First, there is the distinct (but wrong) impression that the mass of the literary “intelligentsia” is behind the anti-Putin protests, because of the visibility of high-profile writers like Boris Akunin, who recently wrote a rather rambling op-ed for the NYT. Lukyanenko demonstrates that this is not the case.

Second, I personally agree with almost all of it, save for a few parts like citing Switzerland or the UK as a good democracies. But on the whole I can vouch for practically every word. And as a science fiction writer in whose worlds the lines between good and evil are frequently blurred – if they exist at all – he brings a much needed “middle ground” position to the rigidly pro-Kremlin/anti-Kremlin binary that dominates this discourse.

I Will Vote For Putin

I didn’t want to, but in the end I had to make a comment. For every so often agitated young people would run into my LJ blog, asking me the following types of question: “Where were you during the Meetings [for Free Elections]? At home? That means you voted for the swindlers and thieves! Are you not ashamed of yourself? Your friends Kaganov, Eksler, Bykov were out there, making rhetorical history and laughing and waving placards… How could you look them in the eyes now? If everything in your life is fine, you’d be for Putin, right? You consider this regime to be ideal? What, you mean to say, that we don’t have anyone else qualified to be President?”

So an explanation is warranted.

I voted for the Communists. I did it with a pinched nose, for today’s Communist Party has no relation to communists, to the people, and unfortunately, even to politics in general. In the past I voted for the Union of Right Forces, but with equal amounts of horror and aversion. But the defining weirdness of my thoroughly anti-democratic and anti-liberal conscience consists of my belief in everyone’s right to think differently. And I want the Parliament to have representatives of the right, and the left, and centrists, and swindlers and thieves too, as they too make up a considerable share of our society – why bother denying this? As our most ardent supporters of democracy insist on denying others the right to their own opinion, I will sing my own song and do everything I can to make “a thousand flowers bloom.” I am mostly satisfied with the result – yes, of course there were violations (yeah, as if they didn’t exist earlier… You remember how Yeltsin won? Nothing bothered you back then?), but the Duma did become more diverse. (And I, by the way, don’t call for my political opponents to be hanged in the squares, stripped of  their rights and exiled to Magadan. Unlike you, my dear liberals…)

And the fact that Leo, Alex, and Dima went to the Meetings does not in the slightest interfere with my appreciation of their books. More power to them. And I consider them sane people too.

I am always touched by the argument: “Well, life is good for you – so that’s why you support the current regime?” This is usually said in an outraged and pressured tone. I mean, how could this be – why are those people, who aren’t bothered by the government, why are they of all things not protesting against it? The binomial theory! The great mystery of the universe! The great Russian pastime – cutting off the nose to spite the face! Yes, I will actually vote for the current government, as long as I believe that it is right for me. And you will vote against it, as long as you believe that it is bad for you. And this is all right and proper. Is this not the very democracy that you want?

So moving on, does this mean I consider the current regime ideal?

What a profoundly intellectual conclusion! I do not consider the sausage that I buy in a supermarket to be ideal. I don’t consider my books to be ideal. I consider our entire world to be far from ideal. So what should I do then – refrain from eating, from writing books, and from living in general? If you are not the Dark Lord, you will always find mistakes in the universe. We have no shortage of fools both in power and under their power. We have many swindlers, thieves, idlers, and rascals. But here is one crucial elaboration – these people are everywhere, in all spheres of life. And their percentage shares among construction workers, medics, and politicians are all broadly similar. The world isn’t perfect, you know?  People too. Have you forgotten how thirty years ago, the entire country voted in unison for the Block of Communists and Non-Party Members. I remember. Have you forgotten, how twenty years ago schoolboys dreamed of becoming hitmen, and schoolgirls – whores? Better by far that they dream of becoming bureaucrats! Satellites are falling, the Bulava can’t take off? And did you know how many satellites burned up on their way to orbit under the USSR, and how many unsuccessful missile launches there were before things got righted? So the country is dying out? Look at the charts – at how life expectancy has changed in the past few years. Few births? Look at the figures for Europe. Problems with immigrants? Take a walk in London or Paris (which, by the way, is now possible, as was not the case under the USSR).

Do you want the level of democracy they have in Switzerland or the UK? Learn a bit of history, people. How many years did they spend building their modern democracies and modern relations of people to the state? How many people perished in the process? Yes, it would be wonderful to wave a magic wand and… but I don’t have one. I’m afraid Putin doesn’t have one either. There, in Tajikistan yesterday they killed… Father Frost! As a socially and religiously alien element. Do you assume we aren’t Tajikistan? In some respects, we completely are. At least with respect to our attitudes towards differing viewpoints. The entire LJ blogosphere continually demonstrates this.

Not long ago, I was still wondering who to vote for in the Presidential elections. And, you know what, you guys helped me make my choice – with your meetings, provocative placards and loud slogans. I will vote for Putin.

Because we really do NOT have another politician, capable of leading the country.

Because the slogans of everyone else are either naked populism, or facsimiles of Putin’s slogans, or unorganized set of contradictory promises.

Because the “opposition leaders” plaster each other with obscenities, and would tear each other apart if the current government were to fall apart. Do you expect Krylov to get along with Yavlinsky? That liberals will make friends with Communists and nationalists? My friends, this isn’t even funny… All the current protesting opposition marches under the banner of destruction and mutual hatred… Yes, and you they also hold cheap…

Because Zyuganov would flee to Switzerland in panic if you were to vote him in.
Because Mironov, though a good man, is not a national leader.
Because Nemtsov – well, that’s not even funny.
Because Zhirinovsky – ‘twould be fun, if the country had a “Save Game” button.
Because Prokhorov is a businessman, and a country can’t be managed like a mining company.
Because Navalny is a person, who works for another country. Not for ours.
Because there is no other. Hasn’t appeared yet.

So is Putin responsible for all that? That he hasn’t raised a successor?

But you didn’t like Medvedev either. “Too liberal”; “too scheming”; “iPhone President”; “innovation”, this and that…

Putin, by the way, was put forwards by Yeltsin. You don’t like the result? So what do you want, that Putin himself could put forward someone, whom you consider worthy? Well then it would be but a continuation of Putin’s policies.

The opposition, in your opinion, should be raised by the acting regime? Don’t take the mickey… Politics aren’t the Olympic Games. Politicians grow notwithstanding the current government. And let them grow, and good luck to them. Let Navalny and Chirikova organize a party, write a program and come to power.

What, they wouldn’t be allowed in? LOL. United Russia had its share of the vote inflated, but probably by not more than 5 percent. United Russia is the party off the majority, that is a fact. So what if they got a few percentage points less – they’d have joined a coalition with Fair Russia. And as if that’d have made a great difference to the political picture in Russia…

Here are transparent ballot boxes, web cams at the elections, parties of 500 people… the mass media are controlled? Again, LOL. There are opposition media everywhere. Do you want to have the first word on TV? Then work for it, fight for it. If you get the majority – you’ll have this all. And if not – well, my apologies…

You have the right to vote. And to monitor the vote. And it’s entirely possible, that on that day – I too will go have a look. So that you, my passionate and fiery friends, don’t flood the streets will your bulletins. Because whenever one side says, that it’s all pure and white, that side I don’t trust in advance.

… And about what is happening now in the world, how one country after another is ruined in the name of democracy and maintaining the status quo, I won’t even talk about that. Either you see it and understand it, or you are naive beyond all measure. And over the next several years, while the world is undergoing this HUGE crisis, I want to see a leader in power who is capable of bold moves. And ready to defend our country.

So I will go and vote for Putin. For the next six years he has my trust on credit. And you go and vote for your candidates. This is what is called democracy.

But magic wands and a free lunch don’t exist in this world.

A New Project of Eurasian Integration – A Future Appearing Today

In January 1st, 2012 begins the Common Economic Space of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Vladimir Putin shares his thoughts on these integrative processes in this exclusive article for Izvestia.

Come January 1st, 2012, a critical integration project will begin – the Common Economic Space of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. A project that, without any great exaggeration, portends a historical landmark not only for our three countries, but for all the states in the post-Soviet space.

The journey to this frontier wasn’t easy, and at times meandering. It started twenty years ago, at the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. By and large we found the model that helped to save the myriad civilizational and spiritual threads that bind our peoples together. To save the industrial, economic and other ties on which our lives are built.

There are differing perspectives on the effectiveness of the CIS, and one can spend forever criticizing its internal problems and unrealized expectations. But it’s hard to deny that the Commonwealth remains an indispensable mechanism to bridge differing positions and work out common views on the key problems facing our region, and produces visible and concrete benefits for all its members.

Moreover, it is precisely the CIS experience that informed the start of our multilevel and multispeed integration on the post-Soviet space, featuring a range of formats including the Union State of Russia and Belarus, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Eurasian Economic Community, the Customs Union, and finally, the Common Economic Space.

These integrative processes received a new boost during the global economic crisis, which spurred governments into seeking new avenues of growth. We have come committed to seriously modernizing the principles our partnerships are build on – both within the CIS, and within other regional associations. And we have primarily focused our attention on the development of commercial and industrial links.

The wellspring of our efforts is directed towards making integration into a continuous project that is understandable and attractive to our citizens and businesses. A project that is stable and long-term in nature, independent of political fluctuations and any other conjunctures.

Note in passing that this was the very goal set at the creation of the Eurasian Economic Community in 2000. And ultimately it is this logic of close, mutually beneficial cooperation and common understanding of strategic national interests that inspired Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan into forming the Customs Union.

[Beginning of premier.gov.ru translation]. On July 1, 2011 customs control over goods passing through the borders between our three states was lifted. This completed the establishment of a fully developed common customs area with clear prospects for implementing highly ambitious business initiatives. Now we are about to move from the Customs Union to the Common Economic Space. We are creating a huge market that will encompass over 165 million consumers, with unified legislation and the free flow of capital, services and labour force.

It is crucial that the Common Economic Space is rooted in coordinated action in key institutional areas such as: macroeconomics, ensuring competition, technical regulations, agricultural subsidies, transport, and natural monopolies tariffs. Later, this framework will also include common visa and migration policies, allowing border controls between our states to be lifted. In fact, we are adapting the experience of the Schengen Agreement that benefits Europeans as well as everyone who comes to work, study, or holiday in the EU.

I add that we will no longer have to equip the 7,000 kilometre-long Russian-Kazakh border. Moreover, new conditions are being created that will foster trans-border cooperation.

For the general public, the lifting of migration, border and other barriers, including what are known as labour quotas, will mean that they have a free choice about where to live, study, or work. Incidentally, the Soviet Union with its system of registered domicile did not offer anything like this complete freedom.

Moreover, the list of goods for personal consumption exempted from duties will be expanded, thus saving people the humiliating inspection at customs.

Broad swathes of opportunities will also open up for businesses. I am referring here to new dynamic markets governed by unified standards and regulations for goods and services – in most cases consistent with European standards. This is important, since we are all transitioning to state-of-the-art technical regulations and coordinated policies. This will help us avoid technological gaps or trivial incompatibility of goods. Moreover, almost all companies in our countries will in fact enjoy all the advantages of a domestic producer in all three countries, including the access to government procurement and contracts.
However, to secure a foothold in an open market like this, businesses will have to improve efficiency, reduce costs and invest in modernisation. The consumer only stands to gain from this.

At the same time, we can speak of real jurisdiction competition for entrepreneurs. All Russian, Kazakh, and Belarusian entrepreneurs will be able to choose in which of the three countries to register their companies, where they want to do business and file their customs registration. This will be a serious incentive for national administrative systems to start improving their market institutions, administrative procedures and their business and investment climate. Taken as a whole, these systems will be forced to address their inadequacies and all the lacunae they have never addressed before, and advance their legislation in line with best European and global practices.

