EDITORIAL
Biden in Ukraine & Georgia
Visiting Ukraine and Georiga last week, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (shown at left meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko) had some tough words for Vladimir Putin: “As we reset the relationship with Russia, we reaffirm our commitment to an independent Ukraine, and we recognize no sphere of influence or no ability of any other nation to veto the choices an independent nation make.” He told the people of these two besieged nations something they’ve been waiting too long to hear, that America sends “an unequivocal, clear message to all who will listen and some who don’t want to listen, that America stands with you and will continue to stand.” And he said that Russia “used a pretext” to invade Georgia
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Categories: editorial · georgia · obama · russia · ukraine
Tagged: georgia, joe biden, russia, ukraine
Translator’s Note: This caught my eye today as it rather continues the thought I was illustrating recently about how Russia and the Soviet Union before it seem to think that vile crimes can be whitewashed by awarding medals to the perpetrators of crimes instead of prosecuting them. The article below by EJ’s Kara-Murza is about the poor places in Russia lumbered with the names of executioners instead of their proper names.
Executioners on the Map in Russia
Vladimir Kara-Murza (Jr.)
Yezhednevny Zhurnal
21 July 2009
Translated from the Russian by Dave Essel
Moscow: Repent!
I never thought that I would ever find myself in agreement with Vladimir Ivanovich Yakunin about anything. A former KGB man (it is rumoured that Vladimir Ivanovich worked in the KGB’s New York residency in the 1980s), a current member of the Ozero dacha compound, the director of a number of companies, the patron of various “state-patriotic” organisations, and the head of RZhD Russian railways, Yakunin could serve as a generic portrait of the Russian élite in the age of the Chekist kleptocracy.
In early July, however, the State Railways Corporation issued an instruction that Moscow’s Leningrad Station was to revert to its historic name – Nikolayev Station – and made it known that this was not the last name change that would take place. The instruction remained in force for no more than a few hours: after an urgent telephone call from on high, it was rescinded and the Moscow map reacquired a railway station named after a non-existent city, which itself was named after the pseudonym of the founder of one of the cruellest and bloodiest régimes the world has ever seen.
This railway station affair, one can readily imagine, will surely put paid to any further contemplation of reformist ideas by the head of RZhD. But a broken watch shows the right time twice a day for all that.
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Categories: essel · russia · translations
Tagged: dave essel, kara-murza, russia
EDITORIAL
In neo-Soviet Russia, the Show watches YOU
You could be forgiven if you thought Soviet rock star Victor Tsoi was a national hero in Russia. After all, you’d seen his face on a postage stamp!
But as with so many of your other thoughts about neo-Soviet Russia, you were oh so very wrong, you stupid, stupid foreigner.
True, the city of St. Petersburg is in the process of building a public monument to the Kino front man, but if you were a Russian you would clearly understand why that hasn’t stopped local police in the city from deciding that Kino’s fans are dangerous infiltrators bent on Russia’s destruction. Therefore, they have them under permanent surveillance. Their authority to do so, they say, comes from Vladimir Putin’s “Law on Extremism” passed in 2006 and aimed at terrorists. They claim the right to engage in “preventive work” to stop the dangerous Kino terrorists from bringing mighty Russia to her knees. You know, perhaps the kind of “preventive” measures used recently against Natalia Estemirova.
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Categories: arts/letters · education · neo-soviet crackdown · russia
OpEdNews.com reports:
Ordinarily, I look forward to the Winter Olympics. I find it thrilling to watch some of the world’s greatest athletes perform on ski slopes and skating rinks in gorgeous mountain settings. But I don’t think I will be able to enjoy the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Planned for Russia’s Black Sea resort town of Sochi and the nearby Caucasus Mountains, the Games are shaping up to be an environmental disaster.
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Categories: russia · sochi
Tagged: russia, sochi
Yet another Russian human rights activist has been assassinated, again with direct and obvious involvement of the Russian government. Andrei Kulagin, who disappeared two months ago in Petrozavodsk, near Finland, has been found brutally murdered and dumped in a quarry. He founded an NGO called “Justice” (“Spravedlivost“) and focused on prisoners rights, confronting authorities with demands for humane treatment of incarcerated persons, and was heading up their office in northwestern Russia. The Russian government has been at war with prisoners’ rightst activists in recent months, prosecuting them on bogus criminal charges and forcing them into exile or silence, as we’ve previously reported..
Andrei Kulagin follows Natalia Estemirova into the Grave!
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has banned an UN investigation into the murder of Natalia Estemirova just days ago (just as it has ejected UN and OSCE observers from Ossetia). What does the Kremlin have to hide? Everything!
The Kremlin is on a bloodthirsty rampage, striking down its perceived “enemies” in exactly the same manner as Stalin did, with little or no public outcry from ordinary Russians — just as was the case in the time of Stalin. Russians are watching — or helping — as the USSR is brought back to life like some obscene Frankenstein. The horror is unspeakable. Russia is descending into unholy barbarism.
Categories: murders
Tagged: andrei kulagin, russia
