Readings

All Aboard

Good news for Tolstoy-loving travelers: starting on February 23, traveling to the novelist's legendary estate, Yasnaya Polyana, will becoming far easier. The Moscow rail system's southbound trains headed to Kursk and Oryol will now stop at Yasnaya Polyana. Previously, tourists interested in visiting the sprawling grounds and home had to book tours or travel to Tula and then find a municipal bus headed to Yasnaya, 20 kilometers away. The trains will depart Moscow at 8:30 am.

High Wire

Seeking to burnish its image as a ski destination, the Republic of Georgia has launched a new, 7.5 kilometer cable car service between the ski resort of Gudauri and Stepantsminda, a village further north, and close to the border with Russia.

This is welcome news to Russian skiers, who are regularly trapped in Gudauri by snow-related road closures. The cable cars traverse the Krestovy Pass over the Main Caucasus Ridge, which is often inaccessible in winter due to the risk of avalanches or heavy snowfall. The cable car system cost Georgia about $30 million.

Stream This

Following in the footsteps of US online moguls Amazon and Netflix, the internet services company Yandex will produce its own TV series.

After launching successful taxi, food delivery and other services, Yandex now seeks to compete in the Russian television industry. According to Vedomosti, two projects have already been green-lit: one about government corruption, the other a detective series. The company is accepting other project pitches at studio.yandex.ru.

Less Civil

According to a study funded by Microsoft, the Russian-language internet, aka the RuNet, is, on average, less civil than the internet in other countries.

The annual Digital Civility Global Report states that offensive name-calling was significantly higher in Russia - and Ireland, by the way - than in the other 20 countries studied. The study was compiled from online surveys with over 11,000 people aged 18 to 74. The good news is that, actually, overall online civility has increased in the past year.

bit.ly/rl1903-microsoft

A Century Ago

One hundred years ago, in March 1919, the outcome of the Bolshevik Revolution was far from clear. While the Reds held Moscow, and even opened the First Congress of the Comintern on March 2 (attended by 51 representatives from more than two dozen countries, sitting on flimsy chairs in an insufficiently large Kremlin hall), the Whites were preparing two major offensives: to connect the northern and eastern fronts, and to make progress in the south. Fighting commenced on March 4 and dragged on to April.

On March 31, the Battle of Bolshie Ozerki took place in Arkhangelsk Oblast. It was the last significant battle in the foreign intervention in the Russian Civil War to involve either British or US troops, and marked the beginning of the end of the Northern Intervention. In April, evacuation of US troops began.

The night before the first skirmishes and Allied attacks that led to Bolshie Ozerki, the corporals of American Company E had a meeting, and were less than enthusiastic:

Every corporal attended. It bordered on mutiny. The men – privates and corporals – were satiated with fighting and did not relish a similar experience. The feasibility of refusing to leave for the front was thoroughly discussed… As no one would expect responsibility for leading the mutiny, it came to naught…. About 0400 – a propitious moment for zero hour, as our spirits were equally low – we were ordered to ‘Push off,’ as Lt. Baker casually phrases it. With two of our lieutenants stupefied with liquor, we started toward the Bolo stronghold.

– Private Donald Carey [From Russian Sideshow: America’s Undeclared War,
by Robert L. Willett (Potomac Books, 2003)]

Snapshot

27% of Russians enjoy talking to cabbies, according to a poll done by Citimobil Taxi Service. Males are more talkative than females, and the least talkative group is young people 18-24 years old. Muscovites are the least talkative, apparently: 24% prefer to enjoy their ride in complete silence. bit.ly/rl1903-taxis

Perhaps they should chat about the Kurils?

Russia and Japan never officially ended World War II, because in the final days of that conflict, the Soviet Army invaded and occupied Japan’s northernmost archipelagos, the Kuril Islands, and has resolutely refused to return them. Now the two countries have restarted negotiations toward a possible peace treaty, which means the public is being asked what they think about the tiny islands in the Far East. 14% of Russians believe that the islands should be given back to Japan, but the majority believes otherwise. 51% say the two countries should continue the discussion until a mutually acceptable solution presents itself. bit.ly/rl1903-kuriles

Speaking of conflict resolution, Russia’s labor union association said that there were 166 labor conflicts in the country during 2018. This is fewer than in 2017 (172), but the association says that the conflicts have become longer. Since 2016, the average conflict has increased from 16 to 28 days. There were 59 strikes in 2018, and 62.7% of the labor conflicts were over unpaid salaries, while 22.3 percent were due to layoffs. The longest conflict resolved last year had spanned three years and was in a coal producing company in Rostov that owed nearly 1,000 workers a total of R357.6 million. bit.ly/rl1903-labor

Departures

Sergei Yursky, a Soviet actor with a rare nonconformist political stance, died in Moscow at the age of 83.

Yursky was born in Leningrad, where his father was the head of Lenconcert, the state concert organizer. He studied to be a lawyer, but became consumed by acting, eventually joining Leningrad’s main theater, currently known as the BDT (Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater). His best-known film role is certainly that of the swindler Ostap Bender in the 1968 adaptation of Ilf and Petrov’s novel, The Golden Calf. Yursky also starred in the classic Soviet comedy, Love and Doves, and in the iconic crime mini-series, The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed.

Later in life, Yursky performed at Moscow’s Mossovet Theater, staying away from cinema and television. Upon the actor’s death, the media here fondly remembered Yursky as a public persona who often took stances on social and political issues, yet never sought a political career. The human rights organization Memorial said in a short obituary that Yursky supported the rights movement in Russia from its inception, making significant donations to the country’s first monument to the victims of repressions. In more recent years, Yursky spoke out against Moscow’s annexation of Crimea.