August 8, 2001

This Date's Issues:  5383 • 5384

Johnson's Russia List
#5383
8 August 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
DJ: Still on Nantucket.
1. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review (August 6).
2. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review (August 7).
3. AP: U.S.-Russian Defense Officials Meet.
4. Moscow Times: Yevgenia Albats, Pricing Putin's Political Play.
5. Arch Getty: archival secrets.
6. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, Kim visit evokes Stalinist past. As Kim Jong Il left Moscow yesterday, Russian analysts wondered why Putin is courting him.
7. Washington Post: Robert Kaiser, On the Road to Russia's Rich Wasteland. A Uranium Mine's Mother Lode of Reality.
8. The Spectator (UK): Bruce Anderson, There is not much competition, true, but Mr Putin may turn out to be Russia’s greatest ruler.
9. Inostranets: Mikhail Klishevsky, THE COMMUNISTS HAVE REASON TO BE OPTIMISTIC. The Communist Party is still the strongest party in Russia.
10. Moskovsky Komsomolets: PUTIN'S CANDLES. Will they help the Russian hemorrhoid. AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL MCFALL, MARTIN NICHOLSON, AND IGOR BUNIN.]

********

#1
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research intern at the Center for Defense Information
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy
at Boston University

HEADLINES,
Monday, August 06, 2001

- Students from all over the world are tending to the graves at a cemetery
in the Tambov oblast' -- one of the largest international cemeteries from
WWII.

- The first slate of compensations to Ukrainian citizens who were victims
of Nazi concentration camps has been paid out. Thirteen people received
sums of 1,500 to 15,000 Deutschmarks from the German government.

- Russian computer programmer Dmitry Skliarov has been accused of breaking
the American law on intellectual property. The case is still active
despite the fact that ADOBE SYSTEMS, whose code was broken, withdrew the
suit.

- An interdepartmental commission in Khabarovsk has completed its
investigation of the deaths of 11 children in the cancer ward. In the
middle of July the media suspected that new, untested drugs were at fault.
Medical experts have determined, however, that all medications and
procedures at the hospital were in line with Russian and foreign
standards. They have also ruled out the possibility of an infection that
spread through the hospital or of wrong doses of medication. A criminal
case has been initiated - not against specific workers or against the
hospital as a whole, but simply in relation to the occurrence; certain
complex evaluations and investigations can only be conducted within the
framework of a criminal case.

- Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Health Minister Yuri
Shevchenko today. Shevchenko reported on the measures being taken against
the cholera outbreak in Kazan'; he told the president that the danger of
an epidemic is over, that the crisis has passed (67 people, including 36
children under the age of 12, have been diagnosed so far).

- Brian Graham, a British citizen dubiously connected to various
humanitarian organization, who was detained in Chechnya, has been sent to
Moscow, and will soon be forced to leave Russia. He will not be accused
of espionage despite the fact that he possessed certain photographs and
video-footage on Chechen fighter formations.

- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has arrived in St. Petersburg.

- A festival dedicated to the unique musical instrument "duduk" has been
opened in Armenia. This pipe can only be made out of the wood of the
apricot tree.

- Russian President Putin has expressed his gratitude to all of the
participants of the anti-terrorist operation in Stavropol [hijacked bus].

- A criminal investigation has been started after explosives were
discovered on a passenger bus going from Tbilisi to Moscow.

- Two Japanese coastguard ships have arrived in Vladivostok for joint
training.

- Another cache of weapons has been discovered in Chechnya - six bags of
ammunition were found in a garden patch.

- In Russia, the five-year anniversary of the Chechen fighters' storm of
Grozny is being commemorated.

- Leading American publications are closely following North Korean leader
Kim Jong Il's trip to Moscow.

*******

#2
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research intern at the Center for Defense Information
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy
at Boston University

HEADLINES,
Tuesday, August 07, 2001

- After visiting St. Petersburg's Piskarev Cemetery and Kirov
machine-building factory (which produces, among other things, the T-80
tanks Kim is rumored to be interested in buying) North Korean leader Kim
Jong Il returned to Moscow, where he will stay until tomorrow night.

- Four kids (the oldest is 14) who broke a window of Kim Jong Il's armored
train have been detained. An investigation is in progress.

- Russian-American military-level consultations on strategic security
continue in Washington. Questions of the reduction of the number of
offensive weapons related to U.S. NMD plans are high on the agenda. First
Deputy Head of the Russian General Headquarters Yuri Baluevsky, the head
of the Russian delegation, has reaffirmed Russia's position: The ABM
Treaty must be retained.

- One of the primary factors of the upcoming educational reforms will be
the reform of village schools. The education ministry plans to raise the
quality of teaching personnel, increase the number of schools, and provide
the schools with computers - but all that is in the future.

- President Putin met with Education Minister Vladimir Filippov who
reported on the preparations for the school year and on the plans for the
upcoming (August 29th) State Council meeting during which education reform
will be discussed.

- An emergency situation has been declared in Primorskii krai after
two-months-worth of rain fell within 24 hours. Four senior citizens died
when their homes were flooded; hundreds of people are stranded on their
roofs - refusing help because they fear that their houses will be robbed
if they leave. Damage is estimated to be in the billions of rubles.

- Forty-four residents of the Saksaul'sk settlement in Kazakhstan have
been hospitalized on suspicion of the bubonic plague. One man has already
died. Doctors are conducting emergency vaccinations of people and cattle.

- Thirty-nine construction workers in Lensk have been hospitalized with
dysentery.

- The first electric plant has been opened in Grozny. Prime Minister of
the Chechen Republic Stanislav Iliasov attended the ceremony.

- Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov met with his German counterpart,
Rudolph Scharping, in St. Petersburg today.

- Limitations on traffic movement in Chechnya have been lifted.

- Igor Beliakov, the head of the Novosibirsk mayor's office department of
consumer market and land relations was killed during his commute to work.
Operatives are not providing any information, but they say that this may
have been a contract killing. The murderer, dressed in camouflage, had
been hiding in the bushes by the part of the highway where the asphalt
ends and cars are forced to slow down. After shooting Beliakov the killer
ran off into the bushes and made his getaway on a motorcycle.

- A memorial to astronaut German Titov has been opened at the Novodevichie
Cemetery.

- President Putin has signed the law on money-laundering, which will go
into effect on 1 February 2001. The speed with which the bill went
through the Duma and Federation Council speaks to the importance of the
issue.

