Latynina on Classic Russian Idiocy

Hero journalist Yulia Latynina, writing in the Moscow Times:

I was recently invited by the Russia.ru web site to discuss what the Kremlin needs to do to overcome the economic crisis. As it turns out, the answer is for Russia to unite with Ukraine.

The person responsible for this ingenious idea is Anatoly Vasserman, the eccentric television wonk and host of intellectual game shows. His reasoning is grounded in economics: Russia’s manufacturing sector will not develop until it has a solid, reliable customer base of at least 200 million people. Once Moscow unites with Kiev, demand will reach critical mass, and Russia’s manufacturing sector will skyrocket.

You might remember the joke about the workers at a collective farm who met to discuss how to fix the cowshed. The chairman stood and told them: “There are two ways to repair the dilapidated cowshed — one is realistic, and the other is completely far-fetched. The realistic way is if a space alien were to fly down here and fix the thing. The far-fetched way is if we were to try to repair it ourselves.”

I never imagined that 20 years after the end of the Soviet Union’s 70-year experiment in creating communism, I would be seriously discussing the realistic way of fixing the cowshed.

Inflation Grinds the Russian People into Pulp

The Moscow Times reports:

Her job is safe and her salary hasn’t been cut by a single ruble, yet Svetlana Nikolayeva says she feels the effects of the financial crisis as badly as anyone.  “Every time I go shopping, I can afford less and less,” said Nikolayeva, a 41-year-old single mother who lives in a two-room apartment with her younger brother and autistic son. “It’s not just food. Children’s clothes, medicine, communal services — it’s all getting more expensive.”

The rising cost of goods has confronted Nikolayeva with some painful decisions, like deciding which medicine her son needs least so she can afford to buy him the ones that are crucial for his health. It has also changed her opinion of the government, which she staunchly supported less than a year ago.  “There’s a feeling right now like everyone is out for themselves,” she said. “Putin and Medvedev don’t care about my money. They’re too busy worrying about their own.”

March 20, 2009 — Contents

FRIDAY MARCH 20 2009

(1)  Another Original LR Translation:  The Whirlpool of Russian Madness

(2)  EDITORIAL: India Learns to say “ouch!” in Russian

(3)  EDITORIAL: Psycho Russia, Qu’est-ce que c’est?

(4)  Annals of Russia’s Keystone Copskis

(5)  Fighting for Historial Truth in Ukraine

NOTE:  Kim Zigfeld’s latest installment on Pajamas Media advises the Republican Party to get wise to Russia, but quick.

Another Original LR Translation: The Whirlpool of Russian Madness

A Note from the Translator:  Some people in Russia – sadly few in number – see and understand the ever enlarging whirlpool of madness into which the country is being engulfed. Here are three ‘fun’ items from last week’s Novaya Gazeta, a special issue subtitled “Encyclopedia of Bureaucratic Idiocy: Can there be any hope for a country where such stupidity reigns?”

The Whirlpool of Russian Madness

Novaya Gazeta

Translated from the Russian by Dave Essel

Sergei Kuzhegetovich Shoigu [TN:  Russia's Minister of Emergency Situations] has proposed that that it be made a criminal offence to deny that the USSR was victorious in the Great Patriotic War.

We have chosen Mr. Shoigu as our ”Man of the Issue,” in particular because Yuri Chaika, our Prosecutor General, seconds the choice. Shoiga has done well to take this matter so much to heart: it’s a very serious thing to entertain doubts about Russia’s victories nowadays! Shouldn’t we be doing more than he proposes, however? We suggest that there should be a 2-year sentence for denying that Russia is rising up from its knees, one year for each lying rug-burnt knee! It should also be a criminal offence to deny that Zenit won the European Cup and Bilan the Eurovision contest. A suspended sentence would probably do in the latter case – on condition that the accused expresses regret.

EDITORIAL: India Learns how to say “Ouch” in Russian

EDITORIAL

India Learns how to say “Ouch” in Russian

The government of India has learned a harsh lesson on the perils of placing trust in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.  Now it, like Russia, stands humiliated before the world.  Its decision to buy a squandron of MiG fighters and an aircraft carrier from Russia will likely go down as one of the stupidest decisions in the annals of military history.

EDITORIAL: Psycho Russia, Qu’est-ce que c’est?

