at the Semionovskaia station on the blue line for the first time, and I thought it was a rather attractive station. Thanks to Artemy Lebedev's Moscow Metro site, I now know that this station used to be called "Stalinskaya." Interesting...


An arriving train.


Waiting (in the background is a monument to the Red Army's heroism in WWII).

Both photos taken around 1pm, February 19, 2005.

The dark side of the metro

Sorry to break my relatively long hiatus with such depressing photos, but the sight of elderly women begging in the metro will not be a new one for anyone who's spent any appreciable time on mass transit in Moscow. I'm the first to admit that all countries have their social problems, homeless, panhandlers, etc., but I find the elderly ladies who are forced to work the street (or metro platform) with their hands out to be a most arresting and disturbing phenomenon that's unique to Russia in my experience.


Park Kul'tury station (ring line)



Kurskaya station (blue line)

(click on the photos to enlarge them)
Both photos taken between 3:20 and 4:00 pm on February 19, 2005.

Dire forecasts

Just after I got done trying to convince an American colleague who works in London that there will not be a financial crisis in Russia in the near future, I boarded the plane back to Moscow and started reading the Moscow Times opinion pages:

Bright People in Senate Will Not Save Kremlin
By Nikolai Petrov, Thursday, February 17, 2005. Page 9.

[...] Political stability now hangs by a thread. This thread is not the president himself but his popularity, constantly slipping of late. The state is rapidly losing its institutions and its legitimacy. And instead of looking for new sources of support, the government keeps destroying the ones it has. Putin continues to rely on the siloviki and law enforcement, who are helpless when large groups of protesters unite. One would think the month of protests would have made this obvious, but no, the Kremlin continues to dig its own grave.

On the other hand, maybe Putin will still have the chance to pull things together thanks to his opponents' utter disorganization:

Opposition Is Still Headless
By Boris Kagarlitsky, Thursday, February 17, 2005. Page 9.

[...] While the spontaneous protests in January scared the authorities, these demonstrations should come as a relief to officials. They proved once again how utterly powerless the opposition is. Opposition leaders can still get people lined up for a march, but they have no clue where to lead them. [...]

I still think the economic fundamentals will prevent a 1998-style crisis from occurring in the coming year, but events may prove me wrong, since investors in Russia are still easily spooked by signs of economic and political instability and may head for the exits en masse with little provocation.

Signs of discontent in the armed forces (the article from Grani.ru is in Russian; this is important enough to translate, but by the time I have a few minutes to do it someone else probably will already have it done) are not encouraging for the regime or for investors who would like to see a stable investment climate at all costs; they should, however, be encouraging to the Kremlin's various opponents. Any experiment at creating Soviet-style rule ultimately fails when the troops refuse to fire on the protesters.

Home sweet home

Sheremetyevo-2 was almost like a dream this morning - first, we got a gate close to the passport control, eliminating the intense walking that sometimes occurs, with everyone racing to not be at the end of the passport control line. Today that line was just long enough to give me time to hastily fill out my immigration card. Then the obligatory staring contest with a silent blonde in the green border guards' uniform as she typed my name and data into some mysterious computer terminal as usual, and then the three resounding stamping sounds which always mean you can breathe a sigh of relief, say "spasibo," and continue on to baggage claim.

Miraculously, the bags from London were already circulating on the carousel, and mine were among the first out. The only hassle was being singled out (they were taking about every second person) to have customs x-ray my bags - naturally, they tried to give me some nonsense about a telescope I was bringing back for a colleague, but they were really just trying to see if I would cave in immediately, which I did not, so I put my bags back on the luggage cart and went on my way. Total time from leaving the plane to getting in the car home: 20 minutes (from 5:35 to 5:55am), which is probably a new record.

Coverage of the political situation here in Thursday's Moscow Times (Aeroflot was considerate enough to bring some copies from Moscow for passengers to read on the way back), though, was dire. More on that later today once I've had a bit of shuteye and after work.

Gems of the web

Bolshoi Gorod's recently launched blog (I heralded its launch here) continues to impress, with great photos of last weekend's protests in Moscow here, here, and here.

