Stalin: The Notebook

Apparently there's a new bestseller in Russian bookstores.  No, it's not a Russian knock-off of the Hunger Games series, but rather a humble school notebook with the image of former Soviet leader Josef Stalin emblazoned on the cover.  The book is part of a series called “Great Russians” meant to expose schoolchildren to noteworthy figures from Russia's history: Czars, composers, scientists and, apparently, Joe Stalin.

There is, of course, a controversy surrounding the notebook.  There are some who say that the heroic image of Stalin, dressed in a sharp military uniform with a chest full of medals, is nothing short of propaganda aimed at impressionable children and that it totally ignores the fact that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens; the creation of the gulag system and of a culture of fear that persisted after his death.  In response to numerous complaints, Russia's Education Minister Andrei Fursenko said that while he disapproves of the notebooks, he can't legally block their sale.

The counter-argument is that Stalin was a great leader, who managed, against all odds, to lead the Soviet Union through the Second World War (or Great Patriotic War as it is known in Russia) and oversaw the defeat of Nazi Germany.  Many Russians still regard Stalin's reign as the high-water mark for the power and prestige of the Soviet Union – which, perhaps, explains why most of the notebook sales are said to be to adults.  Artyom Belan, art director of the publishing house that put out the Great Russians series makes a point Stalin supporters often do: "If we do a series of great Russians, should we strike the 20th century from the list altogether?" Belan asked in an interview published by USA Today, in other words, since we can't ignore the fact that Stalin existed, we may as well celebrate his accomplishments.

But I can think of a better reason though not to include Josef Stalin in a series on “Great Russians”: he wasn't Russian.  Stalin was actually born in the Soviet republic of Georgia.

Russia's New Era Of Stagnation

Russians will be going to the polls on Sunday to return Vladimir Putin to the presidency.  Despite the mass public protests that have filled the snowy streets of Russia's major cities, the fact that Putin will once again be elected president isn't in doubt, though two outstanding questions: whether he'll avoid a run-off by getting 50% of the vote and whether or not that vote will be fair in the first place, remain.

Over at PolicyMic today, I take a look at the upcoming election, and how Putin's return could lead to a period of economic and social stagnation in Russia not seen since the 1970s.  Surf on over and give it a read.

New Day Coming For Nano?

A friend of mine says that I have an unusual interest in Tata Motors Nano (a.k.a. “the world's cheapest car”), perhaps that is why this piece on the BBC from “motoring journalist” Hormazd Sorabjee caught my eye.  In it, Sorabjee runs though the various growing pains encountered by the Nano, which have so far kept it from reaching the lofty sales goals originally predicted by Tata Motors chief Ratan Tata, ranging from public protests that forced Tata to abandon the largely-completed factory where the Nano was to be made and instead build them at other plants within the Tata system, to a point I discussed in this post over at The Mantle: that the car's low-cost image worked against its adoption among India's emerging middle class.

“Even at the bottom of the pyramid, a car is highly aspirational and image is crucial. To be seen in the world's cheapest car gave the message that you couldn't afford anything else,” Sorabjee wrote.  But, he goes on to report, that the future may be looking up for the Nano.  An updated 2012 model smoothes out some of the rough edges of the original, like heavy steering and a spartan interior; advanced sales have responded accordingly.  And at heart, the Nano is a decent car, as Sorabjee, himself a Nano owner, personally attests.

No, That's My Breakfast....

Passengers being detained for having suspicious materials is not an uncommon occurence in this era of heightened airline security. But it becomes newsworthy when the passenger in question is Australia's Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and the material in question is his jar of Vegemite.

Rudd was detained briefly on his way to the UN General Assembly meeting via Mexico City when airport screeners found a jar of Vegemite in his carry-on bag. Vegemite is a brown yeast spread that is beloved in Australia and generally reviled in the rest of the world for its "unique" taste. Rudd was allowed to to continue after he explained that they were in fact examining his breakfast and said via Twitter that the "only problem traveling to New York is they tried to confiscate our Vegemite."

