Notebook

Film festival gets new lease on life

Polish film takes top honors

T

he Grand Prize (a Golden St. George) at July’s 22nd Inter-national Moscow Film Festival went to Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi’s film, Life as a Lethal Sexually Transmitted Disease. It is the story of a director shooting a film about the life of St. Bernard and contemplating how people prepare to die. 

Some 19 films entered the Festival’s competition and 150 films were shown. French actor Clement Sibony won the award for Best Actor for his role as Stan in the French film L’envoi (The Sending). Steve Suissa received Best Director for the same film. Maria Simon took the Best Actress title for her role in the Swiss film Angry Kisses, about the seduction of a young Catholic school student by her teacher. 

The only Russian film in the competition, Vitaly Melnikov’s Garden Full of Moonlight, evoked a new, more “positive” mood in filmmaking, which may have helped the film earn a special prize for “outstanding contribution to the world of cinema.” Another Russian film, The Romanovs, by director Gleb Panfilov, made its world premiere at the festival.

From now on, the Moscow festival will be held yearly, rather than every other year, and, thanks to a decree by President Vladimir Putin, will receive state support and funding. 

The festival was also well attended this year. For the first time in many years there were lines outside cinema halls. But, unlike the film festival held in 1995, this year’s festival was not a star-studded event. The not-so-famous French actress Irene Jacob and the American actor Billy Zane (Titanic) were the top stars putting in an appearance. 

Old Believer and the New

Today there are 30 Old Believer settlements in the Krasnoyarsk region. All of them are located in remote corners of the taiga. These settlers are descendants of the Old Believers who rejected the religious reforms of Patriarch Nikon in the 17th century and who sought to preserve ancient Orthodox rites. Fleeing persecutions, some Old Believers took refuge in hidden corners of Siberia. There they are economically self-sustaining and use dated farming methods. Yet, step by step, they are casting off old taboos and tasting the “fruits” of civilization, like contemporary furniture or a motor boat, as with Afanasy Kochev (above), starosta (village elder) of the village of Priluki, Boguchansky district.

FAMILY MATTERS

If Russia’s population decline continues at its present pace, by the year 2015, there will be 22 million fewer Russians, President Vladi-mir Putin warned in his July address to the Federal Assembly. To maintain the population at current levels, each Russian family would need to have, on average, 2.3 children. Later, Premier Mikhail Kasyanov admitted he is not meeting this standard: in a television interview after Putin’s speech, Kasyanov said he has only one child, a daughter. Putin and his wife have two daughters.

SHELL GAME

The Moscow City Duma has passed a new law on the Protection of Monuments. The law bans all reconstruction of monuments, allowing only restoration. However, in parallel to the debate, yet another historic building was razed in Moscow — the monument of industrial architecture by architect Fyodor Shekhtel, known as the Levinson Typography. The House was torn down to make way for ... a new, more comfortable building for the Moscow City Duma.

STUDENT LOANS

The Russian State Savings Bank Sberbank has created a revolution in the Russian system of higher education: the bank announced it had allocated R1.5 billion ($53.8 mn) for student loans, the very notion of which is new to the Russian mentality. Free higher education was a right under the Soviet system and was somehow preserved in the New Russia. However, cuts in state funding have forced universities to grant a free education only to students with the very highest marks on entrance exams. Meanwhile, the “commercial quota” of students has been slowly increasing while the available “free” spots get fewer. Tuition can range from $400-7,000 a year. The proposed 10-year loan will cover up to 70% of a student’s educational costs at a 21% annual interest rate — comparable to the present annual rate of inflation. 

TRUST, BUT VERIFY

Just over one third of all Russians trust the mass media, while 40% distrust it and one quarter have no opinion, according to an poll conducted by the Agency for Regional Political Research. TV was the most trusted source (34% of those polled ranked it highest; only 13% put print media first and 10% put radio at the top).

JOBLESS DOWN

The number of unemployed Russians is on the decline, according to Goskomstat. In early July, 8.36 million Russians were jobless, down from 8.49 million in June and 8.9 million at the beginning the year 2000. On the whole, unemployment in July was down 5.5% from July of last year. Goskomstat also said there was not a single recorded strike in Russia during May and June—a statistic unheard of since the launch of market reforms.

OIL FEEDS GROWTH

The Russian government predicted GDP will rise a record 5.5% this year, following on a rise of 3.2% in 1999. The forecast was made by Economic Development and Trade Mini-ster German Gref. He also said industrial output is predicted to soar 7.5% and inflation will be at or under 20%. 