I've been meaning to mention two very interesting sites I've come across recently. The first is abandoned.ru (thanks to Veronica at Neeka's Backlog) - photos of abandoned industrial sites in Russia. These can be things of haunting beauty. I dream of bringing back some similar photos from our coming summer vacation in Moldova, which has plenty of abandoned construction sites, mostly residential and office buildings.

The second is the homepage of Vladimir Dinets, a Russian now living in America who has traveled to some of the most interesting places in the world and brought back some outstanding photos and writing. He also has some interesting observations about life in America. For example:

Life of an average American is more controlled than the life of any citizen of Russia, China, or, say, Afghanistan. Teenagers here can't skip school to spend a lazy afternoon in a forest with a girlfriend, because you can't get anywhere without a car, you won't get a license until you are 16, and having sex on public lands is a crime. Your every step is recorded by security cameras, credit card companies, and your neighbors, who would immediately inform the officials if they don't like the way you raise your children or the plants you grow in your backyard.

In most countries, you see European, Australian, even Israeli tourists more often than Americans. One reason, of course, is that most Americans don't have vacations to speak of (just a week or two), so if they ever get abroad, they are limited to the most accessible tourist traps. But even those who can travel don't do it. People here are generally scared of the world, and only go to a few popular places like Florida, Hawaii, or Cancun. Internet access is slowly changing things, but the United States are still a "closed" society.

A bit extreme, but he's definitely on to something.

And finally, I just found an excellent blog that defies categorization and promptly made up a new category for it on the blogroll on the right-hand side of your screen.

I am going to be giving the email-to-blog feature (more exciting for me than for you, I know...) another try tomorrow morning upon arrival at Sheremetyevo, unless the exhaustion of a redeye flight or the customs officials prevent me from doing so.

Arrival at Heathrow

Tie shoelaces. Retrieve carry-on items from overhead compartment. Thank flight crew. Deplane.

Climb steep ramp. Turn left. Proceed along a long, narrow corridor with windows not designed for a view (i.e., placed high in the wall) but still overlooking the runways and “Warning! Asbestos” stickers on the wall. Turn right. Continue down an equally narrow, uphill corridor with no windows, still surrounded by dazed Japanese students who have flown from Tokyo via Moscow. Turn left. Ascend a short escalator. Pit stop. Wonder why there is such a vast array of contraceptives available in the vending machines in the bathroom that's “For arriving passengers only!” Realize that this makes sense. Continue down corridor. Walk fast to pass straggling fellow passengers and therefore get ahead of them in the passport line. Turn right and enter the room with the long, serpantine line (like the one at Dulles - it looks long but it moves fast, and is much better organized than the three to ten separate lines at Sheremetyevo).

Stand in line behind a college kid with a small Dockers satchel and wearing a red baseball cap with “Budweiser” stitched into the back. Figure he's off a flight from the States. Marvel that the guy orchestrating the passport line is the same guy as on previous couple of trips. Play tennis game on cell phone in line to make the time go faster. Listen to fellow passengers' various cell phone conversations. Reach front of line - “seventeen,” says the recognizable guy. Go to counter 17 and present immigration card & passport. Answer the same questions as on the last 10 trips.

Proceed to baggage claim. Give thanks that the time in close proximity to the metal-on-metal screech of some repair procedure is shortened by the fact that the bags from Moscow are already on the carousel. Proceed through the unattended green customs corridor, through the terminal and into the tunnel to the tube.

Descend. Hear the unique and familiar warbling of the rotating banner ads, one of which reminds you that the city you've arrived in, like the city you just left, is making a bid to host the 2012 Olympics. Wonder what the average Londoner or visitor to the city can do to “back the bid” for the Olympics as the signs exhort. Descend further escalators. Give thanks that the moving walkway is working. Buy tube ticket - £3.80 one way?! Definitely more than in the past. Wonder why Blackberry is momentarily not working in the country where it was purchased.

Park self and baggage in train for long ride. Look up and laugh involuntarily, again, at the word crawl repeatedly informing passengers that “This train is for COCKFOSTERS.” Hear many languages. Welcome to London.

