‘Bitter Truth’ is that Russia’s Vaccination Program has Failed, Doctor Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 31 – A comparison of Russia’s vaccination effort with those in other countries made by scholars for The New England Journal of Medicine compels the conclusion that “the bitter truth” is that Moscow’s program has failed, according to a Russian doctor (https://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/204637).

            Moreover, Russians have concluded that their medical care system isn’t working. As more of them came into contact with it because of the pandemic, complaints about the situation in Russian clinics and hospitals rose by 37 percent last year over the year before (newizv.ru/news/society/31-05-2021/v-2020-godu-na-37-3-vozroslo-kolichestvo-zhalob-patsientov-na-rabotu-medikov).

            Russian officials reported 8475 new cases of infection and 339 new deaths from the coronavirus over the last 24 hours, both figures down from the day before as the pandemic continued to hit St. Petersburg and some regions hard while ebbing elsewhere, including in Moscow (t.me/COVID2019_official/2998 and regnum.ru/news/society/3277253.html).

            Moscow renewed air service to and from Austria, the UK, Hungary, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Mauritius, and Morocco, but kept the suspension in effect with Turkey and Tanzania until at least June 21 (regnum.ru/news/3284377.html and regnum.ru/news/3284370.html).

            Meanwhile, Russian health officials warned people not to get the EpiVakKorona shots at the same time they were getting botox injections (regnum.ru/news/3283817.html), the Palestinian Authority approved the use of Sputnik-Lite (sputnikvaccine.com/rus/newsroom/pressreleases/odnokomponentnaya-vaktsina-sputnik-layt-odobrena-v-palestine/), and Russian parliamentarians remain divided on whether and how much to force Russians to get vaccinated (regions.ru/news/2629814/).

Nicholas II’s Propensity for Hyper-Centralization Led to Khodynka Field Disaster, Historians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 30 – In what some may see as a warning to Russia’s current ruler, historians suggest that it was Nicholas II’s propensity for centralizing everything in his hands or those of his immediate entourage which led to the Khodynka field disaster at the time of his coronation.

            Today marks the 125^th anniversary of the Khodynka field disaster when thousands of ordinary Russians trampled each other, many to death, as they tried to get trinkets that were being handed out to the population as part of ceremonies surrounding Nicholas II’s coronation (aif.ru/society/history/tragediya_hodynki_i_nikolay_ii_kakie_processy_upustil_posledniy_imperator).

            This tragedy which helped give rise to Nicholas’ sobriquet of “bloody” was brought about, historians say, because of the new tsar’s desire to centralize everything in his own hands rather than allowing parts of the government bureaucracy with more expertise and experience to handle many matters.

            At the time of the coronation of Nicholas II’s father, the tsarist government also distributed trinkets to the population, but there was no problem because then this action was overseen by the governor general of Moscow who knew something about handling mass meetings.

But in advance of his own coronation, Nicholas II decided that the entire process should be managed by his household ministry which didn’t. The result was a disaster that prompted the tsar himself to reflect that he had been born under an unhappy star and that his own future was anything but bright.

 

Moscow Must Work to Attract Ethnic Russians and Not Just Workers from Former Soviet Republics, Shustov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 30 – Moscow has just celebrated the arrival of the one millionth compatriot in Russia, Aleksandr Shustov says; but despite that, it is increasingly obvious that the entire government program in this sphere needs to be changed, redirected from countries where there are few ethnic Russians to those where there are large numbers.

            Otherwise, the Rhythm of Eurasia journalist continues, the share of ethnic Russians in Russia will decline rather than increase, exactly the reverse of what the compatriot program was designed to achieve. Moscow must change its focus to countries where there are still large numbers of ethnic Russians and seek to attract them (ritmeurasia.org/news--2021-05-30--programmu-pereselenija-rossijskih-sootechestvennikov-nado-srochno-menjat-54866).

            Except for the pandemic year of 2020, the program has attracted more than 100,000 people to Russia each year; but most of those who are returning are “not Russians or even Ukrainians and Belarusians but the native population of the Asiatic countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.”

