Twittering while Russia burns

It was interesting to see the translated article below appear in JRL on the same day as Svetlana Babaeva's piece appeared dismissing the political impact of social networking and new media in Russia ("nothing more than banal social chatter"; "inconsequential prattle").  

My value add in the article below is to link to the Twitterings of these government luminaries (other than Medvedev, since I can't be fussed to figure out which is the real one, and Astakhov, since I couldn't locate his using any of the obvious search terms) - and to point out that there is an aggregator-type Twitter account called gosblogi for Russian official Twitterers.  I would also note that the only one of these guys I really try to follow is Rogozin - he is a master of the form and often manages to display his sense of humor in 140 characters or less.  Though somewhat confusingly, he appears to have two accounts - the one linked in the previous sentence and this one.

And my purpose is, in part, to plug my very own new Twitter feed (in which, of course, I will tweet a link to this post, while praying that the universe does not collapse upon itself or get stuck in some sort of infinite loop of narcissism).  You can see recent tweets in the sidebar and the whole thing here - http://twitter.com/scrapsofmoscow


Twitter Takes Off Among Russian Politicians
Izvestia [translation courtesy of JRL]
July 29, 2010
Report by Aleksandra Beluza: Authorities of Short Messages

The Twitter era has begun in Russian politics. In the wake of President Dmitriy Medvedev, who launched his micro blog in June, governors and other highly placed figures have arrived there. A round the clock personal broadcasting channel, which is what Twitter essentially is, can be used during elections to mobilize the population when actions are being conducted.

Thanks to Twitter (from the English "to twitter") politicians all over the world are "taking off their jackets" and giving us the chance to see a stream of their personal news. Here is Dmitriy Medvedev writing about his visit to Belgorod Oblast: "I flew in to Alekseyevka. I went to the graves of my great grandmothers and great grandfathers. I was going for the first time. For work, as always." Now Medvedev has over 50,000 regular readers on Twitter.

Medvedev himself reads the micro blogs of US President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. But presidential aide Arkadiy Dvorkovich believes that it is precisely the Russian leader who has the best Twitter. "None of the leaders is comparable," Dvorkovich wrote on his own Twitter. "Where else will you see a photo taken by him personally (Medvedev -- Izvestiya)?" A picture called "view from the window of my hotel" taken by Medvedev in San Francisco has already been viewed almost 233,000 times, for example. Dvorkovich himself also posts a lot of photographs on his micro blog. He also writes quite openly -- for example, that "it is very hard to sleep after a week's tour in North America, but it is harder for the president."

"What does Twitter give you? Why are you ready to spend time on postings?" Izvestiya asked Dvorkovich on Twitter.

"Not a great deal of time is spent, but the ability to set out thoughts and share them concisely is developed," the presidential aide responded before five minutes had passed.

There are already around 20 senior Russian politicians and hundreds of officials at the level of deputies and heads of departments, including in the regional administrations, and also mayors, on Twitter. However, it is not pleasant to read all the micro blogs. Out of 10 governors only three write really interestingly -- Nikita Belykh (Kirov Oblast), Dmitriy Zelenin (Tver Oblast), and Mikhail Men (Irkutsk Oblast). Zelenin in particular distinguished himself by simply writing the following after Medvedev's departure from the Seliger youth camp: "The boss has left. The Tver forum and Seliger went well. I feel like a horse at a wedding -- with my muzzle in the flowers, and myself in a lather."

" Twitter has become a little personal news agency for politicians," managing partner of the Sotsialniye Seti (Social Networks) agency Denis Terekhov believes. "And here it is a question of information openness -- is the person ready to write quickly and without coordinating, without thinking about whether he has said it right or wrong 10 times? I think politicians who join Twitter are a priori more open than others. In this sense Twitter can be an acid test."

Essentially Twitter today is a test of a politician's openness -- is he ready to show that he is a person like everyone else? Mikhail Men admits: "I listened to (singer Vladimir) Vysotskiy all day." Dmitriy Rogozin, Russia's permanent representative to NATO, writes: "I have arrived in Moscow for a week's vacation; 360 degrees Centigrade (as published) is not that hot. It has been hotter at our NATO sessions." Pavel Astakhov, the ombudsman for the rights of the child in Russia, characterizes his secretariat like this: "I have 12 women working for me. I call them the 'child's special purpose troops.'"