[I tried to post this upon arrival using Blogger's email-to-blog feature, but that didn't work out. So I've backdated it with the time when it should have been posted - local time, of course. For authenticity's sake, I have avoided the temptation to add hyperlinks]

Posters

OK, I need something more light-hearted after that last post, then I'll have to go to sleep. The time stamp on here is not some time-difference-distorted time, it's really that late - snowy day pics before the end of the week, I promise! These are two assemblages of posters which I saw in St. Petersburg:


Advertising (L to R, bottom row) live boxing and other martial
arts, a "Music Hall" program, a pop music concert, and a two-day
rave called "Sausage Factory 5."


Looks like "Vagina Monologues" has made it
to SPB, and that no-talent pop star Valery
Meladze (lower left) has a detractor who tried
to paper his eyes over with an ad for something
else. I also like the arrow (upper left) pointing
potential customers to an unlikely pairing of
products - cell phones and auto parts.

Both photos from Liteiny Prospekt near Nevsky,
taken around 2:40pm on February 13, 2005.

Respect

Sometimes I'll want to post about a momentous event but won't feel I have anything more to add than the MSM websites; sometimes something will happen in Moscow (or wherever I am) that I wish I had a good picture of to share. An example of each of these situations happened recently, and luckily in each case I found that others had done a better job of posting than I could have. Hence the title of this post.

The momentous event in question was the day of protests and counterprotests last Saturday, of which I saw nothing in St. Petersburg (mainly because I slept much of the day and was in a banya for a substantial portion of my waking hours). Laurence Jarvik has an interesting eyewitness account of the pro-Putin counterprotest which went right past our apartment on Tverskaya although I wasn't there to see it. The one passage I would take issue with is the following:

The danger, unfortunately, is that the Communists--old, unreconstructed, and openly anti-semitic as well as anti-America--are the only opposition force well-organized enough to take advantage of the situation.

What Russia needs is a "loyal opposition" like those in Western democracies, as a safety valve, a feedback mechanism, and an alternative to yet another bloody revolt in Russia. Reform, not revolution, will be the key to progress here, and to a peaceful country with a growing economy.

The Communist Party (KPRF) may be "old" in several senses - the name's been around for awhile, the stone-faced Gennady Zyuganov sometimes looks like Lenin's mummification specialists have been using him for practice, and their support does come from the elderly - but I don't think the Party is "unreconstructed" (wiser commenters may correct me, but I believe the conventional wisdom on them now is that they are not far to the left of West European Social-Democratic parties), and I think the Rodina Party is much more of a nest of nationalists and far more dangerous in that respect than the KPRF.

As for a Russian political party being anti-American, I don't think that's relevant to Russian voters any more than the GOP's or Democrats' stance on Russia is relevant to most US voters. And these protests, and the current political debate in Russia, are not about America anymore, if they ever really were. If an American wants to consider what's in America's interests, I would say that if we can agree that it's in America's interests for the political debate in Russia to continue (rather than the situation which seems to be getting closer every day, where the Presidential Administration's point of view is the only one in mass circulation), then the KPRF's ability to rally those opposed to the recent changes in social benefits is a positive thing.

As for the "loyal opposition" concept, the KPRF was long considered to be just such a loyal opposition - unfortunately, the current administration (perhaps because it is not "like those in Western democracies) does not seem willing to accept feedback or questioning of the chosen course from anyone with the slightest bit of opposition, "loyal" or otherwise.

I spoke with several people over the weekend who would have identified in the past ten years with the Union of Right Forces (SPS) and its political predecessors, and all of them agreed that it was amazing and frightening that the current situation could make Zyuganov sound reasonable (I heard him on Friday sounding remarkably reasonable at times on Echo of Moscow Radio). However, there was also general agreement that it was a good thing at least someone was able to rally people to make legitimate grievances about the recent reforms known. Unfortunately, SPS, whether due to its leadership's own bumbling or to a government effort to keep them out of the public eye, no longer seems like much of a force. I also spoke with a St. Petersburg cabbie who forecast massive student protests in the spring, when the consequences of students' new lack of exemption from the draft - university students being rounded up for military service - will start to take place, but that's a different story.

