February 13, 2001   

This Date's Issues:   5089 • 5090

Johnson's Russia List
#5090
13 February 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. BBC Monitoring: Russian tax officers urge good behaviour on staff and citizens.
2. strana.ru: President and parliament members are invited to take spelling test.
3. Message from Tatyana Matsuk.
4. AFP: Rebel painter brings new vision to Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker."
5. Ponedelnik: PUTIN IN 2001: A BURDEN OF CHOICE. Putin is going to take his time until he gets hold of financial power.
6. The Independent (UK): Patrick Cockburn, Ukraine: Kuchma may face impeachment for theft and bribery.
7. Transitions Online: Nonna Chernyakova, Freedom's Just Another Word.  For Russia's amnestied prisoners, there's often no choice but to go back to jail as soon as possible.
8. Andrew Miller: Reply Re: Anti-Americanism. (and review of Brat-2)
9. Human Rights Watch Moscow: New research on Chechnya abuses/accountability.
10. pravda.ru: USA NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR CONDOLEEZA RICE SPEAKS OUT AGAINST RUSSIA. (DJ: Can anyone confirm this?)
11. Wall Street Journal: Alan Cullison, Gazprom's Bid for Media Most Comes At a Time of Internal Chaos for Firm.
12. Moscow Times: Lyuba Pronina, PSA Progress Blasted By Officials, Investors.
13. Interfax: Yeltsin's recovery slower than expected.
14. RFE/RL Security Watch: Victor Yasmann, RUSSIA IN SEARCH OF ITSELF.]

*******

#1
BBC Monitoring
Russian tax officers urge good behaviour on staff and citizens
Source: Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Moscow, in Russian 13 Feb 01

Text of an appeal by the participants in the All-Russia conference of heads
of tax bodies and federal bodies of the tax police to staff of tax bodies and
officers of federal bodies of the tax police, published in Russian newspaper
Rossiyskaya Gazeta on 13 February:

The citizens of the Russian Federation have entered the new millennium hoping
for the revival of a prosperous and thriving country. Economic growth,
stronger law and order in the state and stabilization of the standard of
living and, as a result, increased confidence in the authorities are now an
objective reality. It is now necessary to consolidate the initial successes
and ensure the conditions for steady future progress. Together with all the
honest citizens of the country, the staff of the tax bodies and officers of
the tax police are fully aware of their responsibility for this. The strength
of the guarantees of the homeland's economic security, the certainty of the
replenishment of budget revenue, observance of the law and rules of economic
behaviour by all those involved in the market and, ultimately, stability in
society and Russia's international prestige depend in many respects on our
efficient, well coordinated joint actions. For that reason, the Russian
Federation Taxes and Levies Ministry and Russian Federal Tax Police Service,
guided by the spirit and letter of the Tax Code, regard stronger
collaboration as a major factor in implementing the tasks we face.

We are grateful to the Russian Federation president and the country's
government for their support and for their understanding of the problems and
needs of people working in our departments. We urge our colleagues to work
enterprisingly and creatively to ensure the unconditional attainment of state
targets on mobilizing taxes and levies for the budget, to step up their
efforts in strategically important areas of the fight against tax law
violations, to stop attempts to legalize the proceeds of crime and to
identify cunning financial swindles. The replenishment of the state treasury
and attainment of the noble goal of the rebirth of a great Russia depend to a
great extent on the professionalism of the tax inspector and tax police
officers and organization and principle.

We urge all Russian taxpayers to engage in dialogue and to cooperate in
building a civilized tax system and generating a climate of mutual trust and
understanding.

*******

#2
strana.ru
February 12, 2001
President and parliament members are invited to take spelling test
 
The Pushkin Russian Language Institute and Rossiiskaya Gazeta have invited
President Putin, Duma deputies, governors and the players of the Russian
National Hockey team to take a spelling test. In this way, they will be able
to participate in a nationwide Popular Spelling Test that begins on February
12.

The Rossiiskaya Gazeta journalists were the first to take the test. Ten
persons who wrote two sentences dictated by a teacher from a story by Leo
Tolstoy received an average 3.9 mark (based on a 5 points system). Only the
deputy editor in chief Viktoria Molodtsova received 5 points. The rest of the
journalists made punctuation mistakes or errors in carrying over words to
another line. True, there was only one spelling mistake in all ten papers.

The main thing in this undertaking is not to check out how well or how bad
people know their grammar, but to attract attention to language problem,
declared the acting editor in chief Vladislav Fronin. Even journalists, he
explained, have very poor vocabularies today. The overall level of grammar
has fallen dramatically, and this means that culture was on the decline as
well.

Academician Vitaly Kostomarov, the director of the Russian Language
Institute, pointed out that the country still has spelling rules that were
endorsed back in 1956 even though the language is developing and changing.
The Russian language will be what the younger generation wants it to be,
declared the philologist.

The prospects for reforming the Russian language are now under discussion in
the country. Experts at the Institute have been working on it for more than
10 years already. At the same time, it is assumed that the reform will
concern the spelling of not a great number of words, and it will also
"legalize" new words that have appeared in the language but which have not
yet been reflected in the spelling rules.

*******

#3
From: irlras@irl.msk.su (Tatyana Matsuk)
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 13:12:14 +0300 (MSK)

Dear David and other friends,
thank you very much for your replies and help. I see that the world
is full of kind and warm hearts. And it is the most important thing
for me now. I'll answer everyone but I need some time. And please
don't send me much information by e-mail: this address belongs to an
academical institute, which has no much means.
I wish you all to be happy.
Sincerely yours
Tatyana Matsuk

*******

#4
Rebel painter brings new vision to Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker"

SAINT PETERSBURG, Feb 13 (AFP) -
Russian avant-garde painter Mikhail Shemyakin was the talk of the town
Tuesday after raising the curtain on a new version of "Nutcracker Suite" on
the same stage where Pyotr Tchaikovsky's ballet premiered more than a century
ago.

The production at Saint Petersburg's Mariynsky Theatre "is not traditional,
but it isn't ultra-modern either," said the painter who is no stranger to
controversy.