It took Europe 40 years to move from the European Coal and Steel Community to the full European Union. The establishment of the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space is proceeding at a much faster pace because we could draw on the experience of the EU and other regional associations. We see their strengths and weaknesses. And this is our obvious advantage since it means we are in a position to avoid mistakes and unnecessary bureaucratic superstructures.

We are in touch with the three countries’ leading business associations, we discuss controversial issues with them and take into account criticism. For example, the discussions at the Customs Union Business Forum held this July in Moscow proved highly productive.

I would like to emphasise that it is highly important for us that the general public and business communities in all three countries perceive the integration project not as some kind of wheeze orchestrated by the top bureaucracy but as a living organism, and as a good opportunity to implement initiatives and succeed.

In order to better heed business interests, the decision was taken to start the codification of the legal framework of the Customs Union and Common Economic Space so that economic entities do not have to work their way through the thickets of endless passages, articles, and regulatory references. Instead, they will only need two documents, the Customs Code and the Codified Agreement on the Customs Union and Common Economic Space.

The EurAsEC Court will become fully operational on January 1, 2012. Both governments and economic entities will be able to apply to the court on all instances of discrimination or regarding the violation of competition and equitable business regulations.
The Customs Union and CES are special in that they have supranational structures which will also be guided by the basic requirements to minimise bureaucracy and heed people’s actual interests.

We believe that the Customs Union Commission’s role, which already now has significant powers, should grow further. Its jurisdiction currently includes almost 40 items and will expand to over 100, including the authority to take decisions on competition policy, technical regulations and subsidies, when the CES becomes operational. These complex issues can only be resolved by a fully developed and permanent structure – one that is streamlined, professional and efficient. This is why Russia put forward an initiative to set up a Board of the Customs Union Commission that will comprise representatives of all three states working as independent international officials.

By building the Customs Union and Common Economic Space, we are laying the foundation for a prospective Eurasian economic union. At the same time, the Customs Union and CES will expand by involving Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

We plan to go beyond that, and set ourselves an ambitious goal of reaching a higher level of integration – a Eurasian Union.

How do we understand the prospects for this project? What shape will it take?

First, none of this entails any kind of revival of the Soviet Union. It would be naïve to try to revive or emulate something that has been consigned to history. But these times call for close integration based on new values and a new political and economic foundation.

We suggest a powerful supranational association capable of becoming one of the poles in the modern world and serving as an efficient bridge between Europe and the dynamic Asia-Pacific region. This project also implies transitioning to closer coordination in economic and currency policies in the Customs Union and CES and establishing a full-fledged economic union.

Its natural resources, capital, and potent reserve of human resources will combine to put the Eurasian Union in a strong competitive position in the industry and technology race, in the struggle for investors, for the creation of new jobs and the establishment of cutting-edge facilities. Alongside other key players and regional structures, such as the European Union, the United States, China and APEC, the Eurasian Union will help ensure global sustainable development.

Second, the Eurasian Union will become a focal point for further integration processes since it will be formed by the gradual merging of existing institutions, the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space.

Third, it would be a mistake to view the Eurasian Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States as opposing forces. Each institution has its place and its role to play in the post-Soviet space. Russia, together with its partners, intends to work actively towards enhancing this commonwealth and infusing it with the topical agenda.

I’m referring to the launching of specific, comprehensible and attractive initiatives and joint programmes across the CIS, including in the energy sector, transport, high tech, and social development. There are good prospects for cooperation in science, culture, and education, as well as in managing labour markets and creating a civilised environment for labour migration. We inherited a great deal from the Soviet Union, including infrastructure, a developed system of regional production specialisation, and a common space of language, science and culture. We are all interested in harnessing this resource for development.

Moreover, I am convinced that in economic terms the commonwealth must be firmly founded in extensive trade liberalisation. Holding the CIS presidency in 2010, Russia put forward an initiative to draft a new Free Trade Area Agreement based on WTO principles that envisages the complete lifting of various barriers. We hope to see significant progress in coordinating the member states’ positions on this during the next Council of CIS Heads of Government meeting slated for later this month.

Fourth, the Eurasian Union is an open project. We welcome other partners to it, particularly CIS member states. At the same time, we are not going to hurry up or nudge anyone. A state must only join on its sovereign decision based on its long-term national interests.

In this respect, I would like to touch upon an important issue. Some of our neighbours explain their lack of interest in joining forward-looking integration projects in the post-Soviet space by saying that these projects contradict their pro-European stance.

I believe that this is a false antithesis. We do not intend to cut ourselves off, nor do we plan to stand in opposition to anyone. The Eurasian Union will be based on universal integration principles as an essential part of Greater Europe united by shared values of freedom, democracy, and market laws.

Russia and the EU agreed to form a common economic space and coordinate economic regulations without the establishment of supranational structures back in 2003. In line with this idea, we proposed setting up a harmonised community of economies stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok, a free trade zone and even employing more sophisticated integration patterns. We also proposed pursuing coordinated policies in industry, technology, the energy sector, education, science, and also to eventually scrap visas. These proposals have not been left hanging in midair; our European colleagues are discussing them in detail.

Soon the Customs Union, and later the Eurasian Union, will join the dialogue with the EU. As a result, apart from bringing direct economic benefits, accession to the Eurasian Union will also help countries integrate into Europe sooner and from a stronger position.

In addition, a partnership between the Eurasian Union and EU that is economically consistent and balanced will prompt changes in the geo-political and geo-economic setup of the continent as a whole with a guaranteed global effect.

It is clear today that the 2008 global crisis was structural in nature. We still witness acute reverberations of the crisis that was rooted in accumulated global imbalances. At the same time, the elaboration of post-crisis global development models is proving to be a difficult process. For example, the Doha Round is virtually mired in stalemate, the WTO faces objective difficulties, and the principle of free trade and open markets is itself in deep crisis.

We believe that a solution might be found in devising common approaches from the bottom up, first within the existing regional institutions, such as the EU, NAFTA, APEC, ASEAN inter alia, before reaching an agreement in a dialogue between them. These are the integration bricks that can be used to build a more sustainable global economy.

For example, take the two largest associations on our continent – the European Union and the Eurasian Union currently under construction. In building cooperation on the principles of free trade rules and compatible regulation systems they are in a position to disseminate these principles, including through third parties and regional institutions, all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. They will thus create an area that will be economically harmonised, but that still will remain diverse when it comes to specific mechanisms and management solutions. At that point, it will make sense to engage in a constructive dialogue on the fundamentals of cooperation with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, North America and other regions.

In this respect, I would like to mention that the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan has already initiated talks on establishing a free trade area with the European Free Trade Association. The agenda of the APEC forum, to be held in Vladivostok next year, will include trade liberalisation and lifting barriers that impede economic cooperation. Russia will be promoting a common agreed position of all Customs Union and CES members.

Thus, our integration project is moving to a qualitatively new level, opening up broad prospects for economic development and creating additional competitive advantages. This consolidation of efforts will help us establish ourselves within the global economy and trade system and play a real role in decision-making, setting the rules and shaping the future.

I am convinced that the establishment of the Eurasian Union and efficient integration are approaches that will enable members to take a prominent place in our complicated, 21st century world. Only by standing together will all our countries be able to take their places as leaders of global growth and drivers of progress, only together will they succeed and prosper.

National Library of Belarus. Who says tractors and Bat'ka are all there is to it?

In the vein of my recent posts on the myth of Russian emigration, I am now publishing a translation of Уехать в Белоруссию (“Go Off To Belarus”) by Maksim Schweiz writing for Rosbalt news agency. It is a joint effort by Nils van der Vegte, who blogs with Joera Mulders at Russia Watchers and is now busy propagating Dutch language and culture in the Arctic cornucopia of Arkhangelsk, and myself. Nils translated the section on Belarus, I translated the section on Ukraine.

Introduction

Many pundits have stated lately that Russia is going to experience (or is already experiencing) a large outflow of people who wish to emigrate to other countries because in contemporary Russia, life is supposedly unbearable. However, by looking at the statistics, which we prefer over random quotes, this is not really the case. Also, like some other people pointed out, Russia is not that unique in that a certain percentage has the desire to leave one’s country. Even Russia’s most anti-Kremlin and pro-Western newspapers are fed up with the continuous desire to emigrate. In a recent interview on Echo of Moscow, Konstantin Remtsukov (the editor of the Nezavisimaya Gazeta) commented: “I would like to ask those people who want to “shove off” the following question: just when was it ever better in Russia?” and “Did they want to leave in 1994 and 1993 as well? What aboutin 1998? Do they think they lived better then than we do today?” Instead of doing a serious/academic post on Russian emigration (to counter all these rants) we have decided to translate a rather cynical post by Rosbalt, in which a Russian journalist advises Russians about emigrating to Belarus or Ukraine. – Nils van der Vegte.

Whereas in general terms I have nothing to add to Nils’ comments, I’m not so sure that it’s a “cynical” article. After all, we have to bear in mind that until a few years ago, more Russians left for Belarus than the reverse! This indicates that at least until the country’s recent economic troubles, if you had no special dissident or entrepreneurial proclivities, life was pretty good by ex-USSR standards. That is no longer the case. On the other hand, the Belorussian devaluation does mean that geoarbitrage of the sort I discussed in my last post here is becoming very profitable. The commentator Doug mentioned that Russians are now pouring over the border snapping up Belorussian goods that are now twice as cheap for them as they were a year ago. And property prices in Minsk suddenly look very attractive. So in this sense Russian “emigration” to Belarus doesn’t seem like a bad idea at the moment – just make sure you continue getting paid in Russian rubles! -Anatoly Karlin

TRANSLATION: Time To Shove Off To Belarus!

“Let’s get out”, but where to? In Europe and in the US we are not wanted and the Third World is too far away. For those who are fed up with Russia but who think that Europe and Asia are no alternative, there are two underrated options: Ukraine and Belarus.

There is a popular expression in the Russian blogosphere: “It’s time to shove off” (Пора валить). Usually, Western Europe is the most popular destination. But there are increasingly negative stories about emigrating there: “We are not wanted there”, “All we can do is washing the dishes” and “People are very different and difficult to socialize with” are common mantras nowadays. All of these are true. But if you really want to emigrate to “Europe” there is always Belarus or Ukraine to consider.

The first option is Belarus. Belarus is an ideal country if you want to move out of Russia and live more quietly. The only thing is that, especially now, after the crisis, it is incredibly hard to get yourself a decent living. Even the 200 Dollars needed to pay for a one-or two-room apartment in Minsk are hard to come by. But, as far as other factors are concerned, Belarus can indeed be described as the East-European Switzerland.

Living costs in Belarus are very low. You can buy a bottle of yogurt for 15 Russian rubles, Kefir costs 10 rubles per bottle, a kilo of cooked sausage 10 rubles per kilo and for bread you only pay 12 rubles. An evening in a café or bar in the centre of Minsk costs you about 300-600 Russian rubles.

Belarus has almost completely eradicated corruption: bribes are not necessary when visiting a clinic or during a visit to whatever government agency. Here, the police does not take bribes. If you are caught drunk behind the wheel you have to pay a fine of Moscow-like proportions (1000 Dollars) or lose your drivers license for three years. The latter of these is the more likely outcome, since Belorussian cops are very afraid of taking bribes.

