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Putsch Twentieth anniversary of the failed coup: An era of fear and expectation

NEWS IN BRIEF

We Wondered, Would the Window Close?

First Kabakov Exhibit in D.C. in 20 Years The Washington, D.C., gallery HEMPHILL, which focuses on socially relevant art, will present the work of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov on their first public D.C. showing since the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden show in 1990, according to George Hemphill. “Kabakov” opens with a public reception on September 10. The exhibit features a scale model of the “Ship of Tolerance,” a global project that would involve the launch of a life-size ship based on an ancient Egyptian design. Childrens’ drawings depicting cultural, social and political tolerance will decorate the masts of the vessel.

Russia to Supply Afghanistan With Oil Energy Minister, Sergei Shmatko, announced this month that Russia would supply oil products to Afghanistan. Five hundred thousand tons of refined Russian crude are expected to be delivered annually. The oil won’t go to the U.S. military, the ministry said.

Lukoil, Russia’s largest private oil company, TNKBP and Gazprom Oil recently held talks on transporting the oil to Afghanistan. Russia will also offer its expertise in helping Afghanistan rebuild its power grid, Shmatko also said.

Yakutsk Dreams of Rail Link to Alaska

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at the dacha, or summer house.

The radio was on. “They were playing Swan Lake, and then there was a news bulletin. They said that [Soviet Leader] Mikhail Gorbachev had been taken ill and the country was being run by the State of Emergency Committee. They were showing Swan Lake on television and nobody knew what was going on.”

Olga Popova, 30, was in Kiev.

She recalls an intense heat and a feeling of diffuse anxiety: “I was 10 at the time. I was at a summer camp outside Kiev with my grandmother. When Ukraine de-

Russians reflect on the 20th anniversary of the failed coup that ended the Soviet Union.

ANASTASIA GOROKHOVA VLADIMIR RUVINSKY RUSSIA NOW

Like many Russian children in August 1991, Natalia Moshkina experienced the drama of the failed coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev with her family, watching shocked expressions and trying to overhear anxious whispers.

She was a 14-year-old living

cided to become an independent state, my intellectually minded parents, who had voted against independence, got drunker than they ever had before—or have since.”

Twenty years ago this month, in the days between Aug. 19-21, Communist hardliners attempted to topple Gorbachev and halt his reform program, known as perestroika. They had emptied the Moscow prisons, anticipating their success. But the attempted putsch failed as hundreds of thousands took to the streets.

Muscovites rallied around Boris

Yeltsin, the president of the Russian republic, who famously stood on a tank outside the White House, the seat of the Russian government. Gorbachev, who had been placed under house arrest in the Crimea, returned to Moscow after Yeltsin’s successful stand, but he was fatally weakened as a leader, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union began almost immediately.

Vera Grant remembers digging for potatoes at her grandparents’ dacha near Moscow, and the adults intently listening to the radio, even as they were

in the fields. “The tension was thick,” said Grant, a 26-year-old concert promoter.

“The thing I most remember is fear,” said Svetlana Prudnikova, who was a teacher in her 40s when the coup occurred.

“We were afraid that the window that had opened would close forever.” But soon after the coup, Prudnikova and her friends found that “it was also a very active and promising time. Everything felt very real—and so energetic.”

Twenty years ago this month, Communist hardliners attempted to topple Gorbachev and halt his reform program, known as perestroika.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

PRESSPHOTO

The main topic of discussion at this year’s Infrastructure Development of Russia’s Far East Conference in Yakutsk (a sister city of Fairbanks, Ala.) was the Eurasian-American transcontinental railway project. The massive project is still in a conceptual phase. If constructed, it would travel across the Bering Strait and link Eurasia with North America. Tunnel construction under the Bering Strait is considered to be one of the most ambitious proposed 21st-century intercontinental projects. In order to lay a railroad track from both sides, it would be necessary to build nearly 3,000 miles of railway tracks on Russian territory and 1,000 in Alaska and Canada. Meanwhile, a large portion of the route would pass through the polar region.

Leisure Oligarch Roman Abramovich plans to resuscitate Gorky Park with a $2 billion rehab

Turning Around Gorky Park’s Future

IN THIS ISSUE OPINION

Western readers fell in love with Martin Cruz Smith’s 1981 thriller “Gorky Park.” The novel opens with an atmospheric tour of the rink; three faceless and fingerless corpses are uncovered in a nearby stand of trees. The book also introduced readers to the detective Arkady Renko, who fought the corruption of the elite in a series of novels.

But there was no Renko for the real park; with its rickety-looking fairground attractions, unregulated food stalls, crumbling infrastructure and overall hint of a criminal element, it had an unsavory reputation, often proving more popular with Western tourists than locals.

Abramovich’s close aide Sergei Kapkov has been put in charge of the park with the hope of attracting up to nine million visitors a year. Some symbolic change is already noticeable. Entry to the park is now free and wi-fi is available throughout. A skateboard park and a summer beach have opened in the park.

Once a favorite of locals, the park fell into disrepair and gained a criminal element.

These days, the park is regaining its old luster, but will it price out Russians?

GALINA MASTEROVA

NATASHA LEE

SPECIAL TO RN

The space shuttle took off on its final journey, but there were few who saw it go. This was not the last odyssey of the Atlantis, but that of the Soviet space shuttle, the Buran. It left Gorky Park by boat along the Moscow River.

The exit of the shuttle, which had been turned into a rather lame fairground attraction in the 1990s, was one of the first signs of an ambitious plan to spend $2 billion to revive one of the few large-scale green spaces 300 - acres to be exact, in the city center. The revitalization effort is backed by billionaire businessman Roman Abramovich and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

The park, which in winter is best known for its massive outdoor ice rink, became emblematic of the Soviet Union when

Some of the park’s old rides rate high in fun and low in safety.

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THE BEAR RETURNS

NIYAZ KARIM

Deeper Than Hubble High-powered radio telescope scours space for black holes

Bewildered by Georgia as an Enemy Introducing columnist Konstantin von Eggert PAGE 4

CAN NEW OLYMPIC MASCOT UNITE THE NATION?

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Economy

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BUSINESS IN BRIEF

Aviation State efforts to demonopolize air travel in Russia have led to exactly the opposite result

Catch Me if You Can Aeroflot appears to have outrun its domestic rivals to the point where it may even finish off a state-created rival in a merger.

Sheremetyevo Airport’s Terminal D outside Moscow has become SkyTeam’s hub in Russia.

IN FIGURES

15% Aeroflot’s share of Russia’s total airline passenger market, followed by UTair (13 percent) and S7 (12.5 percent).

ANTON MAKHROV RUSSIA NOW

$429 million Aeroflot’s net profit for 2011; Aeroflot is Russia’s largest airline by profits and passenger volume.

$36 million Aeroflot’s current estimated brand value, according to Brand Finance.

12 million The annual capacity of Moscow Sheremetyevo’s Terminal D.

PRESSPHOTO

Aeroflot, Russia’s largest airline, has had more makeovers in recent years than it has Tupolev jets. It has hired employees, shed employees and gotten rid of gas-guzzling Russian jets. The airline changed its look and the look of its flight attendants, rejecting its residual Soviet sensibility. Finally, it focused on its much-maligned safety record that, perhaps unfairly, struck fear in the heart of the most cavalier Western businessmen.

But its newest incarnation is the most fascinating of all. Aeroflot is swallowing up some small carriers, assets that were supposed to comprise the backbone of Aeroflot’s rival, Rosavia.

The upstart was created three years ago when aviation authorities thought a state-owned rival to Aeroflot would offer some healthy competition.

Aeroflot is poised to expand its domestic market presence in the space of the next few months as it welcomes up to six carriers into its fold. Aeroflot’s new assets are slated to include GTK Rossiya, Kavminvody, Orenburg Airlines, Vladivostokavia, Saratov Airlines and Sakhalin Air Routes. The airline has already built the new assets into its strategic development plan, according to Aeroflot representatives.

“Once it acquires the stateowned assets, Aeroflot will get approximately an additional 15 percent of the Russian air transportation market,” said Andrei Rozhkov, an analyst with the investment firm IFC Metropol.

“What we now estimate as Aeroflot’s 26 percent market share will exceed 40 percent once the merger is complete. As an added bonus, the airline will improve occupancy rates at its international routes, which generate the bulk of its profits.”

