#2
Moscow Times
May 6, 2015
A Guide to Celebrating Victory Day in Moscow
By Yekaterina Gladkova

Victory Day is coming and the capital is scrambling to prepare for Saturday's celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany. The day will be bursting with activity, from a massive military parade replete with shiny new tanks and military vehicles of yore in the morning, to a spectacular fireworks display in the evening.

According to police estimates, some 2.5 million spectators are expected to observe and participate in the hundreds of events set to occur across the city. To help our readers navigate the festivities, The Moscow Times has compiled a list of the day's highlights.

Activity hubs: Though the city as a whole is expected to be bustling with activity on Victory Day, five locations will serve as the central activity hubs beyond Red Square. These sites will feature concerts, films and other festivities: Poklonnaya Gora, Patriarch's Ponds, Pushkinskaya Ploshchad, Tverskaya Ploshchad and Teatralnaya Ploshchad.

The Parade: Victory Day will kick off in Moscow with its pièce de résistance - a parade featuring some 200 military vehicles along with 150 aircraft, which will begin at 10:00 a.m. on Red Square. More than 14,000 soldiers are set to participate in the event, which will also be broadcast on television, and projected on screens throughout the city, including at all five of the aforementioned activity hubs.

Immortal Regiment March: At 3:00 p.m., thousands will march down Tverskaya, the capital's central thoroughfare, to honor the memory of those who died in combat. Many will carry portraits of their loved ones who fought in the war.

War Cuisine and Karaoke: Moscow's main pedestrian areas, such as Kuznetsky Most and Old Arbat, will host an array of interactive events. Muscovites will have the opportunity to taste military cuisine, sing World War II-era songs at makeshift karaoke platforms and watch musical theater shows.

Memorial Tours: A variety of tours featuring World War II sites will be available free of charge between May 8-10. On these days, the "World Remembers" program plans to run 150 walking tours and 12 bus tours around the city. All wishing to sign up will be required to register on the website mosartagency.com.

Moment of Silence: A city-wide moment of silence will be observed at 6:55 p.m.

Fireworks: The 70th anniversary celebrations will culminate in a grand fireworks show that will illuminate the night sky at 10 p.m. This year, light projectors will be used to lend a dramatic air to the standard display. Fireworks will be set alight from 16 different locations around the city. Anyone hoping to maximize their experience will do well to watch from the Vorobyovy Gory observation deck in southwest Moscow, or from the Poklonnaya Hill platform in the western part of the city. But go early, as both spots - known to be prime viewing locations - will fill up fast.

A Note on Security Precautions: Moscow is ramping up security measures ahead of the holiday, with some 20,000 security officers having been recruited to ensure that things run smoothly, Lenta.ru reported last week. That staggering sum includes some 12,000 regular police officers, as well as thousands of internal military forces, volunteers and private security officers. "I have never before seen an event of such a grand scale in all my decades of work [as a police commander]," Vyacheslav Kozlov, deputy chief of the Moscow police, was quoted as saying.

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 #3
Moscow Times
May 6, 2015
NGO: Russia Among Top 60 Best Countries to Be a Mom
By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber

Russia is one of the top 60 countries in the world in terms of conditions of motherhood, according to a ranking published earlier this week by international advocacy group Save the Children.

Russia ranks 56th out of 179 countries in Save the Children's 2015 Mothers' Index Ranking, which is based on indicators of maternal health, child well-being and the educational, economic and political statuses of women around the world. Russia ranked 62nd out of 178 states last year.

Russia finished ahead of Kazakhstan, China and Turkey but remains behind the United States, Cuba and Libya. The best-performing former Soviet republic is Belarus, ranking 25th.

Russian women are more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than the average industrialized country, the ranking showed. Women in Russia face a one in 2,600 lifetime risk of maternal death, a figure higher than the average of a one in 9,750 risk found in industrialized countries. The death rate of Russian children under five years old is more than 10 per 1,000 live births, which is also greater than the average of four deaths in industrialized countries.

The political status of Russian women, measured in the study by the percentage of parliamentary seats held by women, likely contributed to lowering Russia's rank. With 14.5 percent of State Duma seats occupied by women, female representation in Russian politics is significantly lower than many countries in the ranking and falls below the 19 percent average found in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Norway, Finland and Iceland are the best countries for mothers, according to Save the Children. The countries offering the least favorable conditions for healthy motherhood are Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic.

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 #4
EU's top diplomat says destabilized Russia in nobody's interest
May 6, 2016

(Reuters) - A destabilized and isolated Russia is in nobody's interests, and sanctions are only being kept in place because a truce agreement in the conflict in Ukraine is not being fully implemented, the European Union's foreign policy chief said on Wednesday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused "someone in the European Union" on Tuesday of trying to ensure a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine does not hold.

Pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian government agreed the truce in the Belarussian capital Minsk on Feb. 12, but it has failed to end all fighting and the Lithuanian president told Reuters it was now all but dead.

Speaking to students during a visit to Beijing, the EU's top diplomat Federica Mogherini said that while she did not see Russia as an "actor" of instability or insecurity, violations of Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty were a matter of universal concern.

"Like China, our European priority is for the violence to stop in the east of Ukraine. Our efforts, as Europeans, are all focused on the full implementation of the Minsk agreements, and we are concretely contributing to that," she said at the elite Peking University.

"At the same time, the European Union has developed a policy of sanctions towards Russia, but I could not stress enough in all my speeches that a sanctions policy is not in itself a policy - it's an instrument, a tool. And as such we are keeping that as long as the Mink agreement is not fully implemented."

Kiev and the West accuse Moscow of sending arms and troops to help the separatists in fighting which has killed more than 6,100 people in just over a year.

Russia denies the accusations and says the West instigated the overthrow of a Moscow-backed Ukrainian president last year as part of efforts to reduce Russian influence in the region.

Mogherini said that in many other areas, such as talks on Iran's controversial nuclear program, Russia was often a constructive partner.

"A destabilized and isolated Russia is not in the interest of the European Union, is not for sure in the interest of the Russian people, and I believe it's not in the interest of the Russian leadership, but it is for them to decide," she added.

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 #5
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
May 4, 2015
In Russia, you can't beat the sistema
RD Interview: Alena Ledeneva, Professor of Politics and Society at University College London (UCL), discusses the system of Russian power known as "sistema" and how it is evolving in response to the Ukrainian conflict and the Russian economic crisis.
By Pavel Koshkin

The Ukrainian conflict and ongoing economic crisis within Russia have triggered greater discussion about the nature of power within the Russian government and, more broadly, within Russian society. To understand better how the system of political power works within the country, Russia Direct recently spoke with Alena Ledeneva, a professor of Politics and Society at University College London (UCL) and the author of the book "Can Russia Modernize? Sistema, Power Networks, and Informal Governance."

Professor Ledeneva answered Russia Direct questions on the political power in Russia and the effects the Ukrainian crisis and changes in domestic politics have had on the Russian "sistema."  In her book, she explains 'sistema' - the network-based system of governance - as an interplay of formal and informal constraints on the sistema insiders and the role of informal financial flows, informal relations, and tacit agreements.

Russia Direct: How would you describe your concept of "sistema" to a Western audience?

Alena Ledeneva: In my view, sistema is the best way to describe the operations of power in Russia, certainly since Vladimir Putin has become the President in 2000. Some analysts refer to his governance style as neo-Soviet, but I would argue that it rests just as much on Russian patrimonial rule and on the rudimentary ways in which informal networks operate in all societies.

Strictly speaking, sistema is not Putin's, it is shaped by a complex web of short-term, long-term and fundamental factors, with which anyone in the position of power in Russia has to deal with on daily basis. Its key features include orientation on stability, weak correlation between real power and formal status, corporate decision-making and unwritten rules. The gap between the facades and the way things are, perhaps, is the starting point for understanding informal governance.

For example, what looks like a legal case against a businessman, could in fact be initiated by his competitor, for the purposes that have nothing to do with the actual violation in question. With money or political influence, it is possible to manipulate the workings of the court system so that the whole formal institutional process of investigation serves informal interest. So it's near impossible to predict how the sistema forces would work out.

In the majority of Western publications, even when informal influence, connections, clans, cliques, clusters and other types of informal alliances within the elites are identified, the social networks that generate 'informal power' are not seen as intrinsic to the concept of governance.

Moreover, it is often assumed that power networks shadow formal positions of power so that a 'map' of a pyramid of informal ties and influences can be produced. This is not how informal power operates in my view. There is not much regularity about it.

Besides, networks that channel informal influence function in an ambivalent fashion - they both support and subvert the existing governance model. Personalised power networks enable leaders at all levels to mobilize and to control, yet they also lock politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen into informal deals, mediated interests and personalized loyalties. This is the "modernisation trap of informality": One cannot use the potential of informal networks without triggering their negative long-term consequences for institutional development.

RD: Could you describe how the sistema works or give an example?

A.L.: You can find a perfect depiction of the workings of sistema in Russia's 2012 'National Bestseller' novel by Aleksandr Terekhov, Nemtsy [Germans in Russian - Editor's note], that specifically focuses on the system of kickbacks backing up local governance in contemporary Russia.
The "Leviathan," the latest film by Andrei Zvyagintsev [the Golden Globe winner, Oscar-nominated in 2014 and recognized as the Best film in London and the Best Play in Cannes Film Festivals - Editor's note] portrays corruption, moral decay and legal nihilism in provincial Russia. It highlights the key operational principles of sistema.

First, it is the limited nature of property rights: You think you own the house, but actually you don't. Second, it is the manipulative use of legal institutions, whereby the inconvenient for authorities people could be framed and sent to prison. Third, the double standards of the Russian Orthodox Church [criticized in "Leviathan" for allegedly meddling in politics and providing a justification for corrupt officials - Editor's note]. In both stories, you can see the so-called bespredel - the unlimited corruption within power institutions - and the powerlessness of an individual vis-à-vis sistema.

RD: What should one do in order to survive in sistema?

A.L.: There are several survival skills. One of them is tacit expertise. As one of my respondents put it: "This is not a system that you can choose to join or not - you fall into it from the moment you are born - it feels natural."

Insiders are not ordinarily bothered with reflections on sistema - they intuitively know it when they experience the "system made me do it" pressure and know what to do. When things go wrong, one becomes reliant on informal power. It is not who you are, it is rather who you know.

Another one is doublethink - the notion introduced by George Orwell and used by Alexander Zinoviev [a prominent Russian writer of social critique] and Yuri Levada [a well known Russian sociologist, political scientist and the founder of the Levada Center - Editor's note] - that serves well to grasp the ambivalence of a Russian mindset.

It is the ability to hold contradictory beliefs and not see the contradiction. In the polls, people report that state officials and policemen are most distrusted, and yet they also want their children to become state officials and go to police when in trouble. Such mentality is linked to the double standards for them and for us.

When someone helps someone else to get a job, you see it as blat, or corruption (if the position is lucrative in some way). But if you help someone to get a job, that's friendship. In this sense, we hate corruption, when exercised by them, but happily engage in dubious transactions, if not in corrupt exchanges, when they benefit us. The latter would then be viewed as mutual help, convenience, favours or even as 'taking off the last shirt' for a friend, but not corruption.      

The third survival skill is creating Potemkin villages, or building fake facades [the Potemkin village is derived from an anecdotal episode in Russian history and is primarily used to describe a fake portable village, built only to impress - Editor's note]. This metaphor is used when describing the nature of privatization of and in rural areas or the virtual nature of politics and democracy in Russia.

RD: How does it relate to politics?

A.L.: Although all democratic institutions seem to be in place in Russia, it is the case of a democracy with an adjective: illiberal, semi-, quasi, façade, managed, or sovereign democracy - that is anything but a democracy. We do have democratic elections, but also accept the rigged outcomes [and other violations of electoral procedures].

Such Potemkin villages work, but in a limited way. On the one hand, the facades are a testimony to the control and leverage of those in power. On the other hand, they are the evidence of vulnerability of those who have taken the elected position in an illegitimate way.

RD: Is the sistema only a Russian phenomenon?

A.L.: No, sistema is not necessarily a Russian phenomenon. It is a concept that can be used in comparative way around the world. It is possible to talk of Silvio Berlusconi's sistema in Italy and to compare it to Jacques Chirac's sistema in France.

Former Soviet Union countries have their own versions of sistema, which in Central Asia would be representative of clanism, neopatrimonial power or patronal politics. The key for the understanding of sistema is to go beyond the facades of political institutions and investigate the workings of informal power networks behind them.

RD: But which characteristics of sistema are unique, particularly, to Russia?

A.L.: The systems differ by the degree of personalization of power. In Russian patrimonial tradition, proximity to the body of the tsar was always a source of power and wealth. In Putin's sistema, the proximity to President Vladimir Putin provides huge opportunities.

Besides, no other centres of power are allowed to emerge. In Russia, property rights are insecure, in the sense that all economic actors remain vulnerable and even the richest businessmen declare their willingness to return assets to the state if necessary. The situation of the blurred boundaries between the public and the private is not in itself unique, but it gives ground for unique forms of the crossover.

RD: Does the Russian economy's dependence on oil and gas have an impact on the ways the sistema works, especially against the background of the Chinese sistema that works in its own way?

A.L.: One could draw sharp contrasts but also similarities between the sistemas in China and Russia. For example, similarities would surface in the spread of corruption and informal influence, differences - in the fact that Chinese corruption does not seem to be as detrimental to regional development, small businesses, and foreign direct investments as in Russia, and takes a long-term perspective into account (as opposed to Russia's short-termism).

Some would argue this is because China does not have natural resources. It cannot rely on oil revenue or suffer from the "natural resource curse," and thus has to work hard to produce goods and benefits. It is the case of the "enabling power of constraints," as academics would say. When you have constraints, it makes you innovate in finding your ways around them and creates the impetus to develop.

RD: So, is it not possible to reform Russian sistema without reforming its dependence on natural resources?

A.L.: It is tempting to assume that there are obvious reform measures that Russia could undertake to replace sistema with a market economy and the rule of law.

It would be a mistake, however, to associate sistema with a failed state. It would be too simplistic to claim that Putin's micro-management does not work.
Quite the opposite, it is amazing how much does get done in Russia despite the infrastructural problems and institutional inefficiencies, and the explanation lies in the effectiveness of networks and relationships. Sistema's output is impressive because it is capable of mobilising people, of recruiting youth and of creating opportunities.

When it comes to individual recruitment, offers that came from authorities are difficult to resist and hard to refuse. Moreover, such offers are met with enthusiasm and selflessness. Businessmen rationalize their participation by future gains for business and for themselves through sistema's promise of scale and potential, and often disregard sistema's downsides.

If successful, their businesses will be used by sistema or appropriated through sistema raiding; if unsuccessful, a new generation of businessmen will be mobilized. Just as people exploit sistema, the sistema exploits people.

Breaking out of this reproductive circle can be assisted by integrity at individual level, the idea of common good recognised by all, equality before the law, security of property rights (which thus far have been kept unstable in order to keep asset holders in control) and accountability of the leadership's informal governance. These things are not easy to achieve.

Here is an example. A lot of people would argue if you pay a bribe for an urgent operation for your mother, you are a great child, and you've done some good. Right? But they forget about one thing: By saving your mother you kill someone else, because when she went for the operation, someone in the queue didn't get it in time. So if one is routinely oblivious about the other, and the public good, institutions will not develop.

Tourists hold a poster symbolically showing a Russian flag riddled with bullet holes as they pose for a photo at the place where Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader, was gunned down on Friday, Feb. 27, 2015 near the Kremlin. Photo: AP
Tourists hold a poster symbolically showing a Russian flag riddled with bullet holes as they pose for a photo at the place where Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader, was gunned down on Friday, Feb. 27, 2015 near the Kremlin. Photo: AP

RD: How will the recent international and domestic events - including the Ukrainian crisis, the murder of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and the economic crisis - change how the sistema works?

A.L.: First and foremost, the Ukrainian crisis resulted in an isolationist trend in Russia, which is pretty scary. We are at really a low point, having turned against the decades of global integration efforts. Integration was essential for changing the sistema, but in the current situation the trend is reversed.

If before the takeover of the Crimea and the Ukrainian crisis there was the hope that Russia would develop the rule of law eventually, now it seems that the sistema has re-asserted its willingness to trade integrity for loyalty and to spread the informal ways of getting things done to the international domain.
The economic situation, soured by low oil prices, is 'doctored' by injections of propaganda, and this is not the first time in Russian history, so we know what's going to happen. The West has made a lot of mistakes towards Russia, so this propaganda is not without basis, but the bottom line is: No isolationist country can survive in the modern world.

As for the murder of Boris Nemtsov, it is not only a tragedy, it is a worrying sign of the weakness of president Putin vis-à-vis the anonymous strength of sistema. Putin is not in control of sistema, he is its hostage, and a replaceable one. In other words, it is much more likely that sistema will get rid of Putin, than Putin will get rid of sistema.

It is therefore hard for me to read this act of violence as a threat to the non-sistema opposition, which is close to non-existent. I would point out its ambivalence in relation to sistema's main hostage.   
     
RD: Do you think that a sistema change is possible in Russia in the future?

A.L.: If people are willing to change themselves, you can change the system. This is what I call 'reflective modernization,' which relates to your ability to understand your own practices and transforms them, especially if you are in the position of leadership.

Changes become fundamental only if they reach the micro-level and transform your routine daily practices. If everyone will make an inconvenient choice at micro-level - for example, not to pay a bribe to speed up things - the situation with corruption improves. If you choose your employees on the basis of their qualification, rather than recommendation of trusted friends, you can change the dynamic of your organization.

These choices are not easy to make, as the sistema logic would guide you in an opposite direction. But big changes have always started with an individual decision to go against the flow. So, if there is a practice you are unhappy with, reflect upon your own behavior and change it. In terms of political regime in Russia, that would mean that people in charge, the leaders, need to reflect on the methods of informal governance and set up a model for transformation. Reflection kills [bad] practice.

 #6
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
May 5, 2015
Kremlin blocks new Bolotnaya rally as Russia's opposition movement withers
The Kremlin has refused to allow Russia's opposition to hold a rally on Moscow's Bolotnaya Square on May 6 - the day when three years ago a rally controversially ended in clashes with police. Meanwhile, opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny's Progress Party has had its registration revoked. Political commentators say that everything that has happened to the opposition since May 6, 2012 has greatly reduced the potential for protest in Russian society.
Yekaterina Sinelschikova, RBTH

The opposition will not be able to hold a rally in support of the "Bolotnaya Prisoners" (the protesters who received either actual or suspended prison terms for their alleged part in disturbances at a demonstration on Moscow's Bolotnaya Square on May 6, 2012). An application for a rally in the center of the city with an expected participation of 15,000 people has been rejected by the Moscow mayor's office.

The authorities sought to justify their decision by citing crowding in the city center due to the preparations for the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe and instead offered the organizers a venue in the northwest of Moscow.

However, the opposition refused to consider the option of holding the event on the outskirts of the city. "It is strange to hold a rally, which is dedicated to the events on Bolotnaya Square, on the outskirts. This is kind of absurd," said one of the organizers, member of the Protest Actions Committee (KPD) Alexander Ryklin, speaking to RBTH.

But the KPD is not going to give up on Bolotnaya and warns the authorities that protesters will still take to the site on May 6, because "so far we have not been banned from visiting the square," said Ryklin. "There will not be any organized event there, we do not plan to expose people and break the law. We are merely prepared to come," Ryklin added, referring to himself and the other members of the committee.
 
Echoes of Bolotnaya

The main demand of the rally was intended to be the release of 12 people convicted in the so-called "Bolotnaya Case," almost all of whom received up to four years in prison on charges of "violence against the authorities." Legal proceedings are under way against a total of 34 people at the moment, but the list is still growing, with Natalya Pelevina, opposition leader Alexei Navalny's representative in the 2013 Moscow mayoral elections, having charges filed against her on April 18.

Besides her association with Navalny, Pelevina is also a member of the RPR-Parnas (Republican Party of Russia - People's Freedom Party) party and a lobbyist for the "Magnitsky Act," a U.S. bill that levied sanctions against Russian judges, law enforcement officers and others accused of involvement in the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow jail in 2009 after uncovering a massive fraud involving Russian officials.

At the same time, another member of RPR-Parnas, Kirill Khrustalyov (in charge of social networks for the same election campaign), had his home searched.
On April 28, Navalny himself came under attack, when his Progress Party had its state registration revoked. The Ministry of Justice said in a statement that the party had violated the law by allegedly failing to register its regional branches in half of the subjects of the Russian Federation within the required period, hence its registration was canceled.

The opposition leader described the non-judicial decision as a "legal exclusive" on his blog, and argued that it was a "reaction to the creation of the Democratic coalition and, most importantly, to our very specific plans for the elections." Neither Navalny nor his spokeswoman Kira Yarmush responded to a request for comment by RBTH.

The "Bolotnaya Prisoners" did not benefit from the recent amnesty in honor of the WWII 70th anniversary, since they have been accused of violence against law enforcers, and according to independent political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin, they stand no chance of release.

Oreshkin told RBTH that both the exclusion from the amnesty and the cancellation of the Progress Party's registration indicate fear of the opposition, which the government fears could take advantage of the situation.

"The economy is not improving; on 29 April, the Economic Development Ministry published data on the real earnings of the population - they have dropped by 8.3 percent compared to last year. Things are bad in international relations. The anti-Western rhetoric is beginning to pall, too," said Oreshkin.
Opposition movement 'scattered'

However, he said, the opposition "is strongly scattered" in comparison with 2012, and the protest movement is "disappointed," with several key figures having left Russia since then. In order to avoid political persecution, State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev went to the U.S. in the fall of 2014, and on April 30, a criminal case over a large-scale embezzlement was opened against him. In April 2015, environmental activist Yevgenia Chirikova moved with her family to Estonia, fearing Kremlin reprisals.

Both factors - the awareness of the futility of protests, "which have not led to any significant changes," and the intimidation of activists, who are leaving the country - are driving people away from protests, according to Alexei Grazhdankin, deputy director of the Levada Center pollster.

