Rogozin

I've followed the political fortunes and sometimes outlandish statements of nationalist politician Dmitrii Rogozin in this space before. Now, Lenta.ru has an article talking about how he's been "pushed out of big-time politics."

I've translated only the lede (not enough hours in the day...), but the whole article is worth reading:

Enough of Rogozin
The main "Great Russian" has been pushed out of big-time politics

When Dmitrii Rogozin was squeezed out of "Rodina" in the spring of 2006, he persevered and promised to continue "his fight." When he participated in the "Russian March - 2006" and resurrected the Congress of Russian Communities [KRO, or Конгресс русских общин], he was full of optimism. When he created the nationalist party "Great Russia" with his long-time colleague Andrei Saveliev, everyone finally believed in the seriousness of his intentions. But the Firm Hand of Stability [caps in original] has caught up with him, and Rogozin can safely be crossed off the list of up-and-coming politicians. At least for now.

In addition to the Rodina resources at my last post about Rogozin's political fortunes, here's a detailed (if a bit dated) political bio from RFE/RL.

Proshchai, Rodina? I doubt it.

Dmitry Rogozin's Rodina party has been banned from the Moscow City Duma elections for running a truly offensive, racist TV ad - or, if you believe some commentators, for outgrowing their intended role as the Kremlin's "loyal opposition." Andy at SiberianLight has been covering developments in this story, which is an interesting one and could be providing a look at developments to come in Russian domestic politics in the next 5-10 years.

Ilya Yashin, the co-chair of the Yabloko party's youth wing and a candidate in tomorrow's elections, has an interesting forecast on his LiveJournal blog about what the outcome of the ban on Rodina might be in the next several years (it seems like a conspiracy theory, although it's hard to tell who Yashin is implying the conspirators to be), along with this caricature of Rogozin dressed up as a young fascist. Yabloko's official point of view on the removal of Rodina from the elections is as follows (my translation):

"...we believe that the removal of Rodina from the elections in response to Zhirinovsky's lawsuit has nothing whatsoever to do with the battle against the xenophobia of nationalism and does not serve the cause of eradicating fascism in Russia."

Rogozin - who, incidentally, shares a birthday with Iosif Stalin and Mikhail Saakashvili - has always seemed like a dangerously ambitious politician to me, the kind of guy who will do anything to get to the top and stay there. While there may be legitimate planks in Rodina's platform, I hope that Rogozin and his team understand what they seem to be doing - and how dangerous it is to loose the genie of ultra-nationalism onto the main stage of Russian politics.

Or maybe I'm taking this all too seriously, and the whole thing was an elaborately choreographed "PR-aktsiia," agreed upon ahead of time by all involved except the chumps who make up the general voting public, to set up Rodina as a target for the supposedly "anti-fascist" youth movement "Nashi." The fact that the LDPR clowns were apparently the ones to levy the charge of racism which got Rodina banned only makes one more suspicious that the whole thing is a puppet show, given LDPR's history of selling its political mouthpiece to the highest bidder. That's all just speculation, of course; on the other hand, maybe this is what "managed democracy" means to someone with a KGB background.

----------
More on Rodina (in case the links above are not enough reading material) - all in English:

Small factsheet from MosNews.
Interview with Rodina's "leading ideologue," Mikhail Delyagin - worth reading.
"Experts" at the Russia Profile website discuss what they're calling "Rodina-gate."
Blogger Veronica Khokhlova on Rodina.
Background on Rogozin's political career from RFE/RL.

"Neutral peacekeepers"

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

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

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

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

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

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.

That old-time propaganda with a new, modern twist

Sean blogs about recent youth-politics events in Russia and discusses a recent Nashi-sponsored event in Moscow called "Связной Президента" ("Connecting with the President" as Sean translated it, or "President's Liaison Officer" as ITAR-TASS translated it in their report).

Last week I saw a post on the LJ community ADVЁRTKA (devoted to images of and commentary on various ads - which I found via Vilhelm Konnander's blog - thanks, Vilhelm!) asking if anyone knew what a sticker-based guerrilla marketing campaign (techniques now as familiar in Moscow as in Western capitals - ah, globalization...) with the words "Связной Президента" was selling. Commenters speculated that it might be an upcoming film or book (well, one jaded commenter just said, "the font is shit. and by now I could spit on whatever they're PR-ing.").