Anyway, I digress. What I really wanted to do was thank Mr. Jarvik for posting an eyewitness account of the pro-Putin demonstration that I was not able to see, or, alas, photograph.

As for the second example I mentioned above, there was a brief but mighty blizzard here today - maybe 6 hours of heavy snowfall, and the forecast was for 10 centimeters (about 4 inches) of accumulationn - half the monthly average - which I think was reached. I'll post some of my pictures from today in a bit (unless I fall asleep at the keyboard first), but Veronica at Neeka's Backlog has a picture that evokes the white-out conditions better than any of mine. They even closed at least one of Moscow's airports, a rare event given the lack of risk-averse behavior (or is it the vastly superior pilots?) in civil aviation here.

Even more on Russian blogs

I have expanded the blogroll, especially the Russian-language section. As I've stated before, much of the Russian-language blogosphere appears to be concentrated in the LiveJournal system (known by insiders here as ЖЖ, short for Zhivoi Zhurnal, which means - you guessed it - Live Journal).

I would be interested to hear from anyone about non-LiveJournal sites which are substantive blogs primarily or entirely in Russian. This is not a formal survey or study or anything, I'm just interested in what may be out there - some of the blogs I've added are by people outside of Moscow, which is always interesting, and although the quality is uneven and several of them seem to be of the "by techies, for techies" variety, most are worth checking out at least once.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Liveblogging from Igor Butman's jazz club, Le Club - who knew they had wireless internet?! - where Lorina and I are on a date.

OK, back to the romance...

Greetings from SPB

I just got back from a weekend in St. Petersburg - it was good to get away from Moscow but now it's nice to be back home, even though I'll be getting up to go to work in a mere 9 hours.

Among other things, I found some interesting street art in SPB; stay tuned for more this week as I pick out the best photos and get them uploaded. This one I must share immediately:


Corner of Liteiny Prospekt and Ul. Zhukovskogo, 2:40pm,
Feb. 13, 2005.

Aside from the juxtaposition of cheesy, slick commercialism with rough and not entirely friendly street art (both using one of SPB's many architectural treasure as their canvas), I was pleased to capture the "Just Love Us" tag in between. I saw this tag in several places around SPB and was intrigued - is this a young tagger asking the older generation to just love the kids even though they deface buildings? An adolescent asking the ladies to "just love" him and his friends? A Russian appealing to English-speakers? The possibilities are endless.

From the Motherland - DC sky

OK, I know this is a bit off-topic, but try to forgive me - we've been back in Moscow less than a month and I'm already homesick for DC (not too homesick, but since I'm not usually homesick at all, this is strange). Plus, I have been meaning to post these photos from our trip for a few weeks. Isn't the sky pretty over Washington?


Farmers' and Mechanics' branch of Riggs Bank
(a once venerable and now disgraced Washington
institution, and a former employer of mine)
at Wisconsin Ave. & M St., NW, 3:50pm, Jan. 15, 2005.


13th & W Streets, NW.


Looking north up 12th Place, NW, where I
lived for a year back in the day (1999-2000).


From inside the courtyard of the Harrison Square
townhome development, 12th Place between V & W Sts., NW.

The last three photos are from between 5:15 and 5:20pm on Jan. 14, 2005.

More shadows

Archway off of Malaya Nikitskaya St., 2:15pm, Feb. 10. 2005.

Art

I went for a walk today around lunchtime and found these two murals, if that's even the right thing to call them, adjacent to each other in a courtyard right off of Patriarch's Ponds. They are not visible in their entirety at the moment because of the snow, but I still found them interesting. Do you think they meant "Posse" instead of "Pose"?

Fruits of the post-Soviet period

The relatively large number of English-speaking expats spending time in the post-Soviet space in the 1990's is starting to yield excellent works of fiction by some of those ex-expats. Last weekend's Moscow Times Context section had a review by the author of (one of?) the first books of this sort - Katherine Shonk, author of The Red Passport - of the latest, Tom Bissell's God Lives in St. Petersburg. As has already been noted by Laurence Jarvik in a post on the Argus, this one looks like it will be worth reading for sure. Based on Shonk's review, I've already ordered a copy and can only hope it's as good as billed:

Out of Control
When expatriates crack up abroad, who or what is to blame? It's as much the person as the place in Tom Bissell's collection of stories about Americans traveling through Central Asia.
By Katherine Shonk [...]

