EDITORIAL
Annals of Russian Stupidity
There are several reasons for the relative calm regarding Russia’s economy. First, the crisis looks worse on the pages of newspapers and analytical reports than on the streets of Moscow, where it doesn’t appear that we are in the middle of a deep crisis. Despite official figures showing that unemployment reached 10.2 percent in late April, there have been no mass demonstrations outside the Moscow Ring Road like there were during the turbulent 1990s.
That was Konstantin Sonin, a at the New Economic School/CEFIR and a columnist for the Vedomosti newspaper, writing in the Moscow Times last week.
Oops! A new low in the annals of Russian stupidity has been plumbed.
Professor Sonin must have been surprised by a story on on the paper’s front page that same day. Assuming he reads newspapers, that is, which appears doubtful. It related that a measure was moving in the Russian parliament to seize a group of factories near St. Petersburg in response to a massive protest by their unpaid workers, who blocked a highway and snarled traffic for hours. Vladimir Putin rushed to the scene to try to keep the lid on. Did he miss the story, or does he thing Piter is inside the Moscow ring road?
He apparently was also sleeping when it was widely reported the week beforethat another group of Piter residents had stormed and seized their local town hall in protest of desperate poverty caused by joblessness.
And he was napping as well during the massive protests in the Far East, where protesters carried signs calling Vladimir Putin “Putler” and calling for him to be sent into outer space.
Mind you, this man is a professor. If he spends this much time unconscious, what do you think is the case with his students?
Or maybe he thinks it doesn’t matter if the whole country bursts into flames, as long as everything is nice and quiet in Moscow, which is sucking up most of the nation’s resources like a leech. Interestingly, that would probably be the Kremlin’s position, since the Kremlin is in Moscow. But it’s hard to believe even a Russian could be as idiotic as to publicly claim a thing like that.
Then again, it’s hard to imagine how a “professor” at a major Russian institution of higher learning could be so oblivious of current events. Hard that is, unless you are a regular reader of this blog.
La Russophobe 
Do you only read Moscow Times? I usually read La Russophobe but I’m tired of reading articles from Moscow Times time and time again. There are very interesting articles about Russia in western sites as Der Spiegel International or Stratfor (and not so pessimistic).
Regards
Pablo
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
Actually, we routinely carry a wide variety of sources, including both Der Spiegel and Stratfor, and you will find both by putting their names into our search engine. If you’d like to suggest a particular article to our attention, send us an e-mail. Don’t be passive! Put your money where your mouth is!
Meanwhile, Putins “Power Vertical” is crumbling to say the least.
Kidnapping Mystery Raises Questions About Lawlessness In Russia
June 08, 2009
By Kevin O’Flynn
MOSCOW — Mikhail Stavsky was leaving Gubkin State Oil and Gas University, a prestigious college in the south of Moscow for future energy-sector workers, when two men came up and bundled him into a car.
That was on April 14. Nothing has been heard since from Stavsky, whose father, also Mikhail Stavsky, is a vice president at Rosneft.
The incident only came to light after the investigative newspaper “Novaya gazeta” published the story on June 1. The Investigative Committee later confirmed the report and said investigators had two computer-generated images of the suspects, although they did not release them to the public.
Stavsky’s family has since offered a reward for information leading to his release.
“Novaya gazeta” published the story with the headline “Who Allowed It?” referring to the power of state-owned Rosneft and its highly placed backers, and expressing surprise that anyone had acted against someone close to the organization.
Rosneft is regarded as under the control of Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who heads its board of directors and is seen as leading the siloviki –powerful individuals with links to the security services and other agencies — within the Russian government.
“Novaya gazeta,” an independent paper, asked why the kidnappers felt they could strike at Sechin’s interests.
“Either the criminals have lost all sense of fear or they have high-ranking patrons who can allow themselves to attack the top management of the largest Russian companies,” the article stated.
Rosneft has refused to comment on the matter.
Some sources told “Novaya gazeta” that the kidnappers had asked for a 50 million-euro ($71 million) ransom, while others said nothing had been heard from the abductors. Other media later quoted a member of Stavsky’s family as saying there had been no demands.
