September 7, 2001

This Date's Issues:   5429 • 5430                           Under Construction

Johnson's Russia List
#5429
7 September 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review.
2. Hudson Institute: Pioneering U.S.-Russia Study Offers New Foreign Policy Suggestions for U.S.-Russia Relations.
3. AFP: Russian FM blasts US foreign policy in book.
4. Kenneth Baillie: JRL 6 Sept 01 5428 #2 - Soup Kitchen.
5. Victor Sapio: travel to Russia.
6. Yale Richmond: Russian Tourism Reform.
7. Jane's Information Group: Russia's population implosion.
8. BBC Monitoring: Putin receives pop-star-style welcome in Kabarda-Balkaria.
9. Christian Science Monitor: Scott Peterson, Europe's 'last dictator' faces polls. Sunday's presidential vote in Belarus pits Soviet-style leader against faltering opposition.
10. Moscow Times: Lawrence Uzzell, Caesar Above God.
11. Reuters: Estonia leads 10yrs of Baltic economic transition.
12. strana.ru: Three new newspapers to be launched in Russia in autumn. Russian press shifts to economics.
13. Haaretz (Israel): Gideon Samet, Passion amid the putrefaction.]

********

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

HEADLINES,
Thursday, September 06, 2001
- An International Conference on the Anti-Drug War was opened in Saratov.
Experts from all nations of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States)
were present; Russia was represented by Security Council Chairman Vladimir
Rushailo. A special meeting of the Security Council dedicated to the
growing problem of narcotics will be held in Moscow in late September. A
large straw-man representing drug addiction was burned in the center of
Saratov at an assembly of 2,000 people. According to official data, 2.5
million people -- mainly under the age of 30 -- use drugs in Russia.
- Former Kazakh Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin has received a
preliminary sentence of ten years, with confiscation of property. He also
has to repay the government over $11 million. Kazhegeldin headed the
government between 1994 and 1997. Shortly thereafter, he was accused of
tax evasion and abuse of office. The ex-premier has lived abroad for the
past few years. In August, he was seen in Italy.
- The second pontoon to be used in the Kursk operation will be towed to
the site shortly. Work on raising the nuclear submarine continues.
- A year ago, in the aftermath of the Kursk tragedy, a presidential ukaz
provided funds for modernizing emergency-rescue services of the navy.
Pavel Karaputa, the commander of one of the working teams asserts that
results are already obvious, although significant modernization will
require several more years and additional funding.
- A new nine-story apartment house has been finished in Novgorod.
Eighty-seven families from Lensk that lost their homes to the flood will
be able to move here in the middle of September. In the meanwhile, six
new two-story apartment houses have been accepted by the state commission
in Lensk, and 29 more will be completed next week. Many future residents
-- currently living in tents and cooking their dinners on campfires -- are
ready to move into unfinished buildings, since the cold season is here and
the temperature dips below the freezing point at night.
- It was 152 years ago today, that the legendary leader of the Chechen
mountain fighters, Imam Shamil, surrendered to Russian soldiers.
According to official data, 25,000 soldiers died and 65,000 were wounded
in the 50-year-long, bloody war.
- Presidential Plenipotentiary to the Southern Federal District Viktor
Kazantsev said that the assertion by Union of Right Forces leader Boris
Nemtsov regarding the necessity of negotiating with Chechen separatist
leaders is "delirium needed by no one," and that the time for negotiations
with Maskhadov has passed.
- Five police officers were wounded in Grozny when a landmine was set off
on Mayakovsky Street in the Zavodsky region of the Chechen capital. This
happened despite the high security regime announced today in anticipation
of actions by separatists celebrating the so-called Ichkerian independence
day. Security measures included fortified position at all administrative
buildings, public gathering places, and markets and the closing off of
Grozny. In addition, a number of special operations were conducted by
federal troops.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived to the Republic of
Kabardino-Balkaria on an official visit. He was greeted by presidential
plenipotentiary to the Southern Federal District, Viktor Kazantsev, and by
the republic's president, Valerii Kokov. President Putin congratulated
Kabardino-Balkaria on the recent (September 1) 80th anniversary of the
founding of the republic and brought flowers to the "Forever With Russia"
monument that had been raised in the center of Nalchik, the republic's
capital, in honor of the 400th anniversary of the Kabarda's voluntary
union with Russia. Putin also met with Kabardino-Balkarskii State
University professors and with the elders of small local settlement
Dugulugbei.
- The heads of the Moscow and Belarusian State Universities met in Moscow
today. In a month, the heads of all CIS state universities will meet at a
Congress of the Eurasian University Association.
- Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov began today's cabinet meeting
with a report on national economic activity over the past month. He noted
that inflation in August was at 0%, and that economic growth since the
beginning of the year has been 5%. The most touchy subject of the meeting
was the situation in Kaliningrad: A development program has not yet been
accepted, and presidential and government orders are not carried out in a
timely manner. Upon Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu's request, funds
were allocated for dealing with the consequences of the earthquakes in
Sakhalin. Development of inter-budgetary relations and the division of
power between federation subjects was also discussed.
- There is evidence that the four prisoners who escaped from Moscow's
Butyrskaya prison have fled the prison grounds. They are probably
currently trying to leave the city. All police and traffic officers have
been alerted. Citizens are encouraged to report any and all information.
The escapees may have been seen in Zelenograd -- a region not only far
from the center, but also outside of Moscow's Kol'tsevaya Doroga (main
road that circles Moscow proper).
- Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov met with special envoys from the
United States, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to discuss the situation in Macedonia.
James Pardew, the U.S. special advisor on the Balkans noted that the
envoys came to Moscow for consultations with the Russian leadership
because Russia's position on the issue is of great interest to them.
- Chekhov's famous play, The Cherry Orchard, premiered at the "U
Nikitskikh Vorot" theater.
- By a government decision, regional alcohol stamps have been required as
of September 1st. The introduction of the stamps has already caused a 10%
increase in prices.
- The trial of the five Karachevo-Cherkessia residents accused of blowing
up two apartment houses in Moscow has been resumed in Stavropol. The
process has been closed to the press, but an exception might be made on
the day when the sentence will be announced.

