Notebook

“In Russia 30% of the population has been starving for many years. I also starved – but in order to purge my body. It cleared my head out right away.” 

– Vasily Shandybin, Duma deputy (Argumenty i Fakty)

 

CELL USERS CLIMB

Last year, Russia’s mobile phone market saw unprecedented growth, as three nationwide operators, MTS, Vimpelcom and Megafon, expanded their networks into the regions. The number of cellphone subscribers nationwide topped 32.3 million last October, with 22.3% of Russians now subscribe to a cellular service provider, according to J’son & Partners, a Moscow consultancy. In Moscow, some 62.4% of the population has a cell phone, while in St. Petersburg, the number is 49.6%. Russia’s number two provider, Vimpelcom, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, reported this fall that its third-quarter net profit grew 78%, to $72.2 million, versus the same period in 2002. Russia’s leading cellular service provider is MTS; Megafon is the third largest. Vimpelcom recently acquired 25% of Megafon and hopes to buy a third-generation license at a government auction next year. Above: WWII veterans in Lipetsk oblast who do not have land lines are being given cell phones, paid for by the local administration.

 

Oil Merger Nixed

Sibneft backs out of 

long planned merger with Yukos

 

Late last November, Sibneft suspended its merger with Yukos. The merger would have created the world’s fourth largest energy conglomerate and have been the largest corporate merger in Russian history, creating a company with $15 billion in annual revenue and a market value of around $35 billion. 

Sibneft’s change of heart apparently surprised Yukos leadership and flew in the face of shareholder votes at both companies. It came about a month after Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky was jailed on charges of fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement. Some analysts speculated that Sibneft was frightened by government attacks on Yukos and considered it too risky to get involved with the outcast company. Others said Sibneft was simply using the circumstances to force Yukos into a better deal. There were also reports that the Kremlin pressured Sibneft to back off from the deal in advance of the December Duma elections.

Soros Under Siege

Philanthropic organization

in dispute with landlord

In November, a paramilitary group seized the Moscow offices of the Soros Open Society Institute, a charity owned by American billionaire George Soros, confiscating the foundation’s computers and archives. The raid was ordered by the building’s owner, ostensibly to end a long-stewing dispute over rent. Yet Soros staff and some observers have suggested that the raid may have been politically motivated. 

The raid came shortly after George Soros publicly criticized the jailing of Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky, calling it persecution that was designed to force businesses to submit to the State. Less than a week after the initial raid, a second left four Soros security guards injured.  

The Soros Foundation is heavily involved in promoting civil society and the development of democratic ideals, chiefly in former Soviet bloc countries. George Soros, who has long had difficult relations with Moscow, has worked in Russia for 15 years and has spent nearly a billion dollars here. He announced last June that he was sharply curtailing his philanthropic 

 

activities in Russia, to just $10 million annually, because it was time that the Russian state took greater responsibility for funding philanthropic work. 

 

History Non-Grata

The seventh edition of the high school textbook National History, 20th Century, by teacher Igor Dolutsky, has been banned from school curriculums. The reason given is that the book invites students to discuss a quote by liberal Grigory Yavlinsky, which questions whether contemporary Russia is a Police State. 

Experts at the Education Ministry removed the Ministry’s stamp of approval from the book shortly after President Putin said to a group of historians at the Russian State Library that “modern textbooks for schools and colleges should not become a platform for new political and ideological fighting.” 

Kremlin Digger

Tabloid book may

have sparked Kremlin ire

Ex-Kremlin reporter Elena Tregubova’s new book, Tales of a Kremlin Digger, claims to reveal the dark secrets of life in the Kremlin. It does in fact have some very spicy episodes, including a description of a tête-à-tête lunch in a Japanese restaurant with Vladimir Putin, then head of the FSB. 

While the book is written in boastful, tabloid-style, Tregubova has claimed that her main goal in publishing the book was to expose the crackdown on a free mass-media under President Putin. Shortly after the book came out, an interview with Tregubova was to be broadcast on Leonid Parfyonov’s NTV program, Namedni. But the interview was pulled shortly before it was to be aired, despite plenty of advanced advertising and despite the fact that it was shown in some eastern regions. Many cried Kremlin censorship, but NTV head Nikolai Senkevich said the Powers That Be had nothing to do with it. The interview was pulled, he said, “out of respect for viewers.” 

 

No Trick, No Treat

Moscow forbids 

holiday celebrations

On the eve of Halloween last year, the Moscow Department of Education issued a recommendation advising the capital’s schools not to celebrate the holiday, which has been becoming increasingly popular with Russians in recent years. 

