Notebook

Better at the Center

Residents of central Moscow live longer than other Russians, RosStat recently reported. Since 1994, life expectancy in Moscow has increased by nine years, while it has only increased by an average of three years in other Russian regions. The highest life expectancy is in the Central Prefecture: 70.4 for men and 78.8 for women. The top three causes of death in Moscow are cardiovascular disease, can- cer, and accidents or poisoning, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported (kp.ru).

 

Freedom Izba

Russia has created a new organization to monitor human rights violations in Europe and the U.S. The Russian Institute of Democracy and Collaboration is the brain- child of lawyer Anatoly Kucherena and will be opening branches in New York and Paris as early as March 2008. According to Kucherena, the institute will be financed by Russian businessmen and will be Russia’s version of the more established Freedom House, which is based in Washington, DC, and has been critical of democratization in Russia.

 

Russia Warming

Last year was Russia’s warmest year recorded since the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia was created 150 years ago, according to Roman Vilfand, head of the center. Vilfand said that 2007 was set to become one of the top five 

warmest years our planet has seen since global temperatures have been recorded. It means “that a warming of the climate is undoubtedly occurring,” Vifland said (RIA News).

 

Retail Boom

For the third year running, Real Estate Publishers named Moscow the world’s most attractive retail development locale. Cushman and Wakefield Stiles & Riabokobylko made the same assess- ment, ranking St. Petersburg in second place, followed by Prague. Nine percent of retailers who took part in the survey said they plan to enter the Russian mar- ket in the next five years. Of the top 20 cities in the IRS ranking, all but Amsterdam (ranked #10 along with Kiev) were in Eastern Europe.

Russo-Brit Fallout

Bilateral strain hurts cultural exchange programs

Following the diplomatic clash between Britain and Russia over the extradition of Andrei Lugovoy, the row between the two countries is con- tinuing to boil. Lugovoy recently became a member of the new Russian Duma, representing the Liberal Democratic Party, thereby acquiring prosecutorial immunity.

In January, the Russian govern- ment ordered the closure of two branches of the British Council, a cultural organization funded by the British government. Russian authori-

ties accused the Council of operating illegally and evading taxes – allega- tions the organization denied. But the Council closed its offices in any event, after employees were sum- moned for interviews with the FSB.

“We saw similar actions during the Cold War, but thought they had been put behind us,” said British Foreign Secretary David Milliband. The British Council’s Moscow office remains open. Officially, the Russian Foreign Ministry denied that closures were politically motivated. Yet, in a December interview with Vremya Novostey, Foreign Minister Lavrov said Russia “had to retaliate” for

 

“unacceptable” British actions against Russian diplomats. He further accused Britain of “maintaining silence, either intentionally or due to a misunderstanding,” on a Russian proposal for a “visa-facilitation agree- ment” between the two countries.

The British Council opened in Russia in 1992. Its seeks to popularize British culture, language, and educa- tion. In 2006, some 500 thousand Russians participated in its programs.

 

 

Smoking Bans

Russia to undertake anti-smoking measures

Tobacco companies doing busi- ness in Russia may soon take a hit. The president’s cabinet recently approved Russia’s membership in the

word “Russia” and its many deriva- tives in business names. Under the law, companies may be called “Russian” only if they are publicly owned, and if the Russian state owns over 75% of the company’s shares. This could spell trouble for even such large organizations as Sberbank of Russia, Aeroflot – Russian Airlines, and Russia Bank. Kommersant Vlast reported that there are some 2,636 Russian companies that use “Russia” in their trademark. The penalties for corporate russification are not yet clear. According to the law, however, businesses will have to either sell 75% of their shares to the State, or register under a new name. Yet Andrei Nechayev, of the Russian Financial Corporation, told Vlast that the law will only effect new businesses and will not be applied retroactively.

Apparently, not all things go better with Coke.

 

World  Health  Organization Frame-  

work Convention on Tobacco Con- trol. That  convention calls on signa-

Federal Anti-Monopoly Service

office. According to sostav.ru, “colafied”   landmarks   included the

 

tories to ban tobacco advertisements and for governments to take mea- sures to decrease tobacco consump- tion. The Duma is expected to ratify the convention this spring, Interfax reported.

