Notebook

Do the math ...

In the Russian economy, once again the dollar is king

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rom August 1998 to February 1999, inflation in Russia was 90%. In August, a dollar bought 6 rubles; now it buys 23. Thus, something that cost 10 rubles in August now costs 19 rubles. But, translated into dollars, that product cost $1.67 in August and just $0.83 in February. One should not be surprised, then, at the scale of the Russian economy’s “dollarization.” 

Meanwhile, the ranks of the poor are swelling. The average real income of Russians has been cut from $160 in August to $50 in February. 10-15 million additional persons are falling below the national minimum wage ($22) each month. Many of these are well-educated, younger Russians who previously were doing well, but have since lost their jobs and status, but not their hopes of a better lifestyle. [Sources: Vechernaya Moskva, Noviye Izvestiya, Carnegie Moscow Center]

A Tsar is Born?

Nikita Mikhalkov’s Siberian Barber aims at Hollywood

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scar-winning director Nikita Mikh-al-kov’s much-hyped, $45 mn film Siberian Barber has nothing to do with barbers and 30% of the film’s dialog is in the language of those living in Siberia. The main dialog is in English and the film stars Julia Ormond and Richard Harris. Thus, the film, which tells the story of an American woman (Ormond) who is enamored with a Russian officer (Oleg Men-shi-kov, star of Prisoner of the Cau-casus, see Russian Life May 1998), is targeted more at Hollywood than Novosibirsk. The film takes place during the reign of Alexander III (played by Mikhalkov), whom the director said deserves more recognition: not a single war, he said, was fought during Alexander’s 13-year reign. The film evokes a longing for stabler, more noble times. This “movie is not so much about how it was in our country,” Mikhalkov said,  “but also about how it should be in our country in our future. And here I am talking about dignity, greatness, generosity and self-sufficiency.” 

The “barber” in the film refers to a huge machine created by an eccentric American inventor (Harris), that is designed to clear-cut Siberia’s forests. And this is the other theme in Mikhalkov’s film. As he said in an interview with the New York Times, “we live on top of fantastic wealth and beg all the time. What is shown on television that Russians have made with their own hands? We should not have to stretch out our left hand for Snickers.”

Appropriately, Siberian Barber (tagline: “He’s Russian, which explains a lot...”) represents Russian filmmaking’s first foray into commercial tie-ins: there are two colognes, a Hermes scarf, a website and phone cards tied into the movie. But the most fascinating tie-in is Mikhalkov’s cameo role as Alexander III (photo, left). Rumors have been swirling around Moscow that the famed director will (or should) make a bid for the presidency in 2000. As Alexander, some have quipped, Mikhalkov had a chance to “try on the Russian crown.”

Recent polls of Russian citizens returned some interesting data:

17% felt Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov was Russia’s most honest politician; 16% each chose Grigory Yavlinsky and Gennady Zyuganov. Alexander Lebed polled 12%. 

12% say Russia should be “a state of Russian people;” 20% said “Russians must have more rights than other peoples.”

50% oppose abolition of the death penalty, vs. 37% just five years ago. 21% said capital punishment should be used more often. Just 5% were in favor of immediate abolition of the death penalty. Russia pledged in 1996 to abolish the death penalty when it joined the Council of Europe, but has so far only imposed a moratorium on executions. 

 [Sources: Komsomolskaya Pravda, Russian Independent Institute of 

Social and National Problems, All-Russian Center of Public Opinion Studies]

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 portrait of poet Alexander Pushkin is part of an exhibition at the Pushkin Memorial Apartment on Moscow’s Arbat street reopened earlier this year. Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov presided over the opening and recited a poem by Pushkin. The poet rented this apartment upon his return from Boldino in late 1830. This is where he brought his young wife Natalya Goncharova after their Moscow wedding. A bronze monument featuring Pushkin and Goncharova will be erected outside the museum’s entrance. The poet and his wife will be shown holding hands under a white stone arch flanked by two lanterns. The monument is to be unveiled on the eve of the poet’s 200th birthday.

Meanwhile, there is no truth to rumors that the famous Pushkin monument will be moved back to its original location. The monument, created by Alexander Opekushin, was unveiled June 6, 1880, on Tverskoy boulevard, across Tverskaya street from where it stands today. In 1950, the monument was moved to the square which is now named Pushkinskaya.

