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.

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.

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."

The more things change...

Try to guess who wrote the following passage and when:

The traditional American Sovietologists harp on the difficulties and unpredictability of Russia's internal processes, which do not fit the usual Western criteria and stereotypes. Some analysts cannot accept the idea of a strong Russia, whether it be imperial or democratic. They propose that the West either take a wait-and-see approach or develop a new containment strategy.

Partnership opponents within Russia...reject cooperation with the West as inseparable from the democratizing of Russia, and view democratization itself as an obstacle to renewed authoritarianism and the forceful establishment of "order" within the territory of the former Soviet Union.

All the opponents of partnership - Russian and American - share the thesis that Russia is doomed to confrontation with the world around it and that East and West are fatally incompatible.

The author of these lines was Yeltsin's first Foriegn Minister, Andrei Kozyrev, writing in the May/June 1994 issue of Foreign Affairs. That article, titled "The Lagging Partnership," also had the following forward-looking statement, which might seem prophetic had it not been fairly self-evident at the time:

Russian foreign policy inevitably has to be of an independent and assertive nature. If Russian democrats fail to achieve it, they will be swept away by a wave of aggressive nationalism, which is now exploiting the need for national and state self-assertion.

Not that the Putvedev years have been years of unadulterated "aggressive nationalism," but the guys in power have certainly learned to ride that wave.

Medvedev changes the game

Реформа Медведева В своем первом послании Федеральному собранию президент Дмитрий Медведев провозгласил кардинальную реформу государственной власти. Меняются сроки полномочий и роли президента, председателя правительства, парламента, федерального и региональных, и политических партий. Далее

Six-year presidential terms? Weren't people talking about this a few years ago as a way of insuring that VVP doesn't, you know, get bored in his dotage?

See also aggregated coverage of this from Yandex.

Getting a job - and an education - in the new Russia

Translated from barabanch (original is here):

A young lady came to interview for a job with a friend of mine.
She's a "Young Russia" activist.

Under "Professional Accomplishments" [on her resume] the one and only line read "Participated in the inauguration of Dmitry Anatol'evich Medvedev."

A couple of comments on the post:

by avdeev [my translation, punctuation as in original]:

it's funny, but things like that have been happening for awhile
for example at RGGU they accept [United Russia] party members into the graduate programs, and it's harder for people who haven't been vetted by the office to get in [...]

a couple of my friends were advised by the academic department that before turning in their grad school applications they should pay a visit to the [local United Russia] office, that it would be more correct and predictable to do so

at the office it was suggested that they write an essay about how much I love the motherland, i.e. [United Russia], and how much I want to join the party, well they told [United Russia] to go you-know-where and they submitted their applications anyway, we'll see what happens in September

by el_cambio:

You don't understand.

[quoting from here, which also seems to have been quoted from a transcript of some kind:] Speaking at [a panel discussion on "the new Russian elite" at the "Strategy-2020 Forum"], Vladislav Surkov called on the participants in the discussion to "determine what the Russian elite is." In response to this, producer Andrei Fomin suggested compiling a "list of the elite," and the Andrei Korkunov, general director of the Odintsovo candy factory, noted that such a list already exists, and pointed out the list of participants in the presidential inauguration in the Kremlin.

Looking back on Russia Day, a month later

The Washington Post's report, illustrated by my photo of the ice bear, followed by some personal observations:

At Russian Embassy, Vodka & Good Wishes Flow

By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts

Thursday, June 12, 2008; Page C3

What this town needs is more vodka at noon. To celebrate Russia Day, the embassy invited 2,000 friends yesterday afternoon for vodka, music, caviar . . . and did we mention vodka?

Of course, we couldn't refuse. After almost 10 years in Washington, Ambassador Yuri Ushakov was tapped last week to become Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's deputy chief of staff -- a big deal, since Ushakov will oversee foreign-policy and economic issues. He heads back to Moscow on Saturday, so the reception turned into an impromptu farewell party.

Vodka at lunch? "We're celebrating," Ushakov told us. "Why not? It's permitted."

