Notebook

“Putin will be elected President. 

The planet Mars is very active in him…” 

– Valery Ledovskikh, astrologist (Itogi)

 

One Party Rule

Deputies from the Unified Russia faction now head all 29 Duma committees. Of the parliament’s 450 deputies, 304 are members of the Unified Russia faction. Committee heads include former Pyatigorsk Mayor Yury Vasiliev (Budget), crooner and public figure Iosif Kobzon (Culture), former Justice Minister Pavel Krasheninnikov (Legislation), former assistant to Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, Konstantin Kosachev (Foreign Relations), former Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Vasiliev (Security), former representative to NATO, General Viktor Zavarzin (Defense). Zavarzin gained fame for sending an advance force of Russian peacekeepers to Prishtina airport in Kosovo in 1999, ahead of NATO troops. Boris Gryzlov, former Interior Minister and present leader of Unified Russia, is the Duma’s new speaker.

Meanwhile, according to Alexander Veshnyakov, Head of the Central Electoral Committee, 440 Duma deputies have a higher education, 179 are over 50, 50 are over 60, 9 are under 30. 205 deputies served in the previous body. There are 45 women in the new Duma, more than in the last parliament.

 

Web President

At the end of January, President Vladimir Putin launched a website for children, at www.uznay-prezidenta.ru. The site is called “The Russian President for School-Aged Citizens.” It took 18 months to create the site, which was reportedly inspired by an 11-year-old girl, Veronika Petukhova, from Kaluga in Central Russia. 

The website is composed of five main sections: President, State, Lessons in Democracy, the Kremlin, and Emergency Aid. Three virtual guides take visitors on a Kremlin tour, explain the basics of democracy and government, and offer a photo gallery of Putin, his family and pets. In the questions about the President section, visitors can get the answers to such questions as “Who is more important, the President or your Mom?” (Answer: “Certainly, your Mom.”)

The majority of the texts on the website were contributed by children’s author Grigory Oster, best known for his humorous book, Bad Advice. Yet President Putin also contributed to the development of the site, having met more than once with the specialists involved, and examined all the texts, the Kremlin press office said. The Kremlin anticipates over 10,000 visitors to the site each day. The main visitors are expected to be school-aged children 8 to 13 years old, but the Kremlin said it expects that a large number of adults will also visit the site.

 

Russian Grammy

On February 8, the Russian National Orchestra became the first Russian orchestra ever to win a Grammy award. The award (“Best Spoken Word Album for Children”) was given to the RNO for its recording of Peter and the Wolf and Wolf Tracks, conducted by Kent Nagano and featuring narration by Bill Clinton, Sophia Loren and Mikhail Gorbachev (see ad, page 9).

The CD features a new recording of Prokofiev’s famous musical story, plus a newly-commissioned work by Jean-Pascal Beintus, Wolf Tracks, which offers a new story of a boy and a wolf, highlighting important environmental themes.

All of the narrators are donating their royalties to charity.

The RNO was awarded the music world’s top honor right after returning to Russia from a highly-acclaimed tour of the US East Coast. The RNO tours Europe this spring, the US West Coast in the summer of 2004 and will perform at the Seville International Music Festival in September 2004.

 

Smoke Rings

Almost half of Russians smoke, one of the highest rates in the world, David Zaridze, Director of the Institute for Carcinogenic Research, told Ekho Moskvy radio. And, in contrast to the US or Europe, Russia’s smoking population is rising, rather than declining. Almost two years ago, in a speech to the State Council, President Putin reported that the number of men under 40 who smoke has increased from 25 to 70 percent over the last five years. Today, one in two smokers dies from a disease related to smoking, Zaridze said. Meanwhile, a law that bans smoking in public places came into effect several months ago, Zaridze said, but is not being enforced. (RFE RL Newsline)

 

Moscow Burns

Columbia TriStar (Hollywood) and Videoservice (Moscow) will launch the joint production of DVDs in Moscow, the Russian Anti-Piracy Organization (RAPO) announced early this year. 

“The Americans are launching the production [line] to eradicate piracy by economic means,” said RAPO Director Konstantin Zemchenkov told Interfax. “At present, the retail price of an imported, licensed DVD is $20-25. The line will help reduce the price to $10 initially and later to $5-6.” 

Pirated disks account for 92% of the Russian DVD market. Losses incurred by the Russian and US movie industries are estimated at $450 million per year. Warner Brothers will also soon launch DVD production in Russia. “It is not clear yet whether they will use Columbia TriStar’s line or build their own,” Zemchenkov said. (Interfax)

Famous Voices

Starting in May, some passengers riding the Moscow metro will hear station announcements as performed by Russia’s most beloved actors and actresses, instead of the usual flat and indifferent recording. Twelve film stars have “donated their voices,” which are instantly recognizeable to most Russians, to the project. For example, famous Soviet-era actor Alexander Shirvindt will warn the passengers against forgetting “their personal belongings” when exiting the train. Another Soviet star, Lyudmila Gurchenko, will announce: “University is the next stop. Dear students, get ready!” A new star of Russian cinema, Renata Litvinova, will drawl in her sexy style: “Sokolniki station. My favorite.” 