            What is of particular concern is that “the leaders of resettlers are countries where there are almost no Russians” left, places like Tajikistan and Armenia. Rather than seeking to attract those who remain there, most of whom are old and don’t want to move, Moscow must focus on places where there are still sizeable ethnic Russian communities.

            These include Kazakhstan where there are 3.5 million ethnic Russians, Uzbekistan with 750,000, Kyrgyzstan with 341,000 and Azerbaijan with 119,000, Shustov says. If Moscow focuses on those, more ethnic Russians will come to Russia, helping solve its demographic and not just its economic problems as is the case now.

            “The main goal” of the compatriot program “must become not providing for the needs of regions as far as the workforce is concerned but compensating for demographic losses.” But tragically, the Russian government has stopped maintaining statistics on the ethnic composition of compatriots so Moscow doesn’t even know how deep a whole it has dug for itself.

            “For a long time,” Shustov concludes, “the Russian authorities did not seek to stimulate the repatriation of ethnic Russians from CIS countries because it considered them as an instrument of its influence in these states. But the significant worsening of the demographic situation doesn’t leave the country with any other choice.”

For Northern Sea Route to Operate Year Around, Moscow Needs Railways and Roads in North, Shepitko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 30 – Global warming has made it possible for ships to pass along the Northern Sea Route ever more months of the year with less assistance from icebreakers, but the route will not become truly a year around one until Russia constructs railways and highways paralleling it, Taisiya Shepitko says.

            The director of the Institute for Road Construction at Russia’s Transportation University says that progress in that direction is being made with her institution contributing innovative technologies including the laying of insulation layers on top of permafrost soil (vtimes.io/2021/05/29/kak-vizhat-neft-izo-lda-po-nauchnomu-a5305).

            These layers prevent the transmission of heat into the ground and the melting of the permafrost in ways that lead to subsidence and the collapse of railways, highways and airport runways that happens when the ground begins to melt, Shepitko says. In the use of such technology, Russia in general and her university are world leaders.

            “The Northern Sea Route is the Arctic’s transportation artery, but it has one major drawback: ports that freeze in the winter. The Russian icebreaker fleet, of course, is the largest in the world, but scholars have now come up with some unexpected ideas” about the ports this fleet has to clear each year. That would involve building undersea tunnels from the ports to beyond the ice near the shore.

            That would free up icebreakers for use along the route, but it will be a long time before such “an innovation” can be put in place, Shepitko continues.

            Her university has long been involved in helping to plan for transportation projects in the North. It helped build a railway to gas fields and now is working on the revival of the Stalin-era northern route which was supported to extend to Igarka but now is planned to go only half as far and end for the time being at Korotchayevo.

            “The immediate task,” she continues, “is to link up the two railroads of the Northern Main Line, the Northern and the Sverdlovsk and then develop it further to the north and to the east.” That will allow for the economic development of the region and promote Russian national security by supporting Moscow’s Arctic projects.

           

 

Ingush Prisoner Involved in Hunger Strike at Saratov Oblast Camp

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 30 – Ingush Timur Tumgoyev was one of 40 prisoners at the Balashov corrective labor camp in Saratov to take part in a hunger strike this past week to protest the conditions under which they are being kept and the abuse they are suffering. Although the strike quickly ended, it is a reminder that Ingush protesters won’t stop even after being jailed.

            Sergey Sleputkhin, Tumgoyev’s lawyer, said his client had decided to strike because of physical abuse on the part of the guards, the theft of his personal possessions, and the poor quality of the food (fortanga.org/2021/05/zaklyuchennye-zashili-sebe-rty-urozhenecz-ingushetii-ob-usloviyah-soderzhaniya-v-tyurme/).

            According to local activists who visited the camp, these were not the real reasons. Instead, the prisoners objected to being required to shave their beards and other prison rules and were sent to punishment cells as a result. It was these activists who reported that the strike had quickly collapsed.

            Some of those engaged in the strike, Sleputkhim said, but apparently not Tumgoyev, cut themselves as part of the protest. These prisoners then ended the action because that had left them in desperate need of medical attention something their jailors said would be provided only if the prisoners ended the strike.

            Another Ingush activist, Magomed Bekov, said he had received a note from Tumgoyev who said that “about ten” of the prisoners had “sowed up their mouths” to express their conviction that nothing they said would be listened to by the powers that be. They asked him, Bekov said, to ask Moscow to intervene because the Saratov jailers remain unresponsive.

