Paul Goble
Vienna, July 1 – A virtual movement of legal activists is working in the Russian capital to help people moving there comply with the law and work with a government registration system unlike any in the world at the present time -- except for the one maintained by the regime in North Korea, one of the leaders of the “Illegals of Moscow” movement says.
In an interview posted on the Chaskor.ru portal today, that individual speaking on condition of anonymity because of the risk of reprisal from officials told Yuliya Burmistrova that Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s claim that such registration systems exist “in all the major capitals of the world” is simply “a lie” (www.chaskor.ru/p.php?id=8033).
“There is nothing like [Moscow’s system] anywhere in the world,” the Illegals of Moscow leader said. Members of that organization “have specially studied this question and the last country with such a registration [“propiska”] regime is the Korean Peoples Democratic Republic” under Kim Jong-Il.
In her introduction to the interview, Burmistrova notes that the site of the Illegals of Moscow – www.nelegal.ru – is the public face of “a virtual civic movement” intended to provide guidance to those navigating the difficulties of the Moscow registration system and support for them, including assistance in making appeals to prosecutors.
But she notes that since its formation in September 1999, the people behind the site have been committed not to violating any laws or helping others to do so. Instead, they “require” that those with whom they work obey all laws and the Russian Constitution, but the name of the site and the composition of those they help mean that those involved can only speak anonymously.
The site was created a decade ago, the activist said, by a group of “private persons” who had “experienced all ‘the charms’ of the Moscow registration system: discrimination and humiliation by bureaucrats and the militia” when they deal with Muscovites and “the limitation of [their] rights” and who wanted to help others.
Obviously, only a small fraction of those arriving in the city visit the site, although some 8,000 people did so in the last month alone (top.mail.ru/rating?id=1281515&date=2009-06-29). Indeed, the activist said, “the typical portrait of the visitor and member of the virtual community of illegals is a highly educated young specialist.”
“Unfortunately,” the activist continued, the group is “extremely limited in its resources and is forced to struggle with an enormous machine that transforms arrivals into nutricious food for an enormous inhuman monster” that lives by “bribes” and by “the unconscionable and uncontrolled exploitation of those from outside the city.”
So offensive is this processing that “the word ‘Muscovite’ has become a term of derision if not a curse.” For example, the interviewee said, “the majority of marriages in Moscow are concluded not on the basis of love but for a residence permit. Can this be normal?” the activist asked rhetorically.
Given that, the activist said, the Illegals of Moscow group also sees itself as working to “change the image of Moscow, to convert it from an inhospitable city with eternally hungry militiamen and unfriendly people into a free and welcoming place in which it is comfortable and pleasing for all to live.”
A major reason why the powers that be are able to get away with their arbitrary behavior is the legal illiteracy of the population. “The people do not know their rights, not only about registration but about any other. “ No one reads the laws or is interested in his or her rights,” the activist said.
Other serious problems are that even when the laws and the constitution are clear, regional officials who don’t like them simply ignore them. And given Russia’s lack of a precedent system of justice, everyone who faces the authorities must start from square one against what the authorities say is the law.
Asked what laws the organization would like to see changed, the activist said that it would prefer to see the entire institution of registration or “propiska” eliminated. At present, the situation that exists in Moscow is “surreal” with the authorities wanting information but not wanting to give people registration permits in the absence of bribes or pressure.
The activist, however, held out little hope that the situation in Moscow would change for the better anytime soon. While this virtual group has regularly declared its desire to meet with the authorities, they have been harassed or ignored since Russian “government organs do everything they can to prevent citizens from achieving what is theirs by right.”
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Russia Would Be Better Off Without Non-Russian Areas, Some Russian Nationalists Say
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 1 – In recent statements, some of which eerily recall writer Valentin Rasputin’s 1989 proposal that Russia should leave the Soviet Union, some Russian nationalists are now arguing that their nation both as a people and a state would be far better off if it were to jettison the North Caucasus and possibly other non-Russian regions as well.
Such ideas are not entirely new – indeed, their authors have sometimes been classified by scholars as “little Russia” nationalists – and they are certainly not widespread, with most ethnic Russians still committed to the defense of the borders of their country without much regard to the costs involved for themselves or those living in those regions.
