A Baker’s Dozen of Russian Stories on a Single Day that Shouldn’t Be Missed

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 30 – Some days, especially on those when a single story like Vladimir Putin’s speech about pension reform overwhelms most coverage, the number of other stories likely to be missed climbs dramatically, sometimes intentionally because those behind them don’t want them noticed but often quite accidentally especially in the dog days of late August.

            Today, there were at least 13 that should not be missed. They are simply listed below with sources for those who want to go into any of them more deeply:

1.      2100 Russian Schools Lack Indoor Plumbing and Medvedev Wants to Punish Governors.  At the present time, there are more than 2100 Russian schools lacking indoor plumbing and whose pupils must continue to rely on outhouses. Some are in non-Russian areas, but a remarkable number are in rural parts of more developed Russian ones. Now, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev wants to address the problem by imposing punishments on governors who have not solved this problem (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5B868F2D8BF5E).

2.      As Oil Era Ends, Russians Ask Why Norway has Money for Next Five Generations while Russia Doesn’t Even for One.  As the era of oil approaches it end, Russians are asking a new question: why has Norway been able to salt away enough money from its oil profits to secure that country’s development for the next five generations while Russia hasn’t enough even for the current one. The answers of course are the corruption of the Russian elites and Moscow’s enormous spending on aggressive wars (newsland.com/community/7606/content/pochemu-v-norvegii-dengi-ot-nefti-obespechat-eshche-5-pokolenii-a-v-rossii-ni-odnogo/6460823).

3.      Rising Death Rates Prompt Russia to Rewrite Funeral Laws. As the number of deaths in Russia rises, Moscow is redrawing the laws governing funerals and cemeteries not only to allow more for-profit activities but to ensure that the sector will not collapse entirely (forum-msk.org/material/news/14962395.html). One reason deaths are up is alcoholism: Russia now ranks third in total number of deaths from alcohol among the countries of the world and first in per capita deaths among the heaviest drinking ones (ruposters.ru/news/30-08-2018/vimirayuschih-pyanstva-stran).

4.      Moscow’s Reputation Ranks Last among 56 World Capitals. According to a new rating, Moscow ranks dead last among 56 major capital cities in terms of its reputation among foreigners (newsland.com/community/7149/content/moskva-opustilas-na-poslednee-mesto-v-reputatsionnom-reitinge-gorodov-mira/6460463).

5.      Russian Pensioners Increasingly Renting Their Housing to Supplement Income. One aspect of Russia’s pension system has been largely ignored: Many pensioners own their own apartments and are now renting them out to others, moving in with children or to dachas, as a way of making their retirement incomes go further (iq.hse.ru/news/222736984.html).

6.      Is the CIS Going to Become a Truly Criminal Enterprise? Thieves in law in Uzbekistan have voted to allow their Russian criminal counterparts to be the final court of appeal for disputes among them in that Central Asian republic (ura.news/news/1052348751).

7.      ‘We Weren’t Torturing Anyone,’ Jailors in Buryatia Say; ‘We were Just Joking Around.’ When a video surfaced showing jailors in the Buryat republic torturing inmates, the jailors responded that they weren’t torturing anyone but rather were just “joking around” (meduza.io/news/2018/08/30/buryatskomu-ombudsmenu-pokazali-kameru-pytok-v-kolonii-v-ulan-ude-potom-sotrudniki-ik-skazali-chto-poshutili).

8.      Two Russians in Three Ready to Settle Abroad Permanently to Get Better Pay. Two-thirds of Russians in a new poll say they would leave Russia and settle abroad permanently if that meant they could get better pay (ura.news/news/1052348672).  Many of them are doing so already: Russians now rank after only Morocco and Turkey in terms of foreign workers now employed in EU countries (rusmonitor.com/rossiyane-massovo-begut-v-evrosoyuz-spasayas-ot-putinskojj-stabilnosti.html).

9.      55 Percent of Russians Back Criminal Sanctions for Reposting on Line.  A majority of Russians say that criminal sanctions including prison should be imposed on those who repost extremist materials online (lenta.ru/news/2018/08/30/like_share/).

10.  First Invade, Then Invest – Russia’s Strategy in Ukraine. Although Russia has invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea, Russia is now the largest foreign investor in Ukraine, something it is already leveraging to affect Kyiv’s policies (thinktanks.by/publication/2018/08/30/rossiya-nazvana-krupneyshim-investorom-ukrainy-v-2018-godu.html).

11.  Fashion Designer Comes Up with Strait Jackets for Different Social Strata of Russians. As ever more Russians are being fitted for strait jackets, a fashion designer has come up with special ones to suit the various social classes and strata into which Russian society has dissolved. Now, a wealthy Russian can look different than a poor one even when he is being taken to the same mental hospital (sibreal.org/a/29439176.html).

12.  Rosstat’s Latest Discovery: Villagers in Moscow Healthier than People in Real Villages.  Moscow, it is sometimes said, is a big village; but Rosstat, the Russian government’s statistical arm has taken that notion beyond the point of absurdity. It has published figures showing that villagers within the confines of Moscow are healthier than villagers in real villagers (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=81449).

13.  Vorkuta and Norilsk Two of 300 Russian Cities Likely to Disappear before 2200.  Russia’s population is declining so rapidly that more than 300 of its existing cities are likely to become ghost towns before the end of this century, experts say. Among them are two of the most notorious GULAG center, Vorkuta and Norilsk (russian7.ru/post/vorkuta-i-drugie-russkie-goroda-kotor/).