LIGHTENING UP

In a move to humanize its penal system, Russia intends to cut the number of criminal offenses punishable by a prison term, Russian Minister of Justice Yuri Chaika said. If Chaika’s proposal is implemented, the number of Russian prisoners would fall by 600,000-700,000 persons from the current 1,092,000. While there are humanitarian reasons for the move, it is mainly dictated by economic factors—with the world’s highest per capita prison population, Russia simply cannot afford to keep so many people behind bars.

“Happiness to the English means that the coffee is good, the armchair is comfortable and the temperature is nice ... It is too much related to advertising. For a Slav, happiness means euphoria, or calm, or only hope. So one can still be a happy man, even when suffering.”

 Krzysztof Zanussi, winner of the Grand Prize at the 2000 Moscow 

International Film Festival. (Argumenty i Fakty)

“The oligarchs somehow got through it 

without pampers.” 

 Boris Nemtsov, mastermind of the July roundtable 

between President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s oligarchs.

“I presented him with a book on the Kremlin. You know, there is such a place in Russia. France must not forget where the Kremlin is located.”

 President Vladimir Putin, answering a reporter’s question 

about his contacts with French President Jacques Chirac 

at the July G-8 summit in Okinawa. Chirac, the most vocal critic of

Russia of late, was reportedly determined to avoid Putin. 

“We are never prepared for anything when it comes to the economy. For example, we now have a strong ruble and a positive trade balance [thanks to oil exports], yet we don’t know how to do deal with all this.”

 Alexander Livshits, former presidential negotiator 

with foreign financial bodies (Russian TV). 

“Local authorities are de facto separated from the state — just like the church.” 

 Governor of Yaroslavl region Anatoly Lisitsyn, characterizing the current 

system of power in the regions. (Argumenty i Fakty)

“The experience of Germany or Japan is not applicable to Russia—Russia has not been under occupation.” 

  Alexander Kravets, Secretary of the 

Russian Communist Party. (Argumenty i Fakty) 

“The ‘elite opposition’ has raised the slogan: ‘Putin is a potential tyrant who will suppress democracy in Russia.’ Yet it is forgotten that the majority of our citizens 

categorically oppose the form of ‘democracy’ which these very elites built in Russia.”

Editorial in Izvestia daily.

Tall ship falls prey to legal hijinx

Swiss trading company seizes vessel in debt dispute

For eleven days in July, the world’s tallest ship, the Russian ship Sedov, was impounded in the French port of Brest, its young Russian passengers virtual hostages. The action was precipitated by the Swiss trading company Noga, which claims that the Russian government owes it $800 million from oil-for-food deals concluded in the early 1990s.

The affair was followed closely in the Russian press. In one episode played out for Russian television, the Sedov’s young sailors sang in chorus a remake of the old patriotic sailor’s song [originally about the Varyag cruiser]: “Our proud Sedov does not surrender to the enemy.” 

In a wordplay on the Swiss company’s name (“noga” means “leg” in Russian), the media quipped that the Swiss company’s arbitrary action “stood on one leg.” On July 24, the county court in Brest agreed, saying that, while the boat does belong to Russia, it is being operated by the Murmansk State Technical University, an independent entity. The court then ordered Noga to pay $70,000 in compensation to the university and another $35,000 to the organizers of the Brest 2000 Sailing Festival, which had invited the Sedov to France. 

Earlier this year, Noga took legal action to arrest the bank accounts of the Russian embassy in France. While that move may have made some logical sense to redress the firm’s grievances, the arrest of the sailing ship with children on board was a major miscalculation, one many here were quick to call an ill-disguised attempt by French authorities to snub Russia. Argumenty i Fakty quoted a high-ranking Kremlin official as attributing the move to the fact that Russia ignored France’s strong objections to the war in Chechnya. 

The dispute continues to roil French-Russian relations. A Noga representative later said that the company might try to seize the Russian tall ship Kruzenstern when it arrives in the Netherlands to participate in the international sailing festival Cutty Sark, and that they might even try to impound the Russian president’s plane when he comes to France later this year. Yet this latter seems an unlikely event. Given the cooling of relations, France has not yet been definitely included on Putin’s fall trip to Europe. 

