16 Monday Dec 2013
Posted in Politics, Psychology, Russia
Having heard the psychologist’s explanation that “This is Russia,” Stanton tried to move the conversation forward. He asked her whether she thought that Russians deserved better than a society in which people so often try to explain or excuse things by saying, “This is Russia.”
“We have given up hoping,” she replied.
15 Sunday Dec 2013
Tags
demonstrations, Kasparaov, protests, Putin, Putinism, Russia, Tyahnybok, Ukraine, Yanukovich
▶ Rival rallies over Ukraine future | Journal – YouTube – 12/15/2013.
” . . . so that Moscow does not walk all over us.”
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EU halts deal talks: EU senior official suspends Ukraine trade talks – YouTube – Posted 12/15/2013.
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KIEV, Ukraine — The European Union on Sunday broke off talks with Ukraine on the far-reaching trade deal that protesters here have been demanding for weeks, and a top official issued a stinging, angry statement all but accusing Ukraine’s president of dissembling.
European Union Suspends Talks With Ukraine Over Trade Deal – NYTimes.com – 12/15/2013.
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“Words & deeds of President [Viktor Yanukovych] & government regarding the Association Agreement are further & further apart. Their arguments have no grounds in reality,” he twitted on Sunday.
EU suspending work with Ukrainian govt on Association Agreement – Fule – 12/15/2013.
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While the European Union insists that the door is still open for Ukraine to join the EU, President Viktor Yanukovych is walking the tightrope between appeasing the wishes of his people and keeping Russian President Vladimir Putin happy.
Yanukovych needs to hear pleas of his people | GulfNews.com – 12/15/2013
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Mr Yanukovych had already sent his skullcrackers in once to Independence Square in Kiev, centre of the protests that erupted in November after he rejected an association agreement with the European Union, in favour of an opaque economic deal with Russia. That needless brutality brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets.
Crackdown in Ukraine: Goodbye, Putin | The Economist – 12/14/2013.
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All of the conflicts BackChannels has been watching have to do with the despotic versus the democratic.
In some instances, the despotic force is sufficient to repress and silence the latent organizations and personalities arrayed against it; in others, there’s yet opportunity to assert a popular will on behalf of human dignity and human rights against mafia-style state-based machinations and privilege.
Ukrainians, of course, have just found The Bear once again climbing aboard their own back.
The “new nobility” not only have their hands in the gushing revenue stream associated with Russia’s energy industry, but they may have also their hands on the spigot, and with winter yet to begin — hard to believe this year that ice and snow have arrived so early everywhere in the northern latitudes — the same could give them the cold treatment.
A glance at the reading tells me Ukrainians owe Moscow some money too for energy already consumed. That will give Moscow some whining room in the coming negotiations.
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Joseph Stalin’s decision in 1928 to seize privately held agricultural land and transform it into collective farms caused massive hardship for all Soviet peasants. When authorities expropriated peasant grain stocks and farm animals, hunger broke out in much of the USSR. In Ukraine, where close to a million peasants actively rebelled against collectivization, such expropriations were especially severe, leading to widespread starvation that the state both refused to alleviate and purposely aggravated until millions had died and a massive crackdown on Ukrainian political, cultural, and religious elites had been completed. At the height of the Holodomor, 25,000 Ukrainians starved per day; cannibalism was rampant.
Remembering the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide | World Affairs Journal – 12/13/2013.
Ukrainians know well the Soviet part of the post-Soviet Russian story, and one would think it doubtful the same should now entertain a return to all of that, especially absent the cover of socialist concern that accompanied the theft.
Related: Oleh Tyahnybok – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “[You are the ones] that the Moscow-Jewish mafia ruling Ukraine fears most”[11] / and / “They were not afraid and we should not be afraid. They took their automatic guns on their necks and went into the woods, and fought against the Moskali, Germans, Kikes and other scum who wanted to take away our Ukrainian state.”[10]
Next Ukrainian headache: resurgent anti-Semitic eastern European nationalism.
How is it that the potentially despotic engaging the established despotic cannot recognize in themselves the same idiotic malignant ambitions?
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BBC News – Kasparov: Stop calling Putin a democrat – 9/12/2013.
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BBC HARDtalk – Garry Kasparov (12/9/13) – YouTube – Posted 9/14/2013; BBC News – Kasparov: Stop calling Putin a democrat – 9/12/2013.
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“. . . Putin is “powerful” abroad because West has been so weak confronting him. This influence is their gift & he takes it.”
Kasparov on Ukraine, Putin and EU (with tweets) · TeamKasparov · Storify – Tweeted 12/1/2013.