Aeroflot has yet to divulge the details of the acquisition, such as whether the six carriers will be merged into it completely or will retain a degree

Largest Airlines, by Passengers

national flag carrier on an equal footing internationally and domestically, was launched in the spring of 2008. It was labeled the most ambitious initiative proposed by the Russian Ministry of Transport since the early 2000s.

State corporation Russian Technologies was busy scooping up distressed airlines in the crisis year 2008. As a result, it

of independence. (There has been some speculation that the deal will not include all six airlines.) Industry experts are confident, however, that in principle, the merger is a done deal.

The Story of a Bubble The project to create a second Aeroflot, a state-owned airline that would compete with the

managed to accumulate assets that, if consolidated, could not only survive in this market but also crowd out its leader, Aeroflot. Although admittedly grandiose, the announced plans were entirely feasible. The AirUnion alliance together with other airlines were to form a basis for a new company called Russian Airlines that was supposed to be carrying twice as many passengers as Aeroflot by 2013. The problem is that the project did not live long enough to see 2013, as it hit a rough patch much earlier.

Airlines in the AirUnion alliance that Russian Technologies laid its hands on were burdened with significant debts.

The search for partners to set up a national carrier was unsuccessful too. Russian Technologies was particularly hopeful of the Government of Moscow. The parties failed to come to an agreement however, and in early 2011, the airline (which had been renamed Moscow Airline) went out of business.

Eventually, after almost three years into the project, Aeroflot made an appearance once

again—although not as a Rosavia rival, but as a white knight capable of saving the day.

An Eternal Aeroflot Aeroflot management was skeptical of its future competitor right from the start. Back in October 2008, its then-CEO Valery Okulov called the project “a new bubble.” The government has gradually come around to share this view.

Aeroflot management was skeptical of its future competitor right from the start.

Eventually, in 2009, Russia’s Minister of Transport Igor Levitin said he was in favor of merging Russian Technologies assets into Aeroflot, and in the beginning of 2010, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin officially supported the strengthening of Aeroflot with the six companies of the Rosavia holding. The Russian market leader was to receive GTK Rossiya, Kavminvody, Orenburg Airlines, Vladivostoka-

Manufacturing Two ambitious projects have faced major hurdles in entering commercial service

Russian Aircraft Makers Go Global EMMANUEL GRYNSZPAN SPECIAL TO RN

This year’s MAKS Airshow, which wrapped up at Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, on August 21, saw the signing of contracts for delivery of over 100 Sukhoi Superjets.

The immediate future of the Russian aviation industry depends on the fate of Sukhoi’s SuperJet 100 and the Tupolev Tu-204, two aircraft with very different trajectories. The SuperJet, the first Russian plane to be developed entirely during the post-Soviet era and to use a large number of foreign components, passed an important milestone last month, successfully completing its first commercial flights under the colors of Armenian carrier Armavia.

The second aircraft, the Tu-204, which flew for the first time in 1989 and looks much like the Boeing 757, is having difficulty reinventing itself; only 69 have been built in 20 years.

Commercial operation of the Sukhoi SuperJet should allow potential buyers to verify the aircraft’s data and hopefully convince new airlines to see it as a viable purchase. There are cur-

rently 200 orders in place for the 100-seat regional aircraft.

The positive mood over the SuperJet’s launch, however, has been somewhat dampened by repeated holdups in delivery of an order to Russia’s flagship carrier Aeroflot. In April, Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin suggested that Sukhoi owed Aeroflot compensation over the delays as well as disappointments over higher weight and lower energy efficiency than was originally stated.

And yet the SuperJet is in a better position than the Tu-204, a medium-range plane capable of carrying 210 passengers. An order for 44 aircraft from the airline Red Wings was supposed to kick-start production, but that deal has been in doubt since late April. The two factories that build the Tu-204s (KAPO in Kazan and AviaStar in Ulyanovsk) produce at most one or two aircraft a year.

Without the deal, the atmosphere was more subdued, although industry leaders still announced ambitious plans.

United Aircraft Corporation (OAK) head Mikhail Pogosyan, still basking in the glow of the SuperJet launch, announced that a consortium of Russian aircraft manufacturers would build 30

Interactive MAKS Slideshow at www.rbth.ru/13276

PRESSPHOTO

The positive mood brought on by the SuperJet launch has been dampened by delays.

DST Global Finds Twitter

The first Sukhoi Superjet entered commercial service on April 21, 2011, on Armavia Airlines.

The SuperJet is in a better position than the Tu-204, a medium-range Russian plane. planes in 2011, up from seven last year. In particular, he expressed a hope that, with the help of the government aviation industry stimulus program, Russia will be able to claim a 10 percent share of the global civil aviation market by 2025. The government program is focused on three aircraft, the SuperJet; the MS-21, a medium-range aircraft with a capacity between

150 and 210 passengers; and a 300-seat plan, aimed at low-cost carriers, dubbed the Samolet 2020. The MS-21 is currently in development and is expected to be commercially available in 2016. It is partially based on the Tu-204. The Samolet 2020, as its name indicates, is projected to be available in 2020.

Several areas of disagreement emerged during the course of a recent industry forum, particularly when industry veteran Oleg Smirnov criticized “all these bankers who now run our industry,” a comment aimed at Aeroflot CEO Vitaly Savelev and Alexander Lebedev, a stakeholder in several airlines. The indus-

trial logic of concentrating production in one center naturally clashes with a political reasoning that seeks to maintain employment levels in many locations (the factory responsible for final assembly of the SuperJet is in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, located about 4,000 miles east of Moscow). At the same time, financial considerations push airlines to buy foreign aircraft with much lower operating costs.

None of this suggests that the state, as it pursues its main goal of reviving its national industry, will simply leave Russian airlines free to fall for the charms of Airbus and Boeing for the foreseeable future.

via, Saratov Airlines and Sakhalin Air Routes. Negotiations between the parties stalled once again though.

Price became the stumbling block this time around. The original idea was for Russian Technologies to acquire a blocking stake in Aeroflot in exchange for the six regional carriers. Aeroflot management, however, was quick to announce that they valued the state’s contributions at a fraction of that price. Last fall, Aeroflot representatives stated they were ready to pay around 6 percent of their airline’s stock, before the results of an independent valuation of the assets to be acquired were made public in February 2011, pushing the price tag down 2.5 percent. Russian Technologies categorically declined Aeroflot’s offer.

Though the merger is done in principle, Orenburg Airlines has also found an interested buyer in Transaero, one of Aeroflot’s key rivals. According to some reports, Transaero CEO Olga Pleshakova asked Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov and Transport Minister Igor Levitin last March to consider selling the asset to her rather than to the Russian market leader. According to industry analysts, Transaero and Orenburg Airlines are now competing on a number of domestic routes, so an acquisition would allow Transaero not only to catch up with Aeroflot, but also to get rid of a regional rival.

That said, none of the participants in alternative negotiations have officially confirmed their intentions to go after Aeroflot for the Rosavia legacy.

However, all of these reports have analysts and investors wondering whether the flagship carrier really needs the distressed assets in the first place.

According to Aviatransportnoe Obozrenie observer Alexei Sinitsky, Aeroflot will have to work hard to integrate the newcomers into its structure. “We are talking about a complicated management task,” Sinitsky explained. “These are six totally different regional airlines with different business models, structures, management teams and locations. The question is: How exactly can all of this be integrated?”

The companies’ debt burdens further detract from the appeal of any acquisition. Specialists estimate the combined debt of the six carriers at around $800 million. For this reason, specialists don’t rule out a compromise version of the merger. Aeroflot is primarily interested in Orenburg Airlines, GTK Rossiya and Vladivostokavia. Aeroflot might just buy those three companies, leaving it up to Russian Technologies to continue looking for buyers for the rest of them.

DST Global has expanded its social media stable with a $400 million investment in Twitter. The deal—in which the U.S. company raised a total of $800 million—values Twitter at $8 billion, according to sources quoted by Bloomberg. The financing round is being used to cash out Twitter investors, as the company looks to monetize its short-messaging service ahead of a bid to go public.

An IPO would bring Twitter into competition with other companies in which DST has an interest. The Russian fund holds stakes in Facebook, online gaming site Zynga, and shopping and services site Groupon.

