Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 20 -- 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 67th
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.
Question of the
Week: Why Did Putin Say Russia’s Prostitutes were ‘Best in the World’? Vladimir Putin’s
comments about reports that Donald Trump cavorted with prostitutes in Moscow continues
to fascinate Russians, with many of them asking what prompted the Kremlin leader
to say that Russia’s prostitutes are “the best in the world.” Some think he did
so just because for him, everything in Russia is better, but others wonder whether
this reflects his own experience either professionally or personally (ru.krymr.com/a/28241956.html). In other
Putin news this week: pay to play has come to Russia with officials being told
that if they want to see Putin, they have to put down large amounts of cash (ng.ru/economics/2017-01-18/100_putin180117.html and znak.com/2017-01-19/eks_mer_zayavil_chto_s_chinovnikov_berut_platu_za_dostup_na_sovechaniya_s_uchastiem_prezidenta), officials confirming that a special hospital is
being built just for Putin (graniru.org/Politics/Russia/President/m.258142.html), and his press spokesman insisting that 90 percent
of Russians support Putin, a new high above the much-ballyhooed 86 percennt (graniru.org/Politics/Russia/President/m.258147.html). There was one funny-sad story about the Kremlin
dictator: someone imitating Putin’s voice is now making radio ads to sell
products, something that has irritated at least a few Russians (ura.ru/news/1052273992).
2.
Trump’s Right on
the Money – Russian Money. A Russian arms manufacturer has minted a one kilo
silver coin in honor of Donald Trump’s inauguration at US president and plans
to send him a copy (themoscowtimes.com/news/russian-gunsmiths-release-commemorative-coins-reading-in-trump-we-trust-56872). In other Trump-Russia-related
stories, one group of Russian citizens wants to rename a street in honor of the
new American president (edition.cnn.com/2017/01/10/europe/russia-donald-trump-street)
and, in a more serious development, Kremlin-controlled media changed their
headlines immediately when a story about a Putin-Trump meeting that the Kremlin
had floated turned out not to be true (http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/russian-media-outlet-completely-changes-headline-donald-trump-denies/894/). Meanwhile, an international men’s magazine has
offered a million dollars to anyone who can confirm the story about Trump’s
alleged involvement with Russian prostitutes, an effort that will likely keep
this story alive at least for a time (rawstory.com/2017/01/penthouse-may-have-proof-of-trumps-golden-shower-tryst-at-moscow-hotel/).
3. Pskov Residents
Fear Poverty More than They Fear NATO. Russians in Pskov oblast which border the NATO countries of Estonia and Latvia say they
are more afraid of falling into poverty than being attacked by the forces of the
Western alliance (afterempire.info/2017/01/20/cnn-pskov/).The
worsening economic situation in Russia entirely justifies their fears. Among
the dozens of stories about the Russian economic collapse, the following are
especially striking: The Russian government plans to change its definition of
poor because it now can help only the poorest of the poor (vestiregion.ru/2017/01/20/v-rossii-u-bednyx-izmeryat-nuzhdaemost/), the
Duma is considering taxing mushroom collecting (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=588078036038F), the
culture ministry wants to begin closing libraries to save money (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2017/01/20/71231-slishkom-mnogo-bukv), Russian
preschool institutions won’t do medical exams for incoming pupils because of
budget shortfalls (ura.ru/news/1052274310), Sakha residents won’t be allowed to vote “against
all” because the government lacks the funds to hold repeat elections (regnum.ru/news/polit/2228688.html), one official has called for seizing the children
of people who don't or can’t pay their bills (rbc.ru/society/13/01/2017/5878cb179a7947fa96f0a487),
the Russian government is considering cutting its anti-crisis program by 80
percent (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=587C81CDB689E), all of Russia’s reserve funds are running out and
things will be even worse when they do (echo.msk.ru/blog/nikolaev_i/1911044-echo/), fewer than one Russian in three is likely to get a
government pension in the future (forum-msk.org/material/news/12713089.html),
Moscow admits it doesn’t have enough money to hold or deport criminals (ng.ru/politics/2017-01-17/3_6904_priemnik.html),
Russian inequality of incomes is now at the highest point ever (ng.ru/economics/2017-01-17/1_6904_unequal.html), and Russians are now using credit cards to pay for
food and cutting back even on that (rbc.ru/business/17/01/2017/587ce1019a7947d372915bda?from=main), profile.ru/economics/item/114658-novogodnie-traty and regnum.ru/news/economy/2228206.html). But Putin’s
spokesman offers this reassuring assessment: Russians will eat snow if they
have to, although they’d prefer other Russian delicacies (rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/587ddd6d9a794750f68cf2be?from=main).
4. Moscow’s Repressive Measures Only Get Worse. According to one
commentator, Russian legislators “liberalized” only two things last year: they
passed a law allowing parents to beat their children and they passed a second allowing
jailors to do the same thing (facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1373856419345592&set=a.375365079194736.85895.100001637412695&type=3&theater).