But the appearance of such arguments now, ones that in the words of one commentator appear to reflect “the general tiredness and entropy of the Russian nation and its hatred toward a self-satisfied government monster,” are intriguing as an indication of the first stages of a possible tectonic shift in Russian views much like the one of 20 years ago.
The first of the three expressing such views was the radical poet Alina Vitukhnovskaya who told a discussion group of the United Civic Front (OGF) that she begins from the proposition that “having ceased to exist historically, Russia has nonetheless remained in its former borders,” something she suggested has given rise to many of the nation’s problems.
She argued, according to a report posted on Kasparov.ru today, that “the Russian state is degrading and falling apart and soon it will not exist in its current form.” There won’t be a revolution, even though the “Gorbachev-Yeltsin project” had failed. And that change will come as a result of invasion, “technogenic catastrophe, or “fratricidal clashes.”
Not surprisingly, Vitukhnovskaya’s prediction was immediately criticized. Sergey Davidis of Russian Solidarity said that here views represented “a nihilistic tendency which expresses the general tiredness and entropy of the Russian nation and its hatred to a self-satisfied state monster” (www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=4A4B344864F00).
And he continued that her program consisted of advocating “’the amputation’ of Chechnya and a few other ‘low-quality’ regions, giving the remain complete freedom of self-determination, ending all talk about ‘territorial integrity’ and ‘Russian statehood’ as such, and rejecting the slightest amount of centralization.”
In that way, Davidis suggested, Vitukhnovskaya was calling for a campaign “to attempt to expel ‘the Asiatic’ and ‘Muscovite’ aspects” from Russian life, qualities that she sees as the chief bearers of ‘the virus of despotism.’” And having done all that, having assumed that things can’t get worse than they are now, he said, she suggests, only that “we shall see.”
The second of the three people pushing the idea that Russia and Russians would benefit from letting some the non-Russian regions of the country depart was Mikhail Dzyubenko, a philologist who is also an OGF activist. Speaking to the same group, he said that Russia “does not still exist” and that it is necessary to “destroy the traditional Russian state mythology.”
Arguing that the idea that all residents of the Russian Federation could form a supra-ethnic Russian nation, Dzyubenko said that this was as absurd as suggesting that “the French together will the Algerians could be a political nation.” And he insisted that the various nations must have the right to decide their own fate.
“How can a ‘federation’ exist where the subjects do not agree among themselves but only with a certain abstract ‘federal center’” as is the case in the Russian Federation today, he asked rhetorically. And challenged to say what the Russian nation should do when it formed a genuine federation with “’problem’” North Caucasus republics, his answer was simple.
“Don’t take them in,” he said. In the recreation of the Federation, [simply] don’t invite them as members. As far as Bashkortostan and Tatarstan are concerned, where the titular nationalities are outnumbered by Russians, he suggested that the peoples living in those places should have the right to decide what to do.
One participant in this discussion said that however strange these ideas may seem, they could yet come to pass. “Who in the middle of the 1980s could have predicted that the USSR would fall apart? Now it is completely uncertain where the curve of history is leading. [And] it is unknown whether the Russian Federation will exist five or ten years from now.”
The third representative of this trend was Russian blogger Mikhail Pozharsky, who offered his vision of “Russia Without the Caucasus” on the Prague Watchdog site on June 12, an article that was posted on a Russian portal today, in the wake of the assassination attempt against Ingush President Yukus-Bek Yevkurov (kontury.info/publ/57-1-0-132ингушетия).
In a 3300-word essay, Pozharsky argued that “the North Caucasus the most problem-filled region in contemporary Russia” and that Russia would be better off, something the Russian government itself would recognize if it worked “not in the interests of state corporations and a limited circle of well-known people but in the interests of the Russian nation itself.”
Saying that he was referring to the following republics – Daghestan, Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachayevo-Cherkessia, North Ossetia, and Ingushetia – Pozharsky says history shows they will never live peacefully with Russians in one country, will always require large subventions from the center, and will offer little of value if kept inside Russia’s borders.
