"For Putin," once again...

I first reported on the online For Putin (Za Putina) movement last year. At the time, it was an amorphous initiative which seemed at first to be aimed at encouraging Putin to stick around for a third term. It ended up doing nothing more than providing another platform for Russia.ru videos and, one supposes, a bit of assistance with online PR during the election cycle and presidential transition.

As with all such websites, one might just as easily conclude that it was set up in order to attract Kremlin or campaign funds (if there was any difference between the two) to web design companies affiliated with its organizers or to demonstrate the zealousness of their support for the correct political line.

Now, ITAR-TASS reports the following (via JRL):

Nationwide Movement 'For Putin' Flings Doors Open

MOSCOW, November 18 (Itar-Tass) - The all- Russia movement "For Putin" is opening public offices in all regions of the Russian Federation to improve the population's competence in matters of law, Co-chairman of the public movement. Lawyer Pavel Astakhov declared at a forum " In Support of Vladimir Putin's Course."

The public offices will provide juridical consultations to the population to improve their knowledge of law, Astakhov said. Such offices will be affiliated to Vladimir Putin' public reception rooms in regions, the lawyer added. Such public offices are needed as much as ever now because the population is concerned over the world financial crisis and consequences it might entail for the Russian economy, Astakhov said.

The Movement " For Putin" created a year ago fully supports the present course "Strategy-2020" and the initiatives voiced by President Dmitry Medvedev in his State of the Nation address to the Federal Assembly, Astakhov said.

Initiative groups in support of Vladimir Putin met in the city of Tver last November and organized a public movement "For Putin". Representatives from 80 regions, where meetings had been held in support of Vladimir Putin's course, attended the meeting. They elected a ten-strong Coordination Council that represents all the federal districts of the Russian Federation. Lawyer Pavel Astakhov, surgeon Renat Akchurin and Head of the trade union of workers of the agrarian -industrial sector Natalia Agapova were elected co- chairmen of the Coordination Council of the movement " For Putin".

At the moment, the news feed on Zaputina.ru hasn't been updated to reflect the new initiative. My first thought is that, although Putin did attend university at LGU's law faculty, it's odd that he would become the public face of what seems to be some sort of nascent legal aid movement. After all, Medvedev was a practicing lawyer for much longer. Anyway, perhaps this is a meaningless bit of non-news, but it was an item that caught my attention.

As a side note, Astakhov, a real lawyer who studied first at the KGB's higher school and later at Pitt Law, achieved notoriety for his involvement in the defense of accused spy Edmond Pope and as a lawyer for NTV during its last days under Gusinsky. He has found widespread fame in Russia as a TV lawyer and was one of the people associated with the ZaPutina website when it was launched in November 2007. An interview with Astakhov on his own website (as in many interviews of this genre, the interviewer is not identified and the responses appear to have been carefully drafted) contains a passage, in which he essentially embraces being called a "careerist." He does seem to have made a seamless jump from defending the '90s-era oligarchy to promoting Putin's course, although in this he has much in common with many Russian political pundits.

His "Hour of Trial with Pavel Astakhov" TV show already apparently provides free legal services to the public (see page 5 of this pdf), so perhaps for him this is an extension of a personal project under the Presidential Prime Ministerial banner.

As another side note, the site that went live last year (which, one can assume, will be rolled out once more if Astakhov's statement is more than a flash in the pan and "Za Putina" returns to the public eye) is not the first iteration of an online movement unabashedly "For Putin." The website's earlier incarnation, which looked virtually the same from its launch in March 2005 through the beginning of November 2007 (shortly after which the new, improved ZaPutina 2.0 was rolled out), has been preserved by the good people at archive.org. Archive.org's "Wayback Machine" is an extremely useful resource for sifting through the dirt of Russian politics as it appeared on the internet for the past 10 years or so.

