Stratfor report

These guys dig Russia. Or so it seems at the first glance.

The Financial Crisis and the Six Pillars of Russian Strength.

I've always been a bit skeptical about all those "objective" circumstances which supposedly define political, economical and cultural life of a country. Otherwise, the analysis is interesting.

While Russia’s financial sector may be getting torn apart, the state does not really count on that sector for domestic cohesion or stability, or for projecting power abroad. Russia knows it lacks a good track record financially, so it depends on — and has shored up where it can — six other pillars to maintain its (self-proclaimed) place as a major international player. The current financial crisis would crush the last five pillars for any other state, but in Russia, it has only served to strengthen these bases. Over the past few years, there was a certain window of opportunity for Russia to resurge while Washington was preoccupied with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This window has been kept open longer by the West’s lack of worry over the Russian resurgence given the financial crisis. But others closer to the Russian border understand that Moscow has many tools more potent than finance with which to continue reasserting itself.

March 11 in Russian history. Armed neutrality. Barsov's grammar

1780

(28 February Old Style)

In 1775, when British colonies in America began their war for independence, France and Spain supported the separatists and Great Britain had to look for allies. In June 1775, King George III asked Russian empress Catherine the Great to send troops to America to suppress the rebellion. For Russia, free trade was way more important than the alliance with the old rival, who attempted to blockade Spanish and French ports. American privateers also interfered with Russian-English sea trade, but the losses they caused were tiny compared with the consequences of the British blockade. Catherine II refused to join the war against American separatists. Instead, in 1780, she launched an international campaign for free maritime trade. From Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy:

[Empress Catherine II of Russia] under pressure from Great Britain on the one hand to enter an alliance and from the northern powers on the other to help protect their neutrality, found her own shipping becoming more subject to interference from the belligerents. The result was the declaration of 1780, identifying the principles by which Catherine proposed to act and the means—commissioning a substantial portion of her fleet to go "wherever honour, interest, and necessity compelled"—by which she proposed to enforce those principles. Broadly, these principles were that neutral shipping might navigate freely from port to port and on the coasts of nations at war; that the property of subjects of belligerent states on neutral ships should be free except when it was classed as contraband within the meaning of the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1766; and that a port was assumed to be blockaded only when the attacking power had rendered its ships stationary and made entry a clear danger.

(read more)

More about the League of Armed Neutrality from the POV of Russian history in The History of Russian Navy:

Although the Declaration was enforced for only three years, it was, nonetheless, an original doctrine of major significance. It contributed to the understanding among nations of the inviolability of peaceful merchant vessels, their right to be free from the threat of piracy and harassment, and that wanton disregard of such rights would not be tolerated by Russia and its allies. Enforcement of the Declaration by the Russian Navy confirmed that a powerful naval fleet commanded international respect and that Russia had become a maritime power that was able to support its policies and punish offenders. In effect, the Declaration of Armed Neutrality served to elevate the reputation of the Russian Navy. The Baltic Fleet gradually strengthened. As early as 1777 Admiral Greig had suggested a new table of ship's proportions and the refurbishing of ship armaments. The 54-gun vessels vanished from use, replaced by more powerful ones; 66- and 74-gun vessels with larger-calibre cannon became the base of the fleet. The strength of the Baltic Fleet was additionally reinforced by eight 100-gun, three-decked ships of the line, the first of which was the handsome Rostislav. In the year 1784 the Rostislav's dimensions were impressive-55 metres in length and a displacement of 3,500 tons. The next ships to be built were the Saratov, the Three Saints and the Saint Ioann Chrestitel, which proved their worth against the best-equipped vessels in the British and Swedish fleets.

In 1761 the weaponry of the Russian fleet was updated. More powerful shell-firing guns were installed on the lower decks, and in 1788 effective short-range cannon (carronades) were placed on the quarterdeck and forecastle of larger vessels. New copper sheathing protected ships' hulls and increased their speed. The fleet was regularly provided with officers from the Naval Cadet Corps (Naval Academy), which graduated a hundred such officers annually.

Inasmuch as war against Sweden loomed on the horizon, Russia was well-advised to refurbish its Baltic Fleet. The Swedes were hesitant to concede their dominant position in the Baltic to Russia. Friedrick Chapman, considered one of the foremost shipwrights of his day, was commissioned by Sweden to build 64-gun ships of the line and 40-gun frigates with heavy 24- and 36-pound artillery on the lower-deck batteries. In addition, the Swedish rowing fleet was reinforced by well-armed smaller vessels-hemmems, turums, udems and light, maneuverable gun-boats. The King of Sweden, Gustav III, awaited an excuse to begin hostilities against Russia.

Encyclopedia of Russian History adds an interesting conclusion to the article about the League of Armed Neutrality:

The league was remembered in the United States, somewhat erroneously, as a mark of Russian friendship and sympathy, and bolstered Anglophobia in the two countries. More generally, it affirmed a cardinal principle of maritime law that continues in effect in the early twenty-first century. Indirectly, it also led to a considerable expansion of Russian-American trade from the 1780s through the first half of the nineteenth century.

