Russian Life Blog

From Mikhail to Michael

2009-07-13T12:43:00.005-05:00

Four years ago, in August 2005, then Senator Barack Obama was detained for three hours at a Siberian airport. Obama, with Senator Dick Lugar, was on a US delegation touring nuclear warhead storage and disposal sites. Russian border guards insisted on searching the delegation’s plane. The senators refused. The diplomatic standoff lasted three hours before the plane was allowed to leave Russia.

Had Russian authorities known then that the junior senator from Illinois would become the next US President, things might have gone differently. But then that’s the thing about the future. You never know what it’s going to bring. Take Rejkyavik, for example.

On a cold and dreary October morning in 1986, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev parted bitterly from their summit at Rejkyavik, Iceland. The world had held its breath as the two came within a handshake of slashing their countries’ massive nuclear arsenals in half. But talks broke down over Reagan's unwillingness to give up on research into missile defense, then known as SDI or, more popularly, Star Wars.

And yet, despite this “failure,” within a year, Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. It eliminated all intermediate range nuclear missiles in a span of just four years.

Over the next two decades, strategic arms reductions talks and treaties led to more cuts in warheads, missiles and bombers. As a result, the number of nuclear weapons deployed by the two superpowers dropped from 25,000 in 1986 to about 8,000 today – far below Gorbachev and Reagan's "pie in the sky" goal of 50%.

Last week, President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to still further reductions. If those cuts are made, the number of warheads could drop to around 10% of what they were 30 years ago.

Even remembering that thousands of nuclear warheads are stockpiled but not deployed, this is a remarkable achievement. And it has been little noticed amid the hoopla of summits, where more attention is given to leaders’ personal chemistry than to how those heads of state are actually affecting the trajectory of history.

Still, it is hopeful to realize that the idealistic dreams of a failed summit did become a reality – even though it took 20 years. Or that a junior US senator, once a pawn in a diplomatic squabble, could – just four years later - unlock a stalemate, and sign a historic arms control agreement with our nuclear rival.

And yet, Obama’s trip – only the sixth visit to the USSR or Russia by a sitting US President since World War II – was last week unexpectedly overshadowed by the memorial for Michael Jackson.

But this is a good thing. The seeds planted at Rejkyavik have borne fruit: inching away from nuclear confrontation has become ordinary and expected.

Which means it’s now time to sow some different, Rejkyavik-sized seeds for our children, and our children’s children – for instance on climate change – because, after all, you never know what the future might bring.

[This Commentary was broadcast on Vermont Public Radio, 7/14/09]

Obama's Speech in Moscow

2009-07-07T10:56:00.003-05:00

Nice tribute to Russian culture in the president's speech to Moscow college students:

"I speak to you today with deep respect for Russia's timeless heritage. Russian writers have helped us understand the complexity of the human experience, and recognize eternal truths. Russian painters, composers, and dancers have introduced us to new forms of beauty. Russian scientists have cured disease, sought new frontiers of progress, and helped us go to space.

"These are contributions that are not contained by Russia's borders, as vast as those borders are. Indeed, Russia's heritage has touched every corner of the world, and speaks to the humanity that we share. That includes my own country, which has been blessed with Russian immigrants for decades; we've been enriched by Russian culture, and enhanced by Russian cooperation."

Must See Films... Must Read Fiction...

2009-05-05T11:01:00.003-05:00

In our 100th issue, we have a long feature, "100 Things Everyone Should Know About Russia," with loads of factoids, notes, lists and essays. We figured our list of the "must read" fiction and "must see" movies would be a bit contentious (and certainly foreshortened). So we are posting the lists here for reader comment and supplementation...

10 Must Read Novels

Everyone knows Lev Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. But here are ten lesser-known works of Russian fiction that are essential (not listed in any order of precedence).

A Hero for Our Time, Mikhail Lermontov

Yevgeny Onegin, Alexander Pushkin

The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov

The Zone, Sergei Dovlatov

Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol

House on the Embankment, Yuri Trifonov

The Twelve Chairs, Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn[1]

Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov[2]

Moscow to the End of the Line, Venedikt Erofeyev

10 Essential Short Stories

Heart of a Dog, Mikhail Bulgakov[1]

Hadji Murat, Lev Tolstoy[1]

The Overcoat, Nikolai Gogol

Envy, Yuri Olesha[1]

Gooseberries, Anton Chekhov

The Elagin Affair, Ivan Bunin

The Nose, Nikolai Gogol

Life with an Idiot, Viktor Erofeyev

Sonechka, Lyudmila Ulitskaya

The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea, Nikolai Leskov

[1] Technically, these are novellas, or povesti, but we classified them as we thought of them.

[2] Yes, this was written in English, but we felt it essential to have a Nabokov contribution on the list.

20 Must See Films

There are hundreds of excellent Russian films that are invaluable for understanding Russia, for picking up on important cultural knowledge. Every film lover will have their own list. These are 20 that we feel every Russophile should see. The choice is limited to films that are available with English language subtitles.