- Special operations are being conducted against drug-dealers in Rostov.

- Modernized SU-27 and SU-30 planes were demonstrated at an airshow in
Groshevo, in the Astrakhan oblast'.

- Special servicemen in Kaliningrad have neutralized a large criminal
group - including border-guards and policemen - that smuggled cigarettes
from Great Britain.

- Russian computer programmer Dmitrii Skliarov has been released on
$50,000 bail.

*******

#3
U.S.-Russian Defense Officials Meet
August 8, 2001
By ROBERT BURNS

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. and Russian defense officials are meeting behind
closed doors at the Pentagon to explore the prospects for an agreement on
building missile defenses and cutting nuclear forces.

The talks, which began Tuesday and were scheduled to end Wednesday, are
intended to set the stage for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's meetings
in Moscow next week with Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.

The Pentagon announced Tuesday that Rumsfeld, accompanied by Gen. Henry H.
Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Undersecretary of State
John Bolton, will leave Saturday. It will be Rumsfeld's first trip to Moscow
since he became defense secretary in January.

The administration hopes to make an accommodation soon with the Russians on
missile defense because, on its current schedule, the Pentagon is due to come
in conflict with legal restrictions in a matter of months. In the spring, the
Pentagon may start construction at Fort Greely, Alaska, of underground silos
for missile interceptors.

A Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, said he could not discuss
Tuesday's talks except to say they pertained to issues of missile defense and
ways to reduce offensive nuclear forces. He said Rumsfeld did not
participate, except to attend a Pentagon luncheon for the Russian delegation.

``We're really trying to figure this out on a different way to look at the
relationship between our two countries,'' Quigley said.

The Bush administration is committed to developing and deploying a nationwide
defense against long-range missiles, but has yet to persuade Moscow to scrap
or amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that prohibits such defenses.
The Russians' position has been that breaching the ABM treaty would unravel
the entire fabric of arms control, including treaties reducing offensive
nuclear forces.

At their summit meeting in Italy last month, Bush and Russian President
Vladimir Putin agreed to discuss the ABM treaty and missile defense issues in
the context of additional cuts in nuclear forces.

This week's talks at the Pentagon are intended to provide the Russians with
additional details on the U.S. approach, Quigley said. Rumsfeld said last
week, however, that the administration was not yet prepared to tell the
Russians exactly how much it would be willing to reduce the U.S. nuclear
arsenal. The Pentagon is in the midst of a comprehensive review of nuclear
force levels and strategy.

Leading the Russian delegation at the Pentagon was Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky,
first deputy chief of the general staff. Quigley said there were nine others
in the Russian delegation. The U.S. side was led by Douglas Feith, the under
secretary of defense for policy, who was an arms negotiations policy aide at
the Pentagon during President Reagan's second term.

The talks Tuesday and Wednesday were scheduled to last a total of 18 hours,
Quigley said.

In remarks to reporters last Friday, Rumsfeld indicated he expected no
breakthrough in this week's talks, which he described as ``an exchange of
information more than an exchange of views.''

Rumsfeld said there are psychological barriers to creating a new security
relationship with Russia.

``There is an awful lot of baggage left over in the relationship, the old
relationship, the Cold War relationship between the United States and the
Soviet Union,'' he said.

``It is baggage that exists in people's minds, it exists in treaties, it
exists in the structure of relationships, the degree of formality of them,''
he added. ``And it will require, I think, some time to work through these
things and see if we can't set the relationship on a different basis.''

*******

#4
Moscow Times
August 7, 2001
Pricing Putin's Political Play
By Yevgenia Albats

There is a little doubt that President Vladimir Putin, more than any other
top-ranking politician of the last decade, is motivated by the idea of the
county's national interests. At least, as he understands those interests.

Of course, politicians such as Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov have used
this kind of rhetoric many times, but none of them, unlike Putin, has ever
been in a position to realize this idea in the realm of real politics.

Putin, though, has. And he tries hard on many different fronts, sometimes
created odd paradoxes. Less than a month after his latest meeting with U.S.
President George W. Bush, Putin this weekend sat down with North Korean
dictator Kim Jong-il.

By now, though, the logic of Putin's actions seems pretty clear. First,
Putin would like to restore Russia's position as a power capable of
challenging the United States. This goal serves him well both domestically
and internationally.

At home, it helps to bolster the self-esteem of a nation that had come to
view itself as lost and downtrodden. By playing on the widespread desire to
restore Russia's greatness, Putin will be able to maintain his high
popularity rating all the way until the next election in 2004.

Internationally, this idea works as well. Obviously, the poor state of
Russia's economy does not allow the country to position itself the way the
Soviet Union did. However, many countries are profoundly dissatisfied with
U.S. superiority around the globe. Many are eager to delegate to Putin's
Russia the role as a sort of mediator or even representative of those who
by no means see the United States as an ally.

As of now, the range of these countries varies from former Soviet republics
both in Eastern Europe and in Central Asia to Cuba in Central America, Iraq
and Iran in the Middle East and China and North Korea in Asia. If Russia
proves successful in that role, the ranks of those countries seeking
Russia's mediating capacities (or more) may increase dramatically.

Putin's second goal is to give the economy some life so that it will
finally start gaining strength, including boosting the country's military
might. By bargaining over the U.S. proposal on missile defense, Russia may
hasten its acceptance into the WTO and help remove obstacles to its
economic development such as the so-called Jackson-Vanik amendment.

Putin's third goal is pragmatic as well. The structure of the old Soviet
economy left Russia with a number of goods that were marketable
internationally, most especially natural resources and military production.
A decade of reforms has done little to change that, and the list of
Russia's internationally attractive commodities remains the same as it was
in 1989 (except for the fact that the commodity "human capital" was more or
less exhausted after the first couple years of reform).

Unfortunately, the prices of oil and gas — Russia's primary exports — are
beyond Putin's control and may take a turn for the worse at any time. Thus,
Putin is eager to develop the market for military goods that have been in
storage since Soviet times and for new production upon which the economy
depends.

To some extent, then, Putin finds himself trapped. In order to regain
Russia's status as a global power, it must rebuild its military might. In
order to do that, Russia needs favorable economic conditions from the West
and an expanded market for its military goods in parts of the world that
the West fears: China, North Korea, Iran, etc.

Clearly, Putin is walking a very fine line and the game he is playing is a
risky one.

