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Light Aviation Takes Off, Remains a Small Market

Is Russia Changing Its Tune on Syria?

Alisa Ganieva: Tales from Dagestan

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NEWS IN BRIEF

Bilateral Relations Can Russian-American trade be normalized before the upcoming elections?

Trade Hearings Renew Debates on Russia

AFP/EASTNEWS

American companies are lobbying the Senate to lift the outdated Jackson-Vanik amendment, while others tie the repeal to human rights. ALEXANDER GASYUK SPECIAL TO RN

The United States Senate Finance Committee is in the midst of animated hearings on abolishing controversial trade restrictions against Russia under the Soviet-era Jackson-Vanik amendment. American lawmakers are debating the end of trade practices, which have long prevented granting Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status to Moscow. It is still unclear whether the Obama administration can con-

vince Congress to lift the decades-old law. As the hearings continued, observers said that it will be difficult for the Obama administration to repeal the amendment before summer recess. The Jackson-Vanik amendment was adopted in 1974, when it linked restrictions on trade with the right of Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union. Some lawmakers and analysts believe lifting the amendment could be a boon for U.S.-Russia trade. “The White House has no plan B and is really aimed at graduating Russia this summer,” said Toby Gati, who helped develop U.S. policy toward Russia during the Clinton administra-

tion and is now a senior adviser with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. “American business also understands that unless this is done, U.S. companies could lose their position within the Russian market.” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (DMont.), said that lifting the provision could double U.S. exports to Russia. And Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, said that that exports could increase to $20 billion annually in five years. Edward Verona, the president and CEO of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, which supports repeal, said about 50,000 U.S. jobs depend on trade with Russia and those numbers could

be significantly boosted by more open trade. However, if the Jackson-Vanik amendment is still on the books by the time Russia officially joins the World Trade Organization this summer, U.S. companies will not be protected by WTO rules and Moscow could choose to retaliate against American companies with tariffs and other barriers. “It really needs to happen before Russia joins the WTO, otherwise American companies will be penalized,” said Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon, on the first day of the Senate hearings. During a meeting with U.S. business leaders, President Barack Obama emphasized that

The good relationship between Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev hasn’t been enough to get the U.S. to lift controversial trade restrictions.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

granting PNTR to Russia is necessary for American companies to benefit from Russia’s entry into the WTO. A similar message was sent to senior officials on Capitol HIll, by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk. But some members of Congress feel that the U.S. shouldn’t repeat mistakes it made with China, according to Jeffrey Mankoff of the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Foreign Relations, a private think tank. “After graduating China from Jackson-Vanik, some in Congress thought America had lost effective leverage over Beijing,” Mankoff said. Sharp differences between Moscow and Washington on the situation in Syria and U.S. concerns about human rights in Russia do not encourage U.S. lawmakers to “make concessions to Russia,” he added. A recent report prepared by the Washington, D.C.-based Bipartisan Policy Center urges Congress “to enact legislation that graduates Russia from Jackson-Vanik,” but also argues for the promotion of human rights in the country. Some lawmakers also want to link the trade issue issues to human rights via passage of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011, named for the anti-corruption lawyer who died in a Russian prison over two years ago. The Magnitsky Bill intends to put dozens of Russian officials and their relatives on a U.S. visa ban list as well as freeze their assets in American banks. If it is adopted, the Magnitsky Bill will inevitably inflame U.S.-Russia relations, and invite retaliation from Moscow. David Kramer, executive president of the democracy and human rights watchdog Freedom House, who will be testifying on Jackson-Vanik on Capitol Hill, said that the “only way to lift Jackson-Vanik is to link it to the passage of Magnitsky.” The Obama administration has stated that it doesn’t want the Magnitsky Bill to pass, arguing it has already put several Russians on a non-public visa blacklist.

Russia to Beneﬁt from NATO Transit Center The Kremlin has agreed to allow NATO to use an airfield in Ulyanovsk, Russia as a transit hub for supplies coming into and out of Afghanistan. When the first reports came out in the Russian press, detractors and opposition members criticized the Russian government, stating that the country’s strategic interests had been betrayed. Locals also expressed concern that the center could become a hotpoint for illegal drugs to pour in from Afghanistan. Proponents stressed that the economic benefits of hosting the center and the fact that no weapons would be deployed at the hub, which is near the banks of the Volga River. Read the full article at rbth.ru/15177

Sanitary Chief Warns of Anthrax Epidemic Russia’s chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko is warning that floods as a result of melting ice could cause an epidemic of anthrax in Russia if caution is not taken. This spring, flood waters could inundate 38 cattle burial sites for animals that died from anthrax, which could threaten locals, the head of the agency said. Originally published in The Moscow News

Roscosmos Reboots to Take on NASA Russian space agency Roscosmos has laid out plans to succeed where the Soviet Union failed in its latest strategy through 2030, reported business daily Kommersant. The document calls for several long-term missions to Mars and a manned flight to the moon, all within its current annual budget of $5 to $7 billion. A series of launch failures last year involving satellites and Russia’s first interplanetary mission in 15 years called into question the country’s space ambitions. The United States is currently dependent on Russia for manned missions to space. Read the full article at rbth.ru/15096

International Ossetians went to the polls again, some bewildered, others embittered

South Ossetia Election Victory Spurned

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Alla Dzhioyeva, the first female president to be elected in the Caucasus, says she is a prisoner in her hospital bed. ANNA NEMTSOVA SPECIAL TO RN

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

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AFP/EASTNEWS

There was joy when Alla Dzhioyeva was elected president of this republic, which has been recognized by Russia as independent since the 2008 FiveDay War with Georgia. But the woman who would have been the first female president in the Caucasus Mountains region now says she is a prisoner in her hospital bed, and the courts have ruled that her election was falsified and unfair. What went wrong? Five heavily armed men in uniforms paced up and down the narrow corridor a few weeks ago outside the cardiology ward at the hospital in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. Their mission was to prevent reporters and activists from visiting Alla Dzhioyeva, the 62-year-old who

insists she was elected president in November. But the Supreme Court nullified the results, and South Ossetians went back to the polls again March 25. The republic’s former KGB chief, Leonid Tibilov, won the first round; a runoff is slated for April 8. Dzhioyeva cannot participate in the new elections. She has been receiving treatment in the hospital since South Ossetian riot police raided her election headquarters on February 9, when she said she was assaulted on the eve of what was supposed to have been her inauguration. In a phone interview, she said she has become “a hostage” of the political machination enveloping the region. “The militants tore my body apart, threw me on the floor. I felt their guns sticking into my body the moment before I lost consciousness. They acted as if they were my executors,” she said. Dzhioyeva would have been the first woman president in the history of the Caucasus region.

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Build it and They Will Come Following years of violence and poverty in the North Caucasus, President Dmitry Medvedev unveiled a $15 billion plan to develop a tourism cluster in the region that woud include five new world-class ski resorts. The much-needed federal funding will be provided in conjunction with private investments from France and other countries to fuel the creation of thousands of jobs. The plan aims to attract more than 150,000 daily tourists to the area by 2020, with 550 miles of ski slopes and 91,000 threeto five-star hotels rooms at their disposal. For More Information visit www.ncrc.ru/e/

Builders are confident that Arkhyz will be comparable to Les Arcs in France.

Tourism Officials and locals alike are hopeful that Arkhyz will lead an upturn

Moving Mountains to Create a Resort in the North Caucasus VSEVOLOD PULYA RUSSIA NOW

Jam made from pine cones, Cossack fur hats, mountain herbs for tea drinking, sweet homemade wine: these are the sorts of souvenirs tourists bring back from Arkhyz. At local stands they can also buy refrigerator magnets showing snowboarders and skiers against dramatic mountain backdrops. In reality, however, there aren’t any ordinary skiers on the slopes yet or travelers wandering through local stands. Construction of the Arkhyz resort has only just begun: Instead of hotels there are improvised camp sites, there is almost no cell phone coverage, and the snowy roads are unpaved.