Vegemite gained global attention thanks in large part to the song "Down Under" by the 80's Australian band Men at Work, as seen below:

America and 9/11

In my latest post over at The Mantle, I take a look at America's reaction to the 9/11 attacks ten years later. You often hear it said that the attacks “changed everything”, but did they really? And do Americans have an unhealthy obsession with wallowing in the tragedy of the attacks? Surf on over to The Mantle to read my views.

Remembering US Soft Power

There's an interesting piece up right now on Foreign Policy's “The Oil and The Glory” blog on US diplomatic efforts in Georgia – an American chef from California's Napa Valley recently gave a cooking demonstration at the house of the US ambassador to Georgian chefs on how to prepare recipes using wine and grapes from Georgia's indigenous wine-making regions. The whole event was broadcast on Georgian TV and was reportedly well-received by the Georgians. Author Steve LeVine argues that it was a fine example of “soft power” on the part of the United States, something which diplomatically we use to excel at, but have abandoned in the past decade thanks to changes in presidential policy and the War on Terror (soft power is opposed to “hard power”, e.g. military action, which has been the primary focus of US international efforts in the past few years).

LeVine is right in his assessment. The United States has put soft power efforts on the back-burner this past decade, after all, where's the room for cooking demonstrations when there's terrorists to hit with drone airstrikes? At the same time though, China has been making real progress diplomatically, especially in Africa, through the use of soft power efforts like development aid and underwriting vital infrastructure projects alone. It's worth noting that the United States came out on the winning side of the Cold War not through military might, but largely because it had the system of government and society that people wanted to immigrate to, rather than the Soviet model that significant numbers of people tried to escape from. And the image of that government and culture were spread in large part though American soft power efforts. The Georgia cooking show demonstrates that soft power can still be an effective tool for American foreign policy today as well.

Djibouti

A quick word about a nice series of broadcasts currently underway by the BBC World Service (and also available via their website) on the African nation of Djibouti. Tucked away on the northern part of the Horn of Africa, Djibouti tends to be off the radar screens of most people not from or involved with the region – aside from a lackluster novel by Elmore Leonard last year, references to Djibouti just don't appear in pop culture. But Djibouti has a long history as a center of trade and cultural exchange between Africa and Arabia; today, its location adjacent to Somalia and the Gulf of Aden has made it the base of operations for a number of navies involved in security operations against the Somali pirates. For example, Japan has just completed the construction of a complex to house military officials involved in their part of the anti-piracy operations (Japan, uncomfortable with military exercises since the end of World War II, is reluctant to call the complex a “military base”).

The BBC has a correspondent broadcasting live from Djibouti this week providing some interesting insights to this remote and exotic land, it's definitely worth checking out.

SuperPutin

We've had some fun here with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's exhibitions of manliness – his rides in fighter jets, his wading bare-chested through wild rivers, his riding fur-clad astride a horse across the Siberian steppe in winter – but now Russian artist Sergei Kalenik has gone one better casting the prime minister as a superhero in the online graphic novel “Superputin, A Man Like Any Other”, where Putin, clad in his judo gi, attempts to foil a terrorist plot with help from his sidekick, a giant bear that transforms into President Dmitry Medvedev.

Far from being an exercise in fanboy devotion, Superputin has a professional look about it, and it's pretty funny, loaded with inside jokes: The story incorporates elements of the movie Speed and the video game Mortal Kombat, while the last act is inspired by Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko 's wildly popular Night Watch series of novels. Medvedev's disguise is a play off of his name (medved is the Russian word for bear), while his superhero name “Nanoman” riffs off his attempts to launch a Russian version of Silicon Valley in the Moscow suburb of Skolkovo. The story even takes a post-modernist, self-referential twist when Putin prods Medvedev to quickly disarm a bomb by saying “hurry Dima, only nine frames left [in the story].”




Since its launch in mid-May, Superputin has been viewed more than three million times and has drawn enough international attention to prompt Kalenik to post an English-language version of Superputin on the website. But the story has also drawn its share of critics, many of whom label Superputin as nothing more than ham-handed pro-Kremlin propaganda, albiet in a slick, new package. Much of the criticism centers around the story's “Twilight” sequence, where Putin and Medvedev confront a horde of zombies with blue buckets on their heads. The Blue Buckets have been a visual group of government critics, largely in Moscow, who wear blue plastic buckets on their heads. The genesis of their movement came from misuse by government officials of car-top flashing blue lights, meant for emergency use but often employed by mid-level bureaucrats to speed through traffic, occasionally with fatal results. In Superputin, the blue bucket zombies spout off protest slogans like “Let us elect governors!” and “Free Khodorkovsky!” as they confront Putin and Medvedev.