The Kudrin Center says that Russian laws are becoming increasingly repressive
across the board (rbc.ru/society/18/01/2017/587f27ff9a794774e2f0bdae?from=main), and many say that the situation will only
deteriorate further in the coming months (http://forum-msk.org/material/society/12705995.html and vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2017/01/12/672645-zakon-yarovoi). There are certainly
enough straws in the wind pointing in that direction: the first case has been
brought against a Russian for failing to turn somebody in (rbc.ru/society/16/01/2017/587cf7679a7947e59a7f2745?from=main), and an Orthodox commentator has denounced the
Western calendar as “the fruits of Catholic imperialism” (ruskline.ru/analitika/2011/01/14/grigorianskij_kalendar_plod_katolicheskogo_imperializma/).
The FSB is seeking and almost certainly will get more money to enforce the new
repressive laws (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=587F10EE6E5EC), and Russian parents are taking the hint: a new
poll shows they want their children to become policemen or siloviki rather than
lawyers or doctors (republic.ru/posts/78695).
5. Monuments War Expands and Goes International The fight over
whether St. Isaac’s cathedral in St. Petersburg should be returned to the
Russian Orthodox church dominated the news in this sector over the past week,
with many furious that the Russian government plans to continue to subsidize it
once it is privatized but to allow the church to keep all the profits (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2017/01/14/71143-krysha-nad-kupolom
and paperpaper.ru/photos/sxod-isaakiy/), but that was far from the only story. Among the
others the following are noteworthy: The Yeltsin Center deepened its problems
with Russian nationalists when its leaders described the Vlasovites as the
dissidents of the 1940s (rline.tv/news/2016-12-15-eltsin-tsentr-potreboval-reabilitatsii-vlasovtsev-nazvav-ikh-dissidentami-40-kh-godov/),
and the fight over removing Lenin from the mausoleum heated up with some saying
he should be kept there “without heart
or a brain” as “an art object” (lenta.ru/articles/2017/01/20/leninart/) and others insisting that he should be removed
along with all other statues to that Bolshevik murderer (znak.com/2016-12-09/rezhisser_belorusskogo_vokzala). In related developments, the Russian Orthodox
Church put out a list of all the jobs priests can’t take, including bankers (camarade.biz/node/25146), and the descendants of the Northern Crusaders
demanded that Moscow return the Vyborg Castle to them (echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/1911168-echo/).
6. Russian Participation in International Athletic
Competitions Increasingly at Risk. Russian participation in international
athletic competitions and its ability to host any of them, including the 2018
World Cup, appears increasingly unlikely.
Not only are more foreign athletes and sports organizations calling for
a ban on Russian participation and hosting (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=587B596D2971F and regnum.ru/news/sport/2229156.html), but Russian commentators are now openly
acknowledging that Russia will lose the World Cup if enough countries refuse to
take part (kp.ru/daily/26629/3648587/)
and Vitaly Mutko, who oversees Russian sports for the Kremlin and apparently
was deeply involved in Moscow’s doping effort, has now proposed a fallback
position. He says that it will be entirely OK if Russian athletes take part in
competitions under a neutral flag because, he says, “we will know that they are
Russians” (tass.ru/sport/3953867).
7. Moscow Now a Leader among Dictatorships Making Secret
Flights to Switzerland. Russians love to know where their country is a
leader except when where they are a leader is anything but a point of honor and
dignity (cf. politikus.ru/industry/89182-40-sfer-liderstva-rossii.html).
According to a new international report, Russia has now joined the very top of
dictatorships in the world sending secret flights to Switzerland, presumably to
put cash into numbered accounts (politsovet.ru/54211-rossiya-popala-v-reyting-poletov-diktatorov-v-zhenevu.html). Moscow also achieved new leadership status in the rate
of its decline as an innovator. Last year, it fell further on that list than
any other country (graniru.org/Politics/World/m.258076.html). It also appears to have retired the trophy for the most
lies told by any government anywhere (russialies.com/russias-top-240-lies-international-edition/).
8. Moscow’s Comic
Book Guide for Immigrants Denounced as Patronizing, Ineffectual.
The Moscow city government has issued a 100-page comic book using figures from
Russian history and mythology to tell gastarbeiters in the city how they should
behave (bbc.com/russian/features-38613216?). But both experts on Muslims and on immigrants say this tactic will be
counterproductive with most migrants viewing it as patronizing or worse (islamio.ru/news/policy/eksperty_v_shoke_ot_pamyatki_migrantam/ and fergananews.com/articles/9236).