When expatriates crack up abroad, who or what is to blame? It's easy to pin an overseas crisis -- whether of faith, conscience or confidence -- on the host nation itself. Exotic locales are breeding grounds for alienation, fear and loneliness; depravity and depression often follow. But expatriates arrive with their own baggage. Reckless as gamblers, idealistic as missionaries (and often one or both by trade), they seek more fulfilling lives in places they don't know very well. No surprise that when they crash, they crash hard.

"God Lives in St. Petersburg," which, despite its title, is set primarily in post-Soviet Central Asia, is populated by expatriates crashing spectacularly. Whether saving souls in Samarkand, documenting war in Afghanistan, or pleasure-tripping in Almaty, American characters stake their claims to salvation, adventure and the spoils that wealthy visitors to poor nations expect as their due. In the process, they retrace the psychological and cultural missteps of the most deluded crusaders and colonialists.

A Peace Corps volunteer in Uzbekistan during the mid-1990s, Bissell returned in 2001 to research the depletion of the Aral Sea. His first book, "Chasing the Sea," was an enthralling, hour-by-hour account of the trip. Bissell's writing conveys a passion for this part of the world and an intense curiosity about the motives of Central Asians and visiting Westerners alike.

The American travelers in "God Lives in St. Petersburg" are multi-faceted, which is to say they are often unlikable. Bandits, soldiers and kidnappers punish them for their carelessness and naivete, and the threat of violence is a constant. "Aral" explains how Amanda Reese, an environmental biologist visiting the Aral Sea as part of a small UN delegation, winds up the captive of a man who may or may not be a government spy. In a risky and satisfying twist, the story's focus switches from petulant Amanda and her arrogant colleagues to characters more worthy of the reader's sympathy.

"Expensive Trips Nowhere" finds New Yorkers Douglas and Jayne in the wilds of Kazakhstan, enduring another of the senseless vacations he has been springing on her since inheriting money from his parents. "Steppe makes strong what is strong ... Makes weak what is weak," cautions war veteran Viktor, their contemptuous Russian guide. Throughout the trek, Douglas, a man who once accidentally broke his wife's arm in a game of touch football, is handed new and bigger opportunities to disappoint her.

Bissell's stories are long and bursting at the seams with clever dialogue, well-sculpted settings and full characters. It is a rare pleasure to find a young writer (Bissell was born in 1974) handcrafting prose with such patient care. Constructed in the tried-and-true shape of a roller coaster, the stories chug to dramatic and emotional peaks, then plunge earthward, leaving the reader shaken and dazzled.

Shaken and dazzled...sort of like the way I always used to feel after brief trips to Russia. After living in Moscow for 3 years (this is now the second time I've lived in this country for such a long time - the first time I was a wee foreign service brat in Leningrad), this place has still not entirely lost its power to shake or dazzle me in ways both positive and negative.

I mentioned to my assistant at work today that I was shocked by the unwillingness of a certain service provider to quickly remedy a situation which they admitted was their fault. She was surprised that I could still be outraged over such a situation after working in this environment for so long. The reason for my outrage, though, is quite simple. There have always been smart and competent people in this country. In recent years, many of them have started operating businesses which demonstrate an understanding of what proper client service is all about. So it's not as though it is impossible to find a good service experience in Russia. Unfortunately, everyone here has such low expectations that they don't force service providers to work harder or better.

This is not just an extended gripe about getting things done in Russia (though I could go off on one of those, I don't think there's enough space here for all I'd have to say); there's a political parallel to be drawn here. Just like many Russians expect that their local plumber will show up drunk as a skunk at 11 in the morning, they expect that their political leaders will be either thieves or dictators, or worst of all a combination of the two. Sadly, I think the current group in power has started to demonstrate the worst of both of those traits. Whereas the Yeltsin "family" may have lined their pockets, at least they didn't try to tell the citizens what to think (OK, except during the 1996 presidential campaign). Obviously this is a rather simplistic parallel that may not actually mean anything, but I think it's worth pondering at least for a moment.