In fact, it may even be impossible. On the one hand, Russia wants
membership in the European Union. On the other, it is positioning itself as
the friend of exotic regimes. However, China's example suggests that even
if this approach is hard, it may turn out to be quite profitable.

China's hard-line domestic policies have not prevented a huge in-flow of
foreign investments, accelerated admission to the WTO or favorable trading
status with the United States. All this, in turn, has made China much more
powerful than it was previously, and now the United States sees that
country as its main rival in the medium-term future.

No doubt there is logic in Putin's actions in the field of international
relations. The real question is whether his understanding of Russia's
national interests corresponds to the country's actual national interests.
And if it turns out that he is wrong, how high will the price be for his
mistake?

Yevgenia Albats is an independent, Moscow-based journalist.

*******

#5
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001
Subject: archival secrets
From: Arch Getty <getty@ucla.edu>

Moscow.

As many of you know, the process of declassification of many Russian
archival documents has been stalled for some three years. The "Commission
for Declassification of Documents Produced by the KPSS" has been working
very slowly, if at all. Moreover, since documents pertaining to many
non-party agencies and many spheres of Soviet life were produced by the
Communist Party, the inability to "desecretize" party documents has frozen
the entire declassification process.

Unlike almost all of today's government institutions, the former Communist
Party of the Soviet Union has had no legally recognized "heir." Without
such, there has been no institution with legal standing to take the lead in
declassifying party documents. These logistical and bureaucratic problems
have stopped the entire process despite, for example, the existence of a
Eltsin presidential decree mandating the automatic desecretization of all
documents related to repression in the Stalin period.

The existing process of declassification has involved several steps.
Roughly, the process has been as follows. First, documents are identified
by researchers or archivists who formally request declassification. Second,
an "expertiz" is conducted (usually by intelligence, foreign policy, or
military representatives) to ensure that opening the documents in question
would do no harm to current military or political interests of the Russian
Federation. Third, the documents are sent to the Commission for final
declassification. A large number of documents have passed the first two
stages but have been frozen at the third.

Pressure from academics and intellectuals to restart the process has grown
in recent months and has included direct representations to President Putin.
Finally, on 2 June 2001, President Putin signed a Presidential Ukaz,
"Questions on the Interagency Commission to Defend State Secrets."

The Ukaz begins: "In the interest of improving the system of protecting
state secrets of the Russian Federation, I order....The abolition of the
Commission for Declassification of Documents Produced by the KPSS, formed by
order of the President of the Russian Federation on 22 September 1994...and
transfer the functions of desecretizing the referenced documents to an
Interagency [mezhvedomstvennaia] Commission to Defend State Secrets."
Further, in a separate point, the Ukaz corrects the previous bureaucratic
point: "The Interagency Commission will also have the function of
declassifying documents produced by the KPSS."

Although the results of Putin's order are by no means clear yet, in the
opinions of many here in Moscow, however, this movement of the process may
be more like one step forward and two steps back.

First, many have noted the difference in names between a commission to
declassify and one to defend state secrets. Second, although the membership
of the new commission has not been announced, many fear that it may contain
"colonels of this and generals of that" unsympathetic to the need of
researchers and to openness in general. One potential appointee is said to
have remarked that he opposes declassifying any document that casts the
Soviet Army in an unfavorable light. Third, there is fear that the new
commission may decide to begin the entire process over again,
"re-secretizing" even published documents and requiring a repetition of the
above-mentioned three step process from the beginning.

Some here who assiduously read between all the lines are worried that the
chilling in relations between Russia and the US and a corresponding rise in
Russian nationalism may retard the process. Others think that Putin's
recent decision not to remove Lenin from his mausoleum, in order not to
upset the older generation, may set a Brezhnev-era tone in which touching a
troubled past is considered inadvisable, or even officially discouraged.

These worries may be much ado about nothing and a reflection of the usually
pessimistic gossip that characterizes academic and archival life here. After
all, the membership of the new body has not been announced, and its
procedures have not been outlined. According to Putin's Ukaz, the new body
has two months to specify the new procedures, implying an August (or more
likely September) clarification.

We can only wait and see and hope for the best.

J. Arch Getty
Professor of History, UCLA
getty@ucla.edu

*******

#6
Christian Science Monitor
August 8, 2001
Kim visit evokes Stalinist past
As Kim Jong Il left Moscow yesterday, Russian analysts wondered
why Putin is courting him.
By Fred Weir (fweir@online.ru)
Special to The Christian Science Monitor

MOSCOW

He arrived like a cold wind from the past, riding an armored train and
bearing a bouquet of flowers to lay at Lenin's Red Square mausoleum.

Kim Jong Il, leader of North Korea, the world's last Stalinist state,
embarked on his week-long homeward rail journey from Moscow Tuesday, leaving
roiled emotions in his wake and a host of questions over why the Kremlin
chose to grant such a warm reception to the strange dictator of a tiny Asian
hermit state.

For many Russians, it was as if they'd seen a ghost. Mr. Kim came - and left
- by means of a slow, 21-car sealed train that plodded across Russia's 9,000
kilometer breadth, sowing pandemonium as stations were shut down in its path,
onlookers shoveled away by security, and local rail traffic snarled for
hours. Such a Stalinesque mix of arrogance and paranoia has not been seen in
Russia, at least in such grand proportions, for decades.

"All this goes far beyond the hassle caused by closing off roads when our own
president is traveling," noted the liberal daily Vremya MN. "Why should we
have to go through this for a foreign leader?"

The Russian media has treated Kim's ongoing visit as a bizarre curiosity,
zeroing in on his fondness for meals of "celestial cow" - roast donkey - and
other oddities.

But for Russian liberals, the cheery bear hug and cordial respect given the
North Korean leader by President Vladimir Putin at a weekend Kremlin meeting
was a dangerous, even scary, signal. "The world may view Kim as something
weird and exotic, but we recognize him as our own creation," says Alexei
Kara-Murza, a political scientist at Moscow State University.

"He is a walking, talking reminder of our own Stalinist past. It's very hard
to understand why Putin, a former KGB man, would want to be saddled with this
kind of symbolism."

A group of eight human rights activists were arrested and "warned" by Russian
authorities Monday after attempting to demonstrate against Kim's visit.
Russia's state media also failed to cover claims by human rights
organizations that North Korea repays its debts to Moscow by sending
indentured laborers to work in Russian far-eastern logging camps and mines.

"The comic aspects of Kim's visit are not important," says Mr. Kara-Murza.
"It is the reverberations of a secret police regime, which Russia is
befriending at a time when the security forces are rising to power in our own
society."

