Criminologists Study Criminals who Get Caught; Political Scientists, the Ones who Aren’t, Russians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 2 – According to the latest Russian anecdote, criminology is the science which studies criminals who get caught, that is who are losers, while the field of research which studies successful criminals, those who manage to avoid very caught by the police, is called political science.

In her latest collection of Russian anecdotes, Larisa Kazakevich offers a variety of others including three which contain important moral lessons for Russians and others as well (publizist.ru/blogs/115058/47453/-):

·       Scientists have shown that human beings can easily life to at least 120 years but when life is hard, 60 is the maximum life expectancy.

·       Rudeness is the deliberate inflicting of pain by giving your opinion when no one has asked for it.

·       When you listen to a Russian song, you have the impression that prison is the most wonderful place on earthy, where talented, educated and loving people nonetheless have to “sit.”

·       A mouse noticed that a farmer had put a mousetrap in front of his door. He told the chicken, the sheep and the cow about it. All of them said “that’s you problem not ours.” Later a snake fell into the mousetrap and then bit the farmer’s wife. To heal her, the neighbors prepared a chicken soup and slaughtered the sheep and the cow to feed those who came to visit. All this time, the mouse watched and did nothing. The moral of this story is that just because something doesn’t affect you directly, don’t think it will never come back to haunt you.

·       A rabbit saw an eagle resting in the branches of a tree and asked whether he, the rabbit, could rest and do nothing where he was. The eagle said certainly, but then a fox came and ate the rabbit. The moral here is simple: to be able to sit and do nothing, you have to have a very high perch.

·       A veterinarian told a farmer that his horse would have to be put down the next day if the horse didn’t get better. A sheep heard this and the next morning told the horse to stand up or die. The horse struggled but rose to his feet. The farmer declared the horse’s recovery a miracle and decided to celebrate by slaughtering the sheep. The moral here too is simple: don’t forget what can happen if you don’t mind your own business.

Utility Breakdowns Almost Doubled in Russia from 2022 to 2023, Pointing toward Infrastructure Collapse, El Murid Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – The number of breakdowns in Russia’s already stressed utility system which involves supplying electricity, water and heat to millions of its citizens almost doubled between 2022 and 2023, a trend that puts Russia on the track to infrastructure collapse, Anatoly Nesmiyan who blogs under the screen name El Murid.

            This is the second wave of breakdowns of Soviet-era infrastructure. The first involved the collapse a decade or so ago of what was built in Khrushchev’s time. Now, El Murid says, it involves primarily that built in the Brezhnev era, networks that haven’t been repaired or updated since (publizist.ru/blogs/113683/47447/-).

            The consequences of this are severe, he continues, because Russia is both a northern country where the collapse of utilities leads to real suffering and an increasingly urban one in which an ever greater share of its population depends on such networks rather than on its own devices.

            In a certain sense, El Murid continues, this situation is “much worse” for the population than was the collapse of the Soviet Union since at that time, “there were many fewer problems of this kind. There were some [widely reported] ones of course, but definitely not like those” Russia faces at present.

            “The cost of restoring municipal infrastructure is colossal,” he points out. “The volume of work and time cannot even be estimated offhand. But the country’s leadership, of course, has no time for this: we are taking Avdiivka [in Ukraine], and that is more important” for those in the Kremlin than the suffering of the population as a result of infrastructure collapse.

            When this deterioration will lead to complete collapse is difficult to say, El Murid concludes; but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that a collapse is coming and that when it does, it will have consequences far beyond the immediate suffering of Russians living in major cities.

2023 Marked the Second ‘End of the End of History, Savvin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – Many viewed Francis Fukuyama’s prediction that the world was approaching “the end of history” as both unique and prescient. In fact, Dimitry Savvin says, it was neither: An earlier faith in the end of history infected Europe before 1914, and both that view and its revival nearly a century later ended in the same way with a major war.

            At the end of the 19^th century, many leaders believed that there would never be another war in Europe because the countries were too interconnected economically and would lose too much if they were to fight each other. But “the guns of August” 1914 put paid to that naivete, the editor of the Riga-based conservative Russian Harbin portal says (harbin.lv/novyy-staryy-mir).

            Then, again, with the collapse of communism and the Soviet empire, many leaders were again ready to believe that the end of history had arrived. The war in Ukraine should have  served as a wakeup call, but many are still acting as if that notion is true and that the current war is an anomaly that can be easily overcome.

            All too many Western leaders believe that they can easily and quickly restore the status quo ante and fail to see that the struggle ahead is going to be as hard or harder just to get back to the 20^th century lest the world careen even further back and destroy the progress that had been made earlier.

