Some news items about events in and around Georgia during the last week which have attracted less attention than they deserve:
RUSSIAN ECONOMY HURT BY CAPITAL OUTFLOW. During August, apparently primarily because of Moscow’s invasion of Georgia, capital flight from Russia, estimated to be as much as 22-25 billion U.S. dollars, has had a major impact on that country’s stock market, down 16.3 percent, ruble exchange rate, down 9 percent against the dollar, and inflation, up by more than twice the figure Moscow projected. Along with the falling price for oil, which has reduced the income of Russian exporters, these changes have been sufficient to lead some analysts to predict that Moscow may default on some of its loans or even change its policies in Georgia (babr.ru/?pt=news&event=v1&IDE=47375 and kontury.info/news/2008-09-05-228).
ANTI-WESTERN ATTITUDES AMONG RUSSIANS STRONGEST IN CAPITALS, SIBERIA. A new poll conducted by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) found that anti-Western attitudes spurred by the Georgian conflict are strongest in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Siberia. But the survey also found that 47 percent of Russians expect that tensions with the West will not last very long; fewer than one in five thinks that relations will remain tense (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1020776&NodesID=7).
MOSCOW DENIES BUILDING A WALL BETWEEN SOUTH OSSETIA AND GEORGIA. The Russian foreign ministry has flatly denied Georgian reports that Moscow is helping the South Ossetians to build a wall on the southern borders of that republic, and Abkhaz officials have issued a similar denial concerning articles in the Georgian media suggesting that they are building a wall there (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1228506.html).
RUSSIAN FORCES IN ‘BUFFER ZONES’ FAIL TO STOP MARAUDERS BUT BLOCK GEORGIAN HARVEST. Elena Tonkacheva, a member of the International Monitoring Group, said that Russian forces in the “buffer zones” Moscow has unilaterally created on Georgian territory are failing to stop marauders (www.nr2.ru/moskow/194821.html). But one thing they are doing, other sources report, is to prevent Georgians from returning to bring in the harvest, a move that could lead to food shortages there (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=166608).
SAAKASHVILI SEEKS BROADER POWERS BY PATRIOT ACT. On August 29, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said that Tbilisi needed what he called “a patriot act” to prevent Russians from overthrowing him and his government. He provided no details as to what it might include besides saying that it would “in no way infringe on civil liberties.” But some opposition groups have suggested that he might use such legislation to move against them (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19346&search=patriot%20act).
KARABAKH LEADER CALLS FOR RECOGNITION OF HIS REPUBLIC. Despite Moscow’s indication that it is not prepared to challenge the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan even in the wake of its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Karabakh leader Bako Saakyan said on Russian television that there was “no alternative” to the eventual recognition of that republic (www.polit.ru/news/2008/09/02/kakrabach.popup.html).
TWO ESTONIAN FARMS DID NOT CALL FOR RESTORING ESTONIAN SSR. Russian news media made much of reports that two farms in eastern Estonia had declared themselves the nucleus of a revived Estonian SSR, but an investigation by Tallinn’s “Postimees” found that these calls were either a joke or a hoax (rus.postimees.ee/030908/glavnaja/estonija/40132.php). Meanwhile, however, Baltic media reported that the Russian military appears to be concentrating forces near the Estonian-Russian border ru.delfi.lt/news/politics/article.php?id=18432703).
MOST UKRAINIANS WANT RUSSIAN FLEET OUT, BUT A FEW ARE WILLING TO GIVE CRIMEA TO RUSSIA. A majority of Ukrainians prepared to express an opinion say that they want Russia’s Black Sea Fleet to leave its base after 2017 when the agreement between Moscow and Kyiv governing their presence runs out. Moreover, nearly three-quarters (73.2 percent) said Ukraine must not give Sevastopol and Crimea to Russia. Only one in ten says that Kyiv should agree to such a step (www.ia-centr.ru/publications/2163/). Meanwhile, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov kept up his campaign for expanding Russian control there: If Russia loses Sevastopol, he said, it will lose the Caucasus as well (evrazia.org/n.php?id=3892).
SPB INTELLECTUALS WON’T BREAK TIES WITH GEORGIAN COLLEAGUES. A group of scholars in St. Petersburg sent a message to their colleagues at Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature saying that they would maintain ties despite all the tensions between the two countries (www.zaks.ru/new/archive/view/50159), a message to which the Institute’s staff responded with gratitude (http://www.nr2.ru/culture/194617.html).
GEORGIAN EVANGELICALS CONDEMN ANTI-GEORGIAN HYSTERIA IN RUSSIA. Leaders of the Evangelical Christian community Georgia have issued a statement decrying the anti-Georgian and anti-Western hysteria in the Russian Federation and called on Russians to remember that the two nations have been able to live in peace in the past and should be able to do so again in the future (prochurch.info/index.php/more/13139).
RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA EQUATES ETHNIC AND POLITICAL RUSSOPHOBIA. The SOVA Rights Center in Moscow has called attention to a dangerous trend in Russian government propaganda about Georgia and Georgians. Increasingly, the center’s analysts say, Moscow’s spokesmen fail to draw a clear distinction between those who happen to be members of particular ethnic group and those within that group who may manifest “russophobic” attitudes(xeno.sova-center.ru/213716E/213988B/BA39BD1). Their failure to maintain that distinction, the center suggests, inevitably contributes to xenophobia among Russians and thus to attacks on Georgians and other groups.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Window on Eurasia Shorts for September 6 – Georgian Events
Some news items about events in and around Georgia during the last week which have attracted less attention than they deserve:
RUSSIAN ECONOMY HURT BY CAPITAL OUTFLOW. During August, apparently primarily because of Moscow’s invasion of Georgia, capital flight from Russia, estimated to be as much as 22-25 billion U.S. dollars, has had a major impact on that country’s stock market, down 16.3 percent, ruble exchange rate, down 9 percent against the dollar, and inflation, up by more than twice the figure Moscow projected. Along with the falling price for oil, which has reduced the income of Russian exporters, these changes have been sufficient to lead some analysts to predict that Moscow may default on some of its loans or even change its policies in Georgia (babr.ru/?pt=news&event=v1&IDE=47375 and kontury.info/news/2008-09-05-228).
ANTI-WESTERN ATTITUDES AMONG RUSSIANS STRONGEST IN CAPITALS, SIBERIA. A new poll conducted by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) found that anti-Western attitudes spurred by the Georgian conflict are strongest in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Siberia. But the survey also found that 47 percent of Russians expect that tensions with the West will not last very long; fewer than one in five thinks that relations will remain tense (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1020776&NodesID=7).