Shemyakin, who chose exile in 1971 rather than buckle to official hostility
to his modernist style of painting, said he hoped to "restore the mystical
spirit" of the Hoffman tale that inspired the ballet.

Now dividing his time between the United States and Russia, Shemyakin is the
sculptor of a statue of Peter the Great inside the city's Peter and Paul
Fortress that has raised hackles in Russia's second city, sometimes dubbed
the "Venice of the North".

He spent two years working on the latest Tchaikovsky production, writing the
libretto and designing the sets and costumes, the Mariynsky's press service
said.

The theatre, which mounted the first production of "Nutcracker" in 1892, has
become a successful rival attraction to Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre in recent
years, notably because of a more adventurous programming policy.

*******

#5
PUTIN IN 2001: A BURDEN OF CHOICE
Putin is going to take his time until he gets hold of financial power
Author: Sergei Kazennov, Vladimir Kumachev
Source: Ponedelnik (issued by Moskovskaya Pravda and Interfax-VREMYA),
No 6, February, 2001, p. 3
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
WHAT SHOULD RUSSIANS AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY EXPECT FROM VLADIMIR PUTIN AND HIS TEAM IN THE KREMLIN IN 2001? THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST POPULAR QUESTION TODAY. FIRST AND FOREMOST, WE ASSUME THAT THE FOREIGN POLICY SITUATION WILL REMAIN MORE OR LESS UNCHANGED IN RUSSIA. PUTIN WILL PROBABLY REFRAIN FROM HARSH GESTURES AND THIS IS NOT MERELY BECAUSE RUSSIA'S ROOM FOR MANEUVER HAS BEEN NARROWED DOWN.
AND NEITHER IS IT BECAUSE ITS HANDS ARE TIED BY ECONOMIC RELATIONS
WITH THE WEST. IT IS UNDER PUTIN THAT RUSSIA BROUGHT ITS CAPACITIES IN LINE WITH WHAT ITS NATIONAL INTERESTS DEMAND, WHICH IS OF PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE.

     Europe needs Russian fuels, and it has to sort out the problem in
the "European house" itself. All of this will prevent a forced
expansion, including military-political expansion to the East. For the
time being, the West is not going to set Putin up or provoke him. It
values the Kremlin's coherent foreign policy too much to risk it.
Moreover, the West itself remains a priority in Russia's relations
with the world and this is not merely because of Putin's personal
sympathies.
     This year, Putin's diplomacy will proceed to build relations with
other global "poles". Japan will not receive the Kuril islands from
Russia but it is prepared to swallow the disappointment. Official
Tokyo understands that there is more to relations with Russia than the
problem of the Northern territories. China needs close technological
contacts with Russia, and no serious changes are expected in this area
in the foreseeable future. Neither will Moscow's relations with New
Delhi undergo any serious changes. The "onslaught" from the south,
which has been discussed and feared for years, will not materialize.
Along with Russia, the West and some Asian countries are already aware
of the serious danger bred by Afghanistan and the forces that feed the
protracted conflict there. The Kremlin will steadily build up its
relations with the Middle East step by step, trying to avoid
complications with the West.
     The situation in Chechnya will not change much in 2001. There are
no serious possibilities for a progress or even a new policy, and a
preservation of the status quo will gradually become an accomplishment
no matter what the military might be saying on the subject. At least,
the Chechen factor will not be in the foreground of the Kremlin's
policy. It has played its role in the elections.
     Chaotic and not always "civilized", Putin's battle for
"restoration of the power vertical" will continue. it is not going to
be a losing battle exactly. Society is fed up with and disappointed in
the decade old "democratic games". It is fed up with all political
parties without exception. It is ready to trust Putin and pin its
hopes on him. The Russian society's confidence in Putin's ability to
"work miracles" is almost becoming maniacal. Most Russians have
adapted to the situation and do not expect an improvement soon. Putin
however remembers that in Russia there is only half a step from
political adoration to hatred.
     Will Putin manage to do away without stiff legal measures in the
reforms? (And he is going to pursue reforms, there can be no doubts
here.) Restoration of order in the country is a must indeed, but harsh
moves and gestures may derail the situation.
     These days, all sorts of political forces are dragging Putin in
their direction. They try to enlist his services and would dearly like
to be able to act and speak in his name. We have to say this for
Putin: he is not in a hurry to make a choice with regards to the
reforms and the methods of their implementation. He is taking his
time, waiting for his team to be formed to the end, for an appropriate
ideology to appear, and for the appearance of the necessary political
infrastructure and the propagandistic machine with which he could back
up his actions. Putin cannot rule the country without concentrating
and centralizing the financial channels and taking them over. This is
already out of the reach of Gref's program.
     Much will depend on oil and oil prices. In 2000, oil exporters
netted $9 billion in clean profits, but things may be different in
2001. And it is the energy complex that remains the locomotive force
for the Russian economy. It determines economic growth and relative
stability in society. Successes in other sectors of the economy are
fairly modest and we should not expect any progress this year. We can
only hope that the international community will meet us halfway on the
problem of Russian foreign debts and understand the general situation
in Russia where policy is truly the art of the possible. Will the West
show tolerance?
     One thing is clear. The potentials of liberal policy in its
Yeltsinist form is all but exhausted in Russia. Unfortunately, it has
failed to tap the creative capacities of society. No, Putin is not
going to "slide to the left" as liberals fear but he will be forced to
correct the course of the reforms. We should not accuse Putin of lack
of determination. It stands to reason to assume that Putin does not
know yet what to do about the burden of "the reform promoters" and
does not want to subject the country to any new experiments...
(Translated by A. Ignatkin)

********

#6
The Independent (UK)
13 February 2001
Ukraine: Kuchma may face impeachment for theft and bribery.Party
leader who released secret tapes says they contain enough evidence of
corruption, and possibly murder, to oust the President
BY PATRICK COCKBURN IN KIEV

ALEXANDER MOROZ, the Ukrainian politician who first released the secret tape
recordings implicating President Leonid Kuchma in a plot to silence an
investigative journalist, is to seek the impeachment of the Ukrainian leader.