1783

The Commission of Peoples Schools entrusted Anton Barsov, professor of the Moscow University, with the task of writing a course of Russian grammar.

Among earlier works of Barsov were a chronology of Russian history, "Collection of 4291 Ancient Russian proverb", translations of French, Greek and Latin works on politics and philology, including "Cellarii Orthographia Latina", a method of Russia stenography "De Brachygraphia" and other works. He participated in the writing of the dictionary of Russian language. He finished work on the first volume of the dictionary when the new job made him to send all materials he had collected for the dictionary to the Academy and concentrate on the grammar course.

He was writing the course since 1783 till 1788, but the Commission of Peoples Schools decided not to publish it. It was lost and we can only use incomplete copies. Members of the Commission concluded that the course was overloaded with details and unsuitable for schools. Another possible cause was, probably, Barsov's ideas about the reform of the orthography. Some of those proposals were implemented in the 20th century, during the 1918 reform. So, he proposed to eliminate the hard sign "ъ" at the ultimate position after consonants, to exclude redundant letters "θ" and "И", in favor of their duplicates "Ф" and "I", correspondingly, and to replace "ъ" with an apostroph or the soft sign "ь" in the middle of words. He also offered to introduce a new ligature, "io", to denote the sound for which Karamzin later invented a new letter "ё", which is stil used in Russian alphabet.

His grammar was not published at that time, but now it is still in print, both in Russian and in English. Moreover, you can download the full text in Russian (1981 edition) as a PDF file for free (23.2Mb).

From the preface to The Comprehensive Russian Grammar of A.A.Barsov by Lawrence W. Newman:

This volume contains the first publication of the Comprehensive Russian Grammar of Anton Barsov (1730-1791). Written between 1783 and 1788 for use in schools, it would have needed to be shortened and simplified to fulfill its original purpose. Its publication helps fill an important lacuna in the history of the Russian grammatical tradition, as well as providing new information about eighteenth-century Russian. Barsov was professor of rhetoric at Moscow University for thirty years, including the period when he was writing the grammar. The influence of his university work was apparently great, to judge, for example, from Karamzin's testimony (cited here from V.V. Vinogradov, Iz istorii izučenija russkogo sintaksisa, Moscow: Moscow University, 1958, page 49): if, says Karamzin, he "knows how sometimes to pause over a word, how to be cautious, then he owes this advantage to this one extremely learned man." It is likely that the grammar, or at least lectures from which it was derived, was not completely lost, but played a minor role in the education of a generation of Russian intellectuals.

Political mathematics

How come the politicians find the most stupid explanations for their controversial decisions? Some years ago, when Putin abolished the governors' elections, he explained that it would make the anti-terror campaign more effective. Now, the presidential and the parliamentary terms have been increased to six and five years correspondingly. From Moscow Times:

The bill ensures a difference in time between the presidential and parliamentary elections, allowing for "calm preparations," United Russia's first deputy chairman, Vladimir Pekhtin, said in a statement released after the vote.

Does it take a PhD in mathematics to understand that no matter which integer M and N you take, the elections will coincide at least every M*N years? Is it that me and Grigori Perelman are the only Russians who understand that the only way to "ensure a difference in time between the elections" is to make the terms equal?

As if to make things even more hilarious, the bootlicks from the Liberal-Democratic party proposed to increase the presidential term to seven years. Sergey Ivanov, member of the State Duma, says (link in Russian) that "the proposed five and six years long terms will cause one electoral campaign to immediately blend into the other". I just want to know: HOW CAN A MAN BE THAT DUMB? It's an insult to human intelligence, in my opinion, the penalty for which should be 20 years in primary school, as a habitual idiot.

They say that those who know nothing, teach. Those who can't teach, manage. Seems like those who can't manage, become politicians. We just can't cope with them. Isolate them, somehow, or automatically proclaim invalid all laws approved by parliaments and adopt those they had declined, maybe?

Okay, I've heard about someone G.W.Bush and I assume that my compatriots are not really outstanding, but, please, I beg you, name just three politicians who would be brilliant enough to avoid such blunt errors?

Russia limits access to Internet. More on the election campaign.

Today an Internet service provider in Rostov-on-Don, company UTK, limited access of the subscribers to the web-sites of the Russian political opposition: kasparov.ru (site of Garry Kasparov) and nbp-info.ru (the site of the prohibited National-Bolshevik Party). The requests were redirected to pro-Putin web-sites. Some hours later the redirection was cancelled. Now, the access to the oppositional web-sites is open.