There are only two party leaders here, Sergey Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council and the head of Just Russia, and Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR). They both write every day, but somewhat turgidly. Denis Terekhov believes that "the part ies are quite sluggish and it is hard for them to use Twitter as a real channel of communication." In the opinion of other experts, Twitter could attract them not so much as an information technology as a mobilization technology.

"Many politicians are seeking communication with their target audience here -- the middle class and young people," Dmitriy Badovskiy, the deputy director of Moscow State University's social systems scientific research institute, says. "Plus Twitter gives an instant link with quite a big audience. And this makes it possible to gather supporters, coordinate observers at elections, and publish current information quickly. So I think that as the elections approach, activity and testing of Twitter as a possible environment for political mobilization will increase."

The 10 most popular Russian politicians on Twitter (by number of micro blog followers):

Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev 52,896
Russian's permanent representative to NATO Dmitriy Rogozin 7,513
State Duma Deputy Konstantin Rykov 3,769
Federation Council Speaker Sergey Mironov 2,084 [strangely seems to have protected tweets]
Tver Oblast Governor Dmitriy Zelenin 1,988
LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovskiy 1,716
Kirov Oblast Governor Nikita Belykh 1,489
Presidential aide Arkadiy Dvorkovich 1,309
Perm Kray Governor Oleg Chirkunov 812
Children's Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov 535

 Perhaps tweeting is, for Russian officials in the era of Medvedev, something akin to 

taking up tennis under Yeltsin or becoming a martial arts beast / skier under Putin.

The most important thing....

[image source - a Wired story about how espionage just doesn't pay like it used to]

The headline below is correct - clearly, spies are about to become the most important thing.



Vedomosti
June 28, 2010
SECURITY IS NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING [translation from JRL]
At the summit in Washington: Russia is more interested in economic and technological cooperation with the US
Author: Alexei Nikolsky, Natalia Kostenko

Only four of the ten joint statements of Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama released after completion of the visit of the President of Russia to the US are connected with international security. The parties confirmed the need for ratification of the treaty on reduction of strategic offensive arms (START) signed in Prague in April and agreed to continue exchange of data about missile launches and creation of a system of global monitoring of these launches in the future and spoke "in favor of strengthening of the regime of control over conventional arms in Europe." The latter means solving of the problems related to the conventional forces in Europe treaty (CFE). Russia froze its participation in the CFE in 2007 after the new NATO members refused to ratify its modified version. The US and Russia also adopted a statement on combating of terrorism (it was decided to organize joint military exercises), on Afghanistan (transit there through Russia will be broadened) and on Kyrgyzstan (for the soonest stabilization and establishment of democracy). A source in the Russian delegation says that the statement on Kyrgyzstan means that both countries that have military bases in Kyrgyzstan will abstain from unilateral steps and will have consultations about the measures that should lead to destabilization of the situation.

Of the remaining six statements two have a humanitarian nature and four deal with economy and development of technologies, for example, entrance into WTO. The two agreements on Skolkovo signed during the visit of Medvedev are dedicated to the same topics.

According to the source in the Russian delegation, the statements in the field of security were promoted by the American party more, whereas the Russian delegation put an emphasis on economic cooperation. The source added that the US persistently proposed continuation of nuclear disarmament in the form of the measures for limitation of tactical nuclear weapons, but Moscow looked at this process more cautiously and was not sure that it would receive benefits from it.

Dean of MGIMO Ivan Safranchuk says that such attitude of Moscow is quite explainable. Security topics related to nuclear weapons and third countries like Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan have dominated in the Russian-American relations for a long time. Having adopted a course at modernization, Russia saw a different benefit in relations with the US and was not enthusiastic about a return to recalculation of warheads.

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."

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.