Aelita, by Iakov Protazanov (1924)

Battleship Potemkin, by Sergei Eisenstein (1925)

The Circus, by Grigory Alexandrov (1936)

The Fall of Berlin, by Mikhail Chiaureli (1949)

The Cranes are Flying, by Mikhail Kalatozov (1957)

Andrei Rublyov, by Andrei Tarkovsky (1966)

Diamond Arm, by Leonid Gaidai (1968)

White Sun of the Desert, by Vladimir Motyl (1970)

Belorussky Train Station, by Andrei Smirnov (1970)

Gentlemen of Fortune, by Alexander Sery (1972)

17 Moments of Spring, by Tatyana Lyuznova (1973)

Irony of Fate, by Eldar Ryazanov (1975)

Slave of Love, by Nikita Mikhalkov (1976)

Mimino, by Georgi Daneliya (1977)

The Assent, by Larissa Shepitko (1977)

An Ordinary Miracle, by Mark Zakharov (1978)

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, by Vladimir Menshov (1980)

Repentance, by Tengiz Abuladze (1984)

Brother, film by Alexei Balabanov (1997)

Gloss, Andrei Konchalovsky (2007)

Russian Life on Amazon

2009-04-28T07:11:00.003-05:00

Through our affiliation with Better Paper Project, Russian Life is being featured on Amazon.com as one of about 30 magazines printed on recycled paper...

Happy Birthday Nikosha Gogol!

2009-03-20T00:05:00.002-05:00

Today is the 200th birthday of Nikolai Gogol. Well, sort of.

I’ll come back to that.

Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol is one of Russia's greatest and yet least appreciated writers. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, author of Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov and other classics, said that “we all came out of Gogol’s Overcoat.” What he meant is that Gogol was completely unlike any Russian writer who preceded him, and that all Russian literature that followed was indebted to him.

Gogol had a way of seeing the world that was at once dark and hysterical, grotesque yet humorous. In his stories, he magnified human frailties, fears, pettiness and license, the better to demonstrate the comic futility of our human condition. His works are therefore timeless and, in many ways, unequaled.

There are few short stories as powerful as Gogol's The Overcoat; there is no Russian play more important than his Inspector General; and few novels have had as much impact as his epic Dead Souls. And then there is his masterful short story, The Nose – a personal favorite. On the surface, it seems to be a nonsensical story about a nose that left its owner's face to make a life of its own, yet it is in fact a hilarious, and utterly profound, story about status and social mores.

Gogol had a huge impact on Russian culture. Even today, 200 years after his birth, Russians still use the names of characters from his stories as adjectives to describe people they know. And Gogol is perhaps only exceeded by Pushkin - Russia's national poet - in the number of his works adapted for opera, ballet and film.

Yet perhaps the best thing about Gogol is that he is just telling great stories; he is not, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, trying to sell Great Ideas. As the writer Vladimir Nabokov said: “Gogol was a strange creature, but genius is always strange... Great literature skirts the irrational…” And the irrational, Nabokov said “is the very basis of Gogol’s art, in fact, whenever [Gogol] tried …to treat rational ideas in a logical way, he lost all trace of talent.”

Not surprisingly, Soviet literary critics did not get Gogol. Instead, they mortgaged his long-dead soul for their own purposes, classifying him as a realist and a social critic, which was pure nonsense. And, as if that were not enough, they moved observation of his birthday from March 20 to April 1, to make it seem like the satirist had been born on April Fool’s Day – a ridiculous sham.

Today, on Gogol's 200th birthday, we should resolve to look at the world as this great writer did, not taking ourselves too seriously, and always remembering, as he wrote in The Nose, that “Absolute nonsense happens in the world.”

Afghanistan: A Second Chance?

2009-02-20T11:58:00.004-05:00

[This was written as a radio commentary, and appeared on Vermont Public Radio February 20, 2009. Listen by linking on headline.]

Thirty years ago, in 1979, the Persian Gulf was a tinderbox.

On January 16, following months of uprisings, the Shah of Iran was overthrown.

One month later, it looked like Afghanistan’s turn. The Soviet-backed thugs running the country had imposed radical social reforms, sparking a civil war and threatening pro-Soviet rule. On February 14, US Ambassador to Afghanistan Adolph Dubs was kidnapped by terrorists and killed in a hasty rescue attempt by Afghan police, with Soviet military advisers looking on. The US demanded an apology. It never came.

In the months that followed, the CIA began covertly supplying arms to mujahideen “freedom fighters,” in order. Then National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has admitted that this was designed to “draw the Soviets into the Afghan trap… to give the Soviet Union its Vietnam War.”

Meanwhile, the embattled Afghan regime repeatedly requested Soviet military assistance. Little came. Then, in September, the Soviets, perhaps hoping to quell rising popular unrest, urged one of their moderate puppets to stage a coup against their radical puppet, Hafizullah Amin. But Amin got wind of the coup and eliminated his rival in a presidential palace shootout. The civil war worsened. Within a few weeks, the Soviet leadership had decided in favor of massive military intervention, which began on Christmas Eve, 1979.

In the ten years that followed, 15 million Afghans were swept up by war. Five million refugees fled the country and two million were displaced. An estimated one million Afghans were killed, and four million more were maimed or wounded. The Soviets themselves lost 14,000 soldiers. When the Soviets pulled out in February 1989, unfortunately, so did the US. And anarchy ensued. Within a few years, the CIA-armed “freedom fighters” had morphed into the retrograde Taliban regime, which led to terrorist training camps and, eventually, 9/11.

Today, fixing Afghanistan is reputedly the Obama administration’s number one foreign policy priority. Yet we must recognize that the U.S. can no more remake Afghanistan into a European-style democracy than the Soviets could turn it into a socialist vassal state. Afghanistan is a rural nation, tribal and fiercely independent. The rural population may never identify with or have primary loyalty to a national government in Kabul. Afghans are primarily devoted to family, tribe and, especially, religion – Islam. Afghanistan has been a Muslim country for 1000 years. We can’t succeed by confronting these traditional loyalties, only by affirming and strengthening them.