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Yanukovych backed off the agreement on the grounds that the EU was not providing adequate compensation to his economically struggling nation for potential trades losses with Russia. Russia, which for centuries controlled or exerted heavy influence on Ukraine, wants the country to join a customs union, analogous to the EU, which also includes Belarus and Kazakhstan.
The opposition says that union would effectively reconstitute the Soviet Union and remain suspicious that Yanukovych might agree to it when he meets Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.
Ukrainian opposition presses with massive rally – 12/15/2013.
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Earlier this month:
Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz said it agreed with Russian gas giant Gazprom to defer payments for winter gas supplies until early 2014. With Ukraine embroiled in protests, and Europe making headway on energy diversification strategies, the move signals a tilt by Kiev back to its former Kremlin patrons.
Amid Ukraine protests, energy sector tilts toward Russia – CSMonitor.com – 12/5/2013.
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13 Friday Dec 2013
Tags
European Union, Georgia, Kiev, political values, protests, Putin, Putinism, Russia, Ukraine
▶ Protesters clash with police in Ukraine – YouTube – Posted 12/13/2013.
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▶ Ukraine: opposition leaders attend talks with president – YouTube – Posted 12/13/2013.
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European officials are in discussion with the IMF, the World Bank and other major financial bodies on ways of helping the ex-Soviet republic should it decide to sign the free-trade agreement with the EU after all.
Putin had threatened to respond to such a deal with economic sanctions against Ukraine, which has huge debts and unpaid gas bills outstanding with Moscow. Ukraine’s ultimate decision could be decisive to Putin’s Eurasian Union plan.
Kiev protesters gather, EU and Putin joust | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT – 12/13/2013.
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Putin’s comments made clear his continued designs on Ukraine and that “by hook or by crook” he will seek to try and drag it into the so-called Eurasian Union, his long-cherished idea “of reincarnating some semblance of the Soviet Union,” said Boris Tarasyuk, Ukraine’s ex-foreign minister.
Putin speaks on Ukraine; protesters rebuild barricades – latimes.com – 12/13/2013.
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The agreement could have clinched a tumultuous shift by the strategic former Soviet republic in the past decade toward embracing Western economic and political values. Mr. Yanukovych’s sudden decision to turn his back on the deal late last month infuriated the nation’s opposition parties and sent millions of pro-Western, pro-democracy demonstrators into the streets of Kiev.
Echoes of Cold War in Ukraine as Russia tries to rein in former Soviet satellites – Washington Times – 12/13/2013.
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Cultural, political, and social values matter.
Of course, energy supply and security matter too.
Ukrainians today find themselves in a bind between alliance with the developing pseudo-democratic, post-Soviet, Putinist state developing in Russia, or radiating from Moscow as much of Russia has been left to suffer as well, and their humanist drift toward the compassionate and inclusive values of the open democracies of the European Union.
In rhetoric on the Russian side, readers here will recognize an instance of the “paranoid delusional narcissistic reflection of motivation.” Although Russian spokesmen score “the west” on its struggles within the Islamic Small Wars (never mind what President Kadyrov has been up to in Chechnya as regards shepherding Islamic or barbarous values — in some places, it’s hard separating the two — within his sphere), the political outsiders in Russia’s intelligentsia and in the satellites have a fair sense of what’s what in Russia’s “power-of-vertical” state revolving around President Putin.
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President Vladimir Putin has declared that Russia has a morally superior worldview to that of the West.
Vladimir Putin: Russia is Morally Superior to the West – IBTimes UK – 12/12/2013.
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Stefan Meister, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr Putin had lost room for political maneourve as he entered his presidential third term since 2000. “He has isolated himself from the proactive part of society and the elite,” he said. “He has surrounded himself with hardliners from the security service who promote Russia’s “modernisation” through the country’s military-industrial complex.”
Vladimir Putin claims Russia is moral compass of the world – Telegraph – 12/12/2013.
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“The EU offers a token package, which is not of any interest to the Ukrainian government,” Alexei Pushkov, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Russia’s Parliament, told CNN’s Hala Gorani, who was sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
“That’s why Mister Yanukovych has initially rejected it,” he said. “Then all these demonstrations started with the participation of the European ministers…who were speaking on the Maidan [Kiev’s Independence Square], joining the protesters, and so on.”
Russia: EU, not Moscow, is bullying Ukraine – Amanpour – CNN.com Blogs – CNN video plus accompanying article – 12/12/2013.
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No state in the former Soviet Union’s sphere of influence needs reminding who has the energy supply plus a massive and vulgar army (presented in the video at the base of this post and represented by memories of its appearance in Georgia a few years ago).