The leaders of both the Russian Empire and the USSR understood that they could not integrate these areas but only subjugate them “by harsh but effective methods” in order to control access to the republics and countries to the south. But Pozharsky continued, the current Russian government does not appear to understand that at all.
On the one hand, Moscow has now declared its war there a “counter-terrorist operation,” thus “putting Russian soldiers in a situation when they are de facto fighting against the entire Chechen people but de jure against terrorists whom they are required somehow to distinguish from ‘peaceful citizens.’”
And on the other, the Russian government has given power to the Kadyrovs and others, something the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union never did, ruling the region with generals “appointed from Petersburg” in the first case and putting ethnic Russians in real charge of the situation on the ground.
“The transfer of the North Caucasus entirely into the hands of indigenous local clans,” Pozharsky said, “is a completely Putinist innovation” which none of his predecessors would have trusted to work. And post-Soviet Moscow has allowed the uninterrupted flow of North Caucasians into Russian cities, something that increasingly troubles many.
Continuing in this way, he argues, will be possible only “at the price of great human and material losses.” That may be “profitable” for those who like the local leaders get money from the budget or for Rosneft and Gazprom. And it will certainly be “profitable for the Caucasus clans.” But it won’t be for the Russian people and for Russia.
The only means for solving the Caucasus problem “once and for all,” Pozharsky argued, is to “separate the republics of the North Caucasus,” fortify the borders, introduce a strict visa regime, deport North Caucasians now in Russian cities, and help “the few Russians” remaining in the North Caucasus to come back to Russia proper.
Pozharsky acknowledged that not all Russian nationalists agree with him, but he suggested that this idea could prove more popular than many think, noting that polls have shown that majorities of Russians are prepared to cut their country’s losses and do without the “benefits” the current Moscow leadership keeps telling them the North Caucasus brings.
Vienna, July 1 – In recent statements, some of which eerily recall writer Valentin Rasputin’s 1989 proposal that Russia should leave the Soviet Union, some Russian nationalists are now arguing that their nation both as a people and a state would be far better off if it were to jettison the North Caucasus and possibly other non-Russian regions as well.
Such ideas are not entirely new – indeed, their authors have sometimes been classified by scholars as “little Russia” nationalists – and they are certainly not widespread, with most ethnic Russians still committed to the defense of the borders of their country without much regard to the costs involved for themselves or those living in those regions.
But the appearance of such arguments now, ones that in the words of one commentator appear to reflect “the general tiredness and entropy of the Russian nation and its hatred toward a self-satisfied government monster,” are intriguing as an indication of the first stages of a possible tectonic shift in Russian views much like the one of 20 years ago.
The first of the three expressing such views was the radical poet Alina Vitukhnovskaya who told a discussion group of the United Civic Front (OGF) that she begins from the proposition that “having ceased to exist historically, Russia has nonetheless remained in its former borders,” something she suggested has given rise to many of the nation’s problems.
She argued, according to a report posted on Kasparov.ru today, that “the Russian state is degrading and falling apart and soon it will not exist in its current form.” There won’t be a revolution, even though the “Gorbachev-Yeltsin project” had failed. And that change will come as a result of invasion, “technogenic catastrophe, or “fratricidal clashes.”
Not surprisingly, Vitukhnovskaya’s prediction was immediately criticized. Sergey Davidis of Russian Solidarity said that here views represented “a nihilistic tendency which expresses the general tiredness and entropy of the Russian nation and its hatred to a self-satisfied state monster” (www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=4A4B344864F00).
And he continued that her program consisted of advocating “’the amputation’ of Chechnya and a few other ‘low-quality’ regions, giving the remain complete freedom of self-determination, ending all talk about ‘territorial integrity’ and ‘Russian statehood’ as such, and rejecting the slightest amount of centralization.”
In that way, Davidis suggested, Vitukhnovskaya was calling for a campaign “to attempt to expel ‘the Asiatic’ and ‘Muscovite’ aspects” from Russian life, qualities that she sees as the chief bearers of ‘the virus of despotism.’” And having done all that, having assumed that things can’t get worse than they are now, he said, she suggests, only that “we shall see.”
