Debating the language bill:
Thanks to SY for the clip.
The 2012 Eurovision song contest was not without controversy. First, there was the build-up of Azeri naval forces off of Baku for unknown reasons:
Government officials aren’t saying what threat they might be protecting against, and, as close to the water as the Eurovision venue might be, of course an attack from the sea is exceedingly unlikely. Still, Eurovision is taking place in an atmosphere of heightened tension with Iran — which also happens to be the most significant threat that Azerbaijan’s growing naval force is intended to protect against.
(http://www.eurasianet.org/node/65458)
And, Amnesty International publicly called out Azerbaijan for human rights abuses, a topic that was tactlessly handled by BBC commentator Graham Norton.
Some would say the greatest controversy is that Loreen’s song Euphoria beat out the Buranovskie Babushki. Sure, she won more votes, but who wasn’t pulling for the Russian group?
Thanks to SB for the link.
RFE/RL posted fun footage of an artists’ protest march in Moscow on Saturday:
Nothing new in this Gawker piece, but there are several amusing tidbits:
“Some men have grown wary of the industry that promises them lifelong happiness with a woman from the economically-depressed country of their choice. They complain that the agencies are corrupt, and more interested in making money than matches. Agency rosters are stuffed with savvy “pro-daters” who are just out for gifts and cash handouts, they say. Or the agencies themselves hire women to pretend to be interested in guys in order to keep them sending expensive messages through their sites, which can cost $8 a piece.“
“”We all have a natural desire to want to get as a close as possible to the real thing, to meeting some pretty girl on the corner” said William Lee, the proprietor of the website RussianWomenTruth.com and a professional coach for men looking for Eastern European wives. “Or in this case, randomly meeting some pretty girl online.”“
“These men say they prefer Eastern European women because they’re more family-oriented and traditional than their American counterparts. But they often fall into the bitter misogyny you’d expect from men who concoct sweeping sociological explanations for their shitty love lives.“
“”The American men are being decimated. That’s one of the reason homosexuality is so popular,” an FSU-fancier named Ken told me. “[American] women have become so dangerous, so damaging that it’s just not worth it. Russian women know what they are,” he added. “They’re not men with boobs. That’s what they are in America, they’re men with boobs.”"
“And it doesn’t hurt that the younger women of Ukraine don’t seem to mind dating a guy almost twice their age.”
“”I’d look at their profile and see, oh, she’s kind of cute. Most of them are very beautiful anyways, and if they had a picture of themselves and they weren’t hideous or anything I would friend request them,” he said.”
Reminds me of the Michael & Svetlana documentary from last decade, but I can’t seem to find a single online clip:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2112203/
(Thanks to MH for the link)
This past weekend Moscow saw a string of protests organized in opposition to Vladimir Putin’s re-inauguration as President of the Russian Federation. After grassroots demonstrations that had waxed and waned dating back to the parliamentary elections in December, the latest protests were the most sustained and the most violent. The cops were up to their usual tricks, arresting some of the most prominent opposition figures, and several police were injured, though in other locations they were able to peaceably disperse crowds (without the use of pepper spray).
In sharp contrast to the crowds that had massed throughout the city, Putin’s escorted approach to the inauguration ceremony made Moscow look like a ghost town:
Maybe this is a turning point for Russia in terms of the evolution of civil society and grassroots movements. If so, who deserves credit?
Well, in one of his last interviews as President, Dmitri Medvedev was asked about his main accomplishments, and here is what he said, without a trace of irony, as quoted on Ekho Moskvy:
“в тут же надо сказать, что Дмитрий Анатольевич перед тем говорил речь достаточно длинную и назвал одним из главных достижений своего президентства широкое участвие граждан в политической жизни.”
http://www.echo.msk.ru/sounds/886002.html (skip to the 4:00 mark to hear when the remark is quoted)
С Днем Победы
The debut track from MC Mama, who was featured in last week’s FC Kuban anti-racism spot:
“Я не 50 Cent, мне 50 лет”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov found time in his busy schedule last week to personally respond to Miriam Elder’s whining about her dry-cleaning. Gotta love the sarcasm in the letter he published in the Guardian:
I am sorry to hear about Miriam Elder’s experience at the dry cleaners, in which she lost her receipt and so had an hour of her time “stolen” in providing the necessary personal details to retrieve her woollies (Red-tape Russia, G2, 24 April). But I am also amazed that this anecdote can be passed off as any sort of insight into the state of Russia today.
By all means, the Russian government understands there is work to do in cutting red tape: it is a high priority and we have seen substantial progress in recent years, as foreign businessmen operating here testify. Moreover, other countries, the UK included, have room for improvement on this front too.