The challenge in the post-Soviet era for former Soviet satellites uncomfortable with Moscow is how to navigate with and around what The Guardian‘s journalist Luke Harding has called the “mafia state”.
In Russia, power hasn’t to do with the liberation of independent spirits and the productive energies of a people: as with its superficially mirror opposite in Islam’s mix of military and theocratic dictatorships, “political power” refers to absolute control.
In essence, the causes and the talk may be wildly different, but similar personalities construct their societies in response to their own internal needs.
Putin’s claim to moral superiority as regards the west would seem well demonstrated by Russia’s continuing and supportive relationships with both the Bashar Assad’s bomb-happy reign of terror in Syria and Ayatollah Khamenei’s iron grip (not to mention about $90 billion in personal accumulation) on Iran. Those three plus President Kadyrov would seem to be “in it” — the money, at least — together.
As much may be known to educated and web-enabled and still recently politically liberated Ukrainians who have taken to the streets braving bone-chilling cold and potentially bone-breaking state paramilitary to make their views count.
Podcast: ‘EuroMaidan’ And The Russian Street – 12/13/2013.
BBC News – Ukraine protesters rebuild barricades in centre of Kiev – 12/12/2013.
Best pictures from the past 24 hours – The Globe and Mail – 12/12/2013.
Ukrainian riot police surround Kiev protesters | World news | theguardian.com – 12/10/2013.
Ukraine Opposition: No Talks Unless Govt Fired – ABC News – 12/7/2013.
Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovich meets with Putin to map out partnership – World – CBC News – 12/6/2013.
How Ukraine can someday join the EU – CSMonitor.com – 12/3/2013.
Ukraine halts Russian gas imports; transit to Europe intact – sources | Reuters – 11/11/2013.
New Eastern Europe – Russians Love Georgia, But They Don’t Love Independent Georgia – 10/08/2013.
The Putin Doctrine – Los Angeles Times – 9/12/2013.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Russia–Georgia war – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2008 Georgia–Russia crisis – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Putinism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A day after a face-to-face meeting with President George W. Bush in Beijing who expressed ‘grave concern’, Mr Putin accused the U.S. of siding with Georgia by ferrying Georgian troops from Iraq to the battle zone.
‘It is a shame that some of our partners are not helping us but, essentially, are hindering us,’ said Mr Putin. ‘The very scale of this cynicism is astonishing.’
Georgia ‘overrun’ by Russian troops as full-scale ground invasion begins | Mail Online – n.d.
They have frequently shifted the boundary south of the previously accepted course – Mr Makhachashvili says Russian troops around Dvani were using maps dated 1921 – in effect grabbing hectares of extra land.
Moscow has said South Ossetian authorities were merely demarcating its true boundary, using Soviet-era maps.
Tbilisi nervously eyes Russia’s border barricade of South Ossetia – FT.com – 11/6/2013.
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Russian Army Soldiers in South Ossetia(Georgia) Burn American Flag – YouTube – Posted 8/5/2013.
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Live Streaming the Ukrainian Revolt: http://www.vice.com/read/live-streaming-the-ukrainian-revolt – encountered 12/13/2013.
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12 Tuesday Nov 2013
Posted in Political Spychology, Politics, Psychology, Russia
Tags
democracy, dictatorship, freedom of speech, political repression, political resilience, politics, pop, Putin, Russia, time warp
Since Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency he never really left, Russia’s descent into neo-Soviet authoritarianism has become daily more brazen. Dissidents are once again being put on show trials that call up the ghosts of Joseph Brodsky, Andrei Sinyavsky, and Yuli Daniel. Laws are being jammed through the Duma with the express purpose of making Western-minded Russians fear that they will be arrested for spying for foreign powers.
Rights in Russia: Navalny and the Opposition | World Affairs Journal – November/December 2013.
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The state media regulator Roskomnadzor filed a motion with the court in early October to have the agency’s license revoked, accusing the agency of publishing videos with foul language, according to reports in the local and international press.
Moscow court revokes news agency’s license – Committee to Protect Journalists – 10/31/2013.
Russia as patient has taken a turn for the worse.
While Putin’s machinery poses its challenges to foul language (and gay pride, judging by the latest), it would seem to welcome every opportunity to further abuse basic human rights and democratic values. By way of doing what it has been doing — and doing it better — it has inspired its opposition locally, online, and worldwide.
The MediEval Empire is back!
And it is fast returning Russians to the status of loyal — more and more frequently, barely tolerated — subjects.