Breakdown Of Law And Order
A number of businessmen and their relatives have been kidnapped in recent years, with “Novaya gazeta” listing eight such cases in the last four years. The biggest recent case was the kidnapping of LUKoil Vice President Sergei Kukura in 2001. He was released almost two weeks later, although LUKoil denied it had paid a reported $6 million ransom.
The Investigative Committee and the Interior Ministry have joined forces to investigate the spate of kidnappings, “Novaya gazeta” reported.
Experts like Dmitry Oreshkin, the head of the Mercator think tank, see the brazen kidnapping as a sign of a breakdown of law and order in Russia.
“If they steal children from Rosneft — Rosneft is first of all a strong state structure, secondly belonging to Sechin and having excellent links with the FSB [Federal Security Service], the spine of economic development — you understand that claims that [Vladimir] Putin came to power to bring order is just empty talk,” Oreshkin said.
Oreshkin does not see the kidnapping as targeting Sechin in particular. He blames Putin for allowing the special services complete leeway in their actions, including going into business. As the global economic crisis hits home and money becomes tighter, they are becoming more aggressive, and stability and control is slipping.
The “power vertical” built by Putin is crumbling, Oreshkin said. “It is a sign that the symbolic or virtual essence of the vertical was preserved until this moment only because there was enough money in the country to buy the loyalty of the elite, and as soon as it finished, the symbolic vertical ended,” he said.
Inside Men
High-profile kidnappings are usually organized by former or active secret-service or police officers, according to Stanislav Belkovsky, head of the National Strategy Institute. Belkovsky sees the abductions as a sign that criminals are gaining greater power in Russia, with organized groups battling for control.
“We’ve seen the killing of governors, of federal officials in recent times,” Belkovsky said. “We just have to remember Andrei Kozlov, first deputy chairman of the Central Bank. All these actions have been carried out by organized criminal groups, and it shows that organized crime is at the least no weaker than in the previous decade.”
Supporters of the Kremlin, like analyst and United Russia Duma Deputy Sergei Markov, say that business and crime are still entwined, but that Russia has come a long way since the 1990s.
“You know those who say it is little different from the ’90s are not just mistaken, they are lying, as it is clear that the level of criminality and chaos was much greater then,” Markov said.
“Novaya gazeta” pinned the blame in the Stavsky case on Vitaly Marchenko, otherwise known as Shilin, a career criminal who specializes in kidnapping and has good security connections. After being arrested in 2005, he was inexplicably released the next day, and now works from Uruguay.
A former police officer is currently in jail on suspicion of kidnapping, but in yet another counter-theory, gazeta.ru speculated that he had been framed because he was making progress in his own investigation of Shilin.
http://www.rferl.org/content/Kidnapping_Mystery_Raises_Questions_About_Lawlessness_In_Russia/1749308.html
I think you’ve completely misunderstood Sonin’s article.
Sonin is known well enough to afford not to cram a political manifesto into every article. He hits the Kremlin boys where it really, really hurts — macroeconomics. “Given these circumstances, it is not clear when we will ever see positive growth again.” Ouch.
As for Pikalyovo, don’t hold your breath. The Russian people have never ever been able to mount a meaningful lasting challenge to their useless rulers, why is this time any different?
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
We can’t agree on either point. We’re not attacking his message but rather the gross inaccuracy in his claims about protests. And while on occasion he may chide the Kremlin, we don’t find he does so in a remotely effective manner. We don’t lay off those who agree with us when they screw up in any case.
The Russian original of Sonin’s article appeared in Vedomosti on June 1, that is, the day before the Pikalyovo incident. Besides, the passage you quoted is poorly translated, so I think your anger is completely unwarranted.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
The MT hardly republished this item against the author’s will, and the events in Vladivostok long predated the Russian publication. At the very least, his powers of perception have been proved well off. It could well be that inferior translation makes Sonin seem half drunk most of the time, but since most Russians in the press give that impression we doubt it’s the case. Again, we simply don’t see this man as a fearless friend of democracy, and this is hardly the first time we’ve seen him spout some nutty nonsense; though to be sure he sometimes makes sense, and we’ve republished and praised him when he does. You of course are free to have your own opinion.
Thanks, I’ll indeed stick to my opinion that you need to be more thorough with your homework.
It hardly helps your credibility when you mistake Sonin for Averko or Lavelle.