A recent Levada Center survey shows that the proportion of Russians who consider mass political protests possible has declined from 23 percent to 15 percent over the past year (the dynamics for economic protests are similar). But this is not the only issue. For a time, "people were ready to protest, but protest leaders began to show some moderation in their actions," says Grazhdankin, referring to the tendency of the opposition to give up on a rally altogether if the authorities do not grant permission to hold it in the city center.

Things were further aggravated by the situation in Ukraine; people are afraid of repeating the fate of their neighbors, the sociologists explained. In addition, public confidence in the authorities today is not based on material well-being, but on the idea that they oppose the external threat from the West.

"Against the background of this threat, the authorities' actions appear to be appropriate, while emerging problems are seen as inspired by the West," Grazhdankin explained. In such a situation, he said, hopes for the growth of the opposition movement are almost inexistent.

"In 2012, the protest was ideological; people were interested in rights, democracy and fair elections," said Dmitry Oreshkin. "We will not see this kind of protest anymore. Everything will most likely begin in the regions with strikes like the one that was staged by the builders of the Vostochny space launch center when they were not paid."

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 #7
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
May 6, 2015
Bolotnaya Square, three years later
Three years after the May 6, 2012 opposition protests at Moscow's Bolotnaya Square, what are the main lessons the Russia authorities and opposition should have learned?
By Yury Korgunyuk
Yury Korgunyuk is the head of Political Science at the Moscow-based Information Science for Democracy (INDEM) Foundation.

The events of May 6, 2012 at Bolotnaya Square in Moscow were the culmination of the White Ribbon protest movement that had been growing for six months as a reaction to the abuse of power during the State Duma elections.

If we compare the protest movement of 2011-2012 with the first Russian revolution of 1905, then the demonstrations on Bolotnaya Square and Prospekt Sakharova in December 2011 can be seen as the equivalent of the October political strikes, which extracted the October Manifesto from the tsar granting Russian citizens civil rights and freedoms.

As to the events of May 6, 2012, they were more reminiscent of the Moscow Uprising in December 1905, led by left-wing radicals in the hope of triggering a revolution. At that time, the Bolsheviks, Social Revolutionaries (SRs) and anarchists incorrectly evaluated the deployment of forces and gave the authorities the pretext for a counteroffensive.

The Achilles heel of the White Ribbon protesters

The Achilles' heal of the White Ribbon movement [the protestors' symbol became a white ribbon - Editor's note] was the narrowness of its geographic and social base. The protest was concentrated mainly in Moscow. Even in St. Petersburg, which glories in its revolutionary tradition, it attracted a significantly smaller number of protestors - a couple of thousand as opposed to 100,000 in the capital. In the remaining cities with populations greater than a million, the protests did not exceed more than a hundred people.

The social composition of the movement turned out to be very limited. On the whole they were members of the educated class, students and the so-called "creative class" whose success is the result of the introduction of digital technology. This, naturally, explains the localization of the protests in large cities.

However, there was a wide political spectrum among the protestors - including liberals, socialists and nationalists. As a direct result of this broad spectrum, it was impossible to form a positive political program. Everything was reduced to negative demands: free political prisoners, dismiss perpetrators of election fraud, recognize that the elections were illegitimate, change the electoral laws, etc.

Another consequence of the political diversity was the absence among the protestors of any plan of action. They understood the recklessness of calls made by opposition activist Eduard Limonov, the leader of The Other Russia party, to storm the Kremlin and the State Duma but were unable to suggest any alternative. All they were able to do was continue organizing marches and demonstrations, attracting more and more people in the hope that sooner or later, the numbers would translate to quality and the Kremlin would hand over power.

Counterattack from the Kremlin

Meanwhile, the Kremlin, which from the very beginning was genuinely frightened by the unusually high number of protests, came to its senses and prepared a counterattack. Especially since the dead-end tactics of the protestors had already been discovered as part of the protest on March 5,  2012.

This March 5 protest was dedicated to the results of the presidential elections, which took place the previous day. The demonstration still had a lot of people, but in the voices of those making the speeches, there was a sense of uncertainty - they simply did not know what to do next.

In these circumstances as part of the process for preparing for the planned demonstration for May 6, ambitiously called "The March of the Millions," a group of left-wing radicals led by Sergei Udaltsov came to the fore. Their views on the potential for the protest were more reckless and generally typical of left-wing radicals. They were convinced that the main failing with the White Ribbon movement was the lack of radicalism or "revolutionary" fervor.

The remaining organizers of the protest, including the liberals and the non-party civil activists, did not share these views, but did not enter into an argument with the left - as a result of lacking any alternative options. They simply stepped aside, giving Udaltsov and his confederates a free hand.

The latter clearly worked on plans, which were well known from the 1990s and foresaw various street clashes with the police. (It is unclear, what they were expecting since in the 1990s, this led to nothing more than mass arrests of the demonstrators.)

The authorities for their part, judging from what followed, were preparing specifically for this scenario. Furthermore, they were prepared to escalate the situation. It was no accident that the negotiations for the route of the demonstration, which had been previously quickly agreed upon, this time reached a dead-end. Furthermore, even the agreed upon route was breached by the police, deliberately causing a blockage at the final stage of the route, just as the columns of marchers reached Bolotnaya Square in central Moscow.

Both sides were preparing for a confrontation and it concluded just as they expected, with the mass arrests of the protesters. This was followed by everything else: the accelerated adoption of the State Duma's aggressive laws, the closure of the last independent television channels, and the blocking of opposition Internet resources. In other words, the "revolution" was replaced by an equal and opposite "reaction."

Russian protest movement: Dead or alive?

For the past three years, much has changed in the country, including the way society relates to the protest movement. In 2012, the majority of the population responded, at the very least, neutrally. Today the White Ribbon movement is the equivalent of a national "fifth column" and is regularly spurned by the state-controlled media.

However, this does not mean that they have no prospects. As shown by the demonstration in September 2014 (the "March for Peace") and March 2015 (the march in memory of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered on Feb.27, near the Kremlin), the number of the regime's opponents has not diminished - at least not in Moscow. Meanwhile, the aggressive Kremlin propaganda works against them. However, it is precisely the aggressiveness of this propaganda that could eventually be the reason for its fleeting effectiveness.

People cannot always maintain a fevered emotional state, sooner or later they get tired. Even today, many of those who supported the annexation of the Crimea and the war in southeastern Ukraine are beginning to show signs of fatigue. It is no wonder that the joke "So what's with the Ukrainians?" has recently become popular as a reaction to attempts of the mainstream media to avoid talking about the pressing problems of the country and shift attention to Ukraine.

Tomorrow, this fatigue - especially if the economic crisis deepens - could escalate into open anger, and then the opposition will once more have a chance to regain public support. However, for this to happen, its representatives must learn the lessons from the previous failure.

The lessons from Bolotnaya 2012

Firstly, the protest movement needs to extensively broaden its social base. The intelligentsia, students and "creative class" as a base is good, but it is small. Support is necessary from a much broader stratum of society. With all of them, it's necessary to speak in a language that they understand on subjects that interest them, which with 90 percent probability, will be daily life and survival during economic crisis.

Secondly, even if life forces them into contact with radicals, this does not mean that they should yield even an inch when it comes to charting their political future. As was demonstrated on May 6, 2012 this will lead to no good. Radicals are prepared at any moment to drag other people into their irresponsible adventures.

Thirdly, it is necessary to plan political action. The plan may be good or bad, but it must be a plan, and furthermore it must be one that can be adjusted while it is being executed. The absence of a plan forces people just to drift. This is a current that will carry them where it wants, rather than where they need to go. And, moreover, the opposition must discuss this plan before it is actually needed.

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 #8
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
May 6, 2015
Dividend season opens and Russian companies are paying
bne IntelliNews

It's reporting season and some Russian companies are paying handsome dividends to their shareholders. Almost twice as much as emerging-market peers, in fact, relative to their stock prices, after the sudden ruble rout of last year bolstered exporters' cash piles.

Russian stocks have been performing well off the extremely low base caused by rapid devaluation of the ruble in December: the dollar-denominated RTS index was up 30% year-to-date as of May 6. But dividend stocks have become even more appealing than the broader market and were the stand-out winner amongst Russian equities over the last few years, earning far better returns than "normal" stocks.

The average 12-month dividend yield of stocks (the ratio of the value of the dividend per share over the price of the stock) on the MSCI Russia Index was 4.6% as of the end of April, compared with 2.5% for equities in the developing-nation benchmark. The spread between the two is almost as high as the previous peak in 1995, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.

"The first-quarter numbers point to a very moderate recession, which is probably now largely built into earnings forecasts. In that case, equities are still very cheap relative to emerging market peers," says Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro Advisor. "Companies paying a dividend yield of 6% or higher should see good support from income-focused investors. There is a question mark over how much dividends will be cut this year. A small cut will provide another boost for the market."

Metals and minerals mine the rewards

Several factors combine to push up the dividend payments, the most important of which is the huge cash windfall for some companies thanks to the beneficial effects of the massive ruble devaluation in December: any company with costs in rubles but revenues in dollars or euros is minting it right now. In 1999, following the last big devaluation, it was the oil companies that made the most. This time round, any profits from oil over $27 per barrel accrue to the government rather than the extracting companies. However, producers of other raw materials like metals and minerals are reporting record earnings in the first quarter and some of them are returning it to shareholders as dividends or share buy backs.

At the end of 2014, steel mill Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) had $1.2bn of cash, while Severstal had $1.9bn. NLMK just announced a new dividend policy under which it will pay half of net profit or 50% of free cash flow as dividends if net debt/EBITDA ratio at the end of each quarter does not exceed 1, the company said on April 24. The company will pay RUB1.64, making a dividend yield of 4.7%, but if nothing changes with the new dividend policy they could rise to 7.3% this year, say analysts.

"Together with interim dividends the total payout for 2014 will amount to RUB14.6bn ($292mn), or to 30.7% of the company's net profit, which is the biggest ruble-denominated dividends in NLMK's history," analysts at Uralsib said in a note.

Severstal is being less generous to its shareholders and will pay out a dividend of RUB12.81 per share, equivalent to a 2% dividend yield. Still, the company will part with RUB10.4bn ($208mn) as a result, which is a bit less than half its EBITDA of $585mn for the first quarter, but equivalent to almost all the company's free cash flow. "It means the company is committed to distributing as much cash as possible to shareholders, while future dividend flow is subject to external economic factors," says Irina Lapshina, an analyst at Sberbank CIB.

Most generous of all is Norilsk Nickel, which earned $2.8bn in cash as of the end of 2014, and said in April it will pay out RUB670 per share, or a dividend yield of 7%, and a total of just over $2bn for the first quarter.

"Since the shareholder agreement was adopted, the company has distributed more than $6bn in dividends," says Lapshina. "Although one might expect to see no special dividends for 2015 (stipulated as the difference between $6bn and total dividends paid for 2013-14), we believe the track record shows that Norilsk Nickel's approach is flexible, the payout being skewed toward the upside and depending on cash flow generation."

Business attitudes maturing

Secondly, the attitude to dividend payments in Russia has changed dramatically in the last few years. In the 1990s oligarchs ran their companies personally and made sure the profits went directly into their own pockets, but after two decades at the top, the biggest businessmen have stepped back and handed over the reins to professional managers. At the same time, the oligarchs have increasingly diversified their wealth by investing into non-core businesses and buying more companies overseas in the last few years. As the distance between the wealth and the boardroom increases, these businessmen are increasingly interested in extracting cash via dividends rather than using the transfer pricing schemes of yore, which piled up money as nominal profits in some trading company in an offshore haven.

Russia's leading electronics retailer M Video is a good example of a modern company interested in keeping shareholders happy. At a board meeting at the end of April, the board agreed to pay out dividends of RUB27 per share, or a total of RUB4.85bn ($97mn), which is equivalent to 60% of its net IFRS profits. The payout will be a third (35%) more than the company returned to shareholders in 2013 despite the worsening economic outlook.

The increasingly cash-strapped state has also become interested in dividends and a few years ago mandated that all state-owned enterprises must pay out 25% of their profits to shareholders. The government needs the extra cash, but the rule has benefited minority shareholders too.

Slight of accounting hand

State-owned gas monopolist Gazprom was coining it in the last quarter of 2014 as gas prices began to recover, but mainly because the company dramatically slashed its capex programme. "In 2014, Gazprom generated its highest free cash flow ever, at almost $17bn ($5.9bn of that in the fourth quarter of 2014). A large reason for that was an $11bn drop in capital expenditures to just $33bn (although attributable capex was almost unchanged y-o-y in ruble terms)," Sberbank CIB analysts commented in a note.

The company has recommended a payout of RUB7.2 per share, equivalent to a dividend yield of healthy 5%, which is equivalent to 90% of its 2014 profit under Russian accounting standards, more than the RUB5 analysts were expecting the company to pay. While on the face of it this seems like a lot, because Gazprom is calculating the profit using the Russian accounting system, the profit is several times lower than if it were calculated under the International Financial Reporting System (IFRS).

"The declared dividend comes to just a 15% payout of 2014 consolidated IFRS earnings (adjusted for forex loss, net of tax accrual) - about the same payout as last year," CIB's Alex Fak said in a note on the news.

Last hurrah of dividend bonanza

Most companies that regularly pay out dividends have struck a more cautious course. Revenues at leading mobile phone company Megafon fell by 1.2% and it decided to split its 2015 dividend payments, with the bulk being paid close to the end of the year. In June, the company will only pay out RUB16.13 per share, or a 1.8% yield, and total payment of RUB10bn. However, the full year could see the company pay out a total of RUB40bn by year-end, with a generous yield of 7.4%. Megafon said it adopted this approach because it wants to husband its hard currency reserves in case the economic situation deteriorates.

The story is similar at fertiliser producer PhosAgro, which has been generous in the past but cut dividends to RUB15 per share (0.8% yield) after taking extremely heavy losses because of its exposure to hard currency debt during the devaluation.

Unfortunately for investors, analysts say the dividend bonanza will not last for long. Companies are paying out cash to shareholders so they can move it offshore or to attract investors, but the slowing economy and rising ruble will soon undo the conditions that are filling company coffers with cash. As earnings fall over the rest of the year, so will the dividends.

That has already happened amongst companies that do not have the magic confluence of costs in rubles but sales in dollars. Russia's leading commercial TV station CTC Media, which has costs in dollars but revenues in rubles, has already said it will not pay dividends this quarter because of falling ad sales. Pump maker HMS and metal producer MMK (Magnitogorskiy Metallurgicheskiy Kombinat) have also said among others they will forego dividends this quarter for similar reasons.

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#9
Moscow Times
May 6, 2015
Russian Bank Lending Drops 60 Percent as Crisis Paralyses System

The number of loans issued in Russia in the first quarter of this year fell by 58 percent compared to the same period in 2014, as the devaluation of the ruble, Western sanctions and sky-high interest rates hit the banking system, a report showed Tuesday.

The tide is now slowly beginning to turn as the economy recovers from the perfect storm that hit Russian banks in December, when the Central Bank hiked its key interest rate to 17 percent to halt a precipitous fall in the value of the Russian currency, the United Credit Bureau (UCB) said in a statement.

Thirty percent more loans were granted in February than in January, and the number of loans issued rose another 19 percent in March compared to February, UCB chief Daniel Zelensky said in the statement.

"We associate this first of all with the Central Bank's consistent policy of lowering the key interest rate, as well as the launch of a state program in support of retail lending," Zelensky said.

The ruble stabilized and began to strengthen in February, allowing the Central Bank to bring down its key rate and thereby lower the cost of borrowing across the economy.

UCB expects lending activity to continue to rise thanks to the Central Bank's decision last week to further lower the rate from 14 percent to 12.5 percent, Zelensky said.

The banking system is still struggling with the impact of Western sanctions over Ukraine, which restrict major state-owned lenders' access to international capital markets.

All told, Russian banks gave out about 2.8 million loans worth 384 billion rubles ($7.6 billion) in the first quarter, down from 6.6 million loans totaling more than 1 trillion rubles ($19.8 billion) in the same period last year, UCB said.

The number of loans granted decreased across all categories, but the worst hit were auto loans and credit cards, which both plummeted by 80 percent. The number of cash loans fell by 48 percent, while the number of mortgages granted dropped by 43 percent.

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#10
Forbes.com
May 5, 2015
The U.S. Cannot Compete With Russia In Europe's Natural Gas Market
By Kenneth Rapoza
[Charts here http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/05/05/the-u-s-cannot-compete-with-russia-in-europes-natural-gas-market/]

Will the U.S. be able to compete with Russian natural gas in the lucrative European gas market? For those who think that Washington's support of Ukraine is about energy, this may warrant another look. The U.S. is far from ever becoming a major supplier.

I used to think that the U.S. was positioning itself to be a big supplier of liquefied natural gas to the European Union. And with that came the lobbying against Russia's Gazprom in its core market. The notion was that the Washington could use the budding anti-Russia sentiment that was kick-started by the year-long Ukraine crisis to position the U.S. as an alternative energy source for Europe. The truth is that the only way the U.S. will be a big supplier is if a U.S. company, based in Europe or Eurasia, is using hydrocarbons it has rights to abroad. In other words, the U.S. natural gas market will be - not surprisingly - hyper local. U.S. companies may become players in Europe, but if it wants to rival Gazprom then it will have to source that gas from someplace else.

Gazprom will naturally lose some of its market share in Europe over time. Such is the ebb and flow of a free market. But it won't be at the expense of Washington policy makers, or the Gulf of Mexico.

This Corpus Christie LNG facility has contracts to ship liquefied natural gas to Europe. It's the only one.

There is only one way domestically produced gas can get to Europe and of course that is by LNG tanker. The U.S. is building up LNG port terminals. There are currently four LNG export terminals under construction, with an additional one scheduled to start shortly.

The bulk of them are in the energy rich Gulf Coast. One is in Washington's backyard - in Maryland. Most of the capacity for these five terminals has been contracted to identified buyers already, some of which is not dedicated and will likely sell on the open market to the highest bidder. Others have destination specific contracts. The contract holders are a matter of public record, and most of the export facilities have their "sales and purchase agreements" on their project websites. Of the five terminals under construction, only Corpus Christi has signed contracts targeted for Europe.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, that terminal will ship the equivalent of around 700 million cubic feet per day to Europe. Bigger contracts have been signed with India (1.8 billion cubic feet daily) and Japan (2.2 bcf/d).

Even though U.S. energy firms are building for future exports, Europe does not appear high on the list.

More than 30 projects totaling 40 bcf/d in export capacity have been proposed in the U.S. but have not yet been approved, so for now these are pipe dreams. If they became reality, they would account for more than the current global liquefaction capacity, which was 39 bcf/d in 2013, according to data from IHS Energy. Global LNG trade amounted to 32 bcf/d.

Washington is more interested in lowering U.S. dependence on foreign fuels than it is interested in helping the E.U. diversify away from its main foreign source of fuel, which happens to be Russia.

Russia, the U.S. and the E.U. have been butting heads over Ukraine since the March 2014 annexation of Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea. The Kyiv government has been moving westward ever since and pro-Russia separatists in the east have been moving, well...eastward, towards Moscow. The dispute has led to sanctions against Russian energy firms like Gazprom, Rosneft and Lukoil. It has also led to a cooling-off of U.S.-Russia relations.

When President Barack Obama was elected, the idea was for Washington to "reset" relations with Russia. They have been reset alright, all the way back to the 1980s, at least in politics.

One of the sticking points is energy.

Russia proposed including Greece in its Turkish Stream pipeline deal. Greece accepted the offer. It will turn Greece into a key transit hub for Russian natural gas flowing through Turkey and into southern Europe via cash-strapped Greece. But last week, the Greek government said it was being courted by Washington in a counter offer.

Most of this is just political posturing and noise. The U.S. is not now and nor will it be in the near future a key resource for Europe's energy needs.

According to EIAs Annual Energy Outlook, published in April, the United States remains a net importer of fuels through 2040 in a low oil price scenario. In a high oil and gas price scenario, the United States becomes a net exporter of liquid fuels due to increased production by 2021. A lot can happen in seven years. By then, Exxon will likely be back to its deal with Rosneft in Russia's Arctic Circle.

American natural gas will be for Americans.

Gazprom, meanwhile, might go from 30% of the European Union's current foreign supply to 25% or even 20%. Some of that might be replaced by the U.S. But the real competitors are the European Arctic Circle producers who, for the most part, have good relations with the Russians.

For those of us who like to think that wars in foreign lands are due to oil and gas dealings...if Washington plans on kicking Russia to the curb in its own backyard, it has a lot of work to do. And a long way to go to achieve it.

If this is what the US-LNG strategy to replace Russia in Europe looks like, its a downhill battle...

Russian exports are also on the wane, surprisingly.

Most of the production of natural gas will remain at home.

Russian production will also increase.

The U.S. is not a major exporter today. All of our LNG is shipped out of a small facility in Kenai, Alaska which was shut down for a year. According to the EIA, the last LNG vessel to leave Alaska was in October 2014, with 2.8 billion cubic feet bound for Japan.

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#11
Moscow Times
May 6, 2015
Russian Business Takes Legal Disputes Abroad
By Pamela M. Egan
Pamela M. Egan is a partner at the law firm, Rimon P.C., and senior research fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law, Business, and the Economy, UC Berkeley, Berkeley Law School.

While the political and economic challenges facing Russia are a continual concern, the fact that the country has not been able to establish a reputable legal system points to the difficulties it will face in its goal of becoming a major economic player.

Russia is now caught up in a vicious cycle, where companies conduct large transactions pursuant to foreign legal structures while the Russian legal and judicial system remains a relative backwater.

A recent case, Neas Ltd, et al v. OJSC Rusnano, et al, provides a vivid example of the outsourcing that has occurred since the demise of the Soviet Union.

Rusnano, an approximately $2 billion Russian government-backed venture fund, is alleged to have illegally taken over Nitol, a former-Soviet-turned-private polycrystalline silicon producer in Siberia. Nitol is now owned by a corporation, which is organized under the laws of the Bailiwick of Jersey. Plaintiffs seek damages of not less than $10 million.