Mr Moroz, the leader of the Ukrainian Socialist Party, told The Independent
in an interview in Kiev yesterday that Mr Kuchma's taped discussions with his
senior lieutenants provided enough evidence of crimes such as bribery and
theft of state funds for the Ukrainian parliament to impeach him.

He said Mr Kuchma could be impeached for crimes other than planning the
abduction of Georgy Gongadze, the journalist, whose headless body was
discovered in a forest near Kiev late last year. On the tapes, whose
authenticity the President still denies, Mr Kuchma is heard suggesting to his
officials that they arrange for the kidnapping of Mr Gongadze by Chechen
bandits.

Mr Moroz, a highly respected member of the Ukrainian parliament, expressed
his disgust at the general tenor of the conversations in the presidential
office. "I felt like washing my hands after I heard them," he said. "They
never talk about running the country: only about whom they planned to fire,
put in jail, have followed or kidnapped. I felt ashamed for my own
government."

In the aftermath of further demonstrations in Kiev over the weekend demanding
his resignation, Mr Kuchma yesterday met the Russian President, Vladimir
Putin, in Dnipropet-rovsk, about 150 miles south-east of the capital. Ukraine
is deeply in debt to Russia because of its reliance on Russian energy, but
the meeting is unlikely to divert attention away from the scandal over the
Ukrainian leader's role in the disappearance of Mr Gongadze.

Mr Kuchma may incline more towards Russia in an effort to counter-balance US
and west European criticism of his record. "Never since the destruction of
the USSR did Russia have such a wonderful chance to get a pro-Russian leader
in Ukraine, a country with 52 million people," the Moscow daily Izvestiya
said caustically yesterday. "The only problem is that the pro- Russian
president is Leonid Kuchma."

Mr Kuchma, 61, who formerly ran a plant making missiles, was re-elected
President of Ukraine last year with the backing of financial oligarchs, a
cowed media and regional government officials who were told their jobs
depended on getting out the vote.

Mr Moroz said it was unclear to him why the government should have been so
determined to eliminate Mr Gongadze, who ran a small internet newspaper
called Ukrainskaya Pravda. He said the most probable explanation was that "in
any dictatorship the truth hurts and senior officials think they can never be
punished".

Despite admitting that DNA tests show a 99.6 per cent certainty that the
headless corpse found in a forest in November is that of Mr Gongadze, the
government still refuses to admit he is dead. Alyona Prytula, his girlfriend
and current editor of his internet paper, says the reason is that an
admission by the government that Mr Gongadze is dead would force them to open
an official investigation into who murdered him.

Aside from the DNA tests, there is plenty of other evidence that the body now
in a morgue in Kiev is his. Ms Prytula wears a medallion cut in half on a
chain around her neck. The other half was found with the body. A ring and
bracelet belonging to him were also found close to the corpse. He had eaten a
melon on the day he disappeared and forensic scientists found pips in the
stomach of the corpse.

Nevertheless, why somebody should have taken such apparent trouble to conceal
the identity of the corpse - by cutting off the head and using acid to
obliterate other marks - and then left personal ornaments near by remains a
mystery. The body was reportedly buried in a shallow grave with a hand
protruding, which led to its discovery. Mr Moroz wonders why the body was
left close to where he lives.

The answer may be that nobody expected too many questions to be asked. Mr
Gongadze was little known. Before his death his website paper had only 3,000
readers a day. This has risen to between 50,000 and 70,000 since Mr Moroz
revealed to parliament that he had tapes on which Mr Kuchma could be heard
repeatedly making foul-mouthed threats to kidnap the journalist. Ms Prytula
said: "The awful thing is that a lot of people only started looking at our
paper after the scandal broke."

The government may also not want to release the body because Mr Gongadze's
funeral would be massively attended and could turn into a political
demonstration against Mr Kuchma.

A sign of official nervousness is the closure of a square in central Kiev
where demonstrators normally gather. Many Ukrainians are suspicious that the
government's sudden determination to build a monument to independence on the
square in the depths of winter is an excuse to move protesters to a less
sensitive spot.

*******

#7
Transitions Online
www.tol.cz
February 12, 2001
Freedom's Just Another Word      
For Russia's amnestied prisoners, there's often no choice but to go back to
jail as soon as possible.
by Nonna Chernyakova
Nonna Chernyakova is a freelance correspondent based in Vladivostok. 

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia--In January, a man entered a store in the Far Eastern
village of Trudovoye, grabbed a sausage from behind the meat counter, and
began devouring it in front of the astonished shopkeeper. Wiping his mouth,
the thief said, "I just stole a sausage; please send me back to jail."

Police were not surprised to learn who the desperate shoplifter was, said
Vladimir Chernousov, a deputy director of police inspectors in this Pacific
port city, who recently recounted the incident. The thief was one of the
140,000 prisoners Russia released from May to October 2000 under a general
amnesty.

The release was touted as a humane means of reducing overcrowding in a
country that holds 950,000 people behind bars and has the world's highest
per capita prison population. But there is growing despair among those who
were set free but often cannot find jobs or apartments in a troubled
economy. Many must beg or return to crime in order to get by, and they are
likely to join the 40 percent of recidivists who end up back in jail,
Chernousov said.

It is especially difficult for those who've spent long terms behind bars.
Some of those released under the amnesty were arrested 15 years ago, when
the Soviet Union was still a superpower and Communist Party General
Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev was taking his first steps toward perestroika.
They enter a Russia where guarantees of jobs and housing have evaporated,
where workers go unpaid for months, and where the economy is dominated by
gangsters, multimillionaire oligarchs, and corrupt regional governors. It
is hardly the best environment to pitch an ex-con into and then demand that
he go straight.

"If a prisoner was put there 15 years ago and gets out today, he can't
understand real life anymore," Chernousov said. "Everything has changed,
and he doesn't recognize the country anymore. He lost his family, his job,
his home. What is he supposed to do? Many just ask to go back to jail."