The second of the three people pushing the idea that Russia and Russians would benefit from letting some the non-Russian regions of the country depart was Mikhail Dzyubenko, a philologist who is also an OGF activist. Speaking to the same group, he said that Russia “does not still exist” and that it is necessary to “destroy the traditional Russian state mythology.”
Arguing that the idea that all residents of the Russian Federation could form a supra-ethnic Russian nation, Dzyubenko said that this was as absurd as suggesting that “the French together will the Algerians could be a political nation.” And he insisted that the various nations must have the right to decide their own fate.
“How can a ‘federation’ exist where the subjects do not agree among themselves but only with a certain abstract ‘federal center’” as is the case in the Russian Federation today, he asked rhetorically. And challenged to say what the Russian nation should do when it formed a genuine federation with “’problem’” North Caucasus republics, his answer was simple.
“Don’t take them in,” he said. In the recreation of the Federation, [simply] don’t invite them as members. As far as Bashkortostan and Tatarstan are concerned, where the titular nationalities are outnumbered by Russians, he suggested that the peoples living in those places should have the right to decide what to do.
One participant in this discussion said that however strange these ideas may seem, they could yet come to pass. “Who in the middle of the 1980s could have predicted that the USSR would fall apart? Now it is completely uncertain where the curve of history is leading. [And] it is unknown whether the Russian Federation will exist five or ten years from now.”
The third representative of this trend was Russian blogger Mikhail Pozharsky, who offered his vision of “Russia Without the Caucasus” on the Prague Watchdog site on June 12, an article that was posted on a Russian portal today, in the wake of the assassination attempt against Ingush President Yukus-Bek Yevkurov (kontury.info/publ/57-1-0-132ингушетия).
In a 3300-word essay, Pozharsky argued that “the North Caucasus the most problem-filled region in contemporary Russia” and that Russia would be better off, something the Russian government itself would recognize if it worked “not in the interests of state corporations and a limited circle of well-known people but in the interests of the Russian nation itself.”
Saying that he was referring to the following republics – Daghestan, Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachayevo-Cherkessia, North Ossetia, and Ingushetia – Pozharsky says history shows they will never live peacefully with Russians in one country, will always require large subventions from the center, and will offer little of value if kept inside Russia’s borders.
The leaders of both the Russian Empire and the USSR understood that they could not integrate these areas but only subjugate them “by harsh but effective methods” in order to control access to the republics and countries to the south. But Pozharsky continued, the current Russian government does not appear to understand that at all.
On the one hand, Moscow has now declared its war there a “counter-terrorist operation,” thus “putting Russian soldiers in a situation when they are de facto fighting against the entire Chechen people but de jure against terrorists whom they are required somehow to distinguish from ‘peaceful citizens.’”
And on the other, the Russian government has given power to the Kadyrovs and others, something the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union never did, ruling the region with generals “appointed from Petersburg” in the first case and putting ethnic Russians in real charge of the situation on the ground.
“The transfer of the North Caucasus entirely into the hands of indigenous local clans,” Pozharsky said, “is a completely Putinist innovation” which none of his predecessors would have trusted to work. And post-Soviet Moscow has allowed the uninterrupted flow of North Caucasians into Russian cities, something that increasingly troubles many.
Continuing in this way, he argues, will be possible only “at the price of great human and material losses.” That may be “profitable” for those who like the local leaders get money from the budget or for Rosneft and Gazprom. And it will certainly be “profitable for the Caucasus clans.” But it won’t be for the Russian people and for Russia.
The only means for solving the Caucasus problem “once and for all,” Pozharsky argued, is to “separate the republics of the North Caucasus,” fortify the borders, introduce a strict visa regime, deport North Caucasians now in Russian cities, and help “the few Russians” remaining in the North Caucasus to come back to Russia proper.
Pozharsky acknowledged that not all Russian nationalists agree with him, but he suggested that this idea could prove more popular than many think, noting that polls have shown that majorities of Russians are prepared to cut their country’s losses and do without the “benefits” the current Moscow leadership keeps telling them the North Caucasus brings.