********

#2
Hudson Institute
Media Advisory
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For more information, contact:
September 6, 2001 Jennifer Butsch, 317-549-4115

Pioneering U.S.-Russia Study Offers
New Foreign Policy Suggestions for U.S.-Russia Relations
Study now available at www.hudson.org
Hudson Institute experts address challenges posed by Russia's continuing
instability
and how the U.S. should respond

INDIANAPOLIS - The continued instability of Russia since the end of the
Cold War poses major challenges to the United States. The continued
problem of Russia, which retains an extensive nuclear arsenal and
contributes to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, caused the
Hudson Institute to sponsor a study of U.S.-Russia relations by the
country's leading foreign policy and defense experts. The Hudson Study
Group conducted extensive reviews of Russia's internal situation, its
post-Cold War foreign policy goals, and its military posture and produced a
report, "Russia: Its Place in the 21st Century and the Implications for the
United States," which can be found in its entirety at
http://www.hudson.org/russia.pdf

The Hudson Institute Study Group panels were led by Senator Fred Thompson
(R-TN), Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA-7), and Lt. Gen. William Odom, director of
Hudson Institute's national security studies department and former director
of the National Security Agency. Former Director of Central Intelligence
R. James Woolsey presented the keynote address at a conference held on
Capitol Hill to solicit public and Congressional reactions to the Study
Group's initial findings. Hudson Institute President Herbert London
chaired the overall effort and directed the drafting and release of the
Study Group's final report.

"The goal of the Study Group was to form new ideas for a sound relationship
between the U.S. and Russia and to establish some guiding principles," said
David Satter, senior fellow at Hudson Institute who specializes in Russian
issues. The Hudson Institute panelists were united in the belief that,
although Russia has thrown off the yoke of communism, it remains a major
concern for the West. After dismantling its communist government, Russia
failed to stabilize politically or culturally and instead became a haven
for corruption. Because Russia's actions can have ripple effects outside
of its borders and threaten the peace and stability of the West, the United
States cannot afford to ignore what happens in Russia.

"The Hudson Institute assembled America's foremost experts on Russia and
international security in one place to discuss the future of this imperiled
nation," London said. "It is our belief that the Study and the subsequent
discussions it generates will have a salutary effect on policy decisions
affecting relations between in the U.S. and Russia."

To explore the challenges facing Russia and the West, the Institute created
three panels, each composed of veteran scholars and policy practitioners
from research organizations, government agencies, and the military. All
the participants have had have first-hand experience in dealing with the
former Soviet Union and Russia. The panels addressed these major areas of
concern:
· How will Russia's internal problems shape its sense of itself and the
role it wants to play?
· What are Russia's aspirations and how realistic are they?
· Where does Russia want to go as a military power and can they afford it?

Each panel began with a "cornerstone" paper, debated the paper as a point
of departure, and then reached conclusions in its area of concern. At the
public conference held on Capitol Hill last June, each panel presented its
conclusions and then combined them into a plenary report. The final step
is the recommendations and responses issued in the Hudson Institute report.

The Hudson Institute is an internationally recognized public policy
research organization that develops solutions and forecasts trends for
government and business. Founded in 1961 by the late Herman Kahn, the
not-for-profit organization has more than 75 researchers and employees at
its headquarters in Indianapolis and at offices in Washington, DC; Madison,
WI; Tampa, FL; and Miami, FL. For more information about Hudson Institute,
visit the organization's web site at www.hudson.org or call 800-HUDSON-0.

*******

#3
Russian FM blasts US foreign policy in book

MOSCOW, Sept 6 (AFP) -
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov lambasted US foreign policy in a book
presented to the press Thursday, accusing Washington of aiming at world
supremacy and trying to supplant Russian influence in former Soviet republics.

The United States wants to abandon the landmark 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile
(ABM) treaty which bars it from building a proposed missile defense shield in
order to obtain "military and technological supremacy without any external
control," Ivanov wrote in his book titled "The new Russian diplomacy - Ten
years of foreign policy," as quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency.