Green vote

Voters in the Ural town of Votkinsk rejected a $54 mn US funded project to build a rocket fuel processing facility in their backyard. The plant was to be built by Lockheed Martin and would have processed nuclear weapon fuel de-com-mis-sioned under START-I. 94.6% of Votkinsk voters rejected the plan, even though it would have created 700 jobs. Votkinsk, a town of 100,000, once produced ICBMs and was the birthplace of composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Environ-men-tal activist Anatoly Lapin summed up local sentiment well before the vote: “Why do we need to be their guinea pigs?”

EURO Declining

The new all-European currency, the Euro, will be a masculine noun in Russian, but will not decline. This, according to a new dictionary of Russian orthography to be issued this year. Vladimir Lopatin, doctor of philology at the Vino-gradov Institute, said the masculine gender is interpreted by native Russian speakers as “more weighty,” therefore it is preferable to use “Euro” in the masculine.

LENIN’S FACELIFT 

Red Square’s Lenin Mausoleum was closed from February 2-April 5, for “prophylactic work” by ex-perts of the Laboratory of Medico-biological Structure of the All-Rus-sian Institute of Healing Plants. “Pro-phylactics” means working on Lenin’s embalmed corpse. The work followed on the 75th anniversary of Lenin’s death in January. 

Peter’s remont

The World Bank will loan $300 mn to a project for rebuilding the historic center of St. Petersburg, ITAR-TASS reported. First installments are expected in 2000-2001. 

Narrow escape

Previously secret archives have revealed that, in the 1920s and 1930s, there were serious plans to rename Moscow “Ilyich city” (after Lenin) or Rykov city (after the former head of Soviet government). The archives also included a letter from the Chekist Yelena Chulo-kova, who sent a secret missive to then head of the NKVD Nikolai Ezhov. It ended with a poem dedicated to Moscow, renamed ... Stalinodar.

Leontiev dies 

Nobel Prize winning economist Vassily Leontiev died February 5, 1999. He was 93. Leontiev emigrated from Russia in 1925, three years before Stalin’s first five-year plan. In the US, he investigated planning in a market economy and his ideas were employed by the FDR administration. Leontiev re-ceived the Nobel in 1973 for his work on the basic principles of macroeconomic regulation. 

Ostpolitik

BMW may produce cars in the Russian enclave of Kali-nin-grad. The company has reportedly chosen Kaliningrad because many Germans still consider the region to be German land and because local automakers already have  necessary skills from assembling Korean Kias. Foreign cars assembled in Russia sell for 20-25% less than imported autos.

deserters caught

A one day nationwide sweep by the military netted 180 deserters of Russia’s embattled army, AP reports. The sweep covered 50 cities and 46 regions around Russia, according to a statement by the military prosecution department. Most of the deserters were detained in Moscow, the Volga region and the Urals.

Lefortovo 300

The Moscow City Government will celebrate the tercentenary of the Lefortovo region Sep-tem-ber 24-26. Festivities will include opening of a Museum of Lefor-tovo History and dedicating a special memorial to Peter the Great and his close friend, Franz Lefort, after whom the district was named. In recent times, the district has become infamous for its prison, where foreign spies are commonly detained.

Phone rates up

The cost of intercity calls within Russia from Moscow increased by 15% in January, as monopoly long--distance operator Rostel-e-kom sought to bring its tariffs in line with those in the rest of the country, The Moscow Times re-por-ted. The new rates apply only to individuals and businesses; businesses will continue to pay more. A call to Smolensk or Voronezh in Central Russia will now cost R3.63 ($0.16) per minute during daytime hours. A call to Sakhalin Island will cost R9.81 ($0.43) per minute during the day, R3.27 at night and R1.64 on weekends.

Heaven scent?

Believers at a Moscow Church say a paper icon of Nicholas II is oozing fragrant myrrh, which they say is proof that the last Russian tsar should be canonized. The Rus-sian Ortho-dox Church has so far re-sisted the canonization of Nich-olas and boycotted his funeral last August, after casting doubt over the auth-en-ticity of the re-mains. Metro-po-li-tan Kirill of Smo-lensk and Kali-nin-grad said the phe-nomenon will be carefully studied and reviewed. The 17-inch tall paper icon at the Church of the Ascension on Goro-khovskoye Pole is a lithographic copy of an icon painted in the United States by an Orthodox monk of Russian descent.