But now we know what was actually being promoted - another Nashi PR-aktsiia. Even more interesting was a link posted in the comments of that ADVЁRTKA post, to a site where someone has posted the official event brochure with the following comments (I've translated the poster's comments and added links):

An event ["акция"] organized by the youth movement "Nashi" and involving thousands of people will take place on March 24-25 in Moscow. 10,000 [Nashi] comissars will gather in Moscow, living for two days in tent village on Sakharov Pr-t (this is practically a shortened 2007 version of Seliger). On the 25th they will all be walking around the city and offering passers-by to send an SMS to Vladimir Vladimirovich's mobile (strangely, during the last "direct line" broadcast with the President he said that he doesn't use a mobile phone) and receive an answer.

Just as they did before the event ["акция"] with the Santa Clauses, Nashi's print-shop has published a bright, colorful brochure for the commisars, explaining the crux of the event and the consistency of its participants' actions.

I wonder how much Sviaznoi [the chain of mobile phone stores] dropped on this... what great advertising!

The juiciest page of the brochure to me was this one (click to enlarge):



The money bags are labeled "To our friend Limonov," "To Kas'yanov," and "To Mr. Belykh." Soviet propaganda art techniques meet modern liberal-bashing! Actually, I think I've seen things like this before in Zavtra. What is new here is not just that from 1991 and up until a couple of years ago such imagery could be seen only in venues like Zavtra and maybe in the imagination of Vladimir Vol'fovich; it's also of great interest that while the cartoon bone is being thrown - predictably - to Khakamada, the dollar bill is labeled "Rogozin"! Rogozin's fall from official grace is old news, of course, but to suggest he's on on the take from Western sources given his politics...? I guess to Nashi's youth vanguard - and their actual, slightly older, comissars - they are all the same: irrelevant meddlers in the country's pursuit of the course set by Putin.

The brochure also makes the statement that "in another eight years, food will be rationed in the US and distributed only on holidays" and suggests that the upcoming Russian elections are recognized in the US as "the last chance to establish external rule in Russia." The US, of course, wants to do this in order to "sponge off our [Russia's] resources."

The whole brochure - exhorting "Nashisty" from the regions to come to Moscow and take part in this event - plays on some sick blend of provincial desire to visit Moscow and take part in a mass event; technophilia (with all the cell phone action); patriotism (not that there's anything wrong with that, per se); and anti-Americanism (that's the part I have the biggest problem with). It even manages to revert to the favorite Soviet move of referring back to World War II as relevant for contemporary discourse (without wanting to dishonor the memory of WWII and the blockade, in 1980's Leningrad WWII was more often used as an excuse for why this or that building was still "na remont" or why so many people downtown still lived in communal apartments).

Unlike some other bloggers, I don't use the term "Soviet" lightly. But this brochure, well, how can I put it? To paraphrase Pushkin, "Здесь советский дух - здесь совком пахнет!"

[Update: a paraphrase more true to the original meter from "Ruslan & Liudmila" occurred to me: "Совковый дух - совком здесь пахнет!" And check out this great electronic concordance of Pushkin's works.]

An addendum on translation - Multitran offers several translations of "sviaznoi": contact, orderly, messenger, communication agent, runner, go-between, and liaison officer (TASS chose its term of translation well, although I like "Connecting with the President" also). Sviaznoi is a mildly linguistically interesting word in that it's an adjectival form used as a noun.

The idea of using Nashi partisans as electronic "go-betweens" to/from the President (the passers-by receive special SIM-cards which will also be able to receive "all essential information about the movement's activities," per this description of the event) is an intriguing modern take on the Soviet idea of a loyal vanguard, though it's supposedly an exercise in "modern democracy" ("sovremennaia demokratiia").

"Russian Transparency Remains Submerged" - FT

I found this interesting commentary piece via the Inopressa website, which translates western media coverage of Russia into Russian, which I found (in this instance) via Echo of Moscow's website.

Russian transparency remains submerged
By Neil Buckley Published: August 11 2005 03:00

When baby-faced captain Vyacheslav Milashevsky saluted and blinked in the daylight last Sunday after being rescued from his mini-submarine trapped on the ocean floor, Russia appeared to have learned from the Kursk submarine disaster in 2000. A few days later, however, those conclusions are starting to look premature.

The Kursk's sinking, five years ago tomorrow, led to the death of all 118 men on board, despite some having survived the initial explosion in one of the nuclear submarine's torpedo tubes. [...]