Most importantly, as Americans, we must recognize that, for 30 years, our country’s foreign policy has contributed to Afghanistan’s wholesale destruction, and done little to help it build a more secure future. Twenty years ago this month, the U.S. made the mistake of walking away from Afghanistan after the Soviets were expelled. Hopefully this time, with an eye to history, we can get it right.

US News & World Report: Learn Russian!

2009-01-20T05:53:00.003-05:00

This appeared in the Dec 18 issue of USN&WR:

"Why not get ahead of the geopolitical curve and study Russian? Though it has never been a top foreign language among American students, Russian did grow in popularity during the Cold War. And the wealth of Russian history and literature has always made learning the tongue rewarding enough for many. Now, a resurgent and more nationalistic (though post-communist) Russia is again doing some muscle flexing, albeit much more modestly than in the past. American students currently rank Russian eighth on a list of foreign languages that interest them. But with Russia widely pegged as a re-emerging great power—and taking a tough line against a range of American policies—mastering the tongue of the Kremlin could well come to regain some cachet. And, if not, you still could read Dostoevski in the original form, not to mention order a vodka in Moscow with a certain grace."

Gas Tussle

2009-01-06T14:12:00.004-05:00

Sometimes it can be hard to get at the facts. And given that the western media went way down the wrong road on the recent Georgian crisis, one is inclined to be skeptical of coverage on the current Russia-Ukraine gas spat. Here is a nice summary of the facts by Reuters:

(Reuters) - A contract dispute between Russia and Ukraine has disrupted gas supplies to countries in the European Union, which gets about a fifth of its needs via pipelines through Ukraine.

WHY DID THE ROW START?

Russia and Ukraine failed to agree a new contract for gas supplies in 2009 before a New Year's Eve deadline set by Russian negotiators.

Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom said during the talks it wanted to raise the price it charged Kiev from $179.5 to $250. Kiev said it did not want to pay that, and made any price rise conditional on Gazprom paying more for pumping gas to Europe across Ukrainian territory.

WHY IS THERE LESS GAS GOING TO EUROPEAN CONSUMERS?

Gazprom cut off all gas for Ukraine's domestic use on New Year's day. This is not as simple as it sounds: Ukraine's gas, goes through the same network of pipelines as the gas intended for customers in Europe.

So what Russia did was to reduce the total volumes it was pumping by the amount Ukraine imports. That meant a reduction from the usual 400 million cubic meters a day to about 300 mcm/day.

What happened next is under dispute. Russia accused Ukraine of stealing gas intended for Europe, and using it for its own needs. On Monday, it cut gas supplies going through Ukraine further, by about one sixth. It said this was equivalent to the amount Kiev was siphoning off. On Tuesday, Gazprom accused Kiev of unilaterally shutting down at least three major export pipelines.

Ukraine has a different account of events. It denied siphoning off gas, saying only it had used some gas intended for export to maintain pressure in the pipeline network.

It accused Russia of deliberately halting exports, putting under threat supplies to Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Germany.

HOW DOES THE GAS GET ACROSS UKRAINE TO EUROPE?

Over 80 percent of Russia's gas exports to the European Union go via Ukraine.

There is a complex network of pipelines, but put simply there are two main routes. One goes West through Slovakia and from there to the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, France, Italy and other countries.

The second goes south to the Balkans and south-eastern Europe -- the regions worst hit by the supply disruptions.

The Balkan pipeline is more vulnerable to the cuts of Russian supplies because there are no gas storage facilities at the inlet of the export route.

Pipelines running from Ukraine into Slovakia are linked to the huge underground gas storage facilities of Western Ukraine, therefore supplies are more secure.

In addition to these routes, there are separate pipelines from Ukraine to Hungary, Poland and Romania.

WHAT ABOUT OTHER GAS PIPELINES TO EUROPE?

Russia said it was compensating for reductions in exports to Europe by pumping gas through alternative routes. But it was not clear these routes had the capacity to cover the shortfall. These are the other routes:

YAMAL-EUROPE - Goes from Siberia via Belarus to Poland and Germany, Europe's biggest economy. Capacity 33 bcm/year or around 100 mcm per day. Gazprom has increased exports through Yamal to help compensate for lower flows through Ukraine.

BLUE STREAM - Goes from Russia along the bed of the Black Sea to Turkey. Capacity 16 bcm/year or around 50 mcm per day. Gazprom says it was also adding capacity through the Blue Stream pipeline.

Found Email

2008-12-09T16:34:00.001-05:00

I get so much spam trash, that today I decided to harvest a line or two from each spam I got (well, the PG or less ones) and shuffle them together into a found poem. Trash into art? Not quite. But something...

We wish to notify you again
that you were listed as a heir
to the total sum of Ten Million
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in the codicil and last testament
of the deceased.
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Look up to 10 YEARS YOUNGER Today.
Obtain the degree you deserve,
based on your present knowledge
and life experience.
Take your presents for holidays!
Huge Christmas actions!
Your fund is now deposited
with UNION BANK OF SENEGAL
and insured in your name.