Story Updates

More kissers

2,950 Belarussian couples kissed their way into the Guinness Book of World Record on Valentines Day, breaking the group-kiss record (1,420 couples) held by the US – and unsuccessfully challenged by Russia last year (see Russian Life, Feb/Mar 1999) 

Less erotica

Erotic billboards may be ousted from Moscow’s streets and highways (See Russian Life, Feb/Mar 99). The Moscow City Anti-mo-no-poly Directorate is reportedly surveying all external advertising in the Russian capital. Argumenty i Fakty weekly reported that, if a billboard is judged to be offensive, it will be taken down and the advertiser will face a fine of up to R40,000 ($1700).

BUY RUssian! 

Local food giant Wimm-Bill-Dann noted a 10% sales increase in December 1998 vs. December 1997. “The market has shrunk but our market share has expanded,” Leonid Kompaniets, production director for the Russian company told the Moscow Tribune. The company controls key dairy plants and has a 40% market share of all milk sold in Moscow – 60% outside of the capital. Wimm-Bill-Dann is also famous for its J-7 juices, the most popular local juice brand. “The financial crisis has hurt Western companies most,” Kompaniets said, “because not everyone can afford imports.” (See Russian Life, Dec/Jan 1999)

Wimm-Bill-Dann is leveraging its market position to be a major player in the $800 mn yogurt market and recently began exporting its cranberry juice to the US. It is the first Russian beverage, apart from vodka, and the first Russian consumer good, apart from caviar and crabs, to enter the American market, the Tribune said.

Mukhina Redux?

Recasting a social icon

Renowned Moscow artist Tatyana Naza-ren-ko has offered a modern take on Vera Mukhina’s famous monument “The Worker and the Peasant Woman,” which stands outside Mos-cow’s VDNKh. Nazar-en-ko’s decidedly less propagandistic portrayal was displayed be-tween Manezh square and the famous Kutafya tower. Mean-while, Mu-kh--ina’s original (inset) is deteriorating from lack of upkeep.

Bagels or bubliki?

The shape of things to return

Great Canadian Bagel has opened two franchise shops in Mos-cow. The two cafés offer a wide variety of fresh bagels and cream cheese combos. Plus they also boast great locations: near Bela-russky railway station and on Tverskaya street. 

The outlets are already popular with the expat community and foreign visitors. For Russian clientele, the shape of bagels is reminiscent of the rarely-sighted Russian bublik. Rosbagel, the local franchiser, said they will open four or five shops by the end of the year. 

New Emissary

Russia has a new ambassador to the US. Yury Ushakov, 51,  takes over for Yuly Voront--sov at a challenging time in relations between the US and Rus-sia, when the two powers disagree on se-veral major issues, from NATO expansion to Iraq to Kosovo. Ushakov was Deputy Foreign Minister from 1998-99 and, from 1996-1998 Ambassador to the OSCE. This is his first posting outside Europe. Ushakov is fluent in English and Danish, is married and has one daughter.

The Cuban Solution

... and other whims of the heirs

Cuba is better off than Russia and Russia could learn from the island nation. So said Andrei Brezhnev after a visit to Cuba where he met with Fidel Castro. Brezhnev is the grandson of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and has started a new Communist Party (See Russian Life, Dec/Jan 99). 

Meanwhile, Stalin’s grandson has launched a new political party named, appropriately, the Stalinist Bloc. Colonel Yevgeny Dzhu-ga-sh-vili, a retired air force officer who lives in Georgia, is the son of Yakov Dzhugashvili, Stalin’s son from his first marriage. Dzhugashvili heads a 50,000 member Stalin So-ciety and will lead the new political bloc, which is comprised of the movement Work-ing Russia and the Union of Officers. The Mos-cow Times reported Dzhugashvili as saying that “in contrast to the war against Nazi Germany, the enemy today is among us and hiding.” 

Finally, rounding off the Soviet-era news, Kirsan Il-yum-zhinov, president of Kal-mykia, has offered to take Moscow’s “retired” statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky and erect it in Elista. The Russian Duma recently voted to place the statue back in its former location on Lubyanka Square, but the idea was rather quickly nixed by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.

“If the wolf’s liver aches, it doesn’t mean his teeth have fallen out.” 

– Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky on Boris Yeltsin’s health.

“We will pay as usual: little and rarely.” 

– Russian Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov, on salary payments in Russia.

“Russia suffers from ‘a dinosaur syndrome.’ Its head is small and its body enormous. By the time a signal from the tiny and often, sad to say, brainless head has reached the end of the tail, the situation has often changed.”

