Coming after the Ukraine gas crisis, this looks like another example of Russia using economic levers seasoned with an unconvincing pretext to stick it to near-abroad countries who hold their heads up too high:
RUSSIA TO CRACK DOWN ON WINE IMPORTS FROM MOLDOVA, GEORGIA
Interfax news agency (Russia), March 21, 2006
Tight restrictions may be imposed on the import of Moldovan and Georgian wines to Russia in the near future, Russia's chief epidemiologist Gennady Onishchenko told journalists on Monday.
"We are strongly concerned about the situation with Moldovan and Georgian wines," Onishchenko said. Heavy metals, pesticides and other hazardous substances were discovered in wine imports from the two countries, he said.
The official, however, declined to provide further details.
So, after the "gas war" comes the "wine war"? At least it's got more alliterative value. And I'm sure these sour grapes have nothing to do with the souring of relations between Russia and a couple of its more unruly former subjects. The memo to Tbilisi and Chisinau really reads, "Give up Abkhazia and Transnistria (respectively), and stop flirting with NATO, and let the wine flow as before. Don't you love us anymore?"
I'm no economist, but my guess is that this is probably a bigger potential problem for Moldova, especially if the Russians decide to extend their "concern" to fruits & veggies or processed products like apple juice. Since it seems like just a war of words for the time being, going after the wine is first and foremost an attack on Georgian and Moldovan national pride. After all, wine is the product that is most closely associated in the Russian mind with either of those countries.
What Russia really needs to do is cut down on the amount of counterfeit wine and cognac (not to mention vodka) production that takes place on its own territory, which has done a lot to give Georgian and Moldovan wines a bad name in recent years. Since some fake hooch is no doubt mixed and bottled in Moldova and Georgia, better customs enforcement (cue laugh track) would also be a remedy.
And maybe "Russia's chief epidemiologist" should be more concerned about the epidemic of glue-sniffing among street kids, or the epidemic of industrial-strength alcohol consumption (I don't just mean the intensity of consumption but the fact that the products consumed are often not ones intended for human consumption) in Russian villages, than with imperfect imported wines.
As someone who's experienced the unpleasant consequences of consuming fake Barza Neagra ("Chorny Aist") cognac bought from someone selling it out of a bag on the sidewalk near Belorussky station, I support changes that will bring about the purity of grape-based potent potables, but I have a hard time believing this is such a change.
I suppose that another possible motivation for this policy change (if it really goes beyond words to deeds, that is) could be an attempt by Russia, Inc., to promote domestic wines from the south of Russia.
On a lighter note, "We are strongly concerned about the situation with Moldovan and Georgian wines" is the kind of official statement that the late bard Vladimir Vysotsky could have had a songwriting field day with.
I'm not sure what I'm doing awake at this hour, but there are a couple of more detailed pieces on last night's incident with Litvinovich - one article on NEWSru.com, which appears to be sourced from interviews Litvinovich gave to Echo Moskvy radio and to Interfax, and an article at Kasparov.ru, where there's lots of activity in the comments forum.
Interestingly, the longest article on the attack that I've seen so far is by RIA Novosti - though of course their headline calls Litvinovich a "Famous 'Polittekhnolog,'" using a term that can be translated as "political strategist" or "spin doctor." Unfortunately, all of those sources are available in Russian only.
Here is a roundup of English-language sources on the incident (or just check Google News for the latest): MosNews has a bare-bones account, mentioning that Litvinovich hasn't contacted the authorities (but the doctor at Sklifosovsky who treated her did, so they are investigating, according to other reports); Interfax has something enigmatically titled "Garri Kasparov's aide attacked in Moscow (Part 2)"; Regnum has a brief capsule, stating that Litvinovich actually did "appl[y] to the police"; and a Japanese newspaper is running an AP story on the incident.