            Meanwhile, Magomed-Bashir Ozdoyev was sentenced to eight months in a general regime camp for his role in the March 2019 protest in Magas. But because of time served in a pre-detention center, he will be released in two weeks (fortanga.org/2021/05/magomed-bashir-ozdoev-prigovoren-k-vosmi-mesyaczam-lisheniya-svobody/).

            That continues a disturbing trend in Ingushetia. People are kept in detention for so long that they have been punished before any judgment has been reached against them, a completely illegal and unconstitutional arrangement that is nonetheless standard operating procedure in Russia sometimes in Moscow but almost always beyond the ring road.

            And more details leaked out about a clash between Chechen siloviki and Ingush environmental activists earlier this week. The Chechens detained the Ingush near the Chechen border, confiscated their telephones, and burned their car and documents, but the Chechens remain unpunished (kavkazr.com/a/31274311.html).

            The Ingush authorities are looking into the matter, but neither Chechen nor Russian ones apparently have been willing to do that. 

 

Growing Water Conflicts Could Threaten Independence of Central Asian Countries in Future, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 30 – The arrangements the five newly independent countries of Central Asia put in place in the early 1990s have continued to function but more by inertia than by any new agreement. For the time being, this path has avoided a crisis. But growing populations and economies, declining water levels, and new national goals threaten one in the future.

            Indeed, according to Zamir Karazhanov, a Rhythm of Eurasia journalist who has surveyed expert opinion about the situation, experts say that the growing problems in this sector may ultimately even threaten the independence of one or more countries in the region (ritmeurasia.org/news--2021-05-30--voda-vsemu-golova.-tem-bolee-v-centralnoj-azii-54865).

            Some of the governments there recognize the problem, but others are playing at brinksmanship either out of the conviction that they will get less than they do now from any new arrangement because they believe that threatening the others with one or another move is the best way to keep things as they are.

            The 1992 agreement which sought to ensure that the arrangements that Moscow had imposed earlier has worked more or less. But tensions have grown both as a result of the additional strains put on the system by efforts to save the Aral Sea, efforts that have collapsed despite outside help, and in 1998 led to the de facto collapse of the 1992 accord.

            Most of the decisions the governments have taken have been minor course corrections which keep things going, Karazhanov says; but they do not address the underlying problems. And “sooner or later,” all the countries are going to be forced to shift from this “inertial” approach and make fundamental decisions.

            The longer those decisions are put off, the analyst concludes, the more dangerous the conflicts that will arise are likely to be, given that “water in the two major rivers of the region is decreasing, while demand for it will only continue to increase.”

Tehran Chose Kazan Not St. Petersburg for a Consulate to Project Iranian Influence on Russia’s Muslims

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 30 – In 2007, Moscow gave Tehran a choice over where it could open a consulate, St. Petersburg or Kazan. Because of the economic position of the former, most people expected Iran to choose the northern capital; but it chose Kazan to be in a position to influence Russia’s Muslims, Ismagil Gibadullin says.

            Gibadullin, now Tatarstan’s leading specialist on Iran, worked as a translator at the Iranian consulate there between 2009 and 2012. He says Iranian diplomats were quite active during that period in countering the influence of Turkey but for some reason are much less so now (business-gazeta.ru/article/511142).

            “As far as I know,” he said, “Iran had a choice to open a consulate general in Kazan or in St. Petersburg. Economically, possibly, it would have made more sense to do so in the Northern Capital, but the Iranians chose Kazan. I think the decision was considered by cultural considerations.”

            Tehran may have assumed, he suggests that “through Kazan, it would be more possible to build bridges with Russia’s Muslims especially since [the Iranians] could see that the Turks were actively working in this direction.”  And despite the widespread view, many Muslims in Russia, including Tatars, are interested in and have a positive view of Iran.

            Consequently, it made eminent sense for them to choose to locate their mission in Kazan, the distinguished translator of Persian and Turkic works and editor of the Kazan-based Islamospere portal (islamosfera.ru/) which carries news and information about Muslims in the post-Soviet states and more broadly.