Prisons are no picnic anywhere, but in Russia they are particularly grim.
Cells are often so crowded that most inmates spend the day standing or
sitting on the floor. Many are imprisoned for comparatively minor crimes
such as shoplifting that would not normally result in long jail sentences
in the West, particularly on a first offense. Abuse by guards and other
prisoners is widespread, and tuberculosis is incubating rapidly behind bars.

Troubled by the situation, Russia's State Duma--the lower house of
parliament--announced the general amnesty on 26 May last year. The date was
the 55th anniversary of the defeat of Germany in World War II, a
traditional day on which amnesties have been proclaimed in Russia and the
Soviet Union.

In Primorye, a Far Eastern region along the Sea of Japan with Vladivostok
as its capital, 3,195 prisoners were amnestied, part of a release of 8,685
prisoners into a population of 2.1 million. Few saw any point in seeking
official help in getting a job. Only 489 came to the Federal Employment
Office, and only 150 of those applicants found employment.

Many ex-convicts end up getting involved in organized crime. The Primorye
Regional Department for Fighting Organized Crime reported that the amnesty
contributed to a 13.2 percent growth in the crime rate in 2000 as compared
to 1999. The number of guns in circulation grew by 26 percent, while the
murder rate increased by 2 percent.

Igor Zayarin, 25, spent almost four years in prison for stealing jewelry at
a party (he claims he didn't commit the crime). A burly man with a shorn
head, a scarred face, and a black eye from a recent brawl at a nightclub
where he now works as a security guard, he discussed his post-prison life
in a billiards room on a slow night recently.

The conditions in jail were horrible, he said. Thirty-eight inmates were
living in a cell designed for 12. "When you go to use the toilet, you step
on people's heads," he said.

With the amnesty, Zayarin was released four months early, and he spent
months looking for work until a nightclub hired him as a guard. It never
occurred to him to go to the Federal Employment Office for help. Even if he
had, he would have gotten an unemployment benefit of only $3.82 per month.

Bouncing in a club full of rowdy drunks is one line of work in which being
an ex-con might seem like a qualification, but even here, Zayarin had to
lie about his background in order to get the job. "I have always tried to
be a normal person," he said. "Look, I don't even have any tattoos. When I
got out of jail, I went to every possible company looking for work:
fishing, shipping, construction. Nobody wanted to hire me. Here they took
me because they didn't know that I was in prison."

Though he is among the lucky few who have found work, Zayarin has already
managed to get in trouble again. At a drunken party he took a coat with
money in it and split the cash with a fellow partier. Arrested afterwards,
Zayarin is working overtime trying to repay the victim, but he is certain
the court will sentence him to another term.

Even when unemployment officials try to help former inmates, it is
difficult. Svetlana Klimenko is an official in charge of finding work for
"socially insecure citizens"--those who are disabled, pregnant, former
prisoners, or otherwise difficult to employ. She said ex-convicts sometimes
hear how low the unemployment benefit is and leave without registering. She
tries to help those who stay by calling employers and convincing them to
hire people. When they do find work, it is usually as janitors, drivers, or
construction workers.

Once, Klimenko sent an ex-convict to a job interview, but the employer
called back later and said there was no way he would hire such a
menacing-looking man. "Did you see the guy you sent to me?" he said. "There
are tattoos on his eyelids that say, 'Sleep Tight.'"

"I can understand the employers, too," Klimenko said. "Usually the young
ex-cons look horrible, have no professions, don't know how to behave on the
job. But I always ask the employers if they'd rather have the boys be
gangsters on the streets."

Beside jobs, the most urgent problem for amnestied prisoners is finding a
place to stay. Sergei Malevannik, head of the Federal Department of
Corrections education department, said that in the entire Far East, a vast
region stretching from the North Korean border to the Arctic Ocean, there
is not a single halfway house where ex-convicts can stay until they find
home and work. "Right now, 1,500 of the released prisoners have no roof
over their heads," Malevannik said.

Often the ex-cons are from central Russia and the former Soviet republics,
and they are trapped here on the Pacific seaboard, up to 10,000 kilometers
from home, Malevannik said. There are many cases in which sailors come to
Vladivostok to work, but they end up being robbed and losing their money
and documents. In Russia, those who lose their internal passports--required
in order to find work--cannot get them replaced unless they go to the
office that originally issued them. Far from home without passports, they
are stranded. Many start stealing and end up in jail. And even after the
amnesty, such former prisoners return to the same situation--without
documents or any means of getting back home.

"The amnesty was an action that had absolutely no material support,"
Malevannik said. "We expect a return current of convicts back to prison
very soon. Some already went back the very first month."

******

#8
From: "Andrew Miller" <andcarmil@hotmail.com>
Subject: Reply Re: Anti-Americanism
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Vladimir Ivanenko and Dmitri
Mitin for responding, in JRL 5083, to my invitation in JRL 5080 for comment
concerning prior JRL entries concerning anti-Americanism in popular Russian
culture and in Russia generally.  I cannot say that, as an ordinary
American, their words were much comfort to me concerning Russian attitudes,
but I would like to emphasize how much we non-Russian readers of the JRL
welcome the comments of Russian readers and how much we can learn from them.

By way of reply to Sarah Lindeman, who wrote to dismiss the reports of Time
and the Wall Street Journal concerning burgeoning anti-Americanism in
Russian youth culture, and to claim that in Siberia there is a flood of
positive American culture, I would like to offer the following essay by way
of rebuttal (and add that as for me, I spent a week last summer in the
charming Siberian city of Ekaterinburg and saw no hint of positive American
culture, not even a McDonalds).

I would challenge Ms. Lindeman to gather a group of well educated Russians,
ask them the following three questions, and report back to us on their
replies:  (1) Who is Toni Morrison, why did she win a Nobel Prize and appear
on the cover of Time magazine? (2) Who is George Washington, why do
Americans idolize him and place him on their most common ($1) currency? 
(3) Why is America so economically powerful?  I'm willing to bet that the
answers will be: (1) I don't know. (2) I don't care. (3) Because they're
lucky and exploitative.

