Notebook

Fighting Fire

 

Heat and dry conditions led much of Western Russia to be covered in fire and inundated by smoke in September, resulting in health warnings, airport closings and, in Moscow, the declaration of a State of Emergency. 

There were some 900 fires burning forests and peat in the Moscow region in the first week of September, and over 240 in the St. Petersburg region. The fires reduced visibility to less than 100 meters in places and clogged the cities’ traffic and their citizens’ lungs. At times in early- to mid-September, the smog got so bad that airports in both Moscow and St. Petersburg had to be closed.

Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov announced an investigation into “passivity” of officials in connection with the fires, to be followed potentially by criminal charges. Moscow Prosecutor Eduard Denisov said that some 3000 regional officials could face administrative sanctions for their action or inaction. 

The peat fires resulted from the “powder keg” of peat farms that were planted in drained swampy areas in the early Soviet period but which were not reflooded when peat cultivation declined. Massive fires in 1972 were the first evidence of the danger of the peat. Governor of the Moscow Region, Boris Gromov, has said the government will now take on the work of reestablishing the swamps to stem future fires.

Heat and a drought compounded the effects of the fires. In Moscow, only 150 mm of rain fell from March to September. The norm is 350 mm. As such, 2002 is the driest year on record in the past 100 years. The dry, smoggy conditions pushed CO₂ levels in the capital to several times healthy levels. Elderly persons, young children and pregnant women were advised not to go outdoors during the period of the fires, which lasted over two weeks.

Near Vologda, smoke from peat and forest fires forced animals from their usual habitats and nearer to populated regions. Large quantities of snakes were reported on the city’s outskirts and large numbers of moose bathed in waterholes, paying no mind to people in the vicinity. Due to poor visibility, one Vologda driver hit a bear crossing the road. The bear struck back, destroying the hood with a single swipe. 

Films Score Big

 

At the Montreal World Film Festival in September, Alexei Chadov received the Best Male Actor award for his role in Aleksey Balabanov’s film War.

War is an action film that takes place in Chechnya. In it, Ivan (Chadov), a former prisoner of the Chechens, returns to Chechnya to rescue two other captives: the bride of a British citizen and his injured friend (Sergei Bodrov—who perished this fall in a tragic landslide, see page 8). Ivan is ruthless with his enemies and frees the two victims in the end, killing plenty of Chechens along the way. 

Balabanov, one of the most popular filmmakers in Russia today, insists that his film is about people and not about war, but that has not stopped liberals at home and abroad from questioning the “political correctness” of the film—for presenting just one side of the story. It is just such controversy which some experts speculated kept War from getting the top prize in Montreal. 

Meanwhile, another Russian film about Chechnya took the second to best prize at the prestigious Venice Film Festival in September. Andrei Koncha-lovsky’s Dom Durakov (“House of Fools”), about the effects of war upon a psychiatric hospital on the Chechen border (starring Julie Vysotsky and Yevgeny Mironov), won the Jury Grand Prize.

Konchalovsky has directed several highly acclaimed films in his career, including Runaway Train, Maria’s Lovers and Siberiade.

Finally, filmmaker Irina Efteeva took the top Silver Lion prize for Best Short Film at Venice, for her 10-minute film, Clown.

Meanwhile, at press time the five films nominated for Best Film in the National Academy of Film’s “Golden Eagle” competition were announced. The nominees included War, House of Fools, Star, Kukushka and Letters to Elsa.

 

Deadly Slide

Noted actor perishes in

tragic accident

A sudden avalanche in the Kolban Valley in Northern Ossetia on September 20 killed 113 persons, including 48 who were there shooting the film Svyaznoy (The Messenger) with director and actor Sergey Bodrov, Jr., who was also killed. Bodrov starred in numerous popular Russian films and TV serials, including “Brother” and Prisoner of the Caucasus. He was 30. The avalanche was caused by warmer than usual temperatures throughout the region. More specifically, the avalanche which buried the valley under as much as 80 meters of dirt, rocks and ice, was set off by a glacier cap that came loose and slid down the mountainside at 60 miles an hour, cutting a swath 300 meters wide or more. Another avalanche triggered by a falloff from the same glacier did similar horrendous damage almost exactly 100 years ago.

