Notebook

Road Blues

Drivers call for equal rights 

on the road

Russia is witnessing a ground-swell campaign against officials’ cars bearing flashing blue lights, permitting them special traffic privileges. The campaign has embarrassed public figures and sent deputies away scratching their heads. 

Drivers are coming up with increa-singly creative ways to pressure the government to outlaw the lights and make traffic rules apply equally to all. In the latest campaign, drivers taped plastic blue buckets on top of their cars to mock speeding luxury sedans, while pedestrians have protested by wielding blue pans and bowls. The actions have been organized via online communities like LiveJournal.ru. 

Public outrage at speeding bureaucrats and deputies intensified after a series of high-profile accidents involving the signals. An investigation by Serebrenny Dozhd radio and Vedomosti newspaper discovered that far more signals are used than allowed by law. 

One particularly reckless pro-testor, wearing a blue bucket on his head, is shown in a YouTube video running at a blue-lighted car about to make a left turn near the Kremlin. He  climbs on top of the vehicle, and then eludes capture. bit.ly/aw3E4S

ZiL Zealots

Mercedes no longer acceptable

Russian leaders want to revive production of the ZiL limousine used by the Soviet nomenklatura and briefly by President Boris Yeltsin. President Medvedev has ordered the creation of a special committee to look into reviving production of Russian-made limousines for use by top officials, with the ZiL’s boxy styling to presumably receive hi-tech security upgrades. 

“A car for ‘first persons’ is a certain standard, it’s the pinnacle of the domestic auto industry,” said Viktor Khrekov, spokesman for the Office of Presidential Affairs, which manages property and logistics for the government and president. 

The ZiL used to be mockingly called the “chlenovoz,” because it was used to transport “chlens,” or members, of the Politburo. It was produced from the 1960s to 2000 under the model numbers 114 through 117. To this day, there are eight such cars in the presidential fleet, but most of the rest have been sold to collectors (which include First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov). Developing a new model from scratch would require an investment of R30 billion, experts told Russian Newsweek magazine. It would therefore be far cheaper, though perhaps less patriotic, to continue using Mercedes-Benz limos.

Wealth in Modesty

The tough life of Russia’s entrepreneurs

Russian businessmen keep their money and children abroad, are cautious, and don’t get too attached to their assets, a study by UBS and Campden Research concluded after talking with 25 Russian entre-preneurs that own businesses with an annual turnover of at least $100 million. 

“In this country, one does not have to be a businessman to become wealthy. One must simply be in the right circle: money is made by bureaucrats,” one respondent said, as quoted in Vedomosti. Although the interviewees said they fear raids on their companies, and prefer to keep a low profile, 72 percent of respondents had no plans to expand abroad, instead focusing on Russia. 

Nonetheless, 82 percent said they stash their savings in other countries, namely, Cyprus, Switzerland, and the Virgin Islands, in order to keep it safe. Half said they don’t own any luxury items, to avoid attracting attention to themselves; only two own yachts. 

Some 98 percent prefer investing their earnings in real estate; stocks come second, followed by gold and oil. Fully 75 percent said they do not plan to ever take their company public. Only a third say they want their children to carry on their businesses and inherit the company. “I don’t want to pass on the burden and uncertainty that come with big business in Russia,” one said.

Sports Authority

Top government official 

to rescue sports

After Russia’s spectacularly dismal performance at the Vancouver Olympics, President Dmitry Med-vedev said he expected top sports officials to take responsibility, leading Leonid Tyagachyov to resign as president of the Russian Olympic Committee in March, despite his supposedly protected status as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s personal ski coach. Tyagachyov’s fall from grace was however softened when he was elected the committee’s honorary president. 

All but 5 of 204 delegates to the committee – consisting of Russia’s sports federation heads and other top sports officials – voted for the only candidate put forward to take Tyagachyov’s place, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov. 

Before the vote, committee representatives passed around booklets outlining plans for the years 2010 to 2014, with a foreword by Zhukov, pictures of him playing chess and soccer, and a biography. According to Zhukov, the two main goals for the Russian Olym-pic Committee are to develop sports in Russia and to win the Sochi Winter Olympic Games in 2014. Zhukov said he expected the games to give a boost to Russia’s sports, “just like the Moscow Olym-pics marked a new era in their time” (see page 19).