Before the construction began, the only people who came here in winter were extreme skiers with plenty of money, or at least enough to hire a helicopter to drop them at the top of Arkhyz’s virgin trails. In the summer, mountain biking and rock climbing without the necessary infrastructure attracted only the daredevils. But Arkhyz, which gets some recognition from a widely distributed mineral water of the same name, is a resort with prospects. In the local dialect, Arkhyz means “beautiful girl,” and a glance at the landscape is enough to see why. Arkhyz is also in a very convenient location: less than four hours by air from most countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The nearest international airport, in Mineralye Vody, is only 125 miles away; the region also plans to build some smaller airports for private planes.

A Russian Les Arcs Many of those who attended the opening ceremony at Arkhyz sported hats and scarves bearing the Latin words “per angusta ad augusta,” which means “through ravines to the heights.” The real heights at Arkhyz are still to be scaled. The new fourseat chairlift takes skiers up only 377 feet, to an altitude of 5,800 feet; the resort itself sits at an altitude of 5,400 feet above sea level. The first two trails are 2,200 and 3,600 feet long. The next stage — construction of five hotel complexes with 700 rooms – will be completed by this fall, in time for the start of the new ski season. By then, the combined length of open ski trails will be almost four miles. These figures may seem modest to inveterate downhill skiers, but these are just trial balloons. Arkhyz has more ambitious plans. “The real work on this resort will begin at the end

VSEVILOD PULYA (2)

The first chair lift and trails have debuted at the resort of Arkhyz. The area is blessed with a mild climate and warm springs.

Arkhyz, a resort that shares a name with a nationally famous mineral water, hopes to attract thousands of tourists to its slopes.

Stands outside the Arkhyz resort sell warm clothes and jam.

of the year when we propose specific sites to investors,” declared Alexander Khloponin, the envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District, declared at a post-ski press conference. The builders say that when it’s finished, Arkhyz will be comparable to Les Arcs, the French ski resort in the Alps. All told, eight years from now, Arkhyz will consist of four tourist complexes housing a total of 24,000 guests; 54 ski lifts able to carry 45,000 skiers a day; and ski trails totaling 167 milres in length. All of this will be available with a single ski pass. At Resorts of the North Caucasus (KSK), the company in charge of developing the tourist cluster in the North Caucasus, specialists say that once Arkhyz is finished and in full operation, it should draw more than half a million skiers a year. The first goal of the resort is to make downhill skiing affordable for average Russians. “Resorts in the North Caucasus cluster should not compete among themselves,” said Alexei Nevsky, general director of KSK. “We have to develop a single concept, a single marketing and price policy.” This project is slated to create 10,000 jobs in the Republic of Karacheyvo-Cherkessia, according president of the republic Rashid Temrezov. At any rate, local grandmothers are ready to take in guests: their homemade meat pies and wool socks are already selling well.

Nature and history The Arkhyz Gorge is protected

from strong winds and blessed with a mild climate. Its alpine slopes are covered with dense stands of fir trees and pine trees and it is the home of 26 natural mineral springs. Meanwhile, for non-skiing tourists or those who want a break from the slopes, there are some unique local excursions. A mysterious natural icon of Christ is carved right on the steep left bank of the Zelenchuk River. Christ’s face looks down on ancient churches and the remains of the ruined city of Maas. The oldest of the churches was built 1,200 years ago, making it the most ancient religious edifice in Russia. Thirty-seven miles to the west of Arkhyz is Adyukh Mountain, which has a small tower on its summit. The mountain and its fortress were named in honor of a girl who, as legend has it, was so unhappy in love that she threw herself off the mountain top; another legend claims that she threw off the rope ladder on which her unfaithful lover was climbing. Visitors able to climb the 730 steps up to the top will be rewarded with a magnificent view of the Zelenchuk River and surrounding valley — the horizon stretches away to Abkhazia. A new cluster Arkhyz is KSK’s debut project. By 2020, it plans to have fully developed this tourist cluster with world-class ski resorts throughout the North Caucasus. Meanwhile, Dagestan’s Caspian Sea coast will be dotted with beach resorts. When construction of the cluster is complete, it will boast a combined total of 680 miles of downhill ski trails and 227 ski lifts, as well as hotels, apartments and cottages for 102,500 people. KSK anticipates that this cluster will receive between 5 and 10 million vacationers every year. The total volume of federal investment in the transport infrastructure and communications of resorts in the North Caucasus should equal 60 billion rubles ($20 billion). The Sinara Group put up 1 billion of the 3 billion rubles already spent on building the resort and its infrastructure. The project’s financing is being conducted on the principles of a governmentprivate partnership. The project will receive a total of 80 billion rubles ($2.7 billion) in investment. Investors from France and South Korea have signed agreements on a joint enterprise, according to Nevsky. He confirmed that the South Korean company Korea Western Power is ready to invest $1 billion in the cluster’s electricity supply network, while the investment bank Singapore Nexus means to invest in the development of hotels.

Aviation An industry is developing to support a few dreamers, businessmen and politicians, who now pilot their own planes, or at least own them

Newest Luxury Vehicle Takes to the Skies ALEKSEY EKIMOVSKY KIRILL SLEPYNIN SPECIAL TO RN

Private planes are no longer considered exotic in Russia. With a price tag about the same as a luxury car, many wealthy Russians are able to afford a light aircraft. There are more than 3,000 private airplanes and helicopters in the country, acording to industry observers, even though individuals have only been able to fly legally in Russia since a 2010 government decree introduced the concept of uncontrolled airspace. “The new rules are working and have been tested during practical flights,” said Vladimir Tyurin, chairman of the board of the Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association. “The notification procedure has also been simplified. There are fewer no-fly zones — a recently drafted instruction from the Transport

Ministry will reduce the number of such zones to 400, down from 1,200. Most of them are located around Moscow — the farther from Moscow, the fewer the zones, so there is less red tape for managing air traffic,” Tyrin said. There are still many unresolved issues, including the high import duties applied to foreign aircraft. According to Tyurin, Russians who purchase a foreignmade airplane or helicopter

The big challenges for owners of private planes is the lack of infrastructure and red tape. must pay an additional 42 percent of its cost in customs duties and taxes. And there is more red tape for the new airplane owner. All privately owned airplanes and helicopters must be locally registered. If the purchased aircraft is a make that has a Type Certificate, the process is fairly sim-

ple; most recent Cessna, Robinson and Aeroprakt models have the certicificates. However, owners of aircraft made by other producers have been faced with registration problems. “There is a way out,” said Tyurin. “You can upgrade your plane a bit by installing additional equipment that will suffice to have the model deemed to be a custom-built aircraft. This is a relatively fair means for circumventing the legislation, but it would be easier for everyone if the rules were changed and foreign Type Certificates were accepted automatically, without additional procedures wrapped in red tape, thus having foreign certification procedures recognized as safe.” Once a plane has been registered, it must be maintained-which is harder than it sounds. “Russian aircraft maintenance rules do not cover light aviation. The requirements on maintenance centers working with light aviation are so stringent that often they are simply unprofitable,” Tyurin said. There are a few centers that service Robin-

IN FIGURES

500

aerodromes in Russia currently accommodate small planes; an additionall 300 large airports are not equipped for small aircraft. In comparison, there are about 5,400 airfields for general aviation in the United States.