Rural Moldovan Bus Stops

This post is, I guess, a tribute to a guy who is something of a photography role model of mine, Christopher Herwig. To understand why I might find this perfect stranger worthy of emulation, you need know no more than I do about him - namely, that he has self-published a photo book titled Soviet Bus Stops. I own a copy of said book and highly recommend buying it as a gift for that Sovok-o-phile who has everything (Google tells me I'm not the only one who feels this way). You can view some of his bus stop images, with a brief introductory essay, here. Herwig observes:

The roadside bus stop serves a simple purpose – to show where the bus will stop and to provide some comfort and shelter for waiting passengers. One would think that the Soviets would have come up with one universal design for this community structure – simple, functional and cheap to mass produce. However, in many instances this was not the case, much time, effort and imagination went into many roadside bus stops. The sky was the limit with different shapes and design– blocks, domes, columns, towers, A-frames and archways, even ones shaped like birds, yurts and hats. If the bus stop was less bold and daring with its architectural design then the creators would often attract attention with decorating the structure with murals or mosaics.

Rural Moldova is replete with such wacky and beautiful bus stops, many of them in a tragic state of disrepair. I would have photographed more of them, but when you're driving on an intercity trip your passengers (even when they're family) start to look at you funny when you pull over, hop out and start clicking away at every bus stop. Nevertheless, each of them is a treasure in its own right. My photos can't really hold a candle to Herwig's, but I was lucky enough to get real people in most of them. The full set, including some other roadside photos from this past summer, can be viewed here.

Alexandreni

Alexandreni is one of those villages that I think has been subtly renamed in the post-Soviet years, from Alexandrovka. I am not 100% sure that's the case with the Alexandreni where this bus stop stands, but I know it's happened to at least one village of that name. Also noted on my last visit was a Dmitriovka --> Dumitreni renaming which has taken place in the last couple of years. Creeping Romanianization, indeed.

Gura Cainarului

This looks to be a modern variation (i.e., built in the last 15 years) on the Soviet idea of crazy thematic bus stops. The bottle is an ad for Gura Cainarului mineral water, which is bottled just a short distance away.

“Gura Cainarului is part of our life!”, - and that isn't a simple advertising slogan, these words reflect actual situation. It is Gura Cainarului that during 8 years is the most popular and demanded product on Moldova's market of mineral waters.

Name of mineral water comes from location of this unique spring in the village Gura Cainarului of Floresti region. Spring No. 3 delivering Gura Cainarului water is flowing on the depth of 120 meters. Such depth ensures complete protection from external influences. Numerous layers through which the water raises to the surface saturate it with healthy minerals that are vital for human body.

As you head out of Floresti, this bus stop is on your right-hand side. Take a left on the dirt road which intersects the "highway" at this bus stop, bounce along for a few minutes, and you can buy fizzy or flat water direct from the plant. Or you can just drink from the well that's hidden in this enormous stone bottle.

Marculesti

A daughter tends to her mothers hair while waiting for the bus.

Chapaev

This cheery yet derelict bus stop appears to depict Bolshevik hero Vasily Chapaev and a generic grape-bearing Moldovan maiden, but I'd be happy to hear any other interpretations.

"Russian March" gets ugly

via drugoi, originally posted by zahard

It's the type of thing that could make a the last Russian liberal's head explode. Nazi-saluting morons getting beaten by cops while marching on the Arbat. Cops stomping on the Russian flag. Should one be outraged over the police brutality, or appalled at the sentiments expressed by the marchers (and the way in which the latter are presumed by hard-core Putin-haters to be fed by the patriotic bombast of Russia's current leaders)? What a dilemma. I applaud drugoi's solution, which was to go photograph the whole mess and then put the pictures online. This one was my favorite from his set:

[image source]

The guys slinging shawarma - who have, let's face it, a bit more to fear - were apparently more willing to face the crowds of developmentally challenged racists than were the guys in the Kremlin. Here is a fascinating photo-report from the area around Red Square, which was makes it look like the area was under total lockdown as the marchers took the Arbat on November 4th - which, lest we forget, is the Day of National Unity in Russia.

Perhaps the reason for the harsher-than-usual treatment of the marchers (in the past, xenophobic organizations have been allowed to march) was the political context of this year's march (from the Moscow Times):

Although the action had a strong racist element, the increasing problems spawned by the financial crisis gave the rhetoric an economic edge.

"These are not gastarbaitery," said Boris Ivanov, a DPNI member, referring to the thousands of men and women who come to Moscow from Central Asia and the Caucasus to work in markets and construction sites. "These are strikebreakers," he said.

