Staunton, December 23 -- The flood of news stories from a country as large,
diverse and strange as the Russian Federation often appears to be is far too
large for anyone to keep up with. But there needs to be a way to mark those
which can’t be discussed in detail but which are too indicative of broader
developments to ignore.
Consequently, Windows on Eurasia presents a selection of 13 of these other and
typically neglected stories at the end of each week. This is the 63rd
such compilation. It is only suggestive and far from complete – indeed, once
again, one could have put out such a listing every day -- but perhaps one or
more of these stories will prove of broader interest.
1. “There are No Ex-KGB Officers Just as There
are No Ex-German Shepherds.” In a
week when some Russians were suggesting that Vladimir Putin should become
Russia’s new tsar (ruskline.ru/news_rl/2016/12/22/rossiya_beremenna_monarhiej/) and when some
of his supporters in Europe nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize (news.rambler.ru/politics/35643268-putina-vydvinuli-na-nobelevskuyu-premiyu-mira/), the Kremlin
leader took time out to tell his special services that their child task now
must be to expose the nefarious plots of their Western counterparts to organize
a Maidan-type rising in Russia (interfax.ru/russia/542302). This is the latest confirmation of Captain
Aleksandr Nikitin’s dictum about KGB officers like Putin who go into
politics. Meanwhile, Putin’s press
secretary declared that Putin is “an absolute liberal.” Only the president’s “enemies”
call him a conservative (republic.ru/posts/77729).
2. How Bad are Things in Russia? Children Ask Father Frost
to Send Them to the Dentist. There are many ways to measure how bad things are in
any country but perhaps the best way to evaluate that is to listen to children
who likely will say things that their parents have learned to suppress. This
year, Svobodnaya pressa-Yug reports, Russian children are asking Father Frost
not for toys but for more practical gifts, including in some instances paying for
their visits to the dentist so they can overcome toothaches (yug.svpressa.ru/society/article/142942/). But there are plenty of other indications
that Russia’s economic problems are getting worse. Among those reported this
week are the following: to save money, Moscow has cut it spending on
nationality policy programs by 50 percent (nazaccent.ru/content/22720-rashody-na-programmu-po-nacpolitike-sokratyat.html)
and is reducing the number of traffic signs on the streets of major cities (kommersant.ru/doc/3177898), some
pensioners are getting IOUs rather than their full pensions (vedomosti.ru/newsline/top/economics/news/2016/12/20/670411-nekotorie-pensioneri-poluchat-viplatu-s-zaderzhkoi),
government funding for basic science has been cut for the fourth year in a row
(svpressa.ru/economy/article/163013/),
Russians are now spending 80 percent of their incomes on necessities (themoscowtimes.com/news/russian-families-spend-80-of-income-on-essentials-56604), capital
flight rose to 5.7 billion US dollars in the last month alone (regnum.ru/news/economy/2220267.html),
ZIL factory stops producing trucks (forum-msk.org/material/news/12615864.html),
cutbacks in prisons mean prisoners are dying without getting the medical care
they are entitled to (regnum.ru/news/accidents/2218854.html),
the Russian government acknowledges that no one can live on the minimum
standard of living amount the government itself sets (mk.ru/economics/2016/12/16/golodec-priznala-chto-prozhit-na-prozhitochnyy-minimum-nevozmozhno.html),
the shadow economy now makes up 22 percent of the Russian GDP (profile.ru/obsch/item/113819-tenevaya),
and people are staying in their apartments even when the walls collapse around
them because they have nowhere else to go (sobkorr.ru/news/58578BFFA461D.html).
Not surprisingly, Russians tells pollsters that life is getting worse (regnum.ru/news/economy/2219134.html), and
experts predict that depression is sweeping across Russia (republic.ru/posts/77564). Indeed,
the situation is now so dire that some Duma deputies worry that lifting
sanctions could make the situation worse (lenta.ru/news/2016/12/21/goodsanctions/).