In Belarus, your health will surely improve, and not just because of the famous sanatoriums. For a total of 60-90 rubles you can go ice skating the whole evening. Alternatively, you can also go to the huge “Palace of Water Sports”. In general, the entry fee to all public buildings and the usage of government social services is, by Russian standards, very cheap.

Real estate is very cheap in Belarus. You can get a studio apartment in Minsk for $150 per month, or $200 for a renovated one. Buying a standard one-bedroom apartment will cost you $50,000-$60,000. This is expensive for the locals but not for you Russians, accustomed as you are to “Moscow prices”. Minsk itself is a nice place to live in: it’s full of trees and relatively clean air. Also, Minsk is ideal for couples with children: if you want to send your children to kindergarten it will only cost you 2000 rubles per month.

Now for the minuses. In Belarus, it is very difficult to do business. Even more difficult than in Russia. In Moscow, many issues can be resolved by simply coming to an “understanding” with someone, in Belarus every misstep can lead to confiscation of your property. Also, if you dare to hide your profits and evade taxes, it could put you behind bars for a considerable time. Bureaucratic procedures in Belarus are even worse than in Russia: don’t think that you can register your company within a single day or even within a week. The security services make conducting business here a nightmare, and it is as hard for a businessman to get compensation for his grievances against the state in Belarus as it is in Russia.

For people who are accustomed to Moscow-like entertainment, Belarus is a hard place to live. In Minsk, as well as in the rest of Belarus, there is very little nightlife and if there is, the interior, service and staging is unlikely to be attractive. Belarus does not have a decent amusement park, so don’t think you can somehow organize a nice family day in Minsk. Also, it takes ages before movies from Europe/America arrive in Belorussian cinemas. Don’t expect a Shakira or Madonna here: concerts of world stars almost never happen, prominent sporting events are also absent in Belarus. Belorussians are in general are fond of a quiet, family life. And this is something you have to get used to.

Another decent emigration destination for a Russian, who still hasn’t firmly set his sights on Europe, is Ukraine. This country is the exact opposite of Belarus. You can only really live in two cities – Kiev and Odessa. All others emanate an indescribable sense of gloom and despondency. The Ukraine is dirty, food and entertainment are twice as expensive, and property costs as much or a bit more. There are no affordable gyms or swimming pools. Registration issues are far more inconvenient for Russians than is the case in Belarus, where you can emigrate easily without problems. Healthcare is atrocious, and bribes have to be given for practically everything – even for a consultation in any office. Drunken drivers stopped by the Ukrainian police can buy themselves off for only $200.

On the other hand, Kiev boasts loads of attractions. Here there are always plenty of concerts, many of them free. You can eat lunch in the city centre for only 500 rubles.

There is one unarguably bright side to life in Ukraine – freedom of action. Only in Ukraine will you see signs with “Cafe” or “gas station” on them right in front of ordinary village houses, adjacent to the freeways. Only in Kiev will you see coffee and sandwiches being sold straight out of old, bright-orange Moskvitch cars. You don’t even need a passport to buy a SIM-card. No policeman here will drive out a musician with his guitar and begging cap out of the town centre, or demand to see your passport and registration documents.

People in the Ukraine are responsive and friendly – don’t believe the tales that they dislike Russians. It’s common here to greet fellow customers in the shops and to cut off a piece of cheese for sampling, if you can’t decide which one you want. For all the “backwoods” character and friendliness of Kiev’s townspeople, on weekdays it is full of milling throngs and clonking horns. The tempo of life beats much faster than in Minsk, and is more reminiscent of Moscow – everybody is hurrying somewhere, and getting wound up when they have to stand in traffic jams. And, in contrast to the Belorussian capital, there are certainly plenty of those.

That said, it seems that it’s far easier to do business here, than in Minsk – at least, it’s plainly visible in that there are many home-grown entrepreneurs, who don’t need even a stall to hawk their wares and ply their trades. They do with just an ordinary umbrella.

Summing up, dear Russians, there are many paths of retreat. And if you are firmly set on “shoving off”, then consider that it doesn’t necessarily have to be far away and permanent. There are closer and more humane alternatives.

Nikolay Starikov, heroic destroyer of Russian liberal myths!

EDIT: This article has been (re-!) translated into Russian at Inosmi.ru (Как российские либералы создают русофобские мифы).

Do you remember the growing chorus of voices in the Western media speaking of a “growing wave” of emigration from Putin’s Russia? Those 1.25 million liberal professionals who have fled that neo-Soviet abyss in the past few years? As it turns out, not only are these stories complete fabrications – in a previous post, I revealed that the actual statistics (as opposed to hearsay) indicate that emigration has fallen to record lows – but they originate with the Russian liberal media.

The words of a government official, whose department has nothing to do with migration, was egregiously MISQUOTED to give the impression of a huge outflow in the past few years whereas he had been talking about the entire post-Soviet period! Nonetheless, too lazy and/or ideologically biased to do basic fact-checking, this false narrative spread into the top Russian liberal media outlets and from then on into Western publications (with their equally lazy and Russophobic hacks) such as Julian Evans for Wall Street Journal and Simon Shuster for TIME.

The full meta-story of how the Russian liberals orchestrated this “Second Wave of Emigration” meme is reconstructed in painstaking detail by Nikolay Starikov in his blog post How Liberal Myths are Created. My translation follows:

The recipe is simple: a little manipulation, a few lies, and a lot of emotions. And that’s all – yet another calumny on Russia is ready. Let us get to the bottom of this kitchen cooking liberal myths about our country.

A myth is always created in several stages:

STAGE 1 – The “Careless Citation”

Radio Echo of Moscow, Sat. Jan 15, 2011, program “Dura Lex.”

In the studio we have Mikhail Barschevsky and Chairman of the Audit Chamber Sergei Stepashin. They are having a nice discussion and congratulate each other on the New Year.

Sergei Stepashin feels himself comfortable and says the following in his discussion with Barschevsky:

BARSCHEVSKY: … You now speak of innovations. But, in reality, by abusing human rights – ordinary rights, such as security, not providing judicial protection – we lost a lot of talented people to brain drain. People who may now have been very useful for innovation.
STEPASHIN: Well I have the exact figures. 1,250,000 people, who are now working abroad. They aren’t the least able of us….
BARSCHEVSKY: You mean not plumbers?
STEPASHIN: Well, they are academics, specialists.
BARSCHEVSKY: 1,250,000?
STEPASHIN: 1,250,000. About as many left after 1917.

So what did Stepashin actually say? He said that 1,250,000 Russians work abroad. They are educated academics and specialists.

Now pay close attention – the Chairman of the Audit Chamber didn’t say a word about when these people left the country. The conversation was about something else – that today some 1,250,000 smart Russians work abroad. But when did they leave? Throughout the entire post-Soviet era! (And likely, including the period of the late USSR).

Sergey Stepashin has to be more careful with his numbers, and his words – especially on account of his position, and on that radio station! [AK: Echo of Moscow is one of the main media voices of Russian liberals].

STAGE 2 – Quote Manipulation and Myth Creation

After the radio program the liberals did two things:

(1) They began to present the 1,250,000 figure as originating from an authoritative source – the Chairman of the Audit Chamber. As if our Audit Chamber concerns itself with counting the numbers leaving the country. [AK: Obviously, it doesn't; that's the job of the Federal Migration Service]

(2) They presented this figure not as the numbers of Russians working abroad, but as the numbers of Russians who took leave of Putin’s Russia. I hope the difference is clear.

Thus the myth creation process from Stepashin’s carelessly phrased words began to spread in earnest. Here are a few randomly chosen Internet headers:

The middle class leaves Russia. “According to the Audit Chamber’s figures, some 1,250,000 emigrated from Russia in the last few years.”

Consequences of the Putinist decade: clever people scrambling out of Russia. “The country is submerged under a new emigration wave. 1,250,000 people left for the West. Once again people are running out of Russian en masse. If we believe the calculations of Sergey Stepashin, the Chairman of the Audit Chamber, 1,250,000 Russians left the country in the past few years.”

Soon after, this process is reinforced not just by simple “parrots,” but by more qualified commentators. Their goals are the same – the creation of false information in support of their thesis that “all that we had is now gone.”

“1,250,000 emigrants. Why is Russia leaking human capital?” asks the title of a program on Radio Finam FM. It begins thus: “According to Chairman of the Audit Chamber Sergey Stepashin’s calculations, in the last few years 1,250,000 emigrated out of Russia. And this is only the official statistic.”

The radio show-manipulators invited Dmitry Polikanov, the Deputy Director of the Central Executive Party Committee of United Russia. But for him and for all its listeners, this 1,250,000 figure is already presented, as the OFFICIAL NUMBER OF EMIGRANTS IN THE LAST FEW YEARS.

This is how they frame their question: “Dmitry, please tell us, is not the younger generation off United Russia party leaders the least concerned about this statistic, or is it considered to be within reasonable bounds, and irrelevant? 1,250,000 people left our country in the last few years, but don’t worry – that’s nothing to worry about.”

It’s a smart approach – how exactly is a young United Russia functionary is supposed to argue with the Chairman of the Audit Chamber? For nobody has the time or desire to read the original source and realize that what Sergey Stepashin talked about, wasn’t in the least related to how leading liberals quoted him.

The liberals always exploit our big weakness – the majority of normal people don’t know the rules of information warfare. They can’t even imagine that liars may intentionally distort and outright falsify words and facts. And the liberals feed off this. They brazenly LIE.

Just remember – don’t trust any numbers put forwards by the liberals. In most cases, it will either be based on lies, or intentional manipulation. Check them; refute them.

But the young Polikanov accepted those liberal figures at face value and didn’t dispute the figure of 1,250,000 who LEFT IN THE LAST FEW YEARS. And in so doing, he in a way confirmed them. And that’s all that “independent” journalists really require.

Because now they can link to that discussion too: here was a United Russia functionary, and he didn’t dispute that figure, hence he agreed with it. And thus that 1,250,000 just left the country is the truth.

After that this figure seeps into the blogosphere, and becomes a common motif. A clear example of how normal life in “Putin’s Russia” is impossible.

Soon after Moskovskij Komsomolets joins in, which employs that famous “literatus” Aleksandr Minkin. He writes an article under the title Flight from the Tandem: “The Audit Chamber officially reported: “In the last few years, 1,250,000 people left Russia.” The wave of emigration is not a lot less than the one after 1917. This statistics are confirmed by the Director of the Federal Migration Service Romodanovsky: “About 300,000-350,000 Russians leave to work abroad every year.” How many of them return he didn’t specify.”

Regular as clockwork, Minkin is lying big time. The Audit Chamber didn’t officially report anything about emigration, nor can it because it isn’t its sphere of responsibility! Minkin isn’t only repeating Stepashin’s distorted words, but he is also creatively manipulating the speech of Konstantin Romodanovsky. The FMS Director actually said this: “Every year more than 300,000 people leave Russia, of whom 40,000 – for permanent residence abroad.”

That is, only 40,000 people permanently leave the country. The others study, work, travel, and return. The state statistics service Rosstat has very similar figures.

But let’s be honest, unlike “independent” journalists. Where to they go, where do citizens “flee” from their “bad” life in Russia? Of course, they leave for the “civilized world.” So let’s take the numbers of those leaving for the so-called “Far Abroad” (AK: Refers to the world outside the former USSR). After all it’s not like our countrymen are leaving for a better life in Moldova or Georgia.

So what we have is that in the past 12 years, some 605,380 people left the country. And the trend is for this figure to decrease with every passing year.

