Staunton, January 6 -- 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 65th
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.
For Russians,
Putin Fills the Role of Trump and Brexit Taken Together, Lukyanov Says. Fyodor Lukyanov, a leading Russian foreign
policy specialist, says the anti-government populist wave sweeping the West
would come to Russia as well were it not for the fact that Vladimir Putin fills
the role of “Trump and Brexit combined.” Thus, Russians support him even though
they distrust or even hate their government in general (rosbalt.ru/russia/2017/01/05/1580023.html).
But Putin did not get all good news this week. Some commentators criticized him
for his selective approach to sending New Year’s greetings to foreign leaders (sova.news/2016/12/30/13199/),
and many said they were disappointed in his message to the Russian people in
advance of the holiday (dialog.ua/news/106959_1483192530). Other
writers suggested that under Putin, Russia had become a zero sum game, one in
which what’s good for Putin is bad for Russia (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5867C18D78A04)
because of all the harm he has done to the economy and to Russia’s standing
with decent people around the world (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=586A07425936D
and echo.msk.ru/blog/i_chub/1902556-echo/). And the Kremlin leader may have been unhappy
with two other reports this week: one showing that paranoid projection is the proper
basis for understanding Putin and Putinism (ru.krymr.com/a/28208407.html)
and a second finding that when Russians turn to Yandex and search under the
letter “p” they are not prompted to look at materials about Putin (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=58660D35BD485).
2.
Like Crimea, ‘Trump
is Ours,’ Russian Products Proclaim. At a time when Russian officials are
being anything but graceful about the retirement of President Barack Obama (themoscowtimes.com/articles/russias-graceless-goodbye-to-americas-first-black-president-56708)
and are openly celebrating the coming to power of Donald Trump (powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/01/report-senior-russian-officials-celebrated-trumps-victory.php),
ordinary Russians are being encouraged to think positively about Trump with
Russian manufacturers labelling some of their products “Trump is Ours,” an
analogy to the “Crimea is Ours” meme of the past several years (politolog.net/russia/trampnash-v-rf-vypustili-saxar-s-portretom-prezidenta-ssha-foto/). That Trump may really be Russia’s is
suggested by a former Soviet intelligence officer who says that Moscow has been
cultivating the New York developer since his fist visit to the USSR in 1987 (gordonua.com/news/worldnews/nashi-tovarishchi-vedut-trampa-s-momenta-ego-priezda-v-sssr-v-1987-godu-milov-167155.html).
3.
Tidal Wave of Bad Russian
Laws Keeps On Coming.
The Duma has been issuing ever more laws, almost all of which are intended to
tighten the screws on the Russian people and which have been made worse by the
tendency of Russian officials to ignore restrictions on their actions and view
the letter of the law only as the basis for yet more repressive actions on
their own (vestnikcivitas.ru/news/4031,
izvestia.ru/news/654165 and kasparov.ru/material.php?id=586A4E3020008).
The next few months promises to bring still more such laws. The Moscow
Patriarchate wants the Duma to impose fines for cursing in public (ixtc.org/2017/01/blog-dmitriya-ugaya-zanyatiya-yogoy-v-rossii-mogut-privesti-v-tyurmu/),
and the KPRF wants prison terms imposed on anyone who compares the Soviet
system to the Nazis https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russian-communists-want-prison-terms-for-comparing-soviets-to-nazis-47207). Regional legislators are following suit. In
Chechnya, they want to make it a crime for anyone who ignores civic new year’s
celebrations, something many devout Muslims think they should do (onkavkaz.com/blogs/1622-ignoriruyuschie-novyi-god-objavleny-v-chechne-prestupnikami.html).
Officials are using these new laws to limit the rights of Russians even further
than the Duma at least ostensibly has yet been prepared to go. A court in
Karelia has confirmed the dismissal of a local editor for news reports
officials didn’t like, saying that doing so was not in her job description (thebarentsobserver.com/en/civil-society-and-media/2017/01/supreme-court-decides-karelian-newspaper-editor-must-go), and a yoga enthusiast has reported that engaging
in that exercise program can in Putin’s Russia land one in prison (ixtc.org/2017/01/blog-dmitriya-ugaya-zanyatiya-yogoy-v-rossii-mogut-privesti-v-tyurmu/).
