Notebook

The Putin Shuffle

Less than two weeks after his reelection, President Putin, who had shuffled his government just prior to the election, slashed the size of his presidential administration. The number of deputies to the president’s chief-of-staff (Dmitry Medvedev) was reduced from eight to two, leaving just Igor Sechin and Vladislav Surkov. Analysts said these two figures are supported by opposing political clans, so Putin made a compromise by keeping them both. Sechin is closely linked to the siloviki, or law-enforcement agencies. Surkov is said to have orchestrated the Duma elections last December, in which the pro-Putin United Russia party won two-thirds of the seats, and was linked to “The Family” – Yeltsin administration holdovers. The other six deputies to the chief-of-staff were demoted to presidential aides. 

Another major change was Putin’s disbanding of his administration’s economic department. Analysts said that the economic department, which used to evaluate the cabinet’s economic decisions rather than shape the country’s economic policy, was no longer needed, as the Kremlin has established firm control over the cabinet’s decisions. 

On March 1, in Putin’s pre-election shuffle, the president fired Mikhail Kasyanov and replaced him with Mikhail Fradkov, previously Russia’s envoy to the EU and, before that, Head of the Tax Police. 

Putin also divided the government into three levels – ministries, services and agencies. Ministries, whose number was reduced from 30 to 17, are in charge of general policymaking. Subordinate to them are services, responsible for controlling compliance with laws, and agencies, which are in charge of the state services provided to the population. 

In other moves, Putin dumped two long-standing military advisors and appointed Sergey Yastrzhembsky as a presidential aide and as Russia’s special envoy to the EU (replacing Fradkov’s duties, if not his official role).

 

Spies Like This

Igor Sutyagin, a former researcher for the Institute of the USA and Canada, was convicted of “state treason in the form of espionage” in a closed door jury trial in April and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Sutyagin was arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) in October 1999 and charged with passing state secrets to a British consulting firm, which the FSB said was a CIA front. Sutyagin, who had no security clearance or access to state secrets, denied all allegations, saying he took all the information about nuclear weaponry which he sold to the British firm from open sources. An appeal is planned. Some analysts interpreted the sentence as the State warning scholars in the security realm from seeking foreign ties. Meanwhile, human rights advocates said the case has discredited jury trials, which were only recently introduced in Russia.

Less is More

As part of its general trend toward streamlining, the Kremlin backed a Duma effort to eliminate one of Russia’s 89 “subjects” – the Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug. 

On March 26, President Putin signed a law that will form the Perm Krai via a merger of the Perm Oblast and the Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug. The merger was supported almost unanimously by residents of the okrug and the oblast in a referendum held in December 2003.  But, for the time being, current maps are not obsolete. The krai will come into existence on December 1, 2005, once gubernatorial elections can be held. A krai legislature will be elected in 2006, and the two subjects will have a common budget beginning in 2007.

Other regions are expected to undergo similar consolidations in the context of the “verticalization” of presidential power. Mergers between Tyumen Oblast and Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenetsk Autonomous Okrugs, as well as between Irkutsk Oblast and Ust-Ordynsky Buryat Autonomous Okrug are also on the agenda. 

 

Thick as Billionaires

According to Forbes magazine’s 18th annual ranking of the world’s wealthiest people, as of the end of 2003, Russia had 25 billionaires, up from 17 last year. The combined value of their assets grew from $35.5 to $79.4 billion. Russia now ranks third in the world for the number of its billionaires, behind the U.S., with 279 billionaires, and Germany, with 52.

For the fourth consecutive year, Mikhail Khodorkovsky (formerly CEO of Yukos, and now in jail awaiting trial) was listed as the country’s richest man. His assets grew from $8 to $15 billion, making him the world’s 16th-richest person and the only Russian in the top 20. In March, Moscow’s Basmanny Court again extended Khodorkovsky’s pretrial custody term, this time until May 25. The billionaire list includes five more Yukos shareholders: Platon Lebedev (also jailed), Vasily Shakhnovsky (convicted but freed), and Leonid Nevzlin, Mikhail Brudno, and Vladimir Dubov, all three of whom have been charged with tax evasion and fraud and are currently living in Israel. Despite the fact that most of Yukos’ shares have been frozen by the State, Forbes said they were still counted. 