MOSCOW DENIES BUILDING A WALL BETWEEN SOUTH OSSETIA AND GEORGIA. The Russian foreign ministry has flatly denied Georgian reports that Moscow is helping the South Ossetians to build a wall on the southern borders of that republic, and Abkhaz officials have issued a similar denial concerning articles in the Georgian media suggesting that they are building a wall there (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1228506.html).
RUSSIAN FORCES IN ‘BUFFER ZONES’ FAIL TO STOP MARAUDERS BUT BLOCK GEORGIAN HARVEST. Elena Tonkacheva, a member of the International Monitoring Group, said that Russian forces in the “buffer zones” Moscow has unilaterally created on Georgian territory are failing to stop marauders (www.nr2.ru/moskow/194821.html). But one thing they are doing, other sources report, is to prevent Georgians from returning to bring in the harvest, a move that could lead to food shortages there (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=166608).
SAAKASHVILI SEEKS BROADER POWERS BY PATRIOT ACT. On August 29, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said that Tbilisi needed what he called “a patriot act” to prevent Russians from overthrowing him and his government. He provided no details as to what it might include besides saying that it would “in no way infringe on civil liberties.” But some opposition groups have suggested that he might use such legislation to move against them (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19346&search=patriot%20act).
KARABAKH LEADER CALLS FOR RECOGNITION OF HIS REPUBLIC. Despite Moscow’s indication that it is not prepared to challenge the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan even in the wake of its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Karabakh leader Bako Saakyan said on Russian television that there was “no alternative” to the eventual recognition of that republic (www.polit.ru/news/2008/09/02/kakrabach.popup.html).
TWO ESTONIAN FARMS DID NOT CALL FOR RESTORING ESTONIAN SSR. Russian news media made much of reports that two farms in eastern Estonia had declared themselves the nucleus of a revived Estonian SSR, but an investigation by Tallinn’s “Postimees” found that these calls were either a joke or a hoax (rus.postimees.ee/030908/glavnaja/estonija/40132.php). Meanwhile, however, Baltic media reported that the Russian military appears to be concentrating forces near the Estonian-Russian border ru.delfi.lt/news/politics/article.php?id=18432703).
MOST UKRAINIANS WANT RUSSIAN FLEET OUT, BUT A FEW ARE WILLING TO GIVE CRIMEA TO RUSSIA. A majority of Ukrainians prepared to express an opinion say that they want Russia’s Black Sea Fleet to leave its base after 2017 when the agreement between Moscow and Kyiv governing their presence runs out. Moreover, nearly three-quarters (73.2 percent) said Ukraine must not give Sevastopol and Crimea to Russia. Only one in ten says that Kyiv should agree to such a step (www.ia-centr.ru/publications/2163/). Meanwhile, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov kept up his campaign for expanding Russian control there: If Russia loses Sevastopol, he said, it will lose the Caucasus as well (evrazia.org/n.php?id=3892).
SPB INTELLECTUALS WON’T BREAK TIES WITH GEORGIAN COLLEAGUES. A group of scholars in St. Petersburg sent a message to their colleagues at Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature saying that they would maintain ties despite all the tensions between the two countries (www.zaks.ru/new/archive/view/50159), a message to which the Institute’s staff responded with gratitude (http://www.nr2.ru/culture/194617.html).
GEORGIAN EVANGELICALS CONDEMN ANTI-GEORGIAN HYSTERIA IN RUSSIA. Leaders of the Evangelical Christian community Georgia have issued a statement decrying the anti-Georgian and anti-Western hysteria in the Russian Federation and called on Russians to remember that the two nations have been able to live in peace in the past and should be able to do so again in the future (prochurch.info/index.php/more/13139).
RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA EQUATES ETHNIC AND POLITICAL RUSSOPHOBIA. The SOVA Rights Center in Moscow has called attention to a dangerous trend in Russian government propaganda about Georgia and Georgians. Increasingly, the center’s analysts say, Moscow’s spokesmen fail to draw a clear distinction between those who happen to be members of particular ethnic group and those within that group who may manifest “russophobic” attitudes(xeno.sova-center.ru/213716E/213988B/BA39BD1). Their failure to maintain that distinction, the center suggests, inevitably contributes to xenophobia among Russians and thus to attacks on Georgians and other groups.
RUSSIAN ECONOMY HURT BY CAPITAL OUTFLOW. During August, apparently primarily because of Moscow’s invasion of Georgia, capital flight from Russia, estimated to be as much as 22-25 billion U.S. dollars, has had a major impact on that country’s stock market, down 16.3 percent, ruble exchange rate, down 9 percent against the dollar, and inflation, up by more than twice the figure Moscow projected. Along with the falling price for oil, which has reduced the income of Russian exporters, these changes have been sufficient to lead some analysts to predict that Moscow may default on some of its loans or even change its policies in Georgia (babr.ru/?pt=news&event=v1&IDE=47375 and kontury.info/news/2008-09-05-228).
ANTI-WESTERN ATTITUDES AMONG RUSSIANS STRONGEST IN CAPITALS, SIBERIA. A new poll conducted by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) found that anti-Western attitudes spurred by the Georgian conflict are strongest in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Siberia. But the survey also found that 47 percent of Russians expect that tensions with the West will not last very long; fewer than one in five thinks that relations will remain tense (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1020776&NodesID=7).
MOSCOW DENIES BUILDING A WALL BETWEEN SOUTH OSSETIA AND GEORGIA. The Russian foreign ministry has flatly denied Georgian reports that Moscow is helping the South Ossetians to build a wall on the southern borders of that republic, and Abkhaz officials have issued a similar denial concerning articles in the Georgian media suggesting that they are building a wall there (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1228506.html).
RUSSIAN FORCES IN ‘BUFFER ZONES’ FAIL TO STOP MARAUDERS BUT BLOCK GEORGIAN HARVEST. Elena Tonkacheva, a member of the International Monitoring Group, said that Russian forces in the “buffer zones” Moscow has unilaterally created on Georgian territory are failing to stop marauders (www.nr2.ru/moskow/194821.html). But one thing they are doing, other sources report, is to prevent Georgians from returning to bring in the harvest, a move that could lead to food shortages there (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=166608).
SAAKASHVILI SEEKS BROADER POWERS BY PATRIOT ACT. On August 29, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said that Tbilisi needed what he called “a patriot act” to prevent Russians from overthrowing him and his government. He provided no details as to what it might include besides saying that it would “in no way infringe on civil liberties.” But some opposition groups have suggested that he might use such legislation to move against them (www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19346&search=patriot%20act).
