Ad gone wrong

I took this image from an online ad for AT&T. They are running a similar TV campaign advertising seamless worldwide service for people who straddle places like "Philawarapragacago." The TV spots were directed by Wes Anderson, are quite watchable and get a thumbs-up from Adweek.

But whoever designed the online image above needs to take another look at a globe (a real one, not one with the AT&T logo providing the latitude lines). As someone who has looked at many maps in my life and actually had to consider the relative merits of living in China (well, Hong Kong), London and Moscow, I found it disturbing that AT&T apparently thinks London is closer to China than to Moscow. Hey AT&T guys - London to Moscow is about a three-and-a-half-hour flight; flying on to China from Moscow will take you at least twice as long. Not to mention that anyone operating between London, Moscow and China would have to be crazy to use AT&T for mobile or other telephony.

Random

A few interesting links that I've run across in the past few days:

- Belarusian bloggers present President Lukashenko with his very own "LuNet."

- News.ru's roundup of Russian and foreign media coverage of Patriarch Alexey's speech at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

- Dmitri Minaev, who blogs at De Rebus Antiquis Et Novus, has a series of posts summarizing Yegor Gaidar's recent book about the collapse of the USSR. Well worth a look.

- Popular Mechanics magazine encourages Russians to vote for a Russian mission to Mars:

Putin's Pridnestrovian Partisan

Putin has long been able to count on strong support from the farthest corners of Russia. But now he's got an even more distant amen corner. Backing VVP up at the recent United Russia party congress was a political leader from a patch of land that - while it's a shorter plane ride from Moscow than Primor'e - isn't even part of Russia.

The presence of PMR Parliament Speaker Evgeny Shevchuk at the United Russia congress as an "official guest" is interesting and not entirely illogical given that by some estimates roughly 25% of Transdniester's 550,000 residents are Russian citizens and thus will be entitled to vote in the upcoming Duma and presidential elections. It's also a mild spit in the face of Moldova's assertion of sovereignty over Transdniester. I've translated two articles from Regnum about this.

"Renewal" party of Transdniester to support United Russia in the Duma elections
Regnum.ru, Oct. 1, 2007, 3:35pm

Representatives of the Transdniester republic party Renewal, led by their leader - the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Pridnestrovie Еvgenii Shevchuk will participate as official guests in the VIII United Russia party congress, which will open on October 1st at 4pm in Gostiny Dvor in Moscow, reports REGNUM's correspondent.

The congress will be in session for two days. During the congress United Russia and Renewal plan to sign an agreement about cooperation between the two political parties. Evgenii Shevchuk told Regnum that Renewal will support United Russia in the December 2007 Russian Duma elections. "We support [United Russia's] campaign platform - the 'Putin Plan' - and will actively participate in campaigning [будем принимать активное участие в агитации] on the territory of the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic among citizens who have Russian citizenship and are participating in the Duma elections," said Shevchuk.


Pridnestrovian Parliament Speaker: "Putin's decision is intended to defend the interests of Russian citizens."
Regnum.ru, Oct. 1, 2007, 10:22pm

"The Russian President's decision to head up the federal candidates' list of United Russia suggests that the Russian state will continue to develop in a stable manner," said Pridnestrovie Supreme Soviet Chairman and leader of the Renewal party Evgenii Shevchuk in an interview with a Regnum correspondent on October 1, commenting on Vladimir Putin's agreeing to head United Russia's campaign list.

"In my view, this represents a strengthening of United Russia and a continuation of the dynamic course of development not only of Russia itself, but also the defense of Russian interests and citizens regardless of their country of residence. This decision means that the course will be continued in the future and developed in a qualitatively new way and on a new level. I hope that the party [United Russia] will win a majority of votes in the Duma, which will allow the realization of 'Putin's Plan,'" said Shevchuk.

Shevchuk also emphasized that the ideology of the Pridnestrovian Renewal party and the fundamental ideological underpinnings of United Russia are similar: "We have also always supported the programmatic documents of the Russian President and of this party [United Russia]. Naturally, the Renewal party is interested in signing a mutual interparty agreement and will be active in the campaign as one of the consolidating links around the idea of United Russia's victory in the Duma elections. Renewal will support United Russia in the Russian State Duma elections in December 2007."