Unfortunately, Rosstat doesn’t give figures for 2009 and 2010 (AK: It does, but you have to dig into their database; this trend has continued, and as of this year the migration balance between countries like Germany and Israel has even turned positive!). But in 2008 some 39,508 people left Russia, out of whom 13,394 left for the Far Abroad. Is it even possible to imagine that in 2009 and 2010 there began a flood of 1.2 million when in the previous year there were less than 40,000?

STAGE 3 – Smearing the Country

And now Novaya Gazeta strolls by, all very randomly and independently. [AK: NG is the most hysterically liberal and knee-jerk anti-Putin paper].

After the previous stage of myth creation and “legitimization,” NG confidently states: “A high ranked bureaucrat has shed light on the unprecedented human flight out of Russia at the end of the 2000′s. The Chairman of the Audit Chamber Sergey Stepashin back in January gave a figure – from 2008, some 1.25 million Russians in the economically active part of the population. And the outflow continues. Although Stepashin predictably didn’t delve into its causes, the current emigration wave unconditionally enters the list of deferred achievements of the “eight years of Putinist stability.”"

Read this Novaya Gazeta article. Pathos, photo. The general tone: All we have is gone, the Russia, that we have lost.

And now remember back – what did Stepashin actually say?

Do you still trust the liberal media?

All that said, for us this history with the lies and distortions so eagerly spread by the campaigners “for our freedom and yours” is only another reason to soberly analyze the emigration out of Russia of those people, who may be of use to it.

Let’s summarize:

1. Some 1,250,000 of our countrymen, who left in the past 20 years, are now working abroad. Many of them are well educated and talented.
2. The brain drain out of Russia continues. But, bearing in mind that the figures are falling year by year (reaching 39,508 in 2008), we can confidently say that the scale of this emigration is continuously declining.
3. It is also clear that the vast majority of our brain drain happened in the periods of “reform” and “liberalism” – when effective managers and those same liberals destroyed science and industry – and not at all in the past few years.
4. Sergey Stepashin should not relax when interviewed by Echo of Moscow. He should watch his words carefully, anyone of which may be used against Russia in the information war.
5. Under no circumstances should one trust figures cited by the liberal mass media and “independent” journalists. They will deceive you, like rogue traders cheat on unwary customers in a bazaar.
6. Cross check everything yourself, think independently. The main instrument for this is common sense.
7. You have to love your country. This love will help you separate lies from truth.

PS. Compare also with liberal slandering of Russia on Russia’s demography by Nezavisimaya Gazeta and how the liberal media played up the specter of a wave of crisis-induced abortions in early 2009 even as abortions continued to fall and fertility to rise. Truly there is no end to Russian liberal lies.

1. “Talking of mandatory treatment – one can talk about anything. But mandatory treatment for alcoholism and drug addiction is ultimately worse for ourselves. We have to convince that person, encourage an internal motivation, and understanding of the necessity to conquer these ills. It is important that that person doesn’t feel himself alone, so that he understands and feels that if he fell into this trap, he should feel that he hasn’t been abandoned, that he isn’t alone, that his family and friends, relatives, parents won’t abandon him to the winds, nor will his school, his work collective, wherever he may be studying or working, the state won’t abandon him.”

2. “Concerning testing schoolchildren for drugs, I would be satisfied with any manner in which it is carried out. Practically continuous testing. A situation should be created where not testing becomes inconvenient for the schools… Drugs influence the demographic situation and destroy our nation’s gene pool, people’s health… Everyone, be they young or old, getting a job, should have to think that even if he consumes drugs even just once it will be discovered, and this will stop him from further drugs consumption… I think this idea should be developed. I instruct the Minister of Education* to look at this in the sense of updating the policy documents of state and private universities… The popularization of drugs consumption is simply a crime, not only legally but morally. I am simply shocked by the degree of this popularization on certain Internet information portals.”

One of these statements belongs to a Dostoevskian appreciation of humanity’s universal brotherhood and respect for true liberal values. The other belongs to the world of the Soviet Union, of modern-day GULAG’s (such as the US prison-industrial complex) locking up 1% of their citizenry, of moral hysteria and populist threats against things like the Internet or night clubs which the speaker doesn’t understand. Dear reader, care to guess which statement is whose?

Putin is the nuanced humanitarianism. And it is, of course, the Medvedev Abomination which has moralistic authoritarianism oozing out of every one of its slimey pores.

All those ideas go against the growing consensus of global researchers on the drug problem. They are also deeply illiberal and socially unjust, values which DAM pretends to champion. Just what is he smoking???

For Medvedev is the type of “liberal” who believes dropping bombs can bring democracy. He is the type of person who wants to lock up poor people – say, drug users, or homeless people who steal $100 – while letting billionaire crooks go free; granted Medvedev hasn’t outright admitted to wanting to pardon Khodorkovsky, but his language on the matter – one of “neutral” legalese mumbo jumbo that no normal person cares about – as well as calls for MBK’s pardons from his circles (by their friends shall ye know them) reveal his true standing for what it is – a stooge of finance capital.

In other words, he is a neoliberal Stalinist.

If Medvedev gets a second term in the Presidency, then Russia will evidently not be long for this world. That is why Russians have to take their country back. Get him out of the Kremlin, or burn him out!!!

* The Education Minister Andrei Fursenko (as is Putin, is against mandatory drugs testing in schools. Thankfully not everyone there is insane like Medvedev.

PS. In the latest news, Medvedev embarks on his latest campaign to destroy the Russian defense industry.

Alternatively, you could join in on the fun. Like how Russian companies were responsible for the film’s stuns and special effects. Or how back in March 2010 a Inoforum user called vivizul came up with a similar idea for a blockbuster We Are All Georgians. (They should totally film it IMO, perhaps as a sequel). This idea was translated by yalensis at Mark Chapman’s blog, and both kindly gave S/O permission to reprint it as a post. This marks yalensis’ debut as a published writer – congrats!

We Are All Georgians

An ordinary American youth of Gruzian ethnic origin, John Ramboshvili, arrives in his ancestral motherland, in order to visit his elderly, ailing grandfather, who dwells in a Gruzian enclave very close to the gates of Mordor the Roki Tunnel. (Note: for scenes set in the Roki Tunnel one can use the same set as was used in “Lord of the Rings”)

The [hero’s] plane lands in Tbilisi. John strolls down the well-lit streets of the capital and admires the accomplishments of this young Gruzian democracy. The air of freedom is intoxicating for this American youth, and he quietly hums the American national anthem.

Next scene. Our hero arrives at his grandfather’s house. Grandfather is delighted to see him, and as they share a bottle of “Kindzmarauli” [a brand of Gruzian sweet red wine], he tells his grandson all about the accomplishments of the young Gruzian democracy. Together they breathe the air of freedom and sing “Suliko”. Night comes, grandfather goes to bed, and John goes for a walk along the tunnel in order to see with his own eyes this border separating the good guys from the bad guys. Approaching the tunnel, John notices with horror how Russian tanks are quietly creeping out of the dark maw of the tunnel. John takes photos on his cellphone and hastens back in the direction of Tbilisi to warn this young democracy about the impending threat.

Russian flying orcs visiting death and destruction on Middle Earth.

In the town of Tskhinval John meets up with a column of Gruzian tanks. They already know what is up and have arrived in the town in order to protect the peaceful inhabitants. The peaceful inhabitants greet their liberators with fireworks. Above the town appear Russian planes, which begin to bomb it. Right in front of John a bomb falls on a kiosk selling Coca Cola. Enraged by this act of blatant vandalism, John reaches into his backpack, grabs a slingshot equipped with laser sights, and with this weapon he brings down no fewer than 10 Russian planes. At the same time, Russian tanks are appearing on the outskirts of the town. The Gruzian soldiers ferociously resist the aggressors, but there are too many of them. There are 10 Russian tanks and 300 Russian soldiers for every one Gruzian soldier. Plus, the Russians have in reserve 100,000 mounted Cossack cavalry, and border-guard units consisting of FSB-successor-to-KGB butchers.

An epic battle scene. [Close-ups] of faces of Gruzian soldiers, filled with manly courage and valor; and faces of Russian soldiers, distorted by rage and twisted by drunkenness. John Ramboshvili destroys no fewer than 50 tanks.

The Russians, realizing that they cannot defeat the proud, brave and freedom-loving Gruzians in a fair fight, resort to cunning: they sneakily broadcast disinformation that a Russian landing party has set down [behind enemy lines] in Tbilisi itself. The Gruzians, with shouts of “We’ll kill them all with our bare hands!” toss their weapons aside and race back to Tbilisi. John is left alone to hold the front lines. He destroys another 50 tanks and brings down 20 planes. At that point he runs out of ammunition (stones equipped with highly accurate laser guidance for his slingshot), and is forced to retreat. While he is retreating, John witnesses painful scenes of looting and maraudering on the part of the Russian troops. The drunken Russians steal everything in their path. Trucks filled with trophey toilets are moving back in the direction of the Roki Tunnel. Behind the convoy of trucks stretches a line of prisoners. MacDonalds [hamburger restaurants] are blown up, and Coca Cola kiosks are flattened by tanks.

John finally makes it to Tbilisi, where he meets with the youthful Gruzian president. Under his leadership, the Gruzians are getting ready for a counter-attack against the Russians. John tells the Gruzian president everything that he has witnessed. The Gruzian president is so angry about the sufferings of his freedom-loving people that he cannot stop himself from wolfing down his own tie.

Meanwhile the Russians, learning that the Gruzians are preparing a counter-attack, panic and flee back to Tskhinval. John Ramboshvili enters Gori along with the victorious Gruzian warriors, and the grateful inhabitants pelt them with flowers. Even in the smoky ruins one can feel the wind of freedom blowing once again.

It doesn’t make for the most riveting reading – in fact, it’s downright bureaubabble that would be gratuitous to reproduce here. Nonetheless, Arctic specialists would do well to acquaint themselves with it. This documents basically lays out the general направления of what Russia – the world’s foremost Arctic Power – intends to accomplish there in the next decade.

This is a reprint of

This is a TRANSLATION of an article by Jules Dufour published September 7th, 2010 at Mondialisation.ca (“Le Canada: un plan national pour la militarisation de l’Arctique et de ses ressources stratégiques“). In my opinion its a tad too alarmist over the scope of Canada’s military ambitions in the Arctic (IMO it’s mostly political grandstanding at this stage), but nonetheless it’s important to remember that Russia is hardly the only country militarizing the Arctic and saber-rattling in the High North. To be made available in PDF.

Canada’s National Plan For The Militarization Of The Arctic And Its Strategic Resources

The year 2010 was marked by a series of decisions by the Canadian government concerning rearmament. Predictably, as the defense plan “Canada First” was formally launched in 2008, involving the country in an unprecedented weapons acquisition and modernization program, such as the purchase of tanks, F-35 fighters, naval construction and F-18 fighter upgrades, pledged at the start of September. It was in July that most of these projects were unveiled, during the summer vacations when such news is far from the concerns of Canadians. Thus, tens of billions are committed to war or preparation for war, without it being possible to hold a parliamentary or public debate on the subject. At most, there have been some protests about the magnitude of the pledged sums and the concerns expressed here and on the regional economic fallout (Castonguay, A., 2010). A familiar scenario.

[The Arctic and its coveted natural resources.]

These projects can no longer be justified by Canada’s participation in the war of occupation of Afghanistan. The soldiers of the Canadian army are going to be repatriated in 2011. It’s undeniable that the arena of corporate domination and NATO control over al the strategic resources of the world now includes, and above all, the increasingly accessible Arctic subsoil.

[Arctic geopolitics map. Click to enlarge.]