Well, sure! Technically, we were on Russian soil. There was a giant ice sculpture of a bear holding big (actual) bottles of booze, a band playing Russian folk songs, and generals mingling with diplomats and policy wonks. Waiters lined up with trays filled with shots; bartenders poured three different brands of vodka (each with subtle differences -- it was our duty to check) plus various alcohol-based concoctions. The only thing keeping people standing were vast buffets groaning with food.

Shortly after 2 p.m., guests were gently herded toward the door, where staffers passed out cute little vodka mini-bottles. One woman nodded to her companion approvingly: "Vas goot function."

It was indeed a good function - not to mention a great promo for the vodka purveyors - a fun way to spend the early afternoon and celebrate Russia here in the US at a time when there aren't quite enough good vibes in the bilateral relationship. I wish I'd photographed them better, but here are a couple of interesting bulletin boards that the Embassy had up to illustrate highlights of modern Russian politics and of the US-Russian/Soviet relationship over the years:

This was what one would expect - displays of superpower parity and cooperation: Yalta, Ike/Nixon/Khrushchev, Bush 41 and Gorby, Bush 43 and Putin, Clinton and Yeltsin (less prominently, of course), astronauts, military/athletic/scientific cooperation, etc. But also, perhaps less expectedly, Angela Davis.

And the Embassy's portrayal of Russia's leadership - presumably, this is part of what we were celebrating:

Some Putin, but more Medvedev, with the latter's showily pious wife also prominently featured (perhaps the idea is to appeal to Americans' presumed religiosity, or perhaps just to illustrate Russia's Orthodox "renaissance"). Many if not most of these photos look like they were from Medvedev's inauguration ceremony.

Embassy staff gave guests a colorful greeting and send-off:


And finally, here is what we all should have been celebrating, since it's shared economic interests which can hopefully pull the US-Russian relationship through various political storms:

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.]

Reading the TV Tea Leaves in an Age of Mediacracy

In contemporary Russian politics, it may seem that "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Political events are unfolding according to a scenario predicted by many (i.e., Putin is retaining influence, at least for now), and no matter what eventually happens between Putin and Medvedev, given the array of predictions flying around, odds are someone will have predicted it. Sometimes, though, mediologists, not meteorologists, are the best way of trying to figure out which way the political winds are blowing on a given week.

Heavy coverage was given by Russian online media during the last election cycle to statistics charting TV appearances by major politicians. These figures have long been covered by some newspapers and online news sites, but the coverage by Lenta.ru last fall, in cooperation with an outfit called Medialogia - which included not only weekly statistics but also analytical reports interpreting the numbers - seemed more thorough than in the past.

Сравнительная динамика количества упоминаний ТВ-каналов в федеральных печатных СМИ [source]

Lenta also recently covered the release of a report by Mediaguide.ru (a portal which appears to be related to Medialogia) analyzing how frequently the TV networks with nationwide reach are cited in the print media - it appears this report will now be available monthly. Although it doesn't seem to analyze whether the mentions are positive or negative, the figures may be of interest to those who argue that the Kremlin's dominance of Russian TV airwaves does not stamp out the free press because of the existence of alternative print sources of news.

Masha Lipman recently made the following observation (in the Washington Post, natch) about Russian TV under Putin:

During Putin's tenure, television broadcasting was honed to perfection -- as a tool to shape public opinion. Coverage of political and public affairs is now tightly controlled through a coordinated effort of the national channels' top managers and Kremlin aides. The result is that any event, person, group or movement may be boosted or played down in the public eye in a way that would best suit the Kremlin's desires and designs; anyone deemed an adversary of the government may be discredited or vilified.

Polls indicate that the public is highly responsive to television brainwashing -- whether the campaigns are against Georgia, Ukraine or the West, or are intended to influence voting preferences. In contrast to Soviet times, the government's most effective media tools are also highly profitable. Each of the two biggest channels reaches almost all Russian households. While stations don't compete in news coverage -- news shows differ little from channel to channel -- other competition for viewers and advertisers is fierce. The result: first-class soap operas and other entertainment programs that keep people glued to their screens. Advertisers, attracted to large audiences, eagerly commit their budgets to state-controlled television.