As Regnum earlier reported, today, October 1, in a speech at the VIII United Russia party congress in Moscow, Vladimir Putin agreed to head up the party's candidates' list.

Yes, the original articles used "VIII United Russia party congress," and I decided to leave it that way - very nostalgia-inducing. One interesting aspect of this is that even as Putin himself was backing away from "Putin's Plan" (according to Lenta.ru, he "disavowed authorship of the plan" in his remarks at the United Russia congress on October 1) people like Shevchuk were lining up to endorse it as the salvation of Russia - and "compatriots" - everywhere.

Shevchuk's bio on the PMR Supreme Soviet website - interestingly, it identifies him as being born locally - in Rybnitsa - whereas Shevchuk's entry in the list of PMR officials banned from travel to the EU lists him as being born in Novosibirsk.

It looks like another politician from Transdniester is even more directly involved - in a way - in the upcoming Duma elections:

Pridnestrovian politician is in the federal lists of candidates to the State Duma of the Russian Federation
PMR News, Sept. 25, 2007

Active Pridnestrovian politician has been included to the list of candidates of the deputies of State Duma of the Federal Council of Russian Federation. Chairman of the Board of Pridnestrovian “Gasprombank”, Marina Smirnova, has found herself in the regional group number 90 of the party “Fair Russia”(“Spravedlivaya Rossiya”). Marina Smirnova is number two in the list. In case if “Fair Russia” gets more votes in this region, Marina Smirnova may become the deputy of the State Duma of Russian Federation

Although this item appeared on the sketchy pridnestrovie.info website, Fair Russia's website confirms that Smirnova is second on their regional list for the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District. Curiouser and curiouser.

[Update Oct 7 - FLB.ru has a list of 122 businesspeople who are on Fair Russia's party list, including Smirnova, and pokes fun at the idea of "bankers for fairness."]

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.

Waiting in the PMR

Photo by LJ user nicolas_82, titled
"ожидание
троллейбуса нет и нет..."
("Waiting - but the trolleybus just won't come...")

I have blogged a fair amount about the PMR, the secessionist entity (or de facto state, depending on your preferred terminology) located along Moldova's eastern border on a patch of land called Transnistria, Transdniestria, Transdniester, Transdnestr or Pridnestrovie (again, depending on your preference and politics). AFOE has recently blogged about this troubled territory - not once, but twice - and a couple of Austrian journalists have just published a book on the region that looks like it will be interesting (I've ordered a copy and will try to offer some sort of review once I receive it); but it can be difficult to find voices from the region unfiltered by spinmasters working for or against the PMR's secession.

With that in mind, I decided to poke around in the universe of Russian-language LiveJournals and found a couple of interesting communities. Foto_pmr - the source of the photo above - is an interesting if not very often updated site with a diverse array of photos from the region. The Tiraspol city community ocity also has a wide array of postings - everything from the city's new anthem (picked up from Russian news agency "Novyi Region 2") to photos of "the PMR's Paris Hiltons" and a post about "Electronic music in Pridnestrovie." I decided to translate a couple of posts from the ocity community.

A rhetorical question when the barrel is pointed at your nose
When you go into the recently built IDK [InterDnestrKom] service center, you feel like you're in a European country - everything is so awesome and captivating, and also unusual for this area (mirrored ceilings... I've been waiting to see them for a while, and the wall in the Quake room is cool). Then you go to the passport department at the MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs] and understand that you're in far-off 1993, and it's the same old sovok, and nothing has changed in all this time - you show up with your own forms/sheets of paper from a notebook and fill them out. Watching this contrast for an hour, you involuntarily start to think, "What sort of a state do we have? A wealthy one or a poor one? And that right there, bro', is a dilemma. Practically a rhetorical question.

And a second post, in response to the first one:

To the post about the poverty and wealth of our republic
Whenever I turn on the TV (although that's only rarely), on the TV PMR "news" I often see clips about the expenditure of budgetary funds on such things, that you can't help but think, "How much money must we have, if we can afford that?"

Today I saw a story about the restoration of the "Druzhba" hotel. Was this the government's idea?! The report talked about how they're going to make this so-called hotel into something beautiful. But literally the day before yesterday I was in the hospital. Probably 70% of the equipment there is older than I am [the poster's profile says he was born in 1987 - trans.]. And this equipment is going to check my health, make me well and keep me alive if something happens! Many operations could be done much more safely and with less pain, if the doctors had decent equipment. They showed my friend that if he got operated on here, they would have to make a hole in him the size of a fist, and if he got it done in Chisinau, then they would make a small incision a centimeter long. Because there they have more modern equipment. There must be thousands of such examples in EVERY ONE of our hospitals.