Read more at www.rbth.ru/13222

Murdoch Sells Russian Asset Media mogul Rupert Murdoch sold his Russian advertising company News Outdoor to the state-owned investment bank VTB Capital.

News Outdoor is a big player in the billboard business. The massive ads that dominate the streets of Moscow each cost between $400 and $4,000 a month. Former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov, was criticized for his inability to control the explosion of billboards, and efforts to limit their numbers have only just begun. VTB Capital said that the new management will, “interact with authorities to implement programs aimed at improving the appearance of cities.”

Read more at www.rbth.ru/13176

GLOBAL RUSSIA BUSINESS CALENDAR 2011 YAROSLAVL GLOBAL POLICY FORUM SEPTEMBER 7–8 YAROSLAVL, RUSSIA

This year’s event will explore the role of “The Modern State in the Age of Social Diversity.” Guests include Immanuel Wallerstein of Yale University, Parag Khanna of the New America Foundation and Craig Calhoun of New York University. The forum will include discussions on global income inequality, security issues and democracy in multiethnic societies.

It will take place in one of Russia’s oldest cities, which turned 1,000 last year. › www.gpf-yaroslavl.ru/

6TH RUSSIA-SINGAPORE BUSINESS FORUM (RSBF 2011) SEPTEMBER 25–28 SINGAPORE

The Forum is the leading networking platform for the business elite from Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Asia-Pacific region. This year, the Forum focuses on emerging markets. One session will be dedicated to opportunities in the Greater China Growth Area. RSBF 2010 attracted more than 800 participants; it has become a significant venue, a point confirmed by the many joint ventures coming out of the RSBF. › www.rsbf.org.sg/

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Politics & Society

03

Islam The murder of a moderate Sunni Muslim and university rector in Dagestan casts doubt on Kremlin efforts to assist the troubled region

A Blow to Peace in the Caucasus

YURY KOZYREV

ANNA NEMTSOVA

Interview with the President of Dagestan at www.rbth.ru/13291

Students pray at the university in Makhachkala where Maksud Sadikov was rector; community leaders try to gather for a protest but are dispersed by police.

ANNA NEMTSOVA SPECIAL TO RN

The city of Khasavyurt was melting in the summer heat as local activists prepared for a scheduled protest in the town square last month. Just as the demonstrators were about to gather to protest, in hopes of engaging city leaders, an explosion ripped through a colorful stand stocked full of fruits and vegetables and opened a five-foot-deep crater in the street. Ambulances rushed eight injured civilians and policemen to local hospitals. A crowd of curious passersby gathered, and then thinned out as Friday prayers began.

After prayers, hundreds gathered again, determined to have their protest. They were swiftly surrounded, then pushed aside by police. The gathering tension eased this time, and the street, covered in garbage and blood, emptied.

Bombings are not rare in this border city between Dagestan and Chechnya, despite the fact that the First Chechen War ended here in an agreement known as the Khasavyurt Accord.

In the first six months of 2011, the number of terrorist attacks increased 35 percent over the

same period in 2010, according to Alexander Bastrykin, the chairman of the Investigative Committee of the federal Prosecuter General’s office.

And if there is one event of the summer that is emblematic of the marked increase in violence here, it is the murder of Maksud Sadikov, an Islamic reformer and university rector. He was gunned down in July in the center of Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala. One year ago this month, Russia Now interviewed Sadikov as he pledged to work as an emissary between Muslim educators, students, civil society and the state. But his work was cut short, a serious blow to the peace process, according to Dagestani officials.

During the last year of his life, Sadikov spent much of his time encouraging and directing dialogue between policy makers and religious leaders.

In June, he helped organize the first large-scale round table, called the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, in which Kremlin officials met with local community leaders. A few days later, Sadikov was killed by two gunmen. He and his nephew stepped out of a car and were sprayed with bullets.

He was one of 12 moderate religious leaders killed in the North Caucasus in the last 18 months.

Magomedsalam Magome-

Maksud Sadikov, a visionary reformer silenced forever Maksud Sadikov was, by the accounts of all who knew him, one of Dagestan’s heroes. Beloved by his students at the Islamic university where he was rector, he was also friend to the president of Dagestan, as well as other politicians and leaders who believe that Dagestan deserves a peaceful future. Sadikov was born in 1963 in the town of Archid, Dagestan, and received his doctoral degree in government administration from Moscow State Lomonosov University.

He could have stayed in Moscow, where he was educated, to pursue a career in government. Instead, Sadikov, a practicing Sunni Muslim, chose to return to Dagestan. He became rector of the Institute of Theology and International Relations in Makhachkala, the capital city, in 2003. In 2010, he began to work with the Kremlin as the government made a push for a moderate Islam in the North Caucasus. He was gunned down in June by unknown assailants.

ITAR-TASS

The perils of outreach and bridge building are amply clear in Dagestan as reformers are assasinated and protests go unheard.

his face. He said the death of Sadikov is a serious blow to the movement toward reforming Islamic education, encouraging moderate Islam and moving forward within a peace process.

Several of Magomedov’s friends and colleagues have also died in attacks by what he calls “bandits, extremists and terrorists,” including the president’s press secretary, Garun Kurbanov. Like Sadikov, Kurbanov was outspoken against extremism and religious intolerance.

If last summer police officers were mostly shot by snipers off the rooftops, this summer the attackers walked straight up to senior investigators and a po-

The president is trying to calm the situation, but activists accuse police of murder. dov, the president of Dagestan, said Sadikov was “a key figure in peace negotiations.”

“He was murdered by those who aim to wreck the negotiation process,” Magomedov said.

“I would not look for any third powers here. These murders are committed by local radical groups, and they destroy the peaceful meaning of Islam.”

Magomedov’s grief shows on

lice commander, and shot them in the face, right before the eyes of their relatives and friends.

Abdurashid Bibulatov, a police colonel, said that the killing of Sadikov was the militants’ response to the peace process.

“Most of them have laptops and Internet flashcards in the forest,” he said. “Judging by the chronology, Sadikov’s murder was the reaction to the peace talks he was involved in.” The president expressed his concern about flashcards left in mailboxes containing threatening videos demanding ransom; he is trying to encourage Dagestanis who receive such video messages to report them.

Slideshow at www.rbth.ru/13211

The park, which was planned by famous Soviet avant-garde architect Konstantin Melnikov in the 1920s, was supposed to be a place for the Soviet public to relax and learn—there was a theater and cinema— and drew crowds of Muscovites in a city that then had few places of entertainment.

“It was one of the few things well-run by the Soviets,” said Alexei Klimenko, an independent adviser to the city. “It’s a national monument, but a later criminal element crept in.”

Abramovich’s close aide in charge of the project, Sergei Kapkov, previously ran Abramovich’s National Academy of Football, which funded Russian football development. The new management in the park said there will be a competition to find an architect to redesign the park.

The current restoration plan

is a priority for Sobyanin, mayor of Moscow, according to Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper of the Strelka design and architecture institute, a consultant on the project. He said the speed with which the project is moving could only happen in Moscow.

“Gorky Park is a national monument, but later a criminal element crept in,” Alexei Klimenko said.

“Gorky Park is bigger than Hyde Park and can be better,” Oskolkov-Tsentsiper said. The comparison to London’s Hyde Park began with President Dmitry Medvedev, who appointed Sobyanin last year. Already there had been talk of a real park for the capital.

“I was in London not long ago and had a look at that

Hyde Park,” Medvedev said in 2009. “It looks great of course.

We need to speak to the Moscow powers that be and let them build their own Hyde Park.”

The park’s current, down-inthe-heels state is the result of more than a decade of underinvestment, corruption and exploitation. Plans to revive the park were first discussed in 2006 under then-mayor Yury Luzhkov, but shelved after some expressed worries that reconstruction under Luzhkov, for whom the construction lobby was a favorite, would result in nothing less than skyscrapers in the park.

More than 50 of the kiosks selling fast food, souvenirs and other goods have been removed over the last couple of months. The kiosks were illegal and dangerously constructed, according to Kapkov.