EDITORIAL

Psycho Russia, Qu’est-ce que c’est?

We simply don’t see how it’s possible to argue that neo-Soviet Russia is governed by anyone except a clan of barbarically ignorant madmen.  Given this reality, it’s impossible to imagine how Russia as we know it can survive.

Annals of Russia’s Keystone Copskis

It would be hard not to find this amusing, if it were not so very horrifying.  Oleg Kozlovsky reports on his blog about the truly amazing, chicken-with-the-head-off incompetence of Russia’s police establishment, who are far more dangerous to Russian citizens than the nation’s criminal element:

Yesterday, myself and two other activists of Oborona were arrested at a small action at the Moscow State University, my alma mater. We called students to participate in the Dissenters’ Day, which was planned for March 12th. We had leaflets, a loudspeaker and a flag. The police arrested three of us and took us into custody. Initially, they charged us with “a violation of the rules for conducting a public action,” which meant that we could be held in the custody for up to three hours and then be fined up to 1000 roubles (about $30).

Fighting for Historical Truth in Ukraine

The New York Times reports:

A quarter century ago, a Ukrainian historian named Stanislav Kulchytsky was told by his Soviet overlords to concoct an insidious cover-up. His orders: to depict the famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the early 1930s as unavoidable, like a natural disaster. Absolve the Communist Party of blame. Uphold the legacy of Stalin.

Professor Kulchytsky, though, would not go along.

March 18, 2009 — Contents

WEDNESDAY MARCH 18 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Listening to Ariel Cohen

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Neo-Soviet Winter, Descending

(3)  EDITORIAL:  All Hail the Yevraz

(4)  Kremlin Inc. Just keeps on Killing

(5)  Another Conviction for State-Sponsored Murder

(6)  More on Russia’s AIDS Apocalypse

EDITORIAL: Listening to Ariel Cohen

EDITORIAL

Listening to Ariel Cohen

The Heritage Foundation’s Ariel Cohen is surely one of the most insightful and courageous Russia watchers in the world today, and his recent white paper on HF’s website laying out America’s foreign policy objectives for Russia should be required reading for President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, as well as all Russia watchers everywhere.

After laying out the facts establishing the threat posed by Russia to American national security in an irrefutable scholarly manner replete with footnotes, Cohen proceeds to set forth the specific policy steps that the Obama administration must take in order to meet those threats.  No thinking person can argue with his formulation, and if Obama does not implement it history will  surely condemn his fatal error.

Here is Cohen’s five-point proposal:

EDITORIAL: Neo-Soviet Winter, Descending

EDITORIAL

Neo-Soviet Winter, Descending

Those of us in Europe and America who think that spring is approaching should look towards Russia, where despite the calendar a dark cold winter is descending across the land.

"Putler is Kaput!"

First, they will learn how Russian prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into the protesters who raised banners declaring “Putler is Kaput!” in Vladivostock a few weeks ago.  This frighteningly neo-Soviet act makes total fools out of all those who claimed that Russia could never go back to the bad old Soviet days.  What else aren’t Russians allowed to say about their maniacal dictator Vladimir Putin?  Who’s next, one must ask? The poets?

Then, they will read how Russian prosecutors are charging bravely after the country’s Internet poets.  The Moscow Times reports that ”a 21-year-old poet has been convicted in Veliky Novgorod for publishing Islamic poems on her LiveJournal blog that the Federal Security Service deemed extremist. Savelyeva refused to recite the poems that were found extremist, citing fears that her telephone was bugged by law enforcement officers.” The MT states:

EDITORIAL: All Hail the Yevraz!

EDITORIAL

All Hail the Yevraz!

 In a bold and encouraging move last week, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced he was proposing, in the words of the Moscow Times:   ”a common currency for five former Soviet republics, a slap in the face for Russia, which has been promoting the ruble for the role. Nazarbayev said the Eurasian Economic Community, a loose group of five former Soviet republics including Kazakhstan and Russia, could adopt a single noncash currency — the yevraz — to insulate itself from the global economic crisis. Yevraz is a newly coined word that sounds close to “Eurasia” in Russian. The Eurasian Economic Community also includes Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.”