Quiescence of North Caucasus Frontier Today May Be ‘Calm before the Storm,’ Sokolov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 30 – Today, the situation in Russia’s North Caucasus frontier is relatively quiet, sociologist Denis Sokolov says; and “objectively, there are no human, organizational, intellectual and financial resources in any of the North Caucasus republics for the achievement of any successful project of national sovereignty.”

            But the RAMSCON researcher argues, “nevertheless, the southern Caucasus frontier has not been dissolved by urbanization, the global market and the power vertical but at the same time these factors have made its distinctiveness more complex and profound,” raising the possibility that today is “the calm before the storm” (opendemocracy.net/od-russia/denis-sokolov/severniy-kavkaz-buduschee-frontira).

                “The Caucasus has a long memory: it recalls not only the Chechen wars of 15 years ago” but the Russian conquest in the 19^th century. Over the last 25 years, it has not fitted itself into “the Russian post-Soviet urban milieu but rather restored its religiosity and ethnic identity,” Sokolov argues.  

            “Unexpectedly, contemporary means of communication – WhatsApp, Facebook, and Telegram – have come to its aid” in that regard. Circassian young people in Turkey and Moscow sometimes are not able to speak their native language but write in Circassian because they are in communication with Circassian groups in social media.”

            Moreover, “people from the North Caucasus significantly less than the majority of other Russians trust the Russian judicial system and often try to resolve conflicts in their milieu without recognizing de facto the monopoly of force of the Russian legal system,” the sociologist continues.

            The hermetically sealed quality of Caucasian communities leads to a situation in which the legal field inside rural communities is governed by customary law or the shariat and secured collectively. Sometimes this leads to group conflicts with the use of swords or guns.” And this takes on its own special forms in cities.

                There, people turn to their own siloviki, “field commanders, private armies or criminal authorities,” a trend with “serious consequences,” Sokolov says.  It means that Russian officials often can’t cope with this challenge and that ordinary Russians “do not trust the Caucasians and fear them as aliens.”

            And the attitudes that produces are growing on both sides, with Russians more hostile and North Caucasians ever more conscious that they are a people or peoples apart, Sokolov argues. That keeps the region in the status not of a border one but of a frontier whose real dimensions are obviously in flux.

            “Each time when the state will lose control over religion elites or force structures a new armed conflict will break out. The threat of armed force and terrorist attacks will disappear only when the frontier will be completely dissolved or transformed into an administrative or state border.”

            “Now,” Sokolov continues, “societies with their jurisdictional and social infrastructure in the North Caucasus exist, but there are no elites interested in sovereignty: the Russian budget pays more than they could get any other way and it is easier to take this rent than to pursue alternatives.”

            Sovereignty can be forged in one of two places. On the one hand, there can be “the formation and consolidation on both sides of the frontier of sub-elites who are directly interested in political independence because they count on receiving a monopoly in a guaranteed rent.” It can come from Moscow or somewhere else, but rent is required.

            And on the other hand, it can emerge as a result of armed conflict.  “An external conflict transforms a protection racket into an army, an internal conflict into the forces of legal order, and a terrorist war into punitive detachments.”  The last 25 years in the North Caucasus has been the history of all three.

            There is every reason to believe this will continue: “the absence of social lifts for young people, radical ethnic or religious ideology, the conflict of generations, and urbanization are all well-studied factors which like dry wood burn well in the fire of political struggle,” the sociologist says.

            “As long as rent from land and infrastructure is less than rent from corrupt sources and from the distribution of the budget, the frontier will be the subject of research by anthropologists,” Sokolov says. “When that relationship changes, it will be transformed into the line of the front or a state border.”

China’s ‘New Weapon’ Against Russia – Chinese Men Marrying Russian Women

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 30 – China’s one child policy, now overturned, means that there is a serious gender imbalance between men and women in the prime childbearing age groups and that more than 30 million Chinese men are now forced to live as bachelors. Given the centrality of family in Chinese culture, many of them are seeking wives abroad.

            In the past, they typically pursued Europeans and Americans; more recently, they have been marrying Russians. That pattern is especially true among less well-off Chinese who can’t afford to travel to the Wes but can easily make the trip north into Siberia and the Russian Far East (topcor.ru/2312-zamuzh-za-kitajca-novoe-oruzhie-jekspansii-podnebesnoj.html).

            Many Russian women in these regions welcome the appearance of the Chinese suitors because in those parts of the country, there is a gender imbalance of the opposite kind: there are more women than men. And according to Ilya Polonsky, Russian women are more prepared to adapt to the demands of Chinese men than Chinese women are. 

What is concerning, the Russian commentator continues, is that there are now numerous Russian-Chinese marriage agencies promoting such unions.  Chinese men are willing to invest “major sums for acquaintances with Russian women,” and Russian women are led to believe that the Chinese are wealthy and that they will thus have a rich life.

“But this is not just business,” Polonsky says. “It is no secret that China is gradually expanding in the Far East and that historically Beijing considers these lands [now within Russian borders] as part of its sphere of influence.”  And China considers that it can expand into Russia without fighting by using intermarriage and creating an ethnically mixed population.

These marriages are occurring not only among the better off segments of the population, he continues. There are an increasing number among the working class. “The disciplined and little drinking workers from China who work in the Far East also enjoy demand from women and girls in local settlements and small cities.”

“And this is completely understandable – [the Chinese men] love to work, value family comforts and are less inclined to abuse alcohol and asocial behavior. As a result, everyone involved gets something – the Chinese a wife, the women a non-drinking husband, and China a gradual expansion into neighboring territory and a solution to the problem of ‘extra men.’” 

Only one question remains, Polonsky concludes: “Is this good for Russia?”