A jewel of the renovation will be the restoration of the brick

LORI/LEGION MEDIA

Turning Around Gorky Park’s Future CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

In Khasavyurt, local activists said police are also to blame for the rise in violence: Rasul Islaimov, a representative from Civil Alternative, a local non-governmental organization, said that earlier that month police threw grenades into a private mosque in Uzun-Otar village and killed Nariman Aligadzhiyev, a father of four children who built the small mosque in his garden for the village’s Muslims who practice Wahhabism, the most conservative form of Islam. This was one reason area activists tried to protest and engage local leaders. A bombing prevented the protest; police dispersed them.

“We see efforts by the president and his team to calm down the critical situation in Dagestan this year, but unfortunately some police special operations end with murder, torture and the disappearance of peaceful civilians, which undermine the trust people have in the authorities,” said Tatyana Lokshina, a Moscow-based researcher for Human Rights Watch.

At Sadikov’s university, professors and students mourn their rector, but few appear willing

A newly opened beach restaurant has many asking if the redesign will price out most Russians.

“Hexagon,” a constructivist gem designed by Ivan Zholtovsky. Constructed as an exhibition house, it now lies roofless and in ruins.

One new opening, a beach restaurant called Olive Beach, has had many asking if the redesign will price out most Russians. Kapkov said that the park has to appeal to a wide variety of people and accommodate those who already use the park, such as the J.R.R. Tolkien fans

who reenact battles from the English writer’s books, the ballroom dancers who dance by the river during the weekends and the outdoor table tennis players who have been coming to the park for decades.

Olive Beach was opened by Ginza Project, a restaurant group that will be in charge of the food outlets in the park.

Few if any of their current restaurants in Moscow are budget-focused, family-style restau-

rants, which the park also needs.

Artists and socialites are anticipating the day Abramovich’s longtime girlfriend, Dasha Zhukova, moves her internationally recognized contemporary art venue to the park. Called Garage, it is now housed in a constructivist bus depot.

“It is very important that the park should be a public zone and work in interests of society,” Klimenko said.

to take on his peace mission.

But even after the darkest of summers, the president said he is determined to win the growing conflict.

Magomedov has shown his commitment to develop communities and boost tourism. He continues to build hotels, health resorts and colleges. “There is an alternative for those who want to realize themselves,” he said. “We open new colleges for those who want to study.”

The president’s agenda includes weekly meetings of a commission created to urge former guerillas to join the peace process. So far, around 30 former fighters have agreed to put down their arms in exchange for state support in finding jobs and education.

During the commission meeting held last month, one fighter was granted the right to serve a prison term at home. Zaipulla Gazimagomedov will now serve his 10-year sentence in Dagestan. “Young people ran from an unfair life to join our troops,” the former guerilla said.

“The main reason they go to fight is desperation.”

Revitalization Support From Wealthy Sponsor Roman Abramovich, one of Russia’s richest men, is well known internationally as owner of the Chelsea Football Club.

Recently, he has taken on the ambitious revitalization of Moscow’s beloved but dilapidated Gorky Park. Abramovich has already been hailed for successfully revitalizing one of Russia’s most isolated and economically backward regions, Chukotka, accross the Bering Strait from Alaska. He was governor for eight years and still invests in the region. Because of his track record, observers are optimistic about the possibiities for revitalizing Gorky Park. Abramovich plans to pump $2 billion into new galleries, restaurants, a promenade and a giant ferris wheel. Some of the inspiration will come from London’s Hyde Park, reported The Daily Telegraph. Abramovich’s 28-yearold art-loving girlfriend, Dasha Zhukova, will move her famous Garage modern art gallery to the park’s premises in the near future.

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MOST READ Russia and Georgia: Three years since the war

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TELESCOPE BRINGS LUSTER TO SPACE PROGRAM

Konstantin von Eggert

Jeffrey Manber

SPECIAL TO RN

SPECIAL TO RN

O

NIYAZ KARIM

A

The radio telescope brings to an end Russia’s long absence from the international community of contributors to space science.

Let’s hope the silence is due more to a myopic focus on saving NASA’s basic science programs than disregard for Russia’s accomplishments.

THE POLLS

Support for War Waning

now it’s here, and we’re bracing for all the new information it’s going to deliver.”

Vladimir Fedotov, director of the Institute of Thermophysics in Moscow agreed. “This is going to open up a whole new era in astronomy and astrophysics,” Fedotov said. “It’s a huge contribution to world science; Russia has held advanced positions traditionally. It’s just great.”

The telescope’s orbit is equally unusual and innovative, ranging from a low approach (perigee) of 500 km (310 miles) from the earth and then climbing to 340,000 km (211,000 miles) away from Earth. This elliptical orbit means that the moon’s gravity is an important part of the mission and the telescope will hardly ever be in the earth’s shadow— so it is in effect a deep space mission without the cost of being a deep space mission.

A leader in space technology has returned.

But the technical aspects of the program share importance with the simple fact that the successful deployment of the radio telescope brings to an end Russia’s absence from the

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more to a myopic focus on saving NASA’s basic science programs than disregard for Russian accomplishments. And it is made even more puzzling given that the recent launch of NASA’s Jupiter mission, called Juno, was on an American workhorse rocket called Atlas 5, powered in part by rocket engines licensed from the Russian organization Energomash. The entwinement of the American and Russian exploration programs should be applauded for political, economical and scientific reasons.

But no matter, the reality is that once this stunning astronomical tour de force involving 20 nations led by a 2.5 ton space flower gets going, we all will be hoping this is only the first chapter in the second phase of Russia’s exploration of the universe.

Jeffrey Manber is a correspondent on space for Russia Now, and a longtime adviser on Russian-American cooperation in space. He is the author of the book “Selling Peace,” which tells his personal story of the events leading to the two nations working together in space.

So was Medvedev’s offer of normalization an empty one? I guess it was rather a call on Washington, which is considered by the Russians to be the real power in Georgia, to lean on Saakashvili and force him to acquiesce to Moscow’s offer.

However, for the Georgian leader, this is unthinkable too. His main political point is that Abkhazia and South Ossetia will remain integral parts of Georgia, although both were in fact lost nearly 20 years ago to a combination of local separatism, Russian pressure and Georgian intransigence.

Russia is committing a mistake when it dismisses Saakashvili as an American puppet with no weight of his own. He is a formidable adversary who plays the limited number of cards he has with admirable skill. Russian denunciations of him as a lunatic who should be tried by the

The idea that Russia faced off not Georgia but America in South Ossetia is a popular notion here.

International Criminal Court only strengthen his position at home and abroad. His lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill ended in Congress formally recognizing the two breakaway republics as “occupied territories”—and thus preventing even the Moscowfriendly Obama administration from forcing Tbilisi’s hand on Russia’s WTO membership. To fix this problem, Moscow will have to employ all the resources it has at its disposal—and it doesn’t seem to have much.

The Georgians may never get the runaway republics back. The Russians may not get the WTO membership. And they cannot hope for the diplomatic recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia they counted on—even from the closest allies like Belarus. The two possible outcomes are obvious: either Moscow rescinds the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia—an ephemeral perspective indeed, with or without Medvedev and Putin—or Tbilisi decides to accept the loss and move swiftly toward NATO and EU membership. This doesn’t seem likely any time soon.

Konstantin von Eggert is a commentator and host for radio Kommersant FM, Russia’s first 24-hour news station. He was a diplomatic correspondent for Izvestia and later BBC Russian Service Moscow Bureau editor-inchief. He was also once vice president of ExxonMobil Russia.

HUDDLING WITH SAAKASHVILI

DO YOU SUPPORT THE ACTIONS OF RUSSIA’S LEADERSHIP IN REGARD TO THE GEORGIAN CONFLICT IN AUGUST 2008?

Recent polls show that Russians’ support for President Medvedev’s decision to send troops into Georgia has eroded over time, with growing numbers not sure about whether the conflict was handled correctly. At the same time, most Russians maintain an overwhelmingly negative view of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (45%) or are indifferent to him (45%).

international community of contributors to space science.

The first pictures from the far side of the moon and many other basic astronomical discoveries came from the Russian space program.