4.
Communists Issue a
Pin-Up Style Calendar about 1917. The war about the past in Russia heated up
over the holidays with the KPRF putting out a calendar in pin-up style about
the 1917 revolution, part of the communist effort to attract more young people to
their cause (sfw.so/1149050887-kprf-zakazala-novyy-kalendar-na-2017-god-v-stile-pin-ap.html
and themoscowtimes.com/news/the-bolshevik-revolutions-centennial-gets-a-pin-up-calendar-56684). Meanwhile, Moscow’s focus on the past created some
problems for Russia’s current rulers: Some Russian recalled the democratic
traditions of Novgorod which Muscovy destroyed (rufabula.com/author/egor-ershoff/1460),
others took up the cudgels over just what the country’s coat of arms should
look like (ng.ru/ideas/2016-12-21/5_6890_ideas.html),
and activists in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) called for the opening of a
Stalin Center there to balance or ultimately overwhelm and put out of business
the Yeltsin Center in Yekatrinburg (cont.ws/post/478651),
and Chechens remembered a man who fought the Russian advance into the Caucasus
in the 19th century (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/295396/).
But perhaps the best summation of what is going on in this and other sectors of
Russian life came from Igor Yakovenko who pointed out tha 2016 was the year
that “the true and the good” disappeared from Russian media and Russian public
life (ej.ru/?a=note&id=30590).
5.
Russians Forced to
Eat and Dream Less in 2017. The continuing problems of the Russian economy mean,
commentators say, that Russians will have to eat, drink and dream less in the
year ahead (svpressa.ru/economy/article/163712/). Others say that Russians have already adapted
themselves to this new if unfortunate reality (vedomosti.ru/economics/articles/2016/12/29/671666-rossiya-privikaet),
at least in part because they’ve had so much practice: According to one study,
the Russian state has been robbing the Russian people for 350 years and there
is no reason to expect any change soon (kommersant.ru/doc/3070569). Mikhail Delyagin points out that in Russia
today, the rich continue to get richer and the poor poorer (izborsk-club.ru/11883), a trend
highlighted in these days by the opening of a casino in Sochi, the site of
Putin’s much-ballyhooed all-Russian Olympic project, that only the rich can
afford to go to (regnum.ru/news/economy/2224504.html). Meanwhile, the Russian state budget shows that
the government is spending far more on paying its bureaucrats that for health
care and education for the population (forbes.ru/news/334861-traty-byudzheta-na-chinovnikov-prevysili-rashody-na-medicinu-i-obrazovanie),
and Moscow’s cutbacks in transfer payments to regions and localities mean that
the center has “legalized” poverty at the local level (idelreal.org/a/28209423.html).
Suggestions that NGOs should be recruited to help fill the gap left by the exit
of the state from social services have been denounced as “a form of
capitulation” by the state and are receiving support, although some NGOs are
trying to help fill the gap (regnum.ru/news/polit/2223906.html). Social problems are multiplying at least in
part because of economic problems. In Belgorod, one of the most ethnic Russian
regions of the country, two out of every three marriages now ends in divorce
and birthrates are plummeting (ruskline.ru/news_rl/2017/01/04/68_iz_zaklyuchennyh_brakov_raspadayutsya/),
and despite the fact that Vladimir Putin has proclaimed 2017 the year of the
environment, Muscovites are suffering from the release of a poisonous gas during
the holidays (polit.ru/article/2017/01/05/hydrogen_sulphide/).
6.