KARABAKH LEADER CALLS FOR RECOGNITION OF HIS REPUBLIC. Despite Moscow’s indication that it is not prepared to challenge the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan even in the wake of its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Karabakh leader Bako Saakyan said on Russian television that there was “no alternative” to the eventual recognition of that republic (www.polit.ru/news/2008/09/02/kakrabach.popup.html).
TWO ESTONIAN FARMS DID NOT CALL FOR RESTORING ESTONIAN SSR. Russian news media made much of reports that two farms in eastern Estonia had declared themselves the nucleus of a revived Estonian SSR, but an investigation by Tallinn’s “Postimees” found that these calls were either a joke or a hoax (rus.postimees.ee/030908/glavnaja/estonija/40132.php). Meanwhile, however, Baltic media reported that the Russian military appears to be concentrating forces near the Estonian-Russian border ru.delfi.lt/news/politics/article.php?id=18432703).
MOST UKRAINIANS WANT RUSSIAN FLEET OUT, BUT A FEW ARE WILLING TO GIVE CRIMEA TO RUSSIA. A majority of Ukrainians prepared to express an opinion say that they want Russia’s Black Sea Fleet to leave its base after 2017 when the agreement between Moscow and Kyiv governing their presence runs out. Moreover, nearly three-quarters (73.2 percent) said Ukraine must not give Sevastopol and Crimea to Russia. Only one in ten says that Kyiv should agree to such a step (www.ia-centr.ru/publications/2163/). Meanwhile, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov kept up his campaign for expanding Russian control there: If Russia loses Sevastopol, he said, it will lose the Caucasus as well (evrazia.org/n.php?id=3892).
SPB INTELLECTUALS WON’T BREAK TIES WITH GEORGIAN COLLEAGUES. A group of scholars in St. Petersburg sent a message to their colleagues at Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature saying that they would maintain ties despite all the tensions between the two countries (www.zaks.ru/new/archive/view/50159), a message to which the Institute’s staff responded with gratitude (http://www.nr2.ru/culture/194617.html).
GEORGIAN EVANGELICALS CONDEMN ANTI-GEORGIAN HYSTERIA IN RUSSIA. Leaders of the Evangelical Christian community Georgia have issued a statement decrying the anti-Georgian and anti-Western hysteria in the Russian Federation and called on Russians to remember that the two nations have been able to live in peace in the past and should be able to do so again in the future (prochurch.info/index.php/more/13139).
RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA EQUATES ETHNIC AND POLITICAL RUSSOPHOBIA. The SOVA Rights Center in Moscow has called attention to a dangerous trend in Russian government propaganda about Georgia and Georgians. Increasingly, the center’s analysts say, Moscow’s spokesmen fail to draw a clear distinction between those who happen to be members of particular ethnic group and those within that group who may manifest “russophobic” attitudes(xeno.sova-center.ru/213716E/213988B/BA39BD1). Their failure to maintain that distinction, the center suggests, inevitably contributes to xenophobia among Russians and thus to attacks on Georgians and other groups.
Window on Eurasia Shorts for September 6 – Non-Georgian Items
Below are a few news items from the last week about developments in the post-Soviet space that have been overshadowed by the Georgian events but that merit attention.
ITALIAN POLICE ARREST VLADIMIR PUTIN – BUT NOT THAT VLADIMIR PUTIN. Italian police arrested Vladimir Putin in a resort near Rimini on charges of committing multiple thefts, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. But it was not the Russian prime minister but rather a homeless Russian citizen who happens to have the same name in his passport (www.ansa.it/opencms/export/site/notizie/rubriche/inbreve/visualizza_new.html_759656202.html).
90TH ANNIVERSARY OF RED TERROR FINDS ITS DEFENDERS STILL ACTIVE. September 5th was the 90th anniversary of the Leninist decree that officially started the Red Terror against opponents of the Bolshevik regime. Despite being a round one, this anniversary attracted relatively little notice, but one commentary in “The Epoch Times” lamented that even now, the shelves of bookstores are full of apologias for that decree, that many streets still bear the names of its executors, and Russian leaders increasingly denounce any criticism of what the Bolshevik state but in 1918 and later did to its people as anti-patriotic or worse, all things that make achieving “historic justice and preventing such crimes in the future” more difficult, the weekly said (http://www.epochtimes.ru/content/view/19251/34/).
‘FIRST POLITICAL PRISONER’ OF THE MEDVEDEV ERA. Fontanka.ru has christened Maksim Reznik, the head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko Party, as “the first political prisoner” of the Dmitry Medvedev era. While many would challenge assigning him that number – there have been other victims of politically motivated charges since last spring == the charges against Reznik of slander and using force against militia officers are clearly political (www.fontanka.ru/2008/09/03/104/).
FORTY RUSSIAN MAYORS SACKED OVER LAST EIGHT MONTHS. Mayors, who occupy one of the few elected executive positions in the Russian political system, are being forced out at the rate of more than three a week, according to Mikhail Vinogradov, a political commentator in Moscow. In an article in “Izvestiya,” he argues that the “more than 40” who have been driven out are the victims of local conflicts rather than federal interference, but it is at least arguable that these actions reflect the central government’s moves in advance of municipal reforms scheduled to go into effect in January 2009 (www.izvestia.ru/russia/article3119979/).
OFFICIALS IGNORE PROTESTS ABOUT CHEMICAL CLOUD COMING FROM PERM BASE. The appearance of a strange and potentially dangerous orange cloud that came from a Russian missile base near Perm and that was shown on local television has sparked public protests there, but so far, neither local officials nor the Russian military have been willing to comment on the source of this “cloud” or its possible impact on the health of the population (forum.msk.ru/material/kompromat/526221.html).
RUSSIANS IN FAR EAST WANT V-J DAY TO BE A NATIONAL HOLIDAY. Both Soviet and Russian officials have treated the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany as the appropriate time to celebrate Victory Day, but Russians living in the Far East, some of whom are the descendents of those who fought against Japan want V-J Day to become a national holiday. And this year, in addition to commemorating that event themselves, they held a demonstration to demand that Moscow do the same (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=166227).
TAJUDDIN CALLS FOR JIHAD AGAINST U.S.; OTHER MUSLIMS DISMISSIVE. Talgat Tajuddin, who styles himself the Supreme Mufti of Holy Russia and who heads the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) in Ufa, called for Muslims to engage in a jihad against the United States because of the events in South Ossetia, but his appeal was ignored by almost all and dismissed by some other Muslim leaders in Russia as “an emotional outburst” that should not be considered a fetwa (portal-credo.ru/site/?act=authority&id=1031).