The Moscow hosting company Masterhost has shut down the web-site of the left opposition forum.msk.ru after the request of the police. The web-site published an interview with a candidate to Duma Vasily Shandybin, which was classified by the Central Election Committee as "an illegal election campaign material". Earlier, the police contacted Anatoly Baranov, the editor of the web-site, demanding that he deletes the interview. He refused and the police asked the hosting company to block the whole web-site. Baranov has announced that he considers these demands to be censorship and that the web-site will be relocated to another server outside Russia.

The Chita office of the Prosecutor General accused the Chita branch of Sibirtelecom telco of spreading extremist information, texts calling for terrorist acts and spreading hatred and hostility towards certain people and groups of people. The investigation has determined that they "provide data transmission services and access to the sites containing these materials. Thus, Sibirtelecom assists to spread the information contained on these web-sites which is directed against Russian Federation, incites social, racial and religious hostilities." Basically, Sibirtelecom was condemned for the presence of extremist web-sites in the Internet.

Some more news on the election campaign.

Four SPS candidates to Duma, Tatyana Ignatyeva, Tatyana Kopteva, Rodion Brekhach and Denis Shenin, were beaten last evening in the centre of Moscow. The police refused to comment on the event.

Vladimir Bukovsky, writer, dissident and the presidential candidate, was stopped by police for crossing the street in the wrong place. Yesterday, he met the SPS leaders and his consultations with the Yabloko party were scheduled for today. The police checked his documents and ordered him to follow them to the police department. After a short discussion, Bukovsky was released.

Duma elections

Farid Babayev, the leader of the Yabloko party in Dagestan, who was shot some days ago, has died.

On Monday evening the TV Channel One broadcasted a clip where two actors who looked a bit like SPS leaders Belykh and Nemtsov recall the 1990s with nostalgy: "We are against the cult of personality, we are for the cult of cash!" says one of them. "We liberated the country from salaries and pensions," adds the other. The authorship of the clip is unknown, but it may be found on the web site of the so called Democratic party.

The federal office of SPS was attacked and sacked by unknown people. The doors of the apartments of the SPS activists were painted with graves and crosses.

The Moscow publishing house "Evropa" presented two book called "The enemies of the plan of Putin" and "The Fake structures. The ghosts of Russian politics". The presentation was attended by the infamous PR specialist Gleb Pavlovski. Both books maintain that the oppositional forces are a marginal, false opposition.

SPS was fined 50,000 rubles by the Krasnoyarsk court. The ruling said that the newspaper of SPS contained commercial ads. The SPS HQ in St.Petersburg was attacked by unknown people who threw manure at the office door.

The United Russia refused that they are sending letters to commercial structures demanding to sponsor their campaign. They said that the letters published in the Internet are fake and that the signature of the leader of the Kemerovo regional branch Dyudyayev. However, Dyudyayev, the author of the famous letter to the Siberian Coal and Energy company, confirmed that he signed this letter, but said that he didn't threaten those who refuse to participate.

Garry Kasparov, arrested during the Dissenters' March this Saturday, is still in custody. His lawyer, Olga Mikhailova could not visit him before the trial. Kasparov was found guilty based on the witnesses' statements, including two police reports written by one person, but contradicting each other. Vladimir Ryzhkov, member of Duma, attempted to visit Kasparov, but was not allowed to, in spite of his official status which gives him the right to visit prisoners. Kasparov's old opponent both in chess and in politics, Anatoly Karpov, made a fine gesture by visiting Kasparov in jail. However, he was not allowed to see Kasparov.

Kasparov's movement United Civilian Front (OGF) started a picket at the doors of the police department demanding to liberate Kasparov. The picket where only one person participates need not be preliminary approved by the authorities, so only man was standing there. However, he was joined soon by some vagrants who carried hand-made signs with similar demands. On this basis, the OGF protester was detained, since he was not alone any more.

The communists of Kamchatka announced recently that they have the information that the governor ordered the regional authorities to secure at least 80% of votes in favor of United Russia. As a result, more than 50% of the candidates of Fair Russia refused to enter into the election contest and the party will not participate in the elections. The vice-governor Drozdov ran a meeting with the directors of local typographies and warned them that every typography that would print a single leaflet of a party other than UR, will be closed.

Duma elections

Farid Babayev, a candidate of pro-democratic party "Yabloko" in Dagestan, was wounded by four bullets. The gunman was not detained. Babayev is now in hospital and his condition is "serious but stable".

The chairman of the Political Council of SPS (Union of Rightist Forces) party Nikita Belykh said on November 20 that his party is attacked by the Russian power. He said that some SPS candidates, including the leaders of the regional branches in Pskov, Ulyanovsk, Dagestan, Krasnodar and other places, were forced to leave the party under the pressure of the state officials. Currently, SPS has only 85 regional branches and the law requires that the party with less than 80 regional branches may not participate in the Duma elections. November 16 was the last day when the candidates could refuse to participate in the elections. After this date, the pressure on the SPS candidates stopped.