STATE OF ESTATES

Khmelita, the estate of poet Alexander Griboyedov in Smo-lensk region, is a showcase for American aid in restoring Russian cultural objects. So it is fitting that it was the site for an International Conference on Russian Estates on the Eve of the 21st Century this summer. Priscilla Roosevelt, head of the US non-profit organization, American Friends of Russian Country Estates, took part in the conference. “Russian estates will remain a source of national pride and admiration from foreign admirers of great Russian culture,” Roosevelt said in an interview with the Russian weekly Kultura. “However, museum workers need to stop asking for meager state funds and start showing creative initiative, including commercial initiative.” Roosevelt’s organization has helped not only the Khmelita estate, but also Arkhangelskoye and Yasnaya Polyana. During this visit, the organization also agreed to provide $19,000 toward the repair and renovation of Anton Chekhov’s estate at Melikhovo. 

WEDDING TREND

A religious ceremony has once again become an inalienable part of Russian weddings, so much so that a rather stable system of fees has been established in Orthodox churches. According to Argumenty i Fakty, a wedding in Novodevichy monastery in Moscow costs R500m ($18). On the low end of the scale, there is Krutitskoye Podvorye, near the Proletarskaya metro station. There the ceremony costs only R200 (less than $10), but the rite does not include a choir. The rate at the Church of Fyodor Studit near the Nikitskiye Gates is flexible — the priest takes whatever the client pays, but in no case less than R100. 

Wolf Track

Since 1990, the wolf population in Russia has nearly doubled (from 22,500 to 44,800). The reason, local hunters say, is simple: the Russian government cancelled a longstanding bounty paid for every wolf hide. Hunters are therefore no longer motivated and the wolf packs are growing, particularly in the regions, endangering livestock and the local population. Hunters are now urging local administrations to reinstitute the bounty before the problem gets out of hand. 

Interestingly, the wolf plays differing roles in the folklore of different peoples of Russia: for Chechens, the wolf is brave and freedom-loving—it is the national symbol on the Chechen flag; in Russian fairy tales, the wolf is associated with duplicity and cruelty, while it is the bear which is the synonym of strength and goodness. 

Fair Fight?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a point of displaying his athletic side this summer. In Japan, meeting with a local judo club, he first flipped a sparring partner, then was flipped himself. Then, in Kamchatka, before excoriating local leaders for the poor state of the economy in the region, he skied down a volcano, pronouncing the region one of the most beautiful places he had ever been. In June, while touring Tatarstan, Putin took on a local female arm wrestling champion (left). Putin won the contest, needless to say.

Per capita income in Russia, in terms of “the parity of purchasing power,” is equal to the US ... in 1897, that is. This according to estimates of the Russian Minister of Labor and Social Development, Alexander Pochinok. ! Inflation in June was 2.6% (up from 1.8% in May). Prices rose 9.5% in the first six months of this year, the State Committee on Statistics reported. The influx of so-called “oil dollars” in mid-summer was the main reason for higher inflation. ! By mid-July, the ruble was gaining against the dollar, climbing from the typical R28 to the dollar to R27.4-R27.5. ! The nation’s gold and hard currency reserves rose by $800 million to $21.8 billion in the week ending July 7, the Central Bank of Russia said. ! German Gref, Russia’s Minister for Economic Trade and Development, said real disposable incomes in Russia will rise 6.5% this year, instead of the 6% originally forecast. This despite the fact that his ministry has also revised annual inflation estimates to come in at 20% instead of 18%. ! Russia’s faith in President Vladimir Putin remains high. In a recent public opinion poll by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Studies (VTSIOM) across 46 territories of the Russian Federation, 54% of those polled said they believe Putin is capable of improving the country’s economy. Just 15% said they think otherwise; 43% said Putin’s first steps are signs that a true fight with corruption is beginning, while 28% are not so optimistic. Putin had a 54% approval rating and a 15% negative rating. ! Only 5-11% of Russia’s internet users buy products and services online, according to the latest estimates published by Russia Journal. The low average income of the Russian population is seen as the major obstacle to internet trade. ! In 1999, direct foreign investment in Russia was $4.26 billion. The current estimate shows an increase in 2000 to somewhere between $4.5 and $5 billion. (Goskomstat) ! President Vladimir Putin signed some 1332 decrees between January 1 and July 20, 2000. ! The Russian prosecutor’s office wants the owner of Norilsk Nickel, Vladimir Potanin, to “reimburse” the state $140 mn for having bought the lucrative nickel concern on the cheap a few years ago. ! Russia has 2 mn internet users, vs. 40 million in the US (Argumenty i Fakty). In Russia, the internet is mostly used as a source of research and entertainment. ! Moscow has 1,756 garages offering auto services. Of these, only 10% meet modern technical standards; 10% of Russian car accidents here are caused by cars’ poor technical condition (Argumenty i Fakty). ! 10% of well-to-do Russians account for 33.7% of all income earned by Russians between January-March 2000. This figure is down from 40.7% in the same period last year (Goskomstat). ! The average [official] annual income of high-ranking Russians is between R100,000 and R180,000 ($300-$500) per month. The monthly “survival income” in Russia is estimated at $40. ! Contract murders declined 14% in the first half of 2000, compared with the same period last year. More of these murders were also solved: 49 out of 249, compared with 11 out of 289 in 1999. (Russian Interior Ministry) ! Over the next 30 years, Russia plans to replace many old nuclear plants and add about 30 new ones to its network, increasing total electricity Russia draws from nuclear power from 14% to 33% (Die Welt).