So the first signals from the Spektre R will be welcomed both for what they say about the mysteries of the universe and also for the fact that a traditional leader in space science has returned. “We are more than a space taxi,” scoffed multiple scientists, alluding to the fact that the Russian Space Agency is being paid by NASA for ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

But learning about the Spektr R would be difficult for readers of most American news outlets. At a time when NASA is caught in a budget crunch, when Congress threatens to cut funding for the James Webb telescope—the next American astronomical crown jewel—the normally boisterous, supportive space sites as well as traditional news outlets have all but ignored the Spektre R mission.

Let’s hope the silence is due

n Aug. 8, 2008, I was presenting the morning radio program on the BBC Russian Service when news of shelling in South Ossetia started to emerge. I vividly remember being stunned that the long-simmering conflict had suddenly spun out of control. I came to the realization that my country, Russia, is for all intents and purposes at war with its neighbor for the first time since the World War II era.

The sense of bewilderment is still there. For my generation that grew up in the USSR, the fact that Russians and Georgians are enemies is difficult to accept. And I am of two minds as to the consequences of that war for both sides.

The war remains very popular in Russia. The idea that the Russian army taught a lesson to a former Soviet republic that dared to look toward the West, rather than Moscow, plays well with the Russians’ post-imperial inferiority complex, which continues to place a huge emphasis on “might is right” attitude.

The idea that Russia faced off not with Georgia but America while fighting in South Ossetia is a popular notion here. It helps the Russians feel better about themselves. Come to think of it, the idea of taking on the world’s only remaining superpower, rather than an impoverished nation with a population less than half of Moscow’s, is an appealing notion.

In a recent interview, President Dmitry Medvedev reminded the Russians that it was he who sent the Russian troops into action— implying that it was his administration that humiliated the United States. This bit of rhetoric was clearly one of the first salvos in Russia’s unfolding electoral battles. But Medvedev also called on Georgia to lift its objections to Russia joining the World Trade Organization in exchange for what he called “full normalization” of relations. This part of the presidential interview highlighted the conundrum in which Russia found itself when it chased the Georgian army out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and recognized two breakaway territories as independent states.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili says that Tbilisi would wave through Russia’s WTO membership if Moscow will let the Georgian customs officers or, alternatively, international observers man posts on Russian-South Ossetian and Russian-Abkhazia borders. This is rejected out of hand by the Russians—Medvedev made it abundantly clear.

Eugene Ivanov SPECIAL TO RN

T

he objectives of then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s July 9, 2008, trip to Georgia still remain a mystery to most of us.

The stated goal of the visit was the discussion of the prospects of Georgia joining NATO; Rice also used the opportunity to publicly call for upholding Georgia’s “territorial integrity.” At the same time, State Department officials insisted that privately, Rice urged Saakashvili not to provoke Russia. If so, Saakashvili’s nearly perfect English failed him miserably.

On the eve of the third anniversary of the August 2008 Five-Day War between Russia and Georgia, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gave an interview to Russian and Georgian journalists covering a broad range of topics, from the events preceding Georgia’s assault on South Ossetia to the future of Russian-Georgian relations. The president also reflected on what the U.S. government did or did not know about Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s military plans. The interview was a long-awaited articulation of the Russian position regarding this conflict. Much more needs to be said, but this was a move in the right direction.

President Medvedev recalled that up until July 2008, he and Saakashvili met regularly and that the latter appeared genuinely interested in finding a negotiated solution to the conflict between Tbilisi and the two breakaway provinces of Abk-

Condoleezza Rice was not the only high-profile American to meet with Saakashvili in 2008. hazia and South Ossetia. Everything changed after Condoleezza Rice visited Tbilisi: Following his meeting with Rice, Saakashvili abruptly cut off all communications with Moscow.

To be sure, cautious and professional, Rice would have never suggested bringing breakaway republics South Ossetia and Abkhazia back to Georgia’s fold by force. Perhaps she reminded him that a country that has no control over one-fifth of its territory can’t become a NATO member; restoring Georgia’s “territorial integrity” could have been a prerequisite to joining the alliance.

It appears that Rice was not the only high-profile American to huddle with Saakashvili in the

NIYAZ KARIM

three-decade-long drought came to an end on July 18 when a Zenit rocket launched a Russian radio telescope into orbit. Not since the Soviet Union’s economic and political fall have Russian space scientists been able to develop and launch such a cutting edge piece of research instrumentation as the Spektre R telescope.

A product of the Lebedev Physical Institute, with additional funding from the Kremlin, the Spektre R is now the largest telescope in space. It is perhaps the most beautiful as well, with a flower-like design of 27 gold-colored petals that opened up perfectly soon after launch. The main scientific goal of the five-year mission is the study of the deepest and most mysterious reaches of our universe, including the origins of black holes, the structure of galaxies, star formations and the boundaries of interstellar space.

The pride of the Russian scientific community, the telescope is only 10 meters in length, or about 30 feet. But once operational by September or October, the instrument will have a capacity to provide detailed images of the universe at 1,000 times the resolution attainable via the Hubble Space Telescope.

Although Spektre R is a radio telescope, there will be no stunning photos like the ones from Hubble—but scientists are holding their breath waiting for the first streams of data.

The telescope manages to be both small and powerful due to an ingenious system that makes use of a network of receiving dishes and telescopes on the ground. These pool together with the Spektre R to provide an extraordinary clarity of signals. Think of it as the ultimate in “cloud computing.” The network includes telescopes in Australia, Chile, China, those from the European Space Agency, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, South Africa, Ukraine and the United States as well as from Russia.

Once operational, the telescope network will be known as RadioAstron, with a “dish” spanning 30 times the Earth’s diameter.

“We’ve been waiting for this day for such a long time,” said Nikolai Podorvanyuk, a researcher at the Moscow Institute of Astronomy. “It’s been planned since the 1980s, but has repeatedly fallen through for a variety of reasons. But

HOBSON’S CHOICE

run up to the August war: Three days after Rice’s trip to Tbilisi, the Georgian president met with Karl Rove, a confidant of then-U.S. President George W. Bush. This came after multiple calls of support Saakashvili received from then-Republican presidential candidate John McCain, whose foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann worked as a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government. Are we to believe that the message that Rove and McCain conveyed to Saakashvili was one of patience and restraint? Or was it

more along Winston Churchill’s famous line: “History is written by the victors”?

Neither Rove nor McCain is legally obliged to disclose the content of their conversations with Saakashvili during those days; both can claim they spoke to him as private citizens. But Rice can’t claim that privilege.

She was in Tbilisi on an official mission, and her conversations with Saakashvili must have been properly recorded. If the U.S. Congress is really interested in getting to the bottom of things, it could subpoena Rice

to testify under the oath, adding the transcripts of her talks with Saakashvili as evidence.

One would think that Rice would only welcome the opportunity to shed light on the efforts of the Bush administration at preventing the August 8 bloodshed.

Unfortunately, U.S. lawmakers have shown little interest in the facts on the ground: A recent resolution on Georgia unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate on July 29, called Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions of Georgia “occupied by the Russian Federation.” It appears that many senators sincerely believe that both territories were forcefully taken away by Russia as a result of the 2008 war. This is simply not true: Abkhazia and South Ossetia won their de facto independence from Tbilisi in 1991-1993 following armed uprising.

The conflict that keeps burning in this part of the South Caucasus is not a conflict between Georgia and Russia, as the Western supporters of Saakashvili would like us to believe; it is a conflict between Georgia and two independent countries, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, that had refused to live under Tbilisi’s oppressive rule.

Eugene Ivanov is a Massachusetts-based political analyst who blogs at The Ivanov Report.

MOST READ August – The month of disasters

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TWO DECADES AFTER RUSSIA’S SPRING E. Wayne Merry SPECIAL TO RN

T

Y

Russians today enjoy vastly greater freedoms than did their parents, but these are personal. worse than the disease. As Aleksandr III once declared, Russia’s only friends were its army and navy, and today the state rests on the pillars of oil and gas, which corrupt even as they enrich.

Destroying the coup was the easy part.

Seven decades of Soviet misrule infected almost every field of public policy: agriculture, industry, energy, investment, infrastructure, security, politics, civil society, religion, health, education, media. The Soviet Union was not so much underdeveloped as critically mis-developed, with fundamental reform needed in every sector.

Where to start? Historian Gen-

benefits of a global economy.

Russia remains today an outlier in most fields, by choice.