"Life is already very hard for us, and they come and bring down pay rates and make it even harder," he said, while those around him vigorously nodded their heads. "They are useful for the Kremlin and the oligarchs, because they work for less."

City Hall had authorized marches in three of the past four years, but this year authorities reacted strongly to the illegal marchers by deploying hundreds of truncheon-wielding riot police.

The reason behind the unwillingness of the city's authorities to sanction the march could be fear that it would lead to riots in the street, especially given the people's worries about the looming financial crisis, said Alexei Mukhin of the Center for Political Technologies.

And more photos from Nov 4's festivities, from the blog of Kommersant journo Ekaterina Savina.

Time to repair the relationship?

One of Fred Kaplan's thoughtful "six priorities for President Obama" (headlined "A Foreign Policy Repair Manual") is this:

Normalize relations with Russia. This may sound cold, but Russia is too important—on energy, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, peace in the Middle East, nearly everything—for our relations to get warped in a new Cold War over the integrity of South Ossetia.

Moscow's aggression should not be blithely tolerated, but it's absurd to respond by, say, admitting Georgia into NATO. First, members are required to have recognized borders, which Georgia lacks. Second, do you—do any Americans—really want to go to war for Tbilisi? (This is what security alliances are all about.) Impose economic and diplomatic pressure. But also assure the Russians that we have no intention of further NATO expansion. Tell them we will proceed to deploy missile defenses in the Czech Republic and Poland if the system works (a nudge-and-wink signal that we probably will not proceed after all). This is not "appeasement," since we have—or should have—no interest in behaving otherwise.

Resume strategic arms talks, and demand in return that Moscow reaffirm the Reagan-era treaty limiting conventional forces in Europe, which Vladimir Putin has been threatening to abrogate. Putin has been riding high these past few years on the vast revenues brought in by high oil prices; the recent plunge and the crash of his stock market might make him more pliant. In short, the time is ripe for a policy of applying pressure where our differences matter and giving way where they don't.

All sounds OK to me.

[Update Nov 7]

Here's a link to Sestanovich's recent Foreign Affairs article - sure to be widely read among people trying to understand trends in the bilateral relationship - which was mentioned in the comments.

And today's Moscow Times had pieces from two Russian politicians, both titled "Getting Along with Obama." Neither of them seemed particularly optimistic.

Liberal ex-Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov:

Of course, Obama inherited a slew of thorny problems on the foreign policy front -- above all, a very unstable Iraq and a worsening situation in Afghanistan. But overall, we can expect a general improvement in the U.S. position and a global resurgence of trust in Washington -- with one large exception: Russia.

Russia is the one country with which improved relations are unlikely. Obama's administration will have to face the same divisive issues that confronted President George W. Bush. First, Obama has not definitively rejected U.S. plans to deploy elements of a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Second, he supports the U.S. military presence in Central Asia and the expansion of NATO. Third, Obama's position on Georgia differs little from his rival John McCain's, and he will look just as unfavorably at any attempts by Moscow to increase its influence in the former Soviet republics. Fourth, energy resources and pipelines remain a source of constant rivalry as the United States seeks to circumvent Russia by sponsoring alternative oil and gas delivery routes from the Caucasus and Central Asia to the West. Finally, it is safe to say the hawkish advisers in Obama's campaign team -- namely, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke and former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski -- probably didn't paint Russia in the most positive terms.

I continue to find it odd but not surprising to see Obama's list of foreign policy advisers - which was as large as 300 people at one point - so frequently cherry-picked to highlight those individuals who are seen as hostile toward Russia.

Federation Council "Senator" Mikhail Margelov strikes a slightly more optimistic (albeit cautiously so) note:

As for Russia, it is too early to speak of any warming of relations between our two countries under the Obama administration. Judging from his advisers, Obama will surely support the U.S. missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic — particularly after President Dmitry Medvedev's state-of-the-nation address on Wednesday, in which he promised to deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad. Thus, it is far from certain that Russia and the United States will become closer partners under an Obama administration.