I would like to assure Ms. Lindeman that I did not intend to be understood
as claiming (and nor do I think Time or the Wall Street Journal implied)
that all of Russian youth culture, or even a majority of it, is
anti-American.  I lived in Russia for four years and can quote "Veter c
morya dul" with the best of them.  My point was simply that the instance of
anti-Americanism in Russian youth culture is disturbing, not reciprocated in
American youth culture, and representative (as the very small portion of
Americans who are members of the KKK is representative of a serious problem
of racism in the USA) of a very dangerous social problem in Russia for which
each nation will suffer greatly if it is left to fester unchallenged.

One can easily point to instances of anti-Russianism in American pop
culture, as I did in my comment on the Time and Wall Street Journal pieces. 
What one cannot do is to assert that American anti-Russianism is as damaging
to Americans as Russian anti-Americanism is to Russians.  Russia gives
virtually no economic benefit at all to the United States, and indeed
provides the United States with virtually no consumer products.  Russia
won't be presenting the USA with a Statue of Liberty any time soon.
Unpleasant a fact as it may be, Americans can live without Russians.  But if
Russia pushes the United States into a corner, and it is doing that now, and
America chooses to write Russia off as a banana republic, while Russian
pride may be temporarily assuaged by flipping American the birdas, every
other aspect of life in Russia will be seriously undermined and for no good
reason.  Any thinking person ought to accept that the degradation of
relations between Russia and the U.S. is a bad thing, and that Russia,
because it has the most to lose and gain, must take the lead in preserving
those relations.  I see no indication whatsoever that Russia is taking any
steps at all in that direction.

Andrew Miller
Villanova, PA

Topic: Review of Brat-2
Title: Cynical & Earburnt "At the Movies"

Hi I'm the specter of Gene Cynical and you are AT THE MOVIES!  Today we'll
be reviewing Lethal Weapon CVI, Rocky DDX, Casablanca II and the latest
import from Russia.  Is it  "Burnt by the Sun" or  "Burnt by the Ticket
Price?"  Stay tuned and find out.

Da-Da-Dum-Dum, Da-Da-Dum-Dum, Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum,
Da-Dee-Da-Dum-Da-Dum!

Hi I'm Roger Earburnt and our first film IS the second installment in
Russian director Alexei Balabanov's now epic saga of Chechen war veteran
Danila Bogrov, played by Sergei Bodrov, in his never-ending struggle for
truth, justice and the Russian way.

"Brother II" (http://brat2.film.ru) is the film, and for the uninitiated we
might call it a combination of Rambo, Pulp Fiction and South Park, with
subtitles and healthy dose of Dostoyevsky.  By a wide margin, this is the
most popular and ubiquitous series of films to emerge from post-Communist
Russia.  It is set to the pulse-pounding beat of the latest Russian pop (the
latest stuff from Zemfira, Chicherina, Masha i Medvedi, B-2 and Splin, as
well as old standbys from Krematoriy, Agata Kristi, and Auktsyon - but I'm
sure that any self-respecting Russia expert knows perfectly well what
Russian kids are singing about these days, there's no need for further
details).  The soundtrack is on heavy rotation at Russian MTV, kiosks can't
keep the cassettes in stock, and little wonder:  The film even includes a
cameo role by pop diva Irina Saltykova as herself, the Russian Pamela
Anderson.

If in "Brother" we saw our hero Danila taking Chechnya by storm, with
Brother II the series goes on location in America so that Danila can deal
appropriately with Russia's "other" enemy.  And I must say that after all
those cartoonish Russian villains conjured by Hollywood over the years, it's
some long overdue turn-about-is-fair-play stuff from the Rooskies.

You commie pinko rat bastard, Roger.

Shut up Gene.  You're dead.

Anywho, the action opens with Danila being summoned to the palatial premises
of ORT television to be interviewed with his buddies about his Chechnya
heroics (naturally, Danila sheepishly takes a back seat and lets the others
grab his glory).  Danila bumps into diva Saltykova in the hallway, and
naturally she rings him up at the first opportunity and they hit the sheets
(though there is no nudity in a patriotic film of this kind, unfortunately).

After that, it's not long at all before one of Danny's buddies is coldly
bumped off as part of a cruel plot machinated by a cruel American (when
Danila discovers his friend's body, he poignantly steals his money - the
police would anyway, we understand - so he'll have a nest egg for revenge
and something for the funeral).  Danila turns to his clan of neo-Nazi Moscow
cellar-dwellers (real ones, with swastikas and everything), and with the
arrival of his bald-headed older brother is ready to set off for America and
work justice upon the world.

Cue soundtrack, and away we go.  Departing, Dan asks Irina:  "Have you ever
been to America?"  She replies, "Sure I have."  Dan wonders:  "How is it?" 
Irina answers:  "It sucks."

At customs, we see that Americans speak Russian really badly, and they are
too fat or too thin and they are uniformly ugly and very stupid, especially
compared to Russians.  On the way to Chicago by truck after Dan's American
car breaks down on the road, we see what Americans know about Russia:  "Oh
you're from Russia?  Russia is very big!"  Then Danila is run over by a
black Chicago TV reporter (though he walks away with minor injuries,
American cars not being very tough), and she takes him back to her house
and, naturally, rips his clothes off.

Next Danila meets a miserable bald-headed Russian prostitute, and when he
tries to free her from the clutches of a black pimp gang he's arrested by
the police - who all where American flags on their uniforms that are either
upside down, backwards or both - and who then release him saying "f*** the
niggers."

Using a pocket knife, Danlia then builds a pistol. Using matches and broken
nails, he makes some ammunition.  Using the gun, Danila steals a
(marginally) better one from some other black gangsters, blowing one's face
off in grand fashion, and then he uses the new gun to locate, in a matter of
seconds, the offending American business executive, waltz into his office
and cut him down to size.  Danila kills the executive's body guard, then
forces the American to drink a big glass of vodka (he can't manage it) and
start crying.  "Show me how strong you are, American" urges Danila.