Russia’s reforms, even under Yeltsin, were less radical than they appeared. Elites preferred “managed democracy” to rule of law. Political parties never matured, while a free media withered. Russians today enjoy vastly greater freedoms than did their parents, but these are personal freedoms divorced from genuine political liberty. Russians know the difference and judge their leaders on the basis of material progress rather than legitimacy.

Millions of the most talented younger people have sought new lives abroad. Their loss reflects the continuing alienation of Russia’s ruling elite from its own people—an old Russian story.

Finally, the outside world, including the United States, was timid in engaging the new Russia to fulfill the rhetoric of a “Europe whole and free.” Europe and America welcomed the de-

FROM THE COUP TO CULTURAL RESET In 1991, Librarian of Congress Dr. James Billington was in Moscow attending the Congress of the Compatriots, a project to encourage the return of Russians. He spoke to RN on the anniversary of the coup.

James Billington SPEAKS TO RN

DMITRY DIVIN

I

was informed very early in the day about the coup. You could hear the tanks rolling in. This occurred on the Feast of the Transfiguration on the Orthodox Church calendar. I went to the Cathedral of the Assumption with many of the Russians at the congress who were staying at the Rossiya hotel. I remember the doors to the church were opened at the end of the service onto the main square of the Kremlin. I had seen this only in the coronation scene of the opera, “Boris Gudonov.”

As events unfurled, many went directly to the Russian White House. I was still seeing various people within the system, including a leading figure in the Academy of Sciences. He had already taken down Gorbachev’s picture. He said he was glad he was taken away.

Once you got to the White House, there was the beginning of a gathering and a somewhat carnivalesque atmosphere. There was a certain ebullience, but it didn’t make a clear impression until people started coming to the White House and making speeches.

By the second day, word was getting around very fast. Opposition started galvanizing. You

SCALING THE SKYSCRAPERS SPECIAL TO RN

eral Dmitriy Volkogonov once told me that many good people were needed in every field, but there simply were nowhere near enough to go around.

Expectations of a new and improved standard of living, “to live like normal people,” were high, while understanding of the challenges was low. How do you quickly reform an economy lacking even double-entry bookkeeping to know whether an enterprise adds or destroys value?

Some Russians were less willing than their Chinese counterparts to learn from the outside world, while many continued to believe “here is better.”

Russia did not take part in the transformation of former Warsaw Pact states, in part because Europe could not afford it, but in large part because Russia chose not to. European integration requires significant surrender of sovereignty and of pretensions to Great Power status. Russia took a go-it-alone approach that deprived it of many

No one would give the order to shoot, and no one would shoot without an order. had a more electric atmosphere as Elena Bonner and Eduard Shevardnadze arrived. A great moment was when Slava Rostropovich arrived with his cello.

The whole standoff gave expression to long-suppressed amorphous desires. Two pictorial images everyone had in mind by the second day. One was a picture reproduced of Yeltsin on the tank with his white hair and a good smile on his face. The other televised picture was of the junta, lined up

around its leader with shaded dark glasses and shaking hands.

I remember watching with Russians, who said, “They look like the defendants at Nuremburg.”

There was a sense of rightness conveyed in images, not in manifestos.

The two biggest geopolitical events of the past 20 years were totally unanticipated—the explosion of radical Islam the implosion of the Soviet system. The Russian Federation, which had elected its first president in Russian history, was in effect opting out of the Soviet Union by not recognizing its authority.

That still hasn’t been understood in retrospect. No one in the giant military and security establishment would give an order to shoot, and no one would shoot without such an order.

On the third day, the coup began to unravel, and tanks

moved out often covered with flowers. A kind of moral transformation had occurred, exorcising at last the genocide experienced under Stalin. Outside, you kept hearing the Russian word for miracle, “chudo.”

History has missed this completely. We don’t know who in the establishment decided not to use force. There were all kinds of heroes besides young people simply seeking freedom: elderly ladies who talked to the young soldiers on the tanks; younger priests, who gave them newly minted bibles; and older Siberians and Afghan veterans who provided the skeletal defense force for Yeltsin.

Broadly speaking, two things have happened in Russia over the past 20 years. One is the survival of much of the centralized bureaucracy and system-

mise of Cold War institutions in the East, but maintained them in the West, especially NATO. As reforms failed in Russia, Western advocates of unworkable poli c i e s — t h e “ Wa s h i n g t o n consensus”—blamed the failures on inherent Russian dysfunction rather than on bad policies.

Some observers of Russian affairs, both at home and abroad, believe the country is approaching another historical turning point, perhaps a revolutionary shift. If so, the ‘Russian Spring’ of the early ‘90s teaches that revolution is easy, but reform is hard. Discarding the Soviet past required courage, enthusiasm and hope.

Building a better Russia demanded realism, patience and stamina—and still does.

E. Wayne Merry was the American foreign service officer in charge of reporting and analysis on Russian domestic politics at the United States Embassy in Moscow, 1991-94.

ic corruption of the late Soviet system. On the other hand, you have a lot of local vitality and new perspectives within a generation that has been brought up in a post-Soviet atmosphere much more conscious of alternatives and entrepreneurship.

We see this in our Open World program that has brought 14,000 emerging young Russian leaders to visit communities throughout America.

Is the glass half full or half empty? There are countering trends. There have been important legal reforms including the spread of jury trials. But there have also been unsolved assassinations of journalists and the intimidating show trials of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Cultural reset is extremely important today and should be widened and democratized.

Cultural exchange should not be just the occasional VIP visit.

Even in Soviet Russia there was some exchange of performers.

What has not developed enough even now is human exchange.

The Open World program has had quite a remarkable effect by bringing people from all over Russia. I don’t like the term “soft power,” but exchanges are vital to help Russia develop.

We also need more economic collaboration and developmental projects. The Library of Congress “Meeting of Frontiers” project put a great deal of primary documents online comparing our two countries’ many parallel experiences on the Eastern and Western frontiers; 35 Russian institutions provided material for a bilingual Web site.

Much that is positive has come out of the past 20 years in Russia, as well as disappointment. For all its continuing problems, Russia offers more hope and possibility for a positive and constructive future than we could have expected.

This text was prepared on the basis of an interview with Nora FitzGerald

05

BIBLIOPHILE

Phoebe Taplin

DMITRY DIVIN

wenty years ago in Moscow, popular opposition defeated the reactionary putsch intended to turn back the clock of reform in the dying Soviet Union. The experience was, initially, similar to the recent ‘Arab Spring.’

The putsch failed quickly, sparing Russia a trauma like Syria or Libya today. Crucially, the Russian armed forces remained professional, sparing Russia the militarization of politics seen in Germany in the ‘20s or Yugoslavia in the ‘90s. Yeltsin jettisoned the past quickly—both the Communist Party and the Soviet empire—to focus Russian efforts and resources on Russia’s future. Doors previously closed to the outside world were opened for Russians to explore new lands and ideas. Freedom of speech and the media attained heights never seen in Russia before or, sadly, since. Youth was welcomed into the halls of power. The Cold War, radically scaled back by Gorbachev, was abandoned. Russia turned West and sought a genuine European identity.

It is vastly easier—and surer— to tear down a poor edifice than to design and build a replacement. The vacuum of power at all levels and in all fields attracted both the best and the worst, with the former a distinct minority. Youth and former dissidents demonstrated their talent at debate, but not at organization, administration or compromise. Ideologies and reform experiments imported from the West—especially in economic stabilization—often proved woefully wrong for Russia and deepened the damage left by the Soviet collapse. Economic failures tarnished nascent efforts at political reform. This led to a vacuum of democratic legitimacy and ultimately to the restoration of the ‘vertical of power’: neither neo-Soviet nor proto-democratic. A genuine threat to Russian integrity in Chechnya provoked a cure

Reflections

RUSSIA NOW

http://rbth.ru/13265

oung Russian novelists are redefining the world around them. Their fresh perspective gives a modern dimension to the country’s celebrated literary tradition. Unburdened by the Soviet baggage of their forbears, but uncertain about Russia’s future, younger writers are forced to look honestly at their surroundings.

Immediacy and a characteristic focus on the loneliness of young adulthood are keynotes of Pavel Kostin’s short novel, “Rooftop Anesthesia.” Set in a decaying urban landscape of skyscrapers and streetlamps, it follows the introspective Peter in his attempts to escape the pressures of modern life by scaling the tallest buildings in his hometown by night. Peter advertises online for assistants. He quickly finds that his hobby, which he has nicknamed “urban extreme,” is turning into a cult and a commercial enterprise.