RUSSIANS IN SMALLER CITIES NOW LESS INTERESTED IN MOVING TO MOSCOW. According to a new poll, 94 percent of residents of mid-sized Russian cities are no longer interested in moving to Moscow, apparently a reflection of improving economic conditions in their own urban centers and the extraordinarily high cost of living in the Russian capital (www.newizv.ru/lenta/97334/).
MUSLIMS SAY MOSCOW SHOULD CREATE ‘CROSS FREE’ AWARDS FOR THEM. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Georgia in which many Muslims were decorated, a group of Muslims in St. Petersburg have called on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to create special medals and awards for Muslims that do not include a cross. They said that Muslims were proud of the awards they received and would not return them but believed that a secular state should not use religious symbols (http://www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2008/09/02/n_1265508.shtml). Russian Orthodox hierarchs denounced the call as an act of incitement of inter-confessional hostility (http://www.rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=178334).
RUSSIAN SOCIAL SCIENCE INCREASINGLY IDEOLOGICAL, SCHOLARS COMPLAIN. Vladimir Magun, a scholar at the Moscow Institute of Sociology, said on the occasion of the opening of the school year that “ideological and propagandistic” considerations were increasingly dominating teaching and research in Russia and holding the country back. Indeed, “if one draws an analogy from the natural sciences, then it is possible to say that the social consciousness of today’s Russians is still at a very primitive, pre-Copernican stage – as if we all still believed that the sun goes around the earth (www.polit.ru/science/2008/09/02/magun.html).
ITALIAN POLICE ARREST VLADIMIR PUTIN – BUT NOT THAT VLADIMIR PUTIN. Italian police arrested Vladimir Putin in a resort near Rimini on charges of committing multiple thefts, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. But it was not the Russian prime minister but rather a homeless Russian citizen who happens to have the same name in his passport (www.ansa.it/opencms/export/site/notizie/rubriche/inbreve/visualizza_new.html_759656202.html).
90TH ANNIVERSARY OF RED TERROR FINDS ITS DEFENDERS STILL ACTIVE. September 5th was the 90th anniversary of the Leninist decree that officially started the Red Terror against opponents of the Bolshevik regime. Despite being a round one, this anniversary attracted relatively little notice, but one commentary in “The Epoch Times” lamented that even now, the shelves of bookstores are full of apologias for that decree, that many streets still bear the names of its executors, and Russian leaders increasingly denounce any criticism of what the Bolshevik state but in 1918 and later did to its people as anti-patriotic or worse, all things that make achieving “historic justice and preventing such crimes in the future” more difficult, the weekly said (http://www.epochtimes.ru/content/view/19251/34/).
‘FIRST POLITICAL PRISONER’ OF THE MEDVEDEV ERA. Fontanka.ru has christened Maksim Reznik, the head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko Party, as “the first political prisoner” of the Dmitry Medvedev era. While many would challenge assigning him that number – there have been other victims of politically motivated charges since last spring == the charges against Reznik of slander and using force against militia officers are clearly political (www.fontanka.ru/2008/09/03/104/).
FORTY RUSSIAN MAYORS SACKED OVER LAST EIGHT MONTHS. Mayors, who occupy one of the few elected executive positions in the Russian political system, are being forced out at the rate of more than three a week, according to Mikhail Vinogradov, a political commentator in Moscow. In an article in “Izvestiya,” he argues that the “more than 40” who have been driven out are the victims of local conflicts rather than federal interference, but it is at least arguable that these actions reflect the central government’s moves in advance of municipal reforms scheduled to go into effect in January 2009 (www.izvestia.ru/russia/article3119979/).
OFFICIALS IGNORE PROTESTS ABOUT CHEMICAL CLOUD COMING FROM PERM BASE. The appearance of a strange and potentially dangerous orange cloud that came from a Russian missile base near Perm and that was shown on local television has sparked public protests there, but so far, neither local officials nor the Russian military have been willing to comment on the source of this “cloud” or its possible impact on the health of the population (forum.msk.ru/material/kompromat/526221.html).
RUSSIANS IN FAR EAST WANT V-J DAY TO BE A NATIONAL HOLIDAY. Both Soviet and Russian officials have treated the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany as the appropriate time to celebrate Victory Day, but Russians living in the Far East, some of whom are the descendents of those who fought against Japan want V-J Day to become a national holiday. And this year, in addition to commemorating that event themselves, they held a demonstration to demand that Moscow do the same (www.annews.ru/news/detail.php?ID=166227).
TAJUDDIN CALLS FOR JIHAD AGAINST U.S.; OTHER MUSLIMS DISMISSIVE. Talgat Tajuddin, who styles himself the Supreme Mufti of Holy Russia and who heads the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) in Ufa, called for Muslims to engage in a jihad against the United States because of the events in South Ossetia, but his appeal was ignored by almost all and dismissed by some other Muslim leaders in Russia as “an emotional outburst” that should not be considered a fetwa (portal-credo.ru/site/?act=authority&id=1031).
RUSSIANS IN SMALLER CITIES NOW LESS INTERESTED IN MOVING TO MOSCOW. According to a new poll, 94 percent of residents of mid-sized Russian cities are no longer interested in moving to Moscow, apparently a reflection of improving economic conditions in their own urban centers and the extraordinarily high cost of living in the Russian capital (www.newizv.ru/lenta/97334/).
MUSLIMS SAY MOSCOW SHOULD CREATE ‘CROSS FREE’ AWARDS FOR THEM. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Georgia in which many Muslims were decorated, a group of Muslims in St. Petersburg have called on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to create special medals and awards for Muslims that do not include a cross. They said that Muslims were proud of the awards they received and would not return them but believed that a secular state should not use religious symbols (http://www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2008/09/02/n_1265508.shtml). Russian Orthodox hierarchs denounced the call as an act of incitement of inter-confessional hostility (http://www.rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=178334).
RUSSIAN SOCIAL SCIENCE INCREASINGLY IDEOLOGICAL, SCHOLARS COMPLAIN. Vladimir Magun, a scholar at the Moscow Institute of Sociology, said on the occasion of the opening of the school year that “ideological and propagandistic” considerations were increasingly dominating teaching and research in Russia and holding the country back. Indeed, “if one draws an analogy from the natural sciences, then it is possible to say that the social consciousness of today’s Russians is still at a very primitive, pre-Copernican stage – as if we all still believed that the sun goes around the earth (www.polit.ru/science/2008/09/02/magun.html).
Window on Eurasia: Moscow’s Recognition of Breakaway Republics Could Revive Union State and Allow Putin to Be Its Leader
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 6 – Now that Moscow has recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, those two breakaway republics may join the Union State that currently includes only the Russian Federation and Belarus, an action that could give new life to that institution, according to the Union State’s executive secretary.