For his part, Kalenik denies any official connection to the Kremlin saying that he did the graphic novel in an attempt to inject some humor into Russia's “depressing political scene”, though he adds that he sent a link to Superputin to Pres. Medvedev and that he hopes he and Putin like it. And if Superputin is “official” propaganda, it is interesting since it casts both Putin and Medvedev as heroes – many political moves during the past few months have been percieved as attempts by the Putin and Medvedev camps to undermine each other ahead of next year's presidential elections. It also puts Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin in the role of an invisible gunman helping Putin and Medvedev fight off the zombies, an interetsing show of unity considering that in real life Medvedev recently moved to undercut Sechin's power by stripping him of his chairmanship of Russia's powerful energy firm Rosneft.

Thanks to the online popularity of Superputin, Kalenik is now looking for funding to produce up to a dozen sequels.

Vladimir Putin, Modern-Day Apostle?

There's an odd little story from the heartland of Russia about a group of women who worship Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Literally. The all-female group is described as a religious sect who have made Putin the object of their veneration, the group's leader, a woman calling herself Mother Fotina compares Putin with John the Apostle. Putin, she said, did some “unrighteous things” during his KGB career, but once he became president she claims he was “imbued with the Holy Spirit” and is now “wisely leading his flock”, in this case the nation of Russia. The sect's members dress as nuns, are vegetarians and conduct services where they pray for the success of Putin and sign patriotic Russian songs rather than hymns (A Kremlin spokesman said that Putin does not see himself as being on a mission from God...). A local Russian Orthodox priest, Father Alexei, dismisses the sect's teachings as “a nonsensical mixture of Orthodoxy, Catholicism, the occult, Buddhism and political information” (not sure how Catholicism and Buddhism make it into the mix there myself...), though Father Alexei adds that he doesn't think Mother Fotina herself is “a mad woman.”

Meanwhile on more earthly political matters, Putin is taking steps to bolster his position ahead of next year's presidential elections by calling for the creation of a “popular front” that would draw support from all corners of Russian society to select a candidate for next year's polls – one would assume that their popular choice would be Putin himself... It is another sign, political commentators say, that Putin intends a return to the presidency.

At the same time Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov has also thrown his hat into the political ring by taking control of the Pravoye Dyelo or “Right Cause” Party. Prokhorov may be best known in the United States as the new owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, but he is also Russia's third-richest man, with a net worth of more than $22 billion and control of a large chunk of Russia's gold and nickel reserves. Prokhorov could be tempting fate, it has long been assumed that Mikhail Khodorkovsky's own entry into local politics in Siberia is what led to his downfall as chairman of the powerful energy conglomerate Yukos and his eventual imprisonment on tax fraud charges. So far Prokhorov has been careful to not openly challenge the Kremlin like Khodorkovsky did; Right Cause has positioned itself as a pro-business, anti-corruption party, without directly criticizing the current ruling regime. Prokhorov has promised that Right Cause will win the second-largest block of seats in this years elections for the Russian Duma (the Russian parliament). And with it's pro-business/anti-corruption platform, Right Cause could be the perfect vehicle for a 2012 presidential run for current Russian President Dmitry Medvedev should United Russia select Putin as their candidate and if Dmitry decides he wants to take on the Boss in the 2012 elections.

The Royal Wedding And British Cool

Ok, I admit it, I watched the Royal Wedding, most of it at least, on Friday. Really, how could you not, how often do you get to see historic events unfold live before your eyes? And before you think that the Wedding was just so much fluff and nonsense, it was hard not to be affected by the responses of the British people who seemed genuinely moved by the experience. One British man interviewed by CNN said that with all of the problems with the global economy and the conflicts brewing throughout the North Africa/Middle East region, the British “needed this”: a day to come together as a nation and celebrate a joyous event (the British government even declared Wedding Day a national holiday).