Some 40 percent of Russian adults smoke. According to Nielsen survey data, 300 billion cigarettes, valued at

$10 billion, are sold in Russia each year. Tobacco sales are currently growing by 3-4 percent a year, despite advertising bans on TV, radio and billboards. According to Dmitry Yanin, of the Confederation of Consumer Societies, tobacco compa- nies will fight for the Russian market,

One Man, No Vote

Website disproves official turnout figures

Over 88 thousand residents of the Republic of Ingushetia have signed a statement attesting that they did not participate in the December 2, 2007, Russian parliamentary elections. This represents more than half the repub- lic’s eligible voters. The statement was organized by the website ingushetiya.ru. Some 700 volunteers visited Ingush villages, canvassing 70 percent of the republic’s territory, according to website owner Magomed Evloev. Official post-elec- tion statistics said Ingushetia had

Moscow monument to Minin and Pozharsky, the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, Stroganovsky Church, and the bell near the Church of Saint John the Baptist. Some signs were also displayed upside down, because doors were hung improperly on retail coolers.

A company representative told Vedomosti that the campaign was organized to generate public interest in cultural monuments. It was the first time Coca-Cola had to remove advertisement in Russia due to a pub- lic outcry. Similar advertisements exist in other Russian cities, and have not caused public discontent.

 

as   they   have   been increasingly

stymied by European anti-smoking laws. “Real  measures would be diffi-

over  99  percent  voter participation,  

over 98 percent of which voted for United Russia.

 

cult  to  institute  here,”  Yanin told  

Expert. “The tobacco lobby is ready to spend large amounts of money to

Ironic Success

A modern take on a Soviet classic

 

get preferential treatment in Russia.”

 

 

R****a Ltd

Removing Russia from company names

Beginning in 2008, when article 1473 of the Civil Code went into effect, it became illegal to use the

Coca-Cola Go Home

Orthodox angered by company’s campaign

Orthodox believers in Nizhny Novgorod have forced Coca-Cola to remove advertisements from bus stops, retail coolers and refrigerators. The controversy centers around images of Russian churches and other landmarks enclosed in the outline of

Irony of Fate 2, a sequel to Eldar Ryazanov’s classic Soviet movie, became the largest-ever grossing Russian movie. The film opened in theaters across the country on December 21st and by January 18 had passed the $50 million mark.

According to the film’s producers, the sequel attracted lots of people over 50, including many who had not been to a movie theater in a decade or more. Others said that the film’s success was due to Russia’s mind-numbingly long win- ter holidays, as well as to the pro- ducers’ strategy: the film will not appear on television for two years.

The original Irony of Fate (Ирония Судьбы) premiered on Soviet television in 1976, and was repeated a month later due to pop- ular demand. A few months later, it debuted in theaters, and people went to see it yet again. In the movie, the main character, Zhenya, accidentally takes a plane from Moscow to Leningrad on New Year’s Eve. Drunk, he orders a taxi to his home address, which also happens to exist in Leningrad. Soviet housing projects were cookie-cuttered across the country, and so the movie sug- gested that all locks were the same too. Zhenya enters his apartment, its vague unfamiliarity smoothed over by his inebriation. He is later awoken by the apartment’s owner, Nadya, who is nervously waiting for her fiancé. A romantic comedy ensues. To this day, watching the movie is a New Year’s Eve tradition.

Critics  dissed  the  sequel  for its skimpy story line and excessive product  placements.  An  internet fansite was  quickly  created  to  protest the

School Strashilkas

Life’s darker side exposed in new textbooks

Some new textbooks which con- tain violent fairy tales have Russian parents fuming.

In Krasnoyarsk, a second grade reader – part of an approved educa- tional program – includes a story about two friends: a donkey and a bear. The bear is dying because an oak tree toppled over and crushed his head. The donkey, meanwhile, phi- losophizes as he watches his friend die: “I will bury him on a tall moun- tain, where there is plenty of sun and where a river flows, and I will water him every day.”

The  third  grade  reader  goes farther into the realm of “strashilka” (frightful stories). It features a story about parents who run out of money and decide to take their seven chil- dren into the forest to starve and die

“Then, when they were suddenly

paid an old debt, they bought a large

piece of meat and felt sorry that they

had left their children in the forest.

But the children came back and ate

the remaining meat. Yet then again

there was no money, so the parents

again took the children into the forest,

this time making sure that they

were lost for good.”

In a similar incident in 2006, over 200 parents signed a petition to have a textbook removed from Kam- chatka’s schools. The book in ques- tion had grim black and white illus- trations, and some math problems featured axe-wielding maniacs going from Point A to Point B. One teach- er commented that children remem- ber horror stories and learn such material faster. “The textbook debate is artificial, and these textbooks were approved by the Ministry of Education,” one teacher said. “If par- ents don’t like them, they can move their kids to a different school.”

Oscar Nods

Three Russian filmmakers get nominations

Two Russian directors – Nikita Mikhalkov and Sergei Bodrov – are competing for the Best Foreign Film Oscar this year. Mikhalkov’s 12, a remake of 12 Angry Men, has already garnered several domestic awards, as well as a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It is Mikhalkov’s fourth Oscar nomina- tion; his 1994 historical saga, Burnt by the Sun, was the last Russian film to win an Academy Award in this

category (a sequel is being filmed). Bodrov’s pricy blockbuster,

Mongol, is nominated as a film from Kazakhstan. The epic revisits the early life of Genghis Khan.