Icicles

By popular demand (OK, one person requested this in a comment to my last post), here are pics of a building I mistakenly thought to be the Vietnamese embassy (since the building next door is their Defense Attache's office), which Veronica of Neeka's Backlog has revealed to be the embassy of an unspecified African nation:






Pretty big icicles, eh?

Shadows

Strolling around in the area between Ostozhenka and Arbat, I took a couple of pictures of a building that I think is the Vietnamese Embassy, an old mansion with lovely if grandiose architecture which had icicle clusters of amazing size dangling from clearly faulty gutters. Then I took a picture of an address sign on the building next door just so that I could remember the street name and ended up liking it better than the icicle photos:


Pomerantsev Pereulok, around 2:30pm, February 5, 2005.

Russia's Gaza?

I have to confess, whenever I hear people talk about Russian critics of the Putin regime being financed by foreign "special services" or taking money from "Soros and the CIA," after briefly considering how paranoid and Soviet such theories sound, I can't help but think of Pavel Felgenhauer. I think it's something about the combination of his consistently anti-Russian-government and pro-US views and the bio line on his articles - "independent defense analyst." I feel a bit ashamed of always making this association, because I doubt there's anything to my suspicion other than a reflexive desire not to see anyone praise America all of the time - that and maybe I've been in Moscow for too long.

In any event, the foregoing silly paragraph notwithstanding, Felgenhauer often has commentary that seems very insightful to me, and I liked his piece in Tuesday's Moscow Times:

Putin Fans Region's Flames
By Pavel Felgenhauer
Moscow Times, Tuesday, February 8, 2005. Issue 3101. Page 11

In 1994, when Russian forces first invaded Chechnya, and in 1999, when we went in again, one of the main official explanations of the costly endeavor was that if left in the hands of separatists and other anti-Russian elements, the conflict in Chechnya would spread like the plague to surrounding regions. Russia would begin to break up just like the Soviet Union did in 1991, as Muslim-populated areas rebelled.

For 10 years, this nightmare scenario of an all-out war across the Caucasus seemed improbable: The Chechens resisted the Russians in a clear-cut national liberation struggle, while other Caucasus groups looked on in apprehension.

The Chechens are the biggest North Caucasus ethnic group and surely the most belligerent. The heads of most other local groups traditionally feared Chechen domination and preferred to deal with the known evil of the Kremlin, rather than fight a bloody war of liberation and find themselves under the Chechens' thumb.

Now the situation is changing dramatically. The local ruling elites still tend to gravitate toward Moscow, but the war is spreading from Chechnya across the entire region. There are almost daily reports of serious clashes in various parts of Dagestan, the republic east of Chechnya populated by a multitude of different ethnic groups. Ingushetia, located west of Chechnya and inhabited by a group closely related to the Chechens, had long been a place of peace, where Russian officers and Chechen fighters would hang out in the same cafe and relax from the nearby war zone. Now, Russians in Ingushetia are constantly clashing with local and Chechen rebels.

Christian Ossetia, west of Ingushetia, has been a bastion of Russian rule in the Caucasus for more than two centuries, but after the bloody attack in Beslan last September, dissatisfaction with Moscow is growing there as well. A steady stream of reports of armed clashes with Muslim extremists is flowing out of Kabardino-Balkaria, the mountainous republic west of Ossetia. There is also unrest in Karachayevo-Cherkessia to the west of Kabardino-Balkaria.
Chechnya is no longer an isolated phenomenon. It is also important to note that it is not Chechen fighters who are moving out to engage pro-Moscow forces on outlying battlefields. Russian officials' reports from Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria note that local non-Chechen fighters are involved.

The Russian response to the spreading Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus has been as heavy-handed as in Chechnya. To engage small groups of fighters, Russian military commanders are using flame-throwers, tanks and armored personal carriers in urban areas. Damage to civilian property is huge, and civilians themselves have been injured.

Moscow's principal response to trouble in the Caucasus since President Vladimir Putin came to power has been to wipe out any resistance without remorse, by virtually any means and without negotiation. Officials apparently hope that steady resolve coupled with unspeakable brutality will terrify Russia's enemies and bring victory.

