Paul Goble
Vienna, October 16 – The expansion of China’s railroad network into the western portions of that country earlier this year means that those who want to ship goods between Europe and Asia are likely to use the quicker and cheaper Chinese route rather than Russia’s Trans-Siberian Railroad, a Vladivostok newspaper has warned.
In an article published last Friday, Vladivostok said that this new Eurasian land corridor will deliver massive quantities of goods 20 days quicker than the sea route and 10 days quicker than the Trans-Siberian and that shipping costs will be significantly lower as well (http://www.beregus.ru/news/?news_id=599).
The economic consequences for Russia’s railroads and ports are both immediately obvious and potentially large, the paper warned. But the article in the Russian Far Eastern daily was especially agitated about the psychological and geopolitical impact of this latest transportation development.
On the one hand, the paper said, “if earlier [Russians] with pride could call [their country] the master of virtually the only real transportation corridor between Europe and Asia, then today, this geographic monopoly is obviously coming to an end.”
That is all the more a matter of concern because of the extreme sensitivity of Chinese activities affecting the Russian Far East both there and in the Russian capital. (For the latest example, see yesterday’s “Noviy region” agency report about Chinese “seizure” of land in the Urals (http://www.nr2.ru/ekb/144974.html.).
And on the other, China’s use of this route, bypassing Siberia and the Russian Far East, will certainly affect both relations between Moscow and many Asian and European partners as well as between European Russia, whose railroads will still carry traffic originating in China, and Asiatic Russia, whose railroads won’t.
Not surprisingly, the paper blamed officials of the Russian railroads for raising prices significantly over the last few years, especially on longer runs. That disturbed many shippers, Vladivostok said, and made them especially open to the new Chinese possibilities.
More to the point, the paper concluded, “the market is the market,” and when sellers compete in terms of price and quality of service, the winner will not be the one with historical bragging rights but rather to those who can offer the best service and the best price, something China but not Russia can now do.
Price changes on the Trans-Siberian are not the only ones affecting the Russian Federation’s transportation system at present. Over the past 15 years, prices for domestic Russian air travel have trebled, and they are set to go up another 20 percent or more by next spring (http://www.regions.ru/news/2103008/).
That has reduced the number of Russians who are able to travel from their home regions to other parts of the country, something that has the effect of undermining a sense of community among people living in parts of the country, for whom Moscow and other cities are now even more distant than they were before.
While many Russians continue to use domestic airlines, the percentage of the population doing so has fallen dramatically since Soviet times, when virtually everyone made use of Aeroflot’s heavily subsidized but extraordinarily extensive route system to move about the country (http://wedmack.livejournal.com/16839.html).
And as a result, one news agency has suggested, “it is the rare Russian [who] flies to the middle of the country” from its edges (http://www.regions.ru, ibid). And in some distant areas, flights either have been cancelled altogether or occur only when at irregular intervals the number of passengers reaches a certain percentage of the seats.
For people living in European Russia, that is not a major problem: train travel there is not too time consuming or expensive, especially after Moscow decided last month to up its subsidies for passenger rail traffic. But the situation in Siberia and the Far East is very different.
There travel by rail is enormously time-consuming or not possible, and travel by plane is out of the question for many Sibiryaki. As they travel back and forth to the center less often, they are likely to decide to move away from the Far East – something Moscow does not want – or focus on local identities – something the center also opposes.
Thus, quite below the radar screen, changes in transportation arrangements both around Russia and inside have taken place that are likely to have a far greater impact on the economy and polity of Russia than the far more public debates in advance of the parliamentary and presidential elections.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Window on Eurasia: Remembering Pyotr Grigorenko
Paul Goble
Vienna, October 16 – Today marks the centenary of the birth of Pyotr Grigorenko, a distinguished Soviet general who was stripped of his rank, incarcerated in a psychiatric prison, and deprived of his Soviet citizenship because he believed that those whose rights have been violated must fight to have them restored.
That attitude led him to question Soviet apologias for Stalin’s role at the start of World War II, to become one of the founding fathers of the dissident movement in the USSR in the 1960s, and, perhaps most famously and importantly, to speak out on behalf of one of Stalin’s most punished peoples, the Crimean Tatars.
But today, despite those contributions, few of those even in countries noted for marking almost any “round” anniversary are doing much to remember a man who did so much and suffered so much for so many a generation or two ago, and almost none of those whose lives he touched outside are pausing to remember this very good man.
The National Bank of Ukraine has issued a special commemorative coin in an edition of 35,000 copies (http://www.ranbler.ru/news/0/0/1136298). And the Tatars in Crimea itself, to whose return to their homeland Grigorenko made such an important contribution, reportedly are planning a small commemoration.
But elsewhere in Ukraine, few if any events are planned. Indeed, the New York-based General Petro Girgorenko Foundation reported this week that the “unscheduled” Verkhovna Rada elections there have gotten in the way of plans to commemorate this date in any larger and more memorable way (http://www.grigorenko.org).
General Grigorenko, who died 20 years ago, described the vicissitudes of his remarkable career in two volumes of memoirs, in numerous articles and interviews, and in speeches to various groups both in the Soviet Union and in the United States, after Moscow took away his citizenship.
But in an important sense, Grigorenko’s contributions to the cause of human rights and justice for the Crimean Tatars and other nationalities in the former Soviet Union was summed up in remarks he made at a birthday party for Aleksei Kosterin in Moscow in 1967.