Roman Abramovich, the country’s second richest man, rose to the rank of the world’s 25th wealthiest person, his fortune having almost doubled from $5.7 to $10.6 billion. Third on the list is Alfa Group’s Mikhail Fridman, with $5.6 billion. 

The Russian billionaires list is largely dominated by oil magnates. Oil prices remained high throughout 2003, so their personal wealth has continued to rise. 

 

Liberal Murder

In March, Liberal Russia (LR) party faction leader Mikhail Kodanyov was convicted by a jury of conspiring to murder State Duma Deputy and LR co-Chairman Sergey Yushenkov in April 2003. Kodanyov headed a LR group that supports exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, while Yushenkov headed the faction of the party that ousted Berezovsky. Kodanyov’s aide, Alexander Vinnik, testified that Kodanyov gave him $50,000 to hire contract killers. Kodanyov, Vinnik, and two other defendants were convicted, while two other defendants were acquitted. Kodanyov had pleaded innocent and was sentenced to 20 years in a maximum-security prison, while the other convicted killers got 10 to 20 years.

 

Book Bannings 

In March, the Federal Anti-Drug Service ordered the Russian translation of the book, Marijuana, the Forbidden Medicine, to be removed from bookstore shelves. The book (published in English in 1993), by Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar, is a compilation of testimony on the medical uses of marijuana. The Ministry claimed the book, published by Ultra Kultura, was drug propaganda. The publishing house, in turn, accused the authorities of censorship. According to Ultra Kultura, its book was not the only target: the Anti-Drug Service recommended that booksellers also suspend sales of two other drug-themed books, while the Federal Security Service recommended suspending sales of several books on terrorism, including the Russian translation of Adam Parfrey’s Extreme Islam and Allah Dislikes America.

 

Camo TV

The Russian Defense Ministry is planning to launch a national “military, patriotic” TV channel. The new channel, dubbed Zvezda (“Star”), will start broadcasting in February 2005 at microwave frequency 57, which was given to the military in 1999. 

Over the last five years, the Defense Ministry has made several failed attempts to begin broadcasts, according to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, but has been repeatedly stymied. One problem is that the channel’s transmitter could disrupt the operation of airfields around Moscow. Another problem is funding. The Ministry estimates that it would cost $40 million to begin broadcasting to Moscow and the Moscow region; $100 million would be required for a national broadcast. So far just $80,000 has been allocated.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that the Ministry has approached Russian gas and oil giants for help, as well as Rosoboronexport, the state arms exporter. Meanwhile, Russian media critics wondered out loud where the new channel would find media professionals fit for the task of covering military affairs (where reporting too well can get you tossed in jail for espionage).

 

Missile Gap?

A Defense Ministry official made the astonishing statement in March that Russia has designed a “revolutionary” new weapon that would make any missile defense system useless. In February, President Putin, while attending experimental missile launches in Plesetsk, said that the tests had proven that the Russian army would have weapons that “no other country in the world possesses.” Putin added that “development of new weapons is not aimed at the US… We work with the US constructively, and we are interested in broadening this cooperation. But we reserve the right to modernize our armed forces in the interests of our country.” At a press-conference after the test launches, First Deputy Chief of the General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky explained that the military had tested a “flying vehicle… able to fly not only along a ballistic trajectory at hypersonic speed, but also to overcome any existing or potential antimissile defense system.” 

 

Farewell to Manezh 

Late on the evening of March 14, the day of Russia’s presidential elections, Moscow’s historic Manezh Exhibition Hall (right) caught fire and was destroyed. Two firefighters were killed when the roof of the building collapsed. At the time of the fire, the exhibition hall was showing works of contemporary art, most of which went up in smoke. 

The fire was at first blamed on faulty wiring at the 19th century building, but investigators later said a blaze of that magnitude and ferocity could not have been started accidentally. Moscow authorities have vowed to restore the Manezh as an exhibition hall with the same external appearance, but have also made plans to build a two-storey parking garage underneath it.