Meanwhile, Russians appear to be drinking more vodka – production of that
high-test spirit rose 45 percent over the last 12 months (echo.msk.ru/blog/nikolaev_i/1895847-echo/)
and to judge from the death toll in Irkutsk – no 72 in that city alone – more dangerous
surrogates as well (iq.hse.ru/news/198941189.html).
3. Duma Gelds Itself.
This week, Duma leaders said that the Russian parliament wouldn’t take
up any proposed legislation for final passage until they had received the
go-ahead from the Russian government, formalizing the Russian parliament’s
slipping into a mere appendage of the state despite all the bold comments of
some of its members (apn.ru/index.php?newsid=35820). That has done nothing to slow the decline in
Russian respect for the institution, with some Russians saying they’ll now run
their pets for Duma deputy seats (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5858EC83D217F)
and others suggesting that the Duma will now spend its time dreaming up taxes
on the air Russians breathe (regions.ru/news/2597008/).
The executive is tightening the screws in other ways as well: there are now
only nine regions plus the two capitals where mayors are elected directly by
the population (kommersant.ru/doc/3175121),
and officials in the regions are firing newspaper editors so that there won’t
be any unwanted coverage of what they are doing (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2016/12/19/70948-bolshaya-chistka).
4.
Past Overwhelms
Present for Russians.
Several years ago, Russian complained that when they were watching television,
they saw more about Ukraine than about their own country; now, some say they
see more about the past than about the present given that under Putin, “history
is becoming the main current event” (newsland.com/community/7149/content/oni-liubit-umeiut-tolko-mertvykh/5601538).
Indeed, things have moved so far in that direction that some are now saying
that Soviet myths are real, more real in fact than what people remember of see
around them (portal-credo.ru/site/?act=monitor&id=24997).
This flood takes the form of fights over history like one over how to stress
the continuity of Russian statehood by declaring the period between Nicholas II
and Stalin a time of troubles (ruskline.ru/news_rl/2016/12/15/s_fevralya_1917_po_nachalo_1930h_godov_v_rossii_byla_vtoraya_smuta/),
but it finds its most concrete expression in the continuing monuments war. Among the events in that war this week are:
Rostov puts up a statue of Stalin (meduza.io/news/2016/12/21/v-rostovskoy-oblasti-postavili-pamyatnik-stalinu),
Penza presses for statue of Beria (sobkorr.ru/news/585B9016AB866.html),
Vladivostok puts up a statue honoring Nicholas II (echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/1894230-echo/),
and money is collected for memorial to murdered journalists in Daghestan (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/294656/).
Meanwhile, LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky has called for changing Russia’s
hymn and flag and for taking down what he says are “Masonic symbols” from the
Kremlin (onkavkaz.com/blogs/1567-zhirinovskii-trebuet-ubrat-masonskie-simvoly-s-kremlja-i-slivaet-magomedsalama-magomedova.html).
5.
Russia Stripped of
Two More International Athletic Competitions, May Lose More and More Medals. International
sports federations have stripped Russia of two upcoming international competitions
(charter97.org/ru/news/2016/12/22/235289/
and znak.com/2016-12-19/chetyre_strany_vystupayut_za_perenos_chempionat_mira_po_biatlonu_iz_tyumeni). Ukraine
has called for it to be stripped of all others, including the all-important
2018 World Cup (svpressa.ru/sport/news/163140/),
and the IOC has announced that it is checking all Russian competitors in the
last three Olympiads for drug use (meduza.io/news/2016/12/23/mok-proverit-vse-proby-rossiyskih-sportsmenov-vystupavshih-v-sochi-i-londone).
Russian officials are both furious and
frightened, and they have announced that they will seek financial compensation
for the competitions they have lost already (echo.msk.ru/news/1897388-echo.html).
6.