In an appearance on Ekho Moskvy on Thursday night, Pavel Borodin said this could happen before the end of the year, and he insisted that it would involve mostly economic cooperation and as such would not constitute the annexation of these countries by Russia or “violate any norms of international law (www.echo.msk.ru/programs/razvorot/538019-echo/).
Throughout the program, he insisted that “the recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia [does not represent any] expansion of the territory of Russia or the Union State.” Instead, Borodin said, both recognition and the inclusion of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was about the creation of new jobs.
At the same time, however, he pointed out that “a citizen of Belarus and a citizen of Russia are citizen[s] of the Union State,” and consequently, once the two new states so far recognized only by the Russian Federation and Nicaragua join, their citizens would become citizens of the Union State as well.
Borodin’s enthusiasm about this possibility clearly reflects his unstated belief that the inclusion of new members in the Union State, even new members like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, will breathe new life into the institution and perhaps lead not only to a deepening of relations among its members but also to an additional expansion in their number.
But there are potentially at least two other consequences of such moves, neither of which does Borodin mention or even imply. On the one hand, if the Union State takes on new life, then it could become the matrix for the reconstitution of a Moscow-centered state potentially far larger than the Russian Federation
That could attract some of the post-Soviet states, but because of the specter it would create of a new empire, the very idea would likely repel others. Moreover, it could lead to demands by some republics within the Russian Federation to become direct members of the Union State, a move most Moscow officials would oppose.
And on the other, if that happens, such a state would need a new leader, and one is clearly available: Vladimir Putin. A year ago, when the Moscow media were full of discussions on how Putin might be able to overcome a constitutional prohibition against a third term, many thought the establishment of a new Union State with a new presidency might do the trick.
That idea was ultimately discarded, largely because of Belarusian resistance – Mensk leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka may like being close to Moscow but he clearly does not want to give up his office except for a more important one – and the current tandem of Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev was elaborated.
But as many analysts have suggested, the current situation may not be the final one, and thus the most important implication of Borodin’s remarks this week is that there are at least some people in Moscow, who are now thinking again about the Union State option and the possibility that the current Russian prime minister could be its president.
Vienna, September 6 – Now that Moscow has recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, those two breakaway republics may join the Union State that currently includes only the Russian Federation and Belarus, an action that could give new life to that institution, according to the Union State’s executive secretary.
In an appearance on Ekho Moskvy on Thursday night, Pavel Borodin said this could happen before the end of the year, and he insisted that it would involve mostly economic cooperation and as such would not constitute the annexation of these countries by Russia or “violate any norms of international law (www.echo.msk.ru/programs/razvorot/538019-echo/).
Throughout the program, he insisted that “the recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia [does not represent any] expansion of the territory of Russia or the Union State.” Instead, Borodin said, both recognition and the inclusion of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was about the creation of new jobs.
At the same time, however, he pointed out that “a citizen of Belarus and a citizen of Russia are citizen[s] of the Union State,” and consequently, once the two new states so far recognized only by the Russian Federation and Nicaragua join, their citizens would become citizens of the Union State as well.
Borodin’s enthusiasm about this possibility clearly reflects his unstated belief that the inclusion of new members in the Union State, even new members like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, will breathe new life into the institution and perhaps lead not only to a deepening of relations among its members but also to an additional expansion in their number.
But there are potentially at least two other consequences of such moves, neither of which does Borodin mention or even imply. On the one hand, if the Union State takes on new life, then it could become the matrix for the reconstitution of a Moscow-centered state potentially far larger than the Russian Federation
That could attract some of the post-Soviet states, but because of the specter it would create of a new empire, the very idea would likely repel others. Moreover, it could lead to demands by some republics within the Russian Federation to become direct members of the Union State, a move most Moscow officials would oppose.
And on the other, if that happens, such a state would need a new leader, and one is clearly available: Vladimir Putin. A year ago, when the Moscow media were full of discussions on how Putin might be able to overcome a constitutional prohibition against a third term, many thought the establishment of a new Union State with a new presidency might do the trick.
That idea was ultimately discarded, largely because of Belarusian resistance – Mensk leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka may like being close to Moscow but he clearly does not want to give up his office except for a more important one – and the current tandem of Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev was elaborated.
But as many analysts have suggested, the current situation may not be the final one, and thus the most important implication of Borodin’s remarks this week is that there are at least some people in Moscow, who are now thinking again about the Union State option and the possibility that the current Russian prime minister could be its president.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Non-Russians Will Jointly Press Moscow for Self-Determination, Bashkirs Say
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 5 – In yet another echo of Moscow’s decision to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the leaders of Bashkortostan’s national movement say they will organize a joint protest by all non-Russian groups in the Russian Federation if Moscow continues to ignore Bashkortostan’s rights and demands.
The declaration, issued by the Kuk Bure movement which in the words of the Novyy region news agency “represents the interests of Bashkirs living on the territory of Bashkortostan and Russia,” makes a number of demands which that news outlet has provided an extensive summary (www.nr2.ru/moxkow/194641.html).
The Kuk Bure appeal notes that “the Russian powers that be, while supporting the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia who have suffered from acts of Georgian aggression, is ignoring the elementary requirements of the Bashkir people,” which has been living “in one state with Moscow” for 450 years.
The Russian government, it continues, has “ceased to see and listen to [the Bashkirs] and appears to have no interest in the Bashkirs who Moscow apparently “assumes” have “no other way out” than to follow Moscow’s orders, however much those directives threaten the survival of the Bashkir people.
“The Kremlin does not give the Bashkirs the full opportunity to develop their language as the state language of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Having eliminated the regional component in education, Moscow has shown that it wants to transform the Bashkirs into a faceless crowd with families or clans.”
The appeal further notes that Kuk Bure on May 22 sent a similar appeal to Moscow in which it spoke of the Bashkir’s despair about the future of their language, culture and even the people itself. We were not listened to” then, it says, because the Kremlin simply wants to continue its policy of “zombifying” the Bashkirs “via television.”
“We consider it extremely unjust and dishonest that the federal powers that be, which every year take 80 percent of the natural wealth produced in Bashkortostan ignore the Bashkirs themselves and do not devote attention to the most important national-cultural requirements of the Bashkir people.”
Moscow’s approach, it continues, is “the policy of imperialist colonizers in relationship to an indigenous people.” And consequently, the appeal said, the time has come to ask federal officials in Moscow and in Bashkortostan itself “’what are you doing for the Bashkir people?!’” and to demand an answer.
“The Bashkirs do not have any other land” than their own, the appeal goes on to specify, and thus they do not want to give it up to those from Moscow who do not speak Bashkir, do not respect Bashkirs and take away the resources of the Bashkirs leaving only destruction in their wake.