We believe this notification
meets you in a very good
present state of mind and health.
Obtain degrees from Prestigious non-accredited
Universities based on you life experience.
NO ONE is turned down.
We the Federal bureau of investigation
(F.B.I) Washington, DC
in conjuction with some other
relevant Investigation Agencies
here in the United states of America
have recently been informed through our
Global intelligence monitoring network
that you presently have a transaction
going on with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
as regards to your over-due contract payment
which was fully endorsed in your favour accordingly.
Be advised to visit the following links
to be better acquainted with
Mr Kim Woo-choong's current
profile and personality.
California Option Trader makes
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How to Fail at Business While Remaining Truly Russian

2008-10-30T11:34:00.002-05:00

Saw this entry from Stanislav Mishin's Mat Rodina Blog, when it was posted to Johnson's List. A superb and well-argued summary of several things Russian business people need to attent to if they want to do business with the West. For all those who have been puzzled by silence from Russian partners ("I didn't email, because there was nothing to report.") will take heart that at least someone gets it.

Magazine Paper Project Interview

2008-09-30T11:45:00.003-05:00

I was e-interviewed by Keaty Gross at Coop America, about our switch to 100% recycled stock. Gives a bit of history behind our motivation for this switch and how it has gone.

Life on the Land

2008-09-28T07:56:00.002-05:00

Amid all the posturing and Neo-ColdWarism, it is nice to see a thoughtful feature such as this. James Hill of the NYT visits a private farm and considers Russians' link to the land.

Our Cartoonist on CNN!

2008-09-26T11:11:00.003-05:00

I just stumbled across this nice interview (July 07) of Victor Bogorad, who does the cartoons for our Survival Russian feature. Too bad the video is not archived online... [here is his blog, btw]

And here is his take on the current financial crisis (caption: "Normal citizens have nothing to fear from the financial crisis")

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From a small apartment in St. Petersburg, political cartoonist Victor Bogorad projects his view of Russian life. And in his view, real politics in Russia has disappeared.

"I'm telling you, it just doesn't exist," he chuckles. "There are parties, but no politics."

As Victor takes pen to paper, he is in a world of black on white. Bogorad said he is free to draw what he likes, but editors of major of newspapers simply don't publish anything that might be considered controversial or offensive to pro-Kremlin politicians.

He depicted the situation in a drawing he made for us, asserting the press voluntarily position themselves as captives behind the security services and bureaucrats who run Russia today.

"I have no idea whether Putin has a thin or a thick skin," he says. "Under the system that he created, local administrators are trying to please him, trying to prevent any criticism. I think this is what you might call, 'local initiative'?"

"The result," he says, "is that Russia's media censors itself to remain in favor. It is not just the journalists who are held captive." In another quickly-penned impression, Victor Bogorad depicts Russia's situation like this.

The journalists, who are supposed to be doing the reporting, are in one cage. And their viewers, readers, or listeners are, as a result, in nothing less than a cage themselves.

"The majority of our population lived under the Soviet Union when everything was decided for them. They are used to this situation. From my point of view, we are going back to the Soviet Union. A lot of people are happy when things are decided for them, when they have a job and a stable salary."

For Bogorad, things were preferable in what he calls "the time of chaos," the Yeltsin years. His thousands of cartoons are a catalogue of the personalities and controversies that shape the new Russia.

If past is prologue, Bogorad says he doesn't need glasses to see what lies ahead. Timid newspaper editors will continue to watch their readership decline. The big television media will keep Kremlin critics off the air.

But as he depicts here, the younger generation is already turning to the Internet for news. It doesn't matter whether parents in the home or Putin up on the big screen want them to do otherwise. It is a fact they are powerless to change.

"I'm moderately optimistic," he chuckles, "why? Well, as they say, a pessimist is a well-informed optimist. In my case, I probably don't know a lot yet." Fortunately for Russia, what he knows he shares each time he puts pen to paper.

Jim Clancy, CNN, St. Petersburg.

Sarah Palin's Secret Past... Revealed!

2008-09-03T19:42:00.003-05:00

Many have scoffed at Cindy McCain's defense of Alaska Governor (and GOP Veep candidate) Sarah Palin's foreign policy chops with the assertion that "Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia."

Scoff not. The truth is so more startling still.

We have made thorough inquiries with our sources in Russia's far eastern region of Chukotka (just 53 miles from Alaskan America across the Bering Strait), and it turns out that Ms. Palin's connection with Russia may have more wrinkles than a 44-year-old Texas Armadillo.

Our source, which requested anonymity because he was specious, alleged that, in 1988 and 1989, when Palin was ostensibly employed as a "sports reporter" for KTUU in Anchorage and "helping out" in her husband's family commercial fishing business, she captained a fishing vessel which made several highly treacherous forays into Russian waters and at least twice landed on what was then Soviet soil. According to our source, Palin was carrying out secret missions, dropping sleeper spies onto Russian soil and slipping away under cover of darkness.

"This is very brave woman," said our Chukotkan informant. "She come very close to get caught many times. And she drop off secret anti-Soviet agents too."

There was no immediate, official comment from the McCain-Palin campaign to the revelation that Palin worked for US intelligence 20 years ago. But one influential Republican source did offer, on deep background, that "you media clowns don't know half of what there is to know about Little Sarah. Hell, did you know 'Palin' is derived from the Russian word for 'scorch'? I didn't think so. Dammit, when the American public finds out that this little woman was almost single-handedly responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union, it's gonna be all over for the Angry Leftists."

Our Russian source was inclined to agree. "This is American hero. Russian hero too. International hero. And if you don't believe me she was spy, you just have to look at her family. You think it accident that all her children have code names like Willow and Piper and Trig? Truth, she is sometimes a hard thing."

And yet, the truth will always out...

