"Putin goes to Pikalyovo"

This is kind of funny. One thing missing from the Reuters report (below) is that the video was apparently put together by LJ blogger Oleg Kozyrev. Oh, and for those of you who missed Putin's Pikalyovo "I'm-a-badass (-especially-when-dealing-with-my-pocket-oligarchs)" show the first time around, of course there is video.

Putin's hard man image targeted by spoof Web song
July 27, 2009

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A spoof song which makes fun of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's hard man image as the savior of Russia's battered economy has been winning fans on the Internet.

Public satire of Putin, who stepped down as president in 2008 to become prime minister, is rare and state media present the former KGB spy as the main figure handling the crisis.

Putin last month publicly humiliated factory owners in the town of Pikalyovo and forced them to reopen their plants after workers protested against unpaid wages.

"Putin, Putin goes to Pikalyovo. Putin, Putin will make it cool for us," the Russian lyrics say as a bearded man in a suit gyrates. "Putin, Putin is quick to do justice. Putin, Putin is our Prime Minister."

The Russian song, set to a popular 1970s Czech tune Jozin z Bazin, has had tens of thousands of clicks on the www.youtube.com website in recent days.

Putin is Russia's most popular politician and his influence has fueled speculation that he could seek to return to the Kremlin in the future.

The spoof song says an election is just around the corner and that the result will be clear to everyone. But the song ends by saying the next Russian president will be the monster who gives his name to the original Czech song.

That very popular song tells the story of a village monster which ate tourists.

"Jozin z Bazin is the people's choice ... oligarchs, miners and even cops know that Jozin z Bazin will be our new president."

The song can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_Ho1H3HmzM

R.I.P., Izmailovo?

Izmailovo, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.

I don't want to believe this is true. I want to believe that while they may have shut down the vast Cherkizovsky market - a bureaucratic cat whose nine lives may have run out - that catered to locals right next door, they won't have the heart to permanently get rid of gingerbread-city stage set of the Izmailovskii Vernissage that reliably lured tourists and expats. Cherkizovsky was an amazing place where, shortly after arriving in Moscow in late 2001, we memorably bought a thick 2 x 3 meter carpet and a 3-liter jar of pickles and then had a hell of a time hauling both items home in one of those oversized "kitaiskie sumki." Some parts of that market were like walking into another country, complete with signage and street food from many time zones east.

It is a shame that Luzhkov and others favoring the reconfiguring of Moscow markets to exclude for'ners have failed to understand that such pockets of other-ness always added to Moscow's richness. And even operating from their xenophobic logic, it makes little sense to shut down the Vernissage, since nearly all of the vendors there were Russian, many of them artists and craftspeople selling their own work.

In any event, although we became more locals than tourists in Moscow, my more personal lament is not for Cherkizovsky but for the kitschy, tourist-oriented "Vernissage" section of the market, the one with paid admission to keep the riffraff out, the one with the mean-looking old drunk and his tragic trained bears just outside the entrance, across the walkway from the Central Asians cranking out cheese samsas using a huge iron vessel. If it's true, this means I will never be able to return to the mother lode of Russian souvenirs and flea-market-style borokhlo, or bric-a-brac.

It seems Moscow is no longer the consumer-oriented paradise of the boom years. Where will I now be able to go to buy vintage cuff links, pre-revolutionary books, fine carpets from the Caucasus, pirated DVDs, fake pashmina shawls, embroidered linen tablecloths, hand-carved chess sets, ratty (and not-so-ratty) fur hats, Soviet-era tourist maps, finely painted wooden eggs, and Chicago Cubs nesting dolls? Where will I now find the many missed opportunities of those past weekends spent at Izmailovo? I remember one in particular, an exhaustive collection of mint-condition Soviet-era bottle labels that filled five or six large albums. I couldn't bring myself even to haggle with the guy when he identified his starting price of 20,000 rubles, but now I wish I had bargained him down to 12 or so and walked away with a piece of graphic design history.

The photo above is from a happier, simpler moment - the day after Christmas, 2004, waiting to be warmed by some usually-good-but-never-great Izmailovo shashlyk. If it's true that the place is gone for good, I guess all I can say is, "Thanks for the memories."

Izmailovsky Market Closed
22 July 2009
The Moscow Times

Moscow authorities on Tuesday closed Izmailovsky Market, a magnet for tourists seeking deals on souvenirs, in a crackdown linked to the closure of nearby Cherkizovsky Market.

The prefect for Moscow’s Eastern Administrative District, where the markets are located, ordered the closure after authorities confiscated 5,843 truckloads of merchandise from Izmailovsky between July 11 and 20 and detained 25 people, including 14 Vietnamese citizens who will be deported, police spokeswoman Zhanna Ozhimina told Interfax.

Ozhimina said more than 150 police officers have been deployed to Izmailovsky to maintain public order as the remaining merchandise is removed.

Izmailovsky, which covers 10 hectares between the towering Izmailovo hotel complex and Izmailovsky Park, has been the place to shop for souvenirs since the 1990s. Its hundreds of stands also offered trinkets, Soviet kitsch, clothing and shashlik.

The market has been the site of two fires in the past four years, including one in March 2005 that killed a woman.

Authorities closed Cherkizovsky Market, located on Izmailovsky’s border, late last month during a smuggling investigation sparked by the seizure of $2 billion in Chinese goods last fall. More than 100 Chinese and Vietnamese traders from Cherkizovsky have been deported this month.

Update July 24: It looks like I may have broken out the black mourning clothes for naught - Rubashov has helpfully commented, adding this news from yesterday's MT:

However, the famous Vernisage, where tourists have shopped for souvenirs since the 1990s, remained open Wednesday. Interfax reported Tuesday that the souvenir market, located in the middle of Izmailovsky, had been closed together with the rest of the market.

Stay tuned, I guess...

Update July 28: A very interesting NYT story on what might be behind the closing of Cherkizovsky:

The trouble in this case was that the market’s owner, Telman Ismailov, who had made billions of dollars as Cherkizovsky evolved from a mere flea market into an industrial-scale distribution hub for Chinese imports during the oil boom, had violated unwritten codes of business conduct that put him at odds with Mr. Putin, according to analysts and Russian news reports.

The market was closed with a flurry of citations of fire code and health violations not unlike the use of environmental allegations to force Royal Dutch Shell to sell a portion of its investment in a Siberian oil field two years ago, or the shutdown of the Yukos oil company with tax claims before that. [...]

“Of course, if you applied the official hygiene, fire and labor codes, it was not done the way it was written,” Arseny Popov, an authority on the Chinese diaspora in Russia with the Russian Academy of Sciences, said of the market’s operations. “But nothing was happening there that wasn’t happening for the past 15 years.”

What was new was Mr. Ismailov’s $1.4 billion investment, using proceeds from the market, into a glittering, five-star resort thousands of miles away in a seemingly unrelated world of luxury on the Turkish seaside. It was called Mardan Palace, after Mr. Ismailov’s father, with 560 rooms, 10 restaurants, 17 bars and a lake-size swimming pool.

Mr. Ismailov, an immigrant from Azerbaijan who survived the sharp-elbowed world of street capitalism in the early 1990s to create the Cherkizovsky empire, threw a lavish series of opening parties in May. Mariah Carey was hired to perform a set and sing “Dreamlover” for Mr. Ismailov and his guests. Monica Bellucci, Sharon Stone and Paris Hilton also attended, the resort’s publicist said. The mayor of Moscow, Yuri M. Luzhkov, cut the ribbon.

It is unclear what about the lavish resort may have set off the regulatory onslaught. The ostentation in time of economic crisis, the investment abroad of profits made in Russia and a move to undermine Mr. Luzhkov, a one-time rival of Mr. Putin’s, have all been suggested in the Russian press. Mr. Ismailov declined to be interviewed about his market’s closing.

But within a week of the Mardan Palace party, the case had reached the ultimate arbiter of the business affairs and lifestyle of the Russian rich: Mr. Putin.

The prime minister broached the matter at a cabinet meeting June 1, leaving little doubt what he had in mind. “The fight is on, but results are few,” Mr Putin said, referring to smuggled goods at the market, according to news reports. “The results in such cases are prison terms. Where are the prison terms?”