But more than just an excuse for a day off from work and a national party, the Royal Wedding showed that it was cool to be British. While Great Britain is often derided as a land of bad food and even worse dentistry, the Royal Wedding was a chance to show England as a land of high fashion and cool design: from the gorgeous gowns worn by Kate Middleton and her sister Pippa, to outfits worn by guests like the Beckhams (we'll overlook the rather odd headgear of Princesses Beatrix and Eugenia...), to the classic 1969 Aston Martin DB6 Volante MKII roadster that Will and Kate used to leave Buckingham Palace (a car converted to run on E85 ethanol in a nod to today's spirit of Eco-consciousness). The words suave and debonair come to mind. At the same time, this modern display of high fashion was paired with a sense of pomp and history done in a way that only the British seem able to pull off – the wedding party was accompanied by a platoon of mounted cavalry, their polished helmets gleaming in the sun, while the ancient Westminster Abbey had it's interior filled with trees, giving the vaulted room the feeling of a medieval glade.

All in all it was an example of British suave worthy of a Sean Connery-era James Bond flick, and it was enough to make being British seem very cool.

Trump’s World

Donald Trump wants you to think he’s considering running for president. I say “wants you to think” since Trump has no intention of actually running for president – that would mean too close of a look into his murky finances than The Donald would ever be comfortable with, but maintaining the image of being a possible, legitimate candidate allows him a no-cost way of building awareness of the Trump brand, along with giving his massive ego a healthy stroke. So far would-be candidate Trump has mostly kept his pseudo-political speeches to the confines of Republican-style Obama-bashing, though he has made a couple of forays into international affairs. For example, Trump said that he could solve the problem of Somali piracy with a good admiral and a couple of ships, similarly he said a few days ago that he could solve the Gadhafi problem in Libya with “a cruise missile.” Wow, who knew international affairs was so easy? And here all those eggheads in the State Dept. had us convinced that the world was a complex place… Of course the world is a complex place and Trump’s “solutions” aren’t just simplistic, they’re insultingly simplistic. I talked about his Somali solution already here, but just to recap why he’s wrong – there already are two-dozen warships patrolling the waters, the Indian Ocean is a big place, and the real solution to piracy lies ashore. As for his Libyan solution - setting aside the ethical debate about assassinating a world leader, even one as odorous as Gadhafi - shooting off a cruise missile at him both assumes that you know where he is every moment of every day and that he is even in a place where could be hit by a cruise missile and not say in a bunker somewhere (I assume this is also Trump’s solution to finally getting Osama bin Laden). The real problem with Trump’s foreign policy ramblings though is that so long as he is considered to be a legitimate, potential presidential candidate comments like these will help to shape the debate on the Republican side among a field of candidates that already includes such intellectual lowlights as Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin, people happy to flaunt their ignorance of the wider world. To a fair number of people across America, the world is a black-and-white place where simple solutions are stymied by wusses in the State Department and the Pentagon ham-strung by wimpy politicians from “solving problems”; and of course there’s the plot between Barack Obama and George Soros to impose the New World Order upon America… The reality is that the world is a complex place where a host of new and rising powers have replaced the old Cold War US-Soviet power paradigm; it is a place that will require deft policy moves by the United States to maintain its position in the world. The feel-good foreign policy simplicity peddled by Trump and Co. certainly isn’t helpful.

A Fixed Result In Mascot Vote?

So the results are in. You might remember this recent post about the online poll to select the mascot or mascots for the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 (my favorite was the skiing dolphin). Well the votes are in and three have been chosen: Rad, a snowboarding snow leopard, a polar bear and a bunny rabbit; great, right?

Well, by an amazing coincidence, Rad the Snow Leopard just happens to be the favorite choice of Vladimir Putin, while his co-regent, President Dmitry Medvedev was said to have liked the polar bear since in Russian “Medvedev” is a named derived from the word for bear (“medved”). Of course since this is Russia, there has to be more to the story... The Moscow Times was quick to report that there was suspicion that the online results were rigged since a choice that had led the online polling for months, a psychedelic blue frog named “Zoich” was unceremoniously dropped by judges just before the final round, despite the groundswell of public support. Zoich's designer patterned him after the Hypnotoad, a mind-controlling amphibian featured in the cartoon Futurama, the Sochi judging committee though didn't appreciate the joke and found Zoich to be more “depressing” than amusing.