While criminal charges are apparently pending in Russia relating to this affair, the plaintiffs have commenced a civil action in federal court in San Jose, California, through Rusnano's American subsidiary, Rusnano USA, which, the plaintiffs allege, is both the alter ego and the agent of Rusnano.

The complaint asserts numerous claims, including violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the California Business and Professions Code, and the laws of the Bailiwick of Jersey. The complaint makes no reference to Russian law.

The current saga began as a classic offshore structure for Russian transactions. Andrei Tretyakov, the former director of the Silicon Program for the Russian Federal Agency for Atomic Energy, formed a Cyprus company, Neas Ltd., through which to invest in Nitol, which in turn was owned by a Jersey company.

The twist is that after losing a takeover struggle with Rusnano, Tretyakov, who is now an American citizen living in Connecticut, is suing in a California federal court, where the Rusnano subsidiary is located, rather than through the British system with which Cyprus and Jersey are affiliated.

The outsourcing of Russian law began with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Russian contract and company law was inadequate to support the massive redistribution of assets that arose when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Rather than upgrade the legal system, the Russian government opened the door for businesses to incorporate outside of Russia and enter into agreements governed by foreign law, often Anglo-Saxon law in England, Cyprus, Jersey, and Guernsey. Many major publicly traded Russian companies (such as LUKoil and Yandex) are organized in the Netherlands and the Dutch Antilles, jurisdictions that respect shareholder agreements that are governed by British law.

The Russian economic elites benefitted from immediate access to a sophisticated and largely respected Anglo-Saxon legal system and made little effort to reform the Russian legal and judicial system.

As a result, the massive asset redistribution of Russian natural resources that occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union was structured to an astonishing degree outside of the Russian legal system. As of three years ago, 60 percent of the work of the London Commercial Court (a division of the High Court) has turned on Russian or other Eastern European disputes, often with no connection to England, according to David Christie, a London barrister.

One of the most famous disputes was a battle between two Russian oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, in 2011-2012. The defendant, Abramovich, agreed to English jurisdiction, despite the lack of any English connection for the case at all.

In another 2012 case, involving aluminum kings Oleg Deripaska and Michael Cherney, the British court retained the case over Deripaska's objection, once again without any English connection at all.

There is some backlash. In the press, Britain has been criticized for "renting out" its legal system to companies and litigants who may have little link to England. And the British courts have refused jurisdiction on occasion.

For example, the English court refused in 2013 to accept jurisdiction of a breach of contract claim brought by Yelena Baturina, the wife of the former Moscow mayor, Yury Luzhkov. Baturina, residing in England tried to sue her Russian business partner, Alexander Chistyakov.

The English court dismissed the case, despite the fact that the agreement contained an English choice of law provision, because of the "overwhelming" links to Russia. However, in 2014, the Court of Appeal overturned this decision and returned the case to the London Commercial Court.

The impact of this failure of Russian law can be seen in an almost absurd fashion.

The Russian Venture Company (RVC), an approximately $500 million fund that complements Rusnano's more specific focus on nanotechnology, is required to structure its deals under Russian law.

Given that Russian law restricts shareholder agreements to such an extent that they more closely resemble contracts of adhesion than true agreements between sophisticated parties, this restriction to Russian law places RVC at a disadvantage to its private counterparts who remain free to outsource the law governing their deals.

In the Rusnano case described above, it remains to be seen whether the American reception will be as warm as that of the British.

At least one U.S. court has taken a hard line against federal cases brought by American citizens regarding foreign-based disputes. The court stated that when an American "chooses to invest in a foreign country and then complains of fraudulent acts occurring primarily in that country," the power of American citizenship to act as a "talisman" against dismissal is diminished.

Indeed, one might ask why residents of Santa Clara County should be required to appear as jurors to determine the intricacies of a hostile takeover by a Russian company of a Russian plant in Russia.

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#12
Carnegie Moscow Center
May 6, 2015
Chechnya's Strongman vs. Moscow's Men in Uniform: What Next?
By Vadim Dubnov
Vadim Dubnov is an independent journalist specializing in the Caucasus region.

Both Ramzan Kadyrov's image and the nature of his conflict with the federal siloviki-officials from the military, intelligence and law-enforcement sectors-demanded that his controversial recent statement be delivered with the artless sincerity that few people in Russian politics can get away with: Last month Kadyrov ordered Chechen security forces to shoot to kill if troops from other parts of Russia tried to carry out operations on the republic's territory without its consent; while this reminded the country of Chechnya's early-'90s separatism, it was, of course, both a cri de coeur and a vivid verbal raising of the stakes in Kadyrov's game with Moscow.

NO MIDDLEMEN

Kadyrov's tendency to play this game could easily be interpreted as part of his style and temperament if it weren't for the fact that the roots of the current conflict go back to those olden days when the very idea that Ramzan Kadyrov would inherit power from his father, Akhmad, struck Chechens as a bad joke. A cornerstone of the fragile peace achieved in Chechnya in the early 2000s was the privilege bestowed on Akhmad Kadyrov of answering directly and only to President Putin, bypassing all other officials and ministries, including the security agencies. That seemed logical: The elder Kadyrov had already handed the keys to Chechnya to the enemy; he could hardly afford to bow down before those who personified death, destruction and injustice in the republic-a collective Colonel Budanov of sorts. This is why the pictures adorning all of Chechnya to this day depict the late Kadyrov hugging the Russian president in a way no other regional leader hugs him.

Ramzan Kadyrov has perceived that exclusive relationship, and developed it, as the basis of his inheritance; Chechnya remained a front line in Russia's eyes, so the Kremlin didn't object, ignoring the mutterings of its generals. And they weren't the only ones affected. Kadyrov made it clear to any state official who tried to pass himself off as a middleman that the latter was merely an errand boy for Putin. That was the only way to pull off Chechnya's post-war miracles. Chechen authorities funded reconstruction with money from local businessmen, cutting costs wherever possible, but presented Moscow with budgets based on official prices-meaning several times higher than what actually got spent. Moscow understood these games perfectly well, but the most the Finance Ministry could do was to persuade the Kremlin to agree with Grozny on some sort of compromise, which was, of course, part of the above-described exclusive relationship from the very beginning.

At times, Kadyrov even used this same formula to pull Chechen human rights activists from federal military clutches, just because, as loathsome as they were, they were his own people and he would later settle accounts with them his own way. This, too, was both sincere, in that it gave him genuine pleasure, and politically calculated, because such moves reinforced his standing within the republic. The children of those who tried to put the war out of their minds wore t-shirts with his portrait, thinking they had lucked out immensely to have such a leader, thanks to whom, as one such young person told me, Chechnya has everything, including a soccer team, a volleyball team and "inshallah, there'll be a hockey team too!"

This wonderland could keep going only with the continuing build-up of Kadyrov's political pyramid scheme; he would have to answer for everything (to the one person who mattered) before someone managed to get between him and the Kremlin. Neither Chechnya nor the world was any longer surprised by anything he did, even by plans to send the first Chechen cosmonaut into space. If he built a mosque, it had to be the biggest in Europe; if he staged a march against the caricaturists at Charlie Hebdo, it had to be bigger than the Parisian march in support of them. This was the only way Chechnya's everyday Islam could coexist with Moscow's state-backed Christianity, the only way that namaz-performing Chechen guardsmen could fit into the smoke-filled landscapes of Novorossiya's "Russian world."

The foundation of the pyramid naturally spread beyond Chechnya's political geography. In 2006, a former commander of one of Kadyrov's battalions, Movladi Baisarov, was gunned down in Moscow. In their hunt for militants, Kadyrov's troops didn't notice boundaries: not Dagestan's, not Ingushetia's, not the Stavropol region's. Time and time again Moscow put out the fires, quelling each conflict, but even a draw equaled a win for Kadyrov, who left Moscow without a seed of doubt that the exclusive relationship was still on.

The seeds of doubt, according to some explanations, got planted after the murder of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

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Planning their April operation in Chechnya's capital, Grozny, must have been particularly tantalizing for the Stavropol police, since they were about to do the same thing on Kadyrov's territory that he had done with impunity to everyone else. In fact, sources in Chechnya reported that the Kremlin's willingness to pick up calls from Grozny at any time of day or night-somewhat mythologized to begin with-had started to wane some time ago. This became clear to well-informed people in Grozny in early June 2013 after the arrest of Said Amirov, the all-powerful mayor of Makhachkala, capital of neighboring Dagestan, which seemed like a sign that the Kremlin intends to gradually weed out excessively powerful local overlords.

Back then, however, Moscow's Caucasus offensive did not move forward-neither into Chechnya nor anywhere else. And only after Nemtsov's killing, on February 27, did the frontline in the standoff between Kadyrov and his numerous opponents abruptly start shifting, not in Kadyrov's favor. The crowning episode in the federal elite's attack on Kadyrov was a program about him on state-run Channel One television in late April, which dredged up the Baisarov killing. And, of course, said the report, "everything had been agreed upon with the Chechen police." This claim was quickly followed by innuendo: Sometimes there's no need to get agreement, especially when "there is information that law-enforcement bodies in a constituent territory of the [Russian] Federation could create obstacles to conducting an investigation." (Federal authorities have been unable to get access to Ruslan Geremeyev, a senior officer in Chechnya's police force suspected of links to Nemtsov's murder.)

By giving his shoot-to-kill order Kadyrov tried once again to raise the stakes, expecting to force Moscow into a choice it wasn't ready to make.

The war between Chechnya and federal troops is over. The armed rebel underground can merely send out reminders that it exists, sometimes powerful ones, like last December when it managed to engage in a many-hours-long gunfight in downtown Grozny. This type of thing knocks Kadyrov off-balance, but it's not war. Chechnya has been rebuilt, both economically and politically; there's no reason to ask for more money.

Kadyrov tried to bring another familiar issue to a head by announcing his willingness to step down, which some saw as a loaded threat. But the Kremlin seems to have taken this too in stride, with the composure of an experienced employer smiling at the simple bluff of a worker trying to win himself a promotion or a raise. We won't give you anything more, but we won't take anything away either.

TROLLING OK'D AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL

Regardless of the Kremlin's take on the so-called Chechen trail in Nemtsov's killing, the Interior Ministry and Investigative Committee seem to have gotten a signal from behind the Kremlin wall: If anyone wants to troll Mr. Untouchable, there won't be any objections this time around.

But the signal is unlikely to mean much more than that. And it's not that the tensions between Kadyrov and the siloviki have been exaggerated; it's just that the conflict has a somewhat different storyline than assumed. This is not an attack on Kadyrov with the aim of unseating him (as was the case with former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov); it is an attempt-and likely a successful one-to reformat and modernize the authorities' approach to Chechnya. The contract with Kadyrov is not being annulled; it is just being rewritten before its next extension.

For the Kremlin, Chechnya is no longer an issue of life or death. It's not even the frontline in the battle for Russia or against global terror. There's no more need to work miracles and, hence, no more need to go to great expense to give special privileges to a miracle worker. Moreover, it's safe to assume that the Kremlin understands there is no real danger emanating from an offended Kadyrov and no threat of a new round of Dudayev-style independence in Chechnya. If Kadyrov were to split from Moscow, no one would support him-neither those who have always fought against the militants, nor the former militants who traded in their rebel fatigues for police uniforms. And he definitely won't get any support from the militants still up in the forest.

Some years ago, when getting rid of Luzhkov, Moscow exposed as myth the idea that a political structure built around a single person is doomed to crumble. Chechnya, of course, is a special case. One option would be to look for a replacement for Kadyrov, but why bother when there's no emergency afoot? Kadyrov suits the Kremlin fine. He is genuinely willing to be Putin's foot soldier, as he once said. All that's needed is a skilled reworking of his contract.

This does not mean fully annulling the old one. That would still be too provocative-publicly forcing Kadyrov to bow his head before Moscow's men in uniform. And the latter, it stands to reason, aren't expecting such a move. They will be satisfied to get the chance to deliver at least one slap in the face in return for all the ones rained down on them. But if the siloviki are in for a mere boost in morale, relations between Kadyrov and the Kremlin are seeing a concrete precedent: The relationship has been changed fundamentally, with no need to resume special military operations on Chechen territory. It's enough that everyone will know this kind of shift has happened once: That means that the Kadyrov "before" and the Kadyrov "after" are two very different political personalities.

In a practical sense, it is unlikely that any middlemen will crop up between Kadyrov and Putin in the near term. But the clause saying they are out of the question seems to be getting struck from the contract. Kadyrov won't be staring up in awe at the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, and no one is seriously expecting to appoint a top cop or prosecutor in Chechnya without Kadyrov's approval. But now Kadyrov will have to justify his unequivocal "no's" with arguments weightier than reminders of his erstwhile exclusivity. Authorities may now get to question Geremeyev, but they're not likely to question Kadyrov. At the same time, Kadyrov will probably have to give up his hopes of expanding his power, even in a hypothetical Checheno-Ingushetia-a hope he's expressed in recent years.

Barring anything unexpected, the acute phase of Kadyrov's conflict with the siloviki seems to have passed. The head of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov, has already expressed his support for Kadyrov. He may have his own reasons (he knows what it is to see close allies arrested without being consulted), but a man with his experience at court surely knows when expressing solidarity is a bad idea and when it's all right.

This publication originally appeared in Russian.

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 #13
Forbes.com
May 6, 2015
Russia's Death Rate Is Surging And It's Not Clear Why
By Mark Adomanis
[Chart here http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2015/05/06/russias-death-rate-is-surging-and-its-not-clear-why/]

Rosstat released the demographic figures for the January-March period about a week ago, but when the data was first posted it initially (and mistakenly) included the results from January-February. I was thus wrong in my initial conclusion that the birth rate had continued along its recent swoon. After a strong March, the birth rate in Q1 2015 was less than 1% smaller than in  Q1 2014. That's obviously not great news, but it's hardly exceptional.

However while there is little meaningful change in the birth rate, the newest data do show that Russia's mortality rate has surged noticeably over the past few months. From January-March 2015 there were 23,800 more deaths than in the equivalent period of 2014. That translates to a 5.2% increase in the death rate per 1,000.Keep in mind that 5% increase isn't over a single month (where we can expect a sizable degree of random variation) but over an entire quarter. If it were just statistical "noise," you'd expect it to have evened out by now.

As should be visible from the chart, while Russia has had higher levels of mortality in the recent past, it's been a long time since it had a deterioration as sharp as that which is currently taking place. Extrapolated out over a full year, a 5.2% increase in mortality would increase Russia's death rate per 1,000 by 0.6. You have to go back to 1999-2000, when Russia was still dealing with the health aftereffects of its painful government debt default and the resulting economic contraction, to find another year where the death rate increased more rapidly.

What explains this sudden uptick in mortality? Well first it might be helpful to say what doesn't explain it: external causes. Mortality from accidents, murder, suicide, drownings, and alcohol poisoning all continued their long-term downward trends shrinking by 3.8% in comparison to 2014. Indeed Russia rates of external death (while terrible in comparison to developed Western countries) are, by this point, likely the best they have ever been.

The increases were primarily from those types of illness (especially heart disease) which the Russian medical system has never been very adept at treating. Deaths from diseases of the circulatory system (which account for the majority of deaths from all causes) increased by 4.8%, while deaths from diseases of the digestive and respiratory systems increased by 9.9% and 22.1% respectively. It's unclear why circulatory system diseases, which have been very slowly declining for most of the past decade, would suddenly shoot up by around 12,000, but understanding that is the key to understanding the current mortality surge.

In the past some researchers have linked the rapid increase of circulatory-system-related deaths in the 1990's to "psycho-social" stress brought on by the atmosphere of pervasive economic insecurity which accompanied the end of the planned economy. Russia's current crisis is nowhere near as severe as that, but there is a chance that the economic dislocation accompanying the ruble crisis has had a negative impact on those Russians whose health status was already the most fragile.

Demographically speaking, nothing is set in stone. Over much of the past decade Russia has made modest, but very real, progress in addressing some of its long-simmering health challenges. These modest successes were reflected in sharply increased average life expectancy (above 70 for the first time ever) and a modestly decreased crude death rate. There are worrying signs, however, that these successes are starting to unravel. Only time will tell, but it looks as if Russia's tentative demographic revival is coming to an end.

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 #14
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
April 29, 2015
Fedor Lukyanov, chairman of the Foreign and Defence Policy Council Presidium: Orwell from an unexpected source

Among a large number of practical issues, the All-Russian People's Front media forum which has just been held in Saint Petersburg discussed "Challenges to present-day world journalism". The lively discussion on the rostrum and among the audience predictably moved on to a discussion of information confrontation and then to existential issues - does freedom of speech exist at all? Those present were inclined to say not. A surprising conclusion in an era of total information transparency...

One of the greatest novels of the 20th century - George Orwell's "1984" - portrays a sinister world in which the boundary between war and peace, freedom and slavery, truth and lies, simply does not exist. Everything is determined by current expediency - it is presented as required. The author was experiencing horror at the European reality of the 1930s and 1940s - the formation of totalitarian regimes in Germany and the USSR which at the time, against the profound crisis of the West, looked like the prototype of a universal future.

Ideological totalitarianism did not prove as long-lived as Orwell had feared. However, the contours of an anti-utopia have started to emerge from an unexpected source. The rapid progress of technologies has created a total and all-pervading communications environment. It has paradoxically turned out that absolute closedness and absolute openness often have the selfsame effect - they create an information diktat. When you can conceal everything or it is impossible to hide anything, there is also one unexpectedly similar result - the reliability of information is placed in doubt.

However, there is also a substantial difference. In a totally closed system there is a clear consciousness management centre. But in a totally open system the complete absence of such a centre generates a desire to structure the surrounding reality and to form a system of coordinates. And here methods as old as the world itself come into play, because nothing is more comprehensible to human awareness than self-assertion through opposition to the other, to the opposite., In other words, what is essential is the image of an enemy which puts everything into perspective.

During the "cold war" it was all simpler - ideological confrontation drew a clear line. But the 20th century was in that sense rather the exception in world history. Never "before" had ideologies played such a substantial if not determining role in international relations, and most likely nothing of the kind will ever happen "after." This was George Orwell's nightmare, but from the viewpoint of the world's structural steadiness, it ensured unprecedented stability.

The 20th century brought not only the triumph of ideologies in world politics but also their decline. By the end of the century it seemed to have become clear which ideology was "the only true one" (the liberal ideology) but later increasingly serious doubts in this regard started to arise. At least with regard to that ideology's universal applicability. However that may be, the vacuum which formed started to be filled with far more traditional forms of ideological organization such as nationalism and religious allegiance. Both, naturally, are manifested differently in the era of globalization from the way they were manifested in classic times.

For instance, nationalist self-identification under the conditions of global interdependence and reciprocal intertwining seeks a new grounding, using people's fear of the changing world and appealing all the more to archaic and habitual models and concepts. In those societies which see themselves as most advanced in terms of socio-political development, that is in the West, an attempt is on the contrary being made definitively to overcome tradition and to move to a new supranational and supra-religious quality.

However that may be, issues of identity and culture as it is broadly understood occupy a central place in the political process. And where culture is varied there are also, naturally, varied interpretations of what is happening. As a result there arises not only an image of the enemy but also increasingly differing pictures of the world, and the reason does not lie in ill-will and deliberate propaganda (although sometimes that cannot be avoided) but in radically different cultural backgrounds. Ideologies made things tighter and presented a more thorough methodology which if so desired could be understood and explained. But culture has to be studied and looked into, which in international relations is not a very widespread phenomenon - the actors act while ascribing to the other side their own behavioural logic.

Take the simplest example. Let us suppose that in a Ukrainian story line a completely sterile presentation of facts devoid of any subjectivity were possible (in practice it is impossible). Russia and France, for instance, would still never have the same interpretation of these facts because their systems of historical and cultural associations linked to these events differ radically. Ukraine will never be for a Frenchman what it is for a Russian, and vice versa. That is the objective reality.

And to return to the world of communications - the scale of this contradiction is growing dramatically and the global environment is becoming a gigantic magnifying glass. Since the sphere of emotions and representations is far less rationalized than even the sphere of ideological dogmas, conflict becomes more acute and dangerous than in the "cold war" years. And so far no one understands how to overcome this.

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 #15
http://readrussia.com
May 5, 2015
Is the West losing the media arms race?
by Mark Adomanis
[Chart here http://readrussia.com/2015/05/05/is-the-west-losing-the-media-arms-race/]

People in the US establishment have never been particularly fond of RT, but over the past year this previously inchoate and tempered concern has turned into something bordering on pure terror.

Ed Royce, a Southern California Republican who has been serving in congress since 1993 and who is the current chairman of the House of Representatives' foreign affairs committee, recently went on the record as saying that RT is not simply dangerous or mendacious but that it "may be more dangerous than any military, because no artillery can stop their lies from spreading and undermining US security interests in Europe."

Earlier this month Royce, in an editorial for the Wall Street Journal, talked about Putin's "secret army" of "misinformation warriors" and bemoaned the "withering" of the US' international broadcasting services which are "no longer capable of meeting today's challenges."

Reading Royce's editorial, and other recent coverage of Russia's "information war," you get the distinct impression that the West is losing. US government broadcasters have been "hollowed out." They are "unable to defend against Russia's resurgent information war." You would think that the West was being massively outspent and outcompeted by a power-mad Kremlin.

As is usually the case, the realty is rather less exciting and rather more banal than Royce's hysteria would suggest. When you compare RT's budget to those of other state-owned media outlets you see that the West already massively outspends Russia.

Even by themselves places like Deutsche Welle, Agence France Presse, and the BBC World Service have budgets that are broadly comparable to the $445,000,000 that RT spent in 2014 (before the ruble's recent nosedive pushed the equivalent figure for 2015 somewhere between 30 and 40% lower). The $731 million dollars that the Broadcasting Board of Governors spent in 2014 is about 1.6 times as big as all Russian spending on RT.

That is to say that when you stop and look at the budgets, spending by just four Western outlets (a figure which ignores any contributions from other Western institutions and allies like the EU, Canada, Australia, etc.) was roughly 430% of RT's total.