But should this be allowed, "the rules of the game will be set not by the
evolution of foreign threats, but by the interests of the military and
technological complex and the development of military technologies, or rather
(we will have) a game without rules," the Russian foreign minister added.

Ivanov questioned Washington's reasons for abandoning the ABM treaty.

The accord bars the United States from building a missile defense shield,
which it says is necessary to protect itself from threats coming from
so-called "rogue states," such as Iran and North Korea.

But, Ivanov wrote, "at present, these threats are purely hypothetical."

Ivanov also accused the United States of exerting too great an influence in
former Soviet republics other than Russia and of trying to talk them into
entering NATO, something Moscow strenuously objects to.

Washington wants to "supplant Russia in other former Soviet republics," the
minister wrote.

In his book, Ivanov also recalled that Russia's relations with the US
administration of President George W. Bush were at first "fairly difficult,"
owing to "a series of unfriendly steps" taken by Washington.

Last March, the United States expelled 50 Russian diplomats following a spy
scandal.

However, "these initial problems were more temporary than anything else and
do not exclude the possibility of a cooperation" between Moscow and
Washington, Ivanov added.

He hoped that in the future Washington "will have to alter its policy towards
Russia in a more moderate sense."

He called on the United States to establish "pragmatic, constructive"
relations with Russia, since both countries "bear a particular responsibility
in ensuring peace and security" in the world.

********

#4
Subject: JRL 6 Sept 01 5428 #2 - Soup Kitchen
From: Kenneth_Baillie@rus.salvationarmy.org
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001

The September 6 soup kitchens article by Stefanie McIntyre (Reuters)
perpetuates two stereotypes which deserve comment.

Interviews with elderly patrons at one soup kitchen reflect the popular
notion that anyone who goes to a soup kitchen is just a 'bum' (A.
Stepanova's term). Not true, especially in difficult economic times, or
when public policy provides grossly inadequate pensions.

But there are other people who do fit the stereotype: showing signs of
long-term substance abuse, mental health problems, social disconnection,
untreated medical problems, etc. 'Bums' are people too, just as deserving
of compassionate help. These are the people we serve daily at two train
stations. A slice of bread and a ladle of soup are not all they need. The
need to get their lives back together so we help them negotiate the
government social services maze, find an affordable apartment, seek a job,
obtain the all-important identity 'documents', and when documents cannot be
gotten then finance a train trip back to the home village. Soup and bread
are one thing. Lasting change is another. Both are important.

The second stereotype is embedded in the Abugi comment that "We don't make
anyone come to church." The presumption here is that all faith-based
social ministries exact a quid pro quo church attendance/membership in
exchange for help. Again, not true. We serve anyone and everyone, as long
as our resources permit, and without discrimination. If we do so in the
gentle, loving spirit of the Christ then that is witness enough.

It doesn't help the poor to stereotype them, not to mention those who care
about the poor.

Ken Baillie, Colonel
The Salvation Army in Moscow

*******

#5
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 22:52:27 -0500
From: Victor Sapio <vsapio@pcola.gulf.net>
Subject: travel to Russia

Just a note to confirm Peter Baker's article on travel to Russia. It is
as bad as he says and worse. I have been going to Russia at least once
a year for the last eight years and it is getting worse. Since I go to
visit friends, I don't have a confirmed hotel reservation and always
have a long wait at passport control. i have friends in various
places. Sometimes I am allowed to travel to them, just as often not. I
am told that I cannot travel to...becasue it is not on my visa. The
consulate in NY tells me it is no longer necessary to specify
destinations on visas. Is there any way to make a concerted drive on
the Russian government to make travel there easier. I know this
question could have been asked two hundred years ago. I am willing to
join any effort to convince the Russian government. As I understand,
even the new three day visas to St. Petersburg are a bureaucratic pain
in the ass.

******

#6
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001
From: Yale Richmond <yalerich@erols.com>
Subject: Russian Tourism Reform

Peter Baker's "Russia Struggles as a Tourist Draw" in the Washington
Post [JRL 5427] recalled my visit to Russia in 1992 as a representative
of the US-based Citizen Democracy Corps. My mission to Moscow was to
find Russian organizations that might benefit from the advice of
experienced American specialists. Recognizing that Russian tourism
needed an overhaul if it was to attract Western tourists, I called on
the senior official with the rank of Vice Minister in charge of tourism
who was housed, as Baker reports, within the Sports Committee.

I proposed various ways in which a Western expert might help in
attracting more tourists to Russia. Athough I was received cordially and
the official acknowledged that Russian tourism indeed needed upgrading
in many respects, there was no indication that Russia was interested in
having Western advice. A second follow-up visit to the same official
also proved negative.

That episode seems to typify a Russian fault--the ability to recognize a
problem but failure to take steps to rectify it. As in many other areas
of Russian needing reform, nine years, and many millions in foreign
currency, have been lost.