Whether or not theYevraz becomes a reality, Nazarbayev has sent a clear signal that he understands the dangers associated with neo-Soviet imperialism, and will not be destroyed by them.  Likely, this move is a direct response to Russia’s insane invasion of Georgia last year, and reflects the ripple effects of an action that will haunt the corridors of Russian policy for many years.  How can Nazarbayev not fear that Russia wishes to annex his own country just as it attempted to do in Georgia? How can he not fear that, if Russia did so, it would visit the same sort of exploitation and suffering upon his nation that it imposed during the Soviet period?

We urge Kazakhstan to recognize that their future does not and cannot lie with Russia. We urge them to see that Russia is a racist, Slavophile nation which is utterly incapable of seeing the Kazakh people as equal citizens, a nation whose only purpose in dealing with Kazakhstan is naked imperliasm and manipulation.

The people of Russia, for all it seems, are prepared to march backward in history and expose themselves to a whole new era of neo-Soviet horror.  The people of Kazakhstan should show they world that they are not so foolish.

Kremlin Inc. Just Keeps on Killing

Forbes reports:

Alexander Antonov, a little-known Russian businessman survived an assassination attempt after he was shot in the head by a gunman in Moscow on Wednesday morning. Though the news hardly caused a stir in Moscow- relegated to the third page of most newspapers – it’s a powerful reminder that despite attempts to stamp out corruption, the country is still struggling to throw off a shadowy past.

Contract killings are far more prolific than the number reported in the media suggest, says Carlo Gallo, of Control Risk Group in London, who advises companies considering investing in Russia. “Contract killings may have decreased in frequency since the 1990s and the day of wild capitalism, but they are still occurring regularly in Russia, though they rarely make the headlines,” he told Forbes. “Victims tend to be journalists operating at a local level or local administrators involved in handing out permits, or land allocation.”

Russia’s problem with corruption is widely acknowledged. President Dmitry Medvedev himself has pledged to stamp out the problem. (See “Russia’s $120 Billion Elephant: Corruption.”)

Once Again, Putin’s Russia Convicted of State-Sponsored Murder in Chechnya

The Associated Press reports:

Russia must pay damages to the families of 13 Chechens presumed dead after being abducted during armed raids between 2001 and 2003 in Chechnya, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday. The court — the legal arm of the Council of Europe rights watchdog — said Russia was responsible for the men’s disappearances and should pay damages and court fees totaling around euro531,000 ($679,000).

More on Russia’s AIDS Apocalypse

The Washington Post‘s Post Global blog reports:

The HIV epidemic in Russian continues, despite the nation’s efforts to expand treatment. Unfortunately, those efforts aren’t focusing on the primary source of the problem — injecting drug users. If Moscow is serious about curbing the epidemic, it needs to sharpen its focus on that high-risk population in much the same way Thailand focused its HIV efforts on its own high-risk population, commercial sex workers.

First, some data that illustrates the problem.

March 16, 2009 — Contents

MONDAY MARCH 16 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Go, Hillary, Go

(2)  EDITORIAL:  See Boris Run

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Craven Europe, Condemned

(4) Russia, Trading in Stolan Organs

(5)  Russia’s Ticking Debt Bomb

EDITORIAL: Go, Hilllary, Go!

EDITORIAL

Go, Hilllary, Go!

We continue to be very pleasantly surprised by what we have seen so far from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton where Russia is concerned.

First, on Clinton’s first visit to Europe she made a very strong statement in support of Ukraine and Georgia against Russian aggression.  And now, she has followed that up with something even better.

EDITORIAL: See Boris Run

EDITORIAL

See Boris Run

Interesting news was reported last week, namely that opposition leader Boris Nemntsov would seek the mayorality of the keystone city of Sochi, scheduled to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.  The Moscow Times reported that “Nemtsov, a Sochi native who served as Nizhny Novgorod governor and then deputy prime minister in the 1990s, said he would not collect signatures but post a cash deposit instead with the city election commission to be registered as a candidate.  He said this would prevent officials from removing him from the race over allegations of fake signatures, a common ploy used to remove opposition candidates and parties from elections. “

By making it impossible to disqualify him on the basis of signatures, Nemtsov is playing serious hardball with the Kremlin. 

EDITORIAL: Craven Europe, We condemn you!

EDITORIAL

Craven Europe, We condemn you!