Window on Eurasia: Russian Experts Divided on Probability of New War with Georgia
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 1 – As Moscow continues a military exercise in the North Caucasus that it says is designed to prevent conflicts, one leading Russian expert says that the probability of a new war between Russia and Georgia may be as high as 80 percent, while another suggests that such predictions themselves constitute “a dangerous provocation.”
Because Moscow’s invasion of Georgia in August 2008 followed summer Russian military maneuvers in the North Caucasus, its current maneuvers in the region have led many in Moscow, Tbilisi and elsewhere to speculate that the course of events last summer will be repeated during this one.
In an article on the Kavkaz-uzel.ru portal today, two leading analysts square off on the likelihood of a new military conflict, with Sergey Markedonov, a leading Russian specialist on the Caucasus, arguing there is unlikely to be a war and Pavel Felgengauer, a prominent military affairs commentator, presenting the opposite view (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/156045).
Markedonov argues that those who talk about a possible war “as if it were a accomplished fact” and even give “exact dates” for such a conflict are not writing “simply commentaries but rather [engaging in] a very dangerous provocation.” Neither Russia nor Georgia needs or wants a conflict now, he suggests.
“In the government of Russia, there are no idiots ready to take such steps,” he says, and he offers three reasons for that. First, there are the upcoming negotiations with US President Barak Obama about strategic nuclear weapons, talks which are “important to Russia” and which the outbreak of a conflict could threaten.
Suppose for a minute that as these talks are going on, “a war with Georgia” breaks out. “What do you think Obama would do? It is not excluded that he would break off the talks and leave,” not an outcome that the Moscow leadership or the American leadership for that matter would be very happy about.
Second, Markedonov argues that “after the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia is not at all interested in a new escalation of the conflict.” It has its forces and regimes where it wants them. And “if there had been a desire to occupy Tbilisi, this would already have been done in August of last year.”
And third, he points out, “it is necessary to understand that any politician who comes to power after [Georgian President Mikhiel] Saakashvili be it [Irakli] Alasania or [Nino] Burjanadze will not be pro-Russian. And that will be even more true if this [change in Tbilisi] occurs in the course of military actions.
At the same time, Markedonov insists, Georgia too “cannot be interested in a war now” because “many of the illusions [its leadership had last year] have already been dispelled, since the situation now is far from the most favorable.” First of all, Saakashvili “does not have the sympathy of the West” that he did.
Second, “Georgia’s strategic positions are much worse than they were a year ago,” even if one considers that only from the point of view of geography. And third, Georgia, which has received negative comments from European institutions in the past for last year’s conflict, would receive even more negative ones if it appeared that Tbilisi had in any way triggered a new war.
But Markedonov says that the biggest mistake those who predicting a new conflict on the basis of the ongoing maneuvers are making is to assume that the war last year was a rapid reaction “to the events of August 7-8.” In fact, last year’s war was, in Markedonov’s view, “the result of a four-year-long policy of Georgia” and Moscow’s plans to counter it.
In response, Felgengauer argues that the probability of a new war is “quite high, from 50 to 80 percent,” with the conflict most likely to begin “in the middle of July because otherwise it would be senseless to conduct exercises if the war were being prepared for August, and September is already late.”
The Moscow military expert makes three arguments in support of his conclusion. First, Moscow’s military maneuvers in the region have grown larger and have become more focused on Georgia than in the past. Second, Georgia can be counted on to do something that Moscow can point to as a provocation.
These Georgian actions may be no more than German claims that the Poles attacked the Germans in 1939 or Soviet suggestions in the same year that the Finns fired on the territory of the USSR. But a similar claim about Georgia will be sufficient not only to allow Moscow to act but to explain its actions to others.
And third, Felgengauer notes, there is an important difference between 2008 and 2009. “In August of last year, Georgia was not planning to fight with Russia; it had prepared for war with the separatists and therefore it suffered complete defeat. Now it is preparing for a war with Russia,” a conflict it cannot win but one that might draw in others on its side.
But the Moscow writer’s clinching argument from his point of view appears to be this: Moscow was able to fight a war last year without being punished or even all that seriously condemned by the international community, and thus Russian leaders thus have concluded that they can engage in a new war at little or no cost.