Unvacation

Since a few of my handful of regular readers may be wondering why I've let the blog go dark at such an eventful time, please allow me to explain. In recent weeks, we've been moving out of our apartment in DC, preparing to move to London. Last Thursday, we left DC for a month's vacation in Moldova, which of course also necessitated a bunch of packing. All of this came right on the heels of the bar exam, and since I had been focused on that all summer I guess I wasn't really prepared to be slapped in the face with all of the tasks presented by a relocation. It is whiny, to say the least, to complain about being stressed out at a time when there's just been a war on and people lost their homes and lives, but there you have it. I have come to think of the past month as my summer unvacation; hopefully the month to come will feel more like a vacation.

Anyway, judging from the sharp increase in visitors to this blog over the last couple of weeks (people have been checking out the maps of the region I've posted recently, especially this one), a lot of people have been using the internet to seek information about the war in Georgia. This may be a good thing or it may not - judging from what I've seen in the few mainstream media outlets I've had time to read/watch/listen to over the course of the conflict (I haven't been online much), only the laziest pundits and pontificators have refrained from weighing in on the crisis. Sometimes it is fruitful to hear a generalist's take on a region one follows closely; but often, it shows that the people who have to say things to fill air time and write things to fill column-inches are not always so careful when it comes to the facts. On just one day last week, reading two op-ed pages, I found a glaring error on each:

The most obvious one was in Richard Cohen's WaPo column from last Tuesday. Spot the mistake:

Peter the Great built his capital to face Europe, and Putin, don't forget, was mayor of St. Petersburg.

I don't think I have to elaborate for regular readers of this blog.

The other flubs were erroneous oversimplifications in a WSJ op-ed titled "How the West Can Stand Up to Russia," written by two guys from AEI, one of whom heads up something called the program on advanced strategic studies. Perhaps he operates on such an advanced level that he finds small details to be irrelevant when making sweeping generalizations; unfortunately, the history of the conflicts in Georgia is laden with seemingly trivial details and distinctions which turn out to be crucial to understanding what has actually happened there and what one can hope for in the future. Two passages from this piece caught my eye - here's the first:

Starting in 2004, Russia began issuing passports to the residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a fact that today serves as one of the main pretexts for the ferocity of Moscow's military campaign.

The authors are absolutely right to touch on this issue, which had often been glossed over in mainstream media accounts of the conflict but can no longer be ignored even by the press now that, for example, Medvedev named the goal of protecting "Russian Federation citizens" first when listing Russia's goals in going to war with Georgia in a public statement last week. I have done a lot of research on this interesting issue as it relates to Abkhazia (see a brief write-up of it here, a publication is forthcoming soon), and peak period when Russian passports were being handed out there was actually in 2002.

This may seem trivial, except that it undermines one of the authors' points, namely that Russia became substantially more hostile toward Georgia once Saakashvili replaced Shevardnadze. Hostility did increase, of course, based on Russia's aversion to colored revolutions and perhaps on the now well known personal beef between Putin and Saak, but Russia was quite willing to work on drawing Georgia's secessionist regions closer to its breast by handing out passports even under Shevardnadze.

If one can pinpoint a turning point in Russia's approach to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it was not so much the Rose Revolution as it was Russia's pacification of Chechnya, after which Russia - having ensured its own territorial integrity - began to seem more willing to undermine that of its neighbor. Unfortunately, these authors prefer to emphasize a false narrative of the Shevardnadze period as some pro-Russian continuation of "Soviet Georgia" (meanwhile, I recall attending a speech by Shevardnadze at Harvard back in 2000 or 2001 when he was so pro-U.S. it made me uncomfortable) and Saakashvili as Georgia's democratic savior. The truth is, of course, far more complex.

The second flawed passage from the op-ed was this one:

[T]he West should make use of Russia's claim that its role in South Ossetia and Abkhazia is driven by the need to protect the populations there. If so, Moscow should have no objections to U.N.-sanctioned peacekeepers and observers moving into those two regions to replace the jerry-rigged system of "peacekeepers" that, until the war broke out, consisted of Russian troops, local separatist militaries and Georgian forces.