North Korea is the last of the USSR's post-World War II satellites to have
gone untouched by sweeping democratization and market reforms. Kim's father,
Kim Il Sung, was handed his job by Joseph Stalin in 1945, after the Soviet
Army occupied Pyongyang.

Even as the Soviet Union reformed, and later collapsed, North Korea remained
frozen in time. At his death in 1994, Kim Il Sung bequeathed the country like
a fiefdom to his son.

Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin cut off aid to North Korea and
generally ignored the place. But Putin has baffled Russian and international
observers by courting Kim and even treating him like a partner.

Kim and Putin signed a joint declaration lambasting US plans to break with
the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and demanding American troops be
withdrawn from South Korea. Moscow agreed to help rebuild North Korea's
dilapidated rail network, and fix up a few Soviet-built factories.

Russian experts say talk of military cooperation between the two former
allies is greatly exaggerated. According to one estimate, North Korea is set
to spend less than $10 million annually on Russian arms, or barely enough to
purchase a few ageing T-80 tanks.

"It's very hard to understand why Putin chose to issue a ringing declaration
about world affairs with Kim as his partner," says Svyatoslav Kaspe, an
expert with the independent Russian Public Policy Center. "When it comes to
calculating national power, the more client states you have, the bigger you
are."

For Russian nationalists and the still-powerful Communists, the message
carried by Kim is one of fresh inspiration. "North Korea has survived. It
still shows it can stand on its own feet, and refuses to bend to the power of
the dollar," says Alexander Prokhanov, editor of the far-right nationalist
newspaper Zavtra.

The US State Department has put North Korea at the top of its list of "states
of concern" that might one day pose a nuclear missile threat to North America.

Some experts say Putin's main interest in the visit was to get Kim to renew a
vow made last year to halt his missile-development program until 2003, while
Russia tries to blunt American plans to build a missile defense shield aimed
at warding off future attacks from countries like North Korea.

Russia insists that effective diplomacy is a better defense than expensive
high-tech weaponry. "Putin's ability to talk to North Korea is seen as a
trump card in Russia's hand," says Sergei Kazyonnov, an expert with the
independent Institute of National Security and Strategic Research in Moscow.
"Russia is the only country that can deal with countries like this, and so we
are an important player in the search for a new global security order."

*******

#7
Washington Post
August 8, 2001
On the Road to Russia's Rich Wasteland
A Uranium Mine's Mother Lode of Reality
By Robert G. Kaiser
Washington Post Staff Writer

KRASNOKAMENSK, Russia (Aug. 2) – Look down into the enormous hole and play
a mind game: From this giant excavation into the rolling Mongolian steppe,
less than 25 miles from the spot where the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian
borders intersect, came the uranium that went into most of the Soviet
Union's thermonuclear warheads, the ones aimed at the United States during
the Cold War. The thought occurs that this gigantic hole, nearly a mile
long, three-fourths of a mile wide, and 330 yards deep, would resemble the
holes that exploding hydrogen bombs might have created in downtown Washington.

But that's just a daydream. In reality this hole, a giant pock mark in the
steppe, is visible evidence that this remote corner of Siberia has been
home for three decades to one of the world's largest uranium mines and
processing plants. Mountains of tailings scattered across the steppe are
another piece of evidence. The company town of Krasnokamensk, built from
nothing at all to house 65,000 isolated people, is a third.

Uranium mining isn't what the Russian adventurers who conquered Siberia had
in mind. They came for furs – sable and fox. Sable was the most prized
accessory in the courts of Europe. Two pelts of black fox could be traded
in 17th Century Russia for 50 acres of land, a cabin, five horses, 10 head
of cattle, 20 sheep and dozens of chickens. Most of those adventurers were
cossacks, a hearty breed of Russians who had pioneered the fertile South in
earlier centuries, where they (alone among their countrymen) avoided the
system of serfdom that helped hold back Russian development for so long.
Cossacks elected their own leaders, and took great pride in their
self-sufficiency and energetic determination. Amazingly, the Cossacks who
conquered Siberia did so in less than 70 years, moving 3,000 miles from the
Ural mountains to the Pacific Ocean, across an expanse that in the modern
world spans five time zones. They reached the Pacific in 1648.

There are still fox and sable in Siberia, in much smaller numbers than 300
years ago. But today's wealth is in Krasnokamensk's uranium, Chita's
forests, Buryatia's gold, Irkutsk's natural gas, Norilsk's palladium and
Surgut's huge reservoirs of oil. Siberia's wealth is Russia's wealth;
without it, Russia's future would be grim. But with it the Russians have a
chance to regain a considerable part of the stature and influence in the
world they have lost in the last ten years-provided they can learn how to
exploit these riches effectively.

Poisonous Lakes

If anyone ever offers you a day trip to Krasnokamensk, the wise response
might be "nyet, spasibo" – no thanks. Not that it isn't a great adventure
to come to this moonscape on the edge of the world, where the grassy steppe
looks like split-pea soup spiced with flakes of pepper (the brown spots
caused by a terrible drought this year). But to make the trip to and from
the nearest outpost of civilization – Chita, capital of the gargantuan
Chita oblast of southernmost Siberia – you need an uninterrupted 26-hour day.

We set out from Chita at 4 a.m. Chita Oblast (most of Russia's provincial
jurisdictions, many of them bigger than powerful countries, are called
oblasts) is part of the great expanse of Russian territory that was closed
to foreigners in the Soviet era. Westerners in Moscow used to wonder if the
Soviet authorities closed such places out of fear that traveling foreigners
might learn real state secrets, or out of embarrassment for what they might
see. Our trip here lends support to the "embarrassment" camp.

The view from the window of our van was considerably worse now than it
would have been ten years ago. Like most of Siberia, Chita is in the midst
of an economic depression fully the equal of America's in the 1930s.
Seventy percent of the oblast's economic enterprises have collapsed since
the Soviet Union disappeared. Abandoned factories, crumbling before your
eyes, are a common sight. Even the surviving enterprises look like they are
crumbling – reminders of the staggering infrastructure problems the new
Russia faces.