Vienna, July 1 – As Moscow continues a military exercise in the North Caucasus that it says is designed to prevent conflicts, one leading Russian expert says that the probability of a new war between Russia and Georgia may be as high as 80 percent, while another suggests that such predictions themselves constitute “a dangerous provocation.”
Because Moscow’s invasion of Georgia in August 2008 followed summer Russian military maneuvers in the North Caucasus, its current maneuvers in the region have led many in Moscow, Tbilisi and elsewhere to speculate that the course of events last summer will be repeated during this one.
In an article on the Kavkaz-uzel.ru portal today, two leading analysts square off on the likelihood of a new military conflict, with Sergey Markedonov, a leading Russian specialist on the Caucasus, arguing there is unlikely to be a war and Pavel Felgengauer, a prominent military affairs commentator, presenting the opposite view (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/156045).
Markedonov argues that those who talk about a possible war “as if it were a accomplished fact” and even give “exact dates” for such a conflict are not writing “simply commentaries but rather [engaging in] a very dangerous provocation.” Neither Russia nor Georgia needs or wants a conflict now, he suggests.
“In the government of Russia, there are no idiots ready to take such steps,” he says, and he offers three reasons for that. First, there are the upcoming negotiations with US President Barak Obama about strategic nuclear weapons, talks which are “important to Russia” and which the outbreak of a conflict could threaten.
Suppose for a minute that as these talks are going on, “a war with Georgia” breaks out. “What do you think Obama would do? It is not excluded that he would break off the talks and leave,” not an outcome that the Moscow leadership or the American leadership for that matter would be very happy about.
Second, Markedonov argues that “after the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia is not at all interested in a new escalation of the conflict.” It has its forces and regimes where it wants them. And “if there had been a desire to occupy Tbilisi, this would already have been done in August of last year.”
And third, he points out, “it is necessary to understand that any politician who comes to power after [Georgian President Mikhiel] Saakashvili be it [Irakli] Alasania or [Nino] Burjanadze will not be pro-Russian. And that will be even more true if this [change in Tbilisi] occurs in the course of military actions.
At the same time, Markedonov insists, Georgia too “cannot be interested in a war now” because “many of the illusions [its leadership had last year] have already been dispelled, since the situation now is far from the most favorable.” First of all, Saakashvili “does not have the sympathy of the West” that he did.
Second, “Georgia’s strategic positions are much worse than they were a year ago,” even if one considers that only from the point of view of geography. And third, Georgia, which has received negative comments from European institutions in the past for last year’s conflict, would receive even more negative ones if it appeared that Tbilisi had in any way triggered a new war.
But Markedonov says that the biggest mistake those who predicting a new conflict on the basis of the ongoing maneuvers are making is to assume that the war last year was a rapid reaction “to the events of August 7-8.” In fact, last year’s war was, in Markedonov’s view, “the result of a four-year-long policy of Georgia” and Moscow’s plans to counter it.
In response, Felgengauer argues that the probability of a new war is “quite high, from 50 to 80 percent,” with the conflict most likely to begin “in the middle of July because otherwise it would be senseless to conduct exercises if the war were being prepared for August, and September is already late.”
The Moscow military expert makes three arguments in support of his conclusion. First, Moscow’s military maneuvers in the region have grown larger and have become more focused on Georgia than in the past. Second, Georgia can be counted on to do something that Moscow can point to as a provocation.
These Georgian actions may be no more than German claims that the Poles attacked the Germans in 1939 or Soviet suggestions in the same year that the Finns fired on the territory of the USSR. But a similar claim about Georgia will be sufficient not only to allow Moscow to act but to explain its actions to others.
And third, Felgengauer notes, there is an important difference between 2008 and 2009. “In August of last year, Georgia was not planning to fight with Russia; it had prepared for war with the separatists and therefore it suffered complete defeat. Now it is preparing for a war with Russia,” a conflict it cannot win but one that might draw in others on its side.
But the Moscow writer’s clinching argument from his point of view appears to be this: Moscow was able to fight a war last year without being punished or even all that seriously condemned by the international community, and thus Russian leaders thus have concluded that they can engage in a new war at little or no cost.
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