I tend to agree that an international peacekeeping force in both regions would be an excellent next step, although Russia is unlikely to allow it and the West cannot exactly just parachute one in. Also, it's an open question whether any Western nations would be prepared to contribute troops to such a force. More importantly, the authors of the piece appear to assume similar peacekeeping situations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. De facto, it's true that in both regions the Russian "peacekeeping" forces have failed to keep up even the pretense of neutrality.

Formally, however, it's important to remember that the Russian forces in Abkhazia are there under a UN mandate (I've heard this was a quid pro quo for Russia agreeing to the deployment of US peacekeepers in Haiti) and are observed by a contingent of actual blue-helmets (the Russian press often refers to its semi-legitimate peacekeepers as "blue-helmets," but they are not in fact UN forces) under the command of UNOMIG. The peacekeeping structure in South Ossetia since the end of hostilities has been formally administered by the OSCE and by its very structure has been less favorable to Georgia.

Pointing out the difference may seem like a nitpick, but details are important in a scrap over a region where the population is only 70,000 (a fact which, by the way, makes all of the comparisons to Kosovo - where the population is roughly 30 times larger - seem a bit ridiculous). In any event, while it's an accurate description of the pre-war situation in South Ossetia, it's more than misleading - it's flat-out wrong - to suggest that the description of a peacekeeping system of "Russian troops, local separatist militaries and Georgian forces" ever applied to Abkhazia.

Since I'm not going to have time to do any sort of roundup or collection of my own thoughts on the crisis (which are, at the moment, as jumbled as the situation on the ground in Georgia), I will conclude with a few links to internet resources with worthwhile coverage.

[image source]

First of all, my friends at Global Voices Online have shown the strength of GVO's format by setting up a special page devoted to coverage of the conflict over South Ossetia and keeping it updated. Second, the New York Times has a dedicated topical page, which includes a link to their blog on the conflict, which links to various other bloggers covering the story, such as Paul Goble at Window on Eurasia. The NYT Moscow bureau's LiveJournal community collected comments on the crisis from Russian bloggers here and here. Also, the coverage by IWPR (including this Russian-language blog) - one of the most balanced internet resources on the region in times of peace and war alike - should not be missed, especially the wisdom of long-time Caucasus observer Tom de Waal.

If you're looking for the Russian point of view, check out RIA Novosti's topical page or this collection of official Russian government pronouncements.

Finally, here are some links compiled and circulated by the International Relations and Security Network in Zurich:

Media
Russo-Georgian conflict is not all Russia's fault, Christian Science Monitor
Georgia-Russia Conflict, by the BBC
In Depth: South Ossetia Crisis, by Financial Times

Blog posts
Putin's revenge, by FP Passport
Kosovo and South Ossetia, by Outside the Beltway
Danger Room: Georgia under online assault, by Wired
The Russian press, by the Duck of Minerva
Georgia, Russia and rethinking China, by the Oil and the Glory
Georgia, from the American side, by Registan.net

Publications
Georgia's South Ossetia Conflict - Make Haste Slowly, by the International Crisis Group
Russia / North Ossetia: Trends in Conflict and Cooperation, by swisspeace
Tbilisi Withdraws from the Joint Control Commission; Proposes New Format for South Ossetia, by the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program (CACI-SRSP)
Europe’s Unrecognised Neighbours: The EU in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, by the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Reintegration or Reconquest? Georgia’s Policy Towards Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the Context of the Internal and International Situation, by the Centre for Eastern Studies (CES)

Primary resources
Minutes of UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Georgia, 8 August 2008 (PDF)
Minutes of UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Georgia, 8 August 2008 (Audio)
Agreement on a Cease-Fire and Separation of Forces, 14 May 1994 (PDF)
Declaration on Measures for a Political Settlement of the Georgian/Abkhaz Conflict, 4 April 1994 (PDF)
UN Security Council Resolution 876: Abkhazia, Georgia, 19 October 1993 (PDF)
UN Security Council Resolution 881: Abkhazia, Georgia, 4 November 1993 (PDF)
UN Security Council Resolution 892: Abkhazia, Georgia, 22 December 1993 (PDF)
UN Security Council Resolution 896: On Possible Establishment of Peacekeeping Force in Abkhazia, Georgia and on Political Settlement of the Abkhazia Conflict, 31 January 1994 (PDF)
UN Security Council Resolution 906: On Extension of the Mandate of the UN Observer Mission in Georgia and on Political Settlement of the Situation in Abkhazia, Georgia, 25 March 1994 (PDF)
UN Security Council Resolution 993: On Extension of the Mandate of the UN Observer Mission in Georgia and Settlement of the Conflict in Abkhazia, Georgia, 12 May 1995 (PDF)