Ah, the glory.
The funny thing is, predictably, with Al Qaeda operating in Syria, Putin remains an heroic standard bearer for decency and freedom despite what the Putin-armed Assad regime has done to Syrians (don’t look — at least put it off twenty more seconds) and what Putin’s editing of laws may be doing (are) to Russia’s vast and under-served constituency.
Still, the disappointment . . . .
Peering out from behind the bars of the closed and censored USSR, during the Perestroika period, we young journalists felt an incredible urge for freedom. While we were all ready to make sacrifices for that prize, none of us could not imagine in our worst nightmares that in a free Russia journalists could be killed for their work. Media professionals could be censored in USSR, fired, jailed or even exiled – but not killed. We also believed – and our Western counterparts with whom we were shared this belief – that the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War would herald in a new era of free expression and independent talented journalism would inevitably flourish across Europe and Central Asia. East and West, we would create a bright liberated information space stretching undimmed from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We failed utterly to anticipate and foresee how corrupt authorities and criminal gangs would develop new forms of censorship and pressure to bring our dream so violently to heel.
Nadezhda Azhgikhina: Combating Impunity in the Digital Age – Human Rights in Russia – 11/11/2013.
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I shouldn’t, really, but I feel compelled to put these next two items side by side:
Russia’s Putin nominated for Nobel Peace Prize – Washington Times – 10/2/2013:
The Russian advocacy group International Academy of Spiritual Unity and Cooperation of Peoples of the World nominated Mr. Putin, characterizing his forged agreement with Syrian President Bashar Assad — to turn over admitted chemical weapons cache to international authorities — a world-class and prize-worthy piece of diplomacy, United Press International reported.
Artist Mutilates Self as Putin Paralyzes Russia – Bloomberg – 11/12/2013:
On Nov. 10, Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky undressed on Moscow’s Red Square, right in front of Lenin’s tomb, sat down and nailed his scrotum to the pavement.
Reactions to the radical act, which Pavlensky meant to be a “metaphor of the apathy, political indifference and fatalism of modern Russian society,” ranged from disbelief to mockery. A police source told state-owned news agency RIA Novosti that the action constituted normal behavior “for a mentally ill person.”
Make of that what you will — ouch! — and otherwise enjoy the references.
Netflix has it, so I’m off to watch the Khodorkovsky documentary.
Institute of Modern Russia (Facebook)
Lenin, Stalin and Their Victims: Archive Footage | Video | RIA Novosti – video (3:03) – 10/30/2013 – “Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression”.
Michael Weiss | World Affairs Journal
One day in the life of Mikhail Khodorkovsky – FT.com – 10/24/2013.
Pavel Khodorkovsky
Pavel Khodorkovsky: Charlie Rose (11/07): Video – Bloomberg
Names You Need To Know: Pavel Khodorkovsky – Forbes – 5/9/2011
Pyotr Ofitserov: The Man Who Stood Beside Navalny To The Bitter End – VOA – 7/13/2013.
Russia: Drop Charges for Aiding Dying Patient | Human Rights Watch – 11/11/2013.
Russia: Drop Suits Against Independent Groups | Human Rights Watch – 11/6/2013.
Russia: TV Crew Reporting on Sochi Olympics Harassed | Human Rights Watch – 11/5/2013: “From October 31 to November 2, 2013, Russian traffic police stopped Øystein Bogen, a reporter for TV2, and cameraman Aage Aunes six times while the men were reporting on stories in the Republic of Adygea, which borders Sochi to the north along the Black Sea coast. Officials took the journalists into police custody three times. At every stop and in detention, officials questioned the journalists aggressively about their work plans in Sochi and other areas, their sources, and in some cases about their personal lives, educational backgrounds, and religious beliefs. In several instances they denied the journalists contact with the Norwegian Embassy in Moscow. One official threatened to jail Bogen.”
Russian Union of Journalists – Main Page; Russian Union of Journalists : The Other Russia: “News from the Coalition for Democracy in Russia.” Note: Items listed in several categories — I have not checked all — seem to trail off in early 2013.
The stage illusion laid bare | openDemocracy – by Peter Pomerantsev – 7/8/2013. Review of Ben Judah’s Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Pastukhov | openDemocracy
Vladimir Putin: his place in history | openDemocracy – by Vladimir Pastukhov – 2/9/2012
Vladimir Putin
No shame in protesting against pro-Putin conductor, Valery Gergiev » Spectator Blogs – 11/12/2013.
Putin’s All-Purpose Weapon – NYTimes.com – by Masha Gessen – 9/30/2013.
