July 9, 2010 — Contents

FRIDAY JULY 9 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Mr. Putin and his “Extremists”

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Putin steps in, Russophiles Exposed

(3)  EDITORIAL:  In Putin’s Russia, Welcome back to the USSR

(4)  TRANSLATION: Nemtsov Volume III, Part 4

(5)  TRANSLATION:  A column that got the author prosecuted

(6)  Wimbledon Wrapup

NOTE:  Oleg Kozlovsky is interviewed by Dutch journalist Olaf Koens.

NOTE:  Say what you like about them, nobody teaches a dachshund to scuba like a Russian!

EDITORIAL: Mr. Putin and his “Extremists”

"Chimera, mystery of the Russian Soul" by Lena Hades

EDITORIAL

Mr. Putin and his “Extremists”

We’re guilty, and we admit it.  If Vladimir Putin has any guts at all, he’ll indict us.  We’ll be happy to pay our own way to Moscow to face his charges of “extremism.”  In fact, in just today’s issue, we’re guilty of at least two different acts of extremism.  Take us away!

Today in this issue we publish our own original translation of an article that appeared in the Russian newspaper Vedomosti, the Russian equivalent of the Wall Street Journal, this past April, authored by Maya Kucherskaya.  Two months later, the Putin regime declared it to be “extremism” and forced the paper to remove the article from its website.  One more such designation and Vedemosti is subject to being shut down by the Kremlin.

Kucherskaya is a highly trained scholar and writer and the recipient of two of Russia’s most prestigious awards for writing.  But not in the eyes of the Kremlin, she’s not. Because she dared to analyze the recent spate of terrorist acts against Russia critically, in the Kremlin’s eyes she’s no different than Shamil Basayev and one of Russia’s most respected newspapers is on the verge of closure.

She’s not alone.

EDITORIAL: Putin steps in, Russophiles Exposed

EDITORIAL

Putin steps in, Russophiles Exposed

We must say that our greatest pleasure here on this blog comes in watching the malignant lies of the braying Russophiles and slobbering Russian nationalists exposed and decimated for all to see.

This happened with particular deliciousness last week in regard to one of their central mendacious narratives, namely that Vladimir Putin cannot be blamed for the actions of local government wiping out civil liberties because he is incapable of addressing such concerns.

Oh really?  Well what happened last week when, in yet another display of typically farcical Russian incompetence, a bridge was shut down in Moscow that prevented residents from reaching the international airport, causing hundreds to miss their flights?  What happened was that suddenly Mr. Putin was in the local bridge business.  “If passengers can’t fly out of Sheremetyevo, then this is a problem,” Putin said at a meeting of the presidium.  Then he set about making policy concerning the bridge.

EDITORIAL: In Putin’s Russia, Welcome back to the USSR

EDITORIAL

In Putin’s Russia, Welcome back to the USSR

We can’t help but wonder how the world in general and Russia in particular would have reacted if, during his presidency, George Bush had circulated a list of 25,000 young people who the White House identified as America’s “most talented youth,” young people who would receive overt favoritism in education and employment from the very highest levels of the U.S. government — and every one of the names was drawn from extreme right-wing political organizations like the John Birch Society and the KKK.

Well, that’s exactly the kind of list that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin officially received last week from his NASHI political cult as they held their annual retreat of indoctrination and scheming, funded by millions of dollars desperately needed federal funds.  Just as in Soviet times, the Putin regime is creating an elite society like the Communist Party and making membership a prerequisite to advancement in the halls of business, politics and industry, the better to control the actions of the mass population.  With every day that passes, Russia is more and more fully neo-Soviet.

Heroic Russian human rights activist Marina Litvinenko expressed the horror of the civilized world towards these proceedings:

Another Original LR Translation: Nemtsov Volume III, Part 4

EDITOR’S NOTE:  This is the fourth installment of our series from Dave Essel translating the latest issue of the Nemtsov White Paper condemning the Putin years.  The first installment is here, the second is here, the third is here, and the prior issues are here. Video of Nemtsov and Milov at the press release is here.

PUTIN: What 10 Years of Putin Have Brought

An independent expert report by
Vladimir Milov and Boris Nemtsov

Translated from the Russian by Dave Essel

CHAPTER FIVE: Oh Dear, the Roads!

We all know that the bad state of our roads roads is one of Russia’s major headaches.

In our first report on the results of Putin, we described in detail the degradation of the road infrastructure under his presidency. The very fact that the rate of road-building dropped during the “fat” years is a disgrace. China in just 20 years has built itself a modern highway network: in 1989 the Chinese had just 147 kilometres of motorway, today they have 60,000.

Meanwhile, in Russia the road-building industry is going down the drain.

Another Original LR Translation: Eternal Values in Putin’s Russia

Eternal Values:  A Breakdown in Communiciation

Vedemosti

April 9, 2010

by Maya Kucherskaya

Translated from the Russian by LR Staff

As always, corrections to the English text are Welcome

Maya Kucherskaya

The investigation into the terrorist attacks in the Moscow metro is in full swing. Already well known are the names and ages of the suicide bombers, their resumes, and whose wives they were.

One was a girl 17 years old.  At 16  she’d left home to be with her beloved, a famous  rebel fighter, who she first met on the Internet. Then she married him and shared his life, waiting for him at home after his military operations, greeted and fed him.  That is, she did so until he was killed in battle.  Along with that man, who was her reason for being, all meaning went out of her life.  She had nothing left except her love for him, and en empty soul.  She had no family, no education, no life experience, so what was she to do?  As she saw it, her only alternative was to meet him again in the afterlife.  It was not difficult for her to meet her end with enthusiasm, knowing that she was doing the will of Allah and avenging her beloved. The sooner the better!  The warlords unflinchingly took advantage of the young girl’s desperation.

The second female bomber, 28-year-old Maryam Sharipova, was in no way similar to the first.

Wimbledon Wrapup

At Wimbledon this year, Svetlana Kuznetsova proved herself a real Russian, in every way

Once again, Russia’s so-called “dominant” women tennis players humiliated themselves and their country spectacularly at a major championship, this time at the world-famous All-England Club at Wimbledon.

First, Russia started out the tournament without one single player among the top 10 seeds, and a mere three in the top 20, just seven overall — less than a quarter of the total.  How the mighty have fallen!

Then, not only was Russia’s  #3 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova booted out of the tournament in the third round by an unseeded opponent, but she disgraced herself and her country even further by refusing to shake her opponent’s hand at the end of the match out of sheer, petty, childish spite at having been bested and ejected by a nobody — and for the final indignity her opponent was a Russian defector now living in Australia.  It was one of the lowest moments in Russian tennis history, indeed in the history of Russian sport itself.

And then it got worse. Oh, so much worse.