June 10, 2009 — Contents

WEDNESDAY JUNE 10 CONTENTS

(1) EDITORIAL: A Journalist Flees Neo-Soviet Russia

(2) EDITORIAL: An Ugly American Visits a Russian Dentist

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Annals of Russian Stupidity

(4)  Bloody Dagestan, out of Control

(5)  The Neo-Soviet Crackdown on Artists Continues

NOTE:  On Monday June 15th and again on Wednesday June 17th, Masha Novikova’s film “In the Holy Fire of Revolution,” documenting the Kremlin’s oppression of Garry Kasparov’s “Other Russia” reform movement, will have its US premier at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York City. Be there or be square.

NOTE:  How can anyone not be repulsed after reading #1 and #5 in today’s issue, which document the persecution of artists and journalists in a manner no different from what occurred in Soviet times. Russia, of course, is currently ruled by a proud KGB spy. How many times did we here “don’t worr, Russia can’t go back to the USSR”? Lies, all lies.

EDITORIAL: Yelena Maglevannaya is Fleeing Neo-Soviet Russia

EDITORIAL

Yelena Maglevannaya is Fleeing Neo-Soviet Russia

Yelena Maglevannaya

On February 18, 2009, the Russian government initiated a defamation lawsuit against 27-year-old Yelena Maglevannaya, a reporter for the local newspaper Svobodnoye Slovo (“Free Word”) and the human rights website Civitas.ru in the city of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad).  She also blogs, in Russian, on Live Journal, and she signed a petition against Russian aggression in Georgia that was joined by many prominent human rights leaders across the country.  

The Kremlin accused Maglevannaya of publishing false allegations about federal prison authorities in a series of articles in which she reported acts of torture being carried out by the local government against Zubayr Isaevich Zubayraev, then housed in the local jail administered by the Russian government (as are all such institutions since all Russian criminal law is federal). At the same time that the lawsuit was filed, Zubayraev’s family in Chechnya, especially his sister, began receiving death threats and fled the country.

Now, Maglevannaya has been forced to flee Russia and seek political asylum in the West, just as if Russia were the USSR, in order to avoid being jailed for the simple act of telling the truth about the activities of the Kremlin.

EDITORIAL: An Ugly American Visits the Dentist

EDITORIAL

 An Ugly American Visits the Dentist

So, it seems some American idiot named Kyle Keeton has married a Russian babe and moved to Russia, setting up an inane blog called “The Windows to Russia” to record his experiences. 

He doesn’t speak Russian, so it’s dubious for starters as to how much of the country he’s actually experiencing.  Here’s a disturbing example of the embarrassing consequences when one is that oblivous of his surroundings, as our friend Mr. Keeton spends a day at the Russian dentist’s office.

EDITORIAL: Annals of Russian Stupidity

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.

Bloody Dagestan, out of Control

Vladimir Putin says the “Chechnya problem” has been solved. The facts say something quite different.  Not only is the problem not solved, it’s spreading.The Moscow Times reports:

The Interior Minister of the volatile North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, known for his brutal and indiscriminate fight against radical Islamists, was killed Friday afternoon in the republic’s capital, Makhachkala.   The attack, the latest in a series of deadly assaults on North Caucasus police officers, removed the top regional law enforcement officer and demonstrated the continued strength and agility of the tightly-tied underground criminal and insurgent networks, Dagestani officials and political analysts said. 
 

Putin Escalates the Persecution of Artists

NPR reports (click the link for audio):

A Moscow museum director and a prominent curator seeking to protest Russia’s renewed censorship could face up to five years in prison in a criminal case that international human rights groups say targets freedom of expression in Russia. They are charged with inciting hatred and offending human dignity.

June 8, 2009 — Contents

MONDAY JUNE 8 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Russia’s Looming Depression

(2)  EDITORIAL:  America, Stomping Russia

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Vladimir Putin is a Madman

(4)  Russia Must be Stopped in Georgia!

(5)  READER POLL:  Who’s the Ugliest Russian Tennisistka?

(6)  French Open Recap

NOTE: We don’t know if such facts are of general interest to our readers, but we like to be as transparent as we can so we’ll let you know that our traffic pattern over the past month has been an exciting one. Click the jump if you want to know the details.

EDITORIAL: Russia’s Looming Depression

EDITORIAL

Russia’s Looming Depression

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Russia. It tolls for thee. 