The road to Krasnokamensk is a narrow ribbon of asphalt most of the way,
its surface varying from smooth to potholed to a jaw-rattling washboard and
back to smooth again – except during the last 100 miles or so of a trip
about 450 miles long. That last stretch, leading to what was recently the
world's largest uranium processing and mining facility (it now ranks
fifth), is a dirt road, and not even a good one.road, but rather one packed
with stones the sizes of tennis and golf balls Most travelers, we learned,
use the train to get to Krasnokamensk, a 15-hour journey from Chita, but a
smooth one. (Soviet-era air service to the city is now a dim memory.)

This could be the Russian definition of a company town. Without "the
enterprise," as everyone here calls it (its real name is the Krasnokamensk
Hydroelectrical Factory), this would be pristine steppe, as it was before
the 1960s. And when the uranium runs out, perhaps in as little as 25 years,
it will likely be impossible to sustain this community at all.

We were met by German Nikolayevich Kolov, 42, the deputy administrator of
the city and until several years ago the chief engineer of the enterprise.
Wary at first – the enterprise was still closed to outsiders, he said – he
agreed that we could tour key installations from the outside. But without
the general director's permission we could not be shown any interiors, and
the general director was out of town.

That tour took us to the big hole, the first mine in Krasnokamensk, which
was exploited for 20 years until almost fully depleted. Now ore is mined
from underground seams, more than two dozen of them in the area. The hole,
dry and empty, looks like the foundation for an enormous, un-built
building. (Environmental activists in Chita say there are persistent rumors
that some of the nuclear wastes Russia has agreed to accept, for large
fees, from other countries could end up here.) Nearby, vast hills of
tailings, at least 500 feet high, dominate the landscape.

From another high vantage point on a hill several miles from the hole we
could see three big lakes created to hold the liquified waste produced by
uranium processing. These wastes contain sulfuric acid used to separate
uranium from its ore, and radioactive traces of uranium and other heavy
metals. According to Paul Robinson, research director of the Southwest
Research and Information Center in Albequerque, NM, and an expert on
uranium extraction who was invited to Krasnokamensk in 1996, the
enterprise's then-chief ecologist acknowledged there was a problem with
leakage from the ponds (lined with clay and plastic) that hold these
wastes. The city's drinking water was threatened, Robinson was told.

The enterprise was badly burned by a documentary made in 1994 by a team
from Greenpeace, which came to Krasnokamensk pretending to be journalists
from Swedish television. Greenpeace charged that the enterprise flagrantly
violated accepted norms for dealing with uranium, exposed its workers to
unnecessary danger, and allowed some residents of the city to live in homes
whose radon levels were many times higher than is considered tolerable for
humans. Robinson concluded that while the enterprise has significant
environmental problems, the Greenpeace report was exaggerated.

In their conversations with us, city and enterprise officials spoke at
length about the extensive safety precautions they take. But they also
acknowledged that people still live in a part of town where radon levels
are sometimes astoundingly high, and said that for years the enterprise has
been trying to get authorities in Moscow to pay to relocate those people.

Vodka and Dancers

Kolov, a six-footer who could easily tip the scales at 300 pounds, insisted
that we accept his hispitality, and his insistence carried a good deal of
weight. So on to the Alfa Restaurant, a city-owned enterprise recently
spiffed up. In the big cities now, the restaurants are in private hands,
sometimes very talented ones, but capitalism is moving slowly in Siberia.
In Krasnokamensk the Soviet Union still survives, in spirit if not in fact.
When the enterprise recently celebrated is 30th year in full operation, the
most productive workers won cars – the modern version of a Soviet medal.
Enterprise employees are still sent on free vacations to nearby "resorts."

The spread at the Alfa was extensive. Kolov, it soon became evident,
welcomed the visit by foreigners as an excuse to tuck into some local
specialties himself, including a bit of vodka. At his instruction, members
of a famous local dance company had been invited to the Alfa to put on a
demonstration of their considerable talents for the visitors. They went
through half a dozen costume changes and danced to blaring recorded music
in impressive synchronicity.

Over dinner Kolov disclosed a secret. "We're building a church," he
revealed, an ambitious Russian Orthodox cathedral with seven onion-shaped
cupolas, right in the heart of downtown. It will cost 400 million rubles
(or about $15 million), the cost to be shared equally by four backers: the
church, the enterprise, the city government and the oblast government.
Kolov expects the church to cause quite a sensation when people realize
what it is.

Return

Viktor, our driver, went out in search of two new spare tires, and at 8
p.m., after much jovial conversation involving Kolov, his press secretary
and a local journalist who could not stop bragging about the tomatoes grow
in Krasnokamensk, we were back in the van.

About 20 miles out of town on the dirt highway back to Chita, a colossal
moon the color of pale butter appeared suddenly above the rolling steppe,
rising in the gray dusk of a long Siberian day. Under the nearly-full moon,
the pale green and brown steppe – part of the land that nurtured Genghis
Khan and his descendants, once the world's greatest warriors – seemed for
that moment to be boundless, infinite. But it wasn't – in barely nine
hours, we were back in Chita.

*******

#8
The Spectator (UK)
4 August 2001
There is not much competition, true, but Mr Putin may turn out
to be Russia’s greatest ruler
Bruce Anderson
Moscow

Greatness can come in strange guises. In August 1991, a man looking like a
bear that had slipped its chain climbed on top of a tank, roared defiance
at the plotters against Mr Gorbachev and stopped a coup in its tank tracks.
Boris Yeltsin’s courage saved Russia from widespread bloodshed; possibly,
indeed, from civil war. Having been a joke, he instantly became a saviour
and earned a place in history.

Eight years later, it was all so different. The economy had collapsed,
taking with it the hopes of the new middle classes, and much of their
savings, locked in failed banks. Russians’ aspirations had turned into a
grotesque parody, symbolised by Mr Yeltsin, who had become far worse than a
joke. Manifestly incompetent, surrounded by thieves, running through prime
ministers about as fast as he ran through vodka bottles, he was falling
apart, and so was his country. He had heralded his presidency by writing
himself into history. It seemed that he would end it by writing Russia out
of history.

Then he appointed his final premier, who became his successor. The choice
was a colourless former KGB officer, not a front-rank one at that. It was
assumed that this grotesque overpromotion had occurred for two reasons: to
ensure that the Yeltsin family would not be prosecuted for corruption, and
to protect the interests of the oligarchs, the mega-thieves who stole in
billions and who had rewarded President Yeltsin and his clan for enabling
them to do so.

There was nothing about Vladimir Putin to suggest that he was up to the
job. Many thought that he had the dictatorial instincts of Lenin combined
with the political skills of Kerensky, and was a mere interim on Russia’s
journey towards chaos and old night.