This trajectory forms a powerful exploration of the corporate branding of the modern world. In a key passage, the narrator expounds on—via e-mail— an intensely personal concept he calls “blithe fury.” He describes battling through rainy streets to “tear the dense wet day apart”; he defines blithe fury as overcoming resistance, “pushing back the wind.” By the time the Internet-savvy Nemo and the business-minded Sergei have finished with his hobby, there is no longer space for the individualism that urges Peter out into the stormy nights.

In order to produce a marketable video, they must wait for a sunny day.

From the opening line, the narrator uses the summer heat of a provincial Russian city as a metaphor for the conformism of the “urbanites” around him; the ability to be “normal” is “to smile in the orange air of July.”

This rejection of social conventions appeals particularly to the booming young adult market.

For older readers, there is an intriguing freshness in the raw innocence of a writer still finding his voice.

There is something of the farce of Bulgakov in the novel’s surreal midnight episodes, an ironic echo of the rooftop perspective that the devil achieves above Moscow. It’s playful, postmodern stylistic montage is also vaguely reminiscent of Venedict Eforeev’s iconic prose poem, “Moscow Petushki,” the rambling 1969 monologue of an alcoholic intellectual on a train.

Both novels share the savage underlying message that ultimately the only sane reaction to life in an insane world is to attempt escape by any means.

The English translation of “Rooftop Anethesia” is published in one volume, together with Andrei Kuzechkin’s “Mendeleev Rock,” another serving of youthful alienation and group dynamics in the city, with side orders of violence, incest and rock ’n’ roll. Andrew Bromfield, famous as the translator of Boris Akunin’s historical whodunnits, has provided serviceable renditions of both authors’ use of street slang and streams of consciousness.

“Rooftop Anesthesia” is available in the volume “Mendeleev Rock,” published by GLAS New Russian Writing, www.glas.msk.su/ order.html

EXPAT FILES

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM Jennifer Eremeeva SPECIAL TO RN

H

RH, (my “Handsome Russian Husband”) has some friends who are high up in government circles, and then he has an even larger number who would like you to think they are.

Gena Varyenkov falls into the latter group. He spends a lot of time trying to convince everyone that he is privy to all kinds of explosive insider information when, in actual fact, he works for the State Lottery. Conversation with Gena is uphill work, since he is allergic to opposing views.

Gena’s latest conspiracy theory is that the mind-bogglingly inconvenient sidewalk renovation going on in Moscow is actually a clever anti-revolutionary measure by the cagy crowd in the Kremlin. “Last year, they engineered the heat wave and the smoke,” Gena revealed. “So everyone left the city. This year, it’s the sidewalks. No one can move around the city, so no protests are possible. By the time they finish, it will be too cold for protest marches. No one revolts during cold weather.”

“With the possible exception of the Bolsheviks in February and October of 1917,” I quipped.

HRH and Gena ignored me.

If, or indeed, when, Russia’s next revolution comes, it will most likely be nicknamed “The Curb Revolution,” because the origins of discontent might well be traced back to the sidewalk debacle that has Muscovites well and truly pissed off.

One benefit of the renovation is that this has been a great summer to start The Diet, because it has been physically impossible to get to my favorite bread shop, thanks to the carving up of Moscow sidewalks ordered by the capital’s new mayor, Sergei Sobyanin. Overnight, the existing

asphalt sidewalks were hacked to pieces. Guest workers started to lay the (really ugly) brick tiles slated to replace the hacked-topieces asphalt. It’s never been easy to be a pedestrian in Moscow, but this summer, it’s been impossible. To score a simple baguette or pastry, I’ve had to pick my way through a narrow path perilously close to the traffic whizzing by on the Garden Ring, and then negotiate a rickety wooden plank to reach the bakery door.

Sobyanin, a true outsider, hails from Khanti Mansi, and spent most of his career on the wrong side of the Urals, so when he became mayor of Moscow, it was like appointing someone from Lake Woebegone to be the mayor of New Orleans. Sobyanin, until the sidewalk thing got going, was becoming well known for cancelling gay pride events.

When Muscovites learned that Sobyanin’s wife Irina, known as “Ira Bardura” or “Ira the Curber” owns a successful sidewalk tile/brick and curbing company, and that all of the sidewalks in their previous city got a facelift, you could almost hear the collective groans. There is no direct evidence to link the Moscow tiles with Mrs. Sobyanin’s company, but the memory of former mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s construction mogul wife was on eveyone’s mind, and Russian magazines, like Snob, had a field day with the story.

But Gena had a different explanation: “Luzhkov told Sobyanin there was buried treasure hidden under Moscow’s sidewalks,” Gena confided conspiratorially.

“So Sobyanin is looking for it.”

Jennifer Eremeeva is a longtime resident of Moscow. She blogs at www.rbth.ru/blogs and www. dividingmytime.typepad.com.

She is currently working on her first book.

06

Feature

RUSSIA NOW

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Media Special report on the state of journalism in Russia

For Journalists, Small Ripples of Change?

SPECIAL TO RN

Russia’s journalists are best known as victims of violent attacks or hapless observers sidelined by censorship. Yet some journalists suggest that since President Dmitry Medvedev was elected, the situation appears to be improving.

Political pluralism remains academic and has never really been in fashion, and inquisitive reporters and other journalists who push back against the official line imposed by authorities are the frequent victims of verbal or physical intimidation, censorship or lawsuits in court. Some even pay with their lives for having tried to shed light on murky areas, for telling “secrets” or unravelling “mysteries.”

There are emblematic cases.

Anna Politkovskaya was an investigative journalist for the independent Novaya Gazeta when she was gunned down in 2006. Her murder remains unsolved; her colleagues say her penchant for focusing her talents on the situation in Chechnya and high-level corruption in the Kremlin made her a target. Five years after the murder, Russian authorities detained a new suspect in the case last month, Rustam Makhmudov, in Chechnya. Two of Makhmudov’s brothers were acquitted of the murder in 2009.

More recently, in November 2010, Kommersant’s special correspondent and blogger Oleg Kashin suffered a fractured skull after being beaten with iron bars.

The attack was later published on the Internet. Kashin had written about nationalism and the ideology of the pro-Putin youth movement, Nashi, among other subjects. Kashin was recently sued for defamation when he said that he suspected Vasily Yakimenko, head of the Nashi youth movement, was involved in the attack. Last month, the district court found Kashin not guilty in the case—a small victory for freedom of speech.

“In terms of safety, the situation is alarming,” said Nadezhda Prussenkova. have been 39 attacks.

Still, some studies show an improvement in the situation.

Mikhail Fedotov, the head of the president’s council on human rights, said as much during a conference of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vilnius in June.

Fedotov showed that over the last three years, journalist safety has improved to the point where, according to his research, not one was killed between 2008 and 2010.

In addition, authorities are increasingly likely to cooperate with the media. “Progress is very slow but appreciable,” Fedotov said. “Investigations on murdered journalists are moving ahead, the killers of Baburova and Markelov (a journalist with Novaya Gazeta and a human rights lawyer, respectively, both killed in broad daylight in Moscow in 2009) were convicted,” he noted, although he admitted that there is much left to do before journalists are truly protected.

Not everyone in the profession agrees that change has already occurred. “I have not seen any significant change,” said Ilya Barabanov, editor-in-chief of the independent magazine The New Times, which has been critical of authorities. Since 2007, Natalia Morar, the magazine’s investigative reporter covering corruption within the Kremlin, has been denied entry to Russia. “Our job is intimately tied to the level of corruption with Russia’s bureaucratic system, the lack of transparency, and we are powerless in the face

A policeman detaining a photographer during recent demonstrations in Moscow.

RIA NOVOSTI

VERONIKA DORMAN

of institutions that do not respect our rights,” Barabanov explained.

“In terms of individual safety, the situation is alarming,” said Nadezhda Prussenkova, who writes for Novaya Gazeta. “Journalists are mistreated by law enforcement in the same way that demonstrations are forbidden, even though they are there to work.”