Located between the Kremlin and the original campus of Moscow State University (and the old US Embassy), the Manezh was built in 1817 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Russia’s victory over Napoleon. At the time, the building was considered innovative for its system of wooden girders, which allowed the roof to stand unsupported by internal walls and columns, creating a wide, open space inside for large events. Manege is French for “riding school,” and the building was originally used for cavalry parades. It also was a venue for exhibitions and large concerts, including an 1868 orchestral performance conducted by French composer Hector Berlioz before an audience of more than 12,000 (during which smoking was strictly forbidden). 

After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Manezh was turned into a garage for the Council of People’s Commissars. In 1957, it was turned into an exhibition center. It was there, in 1962, that Nikita Khrushchev had his famous encounter with Ernst Neizvestny and other modern artists. “You may be Premier,” Neizvestny boldly told Khrushchev, “but not here in front of my works of art. Here I am the premier, so we shall have a discussion on that equal basis.” It did not turn out to be much of a discussion; Khrushchev launched into a tirade, lambasting the artists: “This is pederasty in art. Why do fags get 10 years [in prison] for this, while these [artists] get awards?”

 

Sponsor Mania

Less than a year after oligarch and Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich purchased England’s Chelsea soccer club, Abramovich, who has recently been named the richest person in the UK, took a Russian soccer team under his wing. In March, Abramovich’s oil company Sibneft signed a three-year $54 million sponsorship deal with the Moscow soccer club CSKA, champion of Russian Premier League. The CSKA deal gives Sibneft exclusive rights to use the club’s name, trademark, logotype, photographs and team image in its marketing and advertising activities, both in Russia and abroad. Some analysts interpreted the deal as Abramovich’s response to accusations of being unpatriotic and to indications that the authorities are considering criminal investigations in Sibneft. 

A few days later, the oil company Nafta-Moskva announced it would participate in a deal to pump $60 million into the Saturn soccer club, which is already sponsored by sporting goods company Sfera. Nafta-Moskva will join Sfera in giving some $10 million per year to the Moscow region’s budget over the next six years. Earlier, the Russian media reported that Nafta-Moskva was negotiating to purchase a controlling stake in the debt-ridden Italian club Roma, but nothing came of the negotiations. Nafta-Moskva is reportedly controlled by LDPR State Duma Deputy Suleiman Kerimov. Observers have speculated that Nafta-Moskva may have signed the sponsorship to foster ties with the Moscow regional government and to get a hand in commercial projects in the Moscow region. 

Also in March, oligarch Vladimir Potanin announced that he would spend $5 million on the development of Russian badminton. The Olympic sport is on the decline in Russia and no Russian athletes are contenders for medals in the 2004 Olympics, according to the Russian Olympic Committee. Potanin reportedly loves badminton and plays daily.

 

Track Records

Russian athletes broke two world records and took three gold medals at the 10th IAAF Indoor Athletic World Championship in Budapest in March. Tatyana Lebedeva, 27, triple-jumped 15.16 meters in her first attempt, tying the world record. In her second attempt, she beat the record with a jump of 15.25 meters, and in her final attempt, soared 15.36 meters. Meanwhile, Yelena Isinbayeva pole vaulted 4.86 meters, breaking the record of her compatriot Svetlana Feofanova by 1 cm. Runner Natalia Nazarova confirmed her title as world champion in the 400-meters event, winning with a time of 50.19 seconds. 

 

Golden Ice 

At the World Figure Skating Championships in March, Russian skaters won gold medals in three of the four events. Yevgeny Plyushchenko won the men’s title, Tatyana Totmyanina and Maxim Marinin won the pairs title, and Tatyana Navka and Roman Kostomarov won in ice dancing.

But Russian women had their worst showing in 10 years. Irina Slutskaya, 2002 world champion and 2002 Olympic silver medalist, finished ninth; Yelena Sokolova came in 10th. This poor showing means that Russia will be allotted just two slots for women at next year’s World Championships. This is all the more significant, because the event will be in Moscow next year, the first time a world figure skating championship has been held in Russia since 1903, when it was in St. Petersburg.

 

Siberian Shaq

Pavel Podkolzine started playing basketball in Novosibirsk when he was 14, walking to practice in -30o C temperatures. Basketball is not an outdoor sport in season in Siberia.