The humiliation just keeps rolling in for a Russia plagued by Putinomics.  Russia can’t afford to host its Russian Open golf tournament this year, and when it can’t even maintain its matroshka nesting-doll industry, you know the writing is on the wall.  National disgrace follows on national disgrace when you hand the reins of power to the an unqualified KGB spy.

We learned last week that  Russia’s budgetary reserve fund shrank an amazing 12% last month, as the Kremlin squandered over 400 billion rubles to keep Russia’s current fiscal year from sliding into freefall.  Well over one trillion rubles have now poured out of the fund since the ecnomic crisis begin.   The Kremlin has seen its projected revenues plummet as demand for Russian oil and gas has evaporated; as we reported last week Gazprom, Russia’s leading industrial enterprise has seen its book value fall by two-thirds and slashed its dividend by nearly 90%.  So it needs money to cover operating costs, and there are only three ways to get it:  (1) print it (but then inflation would go crazy, and Russia already has double-digit inflation); (2) borrow it (but then Russia would become the helpless slave of the lenders) or (3) spend the rainy-day fund.  It’s chosen the latter option, but the reserves are distinctly finite.

If Russia were to continue spending its budgetary reserve at this rate, it would not last 0ut the year, and the Kremlin would lose control of its budget in January 2010.  And the fact is, spending may not simply continue at the current rate, it may dramatically accelerate if the price of oil falls or other government intervention is required, for instance to deal with defaulting loans.  Soon, very soon, Russia will be at the mercy of foreign lenders just like the USSR always was, and its ability to deliver even the meager services it now provides to its desperate population will evaporate.  The International Monetary Fund says Russia will experience no significant economic growth in 2010 after a massive contraction this year.  The World Bank agrees.  That means budget revenues won’t improve and the reserve will surely exhaust next year, if not this one.

EDITORIAL: America, Stomping Russia

EDITORIAL

America, Stomping Russia

The chart above declares, far more powerfully than any words ever could, how totally insane it is for Vladimir Putin to so aggressively pursue a new cold war with the United States.  He shouldn’t need such economic data, of course, a simple study of history ought to sufifice. 

Russia’s economic performance has been nearly four times worse than America’s over the past twelve months, more than twice as bad as Europe’s and comparable only to Japan, a tiny island with no raw material resources of any kind and a standard of living immeasurably higher than Russia’s.  This ratio matches up perfectly with the report we carried in our last issue from a Russian economist showing that Russian workers are four times less productive than Americans.

EDITORIAL: Vladimir Putin, Raving Madman

EDITORIAL

Vladimir Putin, Raving Madman

“Buchenwald teaches us that we must be ever-vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time, that we must reject the false comfort that others’ suffering is not our problem, and commit ourselves to resisting those who would subjugate others to serve their own interests.  I have no patience for people who would deny history.”

– U.S. President Barack Obama in Dresden, Germany on June 5, 2009

If that is so, Mr. Obama will find his patience sorely tried when he visits Russia next month and looks into the eyes of unholy, history-denying evil.

Visiting Helskinki last week, Russian “prime minister” Vladimir Putin chose to use the occasion for yet another of his crazed aggressive diatribes in support of Russian imperialism.  He stated in regard to gas shipments to Ukraine: “Gazprom will only supply the gas which has been prepaid. Without the gas pumped into storage, Ukraine will simply not survive and will be forced to take gas destined for transit. This may lead to a stoppage of gas transit to Europe in the end of June or start of July.”

Obama must stop Putin in Georgia!

An editorial in the Washington Post sounds the clarion call of warning on Russian aggression in Georgia:

A year ago, Russian military maneuvers and provocations of the former Soviet republic of Georgia caused a couple of astute observers to predict that Moscow was laying the groundwork for a military invasion of its democratic and pro-Western neighbor. The warnings were laughed off — until Russian forces poured across Georgia’s borders on the night of Aug. 7, routing the Georgian army and driving thousands of ethnic Georgians from two breakaway provinces. Ten months later, with another summer approaching, Russia is once again mounting provocations on the ground and in diplomatic forums; once again it has scheduled a large military training exercise for July in the region bordering Georgia.

READER POLL: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Most Hideous of them All?