Most likely, both sides will be content to continue their ongoing selective cooperation on the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the fight against international terrorism. But the same old disagreements will remain over other former Soviet republics, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Kosovo, Iran, Iraq and over differing world views.

At the same time, Medvedev said during his address that Russia is not infected with anti-Americanism and does not want a confrontation with the United States. This was underscored when Medvedev emphasized the importance of modernizing Russia, which he said must include fundamental democratic changes. Tensions with the United States and its allies would heavily undermine the country's democratic development.

Confrontation with Russia is clearly not in the interests of the United States either. Obama's administration will not be conducting "cowboy diplomacy" as his predecessors did. Moreover, Obama understands that without Russia it would be difficult to resolve many global problems affecting key U.S. interests. There are certainly people in Obama's inner circle who are not favorably disposed toward Russia, but if they want to bolster U.S. interests and security, they will be forced to cooperate with Russia. The two countries can work together without having to be the best of friends.

And there are concrete reasons why Russia and the United States need to cooperate. The world is becoming more chaotic, and this is dangerous because we are armed to the teeth. Existing measures for ensuring the nonproliferation of nuclear and conventional armaments are ineffective. International institutions created under Cold War conditions are in crisis. The number and scale of conflicts is increasing around the world, including ethnic and religious clashes. Terrorism and poverty remain global powder kegs. State sovereignty gives rise to state egoism. The world community has lost its sense of solidarity and a common conception of good and evil. Foreign policy of nations increasingly favor selfish interests over universal values.

Such a world needs change. But without close cooperation between the leading powers — including the United States and Russia — those changes will not take place.

Medvedev changes the game

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

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

See also aggregated coverage of this from Yandex.

Song for Sarah, and other Election Day bits

In honor of the election watched 'round the world, here is this mildly entertaining contribution to the online body of material (growing fast, but probably with a short shelf life) poking fun at Sarah Palin. It seems to be by a couple of faux Russians, presumably based somewhere in the Lower 48:

If actual Russians could vote, it appears that they would support Obama but be somewhat indifferent, unlike the rest of the world, which seems to favor Obama by a landslide - well, except for Georgia (but see here) and Israel.

The preference for Obama is not shared by Russians who have emigrated to America, reports Ekho Moskvy - they overwhelmingly support McCain. Eugene Ivanov of the Ivanov Report eloquently presents the minority perspective of a pro-Obama Russian-American.

And yes, I know the difference between online polls and actual polls - RIA Novosti has a more advanced take on the traditional online poll, providing visitors with an opportunity to vote "Yes" or "No" on certain key campaign statements supposedly made by the candidates (you vote on each statement without being told which candidate made it).

Users are then told which of the candidates their responses suggest they support. What's interesting about the statements presented is that I doubt some of them ever passed either of the candidates' lips as presented, and a couple even seem a bit like "push-polling" questions. Plus, most of them deal with the US-Russian relationship, which wasn't exactly the focus of the campaign (though I understand why it's the focus of RIAN's fun app). Anyway, the RIAN thing can't be right, because it told me I am torn between McCain and Obama:


On a tangentially related note, by strange coincidence this is the second (presidential) Election Day in a row I'm spending in London. This morning we went to the US Embassy to receive some unrelated American Citizen Services and dropped off our absentee ballots for delivery to the motherland. Unfortunately, no matter who the next president is, I doubt he'll be able to reinvent the world so that our diplomats in friendly nations no longer feel they have to live in bunkers.

And on a barely related note, I wanted to send a congratulatory shout-out to the good people at Global Voices, who received a much more substantial shout-out last week - from the Washington Post - for their excellent Voices Without Votes project.

[update Nov 5] Thank goodness for MSNBC's internet-accessible election coverage. Without it, there is no way I would have been able to stay up into the wee hours of the morning to see McCain concede and Obama orate. Chris Matthews may be annoying, but he's nowhere near as annoying as watching Brits try to fill airtime talking about US politics with D-list "experts."

Here is further confirmation that there is "no Obamamania in Russia" (and I'm not referring to Medvedev welcoming Barry to president-elect status by announcing missile deployments). And some thoughts about the contest from Ukraine.

[update Nov 7] Here is an interesting compilation of Russian elite opinion soundbites from Kommersant-Vlast.