As often seems to be the case in this part of the world, truth is difficult to sort from fiction, and crazy conspiracy theories seem impossible to distinguish from cynical realism. Stay tuned to the story, although not here - it's unlikely I'll have more on it unless there's some really earth-shattering development.
Sometimes it's difficult to know what/who to believe when watching political events unfold in Russia. Here we have an opposition activist beaten in a street attack where none of her valuables were taken. Turns out that (if I'm reading the LJ time stamps correctly) not an hour before the time when Marina Litvinovich was attacked on Monday night, she posted a reminder on her LiveJournal website that on Tuesday afternoon she and fellow activists would be gathering at the office of the Presidential Administration to present a petition calling for the resignation of Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov. Apparently they had over 9,000 signatures in support of the petition.
Of course there's already one comment on Litvinovich's LJ - no doubt the first of many - suggesting that the beating was staged as a publicity stunt by Litvinovich, and the commenter links to another Russian LJ where a blogger calling himself "sumerk bogov" advances a similar theory, calling the happening a "circus," "self-PR'ing," and "self-victimization." Although I'm not sure I agree with his "versiia," Sumerk does make good sport of the prominent typo in the headline of the original NEWSru.com item:В Мокве жестоко избита советник Гарри Каспарова Марина Литвинович
The graveyard-shift copy editor at NEWSru.com left out the first "S" in Moscow. So, blogger Sumerk ends his post on the matter thusly: "Моква слезам не верит." Or, "Mocow does not believe in tears."
I don't mean to make light of an event that seems like another horrible reminder of the political climate in Russia, but sometimes you have to laugh through the tears. Even if Mocow doesn't believe in them.
See below. This looks like a story that could develop into something interesting. I've just translated the item from Newsru.com, which is the source Lenta.ru is using for the story as well. Maybe this is just a coincidence, but the cynic in me has a hard time believing that something like this happened at the very moment the Kremlin knows the eyes of the West are on Minsk and the aftermath of the Belarus presidential election.
Hat tip to LiveJournal blogger Nastya Karimova, on whose LJ I first saw this news item (now with lots of comments - including the news that apparently Litvinovich is now out of the hospital and safely at home).
Kasparov Advisor Marina Litvinovich Brutally Beaten in Moscow
Published 20 March 2006, 23:42
Last updated [21 March 2006], 09:07
http://newsru.com/russia/20mar2006/litvin.html
Translated by Lyndon Allin
NEWSru.com has learned that on Monday evening Marina Litvinovich, advisor to Garry Kasparov and chief editor of the "Pravda Beslana" website, was beaten.
Marina Litvinovich was leaving the office of the United Civil Front interregional social movement on Makarenko Street, having remained at work until shortly after 9pm. Unknown individuals attacked and brutally beat her, striking her mostly in the face and head, as a result of which she lost consciousness.
However, none of Marina Litvinovich's belongings were stolen, not even her notebook computer and money.
Around midnight, a NEWSru.com was able to contact Marina Litvinovich, who at that time was in the Sklifosovsky Institute with a suspected concussion.
According to the victim, she did not see the faces of her attackers.
The United Civil Front is an interregional social movement organized in June 2005. At the beginning of last November, the UCF was officially registered with the Russian Ministry of Justice. By the end of December, there were forty regional branches of the UCF, and preliminary groups are active in five additional regions. Garry Kasparov is Chairman of the movement.
A post by Veronica Khokhlova of Neeka's Backlog from last September now seems like it might have been prescient:
Looks like the state is very scared of Marina Litvinovich and is using its heavy artillery against her...
At the time, Veronica was talking about a negative story on Litvinovich which appeared on the Channel One news - definitely an instrument of the state - but perhaps the media punishment was deemed to be insufficient. Another post by Veronica about Litvinovich and PravdaBeslana.