This time, the navy went public on the incident and its apparent cause, quickly sought international aid and, crucially, allowed British, American and Japanese rescuers to rapidly reach the site off Kamchatka. Captain Milashevsky and his six crew members aboard the AS-28 mini-submarine that had got tangled in a fishing net were saved.

In a front-page headline echoed in many Russian newspapers, Novaya Gazeta commented: "One lesson of the Kursk has been learned: people's lives are more important than military secrets."

If that moral message had been absorbed, Russian commentators noted, it was an important moment for a country where human life has long been cheap.

But since the rescue it has become clear that the Kursk's lessons have been at best partially assimilated. The incident has also highlighted that, while TV news may have been neutered during Mr Putin's presidency, Moscow newspapers retain the capacity for strident criticism, even if most do not reach far beyond the capital.

This observation about the media is right on the money - this is a point that's not made often enough, and one that's sometimes distorted. Unfortunately, the existence of a few outspoken newspapers with relatively small circulations in Moscow does not make for a free press.

The Russian navy, it has emerged, confirmed the incident only 24 hours after the submarine became trapped, after an anonymous caller tipped off a Kamchatka radio station.

"Again there was an attempt at hiding information, at censorship," said Nikita Belykh, leader of the opposition Union of Right Forces party, yesterday.

The navy's initial explanation, moreover, was only partial. The submarine's propeller had got wrapped in a fishing net. But it occurred while the vessel was inspecting or trying to repair a $1bn (€809m) subsea antenna designed to track foreign submarines, in whose anchor cables the submarine then became enmeshed.

And after the foreign rescue crews departed - with the apparently heartfelt thanks of Sergei Ivanov, Russia's defence minister - debate raged in some political and naval circles over whether they should have been invited, or were even needed.

Captain Valery Lepetyukhin of the navy's emergency rescue service suggested to a press conference that conditions on the stranded mini-submarine had not really been all that inhospitable. The British Scorpio submarine that cut it free had merely speeded up an operation the Russians could have completed themselves, he insisted.

I can only observe that this was an easy comment to make once the sailors were safely on terra firma. Prideful defensiveness, probably a manifestation of an inferiority complex, on the part of Russian officials is nothing new, though, and it's probably not going away any time soon.

Dmitry Rogozin, leader of the nationalist Motherland party, told Ekho Moskvy radio that bringing in foreign rescuers had revealed the subsea antenna's location and caused "damage to national security and the Russian state".

Rogozin can always be counted on for a paranoid and offensive comment at a time like this.

Many newspapers spotlighted the cash-strapped state of the Russian fleet. Komsomolskaya Pravda, noting the navy's lack of rescue equipment and that a Scorpio submarine cost only $1.5m, added: "Any 'new Russian' could lose that in a bad night at the casino." [...]

The problem, unfortunately, is not solely a financial one. Russia has plenty of money in the stabilization fund at the moment, and I understand they're now going to buy a Scorpio or two of their very own. The Scorpios can't deploy or manage themselves, though, and unfortunately the Russian military's problems are organizational and systemic, and serious enough to create a situation in the future where the Navy has the equipment but can't get it to the right place in time, or some critical maintenance on the equipment has been neglected, etc. For a leadership that is motivated primarily by avoiding responsibility and blame, there always seems to be enough of the latter to go around.

How Andijan is playing in Russia

From yesterday's Eurasia Daily Monitor:

UZBEKISTAN'S RIOTS YIELD MIXED RESPONSE IN RUSSIA
By Sergei Blagov
Thursday, May 19, 2005

[...] Russian politicians appear split over the situation in Uzbekistan. Dmitry Rogozin, head of Rodina party, claimed that Karimov became a target of radical Islamists when he allowed U.S. military bases on Uzbek soil. Konstantin Zatulin of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party argued that Karimov "did it all right" to forestall destabilization. Alexei Mitrofanov, deputy of the Liberal-Democratic party, blamed U.S. interference in Afghanistan for general destabilization across Central Asia.

Yet, Sergei Mitrokhin of Yabloko warned against Russian support for the Karimov regime, which could trigger civil war in Uzbekistan. Boris Nemtsov, of the Union of Right Forces, picked up this notion and argued that the Karimov regime was doomed and that by supporting Karimov the Kremlin had picked a loosing scenario, as it had in Ukraine. [...]