This business model and the controlled political content are inseparable and mutually beneficial. The Kremlin-designed television diet is easily digested: Bland information is supplemented by exciting entertainment shows. As he completed his second term, Putin granted special letters of commendation to the top managers of the national channels.

The government has radically curtailed broadcast freedom, but it does not totally control speech. Some broadcast, print and online outlets with smaller audiences have maintained relatively independent editorial lines, which serves to let off steam. These outlets may create an appearance of media freedom, but they are tightly insulated from national television, effectively marginalized and kept politically irrelevant.

The huge role played by the media in shaping - and reflecting, although a chicken-and-egg question arises if you want to determine whether it molds or reflects more - the country's political climate might tempt one to call Russia a "media-cracy," though I'd probably avoid the term, as it's too much of a simplification, it sounds too much like "mediocrity" (which Russia is certainly not at the moment, no matter how one wishes to see the country), and the term was already being used over 30 years ago - and continues to be used, albeit informally - in reference to American domestic politics. It's interesting to see how one online source defines "mediacracy" in the American context:

(mē'dē-ə-krə-sē) 1. (n.) Government, usually indirectly, by the popular media; often a result of democracy going awry. A system in which politicians stop thinking and begin listening exclusively to the media regarding what the important issues are and what they should do about them. Origins: A play on democracy and news media; possible reference to being mediocre.

The suggestion is that media elites are invested with a disproportionate amount of independent political power. In today's Russia, the term would probably have to be defined slightly differently - the use of the media, in particular those controlled by the state, as an instrument of government rule through the shaping of opinions.

[image source]

Actually there is an online project named Mediakratiia (Медиакратия), or Mediacracy, which seems to have the goal of unifying young Russian journalists in covering issues in a "socially responsible" way, with what appears to be a particular emphasis on journalists working in the regions. Since the project was set up in part by United Russia and is funded by the Press Ministry, it is not difficult to conclude that the organizers have "state-friendly" in mind when they say "socially responsible."

The Mediakratiia effort from the United Russia side was spearheaded by Aleksandr Shkol'nik, one-time (and perhaps current, I'm not sure) head of children's and youth programming at Channel One and later the director of the Russian News Service under whose tenure Gazeta.ru called that radio service "Russian Brainwashing Service" after Shkol'nik's infamous attempt to introduce a rule that 50% of news coverage must be positive. The website publishes a monthly list of the "Golden Hundred" participants, young journalists who compete with each other to earn points in the following manner:

"The Golden Hundred" is a system under which the mediacrats earn a certain amount of points every month (from 1 to 15) for various types of activities, including participation in online conferences, discussion of current topics on the project's online Forum, publications, news for the "Regional Time" page, and cooperation with Mediakratiia's partners, for example the Russian News Service and the National Projects magazine.

As for the project overall, here is part of its mission statement:

"Mediakratiia" is not the power of journalism and certainly not the power of journalists - a journalist cannot and should not rule over [people's] minds. A journalist is not an "engineer of human souls" [a term coined by Olesha under Stalin about Soviet authors], but is more like a gauge reacting to any changes in society and life.

When we say "Mediakratiia," we mean the power of information over any form of human activity. In the current media-driven society, in this era of informational technologies we live in, the old saw "forewarned is forearmed" should be rephrased as "he who is uninformed is helpless."

[...]

The mass media is a weapon of mass defense, not mass destruction. Journalism is a socially responsible activity.

We want to be and we can be responsible!

[emphasis in original]

Anyway, that's what the government and the party of power are doing to raise up the next generation of "socially responsible" journalists.


Luckily, some members of the profession in Russia still seem to have the level of irreverence which in my opinion is essential to good journalism. I say this based in part on a recent online find, what looks to be the start of an absolutely fascinating new blog. I think anyone who reads Scraps of Moscow will appreciate it. It's called Newsinside.ru; here's what its creators have to say about it:

Newsinside.ru reports on the seamy side of the news and the behind-the-scenes stories of wire services, internet projects and TV companies.