Whatever difficulties the West is currently facing in terms of confronting RT, it seems safe to say that a shortage of money is not one of them. Much attention has been devoted to RT's supposedly lavish budgets but Western budgets are even bigger!

The fact that we already outspend Russia in the media sphere also makes some of the proposals to further hike Western spending look rather curious. If exceeding Russian media spending by a factor of four isn't sufficient to guarantee success, why would exceeding it by a factor of five? What is the marginal return on additional spending likely to be if substantial quantities of earlier spending have apparently been so ineffective?

Please note that I am not arguing in favor of some kind of unilateral disarmament in the face of Kremlin information warfare. The BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, AFP, Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and other such outlets are here and they're not going anywhere. There doesn't seem to be any pressing need to trim their budgets, and so even without changing its policy one iota the West will continue to spend billions of dollars a year generating news coverage.

What I am suggesting though is that the West's problem is not primarily one of PR. If it was simply a question of getting the message out, the West would already have won the information war against Russia. Collectively, Western state-owned outlets reach far more people that RT does. It's not that people in various parts of the world aren't being exposed to the Western point of view, it's that they aren't being convinced by it. That's a significant (and very real!) problem, but it's one that is not going to be solved by shoveling another $50 million into VOA.  

It's also worth taking a step back and thinking about what the Russians are really trying to accomplish. Josh Kucera, a freelance journalist specializing in post-Soviet security and international affairs, made an interesting point. He argued that, in hyping the threat posed by RT, the US seems to be falling into a familiar trap of "overreacting to an insurgent attack." RT, when you really think about it, is basically an asymmetric form of public diplomacy, an admission by the Russian authorities that the West quite thoroughly dominates the information space and that they needed to strike back.

Insurgents want the targets of their attacks to respond clumsily. The goal is to get them to respond by simply throwing massive quantities of resources at a problem in the hope that it will all somehow go away. Intelligent counter-insurgency is not about throwing money at problems but about effective and efficient targeting, about responding to an insurgent attack in the most narrow, precise, and measured way possible. As they set out to combat RT's influence, Western policymakers would do well to keep those counter-insurgency lessons in mind.

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#16
www.rt.com
May 5, 2015
RT's Paula Slier leaves Ukraine following call for her arrest, death threats

RT correspondent Paula Slier, who covered the fire near the Chernobyl nuclear station, has left Ukraine after a local journalist urged security services to detain her. Some commentators were calling for the RT reporter's death.

The public call to arrest Slier was posted on Facebook by Denis Kazansky, a blogger and journalist for Ukrainsky Tizhden (Ukrainian Week) magazine.

"The worker of the Kremlin propaganda channel Russia Today [RT] Paula Slier, who laughingly reported on self-defense forces burning Ukrainian soldiers alive with 'Grad' missiles, moves freely about the country," he wrote.

"Sirs from Ukraine's Security Council, it's your mistake. Maybe even Graham Philips could arrive? Those rascals shouldn't be in our country," Kazansky added.

The Facebook allegations triggered a flood of angry comments, with some users calling for the murder of the RT correspondent.

A number of Ukrainian media outlets also reported on the Facebook entry.

Another Ukrainian journalist, Anatoly Shary, posted a YouTube video accusing Kazansky of lies and fact-spinning, attempting to prove that the accusations against Slier are a sham initiated by Ukrainian journalists.

It is not the first time Slier has faced online death threats. She received them in September 2014, when she was reporting from the frontline in eastern Ukraine. It was then that she was accused of "smiling," while reporting next to the Donbass rebels firing Grad missiles at the alleged positions of the Kiev troops.

But as you can see from the video, Paula is actually wincing from the loud noise of rockets being launched close by.

Having worked in war zones before, Paula is no stranger to life-threatening situations, but she says with a targeted campaign like this it is different: "I am used to working in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq but it's a different kind of fear - you risk for example being in the wrong place at the wrong time and facing kidnappings, bombings and the like; but here it's being afraid that someone will recognize you amid a conscious effort to catch and hurt you."

In the face of the multiple threats, RT head Margarita Simonyan is calling on the Ukrainian government to provide safety for media workers:

"The threats made against Paula have once again demonstrated that Ukraine does not have proper working conditions for journalists, even when they cover important stories such as the Chernobyl fire, and other issues entirely unrelated to politics. We are extremely alarmed by the fact that reporters have to fear for their lives, and we call upon the government of Ukraine to ensure a safe environment for the press."

The Russian Investigative Committee has started a criminal probe against Ukrainian political scientist Yury Romanenko, who advocated the killing of Russian journalists at his Harvard lecture about a month ago, and later posted the speech on Facebook. [https://www.facebook.com/yuriy.romanenko/posts/906169656071433]

Paula Slier has worked for RT since the channel was founded in 2005, and is a military correspondent who's covered numerous conflicts: in Syria, Libya, Egypt, Palestine, Israel and Ukraine.

In 2013, Slier was declared one of the most influential South Africans in the world

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 #17
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
May 5, 2015
Press Digest: Eastern Ukraine on verge of slipping back into armed conflict
RBTH presents a selection of views from leading Russian media on international events, featuring reports on the worsening situation in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, a possible meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Russian opposition, and the cooling of Russian-Turkish relations over Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent visit to Armenia.
Darya Lyubinskaya, special to RBTH

Truce under strain in eastern Ukraine

The parties to the conflict in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine have not abandoned their attempts to continue implementing the Minsk peace agreements, the business daily Kommersant reports. The article is published ahead of the meeting of a contact group that includes representatives of the OSCE, Ukraine and Russia as well as the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics." Meanwhile, the situation in the Donbass is on the brink of the full-scale resumption of hostilities, Kommersant reports.

According to experts interviewed by the newspaper, the renewal of military action is becoming increasingly likely in the current situation. "It is more than likely that the conflict will move into a hot phase. The only question is when," Petro Poroshenko Bloc deputy Alexander Chernenko told the newspaper. "Meetings of the contact group, Minsk-format meetings are needed primarily for the extension of a bad peace."

Against the background of such sentiments, for the Ukrainian government war could become a means of diverting attention from social unrest, as well as a factor in the consolidation of society and an argument for new foreign aid, says Andrei Fyodorov, director of the Russian Center for Policy Studies.
 
Spat with Turkey: lessons for Moscow

The weekly magazine Expert continues to monitor the aggravation of Russian-Turkish relations caused by the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Armenia on April 24 for the centennial of the Armenian Genocide. The magazine notes that there will be no severing of relations between Ankara and Moscow over the issue; however, Russia must draw the right conclusions from the situation. According to experts, the Turkish side will respond to Moscow through an intensification of anti-Russian actions in Crimea, as well as through the recognition of the "Circassian genocide" allegedly carried out by the Russian Empire in 1864.

In addition, there may be problems in the economic sphere, including in the negotiations over the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, notes Expert. According to the magazine, it is not so much issues in Russian-Turkish relations that Moscow should now fear, but Turkey's desire to exploit the role of the offended. It is possible that Ankara expects to receive additional concessions (for example, a reduction in gas prices) from Moscow as compensation for the actions of the Russian side, which are allegedly "insulting for Turkey," writes Expert.
 
Navalny no competition, says Khodorkovsky

The former head of ill-fated oil company Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has said in an interview with the Russian affairs news website Meduza that he is not looking to compete with opposition leader Alexei Navalny. For example, he has a positive attitude to Navalny's attempts to fight corruption, but considers them meaningless under the existing political system. "I am not looking to compete with him at all. I have an inner feeling that we are moving in different planes. These planes may cross somewhere, but they are different globally," said Khodorkovsky.

Khodorkovsky said he did not see himself as "coming to power as a result of elections," although he is ready to head a transitional government, in spite of the undesirability of such a prospect. However, he added that he does not believe "in Alexei Navalny - as in a person who will come to power as soon as everything collapses." According to Khodorkovsky, it is "someone whom we maybe don't even know today" who will come to power.

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#18
The Guardian (UK)
May 6, 2015
15 years of Vladimir Putin: 15 ways he has changed Russia and the world
His critics say he has led his country into an autocratic cul-de-sac, but his fans point to the stability he brought after Yeltsin and the way he stood up to the west
Alec Luhn in Moscow
[Graphics here http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/06/vladimir-putin-15-ways-he-changed-russia-world]

Days before he was elected to the Russian presidency in 2000, Vladimir Putin told the BBC that Russia was "part of European culture" and that he "would not rule out" the possibility of it joining Nato.

"I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilised world," said Putin, who was still acting president after Boris Yeltsin's sudden resignation on New Year's Eve 1999.

A generation later, as Putin marks the 15th anniversary of acceding to power on 7 May 2000, Russia has changed beyond all recognition from the chaotic, open free-for-all it was under Yeltsin. Internationally it faces isolation, sanctions, a new cold war even. At home, despite economic decline Putin enjoys perhaps the highest popularity rating of any Kremlin leader - an approval rating that topped 86% in February.

Love him or hate him, it's hard to deny that Putin has made a huge impact on his country and the world.

Ukraine, Georgia and the 'near abroad'

The "near abroad" just got a little nearer. The Ukrainian conflict has ruptured relations between Russia and the west over the past year, but in fact it is merely the latest example of Putin asserting Russia's "rights" in its former backyard, known in Russia as "the near abroad". Those who were surprised by Putin's annexation of Crimea and the subsequent Russian-fuelled conflict in eastern Ukraine should have remembered: six years earlier he set the mould for the "Putin doctrine" in Georgia. Russia would use troops to protect its interests in a sphere of influence increasingly hemmed in by Nato's advance. The US blinked first.

Russian troops enter the Georgian town of Gori in August 2008. Facebook Twitter Pinterest
 Russian troops enter the Georgian town of Gori in August 2008. Photograph: Jonathan Alpeyrie/Getty Images
The Ukraine gambit has been more risky. Public opinion certainly favoured the Crimean manouevre, but in Donetsk and Luhansk, Russians have died.

Sanctions as well as falling oil prices have hurt the Russian economy. Putin has his country on his side, for now, and has achieved his strategic aims, but not without some cost.

Opposition to Nato

Under Yeltsin, Russian pursued a policy of grudging cooperation with Nato. All that changed under Putin. Since his first interview with the BBC, Putin has insisted that Nato's eastward expansion represents a threat to his country. Now Moscow finally has the military muscle to push back. According to a November report on the rise of close military encounters between Russia and the west, Nato states had scrambled fighter jets to intercept Russian aircraft more than 100 times as of late October, more than three times more than in 2013. The newly aggressive stance has worried Poland and the Baltics, as well as the Nordic countries. Even Sweden and Finland have started musing aloud about joining Nato.

Putin's position has huge backing in Russia - and plenty of support for those in the west who believe that Nato only exists to deal with the insecurities that its existence creates.

A suspected Russian submarine in the Stockholm archipelago prompted a huge hunt by the Swedish navy in October, and a Scandinavian Airlines plane with 132 passengers taking off from Copenhagen in March nearly collided with a Russian reconnaissance aircraft that had not transmitted its position.

Autocracy

While Putin may have flip-flopped on economic issues, he has consistently moved toward greater consolidation of his own power. In 2004, he signed a law allowing the president to appoint regional governors, a privilege he mostly retains despite reforms prompted by street protests in 2011-12.

Putin's famous "castling" with Dmitry Medvedev allowed him to return to the presidency in 2012. In the meantime, Russia's lapdog parliament had passed a law in extending the presidential term from four to six years. Putin has said he won't rule out running again in 2018, and if he wins, his time in power could surpass that of Leonid Brezhnev - 18 years - and even Joseph Stalin.

Cult of personality

Well, not quite a cult. But don't underestimate how much damage 10 years of Yeltsin, his antics, ailments and slurring on television, did to Russians and their view of themselves. Putin has given them something much more in keeping with the macho spirit of the Russian muzhik: a horse-riding, bare-chested, tiger-wrestling, clean living, straight-talking action man.

At least, that's what his image makers have done for him. Behind the scenes, who knows? Rumours fly thick and fast about his affection for Botox and his alleged relationship with an Olympic gymnast half his age. These are stories that don't make the Russian press.

It's the economy, durak!

When Putin arrived in office, Russia was just emerging from the disastrous market reforms of the 1990s and the 1998 financial crisis. The new president had no grand economic vision: while he slashed taxes to benefit business, he also renationalised key sectors, starting with the breakup of political foe Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Yukos oil company in 2003. Nonetheless, unused manufacturing capacity and rising prices for oil, Russia's main export, helped usher in an era of unprecedented prosperity that Putin is still remembered for, with real disposable income doubling between 1999 and 2006.

The global financial crisis brought this growth crashing to a halt. While oil wealth had stimulated growth, little progress had been made in diversifying the economy or modernising Russia's industries. Even before oil prices dropped and western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis came into effect in 2014, economists were predicting long-term stagnation.

Although Putin recently called his government's response to the rouble crisis of late 2014 "optimal", many blame the central bank's sudden interest rate rises and a shady bond issue by state oil company Rosneft for sinking the national currency.

As former finance minister Alexei Kudrin reminded Putin during the president's annual call-in show in April, the 7% annual GDP growth at the end of his first presidential term fell to just 0.6% in 2014, and the country's economy is expected to enter recession this year. Not a great result for a man whose initials - VVP - stand for GDP in Russian.

Population growth?

Putin took over a country whose population was falling at an alarming rate. Russia - a population of about 150 million people at time of the fall of the Soviet Union - was losing people at a rate of almost a million a year, a combination of a reluctance to procreate and a proclivity, from men at least, to die young.

But the decline gradually bottomed out, and in 2010 the population started growing again. The secret to this reversal was largely economic: as their financial situation improved during Putin's reign, Russians began having more children. According to the state statistics service, the country now has more than 146 million people, up from 142 million in 2008. Even if you don't count the 2.2 million people it gained by annexing Crimea, it's still a positive trend.

But now that the economic outlook is uncertain, that trend may be reversing, with births down by 4% in January.

Pivot to Asia

Always a vocal proponent of a multipolar world, Putin has shifted in recent years toward greater economic and military cooperation with Asian countries, whose growing economies are hungry for Russia's energy and whose governments are less judgmental of its human rights record. Last year, he brokered two huge deals to supply China with gas, one worth $400bn. (First he has to build a pipeline through 2,500 miles of mountains, swamps and seismic hotspots.) Later this month, the two countries will hold joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean Sea. He's also exporting Russian railroad technology to North Korea, which in the meantime has been opening quasi-slave-labour logging and farming camps in Russia's far east.

Worsening relations with the European Union, which in December forced Russia to cancel a pipeline to Bulgaria that was already being built, has only sped up its pivot to Asia.

Crackdown

With the imprisonment of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the assassinations of several prominent opposition voices, Putin's Russia was already a place where dissent was not particularly welcome.

But the pivotal moment came during the winter of 2011-12. Rolling opposition protests briefly threatened an Arab spring of sorts in Moscow. Putin moved quickly. A slew of criminal cases on dubious charges were opened against anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny and 27 protesters from the May 2012 Bolotnaya Square rally.

Since Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012, new laws have raised the fines for those taking part in protests not sanctioned by the authorities to as much as 1m roubles (£13,000) or up to five years of forced labour or prison for repeat violations.

Amid growing patriotic fervour and rhetoric about traitors- Putin suggested in December that opposition members could be part of a "fifth column" undermining the country - the popular opposition movement is all but dead. Symbolically, one of its leading voices, former deputy PM Boris Nemtsov, was assassinated in front of the Kremlin in February. The crime was allegedly committed by security officers loyal to Chechnya's ruler, Ramzan Kadyrov, who was awarded a medal by Putin shortly afterwards.

In Putin's third term, authorities have also tightened the screws on non-governmental organisations that receive funding from abroad, whom Putin has previously disparaged as "jackals" and traitors. According to a 2012 law, such groups must label themselves "foreign agents" in their publications and submit to audits, with stiff fines for failure to meet these onerous requirements.

Once an oasis of free speech, the Russian internet is now subject to vague laws that allow the government's communications watchdog to block sites deemed to publish "extremist" material or content harmful to children. As a result, several major opposition sites were blacklisted in 2013. According to a 2014 law, popular bloggers must now register their true identities with the state and face potential libel suits.

The crackdown has, of course, extended to the Chechen separatists whose destruction ("Should we catch them in a shithouse, we'll whack them in a shithouse!" he once said) was Putin's first real claim to leadership fame. His campaign against the Islamic insurgency in the wider North Caucasus region has led to a reduction in violence - but also to a litany of human rights abuses.

'Moralistic' vision

Alongside a crackdown on the opposition, NGOs and the internet, Putin's third term has seen a wave of legislation inspired by his vision of Russia as a bastion of traditional morals. The most egregious example was the 2013 ban on gay propaganda, which LGBT rights activists say has contributed to a rise in homophobic harassment in the country, including vigilante group violence.

Under Putin, the second world war has become a patriotic rallying point, and a 2014 law criminalises the "distortion" of the Soviet Union's role in the war. Other legislation imposed fines for the use of expletives on television, radio and in films shown in theatres, drawing criticism from musicians and directors.

A multipolar world?

The charitable view of Putin's foreign policy is that he stands up to western hegemony and, with China, acts as a balance to the overweening military and political power of the US. If Yeltsin was consistently in America's pocket, then Putin has been on its back.

However, while the Russian president can plausibly claim to have history on his side in opposing Washington over the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, his stance on Syria and unwavering support for Bashar al-Assad has been open to greater criticism.

It's not all about opposition. Putin's diplomats have worked constructively with international allies and adversaries to help bring Iran in from the cold, and - until recently at least - to work at further nuclear arms reductions.

Londongrad

Under Putin, the Anglo-Russian relationship has turned into a paradox: at the same time as official relations hit new, icy depths over espionage and murder, record numbers of Russians and their cash were flooding west - and London was their favourite second home.

Oligarchs parked their kids in swanky schools, listed their companies on the stock market and bought football clubs, some perhaps as an insurance policy, others because it became ultra-fashionable. But London also became a bolthole for the out of favour, home to an entire dissident community of anti-Putinistas, further straining relations between London and Moscow.

New-found sporting prestige

The Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 were a triumph for Putin, who had campaigned aggressively to host the event. Russia won the medal count with 13 golds, and no major security breaches or organisational embarrassments - besides a few unfinished hotel rooms - marred the event. Joined by faded action star Steven Seagal, Putin later presided over a Formula One race held on a course built around the Olympic park, and in 2018, the country will host the Fifa World Cup.

But such state-backed events involving huge construction projects have been a goldmine for crooked officials in Russia. Nemtsov, who had written a scathing report on the preparations for the Sochi Olympics, estimated that $30bn of the record $50bn spent on the games had been lost to corruption. This was in addition to the poor labour conditions and environmental damage reported during pre-Olympic construction. Fifa's lead investigator quit after the football organisation cleared Russia of allegations of corruption in the World Cup bidding process, accusing it of a "lack of leadership".

Corruption

Despite a state campaign against corruption, Putin's Russia has failed to shake off accusations of being fundamentally dishonest. In 2014, Russia was ranked 136 out of 175 in Transparency International's corruption perceptions index, down from 127 in 2013 and 133 in 2012. The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project also named Putin its "person of the year" after its investigations found that he had engaged with the mafia to create what it called a "military-industrial-political-criminal" complex to launder money and promote his interests abroad, including in the transfer of weapons to rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Although little information is available on his personal wealth, many expect that Putin himself has benefited from state corruption. Allegations have swirled for years that an extravagant palace being built on the Black Sea coast - reportedly guarded by the presidential secret service and now owned by a Putin confidant - secretly belongs to him and was paid for with embezzled funds.

Military

Putin inherited an army that was not fit for purpose. During his second term, he set out to reform the outdated conscript-based army, a process that only quickened after its unconvincing victory in the Georgian war. Russia now spends a higher percentage of its GDP on defence than the United States, and has allocated a record $81bn in 2015.

While the increased spending and reorganisation has created a force able to react relatively quickly when former Soviet republics get too uppity, new equipment - in particular a new stealth fighter and a next-generation tank - are still on the way. It has not helped that France recently withdrew its offer to sell Russia two Mistral warships.

New propaganda

Even as independent media found themselves on the run, Putin appointed Dmitry Kiselyov, a television presenter known for his anti-American conspiracy theories, head of the state news agency Rossiya Segodnya. In this post, Kiselyov has overseen an expansion of Sputnik News and Russia Today, which peddle the Kremlin's talking points in foreign languages. While state-backed news outlets are nothing new, the Kremlin's new propagandistic media have been criticised for their journalistic standards. In November, the UK media regulator Ofcom threatened RT with sanctions over news reports that failed to comply with impartiality rules.

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 #19
The International New York Times
May 7, 2015
Putin's Grudging Perestroika
Contributing Op-Ed Writer
By MAXIM TRUDOLYUBOV
Maxim Trudolyubov is the opinion page editor of the business newspaper Vedomosti, a Wilson Center fellow in Washington, and the author of a forthcoming book on power and property in Russia.

There is a widespread view in the West that Russia's aggressive actions in Ukraine and confrontational policies toward the United States and Europe are an attempt to revitalize aspects of its lost Soviet glory days. But if we look at some of the Kremlin's domestic policy initiatives, we see a country struggling to become less "Soviet" in its actions and reform its decrepit institutions before it's too late.

Many of the reforms now underway reflect Moscow's long-overdue recognition that the Russian state simply cannot afford to maintain costly Soviet-designed structures, such as free higher education for all students or an oversized military based on mass mobilization. Though many of the current changes are forced by dire necessity rather than any grand progressive vision, they are reforms nonetheless. This in itself is a striking development. In general, Russians are ready to tolerate the loss of personal freedom, but they still cherish Soviet social benefits like free health care, and the Kremlin has always been afraid to tamper with them.

But now that President Vladimir Putin's patriotic propaganda has managed to distract popular attention from dismal political and economic conditions, the reforms, haphazard though they might be, are going forward. The irony is that the leaders who have been trumpeting Soviet grandeur on the world stage are presiding over its retreat at home.

A case in point is health care. Today, a few years into the reforms launched when Mr. Putin returned to the presidency in the spring of 2012, the overall picture remains bleak. Moscow has been giving regional governments incentives to close inefficient, duplicative and deteriorating hospitals and health centers, trim the medical work force and improve efficiency in exchange for more funds for modern equipment, renovation and better pay for health workers.