Two other aspiring mascots dropped from the race were a cartoon saw – “sawing the budget” is Russian slang for the bribes that go along with any official project, and Sochi is already said to be running over-budget, and a character named "Stakasha", a name derived from the word for “glass”, but also Russian slang for being drunk; it's really not surprising that the Sochi would withhold their blessing from either. Of course, my first thought on seeing the bear character that was selected, who is admittedly quite cute, was that it reminded me of “Fatov”, the faux-mascot Bart Simpson created from a picture of his dad Homer and that he passed off as the mascot for the Sochi Games. According to Bart, Fatov celebrated “the Russian spirit of sloth and alcoholism.” Probably not what the Sochi selection committee was aiming for...


Final word on the mascot selection goes to Russia's noted opposition politician and political gadfly Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who was happy to blast away at the mascot choices: “The bear is the dumbest animal, the leopard is bloodthirsty, and the hare a coward who always runs away.”

Saudis Own Protests Coming?

Mark March 11 down on your calendars. That's the day that activists on Facebook are calling for Saudi Arabia's own “Day of Rage” public protests. Their demands seem quite reasonable, they include: an elected, representative body in the government, an independent judiciary, a minimum wage of $2,700 (plus increased employment opportunities for young people) and the “abolition of illegal restrictions on women.” It may not sound like a lot, but in many ways Saudi Arabia is still run like a feudal monarchy and their lack of rights for women has long been a sore point with the international community; and despite being awash in oil revenues, average Saudis complain that wages are low and employment opportunities few for people who are not members of the enormous royal family, the House of Saud.

While protests have been sweeping the Arab world, whether they can actually take hold in Saudi Arabia is still an open question. The experts I know on the region seem doubtful, and according to Reuters, while several hundred people have become fans of the Saudi Day of Rage Facebook page, it is impossible to tell whether they are even in Saudi or not. And unlike Gadhafi and Mubarak, King Abdullah is making efforts to get out in front of the discontent brewing in his kingdom by announcing billions of dollars in public sector aid, in an attempt to quell any public displeasure.

Stay tuned for March 11.

Sudan Name Game

In case you were wondering, the world's newest country will be called South Sudan.

The provisional government of the breakaway southern region of Sudan made the announcement on Wednesday, ending speculation - and confusion - over what to call their nation when it formally gets its independence from the rest of Sudan this coming July. News reports seemed split on calling the region “South Sudan” or “Southern Sudan”, though apparently “Nile Republic” and the Biblical name “Cush” were also in the running (personally, I think Nile Republic has a nice ring to it). Confusion over a name hasn't kept South Sudan from already picking a flag and national anthem; and while the city of Juba will serve as the interim capital for South Sudan, according to Foreign Policy magazine, the country would prefer to build a new capital city from scratch in the future.

South Sudan's split from the rest of Sudan came after results of a referendum showed 99% voting in favor of independence. The referendum was part of a 2005 peace accord that halted a decades-long civil war between the largely-Christian south and the largely-Muslim north. So far the government in Khartoum is sticking with their pledge to respect the results of the referendum and allow South Sudan to breakaway, even though the south holds a significant portion of Sudan's oil reserves.

For an interesting visual representation of the North/South divide, check out the NASA photo below, which shows the north as largely desert, while the south (soon South Sudan) is a deep green blanket of grasslands and jungle.

Tajik Land Giveaway

Border disputes are nothing new in international relations, but the government of Tajikistan recently came up with a pretty unique solution to an ongoing dispute with China – they just gave away a sizable chunk of their country. The Tajik government signed over more than 1,000 square kilometers (that's more than 400 square miles) of remote, uninhabited mountains over to China to finally establish the land border between the two nations. For their part, spokesmen for the Tajik government hailed the solution as a triumph of diplomacy, noting that the area is uninhabited and that the land given away was a small portion of the 28,000 square kilometers that China had wanted from Tajikistan – roughly 20% of the country's landmass. Sukhrob Sharipov, head of a government-related think-tank echoed the sentiment and wisdom of the deal, adding that had China decided to take the land by force, the Tajik military wouldn't have been able to stop them and that no one would have come to their aid.