Newsinside.ru's professional detectives continuously investigate the news and write about the most interesting and important items.

Unfortunately, they haven't had any new posts since May 11, but hopefully they're just taking a holiday break and this isn't indicative of that too-common phenomenon of a well-begun internet project petering out rapidly. The folks behind Newsinside.ru say they are planning on launching an English-language version, but I can't wait, so I've translated a couple of their posts below:

NTV didn't notice the tanks in Moscow
April 30, 2008

The passage of heavy military equipment through downtown Moscow was one of the most popular news stories in the Russian-language blogosphere (according to Yandex). Human curiosity was evident on the city's streets - crowds of people stood along the routes taken by the tanks and armored vehicles.

The national TV channels devoted a great deal of attention to this truly unusual event. We observed that the round-the-clock channel "Vesti" devoted the most effort to reporting the procession of heavy equipment.

Their camera was the only one to meet the tanks at the picturesque spot entering the bridge by Belorussky station (pictured). "Vesti" set up live broadcast feeds of the military vehicles moving around Moscow from five (!) different locations in the city.

Channel One limited itself to broadcasting footage on the following day. And on NTV in the day's final newscast at 10:40pm Aleksei Pivovarov didn't even mention the tanks which had attracted everyone's attention. Perhaps Pivovarov decided that NTV wasn't up to competing with Vesti's live broadcasts.

Echo of Moscow: Putin is losing his TV clout
May 4, 2008

[excerpted from this radio transcript, dated May 2]

A. VENEDIKTOV: Putin as president had another supremely powerful resource. That powerful resource was the state-run mass media. But now we see...

L. SHEVTSOVA: Whose side are they going over to?

A. VENEDIKTOV: Whose side is a good question. Here's one example: RTR, or VGTRK, which is headed up by Oleg Borisovich Dobrodeev, made a film called "Eight Years of President Putin," a rather pompous movie.

L. SHEVTSOVA: So, he's with the prime minister's vertical [of power]

A. VENEDIKTOV: And so it would seem that everything's in order: a departing president, a documentary - even a pompous one - because Oleg Borisovich has been with Vladimir Vladimirovich from the very first day and even before. I remember when [Dobredeev] left NTV, that was in January of 2000, when Putin was a presidential candidate, and Oleg called me and said, "I'm going to VGTRK, they offered me a job, you're the first to know," but that's not the point, the point is that this documentary is being aired on Saturday at 11:55am. And for people in the know, it should air in prime time. You understand? [...] It's a sort of signal: "We're with you, but we're not with you."

L. SHEVTSOVA: "We're with you, but we're standing in two different queues."

A. VENEDIKTOV: And it's the same thing now, I am absolutely sure of it, they'll start to calculate who to put on the air first and for how long. But the mass media, and first and foremost television, was a huge resource of Putin's....And Putin may start to lose them, because after all they have to put the president on the air - President Medvedev. So there's already a downside [for Putin]. [...]

L. SHEVTSOVA: It's a curious thing. We will probably yet see some very big movements and people dashing to and fro. By the way, Aleksei, I noticed these dashes - and fairly active ones - before Putin's February speech to the State Council. But after that and after he agreed to head up United Russia, people started moving in the opposite direction, back to Vladimir Vladimirovich. But, by the way, we have forgotten about the most powerful resource of Dmitry Medvedev - that is, after all, the power of the Constitution, the capability of the powerful presidency itself. And what do we have today? Today we have an attempt to embed, to implant a powerful prime-minister's vertical, which has already been created by Putin's team, to implant that vertical...

The Newsinside.ru website looks like it could be a great addition to the RuBlogosphere - they have most recently posted some coverage of the coverage of Medvedev's inauguration, and - unless I'm reading too much into things, which has been known to happen - the blog even seems to be cleverly named: it is aimed at the "news insider" and addresses itself to that person by using "newsinside[.]r" in the dative case.

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]