Brute repression, kidnappings and the extrajudicial murder of suspects have only made things worse. Unemployment in the Northern Caucasus is high, in some places as high as 90 percent. Corruption is rampant, as it is all over today's Russia. The conditions for recruitment of Islamic radicals are almost as good as in Gaza.

Another troubling new feature is that Islamist non-Chechen rebels in recent clashes with Russian-led forces have chosen to fight to the death rather than surrender in totally hopeless circumstances. The main source of this fanaticism is apparently the Russian authorities' inhuman treatment of prisoners. Cases of unexplained death during detention and vicious physical torture are common.

Russia had a chance to find a plausible solution to the Chechen problem by reaching an understanding with moderate secular Chechen nationalists. Now it seems to be too late, and there is not much moderation of any sort left in the Caucasus. The rampant falsification of election results in Chechnya and other Caucasus republics has left Moscow without any serious partner for negotiation, and now elections of local leaders have been abandoned entirely.
Russia still has enough military might to stabilize the situation in the Northern Caucasus, in Abkhazia, in South Ossetia and in Georgia ad infinum. However, we no longer have the power to reap the benefits of the strife we create.

Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst based in Moscow.

The comparison to Gaza is especially chilling now that we've had a few suicide bombings in Moscow. See what I mean about the bio line at the end of the article, though?

Blogging for rubles

I heard this morning on Echo of Moscow Radio - on the EchoNet program, to be exact - that Bol'shoi Gorod magazine has launched the first paid blog (i.e., the blogger gets paid by the publisher) in Russia. In fact, they are pretty much making the blog the front page of their site - here's their press-release and a post from the magazine's editor about this.

Nikolai Danilov, who blogs under the pseudonym Norvezhskii Lesnoi, is the pioneering blogger. Congratulations are certainly in order. This blog could quickly become one of my favorites for two reasons: 1) I liked the old Bol'shoi Gorod, and the new version (the print magazine was recently redesigned) looks to be better, and 2) Lesnoi intersperses his comments with photos, a blogging style that is near and dear to me.

Lesnoi titled the post about this development on his LiveJournal diary (to remain his personal blog) "I sold out" ("Prodalsya"). He later wrote an interesting post about how his commercial and personal blogs will be divided, but not competitive - no doubt an issue faced by just about any blogger who turns professional. (Sorry, English-speakers, these links are all in Russian.)

I wanted to find out who might have been the first professional blogger in the United States (this post suggests it may have been Romenesko), only to learn that Google finds a wealth of sites containing the words "first professional blogger." Aspiring professional bloggers may find this article to be of interest, as well as this site. There's also apparently an organization known as the Professional Bloggers' Association, so I guess this concept is way more widespread than I thought.

Anyway, congratulations to Danilov, a.k.a. Lesnoi, on being the first in Russia.

Rizhskaya Metro Station on Christmas Day, 2004

Photos from in and around the Rizhskaya metro station, site of a deadly suicide bombing last August.


On the platform.


Waiting.
h

Police officer in the vestibule.


Display about metro stations named after cities.


Statue outside of station - in honor of Sputnik (?)


Looking toward the station - note the conspicuous presence
of the Dzhekpot - Jackpot - slot-machine hall.


Passenger with Christmas tree.

All photos taken on December 25, 2004.

"...for those not indifferent to Russia's fate"

I was fortunate to catch most of Monday evening's edition of "Vyorsty" ("Вёрсты"), a political talk show hosted by journalist/author Leonid Mlechin and aired live (a rarity in today's controlled media environment) on the TV-Tsentr (TVC) channel. The show is described on its website as "a program for those not indifferent to Russia's fate."

The topic under discussion was whether the Duma should vote out the government this week. Four Duma deputies - including Vladimir Ryzhkov, who seems like one of the most promising opposition politicians around today - had a lively discussion with much criticism of both the government and of the president.