Given all this, the appeal says, the Bashkirs call on Moscow “to stop the destruction of the Bashkir language, now being promoted by the elimination of the regional component in the education system and to guarantee conditions for the complete realization of the rights of the Bashkir people for self-determination within the framework of the Republic of Bashkortostan!”
These demands, the authors of the appeal said, do not mean that the Bashkirs are seeking complete independence, but they warned that if Moscow does not respond positively to them in the wake of events in Georgia, then, the Bashkirs will organize the country’s non-Russians to press Moscow for the same rights and a return to the situation that existed under Boris Yeltsin.
Whether the Bashkirs in general or the leaders of the Kuk Bure movement in particular have the capacity to do that remains unclear, but their declaration is the clearest signal yet that what Moscow has done in South Ossetia and Abkhazia is resonating strongly among the non-Russians inside the Russian Federation.
And that in turn calls attention to a comment by a Ukrainian scholar about the situation across Eurasia. Russian and Western opinion to the contrary, Igor Losev says, “Putin has not resolved the fundamental problems of Russia; he has ‘frozen’ them,” obviously forgetting that “in Russian history after each ‘frost,’ there inevitably follows ‘a thaw.’
Putin’s good fortune and that of his country, Losev goes on to say is that on the territory of the Russian Federation, “no one is working as actively to promote separatist projects as [Moscow] is on the territory of neighboring states.” Were it otherwise, he concludes, “the results would be extremely impressive” (www2.pravda.com.ua/ru/news/2008/9/1/80315.htm).
Vienna, September 5 – In yet another echo of Moscow’s decision to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the leaders of Bashkortostan’s national movement say they will organize a joint protest by all non-Russian groups in the Russian Federation if Moscow continues to ignore Bashkortostan’s rights and demands.
The declaration, issued by the Kuk Bure movement which in the words of the Novyy region news agency “represents the interests of Bashkirs living on the territory of Bashkortostan and Russia,” makes a number of demands which that news outlet has provided an extensive summary (www.nr2.ru/moxkow/194641.html).
The Kuk Bure appeal notes that “the Russian powers that be, while supporting the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia who have suffered from acts of Georgian aggression, is ignoring the elementary requirements of the Bashkir people,” which has been living “in one state with Moscow” for 450 years.
The Russian government, it continues, has “ceased to see and listen to [the Bashkirs] and appears to have no interest in the Bashkirs who Moscow apparently “assumes” have “no other way out” than to follow Moscow’s orders, however much those directives threaten the survival of the Bashkir people.
“The Kremlin does not give the Bashkirs the full opportunity to develop their language as the state language of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Having eliminated the regional component in education, Moscow has shown that it wants to transform the Bashkirs into a faceless crowd with families or clans.”
The appeal further notes that Kuk Bure on May 22 sent a similar appeal to Moscow in which it spoke of the Bashkir’s despair about the future of their language, culture and even the people itself. We were not listened to” then, it says, because the Kremlin simply wants to continue its policy of “zombifying” the Bashkirs “via television.”
“We consider it extremely unjust and dishonest that the federal powers that be, which every year take 80 percent of the natural wealth produced in Bashkortostan ignore the Bashkirs themselves and do not devote attention to the most important national-cultural requirements of the Bashkir people.”
Moscow’s approach, it continues, is “the policy of imperialist colonizers in relationship to an indigenous people.” And consequently, the appeal said, the time has come to ask federal officials in Moscow and in Bashkortostan itself “’what are you doing for the Bashkir people?!’” and to demand an answer.
“The Bashkirs do not have any other land” than their own, the appeal goes on to specify, and thus they do not want to give it up to those from Moscow who do not speak Bashkir, do not respect Bashkirs and take away the resources of the Bashkirs leaving only destruction in their wake.
Given all this, the appeal says, the Bashkirs call on Moscow “to stop the destruction of the Bashkir language, now being promoted by the elimination of the regional component in the education system and to guarantee conditions for the complete realization of the rights of the Bashkir people for self-determination within the framework of the Republic of Bashkortostan!”
These demands, the authors of the appeal said, do not mean that the Bashkirs are seeking complete independence, but they warned that if Moscow does not respond positively to them in the wake of events in Georgia, then, the Bashkirs will organize the country’s non-Russians to press Moscow for the same rights and a return to the situation that existed under Boris Yeltsin.
Whether the Bashkirs in general or the leaders of the Kuk Bure movement in particular have the capacity to do that remains unclear, but their declaration is the clearest signal yet that what Moscow has done in South Ossetia and Abkhazia is resonating strongly among the non-Russians inside the Russian Federation.
And that in turn calls attention to a comment by a Ukrainian scholar about the situation across Eurasia. Russian and Western opinion to the contrary, Igor Losev says, “Putin has not resolved the fundamental problems of Russia; he has ‘frozen’ them,” obviously forgetting that “in Russian history after each ‘frost,’ there inevitably follows ‘a thaw.’
Putin’s good fortune and that of his country, Losev goes on to say is that on the territory of the Russian Federation, “no one is working as actively to promote separatist projects as [Moscow] is on the territory of neighboring states.” Were it otherwise, he concludes, “the results would be extremely impressive” (www2.pravda.com.ua/ru/news/2008/9/1/80315.htm).
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Wins a Major Victory on Pipelines
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 5 – With Iran’s declaration that it opposes the construction of any undersea pipelines in the Caspian on “ecological grounds” and thus will block any delimitation of the seabed that allows for them and Baku’s decision not to back the West’s push NABUCCO project, Moscow can claim its first major political victory from its invasion of Georgia.
These actions mean that the Russian government will now have full and uncontested control over pipelines between the Caspian basin and the West which pass through Russian territory and will be able either directly or through its clients like the PKK to disrupt the only routes such as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan that bypass the Russian Federation.
That does not mean, of course, that Moscow now has effectively reestablished its control over the states of this region – all of them have other interests besides oil and gas – but it does mean that Russia has won a major victory and the West, which all too often in recent years has focused on oil and gas alone, has suffered a major defeat.
Yesterday, Mehti Safari, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, told journalists that Tehran opposes the construction of any undersea pipelines in the Caspian because “this can bring harm to the ecology of the sea.” He noted that exporting countries can send their gas out via either the Russian Federation or Iran (www.oilru.com/news/81667/).
Given the existence of “such possibilities,” the Iranian diplomat said, “why harm” the delicate eco-system of the Caspian? But in making this statement, Tehran was underscoring its willingness to destroy any chance for the completion of the NABUCCO gas pipeline in the near term that the United States and some Western European countries have been pushing for.