Meanwhile, the people likely to suffer the most serious privation as a result of the shutdown of Cherkizovsky are the tens of thousands of migrant laborers who called the place both work and home. The NYT continues:

Mostly, the laborers can do nothing. Bakhodur M. Mirzoyev, a Tajik, squatted outside the market on a recent afternoon. He has been living in Kazan Train Station. “Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, open our containers,” he said. “We want to work.”

Asked why the market closed, Mr. Mirzoyev shrugged. The owner, he said, had built a hotel in Turkey. Now he was left with nothing but “three hungry children in Dushanbe.”

An opinion piece by Alexei Pankin in the MT weighs the "versii" and draws a slightly different, no less interesting, conclusion.

Putvedev's faith-based initiatives

A couple of the hired guns at one of last weekend's pro-gov't counterprotests.
My favorite part is the unrealistically hard-looking image of Dimmovochka.
[image source]

The Russian government has published, on PM Putin's website, a list of "measures undertaken to combat the consequences of the global financial crisis" (the word "crisis" never appears in official pronouncements without the modifier "world" or "global," because as any good United Russia functionary knows, the global financial crisis is called 'global' because it's happening outside of Russia).

But United Russia's supporters - both the ones hired as crowd filler and the ambitious, plum-job-seeking core - seem to be running on faith (to use a phrase immortalized by Eric Clapton).

Witness this by now infamous speech by a United Russia activist at one of last weekend's rallies. The speaker, a young lady named Maria Sergeeva, whose blog identifies her as "The Mashka" and who seems to like to post photos of herself, has helpfully posted a transcript of her remarks here. Here's my translation of the most testifyin' part of her performance (she even identifies her holy trinity!):

It's no secret: in Russia today there are forces which are trying to blame Putin, Medvedev and United Russia for our temporary difficuties. These forces are like a dangerous virus - as soon as they sense a weakening of our immune system, they'll attack.

But let's be honest with ourselves. Take me, for instance, a student who pays full tuition. In 1998 I wouldn't have known what to do. And now I don't just believe. I know for certain that Putin, Medvedev and the United Russia party will protect me. They'll give me the chance to take out a student loan at a rate of five percent, not 55 percent. They'll give me a job. They won't allow me to be fired illegally.

That post drew over 4,000 comments, many of them critical, compelling Ms. Sergeeva to write a rambling rebuttal castigating the "two-legged cockroaches on LiveJournal" and "parasites," and even deploying against her critics United Russia's rhetorical WMD - a quotation from the ideological architect of "sovereign democracy" himself, Vladislav Surkov - but (in case we forgot it was all about her) taking the first two paragraphs to marvel at her newfound fame. She sort of has elements of a Russian Sarah Palin - spunky and down-to-earth, but also self-contradictory and determinedly dim-witted, and not really ready for prime time.

It turns out that Ms. Sergeeva is not only a YouTube celebrity of sorts - an irony-free and more heavily managed version of Obama Girl, except without, you know, the singing - she is also a member of the political council of the Young Guards (United Russia's youth wing, usually abbreviated as MGER) and a videoblogger on United Russia's website, where the section devoted to blogs is wittily titled "Berloga" (which means "bear's den," but also happens to be spelled by inserting the initials of United Russia - ER, in Russian - after the "B" in "blog" - how punny!).

Based on her apparent inability to memorize even a few sentences of her monologues, and assuming the MGERovtsy are supposed to be a breeding ground for future Russian political elites, there really will be problems finding qualified leadership among the younger generation. Youth wings of political parties - especially parties with no opposition - are of course populated by careerist hacks to some degree in all countries, but this young lady takes self-absorbed hackdom to another level.

Anyway, here is a rather more articulate analysis of why Putin remains popular even in the face of an economic situation that seems to get more calamitous every week. The English translation is from the JRL, the original article in Russian is here.

Putin's Stable Popular Support Based on Cultural Closeness, Not Results

Gazeta.ru
January 29, 2009
Commentary by Boris Tumanov: "People Like Putin"

Despite all the crises,tragedies, disasters, and disorders, the citizens of Russia are not disillusioned with Putin because he is a symbol and the personification of themselves.

The global economic crisis with its still unknown outcome has already caused a marked intellectual revival in that segment of Russian society that can tentatively be called the thinking part of our elite. The general catalyst of this process is the expectation of sociopolitical cataclysms.

Russian thinkers who belong to the "vertical hierarchy of power" consider this perspective as a threat to their own well-being and seriously hope to avert it with the help the non-existent middle class and the traditionally obedient "tin soldiers,"' who are already being pushed into manifestations of loyalty. And their freedom-loving opponents believe just as sincerely that the coming upheavals will be a factor in the inevitable liberal transformations in the sociopolitical life of Russia.



However, in the former case it is nothing more than a helpless simulation of their own professional suitability, while in the latter it is an equally nonsensical, equally pretentious attempt at Cartesian analysis of the inscrutable instincts of Russian society.

As Solovyev's Khodzha Nasreddin would say in such circumstances, "Oh jinnis, you are searching where it is not hidden." For the main, if not the only, effective factor capable of determining the state of Russia in the foreseeable future is that almost symbiotic unity that exists between the largest part of Russian society and the person of the "national leader" known as Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

This unity could not be shaken by the tragedies of the Kursk, Nord-Ost, and Beslan, the administrative tyranny of "sovereign democracy," "Basmannyy justice," or the rumors of the "national leader's" fabulous personal wealth just as it cannot be shaken by the current growth in unemployment, inflation, devaluation of the ruble, the disintegration of mortgages, or even the coming deprivations.

Here are figures that thoroughly illustrate this assertion. According to the findings of the Levada Center, in September of last year an overwhelming majority of Russian citizens polled --61% -- thought that things were moving in the right direction in Russia and only 21% of the respondents thought that the country was taking a wrong path. The short war in Georgia played a part here, of course, but even today a majority of Russia's citizens believe that things are going well in the country. In December 2008 and January of this year their number remained constant at 43% while the number of pessimists dropped from 40% to 34%.

Last September also marked the peak of positive assessments of the activities of the government headed by Vladimir Putin, 66% against 31%. But in December 2008 and January of this yeart hese figures were 60% and 36%, and 58% and 38% respectively.

But then the activities ofVladimir Putin personally in the job of premier are evaluated by Russian citizens using some different system of coordinates and criteria, if we judge by the fact that in December 2008 and January 2009 he was consistently approved by 83% of those polled, while the number who were dissatisfied with his activities declined from 15% in December to 14% in January. We will add that the peak of approval of Putin's activities, 88%, came in that same victorious September.

Remarking this phenomenon, both the liberals and the state-minded thinkers -- the one in vexation, the other with chauvinistic satisfaction -- explain it by essentially the same factor, which is indeed the main, although not the only, factor in "Putinomania." For some this factor is formulated as the patriarchal inertia of Russian society, the result of many centuries of slavery, while the others see it as a manifestation of sovereign Russian uniqueness expressed in communality, spirituality, and patriotic unity with the government. At the same time the most inquisitive opponents of Putin become lost guessing about what kind of mistakes and blunders he would have to make or what "Egyptian plagues" would have to overtake Russia under his leadership to disillusion the majority of Russian citizens who love him.

It would be simplest to answer this question by saying that Vladimir Vladimirovich can do anything he wants, practically without risk to his popularity rating. But such an answer, even if it corresponds to reality, demands convincing explanation, or rather a detailed investigation of the genesis of the "national leader's" unprecedented popularity. Russia's leaders and Vladimir Putin personally are absolutely right when they say that the main reason for the current crisis was their responsible consumption of the West, above all the United States. But afterall, it was this very mindless consumption that caused the manna from heaven that poured down on Russia in recent years in the form of incredibly fast-rising oil prices.

And if we take an unbiased look at the results of these "seven fat years," those who sincerely care for the real interests of Russia and its citizens could register serious charges against the Russian leadership and Vladimir Putin himself regarding how they managed the wealth that Russia enjoyed.