TVC (their English website is here) is often talked about, along with REN-TV, as a channel that's bucking the current trend of tamer, more Kremlin-friendly informational programming. This channel airs some of the most honest programs (go here for a summary of the station's programming in English) around. These include the late-night news show 25th Hour, which was popularized by the controversial Stanislav Kucher (his coverage of the Beslan crisis was especially noteworthy) until he was removed from that role, and the long-running Postscriptum, hosted by Alexei Pushkov.

[Note - I watched 25th Hour tonight and was surprised to see an interview with a rather tongue-tied analyst named Alexander Zhilin in which he mentioned the presence of NATO-backed forces in Chechnya as though it was a proven fact, although the host - Kucher's successor Il'ya Koloskov - to his credit did seem to be getting after Zhilin about the question of how Russian special forces could really have failed to find people like Maskhadov and Basayev for such a long time.]

The station's management, meanwhile, has claimed that reports of its opposition status are greatly exaggerated by individuals with a commercial interest in rolling back TVC's access to the "Orbita" satellite relay network, which has allowed it to reach a nationwide audience. TVC was originally a Moscow city channel.

Notwithstanding the management's protests it appears the station will not be allowed to keep its broadcast license, which comes up for renewal on May 1 of this year, without a fight. One idea which has been floated about a potential replacement for TVC is a channel - to be called "Derzhava," or "Power" - which would be run by the Russian Orthodox Church. In addition, I recently heard a rumor from a well-informed friend that another contender to take over the third channel slot is the proposed Ministry of Defense channel - to be called "Zvezda," or "Star" (on Jan. 27 of this year, Kommersant apparently broke the news that this network has official blessing by publishing a draft government resolution titled, "With the goal of creating optimal conditions for the patriotic education of Russian citizens...").

The Church and the Ministry of Defense are two of the most corrupt and discredited institutions in Russian society today - the military's trustworthiness ratings in public opinion polls are low, although the ROC's are not particularly low. They also happen to be two of the closest institutions to the Kremlin, which should give them an inside track in the scrum for the broadcast license, so at this point it doesn't seem likely that TVC will exist in its current form in six months. If the church or the generals don't get to take over the frequency, there are at least a couple of oligarchs who would like to pad their empires with it, so whatever happens it seems likely that TVC will soon go the way of TVS, TV-6, and the original NTV. I will be happy if events prove me wrong.

As for what might happen to the third button on people's TV's and the larger impact, it's impossible to see any of the possible outcomes mentioned above as a win for pluralism on the airwaves; in fact, any of those outcomes would represent another victory for those forces in today's Russia who would rather have bad news kept from the TV-viewing masses.

Zachem?

From the Multitran online dictionary:

зачем [phonetically: Zachem] нареч. фразы предложения
общ. why; wherefore; for what; what for?; whereto

From the website Urbandictionary.com:

Tag (definition 1)
Tag; a personal signature, usually vandalism with spraypaint, but can be any graffitti.Tags can take seconds, or can use multiple colors. Two color tags are usually throw ups, may consist of block or bubble lettering. bombs Are usually tri color, while piecing/piece/pieces are always of the upper most complexity. Very large, good use of colors, where they will seem to blend together, or bleed, and burn.

(more US tagger slang here; overly academic treatment of graffiti here)

How are these dictionary entries related? Зачем appears to be the tag of the most prolific graffiti artist in my neighborhood:


Ministry of Internal Affairs press kiosk on Tverskaya at Mamonovsky Pereulok.


In an alley-way off Novy Arbat.

What I like about using this word as a tag is that it takes the question people most often ask about graffiti - why? - and throws it back in people's faces. Or perhaps the word is intended as a cry of anguish from someone who wonders WHY there has to be so much suffering in the world. Like all great art (wrote the blogger, tongue-in-cheekily) every viewer will come away from this with something different, and many interpretations are possible. I have seen this guy's (gal's?) art in so many places that if I stopped to photograph all of them it would become Job No. 3 (after my real job and the blog, which as we've already established is Job No. 2)

I will try to photograph a few more of the better Zachem's next time I take a long walk around downtown Moscow. I'm no international graffiti expert, but there seems to be a relatively vibrant tagging scene in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, if one can judge from some of the artwork posted on the internet.

Comments anyone?