 

Iron Felix Redux?

Moscow debates return

of statue

In 1999, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov opposed a then Communist-dominated State Duma’s proposal to reinstate the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky removed from Lubyanskaya square in August 1991 (with the help of an American crane). But this fall, at a Moscow city construction meeting, Luzhkov called for the 14-ton statue’s re-installation, saying, “It’s an excellent monument and was the highlight of Lubyanskaya square.” Liberal and rightist politicians responded vehemently to the suggestion. Boris Nemtsov, leader of the Rightist Forces, said “Dzerzhinsky was a butcher who, along with his henchmen, killed millions of Russians.” Some, like Liberal Russia Party leader Sergei Yushenkov, speculated that the controversy stemmed from Luzhkov’s desire to give a unique present to President Vladimir Putin on his 50th birthday in October.

If that was the case, the Kremlin refused delivery of the present. Interfax reported on September 20 that Vladislav Surkov, a deputy chief of Putin’s administration, said “this problem bears not so much an architectural or ideological character as an ethical one ... It is necessary to be extremely cautious with symbols of the past. Today some are calling for the restoration of the monument to Dzerzhinsky, tomorrow others will demand the removal of Lenin’s body from the mausoleum. Both of these would be equally untimely and unacceptable for a meaningful portion of the citizens of our country. Such actions demand a careful and considered approach. In no case is it permissible to offend the feelings and memories of people.” 

Russian Patriarch Alexy II concurred with the Kremlin interpretation, saying restoration of the monument could potentially undermine “the fragile consensus in Russia’s society.” 

The statue was originally installed in 1958 and created by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich. Since 1991, it has been stored at the Central House of Artists, in what has become a necropolis of disgraced Soviet-era statues. Nemtsov said his supporters will collect a million signatures against the statue’s return. Luzhkov, meanwhile, insisted that Russians need to also consider that Dzerzhinsky solved important problems, particularly with war orphans and financing of the railway. The mayor said he will raise the matter again at the city construction committee’s October meeting.

On the place where the Dzerzhinsky statue once stood there is now a stone from Solovetsky monastery, site of one of the first camps for political prisoners in the Soviet era.

Fishy Business

US-Russian fishing dispute

heats up in the Pacific

Only 55 miles separate the US and Russia across the Bering Strait. The border between the countries was set in 1867, after the US purchased Alaska from the Russian empire. But in the 1970s, changes in international law allowed states to claim 200 miles of economic sovereignity from their shores. This led to years of haggling and, in 1990, the US and USSR signed an agreement dividing up rights to the Bering Sea. 

Now, 12 years later, Duma deputies are saying they are not happy with the agreement (which no Russian parliament ever ratified). This past June, the Duma passed a resolution calling on the government to renegotiate the agreement. Then, in early September, Duma deputies met the US ambassador to discuss the agreement. Meanwhile, some deputies began to question whether, in 1990, then Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze (now president of Georgia) exceeded his authority in concluding the agreement.

The new economic zones, said Duma deputy Mikail Margelov, have led to a $200 million annual loss in fishing revenues for Russia. Influential Duma deputy Dmitry Rogozin, who chairs the Committee on Foreign Relations, said that both the Duma and Federation Council are one in believing that “Shevardnadze sold out Russia’s interests.”

But the numbers just don’t add up. Margelov’s assertion that Russia has lost $200 million a year from the “loss” of 8,230 square kilometers of pollock fishing rights sounds a bit fishy. The Far Eastern region currently brings in just $380,000 per year from all sources, including its minimal taxes on fishing throughout the region.

More likely, the issue is being used to gore Shevardnadze for his recalcitrance in dealing with Chechen terrorists hiding in Georgia. But there are certainly economic reasons at work as well. Overfishing in the Russian Far East has left fish stocks within Russian economic zones seriously depleted.