The Department said that dressing up as devils and witches “has a negative effect on children’s up-bringing and psyche.” As an alternative to celebrating Halloween, the ministry recommended that schools organize events “in accordance with basic values of Russian culture.” 

The city government’s stance coincided with a statement by an official of the Russian Orthodox Church: “When people turn to evil forces as a joke, when they praise them and flirt with them, it reflects on the fate of the person, because it teaches him that evil is acceptable,” said Vsevolod Chaplin, deputy head of the ROC’s Department of External Relations. Chaplin continued: “And only over time does the person begin to see that any sin, spiritual or bodily, is destructive, that communication with evil forces may bring temporary gain, temporary success, but will eventually make the person unhappy.” 

The holiday of Halloween has its origins as All Hallow’s Eve, the night before the Catholic holiday of All Saint’s Day. Many of the traditions stem from Celtic New Year’s celebrations, which took place at that time of year for centuries before Christianity arrived in Britain.

 

Schisms New and Old

ROC draws theological

line in the sand

The Russian Orthodox Church announced in November it was freezing relations with the Episcopal Church in the United States. The ordination of Gene Robinson as the first openly-gay Episcopal bishop was cited as the reason for this decision. 

The Russian Orthodox Church has had good relations with the US Episcopal Church for almost 200 years, including during the Cold War period, “when Christians retained mutual understanding in a world divided by military blocs,” said a statement by the ROC’s External Relations Department. The statement went on to say that: “The bishopric of a homosexual makes impossible any contacts with him and his electors in clerical dialogue and the humanitarian, religious and public spheres.” The Moscow Patriarchate concurred: “We must not show any signs of consent with their position, which we regard as anti-Christian and blasphemous.” At the same time, the Russian Orthodox Church stated that it is praying “to God, the Lord of love and reconciliation, to bring members of the American Episcopal Church to their senses and help them return to the path of truth.” (Interfax)

And, as one schism opened, there are signs that a nearly century-old schism may be closing. This fall, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church received a delegation from the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad for the first time since the latter cut ties with Moscow in the 1920s. At that time, the ROCA accused the Moscow Patriarchate of cooperation with the Communists and has run its own affairs ever since. 

 

Lost Flamingo

Villages found a live pink flamingo near the Siberian town of Ust-Kut, in northern Irkutsk region. The exhausted, frozen bird was found by fishermen along the shore of a river. The bird was brought to shelter and nursed back to health. 

It is unclear how a pink flamingo could have wandered into Siberia. The nearest colony of pink flamingoes is in southern Mongolia. Ornithologists hypothesize that the bird lost its way during migration. The flamingo will most likely end up in a zoo.

 

Lumumba Fire 

A November fire at the dormitory of the People’s Friendship University in Moscow, which houses mainly students from developing countries, took the lives of 40 Asian and African students and injured about 180.

Moscow authorities first suggested arson as the cause, but later fixed blame on faulty electrical equipment. News agencies reported that the Moscow Fire Department found many fire code violations when it inspected the dormitory earlier in 2003. 

This is not the first fire of this scale to take place at an educational institution in Russia. Early in 2003, 49 children died in two school fires – 28 at a boarding school for deaf mutes in the southern city of Makhachkala, and 21 in a school in Siberia’s Yakutia region. In 1999, 12 people died and 15 were injured in a fire in the dormitory of Moscow State University.

 

Rising Stars

Anastasia Myskina became the first Russian to win the Kremlin Cup of tennis last October, defeating Amerlie Mauresmo of France, 6-2, 6-4.

Just one week before her Kremlin Cup victory, Myskina defeated U.S. Open and French Open champion Justine Henin-Hardenne in the final in Leipzig, Germany. 

Myskina was seeded third in the tourney and ranked 10th worldwide. The Kremlin Cup was her sixth career title. “With every tournament title, a win at the Grand Slams is becoming more and more realistic,” Myskina told the AP. 

Meanwhile, another rising tennis star, Maria Sharapova, won the Japan Open on the same day as Myskina won her title in Moscow. It was the first time two Russian women won WTA titles on the same day. 

 

No Saving Wales

Late last November, the Russian National Soccer team defeated Wales 1-0 in the second leg of the Euro 2004 playoff. As a result, Russia secured a berth in the finals. Russia’s victory shattered Welsh dreams of its first major championship appearance in 45 years. The Welsh team’s hopes were boosted after they battled to a 0-0 draw vs. Russia in the first leg of the playoff in Moscow. But even home field advantage in the second leg (played in the Welsh capital of Cardiff) was not enough to beat the Russians.