Record Traffic on
Northern Sea Route – and Much of It is Chinese. Moscow is celebrating the fact that 2016 saw
a record in the amount of cargo carried on the Northern Sea Route, but it is
likely to be less happy with the fact that China, not Russia, is becoming an
ever more important player on that route, reaching accords with Scandinavian
countries and building more icebreakers (thebarentsobserver.com/en/2016/12/record-high-northern-sea-route, thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2016/12/political-normalisation-opens-chinas-way-arctic-norway
and thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2016/12/china-starts-construction-new-icebreaker). Meanwhile, in another important
transportation development, Moscow has begun introducing a new system that will
allow it to change the gage of trains travelling to and from Russia in
significantly shorter times, thus reducing the delays that had been common in
the pat (news.tut.by/society/524180.html).
7.
Russian Government
and Russian Business Destroying Northern Peoples, Leaders Say. The leaders of
the numerically small peoples of Russia’s far north tell the United Nations that
decisions by the Russian government and actions by Russian businesses are
destroying the bases of their way of life (business-humanrights.org/ru/россия-власти-и-бизнес-уничтожают-коренные-народы-утверждает-член-рабочей-группы-оон-по-вопросу-о-правах-человека-и-транснациональных-корпорациях).
Among the horrors that Moscow and its businesses have visited on these peoples
is an enormous amount of junk that neither has ever cleared away (siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/features/f0276-unmasked-the-scale-of-arctic-junk-polluting-the-pristine-environment/).
The northern peoples do have one ally,
however, the weather: This week, a Russian court had to cancel a hearing about
a reindeer herder who shot Gazprom managers because the temperature outside the
courtroom was too low (nazaccent.ru/content/22690-sud-nad-olenevodom-zastrelivshim-menedzherov-gazproma.html).
8.
Posters Protesting
Kremlin Policies Appear in St. Petersburg. A group of anti-capitalist
activists have put up posters in the northern capital with slogans like “Foreign
Travel? Only in Your Dreams!” “Option
Three in Russian Hospitals: Pay or Die,” “There are Now No Limits to How Long
Russians Must Work,” “The Minimum Living Standard is Now even Lower,” and, in a
direct reference to Putin, “Patriotic Roaming: We’ll Drown in Our Own Homes” (paperpaper.ru/papernews/2016/12/20/plati-ili-umri/).
9.
Russia’s
Unfriendly Skies Just Became Even Less Friendly. The same week
that the Duma passed a law allowing jailors to beat prisoners with almost
complete impunity (apn.ru/index.php?newsid=35824),
Aeroflot, Russia’s main airline, announced that it has authorized its cabin
crews to beat drunken and unruly passengers, the latest effort to contain a
growing problem (newsland.com/community/5652/content/ekipazham-samoletov-razreshat-bit-pianykh-passazhirov/5602172).
10.
California’s
Separatists Open ‘Embassy’ in Russian Capital.
Russian-based Americans who are calling for a referendum to allow California
to secede from the United States have opened an office in Moscow which they are
styling as “an embassy,” an indication of yet another way the powers that be
there are interested in thumbing their noses at international diplomatic
practice in general and in relations with the US in particular (themoscowtime
s.com/articles/californias-separatist-movement-gets-an-embassy-in-moscow-56568).
11.
Exhibit Throws
Light on Something Many Russians Say Doesn’t Exist: Ghettoes in Their Cities. Many Russian investigators continue to insist
that there are no ghettoes in Russian cities because of the influence of the
propiska system, but a new exhibit in Moscow highlights their increasing importance
in Russian urban life (snob.ru/selected/entry/118224).
12.
Western Opposition
to Kremlin Idea Proves Moscow is Right. One of the weakest arguments anyone can
make on behalf of something is to say that it must be right because of who
opposes it. Unfortunately, this week, one of Russia’s leading specialists on nationality
issues and a major force behind the idea of a “Russian nation” law made exactly
that kind of claim. He declared that the fact that this measure is opposed by
Russian nationalists and Western specialists shows that it must be correct (http://nazaccent.ru/content/22657-akademik-tishkov-sostavil-dose-na-vseh.html).
13.
War is Peace,
Freedom is Slavery and ‘Russia is the New Leader of the Free World’ Because It
can Destroy Everyone.