 

Highlighting Moscow’s Isolation, Putin Sent New Year’s Messages to Only 24 Leaders of Other Countries

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – Vladimir Putin sent New Year’s messages to only 24 incumbent foreign leaders, two of which head Russian satellites in occupied portions of Georgia, a dramatic decline from earlier years when he sent such missives to the heads of far more countries and one that highlights Russia’s own isolation, much of it self-imposed.

            Eight of the 24 were to the heads of CIS members in good standing; two were to these “unrecognized states,” 14 to countries at odds with the West for one reason or another, another was to the Pope and five more were to former leaders with whom Putin earlier had good relations (kremlin.ru/events/president/news/73197 and kasparov.ru/material.php?id=659123E9728E0).

            Not only is this number of letters a dramatic decline from Putin’s earlier years and from those of Boris Yeltsin’s time in office, but it represents a decline from the number of missives Moscow sent out during most of the Cold War, a barometer many ordinary people miss but that diplomats closely attend to.

Non-Russian Republic Heads Destroying Ethnic Identities Even when Claiming to be Fighting to Defend Them, Sidorov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – Most observers of the non-Russian republics divide their leaders between those who work for Moscow and seek to destroy national movements there and those who work for their own populations and thus use the national feelings of the populations of their region to boost their power.

            But in an analysis of the situation in Bashkortostan over the last year, Kharun Sidorov, a Prague-based specialist on the Middle Volga, says that many republic leaders are now doing both simultaneously and thus obscuring what is going on (idelreal.org/agody-dlya-bashkortostana-bylo-ploho-no-mozhet-byt-esche-huzhe/32751952.html).

            “While fighting the national movement,” he writes, Ufa officials “are at the same time trying to use the national factor in their policies;” but in doing so, Sidorov suggests, they are making the national in this case “less and less” unique “not only in content but also in form” with anti-ethnic elements being introduced into what had been purely ethnic events.

            For example, in Bashkortostan this year, the national Sabantuy events “took place not only under Z symbols but also with a performance of the song, ‘Sky of the Slavs,’” yet another way in which Bashkir identity is being destroyed by those who argue that they are in fact defending it.

2024 will Certainly Be Better than 2025, Russians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – New Year’s provides yet another occasion for an upsurge in anecdotes among Russians. Perhaps the bitterest reflection among them this time around is the certainty many of them are expressing that 2024 will certainly be better not than 2023 but rather 2025.

            That is just one of the stories Russians are sharing with one another that capture what is going on in that country. These have been assembled by Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/47444/-). Among the best of the rest in her latest list are the following:

·       Most Russian letters to Santa Claus this year have turned out to be denunciations of another grandfather.

·       In North Korea too, it is also winter and the New Year; but the New Year is the only thing new there. Otherwise everything is the same.

·       In the upcoming Year of the Dragon, Duma deputies have promised to pass only draconian laws.

·       Russians watching New Year’s eve programs on television divide into three groups: those who ask “who is this anyway?” those who point out that another actor is “acting like a patriot,” and those who shout in surprise “On my God, is he still alive?”

·       On December 31, 1999, Boris Yeltsin announced his resignation and the transfer of powers to Vladimir Putin. If only Putin would do so this December 31.

·       In peaceful Belgrade, thousands are demanding the resignation of Putin puppet Aleksandar Vucic. In Belgorod, after the bombing, thousands are silently waiting for the New Year’s speech of the man behind these bombings. And the difference between the two paces is only two letters!

To Finance War in Ukraine, Moscow Set to Force Russians with Savings to Buy Government Bonds, Lipsits Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 31 – The Russian economy grew over the last year despite sanctions because of massive infusions of money into the defense sector and also because of enormous payments to those willing to go to fight in Putin’s war in Ukraine, HSE economist Igor Lipsits says.

            But these are not sustainable: the first has exacerbated the drying up of investment, the second is quickly spent with little to show for it, and neither is sustainable over the longer haul. As a result, Lipsits says, the finance ministry is “planning in a voluntary forced way to compel Russians to purchase state obligations” with savings (theins.ru/opinions/igor-lipsits/267986).

            That will buy the Putin regime a little more time before inflation accelerates to unacceptable levels, but it will also infuriate the 20 percent of the population which has savings because the chief burden of the war will fall on them rather than on the other 80 percent. And may lead ever more of these better off Russians to ask questions about the war itself.

            An indication that the government is moving in that direction has already appeared. As of January 1, Russians for the first time ever will have to pay taxes on their bank deposits, something that will likely lead more of them to pull their money out of banks and further complicate the economic situation (rbc.ru/finances/01/01/2024/658eea329a794764722a5997).