In mid-September, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced that it will examine the 1990 agreement “and the actions of officials that pertain to it.”

 

Musical Changes

Vladimir Spivakov, principal conductor and music director of the Russian National Orchestra, has resigned his post and will depart the RNO at the end of the year. His four-year contract was due to expire next summer. The orchestra has created the position of Artistic Director, and will assemble a small group of conductors with whom they have a special relationship to form a conductor collegium. 

Mikhail Pletnev has agreed to accept the new position of Artistic Director commencing January 2003 and will lead the conductor collegium. Pletnev founded the RNO in 1990 and served as the orchestra’s music director and principal conductor until 1999. At that time he became Conductor Laureate in order to devote more time to his work as a composer and pianist. 

Pletnev applauded the initiative. “I believe this concept will be effective with this unique orchestra. The RNO has always been close to my heart and I look forward to continuing my association with this wonderful group of musicians.” 

 

The Truth Will Out

In a new biography of President Vladimir Putin by journalist Oleg Blotsky, The Road to Power, the author quotes Putin as saying some business people and even some deputies tried to blackmail him when he began working with then Leningrad Mayor Anatoly Sobchak. Putin had told Sobchak of his status in the KGB (see Russian Life, Sep/Oct 2002), but he said he “was initially forced to hide” this status “so as not to compromise Sobchak.” When his ties leaked out, “certain business structures” tried to blackmail him and he resigned from the KGB, he said, “to realize my potential” in civilian life. (Komsomolskaya Pravda)

 

Sound Familiar?

A pro-Kremlin youth movement, Moving Together, has of late initiated attacks on several “harmful” Russian writers, urging the government to institute criminal investigations against Kirill Vorobyov and Vladimir Sorokin, and causing disruptions at new book presentations. The main charge against the writers is that their fictional works are spreading “pornography.”

Noted writer Viktor Yerofeev wrote an open letter to President Putin that was reprinted in some Moscow newspapers. In it, he predicted show trials and asked: “Does not this violence against the creative personality remind you of Germany in the 1930s? ... In the center of Moscow, books are being destroyed and writers are being brought into court. This situation is completely abnormal.” 

 

Conviction Upheld

On September 17, the Russian Supreme Court upheld a treason conviction of former KGB office Oleg Kalugin by the Moscow City Court. Kalugin was tried in absentia earlier this year, prior to the entry into force of Russia’s new Criminal Code, which bars trials where the defendant is not present. Kalugin was convicted of revealing state secrets in his 1994 book, The First Directorate.

 

Kursk Monument

A monument to the marines who perished in the Kursk submarine disaster was unveiled in Moscow, in front of the Central Museum of Armed Forces. The sculpture was designed by Russia’s oldest living sculptor, Lev Kerbel. It shows a 4.5 meter tall grieving marine rising over a disproportionately small submarine, intending to show that the marines did not surrender to the monstrous machine which killed them.

 

Getting it Right

In early September, Rossiyskaya Gazeta published a handbook on the correct pronunciation of over 800 difficult words. It was compiled for  State Duma deputies by experts from St. Petersburg State University after the Russian President’s wife, Lyudmila Putina visited the university last spring. Reportedly, the book will be published as a separated monograph that will be distributed to deputies in the fall.

 

Rail for Peace

Russia and North Korea are considering a project that would merge North and South Korea’s rail networks and connect them with Russia’s Trans-Siberian Railroad. Such a rail line would be a tremendous boost to the economy of the Russian Far East (and to the economy as a whole, which could see $3 billion a year in new revenues) and have significant integrative effects for the North and South Korean economies. 