And because Washington opposes the flow of hydrocarbons from the Caspian basin out through Iran, Tehran’s action in fact makes it likely that many of the oil and gas exporting countries in the region will now choose to send more or even all of their gas and oil through the Russian Federation, a longstanding geopolitical goal of Moscow’s.
The geo-economic and geo-political shifts in the Caucasus as a result of Russian actions in Georgia were even more in evidence during US Vice President Dick Cheney’s brief visit to the Azerbaijani capital. According to Russian media reports, it did not go well from either a protocol or a substantive perspective (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1020720).
First, Cheney was not met at the airport by either President Ilham Aliyev or Prime Minister Artur Rasi-zade. Instead, he was met by the first vice premier and the foreign minister. After that, he was not immediately received by the president but rather had meetings with officials of the BP-Azerbaijan oil company and the American embassy.
Then, officials in the office of the Azerbaijani president told Moscow’s “Kommersant,” Cheney was sufficiently displeased with his conversation with President Aliyev that “as a result he even refused to visit the ceremonial dinner in his honor” that the Azerbaijan leader had organized.
On the one hand, Aliyev indicated that he was not prepared to talk about going ahead with NABUCCO until Baku completes its negotiations with Russia’s Gazprom or indeed do anything else to ”support Washington and [thus] get into an argument with Moscow” given what has happened in Georgia.
And on the other, immediately after the Aliyev-Cheney meeting, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev telephoned the Azerbaijani president, an action which Kremlin sources told the Moscow paper provided Medvedev with the opportunity to explain Russia’s policies and to discuss the possibilities for the Russian and Azerbaijani presidents to meet “in the near future.”
At one level, of course, all this reflects the continuation of President Aliyev’s commitment to what he and his government call “a balanced foreign policy,” one that seeks to navigate between Moscow and the West by avoiding offending either and seeking to develop strong ties with both.
But at another, the way in which the media have covered Vice President Cheney’s visit suggests that if Baku’s policy remains a balanced one, the balance is rather different than it was before Moscow demonstrated with its invasion of Georgia and its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia that the game has changed.
Indeed, in reporting this visit, one Baku newspaper used as its headline today words that show just how much has changed over the last month. “It is not accidental,” the paper pointed out that just after the American vice president left Aliyev’s office the Russian president called (www.echo-az.com/politica09.shtml).
UPDATE on September 6: A source at the US Embassy in Baku told 1News.az that a report in Moscow’s “Kommersant” yesterday on the visit of Vice President Dick Cheney to Baku was factually incorrect. The American official did take part in a dinner and left the Azerbaijani capital “very satisfied,” the souce added. “ I understand,” the unnamed official said, “that Russian mass media want to give what they would like to have seen happen for what really did, but nothing that ‘Kommersant’ wrote occurred” (1news.az/world/20080905113732180.html).
Vienna, September 5 – With Iran’s declaration that it opposes the construction of any undersea pipelines in the Caspian on “ecological grounds” and thus will block any delimitation of the seabed that allows for them and Baku’s decision not to back the West’s push NABUCCO project, Moscow can claim its first major political victory from its invasion of Georgia.
These actions mean that the Russian government will now have full and uncontested control over pipelines between the Caspian basin and the West which pass through Russian territory and will be able either directly or through its clients like the PKK to disrupt the only routes such as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan that bypass the Russian Federation.
That does not mean, of course, that Moscow now has effectively reestablished its control over the states of this region – all of them have other interests besides oil and gas – but it does mean that Russia has won a major victory and the West, which all too often in recent years has focused on oil and gas alone, has suffered a major defeat.
Yesterday, Mehti Safari, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, told journalists that Tehran opposes the construction of any undersea pipelines in the Caspian because “this can bring harm to the ecology of the sea.” He noted that exporting countries can send their gas out via either the Russian Federation or Iran (www.oilru.com/news/81667/).
Given the existence of “such possibilities,” the Iranian diplomat said, “why harm” the delicate eco-system of the Caspian? But in making this statement, Tehran was underscoring its willingness to destroy any chance for the completion of the NABUCCO gas pipeline in the near term that the United States and some Western European countries have been pushing for.
And because Washington opposes the flow of hydrocarbons from the Caspian basin out through Iran, Tehran’s action in fact makes it likely that many of the oil and gas exporting countries in the region will now choose to send more or even all of their gas and oil through the Russian Federation, a longstanding geopolitical goal of Moscow’s.
The geo-economic and geo-political shifts in the Caucasus as a result of Russian actions in Georgia were even more in evidence during US Vice President Dick Cheney’s brief visit to the Azerbaijani capital. According to Russian media reports, it did not go well from either a protocol or a substantive perspective (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1020720).
First, Cheney was not met at the airport by either President Ilham Aliyev or Prime Minister Artur Rasi-zade. Instead, he was met by the first vice premier and the foreign minister. After that, he was not immediately received by the president but rather had meetings with officials of the BP-Azerbaijan oil company and the American embassy.
Then, officials in the office of the Azerbaijani president told Moscow’s “Kommersant,” Cheney was sufficiently displeased with his conversation with President Aliyev that “as a result he even refused to visit the ceremonial dinner in his honor” that the Azerbaijan leader had organized.
On the one hand, Aliyev indicated that he was not prepared to talk about going ahead with NABUCCO until Baku completes its negotiations with Russia’s Gazprom or indeed do anything else to ”support Washington and [thus] get into an argument with Moscow” given what has happened in Georgia.
And on the other, immediately after the Aliyev-Cheney meeting, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev telephoned the Azerbaijani president, an action which Kremlin sources told the Moscow paper provided Medvedev with the opportunity to explain Russia’s policies and to discuss the possibilities for the Russian and Azerbaijani presidents to meet “in the near future.”
At one level, of course, all this reflects the continuation of President Aliyev’s commitment to what he and his government call “a balanced foreign policy,” one that seeks to navigate between Moscow and the West by avoiding offending either and seeking to develop strong ties with both.
But at another, the way in which the media have covered Vice President Cheney’s visit suggests that if Baku’s policy remains a balanced one, the balance is rather different than it was before Moscow demonstrated with its invasion of Georgia and its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia that the game has changed.
Indeed, in reporting this visit, one Baku newspaper used as its headline today words that show just how much has changed over the last month. “It is not accidental,” the paper pointed out that just after the American vice president left Aliyev’s office the Russian president called (www.echo-az.com/politica09.shtml).