A Defense Policy Based on Force

In order to conform to this logic, Canada recently reaffirmed its commitment to Arctic territory which ensures it more effective control. In its foreign policy statement on the Arctic, made public last August, the Canadian government gives priority to reinforcing its military presence in this region of the world, but this time taking care to cloak it under a set of good intentions regarding economic and social development, as well as governance.

Its first objective is to supposedly “safeguard”, through an increased military presence, its sovereignty over an important portion of the Arctic continental shelf. In effect, “the defense strategy Canada First will give the Canadian Forces the necessary tools to increase their presence in the Arctic. Under this strategy, Canada will acquire new patrol vessels capable of sustained sea-ice operations to ensure close surveillance of our waters, so that they gradually open to the maritime industry. To support these ships and other vessels of the Canadian government that are active in the North, Canada is constructing a port at Nanisivik, with facilities for maritime docking and resupply.” In addition, the US and Canada are working together to better monitor and control the North American airspace under NORAD (read Michel Chossudovsky, “Canada’s sovereignty under thread: the militarization of of North America“, Mondialisation.ca, September 10th 2007), the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Moreover, the Canadian Forces will benefit from new technologies to improve their capacity to monitor their territory and its approaches.

Anti-Russian Maneuvers?

The military exercises held every year or more by NATO on the continental shelf of Norway are tailored to simulate the hunting of Russian naval forces seeking to take control of the hydrocarbon resources in this part of the plateau. The same objective is at the heart of the Operation Nanook military exercises conducted in 2010 by the Canadian Forces in conjunction with those of the US and Denmark.

According to several analysts, including Michael Byers, the Canadian government doesn’t cease to use this potential threat in order to justify its military spending pledges, in particular, the $16bn purchase of F-35′s. Therefore, from time to time it’s fair game, to keep alive the spirit of this Russian menace, to proclaim in the mass media that Russian bombers were successfully intercepted in NATO airspace, as was the case in August with the interception of a Tupolev TU-95 bomber some thirty nautical miles from the coast of the Canadian Arctic (Byers, M., 2010). In fact, it’s arguably by no means an act of provocation or aggression on the part of Russia.

Conclusion

It’s important to say the truth about the real issues surrounding the development of Arctic resources. The confrontation between America and Russia up there is in place for a number of years now, a kind of latent “cold war” which serves the two protagonists well. The monitoring of the Arctic is in fact defined as the vigil kept on the Russian operations conducted in this ocean. The quest for maintaining Canadian sovereignty over part of the continental shelf is just a pretext for its militarization. Don’t be fooled. NATO’s real intentions are to have absolute control over the hydrocarbon resources in this region of the world, just as it does by force and armed violence in the Middle East and Central Asia.

See also: The Arctic, a “precious diamond” for the global environment and humanity by Jules Dufour.

References

BYERS, Michael. 2010. Russian bombers a make-believe threat. THE STAR. Le 30 août 2010.

CASTONGUAY, Alec. 2010. Ottawa achètera le F-35. Le Conseil des ministres a approuvé l’acquisition d’un nouvel avion de chasse pour le Canada. Journal Le Devoir, les 10 et 11 juillet 2010, p. A3.

CASTONGUAY, Alec. 2010. Armée: la modernisation des VBL s’amorce. Journal le Devoir, les 10 et 11 juillet 2010, p. A2.

CASTONGUAY, Alec. 2010. Avions de chasse. La bagarre politique commence. Ottawa confirme l’achat d’au moins 60 F-35 sans appel d’offres. Un futur gouvernement libéral suspendra le contrat. Journal Le Devoir, les 16 juillet 2010, p. A1.

CASTONGUAY, Alec. 2010. Achat de 65 avions de chasse F-35. Les entreprises canadiennes se réjouissent. Près de 100 entreprises pourraient profiter des retombées économiques. Journal Le Devoir, les 17 et 18 juillet 2010, p. A3.

CASTONGUAY, Alec. 2010. Arctique, la nouvelle guerre froide. Journal Le Devoir, 21 et 22 août 2010, p. A1.

CASTONGUAY, Alec. 2010. Ottawa dévoile au monde ses ambitions pour l’Arctique. Journal Le Devoir, les 21 et 22 août 2010, p. A4.

CASTONGUAY, Alec. 2010. La ruée vers le Nord. La croissance des activités humaines dans l’Arctique pose des défis pour le Canada.. Journal Le Devoir, 21 et 22 août 2010, p. A7.

CASTONGUAY, Alec. 2010. Des ressources naturelles alléchantes. Journal Le Devoir, les 21 et 22 août 2010, p. A7.

CHOSSUDOVSKY, Michel, La souveraineté du Canada menacée: la militarisation de l’Amérique du Nord », Mondialisation.ca, le 10 septembre 2007.

DUFOUR, Jules. 2007. L’Arctique, un espace convoité : la militarisation du Nord canadien. Géopolitique et militarisation du grand Nord canadien (Première partie). Montréal, Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation. Le 26 juillet 2007.

DUFOUR, Jules. 2007. L’Arctique, militarisation ou coopération pour le développement. Géopolitique et militarisation du grand Nord canadien (Deuxième partie). Montréal, Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation. Le 31 juillet 2007.

FEDIACHINE, Andrei. 2010. L’or noir de la blanche Arctique : le pétrole est arrivé plus tôt que prévu. Ria Novosti. Montréal, Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation. Le 4 septembre 2010.

HUEBERT, Rob. 2010. Welcome to a new era of Arctic security. Globe and Mail. Le 24 août 2010.

LA PRESSE CANADIENNE. 2010. Navires : Ottawa relance un projet d’achat de 2,6 milliards. Journal le Devoir, le 15 juillet 2010, p. A3.

ROZOFF, Rick. 2010. Canada Opens Arctic To NATO, Plans Massive Weapons Buildup. Montréal, Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation (CRM). Le 29 août 2010.

The Triumvirate and the First Ten

According to the official version, Russia is a democratic country, consensually governed by the “tandem” of lawfully elected President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin. The semi-official version says that the two halves of the “tandem” are in fact equal: since Putin is older and more experienced, he is also more “equal” and more important than his protégé in the Presidency.

The second account is closer to the real state of affairs, but it’s inaccurate even so. The pinnacle of power isn’t occupied by a “tandem” or duumvirate, but by a triumvirate composed of Putin, Sechin and Medvedev. The President isn’t even the second man in the hierarchy, but only the third. Although some politogists rank Medvedev fourth (after Viktor Ivanov) or even fifth (after Sergey Naryshkin, or Aleksandr Bortnikov, or Vladislav Surkov, or even Roman Abramovich), these are sensationalist exaggerations.

The real hierarchy and functions of Russia’s highest bureaucrats have no relation to their nominal positions. Vladimir Putin is called Prime Minister, but in reality he’s the Sovereign, our Tsar-Batyushka – while not a sole autocrat or absolute monarch, his power is unconstitutional; and though constrained, it is not by the constitution or the laws, but by corporate-clique traditions (not dissimilar from mafia “understandings”), backstage agreements with shadowy lobbies, and family, friend and administrative connections. Furthermore, not only is Putin a Tsar, he is also his own Minister of Foreign Affairs (the nominal minister, Sergey Lavrov, is nothing more than an advisor on foreign policy).

Though Igor Sechin is called the Deputy Prime Minister, it is he who is in fact the “First Minister”. He’s not quite the head of government (as not all Ministers are subject to him – several answer directly to the Sovereign), but he’s a first amongst equals nonetheless. He holds sway over vast swathes of the Russian economy (with the exception of finance) and the security organs answer to him.

On paper, Dmitry Medvedev is the President and head of stat, but in reality he’s sooner a sort of Deputy Prime Minister on a wide range of issues. Though preeminent in his domain, the legislative sector, he is but an advisor to the Sovereign on cadre questions, and not even the most influential – that honor goes to Viktor Ivanov, and maybe even Sergey Sobyanin has more influence on the appointments of governors than the President who signs to confirm them.

The responsibilities of FSB director Aleksandr Bortnikov are similar to his job description. Though he is formally subordinated to President Medvedev, his real managers are Putin and Sechin.

Although Viktor Ivanov is officially the director of the Federal Anti-Narcotics Agency, no matter the name of his official position in the last 15 years, he was and remains Putin’s main advisor on cadre selection. Furthermore, the Federal Anti-Narcotics Agency is really the “second KGB” (the “first KGB” is Bortnikov’s FSB). This “second KGB” became necessary after the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), which had balanced the KGB during the Soviet era, fell under FSB control during Putin’s reign. Control of the MVD is exercised by the Petersburg – Karelia clan of Patrushev and Nurgaliev.

Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the Presidential Administration, should theoretically work to fulfill the President’s will. However, Naryshkin, Putin’s classmate in the KGB Higher School, is actually Medvedev’s “supervisor” on behalf of the Sovereign, Putin.

Vladislav Surkov is officially the First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration, but is also informally responsible for the regime’s ideology. He holds an unofficial position that is impossible in a democratic state – Minister of Parliament and Political Parties.

The Minister of Finance Aleksey Kudrin, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov (answers on foreign economic policy) and Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Sobyanin (head of the Administration of the Russian President) also figure in the first ten of the administrative-economic oligarchy that rules Russia.

A Note on Oligarchy

An oligarchy is the collective authoritarianism of the propertied class. The single most propertied class in Russia is the higher bureaucracy, the nomenklatura. Directly (through management of state property) or indirectly (through front men, wives, children, cousins, nephews, etc) the oligarchic nomenklatura controls virtually the entire Russian economy. Their leading members are magnates of global stature – Putin in oil/gas and finance, Medvedev in paper and pulp, Sechin in oil, Sobyanin in natural gas, Shuvalov in finance, Surkov in food products, etc. This pattern is reproduced amidst the wider ranks of the regional oligarchies.

Clans, Clienteles and Coalitions

An oligarchy is never united – it is always fragmented into clans, groupings and clienteles waging civil war, as parts of temporary or more-or-less continuous coalitions. Today the main struggle is between two coalitions of administrative-economic clans, Sechin’s and Medvedev’s. The coalition centered around Sechin wants to remove Medvedev and his supporters from power and supports a third term for Putin after the 2012 elections.

In direct opposition, the Medvedev coalition aims to displace Sechin and his allies, reelect Medvedev in 2012, and transform the triumvirate into a duumvirate with Medvedev playing a more equal role in it. However, they are not much interested in Putin’s dismissal, though it is possible that for some of them it is a distant goal.

The foundation of the Sechin coalition is the union of two groups of St.-Petersburg Chekists: Sechin’s own clan and the group of Viktor Ivanov and Nikolay Patrushev (secretary of the Security Council and former head of the FSB), reinforced by a smattering of smaller clans and clienteles. Prominent figures in the Sechin clan include his protégé in the FSB Aleksandr Bortnikov, the Presidential Envoy to the Southern Federal District Vladimir Ustinov (Sechin’s son-in-law), former Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov (current First Deputy Prime Minister) and Mikhail Fradkov (current head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR), Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdyukov, the President of Rosneft Sergey Bogdanchikov and the CEO of Vneshtorgbank Andrey Kostin.

The Ivanov – Patrushev group includes Speaker of the State Duma Boris Gryzlov, deputy head of the Federal Anti-Narcotics Agency Oleg Safonov and Minister of Internal Affairs Rashid Nurgaliev. This group splits further into several sub-groups and clienteles, the more noticeable of which include the Petersburg – Karelia Chekists (Patrushev – Nurgaliev) and the Petersburg – Afghan Chekists of Viktor Ivanov (his fellow servicemen on Afghanistan). The Sechin coalition also draws in the clienteles of Sergey Naryshkin and Aleksandr Bastrykin (Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General and Putin’s classmate from the Law Department of Leningrad State University). Another of Putin’s friends, Sergey Chemezov, is also part of Sechin’s coalition, with his extensive clientele of enterprise directors within the state corporation Russian Technologies, and several governors.