PHOTOXPRESS

Light aviation, which almost completely disappeared in Russia in the 1990s, is becoming more accessible with new infrastructure

The Antonov AN-2 is a popular option for private plane owners in Russia.

son helicopters (of which there are about 300 in Russia) and Cessna airplanes (of which there are around 100), and they report profits. But the state needs to get rid of unreasonable requirements in order for new maintenance centers to be set up and work with other aircraft models. These problems are irritating, but not insurmountable; the bigger challenge for Russian owners of private planes is the lack of infrastructure. There are currently 300 airports in Russia that

accept big commercial carriers, but do not welcome light aviation, and about 500 aerodromes and airfields that do accommodate small planes. In comparison, there are about 5,400 airfields for general aviation in the United States and 580 aerodromes for long-range aircraft. Development of the infrastructure for regional transportation could have a positive impact on light aviation according to Alexei Sinitsky, editor-in-chief of “Air Transport Review.” In February, Prime Minister Vladi-

Light aviation is a good way for a country like Russia to connect far-flung regions. mir Putin called light aviation “the only way for a country like Russia, with its vast territory, to connect various regions. It is no good when you have to travel to a neighboring region via Moscow.” Sinitsky doesn’t have much

ITAR-TASS

Vladivostok: Russia’s San Francisco Will this year’s APEC summit mark an economic turnaround for this struggling city?

hope for high levels of state investment in the sector, however. “The recent victories in the struggle against red tape have been due to the enthusiasm of a few well-off and influential people, who have made amateur aviation their hobby,” he said. In some Russian regions, small airfields or landing fields remain operational only because of some local businessman or Duma deputy who fell in love with the sky pilots his own airplane.

SUE S I T X NE May 9

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Politics & Society

South Ossetia Election Spurned CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Poverty is common in South Ossetia. Many of the homes are cold and crumbling.

See slideshow at rbth.ru/15164

Shrapnel scars and bullet holes remain on most of the buildings in South Ossetia’s towns.

ANNA NEMTSOVA (3)

Last November, Dzhioyeva, the former minister of education, received an official piece of paper issued by the election commission that recorded her election victory — by 16 percent. For a few days, the republic, or at least Dzhioyeva’s supporters, celebrated their victory. Dzhioyeva became the first woman president in the history of the Caucasus, a region traditionally dominated by men. “Alla [exposed] examples of high-level corruption and explained to us why we saw no progress in South Ossetia,” said Zhanna Vaginidze, an opposition activist. “With her as our president, millions of dollars sent to us from Russia would have reached the nation and not have been distributed to a few pockets in Moscow and among our current leadership.” The joy of victory did not last long: the republic’s Supreme Court canceled the election results “under pressure from the still-influential and Moscowbacked former president, Eduard Kokoity, and his clan,” according to Igor Bunin, the director of the Center for Political Technologies in Moscow. Now, despite street protests and appeals to the Kremlin, Dzhioyeva has been pushed out of the political arena. Four new presidential candidates were registered for the new election. Until recently, the small mountain enclave of South Ossetia, with a population of about 30,000 people, seemed indifferent to international opinion. What really mattered to people exhausted by poverty, unrest and almost two decades as an isolated, breakaway region of Georgia, was that Russia recognized the country as an independent state, and promised to underwrite its development. After the week-long war with Georgia in 2008, Russia promised South Ossetia millions of dollars to rebuild, and security guarantees against any future Georgian intervention. In the center of Tskhinvali, there is still “Thank you, Russia!” graffiti on the walls of ruined buildings. The presidential election was supposed to be a milestone

Traders sell their wares at a local market in South Ossetia.

Three years have passed since the end of the war but few improvements are visible. The disillusionment of the people is directly related to the pace of reconstruction. event in the building of the new state and thousands turned out to vote. “People sincerely hoped to have a say in choosing their own president, and were actively involved,” said Varvara Pakhomenko, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

A City Stands Still And the population’s disillusionment is of a piece with their disappointment over the pace of reconstruction. Three years have passed since the end of the war, yet few improvements are visible in the still-scarred city. Several destroyed city blocks look much as they did in the immediate aftermath of Georgian missile strikes, and are constant reminder of the failure to rebuild. In a city where many residents have no access to central heating or hot water, winters feel endless. There is no movie theater or mall. Just unpaved roads. All of which leads people here to wonder just where the $840 million in assistance already transferred from Moscow has ended up.

“That was Moscow and Kokoity who ordered the beating and arrest of Dzhioyeva,” said Melchik Agoyeva, a retired kindergarten teacher. Melchik has never seen the one-time $100 compensation promised for her bombed house. At Dzhioyeva’s house and former campaign headquarters, the furniture is still turned upside down and the carpets are covered in broken glass from the police raid. Portraits of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev still hang on the walls. Her supporters secretly sneak into the offices to discuss the political situation in the republic, and Alla’s detention. An aide, Fatima Margiyeva, said some supporters have begun to flee South Ossetia. “We are all feeling like hostages,” she said.

A Tumultuous History year, efforts by newly elected Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to restore Georgia’s territorial integrity with a strong hand also led to sporadic episodes of violence and casualties in the dozens. In 2008, a full-scale war broke out in the republic, and Russia’s army pushed Georgian forces out of South Ossetia. A ceasefire was brokered by the European Union, and Russia recognized South Ossetian independence. Today, both sides accuse each other of breaches of international law. Russian and Georgian relations have yet to recover.

During the Soviet era, South Ossetia was a partially autonomous republic under Georgian rule. As the Soviet Union fell apart, the region asked to be designated an autonomous republic. When the request was denied, tensions between Ossetia and Georgia esclated. War between the two broke out at the end of 1990. The Georgian government accepted a ceasefire in 1992 that led to the establishment of a Russian, Georgian and Ossetian peacekeeping force. It was able to maintain general quiet in the de-facto independent republic through 2004. That

INTERVIEW VLADIMIR LUKIN

Vladimir Lukin Takes the Temperature of Human Rights You have said: “If the human rights situation in Russia were fine, the human rights commissioner would have nothing to do.” Did you have a lot to do this year?” This report has 156 pages, plus a supplement of about the same size. Everybody knows that laws may be wonderful, but their enforcement might leave a lot to be desired. It wasn’t for nothing that they said in Tsarist times: “The laws in Russia are horrible but they are partly compensated for by horrible enforcement.” Today, not all our laws are horrible, but enforcement, to put it mildly, is far from perfect. The relationship between the quality of the laws and the quality of enforcement is so far in favor of the former. What have been the most frequent complaints? About 58 percent have been

about personal civil rights violations. The overwhelming majority of complaints in that category have to do with violation of the right to a defense in court and due legal process. One in every four complaints is about violation of citizens’ social rights. This year, the number of citizens complaining about violation of their economic rights dropped a little. What about the opposition rallies on Bolotnaya Square, Sakharov Avenue and others? Did you take part in these actions as an observer? We agreed with the Moscow police that we would constantly monitor the rallies and demonstrations. So far, the results have been good. We met with Interior Ministry officials before every major event to discuss all the details. I would like to say that the democratic character of the mass events that began in December gives me a sense of pride and even patriotism. I am an international affairs specialist and I can compare how such actions take place in other dem-

ocratic countries on both sides of the Atlantic. In Russia, the people and the police behave in a more organized, civilized and correct fashion. I hope this will continue to be the case.