*******

#7
Russia's population implosion
09/06/2001
Foreign Report
2001
Copyright Jane's Information Group Limited 2001

FAR AWAY from the public gaze, Russia's President
Vladimir Putin has been pondering one fundamental
problem for his country: the disappearance of Russia's
population. A plan, grandly entitled 'Conception of
Demographic Policy of Russia for the Period to 2015',
has been completed by the Russian government in order
to halt the slide in the number of Russians. The
report will land on President Putin's desk in the next
few days. Putin will sign the plan by the end of 2001,
and then it will become a 'handbook for action' for
Russia's executive authorities. FOREIGN REPORT has
been given access to the document. It does not make
comfortable reading for a Russian political leader.
Let's start with an uncomfortable fact. In 2000, the
mortality rate in Russia exceeded the birth rate by
approximately 958,000 persons. Thus, every hour, the
population of Russia declined by about 109 people. The
report submitted to Putin claims that "Russia has
minimum time left to overcome the demographic
disaster". Some optimists insist that the processes of
decline in the birth rate which are being seen in
Russia almost fully correspond to the general European
tendencies, and therefore, supposedly, the situation
is not serious. But it is serious. There is a
'discrepancy'.

The report points out that, peculiar to Russia, the
decline in the birth rate is accompanied by a steady
rise in the mortality rate, something which is not
observed in Western countries.

The birth rate is a strategic matter

Furthermore, the report points out that Russia has a
particular strategic problem with this population
reduction: given the country's vast territorial
expanse, and the fact that large tracts of land are
already under-populated, a further reduction is more
dangerous than in many other countries. If the trend
continues, there may eventually be too few Russians
left to preserve their current territory. The report
reminds Putin that Russia borders China, where the
demographic situation has a directly opposite
character, and where the shortage of territory is most
acutely felt.

The report then quotes the theories of the great
Russian scientist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev who,
more than a century ago, reckoned that, in order for
the Russian Empire to be able to retain and develop
its existing territory, its population must comprise
no less than 500m people: the current population of
the Russian Federation is less than a third of that
figure.

Moscow centre is expanding

The report also warns President Putin that the central
regions of Russia are dying out the fastest. In
Moscow, however, the population is not declining. This
is not because of a higher birth rate in the capital,
but is a result of high migration from other parts of
Russia, and from the former Soviet Union.

Moscow apart, the story is uniform: in the Vologda,
Novgorod, Pskov, Nizhniy Novgorod, Penza and Samara
regions, as well as in the city of St. Petersburg, the
number of deaths exceeds the number of births by two,
and sometimes even by three, times. Natural population
growth in Russia is recorded only in 15 regions, and
among them are the restless and politically unreliable
North Caucasus republics (primarily Dagestan and
Ingushetiya), as well as Kalmykiya.

It is primarily Russian men who are dying young: the
level of male mortality surpasses the mortality of
women by four times.

According to the predictions of demographers in the
report, by 2050 Russia will be inhabited by fewer than
115m people (compared with 147m now). Moreover, the
largest segment of the population will be old women.
Thus, the decline in the numbers of citizens living in
Russia is only half the problem; the rapid changes in
the age structure of the population is critical.
Already in 1998, for the first time in Russia's
history, the number of people of retirement age
surpassed the number of children and youths; according
to the latest available data, there are now one
million more persons of retirement age than there are
children.

The implications for Russia's pension payment system
are horrific. And this is before the figure for
migration is included; every year since the fall of
communism approximately 100,000 people left Russia,
not including the sizeable Jewish migration to Israel.

The study also points out the military difficulties of
these demographic developments: by 2016, the number of
the male population 17-19 years of age will decline in
Russia from 3.5m people to 2m people, and the pool of
those willing to be conscripted into the military will
be reduced.

How to avoid extinction

Russian demographers have developed a programme to
save the nation from extinction. The aim: to lengthen
lives. How? They propose a campaign against
alcoholism, particularly of vodka. More public health
centres and programmes are needed. Mobile medical
teams should be revived.

Employers should be made responsible for the health of
their workers. A telephone hotline system will be set
up for improving the mental health of citizens, and
for reducing the number of suicides. The government
also proposes to give financial incentives to young
families. Very soon, subsidies to new mothers will be
increased, and sizable loans will be given out for the
purchase of housing.

Our prediction: It will be possible to stop the
depletion of the population in Russia no sooner than
in 2050, even if the measures contained in the current
plan are successfully implemented.

******

#8
BBC Monitoring
Russia: Putin receives pop-star-style welcome in Kabarda-Balkaria
Source: Russia TV, Moscow, in Russian 1000 gmt 6 Sep 01

[Presenter] [President] Vladimir Putin arrived in Kabarda-Balkaria today on a
working visit. At Nalchik airport the head of state was met by the republic's
president, Valeriy Kokov, and the president's plenipotentiary representative
in the Southern Federal District, Viktor Kazantsev.

In Nalchik Vladimir Putin laid a wreath at the monument to eternity with
Russia.

Our observer Sergey Pashkov is now in a direct link-up with us from Nalchik.
Hello, Sergey. What is the president's trip connected with?

[Pashkov] Hello, Yelena. The president's trip is connected first and foremost
with the need to know about the situation in the regions in the regions
themselves...