9. Kremlin Urged to Start a Real Cold War in the Arctic. Moscow should
have responded to Western sanctions by declaring a cold war where it is really cold,
the Arctic, one Moscow analyst says (nvo.ng.ru/realty/2017-01-13/10_932_arctic.html). The Russian military has been busily building up
its forces and bases there over the past year. Indeed, according to statistics,
it was this effort rather than trade that was responsible for much of the growth
in shipping over the Northern Sea Route (thebarentsobserver.com/en/industry-and-energy/2017/01/russian-arctic-ports-have-best-year-ever).
10. The Demographic
Disaster Putin Doesn’t Want to Face but Russia Can’t Avoid. Russian demographers say that the number of
residents of the Russian Federation will stabilize for the next two decades but
only because of immigration from Central Asia and the Caucasus and high
birthrates among Muslim nationalities. As a result, over that period, the
ethnic Russian share of the population will continue to decline (kommersant.ru/doc/3194306 http://rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=77021).
11. Skies over Russia
Now So Polluted Russians are Protesting. Pollution in
many Russian cities not only constitutes a health risk for their residence but
is sparking public protests. In the last week, Chelyabinsk residents have
protested about the situation there (sobkorr.ru/news/587F3AD6954E3.html), Yekaterinburg residents have launched a petition
drive to rename the Urals capital, “Dirty City” (momenty.org/city/i170325/), and astronomers at the Pulkovo Observatory near
St. Petersburg have staged a demonstration as well (afterempire.info/2017/01/18/astronom/).
12. FSB HQ in
Kaliningrad Shown on Google Maps as ‘Gestapo HQ in East Prussia.’ Russians have another reason not to like
Google: Google maps identified the FSB headquarters in the Russian exclave of
Kaliningrad as “Gestapo HQ in East Prussia,” highlighting in an unwelcome way just
how much those two organizations and the regimes that created them have in
common (diletant.media/news/33444235/).
13. A Reminder to Putin: Stalin’s Great Grandson is
Unemployed. People
of great power or wealth always assume that their descendants will be well
taken care of. But it doesn’t always work
out that way, and a news story this week called attention to that fact to
Russia’s current bosses: Stalin’s great grandson is unemployed and spends his
time trying to make ends meet and collecting Soviet toys (snob.ru/selected/entry/119447).
And six more from
countries in the neighborhood of Russia:
1. Lithuania Wants to Build Wall on Kaliningrad Border –
and Kaliningrad Wants to Sell It the Bricks.
The Lithuanian government says that it wants to erect a wall along its
western border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, and in response, the
Kaliningrad authorities say they will be happy to sell Vilnius the bricks to do
it (http://echo.msk.ru/news/1910038-echo.html and ng.ru/news/568371.html).
2.
Another Russian
Crime in Ukraine: Russian Invasion Making Ukrainians Aggresive. Wars and
invasions often have terrible consequences far from the war zone proper. One of
them is the spread of aggression among the people who have been attacked as
well as among those who have done the attacking. That has happened in Ukraine
now as a result of Moscow’s actions, officials say (graniru.org/tags/ukrograni/m.257935.html).
3. Nakhchivan Again Emerges from the Shadows. Twenty-six years
ago today as Soviet troops attacked Baku in what has become known as Black
January, the Azerbaijani exclave of
Nakhchivan voted to leave the USSR, two months before Lithuania voted to recover its independence (znak.com/2017-01-20/v_eti_dni_v_1990_godu_s_vosstaniya_v_azerbaydzhane_nachalsya_yuridicheskiy_razval_sovetskogo_soyuza). Now, that non-contiguous territory of Azerbaijan
is again attracting attention because Baku has placed new weapons there and
some Armenians fear that Baku may attack their country from that direction (regnum.ru/news/polit/2226796.html
and azertag.az/xeber/Alahidde_Umumqosun_Ordusunun_N_sayli_herbi_hissesindeki_esger_yataqxanasinin_ve_Asgeri_Meiset_Kompleksinin_achilisi_olub-1025703).
4.
There is Life in
Belarus Outside of Minsk. In all too many post-Soviet states and not just
there, many people assume that the only places that matter are the major cities
especially when the political capital is in
the same place as the economic and social one. But in Belarus as in some
others, some young people are moving to what others denigrate as “the provinces”
and bringing new life to depressed areas (charter97.org/ru/news/2017/1/14/237648/).
5. Seven Million Crimean Tatars Now Live in Turkey, Ukrainian
Ambassador Says.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Ankara says that there are now some seven million
Crimean Tatars living in Turkey, a figure which is almost 30 times their number
in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian peninsula and a reminder of what would happen
were they to return there (turantoday.com/2017/01/crimean-tatars-ukraine-turkey-diaspora.html).
6. To Maintain
Stability, Astana Says It Must Slow or Stop Reforms. Kazakhstan has become the latest country in
Eurasia to argue that it must slow or even stop reforms in order to maintain
political stability, an argument that does not bode well for the future there
or elsewhere (kommersant.ru/doc/3190816).
No comments:
Post a Comment