Of course there's more to this story than meets the eye. First, it's hard to believe that China would actually invade Tajikistan over a minor border dispute, especially when they have similar disputes with Pakistan and India over the borders of the Kashmir region. It's also hard to imagine that Russia would stand idly by during a massive military intervention in their “near abroad” - the Russian term for the neighboring countries that were once part of the Soviet Union, places where they still feel they have a privileged level of interest. And while the land in the Pamir Mountains might be remote and uninhabited, they are believed to hold vast reserves of gold, uranium and other valuable minerals, something that impoverished Tajikistan could certainly use. Opposition politicians in Tajikistan, the few that there are, slammed the deal. Mukhiddin Kabiri, head of the Islamic Revival Party suggested the deal was unconstitutional since the Tajik constitution declares: “that the territory of the state is single and indivisible”; Tajikistan's Communist Party meanwhile said that the government “had left behind a huge problem for our descendants.”

But if the Tajik government even heard the protests over the land deal, they apparently decided to pay no attention to them. The following week the government approved a plan to lease a swath of land in the southern part of the country to 1,500 Chinese guest farmers to grow cotton and rice. That agreement sparked another wave of public anger. One Tajik interviewed by EurasiaNet.org noted that there are already land shortages in the area surrounding the capital, Dushanbe; jobs too are in short supply in Tajikistan – hundreds of thousands of Tajiks migrate for work each year, with many heading to Russia, some not returning home for years, if ever. Some estimates are that nearly 80% of Tajik families have at least one member working abroad as a migrant laborer.

Economics likely play a large role in the Tajik government's recent decisions to be so generous with China, in recent years China has given Tajikistan $4 billion in foreign aid, including underwriting several major infrastructure projects. But some like Tajik sociologist Rustam Haidarov see something else at work. “It is China's strategy to resettle its people in different countries. It's China's policy,” he was quoted as saying in EurasiaNet. “They occupy slowly, cautiously. They realize their own goals in Tajikistan and affect our economic policy. In time this will lead to an influence in [Tajik] politics.”

Sochi Cute

Of course every modern Olympics needs a cute and cuddly mascot, though some are much better than others (anyone remember the Whatsit from the Atlanta games?), and online contests are a popular way of selecting things in the Internet age, so the organizers of the Sochi 2014 Winter Games have invited the public to select their choice for the official mascot of the Games with a site dedicated just to the selection competition. The industrious folks in Sochi are providing mascot fans with eleven choices for the cartoon face of the Sochi Games.  My personal favorite is the Dolphin, since of course when you think Winter Olympics you naturally think of dolphins; it's worth noting here that Sochi is on the Black Sea, enjoys a temperate climate and was once part of the “Soviet Riviera” during the days of the CCCP, so for Sochi the dolphin isn't out of place. My prediction for the eventual winner though are the Matryoshka dolls (the famed Russian wood-carved figurines that nest one inside the next) since there seems to be such a huge range of marketing opportunities with them.

And while the Games are in Russia, the mascot vote is open to people around the world.

Juan Of The Dead

The zombies have reached Cuba.

Not real zombies of course, no Cuba is jumping on the horror movie bandwagon as the island nation shoots its first zombie film, “Juan of the Dead”. Of course being Cuba, even a schlock horror movie has some political overtones. According to the BBC, the Cuban leaders in the movie dither as a zombie plague grips the island, blaming the outbreak on the America government and Cuban exiles as part of a sinister plan to undermine the Communist government. It falls then to the title hero Juan to try to rid his homeland of the zombie plague.

Director Alejandro Brugues said that the zombie outbreak is both a metaphor and a way to explore how Cuban react to disasters, even ridiculous movie-made ones. “It's a zombie film but it's about Cubans and how we react in the face of a crisis because we've had a lot of them here over the last 50 years,” Brugues explained to the BBC.

Cuba has a rich cinematic history, but since the fall of their primary patron, the Soviet Union, in 1991, the Cuban film industry has struggled to fund new productions. “Juan of the Dead” is a joint project between Cuban and Spanish studios, production on the film should wrap later this year.