Instead of fighting corruption, instead of effective army reform, instead of development and diversification of domestic production, instead of building up still restless provincial Russia, they worked on strengthening the vertical hierarchy of power, which guarantees them practically lifetime terms of office. And after setting their intention as restoring Russia's stature on a global scale, the Russian ruling elite managed to quarrel with almost all of their Western partners; indeed they have found themselves in virtual isolation. Beginning with Vladimir Putin's Munich speech and up to the recent gas war with Ukraine, Russia has stubbornly destroyed its own international reputation and pushed away not just Europe and the United States, but also our neighbors in the CIS.

If Russian society were consciously striving to assume responsibility for the fate of the country or, at a minimum, if it were capable of an independent evaluation of the government's actions, its reaction to such behavior by the government would be much less equable. But civic responsibility presupposes a search for alternatives, which requires intellectual and psychological exertion, and the citizens of Russia will not be ready for that for a long time. Not just because the few opponents of the government are incapable of formulating an intelligible alternative to the current course, but above all because of the traditional and almost panicky fear that Russian society will be deprived of its paternalistic oversight by the state. That is why Russian citizens do not try to look carefully at the mechanisms of control over the state, the economy, and society, preferring to rely on the omniscience of the tsar, great leader, or national leader who by definition cannot answer for the mistakes of the ordinary mortals under him.

But in Putin's case there is one substantive aspect that prevents us from viewing the universal trust of him exclusively in the framework of the fatalistic formula: "Good tsar but his boyars are indifferent." For unlike the tsars who are "ordained from above" and the general secretaries, the citizens of Russia are convinced that Putin took charge of Russia as the result of their own will, not Divine Providence or a decision of the Politburo. And the fact that they chose him the way they choose the best fellow in the village (athlete, does not smoke, likeable, went into intelligence work) only emphasizes that from the beginning this choice did not presuppose any political responsibility of Putin to the voters. That is why, from the standpoint of the citizens of Russia, Putin does not have to answer for the activities of his own government, for the results of his own term in office.

They do not judge Putin because for society he is not functional. He is a symbol. He is the personification of the Russian citizens themselves; they identify themselves with him. And this is perhaps the first case in Russian history when the purely reflexive worship by the Russian masses of the latest domestic divinity is tinged with a sincere feeling of solid affection for him.

Affection that is linked not with his political and economic decisions, but rather with the fact that his worldview, hopes, and complexes are indistinguishable from those of the average Russian citizen.

It is the diehard fastidious intelligentsia who may be horrified at the vulgar language that Vladimir Putin uses with emphatic pleasure in his public statements, and especially in contacts with Western politicians and journalists. It is the numerous snobs who are amused at the former president's almost childish liking for dressing up as a submariner, a fighter pilot, or showing off his torso, and his way, plainly seen at Kennebunkport, of imposing the company of his Labrador Koni on his foreign guests. It is the liberal analysts, who are becoming extinct, who see in his aggressive megalomania in relation to the West echoes of the old humiliation felt by the future national leader when he discovered that Germany, even though it was socialist, was able, unlike the USSR, not only to produce an adequate amount of beer, but also to bottle it in three-liter bottles with a convenient spigot. And they are malicious skeptics who blasphemously mock the apocryphal tale that during his entire KGB career Vladimir Putin, surrounded by militant and vigilant atheists, never parted with the cross around his neck and his belief in the Almighty, risking exposure at the first physical training exercise.

On the other hand, a majority of Russian society is in complete solidarity with these behavior traits of the national leader because they fully coincide with the social culture of the Russian citizens themselves, with their ideas about the outside world and their complaints about the rest of the human race.

Well then, if we add to these feelings the easy material well-being that coincided with Vladimir Vladimirovich's term of office for a significant part of the society, which continues to believe furiously in the return of the "rivers of gas and banks of oil," we can say with certainty that Putin is going to last a long time.

And, incidentally, so is today's Russia.

Smacking the extended hand

[image source]

See below for further evidence that Putin lacks either the ability or (more likely) the inclination to play well with others. Although Lenta convincingly argues that Putin was misquoted on the "limited mental capacity" part (though not the preceding comments), the fact remains that VVP seems unable to get past the fact that admitting Russia's IT sector might be able to use Dell's help to develop does not mean that Russians - or their IT specialists, who are indeed some of the best in the world - are "invalids."

As I've pointed out in the past, the only people who suffer when Putin rejects offers of assistance from abroad are Russian citizens. I doubt the inflated sense of patriotism which some of them derive from Putin's displays of attitude will compensate in the long run for the opportunities many of them have missed out on thanks to a government that wants to be the only benefactor its people know.

After so many years of watching him, it's hard to be surprised at such a stupidly cocky comment, but it's still jarring:

Putin-Dell slapdown at Davos

The Russian prime minister tells the Dell CEO: 'We don't need help. We are not invalids.'

By Peter Gumbel, Europe editor
January 28, 2009: 2:34 PM ET

DAVOS, Switzerland (Fortune) -- Ever since Vladimir Putin rose to power in 2000, his political opponents and entire countries have learned to their cost that he has a tough, demeaning streak. Wednesday it was Michael Dell's turn.

At the official opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Putin, now Russian Prime Minister, delivered a 40-minute speech touching on everything from why the dollar should not be the sole reserve currency to how the world needed to enter into a smart energy partnership with Russia. Then it was time for questions. First up: Dell. He praised Russia's technical and scientific prowess, and then asked: "How can we help" you to expand IT in Russia.

Big mistake. Russia has been allergic to offers of aid from the West ever since hundreds of overpaid consultants arrived in Moscow after the collapse of Communism, in 1991, and proceeded to hand out an array of advice that proved, at times, useless or dangerous.

Putin's withering reply to Dell: "We don't need help. We are not invalids. We don't have limited mental capacity." The slapdown took many of the people in the audience by surprise. Putin then went on to outline some of the steps the Russian government has taken to wire up the country, including remote villages in Siberia. And, in a final dig at Dell, he talked about how Russian scientists were rightly respected not for their hardware, but for their software. The implication: Any old fool can build a PC outfit.

Another worthwhile clipping

From today's JRL (original article in Russian is here) - Furman's analysis of the near abroad is always worth a close read:

Nezavisimaya Gazeta
January 21, 2009
Article by Dmitriy Furman: "The Policy of the Siamese Twins"

We do not have separation of powers or even a diarchy. We have highly hampered powers.

Another scandal has broken out in the European home. Everyone lives in tranquility in this home and everyone is friendly to some extent. Wailing can always be heard near the eastern entrance, however. Many people live on this side of the building, but when the shouts are heard, everyone knows it is not Ukraine bickering with Belarus, not Latvia fighting with Lithuania, and not even Armenia arguing with Azerbaijan (they were at war and they still "do not say hello to each other," but they do not start any scandals either). It is Russia "getting up off its knees" and fighting with one of its neighbors.

We Rail Against the Social Order

This happens for a variety of reasons -- because Estonia moved the Bronze Soldier, because we do not like Moldovan wine, because we support the separatists in Georgia, and certainly because of the prices of the gas we deliver and the transit fees for this gas. We are more or less accustomed to gas controversies, but this time the scandal acquired colossal dimensions, affected all of the people in the building, and is being discussed in every household.

The argument that these scandals are neurotic in nature and give Russia exactly what it does not want (the anger of its neighbors, who dream of being less dependent on it and having less to do with it in general, and the Western countries' treatment of it as a "problem state," with which "something has to be done") is self-evident. The connection between this policy (if it can be described as such) and the evolution of our social order is also quite obvious. On the one hand, our order is the main cause of our isolation and the reason for the impossibility of our integration into the alliances of the developed democratic countries and for the danger of the expansion of these alliances. On the other, the disappearance of the opposition in our country and the total unanimity of our main media outlets are a sign of the atrophy of critical thinking, which can restrain neurotic impulses and correct behavior. All of this is understandable, but something else is less understandable: the reason that our conflicts with our neighbors acquired this unprecedented intensity after Putin left office as the president.