While many hospitals are being revitalized, the number of closures is too drastic. Rural areas are bearing the brunt of the disruption. More than 17,000 towns and villages once served by small health clinics now have no medical services at all. Between 2005 and 2013, the number of health centers was cut from 8,249 to 2,085, and the number of rural hospitals plunged from 2,631 to 124, according to government reports.

There is no clear indication what the Kremlin is planning. Moscow's overall policy has never been publicly discussed. "They fear the people won't understand," Maria Gaidar, head of the citizens' rights group Social Demand, told me. "They want to avoid public commotion. It's all being done at the regional level so that in case things go wrong one can blame the governors, not the Kremlin."

This is a far cry from Soviet times, when the central government subsidized all medical facilities, schools and other institutions, regardless of the number of patients treated or the number of students taught.

Education reform has also been haphazard. With Russia's top schools falling in international rankings, reformers have introduced uniform exams (not unlike America's SATs), aligned the higher education system with that of Europe, and started to build new research institutions while merging regional universities into larger structures. Mr. Putin, in a populist mode when he resumed the presidency three years ago, had promised teachers higher salaries. But now, as Western sanctions and plunging oil revenues sap the national budget, the Kremlin has announced sweeping cuts in funding that will affect tens of thousands of state employees, from teachers to museum guards to theater ushers.

Efforts to revamp the military are arguably the most successful of the government's reforms. The Kremlin seeks to replace the unwieldy Soviet structure with smaller, more efficient modern armed forces. This "continues to be a work in progress," Michael Kofman, a scholar at the Kennan Institute, told me. "Russia has made large strides away from where it was and toward its dream of fielding the kind of army the West fields - able to do combined operations; mobile, networked, less conscript-dependent and ready to respond on short notice."

Military spending has reached levels never achieved throughout the entire post-Soviet period, Mr. Kofman says. Moscow's latest defense budget totals 3.3 trillion rubles, or 4.2 percent of G.D.P. for 2015, up from 2.6 percent of G.D.P. when Mr. Putin took office (dollar figures are meaningless because exchange rates are so volatile).

"We are looking at the high point for Russia's armed forces budget and size," Mr. Kofman said. "Given the current trajectory, it's unlikely that the armed forces will ever be as well-funded or as populous again."

Thirty years ago, on April 23, 1985, the newly appointed general secretary of the Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev, announced his perestroika policies, aimed to counter the Soviet Union's deepening decline. Instead, the reforms he instituted helped accelerate its implosion. The people of the other former Soviet republics were quick to leave Russia behind, but Russians could not - and still cannot - quite manage to let go of the old ways of doing things. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were able to reform quickly because they had the clearest sense of direction: toward Europe and the institutions of the West. Kazakhstan took advantage of its rich natural resources to preserve the old power structure while developing its economy. But Russians have been too confused for too long, sheltered in large part by the oil and gas windfalls that allowed Moscow to put off reform.

Yet the Kremlin can't avoid change altogether. After years of procrastination, Moscow has embarked on a long, arduous journey to an uncertain destination. It may well be that Mr. Putin is motivated by a desire to distract domestic and international audiences from Russia's internal disorder with outward displays of strength. Only the Kremlin leadership knows the true depth of the gap between Russia's perceived power and its actual strength.

But now, thanks both to Mr. Putin's year of hubris and aggression, and to the long post-Soviet years of indecision, Russia's future has transitioned from the best of possibilities to the worst. With its economy slumping, its elites trapped by Western sanctions, and its opportunities for foreign loans and access to new technology severely restricted, Mr. Putin has to struggle to implement his own brand of perestroika. Had he done this just a few years ago, he would have been universally praised and generously aided. Sadly, it looks as though his efforts are too little, and may well have come too late.

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 #20
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
May 2, 2015
Impressions of Russia
BY PETER FROST
Anthropologist, Ph.D., Université Laval

The young man shook his head. "No, I can't say I'm pro-Putin. There's too much corruption in Russia, with too much money going to the wrong people. We should become more Western. Instead, we're moving in the other direction."

Finally, I thought, a liberal critic of Putin. The young man continued. "Here it's not too bad, but in Moscow you can see the change. They're all over. Please, don't get me wrong, I don't hate anyone, but I feel uncomfortable when there are so many of them. Sometimes, I wonder whether I'm still in Russia."

 Much had changed since my last visit ten years ago. Driving into the city of Voronezh from the airport, I could see entirely new neighborhoods, supermarkets, office buildings, and the like. In 2003, there was only one shopping mall in the whole city, and it was nothing special. Now, there were malls as huge as any in Toronto. Things had likewise improved for some of our old friends and acquaintances. A few had moved up into the growing middle class, including one couple who showed us their new palatial home on the outskirts.

Yet the bulk of the population seemed no better off, and in some ways worse off. Ten years ago, jobs were there for the taking. The pay may have been lousy, but it was money. Now, the competition is intense even for those jobs. An unemployed man told me: "It's hard to find work now. Employers will hire immigrants because they work for much less and won't complain. And there are a lot of them now, mainly from Central Asia, but also from places all over."

Sour grapes? Perhaps. But it's consistent with what a Quebec building contractor had told me earlier. "I no longer bother with Russian construction projects because there's always a Russian company that will put in an absurdly low bid. The only way he can stay within budget is by hiring illegal immigrants. Everyone knows it, but nothing is ever done to stop it."

I wasn't surprised to see Ukrainian refugees in a big city like Voronezh, but it was surprising to see so many in remote farming villages. And each refugee family had a horror story to tell. It's one thing to hear these stories from professional journalists; it's another to hear them from ordinary people who aren't being paid to say what they say. This is an underappreciated factor in the growing anger among Russians against the Ukrainian government.

After all that's happened, I don't see how eastern Ukraine will ever accept being ruled by Kiev. It's like a marriage that has crossed the line between verbal abuse and physical violence.

 We were standing outside a fast food kiosk. "I just don't get it," said my wife. "Prices are almost as high here as in Canada, yet the wages are a lot lower. How do people manage to survive?"

A young man overheard her. "The people who don't survive are the ones you don't get to see."

Postwar housing projects cover most of the city. They are now aging badly, and North Americans wouldn't hesitate to call them "slums." We like to think that slums cause crime, broken homes, and stunted mental development. Yet, here, you can walk up about in safety, families are usually intact, and the children are studying hard to become engineers, scientists, ballet dancers, or what have you.

We were sitting in a restaurant with two young Russians, a lawyer and a university teacher. "Will there be war?" said one, looking worried. I tried to be reassuring, saying no one wanted war. But I wasn't sure myself.

There was another question. "But do the Americans know what they're getting into?" I shook my head. Few people in the West know much about Russia, and what little they do is worse than useless.

Hitler said it would be like kicking in the door of a rotten building. That's how it seemed at first. And then the war dragged on and on, grinding down one German division after another. If-God forbid-war happens another time, we'll probably see the same pattern. Without a higher purpose, the average Russian man often retreats into indolence, alcoholism, and self-destructive behavior. Give him that purpose, and he will fight for it with almost superhuman power.

One of my professors ascribed it to the yearly cycle of traditional farm life. For most of the year, the muzhik slept a lot and whiled away his days in aimlessness. But when it came time to plough the fields or bring in the harvest, he had to pull out all stops and work continuously from dawn to dusk.

It's the 70th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War, and reminders can be seen everywhere. There has been a spate of new war movies, including one about the Battle for Sevastopol. It's hard not to see references to the current conflict.

(Reprinted from Evo and Proud by permission of author or representative)

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 #21
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
May 3, 2015
Comment to "Impressions of Russia"
By Anatoly Karlin

Very interesting article.

Just a few additional observations/remarks to round it off.

"I just don't get it," said my wife. "Prices are almost as high here as in Canada, yet the wages are a lot lower. How do people manage to survive?"

The essentials of life are much cheaper, though.

(1) The prices of what in particular - fast food? In this case, your and your wife's experience was probably an exception. According to the Big Mac Index, standard fast food is quite a lot cheaper in Russia than Canada. Most food of the sort you buy in supermarkets - and especially in open door farmers' markets, which is where many Russians still do their groceries - are also a lot cheaper.

(2) Most Russians - something like 90%, thanks to the privatization of homes - own their own properties, so few have to spend money on rent. Additionally, there is no public shame with living in with your parents for a long time, as you have in the Anglo-Saxon world. Utilities are also really cheap in global terms (even if they are constantly rising).

The gray economy (additional wages in envelopes) is still pretty prevalent if less so than 10 years ago.

Sure, imported goods like electronics are either as expensive or even more so, but in conjunction with the above factors, most Russians can now afford things like cell phones, computers, and cheaper cars.

They are now aging badly, and North Americans wouldn't hesitate to call them "slums."

They do indeed look pretty crap from the outside, but I found that this is in many cases a mistaken impression (albeit one that is reinforced by Russians' lack of care for maintaining nice clean public spaces). The room interiors themselves are usually a very different story with good wooden furnity, a Persian carpet on the wall, chandeliers, etc. Moreover, and somewhat surprisingly, the blocky Soviet era constructions - despite being aesthetically challenged - are usually structurally better than the artsier but much flimsier newer constructions. This is a joint result of the large-scale corruption in the construction industry and the capitalist motive to minimize costs.

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 #22
www.rt.com
May 6, 2015
Russian security doctrine to be adjusted after Arab Spring, Ukraine turmoil - official

The head of Russia's Security Council has promised that the authorities will adjust the nation's security doctrine after learning the lessons of the latest political crises in the Middle East and Ukraine.

"In order to update the basic concepts of national securitythe council has ordered to begin the work on making corrections to the main strategic plans - the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation to year 2020 and the Informational Security Strategy," Nikolai Patrushev said in an article published Wednesday in the Defense Ministry's daily newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star).

He added that the necessity of such actions has arisen after the so-called Arab Spring (a wave of violent mass protests that led to overthrowing of governments and leaders in several Middle East countries in 2011-12), the wars in Syria and Iraq and also the situation in and around Ukraine.

Patrushev said that these events demonstrated the tendency for security threats to shift from the military sphere into the informational space. "As leading nations of the world fight for their interests they typically use 'non-direct action,' the population's protest potential, radical and extremist groups and also private military contractors," Patrushev wrote.

He also noted the increasing aggressiveness of the United States and NATO toward Russia, embodied in the beefing up of military potential near Russian borders and the continuing deployment of the global missile defense system.

The Security Council is Russia's top consultative body on national security, and Nikolai Patrushev has headed the council since 2008. Before that, he was the director of the Federal Security Service for nine years.

In October 2014, Patrushev openly accused the United States of playing a role in the current turmoil in Ukraine and the military conflicts in Georgia and the Caucasus, saying these were direct results of the anti-Russian policy of the US administration. He also revealed in a press interview that intelligence analysts established that American special services were executing an anti-Russian program that dates back to the 1970s, and is based on Zbigniew Brzezinski's "strategy of weak spots," the policy of turning the opponent's potential problems into full-scale crises.

In September 2014, President Vladimir Putin tasked senior military and state officials with developing an updated military doctrine that would meet the needs of changing global politics and modern military challenges and the new dangers and threats, in particular those manifested in the so-called Arab Spring, the civil war in Syria and the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

An updated version of the doctrine was adopted in late December

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#23
Moscow Times
May 6, 2015
Moscow Is Playing Second Fiddle to Beijing
By Mark Galeotti
Mark Galeotti is professor of global affairs at New York University.

U.S. President Barack Obama has talked a great deal about a pivot to Asia, but recent news make it look on the surface as if it is Russian President Vladimir Putin who is actually delivering.

Not only is his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping going to be in Moscow attending the May 9 Victory Day parade that his Western counterparts are so conspicuously snubbing, but every day seems to bring reports of new Russo-Chinese initiatives.

This month, six Russian and three Chinese warships will carry out live-fire training in the Mediterranean. Exercise Joint Sea 2015 will be the very first time they have operated together in the Mediterranean (they have been mounting joint exercises in the Pacific and Asian seas since 2012).

This is essentially a political gesture, but as such it is effective, especially combined with the slew of recent announcements of defense sales and joint projects. China is to become the first foreign buyer of the advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile system, for example, and the two countries are to cooperate on upgrading the Russian Mi-26 heavy military transport helicopter design.

There is even talk of Moscow having a role in Beijing's ambitious $40 billion planned moon base, as well as license-production of Russian space rockets to support the program.

Meanwhile, Beijing is offering to invest $5.2 billion in a high-speed rail line. The line would connect Moscow and Kazan and in due course be extended to China.

All exciting stuff, although largely to be considered as secondary to the massive flow of Russian primary exports to China. At the end of April, the Federation Council ratified the deal, signed last year, to deliver 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China from 2018 through the Power of Siberia pipeline. The deal is worth some $400 billion over 30 years.

Overall, in 2014, bilateral trade was worth $95.3 billion and the intention is to raise this to $100 billion as part of a plan to reach $200 billion by 2020.

In this context, perhaps it is unsurprising that a survey carried out by independent pollster the Levada Center in January found that while 81 percent of respondents regarded the United States negatively, a record-breaking 80 percent expressed positive views of China.

Meanwhile, in last year's Pew Global Attitudes Survey, 66 percent of Chinese respondents said they had a favorable view of Russia. Then again, 50 percent were favorable to the USA.

Besides, this is a distinctly - and increasingly - asymmetric relationship. Moscow needs Beijing at the moment far, far more than the other way round. The Chinese have learnt the value of not sounding triumphalist, but they are hardly unaware of the power relationship at work.

They bargained harshly over the gas deal, for example, knowing that Putin desperately needed it, and as a result were able to get a very good price.

Overall, Beijing is not especially interested in economic opportunities in Russia beyond those areas of direct value to its domestic economy. These are energy, other extractive industries, and the infrastructure that can help get them out of Russia and into China, but also help get Chinese goods into the markets that truly interest them, in Europe, the Middle East and even Africa.

In so many ways, Beijing is not Moscow's friend so much as its loanshark. It is eager to take advantage of its present troubles to buy whatever equity catches its eye at a good price rather than to do its neighbor any favors.

Besides which, China's connections and cooperation with Russia are just part of a multifaceted new active engagement and even assertiveness in the world. The Chinese navy is not only looking to the Mediterranean, for example. Since 2009 it has been carrying out anti-piracy patrols off Somalia, and last year it began joint training operations with the Iranian navy.

More generally, while China may complain at Washington's "hegemony," trade with the U.S. is worth more than five times that with Russia. In 2014, it invested $12 billion in the U.S., half as much again as in Russia.

So, while Xi Jinping's presence in Moscow is undoubtedly a comfort to a president feeling the sting of being snubbed by other international leaders, Putin should beware believing too much of Moscow's own hype.

Dmitry Trenin of the Moscow Carnegie Center recently wrote that "In lieu of a Greater Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok, a Greater Asia from Shanghai to St. Petersburg is in the making." He may well be right.

However, any thought that this will be a Greater Asia dominated by Moscow and its agenda is likely to be disappointed. China has time and money on its side. Putin may discover a pivot to Asia can easily become a spiral.

 

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#24
www.rt.com
May 6, 2015
'Polish anti-Russian rhetoric scaremongering to remain in power'

Increasingly anti-Russian rhetoric from Poland's president Bronisław Komorowski is mostly an effort to scare the population into re-electing him, Russia Insider international affairs editor Alexander Mercouris told RT.

RT:On Sunday, Bronisław Komorowski said the upcoming Victory Day parade in Moscow is a symbol of instability in the world. What do you think of that statement?

Alexander Mercouris: I think that at one level they are simply appalling. To talk about the victory over Nazism, a victory which liberated Poland and ensured that Poland today is a real, existing country, as a destabilizing factor in world affairs is nothing short of astonishing. At another level, of course, it's a political scaremongering by a Polish politician who wants to remain president.

RT: Will the tense relations affect the V-Day celebrations?

AM: Some people in Western Europe have been busy politicizing this anniversary in the most extraordinary way. What is happening on May 9 ought to be an event that should unite the whole of Europe. But what has happened is that because of the Ukrainian conflict and because of residual resentment, one suspects, of the disproportionate role Russia played in World War II victory, which some people want to downplay, it is being made into a cause of division. That is an absolute tragedy when you consider what that war meant and what that victory meant for millions upon millions of people.

RT: How do you see Russian-Polish relations develop?

AM: At this particular moment in time there is a very strong move within Poland to try and distance it from Russia and to create a kind of Russian scarecrow, basically to help certain Polish politicians. However, I have some knowledge of Poland, and I am confident that over time, relations between these two countries will improve. I have no doubt of it because that is very much in Poland's interest, and of course it is also, I think, something that would be a benefit to the whole of Europe.

RT: Komorowski said Poland cannot forget about Russia's threat - do you think there is any threat?

AM: No, Poland is not being threatened, and for Mr Komorowski to speak in that way is, as I said, complete scaremongering, done frankly very much with an eye to internal Polish politics. Also, with an eye to the kind of policies Poland has itself been following in Ukraine, where it has been playing, or rather, overplaying a very ambitious game which is well beyond its strength and which is going badly wrong.

The problem with this sort of scaremongering is that it creates tensions between Poland and Russia which are emphatically not in Poland's interest. And I think there are a lot of people in Poland who are aware of this and who are becoming very concerned about this, even if they are not the dominant force in Poland at the moment.

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 #25
Obama expects relations with Russia to improve after source of tension eliminated - U.S. ambassador

MOSCOW. May 6 (Interfax) - U.S. President Barack Obama expects that relations with Russia will improve after the source of current tensions between the two countries is eliminated, U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Tefft said.

"While President Obama is not able to attend this year's commemoration [of the victory in WWII in Moscow on May 9], I know that he hopes to see the relationship between our two great nations improve, after we resolve the source of recent tensions," Tefft said in an interview with Interfax in the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.

"In considering our representation, we took into account Russia's ongoing violations of Ukraine's sovereignty, as have several of our European Allies," he said.

Tefft said he would be proud to represent the U.S. in Moscow during the 70th anniversary of Victory Day.

The full version of Tefft's interview will be published later on www.interfax.ru and www.interfax.com.

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#26
Valdai Discussion Club
http://valdaiclub.com
May 6, 2015
A Melting Arctic in a Frozen Russia-West Relationship
By Robert Legvold
Robert Legvold is Marshall D. Shulman Professor Emeritus, Columbia University.

The Arctic region could have been-should have been-approached as a critical building block in constructing the Euro-Atlantic security community leaders had pledged to create ever since the 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe.  It is the Euro-Atlantic region's crucial new northern frontier-the world's next great hydrocarbon reserve, a region posing vast economic, technical, environmental, and sociological challenges that can only be well met through cooperation, a region unburdened by the poisoned legacy of the Cold War, and a region whose security need not have become competitive-and it once offered a chance to illustrate in microcosm how a Euro-Atlantic security community would operate. That is precisely what the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative (EASI), led by Wolfgang Ishinger, Igor Ivanov, and Sam Nunn, proposed in 2012, when the group urged that "the Arctic should be thought of as an auspicious chance to begin building the groundwork for a Euro-Atlantic Security Community."

Now, having failed to heed that advice, Russia, the United States, and Europe are in danger of turning the Arctic into the northern front of Europe's new Cold War. They are not there yet, but the growing furor over military activities in the region, and the ambitious steps Arctic states are taking to beef up their military presence in the area are creating a penumbra darkening the spirit of cooperation counted on to deal with the other items on a very formidable agenda. Much of the attention has focused on Russian actions-the TU-95 'H' bombers testing the defense responses of littoral states, the increased presence of Russian submarines, naval forces, and aircraft in and over Arctic waters. "They're flying in places. . . where they've never flown before," the commander of the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command warned. In turn Russia's Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu talks of a "broad spectrum of potential challenges and threats" to Russian national security in the Arctic. And the vast Russian military exercise stretching from the Arctic to the Black Sea in mid-March directly linked preparations for military conflict on Russia's European border with bolstering Russian defenses in the Arctic.

More portentous, however, is the rapid pace at which military forces are being developed and deployed in the region. Last December Russia created a new Arctic command (the Northern Fleet-Joint Strategic Command) to coordinate its increasingly elaborate military activities there. It has substantially increased the number of marines attached to the Northern Fleet and plans to deploy two new Arctic brigades permanently at reopened Soviet-era bases. The once-closed base on the Novosibirsk Islands now serves ten military ships and four icebreakers; plans are to restore ten Arctic-area airstrips. On the other side, Sweden, the chair of the Nordic Defense Cooperation (NORDEFCO) has pushed to explore the feasibility of assembling a modular-style Nordic-Baltic Battle Group (NBBG) modeled on the European Union's Swedish-led standby Nordic Battle Group (NBG). The reason made explicit by Norwegian Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide is that "2014 has been an eventful year for Nordic defense cooperation", that Russia's actions in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine has changed the European security landscape, with implications also in the Nordic region. And Canada has increased defense spending for armed ships to operate in the Northwest Passage and its part of the Arctic.

Thus, when in 2012 the EASI commission wrote that "avoiding military competition in the Arctic warrants attention now, in the early stages, as many of the Arctic states take military steps to protect their interests in the region," little could its members have imagined how soon what they feared would come about, or how wise but ignored would be their insistence that "these states should consciously focus on ensuring these initiatives contribute to mutual security in the Arctic, not to military rivalry." Alas, having failed to start down this road, military rivalry, and not mutual security appears to be the direction events are taking.

Indeed, for years, members of the Arctic Council, beginning with the United States, refused to allow the Council to take up the issue of military security in the region. Now that this issue has imposed itself on the eight members of the Council, those who want to include it on the agenda are moved less by an expectation that it will serve the aim of building mutual security than by a desire to counter what are seen as threatening (Russian) initiatives. In his press conference after the recent Iqaluit Ministerial, John Kerry confessed that it was "a subject that a number of us have kicked around," but then decided that that it "would complicate" the "consensus . . . built thus far" and, thus, the Council's "overall work."