The Political Council of SPS adds that more than 15,000,000 copies of leaflets and newspapers of SPS were arrested and the typographies were closed. The PR companies are "advised" not to work with SPS. The press-release also mentions arrests of the party activists, searches in their apartments, arsons of the party offices and private apartments, violent attacks on the campaigners, etc. Russian EMERCOM (Ministry for extraordinary situations) runs training missions near the SPS headquarters. Unknown people demonstratively write down the plate numbers of the cars arriving to the HQ. Anti-SPS propagandists accuse the party in the propaganda of extremism and homosexualism, left populism and bribery.

Tonight, another anti-SPS campaign was started in Moscow. In the middle of the night, unknown people called the cell phones of the citizens and ran a recorded message offering them to vote for SPS. According to the information supplied by SPS, they have a copy of the plan of the election campaign of United Russia, which features "actions against the telephone terrorism of SPS".

The Perm regional office of the Public Prosecutor reported that they have found the office of SPS "shadow HQ", where they discovered unnamed documents. These documents confirm that SPS has spent 1.5 million rubles above the limit defined by the law. In Tomsk, the local newspaper of SPS was arrested. The court has ruled that the comparison of the Russian authorities and Hitler is illegal and anti-constitutional.

The things could be even worse, though :). The SPS election TV clip was discussed by the Central Election Committee. The so called Democratic Party of Russia accused SPS in the violation of the law which prohibits negative information and comments about other parties. The Election Committee dismissed the accusations.

Now, some more polls. VTsIOM sociological centre (whose board of managers includes some representatives of the presidential administration) reviews the results of the TV debates. During the last week (from November 10 till November 17) the number of people who watched the debates, has increased from 10-13% to 10-20%. 20% watched the debates of Liberal-Democratic party (a week ago there were 13%). 15% watched the Communist party (12% last week) and the Fair Russia (10% a week ago). 10% saw the debates of SPS and Yabloko. 9% followed the debates of Patriots of Russia and the Civil Force. 6-8% watched the Party of Social Justice, Agrarian party and Democratic party. The most stunning results were achieved by United Russia. 8% saw their debates (13% last week). Perhaps, I should remind that United Russia refused to participate in the debates. In spite of this brilliant isolation, 69% of those who "saw" their debates liked them, which is the best result. The only party whose approval rate has increased is the LDPR (from 39% to 51%). The Agrarian and the Communist parties have stable approval rates (60% and 47%). All other parties approval rates have decreased. The Democratic party has 19%, Yabloko has 26% and SPS has 28%.

"Public Opinion" foundation (FOM) forecasts the following results of the elections. Turnout will be 58-59%. Of them, 62% will vote for United Russia, 11% for the Liberal-Democratic party, 10% for the Communist party, 7-8% for Fair Russia, 2-3% for the Agrarian party, 1-2% for SPS and for Yabloko, 1% for the Patriots of Russia, less than 1% for Civil Force, Democratic party and Party of Social Justice.

The poll held by Levada Centre gives the following results. 67% for UR, 14% for the Communists, 6% for LDPR, 4% for Fair Russia. 48% think that the elections will only imitate the political struggle, but the seats in Duma will be assigned by the power. UR and FR are seen as new parties with fresh ideas, while the Communists, LDPR, SPS and Yabloko have the image of "outdated" parties.

Elections: More dirty tricks

(All links below are in Russian)

In the town Balashov, Saratov region, people who planned to vote for Spravedlivaya Rossiya (Fair Russia) receive letters with condolences on the death of their relatives. All their relatives were alive. The fake letters were "signed" by Zinaida Samsonova, the candidate of Fair Russia.

Spam e-mail messages signed by SPS party (Union of the Rightist Forces) are being sent by unknown people. The messages contain links to a web-site which imitates the official web-site of SPS, but opens a large number of pop-up windows and alert messages with SPS slogans which virtually block the browser.

In Perm and Orenburg, citizens receive receive letters demanding to donate to SPS with threats to fine them if they don't pay. The envelopes also include fake discount cards with the information that the discounts are sponsored from the SPS electoral fund. Also, filled bank transfer blanks are included. The blanks contain correct bank details of the SPS account, but there are neither signatures, nor official stamps of the SPS on the blanks.

In St.Petersburg, the city officials campaign for the pro-Putin Yedinaya Rossiya (United Russia) even in churches. When the activists of Fair Russia asked about 10,000 citizens of St.Petersburg whether they felt any kind of pressure from the officials demanding them to vote for United Russia, 35% said yes, and 32% more said that they heard such stories from their friends or relatives. In Mozhaisky Military Academy the students are informed that their future job will depend on who they vote for. Workers of kindergardens report that the officials oblige them to participate in advance voting and to fill the election bulletins at work, in the presence of the superiors. The Vaileostrovsky regional health service offices demand the physicians to carry on propaganda for the United Russia. The local administration of Kalininsky district threatened to fire the school teachers who will not vote for the UR.