Russia Roiled By Ethnic Riots

Though under-reported in the West, during the past few weeks, Russia has been dealing with some of the worst ethnic rioting seen in the country since the end of the Soviet Union. The catalyst for this situation was the murder on December 5 of Yegor Sviridov, an ethnic Russian soccer fan by another group of Russians from the Northern Caucasus region outside of a match by the club Spartak Moscow, and the subsequent release of the perpetrators by the local police. This sparked a protest by thousands of ethnic Russians outside the gates of the Kremlin on December 11. Egged on by members of nationalist and ultra-right wing groups within their numbers, the protest soon turned into a full-blown riot the elite OMON unit of the national militia struggled to contain.

While most Americans think of Russia as a nation filled exclusively with, well, Russians, it actually is a diverse, multiethnic society made up of dozens of ethnic groups. A vast, multiethnic society living together in peace was one of the big propaganda points touted by the old Soviet Union. But when the Soviet Union broke up into 15 independent nations in 1991, old ethnic tensions began to bubble to the surface. In Russia today, both Russian citizens originally from the old Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union, as well as migrant workers from those now-independent countries today, often find themselves the target of racist attacks – Central Asian workers tend to fill the same role in Russia that migrant Mexican workers do in the United States. Russians from the North Caucasus region in southwestern Russia also face widespread discrimination. The North Caucasus region is home to Chechnya, so the common assumption in Russia is that all North Caucasus residents are terrorists (or potential terrorists) and they tend to be treated accordingly.

Unfortunately in the 16 years since the beginning of the first Chechen War, unrest from Chechnya has spread across the North Caucasus to other Russian republics like Dagestan and Ingushetia, and the conflict has evolved from a struggle by Chechen militants for independence for their homeland into one that has become increasingly wrapped up in an al-Qaeda-style battle to create a fundamentalist Islamic state – all factors that feed the “all North Caucasus people are terrorists” meme within Russia. One reason this Islamic fundamentalism has found fertile ground in the region is the generally lousy living conditions found in the North Caucasus – unemployment is ridiculously high as is the poverty rate, while local officials are horribly corrupt – all problems acknowledged by President Dmitry Medvedev. Unfortunately the Russian government's response hasn't been to encourage development and crackdown on corruption in the region, but rather to give a free hand to brutal local leaders like Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov in dealing with dissent, a strategy that has succeeded only in creating more (and angrier) dissent.

Corruption also directly led to the recent riots in Moscow; the perpetrators of the fatal attack on Sviridov were released from custody after a bribe was apparently paid to the police. But again, this reality failed to bring about the expected response from Russian officials – namely an investigation into rampant police corruption, but instead brought just more political window dressing: namely a visit by Prime Minister Putin to the grave site of the murdered soccer fan, Sviridov. That and the assignment of Russia's newest superstar to the case – Anna Chapman, who was recently named to the advisory board of the “Young Guard”, a pro-Kremlin youth group, to whom she gave the kind of vague and bland speech you expect from politicians today, case in point: “we must transform the future, starting with ourselves!”

For his part, during a nationally televised address, Putin seemed willing to attack the problem of unauthorized protests within Russia, but his focus quickly shifted from ethnic strife and soccer hooligans to liberal political protests. Perhaps to emphasize the point, on December 31, one of Russia's best-known left-wing politicians, Boris Nemtsov was arrested during one of the “31” protests in Moscow – for the past year, liberal groups have publicly gathered on the 31st day or every month that has one in support of the 31st article of the Russian Constitution, which guarantees the people the right to peacefully assemble. Previously, the small gatherings were quickly broken up by the police, though the October 31 rally was allowed to go on with an official approval from President Medvedev. That wasn't the case for the December 31 protest, which was not only broken up, but saw Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister not only arrested but also sentenced to 15 days in jail.

Just as Russia chose to react to the allegations of police corruption brought forward by Novorossiisk policeman Alexei Dymovsky by creating “Dymovsky 's law” - a law that didn't punish corrupt officers, but rather those who blew the whistle on them, Russia once again seems intent on applying the wrong remedy to a problem – treating ethnic strife by arresting political critics of the Kremlin.