That may be the most positive thing that happened at the AC ministerial, to the extent that it left members of the Council free to focus on issues where cooperation had been achieved and more might be. Four years ago they had agreed, in legally binding terms, to coordinate search-and-rescue operations over this vast ocean area. Two years ago they did the same to facilitate cooperation on cleanup efforts in the event of an oil spill, a vastly more complicated task in the icy waters of the Arctic, and Kerry suggested that efforts should now be expanded to ensure that catastrophes of this sort do not happen. The creation of an Arctic Economic Council investing the business community and development agencies in a safe and constructive exploitation of the economic opportunities arising as climate change redraws the coastline, an accomplishment that the Canadians can and do take credit for under their chairmanship of the Arctic Council, seems to have general support. And the Canadian emphasis-for good domestic political reasons-on giving voice to indigenous populations over what happens in the Arctic is surely a sensible proposition that also appears to enjoy broad agreement, at least at the rhetorical level.

When looked at from the perspective of how the Arctic fits into the sad larger picture in relations between Russia and the other seven Atlantic Council members, however, all of this rather misses the point. Decoupling what is happening in the Arctic and within the Arctic Council from the new Cold War in Russia-West relations is like seeing the Kremlin afire and worrying about oiling the clock on Spasskaya Tower. Unless those areas where the rudiments of cooperation survive are approached as an antidote, indeed, a counter-current to the dialogue missing in every other dimension of the relationship, cooperation in the Arctic will eventually also become a victim of the larger train wreck.

Kerry said in his address to the Council that the United States intends to make climate change and the Arctic a central theme of the U.S. chairmanship. He called for cooperation in fully implementing the Arctic Council's Framework for Action on Enhanced Black Carbon and Methane Emissions, for members to join Global Ocean Acidification Observer Network to facilitate monitoring of Arctic waters, and for progress in developing a pan-Arctic network of marine protected areas. These are concrete steps that would have a measurable impact on the Arctic region, and, as important, if Russia, the United States and the other five members of the Arctic Council, along with the observer states, advance them together, they would not only be reopening-at least slightly-the curtain on East-West dialogue, they would be demonstrating the ability of Russia and the West to address one of this century's largest global security challenges.

For that to happen, however, both sides will have to rethink aspects of current policy. Cooperation in the Arctic won't come about without effort. Effort will require effective dialogue. Effective dialogue will depend on a readiness to engage with the other side. As long as the United States and its European allies remain committed, as a general matter, to isolating Russia and eschewing dialogue in most areas, they will be deluding themselves if they think efforts to cooperate in the Arctic will go unharmed. At the same time, as long as senior Russian officials responsible for Arctic policy treat the Arctic as "Russia's Mecca," frame the issue as a "battle for resources," and dismiss the concerns of Canada and the Nordic states over Russia's increased military activity in the Far North as "their problem," the likelihood Western states will rethink their policy shrinks.

Which brings us back to the shadow cast by the militarization now underway in the Arctic region. The chance to use the Arctic as a building block in the formation of a Euro-Atlantic security community may be lost for the foreseeable future, but that still leaves the formidable challenge of ensuring that the Arctic does not become a tragic extension of the new Russia-West Cold War.  To guard against that the two sides need to get very serious very soon about containing the military measures all are taking in the region and begin approaching their legitimate defense concerns more as a matter of mutual than national security. To do that, they will have to agree to resume a serious dialogue. Despite the disagreement that it will generate within NATO, the logical place for that dialogue is in the NATO-Russia Council-not the Arctic Council. Given the degree to which Brussels, Moscow, and Washington are dug into their current stony reluctance to engage, restoring the NRC to a genuinely effective role is not soon likely to be anyone's priority. But were all eight Arctic Council members to step back and think hard about the military road they are now on, they may want to rethink a lot of things.

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 #27
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
May 6, 2015
The top five western media commentators on Russia to follow on Twitter
Russia attracts belligerent and polarized opinion like Elizabeth Taylor hauled in husbands. Given the amount of hysterical anti-Kremlin coverage on certain media platforms in recent years, balance is often as hard to find as hen's teeth.
Bryan MacDonald, special to RBTH
[Links here http://rbth.com/opinion/2015/05/06/the_top_five_western_media_commentators_on_russia_to_follow_on_twitte_45773.html]

Two distinct camps, divided by a line that is almost sectarian, means that even those who try to perch on the fence are eventually tarred with the brush of being 'pro-Putin' or a 'regime apologist.' It's sadly reached the stage where unless a commentator or journalist can unequivocally prove their Russophobic credentials, a cloud of suspicion tends to follow them around in certain sections of the American and EU press.

Another problem is the lack of quality in current Russia-focused journalism. A posting to Moscow was once a crowning moment in a foreign correspondent's career, attracting only the very best. Russia's diminished global role from the 1990's gradually brought that to an end and modern economic realities have seen bureau stripped to the bone.
 
True giants

True giants of western journalism once strode the streets of Moscow. Sadly, most of the current crop isn't fit to make tea for their predecessors. Indeed, many had hardly any journalistic experience before assuming their positions. Of course there's still talent working on the Russia beat, but it's much harder to find.

All this makes compiling a relatively neutral list of the top English-language media Russia experts to follow on Twitter about as easy as navigating a minefield. Nevertheless, these are those I feel are the best. I've favoured press over academics because I believe nothing beats practical experience 'in the field.' [RBTH: It should be noted that not all Moscow-based correspondents writing in English are regular or frequent users of Twitter, if at all.]
Russian Market (@russianmarket) - This mysterious Switzerland based blogger has over 136,000 followers. His (for it's definitely a he) irreverent mixture of financial news and advice, combined with plenty of western hack baiting has proved a winning formula. Russian Market tends to mix folksy Russian sayings with serious commentary. He's always willing to defend the motherland on Twitter, without being blinkered.

Old school

Ben Aris (@bneeditor) - Aris is old school. In an era where Moscow correspondents come and go as frequently as the ruble wobbles, Ben's continued presence is almost reassuring. The Business New Europe editor has been largely based in Russia since 1993 and has forgotten more about the country than most analysts will ever know. Aris' Twitter style is conservative and non-combative but his wisdom is essential for all Kremlin watchers. When others get carried away by the latest scandal or government utterance, you can tell that Ben's heard it all before many times over. He also occasionally tweets on central Asia and Ukraine.

Alec Luhn (@asluhn) - Not all of Moscow's current 'hack pack' have surrendered to the 'hive' mentality. Nor are all of them out of their depth. Quietly, but with steely assurance, this American writer has carved a reputation for being a sane voice who genuinely tries to stick to the facts in his reportage. When many of his colleagues were baying for blood during the darkest days of last year's Ukraine crisis, this Guardian reporter simply wrote what he saw and that detachment has stood him in good stead. Alec tweets a mix of news and analysis, sometimes self-penned and often the work of others. A rising star.

Mark Adomanis (@markadomanis) - One of the real challenges in journalism or academia has always been to carve a niche. In an era of 24-hour information overload, that's an even tougher ask. Somehow, this Philadelphia-based analyst has managed it. Writing for Forbes and the Moscow Times, Adomanis specialises in debunking lazy Russia narratives using facts as weapon. A great man for graphs and forensic detail, Mark nails lies on a daily basis. Extremely unpopular with those whose maleficence he exposes and counteracts - especially characters involved in the think-tank racket - Adomanis is proof that a staunch commitment to accuracy can take you a long way. Expect a mixture of statistics and a little bit of dry humor on his Twitter feed.

The Exile

Mark Ames (@markamesexiled) - Mark and his fellow travelers at The Exile are legendary on the Moscow expat scene. While his magazine had a reputation for irreverence and pushing the boundaries of taste, the endless controversy belied the fact that Ames always was a supremely gifted journalist. Now based in the U.S. where he writes for Pando Daily, he continues to keep a close eye on his former home. Ames doesn't tweet exclusively on Russia but when he does it's with authority and disdain for what passes as reporting. Follow Mark and you'll quickly hope he eventually ends his reverse exile and returns full-time to Moscow.

The five top picks were chosen for their balance and their expertise. However, there are many others worth watching. They include Sean Guillory (@seansrussiablog), Dubai-based Yuri Barmin (@yurybarmin) and The Moscow Times' Ivan Nechepurenko (@inechepurenko). Also worth following are the BBC's Will Vernon (@bbcwillvernon), the knowledgeable Anatoly Karlin (@akarlin88) and Open Democracy's young tyro Daniel Kennedy (@danielabkennedy). For a mixture of balance and experience, the Carnegie Foundation's Dmitri Trenin (@dmitritrenin) is hard to beat.

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#28
The Calvert Journal
http://calvertjournal.com
May 2015
90s reloaded
The disintegration of the USSR in 1991 ushered in a decade of extraordinary change and turbulence. The Russian 90s saw the rise of oligarchs and gangsters, an attempted military coup and a financial crisis. But they were also a time of pioneering youth culture: of freedom and opportunity, fun and excess. This special report sets out to recapture the spirit of those wild, lost years
[http://calvertjournal.com/features/show/3929/intro-freedom-excess-Russian-90s-special-project]
 
The Russian 90s began in 1991, when all of a sudden, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. The complete collapse of a system and its ideals created a vacuum that was filled by an avalanche of the new: new things to buy and discover, new music, TV, sexuality and identity. For youth culture, it was a decade for rebels, visionaries and pre-digital innovators: the journey was risky but freedom tasted sweet.

In this project we want to recapture something of the 90s spirit. Influential music critic Artemy Troitsky remembers the drugs, sex and excess of these hazy, chaotic years; we pick out some of the era's defining trends, from fake Adidas trainers to pagers to Bounty bars; and revisit the outrageous pop hits which used to blow away school discos. Through the lens of Alessandro Albert and Paolo Verzone, we look at what Muscovites were wearing in 2001: just after the 90s, but still infused with their style. We also celebrate OM and Ptyuch, the Russian answers to Dazed & Confused and The Face, featuring the first-ever Russian fashion shoots, crazy layouts and daring editorials. Igor Shulinsky, editor of Ptyuch, recalls the first Moscow nightclubs and the blast of creative energy that was unleashed after decades of oppression, loud and unstoppable.

Sandwiched between the Soviet period and the rise of conservatism in the Noughties, the 90s were a special time, dangerous but fun, ruthless but free. We take a ride back in search of this creative freedom.

Text: Anastasiia Fedorova
Curator of the project: Lesya Myata

 

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#29
The Calvert Journal
http://calvertjournal.com
May 2015
90s RELOADED
No limits
What was the cost of a decade of sex, drugs and excess?
By Artemy Troitsky
[Photos and videos here http://calvertjournal.com/features/show/3838]
 
The 80s were divided into two five-year periods, one black, one white. First there were the death throes of Soviet power and of the succession of short-lived General Secretaries that embodied it, played out to the accompaniment of an extraordinary unstoppered carnival of underground art (from Mukhomory to the Necrorealists, from Alexander Bashlachev to Sergei Kuryokhin, from Ilya Kabakov to Pyotr Mamonov). This was followed by the era of perestroika and glasnost, an era of everything for sale - the end of an heroic age. The 80s ended up like a lunar landscape: its heroes dead (Bashlachev, Viktor Tsoy, Mike Naumenko, Kuryokhin, Andrei "Svin" Panov), or - if saleable on the international market - living abroad (Grigory Bruksin, Kabakov, Andrei Roiter); there had been a paradigm shift. I'll explain this shift very briefly: in the USSR, cultural life was led in conditions of (a) all-encompassing censorship, (b) isolation from the ideologically unclean "outside world", (c) the complete absence of a market.

For all its obvious costs, this system gave talented guys a range of secret weapons: a devil-may-care dissident spirit, a distinctive identity, a complete lack of mercenary intent. You could become the idol of millions without going on TV even once; you could create a smash hit while still working stoking a boiler or cleaning the streets; you could experiment without sparing a thought for sales. Perestroika brought an end to censorship and lifted the Iron Curtain a touch, something which had already changed the creative modus operandi and which, in the 90s, led to the introduction of the long-awaited market.

Money, which up till then had, strictly speaking, meant nothing, now meant everything. And the high priests of this cult of cash were the engineers of the 90s: the gangsters and the "New Russians". Both groups were mobsters, really - the latter were just a touch more humane and refined: instead of Adidas trainers and raspberry-red jackets they wore black Calvin Klein jeans. Russia suddenly switched from a position of "everything is forbidden" to "nothing is off limits": one sixth of the world's surface found itself in a state of actual anarchy. The government reacted only to the day-to-day political agenda, and all the rest was just left to its own devices, with the mantra being "grab as much as you can".

In theory, this all sounds fantastic: freedom, a fresh start, "unlimited impossibilities", as one fortune-seeking expat I knew used to say. In practice, however, it all came out a bit twisted. Those survivors of the 80s underground still living in the country (and I was one of them) were busy trying to capitalise on the heroic past; the phrase "If you're so smart/talented, then how come you're so poor?" served as an irrefutable psychological imperative. And the first thing that the new generation of anti-Soviet youth did, once they'd been given carte blanche, was to pile on the pleasure.

And, as often happens, and especially in Russia, everything that could be cheapened and ruined was cheapened and ruined. A classic example of this was raves and "club culture". I was involved with some of the first dance events in Moscow, in the winter of 1991/spring of 1992 (Gagarin Party, Technoir) put on by some beautiful techno-freaks from St Petersburg, headed by Ivan Salmaksov. They were an astounding success and so, the very next moment, the rave movement was co-opted by the criminal Komsomol: they quite simply murdered Salmaksov, and these fashionable neo-futurist parties were instantly reborn as drug-fuelled gangster orgies. Or take "showbusiness": the first attempts at making quality pop music (Natalia Vetlitskaya, Alyona Sviridova, Anzhelika Varum) packaged in stylish videos, fell prey to cunning "producers", and as a result a fairly horrific genre of music known as popsa appeared everywhere. The only alternatives were boring "shitrock" (govnorok) and, Lord have mercy, "Russian chanson" - torment on the airwaves... It's the same story with cinema, design and cultural media - everything was mixed together in a big friendly stew of glamour, cocaine, loose women and criminality.

It was every man for himself, you against the world

I am not, in principle, a self-righteous person and I've got nothing against a cocktail of this sort: let's not forget the Silver Age, another time when things were far from decorous. The problem here is different, however: the decadent free-for-all of Russia at the end of the 20th century, unlike that now century-old cultural revolution, left behind very little that is genuinely talented or properly artistically and intellectually convincing. And there is practically nothing from that time that went on to have any serious resonance outside Russia. One exception might be literature (Viktor Pelevin, Vladimir Sorokin) or, in part, visual art (Vinogradov-Dubossarsky, Oleg Kulik, Boris Mikhailov) - those areas of culture which were largely left untouched by the cash-rich party frenzy of the 90s. All of us, of course, can also recall something else worthwhile from that time: my own favourites include the films of Maxim Pezhemsky and Yufit, the performance art of Vladik Monroe and Pirate TV, the charming holy madness of Vladimir Shinkarev and Dmitry Shagin from Mitki, the art-rock songs of N.O.M. and the rapping of Delfin, the electronic experimentation of Roman Belavkin and the New Composers, the photography of Igor Mukhin... I've probably missed some things out.

The culture crowd of the 90s didn't form any clearly articulated movements or styles; here, as with the gangsters, it was every man for himself, you against the world. Nevertheless, in my opinion this 90s culture - be it mass or "elite", and in both commercial and its artistic hypostases, exhibited certain typical shared characteristics which allow us to define it as a particular phenomenon.

First, the tendency to be flagrantly apolitical. It's surprising, but true: the extraordinarily dramatic social cataclysms of that period - the reforms and the mass impoverishment of the population at the beginning of the decade; a popular uprising in Moscow, with the storming of the Ostankino TV station and the bombardment of the parliament building; the war in Chechnya (!!); the economic crisis and default of 1998 - all that had practically no impact on the cultural production of the time! Suposedly relevant art existed in a parallel dimension from real life. I won't even get into the question of whether this was a thought-through, demonstrative reaction to the engaged art of the 80s or just a genuine case of couldn't-give-a-shit-itism motivated by those standard 90s stimulants - money and charlie.  

Second, the absolute focus on the media. Unlike the underground of the 80s, which didn't have access to the professional press and so created its own homemade, but effective, way of being (samizdat, apartment gigs, word of mouth and other DIY endeavours), in the 90s everything was honed for mass media. If you weren't in the trendy magazines (Ptyuch, OM) or on the fashionable TV shows (Dryoma, Cafe Oblomov), then you basically didn't exist. Lots of interesting musicians of that period - from the crazy art-punk group Chimera to the psycho-bard Venya Drkin - never really took off and were left to rot largely because they didn't fit the infamous "radio format"... Whereas a tonne of glammed-up hacks got all the glory.

The third tendency was parochialism. Here the main ingredient was, of course, wall-to-wall derivative borrowings (with a certain time-lag) from trends in western mass culture. Here you go, Russian Brit Pop, the Russian Tarantino, the Russian "Generation X". The work of those few who made some effort at a unique national identity (Mitki, for instance) harked back exclusively to the stereotypes of the past - things that could evoke feelings of warm nostalgia among their fellow-countrymen (especially in the context of the New Russian free-for-all) - but it left no impression on the outside world. Russia, its doors flung open to the world, could not offer it any new Maleviches, Stravinskys or Eisensteins.

In summing up, I'll risk a paradoxical conclusion: the most important product of the culture of the 90s in Russia, and the only one that deserves any attention, is the Russian 90s themselves - a decade that was, undoubtedly, "crazy" and completely unrepeatable in its disparate unfettered energy... The artefacts of that era will be (in fact already have been) wiped from our memory, like a line of cocaine in the club toilets at Manhattan Express - which has itself already been swept away, along with the Hotel Rossiya. All that will remain are vague memories of raspberry-red jackets, shootouts in nightclubs and Mumiy Troll's 1997 song Run away!. And, of course, Boris Yeltsin, the era's appropriately drunken conductor.

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 #30
New York Times
May 5, 2015
Is It 1937 Yet?
Contributing Op-Ed Writer
By MASHA GESSEN
Masha Gessen is the author of seven books, including, most recently, "The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy."

"How bad are things, really?" This is a question that those of us who write about Russia - or live in Russia, or think about Russia - are asked often, and ask just as frequently. It has its variants: "Is it as bad as it was before perestroika?" "Is Putin as bad as Stalin?" And the rhetorical king of them all: "Is it 1937 yet?" The reference is to the year widely considered the beginning of Stalin's Great Terror, or the most frightening year in Russian memory.

People have different reasons for asking such questions. Non-Russians want to understand the news, put events in context and gauge the accuracy of their own reactions. Russians often ask the questions, of themselves and others, with more urgency. Are things so bad that it's time to drop everything and flee the country? Certainly, if that had been an option in 1937, emigration would have been a wise choice for many people. These days many prominent Russians are leaving - most recently, Ilya V. Ponomarev, the lone member of the Russian Parliament to have voted against the annexation of Crimea, has said that threats drove him to move to the United States months ago. Less-famous Russians are asking if they should also be worried.

Every news event precipitates a new round of questions. Did the murder of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov signal the beginning of a new, more frightening era? Did it communicate something even worse than the murder of the opposition journalist Anna Politkovskaya portended in 2006? How bad are things, really?

The director of a theater in Novosibirsk is fired for staging a Wagner opera that the Orthodox Church finds offensive. Does this mean the country is returning to full-fledged censorship? Is it as bad as it was before perestroika?

A young British academic is discovered in the Nizhny Novgorod region conducting research on early-20th-century Russian revolutionary movements, accused of espionage and deported. A mother of seven is accused of high treason and briefly arrested for spreading a rumor she heard on public transport (the charges have since been dropped). Is this a return to the spy paranoia of the 1930s, '40s and '50s? Is Mr. Putin as bad as Stalin?

A school teacher in the Orlov region is on trial, and facing possible jail time, for writing a poem about Ukraine. The alleged crime was reported by his colleagues, and the poem has been deemed "extremist" by the authorities. Is it 1937 yet?

It's probably natural and even right for any country to measure current events against its own history. The problem with Russia is that its history sets an unconscionably low bar. Hundreds of thousands of people are not being sentenced to death for imaginary crimes today - so, no, it's not 1937, at least not yet. The laws on espionage and high treason read roughly the same as they did during the purges, but seem to have affected no more than a couple of dozen people - so, no, Mr. Putin isn't as bad as Stalin.

There are still some independent media outlets, though they are struggling to survive, and there is no legally mandated censorship in the strictest sense: Government employees do not screen items before they are published or posted on the Internet. There are no food shortages - unless you count the shortage of good cheese due to Russia's economic counter-sanctions against the European Union. And despite the economic downturn, large Russian cities have not lost the luster of prosperity. Some restrictions on foreign travel have been quietly introduced, but most Russians are free to go abroad. So, no, it's not as bad as it was before perestroika.

Frightening and heartbreaking as Mr. Nemtsov's murder was for anyone who opposes Mr. Putin, it likely marks yet another step in a slow descent rather than a fall off the precipice. The last apparently political murder that produced similar feelings of despair and fear was that of Ms. Politkovskaya, and that was more than eight years ago. It is conceivable that years will pass before the next such murder. This awful calculation may be calming for a number of people.

While Mr. Putin has done much to restore the ideological mechanisms of the totalitarian system, Russia is not run by means of total terror. It is, rather, a country that sounds like a totalitarian one when it speaks through its media, or even through most of its citizens, but has not yet squashed all public space and restricted all activity. Russians know - and some Russians actually remember - that things can indeed be much worse. The problem with that knowledge, and with the questions that stem from it, is that it can make life in Russia seem tolerable in comparison. At least until the next firing, trial, deportation or murder happens.

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 #31
RFE/RL
May 06, 2015
Once Known As Preeminent Soviet Scholar, Stephen Cohen Now Seen As Putin Apologist
by Carl Schreck
[Links here http://www.rferl.org/content/stephen-cohen-us-scholar-controversial-putin-apologist/26997584.html]

On a recent Friday evening, the prominent Russia historian Stephen Cohen took the mic before an audience of 3,000 in Toronto to debate Western policy toward Russia in light of the Ukraine conflict.