First, Second, Third

The fundamental outlines of our foreign policy, just as the fundamental outlines of our sociopolitical system, took shape before Putin took office. Putin's personal mindset (we can recall his image of the boy walking toward a hostile group, clutching a piece of candy in his "sweaty fist," hoping to exchange it for something better but knowing it might be taken away from him instead) and his professional habits were ideally suited to our public thinking and those established outlines. Our second president strengthened and thoroughly developed everything that was put in place when the first president was in office. The futility of that policy, in which we were driving ourselves into a corner, was already fairly obvious after Putin took office. Furthermore, there was a sense that Putin's increasing anxiety and irritability toward the end of his term were connected with his vague awareness of that futility, and his decision to leave office was due partly to his realization that the next stage of development would require a different person, someone with a different mindset and a different image. It was no coincidence, of course, that when Putin named his successor, it turned out to be a man who was of the same stature (which evidently was extremely important), but did not have the same social origins and the same mindset. He was not as stiff, he was not at all neurotic, and he had some righteous and liberal tendencies. There was every reason to expect the new president to make some "corrections" in the policy line.

In democratic systems, the opposition waits for each mistake the government makes, exaggerates it, and strives not to be ignored. The government, knowing that elections are on the way, strives to avoid mistakes and has to listen to criticism and take it into consideration. If it is unable to adjust its policy line, it ceases to be the government and someone else makes the adjustments instead. The system of democratic rotation is a mechanism built into the society for the constant adjustment of the policy line and the correction of mistakes.

This mechanism does not exist in undemocratic systems. Even in these systems, however, the policy line is periodically adjusted. In tsarist Russia, each new tsar made some changes in policy. The new tsar was the new man in charge, he could look at policy from a new standpoint, and he had no reason to stubbornly defend the obvious mistakes of his predecessor. After all, they were not his mistakes. This also happened in the Soviet era. As soon as Stalin died, his successors ended the futile Korean war, and the thaw began soon afterward. Why did the change of presidents in today's Russia not lead to policy adjustments? Why did it actually intensify its most dangerous aspects instead? Why did we start moving more quickly toward an impasse instead of trying to avoid it?

Side Effects

We have already caused ourselves colossal damage in the two conflicts of the "early Medvedev era." As a result of the Georgian conflict, Georgia, under any president whatsoever, will be Russia's enemy for many decades, and we do not have the slightest idea of what should be done about Abkhazia and South Ossetia (which even Belarus has chosen not to recognize). As a result of the gas conflict with Ukraine, we not only lost our good reputation (although these fine points are no longer relevant here), but also lost billions of dollars and will lose tens of billions more in the future-- an amount many times the sum we ever could have gained from Ukraine. We abruptly intensified our isolation tenfold. We strengthened the tendency toward European integration, which is something we did not need at all, because it is more convenient for us to take advantage of the conflicting interests of various European countries. The gas conflict also revealed the surprising inertia and ungainliness of our policy line. It is obvious that the conflict did not have to happen. The agreement Putin and Tymoshenko recently reached could have been concluded in December. When it became completely obvious that it was time to end the conflict, when Europe was freezing and moaning, we could have concluded the agreement and turned the gas back on in a day or two, but this is the third week that nothing has been done.

I think the reason for the intensification of our propensity for conflicts and our sluggishness is the highly peculiar situation of the tandem Putin created. Putin decided to abide by the Constitution and give up the presidency. But he could not give up his power, as Yeltsin did, and he chose to become the prime minister. It would have been psychologically difficult and even dangerous for a man as young and healthy as Putin to give up all of his power. Besides this, Putin probably thought he could consolidate the government, help the young president, and guarantee the continuity of policy by taking office as the prime minister. He attained his goals, but the attainment of any goal often has unforeseen side effects. By changing offices, Putin created a situation hampering his friend and successor, himself, and our entire political mechanism.

We now have a president who was chosen by his prime minister, and the removal of this man from office would be incredibly difficult for the president in the psychological and political sense. By the same token, even if the prime minister regrets his choice, he has virtually no chance (at least until 2012) of getting rid of the president he chose. Our ruling tandem is "fused together by a single goal" and is even something like a set of Siamese twins, and any operation to separate the two would be extremely dangerous and frightening to both of them and to our entire political system.

There is no doubt whatsoever that our rulers are friends and that Putin chose a man he trusts more than anyone else as his successor. There are certain situations that objectively breed conflict, however, and they are stronger than we are. We must not think, for example, that the members of the Stalinist Central Committee Presidium "made a mistake" when they elected Khrushchev, or that Khrushchev was a villain, planning from the very start to destroy the people who had put their trust in him and with whom he had shared whole barrels of wine at Stalin's dacha. It is just that all of them were in a situation in which conflict was inevitable, and Khrushchev's victory was the highly probable outcome. The same can be said of many historical conflicts between friends and colleagues -- from the conflicts between the Roman triumvirs to Yeltsin's conflict with Rutskoy and Khasbulatov.

Trapped by Each Other

Putin and Medvedev are friends, but they have ended up in a situation which is objectively uncomfortable, painful, and conflict-prone. It is a situation in which neither can make a single move freely, because the people around them are waiting with a sinking heart for any sign of real or imaginary disagreements between the rulers, and any sign of disapproval of one partner in the tandem could give rise to an extremely painful conflict with unpredictable results and to overall destabilization, which both men dread. Putin and Medvedev are very different people, and there are signs of their differences of opinion, if not disagreements. Medvedev may have said it was wrong to "create nightmares for business" at the very time that Putin was "creating nightmares" for Mechel, for example, and Medvedev even expressed his dissatisfaction with the excessively bureaucratized government recently. These statements probably were not meant to send any particular message, however. At a time when the president's decision truly could have sent this kind of message, Medvedev, who obviously is not an evil man, nevertheless did not pardon Svetlana Bakhmina.

Any attempt at the adjustment of the policy line would be extremely difficult and dangerous in this situation. If Putin had simply gone away, as Yeltsin did, Medvedev could have made some changes in our policy and could have blamed various difficulties on the burdensome legacy he had inherited, as Putin had done earlier and Yeltsin had done before him (every president inherits a burdensome legacy). He cannot do any of this, however, because Putin did not go away. If the prime minister had not been Putin, Medvedev could have sent him packing and then gone on to make some changes in policy and to blame everything on the man he fired. But Putin cannot be removed from office! If, on the other hand, Putin had stayed in the president's office, there would have been less chance of policy adjustments, but they nevertheless would exist. It is difficult to admit one's own mistakes, especially for a man who only hears words of praise and support from every direction. It is possible, however. Now there is no possibility of this being done by Medvedev or by Putin.

The present situation is not a lawful democratic case of the separation of powers or even a case of diarchy. This is a case of severely hampered powers. Medvedev cannot be a normal, fully empowered president as long as Putin is the prime minister. Putin, a man who was just recently referred to as the national leader and whose face was on the T-shirts handed out to Nashi members, cannot be a normal prime minister, modestly working on the crisis-ridden economy and waiting to be dismissed. They are fused together. Siamese twins have to synchronize their moves. They have to move together along an appointed route, not deviating from it in any way. It is logical that the leading member of the tandem is Putin, if only because all of the current conflicts are continuations of conflicts that existed when he was the president. He has already mastered the proper reactions and he is more familiar with our common route leading to an impasse.

The gas conflict could have been resolved quickly. If Medvedev had done this, however, it would have signified indirect criticism of Putin. Some people would have been certain to say that Putin raised Russia up off its knees, but Medvedev is a weak man who makes concessions. Others would have said that Putin led us into a blind alley and Medvedev had led us out of it. If, on the other hand, Putin had done this himself, it would have been an admission of his own mistakes. Theoretically, this would have been possible for President Putin, but it is not something Prime Minister Putin can do. As a result, the conflict acquired unprecedented dimensions, and a problem that could have been solved in a day at a loss of a few billion is now taking weeks to solve at a loss of tens of billions.

Our ship of state is sailing in an unknown direction. Neither Putin nor Medvedev knows where they are sending it. Of course, even in the absence of a distinct route, the captain of a ship can change course if he sees reefs. If, on the other hand, there are two captains and they are Siamese twins, their reactions are slowed down and they lose control of the ship. The storm of the crisis is ahead. The losses we incurred during the gas crisis as a result of this loss of control are only the beginning.

