Note Book

Nouvelle Rodina

Depardieu gets Russian passport

Russia gained a new citizen this winter in the person of one of the world’s best known Frenchmen: actor Gerard Depardieu. In December, the film star lambasted the French government over a plan to raise taxes on top earners, after which President Vladimir Putin publicly offered Depardieu a Russian passport, in what many thought was simply a joke.

Yet when Depardieu, who plays Rasputin in an upcoming feature film, declared his love for Russia and called it a “great democracy,” authorities hastily issued him a passport, and the actor trekked to Saransk, in Mordovia, to explore his new motherland. There he was greeted by a crew of folk dancers wielding blini, in a gesture of hospitality.

The local governor offered Depardieu an official post in the cultural department, but the actor declined. Although he has renounced his French citizenship, Depardieu remains a resident of Belgium and is unlikely to move to Saransk, or Moscow for that matter.

Guns not Whips

Cossack brigades armed by governor

After recently proclaiming Cossacks “guardians of the law” in southern Krasnodar Oblast, local Governor Alexander Tkachev took things one step further: he proposed arming the deputized Cossacks with pistols.

Since last year, Cossack volunteers have served in police units throughout the region, patrolling the streets and “preserving public order.” While their effectiveness has not been proven, Tkachev said he now wants to give them non-lethal weaponry. “We will shortly double the number of Cossack volunteers and arm them with air pistols,” the governor promised.

Cossacks, numerous in Russian regions bordering the northern Caucasus, have previously promoted “stability” by attacking modern art exhibits and staging massive rallies against Russia’s punk band Pussy Riot. They are known to be highly conservative, closely aligned with the Orthodox Church, and, for the most part, loyal to the government. Critics, including the police, have said Tkachev is trying to create his own militia.

Gogol Center

Old Moscow theater reopens

Moscow’s Gogol Theater – now dubbed Gogol Center – has reopened after months of drama and tension between its actors and Kirill Serebryannikov, the fashionable director appointed to revamp the classic (albeit slightly dilapidated) venue.

For months prior to the opening, Serebryannikov received threatening text messages warning him to leave the repertory theater alone. He did not blink, and the theater (in central Moscow near Kursk Train Station) has been renovated with a more open, modern stage.

Gogol Center will stage Serebryannikov’s award-winning play Otmorozki as one of its first productions and will host discussions, film screenings, and music concerts.

The Gogol Drama theater was first opened in the 1920s and was for a long time known as the Transport Theater – intended to spread culture among railroad workers who lived in the area. In the late Soviet era, it focused on classics by Chekhov, Ostrovsky and, of course, Gogol.

gogolcenter.com

No Cigar

Russia to ban smoking

After decades of low cigarette prices, rising mortality from smoking-related diseases and little or no regulation, the Russian Duma is considering introducing legislation that will radically curb public smoking areas and set minimum prices on cigarettes, all with the goal of making people kick the habit.

The new anti-tobacco bill, which was working its way through parliament at press time, could go into effect as early as June. It bans smoking at: all educational, medical, sports and cultural facilities; in cafes, shops, and markets; at beaches; near airports, train stations, and metro stations. Even in apartment buildings, smokers will only be able to blow smoke in communal areas, assuming there is a special smoking area with adequate ventilation. Significant limits will also be placed on the display of tobacco products. Cigarettes will be out of sight, and shoppers will have to tell the cashier what brand they want.

The law has been lobbied for by Russia’s top leadership, especially Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a non-smoker whose cabinet is filled with chain-smokers. Indeed, after years of virtually no tobacco regulation and prices as low as $1 a pack, the country faces a public health crisis. Russians, a third of whom smoke, are taking up the habit at ever younger ages. Some 400,000 die each year from tobacco-related illnesses.

Film Takes

Silver screen not earning green

Alexander Sokurov’s Faust, the acclaimed drama that received the Golden Lion at Cannes, was the biggest money loser among Russian films in 2012, earning only $780,000 in Russian theaters, while costing $14.5 million to make.

Out of 68 films made by Russian studios in 2012, only 15 broke even or made a profit. The most successful film was the animated feature Ivan Tsarevich i Sery Volk (Ivan Tsarevich and the Grey Wolf), made by the Melnitsa animation studio for $2.7 million and grossing $24.62 million in theaters.

Meanwhile, a film about Pussy Riot, the protest punk group whose trial and conviction last year (two members remain in jail), received the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance film festival. Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer was shot over the course of eight months by filmmakers Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin.

Back to Stalin

Volga city struggles with identity

Municipal legislators in Volgo­grad have decided to return the city to its Stalin-era name, Stalingrad, for six days each year. The bizarre decision, made just before the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad, which culminated February 2, 1943, was reportedly made “after countless appeals from World War II veterans,” the Volgograd Duma’s press service reported. Officials will now be allowed to call the city Stalingrad during major war-related holidays, such as the February 2 commemorations, Victory Day (May 9), the September 2 anniversary of the end of World War II, and other dates of importance to the city.

Strait Deal

Park to spanning the Bering Sea

In the late 1980s, as an outgrowth of warming US-Russian ties, a working group developed plans for an international park spanning the 86-km-wide Bering Strait between Alaska and Chukotka. Over the past 30 years, these plans have developed into the idea of Beringia – an area of land and sea bounded in the West by Russia’s Lena River, in the East by the Mackenzie River in British Columbia, in the North by 72 degrees north latitude (in the Chukchi Sea), and in the South by the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Throughout the 1990s, both the US and Russia supported the idea of a transnational Beringia international Park with the goal of preserving the heritage and wildlife of the former land bridge linking Eurasia and America, but neither side acted on domestic legislation to make it a reality. At the end of last year, the two countries formally agreed on the creation of a transnational park, and in January Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree creating Beringia National Park in Chukotka, which will eventually be “bridged” with the Bering Land Bridge National Reserve in Alaska.

Linking the two parks will facilitate conservation, preserve ties between indigenous peoples, and allow tighter environmental monitoring through closer cooperation, according to the US-Russia agreement signed in September.

nps.gov/akso/beringia

Best Cities

Tyumen, Naberezhnye Chelny, and Penza topped the list of Russia’s most comfortable cities in a Russian poll that asked residents of 36 cities how they felt about their hometown. A total of 96% of Tyumen residents said they agreed that their city is comfortable. On the other end of the spectrum, 56% of people living in Novokuznetsk said they thought their city was comfortable. Moscow, though by far the richest city in Russia, curiously did not fare very well in the poll, with only 67% of Muscovites saying it was comfortable.

The Russian capital is one of the world’s most polluted cities, according to a study done by The Economist. Ludhiana, India, and Lanzhou, China, top the list, which ranks cities by the density of polluting particles per cubic meter.

Moscow ranked at No. 13, just behind Bakersfield and Montreal, and just before Dresden, with about 33 micrograms of particles per cubic meter, which is less than European cities such as Turin (47 micrograms), Seville (45), and Paris (38). It is more than London (29), however. No other Russian cities were ranked by the study.

Putin Still Popular

In a survey by the Levada Center, 62% of respondents voiced approval of Putin’s performance in the country’s highest office, down from 65% in December. While higher than that of most Western leaders, the rating was Putin’s lowest since June 2000, a month after the start of his first term.

Sources: RosGosStrakh, The Economist, Levada Center

Which classic fairy tale best exemplifies your dreams?

A plurality, 40% (and 60% of women), chose Cinderella, because of her miraculous transformation from a poor maiden into a princess. Russian men preferred the fairy tale of Yemelya, in which the hero catches a pike through a hole in the ice and the fish promises to grant him three wishes.