It was when he met them [local leaders], answering correspondents' questions,
that he explained why he had come to Kabarda-Balkaria:

[Putin, against background noise of onlookers and media] In the last few
weeks I have had a great many meetings of an international nature, with
presidents, with kings and with prime ministers, but all of this is done so
that the citizens of Russia can live better lives.

But it is not possible to find out what needs to be done and how without
going out to the country's localities and regions.

The [Kabarda] president invited me a long time ago. We agreed about meeting
here several months ago.

A great deal has been done in the republic over the last few years. Moreover,
I have to say that in some ways Kabarda-Balkaria is without a doubt an
example to other parts of the Russian Federation and the North Caucasus.

But it does have its own difficult and as yet far from resolved issues. I am
very much concerned at the low level of pay, which in some respects is lower
than the average for Russia. One cannot fail to be concerned over the high
level of unemployment. This is connected with specific reasons, first and
foremost with the fact that our defence industry is not in the best of
health. There is a problem connected with energy supplies. Local suppliers
deliver only 9 per cent of all the necessary capacity. There are also other
issues that require attentive consideration and solutions...

You know, it is not a matter of bringing a sack full of money. It's a matter
of how to set up life, how to organize production. These are the questions
that we will be discussing.

[Presenter] Sergey, where has Vladimir Putin been up to this point and whom
has he met?

[Pashkov] Right now Vladimir Putin is at the Kabarda-Balkar State University,
but immediately after leaving the airport he went to the monument which is
dedicated to 400 years of Russian-Kabarda-Balkarian friendship...

It is at this monument that Vladimir Putin laid flowers, and he got
acquainted with the population of Nalchik near this monument. Moreover, this
contact was informal and lively. The thing is that practically no serious
security measures had been taken. The people had direct access to the Russian
president and could tell him directly everything that they think on the
subject of life in Russia and life in the region, and about their plans and
views on the future.

[Video: Putin laying flowers at monument, walking over to ordinary people,
paying attention to a baby in its mother's arms; excited screams from women.]

After this warm meeting, the president went directly from here to the state
university, where he is now talking to the teachers and students...

******

#9
Christian Science Monitor
September 7, 2001
Europe's 'last dictator' faces polls
Sunday's presidential vote in Belarus pits Soviet-style leader against
faltering opposition.
By Scott Peterson
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

GORODETS, BELARUS - To his critics, Alexander Lukashenko is the "last
dictator in Europe," who wants to keep Belarus a Soviet-style fiefdom.

The State Department has deemed as "credible" reports from former KGB and
other security officers linking him to "death squads" that resulted in the
disappearance of several opponents.

But here, on the impoverished state farm where he was boss in the late 1980s,
Lukashenko is a beloved, if fearsome, father figure. This rural region east
of Minsk is a bedrock of support for Lukashenko, who seeks reelection in a
vote this Sunday being closely watched by international observers.

"We know him personally," says milkmaid Larisa Boronova, her muddy toes
protruding from one shoe, "and what we hear about him [as president] is more
than wonderful."

Strategically placed as the western anchor of Russia's modern sphere of
influence - as a budding unity deal between Minsk and Moscow attests -
Belarus can serve as either the limit of NATO's eastward expansion in Europe,
or as a Russian gateway to the West. But the West has made clear that ending
Belarus's current isolation will depend on respect for democracy.

During Lukashenko's seven-year tenure, opponents have been harassed;
newspapers raided and hassled, or their print runs stolen. The KGB - which,
unlike its Russian counterpart, hasn't changed its name here since Soviet
days - bugs phones and confiscates computers.

On Tuesday, Lukashenko accused the opposition of serving "Western puppet
masters," and declared that he would kick out the US ambassador and head of
the European observer team after the election.

While campaigning last month, Lukashenko scoffed at his detractors: "What
totalitarianism? What dictatorship? We have just ensured order."

Lukashenko supporters point out that pensions and salaries have been paid on
time. Belarus has also escaped the mayhem and uncertainties that plagued
Russia and other ex-Soviet states during the 1990s.

"Our president divides society like an ax that leaves no one indifferent,"
says Alexander Feduta, an independent analyst and former Lukashenko insider
in Minsk.

"The older generation sees Lukashenko as a flashback to Soviet times, when
everyone was equally poor, and no one rich," he says. "They chose him the way
Robin Hood was chosen in Sherwood Forest, as a noble thief. They don't
recognize that change has to come."

Though the president's support is more than 40 percent, it remains flat and
may actually be 20 percent in "crystallized" support when the "fear factor"
is measured in, says pollster Andrei Vardomatski, head of the Novak group, an
independent polling organization. He forecast Lukashenko's 1994 election
victory to within 1.5 percent, and has polled regularly ever since.

Lukashenko hopes to win in one round with at least 50 percent in the
election, which allows voters to cast a ballot for no candidate.

Vardomatski's figures show opposition candidate Vladimir Goncharik, a bland
veteran trade unionist, jumping from almost zero to nearly 20 percent support
in recent weeks.