VLKSM > Nashi

The 90th anniversary of the Komsomol is being celebrated more than one might expect, but it seems that the contemporary VLKSM-wannabes are not feeling as much love as they were a year ago. Read the full article for the punch line at the end...

Pro-Kremlin Youths Take Backseat to Crisis
Moscow Times, 28 October 2008
By Francesca Mereu / Staff Writer

Last year, pro-Kremlin youth groups were all over television, promising then-President Vladimir Putin love and loyalty, picketing foreign embassies and harassing a hodgepodge of opposition activists.

As recently as July, state-run television showed First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov lecturing Nashi activists in economics at their summer camp.

But with the election season over and the government grappling with the financial crisis, youth activists have drifted from the political spotlight, busying themselves instead with fashion shows and city cleanups.

There are no plans for a crisis-themed protest.

"We might organize something soon," Nashi spokeswoman Kristina Potupchik said of possible events concerning the crisis. "We have a meeting Friday. We will decide then."

Nashi is now working on "long-term projects," Potupchik said, adding that there are "fewer political reasons" for the mass demonstrations that the group organized during the December State Duma elections and the March presidential vote.

Nashi activist Antonina Shapovalova, who designed pro-Putin bikinis for the group, showed off her collection during the recent Moscow Fashion Week, Potupchik noted.

Nashi's top projects include promoting the patriotic children's movement Mishki, or Bear Cubs, tolerance programs and blood drives, she said.

"These are long-term and real projects, not one-day events," she said.

The plans are, however, unquestionably less confrontational than Nashi programs a year ago, when the group organized patrols -- accompanied by police and known as druzhinniki -- to head off any anti-Kremlin protests.

Now druzhinniki, members of a volunteer corps that dates back to Soviet times, are making different kinds of rounds. Recently, the volunteers removed political ads from the streets of Yaroslavl following local elections on Oct. 13, said Alexandra Valtinina, a spokeswoman for the volunteers.

"People were tired of seeing all those billboards, and we decided not to wait for communal workers to do the job," Valtinina said. "We cleaned everything up."

Nashi burst onto the political scene in 2005, staging a 50,000-member rally in Moscow to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Victory Day. The group was broadly seen as a response to the youth-led protests that helped bring pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko to power in Ukraine.

Last year, the group noisily picketed the Estonian Embassy following a feud over the relocation of a Soviet-era war memorial in Tallinn. It has also been accused of harassing former British Ambassador Anthony Brenton after he attended an opposition conference.

Nashi founder Vasily Yakemenko left the group last year to head up the Youth Affairs Committee, which is in charge of the country's youth organizations.

A woman who answered the phone at the committee Monday said Yakemenko was unavailable for comment and referred all inquiries to Potupchik.

Nashi's fellow pro-Kremlin youth groups have been comparably tranquil since the end of the election cycle.

Vladimir Nasonov, spokesman for the United Russia youth group Young Russia, said "mass action" is not a wise tactic during times of crisis. He echoed President Dmitry Medvedev's accusation that the Unites States "set up" other countries in the current global financial crisis.

"Our duty is to defend the powers that be in case of large protests against the government," Nasonov said. "We need to back them, because the policy of those people living on the other side of the ocean should be blamed and not our government."

Andrei Groznetsky, a spokesman for Mestniye, another pro-Kremlin youth group, said youth movements were politically active only during the election season.

Both Young Russia and Mestniye appear to be focusing on more nationalistic issues.

Young Russia will hold a demonstration to "protect the Russian language" on Nov. 4, People's Unity Day, Nasonov said.

Mestniye, meanwhile, is devoting its energy to "fighting against illegal immigrants who work as unofficial cab drivers," Groznetsky said.

Both Nashi and Mestniye plan to hold demonstrations on People's Unity Day. The Nashi event, called "Blanket of Peace," will be held on Vasilyevsky Spusk, near the Kremlin.

After United Russia recaptured a constitutional majority in last year's Duma elections and Medvedev won a landslide victory in the March 2 presidential election, Nashi and other pro-Kremlin groups have denied suggestions that they might fade into political oblivion.