HIS STORY

Vladimir Lukin NATIONALITY: RUSSIAN

Perhaps they are bolder there because they have more freedom? The boldness of the crowd cuts both ways. Sometimes it leads to very serious abuses. The skill of the police and the organizers of the rally consists in combining the right to live and the freedom of expression. So far we have managed to do this. Russia’s historical path is approximately as follows: discontent with the authorities leads to protests and the protests then become violent. Either suppression of large numbers of people, with casualties, or downfall of the regime and revolution with ghastly consequences then follow. We have to get out of this “red wheel,” to use Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s phrase. I disagree with those who try to analyze the current situation only in terms of that historical pattern, history is not the only

AGE: 74 STUDIED: HISTORY

Vladimir Lukin was born in 1937 in Siberian city Omsk; he was raised by his relatives, as his parents had been repressed and were arrested and imprisoned soon after his birth. His parents were eventually released. In 1959 Lukin

factor in the country’s development. New people are coming along. We have seen these people. They do not behave the way the war-weary citizens behaved in 1917. They have a totally different mentality. Why do you think the authorities and the opposition found it so hard to agree on where the rallies should be held? We have a law on mass mani-

graduated from the historical faculty of the Moscow State Pedagogical University and later the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. Lukin was a founder of the liberal-democratic Yabloko Party. In the early 1990s, he was Ambassador to the United States and then a member of the Duma. In 2004 he was appointed as human rights commissioner and was re-appointed in 2009.

festations, rallies and demonstrations. Under the law, no permission is needed for holding such events, but the authorities must know about people’s intentions in order to ensure security. Our, and not only our, authorities and opposition suffer from chronic afflictions. The authorities suffer from afflictions of age. They are forever fretting about the opposition, accusing it of being naive, inex-

PHOTOSHOT/VOSTOCK-PHOTO

RBTH correspondent Elena Novosyolova talked with Russian Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin about his office’s recently released report on human rights in the country.

perienced and unpatriotic. The opposition suffers from infantile disorders. It sees every action as a crusade, with eyes burning with moral indignation. The best way to treat these afflictions is a substantive dialogue. It can be difficult and not always successful and it might involve political maneuvering and intrigues. But it is a dialogue all the same. This is the beginning of democracy, the start of modernization of our political system. The Human Rights Commissioner’s institution, for all its flaws, seeks to contribute to such dialogue. Going back to the report, blog-

gers write that you support gay rights demonstrations. I am a champion of the law. People with a sexual orientation different from mine, for example, are citizens like the rest of us because various alternative orientations are not a crime under Russian law. As an ombudsman, it is my duty to defend their rights. These people can express their views and may ask for a site where they can do so. But the question arises as to where rights end and aggressive advocacy begins? This is an object for study. Prepared by Elena Novosyolova

If you’re serious about understanding Russia and Russians, this unique collection of essays by Foreign Ambassadors to Russia, sharing their diverse insights and wide experience of the country, is a must-read.

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MOST READ Assessing Russia’s Post-Election Economy

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NOTHING BETTER THAN A TRUSTED ENEMY

THE THIRD ANGLE

ANOTHER LOOK AT SYRIA

Eugene Ivanov

Konstantin von Eggert

SPECIAL TO RN

fter Vladimir Putin won the election for the Russian presidency last month, American politicians renewed their campaign to demonize Russia and question the U.S.-Russia reset. In the midst of the American presidential campaign, the future of Russian-American relations is at the top of the political agenda. Only six months ago, the consensus among Russia-watchers was that the return of Vladimir Putin to the Russian presidency would have little impact on U.S.-Russia relations. “The possible election of Putin as the president of Russia will not signify a fundamental change in the direction of U.S.-Russia relations,” said Andrew Kuchins, senior fellow and director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. But Kuchins made that prediction in September of 2011, before the winter of discontent. By the beginning of March, Kuchins concluded that the reset in U.S.-Russia relations was over and that “Washington should prepare for a far more contentious relationship with Moscow.” Quite a change, isn’t it? What went wrong? There are enough contentious issues between Washington and Moscow, starting with European missile defense. Russia genuinely considers the future deployment of anti-missile defense systems in Eastern Europe as a serious threat to its security, and the Kremlin sees no reason to hide its concerns. Speaking at a meeting in December 2011, Russia’s then-Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin warned that the country was facing the danger of becoming an “easy victim” at the hands of some (unnamed by Rogozin) hostile forces. Rogozin’s words shouldn’t be taken lightly: shortly after delivering this speech, he was appointed deputy prime minister in charge of the military-industrial complex; rumors in Moscow were that this appointment was lobbied for by Putin himself. Then Putin invoked the image of the enemy at the gate by accusing U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of inciting the street protests that followed the Dec. 4 Duma elections. Subsequently, in one of his seven election manifestos published in the

Many people in Russia believed that anti-Americanism was no more than campaigning. Critics of President Barack Obama are looking for any opportunity to attack him. Russian press, Putin made it clear that he considered the United States a “destructive” force guilty of “democracy promotion.” In Russia, subordinates always try to outdo the boss. Taking Putin’s words as a nod, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika alleged, without presenting any specific evidence, that the December protests had been financed from abroad; Vladimir Popovkin, head of Russian space agency Roskosmos, attributed the failure of the unmanned Phobos-Grunt probe to the action of American radar; Chairman of the Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs Alexei Pushkov suggested that the United States was keenly interested in

THE POLLS

destabilizing Russia and would make every effort to weaken Russian government; and highranking United Russia party official Andrei Isayev went as far as to warn his compatriots that in 2012, they will face a “new battle for the freedom and independence of Russia against attempts by the United States of America to establish control over [the] country.” The rising anti-American rhetoric in Moscow was followed closely in Washington. But it wasn’t until the vote on the United Nations Security Council resolution on Syria that the simmering tension broke into the open. The United States, along with 13 other members of the council, voted in favor of the resolution calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. Russia and China blocked the resolution on the grounds that it would invite Libya-style military intervention. Shortly thereafter, verbal shots flew over the Atlantic: Clinton called the Russian veto “despicable;” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov characterized this reaction as “hysterical.” Curiously, many people in Russia seemed to sincerely believe that the escalating antiAmericanism was no more than the excess of the Russian presidential campaign. They expected that once the election cam-

paign was over, U.S.-Russia relations would rapidly return “to normal.” So when on March 6, Lavrov finally spoke on the phone with Clinton —“in a call that officials said had a ‘get back to business’ tone,” according to The New York Times — the sense in Moscow was that was that. Well, it wasn’t. In the heat of their own presidential campaign, folks in Moscow apparently forgot that the United States was going into a presidential election campaign of its own and that critics of President Barack Obama are looking for any opportunity to attack him. For months, the president’s opponents have been painstakingly collecting every available evidence of his ”failed” Russia policy: the lack of progress on missile defense and Iran nuclear program; Russia’s support for Syria; harsh treatment by Russian state media of Michael McFaul, the new U.S. ambassador to Russia; the parliamentary elections in Russia that many in the U.S. consider undemocratic. In the coming months, Moscow will be watching whether the anti-Russian rhetoric in the United States builds momentum. Leading Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney makes no secret that the reset is really over if he’s elected president. An-

ti-Russian sentiments are widespread in Congress, obstructing the Obama Administration’s efforts to repeal the notorious Jackson-Vanik amendment. Some hawks have gone so far as to demand that Putin not be invited to the NATO-Russia summit in Chicago in May; they also question whether Obama should hold a bilateral meeting with Putin during the G8 summit at Camp David. It remains to be seen how Moscow will react to the smilarly hostile response in the United States. Putin’s third presidency has undoubtedly damaged Russia’s reputation in the world and complicated the political situation at home. With its number of friends dwindling, the Kremlin may well decide to keep a good trusted enemy to solidify whatever is left of the proverbial Putin majority. In the Kremlin’s calculation, the cost of the reset, a policy that demands a certain level of trust in the U.S. partner, might have already outweighed its benefits. One can be sure that if President-elect Vladmir Putin did cry during his victory speech at Manezh Square, it was not over the near-death of the reset. Eugene Ivanov is a Massachusetts-based political commentator who blogs at The Ivanov Report.

