Two huge ships that France has nearly finished constructing for Russia are on ice. Western sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine and fears that Russia might exploit the Western technology the warships contain have put delivery on hold.
The Mistral-class helicopter carriers are still in France, where Russian sailors are undergoing training. But the sailors may have to head home without the ships, as France’s NATO allies are ratcheting up the pressure to convince Paris to walk away from the $1.5 billion contract.
Meanwhile, France is between a rock and a hard place, unwilling to give warships to an increasingly militant Russia – whose navy and air force has allegedly violated European waters and airspace quite frequently of late – while desperate not to end up with two ships fitted out for Russian sailors that it cannot sell to anyone else. (Well, except perhaps Ukraine.)
A doping controversy broke out in the world of Russian sports because of allegations voiced by 800-meter runner Yulia Stepanova in a German documentary. According to Stepanova, the Russian Athletics Federation is overseeing an elaborate system in which athletes travel under assumed names to dodge drug tests. Another athlete, discus thrower Yevgenia Pecherina, said that 99 percent of athletes take banned substances to boost their performance. Russian officials rejected the claims, threatening legal action to defend the good name of Russian sports.
A crowdfunding campaign in Russia is aimed at preserving the memory of victims of Stalinist repression street by street. The project Last Address, launched by the Memorial human rights organization and other independent activists, raised R1,500,000 in an online campaign to organize a Russian effort modeled on Germany’s Stolperstein (Stumbling Block) initiative, which commemorates individuals who perished in the Holocaust with small, individual “stumbling blocks” near their place of residence.
Last Address started with relatives or neighbors of purge victims ordering plaques to mount on the buildings where the victims last lived. The metal plaques with the names of the victims were affixed to the first buildings in Moscow in December.
Anyone who wishes to commemorate an individual can apply to have such a plaque made via the project website: poslednyadres.ru
Russia has opened the largest shopping mall in Europe. Launched in November, just before the economy ministry announced that it expects an economic recession next year, Moscow’s 150-store Aviapark is located near the metro stations Dynamo and Aeroport. The mall has a giant floor-to-ceiling aquarium and is so big that the city plans to open a new metro station to service it, called Khodynskoye Pole – which also happens to be the name of the field where a horrible stampede killed 1389 in 1896, during the coronation fete for Nicholas II.
The precipitous fall in the value of the ruble is wreaking all sorts of havoc, including on Russian sports teams, which have hired foreign talent over the past few years but now cannot pay players and coaches the amounts specified in their foreign currency-denominated contracts.
Fabio Capello, coach of the national soccer team, has not been paid for several months. In early December, however, he said he wants to continue working for free.
Meanwhile, football (soccer) clubs in Crimea have been disqualified by the UEFA for playing in the Russian league this season after Kiev claimed that Simferopol’s and Sevastopol’s clubs had no business playing for Russia. For the time being, Crimea will be considered a “special zone” according to UEFA, and Russia has no right to hold matches in Crimea. Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said the decision was not in the spirit of football.
Kalashnikov Concern, the company that now controls production of the storied automatic rifle in the Urals, has decided to rebrand itself. In a lavish event in Moscow, Kalashnikov unveiled a new logo and vowed to double production and expand its export network, despite losing substantial contracts after being hit with sanctions from the West.
Kalashnikov, named after Soviet weapon designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, the legendary figure behind the ubiquitous AK-47, also announced that it was launching a sportswear line.
Kalashnikov, which has three separate brands of military, sports, and civilian weapons – Kalashnikov, Baikal, and Izhmash, respectively – said it will boost sales by marketing domestically (even though gun ownership remains highly restricted in Russia) and move from the United States to markets in Latin America and Asia.
Guests at the launch event received empty Kalashnikov clips and a glass of champagne.
The disbanded staff of lenta.ru, a popular Russian news website that came under fire for its reporting on the Ukrainian conflict, and whose editor was unceremoniously fired in March, has launched a new publication, Meduza.
Based in Latvia, meduza.io (the name means “jellyfish”) aggregates news from other websites and publishes in-depth articles by its own reporters – those who left lenta.ru with editor Galina Timchenko.
The publication has featured articles on issues ranging from the likelihood of a pro-Russian insurgency in Kazakhstan to the Russian cure for ebola and a story about a man who spent years in a Turkmen prison.
Russia’s largest book prize, the Big Book, was awarded for 2014 to Nizhny Novgorod writer Zakhar Prilepin, whose novel Obitel (“Dwelling Place”), set in Solovetsky Prison Camp, has been compared with the Soviet prison literature of Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov. The novel is about a man named Artyom who is sent to the northern archipelago in the 1920s for murder.
At three million dollars, Big Book is one of Europe’s largest book prizes, and Prilepin has reportedly donated the financial award to separatists in eastern Ukraine, whose cause he openly sympathizes with.
Another important literature prize, the Russian Booker, went to Big Book bronze recipient Vladimir Sharov, who wrote A Return to Egypt.
Sharov, a historian, had an earlier book, Before and During, published in English in 2013. A Return to Egypt is set in the present day, but is about a descendant of Nikolai Gogol, also named Kolya, who takes it upon himself to finish the great writer’s novel, Dead Souls.
“The internet and television are aggressive and we must protect our younger generation from this harsh informational environment. This is especially true of erotic material. Children under 14 should not see such things, since it can corrupt their moral impulses.”
- Duma member Yelena Mizulina (Interfax)
“Following the example of ancient Slavic chiefs and renowned Cossack atamans, let us face off one-on-one. He who wins will dictate his terms.”