The opposition - which has received heavy US and Western backing - is calling
for street protests if they lose.

"We are waiting for victory, and if the results don't add up, there will be a
cry of indignation that will lead to clashes. The opposition could provoke
unrest, and seize victory in a coup d'état," warns Jaroslav Romanchuk, an
opposition leader and deputy editor of the Belorusskaya Gazeta newspaper.

People have been bamboozled by campaign slogans that proudly recall payment
of the $35 per month pensions, he says, while those in Lithuania are $100,
and Poland $200.

"That is like saying Belarus is good, because we get more calories than North
Korea," Mr. Romanchuk says.

Still, Belarussians are famously passive after a history marked by regular
foreign occupation. Fully one-quarter of the population died during World War
II as both the Nazi German and Soviet armies swept back and forth across its
plains.

"When there is a law of power in the country, fear comes out and starts
controlling everything," says Tatiana Ptratsko, head of the Belarussian
Helsinki Committee human rights group in Minsk. "Chaos in Belarus is
impossible--even if a horse won the election, there would be no chaos."

The fear of such chaos is one reason for Lukashenko's support down on the
Gorodets State Farm, where his former employees say a firm hand is what
Belarus needs.

"When Lukashenko was director, he dictated his rules and everybody listened,"
says welder Viktor Jutsov, as a rooster plucks at a hole in front of his
ramshackle house. "When he said something to a tractor driver, he never had
to repeat it."

The firm hand is also the hand that gives, the workers say, fondly
remembering new cars and tractors when Lukashenko was boss, and his rescue of
the farm from bankruptcy.

"I can't be more grateful to anyone than Lukashenko," says Ms. Boronova, the
milkmaid, as she carries her baby granddaughter along a dirt road in front of
her dilapidated house. Boronova recalls the day more than a decade ago when
Lukashenko came to her sister's wedding and offered the bridal couple keys to
a new apartment.

This week during a campaign stop, Lukashenko opened a gleaming new primary
school here for 200 children - in view of potato fields that workers still
harvest with bare hands.

While democratic ideals may still be far from this rustic corner, they are
gaining ground elsewhere in Belarus. Despite official hurdles, the press
often writes critically of the regime. As the vote has neared, the widows of
disappeared opponents have spoken out about what happened to their husbands.

But opposition to Lukashenko is poorly organized and weakened with
infighting, and many say it is offering no credible alternative to voters
Sunday. "The opposition arrived at the starting line without the ability to
win the race," says Zinaida Gonchar, whose husband Viktor, widely seen as a
potent political threat to Lukashenko, was the opposition leader until he
disappeared two years ago.

"I never had any fantasies about Lukashenko and his regime," Mrs. Gonchar
says. "I respect the common people, who protest by holding portraits of the
missing. But I despise the opposition that has not done anything for two
years. They were waiting for the elections to speak up."

That chance may already be gone, says Alexander Shcherbak, an opposition
leader in Lukashenko's hometown of Shklov. "Belarus is probably not yet ready
to remove Lukashenko," he says. "During all those years Belarus was occupied,
all the best people willing to stand up were persecuted and killed. And those
close to the ground - the cowards - survived. It is even more difficult to
stand up today."

"I was just given this bag, but it is too late," he says, pulling out
anti-Lukashenko campaign materials including T-shirts saying "Let's say no to
the fool!"

"Three months ago, this could have made a difference, but not now," he
laments. "We've already lost."

*******

#10
Moscow Times
September 7, 2001
Caesar Above God
By Lawrence Uzzell

The recent expulsion of an American Protestant from the Russian province of
Udmurtia -- 700 miles east of Moscow -- dramatized a trend that the Keston
Institute had already been observing for some time. Russian officials have
been growing more and more likely to treat Western missionaries just as
harshly as they treat indigenous Russian Protestants. If the current trend
continues, eventually both foreign and indigenous Protestants will in
practice have the same levels of religious freedom -- ending de facto
discrimination against Russia's own citizens. Unfortunately, this result
will be reached not by giving more rights to Russians but by taking rights
away from foreigners.

The new trend, which started becoming noticeable about two years ago, is
strikingly in harmony with the cultural and geopolitical theories of a
Russian academic recently elevated by President Vladimir Putin. Nikolai
Trofimchuk, head of the religious-studies faculty at the influential
Russian Academy of State Service, was appointed by Putin earlier this year
to the Kremlin's Council for Co-operation with Religious Organizations.
Trofimchuk's recent book "Expansiya" provides an erudite geopolitical
rationale for state repression of Protestantism, Roman Catholicism and
other Western religious confessions.

Trofimchuk wants Russian state policy to put "spiritual security on the
same plain as national security." In deterministic fashion, he sees
effective missionary activity as almost always serving the political
interests of the states from which the missionaries come -- no matter what
the missionaries' own intentions. He echoes the accusation that the
activities of American Protestant missionaries in Russia's Far East are
part of a Washington-inspired plan to seize control of that area for the
U.S. government.