Over the next 90 minutes, the man renowned for his pioneering scholarship on the Soviet Union accused the West of provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin with NATO expansion, stoking potential war with Moscow, and failing to acknowledge its responsibility for what has happened in Ukraine in the last 15 months.

For those who have followed Cohen's commentary, it was hardly surprising that many of his arguments dovetailed with a narrative pushed by the Kremlin, which portrays its seizure of Crimea as a response to Western meddling in Ukraine.

But toward the end of his debate with two strident Putin critics -- former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and journalist Anne Applebaum -- Cohen delivered a preemptive aside tailored for those who dismiss him as a dupe for the Russian leader.

"I am not pro-Putin," Cohen, a professor emeritus at New York University and Princeton University, told the crowd. "I have no sentimental attachment to Putin whatsoever. He's a subject -- as a historian, to me -- of study."

It was a caveat unlikely to convince critics of Cohen, 76, whose fierce condemnation of the West's role in the Ukraine conflict and more forgiving assessment of the Kremlin's have made him arguably the most divisive American public intellectual commenting on the crisis today.

Widely seen as one of the preeminent scholars in the generation of Sovietologists who rose to prominence in the 1970s, Cohen these days is routinely derided as Putin's "toady" and "useful idiot."

Even respected Russia specialists who, like Cohen, advocate for a U.S.-Russian relationship based on realism say Cohen is essentially defending the Kremlin's agenda in the West.

"There are experts, and I put myself in this group, that understand why Putin did this and what his goals are, but I think most of those people would also not justify them," Angela Stent, director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies at Georgetown University, told The Huffington Post last year. "The difference is what Steve Cohen does is not only understand him, but he says Putin is right."

Cohen concedes that he "has not spent much time detailing the ways in which the Kremlin or Putin or the Russian leadership have contributed" to the conflict in Ukraine, where fighting between government forces and Moscow-backed separatists in the east of the country has killed more than 6,100 people since April 2014.

"When you write or broadcast, you get limited space or time, and you choose what's most important," he told RFE/RL in a recent interview. "And since the analysis and narrative I wanted to present was entirely absent in mainstream America, I focused on that."

Cohen says he has no problem with criticism of his arguments. The accusations of being a Kremlin water carrier, however, clearly irritate him.

"My analysis may have been wrong, but I can only think of one or two people [in the United States] who made an effort to engage me on that level," he said.
"Instead, if I said there are two sides to every story and Russia can't be 100 percent to blame for this crisis, the answer would be: 'Putin is Hitler, and Cohen is a Putin apologist.'"

Patriot Games

Cohen's opinions have indeed put him at odds with a consensus among Western governments, scholars, and political commentators who say Russian interference and aggression clearly unleashed and continue to fuel the conflict in Ukraine.

And while he has said Russia is "involved militarily" in Ukraine and "abetting" separatist forces in eastern Ukraine  -- claims that Moscow continues to deny despite mounting evidence of such involvement -- Cohen said he believes "unwise American policies" bear about 80 percent of the blame for the crisis.

He frames his unyielding criticism of Western policy toward Russia and Ukraine as a matter of patriotic duty.

"Because American national security is so fundamentally involved, I think I and the others who speak out like me are the patriots of American national security, and those who slur us and do not engage the issue seriously are not being patriots of American national security,'" he told RFE/RL.

Cohen has also echoed theories promoted by the Russian government and widely rejected by Western officials and analysts, such as the possibility that a fighter jet may have downed a Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine in July 2014, killing all 298 people on board.

Western officials say evidence suggests the passenger jet was struck by a BUK missile fired from separatist-controlled territory. Cohen said he may have misspoken and that he did not intend to give the impression that he believes a fighter plane shot down the airliner. He leaves open the possibility -- often suggested by Russian media -- that Ukrainian forces were responsible.

"The information that's come out is that in all likelihood it was a BUK," Cohen said. "But in whose hands, we do not know."

Links to Cohen's commentary are regularly disseminated by Russia's diplomatic corps on social media and embraced by state-owned Russian media like the global news network RT, where he is frequently brought on to pillory Washington and Brussels.

Cohen says that he watches the network, which U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has called a "propaganda bullhorn" for the Kremlin, in order "to get the Russian perspective" on world events.

RT has also allotted considerable airtime to conspiracy theorists. Cohen says he tries to avoid segments "where they have me with people whom I consider to be a little batty."

"I don't want to be considered batty," Cohen told RFE/RL. "And sometimes, when you go out with batties, everyone thinks you're batty."

Academic Fallout

Cohen, author of the groundbreaking and definitive biography of Bolshevik revolutionary Nikolai Bukharin, retains many admirers in the academic world, even among those who say he has distorted the events in Ukraine.

In an open letter to Cohen in February, historian Joshua Sanborn accused him of deploying straw men and portraying the ouster of the Kremlin's ally, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014 as primarily the work of "semi-fascist" protesters on Kyiv's Independence Square -- the Maidan -- while giving Yanukovych's riot police a free pass.

"Of course, not all protesters on Maidan were peaceful, but is there really no space to mention that police fired into the crowds, killing many, and that these killings made Yanukovych's further tenure as president deeply problematic, perhaps even impossible?" wrote Sandborn, head of the history department at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania.

Sanborn is among the more than 130 members of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), who signed a letter supporting Cohen in a scandal that erupted over a dissertation prize that was to bear Cohen's name.

Cohen and his wife, the American magazine publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel, pulled their offer of several hundred thousand dollars for the grant after members of the U.S.-based organization objected to having his name attached to the prize.

The ASEEES board has called a "special meeting" to discuss the controversy on May 11 in Pittsburgh and on May 4 published dozens of comments from members on the matter. Most of the published input supported accepting the gift and naming it after Cohen.

"Cohen's 40 years in the field as a scholar and educator should make the organization bend over backwards to avoid any possible implication of rejecting philanthropic gifts because of political statements made in the public domain," wrote Michael David-Fox, a historian of Russia and the Soviet Union at Georgetown University.

A handful of scholars voiced their objections to Cohen's ties to the gift, however.

"Stephen Cohen has been a mouthpiece for a mass murderer and the ASEEES does not have my support if it reverses its earlier decision and allows for the creation of any fellowship in his name," wrote Lynn Lubamersky, an associate professor of history at Boise State University.

Cohen told RFE/RL that depending on the outcome of the May 11 meeting, he may reexamine his association with an existing ASEEES-administered dissertation prize bearing his name and that of his late mentor, historian Robert C. Tucker, that vanden Heuvel's Kat Charitable Foundation has sponsored for a decade.

Sanborn wrote in his open letter that he hopes Cohen's commentary on the Ukraine conflict will move in the direction of "more richness, complexity, and believability."

If this doesn't happen, Sanborn added, "I'll read your pieces with gritted teeth, but my respect for your career will remain."

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 #32
The Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies
http://aseees.org
May 4, 2015
UPDATED: BOARD SOLICITS COMMENTS FOR MEETING RE COHEN-TUCKER FELLOWSHIP MATTER
[Links here http://aseees.org/news-events/aseees-news-feed/comments-board-meeting-cohen-tucker-fellowship]

As a response to the member sign-on letter of Feb 5, 2015 regarding the Stephen F. Cohen-Robert C. Tucker Fellowship matter and in accordance with the ASEEES Bylaws, the ASEEES Board has decided to hold a special meeting of the Board on Monday, May 11 in Pittsburgh (in conjunction with the regular semi-annual meeting of the Executive Committee) in order to discuss the issues raised in the letter.  

We are announcing the special meeting of the Board to the general ASEEES membership and soliciting member comments.  Although we cannot anticipate the outcome of the Board meeting regarding the Cohen-Tucker fellowship proposal (withdrawn by the donors), we plan to release a public statement by the Board that addresses the issues of general concern to the membership.  Members are welcome to communicate their views to the Board using our online form:

Submissions should be brief, civil, and address relevant issues, indicating whether the comment can be made public on the ASEEES website or should be held confidential.  The online submission form will close on Friday, April 24.  The public comments will be posted on the ASEEES website soon after April 24.

Please refrain from lobbying members of the Board individually, as we will not be able to take representations of this kind into account.

If you have questions or concerns about the special meeting or the comment process, please contact Lynda Park, Executive Director.

LINKS (in chronological order):

Stephen F. Cohen's letter to ASEEES regarding the Cohen-Tucker Fellowship Program (Jan. 13)
David Ransel's first sign-on letter to ASEEES regarding the Cohen-Tucker Fellowship Issue (Jan. 23)
New York Times article Scholars at Odds on Ukraine (Jan. 28)
ASEEES Clarification Regarding Cohen-Tucker Fellowship Program Negotiation (Jan. 30)
ASEEES Detailed Clarification Regarding Cohen-Tucker Fellowship Negotiations (Feb. 3)
David Ransel's Second Sign-on letter (Feb. 5)
Public Member Comments (May 4)

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 #33
The Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies
http://aseees.org
May 4, 2015
ASEEES MEMBER COMMENTS ON SIGN-ON LETTER OF FEB. 5, 2015

Members were asked for comment on the Ransel Sign-on Letter of Feb 5 regarding the Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Fellowship matter. Of 77 responses, 51 gave permission to share their comments publicly; their statements are printed here in alphabetical order by the commenter's last name, with only light editing for spelling and format.

Gregory Afinogenov, Harvard University:

ASEEES should do everything in its power to ensure the fellowship comes to fruition. Individual students are free to apply or not to apply if they feel their views are in conflict with Cohen's; individual faculty are free to write recommendations or not. ASEEES is not a political advocacy organization but a group that exists to further the goals of its members. Taking a political stand at the expense of students who have been increasingly under pressure due to cutbacks in research funding is unconscionable. Moreover, it goes without saying that the harms are unevenly distributed, with students from elite universities suffering proportionately less and students at less-highly-ranked programs or who are members of disadvantaged groups suffering proportionately more.

If ASEEES or certain members of its board feel the need to soothe a guilty conscience with respect to Ukraine, I would suggest that a concrete gesture--such as a fellowship fund for scholars displaced by the conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk funded by donations from the membership--would be far more beneficial than an objectively harmful moralistic stance of the sort certain members of the ASEEES board have taken.

Anthony Anemone, The New School:

I urge the board members to accept the gift as originally offered in the names of Tucker and Cohen. And I reject the idea that accepting the gift implies that the Board or membership of the ASEEES endorses any of the specific positions argued by either scholar over the course of long careers. The fear that Cohen's controversial positions on current political issues will split the organization's membership is not, in my opinion, sufficient reason to refuse the gift with his name attached. Indeed, how can the Board be confident that the repercussions of rejecting Cohen's name on the membership will be less serious? Moreover, it reflects extremely poorly on us as intellectuals and scholars dedicated to unbiased scholarship to appear so afraid of minority and unpopular opinions. The damage to ASEEES's reputation may, in the long run, be even greater than the very real effects losing this gift will have on future graduate students.

Marina Antic, University of Pittsburgh:

I completely agree with the sentiment expressed in the letter addressed to the board on Feb 5, 2015.

Without entering into any substantial discussion regarding the political issues involved in the matter, as I believe their substance to be quite irrelevant, the fact that ASEEES a) refuses to take the offered scholarship fund or worse yet b) offers to take the money but refuses to publicly acknowledge the gift and c) considers the latter option a "compromise," all because of a political disagreement with the person who is offering this financial gift, is quite unprofessional and frankly, ridiculous.

The message ASEEES sends with this behavior is that the relative popularity of a scholar's political position is the overwhelming determinant of that scholar's value position in this field. That is to say, contrary to principles of academic freedom on which our entire profession supposedly rests, ASEEES is telling its members that they better watch what they say or they will be shunned by the profession.

Say it ain't so, Joe.

Stephen Blackwell, University of Tennessee:

I agree with all the points raised in the letter. There should be an amendment to the Association's bylaws clarifying that gifts and related naming opportunities will be honored without restrictions, except when the donor is strongly and widely known or believed to be guilty of human- or civil-rights abuses. Presumably some such guidance would create a clear enough line to exclude accepting gifts from or naming them in honor of truly bad actors, while protecting academic freedom and freedom of speech.

In the present case, the only logical approach is to offer the deepest apologies and retract the "November Compromise", as proposed in the letter, and offer to accept with gratitude the gift and naming if they are renewed. If people must resign from the board in protest, that is their free-speech prerogative.

Robert Blobaum, West Virginia University:

I agree with the sentiments expressed in the Ransel letter.

Martha Bohachevsky Chomiak, Retired academic and administrator:

On the basis of my experience in government and in private funding agencies, the Board acted properly in making certain that the organization operated in line with its own guidelines. When it became apparent that the existing guidelines did not cover the case in point, i.e. the scholarships being offered, the decision was taken not to draft specific guidelines on accepting monetary donations for programs, but to draft a comprehensive document. That document is under consideration by the Board.

It is a pity that the donors chose to both personify and politicize the issue.

My thanks to the Board for a comprehensive presentation of the case and for working to develop a platform that could be used in the future.

Jeffrey Brooks, Johns Hopkins University:

I support the board's earlier decision.

Elizabeth Clark, West Texas A&M University:

First, I have long been an admirer of Professor Cohen and Professor Tucker's work. Their books shaped my understanding of more than Russia, not just of that place, but of society, of humanity. I would be proud to send a graduate student into a competition bearing their names. Next, I believe that those who serve our on boards and committees do so for love of the discipline, of the region, and that they have, for the most part, the best of intentions. I grieve the choices, however, which led to dispute. I grieve that open discussion, so essential to academic life and to the importance of civil society we have witnessed in our lifetimes. I hope we can learn from this experience and be humble in asking for reconciliation, for the good of graduate students and the future of our profession.

David Cooper, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign:

For me, the Board's explanation is satisfactory. The Board seems to have acted in good faith and stewardship of the organization and to have tried hard not to offend, but rather to work with a scholar/donor whose work has been deliberately controversial. But this was a situation in which the Board could do no right, because the donor seems to have wanted this controversy as well. Far from the Board insulting the donor and making an example of him, it is the donor who has sought to make an example of himself, by leveling ridiculous charges at the Board and seeking to implicate it in a manufactured controversy. The reaction of the donor makes it very clear that he did not have the overall good of the organization and its members in mind--there is nothing charitable in his actions. In my opinion, the Board should do no more than to offer once again to give the would-be donor the opportunity to make good on the professed charitable intention, but to make it clear that for the organization to accept that charity, the terms will have to be agreeable to the Board according to its procedures, which cannot be forced by media or letter writing campaigns. The great team of scholars that makes up the board has my full trust and support in its leadership of the organization.

Michael David-Fox, Georgetown University:

I currently serve as chair of the Tucker-Cohen Dissertation Prize fellowship. Although the process by which the current, in my view lamentable situation occurred has hardly been completely transparent, I have familiarized myself at great length with what has been in the public domain. I strongly believe the following:

1. Any hint of philanthropic gifts from an ASEEES member, scholar, educator, and longstanding supporter of ASEEES (as Cohen is) being turned down on the basis of the donor's political views represents a profound, historic stain on our organization. It is also a professional embarrassment for ASEEES that will, if not rectified, create lasting splits in the organization and hence damage to our field. To be sure, ASEEES would be justified in rejecting gifts from a Holocaust denier, a racist, etc. Cohen's 40 years in the field as a scholar and educator should make the organization bend over backwards to avoid any possible implication of rejecting philanthropic gifts because of political statements made in the public domain.

2. The gift is very sorely needed by our field. One would also not want to accept "dirty money" from corrupt or dubious source, but here this is not all the case.

3. Both the above two issues are more important than the procedural ones that the ASEEES leadership has cited. Proper procedure is important, but it is not as important as ethical imperative and principle. In following what turned out to be a disastrous procedural course, the previous ASEEES leadership may have well been acting in the best of faith, although again events and motivations have been very far from transparent to the membership. However, I also believe that the emphasis on procedure over principal represented a very serious failure of leadership on the part of ASEEES.

This is our organization's chance to make things right, to correct previous mistakes, and to avoid the implication that it wittingly or unwittingly put politicization over professional ethics.

Donald E. Davis, professor emeritus, Illinois State University:

Dear Association: I wrote the Association earlier about this matter, and I am pleased that the board will meet again to reconsider it. I had almost lost faith in the Association's sense of fair play. So this is a refreshing new development.

Chester Dunning, Texas A&M University:

I do not approve of our professional association's decisions regarding Professor Stephen Cohen and his generous offer to provide research fellowships to graduate students. I love Steve Cohen's biography of Bukharin, and I have always found him to be a thoughtful, pro-Russian talking head on TV. What gives the current executives of our organization (that I joined in 1977) the right to pass judgment on the views of one of its most illustrious members? What was the hurry? Why not consult the rank-and-file members? During the Cold War we faced numerous requests to politicize our organization in order to carry the torch for various scholars at odds with (or oppressed by) Soviet-bloc governments. We generally resisted the urge to politicize ourselves in the moment in order to be relevant and useful in the long run. I did not know about this issue until I was contacted by ASEEES. I then made an effort to read what Prof. Cohen wrote about the conflict in E. Ukraine. I do not agree with everything he said (although he told some unhappy truths about participants in the new government in Kiev), and I think he romanticizes the Russian perspective. But I cherish his considered opinions and want them to be in the mix of clashing ideas that lead us to deeper understanding of Russia and Russian culture. We need him to balance against hysterically pro-Ukrainian voices that try to deny the inconvenient past. I do not want my professional association choosing sides between Slavic states and cultures. I want it to enhance the study of those societies. Please consider depoliticizing ASEEES.

Beatrice Farnsworth, Emeritus Professor of History, Wells College:

May I add my voice in a strong endorsement of Professor David Ransel's letters in support of the Stephen F. Cohen and Robert C. Tucker Dissertation Fellowship Program. Clearly, the effort to change the title of the proposed gift by eliminating Stephen Cohen's name, was based on unseemly, political considerations by members of ASEES, an organization which is supposedly devoted to free public discourse. In addition to slighting free speech and academic freedom, the effort to drop Stephen Cohen's name shows a shocking lack of respect for a senior colleague's long years of important contributions to the field of Soviet Studies.

Arch Getty, UCLA:

ASEEES' actions in this matter amounted to embarrassing political intervention in a matter that should have been a cause for celebration and gratitude in the current climate of fellowship funding cuts. The only acceptable action at this point is to accept the original KAT offer with thanks and apologies and with the proviso that ASEEES should oversee selection of fellowship candidates.

Zvi Gitelman, University of Michigan:

I am persuaded by Stephen F. Cohen's letter. I may disagree with his position on the Russia-Ukraine crisis, but for open-minded people it is important to hear even unpopular viewpoints. In their paroxysms of political correctness, some "scholars" put ideology ahead of information, thinking and reasoned judgment. I have the sense that this has become a norm in several fields, now more ideological than scholarly. I did not think this would happen in ours, but I have the sense this might well be the case here. To deprive people of badly-needed financial assistance because one disagrees with a particular position of the donor is unconscionable. It is not as if Prof. Cohen has committed a crime, or has attached unreasonable (or any) conditions to his and his wife's most generous gift. As a member of ASEEES since about 1964, I am appalled that the Board has acted as it has.

Jon Giullian, U Kansas:

I don't know why the board is making such a big deal out of this. Everyone is entitled to their own personal views. Stephen Cohen has every right to have his own views. ASEEES should have been happy to have Cohen's gift. There's nothing wrong with his name being attached to it.

Nina Gurianova, Northwestern University:

I am in complete agreement with the member sign-on letter of February 5.

First, on the part of the ASEEES Board this is a very disturbing precedent of self-censorship and attempt to limit freedom of speech and academic debate, which reminds me a lot of the intellectual atmosphere of the last two "decades of decay" of the former Soviet Empire. American Academy used to be - and I hope still is - about tolerance and well-articulated debate, not about hushing anybody who disagrees with you. Anybody is free to argue with Professor Cohen's political stance, but without personal abuse: he is a talented and outstanding scholar, who did a lot for the field, and should be treated accordingly. By the way, as Stephen Cohen wittily noted in his own letter, there is another fellowship under Tucker/Cohen name which was established earlier and is still active. This fact makes the whole pathos of rejecting new funding an apotheosis of absurdity.

Second, I believe that ASEEES members who pay quite substantial membership/conference fees not only deserve more clarity and transparency from the ASEEES Board procedures, but also since now on must have a voice (opinion poll, maybe? cost nothing to run it online now days) in such important decisions as rejecting major gifts which will determine the future of our field, the future of graduate studies.

I have decided to withdraw my membership unless these issues will be resolved according to the best principles of democracy, and academic ethics in all fairness and transparency at the May 11 meeting.

Larry Holmes, University of South Alabama:

Please accept the Cohen-Tucker fellowship offer in its original form. The offer should not have been politicized.

A Ross Johnson, The Wilson Center:

I endorse the views expressed in the member sign-on letter dated February 5 and urge the ASEEES Board to act accordingly.

Eric Johnson, University of Washington:

This is admittedly a self-interested comment. But for graduate students trying to study the Slavic world, and eventually find employment in that line, it is all to common to feel a pawn to to political, institutional, economic and personal conflicts outside one's control. I was dismayed to find this occurring even within the confines of ASEEES. Perhaps next time other sacrificial lambs can be identified.

Shoshana Keller, Hamilton College:

I sharply disagree with Stephen Cohen's views on Ukraine and on Putin's policies. However, he is a respected scholar and a long-time member of ASEEES, and he is generously offering help to graduate students at a time when we can only expect bad news from the traditional funding sources. I think it was foolish of ASEEES to turn down his offer, and I am disappointed that the executive board has not given us a full account of its decision. The impression I get is that some unnamed board members were afraid that there might be some kind of political backlash from equally unnamed sources. That is not a good reason to turn down Cohen's offer. I hope that the board will reverse its decision and give the membership a complete explanation of what's been going on.

Michael Khodarkovsky, Loyola University Chicago:

I believe that the Board acted correctly and in accordance with the Association's rules. If Mr. Cohen wishes to give money with no strings attached, he is welcome to do it. If he and his wife insist on exercising some control over the selection process or any other aspect of the Fellowships, they should set up their own foundation.