 

Boy’s Best Friend

In Moldova, thirteen-year old Tudor Mura was pulled from a lake and saved from drowning in September by his faithful dog. But the dog might have acted differently if he had known the real reason Tudor was at the lake. Tudor had taken his aged, near-blind dog to the lake in order to drown him, but fell in and was saved by him instead. (IMA-Press)

 

The Singing Putins

“I want someone like Putin, full of strength, someone like Putin, who doesn’t drink, someone like Putin, who will not shame me...” So go the lyrics to a new pop song, “A Man Like Putin,” repeated ad nauseum on Moscow radio stations this August. The Kremlin said it had no part in the popsa promotion. In fact, Putin himself is trying to downplay his growing “cult of personality.” The musical group was actually founded by Nikolai Gastello, a press spokesman for the Russian Supreme Court and the song was written by Kirill Kalashnikov, who said the point of the song, which he wrote in about an hour, was simply to be “a good, happy tune.”

 

Zhiri-Diplomacy

The ever-surprising Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Deputy Duma Speaker and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, while on a private visit to the US, called for visa-free travel between the US and Russia. He also proposed that the US adopt Russian as its second language and that Russia adopt English as its second language. And yet ... just a few weeks later, upon returning to Russia, Zhirinovsky proposed a range of basic structural changes to the government as well as a change of the title of Russian President to “Supreme Ruler of Russia” (Verkhovny pravitel Rossii). The reason? “To Russians,” Zhirinovsky said, “it is unpleasant to pronounce the americanisms which have so resolutely entered our life in the last ten years.”

 

Our Sympathies

The Ministry of Taxation announced that the first half of 2002 has not been “successful” for the body: only half of all state audits are resulting in additional tax payments. Collections for such payments in 2002 brought R24.3 billion less to the budget than the same period last year.

 

Clean Water

American and Russian officials of Rotary International have told the Vladivostok city administration that they would like to make cleaning up the city’s drinking water their cause. Rotary has received a grant to send water purification officials to the city and have them draw up a plan for a new water treatment plant.  Rotary has already extended humanitarian aid to the city in the form of providing important vaccinations for local children during the first two years of their lives.  Meanwhile, on September 3, Prime Minister Kasyanov, speaking at the World Development Conference in South Africa, said Russia “is ready to provide technological help to developing countries in solving drinking-water problems.”

 

Fries With That?

The Japanese Yellow Water-Lily only grows in three places on earth, one of them in the Russian Far East, and can be found on Kubyshkiny (“Yellow Water-Lily”) Lake in the Lazo region, north of Vladivostok. Not long ago, lands around the lake were leased to a farmer who brought in Korean workers to help till the land. But some of them turned out to be gourmands, and ate up the lilies—a delicacy in Korea.

 

Catholics Not Welcomed

Several news agencies have reported incidents where Catholic priests are being denied entry or re-entry to Russia when their visas run out. Reverend Jaroslaw Wisniewski, a Polish citizen who works in parishes on Sakhalin Island, was not allowed to back into Russia when he returned from a vacation in the Far East, and was informed that his visa had been annulled. In August, Slovak priest Reverend Stanislav Krajniak was denied a visa extension to continue his work in Yaroslavl). In April, Bishop Jerzy Mazur of Irkutsk and Reverend Stefano Caprio of Vladimir were refused visas. (RFE/RL Newsline)

 

Russia’s Handicap Falling?

The Russian Golf Open, established in 1993 and played at Moscow’s elite Le Meridien Moscow Golf & Country Club, is on track to become a European PGA event. It has been a European Challenge Tour program to this point and in 2003 will carry the insignia of both tours, with half of its players coming from the PGA Tour. Held in early August, the 72-hole Russian Golf Open drew over 150 players and Iain Pyman (England) took home the top prize of 30,000 Euros.

Antoin Ernst, marketing director at the Moscow office of JTI, one of the event’s sponsors, told The Russia Journal that it was his impression that, “within the next 15-20 years, Russia will definitely be one of the best golfing nations in the world.”

 

Spikers take top spot

In the Women’s World Volleyball Championships in Berlin in September, the tall Russian team Russia defeated China (3-1) to take the bronze medal. 

 

30 - Love

On September 16, Russian tennis players snagged a WTA and ATP title on the same day. In Tashkent, Yevgeny Kafelnikov continued his streak, begun in 1996, of winning an ATP event every year, when he defeated Vladimir Volchkov (Belarus) in the final to win the Presidential Cup’s $550,000 purse. In Salvador, Brazil, 21-year-old Anastasia Myskina defeated Eleni Danilidu (Greece) in the final of the Brazil Open.