Ironically, the new anti-foreigner trend in a perverse sense reflects a
victory for the rule of law. Russia's 1997 law on religion is an
anti-foreign document both in letter and in spirit -- manifestly intended
to make life more difficult for foreign missionaries than for indigenous
religious minorities. In practice, however, Keston found just the opposite
during the first few years after the law was enacted. More important than
the text of the law was the age-old Russian habit of welcoming foreigners
while trampling on the country's own citizens. That habit was reinforced by
pressure from Western government leaders, whom Moscow perceived (sometimes
correctly) as being more interested in lobbying for their own citizens than
in promoting equal rights for everyone in Russia.

On the other hand, the 1997 law flagrantly contradicts Russia's own
constitution, which ostensibly guarantees freedom of conscience for all
persons legally present on Russian soil -- be they native citizens or
temporary visitors from abroad. By making actual practice more consistent
with the 1997 legislation but less consistent with the 1993 constitution,
the current anti-foreigner trend makes the establishment of a truly
law-governed state more remote than ever.

The recent expulsion of American Protestant Craig Rucin from Udmurtia
provided a striking example. Rucin was summoned by Russian officials and
abruptly informed that he was about to be deported as "a danger to the
Russian Federation." No specific evidence was provided for this accusation
in that it was allegedly a matter of "national security." In interviews
with the Keston News Service, Rucin and local Protestant leader Galina
Aminova cited articles in the Udmurt press which they said were inspired by
the Federal Security Service, or FSB, and which called Rucin's work a front
for the U.S. government. "They think my real aim is to change the hearts
and minds of Russians so that they become more obedient to the U.S.," he
told Keston.

To anyone familiar either with the evangelical Protestant subculture from
which most American missionaries come or with the Beltway subculture of
official Washington, such accusations will seem more than strange. Neither
of these subcultures is monolithic -- thus somewhere in the U.S. State
Department there probably are some officials who are vitally interested in
the global spread of evangelical Protestantism. Somewhere in the
evangelical subculture there undoubtedly are some people who think that
Washington officialdom has too little power and should be given more. But
to suppose that lovers of the Beltway dominate the Bible Belt, or vice
versa, is to be deaf and blind to the political culture of 21st-century
America. In education, rhetoric, tacit assumptions, tribal loyalties and
ultimate commitments, U.S. Protestant missionaries in Russia typically have
about as much in common with U.S. diplomats as Russian Old Believers have
with Kremlin officials. One value that many in both of these American
subcultures do share is a strong belief in religious freedom, which is more
than enough to earn them the FSB's hatred.

Russia is also less monolithic than the FSB would like. In the Internet
forum of the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, one Russian reader aptly complained
that Putin's new appointee Trofimchuk "is not concerned that foreign
missionaries distort the truth about God or lead people astray from the
path to salvation, but with how their activity is not in the interests of
our state." This reader argued that "we must hold to the divinely revealed
truth independently of whether or not the state approves it." That, of
course, is the essence of the issue: Whether Russians should place Caesar
above God. An increasingly powerful faction within Putin's Kremlin says,
"yes they should."

Lawrence Uzzell is director of Keston Institute, a charity that conducts
research into religious freedom [www.keston.org].

*********

#11
Estonia leads 10yrs of Baltic economic transition
By Alistair Holloway

TALLINN, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Ten years ago, it really didn't take much to
start a bank in Estonia.

"At the beginning of the nineties...the regulations meant you could
establish a bank almost without any money," said Rain Lohmus, one of the
nine twenty or thirty somethings who set up Hansapank, the Baltics' top
financial services group.

A decade ago Estonia, and its Baltic neighbours Latvia and Lithuania, were
released from a 50-year occupation by the Soviet Union, which recognised
them on September 6, 1991.

With Estonia leading the way, the three states set out on a road of radical
free market reforms that has made them the economic success story of the
former Soviet Union.

For the first time in a generation, Balts were free to open shops,
businesses and banks, and many decided capitalism wasn't as rotten as their
Soviet textbooks had let on.

"There was a lot of activity at that time because the socialist economy had
collapsed...and many people discovered ways of making money in different
sectors and that is why we looked at banking," said Lohmus.

Entrepreneurs all over the Baltics raced to cash in on the new economy. At
one time Latvia, a country of just 2.4 million, boasted more than 60 banks.
It now has 22.

Estonia, which had one point had close to 50 banks now has just six, not
including foreign branch operations. The top three, Hansapank, Uhispank and
Sampo Bank are Finnish or Swedish owned.

Ten years of market liberalisation and fine-tuning of reforms have brought
the Baltics to the verge of European Union membership and the Baltic
economies seem a long way from the chaos of the early years after
independence was restored.

Hansapank's headquarters reflect this vividly. The black glass and straight
edges of the bank's 13-storey building in Tallinn have the austere,
unemotional air of cool Nordic security and would look at home in Helsinki
or Stockholm.

HOW TO BUILDING AN ECONOMY FROM SCRATCH...

But it wasn't just banks that were built from scratch over the last decade,
it was the entire economy, starting with the currency.

The Soviet collapse and end of Moscow's five-year production plans left the
Baltics with little economy to call their own, so tied to the all-Union
system were they. The situation fell apart, trade with Russia was reduced
to barter, inflation soared and the rouble withered.