Zhukov also said that his senior position would help increase Russia’s clout on the international level and expand its lobbying powers to include sports that are “advantageous for Russia,” such as chess. “Regrettably, the International Olympic Committee doesn’t want to add that sport to the Olympic program, but we will insist on that,” he said. Zhukov is an avid chess player and for five years served as president of the Russian Chess Federation. 

Zhukov also promised wide-ranging support for athletes, including a new medical center, post-performance career training, health insurance and programs that will help athletes train and win without using illegal drugs. “We need to stamp out the psychology that one cannot win without doping,” Zhukov said. Attaining these goals will “require financial resources and effective management,” he said. In his words, the Olympic Committee would not receive money from the federal government. The main sources of income will be the Sochi Olympic Committee’s marketing budget, an Olympic lottery and the Russian Olympic Committee’s own marketing programs, which currently don’t exist. To rally support and form a multimillion-member fan base, the committee must also look into social networking sites, Zhukov said. 

New Time in Dubai

Another Ryazanov flick 

to get a makeover

Another Soviet film classic will gain a sequel this winter, in an apparent attempt to repeat the success of Irony of Fate 2.

Eldar Ryazanov’s Sluzhebny Roman, a love story between a clumsy single father and his boss at a Moscow statistical bureau, was filmed in 1977, right after Irony of Fate. The sequel will be called New Time, and will be adapted to a modern audience that knows nothing about the reality of inkwells, queues, and other curiosities of the Brezh-nev era, said sequel producer -Niko-lai Kovbas, whose company Leo-polis bought rights to the screenplay (which Ryazanov coauthored with Emil Braginsky) in the mid-1990s.

“The characters’ adventures are now set in Moscow offices and Dubai skyscrapers,” Kovbas told reporters. Neither Ryazanov nor the original film’s famous supporting actress, Liya Akhedzhakova, knew anything about the new film, set to hit theaters in the winter of 2011.

 Mosfilm Online

Soviet studio launches 

internet cinema

The Mosfilm Studio has launched an online cinema data-base, making 161 films available for online viewing, in an attempt to rival internet file sharing and pirated DVDs. 

The website, cinema.mosfilm.ru, allows users access to an online theater, where movies are shown for free according to a posted schedule. In addition, films are available on demand for approximately $2.30 per movie. 

While most films are in Russian, the website began featuring movies with English subtitles at the end of May, and possibly will repeat such screenings in future. The list of on-demand titles with English subtitles is also growing, with many bestsellers currently available, such as Ivan’s Childhood, The Ballad of a Soldier, and The Mirror. The site requires installation of Microsoft Silverlight, and on-demand viewing requires registration.

Remembering Katyn

Government takes
a step closer to Poland

The Russian government has made public documents in the so-called “Katyn Case,” shedding light on government decision-making under Stalin that lead to the massacre of 14,000 Polish officers by NKVD troops in Katyn forest. 

While all the documents were declassified during Boris Yeltsin’s presidency, they were not made widely available, and the Russian government chose not to address the issue openly, creating a stumbling block for Russian-Polish -relations.

This April marked the 70-year anniversary of the massacre, and Russian and Polish leaders were to jointly pay their respects at the Katyn memorial outside Smolensk. In a horrific twist of fate, however, the Polish plane carrying president Lech Kaczynsky and dozens of officials crashed in the fog surrounding the Smolensk airfield. The crash investigation was not complete at press time. Link to Katyn files: bit.ly/aqKCPd

Journalists Beware

NGO names press predators

Russia is home to two “Press Predators” (“people who cannot stand the press, who treat it as an enemy, and directly attack journalists”) according to Reporters without Borders (RWB): Vladimir Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov.

While Prime Minister Putin has made the list in the past, it is the first time for Kadyrov, whom RWB  called “Putin’s guard dog” in Chechnya. “My method is simple. Those who disrupt the people’s peace must be dealt with harshly, cruelly even,” Kadyrov once said. Observers speculate that such “disruption” may have led to Anna Politkovskaya and Natalia Este-mirova’s murders in 2006 and 2009. 