Vedomosti Vid on the Russian budget

An interesting, though not particularly in-depth, report into Russia's budgeting woes - apparently the official budget for 2009 contemplated an average oil price of $95/bbl, with the worst-case scenario pegged to $50/bbl. Even that now seems like it may be unrealistically high, as Kazakhstan, for example, recalculated its budget based on a $40/bbl assumption last fall and (according to this video) is now using an estimate of $30/bbl for 2009.

The Russian government is trying to figure out how (or how far) to revise the oil price forecast downward, but may not formally revise the budget. The presenter notes that this difficult decision will ultimately be up to Putin and concludes that Russia may have two budgets this year - a magical one and a real one.

Wordle breaks down "tandemocracy"

Now that Andy has introduced us to the wonders of Wordle, I figured I had to apply this fun tool to try to go at the differences between the members of Russia's current "duumvirate," or whatever you want to call it, amateur-Kremlinologist-style. Let's see what a word cloud based on the news feed from Putin's premier.gov.ru vanity site looks like:
The weighty abbreviation for "billions" takes pride of place, "dollars" is not far behind, and VVP's cloud is full of action verbs and meaty nouns.

Now let's compare the word cloud based on the RSS feed of Medvedev's speeches (granted, not a perfect comparison, because Medvedev is not referred to in the third person in any of these items as Putin is in some of the items used to form his word cloud)
Can you feel the difference? It looks like Medvedev really is more of a fluffy teddy bear, giving substantial weight to "cooperation" and talking a lot about being "happy." Obviously it would be foolish to give any weight to this overall, but I'll allow myself a moment of optimism that both Medvedev and his new counterpart in the White House will at least try to "think cooperation."

"For Putin," once again...

I first reported on the online For Putin (Za Putina) movement last year. At the time, it was an amorphous initiative which seemed at first to be aimed at encouraging Putin to stick around for a third term. It ended up doing nothing more than providing another platform for Russia.ru videos and, one supposes, a bit of assistance with online PR during the election cycle and presidential transition.

As with all such websites, one might just as easily conclude that it was set up in order to attract Kremlin or campaign funds (if there was any difference between the two) to web design companies affiliated with its organizers or to demonstrate the zealousness of their support for the correct political line.

Now, ITAR-TASS reports the following (via JRL):

Nationwide Movement 'For Putin' Flings Doors Open

MOSCOW, November 18 (Itar-Tass) - The all- Russia movement "For Putin" is opening public offices in all regions of the Russian Federation to improve the population's competence in matters of law, Co-chairman of the public movement. Lawyer Pavel Astakhov declared at a forum " In Support of Vladimir Putin's Course."

The public offices will provide juridical consultations to the population to improve their knowledge of law, Astakhov said. Such offices will be affiliated to Vladimir Putin' public reception rooms in regions, the lawyer added. Such public offices are needed as much as ever now because the population is concerned over the world financial crisis and consequences it might entail for the Russian economy, Astakhov said.

The Movement " For Putin" created a year ago fully supports the present course "Strategy-2020" and the initiatives voiced by President Dmitry Medvedev in his State of the Nation address to the Federal Assembly, Astakhov said.

Initiative groups in support of Vladimir Putin met in the city of Tver last November and organized a public movement "For Putin". Representatives from 80 regions, where meetings had been held in support of Vladimir Putin's course, attended the meeting. They elected a ten-strong Coordination Council that represents all the federal districts of the Russian Federation. Lawyer Pavel Astakhov, surgeon Renat Akchurin and Head of the trade union of workers of the agrarian -industrial sector Natalia Agapova were elected co- chairmen of the Coordination Council of the movement " For Putin".

At the moment, the news feed on Zaputina.ru hasn't been updated to reflect the new initiative. My first thought is that, although Putin did attend university at LGU's law faculty, it's odd that he would become the public face of what seems to be some sort of nascent legal aid movement. After all, Medvedev was a practicing lawyer for much longer. Anyway, perhaps this is a meaningless bit of non-news, but it was an item that caught my attention.

As a side note, Astakhov, a real lawyer who studied first at the KGB's higher school and later at Pitt Law, achieved notoriety for his involvement in the defense of accused spy Edmond Pope and as a lawyer for NTV during its last days under Gusinsky. He has found widespread fame in Russia as a TV lawyer and was one of the people associated with the ZaPutina website when it was launched in November 2007. An interview with Astakhov on his own website (as in many interviews of this genre, the interviewer is not identified and the responses appear to have been carefully drafted) contains a passage, in which he essentially embraces being called a "careerist." He does seem to have made a seamless jump from defending the '90s-era oligarchy to promoting Putin's course, although in this he has much in common with many Russian political pundits.

His "Hour of Trial with Pavel Astakhov" TV show already apparently provides free legal services to the public (see page 5 of this pdf), so perhaps for him this is an extension of a personal project under the Presidential Prime Ministerial banner.

As another side note, the site that went live last year (which, one can assume, will be rolled out once more if Astakhov's statement is more than a flash in the pan and "Za Putina" returns to the public eye) is not the first iteration of an online movement unabashedly "For Putin." The website's earlier incarnation, which looked virtually the same from its launch in March 2005 through the beginning of November 2007 (shortly after which the new, improved ZaPutina 2.0 was rolled out), has been preserved by the good people at archive.org. Archive.org's "Wayback Machine" is an extremely useful resource for sifting through the dirt of Russian politics as it appeared on the internet for the past 10 years or so.

Cause and effect, a.k.a. "диктатура закона"

Cause:

"Mechel was selling steel in Russia at twice the price it put on exports," Putin said in televised comments. "And where has the margin for the state taxes gone?"

Mechel's owner, billionaire Igor Zyuzin, was reportedly ill and not present at the meeting to hear Putin's threat.

"The director has been invited, and he suddenly became ill,'' Putin said. "Of course, illness is illness, but I think he should get well as soon as possible. Otherwise, we will have to send him a doctor and clean up all the problems." [...]

"I'm asking the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service to pay special attention to the problem -- and maybe even the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office."

Watch the video. As one of the commenters at drugoi's post on this topic noted, it's not just the words, it's the intonation - and, I would add, the gestures. And the swift official follow-up. No doubt "А маржа где?" will soon become a catchphrase in Moscow OCG and high finance circles alike.


Effect:

[source]

More narrative on the fallout here, here and here. No doubt someone made a bundle. Talk about bread and circuses.

Platon's plaudit for Putin portrait

[image source]

The head shot of Vladimir Putin looking ice-cold that graced the cover of Time's "Man of the Year" issue last year - not to mention the photo inside that had Putin looking like a cross between a tsar' and a godfather - caused quite a stir (earlier SoM posts about the issue are here and here) and had many people wondering how the photographer was able to get such shots of the Russian president. Now that photog, who goes by the name Platon, has won a World Press Photo award for the picture. As it turns out, there is indeed a fairly interesting story surrounding the photo.

You can listen to an interview with Platon in which he tells the tale of how he got the shot on the World Press Photo award website (click on 2008 and then the thumbnail of VVP) - the tale has been noted by at least a couple of photography-focused blogs as worth a listen, and I second that impression. I haven't seen a transcript anywhere, or I'd paste in some of the more interesting bits, but again, the whole thing is worth listening to.

Sofia Kornienko of Radio Svoboda interviewed Platon (as well as Stanley Green, who is famous as a photo-chronicler of Chechnya) and also got some fairly interesting comments about the Putin photo. Her own comments about the impact of the Putin "Man of the Year" issue are also quite interesting, although some of her conclusions strike me as perhaps a bit exaggerated. I decided to translate a portion of the interview (n.b. presumably an original English-language text of this interview exists somewhere, but I couldn't find it online; there are likely to be substantial differences between the original and my somewhat stilted re-translation back into English - as always here at Scraps of Moscow, you get what you pay for):

Platon: [the first part of the interview tracks closely with the story told by Platon in the audio interview linked above - Kornienko identifies Platon as a "fan of tall tales"] Then Putin came into the room, and I think he felt sorry for me. I was all sweaty and about to lose it. Pity is the only reason he agreed to pose for me. The ability to make people feel sorry for you is the photographer's greatest weapon.