Maps
Republic of Georgia Maps, by Perry-Castañeda Library
Online Maps of Current Interest, by Perry-Castañeda Library
Russia and Georgia at War: Day 2, by Daily Mail
Georgia, by the BBC
Ethnolinguistic Groups in the Caucasus Region, by Perry-Castañeda Library

____________________________________

And a postscript: I wrote most of this post last Thursday but then wasn't able to complete and post it before taking off for the airport. Last night, thanks to the miracle of the Russian media sphere (perhaps a more powerful influence than the CIS in the post-Soviet space) I was able to watch the Sunday evening Vesti and Vremia roundups, which from what I could tell dealt almost solely with the conflict over South Ossetia.

The coverage was amazing in several ways. First, both my wife and I had moments where we walked into the room having heard a voice on TV without seeing the speaker, certain it was Putin. In both cases, it turned out to be the new, improved Medvedev, who seems to have repackaged his speaking style to be a tough, trash-talking clone of the man who installed him in the presidency.

Second, I was quite impressed with Vremia's use of footage from CNN and Russia Today - the effect was to legitimize the Russian government's position and ORT's coverage by, for example, broadcasting remarks by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov not as filmed or interviewed by ORT, but as they appeared on CNN. The Russian PR machine has become much slicker since I last regularly watched the main TV news programs a couple of years ago.

Finally, while I don't think any YouTube clips ridiculing Russia's leaders have made it onto the government-owned channels recently, one of them (I can't remember which) aired at great length a mash-up making out Saakashvili to be basically a paranoid madman. No word on whether the producer of the clip was one of the Kremlin's media-making sausage factories or an actual amateur netizen.

[Update Aug 21] I was remiss above in not also directing anyone interested in further dissection of the conflict in Georgia to the many recent posts on Sean's Russia Blog on the subject. As always at SRB, the commenting is fast and furious, and some of it is even edifying. Something I'd write a separate post on if I had time, though, is Sean's appeal to the idea of "self-determination," which (unless further elaborated) is a concept about as precise and useful as "Marxism" or "fascism."

Without getting into the situation in South Ossetia, which - even if one could draw borders that wouldn't require further resettlements of Georgians - is hardly viable as an independent state, and without getting into the distinctions between the ideas of internal and external self-determination (which are broken down in the context of Kosovo here), I would simply pose the following rhetorical question: if the titular ethnic group makes up less than 20% of a region's population of roughly 500,000, and expels from the region well over 200,000 people not belonging to that group, should the remaining population be allowed to vote on questions of self-determination?

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:

Russian TV online

An earlier post on this topic has proven to be quite a magnet for Google searches - apparently many people share my interest in watching Russian TV over the internet.

Previously, I offered one option for watching a wide array of post-Soviet TV programming online; now I'd like to plug a site which I recently saw for the first time and which seems to allow one to watch three major networks' evening news shows (with a slight delay) for free, albeit in a small-screen preview format. The site is logically called "Russian TV Online," and it allowed me to observe what seems to be (though perhaps I'm misremembering his earlier style) Prez. Medvedev's newly Putinized deeper-voiced, shorter-sentence-using style of speech delivery in his remarks at a couple of the photo ops with CIS leaders in St. Petersburg.

At least on NTV, though, Putin made it onto the broadcast earlier...though I suppose a sample size of one doesn't really allow me to draw any broader conclusions.

For more reading roughly related to this topic, check out a much longer recent post here as well as the relatively recent (from 2006) issue of Pro et Contra dedicated to the theme of "[Russian] Television in Search of Ideology."

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.

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]

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.