It's interesting to see that each of the Russian politicians mentioned in the first two paragraphs came up with an interpretation of the crisis that fit his own worldview. Sort of like the old joke about different people blindly feeling different parts of an elephant and coming up with totally different conclusions about what it is. Rogozin finds a way to blame both the US and Islamists; the United Russia guy provides a scary look inside the mind of Russia's leadership today, though hopefully Russia would not actually handle a crisis like Andijan the way Karimov did; the LDPR guy stays in character with an implausible, verging on outlandish, theory about the causes behind Andijan; and the politicians belonging to the fractious group of Russian "liberals" stay on-message by concluding that the Kremlin is doing things wrong. The article continues:

Russian media outlets were divided over the Andijan crisis. Some, like NTV and RenTV channels, were critical of Karimov's crackdown and questioned the wisdom of the Kremlin's support of Karimov. The second group, notably official media outlets, tacitly backed Uzbek authorities and suggested continued Russian support of Karimov's "secular regime." The third group highlighted broader geopolitical maneuverings as crucial factors behind the Uzbek riots.

Initially, the mainstream media in Russia, notably First Channel and RTR television, appeared to be siding with Karimov and interpreted the events in Uzbekistan mainly as a plot by Islamic extremists. The one-sided view seen on Russia's major television channels earned a measure of criticism from other Russian media outlets. Izvestiya ran a series of articles, headlined: "Events in Uzbekistan: Popular revolt or extremist rebellion?" The daily described events in Andijan as a revolution, adding that the coverage by Russian official media outlets was somewhat detached from reality. Izvestiya specifically criticized Russian First Channel, which merely followed Uzbek official statements, described Uzbek protesters as extremists, and ignored alternative versions of the Andijan events (Izvestiya, May 17).

Presumably responding to such criticism, the First Channel on Tuesday reported not only the official death toll of 169 for Andijan, but also mentioned unofficial estimate of 745 fatalities (TV First Channel, May 17).

Check out the rest of the article for more on Russian newspaper coverage of the situation in Uzbekistan.

Navel-gazing

I try to avoid self-referential posts and indeed have only done one such post dissecting the contents of my server logs in the past - over three years ago! - that I can recall, in which I wrote:

I know this is a sad excuse for a post - whenever weblogs resort to navel-gazing like this, I usually roll my eyes and navigate away. But I hope that my regular readers - all 5 of them - will indulge me just this once.

OK, twice. Anyway, I've noticed in perusing my server logs that people sometimes visit from interesting domains, and sometimes the search terms which lead those visitors here are illuminating. For example, just in the past week or so:

- A visitor from an IP address associated with Ketchum Communications - providers of "really smart PR" to the Russian government - arrived here based on a Google search for abkhazia map 2008

- A visitor from the socom.mil domain (that would be the US military's Southern Command) arrived here based on a Google search for Black Sea Caucasus blog

- A visitor from NATO's Allied Command Transformation (domain name act.nato.int - interestingly, Statcounter still identifies the IP address as associated with SACLANT, although the reorganization of SACLANT into ACT took place 8 years ago) arrived here based on a simple Google search for a not-so-simple guy: rogozin

- A visitor using a computer on the NY Times' network found us while googling first for nashi and mishki and then just for mishki - it also seems one NYT reporter, who shall remain nameless, found this blog while googling himself

- A visitor from Kansas State University found this old post while googling for resurgent russia

- Someone from the European Commission (psbru.cec.eu.int) landed here while looking for something related to Itera

- Visitors from imedia.ru - a domain associated with the publisher of the Moscow Times - arrived here recently searching for moscow blog and abkhazia cement

- And someone visiting from pentagon.mil liked the map of Achara that I posted so much that they checked out the blog's archives for the past three months.

[Update July 15]

One more interesting one from yesterday:

- Someone visiting from the aommz.com top-level domain, which belongs to the flagship of Transnistrian industry, the Moldovan Metallurgical Factory, searching for itera usmanov.

[Update July 23]

OK, I guess I'm going to use this post to catalog a couple more interesting hits from recent days:

- Someone visiting from house.gov, a.k.a. "Information Systems U.s. House Of Representatives," searching for russophobia

- Someone visiting from the State Department, searching for rumsfeld foundation four [sic] central asia

- And this interesting search conducted by someone visiting from Ireland (a bit of an inside joke for the family of SRB commenters)

Krizis v Kieve?