s Russia changing its position on Syria? I have been asked this question again and again since my recent interview with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Kommersant FM radio in Moscow. Although murmurs about the behavior of Bashar Assad’s regime have been heard from officials in Moscow before, Russia’s diplomat-in-chief became the first to articulate what can only be described as displeasure with Damascus. “We absolutely do not justify the Syrian leadership,” Lavrov told me. “We consider that the Syrian leadership reacted incorrectly to the rise of nonviolent protest, that despite the promises that were made in response to our numerous appeals, they are making many mistakes, and those steps being made in the proper direction are happening late.” In the same breath the minister repeated Russia’s previously stated position on the Syrian question. Making Assad’s resignation a precondition for any political settlement is useless and will only encourage him to cling to power more; the Syrian opposition is an unknown entity with even less influence; the Sunni regimes of the Persian Gulf are obsessed with overthrowing the Alawite government in Syria. Lavrov completes the argument with this: Syrian rebels are not just peaceful people who took up arms to defend their families and homes. He claims there is a sizeable al-Qaeda presence within the rebel ranks. And the Syrian regime’s claim that it is fighting Islamists is worth paying attention to. However, the most interesting part of the interview was Lavrov’s musings on a possible settlement of the Syrian conflict. He thinks the model used in Yemen to make President Ali Abdullah Saleh leave the office he occupied for more than 30 years and install a more-or-less legitimate government could be adapted to Syria’s calamitous situation. In Yemen, representatives of the opposition, tribal chiefs (which is frequently one and the same thing there), representatives of Saleh and officials from the Gulf states sat down to agree on the president’s departure terms, which included guarantees of personal immu-

nity and a transition period before new elections. It appears that Moscow is starting to seriously consider the possibility of Assad’s early departure, as it is aware that the rivers of blood he spilled will prevent any return to normalcy as long as he and his family are in power. A roundtable framework would help Russia negotiate to preserve its business and military interests in Syria, including the now-unclear future of the Tartus naval station on the Mediterranean coast. But the Kremlin’s other, and no less pressing, concern would be to make any settlement look different than regime change. This was the principal motivation behind Moscow’s adamant stand on Syria in the United Nations Security Council, and its demonstrative support of the Assad regime. The course of the

Russia has long opposed regime change disguised as humanitarian intervention. war in Libya, which Russia effectively sanctioned by abstaining when a “no fly zone” resolution was passed, angered the Russian leadership, especially president-elect Vladimir Putin. Putin has said that he believes Russia was conned into accepting regime change by the West, and has vowed not to let it happen again. For the Kremlin, Assad’s fate is secondary to the principle that organizations such as NATO, and even the Unted Nations itself, cannot decide who is going to rule sovereign countries. And although Russia has opposed regime change disguised as humanitarian intervention since the Balkan wars, there is also a new self-interest at work. There is no exact parallel between the Arab Spring and the protest movement in Russia, but Putin and the country’s ruling class are mindful of any international precedents that could, at some future date, legitimize outside interference. Konstantin von Eggert is a commentator and host for Kommersant FM, Russia’s first 24-hour news radio station. He was a diplomatic correspondent for Russian daily Izvestia and later served as the editor-in-chief of the BBC Russian Service Moscow Bureau.

AND THE LIT GEEKS REJOICED

Unpack Your Bags... WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY PERMANENTLY?

Natalia Antonova RIA NOVOSTI

S SOURCE : WCIOM

The desire to emigrate from Russia is at a record low despite a turbulent election season marked with a rise in protests, according to state-run pollster VTsIOM. However, the drive to

leave is the highest among the young and the supporters of political hopeful Mikhail Prokhorov, a presidential candidate who led demonstrations. RIA Novosti

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ay what you want about Russia, there’s one thing that I hope never changes in this country, and that’s the way in which poetry remains relevant to public life. Vladimir Putin reminded me of as much when he stood at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow before his election and quoted from an 1837 Mikhail Lermontov poem about Russian soldiers dying at the Battle of Borodino, which is usually recalled as the bloodiest day of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Analysts had a field day as to what the Lermontov quote meant in the context of Putin’s campaign, whether or not it’s alarmist, whether it signals strength or, indeed, severe doubt about the future of this nation. But as a literature geek, I was reminded of the large role that poetry plays in public life in Russia. In this election cycle, writer Dmitry Bykov’s popular “Citizen Poet” project made for a wonderful mixture of poetry, politics and current affairs. And when people want to make a point about, say, how disappointed they are with education reform, they just whip out the text of a classic Russian poem and loudly complain about how most high-schoolers nowadays have no idea as to who the author is. Poetry and music are frequently mixed together in the

I can’t imagine an American candidate wowing folks with lines from Walt Whitman. work of rock star and prominent opposition figure Yury Shevchuk, while Soviet-era children’s poet Agnia Barto is often humorously regarded as a prophet, due to her portrayal of a boy named Volodya (Volodya, for those of my readers who are unfamiliar with how Russian names work, is a diminutive of Vladimir), who never misses a photo opportunity. All of this is, undoubtedly, a

good thing. Back in the United States, eloquence is frequently read as a sign of weakness or elitism, and poetry is largely a marginalized art form. I can’t imagine a current American presidential hopeful, whether Republican or Democrat, getting up in front of a stadium full of people and wowing them with some lines from Walt Whitman, who was as quintessentially American as Lermontov was quintessentially Russian. A stadium is for machismo, after all! It’s where athletes take to the field! You can’t be down there using fancy words! You’ll look like an idiot! In their daily lives, Russians tend to exhibit machismo much more than Americans do. I think

this actually explains why so many Russians are suckers for verse. It acts as a kind of psychological balance. Russian bard Bulat Okudzhava once painted a touching, nostalgic portrait of Russian military officers during the days of the Russian Empire: “It’s twilight, in the countryside, a flute’s nervous voice / They’re riding late / The emperor is on the horse in front, in a blue caftan / A white mare with brown eyes, with a black mane / A red blanket. Wings behind his back, as if on the eve of a war / After the emperor, the generals are riding / Generals of his escort / They’re swathed in glory, covered in scars, just barely alive / After the generals, come the du-

elists, the adjutants. Their epaulets are shining. / They’re all beautiful, they’re all talented, they’re all poets.” (The bad translation is mine). Although Okudzhava wrote his song in 1974, history tells us that in imperial Russia, being a poet did not preclude being a badass. Lermontov himself was a military officer, for example, and was killed in a duel. The same is true of Russia today. This is why the language of poetry and the language of politics are so frequently intertwined. It’s not that people don’t mind poetry. They expect it. In Moscow, riding up the escalator at Mayakovskaya subway station, named for poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, commuters read poetry inscribed onto the domed ceiling above. “And the sky, in the smoke, has forgotten that it is blue,” one of the inscriptions reads. The subway passenger, upon reading it, immediately longs for the sky outside — whether blue, or smoky, or otherwise. Mayakovsky also lived in an uncertain time for Russia and he met a tragic end. His verse serves as a reminder that beauty and danger don’t just coexist in public life in Russia, theyccan be indistinguishable. Natalia Antonova is the deputy editor of The Moscow News and a playwright. She graduated from Duke University, where she majored in English and Slavic Literature.

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RUSSIA NOW PREVIEWS READ RUSSIA , A CITYWIDE FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE TAKING PLACE AT BOOKEXPO AMERICA ON JUNE 1-8, 2012, IN NEW YORK CITY.

BIBLIOPHILE

Literature A writer with chutzpah covers an epic 1,000 years of Russian history

Wild West and East

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Veteran BBC journalist Martin Sixsmith discusses his career in London, Moscow and Washington, D.C. SPECIAL TO RN

Sixsmith was posted to the United States and covered the Clinton era for the BBC.