UPDATE on September 6: A source at the US Embassy in Baku told 1News.az that a report in Moscow’s “Kommersant” yesterday on the visit of Vice President Dick Cheney to Baku was factually incorrect. The American official did take part in a dinner and left the Azerbaijani capital “very satisfied,” the souce added. “ I understand,” the unnamed official said, “that Russian mass media want to give what they would like to have seen happen for what really did, but nothing that ‘Kommersant’ wrote occurred” (1news.az/world/20080905113732180.html).
Window on Eurasia: Appointed Governors Less Well Known to Russians than Elected Ones
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 5 – Regional and republic heads appointed by Moscow are likely to be less well known among the population and, when known, often less well liked that those elected by the people, yet another negative indication of the negative impact Vladimir Putin had on the state of democracy in the Russian Federation.
At the end of August, the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion (VTsIOM), a polling agency known for its close ties to the Kremlin, surveyed residents in 13 regions whose top officials appointed by then-president Putin between 2005 and 2007. The results are striking and could set the stage for making these posts again subject to election.
According to a report in “Vedomosti” this week, the VTsIOM survey found that “the population does not know its own governors” and that the attitude of the population to them “is not always linked to the state of the economy,” a sharp contrast to what many in Moscow have regularly insisted (www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article.shtml?2008/09/03/159763).
The least well-known of the appointed governors was Valery Potapenko, who heads the Nenets Autonomous District. One quarter of the residents of that region could not recall his name when asked by VTsIOM’s pollsters, and another fifth gave the wrong name altogether – for a total of almost half of the population.
The situation in Sakhalin and Kamchatka, the paper continued, is roughly the same, according to the VTsIOM figures. Often those whom the population gave higher marks to were among the better known, the paper said, but “disliked governors are not always the least known.”
The governors of in the Amur and Kaliningrad regions are known but disliked.
The socio-economic situation in the regions and republics play a role in this, VTsIOM’s Valery Fedorov told the Moscow paper, with governors getting credit for good times and blame for bad ones. But “economics does not influence public opinion everywhere,” he said, noting that residents also evaluate governors in terms of crime and corruption.
The VTsIOM poll highlights one of the ways in which Putin subverted Russia’s fitful transformation into a more open and democratic society. But Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a Moscow specialist on Russian elites, provides evidence for those who argue that Russia could still turn in a democratic direction.
At a media briefing last week reported in the current issue of “Velikaya Epokha,” the sociologist said that there has been a dramatic decline in the percentage of Russian officials who earlier served in the Soviet nomenklatura, a decline that could open the way for a break with the past (www.epochtimes.ru/content/view/19154/3/).
Under Russian President Boris Yeltsin, approximately 50 percent of senior government officials – including Yeltsin himself – had been members of the Soviet nomenklatura. Under Putin, their percentage fell from 38 percent in 2000-2001 to 33 percent in 2007. And now under President Dmitry Medvedev, the figure has fallen to 16.7 percent.
Some of this decline is simply the product of the passing of time. After all, most nomenklatura officials were in their 50s or even older, and it has been 17 years since the Soviet Union collapsed and the Russian Federation emerged. But Kryshtanovskaya argued that this trend is “extraordinarily important.”
With the departure of these Soviet officials, she said, there has been a gradual decline in the impact of the Soviet mentality and Soviet ways of making decisions and implementing policy. But at the same time, she said, no one should expect a major change in the way Moscow officials do business over the next few years as compared to the Putin era.
Even though there are now fewer former nomenklatura workers, she pointed out, the force structures on which Putin’s power has been based are still dominated by them, and the political elite which Kryshtanovskaya studies has not changed as much as this statistic might suggest: 80 percent of it under Medvedev were put in place by Putin.
Vienna, September 5 – Regional and republic heads appointed by Moscow are likely to be less well known among the population and, when known, often less well liked that those elected by the people, yet another negative indication of the negative impact Vladimir Putin had on the state of democracy in the Russian Federation.
At the end of August, the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion (VTsIOM), a polling agency known for its close ties to the Kremlin, surveyed residents in 13 regions whose top officials appointed by then-president Putin between 2005 and 2007. The results are striking and could set the stage for making these posts again subject to election.
According to a report in “Vedomosti” this week, the VTsIOM survey found that “the population does not know its own governors” and that the attitude of the population to them “is not always linked to the state of the economy,” a sharp contrast to what many in Moscow have regularly insisted (www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article.shtml?2008/09/03/159763).
The least well-known of the appointed governors was Valery Potapenko, who heads the Nenets Autonomous District. One quarter of the residents of that region could not recall his name when asked by VTsIOM’s pollsters, and another fifth gave the wrong name altogether – for a total of almost half of the population.
The situation in Sakhalin and Kamchatka, the paper continued, is roughly the same, according to the VTsIOM figures. Often those whom the population gave higher marks to were among the better known, the paper said, but “disliked governors are not always the least known.”
The governors of in the Amur and Kaliningrad regions are known but disliked.
The socio-economic situation in the regions and republics play a role in this, VTsIOM’s Valery Fedorov told the Moscow paper, with governors getting credit for good times and blame for bad ones. But “economics does not influence public opinion everywhere,” he said, noting that residents also evaluate governors in terms of crime and corruption.
The VTsIOM poll highlights one of the ways in which Putin subverted Russia’s fitful transformation into a more open and democratic society. But Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a Moscow specialist on Russian elites, provides evidence for those who argue that Russia could still turn in a democratic direction.
At a media briefing last week reported in the current issue of “Velikaya Epokha,” the sociologist said that there has been a dramatic decline in the percentage of Russian officials who earlier served in the Soviet nomenklatura, a decline that could open the way for a break with the past (www.epochtimes.ru/content/view/19154/3/).
Under Russian President Boris Yeltsin, approximately 50 percent of senior government officials – including Yeltsin himself – had been members of the Soviet nomenklatura. Under Putin, their percentage fell from 38 percent in 2000-2001 to 33 percent in 2007. And now under President Dmitry Medvedev, the figure has fallen to 16.7 percent.
Some of this decline is simply the product of the passing of time. After all, most nomenklatura officials were in their 50s or even older, and it has been 17 years since the Soviet Union collapsed and the Russian Federation emerged. But Kryshtanovskaya argued that this trend is “extraordinarily important.”
With the departure of these Soviet officials, she said, there has been a gradual decline in the impact of the Soviet mentality and Soviet ways of making decisions and implementing policy. But at the same time, she said, no one should expect a major change in the way Moscow officials do business over the next few years as compared to the Putin era.
Even though there are now fewer former nomenklatura workers, she pointed out, the force structures on which Putin’s power has been based are still dominated by them, and the political elite which Kryshtanovskaya studies has not changed as much as this statistic might suggest: 80 percent of it under Medvedev were put in place by Putin.
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