Let me remind British readers of the thousands of hours that are “stolen” from Russian citizens when they complete the UK’s visa application forms, which are a whopping 10 pages. The time, money, effort and inconvenience that Russians face in obtaining UK visas put Ms Elder’s ordeal into perspective.
Dmitry Peskov
Quite unbelievably, Elder was petty enough to write a response, which can be found here.
Elder’s original post is here, it’s not worth reading other than to add context to the exchange. Dry cleaning in Russia is mad expensive, that’s all there is to it.
The best take on the whole affair belongs to Guardian reader Boris Barnet, who posted the below comment on the Guardian’s message board:
can’t work up much passion over the dry cleaning issue – actually I’ve never been to a dry cleaners in Russia and when I asked a Russian friend about bureaucracy and dry cleaners she couldn’t answer because she’d never been either. I guess all the passion that Elder brings to this question is due to the fact that like most foreign correspondents she lives a pretty circumscribed life and these molehills tend to become mountains….
Thanks to HS, SB, and MH for the links.
MC Mama, representing FC Kuban.
Thanks to SB for the link.
I had long-delayed writing a post about Ksenia Sobchak, Russia’s bizarro “It girl” who is compared to Paris Hilton in every article written about her by the Western media, but when Artemy Troitsky said this month on Ekho Moskvy that “Ksenia Sobchak, это девчонка – молодец“, I tried to put down some thoughts.
What Troitsky said in detail is that Sobchak embodies the universal aspiration for ‘self-realization’:
“Ксения Собчак, на самом деле, воплощает сейчас вот то, что по идее должен был бы воплощать в плане самореализации любой нормальный и верно ориентированный по жизни человек. То есть она ведет очень интересную и насыщенную жизнь, при этом с большой пользой для общества. Вот, ничего лучше этого не бывает.”
And, that she has “found within herself the courage to go against her own social class.”
[Ксения Собчак ... нашла в себе смелость пойти против своего класса.]
To go against one’s own class…therein lies a compelling contradiction, and it is one that is not limited to Ksenia Sobchak. See, Sobchak is the daughter of the late Anatoly Sobchak, the former mayor of St. Petersburg who Vladimir Putin served as deputy in the 1990s. Dan Peleschuk writes that the Sobchak “family remains closely intertwined with Putin, who owes most, if not all, of his career accomplishments to [Ksenia's father].”
Hence the inevitable cynicism when years ago Ksenia’s privileged position won her a gig on a trashy reality show, and then she evolved into a participant in pro-Edinaya Rossiya political theater. She famously interviewed Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia while wearing a Vladimir Putin t-shirt. Sadly, I cannot find footage of the interview online, other than a recap here.
Then came the turn from her own class that Troitsky respects so much. Prior to participating in the protests on Ac. Sakharova, Sobchak had made headlines by calling out in public Vasily Yakemenko (founder of Nashi), and then this month Chulpan Khamatova. The apex of her dissent may have been this very lyrical rap, addressed to Dmitri Medvedev and featuring Vasya Oblomov and Leonid Parfenov:
Whether this political dauphine-cum-reality star-cum-pseudo journalist-cum-rapper has staying power is an open question; what I would like to return to is the inherent contradiction in turning against one’s own class and extend it beyond Ksenia to include her father Anatoly.
While Anatoly Sobchak was certainly a popular and influential mayor who was exceptional in remaining level-headed amid the chaos of the final days of the Soviet Union, particularly in his stand-off with General Viktor Samsonov, he is featured heavily as a villain in Masha Gessen’s new biography of Putin, ‘The Man Without a Face.’ She implies he was a ‘demagogue’ and ‘megalomaniac’ who “played the democrat while engaging with old elites.” Most seriously, she accuses Sobchak (and Putin) of being complicit in state corruption on the order of ~$100 mn… (The many shortcomings of Gessen’s book are detailed in Prof. Stephen Kotkin’s review; for a less sober review, read Anne Applebaum)
I choose to give the last word, however, to the late mayor, a figure full of inherent contradictions who may not have foreseen the regime he helped engender, but who certainly foresaw the nature of Russia’s perpetually looming identity conflict:
“A totalitarian system leaves behind it a minefield built into both the country’s social structure and the individual psychology of its citizens. And mines explode each time the system faces the danger of being dismantled and the country sees the prospect of genuine renewal.”
(Remnick, 37)
Here is a link to Ksenia Sobchak’s latest talk show, ГосДеп 2, which was pulled by MTV Russia but made its way to presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov’s Snob web platform. All episodes should be accessible here.