Medvedev’s coalition is composed of the so-called “Petersburg lawyers” (mostly Medvedev’s classmates from the Law Faculty of Leningrad State University), the “Petersburg economists”, the “Petersburg communicationists”, as well as Viktor Cherkesov’s group. The most influential of the “Petersburg lawyers” is Medvedev’s friend and former classmate, head of the Control Department of the Presidential Administration Konstantin Chuychenko. This group also includes the chairman of the Supreme Court of Arbitration and Medvedev’s lifelong friend Anton Ivanov, the Presidential Envoy to the Urals Federal District Nikolai Vinichenko, a few other lower-ranked classmates, Deputy Prime Minister and head of preparations for the Sochi Olympics Dmitry Kozak, Minister of Justice Aleksandr Konovalov, and Prosecutor General Yury Chaika (also a lawyer, though of Siberian origins).

Aleksey Kudrin leads the “Petersburg economists”, which also include Central Bank chairman Sergey Ignatyev, his first deputy Aleksey Ulyukaev, Minister of State Property Elvira Nabiullina, Director General of the state corporation Rosnano Anatoly Chubais, and advisor to the President Arkadiy Dvorkovich.

The “Petersburg communicationists” are led by Presidential advisor Leonid Reiman and his clientele (in contrast to a clan or group, which have some relatively equal personages, a clientele exhibits a more “vertical” nature: a master and his servants, the manager and his subordinates). Cherkesov’s group is also a clientele, though less so than Reiman’s because it includes the head of the President’s personal security service Viktor Zolotov and, perhaps, Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov.

Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov (“Igor Ivanovich Not Really” – as opposed to Sechin, who’s “Igor Ivanovich The Real Deal”) and head of Medvedev’s Press Service Natalia Timakova are also part of Medvedev’s coalition. Its other supporters include the moneybags Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov, as well as former Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Norilsk Nickel Aleksandr Voloshin. It is possible to consider these figures as another grouping in Medvedev’s coalition, “Voloshin’s group”. Of the newly appointed regional leaders, Nikita Belykh and Dmitry Mezentsev are supporters of Medvedev and his modernization initiative.

In addition to the two main coalitions there exist individuals and groups which haven’t chosen sides, support a neutral position, or prefer to deal with Putin directly. These include the group of “Petersburg physicists” (the Kovalchuk family and the brothers Fursenko) and the “Petersburg Orthodox Chekists” (President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin, the Presidential Envoy to the Central Federal District Georgiy Poltavchenko, and the Head of the Presidential Property Management Department Vladimir Kozhin). These groups are historically closely tied both with each other (through the St.-Petersburg Association of Joint Ventures and “Russia” Bank) and with Putin (through the “Ozero” dacha co-op).

Vladislav Surkov and his clientele also orientate themselves directly to Putin, feeding off the management of the Presidential Administration’s internal policy. Most governors – both old hands and new appointees (e.g., the new Governor of Pskov Oblast Andrey Turchak and the new President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov) – prefer to simultaneously show fealty to Putin, loyalty to Medvedev and boundless respect for Sechin.

Though there undoubtedly exist ideological differences between the Kremlin clans, they are not the building blocks of their coalitions. It is usually considered that Medvedev’s people (especially Kudrin’s group) profess economic liberalism, whereas Sechin’s clan are proponents of dirigisme. However, the disagreement seems more theoretical than anything. In practice, and regardless of their economic views, bureaucrats support “liberalism” towards companies under their thumb, while arguing for “dirigisme” towards enterprises connected to their opponents within the apparatus.

The majority of Medvedev’s clan are relative Westernizers and moderate imperialists. In contrast, Sechin favors an alliance with China against the West, and the majority of his supporters are hawkish imperialists in their attitudes towards the former Soviet republics. That said, the views of Cherkesov, especially in foreign policy, are little different from those of his bitter enemies amongst the Sechin clan (e.g., the news group Rosbalt, which they control, beat the war drum for a march on Tbilisi in August 2008).

Though he is a relative Westernizer and fairly liberal in his internal convictions, Surkov is adamantly opposed to even the minimal modernizing reforms in the sphere of ideology and politics suggested by Medvedev’s liberal advisors from the Institute of Contemporary Development, INSOR, patronized by Timakova and financed by Reiman. Though the “Orthodox Chekists” Yakunin and Poltavchenko might sing the Cross and Russian power to the skies, and advocate a strategic blockade of America in conjunction with the Arabs-Muslims, this does not stop them from maintaining a close alliance with the Kovalchuks (moderate Westernizers, and rather indifferent to both Orthodoxy and the Arabs-Muslims) in the interests of remaining competitive in economic and internal political intrigues.

Putin is Above the Fray

Putin remains above the struggle between the two oligarchic-nomenklatura coalitions (the rivalry between which he partly organized himself) and exploits all the political advantages of this state of affairs. Historically, he is closer to the Sechin clan, especially since one of the leaders of this coalition, Viktor Ivanov, is one of his closest friends. However, on economic questions (and personally) Putin completely trusts in Kudrin, and maintains friendly relations with him; furthermore, the appointment of Medvedev as a successor would have been impossible without a certain degree of trust – greater, in any case, than towards any of his former colleagues in the KGB. No doubt Putin was afraid of bestowing the Presidential mantle onto any of them even for a short time – regardless of all the vaunted “friendship” and “brotherhood” in the intelligence services.

In his cultural and civilizational views, Putin is a Westernizer (like Kudrin or Medvedev), but has only distaste for Western-style democracy (like Sechin, Patrushev, Viktor Ivanov). In matters of foreign policy he usually occupies a middle line between Kremlin Westernizers and anti-Westernizers, hawks and moderates, but it remains unclear whether his middle of the road attitude comes from listening to opposing sides of the foreign policy debate or is a product of his own quirks and oscillations.

The Sacred Cow

There are several reasons preventing the Medvedev clan from moving against Putin (and its anti-Putin minority from speaking out against Putin openly). First, it’s simply dangerous – for the future, for business, even life and limb. Second, many members of Medvedev’s coalition feel themselves quite comfortable with Putin – some of them are even closer to Putin, than they are to Medvedev (e.g. Kudrin): it is Sechin who makes their lives hard, not Putin. Third, they aren’t sure that they would be able to keep the Chekists and other assorted siloviks in check without Putin (as of now the Army is quiet and the generals don’t stick their noses into politics, but this will not necessarily be the case forever). Fourth, they are all either unknown to ordinary Russians (from Chuychenko to Shuvalov), or unpopular (Chubais, to a lesser extent Kudrin), and they fear that without Putin, not only would they be unable to control the Chekists, but also the Russian people.

Fifth, and finally, some of them (e.g., Chubais, Kudrin, Shuvalov) understand, that they have no long-term interests binding them to Medvedev, and rightly fear that if there were neither Sechin nor Putin, nothing would stop Medvedev from scapegoating them should the need arise. Nonetheless, in Medvedev’s circle – and especially in that “circle’s circles” – there does exist a dissatisfaction with Putin and a hidden desire to deprive him of power. This dissatisfaction is more or less evidenced in the writings of Medvedev’s experts in INSOR, the speeches of official human rights activists from the Presidential Council on Developing Civil Society, and in the publications of paper and electronic media under the control of Voloshin and Usmanov.

That said, however, it isn’t clear what Medvedev himself wants: to defeat Sechin and ascend to second place in a duumvirate, or to one day become the first and only Tsar himself. It’s possible that Medvedev himself doesn’t quite know yet; in any case, he is still far from successful in his struggle for second place in the real Kremlin hierarchy.

End of translation.

Comments on “Clan War” Kremlinology

1. A bit of history. Unless I’m mistaken, this clan-based view of Russian politics gained prominence around the time Mark Ames published The Kremlin’s Clan Warfare: The Putin Era Ends in the eXile in October 2007 (at any rate its pattern was widely reproduced). According to his view, the main clans were centered around Putin, Sechin and Cherkesov.

The main differences with Pribylovsky’s (2010) version is that Putin’s guys are now Sechin’s. The “civiliki” clan around Medvedev isn’t even mentioned yet.

Then earlier this year STRATFOR came out with its own interpretation in The Kremlin Wars series.

STRATFOR is more focused around which individual is aligned with the interests of which security agency (GRU vs FSB) clan.

Now one question we need to ask is: how much of the popular commentary on the Kremlin clans is based on Pribylovsky’s work (his site anticompromat.org has painstakingly detailed biographies on Russia’s major political figures)?

2. A few notes about Pribylovsky from Wikipedia. First, his professional work is in Byzantology – very appropriate for transfering to Kremlinology, though, of course, there’s always the possibility of its special stress on conspiracy, on insiderism and byzantism, overspilling. Second, he is a Soviet era dissident: he certainly doesn’t much like the siloviks, supported Vladimir Bukovsky (who doesn’t even live in Russia) for President in 2007, and signed the (somewhat ridiculous) “Putin Must Go” petition. Third, collaborated with Yuri Felshtinsky on the book Operation Successor; the same guy also collaborated with Litvinenko on the infamous conspiracy book Blowing Up Russia, and got funded by Berezovsky (the Family oligarch who lost out to the gebenishki and really hates Putin). Fourth, the book this translation is from, Power in 2010, was “издано при поддержке National Endowment for Democracy”. This democracy/freedom promoting organization openly admits to continuing work once done by the CIA.

This is not an argument for or against. It’s context. All political analysis is colored by one’s own political biases, and in Pribylovsky’s case it is undeniably very slanted in a particular direction. This has to be taken into account when deconstructing his work.

3. Now on to the article itself:

A) There are recognizable clans, though I very much doubt they are as rigid as Pribylovsky makes them out to be. Furthermore, these internal corporate structures are not specific to the Russian state. While corporatism is certainly very overt in Russia, it’s not as if it doesn’t exist (and in a big way) in the Western democracies (e.g. in the US the elites are mostly drawn from one class and greasy palms propel them from politics to business to thinktanks and academia and back). In general, like most Russian “dissidents”, he appears to have a rather warped and rose-tinged view of how politics really works in so-called “real democracies”.

B) I don’t think Putin (let alone Sechin) is more powerful than Medvedev for the very simple reason that Medvedev can fire Putin any day of the week, while Putin can’t do the same to Medvedev.

Now as the author pointed out, it is not really in Medvedev’s interest to do so. It is believable, if not inevitable or even likely, that doing so would be the political equivalent of nuclear war in the MAD era. But even in that case, it’s a balance of terror at the pinnacle of the power vertical, not Putin as Tsar / Godfather.

Furthermore, I think Pribylovsky over-stresses the competitive element of the clan system, and bellites the capacity for cohesion and effective action that is present in all feudal-type vertical systems. What is perhaps more logical is that Putin and Medvedev do trust and respect each other, and – as they say themselves – make their decisions in concert (even though it is sometimes advantageous for them to be at odds in public, especially their whole good cop / bad cop play on foreign observers).

D) Medvedev is just not that interested in personal glory. This is my impression, but his pose and mannerisms are so overly-”Presidential”, so cringingly imperious, that they appear utterly artificial, unbelonging to the alpha male-type that has Napoleonic complexes in politics. IMO, he will not seriously try to emerge as a Tsar figure – of his own volition.