Vladimir Putin, Through Western Eyes (Photos) | News | The Moscow Times – 9/27/2013.
Wikipedia Reference Section — Putin’s Accusers and Accused (You Figure Out Which is Which)
Alexander Bastrykin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alexei Navalny – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Boris Berezovsky (businessman) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dmitry Medvedev – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edward Snowden – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
NSA leaker Snowden gets Russian Web technology job – latimes.com – 10/31/2013.
Guardian faces fresh criticism over Edward Snowden revelations | Media | theguardian.com – 11/10/2013.
Investigative Committee of Russia – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sergey Sobyanin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mikhail Khodorkovsky – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paul Klebnikov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pussy Riot – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Related Late Breaking News
Jailed Anti-Kremlin Punk Rocker Launches New Appeal | Russia | RIA Novosti – 11/7/2013: “Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, said he had been informed the Pussy Riot band member was being relocated to a prison colony in the territory of Krasnoyarsk, located 3400 kilometers (2100 miles) east of Moscow, but authorities have yet to confirm that information.”
Pussy Riot leader lost in Russia’s prison system, husband says – latimes.com – 11/10/2013.
Sergei Magnitsky – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Georgy Satarov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rights in Russia (organization)
Rights in Russia (Facebook)
Nadezhda Azhgikhina: Combating Impunity in the Digital Age – Human Rights in Russia – 11/11/2013.
United Russia – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Viktor Bout – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; incidentally, recently back in the news: Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout’s U.S. conviction upheld | Reuters – 9/27/2013; Arms Dealer Viktor Bout ‘in New Appeal’ to U.S. Supreme Court | News | The Moscow Times – 11/8/2013.
Vladislav Surkov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yury Luzhkov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Andrei Sakharov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Andrei Sinyavsky – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joseph Brodsky – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mihail Chemiakin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “With his colleagues from the museum he organized an exhibition in 1964, after which the director of the museum was fired and all the participants forced to resign. In 1967 he co-authored with philosopher Vladimir Ivanov a treatise called “Metaphysical Synthesism”, which laid out his artistic principles, and created the “St. Petersburg Group” of artists . In 1971 he was exiled from the Soviet Union for failing to conform to Socialist Realism norms.”
Mikhail Baryshnikov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mstislav Rostropovich – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “Rostropovich fought for art without borders, freedom of speech, and democratic values, resulting in harassment from the Soviet regime. An early example was in 1948, when he was a student at the Moscow Conservatory. In response to the 10 February 1948 decree on so-called ‘formalist’ composers, his teacher Dmitri Shostakovich was dismissed from his professorships in Leningrad and Moscow; the then 21-year-old Rostropovich quit the conservatory, dropping out in protest.”
Natan Sharansky – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pyotr Grigorenko – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rudolf Nureyev – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Soviet dissidents – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (section contributing source)
Vasily Aksyonov – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yelena Bonner – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yuli Daniel – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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All of that above: barely a morning’s drag-and-drop with a hint or two of actual writing in it . . . . I like it although it could change that old book title and jazz and music line “That was then, this is now” to “That was then: THIS is still THEN.”
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Perhaps we could have both for a while — then, now, and then.
And now.
▶ The Monkees – That Was Then, This Is Now (Version 1) – YouTube
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10 Sunday Nov 2013
Tags
His criticism of Luhansk and its corrupt, thuggish, and authoritarian Regionnaire authorities has remained unsparing. They’re easy to lambast and deserve every bit of his ire. Luhansk suffers from a rust-belt economy, collapsing social services, unhealthy living conditions, and a particularly sedentary Regionnaire elite.
A Ukrainian Blogger for Luhansk Mayor? | World Affairs Journal – 11/8/2013.
Related: Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin: Ben Judah: 9780300181210: Amazon.com: Books — Published June 2013.
Post-Soviet and Eastern European scholar and political science professor Alexander J. Motyl comments on Russia’s co-evolving dissenting political competition with his take on “Proctologist” blogger Stanislav Tsikalovsky, whom he predicts will climb the web vine up into a local political career between five and ten years from now.
I wouldn’t make such sunny predictions: in Putin’s Russia, a lot can happen in five hours — ask Khodorkovsky (Khodorkovsky’s main advocacy page)– much less five days, months, or years.
I’m less certain of what to make of the nom de blogging guerre “Proctologist” except to note the scatological relationship to “Pussy Riot” and the potential for Putin’s Russia to develop an entire generational legion of brothers and sisters in virtual arms and mutual contempt for what they will perceive as the ethical and moral failings of a regime to which they may relate as moral avatars and otherwise disenfranchised outsiders.