The third Russian name among this year’s Oscar nominees is Aleksandr Petrov, author and direc- tor of My Love, a 26-minute animat- ed film in the Best Animated Short category. Petrov’s The Old Man and the Sea received an Oscar in 1999. My Love tells the story of 16-year-old Anton, who is in love with two girls at once. It is loosely based on a novel by Ivan Shmelyov.

Escape to Belarus

A 32-year old Swiss citizen came to Belarus seeking asylum, but only stayed for eight days. The man entered Belarus from Poland in a Lada and was toting books by Vladimir Lenin. According to the Moscow Times, he claimed that Belarus, Venezuela, and Cuba were the best coun- tries in the world. Belarusan migration authorities checked him into a hotel in Brest, and started to prepare his paper- work, but evidently the man suddenly thought better of things and left the country unannounced.

 

Online Memorial

The Russian Ministry of Defense is creat- ing a unified electronic database of sol- diers that were killed, imprisoned, or missing in action during and after the Great Patriotic War (WWII). Official docu- ments are being scanned and uploaded into the database, which is available on the   internet   (obd-memorial.ru). Some

9.8 million documents are already online. A search by full name displays soldiers’ name, date of birth, hometown, and rank, as well as a scanned copies of documents.

 

Becoming Russian

Massive name change requests in Kyrgyzstan may require additional employees to process passport changes. Kyrgyz residents are increasingly russify- ing their last names, which can be advan- tageous when relocating to Russia for work, said Kyrgyz Minister of Justice Marat Kayipov. Last names with the Kyrgyz suf- fixes “uulu” and “kyzy” are transformed into the Russian “ov” and “ova,” Regnum agency reported.

 

La Maison Russe

The Russian government is going to pay France some €700,000 for upkeep of the Russian Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois ceme- tery, Le Monde reported. The cemetery became Orthodox in 1926, and a rest home for elderly Russians - La Maison Russe – was opened. The cemetery is the burial site for some 20 thousand émigrés that fled Russia during and after the Revolution and Civil War. It remains a popular destination for Russian tourists who want to pay their respects to Ivan Bunin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Andrei Tarkovsky, and other prominent Russians. The cemetery is located in Essonne, south of Paris, and is the largest Russian ceme- tery outside of Russia.

 

 

“Clearly, Medvedev is a weak president. He will be something like the Queen of England.”

Rauf Radzhabov, political analyst (Regnum Agency)

“What do they have there [in the European Union] besides beer and sausages? Nothing. But we have everything.”

Pavel Borodin, State Secretary of the Union of Russia and Belarus (Itogi)

“I have the distinct impression, that this is a young person, a person who does not have the reins in his hands.”

Valentina Matviyenko, Governor of St. Petersburg region, on Dmitry Medvedev (Itogi)

“The increasingly widespread word ‘nano’ is so popular that it reminds me of the word ‘blin’ [a polite curse, like “oh, sugar!”]. Scientifically speaking, they have similar weight. In fact, ‘nano’ is easily rhymed with ‘banano,’ both in form and in meaning. Banana republic gets banana technologies. The fact that colossal sums are being allocated to this has nothing to do with science.”

Russian Academician Yury Ryzhov, on Russia’s nanotech boom (izbrannoe.ru)

“We can characterize the Russian public’s attitude toward democracy as ‘benevolent skepticism,’ where a positive attitude towards the idea of democracy combines with the skepticism toward its practical capabilities.”

Vladimir Petukhov, Russian Academy of Sciences’ Sociology Institute (Novaya Gazeta)

“No one intended to give me medical treatment... They needed to force me into giving testimony, because they wanted to put on a show trial... But I will not commit perjury. I won’t lie. I shall not incriminate innocent people. I don’t know of any crimes committed by Yukos and its staff. It’s all a pack of lies... So I refused. And no matter how awful my condition is today because I would not do so, I cannot buy back my life in such a way now, so help me God.”

Mortally ill ex-Yukos Vice President Vasily Alexanyan, who has been in prison for two years awaiting trial,

appearing before the High Court of Russia. (khodorkovsky.ru)

“While Putin has been playing a vulgar parody of Tsar Nicholas I, Medvedev would have to play an even more trite parody on Alexander II, who was, as they say, the Tsar-Liberator.”

Stanislav Belkovsky, political analyst (grani.ru)

“If a number of countries are going to recognize Kosovo’s independence, it makes sense for Russia to take a look at its position on Transdniester, Abkhazia, and other non-recognized states. We would need to let people vote again to choose their type of government. Either through plebiscite or through a system of elections under international control.”