Khodorkovsky: A Political Prisoner Jailed Again?

On Monday a Russian court found Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty for a second time based on his time as the CEO of Yukos, once Russia's largest oil company. The guilty verdict doesn't change Khodorkovsky’s immediate circumstances, he has been locked up in a prison in Russia's Far East since his arrest in 2003 on charges of tax evasion; what the verdict does is ensure that Khodorkovsky won't be getting out of jail next year after serving the eight year sentence he received in 2003.

For a very detailed recounting of the Khodorkovsky saga, check out Martin Sexsmith's book Putin's Oil (or for a recap, check out my review of Putin's Oil). In short, Khodorkovsky was jailed for willfully evading taxes while serving as the head of Yukos during the 1990s; in his defense, Khodorkovsky said that he followed the tax laws as best he could during the chaotic 1990s, when Russian tax laws were constantly changing, and in essence he was arrested for not accurately anticipating what the tax laws would be and not paying accordingly. In fact, the tax situation in Russia in the 90s was so confused, that the tax charges could have been levied against any members of Russia's oligarch class, who also used the economic upheaval as an opportunity to amass huge personal fortunes. That Khodorkovsky was singled out for punishment is clear indication to Kremlin critics that Khodorkovsky’s prosecution was in fact politically motivated (that any number of oligarchs could have been prosecuted, but weren’t, was a thought echoed in a fair number of comments made by Russians on the BBC’s coverage of the verdict).

They say that Khodorkovsky’s real crime was to break a “gentleman's agreement” between Vladimir Putin and the oligarch class where Putin promised to give the oligarchs a free hand in running their business empires so long as they stayed out of politics; Khodorkovsky made some relatively minor contributions to the Kremlin's political opposition in the early 2000s, soon after he found himself arrested at a Siberian airfield on the tax charges. Perhaps it is ironic that Khodorkovsky’s political donations came as part of his philanthropic efforts to build a civil society within Russia at a time when his fellow oligarchs were happy to take their money out of the country and spend it on luxury flats in London and enormous private yachts.

Khodorkovsky’s second prosecution will do nothing to dissuade critics of the idea that once again Russia's legal system is being used for political purposes. Sexsmith's book paints a picture of Putin fearful that Khodorkovsky could at long last be the symbol Russia's political opposition needs as a rallying point; it's not a coincidence then that Khodorkovsky’s original sentence would expire with enough time for him, hypothetically, to enter the 2012 presidential race. For his part, in writings from his Far East prison, Khodorkovsky has come to see himself as a “martyr” for modern Russia. Critics ask why Khodorkovsky, and his business partner Platon Lebedev, were put on trial now on charges that date back more than a decade. To further complicate matters was the judge's decision to postpone his ruling from mid-December until yesterday, a time when most Russians are preoccupied with the upcoming New Years and Orthodox Christmas holidays; perhaps the hope was that the ruling would be lost in the holiday shuffle. Western observers though have taken note, with even the US State Department expressing “concern” over the verdict and the flimsy evidence offered at trial.

Khodorkovsky’s actual sentence likely won't come for several more days as the judge has said he will not give word on punishment until he finishes reading the entire 250-page verdict. Whether this will affect foreign investment in Russia also remains to be seen.

Buffy?

A few weeks ago while visiting Bulgaria, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was given a special gift: a Bulgarian Shepherd puppy. Maybe that's understating the gift a bit, since Putin was given perhaps the most adorable puppy on the face of the Earth (see picture below).


The puppy had a name, one Putin didn't care for, so the puppy didn't have a name... Putin decided to turn the naming of the new pup into a national contest, which was won – as such contests always are – by a young child, a five-year old boy named Dima who suggested the president name his new pooch “Buffy”.

Buffy?

First, one wonders how a young Russian boy would come up with the name “Buffy” in the first place, then you have to wonder why Putin would think that Buffy was the best of the choices offered? (Perhaps because “Dmitry” would just be too confusing?) And finally you have to wonder if Buffy is really the best name for a puppy that looks like it will eventually grow to be the size of a small horse. But it's always best not to argue with Putin...