 No sooner had we recovered from our revulsion at Europe’s cowardly decision to censor Georgia’s Eurovision song entry than we were overcome by an even more profound disgust over the Council of Europe’s  failure to take any action against Russia for refusing to ratify two crucial human rights protocols in the organization’s charter.  In fact, until Russia agrees to be bound by these basic constraints of civilized nations, it should be summarily booted out of the Council and condemned as the barbaric banana republic that it clearly is.

Russians bought organs of Slaughtered Kosovar Albanians

The New Kosova Report:

There are ample facts that during the years of 1998-99, when the war erupted in Kosovo, Serbia through the Macedonia and Bulgaria channels, has sold out human organs of Kosovar Albanians to Russian “medical businessmen.”

Russia’s Debt Bomb is Ticking

Russia has lost two-thirds of its billionaires and they have lost three-fourths of their capital.  Reuters reports that the worst may be yet to come as the oligarch’s “debt bomb” ticks down to zero:

Humbled by huge debts, Russia’s once mighty oligarchs are fighting for survival after the government warned there will be no more bailouts. Falling company revenues have forced some of the tycoons, who borrowed heavily to expand in the boom years under former President Vladimir Putin, to beg Western creditors to allow them to restructure loan payments.

Many Russian oligarchs built their fortunes from metal, steel or oil companies but the prices of all their products have fallen because of the global financial crisis. Now they are seeking salvation at the hands of the state. “Today the so-called natural resource oligarchs do not have the resources to cope with their debts so their fate depends on Vladimir Putin,” said Oleg Kiselyov of Russia’s Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, otherwise known as the oligarchs’ union.Russia’s private sector has about $500 billion in foreign debt outstanding with $130 billion due this year, according to central bank data.

March 15 2009 — Contents

SUNDAY MARCH 15 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Russia Twist!

(2)  EDITORIAL:   Russia Default?

(3)  EDITORIAL:  The Six Pillars of Russian Weakness

(4)  Russian Prosecutor Smeared Politkovskaya

(5)  Exposing Obama’s Russia Blindness

NOTE:  A new film about abortion in Russia has just been released, and a Youtube clip is available. Read about it and watch the clip here.

NOTE:  A new Russian-English-German web publication, The Russian Cyberspace Journal, has released its first issue.

EDITORIAL: Russia Twist

EDITORIAL

Russia Twist

“Please, sir, may I have some more?”

That is what the USA is hearing from Vladimir “Oliver Twist” Putin’s neo-Soviet Russia these days as the Putin regime comes, on its knees, begging bowl in hand, to plead for investment and expertise from America’s oil majors.

Suddenly, Russia’s cash reserves are depleted.  Unexpectedly, Russia’s ridiculous levels of corruption, its crude inefficiency and its barbaric ignorance of modern technology present massive barriers to operating the nation’s crucial oil extraction business profitably.  And Putin’s Russia has somehow found the shameless hubris to once again approach America’s experts, those whom it only recently booted out of the country after pilfering their interests in Russia’s oil industry, and ask for help.

“Trust us,” the Putin regime says. “We won’t rob you this time, we promise!”

Revenge is sweet.  But sweeter still if our oil executives have learned their lesson:  Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!  Any foreign oil company that does business with Vladimir Putin’s Russia is betraying its stockholders and simply begging once again to have its pockets picked by the KGM minions of the Putin regime.

EDITORIAL: Massive Economic Failure in Putin’s Russia

EDITORIAL

Massive Economic Failure in Putin’s Russia

On Wednesday, the world heard even more shocking news of economic woe coming out of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.  It seems as though the nation stands on the brink of national default.

EDITORIAL: The Six Pillars of Russian Weakness

EDITORIAL

The Six Pillars of Russian Weakness

A bizarre bit of analysis recently appeared on the Stratfor website, authored Peter Zeihan. It was entitled “The Financial Crisis and the Six Pillars of Russian Strength.”    Zeihan is Stratfor’s Vice President for Global Analysis and a former official in the U.S. State Department, and its purpose is very much unclear.  If Zeihan meant to point out the ways in which Russians delude themselves into imagining they are powerful, and to warn the West that Russia is in fact weak but could become dangerous if not immediately challenged, then one could not help but see the article as a bit of brilliance.  If, on the other hand, Zeihan actually believes Russia’s government rests on pillars of strength, he is a dangerously deluded madman.  Each of the “pillars,” when examined, in fact show not strength but profound weakness and danger of imminent collapse.