Today, Podkolzine is 18, stands 7 foot 5 inches tall and weighs in at 300 pounds. His vertical reach (with his feet still on the ground) is 9 foot 8 inches, and he is an imposing presence on the court.

Podkolzine plays for Pallacanestro Varese (Italy), but is widely considered to be a top-10 NBA draft pick this June. In fact, he was a top-10 draft pick last season, but bowed out of the draft at the last moment, to get another year of experience playing with his Italian squad. There were also rumors that he had a pituitary disorder that needed treatment. But Podkolzine offered his own explanation for his late pullout last year. He said he did not want to be a “project” for the team that drafted him. He wanted to go back to Italy and “work very, very hard and come back next year [in 2004] stronger, and more ready to contribute to the team that drafts me.”

 

{Yahoo! RUSSKY} Yahoo! Inc. announced in March that it will launch a Russian-language version of its popular free e-mail service, to cater to the growing number of Russian web users around the world. The company said that the new service targets the 2-3 million Russian-speakers living in the United States and the “approximately 35 million Russians” living abroad, as well as the growing number of Internet users within Russia.

 

{LOST IN SPACE} A Novosibirsk crematorium will begin sending human ashes into space, Interfax reported. The crematorium is an agent for the U.S. company Celestis, headquartered in Texas. An ash-filled capsule will remain in orbit for 40 years, after which it will burn up in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, Celestis announced that it has signed an agreement with SpaceQuest Ltd. to launch Dnepr spacecraft from the Baikonur cosmodrome, starting in May 2004. The crematorium can also send clients’ ashes to the Moon or outer space. The cost: $995 to $12,500. 

 

{City Life} The quality of life for expats in Russian cities is low, according to Mercer Human Resource Consulting, Vedomosti daily reported. Mercer studies quality of life in different world cities, based on surveys among expatriates working there. Out of the 215 cities, four Russian cities received rankings: Moscow (162), Petersburg (157), Novosibirsk (186) and Kazan (188).

 

{Cheburashka Expands} The Japanese TV Broadcaster Terebi Tokyo will produce 50 new 30-minute cartoons about Cheburashka, the floppy-eared character created by children’s writer Eduard Uspensky. Cheburashka’s popularity has been soaring in Japan. There are four Soviet era cartoons about Cheburashka. Some copyright issues have been raised, but the new films are planned to be made with the participation of the Russian artists who created the Soviet Cheburashka. 

 

{Laughs Last} In a poll taken by the Levada Center in March, 46% of Russians say they laugh “quite often,” 35% “from time to time” and 18% “hardly ever.” Some 76% say they are capable of laughing at themselves and 35% say they never get insulted when friends make jokes at their expense. The biggest laughers are students, housewives and well-educated persons under 30 who have never been married and have high salaries. Those who laugh least are non-working pensioners, unemployed persons, women over 55 and those with lower education and salary levels.

 

Mumu Lives

A sculpture of arguably the most loved and pitied four-legged character in Russian literature – the dog Mumu – was unveiled in Petersburg’s Turgenev Square, near the club-café “Mumu.” The unveiling coincided with the 150th anniversary of the publication of Ivan Turgenev’s short-story named after the little dog. 

The story tells of the relationship between Gerasim, a deaf and dumb custodian working in a rich Moscow household, and his little dog – the only being he can communicate with. Gerasim saves the dog from drowning when it is a puppy, and raises her as his best friend. But when the lady of the house tries to play with Mumu, the dog is too scared to approach her. The lady gets so upset that she orders Gerasim to get rid of Mumu. The duty-bound Gerasim takes Mumu to a tavern for a last meal and then drowns her. But he ends up suffering so much from the ordeal that he leaves Moscow. 

Mumu joins a growing list of sculptures of literary characters, including Gogol’s Nose and the bird Chizhik-Pyzhik, who reportedly drank vodka along the Fontanka.

 

“We have spent many years, figuratively speaking, in the GULAG. It is therefore not possible to suddenly wake up
in Hyde Park.”

Mikhail Kovalchuk, director of the Crystallography Institute (Profil)

 

“Let us choose our own standards of human rights, which would allow us to bring order to the country.” 