Then Danilia, his brother and the hooker sit down in a park around a fire
and talk about America.  Danila never goes inside in America, except to kill
people - he's always out in the cold.  The hooker tries to explain to Danila
that black people don't like to be called "niggers" even if it does sound
like the Russian word for "black person" - but Danila retorts:  "If that's
what they are why should they mind?  In China there are Chinese, in Africa
there are niggers."  Some black folks overhear Dan and make a mass assault,
but Dan repels them artfully.  Danila and the hooker agree that America is
no good, but Danila's brother, on the run after assaulting a cop who wanted
to put him in the drunk tank, loves the place and wants to stay.

It's not long before Danila's brother gets his wish:  He is arrested by the
cops.  Danila leaves the poor fool in jail to think about the error of his
ways (loving America!), knocks over a bar to get some ready cash (he finds a
clerk watching porn on TV and shoots out the picture tube), says goodbye to
the TV reporter ("Are you guys gangstas?" - "No, Russians"), and hops on a
jet with the hooker, saving her from the oblivion of life in the USA.  When
the hooker's visa is found to be expired at the airport and she's told she
won't be able to return, she triumphantly gives the clerk the finger.  As
the jet takes off, we see Danila smiling contently out the window as a
Soviet tune, "Goodbye forever America" whisks them off into the sunset.

I don't know about you, Gene, but it's a big thumbs up, way up, from me.  I
know some people might say that if Americans made a film like this about
Russians, they'd be crucified for it.  The Russians would say that it was
insanely crude and violent, and full of ignorant stereotypes.  And who could
blame them?  But after all, I say, America is a great country and Russians
could do worse than to blindly copy inane and offensive Hollywood
movie-making, now couldn't they?  Ah, progress!  After all, Tinsel Town
hasn't exactly been to cruel to us now, has it Gene?

*Gene Cynical has left the building*

******

#9
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001
From: Human Rights Watch Moscow <dlohman@hrw.ru>
Organization: Human Rights Watch - Moscow Office
Subject: New research on Chechnya abuses/accountability

For further information please contact:
In Brussels, Jean-Paul Marthoz 32.2.732.2009
In Moscow, Diederik Lohman 7.095.250.6852
In New York, Rachel Denber 1.212.216.1266

E.U. Should Press Russia on Chechnya

(Brussels, February 13, 2001) Russian officials have done almost nothing
to investigate atrocities in Chechnya and European officials should not
let them off the hook, Human Rights Watch said today.

On the even of a visit by E.U. officials to Moscow this week, the
watchdog group released a new analysis detailing the procuracy's feeble
efforts to investigate some of the worst atrocities of the
eighteen-month war.

"Last year the E.U. stressed repeatedly that only the Russians can
punish their own troops for abuse in Chechnya, without international
interference," said Holly Cartner, executive director of Human Rights
Watch's Europe and Central Asia division. "But now it's clear that the
Russian government is not investigating these crimes in good faith, and
the E.U. has to call them on it."

The 10-page analysis, based on dozens of recent Human Rights Watch
interviews with victims' relatives and on correspondence with the
Russian procuracy, charges that government investigations have been too
few and of poor quality. One-third of the 35 investigation against
servicemen relate to inadvertent or minor crimes; only 12 pertain to
murder.

More than one year after 130 civilians were killed in the
execution-style murders in Alkhan-Yurt, Staropromyslovski, and Aldi, no
one has been held criminally accountable. A few investigations into
individual murders in these massacres were launched, but only after
victims' relatives had filed a complaint with the European Court of
Human Rights. Many relatives have not been questioned, and many bodies
remain to be exhumed. Law enforcement agencies have made no effort to
gain the trust of witnesses who are terrified of further abuse.
Witnesses are too frightened to report for questioning to the Khankala
military base, where many Chechen men have "disappeared" in custody.

No one has been charged with torture, despite hundreds of
well-documented cases. Investigations into the "disappearances" of
individuals taken into Russian custody have stalled due to lack of
cooperation on the part of the military.

Meanwhile, abuses continue. Russian soldiers and police on sweep
operations arbitrarily detain men and women, particularly young Chechen
men ranging in age from fifteen to forty-five, and loot homes. Detainees
are frequently taken to makeshift detention facilities such as earthen
pits, where they are routinely tortured and denied all due process
rights. Many detainees have "disappeared" without a trace after being
taken into Russian custody. Groups of masked men, often speaking
unaccented Russian, burst into homes of civilians at night and take away
or kill their inhabitants.

Chechen rebels have threatened and killed civilian administrators and
are presumably responsible for the bombing of Russian positions that
have killed and wounded numerous civilians.

"The E.U. can't just set aside the Chechnya mess in order to do 'real
business' with Russia," said Cartner. "This is their real business with
Russia."

The February 9 memorandum is available at:
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/chechmemo-0213.htm
The January 22 Field Update is available at:
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/chechmemo-0122.htm
--
Diederik Lohman,
Director, Moscow Office
Human Rights Watch
Russian Federation, Moscow 125267,  A/Ya 2
Tel:  7 095 250 6852
Fax:  7 095 250 6853
dlohman@hrw.glasnet.ru
Website
English: http://www.hrw.org
Russian: http://www.hrw.org/russian
Listserv address: To receive Human Rights Watch's press releases on
the Former Soviet Union, send an e-mail message to moscow.office@hrw.ru
with the request to be included in our mailing list.

*******

#10
pravda.ru
February 12, 2001
USA NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR CONDOLEEZA RICE SPEAKS OUT AGAINST RUSSIA

"I believe that Russia is a threat to the West in general and to our
European allies in particular".

The new US National Security Advisor, Dr. Condoleeza Rice, has broken the
silence which shrouded the first three weeks or so of her tenure of office.
Not surprisingly, the tone and content of her discourse smacks of ignorance
and sensationalism, and unfortunately quite predictably, her approach is
exactly what was foreseen in Pravda.Ru's pages many months ago.offensive
arrogance, outdated notions of superiority, imperialist fantasies and proof
of a total ineptitude for the post in which George Bush has placed her.

The interview which this lady has given to "Figaro magazine" reads like a
boring essay from a child who has been given too much responsibility and
whose only resources of communication are a stereotyped reiteration of
standard catch-phrases belonging to yesteryear.