Twenty-two journalists have been murdered in Russia since 2000, the year Putin became President. “Putin has promoted a climate of pumped up national pride that encourages persecution of dissidents and freethinkers,” RWB said in its report listing 40 press predators around the globe. bit.ly/cHiL71

Volcanic Daredevils

A group of six Russians plan to circumnavigate the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, or the Pacific seismic belt. The group, headed by Krasnodaran Konstantin Merzho-yev, will start at the easternmost point of the Chukotka peninsula and cross into Alaska. The 900-day trip will include motorcycling through North America, bicycling across South America, crossing to Antarctica, then to New Zealand, Australia and Japan, ending in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. “We plan to hit all of the volcanoes and all of the highest points on the continents,” Merzhoyev told RIA Novosti.

“I studied French when I was a student, but that was a long time ago. So, CIS countries suit me better, I feel comfortable there.
As far as what I will do... Thank God, my health is good, I will find something that fits me. Start manufac-turing some kind of quality consumer goods, [for example] toys. For children, so that they are happy, so that the toys are environmentally-friendly, and so that they help develop children’s intellect.”

Kurmanbek Bakiyev, ousted president of
Kyrgyzstan, on his plans (Russian Reporter)

“It was almost overwhelming to be able to march into Red Square that first night. Just seeing the American flag crest over the cobblestones by St. Basil’s. I won’t say it was tear-jerking. But it was overwhelming.” 

Staff Sgt. Jonathan Hoffman, one of the
American participants in the 2010 Victory Day
parade in Moscow (New York Times)

“As soon as 100,000 people rally in Moscow, this government will resign. It will be a legal, organized way of forcing them out.”

Gennady Zyuganov,
head of the Communist Party (gazeta.ru)

“The OMON truncheon… is the last, the final argument, if it is actually an argument at all.”

Semyon Bagdasarov, State Duma Deputy (Itogi)

“You absolutely cannot say that Stalinism is making a comeback to our daily life, that we are returning to the symbolism... It is not, and will not.”

President Dmitry Medvedev (Izvestiya)

“Kuzbass is the coal heart of the country... one could ask: how long can we keep digging? Our calculations say about 200 million tons and no more, otherwise we might dig all the way to the earth’s core.”

Kemerov region Governor Aman Tuleyev,
after a string of coalmine incidents (Radio Rossii)

“I remember very well the unusual heavy feeling, I felt strange. Although I have been to this office many times over many years, I never felt anything like it.”

Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov, on entering his office after the departure of his predecessor, Yuliya Timoshenko. He asked that the
office be blessed before he started work (Komsomolskaya Pravda)

“They were white, since it’s dark down there, and they don’t want people to touch them. I tried that, but they immediately jumped into the water. They are very good swimmers.” 

Yury Luzhkov, after visiting the basement
excavation of the Bolshoi Theater,
telling reporters about his discovery
of white cockroaches (Itar-TASS)

Google Slayer?

Russia’s top search engine Yandex has launched an English language service at yandex.com. Yandex has fended off the Google juggernaut, gaining in popularity by nearly five percent since last October, to become the search engine of choice for 64.8 percent of RuNet users; Google’s popularity fell one percent over the same period. Yandex is the world’s seventh most popular search engine, up from number 10 in 2008. The yandex.com alpha version looks just like the Russian version and invites user comments. It is meant primarily for Russian internet users who would like to search English-language websites, Yandex spokesman Ochir Mandzhikov told Kommersant.

Empress Passes

In May, the oldest member of the Romanov family, Grand Empress Leonida Georgiyevna, passed away in Madrid. She was 96 and has been buried in St. Petersburg. Leonida Georgiyevna was the mother of Maria Vladimirovna, one of the two pretenders to head the Romanov line. Leonida Georgiyevna was the last member of the Romanov line born before the Revolution — she was born in the Bagration Imperial House in Tbilisi in 1914 and married Grand Prince Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov in 1948.
Opting Out

Residents of Ivangorod, a town in Leningrad region, have started a petition to have the town transferred to neighboring Estonia. The petition, authored by a local deputy, and so far signed by 650 persons, argues that the town has been on Estonian territory for 300 years. The city of 10,000 lies just across the Narova (Narva) river from Estonia. 