Dmitry Rogozin, State Duma vice-speaker, speaking in favor of the death penalty for terrorists and for manufacturers and distributors of narcotics. (Interfax)

 

586,000 

tourists from Russia and the CIS who visited Egypt in 2003 

 

25R

daily food allowance for orphans in the town of Ust-Kut, Irkutsk region 

 

166,050

18-27 year old men to be drafted into the army for a two year stint between April and June 

 

19 

number of Moscow families with 10 or more children 

 

$3,000

amount spent annually by the average Russian small business on bribes to bureaucrats 

 

700

Russians die every day from smoking-related causes

 

5 

number of women 124 years old in Russia 

 

5,000,000

number of illegal immigrants in Russia today, two-thirds of them from CIS countries 

 

11,600,000

number of regular internet users in Russia
(a 40% increase over the last year)

 

5,644 

kilos of milk produced by each cow in Murmansk region in 2003 (a 166% increase compared to 2002. A record figure of 8,000 kilos of milk per cow was produced at the cooperative “Polyarnaya Zvezda.”) 

 

Russians who

 

are fluent in Russian 98.2%

   in English 4.8%

   in Tatar 3.7%

  in German 3.7%

   in Ukrainian 3.7%

 

don’t want their family members 

to serve in the army 77% 

 

will fight to defend their country 70%

   … will not 22%

 

did not plan to observe Lent 79%

 

say seeing kissing in public makes them:

   happy 20%

   irritated 16%

   indignant 13%

   envious 11%

   shameful & sad 11%

   no particular feeling 38%

 

would vote for a woman for

president 57%

  … would not 26% 

  undecided 17% 

 

trust the president 62% 

  ... the Church 41%

  ... the government 12%

  ... the State Duma 9% 

  ... political parties 5%

 

would prefer a political system that is:

  … like the pre-1990 Soviet one 41%

  … like the present one 19%

  … like a Western democracy 24%

 

prefer a planned economy 53%

prefer a market economy 34%

 

would look favorably on a return
to a Brezhnevian system 39%

  … would not 48%

 

 

STATISTICAL SOURCES

NUMBERS (page 8): 1. Tourism Ministry of Egypt, quoted by Izvestia. 2. Prosecutor of Irkutsk region quoted by ITAR-TASS. 3. Interfax. 4. Lyudmila Svetsova, first deputy mayor of the Moscow government quoted by Interfax. 5. union of small businesses “OPORa Rossii” quoted by Vedomosti daily. 6. Mikko Vienonen, special representative in Russia of the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General quoted by Interfax. 7. Irina Zbarskaya, head of the census and demographic statistics department of the State Statistics Committee quoted by Interfax. 8. Migration Service quoted by Interfax. 9. Study by telecom consulting firm J’son & Partners. RUSSIANS WHO (page 11): 1. Vladimir Zorin, Minister for National Policies quoted by RIA-Novosti. 2, 4, 5, 7, 8-10. Yuri Levada’s Analytical Service – formerly VTsIOM-A. 3. ROMIR Monitoring. 6. “Public Opinion” Foundation.

 

 

“In the next few years, anyone could become the next president of Russia – a man, a woman, even Mickey Mouse. The important thing is that he is designated as Vladimir Putin’s official heir.”

 Irina Khakamada, who ran for president in March (Profil)

 

“The idea of a professional army failed because it is not advantageous to the generals: the ‘Terminator soldier’ will not implement the chief battle aim of the Russian army – he will not build dachas for generals.” 

Yulia Latynina, columnist (Profil)

 

“During a check of one of Moscow’s religious establishments, persons were detained, who were not, I would say, literally involved in terrorist acts, but they were ideologically ripe for it.”

Nikolai Pershutkin, head of the Main Department for Maintaining Public Order of the Interior Ministry, about police raids on Moscow mosques. (Itogi)

 

“We pay special attention to keeping the gorillas busy. We have to keep them better occupied, so that they pick their noses less and think more.

 Vladimir Spitsin, director of the Moscow Zoo, 

defending his decision to put TV sets in gorilla cages at the zoo. (Itogi)