 

To the mat

The Russian national team in Greco-Roman wrestling won first place in the overall medal count at the World Championship in Moscow. Russia won two golds, one silver and one bronze medal; Sweden was second with four medals. The hero of the Russian team was Varterez Samurgashev, who defeated his long time nemesis from Georgia, Badri Hasaya, in overtime. 

 

Davis Cup in Sight

Russia to face off

against France

Marat Safin was lauded as the hero of Russian tennis after defeating Argentina’s David Nalbandian in the fourth rubber of the Davis Cup semifinals on September 22 (7-6, 6-7, 6-0, 6-3). The victory set the Russian team up to vie for the Cup title with defending champion France.

 Safin’s victory (which included 25 aces) was all the more sweet as it came on the heels of a surprising defeat of the Russian doubles team the day before. Safin and Yevgeny Kafelnikov succumbed to Nalbandian and Lucas Arnold after a grueling six hour match that was the longest in Davis Cup history. Safin was expected to play a rested Gaston Gaudio, but Nalbandian, a Wimbledon finalist this year, was substituted at the last minute.

Both Safin and Kafelnikov had won their first singles match in the semifinal round against Argentina (Kafelnikov against Gaudio and Safin against Juan Ignacio Chela), and were expected to win the doubles as well, making the follow-up singles matchups irrelevant in the best-of-five series. But the doubles results made the second singles matches all-important.

Safin’s victory spared Kafelnikov from having to play a final match, and Mikhail Yuzhny sparred with Chela, but went down in three sets (6-7, 7-6, 4-6).

Russia will face off against France in Paris starting November 29. France advanced to the finals after defeating the US team. The last time Russia advanced to the finals of the Davis Cup was when it faced the US in 1995, eventually losing the match 3-2. 

Team leader Kafelnikov said at the 2002 Kremlin Cup in October that he is ready to retire from the sport if he wins the Davis Cup, and that France “could not have chosen a better surface than clay for the Russians.”

 

Kremlin Chess

World chess match 

won by “Soviet” team

A chess match held in the Moscow Kremlin and billed as the “Match of the Century” led to a surprising upset. Russian chess players were unified for the first time as a Russian National Team—led by Gary Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik—and faced off against players from “The Rest of the World.” Yet in a surprise outcome, the Russian team was defeated 52-48.

The irony of the match’s results were well summarized by Alexei Shirov, of Latvia: “If it had been the former Soviet Union against the Rest of the World, the Soviets would have won,” he said. That is because all but four players on the Rest of the World team came from the countries of the Former Soviet Union. This led American grandmaster and captain of the international team, Yasser Seirawan, to pronounce that “the Russian people can be proud of the Rest of the World victory.”

 