That's why I want to know, is the hotel's reconstruction really worth the danger posed to the health of the citizens of this republic if they should happen to come down with anything more serious than the flu[?]

I want to see a business plan showing the projected profitability of this hotel and in general all of the expenditures from the government's budget. For example, on the website of the Supreme Soviet.

Comments to the post are interesting and state that the hotel is actually being renovated by its owner, a private investor (but question the demand for a luxury hotel in the city), and that the PMR's budgets are published periodically and available by subscription.

The Hotel Druzhba received a mention in one of Edward Lucas's reports from the PMR earlier this year:

The misnamed Hotel Druzhba (Friendship) used to be the only place to spend the night in Tiraspol. For connoisseurs of truly dismal Soviet-style rudeness, apathy, squalor and clashing shades of muddy pastel, it is still unmissable. As a place to stay, its noisy, draughty rooms, with their nylon sheets, uneven tiles, flimsy locks and eccentric plumbing, leave a lot to be desired.

For other discussions by Tiraspolians and other Transnistrians, you can also check out this online forum.

[Update: this item is now cross-posted at Global Voices.

Also, I'd meant to mention that one of the reasons I liked the above photo so much is that it reminded me of a scene I saw from the Chisinau-Tiraspol marshrutka - an elderly lady sitting on an elevated manhole cover by grazing her cow in front of a bank of unfinished apartment buildings. The collision of urban aspirations with rural realities made for one of those images I wish I'd had the chance to photograph.]

DAN and BNE on Putin's Plan

I'd like to join the chorus of voices welcoming Darkness at Noon's Rubashov back to active duty. He had a great post about Nashi last week and has now been prevented by events from enjoying his retirement (hey - sounds like VVP!) twice in as many weeks. His latest post about "Putin's Plan" is thought-provoking and addresses some of the speculation I cited in a post yesterday about Putin transporting his power base to the Prime Minister's office and gutting the authority of the presidency.


Rubashov takes issue with the idea that a Prime Minister Putin would dismantle the power of the presidency, saying that Putin "will not have an incentive to totally undermine the presidency if he has long time horizons." I'm not sure about this - it may no longer be appropriate to think about things in terms of Putin running for the presidency again in 2012. If the Prime Minister's role can be sufficiently transformed, why would Putin move back to the Kremlin from the Russian White House (where the PM sits)?

Transplanting Putinism into the parliament could actually look quite a lot like the "technical president" scenario everyone was talking about after Zubkov's appointment, except without all the head-scratching about Putin's place in the system. VVP gets to keep his pledge about not running for President again and not amending the term limit part of the constitution. The Russian system could be tweaked until it's more like Britain's (oh, the irony!), with the PM being the main source of power, and of course there is no term limit for the PM.

Voila! The presidential term limit goes from being a liability for Putin to working in his favor - the new President - whoever he is, and it now seems unlikely that ambitious figures like Ivanov or Medvedev will seek the job - will be unable to establish a long-term base to counterbalance PM Putin. Talk about judo. And it's not hard to imagine VVP becoming head of United Russia, which could - as long as the petrodollars keep flowing - garner a consistent 75% of the vote, ensuring a stable base for Putin. There may be a couple of pocket opposition parties, and Putin may not be called General Secretary, but the system of power vested in the leader of a hegemonic party is hardly without precedent.

Note that I'm not predicting anything - the past month has shown us all what folly that is - I'm just saying it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that Putin's Plan might unfold in a way that results in the scenario outlined above. But no matter what is done in the 2008 election cycle to make sure Putin is able to keep his hands on the levers of power, the longer he stays at the center of Russian politics like a sun eclipsing all other heavenly bodies, the more difficult it will be for the system to survive the burnout or retirement of its sun. This is where Rubashov is spot on.