The worse it gets, the worse they’ll get would be my prediction. Even so, my impression is such a development may not have much room for maneuver as Putin’s post-KGB FSB organizes defensively in relation to them.
Related: http://proctolog.blog.top.lg.ua/ (I like the slogan: “Believe me, for the crazy always tell the truth”).
Related: Truth and Hopelessness in Luhansk | World Affairs Journal – 3/30/2012.
Related: Auk Nr. 8 Clip (PIT No. 8) – IMDb – video trailer, posted in 2010.
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Names! Dropped with exclamation marks in Backchannels!
Honorably mentioned with an exclamation mark:
Russia — Yevgeny Roizman — May He Turn Out a Mensch!
I will try to be more careful with exclamation marks! — now that I see so many of them in one place in relation to related subjects.
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Perhaps not with “Blueberry Hill”, I wonder if Putin could not play Carnegie, setting in his autocratic wake a plethora of great homes and monuments that over time might integrate the greater Russian tapestry. In that the rich, however they may have gotten there, believe the world should serve them, they may realize they have the obligation to spend it some. Locally. Regionally. Nationally.
Or face taxes.
Or worse.
Eventually.
I jest today.
The emerging oligarchy is not Romanov, and its basis for being rather seems to twine with feudal national building: why not control the initial engines and outflows of the post-Soviet economy to one’s own temporal advantage but also to create an influential class — that “new nobility” — from varied quarters, including old school chums?
Metals and banking tycoons Vladimir Potanin and Mikhail Fridman, who made their fortunes in the 90s, are still high on the list of Russia’s richest men. But the past decade saw a rise of new billionaires who draw their wealth from state contracts and some of whom are known to be the presidents’ friends, like Gennady Timchenko.
Russia’s Wealth Inequality One Of Highest In The World – 10/9/2013.
It reads awfully unfair, but that’s today’s news, not next generation’s news.
For a few Russians, there is a “gilded age” — their own. What they amass, what they build, what they leave by way of constructive investments spells the fortunes of an era to come.
However he has done it, Putin has organized a state, and that being so, he has given his emerging political competitors a lot to work with.
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Related on the vicissitudes attending wealth and noblesse oblige:
▶ The Astor Orphan by Alexandra Aldrich – YouTube
▶ Andrew Carnegie—Gilded Age Philanthropist (From the Carnegie Hall Archives) – YouTube
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25 Wednesday Sep 2013
Posted in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Russia, Syria
With revolution, something goes, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean something else takes its place, or much of it, all at once. With Pussy Riot getting more media play in these its quiet years than perhaps (darn!) it did in its earlier and exuberant phase, a part of the global conscience has been taking a second look at the state’s now anachronistic prison system plus its deeply antiquated view of its own purpose.
What brought this into focus was the notice that what has given way in Syria is of the same corroding poison: the Ghost of Soviets Past and perhaps (ach!) the Phantom of the Czars.
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is it about to lose its last ally in a newly democratised Arab world, of which Syria will remain a vital hub whatever happens? Russia inherited its Middle East presence from the Soviet Union, but it did not gain any new friends. With Gaddafi gone and Assad on his way out, Russia stands to lose more than physical assets.
Syria: a Soviet hangover turned headache | Comment is free | The Guardian 1/31/2012
Here we are coming up on two years later and Syria as a fine place to work (perhaps [grimace]) and play isn’t looking so good.
With the Kurdish Community enjoying autonomy and perhaps (egads!) enjoying fending off Al Qaeda a little less, with the faces of satellite-made maps rearranged significantly, with more than 110,000 souls absent forever and some millions struggling with new and insecure quarters, in the country and in other countries, and two superpowers arguing over the rules rather than the war, Syria has long passed the point of repair and territorial restoration.
And why?
In the post-Soviet internal grab fest, the Assad’s Syria just went on working as it had before the revolution.
Somebody forgot to invent and install Assad Regime in Syria 2.0
Or start to work on the problem.
Perhaps.
(it’s like a hiccup).
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“The prison administration claimed that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova had been placed in isolation for her own protection, but we are concerned this could be yet another punishment for demanding that her own rights and the rights of other inmates are respected. What authorities should do is investigate the allegations she made,” said Sergei Nikitin, Director of Amnesty International’s office in Moscow.
If there is a dictator around and true to form, he will blame the adverse and scrutinizing media challenge on foreign agents and then do nothing or, at best, attend the cosmetics by summoning up the empire’s most renowned tailors of public relations to sew up a caring and concerned cloak to wrap around the matter.
That sort of thing suits emperors.