Some in the Russophile and Russian nationalist set like to try to claim that Russian women are more beautiful than those from other countries. After the jump, we offer a beauty pagent of the seven seeded Russian women at the French Open tennis tournament last week. By way of rebuttal, we ask you the reader to choose the ugliest — and we put it to you that it’s a really tough call, so think carefully before you vote.   Mind you, these are the official photographs of each player, taken from the official Roland Garros website this year. We haven’t selected them to make the contestants look bad.  If you’d like to attempt an argument in favor of the world-beating allure of any of these classic Russian beauties, the comments are open to your attempt.  If you think any other Russian female tennis player is even uglier and more worthy of the crown, let us know.

French Open Recap

With an all-Russian ladies’ final taking place last week at the venerable Roland Garros stadium last week for the French Open, Russia should have been steeped in glory.  Unfortunately, such was — as is so often the case for Russia – far from the case. Russian women suffered an amazing, unprecedented humiliation, and then there was their performance on the actual tennis courts of Roland Garros, which was even worse.

June 7, 2009 — Contents

SUNDAY JUNE 7 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Mr. Medvedev, his Carpet and his Broom

(2)  Russia: Slacker Nation

(3)  Kiselyov on Russia’s History Fascism

(4)  Images from Russia’s Racist Wasteland

(5)  Germany Suckers Russia into Automotive Boondoggle

EDITORIAL: Mr. Medvedev, his Carpet and his Broom

EDITORIAL

Mr. Medvedev, his Carpet and his Broom

See Dima sweep.  Sweep, Dima, Sweep! Under the carpet! Sweep, sweep, sweep!

Streetwise Professor reports that last week Russian “president” Dima Medvedev announced a massive new slate of spending reductions forced upon his government by the national economic collapse.  Paul Goble reports that among these will be a brutal slashing of the budget for the 2010 census.

Let’s overlook the fact that the Putin regime is apparently still able to find plenty of funds for nuclear weapons and other ways of provoking and escalating the new cold war, sending all sorts of wealth to all sorts of places from Venezuela to Syria.  Let’s not focus on what these draconian cutbacks mean for the people of Russia.  Let’s instead watch Dima feverishly trying to sweep it all under the carpet.

Russia: Slacker Nation

We are inclined to nominate this brilliant essay from the Moscow Times by Vladislav Inozemtsev, the director of the Research Center for Postindustrial Society and the publisher and editor-in-chief of Svobodnaya Mysl magazine for the title of most devastating critique of Putinomics ever written by a Russian. Just goes to show there is still some hope left, while great patriots like this have the courage to speak out:

Russian experts and policymakers have increasingly raised the question of productivity, stressing that the country’s lag behind leading global economies has become an acute nationwide challenge. On May 15, President Dmitry Medvedev addressed the issue at a meeting on modernization and technological development and emphasized that “we must not forget one simple, unfortunate fact: Labor productivity in this country is currently equivalent to only one quarter of the labor productivity in the United States.”

According to the World Bank, every employed Russian contributes only $16,100 to the country’s gross domestic product, compared with $38,100 in South Africa, $48,600 in Greece, $59,400 in France and $74,600 in the United States.

But these numbers alone do not reflect the true scope of the problem. Russia’s low productivity is exacerbated by the fact that the country is dominated by natural resource extracting with relatively little industrial development in the real sector. Although the overall productivity in Thailand ($12,500 of GDP for an employed person), Brazil ($16,700) or Malaysia ($22,900) do not differ from Russia’s in a dramatic way, in these countries’ high-tech industrial exports account for 16.2 percent, 22.4 percent and 36.7 percent of all exports, while in Russia they constitute a meager 2 percent. Thus, Russia suffers not only from a low level of productivity but also from a counterproductive economic structure, slow technological progress and outdated labor relations.

Kiselyov on Russia’s History Fascism

Russian pundit Yevgeny Kiselyov, writing in the Moscow Times:

I would be fascinated to know if Westerners can fully appreciate the political significance behind President Dmitry Medvedev’s decision to create a special commission “for counteracting attempts to falsify history to the detriment of Russia’s interests.” Most foreigners would probably say, “This is very strange. Doesn’t Russia have more pressing problems it needs to tackle, such as the managing the crisis, modernizing the country’s political and economic institutions or battling corruption?”

Had the year been 1950, when the Soviet Union was making colossal efforts to recover from the aftermath of World War II, foreigners would have been equally perplexed that Josef Stalin chose that moment to initiate a huge public debate on the Marxist approach to linguistics.