The new recordings will play in some of the 52 trains of the Sokolnicheskaya (red) line, which was the first Moscow metro line launched, in 1935. 

 

Older Than ...

A Chechen great-great-grandmother born in 1881 could be the oldest woman in the world. Pasikhat Dzhukalayeva has nine grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren, and seven great-great-grandchildren. If she is 122 as claimed, Dzhukalayeva would have been in her thirties during World War I and Russia’s 1917 revolution, and in her sixties when Soviet dictator Josef Stalin deported most of the Chechen people to Central Asia in 1944. 

The longest-living person with reliable documentation is believed to have been France’s Jeanne-Louise Calment, who died at 122. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the world’s oldest living woman is American Charlotte Benkner, who was born in Germany in late 1889 – a mere 113 years ago. According to Guinness, the oldest living man is Spain’s Joan Riudavets Moll, who was born less than a month after Benkner, in 1889, the year Adolf Hitler was born. (Reuters)

 

Conscripts Freeze

One conscript died and 90 others fell gravely ill with pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses in Magadan this winter after being transported to their place of military service. During their flight to Magadan, the inadequately clothed conscripts had to wait for hours outside in the cold during a refueling stopover in Novosibirsk. The recruits were to serve in the elite border guards service, which is under the authority of the Federal Security Service intelligence agency (FSB, ex-KGB).

The incident became public only after Vladimir Berezin, a teenage conscript from Lyubertsy, south of Moscow, died from double pneumonia on January 2. President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an investigation into the incident. Hundreds of officials were interrogated and military prosecutors entered criminal charges of negligence against four high-ranking military officers in charge of transporting the recruits.

 

Pets in Limbo

Both Russian pets and vets were in limbo this winter, due to a ban on certain common veterinary painkillers which are now also classified as recreational drugs. Veterinarians had to conduct operations without adequate anesthesia, causing untold suffering to pets and their owners. Many clinics simply refused to do any operations.

The substance in question was ketamine, used around the world as a general anesthetic for both animals and humans, but also often sold illegally as a recreational drug. Technically illegal for use with animals (though legal for human use) since 1998, ketamine has been widely used by Russian vets. Authorities have turned a blind eye to the practice, because no other appropriate anesthetic has been available. All this changed late last year, when the State Narcotics Control Police began raiding veterinary clinics for ketamine and opened criminal cases against their owners.

Many famous personalities and animal rights groups protested the measure. French actress Brigitte Bardot wrote to President Putin to ask him to lift the ban.

At the end of January, Russian news agencies reported that the Justice Ministry had added ketamine to the list of narcotic and psychotropic substances that can be used for veterinary purposes. But  now veterinary clinics will have to be licensed and introduce drug security measures. Six vets are still to stand trial for having used the substance while illegal.

 

 

HEMP HELPS ~ As reported in Moskov-skiye Novosti, wild cannabis covers some 84,000 hectares of the Republic of Tuva in South Siberia, whose territory encompasses some 170,000 km2. Anatoly Samkov, head of the Regional Department of the State Narcotics Control Committee for Kransnoyarsky Krai, said that, as local industry collapsed in the early 1990s, cannabis has grown to become an important (and illegal) sector of the republic’s economy. Cannabis is consumed domestically and exchanged for food, horses and even cars. 

 

A CAT’S LIFE ~ This winter, the Russian media drew an interesting comparison between the subsistence needs of Russian citizens and British pets. They published statistics according to which the average British pet-owner spends £981 on their dog and £476 on their cat. This was then extrapolated to a total British national spending of £11.23 billion on their pets’ food, toys, vets and more. Dog food costs £586 per year, while cat food costs £328 each year. The current subsistence minimum in Russia is R2,121 per month, or £40 – about that of a British cat.

 

NUMBERING RUSSIANS ~ Russian authorities have undertaken to assign each Russian citizen a personal identification number. Attempts to launch a state register of the citizenry began eight years ago. Today, there are at least 18 national databases, all unconnected to one other. As a result, to identify oneself for various purposes, the average Russian has to obtain and fill out hundreds of different forms throughout his life. 

The Ministry of Economic Devel-opment and Trade plans this year to study the existing databases (tax, civil status, pension registers, etc.), and then decide how to tie them into one common system. The new database, containing detailed information about each citizen, could be ready to be put into operation as early as 2006. 

 

VODKA REALITY ~ A recent poll by ROMIR Monitoring explodes a common myth. Fully 37% of 1600 Russians polled in January said they do not drink vodka at all, and 32% “do not drink much.”

 

Snoops Alive

Beginning in April, volunteer residential councils will appear all over Moscow. After months of consideration, the Moscow Duma has passed a law providing for creation of over 600 resident councils attached to police stations. The councils will help maintain law and order in their neighborhoods, record illegal or suspicious activities, and report them to the police.