He takes issue with the idea that Putin's latest maneuver has settled the 2008 question once and for all, and I definitely agree - the question is not settled. It may no longer be a 2008 question, perhaps it's deferred for a year or more, but eventually the system will have to change to accommodate the man at its center, or the man will have to leave. So of course the identity of the next president does have some importance and is not as trivial as I implied yesterday. As Rubashov notes, people who are expected to be curators for the clans that tap them sometimes have other ideas - like Putin did when he was installed by the Yeltsin "family," only to consolidate his power rather relentlessly over the subsequent few years. And because a transition to a PM-dominated system will require some fancy footwork and perhaps minor constitutional amendments, there is clearly room for Putin's Plan to go awry.

It's certainly true that it's impossible to see how the cards may play out, but I think one shouldn't place too much emphasis on the power of institutions in a situation where the ruling ethos seems to be in the same vein as a popular T-shirt slogan - "пацан сказал, пацан сделал" - in other words, a system where the big boss's word is all one can rely on; and where the opposition is dealt with using the principle of "нет человека, нет проблемы" (though of course opposition politicians are not being killed - just turned into media non-entities).

Long-time Russia handicapper Chris Weafer has a great piece today on businessneweurope about the prognosis for Russia's investment climate, which I'm reprinting in full as the last word on this, at least for now:

Putin to remain most important politician in Russia
Chris Weafer, head of strategy at UralSib Bank in Moscow - 2007-10-02

If President Vladimir Putin were to become prime minister after March 2008 it would represent the start of a very radical change in the structure of government in Russia. It would also support the view of continued political stability over the medium term, but raises longer-term uncertainties. For investors it is a positive proposal for the investment case at least through 2008.

Putin will remain the most important politician in Russia. He has again surprised the country by announcing, as "a realistic proposal," that he could become the head of the United Russia party and prime minister after he leaves the presidency next March.

While we are regularly surprised by the president's decisions and the various mechanisms that he puts in place as part of the political transition, the important issue is the fact that all of these changes are consistent with the view that Putin will remain at the centre of political power in Russia for at least the next few years, and that this will ensure the continuation of the domestic stability that has underscored the country's economic success over the past eight years and allowed for the rapid appreciation of the stock market.

Putin as PM makes the process more complex. After the surprise promotion of Viktor Zubkov to the position of prime minister three weeks ago, the debate has focused on whether Zubkov is to be Putin's preferred choice as Russia's third president and what that might mean for the power structure going forward.

One of our key assumptions for the investment case in Russia from 2008 is that Putin will remain in a central and powerful role, and that the profile of a person such as Zubkov is the ideal choice to allow the outgoing president to achieve that. Zubkov, or a person with a similar profile, paves the way open for Putin to return as president in 2012, or even earlier.

But today's announcement points to another option: devolving powers from the presidency to the office of prime minister. The previous assumption of Putin staying on as some sort of senior adviser to the next president and waiting for an opportunity to return had the merit of simplicity, while taking a formal role as prime minister makes the process more complex and raises plenty of questions about power sharing.

A Putin premiership would have to result in an upgrade. Right now all of the (important) executive power in Russia is with president; the PM is directly responsible to the president and essentially takes his orders from him. That is a situation that simply could not exist if Putin were to be prime minister. The opinion polls consistently show that his public popularity is between 75% and 80%, and that he will retain the moral authority of leader of the country even after March 2008. The office of prime minister would simply have to be upgraded to allow it have much greater power if Putin were to have that role.

Positive for 2008 but later transition risks

While such a move would represent continued stability in the early part of the next presidency, ie. 2008 and most of 2009, it does raise the risk of uncertainties arising later. This is especially the case if Putin does pursue a more radical change in the structure of government power.

The people with power in the Kremlin may be happy to see some additional powers accrue to the prime minister, but would they support a radical change that would effectively see power shift from the office of the president to the prime minister? On the other hand, critics of Russia's democratic process will see this as a further example of the return to the power structures of the Soviet Union. In that period, the formal head of government was merely the figure head, while the real power lay with the head of the Communist Party.

United Russia will remain the dominant party

United Russia is expected to retain its role as the dominant party within the Duma after the general election on December 2. For this year's election the threshold for parties to be able to participate in government has been raised to 7% of the vote. This is up from 5% in the previous Duma election in December 2003. That effectively means there will only be four parties in the next Duma: United Russia, A Just Russia, LDPR and the Communists. Of course, given Putin's personal popularity, if he were to take over as head of the United Russia party, then the number of parties might easily be reduced, with an even more dominant United Russia.

Will Russia assume UK or French form of government?

