June 21, 2010 — Contents

MONDAY JUNE 21 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Russian Barbarism Unbound I

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Russian Barbarism Unbound I

(3)  Moscow for “Russians” Only

(4)  Translation: Ilyumzhinov’s Game

(5)  Improving Russia is not in the Kremlin’s Interests

EDITORIAL: Russian Barbarism Unbound I

EDITORIAL

Russian Barbarism Unbound I

In yet another stunning act of Russian barbarism last week, the Tverskoi District Court in Moscow ruled that the malignant henchmen of dictator Vladimir Putin are beyond the law.

The court stated that to allow a lawsuit against employees “who are directly subordinate to the president” would result in “a direct or indirect interference in the constitutional and legal activities of the president who enjoys immunity as the head of state.”

Though the decision was actually taken in April, it did not surface until the court posted it on its website last week.  The press spokesperson for the court refused to comment. The Moscow Times reported:

EDITORIAL: Russian Barbarism Unbound II

EDITORIAL

Russian Barbarism Unbound II

Russian Patriot Boris Nemtsov

Is anyone surprised?

No sooner had former First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Boris Nemtsov published the latest installment (Russian language link, our translation is forthcoming) in his “Itogi” series exposing with documented sources the utter failure of the Putin regime to properly manage the country than Putin’s neo-Soviet Gestapo moved in and seized 100,000 copies of it.

The Russophile and Russian-nationalist scum would like to contend that Boris Nemtsov is a “loser” nobody in Russia supports. There are two rather obvious flaws in this line of “thinking.”  First, Nemtsov has either been exluded from the ballot or savagely supressed as a candidate, and then faced with stuffed ballot boxes, every time he’s tried to seek office.  Second, if Nemtsov really were a harmless laughingstock, why in the world would the Kremlin take the trouble to confiscate his publication?

The fact is, and for good reason, the Putin Kremlin is obviously terrified of Nemtsov. 

Moscow: For “Russians” Only

Paul Goble reports (also see Michele Berdy’s mocking, acidic piece in the Moscow Times):

A senior Moscow Duma official says that his city plans to “work up a collection of rules” which will help those coming to Moscow to fit in with the style of life of the Russian city and know from a pamphlet to be published outlining “what is acceptable and what isn’t” for all residents in what he described as an “ethnic Russian” city.

In an interview published in today’s Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Mikhail Solomentsev, the chairman the city Duma’s committee on inter-regional ties and nationality policy, said that such a set of rules will help unite newcomers with longtime residents by stressing what the two have in common rather than what separates them. But his comments about this plan make it clear that he believes it is migrant workers and non-Russians who must adapt rather than the Russians into whose city the former have moved, an attitude that almost certainly will exacerbate the already tense ethnic relations in Moscow whatever Solomentsev in fact hopes for.

Ilyumzhinov’s Game

Ilyumzhinov’s Game

By Stanislav Belkovsky

May 24, 2010

Grani.ru

Translated from the Russian by The Other Russia

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE:  While not commonly thought of as particularly controversial, the politics of world chess made international headlines late last month when a Kremlin aide hired a private security force to raid the offices of the Russian Chess Federation, evict its chairman, and seal off its accounting books. The move came a week after the Federation nominated chess grandmaster Anatoly Karpov, backed by opposition leader and longtime chess rival Garry Kasparov, as a candidate for the presidency of the World Chess Federation. The incumbent, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is the multi-millionaire president of Russia’s autonomous Republic of Kalmykia. Among other things, Ilyumzhinov is famous for declaring an “economic dictatorship” and claiming to have been visited by aliens. What exactly the stakes are in this unlikely scandal is the topic explored in this column written for Grani.ru by Russian political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky.

Another striking move was made the other day in the battle for the presidency of the World Chess Federation [FIDE]. By order of Arkady Dvorkovich, an aide to the president of the Russian Federation and chairman of the Supervisory Council of the Russian Chess Federation (RCF), several men in black seized the legendary Central Chess Club on Gogolevsky Bulvar and sealed off the office of RCF Chairman Alexander Bakh and, of course, the accounting office. Such is the way that all professionals and fans that support the candidacy of 12th World Champion Anatoly Karpov for the post as the head of FIDE were given a clear signal: you can meddle about, bustle around, do whatever you want – but we (that is, Dvorkovich & Co.) will never, under any circumstances, ever give you FIDE.

Improving Russia is not in the Kremlin’s Interests

Vladimir Ryzhkov, writing in the Moscow Times:

Russians hold no illusions about the ability or the willingness of the authorities to “modernize” — the government’s latest catchword — and view such proclamations in the opposite light of that intended. President Dmitry Medvedev and his administration view modernization as the exclusively technological renewal of the country. The president identified five areas in which new technologies should be developed. New legislation is being drafted to stimulate development of the technologies. The decision has been made to build an innovation city in Skolkovo in the Moscow region that will enjoy legal and tax incentives, and the project has already earned the nickname of Vekselburg, in honor of its director, billionaire Viktor Vekselberg.