However, if the dictator is absent and another kind of administrator present, independent assessments and studies will be supported, an open conference or two may be arranged (and, perhaps [pfft] institutionalized), and Amnesty will be answered with a degree of candor possibly unknown to Russia’s best invested class.
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Also wheezing around like an old fart on matters post-Soviet: my own United States of America:
In 1974, Congress enacted the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which limits trade with “nonmarket” countries that restrict emigration. While it did not mention the Soviet Union, it was clearly aimed at pressuring Moscow to grant Jews the freedom to leave the country. Two decades after the fall of Communism, that is no longer a problem, but the law is still in place.
A Costly Anachronism – NYTimes.com Op-Ed, 2/27/2012
Shocking!
I don’t know if the matter has been addressed, and, right now, I don’t want to know. Celebrities in jail and civil wars grab everyone’s attention and inspire the nimble to undo the wrapping and have a look at who, what, where, how, and, perhaps especially (oh, groan), why!
Tariff law?
That’s kind of wonky, y’know?
“If Jackson-Vanik is not lifted, American exporters — including big players such as Caterpillar and Boeing — will be paying higher tariffs than European and Asian competitors” just doesn’t reach out and sing to me quite the way that Pussy Riot’s Prison Blues do.
Prison people, New Times, n.d. (in Russian, machine translated)
Khodorkovsky, Tymoshenko Revive Old Tradition Of Prison Correspondence 9/6/2013
1. To citizen and professional journalists and publishers: please dateline everything published. Otherwise, one may as well be reading short stories. Perhaps (I think that was one too many).
2. Khodorkovsky’s in a funny spiritual space. My impression from reading Fragile Empire is that he had leaped from the Communist Party into private ownership of whatever he could get his hands on during the transition, and though his heart may have been in the right place despite its oil-laden and much enriched blood, the wrangling over taxes would seem to reveal as greedy a Republican soul as any known to the royalty of black crude in Texas.
On the other hand, Putin’s Robin Hood may have played if the distribution architecture hadn’t so favored so many Merry Men of old and new acquaintance — no funny propaganda intended. Then too the revenue generating resource and the money have to move through their trade and economic channels and should a president not start with his own channels?
Perhaps (this one’s different) not.
Tempered modification may be the watchword for how states of affairs evolve in Russia.
While concentrations and movements in wealth and power hold interest, there’s an underlying dimensions analogous to operating a wood burning stove: whose job is it? How much fuel should it be given? How much oxygen, ventilation, and exhaust? Who is harvesting the wood? Who is holding it? Who is sitting next to the stove? Why? How? By what right? Etc.
With Putin, Russia has avoided anarchy.
It has not avoided oligarchy, so far, nor has it transformed itself in the direction of an integrated global political modernity. That’s a thing larger than “the west”: it includes India, for example.
And Kenya for another.
Two steps forward.
One step back.
Russia is going to be fantastic!
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24 Tuesday Sep 2013
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Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has written a long letter detailing life inside prison colony No 14 in the Russian region of Mordovia, revealing appalling conditions reminiscent of the Soviet Gulag system.
Pussy Riot member starts hunger strike over prison conditions | World news | theguardian.com 9/23/2013
In the “final battle between good and neutrality” (Navalny’s phrase), I hope the good will lift the lids off the sewers and get into the subterranean chambers, one way or another, sooner or later.
If it’s for the good of humanity, much including humanity in Russia, is it really anarchy?
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So far the alleged features of Pussy Riot prisoner Nadezhda Tolokonnikova include the following:
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A spokeswoman for the Federal Prison Service said the member of the feminist punk rock group is now in a spacious single cell with a bed, a refrigerator, toilet and personal belongings.
Pussy Riot member put in solitary confinement – Central & South Asia – Al Jazeera English 9/24/2013
She “worked her shift in the morning and then, for no reason whatsoever, went and wrote this statement,” Russian news agencies quoted Mr. Morozov as saying.
One Day in the Life of Pussy Riot: A jailed artist shines light on Russian prisons – CSMonitor.com 9/24/2013
It would seem Orwell’s world — actually, possibly, something even more dismal — has returned to the post-Soviet pseudo-medieval Russian system.
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Hide something.
Get something.
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What has Nadezhda Tolokonnikova to hide?
Apart from humane treatment and a little human respect, what has Nadezhda Tolokonnikova to get from having written such a letter?
These are fierce fighters, these Russians, and that would seem to include their wild women, these of Pussy Riot a bit Out There in the way of the young but brought down to earth by way of Putin’s courts and, so far as we know today, Putin’s prisons.