E) One very good service Pribylovsky does is expose the Medvedev the Liberal vs Putin the Bad narrative so beloved of the Western media for the sham it really is. The people you attract reflect on you. Nobody who has the likes of people like Alisher Usmanov (a rapist and maybe worse) or Viktor Cherkesov (a thuggish secret policeman) in their retinue can be an liberal “angel”, nor can someone whom Chubais supports have impeccable respect for transparency. Likewise, no-one who protects Kudrin could be an economic populist and statist, just as no-one who appointed “Medvedev the Liberal” to the Presidency can entirely be an illiberal autocrat. The game is almost never black and white, just multiple shades of gray.

4. Commentator Lazy Glossophiliac gives us his thoughts on Reading up on Russia. I agree with him that Putin is probably better than Medvedev for Russia.

The two dunces.

During the past two years, Russian “dissident” liberals Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov have produced a frankly maniacal quantity of so-called “Independent Expert Reports” (there are now seven of them) that purport to debunk the “persistent myths imposed by official [Kremlin] propaganda”. The authors say that their latest exegesis, melodramatically entitled “Putin. The Results. 10 Years” and at 48 pages one of their shorter works, will have a print run of one million copies and will be distributed throughout Russia’s regions. This latest iteration of Nemtsov’s anti-Putin screed differs little in substance from the first, which was pilloried by Sean Guillory in Nemtsov’s White Paper: Bombshell or Dud?

Though Sean castigated the “dynamic duo” for their middle-class chauvinism, neoliberal elitism and poverty of proposed solutions, even he was far too kind in granting them the benefit of the doubt on their “litany of statistics, examples, and facts” showing that Russia had been brought to the brink of collapse by Putin (of course Russia was pushed well past that brink under Yeltsin, when Nemtsov reached his political apogee; but I digress). Now I hadn’t previously read any of Nemtsov and Co.’s earlier scribblings, but their introduction to this latest report raised my suspicions. Apparently, one myth peddled by Kremlin propagandists is that under Putin, Russians began to “give birth more and die less”. Of course, anyone with the slightest familiarity with Russian demography knows this is either a howler or a mendacious lie. If these guys can’t be relied on to get simple facts right, facts which can be looked up on the Internet within seconds, what basis is there to trust them on anything else they have to say? So I decided to sneak a peek at Nemtsov’s chapter on Russia’s demography… and discovered a truly epic mountain of red herrings, statistical manipulation and outright lies worthy of a Brezhnev-era Goskomstat apparatchik.

Nemtsov’s Bomb Defused

The chapter in question is entitled “A Dying Country”… not only is it a kitschy trope, but one that is no longer really valid as Russia saw positive population growth in 2009. But whatever. The choice of title fades into irrelevance in comparison with what comes next.

1. According to the Gospel of Vlad and Boris, one of the main tenets of the “Putinist mythology” concerns Russia’s recent demographic progress, in stark contrast to the “1990′s national extinction”. The authors then invite us to look at the “facts”, which apparently look something like the graph below.

[My translation of Nemtsov's graph (the "Yeltsin" and "Putin" insertions were my own, but otherwise it is unchanged). Click to enlarge.]

Where to start? First, the giant elephant in the room that our democracy crusaders “forgot” to mention was that immigration into the Russian Federation was far higher in the 1990′s than it was during the Putin period. From 1992-1999, Russia received a one-off 3.6mn influx of net migrants, the vast majority of them ethnic Russians repatriating from the other former Soviet republics. During the 2000-2009 period, Russia received just 1.5mn net migrants. This single factor of declining net immigration would account for almost two thirds, or 2.1mn out of 3.4mn, of the “extra” population decline under Putin.

Second, drawing any conclusions just from a straightforward calculation of Russia’s average yearly population decline under Yeltsin and Putin is an exercise in complete absurdity, given that Yeltsin’s early years were influenced by the (relatively) low Soviet mortality rates and high fertility rates, while Putin’s were influenced by the (relatively) high mortality rates and “lowest-low” fertility rates of the Yeltsin legacy. A more nuanced analysis would:

• Identify defining trends instead of using blanket averages: a transition to fullblown “hyper-mortality” by 1994, a series of peaks and dips under a Yeltsin and early Putin administration that couldn’t care less for the nation’s demography, and concrete improvements after 2005 when the state began to take these issues seriously.
• Take into account Russia’s aging population (which places upwards pressure on mortality rates over time), and hence use a statistic that is independent of the population age structure: life expectancy, which at 69 years in 2009 was higher than at any time during the Yeltsin period, when it fell from 68 years in 1992 to 65 years by 2000.

Third, note that the vertical axis Nemtsov uses stretches from just 140mn to 150mn people, giving the impression (to the passing eye) that Russia’s population completely collapsed under Putin and most likely continues to retreat into oblivion (whereas a year by year graph would show population decline flattening out during the past 2 years). This is of course done on purpose to elicit a negative emotional reaction.

2. The next paragraph discusses “hyper-mortality” – the fact that Russia’s mortality rates are abnormally high for an industrialized country at peace. This is a major problem I have written about at length, though since it has been metastasizing since as far back as the mid-1960′s what it has to do with Putin must remain a mystery. Yet even here Nemtsov can’t refrain from “embellishing” an already depressing picture. He does this by citing Russia’s mortality and fertility statistics from the CIA, whose demographic stats on Russia paint a bleaker picture than those produced by Rosstat, the Russian statistical agency.

Let me explain. As a rule, only national statistics services have the manpower and regulatory resources to compile comprehensive demographic (economic, etc) statistics on their own countries. The stats you see from international institutions like the World Health Organization are mostly drawn and aggregated from them. Same goes for the CIA on demography, except that since it rarely brings its figures into “sync” with updated ones produced by the national statistics agencies, most of its demographic data is the result of inhouse projections of what the demographic situation might be given a set of increasingly obsolete past assumptions instead of current measures. Hence, whereas Nemtsov claims that Russia has a birth rate of 11/1000 and a death rate of 15/1000 based on July 2009 CIA figures, the real numbers for that year were a birth rate of 12.4/1000 and a death rate of 14.2/1000. Ultimately, this is a fairly minor point, but it does illustrate how Nemtsov is very selective about the data he uses (he has no problems with citing Rosstat on numerous other occasions).

3. The authors begin showing their reactionary colors when they come to dissing Russia’s rising natality. Granted, not quite as in your face as in their first Report, but the ass is still showing. This section is worth translating in full.

Excessively rapid fertility growth in a non-affluent country, especially amongst the lumpenized segment of the population (which are receiving pro-natality stimuli thanks to Putinist measures such as “maternal capital”[20]), could lead to negative consequences: a reduction in the standard of living, poor caretaking of the newborn, and high rates of illness amongst them.

In April 2008, the Health Minister Tatyana Golikova was forced to admit that this [fertility] increase was accompanied by an increase in infant mortality in 48 regions of the country.

[20] For “maternal capital” of 250,000 rubles [AK: today equivalent to $8,000], based on average housing costs it would have only been possible to buy 4-5 square meters of living space.

They’re really getting desperate, firing at every possible angle in the hope of hitting Putin, aren’t they?

First, forget the negative long-term consequences of the continuation of “lowest-low” fertility (seen up until 2006, hovering at 1.3 children per woman). Is Nemtsov really disconnected and foolish enough to believe that Russians will rally to his wordy middle-class chauvinism? Especially considering that most Russians have paternalistic views of government, believing that it should help the poorest members of society? Considering that many Russians complain that they want two children but can only afford one?

Second, the authors transparently try to give the (false) impression that Russia’s recent fertility spurt was accompanied by rising infant mortality through very selective quoting of Golikova. Was that really the case? Not at all. Data on infant deaths per 1,000 live births: in 1990 – 17.4; 2000 – 15.3; 2006 – 10.2; 2007 – 9.4; 2008 – 8.5; 2009 – 8.2; 2010 – still falling…

4. Then we come to a rather banal history of Russia’s hypermortality with a generous serving of anti-Putin spin. I’ve translated a typical segment below and filled in what Nemtsov wants you to think on reading it.

The rise in Russia’s mortality began way back with Brezhnev, during the 1970′s [AK: actually from the mid-1960's but whatever], and continued up until the mid-1990′s [AK: hence Yeltsin and the reformers can't be blamed for any of this... according to the Gospel of Vlad and Boris]. In 1995, however, Russia’s mortality began to fall and in 1998 retreated below 2 million deaths per year [AK: 1) by "below 2 million deaths", he means 1.99 million deaths - not kidding!, 2) the inconvenient truth that death rates began to soar again in 1999 during the last year of the Yeltsin Presidency - in the aftermath of the 1998 financial crisis, which was enabled by the incessant stealing within Yeltsin's inner circle (and happening to coincide with Nemtsov being Deputy Prime Minister!) - naturally goes unsaid].

But under Putin, the tendency towards a rise in mortality rates acquired a new strength, and reached a new peak of 2.37mn deaths in 2003 [AK: this at a time when Putin was still surrounded by Yeltsin's "Family" cronies and occupied with consolidating a half-disintegrated state]. Lowering deaths back below 2 million still hasn’t been achieved [AK: but this is harder now that it was in 1998, since the Russian population in 2009 is now considerably older than it was back then!].

Look, if you really want to, it is just as easy to spin this the other way. Here’s an alternate narrative. The USSR was a healthy nation. Soviet mortality rates strongly increased under Gorbachev, thanks to the anti-alcohol campaign and the birthmark on his bald head (year: 1989, LE: 70 years). Then Yeltsin and his cabal of traitors undermined and collapsed the Soviet Union, resulting in a massive fall in life expectancy (year: 2003, LE: 65 years). However, heroic Putin rescued long-suffering Holy Rus’ from the Judeo-Dollar yoke in 2003 by attacking Khodorkovsky. Now everything is getting better because Putin kicks ass (year: 2010, LE: 70 years).

[Russia's life expectancy - closely tied *not* to politicians, "shock therapy", etc, but to alcohol affordability and consumption rates. In fact, perhaps one of the main healthcare achievements of the Putin era is that the correlation between (relatively) cheaper booze and higher mortality rates may have broken. Source: Rosstat data.]

Does the above sound kind of ridiculous? Not really any more so than Nemtsov’s narrative. His screed is the mirror image of what a fawning Kremlin sycophant would write.

5. Nemtsov proclaims in gloomy tones that Russia has a very high number of deaths from external causes, murders, suicides, alcohol poisoning, etc, the aim presumably being to present Putin as a bad ruler based on the ills of his kingdom. But what he doesn’t mention is that in recent years Russia’s mortality from “vices” (alcohol poisoning, homicides, suicide) has fallen back down to late Soviet levels and is now well below the peaks around 1994 and 2002-3.

[The drop in deaths from alcohol poisoning is probably the most encouraging indicator, because excessive alcohol consumption accounts for around a third of all Russian deaths (in the broad sense) and drives trends in homicides, accidents and suicides (in particular). Source: Rosstat.]

6. Nemtsov goes on to make another startling claim (to anyone remotely familiar with the situation on the ground).

Low quality healthcare remains a big problem [AK: certainly], and Putin didn’t manage to do anything about this during ten prosperous years [AK: wtf?]… Russia spends just 5.3% of its GDP on healthcare, like Morocco or Ecuador, in contrast to 9-11% in many countries of Western Europe.

Many, many people would disagree with him. E.g. the guys at The Lancet, a respected British medical journal.

A vigorous anti-alcohol campaign, new road safety measures, and a programme of health awareness workshops for teenagers are among the positive signs 6 months after the Kremlin introduced a new 12-year health-care blueprint which identified the “formation of health as a priority in the social and spiritual values of Russian society” as a key task.