Martin Sixsmith reported for many years for the BBC, witnessing key moments of history. Now he’s written a book based on his 2011 radio series: “Russia: A 1,000 Year Chronicle of the Wild East.” The U.K. paperback and the U.S. edition will both be published in March this year. Sixsmith’s face is familiar to many people in the United Kingdom, especially those who are old enough to remember the Cold War. He was BBC Television’s Moscow correspondent in August 1991 and recalls events there vividly. “I remember speeding through the streets and seeing columns of tanks descending the broad avenues towards the Kremlin,” he writes in the introduction to his book. He describes that time as “the apotheosis of my journalistic career.” The aim of the book, and the

radio series, was, he said, “to put my experiences of 1991 in a historical context.” Among the many contemporary books about Russia, general readers are likely to choose Sixsmith’s 600-page tome for its comprehensiveness and air of authority. As popular history, it is enjoyable and engaging. Some expert critics have a few caveats; Mary Dejevsky, reviewing it in the Independent, complained of Sixsmith’s “penchant for sweeping generalization” and rehearsal of “big, but well-worn, ideas” like Russia’s dual nature, torn between Europe and Asia, or the autocratic rule “that so often seems to define power there.” It is precisely these recurring patterns in Russian history that Sixsmith finds so fascinating. The

PHOEBE TAPLIN

premise of his account was that “the cycle we saw culminating in 1991 has actually happened before. There is the polarity that Russians themselves identify between attachment to the East and attachment to the West. East and West both become a matrix of symbols for a way of life, a government, a model of the state. Russia has hesitated between these two over the last thousand years.” Sixsmith uses a quotation in his preface that refers to the force of Russia’s orbit. “Russia has that effect. A lifetime studying, working in and writing about the great planet has dragged me into her orbit.” Sixsmith developed a great knack for being in the right place at the right time. He was posted to Washington for the election of President Bill Clinton. “When the BBC told me that my next posting would be Washington, D.C.,” he recalled, “my children excitedly told all their friends that we were ‘moving to Disneyworld.’ For the first few months in my new posting, I

felt they might have been right.” Sixsmith covered stories that included the O.J. Simpson murder case, the accusations of child molestation against Michael Jackson and the rape trials of Mike Tyson and William Kennedy Smith. “But there were real stories, too,” he said. “Traveling with Clinton and Gore was a tremendous experience. Their style was open and easy. On Nov. 3, 1992, I was in Little Rock to see the new president declare victory and celebrate by dancing to Fleetwood Mac on the steps of the Governor’s Mansion. “Later I followed another candidate on the campaign trail. In 1994, George W. Bush was bidding to become the Governor of Texas... But one remark he made remained in my memory. When I asked him about his father’s decision to halt the U.S. forces advancing on Baghdad without seizing the city or toppling Iraq’s dictator, Bush, Jr. paused and said slowly, ‘Iraq. There’s unfinished business there, my friend.’ In March 2003, when

the new president announced the second invasion of Iraq, his remark came back to me with a jolt.” Sixsmith compares Yeltsin’s rule to Tony Blair’s government in the UK — a period that began with idealism and good intentions, but “went wrong quite quickly.” He has a certain respect for Prime Minister and President-elect Vladimir Putin’s ability to bring order to chaotic in turn-of-the-millennium Russia: “If I were a Russian and I was given the option of living in the 1990s — when my pension wasn’t being paid, the heating wasn’t working and my son was being sent to fight in a war from which he was very likely to come home in a body bag — or 2012 when the economy broadly is working, you don’t get shot in the street, but you do have to surrender a certain amount of freedom of expression, I’d probably go for the latter.” In typical BBC fashion, Sixsmith sees both sides, admitting that “in order to restore order, some personal liberties were lost; certainly the press is not as free as it was under Yeltsin; what happened in Chechnya was quite brutal,” and observes that “politics and the economy are not entirely disentangled.” His feeling about the recent protests is that they are “probably a blip. The opposition is really not very strong in Russia. It’s a small proportion of the overall population and not representative; it’s the intelligentsia, it’s in the cities, and if you go into the regions, you don’t have that sort of support for it.” Sixsmith hopes to see peace and prosperity in Russia: “But if the price of liberal, western style, parliamentary democracy were disintegration, murders, violence and suffering for a large swathe of the population, I wouldn’t want to see that. Not “democracy at all costs.” Ultimately, he says, with decades of love and fascination for the country in his tone, “I’d like to see Russia thrive.”

INTERVIEW ALISA GANIEVA

The Chronicles of Dagestan Winner of the prestigious Russian literary Debut Prize in 2009, Alisa Ganieva, 26, writes about the Republic of Dagestan in Russia’s North Caucasus. Her novel, “Salam, Dalgat,” which she wrote under a pen name, was a controversial sensation in Russia. She will be in New York for Book Expo in June.

Is there a literary scene in Dagestan? Unfortunately, there is no one writing about modern life. There

Why did you choose a pseudonym for your first novel? Writing “Salam, Dalgat” was a complete change for me, because even though I had finished Gorky’s Literature Institute in Moscow, this work was a debut for me in the world of literature. I didn’t write serious prose before that. It was a bit scary to enter the new world, and secondly, I wanted to hear independent opinions. Someone would raise or lower my grades, if they knew it’s me, Alisa Ganieva. Until the very last moment everyone was sure it’s a new writer, some people were even disappointed, when I came out, they were really expecting some brutal unshaved guy from the mountains.

STUDIED: PHILOLOGY AGE: 26

are a few elder writers, members of the Writer’s Union, who keep working in their tradition. And my peers for some reason do not describe what’s going on now, maybe because it’s hard for them to get distant enough to be able to describe what they see. When I go there from time to time (I moved to Moscow at the age of 17), I can see from the outside. Yet it’s my native world,

and I know everything there. But since my book came out in Russia (thanks to the Debut award for that, otherwise it’s very hard to get published), my relatives and countrymen speak with me very carefully. They are afraid that I will use something they say in my books.

Why is it important to bring young Russian authors to America? I think it’s a very good idea, because modern Russian literature is barely presented on the English-language market. There are still many stereotypes about Russia.

How was the reaction to your novel among people in Dagestan and Russia? Critics mainly praised it, but as for the public, it was very surprising for me, both, liberals and nationalists [reacted to] my book. Skinheads were even sending links to each other saying, “we need to know our enemy,” and liberals just loved it. Many people in Dagestan liked that finally something about the republic came out, but they were afraid that it adds to a not-all-that-positive image of Dagestan. I describe some young outcast squatting and speaking broken Russian, local extremists, but in fact I don’t see any negativism in it, it’s the opposite. I’m trying to soften what’s really happening there, and I have a great sympathy to almost all of my characters. I let them speak and don’t insert my author’s opinion and impose it on the situation.