080808

2008-08-28T11:33:00.002-05:00

With time, we are finding out more and more about the events that led to the recent Russo-Georgian War in the Caucausus. Two very good recent accounts have been published in Der Spiegel's International Edition and in the Moscow Times.

Together, the articles show that the buildup to the war began well before August, and may have become inevitable after the NATO summit in March. As early as April, Der Spiegel writes, there may have been no turning back.

In another excellent Der Spiegel article, which looks at the days just before the war in Tskhinvali, there is a well-presented account of the war from the locals' (that is the Ossetians') point of view.

What few seem to remember is that the borders of present day Georgia were drawn by Soviet leader Stalin, a Georgian, and were no more respectful of local nationalities' interests than was, say, the British creation of Iraq.

Caucasian Stalemate

2008-08-15T05:39:00.001-05:00

This commentary aired on Vermont Public Radio, on August 13.

Last Thursday, after several days of skirmishes and confrontation in the breakaway region of Ossetia, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili announced a unilateral cessation of hostilities.

Hours later, however, Saakashvili ordered his armed forces to undertake a full-scale assault on Ossetia, a territory which, since 1992, has been patrolled by Russian peacekeepers under international mandate - to which Georgia was a signator.

Georgian troops launched an air, tank and artillery attack on Russian peacekeepers and civilians. In response, Russian troops, long perched on the Russo-Georgian border on hair-trigger alert, entered South Ossetia in force. They routed the Georgian troops and chased them back beyond the borders of Ossetia, into Georgia proper.

On August 12th, the Russian forces stood down.

These are more or less the basic facts of the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia. There are of course plenty of unverified assertions. For instance, Russia claims that Georgian forces killed more than 2000, leveled the Ossetian capital city of Tskhivali and demolished several Ossetian villages. And both sides are accusing the other of engaging in ethnic cleansing.

Coverage of this week's events by major US media has focused mainly on interpretations of Russia's motives, the general consensus being that we are seeing a new Russia, a bully emboldened by oil riches and acting out after 20 years of humiliation.

The explanation sounds good, but it is oversimplified and jingoistic. Russia's own explanation, that it is simply defending the local civilian population and beating back Georgian aggression, is also not the whole truth, but it does seem a bit closer to reality.

Our media have also given little treatment to the US role in this conflict, which is in stark contrast to how the Russian media are covering events. Russians, for their part, are quick to underscore the alliance between the US and Georgia.

Said former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev: "I am convinced it would not have happened without the consent of the United States. It has approved it."

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Lavrov [sic, that's Ivanov] told CNN that Saakashvili - quote - "is an American satellite, that is a known fact."

Saakashvili, for his part, soon after the Russian counter-attack, was quoted as saying, "It's not about Georgia anymore. It's about America, its values."

Again, oversimplified and jingoistic.

Actually, what the conflict is about was aptly captured by the great Russian writer Mikhail Lermontov. He fought in the Caucasus (in the 1830s, against Chechens), and wrote a long poem, entitled Valerik, in which he sees a general sitting by a bloody stream after a battle.

And he writes:

And with a secret, heartfelt grief
I thought: Poor man,
What is he after?
The sky is so clear
There is room for all under the heavens,
Yet incessantly and vainly
He still fights - why?

Solzhenitsyn

2008-08-04T13:29:00.004-05:00

This morning, Vermont Public Radio called to interview me about Solzhenitsyn's legacy and his life in Vermont. I had just interviewed his wife, Natalya Dmitrievna, while in Moscow in May. We had planned to run that interview in our Nov/Dec issue, to coincide with what would have been the author's 90th birthday. But now we will push it up and run it in our Sep/Oct issue, which goes to press this week. Link to interview

A nice article also appeared in the local Times-Argus here, summarizing Solzhenitsyn's interaction with the local community of Cavendish.

7 Days Article on Russian Life

2008-04-29T18:30:00.002-05:00

We've been getting some local press lately. Happens every few years when the media wants to run a "look what kind of oddies we have living here" sort of piece.

First was an article in Seven Days. And this weekend, the local Times-Argus is running a story.

Statistics and Damn Lies

2008-03-07T12:06:00.003-05:00

Robert Coalson (RFE/RL) has just published a superb summary of some of the brazen election abuses during last December's Duma elections in Russia. It would be funny if it were not so sad. Damn those pesky facts!

First excerpt:

Earlier this month, two bloggers -- a chemist named Maksim Pshenichnikov and a person who goes by the online name Podmoskovnik -- published a damning statistical analysis that used Central Election Commission statistics to shed light on the extent of the fraud in the December Duma elections. The two made a graph of the voter-turnout percentage reported by each polling station. Under normal conditions, one would expect a bell-shaped curve, with few or no polling stations reporting 0 percent turnout and few or none reporting 100 percent. The normal curve would peak at the point representing the national average voter turnout, which for these elections was officially put at 63 percent.

What the bloggers found instead was a curve that began normally on the zero side of the graph and ran upward to a peak of 51 percent. On the right side of the graph, the side representing polling stations reporting higher-than-average turnout, the graph meandered in a spiked line and ended with a peak at 100 percent that was higher even than the number of polling stations reporting the apparent national average of 51 percent. Moreover, they found sharp spikes at all the "round" numbers above that average -- 55, 60, 65, 70, etc. For instance, 633 polling stations reported an 89-percent turnout and 770 reported 91 percent, while 927 reported a nice, round 90 percent. "It is a study that explicitly demonstrates that the results were manipulated," economist Konstantin Sonin told "The Moscow Times."