Even Nemtsov’s fellow liberal reformer Yegor Gaidar (as translated by Mark Adomanis):

In 2009, despite the economic crisis, expenditures on healthcare from the Federal budget grew 25% in nominal terms from 231.4 billion rubles to 289.5 billion rubles. Expenditures from the budgets of the subjects of the Russian Federation remained practically at the previous level: 518.7 billion rubles against 520.1 billion in 2008. Taking into account investments to obligatory medical insurance of the working population, state financing of healthcare grew in 2009 by 5.6% (2.9% in real terms) having reached 1.06 trillion rubles. This differentiates the situation in 2009 from the crisis in 1998* when state expenditures on healthcare and spending by the population on medicines and medical services all declined.

At the beginning of 2009 the government made a decision to continue the realization of the national project “Health” until 2012. The project’s financing still comes out of funds of the federal budget as well as off-budget funds: the Federal fund of obligatory medical insurance and the Fund of social insurance. Despite the economic crisis and the significant reduction in government income, expenditures on the national project not only weren’t subject to reduction, but grew by 20.2% in comparison with 2008. This attests to the real priority of this project in the government’s budget policy.

*But Kathryn Stoner-Weiss told me that Yeltsin defended Russians’ welfare better than Putin!!

7. Then a big sprinkling of statistics and anecdotes about trends in consumption of alcohol and illegal drugs, and smoking. For once in this chapter I think Nemtsov makes a valid point about the Russian government’s overly cosy relations with the alcohol and cigarette lobbies, which have prevented or delayed the passage of needed legislation. Nonetheless, even here Nemtsov’s point is (politically) wrecked by the class hatred that he just can’t keep bottled in. Sean’s summary of Nemtsov’s position still applies:

The poor “drink more” and the wealthy live the “high life.” In contrast, the middle class is the archetype of healthy and productive living. “Moderate use of alcohol and a healthy lifestyle in general,” they write, “is the way of the middle class.”

Now there might well be research showing that this is the case, as Nemtsov claims. (He doesn’t provide a link or citation). But it certainly isn’t the kind of language that is going to get anything more than 5% of Russians fired up with puritanical bourgeois fervor.

Furthermore, Nemtsov’s comparison of Russia’s 30,000 annual drug-related deaths to its (lower) losses during ten years of war in Afghanistan will surely be viewed as offensive and asinine by most Russians. There is a fundamental difference between the two in that people (by and large) make the choice to become drug addicts, whereas Soviet conscripts had little to no choice about being sent to the graveyard of empires. Incidentally, one of the reasons for the increased flow of heroin into Russia in recent years that Nemtsov decries so much is the US inability or unwillingness to control the growth of opium production in Afghanistan**… (But don’t forget that in the Russian liberal universe America is always right and if it isn’t then suck on it).

8. Nemtsov miscomprehends the French Paradox, saying that the reason the French lead long lives despite a high alcohol consumption rate is because they drink fine wines. (The real paradox has to do with their low rates of heart disease and high rates of saturated fats consumption)*. However, he is correct in his (one-line) suggestion, a rather obvious one, that incomes have to improve if Russians are to afford more expensive drinks.

His suggestion for cutting smoking rates? “It is necessary to implement the successful experience of the US and Western European countries that was accumulated over decades”. You don’t say, Sherlock?! While it is valid to say that Russia’s progress on this front has been on the slow side, it is not fair to imply, like Nemtsov does, that nothing is being done.

9. Now Nemtsov talks about depopulation and labor force decline without trying to distinguish between them.

Population decline has a long-term character. In the last few years and in the near future Russia will lose one million people of working age annually due to the high mortality rates and natural population aging. The loss of one million workers is equivalent to a fall in GDP of 1.5%, and a loss of revenues to the budget, which will lead to problems with paying for pensions and as a result to social stresses. Therefore, chronic depopulation threatens economic development and puts into question the future territorial integrity of the country.

First, Russia’s population has already returned to growth (or more accurately “stabilization”) in 2009, thanks to rising fertility and life expectancy. Second, declines in the working population are now inevitable, but Nemtsov curiously neglects to mention that this was made inevitable by the fertility collapse of the early 1990′s during the Yeltsin period! Nonetheless, he need not worry too much. According to the Rosstat medium scenario, the labor force will fall from 62% of the total population now… to a truly apocalyptic rather unremarkable 55% by 2030.

Furthermore, Nemtsov’s mixing of depopulation and labor force decline is particularly disingenuous because each counteracts the other. If Russia’s population falls, this means it will have failed to raise its life expectancy or fertility rate, and hence its labor force will be higher as a percentage of the population. Paradoxically, if Russia sustainably stabilizes its population by improving people’s health and getting them to have more children, its labor force will shrink much faster as a share of the population for the very reason that this population will have more children and pensioners! (To illustrate this, the labor force in 2030 is at 57% of the population in Rosstat’s low scenario and at 54% in its high scenario).

10. Finally Nemtsov talks the talk about migration.

Instead of [pursuing an effective immigration policy], in 2002 the Putin regime passed repressive [AK: sic!] immigration legislation, which increased illegal immigration while reducing the flow of law-abiding and hard-working citizens into the country. In the 1990′s near 8 million Russophones arrived into Russia from the post-Soviet republics [AK: just to clarify, this is *not* net immigration; during the period, many Russians also left Russia]. With Putin’s arrival this process came to an abrupt halt.

The sudden reduction in the numbers of immigrants became the main cause of the plummeting Russian population during the Putin years relative to the 1990′s.

Look, while I’m not a huge fan of said 2002 law, calling it “repressive” is well beyond the pale – especially for any politician the least concerned about his popularity! It is also interesting to note that Nemtsov puts this section on immigration at the end of the demography chapter, well away the graphs showing population decline under Yeltsin and Putin. One can only assume that Russians wouldn’t be so moved by Russia’s almost-stable population under Yeltsin had they known that it was only being sustained by an unsustainable inflow of ethnic Russians repatriating from the Near Abroad!

[Would an honest observer interpret the above graph as a "sudden reduction in the numbers of immigrants" under Putin? Source: from Rosstat. Click to enlarge.]

Which brings us to a much bigger misrepresentation by Nemtsov. He essentially claims that thanks to Putin’s mismanagement of migration policy (the 2002 law is cited), ethnic Russian immigration came to a halt. Yet as we can see from the graph above, Russia received by far the biggest numbers of migrants during the early to mid-1990′s. By 2000, most ethnic Russians who would ever immigrate back to Russia from the Near Abroad had already done so. This process was always due to come an end, regardless of who was President, and had already mostly petered out by the late 1990′s. (The new uptick in immigration from 2006 mostly consists of Central Asian, Caucasian, and Ukrainian Gastarbeiter drawn to Russia’s rising affluence).

Conclusions

This chapter “A Dying Country” constituted about 20% of Nemtsov’s paper by word count, so it is a valid gauge by which to judge the rest of it. Now demography is a pretty easy subject, especially when it comes to checking up on straightforward factual claims. For this post I didn’t need much else other than Rosstat, Wikipedia, and my sick googling skills. In contrast, making accurate statements on the economy, an entity that can be measured and interpreted in any number of ways, is much harder. And assessing levels of corruption is an order of magnitude harder still, since it relates to the quantity of that economy that people take so many pains to hide away from view. So if one finds so much blatant ignorance or deceit in a big chunk of work dealing with demography – practically on every paragraph – chances are the overall opus isn’t worth anyone’s time.

The pattern of simplification and misrepresentation appears to be repeated throughout the entire paper. For instance, take Nemtsov’s graph of the structure of Russian exports in the chapter on the economy, which shows the share of hydrocarbons exports soaring from 44.9% in 1999 to 69.6% in 2009, while hi-tech exports fell from 10.9% to 4.9% during the same period. But only a hack like Nemtsov would say that this proves that Russia under Putin became more resource dependent “than ever before in its history”. For a start consider that the price of oil rose from $16.56 in 1999 to $91.48 in 2008! If there is a sixfold increase in oil prices over a decade, then its share of total exports was practically bound to increase too, barring Russia blowing up all its pipelines! (Besides, that would be “energy imperialism”). But even all this neglects a more fundamental fact: while Russian exports remain dominated by resources because they constitute its comparative advantage, Russia’s domestic economy has, in real terms, become substantially more productive, more services-centered and less extraction-heavy since the late 1990′s (in relative terms).

Now a defender of this Report may accuse me of missing its entire point – isn’t Nemtsov politicking against equally nefarious Kremlin propaganda? Isn’t it perfectly normal and acceptable for politicians to play fast and loose with the facts? While this may normally be an argument, this is not the case here. First, Nemtsov and Milov portray themselves as paragons of accountability and integrity (as opposed to the kleptocratic Kremlin regime) – if they want to demand their bed they have to lie in it too. Second, these ass-clowns entitle their work an “Independent Expert Report” for crying out loud! I am approaching Nemtsov’s writings on his own terms – as an analytical work. It is on its own analytical merit that it either stands or falls under the weight of its lies and contradictions.

But what about its impact as a political statement? Nemtsov’s only natural constituency, as evidenced by his classist rhetoric, is “the urban, semi-intellectual, semi-politically engaged class” who now make up around 25% of the Russian population. A not inconsiderable potential base, true, but they more than most in Russian society owe their allegiance to Putin; it was under his system that they made – or made off with – their wealth. No amount of one-sided paens to the glory Yeltsin years delivered by Nemtsov is going to change that. And although Nemtsov does make some faux populist overtures, they are hardly going to win him any supporters from amongst the lumpen-proletariat whom he wants to breed out into extinction! (Assuming they even bother reading the 12,000 words of what is really a very dull paper). No, the Gospel of Vlad and Boris is only going to be treated as such by the 50,000 odd signers of the Putin Must Go petition, at least in Russia. As for abroad…

In an interesting twist to the story – and ironically what made me aware of Nemtsov’s report in the first place – Russian police confiscated 100,000 of the one million copies of the Report and sent them to the MVD’s “extremism” department for analysis. Coming as it does on the eve of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, where “Medvedev is set to hobnob with businessmen from around the world”, Nemtsov and Milov could not have hoped for a better source of publicity. Tinpot dictatorship here we come! Once again, the idiotic zeal of Russian officialdom elicits outraged editorials in the Western (and Russian) press, snickers from the suave and sophisticated, and delivers further confirmation of Russia’s impending slide into totalitarianism to the typical Westerner.

Not to mention endless frustration for people like myself. I am even coming to think that the deaf Russian state might just deserve its blind liberals.

* Though I do agree with Nemtsov that getting Russians to switch from samogon to vodka to wine or beer is a good strategy as far as these things go. Me from two years back:

Convert wine production into a strategic industry and massively fund its expansion. Try to remake Russia into a wine-drinking nation. Aim to turn vodka into an exclusively export industry.

** That said, I’m very skeptical about the (self-interested?) arguments, or alarmism, of Russia’s anti-narcotics department. To test if this is a major, rapidly-spreading drug epidemic, it is logical to look at death rates for the most-affected demographic groups. Say, 20-25 year old males, amongst whom death rates are low and mostly due to external causes and poisonings.

Take the death rate for 25 year old males in Russia, a demographic group that would be one of the most exposed to drug abuse (Nemtsov cites the average age of death of Russia’s druggies as being 28). In 2000, i.e. before the Afghanistan campaign, it was 0.0060, and it stayed above 0.0050 until 2007 when it fell to 0.0047, and in 2008 fell further to 0.0041. These improvements, one would think, would have been exceedingly unlikely had there been a big jump in Russian heroin consumption.