- Igor Plotnitsky, head of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic in Eastern Ukraine, challenging Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to a duel. (TASS news agency)
“Russia’s official position has been expressed in the short but substantive statement by the Foreign Ministry on the results of the elections. It employed the term ‘respect.’ ”
- Yury Ushakov, foreign policy aide to Vladimir Putin, parsing words after elections in eastern Ukraine elected rebel leaders who were not recognized by Kiev. Previously, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had said Moscow would recognize the vote. (Interfax)
“When we think about blue cheese, it distracts us from thinking about other things. That one needs to be kind, respectful, honest… We all grew up in Soviet times. Was it really so bad when there were potatoes and herring on the table, when every family had the same foods in the refrigerator? Were we worse off as a result?”
- Sergei Syomka, 48, deputy governor of Novosibirsk Province, taking a philosophical view of Russia’s embargo of foreign foods. (News.NGS.Ru)
“We can see the tragic consequences that have swept through countries that were subjects of the ‘American-style democracy inoculation’ experiment. We see the collapse of their economy, the horrifying social situation, the de-facto collapse of the state. That will never happen in the Russian Federation. Anyone who believes otherwise should beware.”
- Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev. (RBK Daily)
Тот канал или то СМИ, которое сегодня займет не патриотическую точку зрения, просто окажется экономически неуспешным, потому что от него отвернется аудитория.
“Any channel or any media outlet that today adopts an unpatriotic viewpoint will simply end up an economic failure, because its audience will turn away from it.”
Alexei Volin, deputy communication minister (Dozhd channel)
“Businessmen want to work, to invest, build factories and develop trade. And businessmen are very concerned about what they hear on radio and TV.”
Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, on Russia’s increasing economic and political isolation (ITAR-TASS)
Это произошло не из-за каких-то системных инженерных сбоев, а от недостаточности дисциплины, безалаберности отдельных сотрудников.
“This happened not due to some systemic engineering failures, but because of a lack of discipline, because of the carelessness of certain employees.”
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin, on the causes of a deadly derailment in the Moscow Metro (Rossiya channel)
Конечно, влияют, но у меня нет имущества в США, нет счетов. Но санкции не дают мне возможности изучить красоту их природы, изучить их культуру, показать своим детям их природу. Я хотел прокатиться на мотоцикле по Америке. <….> Это их решение лишает меня этой возможности.
“Of course they matter, but I don’t have any property or accounts in the United States. Still, the sanctions keep me from admiring their natural wonders, studying their culture, or showing their natural wonders to my children. I wanted to take a motorcycle trip across America… this decision deprives me of this opportunity.”
Rosneft Chairman Igor Sechin, one of the first to be sanctioned by the United States, on how the measures will effect his life. (RIA Novosti)
Крым — это часть России. Возврат, передача или другие манипуляции даже не подлежат обсуждению.
“Crimea is a part of Russia. Its return, handover or any other manipulations are not even up for discussion.”
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, on whether Moscow will give Crimea back in order to normalize relations with Ukraine and the West. (Russkaya Sluzhba Novostei)
Legendary hockey coach Viktor Tikhonov, who led the Soviet national team to international fame in the 1970s and ‘80s, has died. He was 84. A perfectionist who saw gold as the only possible outcome, Tikhonov started his career as a talented player with Moscow’s VVS (Soviet Air Force) team and later with Dynamo. He came of age in a typical postwar household with a single mother, his father having been killed at Stalingrad.
Tikhonov began coaching in his 30s, in Riga, but was quickly snatched up by Moscow’s Central Sports Army Club (initially hesitant, he could not refuse when then KGB chief Andropov contacted him personally), and eventually led Soviet hockey to new heights when he created the so-called Big Red Machine. Under his leadership, the national team won three Olympic gold medals.
Described as dictatorial in his coaching, Tikhonov experimented and championed revolutionary tactics in hockey, building on the work of his predecessor, Anatoly Tarasov, and creating a flawless organism whose game was compared to a ballet performance.
Recently, Tikhonov tragically lost a son, Vasily Tikhonov, also a hockey coach. His grandson Viktor is a forward in Russia’s current national team, which won the World Championship in Minsk last year.
Kakha Bendukidze, a Georgian economic reformer who advised countries embarking down the post-Soviet path and grew to be despised by Russian leaders, has died at 58.
After making a fortune in the late Soviet and early perestroika era, Bendukidze joined policymakers working with Mikheil Saakashvili to rid Georgia of corruption. He then went on to advise Petro Poroshenko in his implementation of reforms in Ukraine.
Born in Tbilisi to a mathematician father and historian mother, Bendukidze was trained as a biologist and later became known in Russia as a force of nature – given his large frame and domineering personality – working with Mikhail Khodorkovsky and crusading to simplify the business environment, such as through the 13 percent flat tax, which was eventually adopted in Russia. He left Russia in 2004, after Khodorkovsky fell out of favor and was jailed, and served as an economy minister in Georgia.
An actor and outspoken commentator on politics, Alexei Devotchenko was killed in his apartment in Moscow. He was 49.
Devotchenko was born in St. Petersburg and rose to prominence through his theatrical work after studying with Lev Dodin at the Leningrad State Theater Institute. After moving to Moscow, he worked mainly with Kirill Serebrennikov, director of the Gogol Center theater.
The actor was also known for his radically oppositional politics and was frequently seen at protests against President Vladimir Putin. He even renounced his state accolades on his blog. One of his final public statements was in support of Ukraine and denouncing Moscow’s role in the conflict.
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