Moreover, the bloggers created a second graph showing the number of votes reported by each polling station as being cast for each party. The second graph shows nearly normal bell-curves for all of the minor parties in the election, but the curve for the pro-Kremlin Unified Russia party nearly precisely follows the curve for overall voter turnout. This seems to indicate conclusively that all the "additional" votes that appeared in contravention of statistical logic were cast for Unified Russia. According to their analysis, Unified Russia should have been given 277 seats in the Duma, instead of the 315 (more than the constitutional majority of 300) that the party was awarded.

And then there is this:

"Novaya gazeta" reported this week on the election-day experience of Olga Pokrovskaya, a well-known St. Petersburg lawyer and liberal activist who has served on election commissions in the past. Pokrovskaya told the paper she spent election day monitoring polling station No. 488. She reported spending the entire day there and waiting after polls closed while officials filled out the station's voting protocol. She then asked for and received an officially signed copy of the protocol and accompanied polling-station officials to the territorial election commission, where they were to submit the documents. Pokrovskaya said that she noticed one of the officials was carrying a blank election protocol that had been signed and stamped, in addition to the document that had been shown to Pokrovskaya earlier.

Pokrovskaya later compared the document she had with the official Central Election Commission data for polling station No. 488. Both sets of figures showed 23 votes for Democratic Party leader Andrei Bogdanov, 68 votes for Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and 188 votes for Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov. Pokrovskaya's document also shows 620 votes for Dmitry Medvedev, while the official tally for Medvedev for that polling station was 1,412. Pokrovskaya showed total turnout (including spoiled ballots and others) as 965, while the official figure is registered as 1,641.

"I suppose similar methods were used at other polling stations as well," Pokrovskaya said. "There were very few observers. At my polling station, for example, there was no one but me."

Here is the full article.

Dima's recruitment

2008-03-04T14:52:00.003-05:00

This hilarious YouTube satire video by the Perm KVN group gives a bit of background on the recent Russian election, and how Medevedev was recruited for his role. The dubbing is superbly done. (All in Russian)

Medvedev Emerges from His Den

2008-02-29T21:00:00.000-05:00

This commentary aired on Vermont Public Radio on February 29. To listen to the podcast, go here.

(HOST) Russian Life magazine has been published from Vermont since 1995 by commentator Paul Richardson, who says that, when Russians go to the polls on this Sunday, they will be thinking about bears...

(RICHARDSON) In the 2002 film Oligarch, by Russian director Pavel Lungin, the main character predicts his own downfall, saying, “Russia is a bear. You think you are playing with it and it devours you.”

The bear has long been associated with Russia. For over a century, it has been a mainly derogatory image in Western political cartoons. Yet to Slavs, the bear has had positive connotations for thousands of years. Today, it appears on countless Russian town shields; lovable bear characters abound in cartoons; and the bear Misha was especially beloved as the 1980 Summer Olympics mascot.

Bears also figure richly in the Russian language. In such cases, the bear is often seen as clumsy. In Russian, when you do someone a “bear’s favor” your clumsy assistance hurts them more than helps them; when someone has no ear for music, a common idiom has it that a bear stepped on his ear.

Pre-Christian Slavs believed the bear to be their common ancestor. Indeed, the animal was such a powerful symbol of strength and fertility that Russians dared not mention its real name. So they gave it a substitute designation – medved – which was derived from its favorite food. Medved literally means “honey-seeker,” or, “the one who knows where the honey is.”

Some of the bear’s power derived from its annual ritual of entering Mother Earth in the fall, only to emerge in the spring, reborn. Until 150 years ago, Russians celebrated a “bear holiday” near the spring solstice, timed to coincide with the bears’ supposed emergence from their dens.

Bear imagery has become particularly strong in Russian politics of late. Last year the bear was adopted as the ubiquitous symbol for United Russia, the Kremlin-sponsored party created to devour all political opposition. And bear symbology reached its peak in December, when President Vladimir Putin annointed Dmitry Medvedev his heir apparent. In Russian, Medvedev literally means, “of the bears.”

Western media have been full of speculations about Medvedev’s political leanings. Some are at pains to paint him as “softer” or more liberal than Putin, pointing to Medvedev’s education as a lawyer and his love for Heavy Metal Rock. It reminds me how, in 1982, when former KGB chief Yuri Andropov became Soviet leader, some speculated that his love of scotch and jazz augured a warming in East-West relations. In fact, the opposite happened.

So, what should we expect from a Medvedev presidency?

Most likely, more of the same.

Medvedev is Putin 2.0. Shorter, less polished, and still ironing out some bugs, Medvedev has been Putin’s go-to guy for 17 years. He has bailed Putin out of political scrapes, was a key player in the takedown of the oligarchs, and has been chairman of the board for Russia’s richest company, Gazprom.

Powerful and awesome, bears can be clumsy and unpredictable, particularly when first emerging from their dens. But we should keep in mind that this bear, though young, is an old hand. And clearly he knows where the honey is.

Hillary-ous

2008-02-29T06:44:00.002-05:00

Here's some help, for Hillary and all others...

Dima Talks

2008-02-27T13:39:00.006-05:00

On February 18, Dmitry Medvedev gave an extended interview with Itogi magazine. An English translation of the full interview is posted at www.medvedev2008.ru. Here are some of the highlights, which give some interesting insights into the mindset and personal experiences of the next president.