The longer-term question is what type of government Russia will have: the current French model, where the president remains the dominant power; or the UK model, where the prime minister has that role. This is a much more fundamental question that will - should Putin actually follow through with his "realistic proposal" - provide the dominant debate through the next presidency. Powerful people in the Kremlin will have as much of a vested interest in the process as Putin and punters investing in Russia.

However, unlike in Ukraine, where the devolution process has contributed to instability, given the dominance of the pro-Kremlin parties in the Duma, the debate will not be on the streets or even in the Duma. It will be, as usual, in the offices and the corridors of the Kremlin.

There's only room for one Leader at the top of the list

[image source]

Lenta.ru reports on how Putin has replaced the top three spots on United Russia's party list (a couple of original translations below the cut). If this is how the new "party-based democracy" is going to look, I wonder how it differs from the "rule of one man" model which Putin has perfected during his time in office?

Vladimir Putin has replaced United Russia's top troika
Lenta.ru, Oct. 2, 2007

In United Russia's draft list of candidates, the first three positions [Trans. note - these are the three positions which get into the Duma on the basis of the nationwide vote for a party] is not present as such. In place of it, the draft on which the delegates of the party congress will vote has only one name - Vladimir Putin. [...]

On October 1, the first day of the party congress, President Vladimir Putin agreed to head up United Russia's candidate list for the December 2 Duma elections. After that, the party corrected its candidate lists in accordance with the wishes of the president, in part to exclude big businessmen.

And a more recent article:

United Russia congress confirms federal party list
Lenta.ru, Oct. 2, 2007

The delegates of United Russia's pre-election congress have confirmed the federal list of the party for the upcoming parliamentary elections. The results of the secret ballot were 476 delegates in favor; three against; and two abstentions. The list, which is broken into 83 regional groups, includes 600 candidates.

Number 1 on the list is Vladimir Putin, and his candidacy makes up the entirety of the nationwide part of the list [общефедеральная часть списка]. The Moscow group, as was expected, is headed up by the capital's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, vice-premier Аleksandr Zhukov and film director Stanislav Govorukhin. The top three of the St. Petersburg list includes United Russia leader Bоris Gryzlov and Petersburg governor Vаlentina Matvienko, who had been expected to receive spots in the nationwide top three. Another candidate for the nationwide list, Sеrgei Shoigu, will head up the Stavropol' group. Ice skater Svetlana Zhurova, who was also being considered for the third spot in the nationwide troika, is second on the list for Leningrad Region.

In addition, according to Putin's statement about the undesirability of oligarchs being on the party list, billionaire Suleiman Kerimov was excluded from the list; however, Magnitogorsk factory owner Viktor Rashnikov, Sed'moi Kontinent founder Vladimir Gruzdev, Novatek owner Leonid Simanovskii and Krasnyi Vostok owner Airat Khairullin all remained on the list.

The American government has stated that Putin's plan to run for the Duma and presumably then assume the role of Prime Minister is Russia's internal affair.

Patriotic selflessness or fear-based fealty? Russian oligarchs prostrate themselves before the State

I've translated an interesting article from Lenta.ru quoting Alisher Usmanov and Oleg Deripaska as ready to give up their fortunes if the state requires it. The story makes one wonder just how far those Russian oligarchs who remain standing will go to avoid the fate of Khodorkovsky or others who have had to leave the country.

Usmanov has promised to shower Russia with gifts
Lenta.ru, Oct. 1, 2007

Entrepreneur Аlisher Usmanov, who purchased the art collection of Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya and gave it to the [Russian] state, has announced that he is "ready to give Russia, if she needs it," everything that he has [все, что у него есть]. He explained his motivation by noting that he is a proud citizen of Russia, according to Interfax. [...]

Vladimir Kozhin, head of the Presidential Business Management Department, spoke of the necessity of "beautifully, intelligently and worthily" celebrating the services of Usmanov, who refused a government award for the purchase and gift of the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya collection. [...] Acquiring the collection cost Usmanov, the director of Gazprominvestholding and the owner of the Kommersant publishing house, $72 million.

This was not Usmanov's first gift. Earlier, he bought the worldwide screening rights to 550 Soviet animated films from the American company Films by Jove and gave the rights to VGTRK [the state broadcasting company that runs the "Rossiia" channel]. Aside from this, Usmanov is a co-owner of Arsenal, a London soccer team. According to the American magazine Forbes, his fortune is estimated at $5.5 billion.