The director-manager of the "Siberian Coal Energy Company" Alexander Loginov received the following letter from the Kemerovo regional office of the United Russia:

Your refusal to financially aid the the regional office of United Russia in the election campaign to the 5th State Duma is considered as a refusal to support President V. V. Putin and his creative policy.

I feel obliged to inform the President's Administration and the Governor of Kemerovo region on your position.

The letter is written on the official blank of United Russia, has the signature of the regional party leader, the official stamp and the registration number. The copy of the letter is here.

The results of this ultra-aggressive campaign have been demonstrated by the recent public opinion poll held by VTsIOM. 55.9% of the interviewees said that they will vote for the United Russia. 5.8% support the Communist Party, 4.7% support Liberal-Democratic Party, 4.9% will vote for the Fair Russia. The threshold for eligibility to win seats in Duma is 7%.

New dirty tricks in the election campaign

I was told yesterday of new leaflets posted on the walls in one of the districts of Samara. The text was like this: "Dear citizens, the Union of the Rightist Forces (SPS) informs you that we have asked AIDS-infected people to participate in our campaign to disseminate printed materials and to participate in the public opinion polls as interviewers. Please, be tolerant towards them."

Considering the AIDS-phobia, imagine the reaction of the average people when an SPS interviewer would knock their doors... I've never heard of such tricks before.

Sad result of a recent public opinion poll and the upcoming elections

In the Window on Eurasia blog, Paul Goble comments on the results of a public opinion poll held in three Russian cities (the data were taken from this article in Russian).

He says that "United Russia and KPRF draw support from those in the Russian Federation who support a more authoritarian and statist Russia than the one that first emerged after the collapse of the USSR". After reading the source article, I came to much more pessimistic conclusions. I've got a feeling that currently there is no demand in Russia for a political force that would consistently protect human rights of individuals from the state and there is no interest in democratic transformations. And you know, now that I've written these words I understand that I knew it before.

Paul Goble notes that the supporters of the United Russia, one of the most statist parties, tend to give the answers similar to those of the communists. In my opinion, he doesn't give sufficient attention to the fact that the supporters of Yabloko, the party which advertises itself as a proponent of the civil society, whose program states the "the state is for the man, not the man for the state", are not that different. The backers of the Union of Right Forces (SPS), the party that I voted for during the last elections to the local parliament, also tend to idealize the Stalinist epoch: 20% of them agree that "the atmosphere of happiness and optimism prevailed in the USSR during the Stalin's reign." 31% of Yabloko's supporters agreed with them.

Some more figures. 36% of communists, 35% of Yabloko supporters and 18% of SPS (one out of five!) think that less than 10 million people suffered from the Stalin's repressions. 49% of Yabloko and SPS supporters think that they are only proud of Russian history. 28% backers of Yabloko do not agree that Dzerzhinsky "ruthlessly destroyed innocent people". Among the SPS supporters 18% did not agree with the same statement and 42% said that they cannot answer this question. 45% of them also refused to estimate Lenin unequivocally.

An even more worrying position was taken by the SPS backers on the questions linked with xenophobia and nationalism. 24% of them said that the immigration to Russia must be forbidden and 44% think that the migrant workers may come to Russia to work if they will return home later.

The authors of the original review note that SPS seems to be split into two parts: a traditional democratic core and about one third of those who refuse to identify their position on "the most important historically and culturally orientated questions." They also hypothesize that the rising xenophobia repels potential backers of SPS.

On the one hand, I still hope that the democratic parties, in spite of the views of the voters, will retain their liberal attitude. For example, one of the best known human rights activists in Russia, Sergey Kovalev, is among the top three persons in the Yabloko's list of candidates to the Duma in the December elections. On the other hand, I am more and more inclined to refuse to vote for any party on these elections. After the recent attempts of SPS to exploit the leftist slogans to attract the voters, I don't think they will represent my personal political position in Duma. Nor will any other party.

Dissenters' March in Samara: part VI

Yesterday, on 15 May, more people were detained by police and the procedure more and more often reminds of kidnapping. Mikhail Merkushin, a member of NBP, was pushed into a car by two men who had not present their credentials, of course. He was taken to the police office and spent 3 hours there. Police explained that he looked similar to a man who stole 800 rubles from a credit card. When he was detained on Friday, he was suspected in beating a child. What next? Another activist, Yuri Chervinchuk, was detained in a similar fashion.

Local media in Samara refuses to place commercial invitations to the march. In three occasions advertising departments gladly accepted the orders, but some hours later explained by phone that they cannot place the ad for various reasons. These were two radiostations: Echo of Moscow in Samara and Avtoradio and one TV station SKAT.

Dissenters' March in Samara: part V

On 14 May, human rights activist Alexander Lashmankin was beaten by unknown people armed with baseball bats. They stole his cell phone and escaped. Police is inclined to think that it was robbery.