– Alexander Lebed.

“I guess I have never achieved anything good in business, though I have never done any business for that matter.” 

– Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznev.

“Making predictions in our country is a thankless task.”

– Former vice-premier Boris Nemtsov. 

Sources: Kommersant Daily, Kapital, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Itogi, The Moscow Tribune.

A Sporting Chance

Russia’s athletes turn the tide

For the most part, 1998 was a disappointing year in Russian sports. But 1999 is off to a much better start. In early February, the Russian na-tion-al team won the world championship in bandy, defeating the Finnish squad 5:0. On the same day, speed skater Vadim Sayutin placed second overall in the World Speed Skating Champion-ship, taking a gold medal in the 5 km race. In early Jan-uary, Russia’s junior national hockey team won the gold at the world championship in Canada, defeating the Ca-na-dian team. While Rus-sian athletes had attained such vic-tories in these sports before (in 1991, 1987 and 1992, respectively), it was only competing as Soviet or CIS athletes.

In tennis, Russia’s Yev-geny Kafelnikov broke new ground in January when he won the singles title at the Australian Open. It was Ka-fel-nikov’s and Russia’s second Grand Slam title (he won the French Open in 1996) and it propelled him to the highest world tennis ranking ever for a Russian player: #2. Ob-ser-vers noted a new maturity in Kafel-nikov’s play, attributing it to his recently becoming a father. (Meanwhile, Anya Kur--ni-ko-va (see Russian Life, Dec/Jan 99) won her first Grand Slam title in Australia, in doubles with Switzerland’s Martina Hingis.)

Soccer may also be re-bounding after some difficult times (see Russian Life, Dec/-Jan 99). Spartak-Moscow de-feat-ed arch-rival Dinamo-Kiev 2:1 in the highly competitive CIS Cup. This was Spartak’s first CIS Cup victory after three failed runs at the title. In addition, the Russian National Team won the European title, against Spain, in mini-soccer.

Russian figure skaters have found the condition of local rinks so bad that most all have taken to training abroad. Still, Russian skaters swept 9 out of 12 medals at the European Ice Skating Championships earlier this year.

Russia’s hockey superstar, Pavel Bure (aka “the Russian Rocket”), found the ice at CSKA Moscow (his home club) good enough to play on while he was in negotiations on his new NHL contract. Bure, who has scored over 50 goals in each of his last three NHL seasons, played with the CSKA squad this winter after falling out with his coaches in Van-couver. The negotiations led to his signing a $40 million multi-year contract with the Florida Panthers, making him the highest paid hockey player in the world. (In other hockey news, the Russian team Metallurg won the European League Interclub Cup – defeating Dinamo Moscow 2-1 in the finals.)

In a recent editorial in Sport-Express magazine, Ser-gei Rodichenko wrote that, “We have way too many difficulties in our country. But as it turned out, any difficulties can be overcome if the word “Russia” be-comes more than just the name of a place of residence.” Russia’s politicians, diplomats and economists may not yet have grasped this notion, but certainly Russian athletes are showing they “get it.”

ace!

Moscow’s Kremlin Cup tennis tournament (see Russian Life, Dec/Jan 99) was recognized at the annual meeting of ATP tournament directors as having the best level of organization of any tournament in 1998.

smooth skiing

The women’s Nordic ski team confirmed its international reputation by taking the gold in the 30 km and in the 4x5 km relay race at the world championship in Ramsau, Austria.

good defense

In Paris, Russian boxer Anatoly Alexandrov defended his WBO title in the under 57 kg class. He defeated Mexican challenger Ar-nul-fo Castillo with a TKO in the 8th round. It was his first defense of the title since capturing it in May of last year.

a home at last

Soccer fans vote for president too. Which may be just part of the reason Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov recently promised that Moscow’s Spartak – Russia’s most popular club – will get their own stadium in the capital. A site near Bota-ni-chesky Sad metro station has been slated and the stadium may well open by 2003. The club un-veiled a new soft drink, Spartak Cola, proceeds from the sale of which will be put toward construction of the stadium.

happy hoopster

Nikita Morgunov, a 23-year-old player from the Saratov basketball club Avtodor – arguably Russia’s second best team after Moscow’s CSKA – has signed a contract with the Portland Trailblazers. Lithu-anian-born Arvidas Sabonis also plays for the Trailblazers.