Looks like it may be an interesting weekend in Ukraine. Andy has a post that looks like it could start a comment debate. Veronica has photos and will not doubt have more as the weekend wears on - as long as her internet service is squared away!

An interesting tidbit I've just culled from Google News - the Georgian foreign minister is on a two-day visit to Ukraine and has met with Yanukovich. Not that it has anything directly to do with the current domestic crisis, mind you. But Ukraine's role in the GUAM organization (often described as a "counterweight" to Russian influence in the area Russia sees as its "near abroad") seems like it must be relevant to the domestic political situation there, because - at least as it seems from afar - so much of the back-and-forth going on in Ukraine in recent years has been about the fundamental question of whether the country will integrate with Europe or gravitate back towards Russia, or whether some sort of balancing act will be possible.

An interesting thing about GUAM is that with Uzbekistan's withdrawal from the organization, it now contains four post-Soviet countries - Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova - which have all had issues with secessionist regions. In each of the four current GUAM members, Russia has played a role in supporting the region(s) attempting to break away. While in Crimea this has so far been limited mostly to words and to stunts like Dmitri Rogozin showing up at the Kerch Strait a few years ago, there are still a lot of Russians who think that Crimea should belong to them (that link is to a rather outdated survey, from 2001, but still...).

This is not always discussed in Western analysis of the organization but is clearly something that the members see themselves as having in common (see, for example, this joint declaration referring to "aggressive separatism" and "unresolved conflicts"). The GUAM charter emphasized that the organization's role is "promoting stability and strengthening security in Europe on the basis of principles of respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, inviolability of the state borders, democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights." Note the emphasis on European orientation and combating secessionism. But I digress. It will be interested to see what develops this weekend in Kiev/Kyiv.

December 21st - a date that will live in infamy

Today (OK, it's after midnight and technically the 22nd here, but in the States it's still the 21st) is the birthday of my very good friend Margaret. I am going to send her a congratulatory email wishing her all the very best in her 22nd year (she is turning 21 on the 21st today!) and also wishing her to share as few traits as possible with some of the famous political figures with whom she shares a birthday.

The one most remembered in Russia today was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Stalin) - or "Joe Sta-LEEN," as I will never forget hearing him called with admiration by an elderly DC cabbie who had been in the USSR during the course of his WWII service in the US Navy - a leader who presided over mass murder within his own country but also over Russia's transition to an industrialized nation. Today was a "round date," as Russians say ("kruglaya data") for old Uncle Joe - he would have been 125 years old if Soviet scientists could just have found a way to keep him alive, and who knows what the world would look like if they had.

In honor of the occasion, I ventured to my favorite bookstore in town and headed straight for the antiquarian section in the basement, where I was able to find this pamphlet with the text of Stalin's May 4, 1935, speech to Red Army Academy graduates:



OK, I actually went to the bookstore for other reasons, but I thought the visual aid would be good for the blog, and so I picked it up - just 200 rubles (kind of a rip-off, actually). If you are in a celebratory mood, see also this interesting web resource - Songs about Stalin.

Some Russians apparently think this date is cause for celebration - according to a survey by the Levada Center, 21% of Russians agree with the statement that Stalin was a "wise" ruler; and 16% agree with the statement that the Russian people require a harsh ruler like Stalin. The total of those two groups outweighs the percentage (31%) of respondents agreeing with the statement that Stalin was a tyrant. See my previous post on illiberalism below.

Other excessively single-minded and perhaps marginally unstable political figures born on this date in this part of the world:

- Dmitri Rogozin, leader of the Rodina ("Motherland") political party here in Russia - perhaps my least favorite Russian politician for his smug mien and misguided nationalism.

- Mikheil Saakashvili, the genius behind the Rose Revolution and currently the president of Georgia (Tbilisi, not Hot-lanta) as a result.

Apparently December 21st is the birthday of Jane Fonda and Phil Donahue as well. What does it all mean? I encourage any astrologically minded readers to comment, since I have no idea.

Fear of an Orange Planet?*

I don't want to beat the topic to death, especially when the protests were probably not a good barometer of public opinion and ultimately may be just a blip, but it was an interesting weekend. And I should preface these comments by saying that I don't think any kind of color revolution is likely in Russia - or even necessarily desirable (although, as Berezovsky tried to say recently, it's hard to imagine the regime giving up power any other way). But of course beating on protesters is not the best way to make sure people stay loyal to the regime. Even people who didn't sympathize with any of the eclectic group of groups protesting have to acknowledge that this was authoritarian overreach.