Stalinist
Institutions Making a Comeback. While a debate rages on whether Russia
is a dictatorship (znak.com/2017-01-06/gibridnyy_ili_avtoritarnyy_politologi_sporyat_o_rezhimah_v_rossii_i_na_ukraine),
some of the most notorious Stalinist institutions are making a comeback: forced
labor centers opened in four regions of Russia at the end of the year (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5868B5DB20D79),
a bill has been introduced in the Duma to restore collective farms (news.rambler.ru/politics/35703542-v-rossii-hotyat-vozrodit-kolhozy/), regional governments are moving to
control the print media by centralizing control over printing (kavpolit.com/articles/poslednjaja_nedelja_2016_zhurnalist_za_reshetkoj_i-30822/),
and, the most disturbing step of all, officials in Daghestan are setting up
special children’s homes for the offspring of militants, thus restoring the
so-called “detdomy” of Soviet times which produced Mankurt-like officials
prepared to suppress their own peoples (kavkaz-uzel.eu/blogs/1927/posts/26973).
But two other reports may signal that the future is only going to get worse in
this regard: A communist commentator said that Putin’s formation of his
personal “national guard” is the most important event of the last year because
it will allow him to attack those who should be attacked (forum-msk.org/material/news/12650887.html),
and Sergey Markov, someone close to the powers that be who has ties to many in
the West as well, decalred that “it is sometimes necessary to punish the
innocent” supposedly in the name of some higher purpose (echo.msk.ru/programs/personalno/1903454-echo/).
7.
Vodka – Foundation of Russian Statehood. The Russian state, a Kyiv newspaper says, rests on
vodka and the propensity of the Russian population to consume enormous amounts
of vodka. On the one hand, excises on vodka provide the government with
enormous sums of money. On the other, overconsumption of alcoholism keeps the
Russians from challenging the regime and makes them easier to ruler (dsnews.ua/society/sorokagradusnaya-osnova-gosudarstvennosti-chto-znachit-vodka-03012017140000).
8.
Moscow
Patriarchate Takes Lead in Compiling Enemies Lists. The Moscow Patriarchate has taken the lead in
compiling and distributing lists of Russophobes via its media outlets,
according to Russian journalists, a pattern that is sparking complaints about
this kind of obscurantism and the way it can lead to heightened social tensions
and more repression (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2017/01/05/71064-voprosy-patriarhu).
Unfortunately, such “enemies lists” are encouraging some of the worst elements
in the church, including calls for canonizing Rasputin (ruskline.ru/news_rl/2017/01/06/nastala_pora_podnyat_vopros_o_kanonizacii_grigoriya_rasputina/)
and, from one priest, calls to take revenge against the Jews for all of Russia’s
problems (nrusw.com/2016/12/30/3190/).
9.
109 Bodies from
First Post-Soviet Chechen War Returned Home. Twenty years after the end of the
first post-Soviet Chechen war, Russian officials have finally returned 109
Chechens who were killed in that conflict (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/295257/
and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/295281/).
Unfortunately, the condition of the bodies is such that only two have been identified
and returned to their families; the rest will go in mass graves (graniru.org/War/Chechnya/m.257848.html).
10.
Kazan-Moscow
Power-Sharing Treaty Should Be Extended and Copied by All Other Federal
Subjects, Shevchenko Says. This year,
the power-sharing agreement between Tatarstan and the Russian Federation is up
for renewal. Tatarstan is the only republic to still have such an arrangement
with Moscow. Russian commentator Maksim
Shevchenko says that it should not only be extended but should become the model
of similar accords between Moscow and each of the other federal subjects as
well (business-gazeta.ru/article/333704).
11.
Tortures and
Deaths Continue Unabated in Russian Prisons.
Stalin’s dictum that one person’s death is a tragedy but a million
deaths is a statistic continues to apply in Russia. Numerous commentators this
week focused on the issue of where a single prisoner, Ildar Dadin, was being
kept. They devoted much less attention to the reality that in the last year, at
least 99 prisoners died while in Russian penal institutions (rusebola.com/statistics-2/) and
to the even sadder one that tortures continue and may even be increasing in
prisons holding Muslims from the North Caucasus (kavpolit.com/articles/smjagchennyj_zakon_o_sadistah_ne_umenshit_pytki_v-30883/).
12.
Russia has Lower
Share of World’s GDP Now than It Did in 1922.