The first thing I said to him was, "Let's not stand on ceremony. What was it like to meet Paul McCartney?" Everyone in the room was shocked, because in Putin's office you're supposed to stay very serious, and no one smiles. Then, when we had finished the photo shoot and were talking about the Beatles, I thought I was able to get inside his interior world.

The picture I took was a play on the Godfather, or Scarface, or something like that. I think Putin liked that picture. After all, it's what he wants, it's his style to look like a gangster.

Sofia Kornienko: After the awards ceremony, I asked Platon why he decided to take on this assignment.

Platon: It's my job. I have very strong political views, but my job is to take people's pictures, therefore part of my work is to break down the natural barrier, the natural resistance [of the subject] upon meeting them, whether it is simple shyness, emotion or a lack of confidence, to break down that barrier and reach the internal content of their personality.

In this case, I had just eight minutes to feel out that connection with what the person had inside. Having felt out the person's internal substance, I have to capture it as I see it. As far as political views, it's not my role to come up with an angle or approach to the subject ahead of time that would intentionally depict him as an evil man, if I perhaps think that's what he is. My agreement to photograph someone [also] doesn't mean that I have agreed to idolize him or sing his praises. I simply documented his presence for history.

Sofia Kornienko: But the issue of Time which named Putin "Man of the Year," on the cover of which your photograph appeared, as well as the interview illustrated by your portrait, was perceived by many liberally oriented people in Russia and outside of Russia as a betrayal on the part of our Western colleagues whose support is so highly valued. Putin's interview with Time didn't contain a single question which could have provoked a substantive discussion and, in the eyes of many, discredited the Western ideals of the free press which have generally been considered the benchmark [for journalists everywhere].

Doesn't it seem that your photograph was used as a banner or symbol of this tendency which disappointed so many readers, and what would you like to say to people who found that issue of the magazine outrageous or insulting?

Platon: The fact of the matter is that, as I already said, it's my job to document people living today. If I had lived in the 1940s, it's quite possible that I would have photographed Stalin. That doesn't mean that I support the subjects of my photos. The main thing is to get a portrait that shows who my subject really is. I can't control what happens with the portrait after that.

As soon as a photo is published, it leaves my sphere of influence and becomes public property. I am sure that one way or another history brings the truth to the surface. It's possible that some people were outraged by that issue of Time or by the context in which [Putin] was presented - I can't change that. But I documented him. I showed that if you look deep into his eyes, you see power, strength, incredible self-discipline and cold, icy cold.

I have my own strength: a visual image is able to convey to the audience that which the written word cannot. Perhaps people felt that their ideals were betrayed by the written words, but as far as the photograph, it shows Putin as he really is. That's the way he is. And one can't not accept a precise portrait, because it is true to life and honest. I tried to be honest with myself and with Putin when I was working. That's all you can expect from a photographer.

Radio Svoboda interview via barabanch

Echoes of Victory Day and the Inauguration

I happened to catch a re-run of the Daily Show a week or two ago and saw Jon Stewart's hilarious and surprisingly on-point riff on the Victory Day parade and Medvedev's inauguration ceremony. Transcribing selected sound bites from the clip wouldn't do it justice - just watch it and laugh:

That - as well as the return of the outstanding Darkness at Noon, which is back on line and has posted an original video of the V-Day festivities in Moscow, inspired me to corral a few links to online material on the events in Moscow of four weeks or so ago.

CSIS's Sarah Mendelson wrote a "critical questions" brief about the significance of the re-militarization of the Victory Day celebrations, which included a brief digression down memory lane, as Mendelson recalled attending a Soviet military parade in late 1990.

Global Voices Online had roundups about both the inauguration and Victory Day. And the always interesting Wu Wei has an interesting account of what it was like to watch Medvedev's inauguration on Georgian TV.

[Update June 15: I wanted to direct readers as well to this link which fell through the cracks - Oleg Panfilov's brief comments stating that the question of who has the upper hand as between Putin and Medvedev will become clear when one of the two begins to enjoy an advantage in TV coverage.]

Pondering the prospects for a post-Putin "perestroika"

[image source]

I found this article fascinating - hopeful and yet pessimistic at the same time, it perhaps relies too much on comparisons with the USSR and makes a conclusion that may be too bold. But its author, an emigre sociologist and a long-time and prolific commentator on life and public opinion in the USSR and Russia, makes a number of important points in arriving at that conclusion.

Johnson's Russia List
27 May 2008
How the new Russian President could start a new Perestroika with friendly trips to the capitals of neighboring countries
By Vladimir Shlapentokh
Michigan State University

[...]

[M]aintaining the image of the world as an enemy of Russia is a crucial way to legitimize current regime, along with the political stability in the country. The imperial ideology exploits the nostalgia of many Russians for the great empire and abets nationalism. It pits the population against foreign countries, treating them as hostile toward Russia and its integrity, and as working against the restoration of the country’s previous geopolitical role. In order to maintain a climate of patriotic agitation and divert the people from the country’s real problems, Russian politicians and journalists talk incessantly about “great Russia,” “Russia’s great past,” and “the great victory in 1945.” It is remarkable that, on the official site of the Russian president (2000-2007), the adjective “great” was mentioned more than 3000 times.

The practicality of the imperial ideology is seen in the fact that up to 85 percent of the population, according to a survey by the BBC at the beginning of 2008, responded positively, in one way or another, to the xenophobic propaganda of the Kremlin and its foreign policy. In fact, the ruling elite do not possess other ideological ways to influence the minds of most Russians. Alternative ideological fundamentals, such as private property and the market economy (in April 2008, Medvedev underscored their importance for Russia), are not attractive at all to the majority of the population, which hates the corrupt bureaucrats and their illegal fortunes. Only 10 percent of the population, according to a survey by Levada’s polling firm conducted in November 2007, declared that they “respect people who became rich in the last 10-15 years.”

Only the imperial ideology allowed the Kremlin to pursue its deeply antidemocratic domestic policy and disregard the growing social inequality in the country. This ideology justifies the supremacy of the “national leader” and the mistreatment of democratic institutions. It presents the members of the opposition as almost foreign agents and makes it impossible for Western organizations, such as the British Council, to function in Russia. It justifies the rude intervention of the state in the activities of foreign companies, such as British Petroleum, which cannot protect their interests against Russian competitors. It helps persecute the Protestant Church in Russia as an American agent. The imperial ideology also treats Stalin as its main hero and maintains his positive image by silencing the media’s coverage of the mass terror in Soviet times.

In fact, the imperial ideology is only meant for a domestic audience and its influence on the relations with foreign countries is rather limited. The case involving the USA is typical. During the parliamentary (December 2007) and presidential (March 2008) elections, the volume of anti-American propaganda was extremely high. However, this propaganda did relatively little to deteriorate the relations between the two countries and in no way prevented the cordial meeting between Bush and Putin in Sochi where they, like a loving couple, went to see the sunset on the Black Sea on March 27.

In order to restart Russia’s move toward democracy, it is vitally important to break the spine of the imperial ideology. Germany and Japan, after the war, would not have been able to take the road toward democracy without a resolute and consistent rejection of the ideology of supremacy, militarism and expansionism.

The most peculiar fact is that a radical change of foreign policy is much easier than doing the same in domestic affairs. This is exactly what should be on Medvedev’s mind, if he wishes to be a liberal and not one of Putin’s clones. Medvedev seemingly understands the danger of using “greatness” as the central postulate of the official ideology. In April 2008, Nikolai Svanidze, a known Russian journalist, asked Medvedev, “What does great Russia mean to you?” Putin’s heir answered, “Russia, without doubt, is a great country.” However, he then called upon the Russians “not to be intoxicated” with the idea of “greatness” and to look soberly at the real position of Russia in the world.

Many liberals are waiting for the release from prison of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oligarch jailed by Putin for his political ambitions. However, Medvedev would have a more difficult time releasing Khodorkovsky than attacking the imperial ideology. As a matter of fact, liberalizations in post-Stalin Russia began in this area. Even before Khrushchev’s famous speech about Stalin’s atrocities at the Twentieth Party Congress, he proclaimed a policy of peaceful coexistence and undertook a number of actions that radically changed Soviet foreign policy. He was instrumental in the achievement of the armistice in Korea in 1953 and the peace in Indochina in 1954. Then, in 1955, he made a trip to Yugoslavia and apologized for Stalin’s policy toward this country and its leader Josip Tito. Then (still in 1955 and before “the thaw”) he reduced the Soviet army.