Men and Women

[My wife] Sveta graduated from the Voznesensky Institute of Finance and Economics in St Petersburg, worked as an economist in different places, then went on maternity leave and gave birth to Ilya. I then said that she shouldn't go back to work but should bring up our child.

[Interviewer] Patriarchy!

What to do about it? This is normal logic for a man, who wishes to have a solid and reliable rear guard behind. Of course, from time to time Sveta did say that it would be good to find some additional activity, but I explained that in my opinion it is better for the family if the wife stays at home.

Genealogy

I am a third-generation city dweller, but my grandfathers and grandmothers lived in rural areas. Before the Revolution Afanasy Fedorovich Medvedev was a peasant and then had a mid-level career in the party; he worked in the regional committee and the Krasnodar Krai Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Nadezhda Vasilyevna, my father's mother was, curiously enough, born in working-class Petersburg family. Her family died in the revolution and fate sent the orphan to a children's home in the Kursk region where she met her future husband. They were married at age 17 and remained happily married until old age. They had four children, two of whom survived - my father and his sister. My father passed away at age 77 and my aunt is still alive and lives in Krasnodar.

My mother’s relatives were from the Belgorod province and did, as they say, live up to their name. My grandfather's name was Venjamin Sergeyevich Shaposhnikov [literally hat-maker] and his father - my great-grandfather - was a furrier, and made hats. My second great-grandfather, Vasily Aleksandrovich Kovalev, worked as a blacksmith. Many believed that he looked like the last Russian Tsar and now with Photoshop's help my picture is sometimes being made to look more like Nikolai the Second…

Childhood

I must confess that I didn't like beach vacations. It's boring to spend the whole day lying on your back in the sun! Besides, at the beginning you had to search for a free place in the sun. In short it was deadly boring rather than a vacation! In general, I grew up playing outside and spent a lot of time in the streets.

As a child, of course, I was attached to my mama. Then there was a time when I saw that I was trying to copy my father. He taught me dedicated service to the cause that you've chosen and a love of reading.

[As a teen] there were two things that I wanted very badly. Jeans and LPs. And my parents could not buy me either. Real Wrangler or Levi's jeans were available on the black market for a couple of hundred rubles, and an average teacher's salary was a hundred and twenty rubles. And real vinyls were very expensive. I remember dreaming about a double album that had just come out, Pink Floyd's The Wall, but two hundred rubles were an astronomical amount for me at the time…

In the summer [of my third year of university] I slaved away in construction where I could earn three hundred rubles a month. When the semester began I worked somewhere as a doorman. One time I had the territory around the Priboy cinema. It was a great job! You get up early, go from Kupchino to Vasilevsky, take a broom or a shovel in the winter, and you've done your excercise before nine in the morning. And you go to class in the morning bright as a bunny. And they pay you 100 sterling rubles for your thorough work. In 1982 you could live pretty well on 150 rubles!... I had some time left for public work and became a member of the Komsomol committee at the faculty and then at the university level. I didn't think of this as extra work. I enjoyed it.

Self Image

[Interviewer] You give the impression of being a very closed person.

Really? But I know why that is. I have a legal way of thinking, which has pluses and minuses. Dignity consists in the ability to correctly formulate your goals. This helps in making decisions. The disadvantage lies in the fact that often I say and explain more precisely than is sometimes needed. Because of this, you might feel as if I am Mr Dry-as-Dust, all buttoned up.

Rule of Law

To overcome the legal nihilism preventing the country from developing harmoniously is a long and difficult job. As it turned out, to establish a workable model of a market economy is much easier than laying the foundations of a state in which people respect the letter of the law. This is another demonstration of the thesis that democracy cannot occur in any given place after two or three years. It requires painstaking, persistent work to improve the legal and political system. Of course, one can not forget the distinctive characteristics of the Russian situation. You know, justice has always relied on a mechanism for enforcing its implementation, some kind of public stick. But if it is not based on a set of moral imperatives, on internal convictions and moral principles, if it simply aspires to the crude power of a punitive machine, then the structure it creates will be flawed and ineffective. In the nineteenth century, the Russian government was far from perfect but it was a developed system based on a set of moral and religious values. In the twentieth century, the second part of this disappeared: people were deprived of their faith in God and the state came to demonstrate either naked coercion, which at times was extremely cruel indeed, or weakness and complete failure. These are both equally bad. We all remember what the well known doctrines of the thirties and forties led to, when the talk was of class dictatorship and the presumption of guilt in criminal trials. This helped resolve some tactical problems, but in the long-term planted a time-bomb that ended the very existence of the Soviet state. You have to feel what justice is, accept it voluntarily, not obey it in some insanely prostrate way. The explosion was inevitable, it would have happened sooner or later. People rushed to the other extreme and took to systematically breaking laws. This is what happened in the nineties.

On International Relations

When you resignedly submit to a small amount of pressure, no one takes you into consideration any more. In international politics and diplomacy there are no minor issues or unimportant things. You need to think like a jurist.

Russia has always been built around a strong vertically-organised executive. These lands came together over centuries and it is impossible to administer them in any other way.

Presidential Debates

I don't need to win a bunch of verbal battles with those who have never been at the helm of state machines, whose programmes are outdated and obviously have no chance of being implemented.