There are a number of absolute clangers in this interview, setting the
scene for what one hopes is a brief tenure of office, hopefully for Mr.
Bush to choose better the next time around.

Condoleeza Rice had been surprisingly quiet until now but she surprises
nobody in her first publicised interview. She was probably allowing
pressure to build up before she let rip with some amazing examples of the
epitome of the wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

"I never approved of the Clinton policy on Russia.and the maintaining of
aid to Moscow during this period when everyone knows that corruption and
criminality were corroding the system (sic)".

The USA, a country in which mafia gangs and criminal association apparently
do not operate, would obviously be curious to know what this lady is
saying. However, it gets worse :

"My forecast is that Russia will approach the Arab nations more and more".
maybe this lady will offer her services as a mediator between the Russian
Federation and Chechnya, if indeed she knows where it is.

Better still comes the following statement, a brilliant example of idiocy,
crass stupidity and total incompetence:
"I really believe that Russia is a threat to the West in general and to our
European allies in particular (sic)".
One wonders whether it is her who is speaking or her boss, Mr. Bush.
"I am convinced that, in our relations with Moscow, we should give priority
to security issues, beginning with nuclear disarmament. The question of
economic and political reforms comes later (sic)".

Given that her country is the only one to have so far used nuclear weapons,
this last statement seems at least a trifle ironical.

In an incredible and confused attempt to gain a minimum of political
credibility, the same lady goes on to state that:
"I naturally consider Russia as a partner and see it as an ally, but I also
know that there are certain ideas in the Kremlin that will enter into
conflict with ours (sic)".

Condoleeza Rice is the National Security Advisor to the President of the
United States of America, George "W" Bush.

*******

#11
Wall Street Journal
February 13, 2001   
[for personal use only]
Gazprom's Bid for Media Most Comes At a Time of Internal Chaos for Firm
By ALAN CULLISON
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

MOSCOW -- Rem Vyakhirev, the chief of Russian gas monopoly OAO Gazprom, has
never been a lover of the media. His company's press office seldom answers
questions, and even more rarely does Mr. Vyakhirev give interviews.

Mr. Vyakhirev has been in the news lately, however, leading Gazprom's bid to
take over Media Most, which operates Russia's only nationally broadcast
television station, NTV. In a full-page advertisement in this newspaper last
week, Mr. Vyakhirev said Gazprom must take control of Media Most's outlets to
recoup financial losses -- the media company is a large debtor, and defaulted
on hundreds of millions of dollars in loans after the Russian financial
crisis in 1998.

He accused the media company's managers of bad faith, and of driving the
company into bankruptcy. He said Gazprom wanted to invite "the best industry
expertise -- both Western and Russian -- to turn the business around without
delay".

Deeper Motives

There could be other reasons Mr. Vyakhirev is trying to take over Media Most:
The management of the gas company could be currying favor with the Kremlin.
Media Most, controlled by the flamboyant theater-director-turned-tycoon
Vladimir Gusinsky, has been a considerable irritant to President Vladimir
Putin. Its prize asset, NTV, has been a frequent critic of Mr. Putin's major
policy initiative, the war in Chechnya, and has run numerous exposes on
Kremlin incompetence and corruption. If Gazprom does get control of NTV, it
could put a muzzle on the Kremlin's last real critic in Russia.
 
Mr. Vyakhirev could use some help from the Kremlin these days, because
foreign investors want to fire him. When it was privatized in 1994, investors
had hoped Gazprom would quickly become known as the ultimate Russian
investment, a natural-resource behemoth that -- if it ever reformed its ways
-- would be a supercharger for any emerging market portfolio. Instead Gazprom
has been a whopping disappointment. It is the world's biggest natural-gas
producer and owns reserves eight times as great as Exxon Mobil's, but its
hulking inefficiencies, alleged asset stripping and the chaos of the Russian
economy have kept investors at bay. Gazprom's market capitalization is $7
billion (7.6 billion euros), while Exxon Mobil's is roughly $296 billion.

But foreign investors control only two of the eleven seats on Gazprom's board
of directors -- the government and management control five and four seats,
respectively. Only the government can force any real changes at Gazprom, and
for now the government appears ambivalent. At a meeting last month, Gazprom's
board ordered a review of the company's transactions with a little-known
gas-trading company named Itera, which in recent years has been allowed to
buy gas and other assets from Gazprom at below-market prices, prompting
suspicions that the company may be partly owned by Gazprom executives. But
the Gazprom board chose their current auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, to
carry out the audit.

Some question the objectivity of a firm that has previously signed off on
Gazprom's accounts. "People wonder why, after so many years of talk about
change at Gazprom, so little has changed," said Steven O'Sullivan, head of
research at United Financial Group in Moscow. "They are wondering why the
government isn't pushing harder."

One answer is that Gazprom's current management has proven useful to the
Kremlin in quashing an important political opponent. For the past year, Media
Most hasn't buckled under pressure of Russian prosecutors and police.
Government agents have raided the media company at least 30 times, and
arrested or interrogated top executives and journalists for various
investigations. Mr. Gusinsky has fled the country, but still controls Media
Most from his villa in southern Spain, where he is under house arrest and
awaiting hearings on extradition back to Russia.

Legal Maneuver

Gazprom, as a substantial creditor, last month announced it succeeded where
the Kremlin has failed: Gazprom Media head Alfred Kokh said the company had
managed through a Moscow arbitration court to wrest control of NTV, and would
move to reshuffle the company's board of directors as soon as possible. Last
month, Mr. Kokh said Mr. Putin called him to his country residence to discuss
the gas company's strategy. Gazprom has vowed that it won't change the
editorial policy of the television station. In his letter last week Mr.
Vyakhirev accused management of distracting the public with the "worn-out
rhetoric of 'freedom of speech.' "

Will the government force a shake-up of Gazprom management, too, after
Gazprom rids Mr. Putin of his biggest political headache? Investors don't
appear to be betting on it. Foreign investors had hoped that in Gazprom's
annual shareholder meeting this coming April, Mr. Vyakhirev for one would
finally be ousted from the company, and be replaced with a new chief favoring
financial transparency.