In March, several young people took to the streets to distribute rolls of toilet paper embossed with the logo of Kommersant after the newspaper quoted an unidentified Kremlin official as calling Nashi activists "jubilant street punks" and saying their services were no longer needed.

Also printed on the toilet paper was the cell phone number of the author of the article. Nashi denied any involvement in the stunt.

Yury Korgunyuk, a political analyst with Indem, a think tank, said the Kremlin needs all the resources it can get to deal with the current economic crisis, meaning that there will be few funds left over to finance youth groups.

"The markets are in chaos, and there are no bankers or businessmen the Kremlin can ask for money like before," Korgunyuk said. "What can the Kremlin ask of [the youth groups] now? To hold a sit-in in front of the American Embassy and scream, 'Down with the crisis?'"

In fact, Nashi is planning a Nov. 2 protest outside the U.S. Embassy in conjunction with Halloween, Potupchik said.

Nashi activists will bring pumpkins to protest "what the Americans did in South Ossetia, in Afghanistan and in other conflicts," Potupchik said.

The name of someone who died in one of these conflicts will be written on each pumpkin, she added.

Synchronicity, intellectual goofiness and Google hits

The past couple of months' uprootings and putting down of roots will (perhaps) be explored in a later post. For now, Scraps returns to the virtual airwaves with a rather frivolous post in lieu of something more serious. After all, "a blog is...a broadcast, not a publication. If it stops moving, it dies. If it stops paddling, it sinks."

Others who saw the video clip embedded below summed it up as follows:

In this awesome video for the song “Gorbachov” by Russian metal band ANJ, former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev is an axe-wielding barbarian, destroying zombies who attack the hard working big breasted women of Mother Russia. It really is a thing of beauty. Actually it’s more than that. It’s the best damn music video ever created.

Or, more succinctly:

Wow. Hot Russian women, Zombie Stalins, Gorbachov the barbarian, and erotic food innuendo. What else could you possibly need in a music video?

Indeed. Judge for yourselves (click here to see the HD version):

GORBACHOV: THE MUSIC VIDEO - BIGGER AND RUSSIANER from Tom Stern on Vimeo.

The video's director describes his opus as follows:

Suffice to say it's half Russian History allegory as told through an old zombie movie made in the Soviet Union, and half animated Soviet Propaganda posters.

This apparently made the rounds of RuNet a few months ago, and the link was emailed to me at that time by a fellow GVO Summit attendee. As I sifted through my neglected inbox today, I came upon this link and decided to check whether any of my fellow Russia bloggers have posted anything about this curious production. Apparently, no one did. Perhaps people found parts of it too tasteless, or the music accompanying the video too awful, to subject others to it; on the other hand, I would imagine that Sean could have a field day with some of the symbolism.

Imagine my surprise when, among the Technorati sightings of the video, I found an announcement that the band whose song inspired this crazy clip is performing tonight in my home town. Since we landed here in London exactly a month ago, this discovery tickled my homesickness bone and cemented my decision to post a video that would otherwise be out of character - not that there's anything NSFW, mind you, it's just rather... well, check it out yourself.


PS notwithstanding the potpourri of Google-friendly search terms appearing above, I should state quite clearly that this post was not authored with the intention of driving traffic...

More Maps of Georgia

A couple more maps that I had the chance to scan in before leaving DC last week. Complaints about the white line through the larger images can be directed to the folks at A.U.'s library, although since they make an otherwise nice scanner fairly freely accessible I didn't have the heart to complain. The first is a map of tourist routes through Georgia which dates from 1966:

Georgia - Tourism Map 1966 - Cover, full-size image available here.

Georgia - Tourism Map 1966, full-size image available here.

The second is a city map of Tbilisi with a nifty folding layout, printed (according to the guy who sold it to me in Tbilisi) for the city's 1500th anniversary celebration in 1958; I am not sure about the "800" imprinted on the cover:

Tbilisi - 1958 Street Map Cover, full-size image available here.

Tbilisi - 1958 Street Map, full-size image available here.

This and all previous map-related posts can be seen on a single page here, or all of the map images I've uploaded can be viewed on Flickr here.

Unvacation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[image source]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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