Moscow Dramatically Expands Military Subjects Russian Media Must Not Report or Discuss

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 27 – It has always been illegal for Russian media to discuss military and security issues that the Kremlin considers classified, but as of December 1, the FSB will be issuing a list of 60 topics, none of which is classified as such but the publication of any information about will now invite legal sanctions.

            In the view of some, this list is so comprehensive that it will now be impossible for Russian media outlets to talk about the military-political situation at all except by repeating word for word what officials are saying (yakutiafuture.ru/2022/11/27/s-1-dekabrya-v-rf-nelzya-budet-publikovat-prognozy-voenno-politicheskoj-obstanovki/).

            Among the proscribed subjects according to a posting on the government’s legal information page are the following: mobilization and training of military personnel, weaponry storage sites, civil and territorial defense, the space industry, information security, and weapons development programs.

            One can only hope that this latest step by the Russian powers that be will be compromised according to the longstanding principle that the severity of Russian laws is typically compromised by their lack of consistent implementation. 

Re-Medievalization of Russia has Enormous Popular Support, Roslyakov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 26 – The most depressing aspect of Russia’s rapid return to medieval patterns of rule and official behavior is that most of its steps enjoy enormous popular support, a reality that makes it all the more difficult and all the more necessary to fight with what tools those who oppose such moves have, Aleksandr Roslaykov says.

            Many are inclined to blame this drive to the past on officials alone, on absurd policies such as the new requirement that books by people identified by the authorities as foreign agents be issued in black opaque film so that no one can read them without buying them  or allowing the Orthodox church to decide what stories can be released on it, the commentator says.

            Or even on activists who call for dispensing with the last remnants of democracy and restoring the monarchy with Putin as the irreplaceable emperor and Russia again an empire. But what is most worrisome, Roslyakov says, is how many Russians support these moves confident that the powers know best (publizist.ru/blogs/6/44533/-).

            Those who can see the direction the winds are blowing are reviving anecdotes told among themselves and samizdat that only a few will read, he continues; but even more than in Soviet times, they face an uphill battle because the population is on the side of medieval repression and authoritarianism.

            And until that changes, the commentator concludes, the dangers for Russia are far greater than the absurdities now being offered by the regime. This popular support means that those who now want to cover up books may soon seek to burn them – and even worse, to burn their authors while an enthusiastic population looks on with approval.

Putin hasn’t Decided Whether There will Be Elections in 2024, Russians Say

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 26—Muscovites are saying that Vladimir Putin hasn’t decided whether there will be any elections in 2024. He long ago decided he’d remain in power but he is still thinking whether to save the country money and simply extend his time in the Kremlin not by a vote of the people but by a simple decree.

            That is just one of the anecdotes Russian are now telling that have been assembled by Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/44535/2024). Among the best of the rest:

·       Saying that the Moskvich plant has resumed work is like saying of a library converted into a bar that “the library has resumed work” given that the firm is simply assembling Chinese parts into a car and giving it a Russian name.

·       The European Parliament has decided to label Belarus a state sponsor of tractorism.

·       Lukashenka has told Putin that he has no reason to worry about Mink and the OCST. “I am a courageous person,” the Belarusian leader says, “and therefore I will be the lasts to leave the OCST or the very first.”

·       After the Duma banned propaganda on LGBTs and transgenders, Russian security officials have removed Transylvania from the maps in Russian schools and closed the Trans-Siberiarailway.ne

·       Putin constantly provides the best evidence for what he told the mothers of soldiers now fighting in Ukraine: “you can’t trust anything at all.”

·       A Russian is asked if he is for or against something, but only after being reminded that there is a criminal sanction against anyone who is against.

·       Buryats aren’t complaining about being sent to fight in Ukraine, but they are upset that they haven’t been given the five cubic meters of firewood they were promised.

 

One Russian Resident in Three is the Product of an Ethnically Mixed Marriage, Genotek Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 26 – Analyzing the results of the 100,000 Russians who have sought its services, Genotek says that one resident of the Russian Federation is the product of an ethnically mixed marriage and has presented data on the most common pairings among the 37 largest nations in that country.

            Those who identify as ethnic Russians most often intermarry with Belarusians (22.6 percent), Ukrainians (20.3 percent), Ashkenazi Jews (14.9 percent) and Tatars (14.1 percent). They intermarry less often with Mordvins (6.9 percent) and Armenians (3.2 percent), the company says (nazaccent.ru/content/39534-genetiki-u-33-rossiyan-roditeli-raznyh-nacionalnostej.html).