Two years later, all that pessimism has been confounded. Russia has made a
remarkable recovery, while Mr Putin has grown into the job and continues to
do so. He was the most unlikely raw material for statesmanship, but it is
more than possible that he will be remembered as one of the more successful
world figures of our time. He may well prove to be the best governor that
Russia has ever had, though it is admittedly difficult to find much
competition.

It is hideously difficult to govern Russia, which is why so many observers
thought it incredible that such a limited character could succeed in doing
so. Moreover, Westerners are most comfortable with Russians who have bushy
beards and exuberant souls, who read Dostoevsky, listen to Boris Godunov
and quote Pushkin while swigging between exhilaration and despair.

That is not Vladimir Putin’s style. He is a small man, with neat suits, a
sallow complexion and expressionless eyes. An uninspiring speaker, he is
wooden on television and has no gift for phrase-making. He is also
chronically cautious, and is often accused of dithering. But Mr Putin has
the strengths of his limitations.

He sits at his desk and does his work, shifting paper rather than vodka. He
has a formidable command of detail and a capacity to assess situations
coldly and clearly, never confusing his wishes with reality. Given the
calamities which beset the Russian state in the 1990s, his indecisiveness
is also understandable. Until he pulls a lever of government, he can never
be sure that it is still connected to wiring and will make things happen,
or whether it is merely a piece of painted cardboard, left there by whoever
stole the original lever.

Despite the caution, however, some of those who have met Mr Putin in small
groups report a forceful personality and strongly held opinions. Nor is
there anything alarming about those opinions. He has proclaimed his belief
in the free market and has surrounded himself with economic liberals.
Income tax has been cut to 13 per cent, with corporation tax at 24 per
cent, while work has begun on deregulation. Partly as a result of these tax
reforms, the middle class is growing rapidly, domestic capital formation is
at record levels, and the net outflow of capital has been sharply reduced.

Mr Putin also claims to be a democrat, though it is less clear whether he
understands that concept. In an important speech he gave on the eve of the
millennium, he stressed his commitment to democracy, but went on to
complain that ‘Most of [Russia’s] energy is spent on political squabbling.’
Democracy requires such squabbling. Mr Putin undoubtedly gives priority to
a strong Russian state, though that need not be a sinister goal, for he
also believes in the rule of law and in a civil society, neither of which
would be possible in a collapsing Russia. At present, the Russian state is
simultaneously overbearing, weak and corrupt. Mr Putin wishes to transform
it, so that it becomes limited, strong and honest; a laudable objective,
albeit a daunting one.

He has made some beginnings. Until recently, the acquittal rate in Russian
criminal trials was around 1 per cent. There were no juries, and in over a
third of cases the prosecution did not even bother to appear in court. The
judge had been sent his dossier and could be relied on to do his duty. But
juries are now being introduced in serious cases; the acquittal rate in
jury trials is over 10 per cent. Mr Putin has announced that he intends to
increase judges’ salaries and status, and to work towards an independent
judiciary. That is hardly a dictatorial ambition.

In his Herculean — or Sisyphean — tasks, Vladimir Putin has two vital
assets. The first is the Russian people, who are used to making do in spite
of their governments. Almost all Russians still have close links with the
land, so that even in the worst of recent times they could always grow
enough food to survive.

Nor is there any danger of a revolution of rising expectations. Russia has
had a terrible history: on good days, Gogol; on bad ones, Osip Mandelstam.
If it was not the Mongols at the gates of Moscow, it was the Panzers. All
this has not only given the Russians awesome powers of endurance. It has
also made them thankful for small mercies, and there have been a few of
those. These days, pensions and public-sector salaries are paid on time.
That might not seem much, but it has helped to earn Mr Putin approval
ratings of over 70 per cent (he is especially popular among women voters,
because he does not remind them of their husbands). Above all, he is
offering the Russians stability: stabilnost, a word that has enormous
political resonance here. He always assures his fellow Russians that the
era of revolutions is over. That is what they want to hear and are
desperate to believe.

Mr Putin also has to hope that the era of oil at $10 a barrel is over, for
his second crucial asset is luck with the oil price. If that price fell
dramatically, this place could still fall apart, swiftly. But if the oil
price stays high, who knows? Within 20 or 30 years, Russia might at last
have the government, society and economy that its people deserve — in which
case, they might be erecting statues to Vladimir Putin long after
ostensibly greater figures have been forgotten.

******

#9
Inostranets
No. 28
August 7, 2001
THE COMMUNISTS HAVE REASON TO BE OPTIMISTIC
The Communist Party is still the strongest party in Russia
Author: Mikhail Klishevsky
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
WITH SUPPORT FOR THE COMMUNISTS AT 35-40%, THEY AREN'T AFRAID OF
EARLY ELECTIONS. BUOYED BY A RECENT WIN IN THE NIZHNY NOVGOROD
REGIONAL ELECTION, THE COMMUNISTS ARE NOW PLANNING NATIONWIDE PROTESTS AGAINST THE NEW LAND CODE. CLEARLY, IT'S TOO SOON TO WRITE OFF THE COMMUNISTS.

The victory of Gennady Khodyrev, a former first secretary of the
Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod's Soviet name) regional committee of the
Communist Party, in the Nizhny Novgorod regional election could become
at least a communist renaissance, if not a communist comeback. This
will be clear in autumn. The Communists are very likely to win the
elections in the Orel and Rostov regions.

Those who have already written the Communists off in politics
have evidently been too hasty. The fact that the Communists lost a
good many seats in the Duma does not necessarily mean that the
Communist Party has ceased to be the strongest party in Russia.

And all the statements by Sergei Kirienko and Boris Nemtsov -
that the people of the Nizhny Novgorod region voted not for a
communist, but for a "pragmatic economist" - are nothing but attempts
to put up a brave front.

This is ever more evident given that Khodyrev the communist won
in a region which had been considered a "training ground for reforms".

This election proved that plenty of people in the regions have no
aversion to "communists" - rather the contrary, or so it seems. If
this happens in a "center of reforms", what is going on in the rest of
the country?

No one should be deceived by the fact that Khodyrev has suspended
his membership of the Communist Party. Communist leader Gennady
Zyuganov was right when he expressed the hope that the newly-elected
governor would act in accordance with "his destiny and his ideas".