Speaking to Tatars of Moscow, Grigorenko insisted that “you did not commit the crimes for which you were expelled from the Crimea, but you are not permitted to return there now. Section 123 of the Soviet Constitution reads ‘any direct or indirect violation of the rights of citizens because of their racial or national origin is punishable by law.”
Consequently, he pointed out, “Soviet law is on your side. You are appealing to the leadership of the Party and the State with a conciliatory written request. But what belongs to you by right should not be asked for but demanded. So begin to demand not just bits and pieces of all that was taken from you unlawfully!”
“Demand the reestablishment of the Crimean ASSR!”
“Do not,” he concluded,” consider your cause to be solely an internal Soviet matter. Appeal for help to the world’s progressive public and international organizations. What was done to you in 1944 has a name: GENOCIDE! And that from the point of view of international law is a punishable crime. You see, international law is one your side.”
That comment sums up Grigorenko’s three most obvious contributions to the cause of human rights: an insistence that those whose rights have been violated must speak out forcefully to recover them, a belief that the aggrieved should rely in the first instance to the law, and a belief that the international community must be involved.
On what would have been his 100th birthday and despite all that has taken place across Eurasia over the last generation – and equally all that remains to be done -- Grigorenko remains a source of inspiration, a brave man who was prepared to defend his country when it was attacked but equally willing to criticize it when it was wrong.
People like the late general are a rarity. Anyone who met him – and I was fortunate enough to do so – counts himself privileged. But even more, all those living in the post-Soviet states now are his beneficiaries, even if few of them are taking the time today to remember that fact.
NOTE: I would like to thank Mubeyyin Batu Altan, of the American Association of Crimean Tatars and the Crimean Tatar Research and Information Center for sharing the statement he released in advance of this neglected centenary.
Vienna, October 16 – Today marks the centenary of the birth of Pyotr Grigorenko, a distinguished Soviet general who was stripped of his rank, incarcerated in a psychiatric prison, and deprived of his Soviet citizenship because he believed that those whose rights have been violated must fight to have them restored.
That attitude led him to question Soviet apologias for Stalin’s role at the start of World War II, to become one of the founding fathers of the dissident movement in the USSR in the 1960s, and, perhaps most famously and importantly, to speak out on behalf of one of Stalin’s most punished peoples, the Crimean Tatars.
But today, despite those contributions, few of those even in countries noted for marking almost any “round” anniversary are doing much to remember a man who did so much and suffered so much for so many a generation or two ago, and almost none of those whose lives he touched outside are pausing to remember this very good man.
The National Bank of Ukraine has issued a special commemorative coin in an edition of 35,000 copies (http://www.ranbler.ru/news/0/0/1136298). And the Tatars in Crimea itself, to whose return to their homeland Grigorenko made such an important contribution, reportedly are planning a small commemoration.
But elsewhere in Ukraine, few if any events are planned. Indeed, the New York-based General Petro Girgorenko Foundation reported this week that the “unscheduled” Verkhovna Rada elections there have gotten in the way of plans to commemorate this date in any larger and more memorable way (http://www.grigorenko.org).
General Grigorenko, who died 20 years ago, described the vicissitudes of his remarkable career in two volumes of memoirs, in numerous articles and interviews, and in speeches to various groups both in the Soviet Union and in the United States, after Moscow took away his citizenship.
But in an important sense, Grigorenko’s contributions to the cause of human rights and justice for the Crimean Tatars and other nationalities in the former Soviet Union was summed up in remarks he made at a birthday party for Aleksei Kosterin in Moscow in 1967.
Speaking to Tatars of Moscow, Grigorenko insisted that “you did not commit the crimes for which you were expelled from the Crimea, but you are not permitted to return there now. Section 123 of the Soviet Constitution reads ‘any direct or indirect violation of the rights of citizens because of their racial or national origin is punishable by law.”
Consequently, he pointed out, “Soviet law is on your side. You are appealing to the leadership of the Party and the State with a conciliatory written request. But what belongs to you by right should not be asked for but demanded. So begin to demand not just bits and pieces of all that was taken from you unlawfully!”
“Demand the reestablishment of the Crimean ASSR!”
“Do not,” he concluded,” consider your cause to be solely an internal Soviet matter. Appeal for help to the world’s progressive public and international organizations. What was done to you in 1944 has a name: GENOCIDE! And that from the point of view of international law is a punishable crime. You see, international law is one your side.”
That comment sums up Grigorenko’s three most obvious contributions to the cause of human rights: an insistence that those whose rights have been violated must speak out forcefully to recover them, a belief that the aggrieved should rely in the first instance to the law, and a belief that the international community must be involved.
On what would have been his 100th birthday and despite all that has taken place across Eurasia over the last generation – and equally all that remains to be done -- Grigorenko remains a source of inspiration, a brave man who was prepared to defend his country when it was attacked but equally willing to criticize it when it was wrong.
People like the late general are a rarity. Anyone who met him – and I was fortunate enough to do so – counts himself privileged. But even more, all those living in the post-Soviet states now are his beneficiaries, even if few of them are taking the time today to remember that fact.
NOTE: I would like to thank Mubeyyin Batu Altan, of the American Association of Crimean Tatars and the Crimean Tatar Research and Information Center for sharing the statement he released in advance of this neglected centenary.
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