Krasnodar Repeats

Krasnodar is the best city in Russia, outside “the two capitals,” to do business, according to Forbes magazine. The southern capital was trailed in the ranking by Khabarovsk, Yekaterinburg, and three other Siberian cities. Forbes studied 103 cities with populations over 150,000, looking at their business climate, purchasing power, infrastructure, social characteristics, and stability during the recent economic crisis. Krasnodar came in first for the third year in a row. Moscow, St. Petersburg, and towns in Moscow and Leningrad regions were not included in the ranking.

Moscow Improves

In a ranking of the best world cities to live in compiled by Mercer Consulting, Moscow placed 166th – up two positions from last year – on the list of 221 cities. Vienna topped the list for the second time, followed by Vancouver and Auckland. The criteria used to compile the list included political stability, crime, banking services, pollution, education, and the transportation system.

Rusisa’s “Musical Ambassador”

Conductor Valery Gergiev was the only Russian to make it onto TIME magazine’s 2010 list of the 100 Most Influential People in the world. “Gergiev is Russia’s de facto musical ambassador. He has brought worldwide attention to often neglected works by Russian composers and introduced many now prominent Russian artists to Western audiences. I, for one, have him to thank for giving me my start,” wrote Russian opera singer Anna Netrebko. Gergiev, 56, has been director and chief conductor for the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg since 1996, while also taking on significant conducting responsibilities with leading western orchestras. A native Ossetian who grew up in Vladikavkaz, Gergiev made news headlines recently when he led a concert in the ruins of Tskhinvali after the August 2008 war in South Ossetia.

Fiasco in Alabama

Russia lost its 2010 Fed Cup tennis semifinals tie to a U.S. squad missing both of its top players (the Williams sisters). Captain Shamil Tarpischev was unable to convince Russia’s top tennis players to compete. Svetlana Kuznetsova and Alisa Kleybanova, who helped the team to its first round victory against Serbia, begged off, citing injuries. Top player Elena Dementieva (2008 Olympic Gold) stepped in and delivered two singles wins, but it was not enough to help Russia win the tie. 

U.S. player Bethanie Mattek-Sands was the hero of the final day of the tie as she won two live rubbers – the fourth singles match and the doubles (partnering with Liezel Huber against Dementieva and Alla Kudriavtseva, who had never before been paired together) – to deliver the United States to the final against Italy in November (a repeat of last year’s pairing, which Italy won). 

Russia last won the Fed Cup in 2008. Tarpischev admitted that top Russian tennis players “have no burning desire” to play for the team, and that he can’t blame the women for the loss. “On the contrary I am grateful to them because – unlike so many other of our players – they responded positively to my plea.” 

Loss on the Ice

Russia lost to the Czech Republic 1-2 in the finals of the IIHF Ice Hockey World Champion-ship at Lanxess Arena in Cologne in May. The Czechs have won the world title six times since the separation of Czechoslovakia (in 1996, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005 and now 2010). “There is no way we should be able to beat Russia on an even level with the team we played tonight when you look at the players they have,” said Czech goalie Tomas Vokoun. “In one game, anything can happen. I highly doubt that we would beat them in a playoff series four times to knock them out.” 

Russia, which has won a record 25 titles, hadn’t lost a game at the worlds since 2007. “The goalie played a great game and they played really good defense. They play maybe a somewhat boring game, but it gives them success,” said Russia captain Ilya Kovalchuk. “It’s very disappointing. We came here for the gold and we have great players. But we have to take the positives from this experience and look forward.” Russia brought 14 Olymp-ians, all top-notch NHL stars, to redeem itself for the humiliating loss at the Vancouver Olympics where it lost to Canada 3-7 in the quarterfinals. 

Re-Going Dutch

Russia has hired yet another Dutch coach to head its national soccer team – Dick Advokaat takes over from Guus Hiddink, who helped Russia win the bronze medal at the European 2008 Champion-ships, but then disappointed when Russia failed to qualify for the 2010 World Cup. 

Advokaat has previously worked in Russia as head coach of Zenit (St. Petersburg), leading them to a national title and the prestigious UEFA cup. 

“I want to be honest with everybody: I made my choice because of money,” said Advokaat, who had been considering a position coaching Belgium’s national squad, in an interview with a Dutch newspaper in April. 

It is not the first time Advokaat has walked out of a contract – he earlier did the same to the Australian national team when he opted to continue his work in Zenit. Russia will play its first official match under Advokaat on Sep-tember 3, against Andorra.