Star drain threatens Russian hockey

N

HL continues to lure top players 

A

fter two months without a head coach, the Russian national hockey team has hired former Soviet star Boris Mikhailov, who, like his predecessor, Alexan-der Yakushev, took part in the famous USSR-NHL series of the 1970s. 

Yakushev tendered his resignation following the disastrous performance of the Russian national team last spring at the World Hockey Championship in St. Peters-burg. Yet Yakushev is hardly to blame for the loss: local hockey long ago lost the privileged financing and organization it received in the “golden years” when both Yaku-shev and Mikhailov brought home many world and Olym-pic gold medals. 

Given these realities, good players do not last long in Russia. No sooner had the 25-year old goalie of Moscow’s Dinamo, Vitaly Yeremeev, won the latest national championship, then the NHL’s New York Rangers signed him to a $600,000 annual contract. Needless to say, this was a more than tantalizing sum by Russian standards, plenty enough to motivate Yeremeev to leave his dear Dinamo. 

Meanwhile, Russian ice hockey suffered a more permanent loss with the passage of legendary forward Anatoly Firsov of the Central Red Army Club (CSKA). Firsov died from a heart attack a few months short his 60th birthday. 

Firsov had been on the ice in May, playing in a friendly veteran’s match dedicated to the 60th anniversary of another Russian hockey legend, Vyacheslav Starshinov (from CSKA’s rival Spartak). Firsov played on the USSR national team from 1961-1974 and was famous for his long goal shots and his “stick-skate-stick” dribbling, which fooled many defenders. 

At the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble (France), when the USSR national team was playing the Canadians in a decisive match, Firsov’s trio was to be replaced, but the forward made a shot at the Canadian goal from the center of the rink just in case. When he joined the bench, he couldn’t understand why his teammates were hugging and cheering him. The puck had ended up in the Canadian net! 

“I just got lucky,” Firsov said. But Canadian goalie Set Martin shared a different opinion: “I could have gotten that goal only from that devil of a Russian.” 

In 1998, Firsov was elected in the Hockey Fame Hall of the International Hockey Federation. His early death came as a shock to Russian hockey fans, and only served to remind them how short the Russian national team is of Firsov-style players. 

Vitaly Smirnov, President of the Russian Olympic Committee, announced that Moscow has a bid in for the 2012 Games. Smirnov, who is a member of the International Olympic Committee, said: “I sincerely hope that this generation will witness a return of the Olympic Games to our country, to a new, democratic Russia.”

The defending Russian soccer champions, Spartak (Mos-cow), have made an official request to President Vladimir Putin: expedite the composition of lyrics to the Russian national anthem. 

The players said they are tired of standing mute while the Russian national anthem is played. 

In 1991, the Soviet national anthem was dropped and a new Russian anthem was adopted, but so far no words have been drafted for it. Many have criticized the new anthem (music by Mikhail Glinka) for being less suited to its purpose than the old Soviet tune. This may be why words are coming so slowly to the poets who have been ap-proach-ed to compose lyrics. 

Some Duma deputies proposed writing new lyrics for the old Soviet music, but nothing has come of it (the old anthem had some outdated lines about “Lenin’s party” ... “a people’s force which leads us to the triumph of communism”). Mean-while, Spartak players wrote Putin that their coach, Oleg Romantsev, had come up with lyrics of his own just in case. 

Konstantin Tzyu, the Russian boxer who lives and trains in Australia, beat the legendary Mexi-can fighter Julio Cezar Chavez in Phoenix with a technical KO in the 6th round. The referee had to stop the match after Chavez could no longer defend himself, driven into the corner. A few seconds earlier, Tzyu had floored Chavez with a hard right when Chavez made a risky last ditch attack on the Russian. Tzyu thus defended his world title in the WBC junior welterweight category.