In the increasingly Orwellian world of Putin’s Russia, it should not come as a
surprise that some of his most ardent supporters are prepare to drain all
meaning out of words in order to make them mean what they want. One such figure
has just declared that “Russia is the new leader of the free world.” Why?
Because its military has the capacity to destroy all other countries (ej.ru/?a=note&id=30534). Commentator Vladimir Pozner has provided a
useful explanation for this and much else. Russia’s chief problem today, he
says, is that it is ruled by people who have not ceased to be Soviet in their mental
makeup (tvrain.ru/lite/teleshow/sindeeva/pozner-423508/).
And
six more from countries in Russia’s neighborhood:
1.
Ashgabat Decrees:
If There are No Lines, There are No Shortages.
The lines for scarce goods are getting ever longer in Turkmenistan; but
the government has come up with a solution: ban lines, on the principle that if
there aren’t any lines, there aren’t any shortages (fergananews.com/news/25775).
2.
Belarusian
Soldiers Swear Oath to USSR. In a move
Belarusian commanders say is only to highlight the role of Belarusian troops in
the past, new soldiers in one unit in Belarus have been compelled to take an
oath of allegiance not only to their own country but to one that no longer
exists, the USSR (dsnews.ua/world/esli-zavtra-voyna-belorusskaya-armiya-uzhe-gotova-sdatsya-19122016151400). That has
sparked fears that Putin may invade Belarus in the near future and given more
fodder to Russian nationalist commentators close to the Kremlin to declare that
Belarus, Belarusians, and the Belarusian language don’t exist apart from
Russian (dialog.ua/news/106136_1482339594). Meanwhile, Moscow outlets have spread the
story that Belarus can’t control things on its own territory and couldn’t on
its own block what they say is a Ukrainian plot to kidnap Putin in Minsk and
dispatch him to the International Criminal Court in the Hague (charter97.org/ru/news/2016/12/18/234761/).
3.
80 Years Ago This
Week, Stalin Expelled Iranians from the Caucasus. The 80th anniversary of one of
Stalin’s crimes was marked this week when Azerbaijanis recalled that in
December 1936, the Kremlin dictator as part of his effort to close off the USSR
from outside influences expelled thousands of Iranians then living in
Azerbaijan and elsewhere in the Caucasus (eldarzeynalov.blogspot.com/2016/11/blog-post_25.html).
4.
Kyiv Wants European
Santa Claus to Replace Russian Father Frost. Ukrainian officials are actively
discouraging Ukrainians from promoting Father Frost and the Snow Maiden this
Christmas because the two are Russian symbols. Instead, they are calling on
their countrymen to boost the role of Santa Clause because he is a European
figure (novorosinform.org/news/64516). Despite that, some Kyiv commentators say, Europe
is ceasing to be a source of hope for Ukraine (nv.ua/opinion/kazarin/porazhenie-ukrainskoj-mechty-336623.html).
Meanwhile, a Donbass activist has defined what he says must be Moscow’s goal in
Ukraine: “liberating” that territory from the Ukrainian nation (repost24.in.ua/гиркин-наша-цель-освобождение-украин/).
5.
Lukashenka’s Paper
Revives All-Purpose Soviet Excuse: ‘but in the US, you lynch Negroes.’ The official
newspaper of Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka has revived the excuse
Soviet propagandists routinely offered when anyone criticized anything in the
USSR: “but in the US, you lynch Negroes” (respublika.sb.by/top-tema/article/v-spore-ne-nuzhno-davit-na-gaz.html).
6. Ukraine’s Population Projected to Fall by 20 Percent over
Next 20 Years. A continuing excess of deaths over births,
the result of falling fertility rates and still high adult male mortality rates,
and the exodus of many to work abroad means that the population of Ukraine will
fall by 20 percent by the mid-2030s, demographers say (ru.golos.ua/suspilstvo/naselenie_ukrainyi_v_blijayshie_20_let_sokratitsya_na_20__ekspert_4553).
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