Nathaniel Knight, Seton Hall University:

I support the position taken by the board. I think board members were well within their rights to ask for a full discussion of the proposed fellowship before giving final approval. It is unfortunate that Professor Cohen and his wife took offense at this request and withdrew their offer. I also believe that removing Cohen's name from the fellowship was not an unreasonable proposal. Leaving aside all questions of Cohen's political views, I am uncomfortable with the principle that any living and active scholar can arrange for an honorary fellowship in his or her own name. This is not the same as a situation in which a wealthy donor might attain "naming rights" by making a sizable gift to an artistic or educational institution. When David Koch gives money to the opera, no one expects him to get up on stage and sing an aria. An named fellowship or award with a learned society is understood to stand as recognition of a lifelong record of exemplary contributions to the field. I make no judgment as to whether Professor Cohen is worthy of such recognition. The question is -- who decides? ASEEES does, in fact, have a lifetime achievement award that bestows recognition on outstanding senior scholars through a rigorous vetting process. I am uncomfortable with the notion that a scholar could bypass this vetting process and procure scholarly recognition for himself by delivering a substantial financial gift. The established practice is to create named awards and fellowship in remembrance of deceased colleagues whose scholarship and teaching has shaped the field. I believe this is a wise practice and should continue, and I would support a proposal that ASEEES establish this as a general policy across the board: named fellowship and awards should be granted posthumously to outstanding scholars in recognition of their lifelong contributions. Given the long list of eminent colleagues who have passed away in recent years, there should be no shortage of worthy candidates.

Eve Levin, University of Kansas:

I would like for the Board to inform Prof. Cohen and his wife that it regrets its previous ungracious handling of their generous offer of fellowships for graduate students. And that they would gratefully accept the funding for fellowships should it be extended again. From my perspective, it is certainly appropriate that the fellowship program should bear the name of the donor. Although some of Stephen Cohen's views have been controversial, so were the views of Robert Tucker--and, indeed, the views of nearly any of us who are members of ASEEES. Acceptance of funding does not connote endorsement of specific opinions that the donor had voiced; if it did, ASEEES would need to reject donations from all of us! Any person who would be mortified to receive a fellowship named for Stephen Cohen need not apply for one. As for the policy on gifts, it is a good idea to have one, so that this sort of situation does not arise in the future. I understand that the Board would like the policy to include an escape clause, so that it would be free to reject a gift from a scandalous source. But inclusion of such a clause could lead to a repetition of the current situation. Perhaps the policy could differentiate between donations from members, which would be accepted, and donations from outsiders (individuals or corporations) which would be subject to Board approval.

Lynn Lubamersky, Boise State University:

I support the Board in their decision not to go forward with the fellowship. If the donors wished to give a scholarship in the name of Robert Tucker, that would have been great and no one would have questioned the decision to accept the funds. But it is egotistical and megalomaniacal to fund a fellowship in your own name while you are still alive and to dictate very strict terms for how the monies should be used. And finally, the ASEEES would be degrading the organization if it allowed for the creation of a Stephen Cohen fellowship. The title of the March 14, 2015 New York Magazine cover story says it all: "The Pathetic Lives of Putin's American Dupes." Stephen Cohen has been a mouthpiece for a mass murderer and the ASEEES does not have my support if it reverses its earlier decision and allows for the creation of any fellowship in his name.

Laurie Manchester, Arizona State University:

I urge the Board to gratefully accept the KAT Foundation's fellowship program in its original form, if the offer is renewed. To clarify, since the terms of this fellowship changed several times during negotiations, Stephen Cohen's name should be kept in the fellowship's title, but he will not play any role in the selection of recipients or members of the selection committee. I also urge the board to strike the vague new policy regarding not accepting gifts from persons or organizations that might harm ASEEES's reputation, or at the very least, to put that policy to a vote by the general membership.

Ellen Mickiewicz, Duke University:

As past president of ASEEES (when it was AAASS) and a former Graduate School Dean, I understand the importance to the association and its members, as well as to the prospective donors, of the gift proposal. I support the letter of David Ransel and his co-signers and add the following observations:

AAASS was formed in the highly contentious politicized environment of the Cold War. It is a testament to its judicious founders and shared good will of its members, that throughout these years, so many areas of research were discussed and points of view, presented. Given, this history, it is illogical to designate 2014 and this gift proposal as causing politicized division among an unnamed "few" at the Board meeting. That is quite insufficient as a reason for refusing this gift proposal or, indeed, coming to a decision of any kind. We have always been a big tent for the most contested approaches to politics and research. We owe it to our history and our purpose to continue that tradition-if we are to survive.

In the ASEEES perusal of two gift policy templates, one of the most important-perhaps the only important policy issue-has been ignored. It is considered inappropriate in all policies with which I am familiar for the donor to have a voice in the selection of the awardee(s). Yale University returned to the Bass family their very large donation, because the donor had included his right to affect selection of the candidate. I have dealt with many gifts and understand the practice to be the following: that the donor and the selection be separated, but as a matter of courtesy-and courtesy only-the university keeps the donor apprised of the progress of the program (e.g. number of candidates, special events scheduled for them, etc.) The donor may, in some cases, be given access to the short list in a competition, but may not register preference. This central point should be addressed in any policy on donations and gifts.

A policy on gifts is needed and may operate with respect to future gifts, but the organization's failure to have developed a policy is punitive when hastily and without due procedure, that absence of policy is used to deny, delay, or otherwise symbolically denigrate an offer of a gift. I believe that the ASEEES is virtually unique in its collaborative mode of inclusiveness across disciplines and cultures and over the course of decades of political turmoil. It is the good of the whole that has kept the membership and its officers determined to make it last.

Peter Milich, Independent Scholar:

I think the board got it right the first time round. Let's go back to the status quo ante so to speak, assuming that option is still on the table as a means of resolving this impasse. In other words, accept the money and allow Professor Cohen to call it whatever he wants--after all he's earned it. I understand some members insist this solution is a violation of the bylaws but in my opinion this is simply a foil to punish Cohen he stands up for US-Russia relations. The board should have made discreet changes to the bylaws after the fact so as not to offend Professor Cohen or a future benefactor. After all, one should never look a gift horse in a mouth.

David B. Miller, Prof emeritus, Roosevelt University:

The ASEEES should accept the generous offer of Cohen/Tucker fellowships, if the sponsor can be persuaded to again make them available. Their utility is obvious. The ASEEES's tergiversation regarding the offer was shameful. To be swayed by unnamed (and named) opinion makers to turn them down because of Cohen's views on the Ukrainian situation, and maybe about other things, does not do us proud. This time get it right and hope the offer is still available.

Martin A. Miller, Duke University:

As an original signer of the letter requesting the Board to reinstate the award in the name of Cohen, I restate that request here. I find the recent objections using obviously political names to be entirely irrelevant to this matter.

Marianna Muravyeva, Oxford Brookes University:

I have been surprised with the whole affair around Prof. Cohen's generous donation to help with dissertation fellowships. Having read everything available on ASEEES webpages and other sources, I have arrived to the conclusion that the motivation in delays with acceptance the prize has been purely political in a sense, that those individuals who disagreed with Cohen could not tolerate his name in the fellowship's title while not generally objecting to the donation itself. This is, of course, a disgrace. I have also been surprised with the clarifications given by the Board and lame attempts to cite procedure and the absence of Gift policies: why has this issue not been raised before in connection with other prizes and fellowships? I do not support Cohen's views and disagree with his assessment of the situation (I think it's quite naive); however, every person has a right to express their opinion on matters important to their consciousness or politics. In the academic community we are supposed to respect our opponent's opinions and try to find a way to understand and reflect on it, otherwise, any sound research or academic work is not possible. As far as I could see, Cohen and the KAT foundation have not required any political control over the fellowships or have not provided any clauses saying that only those supporting Putin can have a fellowship. Their money do not seem to be dirty: they do not come from laundering, they have not been stolen, Prof. Cohen has not been abusing human rights, committing genocide or terrorism or other crimes. I do not see any objection to why his name (which is a common policy for many prizes to name them after the donors) cannot figure in the prize's title. Those students, who will find it difficult or disagreeable with their political opinions, do not have to apply for this money. But to shame Prof. Cohen whose scholarship is sound and who has every right to be recognized by the academic community as a fellow scholar and count on its respect, is not what ASEEES should be doing. Till this moment I have never had any doubts about the integrity of the Board, but now I have a feeling that some board members push their political agenda at the expense of academic solidarity, respect and integrity expecting everybody to scold Cohen just because he says that Putin's opinion shall be heard. This is a clear case of censorship and we cannot allow that to happen. Coming from the country, which is currently censoring any political and academic dialogue and opinions, I cannot accept the same policy from the organisation which prides itself on respect to the academic freedom. If someone does not like Cohen, they shall face him in an open discussion and explain soundly why he is wrong (or why Putin's opinion shall not be heard), but not censor him by denying his name on the prize. Moreover, if the Board proceeds with not accepting the donation for obvious reasons (reputation damage?), then it has to be very clear as to why it cannot accept money from those who have a different opinion on certain aspects of intentional relations or, indeed, why the opinions of authoritarian leaders shall not be made known. This is an important methodological question and I would love to hear a substantiated argument on that.

Eric Naiman, UC Berkeley:

Neither the political nor professional views of a potential donor should never be a factor in deciding whether to accept a gift. This is especially true if those views concern matters studied by our discipline. From what I understand, the board's decision was motivated partially by the donor's political and professional views. To the extent that this is true, the board (through its president) should apologize to the donors and to the entire membership.

I wish to add, however, that I do not think donors should have any power to choose the members of a selection committee that will administer the awarding of fellowships. If that string is attached, the board should decline the gift, no matter who the donor is.

Benjamin Nathans, University of Pennsylvania:

I consider it in the overwhelming interest of our profession, and especially of future cohorts of graduate students, that the generous gift proposed by Prof. Cohen and Ms. vanden Heuvel be accepted and put to use as intended. I see no legitimate reason for anyone ever to have proposed that Prof. Cohen's name be disassociated from the gift, nor have I heard any such reason offered. The necessary conditions have been met to insure that the planned fellowship will be insulated from political or other undue influence, and therefore I urge the ASEEES Board to do whatever it can to realize this exceptional opportunity.

Don Ostrowski, Harvard University:

I fully support naming the fellowship the Stephen F. Cohen-Robert C. Tucker fellowship and do not see any legitimate reason for not doing so. As I understand it, Professor Cohen was told that ASEEES will accept his money but that it refuses to put his name on the fellowship. I don't think the Board quite understands how reprehensible that sounds. Professor Cohen is one of the finest scholars in our field, and I really don't see the need to insult him. To do so after he offers to make such a generous donation to help students working on their dissertations seems to me to be extraordinarily inappropriate behavior.

Alexander Rabinowitch, Indiana University:

I write as a strong supporter of David Ransel's sign-on letter of February 5 and one of its many signers. I also write as an active member of AAASS/ASEEES for all of my professional life and as chair of the selection committee formed by ASEEES last July to help define application procedures for the Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Fellowship Program and to select its first group of fellows. I believed then, and remain convinced, that the aid the program would provide for graduate students in Russian history is vital to our field.

On September 10, when the work of our committee was well underway and the new program was nearly set to be announced publicly, it was suddenly cancelled pending a full review by the entire ASEEES Board in November. Profoundly shocked by this development, on September 25 I sent a letter to the ASEEES Executive Committee and Board, cosigned by the other members of the selection committee--Professors Katerina Clark (Yale) and Richard Wortman (Columbia)--expressing disappointment at this turn of events and urging that the Board's review in November culminate in a decision to ask the KAT Foundation to reconsider funding a dissertation fellowship program along the lines previously agreed on. Our letter stressed the cardinal importance of the fact that both AAASS and ASEEES have always been rich, critically important forums for the free exchange and discussion of widely differing views and perspectives among among experts on highly controversial, emotionally charged issues. Professor Cohen, it should be noted, is an internationally known expert on Soviet/Russian history and politics. However, I received no indication that our appeal was considered by the Board. Rather, the Board agreed to accept the program on the condition that it would not bear Cohen's name.

I am grateful that the ASEEES leadership has offered this opportunity to comment publicly on the question of a dissertation fellowship program bearing Cohen's name and that of the late Robert C. Tucker, also a leading scholar of Russian affairs and a former mentor of Cohen's. As expressed in the selection committee's letter of September 25 and Professor Ransel's sign-on letter of February 5, I want to stress my concern about the possibility that political considerations, namely Cohen's well-known dissent from mainstream views about responsibility for the Ukrainian crisis, may have influenced decision making on the naming of the new dissertation fellowship program. Therefore, I again urge most strongly that at its May meeting, the ASEEES Board resolve to ask the KAT Foundation to reconsider funding the Cohen-Tucker Fellowship Program in its original form with the understanding that if the offer is renewed, it will be accepted.

Janet Rabinowitch, Indiana University:

Thank you for giving ASEEES members an opportunity to comment ahead of the Board's special meeting on May 11 on the Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Fellowship program that was offered to ASEEES by the KAT Foundation, accepted by the ASEEES Executive Committee, and then put on hold because some Board members raised objections after the contract that ASEEES prepared was signed by the KAT Foundation.

I write to urge in the strongest terms that the ASEEES Board vote to accept the Stephen F. Cohen-Robert C. Tucker Dissertation Fellowship program as named and that the Board gratefully accept the KAT Foundation's generous offer if it is reinstated following a positive vote. Acceptance and implementation of the Fellowship Program advances a key priority of ASEEES as stated in the gift policy adopted at the November Board meeting: "offering financial support for conducting and sharing research." Indeed, the Executive Committee, in its Detailed Clarification of February 3, confirmed its "trust that in due course it will be possible to institute a dissertation fellowships program of the kind proposed in August 2014." The Cohen-Tucker Fellowship program, if accepted by the Board and reinstated by the donors, presents such an opportunity to support one important segment of the field: Russian historical studies. That the program honors two distinguished scholars, also recognized by the ASEEES Cohen-Tucker dissertation prize, fittingly enhances the fellowships' prestige.

In addition, I urge that the Board's discussion be reported candidly and publicly to the ASEEES membership. While it may not be appropriate to identify who said what, it is critical to the trust of the membership in its leadership that it be made aware of what issues were discussed, what views were expressed, what motions were made and voted upon, and the results of the voting.

Donald J. Raleigh, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill:

By appending my name to the two missives authored by David Ransel, I have already made my position on this issue clear. I urge the Board of Directors to reject the compromise proposal and to accept the Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Fellowship gift as named. As someone who trains a large number of graduate students, I also urge the Board to do everything possible to assure the KAT Foundation that, if its generous fellowship offer is renewed, the board will gratefully accept it with the original title.

Henry Reichman, California State University, East Bay (and AAUP):

As a signatory of the letter, I fully endorse its contents and -- in the strongest possible terms -- urge the ASEEES board to reverse its previous stance on this issue, to apologize to Stephen Cohen and Katrina Vanden Heuvel, and to invite them to resubmit their generous offer, with a promise that if they do it shall be accepted. As the Chair of AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, I am deeply concerned that while the Association's response has not technically violated any AAUP policies, its spirit runs counter to the principles that AAUP -- and ASEEES -- have endorsed. While I can certainly think of donations that might come with unacceptable conditions (surely the Association would reject a Stalin-Molotov award, even if there were no other conditions attached to it), but as a general principle so long as donors do not seek to impose ideological or political conditions on the use of their donations, they should be permitted to attach whatever name they wish to any awards they seek to fund. Stephen Cohen and his wife have generously offered to fund a vital program. Cohen himself is a distinguished scholar in our field and long-time member of our association. If members of the board or others disagree with some of his views, they are, as always, free to do so in print, at our conventions, or anywhere they see fit. But such disagreements cannot justify the kind of stance the board has taken. If this shameful decision is not reversed and an apology made to Cohen and Vanden Heuvel, I will need to seriously reconsider whether ASEEES is still the sort of neutral scholarly organization that I wish to participate in.

Alfred J. Rieber, Central European University:

The long explanation by the board of its decision not to accept the Cohen-Tucker fellowship proposal relies on procedural arguments that, unfortunately, obscure the real issue which is political. I support the view expressed by many of my colleagues that the only way forward is to accept the original proposal with the proviso,already agreed upon to by Professor Cohen, that the selection committee be appointed without the participation of the donors. Any further delay will impinge heavily on the quality of doctoral training of historians of Russia and the Soviet Union in the U.S.at a critical moment for the profession. Having participated from the beginning in the campaign to reverse the decision of the executive committee and gaining no satisfaction up to this point, I have decided not to renew my fifty year long membership in the ASEEES as a sign of my disappointment with the current policies of the organization.

Deirdre Ruscitti, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign:

Like Dr. Ransel and the other signatories on the letter, I was troubled by the initial lack of transparency in handling this issue. As a grad student who knows firsthand the difficulty of securing funding for research at a time when budgets are being slashed, I did not appreciate having the board speak for me by asking Dr. Cohen to remove his name without any discussion among ASEEES members. While Dr. Cohen's positions are worthy of debate--I have my own disagreements with what he is said--to essentially marginalize him for his status as a controversial public intellectual is a harmful precedent. (Indeed, we should encourage more of our members to engage in wider, public conversations!) The "compromise" position of ASEEES hurts grad students and has a chilling affect on public discourse within our profession. I strongly urge the board to reverse its decision. Thank you for your time.

Peter Rutland, Wesleyan:

I support the Ransel letter and urge the board to try to reinstate the fellowship program.

Walter Sawatsky, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary:

Given the decades of scholarly focus on the slavic world, where I thought the AAASS & successor sought to model open transparent dialogue on controversial issues, I cannot imagine why a board, however constituted, would not make public, nor exercise some form of censorship on membership contributions. It is the dialogue, and open style of it, that matters, including professional reliance on accuracy of sources.

Brandon Schechter, UC Berkeley:

Graduate students need support to make up for lost federal funding. Period. As long as the people funding the research have no input in what topics are explored, I don't think it matters what the prize is called. To be frank, as a graduate student, I am deeply concerned that established scholars are putting their comfort and politics above the material well being of scholars who are attempting to establish themselves in an increasingly unforgiving academic system (by which I mean more general trends in higher education, such as the decline of tenure and federal funding). I appreciate that the board has difficult decisions to make, but urge them to put the future of our field first.

Lewis Siegelbaum, Michigan State University:

Both common decency and good policy dictate that the ASEEES Board issue an explicit apology to Stephen F. Cohen for the earlier insult couched as a "compromise" and further seek to repair the damage by accepting his initial offer of fellowships funded by the KAT Foundation, with the sole proviso that ASEEES control the process by which recipients of the fellowships are chosen.

Rudra Sil, University of Pennsylvania:

I am pleased to see that the ASEEES Board has opted to hold a special meeting in May. But this will be for naught if the meeting does not result in some sort of plan to solicit and accept anew the original gift offered by Stephen Cohen and Katrina vanden Heuvel. It is understandable that ASEEES would want to have a gift acceptance policy, and I am willing to believe that the policy adopted is motivated by broader concerns than those raised by the Cohen-Tucker fellowship. However, the policy should not be applied in a way that could be interpreted as favoring one opinion on current politics over another. Conflicts in our regions will likely recur, and respectable scholars and donors will find themselves on opposite sides of whatever debates ensue. It would be terrible mistake if the Board were to view a particular donor's opinions as intrinsically harmful to ASEEES's mission or reputation. That would make every gift acceptance decision an implicit endorsement or rejection of an opinion, and this would do far more harm (probably irreparable) to ASEEES than acceptance of any one named gift could possibly do.

Yuri Slezkine, University of California Berkeley:

I urge the Board to apologize to the donors and gratefully accept the gift, if possible.

Theodore Taranovski, University of Puget Sound, emeritus professor of history:

I agree with the sentiments expressed by Prof. Ransel and the cosigners of his letter (and you may add my name to their list). I have never been a fan of Prof. Cohen and his spouse, but I think that ASEEES is, indeed, engaging in a form of intellectual censorship for political reasons that is both unseemly and unfortunate. There is also the adage of not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Slavic studies need all the help that they can get and so long as there are no disqualifying conditions attached to the gift, the Association should accept it and be grateful.

William Mills Todd III, Harvard University:

I strongly support the position of the "member sign-on letter of Feb. 5, 2015" and hope that ASEEES will accept this contribution to scholarship in the field, preserving the names "Cohen" and "Tucker," two teacher-scholars who have made many distinguished contributions to our field.

Lynne Viola, University of Toronto:

I urge you to attempt to bring Stephen Cohen and Katerina Van den Heuvel back to the table with their generous offer of support of our graduate students. Stephen Cohen is the author of one of the all time classics of our field, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution. I should think any graduate student would be proud to hold a fellowship in his name. I also urge full transparency on this issue for the sake of the association and indeed of the profession. And I wish you well.

Richard Wortman, Columbia University:

I believe the Committee and Board operated properly within what were rather vague parameters for grant acceptance. However, I think that this evades the major issue--that Stephen Cohen's proposal, which had no political content, was rejected because of his political views. It is therefore not a question of freedom of speech, but rather one of taking into account his political views, which I do not share, but which have nothing to do purposes of the fellowships, which are purely academic. When asked, Cohen withdrew the proposed Selection Committee, of which I was a member, and I think the request and the response were both completely appropriate. I think the original proposal should be resubmitted to the Board, and a vote taken. If the vote is against acceptance, the numbers pro and contra should be reported, and a report issued giving the substantive reasons for the rejection, in other words the ASEEES should make explicit the academic reasons for the rejection and not take cover under procedural intricacies which will not be clarified for a long while. As a very long term member of the association, I feel, like others who wish its continued survival, that such matters should not be decided by a politically ardent minority bent on assailing their enemy.

Myroslava Znayenko, Rutgers University:

I do not support the Cohen Fellowship. Named Fellowship are established to honor the work of critically acclaimed personalities, who are deceased, and who have made a pathbreaking contribution to scholarship or humanitarians advances. He is neither one, nor the other, nor the third. They are certainly never made aggrandizement with personal funds.

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