Mikhail Gorbachev’s foreign deeds also preceded his domestic liberal policy. Before the Soviet people and the world understood Gorbachev’s democratic intentions, which did not become clear until 1987, the new Soviet leader met with Reagan in November 1985, only a few months after his ascension to power. This meeting marked the beginning of the warming of relations between the two superpowers. It was followed by a new meeting with the American president in the next year in Reykjavik. By 1987, the USSR and USA prepared a treaty on the elimination of short- and middle-range missiles.

The experiences of Khrushchev and Gorbachev might serve as a playbook for the new president, if he had the guts to turn toward the democratic road. In fact, the major obstacle to democratization is the Kremlin’s support for the imperial and nationalist ideology.

Ironically, the key element of the imperial ideology and Russian foreign policy that should be attacked by a new reformer is not the animosity against the West, the USA or Europe. The hatred of Russia’s neighboring countries (the former Soviet republics such as Ukraine, Georgia and Estonia, and former satellites such as Poland) plays a much more important role today. For instance, in April­May 2008, Russian media talked much more about the perfidious Georgia than England, which now, after the Litvinenko case, is also treated as a committed enemy of Russia. What is more, the media talked about Georgia almost as much as it did about NATO, which is seen as another one of the country’s fierce enemies. Indeed, between April 21 and May 22 , Georgia was mentioned almost 590 in 50 major Russian newspapers; England was mentioned 420 times and NATO 425 . The Kremlin’s aggressiveness toward the neighboring countries is a major source of friction between it and the West, which became apparent at the Bucharest meeting of NATO in April 2008.

Many experts in Russia and the West believe that the imperial ideology is deeply rooted in the Russian mind. Of course, the traditions of the country’s political culture, with its authoritarianism and xenophobia, are quite strong. However, the impact of the media on the Russians is much stronger. Khrushchev easily and almost instantly transformed public attitudes toward Tito’s Yugoslavia, a “fascist country,” from deep hostility to friendliness. President Reagan was vilified by the Soviet media in all possible ways from the moment of his inauguration in January 1981. However, when he came to Moscow as Gorbachev’s guest in May 1988 (I was there and watched it myself), he was greeted by ordinary people and intellectuals with great joy.

It would be easier for the Kremlin to redirect the media away from its hostility toward the Ukraine and Georgia than make the judicial system honest and independent. If president Medvedev decided to “reboot” the Russian political process, he would have to go on friendly visits to the capitals of all neighboring countries, starting with Kiev and Tbilisi. These visits would be as historically important as Khrushchev’s trip to Belgrade in 1955. He also must remove (which would be even easier) the main hawks on TV, including Maxim Shevchenko and Mikhail Leontiev, who sow the hatred of the external world on an everyday basis by inventing the most absurd theories about the subversive activities of the United States and the Ukraine against Russia.

Whether and when Medvedev will choose this scenario is highly uncertain. Many subjective and objective factors are in the game. So far, all signals coming from Moscow indicate that Medvedev, as Putin promised, will stick to the imperial ideology. He had no objection against the military parade on the Red Square on May 9, which was clearly addressed not to foreign governments in order to scare them, but only to the domestic audience in order to fuel the imperial spirit in the country. In his speech at the parade, Medvedev talked about some enemies who present threats to the motherland. In his capacity as president, Medvedev deemed it necessary to visit the base of strategic missiles in order to “enjoy,” as reported by a Moscow newspapers, “the might of Russian weapons.”

The new president also hailed Russian TV, an open bulwark of the imperial ideology, and the antidemocratic policy as “one of the best in the world.” Instead of Tbilisi and Kiev, Medvedev chose as the place of his first visits Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan) and Beijing (the capital of China). Both visits, as Moscow newspapers wrote, demonstrated the continuity of Putin’s foreign policy. However, these first steps did not doom the idea of a future perestroika. Mikhail Gorbachev, in the first year of his tenure, verbally attacked imperialism and considered the improvement of the Soviet military forces as his main task.

However, it is almost certain that a return to democracy in Russia lies in the capitals of Ukraine and Georgia. Friendly relations with its neighboring countries are important to Russia because any hatred of them damages the Russian people. Whoever becomes the next American president, he or she should pay special attention to the relations between Russia and its neighbors. Without an improvement of these relationships, Russia will not be a stable partner in solving the world’s major problems.

"Putin on the Ritz"

This is rather hilarious (the summary for this clip at the "Mini Movie" website reads, "Two lame duck leaders and one classic song can only add up to one thing: DANCING!"):

Via drugoi.

[update May 29 - I changed the embedded video to the version uploaded on YouTube, since the Mini Movie embed for some reason cannot be made not to play every time the front page of the blog is loaded. If anyone knows how to fix this for my future reference, please let me know.

Also, a couple of articles from years past which used "Putin on the Ritz" as their headline:

- Michael McFaul's review of Peter Baker and Susan Glasser's book, Kremlin Rising;
- an article by Nikolas Gvosdev about the 2006 G-8 summit in St. Petersburg.]

Stability

President Vladimir Putin and First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, March 7, 2006.
[image source]

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, May 12, 2008.
[image source - some of the comments there are laugh-out-loud funny]

"Neutral peacekeepers"

One of my favorite topics has been very much in the news of late, and I wish I had more time to blog about it. I'm referring to Abkhazia, of course, the dispute over which even RIA Novosti now acknowledges, is a "Russian-Georgian dispute."*

This is something that a number of people have been saying for some time; perhaps the most forceful writings to that effect (and some of the most thorough English-language reporting on the "frozen conflicts" in general) can be found here. You can read a very articulate and current account from the Georgian point of view at cyxymu's blog (Civil Georgia is probably the best online source in English); the best place for the official Russian point of view is probably the RIA Novosti topical page (and Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs communiques available in English here and here). But my original point was that I don't, unfortunately, have time at the moment to write a lengthy post on this matter. Luckily, RIA Novosti's outstanding photo archive has a picture that is worth a thousand words:

Official caption: Dmitry Rogozin, leader of the Rodina faction in the State Duma, during his working trip to Abkhazia, where he visited a CIS United Forces' headquarter [sic]. June 14, 2004.

Look over Rogozin's right shoulder - whose stern visage is that? The Гарант's, of course. It is interesting that a firebrand like Rogozin would be invited to visit the HQ of a "neutral peacekeeping operation" (though of course such an event is not news to anyone; Zhirik and others have paid visits to Abkhazia as well and no doubt also been well received by the "CIS" Peacekeeping Force), and even more interesting that such a supposedly multilateral "peacekeeping operation" would have a portrait of President Putin hanging on the wall.

*Certainly there remains a Georgian-Abkhazian element to the conflict, but if we imagine a "what-if" version of history where Russia played a genuinely neutral role in the settlement efforts over the past ten-plus years, it's difficult to imagine that some sort of resolution wouldn't have been reached.

День Победы...Путина?

Does the way this photo was shot remind you of anything? [image source]

An interesting thing about this era of "tandemocracy" that seems at least for the moment to be upon us - even more than usual, everything can be seen (at least) in two ways. Putin's policy-laden speech to the Duma could be (a) a way for him to show that, in contrast to Medvedev, whose inaugural speech seemed relatively empty (notwithstanding the banalities about human rights and freedoms and the law; mentioning these things is not necessarily indicative of a change or "thaw," after all the idea of "free people in a free society" was prominent in Putin's 2004 inaugural speech and "dictatorship of the law" was a theme dating back to early in Putin's first term), Putin will continue to be the policymaker-in-chief; or (b) a soon-to-be Prime Minister making a speech about domestic policy fully appropriate for someone in his position.