What stereotypes? We were asked how many writers are put in jail in Russia, or one woman filming us on her

An Underworld Odyssey “Salam, Dalgat,” (Hello, Dalgat) is Ganieva’s first novel to be translated into English. It was included as a short story in the first collection of Debut award prizewinners called “Squaring the Circle.” The book is one young man’s journey, but invokes a generation of young Dagestanis who live in a place torn by violence and extremism. The odds are against them in a city rife with street criminals, rogue police and a strict form of Islam.

iPhone for a local TV channel was wondering whether, if we say what we think about Putin, we are going to be arrested at the airport. There are plenty of exaggerations, so it’s useful to present real people, not just some wax masks. Do you consider yourself Russian or Dagestani? I’d say my culture is mainly Russian. I grew up on Russian literature, I did not read a lot of Avar books, because we didn’t study those rare Dagestani languages at school and many kids don’t have a chance of learning it. But I identify myself more as a Dagestani Avar. Do people here in United States know anything about Dagestan? Just a little, and it’s like this in Moscow, too. When I enrolled the [Gorky Literature] Institute, my fellow students, seemingly educated people, asked me whether Dagestan was in Russia, what currency we have there, whether I speak Dagestani. We have dozens of languages in Dagestan, of course, but not everyone knows that. Prepared by Xenia Grubstein

ILLUMINATING HIDDEN JEWELS Phoebe Taplin SPECIAL TO RN

lexander Ilichevsky is one of Russia’s most acclaimed contemporary writers, yet he is little known in the United States. Like the wandering hero of his 2007 novel, “Matisse,” he was a theoretical physicist who abandoned science. He also has an urge to explore everything, from mountains to rail depots. The main character in his latest novel, published this year, is a successful businessman who moves to a quiet town on the Oka River to paint. So far, only short extracts from Ilichevsky’s novels are available in English, but he will be on hand for the Book Expo in New York in June and more translations may soon be available. Today he is based in Moscow at the heart a literary renaissance, yet Ilichevsky’s wanderlust started young. He was born in 1970 in the city of Sumgayit, on the Absheron peninsula in Azerbaijan. His maternal grandfather helped build a military aerodrome that made American Cobra fighters. Ilichevsky said he sees his father’s Jewish heritage as belonging historically to “the edges of existence,” tracing his paternal ancestry back through times when Jews were forced to live “beyond the pale.” His memories of childhood summers are of “overflowing sunshine, the bitter taste of the sea where I swim and the smell of oil oozing from the seams of the steep slopes on the way to Baku.” Ilichevsky moved to the suburbs near Moscow as a teenager, when his family was forced to leave Azerbaijan. He graduated from a technological institute affiliated with Moscow State University, emigrated to Israel and then to the United States. In San Francisco, he studied programming with a view to funding his emerging interest in writing, at first as a poet. “I started writing poetry,” he said, “and found it brought me no less pleasure than solving scientific problems.”

One big library Ilichevsky moved to Sacramento with Intel, traveled around California, and lived for a time with a Moscow friend in Alabama. “I think of America with warmth and gratitude,” he said. “In retrospect, the U.S. seems like one big library because I spent a lot of time in university libraries...in American libraries I could find books in Russian which in Moscow we could not even dream of. All the writers of the Silver Age and the literary avant-garde were on the shelves! It was delicious.” The only downsides to Ilichevsky’s sojourn in the States were homesickness, he recalled, and a need to reconnect with Russian cultural life.

This eventually drew him back to the motherland. His most successful novels so far draw on memories of childhood and of young adulthood in chaotic, post-Soviet Moscow. For less than a year in the shifting early 1990s, Ilichevsky says, it was possible to visit Moscow’s most secret places: condemned sculpture studios lined with plaster busts of generals, or hidden courtyards full of Mosfilm’s fairytale movie sets, wagon cities behind railway stations, or the tunnels of the mysterious Metro-2, a legendary secret network of passages overseen by Soviet Leader Josef Stalin. They extended from the Kremlin to ouside the city limits under the public metro, and some passageways still exist. One of the delights of “Matisse” is its visceral connection with the city, its sense of adventure rooted in real locations. “He sank his harpoon into Moscow and pursued it — it was his Leviathan,” the author writes of his scientist-turned-tramp protagonist, Korolyov. The sense of a Moby Dick style quest is beautifully counterpoised by Korolyov’s geographically random wanderings.

Acclaimed at Home Of his many awards, Ilichevsky says the 2010 Big Book prize was the most personally significant. “The Persian,” the novel that won it, is the third part of the same trilogy as “Matisse,” and is an even more uncompromising tome. The author describes it as “a big novel about childhood, about the Absheron

“Matisse is a novel about childhood, the Absheron peninsula and metaphysics of oil.” peninsula, about the Russian futurist, Khlebnikov, and … the metaphysics of oil.” As with so many contemporary Russian writers, the past and future of Russia itself are often underlying themes. Years of living overseas have influenced Ilichevsky’s work. “It is impossible to understand or fully describe a system, while you’re still part of it,” he said. “Russia is more clearly visible from a distance, and not only because it occupies one-eighth of the earth’s surface.” It is no wonder Gogol wrote “Dead Souls” in Rome, he added. In his next novel, Ilichevsky will return to the time of the early 1990s. “I am currently finishing a novel about why morality collapsed in Russia and how it has shaped my country as it is today.” It sounds like a suitably intractable topic for this novelist’s inquiring mind and inventive prose. “But in fact,” he adds as an afterthought “it is a tragic kind of story.”

JENNIFER EREMEEVA, OUR EXPAT HUMOR AND FOOD COLUMNIST, WILL RETURN IN JUNE. CHECK HER WEB-SITE WWW.RUSSIALITE.COM.

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In his current show in Washington, D.C., painter Yevgeniy Fiks reproduces digital prints of 18 masterpieces, from Raphael to Velazquez, that Andrew Mellon bought from the State Hermitage Museum. By 1932, these stop-you-in-your-tracks paintings were the core collection of the National Gallery of Art (NGA). As a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the unprecedented purchase that helped to fund Soviet industrialization, Fiks placed the prints of these masterpieces on silver metal plates with the title “Summary of the Fulfillment of the First Five-year Plan for the Development of the National Economy of the U.S.S.R.” Yet in the same show, he also presents lush oil paintings of begonias that seem to clash, albeit exquisitely, with the conceptualized prints. Titled “Kimjongilias, a.k.a. Flower Paintings,” the large-scale, lyrical works refer to the flower festivals in North Korea in honor of the late leader, Kim Jong-Il. The exhibit runs through midApril at Galerie Blue Square, an inviting, new Georgetown gallery focused exclusively on Russian contemporary art. “What I really like about this exhibit is that someone could walk into the gallery and see two different artists. It’s the historical theme that connects them,” said Dianne Beal, a curator and dealer of Russian art who recently opened Blue Square. “This new series of prints on metal are entertaining, intellectual and aesthetically pleasing, which sums up the work I like to show.”

Adjustment to a new life Fiks immigrated to New York with his parents when he was 21 years old. He recalls this time in the mid-1990s as a period of significant changes for him, when everything was not only new, but also not entirely un-

A JESSE JIRYU DAVIS / GALERIE BLUE SQUARE

NORA FITZGERALD

derstandable because of a lack of context. “There was a long, long adjustment period,” he said. Before coming to the United States, Fiks trained as a painter at one of Russia’s finest art schools, which has the formidable title of The College in Memory of the 1905 Revolution. Afterward, he studied at the V.I. Surikov Institute in Moscow. “When I came here, American contemporary art was not tangible for me. I couldn’t understand what gave birth to abstract expressionism and pop art. Everything seemed flat. … But over the years I began to understand what was going on,” he said. These ambiguities

Fiks likes to invade what people know and are comfortable with, when it comes to art and history.

Metal plates reproducing Mellon’s purchases, left; a painting from “Songs of Russia,” right.

In Georgetown, A Haven for Russian Art on Book Hill

about history and perspective later fueled his work; Fiks continued his studies, receiving a BFA at Brooklyn College and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Longtime curator Dianne Beal has opened a gallery to show contemporary Russian artists influenced by the Russian avant garde.

The Magnitogorsk Tour at the NGA Fiks is taking on a new role as a radical tour guide. On Saturday, March 24th, the artist conducted his performance/tour of the NGA. The Alba Madonna is among the most significant Raphael paintings in the United States. The round painting, with its classical and Florentine influences, was created in 1510. But when Fiks, wearing his art historian/ tour guide caps, walked up to the Alba Madonna during the NGA tour, he wanted visitors to think about something else. Fiks walks you through an irony of history when industrialist Mellon bought the Alba Madonna for more than $1 million — a lot of money in the 1930s — from the Hermitage. Mellon also bought 20 other seminal works for a total of more than $7 million. The money Mellon paid the

PRESS PHOTO (2)

Painter Yevgeniy Fiks examines historical ironies and absurdities that shed new light on the inconstancy of the Cold War.