For President Vladimir Putin, who had rejected Yeltsin's anti-
communism, the victory of temporarily non-communist Khodyrev is not
dangerous at all. Putin's sovereign-style rhetoric and his attitude to
Russia's totalitarian past have created a singular dichotomy in the
consciousness of most Russians: "Our President is Putin, our party is
the Communist Party."

Undoubtedly, the Nizhny Novgorod victory of the Communists will
give additional momentum to the Communists' autumn attack.

At present, the position of the Communist Party is extremely
favorable. Having lost the capacity to influence the Duma decisions,
the Communists have simultaneously lost responsibility for any
decisions made by the Duma - and gained an opportunity to constantly
demonstrate how "absolutely oppositional" they are toward the Duma and
the Cabinet.

Moreover, the inevitable deterioration in the economic situation
is also likely to contribute to strengthening the Communist Party. The
Duma Communist faction has already established "working groups" which
are preparing "protest measures". According to polls done by the
National Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), up to 23% of voters
may participate in these protests.

On September 20, the central committee of the Communist Party
will hold a plenum to consider "intensifying the party's activities in
the protest movement".

At the same time, the Communists are preparing actions involving
the People's Patriotic Union of Russia. A nationwide protest against
the sale of land on October 5 will be the climax of their activities.

The Communist Party isn't afraid of early parliamentary elections
either - the Kremlin strategists are more and more inclined to leave
more time between the parliamentary and presidential elections. The
most important thing for them is to distance the elections from the
troubles and problems expected in 2003. Given support for the
Communist Party is running at 35-40%, the outcome of the elections may
be quite different from the Kremlin's expectations. Then the demands
of the Communists for a radical change in the government's policies
are likely to carry much more weight.

(Translated by Arina Yevtikhova)

*******

#10
Moskovsky Komsomolets
August 7, 2001
PUTIN'S CANDLES
Will they help the Russian hemorrhoid
AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL MCFALL, MARTIN NICHOLSON, AND IGOR BUNIN.
Author: Mikhail Rostovsky, Marina Romanova
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
LEADING BRITISH, AMERICAN, AND RUSSIAN POLITICAN SCIENTISTS ABOUT
PRESIDENT PUTIN

EVERYTHING IS DEAD QUIET IN MOST RUSSIAN FEDERAL MINISTRIES AND
DEPARTMENTS. THE DUMA AND THE FEDERATION COUNCIL STAND EMPTY. MOST MINISTERS, INCLUDING THAT OF PREMIER MIKHAIL KASIANOV, ARE VACATING. LIFE CONTINUES IN THE KREMLIN ALONE. PRESIDENT PUTIN IS NOT ON VACATION YET. MEANWHILE, HE HAS MORE REASONS THAN ANYBODY ELSE TO TAKE SOME TIME OFF. PUTIN'S FIRST POLITICAL SEASON IS OVER. WHAT AWAITS VLADIMIR PUTIN AND ALL OF US IN THE FUTURE? THE MOSKOVSKY KOMSOMOLETS ASKED THIS OF SEVERAL LEADING BRITISH, AMERICAN, AND RUSSIAN POLITICAL SCIENTISTS.

SENIOR OFFICIAL OF THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION, MICHAEL MCFALL GAINED EMINENCE IN THE WASHINGTON CORRIDORS OF POWER SEVERAL MONTHS AGO WHEN HE WAS INVITED TO THE WHITE HOUSE TO HELP PREPARE PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH FOR HIS FIRST MEETINGS WITH VLADIMIR PUTIN. ACTUALLY, MCFALL EARNED HIS REPUTE LONG BEFORE THAT. A STANFORD AND OXFORD GRADUATE, MCFALL HAS PROFESSIONALLY STUDIED RUSSIAN FOR OVER NINE YEARS. HE SPENT TWO YEARS IN MOSCOW IN THE LOCAL SUBDIVISION OF THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION IN THE MID-1990'S.

AN EXPERT OF THE BRITISH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, NICHOLSON SPENT 34 YEARS IN DIPLOMATIC SERVICE BEFORE GOING IN FOR SCIENCE. MOST OF HIS DIPLOMATIC CAREER WAS SPENT IN THE SOVIET UNION AND OTHER SOCIALIST STATES. IN RECOGNITION OF HIS SERVICES, THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE INVENTED A SPECIAL POST FOR NICHOLSON. IN HIS LAST YEARS IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE HE WAS ADVISOR OF THE BRITISH EMBASSY IN MOSCOW RESPONSIBLE FOR ANALYSIS.

IGOR BUNIN IS A PROMINENT RUSSIAN POLITICAL SCIENTIST. HE SPENT OVER 20 YEARS IN THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS SOVIET POLITICAL CENTERS - THE INSTITUTE OF GLOBAL ECONOMY AND THE INSTITUTE OF COMPARATIVE POLITICAL SCIENCES OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. IN THE EARLY 1990'S HE ESTABLISHED HIS OWN CENTER OF POLITICAL TECHNOLOGIES.

Question: How would you appraise the results of the latest political
season? What direction was Russia moving in? What did Putin accomplish
and what did he not?

Nicholson: The political season ended with the adoption of a
great deal of necessary laws. It seems that Russia is moving in the
direction it moved in under young reformists in 1997. What Putin
succeeded in is forming a foundation for this movement that is more
sturdy and reliable than what Yeltsin had formed. Finding a solution
to the Chechen crisis is where he failed.

McFall: Putin has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is is
a radical reformist in economic matters. Even Gaidar's government of
1992 looks centrist in comparison. The package of laws he had the Duma
pass is truly revolutionary. On the other hand, Putin or the men
acting in his name, have done a lot to undermine the still fragile
democratic institutions.

Bunin: Phase one of the reforms (the construction of vertical
power) is mostly over. The next phase is underway now. It includes the
implementation of the liberal reforms. Actually, some of them like the
introduction of the flat tax scale that was initiated in 2000.

Question: Has the period of Putin's political schooling ended? Can you
say he has a clear political course now?

Nicholson: Thank God, Putin is still learning. A good politician
is always learning. As for Putin's clear political course, it is too
early to talk about it. It will be formed by the next presidential
election only when Putin will have to build his campaign around what
he will have accomplished by then.

McFall: Putin looked weak and hesitant in his first months as the
president. He never ventured an opinion on military or economic
matters, letting his advisers argue. Not anymore.