In July of this year another big-time Russian businessman, Oleg Deripaska, also expressed his willingness to transfer, if necessary, a portion of his property to the government. He stated that he is willing to give the country, "if it becomes necessary," the metallurgical holding company Russian Aluminum (RusAl).

Usmanov is an unlikely hero, according to some. But he does sort of look the part of a beardless, tan Santa Claus.


Sean Guillory had a good post about Usmanov's repurchase of the library of animated films earlier this year - the centerpiece of which was the Cheburashka films. The higher-value purchase and gift of Rostropovich's art collection (which will be displayed at Putin's St. Petersburg residence, the Constantine Palace) follows in the footsteps of Viktor Vekselberg's repatriation of the Forbes Faberge eggs. The willingness to contribute personal assets "for the good of the country" brings to mind Roman Abramovich's contributions to the well-being of the Chukotka region. Tsar Putin is fortunate indeed to have such fawning boyars.

Medvedev promises "merciless battle" against xenophobia

I've translated this text from NTV's website:

Medvedev: The Entire State Apparatus [госмашина] Will Fight Xenophobia
Oct. 1, 2007

Thousands of former students from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe who studied in our institutes and universities during the Soviet era gathered in Moscow today. The Second World Forum of Foreign Graduates of Domestic Institutions of Higher Learning [Второй Всемирный форум иностранных выпускников отечественных вузов] opened in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions. The participants were welcomed by Dmitrii Medvedev.

The First Deputy Prime Minister spoke about the contemporary higher school of Russia, which prepares specialists who are in demand on the world labor market. This is the main task of the national project titled "Education."

Dmitrii Medvedev, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation: "The most important task is to adapt our domestic higher school to the demands of an innovative economy, to prepare modern, qualified specialists, competitive specialists, who will be in demand on the global labor market.

In order to do this, in part, we have established business schools in Moscow and St. Petersburg. We hope that these will be world-class business schools. Such an education had not been available in Russia, not to speak of the Soviet Union. We have also established two new federal universities, large universities, which have united a number of smaller institutions of higher learning. These are the Siberian and Southern Federal Universities."

According to NTV's sources, Medvedev also touched on the question of the security of foreign students in Russia. According to the First Deputy Prime Minister, "we are openly looking at a problem which many countries have confronted in recent times, including the problem of xenophobia. Have no doubt: the entire state machine will battle this evil mercilessly," said Medvedev.

The rhetoric is in keeping with Medvedev's image as the more "liberal" of the erstwhile contenders for the office of President in 2008 and is somewhat interesting, though of course actions speak louder than words.

What is more interesting is the brilliant idea of having an alumni conference for foreign graduates of Soviet and Russian universities. This is a network which includes many people who have become leaders in their native countries and is a great way for Russia to perform outreach to some of the former Soviet satellites. It looks like the whoever thought of this may have taken a page from the book of the US State Department, which long ago began requiring contractors who organize exchange programs for students to come to the US to include a back-end alumni component. On the other hand, this World Forum looks a bit more top-down than, for example, the self-organized association of Muskie Fellowship Alumni.

План Путина - Премьер Министр пожизненно?

[image source]

It now looks like the much-discussed "Putin Plan" is for the President to become Prime Minister.

With one fell swoop, Vladimir Putin laid to rest all of the kibitzing about who would be his successor and what his role might be after he leaves the presidency. All of the talk about the "2008 question," "operation successor," Medvedev vs. Ivanov, et cetera, can most likely be filed away as no longer relevant.


United Russia, the leading party in the Russian Duma, has named Putin as the top person in its "party list" of candidates for the upcoming Duma elections. Putin, in turn, has said that he would be happy to continue his political career as prime minister, as long as United Russia wins the Duma elections (virtually guaranteed) and as long as the new president is a "respectable, competent and efficient person." Given that Putin will be able to have a great deal of influence (perhaps even control) over who is elected president next March, it seems that he'll be able to ensure that a suitably "respectable" person is elected - and he'll probably pick someone who won't challenge him for the role of the country's leading politician.