NORA FITZGERALD

Yevgeniy Fiks uses his art to recall forgotten bits of history.

Soviet government went directly to Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s first five-year plan, according to Fiks’s research. And it helped to build the city of Magnitogorsk, which was a major priority of the first five-year plan. Thus his tour is called the “Magnitogorsk Tour of the NGA.” “I was really interested in documenting this symbiotic, preCold War relationship,” Fiks said. “This idea of being chained to one another. How Mellon helped the Soviets to industrialize themselves while at the same time they bought American equipment and hired American engineers.” His exhibit from 2009, “Songs

of Russia,” involved a series of oil paintings that utilized images from Hollywood films about Russia made during World War II. The films were made to change the attitude of Americans toward the Soviet Union. The show reflected on a time, between Stalin’s Terror and 1950s McCarthyism, when the United States wanted Russia to look good. The NGA tour examines another forgotten chapter in the Russian and American relationship. “I want to make an intervention with the museum,” he said. “It’s about me trying to perform this radical, inconvenient history.”

RUSSIA NOW

When President Bill Clinton needed a present for visiting President Boris Yeltsin, curator Dianne Beal was ready with a drawing by esteemed artist Oleg Vassiliev. Not every day is this heady in the compact scene of Russian contemporary art, as America’s utter fascination with the country’s underground culture and communist kitsch has ebbed. But Beal has been a steady presence for committed Russiawatchers and collectors — so much so that shortly after her return to Washington, D.C., from Paris in 2011, she opened a tony Georgetown gallery devoted to contemporary Russian art, Galerie Blue Square.

She represents some of Russia’s most iconic artists who are still little known outside a tight sphere of collectors. This year, she will show the work of Yuri Avvakumov, who finds completely new ways to explore Russia’s search for utopia. The artist was the founder of the famous Paper Architect movement of the 1980s, a group of architects known for their awardwinning visions of wondrous buildings they suspected would never be built. Avvakumov has been commissioned to design the Russian Lounge at the Kennedy Center this year. Beal also represents Ira Waldron, a painter and silkscreen artist. Waldron’s work reveals a mix of humor and simmering menace as in “Woman with an Axe.” Beal had a calling for Russia, despite the fact that she grew up in Pittsburgh and had no Russian heritage. She studied art in high school and Russian

Studies at the University of Michigan. “I remember my Republican father looking at me like I had three eyes,” she said. The beginning of her career coincided with glasnost and perestroika, and Beal became involved with the Washington Moscow Arts Exchange, which developed connections between American and Russian artists. She met the late, eminent collector Norton Dodge when she happened upon some art that had been stolen from one of his exhibits. “We ended up being very close, and he became my mentor,” Beal said. Dodge recovered the art. In the early 1990s, Beal started making studio visits to artists in Russia. Beal moved to Paris in 2003, and it was there that Galerie Blue Square first made its mark. In 2011, she returned to D.C. The gallery joins eight other galleries on Book Hill.

Film A coming-of-age story set in the world of Russian youth political movements examines the struggle for Russia’s future has become a strong voice of the opposition and the friendship between Masha and Kashin leads to her increasing disillusionment with the actions of the Nashi group. Kashin was brutally attacked with iron bars and left for dead in 2010. His injuries were so severe that doctors induced a coma. As he recovered, Kashin accused Nashi leader Vasily Yakemenko of ordering the assault, and Yakemenko sued him for defamation and lost. There have been no arrests made in the Kashin case. In his blog at Seance.ru, Kashin compares “Putin’s Kiss” to the acclaimed documentary “Khodorkovsky” by German director Cyrill Tuschi, which was highly praised at Berlina-

Putin’s Kiss: A New State of Consciousness XENIA GRUBSTEIN SPECIAL TO RN

“Putin’s Kiss,” tells the true story of a pro-Kremlin youth activist who slowly awakens to a nightmare. In the film, Danish director Lise Birk Pederson follows Nashi member Masha Drokova over a four-year period. Drokova’s ultimate fallout with the Nashi movement propels the film forward as she befriends opposition journalist Oleg Kashin, who became an international figure after his near fatal beating in 2010. A Sundance honoree. Pederson’s film has its weaknesses, but it could not be more on topic regarding the fierce struggle for the future of Russia. A wholesome looking young woman from the central Rus-

sian city of Tambov, Drokova becomes attracted to the only active local “subculture,” as she calls it, which is the local branch of the state-created youth organization Nashi (“Ours”). Shortly after Masha moves to Moscow, she has a meteoric rise within the organization. She is also a spokesperson for the movement, working closely with then-Nashi leader Vas-

The film is engaging and at times powerful and portraits of Russian teenagers captivate. ily Yakemenko and Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov, who is known as the architect of the centralization of power and the creator of the term “sovereign democracy.” Occasionally, Drokova meets with then-president and later

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin himself. She has an apartment, a car and hosts her own cable TV talk show. At one of Nashi’s events, she kisses Putin, giving the film its catchy title. Unfortunately, Drokova’s conversations with friends and family appear staged and unnatural. And Pedersen’s straightforward, but jarring editing technique moving from gleeful teenagers attending Nashi’s summer camp at Lake Seliger to CCTV footage of the brutal assault on Oleg Kashin is less than sophisticated. Still, “Putin’s Kiss” is engaging and at times powerful; its brief portraits of Russian teenagers are captivating. Pederson captures the animation and excitement of the kids from the regions brought to Moscow, in hundreds of buses, to occupy the capital’s squares in rallies supporting Putin and his party, United Russia. Oleg Kashin in recent years

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Lise Birk Pedersen

PRESS PHOTO (3)

The documentary “Putin’s Kiss,” traces the story of the unlikely friendship between a pro-Kremlin activist and an opposition journalist.

Masha Drokova, top; Drokova with Putin, middle; a pro-Kremlin youth rally.

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le 2011 and had a limited distribution in the United States and Russia at the end of last year. “Putin’s Kiss” and “Khodorkovsky” have a lot in common besides the heat of their politics. Both films are a bit naïve with stark and convenient moral contrasts and are light on ambiguities. Unlike Cyrill Tuschi, however, Lise Birk Pedersen managed to show both sides. “Khodorkovsky” had some difficulties with distribution in Russia after a few theaters suddenly decided not to show the film. The future distribution of “Putin’s Kiss” is not yet known, but the popularity of “Khodorkovsky” may be a positive for the chances of “Putin’s Kiss.”

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INDIEWIRE ONLINE MAGAZINE; JANUARY 17, 2012

IDFA, DANISH FILM INSTITUTE; NOVEMBER 10, 2012

Catch the vibes of Moscow When I first arrived in Russia, I suddenly wasn’t as funny as I used to be back in the U.S. I needed to adapt if I wanted to get the ‘spotlight of laughter’ back on me. That opportunity came in the unexpected form of “KVN”.

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Firstly, I don’t speak Russian and secondly making any film in Russia, speaking the language or not, is not a walk in the park. But, I think the biggest challenge was how to balance the many levels in my story. I had the ambition to tell the big story about Modern Russia through the eyes of my young protagonist with a classic coming of age style.”

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When Nashi members throw posters of their enemies on the ground and stomp on them, to me it bears a frightening resemblance to other fanatic youth organizations of the past. Nashi is on the one hand represented by Masha’s smiling face, and on the other hand is completely paranoid....”

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