Even though I moved back to DC over six months ago, I'm still not done unpacking some of the boxes that came out of storage. Last night, in one of them, I happened upon my old journals from the years 1997-2001. Paging through them, I found that while there are, of course, some bad memories from those years, there were also a lot of entries that made me laugh out loud or resurrected a visual memory. Probably my favorite memories are from the summer of 1999, when I visited Moldova for the first time for a rather unsuccessful study abroad program. While I didn't learn much Moldovan/Romanian, I did have the incredibly good fortune to meet Lorina, and that very summer we undertook our first of many trips together - to Cluj, via Iasi, in Romania. Following is an entry written while we were passing through Iasi on the way back to Chisinau:
8/12
Breakfast coffee at the Iasi McD's -- a cockroach scuttles across the floor, beggar kids bum a cup of water from the cashier before she shoos them away, and some weird American-type (not me) can't stop his head bobbin' to the groovy beats of the McMusic. But I am feeling fine because my face and head have just been washed and blow-dried in the cleanest bathroom I've seen in quite some time.
Note - this was probably the only time we entered a McDonald's on the whole trip, just so people don't get the wrong impression about how we roll...
It's been a cold winter in Moscow and St. Petersburg, from what I hear. Apparently, it's still pretty chilly over there - according to the current info from Weather Underground, it's just 1 degree above zero Fahrenheit, or minus-17 Celsius. And it's not much warmer in Moscow. This makes me recall an email I received last month at the height of one of the cold snaps from an old, old friend who's a SPB native:
It's very cold everywhere, we drink tea mixed with vodka and minimaze [sic] our moving around the city.
For some reason, that observation brought home the level of cold better than any amount of meteorological facts and figures.
Snowsquare is on top of things with an 8th of March post. This has spurred me into action. What can one say to the English-speaking reader about International Women's Day? Well, whatever its socialist origins, the holiday as it's celebrated in Russia is now something of a combination between Valentine's Day and Mother's Day (although Valentine's Day is increasingly being celebrated in Russia as well nowadays, thanks to the tireless efforts of card, candy, and flower marketers), except with the added weight of being an honest-to-goodness federal holiday. Usually, this results in a three-day weekend, but not this year - the Russian practice is to observe federal holidays that fall on a Wednesday on that Wednesday rather than moving them to create a three-day weekend.
I spoke to my wife, who's still in Moscow, today, and she was lamenting the fact that she didn't even really get the full holiday feeling - one day off and back to work the next day wasn't doing it for her.
[trip down memory lane] I was just recalling what we did for 8th of March in elementary school in Leningrad in the mid-1980's (I was the only foreigner in the school, for three long years): made cards for our mothers - this was before Hallmark's infiltration of Russia - with poems, construction-paper flowers, etc. We must have done something for our female teachers as well, but I can't remember for sure. Anyway, it was a different country back then. [/trip down memory lane]
Oh, and here's what I was writing about last Women's Day - a bit depressing...
From the January/February edition of the BISNIS Bulletin:
A curious event happened in the late 19th century in Siberia. When the Trans-Siberian Railroad was being constructed and Tomsk was to be one of its main transit points, the Tomsk guild of horse carriers raised a sufficient sum to bribe the designers so that the railroad was instead constructed via the small town of Novonikolaevsk, now Novosibirsk. In less than 100 years, Novosibirsk became a major transportation hub and the third largest city in Russia, while the economic complex of Tomsk has been suppressed due to lack of access to main trunk lines.
Thanks to alert commenter Guy, I've been informed that Scraps of Moscow has been nomintated for "Best CIS Blog" in the 2nd annual European Weblog Awards sponsored by A Fistful of Euros. Objectively speaking, Registan and Neeka's Backlog are both much better blogs (and much more frequently updated than mine has been in the past month), so I can't really ask for your vote with a straight face, except to appeal to your sympathies - please go vote for Scraps so that it's not the last-place contestant in its category...
And congratulations to Nathan and Veronica - whichever one comes out on top, they are both a pleasure to read day in and day out.
Happily, this has provided me with some motivation to resume posting regularly (though of course it can't do much to provide me with more time to post regularly).