Official Cooperation Has Improved

spect certain laws relating to the media, and their press services to function more or less correctly,” Prussenkova said.

“The president immediately announced that freedom was worth more than a lack of freedom, and today, progress in safety for journalists also depends on the elections of 2012,” Fedotov remarked. “If the country chooses a man

“On the other hand, when it comes to cooperation with bureaucrats, it’s a bit better,” Prussenkova added. The day after he was elected in 2008, Medvedev gave an interview to Novaya Gazeta, which relishes its role as a relentless critic of official abuses of power. “Officials have simply begun to re-

who defends democracy, the situation will improve.”

Alexei Simonov, president of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, said he believes there is no significance to statistics showing fewer attacks against journalists. But he does believe Russia is experiencing a critical moment of openness: “A foothold has been created by electoral uncertainty; journalists

INTERVIEW OLEG KASHIN

“I write now with more of an edge.”

Seven months after he was beaten, Oleg Kashin offered a rare interview to talk about justice, good stories and his attackers.

What is the situation currently for journalists in Russia?

I never considered there to be a problem specific to journalism in Russia. It’s a dangerous country in itself. Forty times more people are killed here, in general, than in Europe. That’s why, statistically, journalists are killed 40 times more frequently than elsewhere. The newspaper “Kashin,” which was devoted to me when I was in the hospital, made a list of murdered journalists: I was embarrassed because it included the names of people who obviously died for reasons other than their work.

Chief human rights adviser Mikhail Fedotov said the situation has improved, overall, during the last three years.

He also stated that ‘the Kashin affair is nearly resolved.’ Nearly resolved is like nearly pregnant: it doesn’t exist. Despite the diligent work of investigators, nothing has happened. Eight

months have already gone by and I have serious doubts whether the truth will ever come to light. You understand that I am a bit skeptical. Personally, I wouldn’t speak of improvement.

Take the Khimki forest for example, where its defense became a reason for serious attacks on journalists. The violence

have more freedom in the general disorder. But as soon as the duo has made its choice and the future is clearer, the screws will be tightened once again and journalists trampled upon,” he said.

Medvedev’s statements in support of freedom and democracy have hardly removed the dangers faced by journalists and the limited freedom of

expression in Russia. The president has said he intends to decriminalize slander, currently an offense punishable by prison time. But there remains the law on extremism. Despite small ripples of change, Russia found itself ranked 140th for freedom of the press in 2010

by Reporters Without Borders, revealing there is still much work to be done.

continues, including against environmentalists. I wouldn’t say people in this country are breathing easier.

attacks. Thinking about it all the time would be unbearable.

How have you been working and living since the attack?

My life has obviously changed.

Sometimes I’m refused interviews on the basis, ‘He was given a beating, and it was because he wrote something he shouldn’t have, he’ll do the same to us.’ But people know me better, which often makes my job easier. Overall, I am able to work as before.

And what about the fear?

I think my attack is one in a long line of provocations and

HIS STORY AGE: 31 HOMETOWN: KALININGRAD MARITAL STATUS: MARRIED

Born in Kaliningrad on June 17, 1980, Kashin moved to Moscow to work as a journalist for Komsomolskaya Pravda, then to independent business newspaper Kommersant, where

KOMMERSANT

Many journalists have lost their lives for what they do. The Glasnost Defense Foundation, an NGO that defends freedom of expression, documented 322 murders of Russian journalists between 1993 and 2009, as well as another 11 in 2010. Since the beginning of 2011, there

Reporting can still be the most dangerous business, but some say the atmosphere is improving under Medvedev.

he focused on youth political movements, Chechnya and the Russian Army. Since 2002, he has written a blog on LiveJournal: kashin.livejournal.com.

On Nov. 6, 2010, Kashin was assaulted by unknown attackers near his home in Moscow.

He was beaten 50 times with a metal rod, within an inch of his life.

There’s no subject you won’t do?

No. In addition, I think that I now write with more of an edge; I am tougher against the opponents of good.

Do you think you’ve become a symbol?

It was a risk. But thankfully I avoided it, precisely by beginning to work normally again.

And my last publication, the imaginary memoirs of Konstantin Ernst (a satiric look at the director of Channel One) for the magazine “Vlast” is more important to me than the events of November because it is creating debate. [Editor’s note: Kashin is working on a series, “Imaginary Memoirs,” which is a satire of people in powerful places.]

In addition, this trial against Vasily Yakemenko is the continuation of a 10-year-old debate.

This time he’s accusing me of compromising his honor, since I expressed my belief that he is involved in my attack.

Interview by Veronika Dorman

We Wondered, Would the Window Close?

Twenty years of growing pains Two decades after the founding of a new state, one that began with great hopes for democracy and prosperity, Russians are deeply ambivalent about what has been achieved in the intervening years and the current trajectory of their country. Now, that colors their view of what happened in 1991, and whether it is worth celebrating.

“I was a naval medic with the Northern Fleet at a naval base near Murmansk,” said 51-yearold Irina Potapova. “When Yeltsin came to power, there was hope that things would change. I have no nostalgia because those were hard times. ...You might say that the last 20 years brought nothing good to ordinary people.”

A mere 8 percent of Russians look back on the events of August 1991, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, as a democratic revolution, according to the Moscow-based Le-

AFP/EASTNEWS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Most Russians see the 1990s in a negative light.

vada Center, an independent pollster and research organization. Thirty-six percent of Russians, echoing the sentiment of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, describe the fall of the Soviet Union as a tragedy. Forty-three percent dismissed what others see as a seminal moment in Russian history—the failure of the August coup—as nothing more than a power struggle among bureaucrats.

“It was the illusion of freedom and the illusion of change,” said Philipp Bochkov, a 25-year-old art director. “In this country there will always be a zero after the equal sign,” he said. Bochkov recalled that his family crawled around their Moscow apartment during the coup because it was near the White House, and his neighborhood was alive with rumors that snipers were perched on the rooftops, randomly targeting people.

“Today, no one fights for anything, but rather everyone is just always ‘against’ something,” Grant said. “The main point is

that things do not become like they once were.”

Moshkina, who is now a 34-year-old advertising executive in Moscow, recalls a sense of jubilation in the crowds when her grandmother and mother took her to the White House for a rally after it was clear the coup had failed.

“There was a sense of excitement, democracy, of social fo-

“There was a sense of excitement, democracy, of social foment,” Natalia Moshkina said. ment,” Moshkina said. But as she looks back, Moshkina says she does so with a sense of despondency. “I have a feeling that the country missed a great opportunity,” she said. “As for me personally, I have become more pragmatic and more cynical.”

According to Boris Dubin, head of the Social and Political

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Studies Department at the Levada Center, “Most Russians now see the 1990s in a negative light, associating this decade with economic collapse, chaos, cultural degradation …while a miniscule number of the most socially active talk about receiving basic freedoms.”

He also noted that public hostility toward the 1990s has been stoked by the Russian media, which consistently describes the decade as a period of unremitting chaos. “People became increasingly more disillusioned,” he said.

But Dubin also notes that “democratic rhetoric has seeped into people’s pores” and the idea that democracy is a good thing has persisted as the principal legacy of the collapse of communism. Russians continue to aspire to the promises of 20 years ago, even if they are unsure how or if this can be achieved.

Irina Potapova, a 51-year-old masseuse who lives on the outskirts of Moscow, said she be-

“The last 20 years in Russia — and the kaleidoscopic speed of all the changes — have made us accustomed to the idea that you can’t plan your life more than a month ahead, or even a week.”

“The forest protectors live there in tents, putting their health and freedom at risk, only because they know that were it not for them, the forest would have been razed despite all of the president’s orders to the contrary.”

lieves that Russians still need to develop a civic awareness. Too often, she said, public service is seen as a cash-cow, not a calling. “In politics, corruption should be rooted out,” she said.

Ilya Poliveev is a stylist who once studied philology. He also experienced the coup through his parents’ eyes. He said he wants to see an end to corruption. “I hope someday there will not be the extremes of today.

I have the dream that we will one day be allowed to speak our mind without fear or repercussions.”

Popova would also like to see people re-engage with politics instead of retreating into their private lives. “We have a lot of intellectuals who understand everything, but what beats me is why they kowtow to the authorities,” she said. “Everybody keeps mum. I would like all these clever people to wake up.”

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