The author of the law, Moscow Duma Deputy Inna Svyatenko, said the councils will mainly take charge of non-criminal offenses, dealing with issues such as car parking and dog walking violations. The councils will also be authorized to work with neglected children. “It depends on their imagination,” Svyatenko told gazeta.ru. “Either they will dance with them so that they stop drinking beer in the doorways, or hold preventive talks with them, or take them to some special interest clubs, or hold talks with their parents – if the children get out of control because their parents are busy.”

The councils will be comprised of no less than five persons. Anyone can volunteer to serve in the council, but only the chairman of the council will receive a salary, which will be allocated from the city budget. 

Moscow police are enthusiastic about the idea and have expressed their hope that the councils will not only fight against dog owners walking their pets in inappropriate places, but also help prevent terrorism. The councils will be charged with inspecting basements and attics and informing the police about abandoned objects and suspicious apartment residents. Councils will also receive complaints and other information from local residents under their purview.

Human rights activists are not wild about the idea, worrying that the positions could lead to abuse. “Mainly, this all comes down to informing on and collecting discrediting facts about tenants who live too well,” said Lev Ponomaryov, head of the group, For Human Rights. “And the police will then start extorting money from these people.”

 

 

“We should repeal the moratorium on the death penalty, organize a show trial and shoot, following a court verdict, 10 ministers, 10 deputies, 10 officials, and 10 generals at Lobnoe mesto [the tsarist-era execution site], on Red Square – they will all get scared, they are all timid.”

– Vladimir Zhirinovsky, LDPR leader, on corruption (Interfax) 

 

“Of course, by law the Church is separate from the State. 

But, in the soul of the people, they are as one.”

 – President Vladimir Putin, on church-state relations (Interfax)

 

“The Prosecutor General’s Office is the last preserve of Soviet rule in our country.”

 – Iosif Dutkin, co-chairman of the Council for National Strategy (Profil)

 

“Look what we’ve got now: the center – quite a powerful political center, some kind of a tattered left wing, and no right wing at all. Such a bird does not fly.” 

– Yuri Luzhkov, Moscow Mayor (and member of the Unified Russia party), 

on the results of the parliamentary elections (Itogi)

 

 

 

“Those who observed the law are now sleeping calmly 

and deeply.”

 

 – President Vladimir Putin about businesses which observed the law during the privatization era (Itogi)

 

 

160,000

tons of oil stolen in Chechnya in 2003 

 

1,500

retirement homes in Russia 

 

51

per capita beer consumption in 2003 (liters) 

 

268,000

Leningrad blockade survivors still alive

(each was awarded 450 or 900 rubles and a medal for the 60th the anniversary of the end of the siege)

 

473

registered kidnappings in Chechnya in 2003 

 

34,000,000

married couples in Russia

 

3,000,000

Russians in common law marriages

 

67,600,000

men in Russia

 

77,600,000

women in Russia

 

20

tons of drugs and psychotropic substances seized by the State Narcotics Control Committee in 2003 

 

400

Moscow historic buildings razed since 1992

 

60

of which were historical monuments

 

Russians who

suffer from mental disorders 2.6%

say Vladimir Putin will win the 

March 2004 presidential election 88%

believe in: 

God 73%

angels 53%

Heaven 46%

Hell 44%

the devil 44%

religious miracles 42%

witches 38%

UFOs 34%

reincarnation 26%

ghosts 25%

have never been to the movies 15%

say media censorship is: 

“definitely necessary” 41%

“probably necessary” 35%

“definitely not necessary” 6%

say that most power in Russia belongs to:

money 71%

law 5%

associate democracy with: 

(more than one answer possible)

rule by the people 24%

respect for human rights 20%

freedom of speech 19%

free elections 17%

freedom and equality 13%

free markets 11%

pluralism 8%

disorder, anarchy 6%

free press 5%

end of the Soviet state 5%

feel poverty is caused by: 

drunkenness and laziness 78%

lack of effort 48%

a bad economic system 77%

unequal access to education/work 65%

lack of talent 40%

bad luck 34%

feel wealth is caused by:

connections 84%

education and job opportunities 65%

dishonesty 60%

talent 49%

good luck 31%

 

STATISTICAL SOURCES

NUMBERS (page 8): 1. Interior Ministry of the Chechen Republic, quoted by ITAR-TASS. 2. Minister of Labor Alexander Pochinok, quoted by Interfax. 3. Renaissance Capital company quoted by Kommersant. 4. RIA Novosti. 5. ‘Memorial’ Human Rights Group quoted by Echo Moskvy. 6-9. State Statistics Committee. 10. State Narcotics Control Committee, quoted by Interfax.  11-12. The Moscow Times. RUSSIANS WHO (page 10): 1. Report by Russian NGOs on the implementation of the International Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Russia quoted by Interfax. 2. Public Opinion Foundation, January. 3. VTsIOM-A. 4-5. ROMIR Monitoring. 6. VTsIOM-A. 7. ROMIR Monitoring. 8-9. VTsIOM-A, quoted by Izvestia.