But as Gazprom shares linger in the doldrums, there is widespread skepticism
that anything will change at the company -- even if Mr. Vyakhirev does leave.
"One of the reasons that investors have been so tolerant of the slow pace of
change at Gazprom is that they have assumed there would be a change in
management in April," Mr. O'Sullivan said. "If that change doesn't come, then
that will be a very bad sign."
 
******

#12
Moscow Times
February 13, 2001
PSA Progress Blasted By Officials, Investors
By Lyuba Pronina
Staff Writer

It's been five years since Russia passed a law on production-sharing
agreements - a vital provision needed to unleash foreign investment in the
oil, gas and gold sectors - but since then the government's handling of the
crucial issue has been atrocious.

Such was the general consensus of some 160 government officials, oil
executives and industry experts at Monday's parliamentary hearings devoted
to the problems in developing legislature for such agreements, known as PSAs.

"Five years have passed but PSAs have not attracted as much money as was
expected," said State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladimir Averchenko, opening the
hearings. "The only way out is to amend the PSA law," he said.

PSAs, which encourage investments by companies developing resources by
offering them favorable tax treatment in exchange for a share of
production, were expected to bring billions of dollars into the country.

But so far little progress has been made, as the process has been beset by
numerous delays and disagreements over how to balance protecting domestic
producers and workers, and the urgent need for investment from foreign
companies that want less restrictions.

One of the most contentious issues has been Russian demands on the use of
domestic employees (a minimum of 80 percent of all staff) and of
domestically manufactured equipment (70 percent).

Such delays have resulted in the conclusion of just four PSAs since the law
was passed in 1995: Sakhalin-1, Sakhalin-2, the Khariaga field in the Komi
republic and Siberia's Samotlor field, the latter of which is not
operational. Only one, Sakhalin-2, which is operated by a consortium of
foreign companies under the name of Sakhalin Energy, is actually producing
oil.

Total PSA investment is only now reaching $2 billion, while estimates over
the next 10 years range between $60 billion to $100 billion - assuming the
process can be simplified.

Red tape and legislative clashes with related laws is a major stumbling
block, industry players say.

Last fall, for example, President Vladimir Putin issued a decree
transferring responsibility for PSAs from the Energy Ministry to German
Gref's Economic Development and Trade Ministry. The idea was to create a
so-called "single-window" through which foreign companies could negotiate.
Currently, as many as 1,700 separate approvals are needed to launch a PSA,
which can take years; in the case of Sakhalin-2 it was three years.

But Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov only officially put the decree into
effect last week - a fact that provoked a stinging rebuke from former prime
minister and current Gazprom board member Viktor Chernomyrdin.

"No presidential decree would have been delayed by five months before,"
said Chernomyrdin. "Where are we going? What are we doing? How many more
months will they [the Economic Development and Trade Ministry] need to find
people [to deal with the issue]?" he said.

Chernomyrdin was not alone.

"The government has not worked out a single state policy on PSAs," said
Sergei Ivanenko, head of the Duma's PSA committee.

"Much time and effort has been spent. We don't need PSAs on paper," said
Glenn Waller, director of the Petroleum Advisory Forum, which lobbies for
foreign companies. "PSAs work in 64 countries. Russia does not need to
reinvent the bicycle."

Mukhamed Tsykanov, Gref's deputy, said several ministries would sit down
together later this month and work out a new strategy.

******

#13
Russia: Yeltsin's recovery slower than expected
Interfax

Moscow, 13 February: The health of first Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who
was taken to the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow on 30 January with a
suspected "acute viral infection", is improving, a source with the medical
personnel of the clinic has told Interfax.

The intensive treatment Yeltsin has been undergoing since the first days of
his hospitalization "is producing positive results", the source said.
However, this process is going more slowly than doctors had expected, he
said.

The source declined to specify even an approximate date for Yeltsin's
discharge from the hospital.

******

#14
RFE/RL Security Watch
Vol. 2, No. 6, 12 February 2001
RUSSIA IN SEARCH OF ITSELF
By Victor Yasmann

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian
political elite has been searching for a definition of what
their country is or should become. Among the definitions
which have attracted support are the ideas of Eurasianism,
especially in the formulation of Mikhail Delyagin, who
heads the Institute of Globalization, and who has adapted
the early 20th century ideology to today's economic and
political realities.
In its current issue, "Sovershenno sekreto" published
an excerpt from Delyagin's latest book. He argues that "in
the modern world, nobody needs Russia and most view it as
an obstacle to their interests." Delyagin continues that
"Russia is tolerated only because her destruction might
create greater dangers than her continued existence." Under
such circumstances, Delyagin argues, Russia must promote
"superficial friendships" with others as dangerous as it
is, lest Russia slip even further behind.
Such a strategy is required because Russia must
attract massive capital investment, something it cannot do
on its own. But it is unlikely to succeed because the
government cannot yet create the conditions or build the
infrastructure which make investment possible, let alone
profitable. And consequently, Russia must involve itself in
global megaprojects like the east-west and north-south
corridors President Vladimir Putin has been promoting.
Such a project, however, will benefit not only Russia
but Europe and China, as well, and allow Russia to serve as
a link between the two new powers. And that link, as
tenuous as it may appear today, Delyagin argues, will
eventually allow Russia to return to the world as a power
of the very first rank.
But that is not a sure thing, Delyagin suggests,
especially since the new international division of labor
imposes requirements that Moscow can neither ignore nor
easily meet. Its enormous size and its severe climate make
it inherently less competitive than most other countries in
either the developed or developing world.
That situation means, Delyagin continues, that Russia
must become a "smarter country," using high educational
standards to become the supplier of "intellectual resources
for transnational corporations." By sending its scholars
and experts abroad, Russia will thereby secure both its own
development and meet the challenges of the new globalism.
However utopian these ideas, as outlined by Delyagin,
may appear, they in fact form the intellectual foundation
of many of the policies of Putin and thus are an indication
that Putin's approach is not the simple pragmatism many
have argued or a restoration of the past as others have
claimed.

******

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