Bunin: Generally speaking, the course is more or less clear.
Liberal reforms and strong powers-that-be. Putin takes into account
the interests of the political elite in return for their loyalty. As
for the time of schooling, even Putin's image has changed - compare
his reaction to the Kursk catastrophe and his attention to the
consequences of the Yakutian flood. All of that shows that Putin the
politician can, and does, adapt.

Question: The Kremlin says that the situation in Chechnya is becoming
more stabile. Experts, however, claim that the dead-end Russian policy
in the Caucasus is gradually becoming more and more hopeless. What do
you think?

Nicholson: It is difficult for a foreigner to understand what is
really happening in Chechnya. Unfortunately, the second option looks
more plausible.

McFall: There is nothing normal about the situation in Chechnya.
It remains a tragedy for all of Russia. Unfortunately, discussions on
Chechnya are becoming more and more heated. As I see it, there are
three subjects for discussion here.

The motive of the war. I think Russia was quite correct to defend
its territorial integrity when Dagestan was invaded. Any US president
would have done the same thing had some "national liberation leaders
or terrorists" invaded Texas.

The methods used in the war. The brutality of a warring side
cannot justify the brutality of the other. Wars are brutal by nature
but some of them are more so than others. I think that the Russian
army is but damaging its own image and repute in Chechnya nowadays.

The end of the war. All wars end in negotiations. One fine day
Russia will have to negotiate the end of the war with true
representatives of the Chechen side. It may happen tomorrow or it may
happen 20 years from now. Why not save lives and initiate the
negotiations tomorrow?

Bunin: The situation in Chechnya cannot be any better than it is
now. Separatists are without a single chain of command; they cannot
overcome any settlement. As for splinter groups, we all know that
fighting them may take decades. And it will take more than a year or
two to win the locals' sympathies back.

Question: Has Putin been able to prove that nothing jeopardizes free
speech in Russia?

Nicholson: Putin frequently repeated the thesis that tycoons used
the media to blackmail the state and that it justified his eagerness
to suppress them for the interests of state security. A thesis like
that cannot help but be recognized as a threat to free speech.

McFall: Free speech in Russia nowadays is more in jeopardy than
it has been over the last decade. What happened to NTV does not mean,
of course, that the independent media in Russia is no more, but the
balance of state-controlled and private media in Russia was destroyed.
The Kremlin's success in its war on the holding Media-Most may tempt
regional leaders to follow suit.

Bunin: Putin's policy in the matter is based on two principles -
strategic heights (nationwide channels) should be controlled by the
state and businesses may retain newspapers, magazines, cable TV, and
second-rank companies like REN-TV. Now that Gusinsky's empire has been
shattered, everything in the relations with the media is done in
strict accordance with the acting legislation.

Question: Putin promoted his men to all positions of power in the
security structures. Why do you think he left the government and the
presidential administration alone?

Nicholson: We can only guess. According to the wide spread
opinion, Putin sensed the necessity of replacing certain executives
and had somebody to replace them with. Perhaps he lacks the men to
make staff changes in the government and in his administration.

McFall: It is only logical that he promoted his men to the upper
echelons of the security structures and not in the government or the
presidential administration. The Interior Ministry and the Defense
Ministry desperately need reforms. By promoting his men to key
positions there, Putin displayed his determination to tackle the
problem. As a KGB man himself, he has the moral right to initiate
these reforms. Of course, there is more to real changes and
reorganization than appointing new men to the positions of power.

The lack of staff changes in the Cabinet and in the presidential
administration is ascribed to the fact that they are working now.

Bunin: As far as the security structures are concerned, Putin
found the optimal solution by greatly minimizing the damage done by
the personnel shuffle. Reforms in the government and the presidential
administration will be initiated when he has found his own technology
and personnel for them.

Question: There were fears soon after Putin's election that Russia
might revert to authoritarianism. Are these fears justified?

Nicholson: They were justified to a certain extent. From the
point of view of the West, Putin is building a traditional paternalist
state in Russia which leaves too little for initiative from below. On
the other hand, I would not say Putin has made progress in the
establishment of an authoritarian regime.

McFall: Unlike many colleagues of mine in the West, I do not view
Putin as a future dictator. I do not think, however, that if he
understood democratic institutions like independent media this would
be helpful in combating corruption or in making the state stronger.
The question is how long it is going to take him to understand them.
I'm worried that a lot of state executives close to the president of
Russia think that it is possible for Russia to follow in China's steps
and have liberal economic reforms and an authoritarian regime. From
the long-term point of view, authoritarian regime will ruin the
Russian economy.

Bunin: Putin has made it absolutely clear that Russia is out to
"live in Europe" and not become another pariah like Alexander
Lukashenko's Belarus. He even defies the opinions of 70% of Russians
and all security ministers and objects to capital punishment because
death sentences and membership in the Council of Europe are
incompatible. On the other hand, Europe is also trying to adapt Russia
to its rules of the game, gradually softening its position about the
media, Chechnya, and so on. That is why I do not think we should fear
a slide into authoritarianism.

Question: What does the current political stability mean? Is it a
unique chance to make progress or the beginning of another period of
stagnation?

Nicholson: Everything is possible. The problems are too
complicated and defy easy solutions. It is important to have them
discussed openly. Only it will prevent another period of stagnation.

McFall: There is the widespread opinion in the West that Russia
is again on the verge of stagnation. Russia needs a period of
stability after a decade of revolutionary changes. It is excellent
that Putin made certain stability possible. At the same time, Russia
still needs a lot of political and economic reforms to become a
prosperous society.

Bunin: The only stagnation during the reforms took place toward
the end of Yeltsin's period when neither Chubais nor Kirienko managed
to overcome bureaucracy and the then leftist parliament's negative
attitude towards the reforms.

Question: How did Russia's image in the eyes of the international
community change this year?

Nicholson: On the whole, it improved. But Chechnya and the
holding Media-Most are two sore spots.

McFall: Putin is viewed as a pragmatic leader defending Russia's
national interests. At the same time, the advances he pays to the
anti-Western states worry the West seriously. Like many other states
that used to be empires once, Russia should integrate itself into
Europe.

Bunin: Russia is rougher with its partners than it was under
Yeltsin. Its general policy aims at constructive relations with the
West.

Question: What problems will be most pressing in the next political
season?

Nicholson: The preservation of the development rates.

McFall: The deterioration of Putin's rating.

Bunin: Putin will encounter problems in his relations with groups
in society that supported him in the hope that he was not going to
continue Yeltsin's reforms.

(Translated by A. Ignatkin)

*******

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