Corruption

I am not a proponent of making examples of wrongdoers. The problem is serious and it must be addressed comprehensively. An attack à la Chapayev with sabres drawn won't solve anything. We need to create a system in which stealing from the state is dangerous and unprofitable. We need to think of the state as more than simply a source of income; we can't just put our snout in the trough and believe that we have made a success of our life. What an immoral position! Someone slaves away, studies, struggles all his life, creates a business and finally succeeds, and the other plunks himself down in a cosy armchair and wants everything given to him. It can't be like that. Leave the public sector and go to work in the private sector. If you don't understand that or are not prepared to live by the rules, you will be punished with all the severity of the law.

Pool Gap

Russia has problems insofar as swimming is concerned. As someone who is twice a day in a swimming lane, I want to point out that there is a disastrous shortage of swimming pools in this country.

We're Just Crazy about Dima

2008-02-06T08:43:00.001-05:00

So what exactly do we know about Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, other than that he is a loyal Putinista going back nearly two decades?

Well, first, we know that he is now Russia's most popular politician, having surpassed Putin in late December, thanks to the Kremlin PR machine.

Here are some other things we know:

Born: September 14, 1965.

His parents were from Krasnodar and Voronezh and met in St. Petersburg, where both became university professors.

He has always been a very serious student (like a "small old man" one former teacher once said), and his favorite book as a child was the Small Soviet Encyclopedia.

He met Putin while both were working for Anatoly Sobchak, to help him get elected to the Supreme Soviet. Medvedev, educated as a lawyer and a former student of Sobchak's at Leningrad State University, became a legal adviser to Sobchak when he was elected mayor of Leningrad.

In 1992, a group of St. Petersburg deputies accused Putin of raw material export machinations valued at $92 million. It was later believed that Medvedev, using his legal expertise, was instrumental in suppressing the scandal, thereby sealing Putin’s trust.

Medvedev ran some businesses and sat on some boards in the heady 1990s. One of these was Ilim Paper and Pulp, which he left just before it was revealed the Ilim had taken part in some illegal privatization deals.

After Putin was elevated to Prime Minister in 1999, he brought Medvedev to Moscow.

In 2000, Medvedev ran Putin's presidential campaign, which he won with 53% of the vote. Medvedev waas made deputy chief of staff, then chief of staff in 2003.

He has been deputy prime minister since 2005.

Since 2000, Medvedev has served in a senior capacity on the board of directors of Gazprom, one of the world's largest companies.

He is a big fan of heavy metal rock (Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath).

A few years ago, he was a bit pudgy and he began working out regularly. Dima before his personal makeover and after:

His officially declared income in 2007 was R146,000 per month, or about $6000.

He does not own a car, but his wife does - a Volkswagen Golf

He has reported asset in eight bank accounts with total deposits of R2.74 million (just under $100,000).

His apartment in Moscow is 367.8 square meters

He is married to his high school sweetheart and has a son, Ilya, who will soon be a teenager.

Other sources of info on Dima:

Russia Profile did a nice piece, providing perspective on his relationship to various clans.

Yuri Mamchur posted this nice, often funny photo essay about Dima.

An RIA Novosti posted this series of pictures of Dima's wife, Svetlana.

Twin Christmases

2008-01-10T08:01:00.000-05:00

[This commentary aired on Vermont Public Radio on the morning of January 10, 2008. Hear the podcast or streaming audio here.]

In February 1582, the Catholic Church, in the person of Pope Gregory the thirteenth, decreed a new, more accurate calendar to replace the Julian calendar, which had been in use since 45 BC. The revision meant dropping 10 days off the year, and Protestant countries resisted the change for a full century. Tsarist Russia, however, clung much longer to the less accurate Julian calendar, the temporal difference expanding with each passing century.

It wasn’t until February 1, 1918, three months after the Bolsheviks seized power, that Russia finally made the switch. By then, the Julian calendar was 13 days behind the Gregorian. So Russians went to sleep on January 31 and woke up on February 14.

As a result, there is a permanent wrinkle in Russian time.

Which brings us to the twin Christmases.

Soviet Russia may have switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1918, but the Russian and other Eastern Orthodox Churches did not. So, while Christmas in the West falls on December 25, Russian Orthodox Christmas is celebrated 13 days later, on January 7. Likewise, New Year's is not January 1, but January 14.

Now, this wasn't really a problem during the Soviet era, since Christmas and other religious holidays had been abolished. New Year's became the Soviet winter holiday, co-opting Christmas symbols. The Christmas tree, imported to Russia by Peter the Great, became the New Year's tree, and St. Nicholas became Father Frost.

But today, the Orthodox Church is resurgent in Russia. There is also increased contact with the culture and traditions of the West. Which means Russia starts shutting down for the holidays just before December 25 and doesn't really get going again until after January 14.

Needless to say, even party-loving Russians have a hard time holding up under the assault of a three-week-long celebration.

Interestingly, as Russia moves through this season of mirrored holidays, it is grappling with another dualism: two presidents. Vladimir Putin, who has reigned since 2000, has selected his heir apparent. Barring a miracle, the next Russian president will be Dmitry Medvedev, a lawyer, college professor, oil company chairman and first deputy prime minister who has been Putin's right hand man for the last 17 years. Medvedev, for his part, has said he will make President Putin his prime minister.

Democracy? Bah Humbug! The President of Christmas Past will become the Prime Minister of Christmas Future, and the Deputy Prime Minister everyone thought was a political Tiny Tim has been transformed into the Future President.

It's not clear at this point how power will be divided between the past and future presidents, whether Putin will in fact accept the diminished position of Prime Minister, or if this is just a ruse so he can step back into the presidency a few months later.

Clearly something will have to give. After all, it's one thing to have two Christmases - and quite another to have two... presidents.