The proposal of an oil tax reduction could be (a) Putin's way of showing the oiligarchs that he is the one who can continue to provide them with goodies (and, again, a way of underscoring who calls the shots on the issues the elites are really concerned about - hint: those issues are not "freedom" and "law") or (b) a thoughtful way to help President Medvedev's first term get started off on a note of optimism. Putin's uncontrolled laughter at Zhirik's silliness in the Duma on May 8 (truly, the court jester amusing the sovereign(s)) could be either (a) the relieved laughter of a man who has had the weight of governing Russia lifted from his shoulders, or (b) the nefarious chortling of a man who finds himself amused by the high position occupied by such a clown within the system he has set up and intends to continue to control.

Allowing Zyuganov's critical speech to the Duma to appear on Channel 1 could be (a) a good way to demonstrate the existence of an opposition while not giving media time to anyone who could actually be a viable independent contender for the presidency in the future or (b) an actual indication of some sort of "thaw" with respect to criticism of the government appearing on the major TV channels. I could go on, but I've probably already lost even my 10 regular readers by this point.

Only time will tell if Medvedev turns out to be his own man as President or simply a "Prezik" to be used by Putin like a condom ("prezik" in Russian slang) to stay safely inside the Russian body politic and later disposed of. Please forgive the metaphor - I'm hardly the first to think of it, and doesn't it work, at least to a point?

[image source]

It's possible that May 8, 2008, will come to be seen as the day Putin began to fade from the scene; at the moment, though, it seems more likely that we'll look back on it as the day VVP changed chairs but kept pulling most of the same strings. The focus of the endless Kremlinoputinology will now turn to the relationship between Vova and Dima and will no doubt include much speculation about when VVP might start thinking about returning to the Kremlin.

One bit of speculation so far has been that the calendar of elections might be changed so that the parliamentary and presidential elections don't fall in the same year, which could entail a new presidential election in 2010, by which time the Constitution could already have been amended to allow for 7-year presidential terms. Putin could serve two of those and be ready for a hard-earned retirement. It's all idle speculation at this point, though.

In any event, from outside Russia, there seems to be hope for a change, hope that the dyarchy will eventually reveal rifts within the ruling elite and the result will be some sort of pluralism - or at least a lurch in the direction of a more cooperative posture towards the West, one that recognizes that interests can coincide and that "defending Russia's national interests" does not always have to mean playing the spoiler to America or resisting what Western countries want. From inside Russia, this prediction seems as good as any other I've seen:

In the circus they only keep the little bears until they're three years old, after that they mature and are unmanageable and extremely aggressive.

There's no doubt that "Operation Successor" has up to now been as successful as its authors could have hoped. If one takes the maximally cynical view of Putin, one must assume he'll be watching Dima like a hawk to make sure the latter doesn't "pull a Putin" and develop a mind of his own. If one believes that Putin is contemplating fading from the scene in a couple of years, well, his first appearance as PM doesn't really suggest a man who's thinking about hanging it up, but perhaps there will be a trend in that direction.

In any event, the country will have a chance to contemplate all of these things today while celebrating the victory over Germany 63 years ago. All seems set for Victory Day. By happy coincidence (actually, the date of Medvedev's inauguration is consistent with the past two inaugurations, so the timing wasn't specially arranged for this year), Putin's confirmation as PM came just in time for the country to celebrate with a long weekend.

It's a well-known fact that Moscow doesn't believe in tears. Apparently,
though, Moscow does believe in gigantic, man-made phallic symbols.
[image source]

So, after convincing the nation to "slit'sia v ekstaze" and vote overwhelmingly for Medvedev, Russians will have the chance to "spit'sia v ekstaze" while enjoying what will no doubt be wall-to-wall TV coverage of the military parade in Moscow. One has to ask whose victory is really being celebrated, especially given the somewhat controversial decision to return this year to the Soviet practice of displaying missiles and other hardware in the Victory Day parade.

Photo from Nashi's 2007 summer camp at Lake Seliger.
The banner says, "There will be sovereign democracy!"
[image source]

Adding to the impression that Putin & Co. are celebrating their victories in the 2007-08 elections is the fact that, just like after a military victory, various heroic veterans have recently been rewarded for their service to the fatherland (or, as Gazeta headlined its story on this, "For Servicing the Fatherland"):

KREMLIN AWARDS POLITICAL SUPPORTERS (RFE/RL, April 28, 2008)
President Putin has signed a decree awarding state orders to a number of Kremlin-friendly analysts, political commentators, and media figures, "Kommersant" reported on April 26. According to the decree, which was reportedly signed earlier this month, the order For Service to the Fatherland, first degree, was given to IMA public-relations group head Andrei Gnatyuk.

The same award, second degree, was given to All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion Director Valery Fyodorov, former Nashi leader and current State Youth Affairs Committee Chairman Vasily Yakemenko, and Effective Politics Foundation head Gleb Pavlovsky. The same decree bestows honorary certificates on Channel One head Konstantin Ernst, All-Russia State Television and Radio Company (VGTRK) head Oleg Dobrodeyev, NTV head Vladimir Kulistikov, Center for Political Forecasting Deputy Director Vitaly Ivanov, and a number of activists in the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi. According to "Kommersant," the awards are directly tied to the contributions the recipients made to the victory of Unified Russia in the December 2007 Duma elections and Medvedev's victory in the March presidential election. Gazeta.ru reported on April 25 that Gnatyuk's IMA group oversaw the implementation of both election campaigns.

This should reinforce the conventional wisdom that VTsIOM polls on Russian domestic politics should be taken with a grain of salt. With respect to the executives from state-run TV channels, it simply underscores the obvious: they are the President's colleagues, his valued partners in the important task of keeping the masses properly mis- and underinformed; and they have been given a little pat on the head for smoothly managing the media environment during the recently concluded electoral cycle. Never mind that what Putin likely perceives as the main "victory" - the avoidance of a "colored revolution" - was, given his government's substantial genuine popularity, probably such a remote possibility as to really only exist as "cockroaches in his head," to use the Russian expression about personal hang-ups.

Anyway, the Kommersant article cited by RFE/RL digs deeper and describes the Putin Administration's recent tradition of taking care of the friendly journalists at state-run TV channels by bestowing government awards upon them (my translation):

In November of 2006, for the first time in the history of television President Putin gave a large group of TV employees (more than 100 people) awards phrased "For making a large contribution to the development of Russian teleradiobroadcasting and for long-time fruitful work." The formal reason for the awards was the 75th anniversary of broadcasting in the country. Among those receiving awards were predominantly employees of the three federal TV channels - Channel One, Rossiia, and NTV.

"For Services to the Fatherland" orders of the fourth degree were awarded to six people, including Mr. Ernst and Mr. Dobrodeyev. Mr. Kulistikov also received an Order of Honor. Half a year later in June of 2007, almost as many employees of the federal TV channels, mostly from Rossiia, NTV and TV Center (TVTs) received orders and medals of various ranks with the same phrase as the one used the year before for their colleagues.

The tradition actually seems to go back at least three years now - back in March 2005, I posted about Sergei Ivanov giving awards to then-ORT reporter Margarita Simonyan and her colleague from RTR. Simonyan's real reward, of course, turned out to be her chance to head up the Russia Today project. After all, nothing says "thank you" - in any language! - like the chance to manage the cash flowing into a government project. Kommersant also notes that Yeltsin officially thanked several hundred people after the 1996 elections, including members of the media, but there was no "For Service to the Fatherland" award at that time (it was introduced in 1999).

Regrettably, I haven't had much time in recent weeks to browse around and see what the Russian blogosphere is saying about all of this. Ilya Barabanov had a simple "no comment" about the awards story.

My photo, taken in late Dec. 2005 in Moscow.
An explanation of the meaning for non-Russian-speakers is here.
The photo is part of a large set of my photos of Moscow stickers,
graffiti and other "street art" which can be viewed here.

Notwithstanding the criticism which must be present in the RuBlogosphere (though as I mentioned, I haven't had time to survey it recently as much as usual), I doubt too many Russians really feel as negatively about Putin's latest victory as the folks who made the sticker shown above; certainly opinion polls suggest the percentage of people who view the current state of affairs negatively is quite low indeed. For the time being, that's true even of polls conducted by pollsters who haven't received awards for services rendered to the fatherland.