Pussy Riot – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
One Day in the Life of Pussy Riot: A jailed artist shines light on Russian prisons – CSMonitor.com 9/24/2013
The Navalny Case and the Final Battle between Good and Neutrality? | In Moscow’s Shadows 4/13/2013 — FBBGN is a great meme and should be used sparingly with the form “Navalny’s ‘Final Battle Between Good and Neutrality'”. Of course, it’s everyone’s battle, but one ginormous state at a time, says I.
Lies are Told for Only Two Reasons | BackChannels
Video – Possible Stalinist Gulag-Style Prisons for ‘Pussy Riot’ Members – WSJ.com 9/21/2012
Russia’s Stalinist Treatment of Pussy Riot Women | World Affairs Journal – 9/30/2013.
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22 Sunday Sep 2013
Posted in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Russia
When one has a book at hand like Ben Judah’s Fragile Empire, one may have with it a fledgling empire of new and noble nouns, many of which may be researched or accessed online. So it is with Alexei Navalny, among others, who since 2009 “has gained prominence in Russia and in the Russian and international media as a critic of corruption and of Russian President Vladimir Putin” (Wikipedia: “Alexei Navalny”).
In 2008: “Who?”
In 2013: “Navalny!”
Navalny may be Putin’s simplest political litmus test, as one may know where Navalny stands, and why, while the Russian president remains the author of his own script and of the approved manipulated official Russian historic national narrative, and he may yet pivot off the Assad-to-Mugabe course in the art of dictatorship and prove Russia other than an enormous medieval fief for exploiting all the way to ruin.
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“Today, a provincial court in the Russian city of Kirov sentenced Aleksey Navalny, the only real leader to emerge among the opposition since the fall of the Soviet Union, to five years in a prison camp, and slapped him with a hefty fine for an embezzlement scheme so convoluted it could only be fiction: He was accused, as he liked to put it, of “stealing a forest.”
Aleksei Navalny Trial: Blogger Gets Five Years in Jail | New Republic 7/18/2013
Additional Reference
Court Rejects Navalny Election Appeal | News | The Moscow Times 9/20/2013: “Navalny’s team argued that the results were illegitimate because of violations including unequal access to media outlets for different candidates, irregularities in home voting, and the buying of votes with gifts paid for with city money.”
From the same article and in the interest of fairness on this page:
“The ruling by Moscow City Court was not unexpected. In the past two weeks, Sobyanin and his powerful Kremlin supporters, among them President Vladimir Putin, have on several occasions praised the election as being one of the most transparent and fair in Russian history, and several observer groups said they did not witness any large-scale voting fraud.”
The “second row seat to history” has yet to prove helpful to me as regards primary journalism — it’s true: there’s nothing like being there, wherever that may be — much less investigative journalism, at least not until I start getting overtures for Skype sessions. As it stands, only local Russian constituents and media have the potential to report “clearly, accurately, and completely” as regards these affairs and to “peel back the onion” — a familiar phrase among accountants and bureaucrats — on what’s bothering them.
Navalny Supporters Claim Beaten by Police | News | The Moscow Times 9/22/2013
The blog of Navalny in English – Judgement 9/21/2013
Moscow court upholds election results, confirming defeat for Alexei Navalny – The Washington Post 9/20/2013
Putin foe manages strong showing in Moscow vote – Yahoo News 9/8/2013
Putin foe manages strong showing in Moscow vote – Yahoo News Photo Gallery. 9/8/2013.
The Navalny Case and the Final Battle between Good and Neutrality? | In Moscow’s Shadows 4/13/2013: “He has brought the issue of the corruption elite into the center of Russian politics, and has done more than anyone else to connect that with the United Russia bloc, that bastion of the cynical, the careerist and the corrupt.”
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From The New Republic piece cited closer to the top of this post:
Navalny showed Russians how not to be afraid. The volume of fear—for one’s physical safety, for one’s livelihood, for one’s family—that fills the average Russian mind even today is staggering. It is, in part, a product of Russia’s unfathomably bloody and ruthless history; and in part because today’s system plays on that fear by intimating that quiet ignorance is one’s safest bet, and making an example of those who don’t comply.
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Fragile Empire – Judah, Ben – Yale University Press June 2013
Russia Economy: Population, GDP, Inflation, Business, Trade, FDI, Corruption 2013 by The Heritage Foundation in partnership with the Wall Street Journal.
German Investors Discouraged by Corruption in Russia – SPIEGEL ONLINE 4/3/2013
Russia under Vladimir Putin: Neither’s ahead | The Economist 6/2/2012
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