The rector of Samara Academy of Culture and Art Margarita Vokhrysheva (whose name strangely reminds of the word vokhra, well known to the prisoners of Gulag. The word is an abbreviation of "armed guard") stopped the lessons in the academy and asked all students to assemble in the hall. She instructed the students on the correct behaviour during the EU-Russia summit. Students who will not behave themselves and will participate in marches, said she, will have problems on the exams. When a correspondent of the news web-site 63.ru contacted her, she said that there were no meetings and that she gave no instructions to the students.

FSB asked mobile communications providers to turn off the encryption. During the Dissenters' March in St.Petersburg they went even farther and enabled the function which allows to determine the location of every cell phone.

Dissenters' March: temperature rising

Veronika Vinogradova, an activist of the organization pompously titled the Vanguard of the Communist Youth (AKM, sic! I find it hard to believe, but young communists also suffer from violations of human rights...) was detained by unknown men who did not introduce themselves and gave no explanations. As a matter of fact, she was kidnapped from the hostel of the Samara Aerospace University. She was pushed into a car and her current location is unknown. Her friends who tried to stop these men, were beaten.

Three people who were detained yesterday (Yuri Chervinchuk, Anastasia Kurt-Adzhiyeva and her father Sergey Kurt-Adzhiyev) were released today after the personal plea of the city mayor Victor Tarkhov. No charges were brought against them.

Leaders of two most respectable (IMHO) human rights defense groups in Russia, including Lyudmila Alexeyeva of the Helsinki Watch Group and Lev Ponomaryov of the movement "For the human rights" arrived to Samara.

Also, it was announced today that two of the leaders of the coalition of the opposition known as "The Other Russia", Garry Kasparov and Eduard Limonov, will attempt to arrive to Samara and participate in the march on May 18.

Garry Kasparov said today that the scale of the repressions against the organizers of the Samara rally exceeds what they had to face in Moscow one month ago. The Moscow activists decided to launch a picket at the building of the Ministry of the Home Affairs demanding to stop the prosecutions of the opposition in Samara.

Violations of human rights in Samara

Some news. On May 11, computers were confiscated from the informational agency Regnum-Volgainform.

On May 12, four people who dissipated leaflets with invitations to the Dissenters' March, were detained and accused of "non-compliance with the police orders."

On Saturday, May 13, a member of the organizational committee of the Dissenters' March in Samara Anastasia Kurt-Adzhiyeva and a member of the National Bolshevist Party Yuri Chervinchuk were detained by police. Police claims that they have information that Kurt-Adzhiyeva has a hand grenade in her bag. Father of Kurt-Adzhiyeva, Sergey Kurt-Adzhiyev, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta who came to the police office on May 14 after the detention of his daughter, was detained, too, together with a journalist of the same newspaper Mikhail Kuteinikov. The police officer who detained them, refused to name himself and didn't explain on what accusations they were detained, report Newsru.com and Kasparov.ru

The US-based organization Committee to Protect Journalists protested against prosecutions of journalists in Samara in their statement: "We're very troubled by these police actions, which appear timed to obstruct news coverage of a planned public demonstration," CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said. "This harassment is preventing our colleagues from doing their jobs of informing the public, and it should stop at once." The article also mentions some of the events I described above.

Events around the Dissenters' March in Samara

Some days ago I wrote about plans of Russian opposition to organize one more Dissenters' March, this time in Samara, on May 18, during the EU-Russia summit in a luxury hotel Volzhsky Utyos (The Cliff on Volga) not far from Samara (about 130 kilometres). On May 8, the organizers of the demonstration announced that they reached an agreement with the city authorities. They said that the administration of Samara offered to shorten the planned route of the march and that they agreed with these proposals, since they were not as absurd as the alternatives presented by the Moscow administration to the organizers of similar actions. However, on the next day, the city administration denounced these news saying that they neither proposed any alternatives nor agreed on the terms of the opposition. Moreover, the administration sent a letter to the Dissenters offering the hold a meeting on a remote stadium three days later, on May 21. To tell you the truth, I think that the organizers were a bit provocative when planning to march along one the most trafficked roads in the city centre in the end of a week-day. However, the consultations continued during the week.

The week was full of events. As I wrote before, some of the organizers were detained. On 9 May, 8 people who posted leaflets inviting the citizens to join the protests were detained. The authorities announced that the leaflets used Nazi symbols and provoked national hatred. Correspondents of Commersant newspaper and Ren-TV channel who came to Samara from Moscow to interview the local opposition leaders were also detained on the pretext that they did not have necessary IDs. On May 10, all typographies of the city were searched for printed materials of the opposition. Also on 10 May, police raided the office of the grassroots association for the electors' rights Golos and confiscated computers. The leaders and the staff of the association were not present at the office at that moment. Earlier, the leader of the association Lyudmila Kuzmina attended a radio programme devoted to the upcoming Dissenters' March. On 11 May, the office of a local newspaper Novaya gazeta was raided by police. Three computers were confiscated because of alleged use of pirated software. Later on the same day, the tax police confiscated financial documents of the newspaper. The newspaper planned to cover the preparations to the march in the issue on May 14. The editor-in-chief of this newspaper is Sergey Kurt-Adzhiyev, whose daughter, Anastasia Kurt-Adzhiyeva, is a member of the organizational committee of the Dissenters' March in Samara. The impression was that the authorities will do their best to give absolutely no chances on May 18. Moscow Helsinki Watch group sent a lawyer to Samara to provide legal protection to the detained activists.