Images from Russia’s Racist Wasteland

A Russian photographer offers the following images of migrant workers in Moscow, how they live and how they work. Their indomitable spirit is an inspiration to us all, as is the rancid nature of their neo-Soviet oppression. Click the link for many more (hat tip Global Voices).

Germany Suckers Russia into Automotive Boondoggle

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The German government has bound the fate of General Motors Corp.’s (GM) European business to the faltering Russian economy by selecting auto-parts supplier Magna International (MG.A.T) as a partner for Adam Opel.

{Click the link to read the rest, explaining how Russia has been suckered into a major boondoggle by the Germans}

June 5, 2009 — Contents

FRIDAY JUNE 5 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  A Tale of a Russian “Hero”

(2)  Russia’s Last Lions

(3)  Russian Discovers Wonders of Electricity

(4)  The Medvedev Behind the Curtain

(5)  Russian Soldiers Betray their Country

(6)  Piontkovsky on Putin’s Minions

(7)  Annals of Shamapova

NOTE:  More evidence of the awesome power of Russian food to enchant and satisfy is that there isn’t one single Russian restaurant in the entire city of Seattle.  Hardly surprising given the boring, off-putting litany of dishes the author describes.

EDITORIAL: A Tale of a Russian “Hero”

EDITORIAL

A Tale of a Russian “Hero”

In 1999, Human Rights Watch documented the involvement of troops under the command of Russian Major-General Vladimir Shamanov in “at least 14 killings which amounted to extrajudicial executions in Alkhan-Yurt in Chechnya.”  What does the Russian government think about this atrocity?  It has made its view quite clear:  Shamanov has been named a national hero and promoted.

Russia’s Last Lions

The Washington Post reports:

They would meet in secret, terrified of a KGB knock on the door. They laboriously typed out banned publications. Many ended up in prison, labor camps and exile. They were the Soviet dissidents, the human faces of the Cold War, waging nonviolent resistance against a cruel and cynical system.

Today, 20 years after Eastern Europe shook off its communist chains, the Berlin Wall fell and the death knell sounded for the Soviet Union, Sergei Kovalyov might have expected to be feted for his role in breaking the chains of communism.Yet the man regarded by some as the patriarch of the dissident movement is almost forgotten at home. He is unyielding in his critique of the new Russia and Vladimir Putin, the man who has done much to shape it, at a time when Putin is popular and criticism can be viewed as disloyalty.

Russian Discovers the Wonders of Electricity

There’s nothing like Vladimir Putin’s brand of law and order, nothing at all.   The Telegraph reports:

The 30-year-old electrician, identified only as Dmitry K, lured victims to his house by posting adverts for computer equipment on the internet.

The Medvedev behind the Curtain

Who is Mister Medvedev?

May 27, 2009

Irina Pavlova

Grani.ru

Translated from the Russian by Other Russia

Plenty has been said and written about the recent anniversary of Dmitri Medvedev’s presidency. The apologists sing their praises for the appearance of a tandem, seeing in it the signs of a new style of Russian politics and the seed of a future separation of powers. The critics, both in Russia and the West, conversely lend the heaviest meaning to any hints of division in the tandem, still hoping that Medvedev will become a monocratic leader and start to modernize the country (although truth be told, the patriot-defenders see modernization in one way, and the liberals in another). “The process of political modernization of the Russian government”, writes one author of the Yezhednevny Zhurnal [online newspaper], “needs a leader. Will President Medvedev have enough courage, political will and public liability to have a clear break from the corrupt bureaucracy? In many ways, Russia’s future depends on it.”

Russian Soldiers Betray their Country

Strategy Page reports:

For the second time in the last three months, Russian customs officials have announced the cracking of a ring of retired and active duty military personnel caught smuggling weapons. In this case, the gang had been operating for about two years and were stealing components for S-75 (a fifty year old system), S-125, S-200 and S-300 (a 1990s design) anti-aircraft missile systems, and smuggling them to neighboring countries (that used to be part of the Soviet Union), where they were sold, or exported to more distant nations that used these missile systems, and were interested in less expensive spare parts. At the time of the arrests, some 22 tons of missile parts were seized. This gang had apparently sold parts that returned to the thieves at least $10 million. Over a dozen officers were involved in the theft and smuggling of these items.