Yevgeny Shevchuk, Head of the Transdniester High Council (ogoniok.com)

 

Russia ranks 73rd among 158 countries for its level of government spending per capita:

$2,460. This puts Russia between Mauritius

and South Africa. Luxembourg, Qatar and Brunei topped the list. ¶ In 2006, European and  American  sources,  public  and private,

donated $80 million to Russian NGOs. In 2007, the figure fell to about $20 million, most going to prominent organizations like the Moscow Helsinki Group and Memorial. ¶ 2,207 Russian orphans were adopted into the United States in 2007. This is down from the all time high of 5,865 in 2004. ¶ There were 224 suicides in the Russian armed forces during 2007. This was 50.7 percent of all military deaths last year. Meanwhile, one-third of non-combat deaths in the forces of the Interior Ministry are due to suicides. ¶ 407,622 Russians own stocks or are share- holders in a mutual fund. ¶ The FSB has repulsed over 1.4 million internet attacks on various websites of the Russian federal government. Over 100,000 were directed at the official website of the Russian presi- dent. ¶ The Federal Customs Service said that it intercepted 895 kilograms of heroin, 130 kilograms of cocaine, 50 kilograms of hashish, and 1,500 kilograms of unspecified “other narcotic substances” on Russia’s bor- ders in 2007. There were also 120 attempts to smuggle out “highly radioactive” materials, and 722 attempts to bring such materials into Russia. ¶ The nearly three-week-long New   Year’s/Christmas   holiday   cost Russia

$28.5 billion in January of 2008; that figure represents 2 percent of Russia’s GDP.

¶ 22 percent more Russians spent their

vacation abroad in 2007, versus 2006. The increase, by country was: Turkey (26 percent), Egypt (50 percent), India (40 percent), Israel (50 percent), Vietnam (69 percent), Thailand (75 percent). The only countries which showed a decline in popularity for Russian travellers were Germany (4 percent less) and Estonia (14 percent less).

“Recognizing independence of Kosovars and denying it to South Ossetians and Abkhazis – that’s a double standard! Regardless of Georgia’s prohibitive rhetoric, Kosovo’s recognition will throw open new windows of opportunity.”

 

 

Skating progress

Figure skaters Oksana Domnina and Maksim Shabalin won ice dance gold in January’s European Figure Skating Championship in Zagreb, Croatia. The Russian pair scored 207.14 points defeating former European champions Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France by less than two points. Another Russian pair - Yana Khohlova and Sergey Novitski – took third place. Meanwhile in pairs competition, Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov won the bronze and Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov took the silver. In the men’s event, Sergei Voronov placed fourth. Valentin Piseyev, President of the Russian Figure Skating Federation, expressed satisfaction with the results. “We are living through a passing of the baton from one generation to another, so we are happy with the performance of our figure skaters, especially if we compare them with the previous World Championships, and the Europeans as well...”Ovechkin ShinesWashington's Capitals winger Alex Ovechkin (together with Nashville's J.P. Dumont, and Montreal's Cristobal Huet) were selected as the NHL's “Three Stars” for the month of January. Ovechkin was awarded First Star honors after leading the league in points (22 – 13 goals, nine assists), and helping the Capitals win nine of 13 games. Ovechkin also took the NHL lead in both points (70) and goals (43). Ovechkin scored four goals in the final game of the month, a 5-4 overtime win over Montreal on January 31.

 

Bandied About

Russia, defending world champion in bandy, held onto its title at the 2008 World Championship of Bandy, defeating Sweden 6-1 in Moscow. Bandy is often called “Russian hockey,” as it is played with rounded sticks and a ball, instead of a puck. Russia dominated from outset, skating faster and scoring on the very first pass. The Swedes scored just once on a penalty shot. Mikhail Sveshnikov was named best middle-fielder and Andrei Zolotarev – best defenseman

Wild about MariaMaria Sharapova defeated Ana Ivanovic from Serbia in straight sets to claim her first Australian Open title in January. Sharapova, seeded fifth in the year's first major, lost only 24 games en route to the final match, facing down Lindsay Davenport, top seed Justine Henin and third seed Jelena Jankovic in straight sets. “This is just incredible,” Sharapova said after the win. “If someone had told me in the middle of last year I'd be standing here in front of you all holding the big one, I'd probably say forget it." A year ago on the same court, Sharapova took a 6-1, 6-2 drubbing from Serena Williams. Sharapova is now 3-1 in Grand Slam finals with previous wins at Wimbledon (2004) and the US Open (2006).

After Australia, Sharapova joined the Russian national team in its first-round Fed Cup win over Israel. It was her first selection for the Russian tennis team, paving the way to an Olympic berth in Beijing this August.