All of Soviet and post-Soviet efforts to expand the economy there have
been in vain: the Russian economy today is smaller as a percentage of the world’s
GDP than it was at the end of the Russian civil war, a reality that calls into
question all the sacrifices the peoples of that country have been forced to
undergo (charter97.org/ru/news/2017/1/3/236392/). Meanwhile,
Aleksey Shiropayev, a Russian commentator, has pointed out something even more
disturbing. He writes this week that the country has not managed to resolve any
of the tasks that the Russian Provisional Government set in February 1917 and
does not appear on course to do so anytime soon (rufabula.com/author/alexey-shiropaev/1463).
13.
‘Bio-Trash’ Among New
Terms that Define Russia Today. Whatever the guardians of culture think,
language is a living thing which both reflects and informs how people respond
to the world around them. This past year, Russians have begun using many new
terms, like “Brexit” and “Trumpampa” but perhaps the most unfortunate is one
that appears likely to survive long after those disappear is “bio-trash,” a
term many Russians are now using to describe those young people who are driven
to suicide (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2016/12/12/70868-biomusor; cf. snob.ru/magazine/entry/117936, and chaskor.ru/article/kuda_dvizhetsya_yazyk__41236).
And six more from
countries near Russia:
1.
Nero had Nothing
on Turkmenistan’s President. Roman emperor
Nero famously sang while Rome burned. Now, Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly
Berdimuhamedow, who many see as having failed to develop his country even as he
promotes an ever more elaborate personality cult, has composed songs and sung
them to his nation (centrasia.ru/news.php?st=1483134660).
2. Armenian and Azerbaijani Losses Mounted in 2016. The Karabakh
conflict may be a “frozen” one for international observers, but it is still
costing the lives of people on both sides of the fragile ceasefire line. During
2016, Armenian forces suffered 165 deaths, while Azerbaijani ones lost
147. Over the last 14 years, Caspian
Defense reports, Azerbaijan has had more than 1000 combat deaths (caspiandefense.wordpress.com/2017/01/03/loss-of-azeri-armed-forces-in-2016-totaled-147-armenians-lost-165/
and caspiandefense.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/azerbaijan-lost-1044-soldiers-over-fourteen-years/).
3.
Belarus
Now has Its Own Oil Field. Belarusian officials announced that they have
discovered oil, but international experts say the field is quite small and is
unlikely to affect Minsk’s dependence on oil from Russia (regnum.ru/news/economy/2224068.html).
4. Ukraine Making Enormous Progress in De-Sovietization
Effort. Over
the last 12 months, the Ukrainian authorities pulled down 2389 Soviet
monuments, including 1320 devoted to Lenin alone, renamed 987 cities and towns
and more than 50,000 streets. Vinnitsa, Kharkiv and Kyiv oblasts were the
leaders in this process (svpressa.ru/society/article/163611/). Even more significantly, Ukraine made
progress in reorienting its trade away from Russia and CIS states toward Europe
and the West (qha.com.ua/ru/ekonomika/ukraina-postepenno-pereorientiruet-svoi-eksport-s-rf-na-es-i-mir/169524/).
5.
Minsk
Process Dead, Moscow Analyst Says. The Minsk process in which so many in the
West have placed so much confidence is dead and will not lead to the resolution
of the conflict in Ukraine, according to a Moscow analyst writing in “Vzglyad”
(vz.ru/world/2017/1/4/851797.html). Two other reports this week suggest just how
far the Russian invaders are from wanting or being able to make peace:
According to the first, Russian commanders have had to keep their subordinates
confined to base in the Donbass lest they be attacked by the population if they
go outside (sprotyv.info/ru/news/kiev/okkupantam-na-donbasse-zapretili-vyhod-v-goroda-krem-boitsya-samosudov-razvedka).
And according to the second, one of the Russian force commanders said that he
had used an order Stalin issued in 1941 as the basis for his killing Ukrainians
over the last three years (retrans.in.ua/?p=8207).
6.
Choosing When to
Mark New Years and Christmas Dangerous in Russian Occupied Portions of Ukraine. People living in
the Russian-occupied portions of Ukraine must celebrate the winter holidays
according to the Russian Orthodox calendar which is two weeks behind the Western
one or face problems with their current rulers (joinfo.ua/sociaty/1192187_Mi-zhdem-Ukraina-Okkupirovanniy-Donbass.html).
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