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel officially asked Russian authorities to allow the planned march of the opposition in Samara and show some tolerance towards the protesters. Tomas Steg, a representative of the German government, said: "The critics must have a way to express their point of view. In our discussions with the Russian president we always stress the importance of observing the basic human rights, including the right of assembly."

We will never know if this address of the German government affected the policy of the Russian regime, but I think that this was a very important point in the developing events. On 11 May, the opposition leaders, Anastasia Kurt-Adzhiyeva, Roman Mishurov and Mikhail Merkushev were invited to the city administration and received the official permission for the action. This time the agreement of the administration was given in the written form. So, the march will take place at 17:00 local time, on 18 May. The planned route is very short, less than 1 kilometre and it will be followed by a rally on the embankment of Volga. Moreover, the administration of Chelyabinsk also gave their permission to hold a Dissenters' March in this city in Urals on May 19, although the route was changed, too. Up to now, only on May 1 the actions of the opposition were sanctioned by the administration of St.Petersburg.

Does it mean that the march will take place as planned? Not really. First, the violence in St.Petersburg (on April 15)started when the protesters were already leaving the place of the rally. There may be provocators who will attempt to attack police forces. Second, attempts to discredit the protest may be expected. For example, on 28 April, in Chelyabinsk, a small group of protesters, about 30 people, were joined by a group of blondes in rose dresses, who held the slogans protesting against insufficient attention of the police towards blondes. Another group of young people came with skis and skates and "protested" against the coming summer. If the number of real opposition members in Samara will be low, such provocation may turn the protest into the theatre of absurd.

At least, the opposition has already made one large blunder, in my humble opinion. They scheduled the protest on 17:00 on a week-day, the time when most people are still at work. The organizers are mostly university students, but this immediately cuts off tens or maybe even hundreds of people who could attend the protest, but will be unable to do so.

Dissenters March planned in Samara during EU-Russia summit

"On 18 May, European and Russian leaders are to meet in the Russian resort town of Samara for a bi-annual EU-Russia summit," wrote one web-site. The summit will take part on 17-18 May. And no, Samara is not a resort. By no means. The summit will take place in the hotel Volzhsky Utyos, which is not a town. By no means. It is a nice place, though, and the visitors will enjoy it, if the summit takes place, which is not certain, given the new iron curtain being thoroughly, with love and care, built by Putin's administration. If the summit is to happen, after all, the guests will fortunately avoid the views of dirty and kitschy Samara, since they will arrive to Volzhsky Utyos on comfortable hydrofoils.

On the other hand, they will miss an event which was planned for them by the Russian opposition — the seventh Dissenters' March. It is scheduled for May, 18, 17:00 local time (12:00 UTC).

On 3 May, at 8:00 the organizers came to the city administration and at 9:00 they filed their notification. At 11:00 they started a press-conference in the Hansa hotel. During the press-conference, a large group of policemen (15-20 people) entered the hotel and blocked the exits. They demanded the visitors (including journalists) to show their IDs and collected the names of all attendants. On 4 May, police attempted to detain one of the organizers, Mikhail Gangan, for unexplained reasons. He escaped and is still hiding. Another activist of the Prohibited Party Whose Name We Are Not Allowed To Mention (earlier known as National-Bolshevist Party), Ilya Guryev, who was earlier sentenced to probation after the seizure of a cabinet of the presidential administration building, was arrested. Journalist Dmitri Treschanin, also a member of the PPWNWANATM, was detained on the railway station when he came to Samara, sent to the conscription point and drafted. The drafting officers said the he will be sent to Dagestan. The local police has already promised that "all provocations will be severely suppressed."

Regional elections in Russia

Yesterday, 14 regions of Russia, including Samara oblast, elected local parliaments. As usual, there were two lists: a list of candidates and a list or parties. The local parliament will include the winners of both parts of the election.

In our region, there were seven political parties in the parties list: pro-Putin puppet parties United Russia and Fair Russia, infamous extreme populist Liberal-Democratic party of Russia, led by scandalous Zhirinovsky, the Communist party, democratic Union of Right Forces (SPS), Green party and Patriots of Russia.

The two latter parties are newcomers on the political scene. I spent some years in the green movement in about 1988-1993 and left it when they finally turned into an agglomerate of anarchist groups. IMO, the problems with common sense, typical for greens, are a good reason not to vote for them, but greens could be useful on the local level. What kept me from voting for them was that the modern Green party was headed in Samara by an eccentric millionaire, ex-owner of a FM radio, casino and a pet shop, who planned to build a monument to himself ten years ago. Greens? No, thanks.