 

 

{SING SING} Six prisoners were pardoned after they won a national prisoners’ singing contest in October. Over 800 contestants competed for the get out of jail free card, with 23 performing in the final round at a Moscow concert hall. In the end, four men and six women walked away free after winning the concert.

 

{GIANT PUMPKINS} A pumpkin weighing 48 kilos 940 grams (108 pounds) won the “Giant Pumpkin” contest held in November in the Ukrainian town of Sevastopol. The pumpkin was grown by pensioner Anna Matveeva, from Orlinoye village. Two other pumpkins, weighing 46 kilos, 440 grams and 45 kilos, 200 grams, respectively, took second and third prizes. Winners received fertilizer, seeds and garden tools. (Interfax)

 

{STALIN REDUX} A bronze bust of Stalin has been restored in the center of Ishim, Tyumen region. The request to restore the monument was made by the local leftist and communist parties and was fulfilled by the town’s administration, which allocated land for the project. The bust, which used to stand next to the town’s cinema, was removed in the early 1990s. In 1999, local communists demanded that it be exhibited in the cultural museum. But the communists complained they could not lay flowers before the bust if it stood inside the museum, which led to the restoration of the outdoor monument.

 

{INTELLIGENT MONUMENT} A monument to the Russian intelligentsia will be constructed in Moscow near the Andrey Sakharov Museum. The monument will be called “Wounded Pegasus” and will feature a stallion soaring skyward, some seven meters above the ground. The winged horse will be held back from flight by metal rails. (Interfax) 

 

{VIKINGS TO RETURN} This spring, Sweden’s Vittfarne Society will launch an international expedition on a replica Viking ship. The course of the journey will take them from Sweden through Ukraine, Russia and the Caucasus. The path of the Vittfarne expedition will trace the great Viking expedition to the East led by Ingvar the Far-Traveled in the 11th century. It will examine whether his journey really could have happened as it has been described in legend. The 21st century Viking journey will traverse the Dnepr River, pass the Crimean peninsula and sail along the Russian and Abkhazian coasts to the mouth of the Rioni River, in Georgia. The three-month journey’s destination is Baku. 

 

Russians who

 

do not trust: 

  any mass-media 20%

 

  the police 44%

 

approve of tighter state 

control over mass media 36%

 

know about the 

pension reform (see p. 40) 76%

 

  and approve of it 70%

 

  and don’t approve of it 26%

 

feel the Yukos case: 

  

  will be followed 

  by trials of other 

  companies 27%

 

  was just a heavy-handed 

  reminder to keep other 

  companies in line 39%

 

  is connected with fraud 

  by Yukos leaders 26%

 

  is being directed 

  by the Kremlin 30%

 

expected the December Duma elections: 

 

  to be fair 23%

 

  to be dirty 54%

 

  would not improve 

  their lives 63%

 

sympathize with: 

  terrorists in Iraq 44%

 

  American forces in Iraq 15%

 

were at loss for an answer 41%

 

think the war 

continues in Chechnya 60%

 

feel that abortion should 

be illegal: 

 

  in all cases 12%

  

  except in cases 

  where there are 

  health concerns 19%

 

feel that abortion should 

continue to be legal 62%

 

Making Census

 

In the 2002 Russian National Census, Russians were asked to indicate their national or ethnic identity. There is some speculation that the data is flawed, because some persons did not want to disclose their ethnic identity. Be that as it may, here are the final data:

 

116,000,000 Russians 

5,560,000 Tatars

2,940,000 Ukrainians

1,670,000 Bashkirs

1,640,000 Chuvash

1,360,000 Chechens

1,100,000 Armenians

600,000 Germans

230,000 Jews

 

STATISTICAL SOURCES

NUMBERS (page 8): 1. Central Electoral Committee quoted by RIA-Novosti. 2. Central Bank quoted by Interfax. 3. Interfax. 4. Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu. 5. Education Minister Vladimir Filippov. 6. State Inspectorate for Traffic Security. 7. Interfax. 8. Labor Ministry.

 

RUSSIANS WHO (page 10): 1. ROMIR Monitoring 2-3. VTsIOM-A 4-6. ROMIR Monitoring 7-20.

 

“In Germany, the population consumes, on average, 130 liters of water per person per day, while in Moscow it is 384 liters. What, are we that much dirtier than Germans?” 

– Yuri Luzhkov, Moscow Mayor (Itogi)

 

“The proportion of smart and stupid people in the military is about the same as in other spheres. But Russian military men have their own peculiarities.” 

– Alexei Arbatov, State Duma deputy (Itogi)