            Among other nations within the borders of Russia, Genotek says, families in which one of the parents in an Ashkenazi Jew and the other is a Belarus or Ukrainian are “frequently encountered.” Other pairings found are Ukrainians with Belarusians, Tatars with Chuvash, and Tatars and Bashkirs, as well as many others.

            The rarest kind of intermarriages in its sample are between Jews and Koreans, Armenans and Udmurts, and Tatars and Frenchmen. All these combinations are displayed on an interactive chart that the Nazaccent portal has posted.

            On the one hand, the company’s figures must be taken with a grain of salt because they are not based on a representative sample but rather on people who have applied to the company’s for information on their genetic backgrounds and may have greater reasons to assume that their parentage was diverse.

            But on the other, even allowing for that, the figures suggest three conclusions: ethnic intermarriage remains more common than many assume, it is not just between Russians and others, and members of most groups have distinct preferences when it comes to deciding on a marriage partner from others. 

Putin Officials Now Censoring Nudity in Films Even Soviet Censors Allowed, Belanovsky Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 28 – As part of Vladimir Putin’s campaign to defend traditional family values, Russian officials are now eliminating or blurring nudity in Soviet-era films that Soviet censors had allowed to be shown, Sergey Belanovsky says, an effort that is worrisome because it marks the beginning of even more censorship to come.

            The prominent Moscow sociologist says this latest “idiocy” of Russian officialdom came to mind when he saw the rebroadcast of a Soviet film that contained brief views of a woman’s breasts. In the new release, those breasts were obscured by Vaseline so that one could not tell what they were (newizv.ru/news/society/28-11-2022/novaya-nenavist-k-telu-v-chem-rossiyskaya-tsenzura-uzhe-prevzoshla-sovetskuyu).

            But what makes this “idiocy” worrisome is that “someone and at what level was not too lazy to carefully watch this stupid [Soviet-era] film and instruct the use of Vaseline to obscure the corresponding frames.” And what that means, Belanovsky continues, is that “censorship has returned in the form of farce.”

            Obviously, he says, such actions require a structure and that could hardly be created in a day or limited to the question of bare breasts in a film. “Now probably the practice of removing ideologically harmful things will return.” Of course, leaders in other countries are now doing the same, something anyone with any judgment should resist.

 

Young Muscovites Turning Away from Russian Orthodoxy to Follow Eastern Religions, New Study Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 26 – New research by the Moscow Institute of Sociology shows that trust in the Russian Orthodox Church among residents of the capital is now the lowest in two decades, that the level of their religiosity has fallen and that many of the young are turning away from the church and choosing to follow Eastern religions or other “non-traditional” faiths.

            Unless the patriarchate changes course, Stanislav Stremidlovsky, a political scientist who specializes on cultural affairs, argues, Russian Orthodoxy’s current approach isn’t working and the church will lose its dominance at least among urban Russians and perhaps more generally (iarex.ru/news/87759.html).

            Patriarch Kirill has bet that his outspoken patriotism and slavish following of Putin’s militarist course will be enough to keep his church’s position, but the new study strongly suggests, the analyst says, that he is wrong and that the church needs to find a new approach, one more in tune with the views of its ever-small flock.

Kremlin Demand for Changes in Republic Constitutions Exacerbating Border Disputes in North Caucasus

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 25 – The Kremlin is insisting that republic constitutions be brought in line with the Russian one and drop among other things provisions that specify that the heads of republics are responsible for defending the borders of those territories, a role Moscow believes only the Russian president should have.

            But even the proposed elimination of such provisions is raising fears that the Russian government plans to amalgamate republics or otherwise change the borders among them and that in turn is leading ever more people in the North Caucasus to focus on border disputes in the region (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/383405/).

            As a result, what the Kremlin undoubtedly viewed as a simple housekeeping measure is rapidly becoming another source of tensions in the North Caucasus and possibly elsewhere, exactly the opposite of what those in Moscow can have wanted but now must be prepared to address because of their own actions.

            Their representatives in the North Caucasus are already having to scramble. After protests in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, the authorities there have promised to hold public hearings about dropping the territorial defense provision of the republic basic law, hearings that will certainly be heated.

            Until all the issues about such changes are fully aired, the Congress of the Karachay People have proposed placing a moratorium on any changes in the republic’s constitution. And its leadership has even questioned the legality of Moscow’s insistence on this or any other change in the region’s basic law.