Patriots of Russia are a strange party who oppose Putin as a pro-Western, pro-capitalist and liberal president. You can imagine what their views look like.

All of the above left only one choice for me. I voted for the Union of Right Forces, whose program is, in essence, the following: civil rights, protection of property rights, privatization and liberalization of economy, freedom of mass media, restoration of principles of federalism, freedom of professional unions, market economy as a instrument to create environment-friendly technologies and to stop the over-exploitation of natural reserves.

The preliminary results are: in most regions United Russia leads with 40-60%. CPRF and Fair Russia share the 2-3 places. LDPR is fourth.

In Samara oblast, United Russia leads with 34%, Communists have 19%, Fair Russia has 15%, LDPR are fourth with 11.5%, SPS is on the fifth place with 8.2%, Greens have 7.5%. Patriots failed to reach the 7% level necessary to enter the parliament, they have only 1.4%.

Update: Newsru.com reports (link in Russian) of a funny case on the elections in Kurgan oblast. In one of the villages where 30 electors are officially registered, only two people voted: the candidate himself and his friend. Quite naturally, the candidate was elected with 2 votes. According to the new Russian laws which abolish the minimum turnout requirement, the election was absolutely valid.

Attack on civil rights redux

Unfortunately, I was wrong. The story was not fake. The newspaper Noviye Izvestiya writes (article in Russian) that on January 23, a group of human rights activists from Novorossiysk and students of local universities were meeting their guests from Germany in a local children's art school. The German businessmen visited an exhibition of children's drawings and they went to a room where a table was set for them all. An interpreter and an operator of a local TV channel were also present. The visitors planned to discuss the idea to spread tolerance towards ethnical minorities with posters and friendly football matches. At this moment, a group of 15 men dressed in the police uniform came in. The group was led by an FSB lieutenant colonel Dmitri Fedorenko. The group also included Anatoly Nilov, head of the culture department of Novorossiysk administration. They checked the documents of everyone present in the room. When asked what were the legal pretexts, they did not give an answer. Some time later, one of the policemen said that they should have notified the city administration of the planned meeting. The participants referred to the Constitution, but major Ovcharenko said that the meeting was not sanctioned by the authorities and falls under the law on demonstrations, rallies and picketing. The Germans consulted the embassy and decided to leave Russia, even though they had all documents and visas.

The authorities say that it was a usual raid of the immigration service and that the visit to the art school was not planned in advance, that it happened by chance.

Anyway, some days ago the human rights activists were officially accused of holding the meeting without notifying the authorities in advance. The participants and the principal of the school (Marina Dubrovina, Vladimir Serdyuk, Vadim Karastelev and Tamara Karasteleva) were found guilty and fined 500 to 1000 rubles. Tamara Karasteleva (or Karastelyova), on of the activists' leaders, explained that the people were just sharing impressions, making acquaintance and watching photographs, but the judge Vera Abshtyr said that it must be done at home, not at a school. The activists intend to appeal.

On February 12, the Novorossiysk Human Rights Committee issued a press-release. It says that one more participant of the meeting, Vladimir Pyankov, was fined 1000 rubles.

More links (all in Russian):
Novorossiysk Human Rights Committee
A blog that with a number of posts on the topic

BTW, I couldn't find the name Froda in any of these articles. The Karastelevs couple are known as the leaders of the School of Peace foundation (the web-site was working two days ago but it is down now. For what reason and for how long, I do not know), an organization that promoted tolerance towards ethnic minorities and protects the rights of children from ethnic minorities. They are known for the activity in protection of human rights of Meskhetian Turks, who were removed by Stalin to Uzbekistan, fled from pogroms to Russia in 1989, but were given a cold shoulder here and forced to emigrate to USA. This activity of the School of Peace became the hidden reason for the closure of the organization in 2003.

Attack on civil rights?

I found this shocking news by serendipity, it could have passed by totally unnoticed:

Nine members of Froda, a group that campaigns for ethnic minority rights, were found guilty of holding an illegal meeting and fined after they had tea with two German students visiting a friend in the southern city of Novorossiysk. ... "We were told that, under the new law, any meeting of two or more people with the purpose of discussing publicly important issues had to be sanctioned by the local administration three days in advance," Mrs Karastelyova said.

More details in The Telegraph. Frankly, the story is so weird even for Russia, that I would like to find more information before posting this bit, but the same weirdness of the event gives me creeps so huge that I just can't put it aside. Update: It seems to be a very strange organization, this Froda. They don't have a web-site. They are not mentioned anywhere in the Internet, with two exceptions: the article from The Telegraph (reproduced in a number of other newspapers) and the 2004 report on human rights practices in Russia. The more I read, the more I suspect that there is something wrong with the whole story. Or, at least, I hope there is.