49% of Russians have a negative opinion of Russia’s military organs, while only 19% approve of the bodies; 13% said the Defense Ministry is dragging out the conflict in Chechnya. 40%, however, approve of Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov (Public Opinion Foundation) ! In August, just 35% of Russians said they approve of the work of the Russian government, while 76% approved of President Vladimir Putin’s actions. Those polled also trust locally-elected authorities more than centrally-appointed ones: 28% said they trust Presidential Special Envoys in the federal districts, while 48% said they trust their governors. (Russian Public Opinion Res Ctr) ! The Russian Central Bank has probed the operations of 1200 Russian banks and found that 10% were guilty of money-laundering violations. (Chairman Viktor Melnikov) ! 75% of light trucks in the Russian Far East are imported from Japan and have steering wheels on the right side. ! A year after the September 11 tragedy, a poll showed that over half of Russians continue to think America brought the tragedy on itself. (IMA-Press) ! Russia has written off $35 billion in debts owed by African countries to the former Soviet Union. (RosBalt) ! Russia ranked 79th of 102 countries, three steps better than last year, in an international ranking of the levels of corruption in countries around the world. The ranking tied Russia with Tanzania, India and Honduras, among others. (Transparency International) ! An average of 3500 new cases of AIDS are registered each month in Russia. St. Petersburg and Leningrad oblast have the highest level of registered AIDS cases, with 17.7% of the total. (NTV) ! Teachers’ salaries will be raised 33% in October 2003. (RosBalt) ! 58% of Russians classify themselves as Orthodox believers, while 42% of these have never been in an Orthodox Church and 31% said they go to church once a year. 31% of those surveyed called themselves atheists. Of those who called themselves “believers,” 60% had never read any of the Bible. (VTsIOM) ! 10.3% of all Russian schools are on the internet. By the middle of next year, 31% will be connected. (strana.ru) ! From January to July 2002, the population in Russia dropped by 505,900 persons, to 143.1 million. (RBC) ! Just 30% of Russians approve of the country’s war in Chechnya. In July 2000, 59% of Russians voiced their support. (VTsIOM) ! Four of Russia’s largest oil companies are studying a $1.5 billion plan to build an oil terminal in Murmansk that could potentially supply up to 1 mn barrels a day of oil to the US, or nearly as much as Saudi Arabia. (EIU)   In June, Russia supplied 78,000 barrels of oil per day to the US. (US Dept of Energy) ! There are currently about 11 million cellular phone users in Russia. That number is expected to top 23 million by 2010. (RBC) ! In the first round of voting for Nizhny Novgorod’s mayoral post, incumbent Yuri Lebedev got 31.4% of the vote, challenger Vadim Bulavinov took 30.85%, while “Against All” came third with 30.35%. (Interfax) ! The average cost of a Duma campaign is $500,000 to $1 million. (Finansovaya Gazeta) ! Russia will export 8.5 million tons of grain this year, including 5 million tons of wheat and 3.5 million tons of forage wheat and barley. Most of the exports are targetted for the Middle East, Spain and Africa. (RBC) ! Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said Russian GDP growth will be 3.9% in 2002, while Russians will see an average real income growth of 7%. (Moscow Times) ! 25% of supporters of the Unified Russia party said they hate Russia’s wealthy, while 44% of Communist Party supporters expressed this opinion. (VTsIOM) ! Capital drain from Russia dropped from $16 billion last year to $11 billion this year (Russian Central Bank).  ! Annual advertising revenues in the Russian broadcast market are at least $2 billion (Eduard Sagelayev, president NATRB).

 

The Russian census has begun and no point on the Russian landscape can go unvisited if the census is to offer useful data to the government. Above, census takers Olga Labutina and Elena Mamshanova poll reindeer-breeders in the Khanti-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug.

Meanwhile, census-takers in the Taimyr Autonomus Okrug have reportedly discovered an ethnic group that was previously unknown—the Chalymtsy. The village of Pasechnoye has 130 members of this group of hunters and subsistence farmers.

 

 

Home Again

A medieval icon stolen 45 years ago from a Moscow church has been returned. The icon, called “Transfiguration of Our Lord,” dated to the 15th century and was stolen in 1957 from the Winter Church of the Rogozhsky Old Believers Center. The icon was found in the private collection of a deceased Mexican diplomat. 

 

“I won’t speak a lot, or else I will say something again.” 

— Russia’s “Golden tongue” Former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, 

notorious for his colorful quotes. (Argumenty i Fakty).

 

“One needs a career when he does not have love.”

— Vladimir Zhirinovsky (Argumenty i Fakty)

 

“Whatever a citizen calls himself, that is what will be written in the census form — whether it be Kazak, Pomor or Martian.”

— Vladimir Sokolin, chairman of Goskomstat (Itogi)

“Monuments should not be toppled, but if toppled, they should not be restored.”

— Alexander Kotenkov, Kremlin representative to the Duma, 

on the proposal to restore the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky to Lubyanka square.

 

“Georgia cannot survive without Russia, nor Russia without Georgia. We are burdened with a common cross, we have a common history, which no one can rewrite or change.”

— Zurab Tsereteli, on the deterioration of 

Russian-Georgian relations (Argumenti i Fakti)