Anyway, regarding Saturday in Moscow, the general consensus seems to be that the story was not the turnout for the protests (which was low) but the excessive force deployed to prevent the protesters from enjoying their day in the sun. Russia Profile has a good piece on the protests and some original photos by their correspondent, who also shares this vignette:

As the speeches concluded and the police tensely watched the dispersing crowd, Andrei Illarionov and a group of sympathizers stopped just short of Chistye Prudy subway station. A former economic advisor to the Russian president who is now an adamant critic of the government, Illarionov started to harangue an officer standing in a ring of riot police. Pointing vituperatively to a booklet of the Russian Constitution, Illarionov explained how everyone involved in the operation had violated basic constitutional freedoms and will inevitably be held accountable. The officer stared glumly and shifted feet as the jeremiad went on, until the shuffling crowd enveloped them.

Illarionov can't even get arrested in Moscow! He should come back to DC. This was the lede from RP's piece - titled "Springtime for Putin":

Lockdown on Pushkin Square effectively started before dawn, and by the time Muscovites emerged on Saturday morning for the unsanctioned “Dissenters’ March,” phalanxes of security forces left little to chance. Beginning inside the nearby subway stations, and continuing through the underpasses and along the many approaches to the square, rings of riot police and law enforcement corps of every stripe filtered the procession, minimized mobility, and descended swiftly upon the more vocal protesters. The much-vaunted demonstration was over before it even started.

The NYT on the related happenings in St. Petersburg:

The marches have become a test both of the determination of the opposition and the willingness of the government to use force to suppress it, imbuing the marches with more weight in Russian politics than the small numbers of demonstrators imply.

All of the talk of reminded me of something from nearly two years ago - the excessive force deployed to guard against protests at the Khodorkovsky trial, whicn became a story of its own, separate from the trial. At the time, I posted a partial translation of a commentary from Ekho Moskvy on the situation:

But one question remains, and it's not an idle one. Guys, if this is just a regular criminal court proceeding, if this is a clear-cut case of fraud, then why are you making such a fuss about it? Why did you wave your nightsticks a week ago, why did you deploy three cordons of guards and all of those trucks? Are you expecting Shamil' Basayev and his posse? Why do your eyes start darting around when people ask simple questions? And for whom did you set out the so-called [anti-Khodorkovsky] "general public" like hedgerows, for Bush and Schroeder? And if you're so tough and sure of yourselves, really, why do your eyes keep darting around? The way you're doing it looks so petty and pitiful. You can see the threads sticking out. Like blue jeans made in Sovok.

The difference between then and now is that the authorities seem to be a bit more organized (according to RP, it was "coercively administered crowd control, orchestrated and implemented with sinister precision") - if no less heavy-handed - in keeping a lid on things nowadays. I guess that is another accomplishment of the last few years.

As for the answer to the question "why," I guess the authorities believe their own hype about foreign-sponsored NGO's working tirelessly to effect regime change. This (rather vaguely sourced - which "critics of the Kremlin and political analysts"?) comment from the NYT:

Critics of the Kremlin and political analysts said that the abundance of Interior Ministry troops on the streets over the weekend — and their use of force — reflected concern by Mr. Putin and his advisers that street protests could snowball ahead of parliamentary elections planned for the fall. They point to the large rallies in Ukraine that came to be known as the Orange Revolution, which forced a change of government in 2004.

The MT - one of whose journalists was detained - noted that it's hard to see how fear of the color orange could provoke such an extreme response to the "Dissenters' March" - noting that, given the unlikely political success of any of the "Other Russia" leaders, "it is difficult to see how Saturday's gathering posed such a threat" of a color revolution.

Tangentially related - Lenta.ru's photo collection from the DPNI/Congress of Russian Communities protest. An especially classic sign - reminding Chubais that he won't escape jail time and depicting him springing forth from a privatization voucher. The MT had a brief snapshot of the level of discourse at that event:

Hundreds attended a nationalist rally on Bolotnaya Ploshchad to hear Dmitry Rogozin criticize "a Russia run by Abramoviches," in reference to Russia's richest man, Roman Abramovich. Hundreds of police near Bolotnaya Ploshchad stood by quietly.

* With credit and apologies to Public Enemy.