The Russian presidency has just become an office that may no longer be of interest to some of those named most frequently as top candidates during the past year. In any event, the identity of the next president is now more of an academic question, the answer to a future trivia question (perhaps a bit like Malenkov in that sense) - it's certainly no longer the burning, speculation-fueling question that it's been for the past year or so.

Путин возглавит «Единую Россию» на выборах Президент России возглавит список «Единой России» на выборах в Госдуму. «Я с благодарностью принимаю ваше предложение возглавить список «Единой России», — сказал В.Путин, выступая на 8-м съезде партии. Победа «Единой России» на выборах, по словам В.Путина — первое условие, обеспечивающее его согласие стать премьер-министром России после марта 2008 г. Далее

In any event, it's amazing how quickly the March 2008 presidential elections have come to seem irrelevant. Today I attended a panel discussion which was not focused on the presidential succession question, but the news had to be discussed. One of the participants, a leading scholar of Russian politics visiting from Moscow, suggested that this must have been the first discussion in DC of the new reality of Russian politics. She noted that all of the discussion about successors could be forgotten, and that the power will be in the Prime Minister's office once Putin moves there.

According to her, Putin has been building a parallel power structure for some time and will use it to suck the air out of the vertical of power which was one of the main accomplishments of his time in office. Putin will inevitably have to undermine the presidency if he wishes to remain preeminent on the Russian political scene. She also noted that an interesting consequence will be that for the first time, the Prime Minister will be responsible for foreign and economic policy. This will lead to greater accountability, because in the past the PM has been able to serve as a sort of accountability buffer for the president.

It seems that this sensational news, or at least the method of its delivery, actually not much of a surprise. About ten days ago, I attended a presentation by a few people who were present at some or all of the Valdai Group's meetings in Kazan, Moscow and Sochi in September. One of the comments relayed from Russian political leaders was that Russia-watchers should keep a close eye on the United Russia party congress to take place October 1st and 2nd, and this turned out to be prescient advice. The assumption was that Sergei Ivanov might be the person tapped by United Russia - or rather by Putin, as Oleg Morozov, one of UR's leaders, admitted that the #1 spot on the party list would be decided by Putin and not by UR.

In a way, it seems like an ideal solution. The people get to have their fun with a more or less meaningless presidential election, and the section of the elite representing the "third term party" also gets the result they want, de facto if not de jure (and we all know that de facto is of much greater interest to the Russian leadership than de jure). The way of kicking off this transition-but-not-a-transition is rather sensational, in my opinion, but Putin becoming Prime Minister was a versiia that I'm sure got kicked around by Russian and/or Russia-watching pundits in the past couple of years. Still, now that it's actually unfolding it seems like a shock.

The only thing that is predictable about Russian politics (or at least about Putin, who seems determined to remain the sole source and arbiter of politics in the country) in this election cycle appears to be its unpredictability. It's amazing that in the pursuit of a stable, predictable system there have already been a couple of surprises - first, Zubkov's appointment, and now this. Assuming Putin can pull it off, and there's no reason to believe that he can't, it will be interesting to see what sort of modus vivendi he develops with the new president and how exactly he takes the various portfolios - foreign policy, economic policy, energy... - from the president's office to the PM's office. On the other hand, perhaps this will be quite simple - after all, much ink has been spilled discussing how power in Russia is contained in one man's hands. If that man just changes his title, why shouldn't all of the power migrate over to the new title with him. And as far as I know (though I haven't looked into it and I'm sure we'll be able to read more about it in the next couple of days), the Prime-Ministership doesn't have that pesky constitutional term limit. Interesting times.

[Update - a few other people are blogging about this today - Sean, Putinwatcher, and Russia Monitor's Jesse Heath. All worth a look.]

[Update 2 - there's sort of an open thread about this news at one of the most popular Russian LiveJournals, drugoi - 72 comments already.

The best photo I've seen so far is at this gazeta.ru story titled "Почему у нас не Туркменистан?"


And Lenta.ru introduces this article, which opines that "the campaign for the Fifth State Duma has ended, having barely started," with a quotation from Pushkin's Boris Godunov:

3RD PERSON. Listen! What noise is that?--The people groaned;
See there! They fall like waves, row upon row--
Again--again-- Now, brother, 'tis our turn;
Be quick, down on your knees!

THE PEOPLE. (On their knees, groaning and wailing.)
                                Have pity on us,
Our father! O, rule over us! O, be
Father to us, and tsar!

]