The key to stabilisation was monetary reform.

"The main challenge was to set up a proper framework for a market economy
and active entrepreneurship. We did not have enough time or schooling or
information but we had to decide," said then central bank head, now Finance
Minister Siim Kallas.

Estonia introduced its kroon on June 20, 1992, pegging it to the mark under
a currency board, which required the central bank to back the unit with
hard currency reserves.

The kroon was a resounding success and helped Estonia's economy find its
feet before Latvia and Lithuania, whose monetary reform came a little
later. Despite its success, it seemed it seemed a leap of faith back then.

"In June 1992...it was a jump in the dark," Kallas said. "We did not know
Estonia's balance of payments (BoP) at that moment. We had only Soviet
figures that showed no one could survive without Russia."

Kallas said the International Monetary Fund wanted a more sophisticated
currency reform plan but in the end its representative, Adalbert Knobl,
said it looked viable.

In hindsight, it proved very viable indeed.

The kroon, like its cousins the Lithuanian litas and the Latvian lat, has
held its value since introduction, despite the emerging market and Russian
financial crises of 1997 and 1998 that saw former Soviet currencies drop
like flies.

WITH A YOUTHFUL ARMY

The courage it took to introduce the kroon was the boldness of youth. After
decades of stodgy Kremlin rulers, Estonia was determined to that its
reforms would be fuelled by the fountain of youth.

"I made it clear I wanted young people because they would not have the
attitude of the old ways and would be open to new views," said Kallas, who
was 43 in 1991.

This view was also held by the private sector.

At Hansapank it was policy until 1996 to not hire anyone who had worked at
another bank because "by and large their thinking was spoiled," Lohmus said.

Current Prime Minister Mart Laar first became premier in late 1992 at the
age of 32 and led a wave of liberalisation.

"We were stubborn...Quite a lot of the reforms we carried out against the
advice of some international advisors, including monetary reform. And I
think we were right," Laar said.

Those reforms turned Estonia into one of the most open and free markets in
Europe, although its ultra-liberal zero tariff regime had to be abandoned
last year to meet EU requirements.

Opennss drew in foreign direct investment, which oiled the economy, and
from 1993 to 2000 25.5 billion kroons ($1.49 billion) flowed into the tiny
country of 1.4 million. Most of it came from Sweden and Finland, Estonia's
main trade partners.

AND TAKE IT TO THE EU AND BEYOND

By 1998 Estonia was among the first five east European states chosen to
start EU accession talks.

It is now one of the front-runners to take part in the EU's next expansion,
expected around 2004. Latvia and Lithuania have trailed but are also seen
as possible entrants in that wave.

Ten years since the start of their transition, the Balts have taken their
place as one of the world's market economies, albeit a small one.

Estonia's gross domestic product last year was a mere 0.3 percent of
Germany's.

Now, Laar says, begins the second, socially-driven wave of reform.

"The first step of the transition is over and now we are taking the next
step and the question is to strengthen the social fabric which means
investments in people and education," Laar said.

"People are richer and the economic situation is better now than it was 10
years ago but at the same time the differences in society have grown, or
they were already there but were just not seen. Now they are clearly
visible," he added.

($1-17.07 Estonian Kroon)

*******

#12
strana.ru
September 6, 2001
Three new newspapers to be launched in Russia in autumn.
Russian press shifts to economics

Three new newspapers as well as new television projects will be launched in
Russia this fall. Sergei Parkhomenko's Yezhenedelny Zhurnal, Mikhail Berger's
Delovaya Khronika and Gazeta published by Raf Shakirov, former
editor-in-chief of Kommersant.

It is noteworthy that Berger and Parkhomenko, the men who were in charge of
the Segodnya newspaper and Igogi magazine that were part of Vladimir
Gusinsky's Media-MOST are in charge of two of the three new projects. The two
new magazines will be under the umbrella of a single publishing house
specially bought for the purpose. According to unofficial reports, foreign
companies will be invited to join the shareholders. According to information
available to Kommersant-Vlast, ex-media magnate Gusinsky wants to be a
shareholder in the new media project.

Parkhomenko's project is in effect a remake of Itogi magazine. The new
magazine will be produced by an old team who left the Seven Days publishing
house after it was taken over by Gazprom. Parkhomenko says he wants to take
advantage of the situation to introduce long-overdue improvements in the
magazine, with more stress on social problems. The magazine's editor-in-chief
says the magazine will not be in opposition to the authorities simply for
opposition's sake. "Simply we'll stick to journalistic good manners.
Therefore, a slightly less amount of sickly sweet syrup will be used than
most current publications do in covering the activities of the president and
the Kremlin."

By contrast, Berger has decided to change his line. Once editor-in-chief of
the Segodnya daily dealing with political matters (which was closed down as
the result of a conflict between its owner Vladimir Gusinsky, on the one
hand, and the state and Gazprom, on the other. His Business Chronicle will
lay claim to the niche now occupied by Expert and Companies magazines.
According to Vlast, Berger's decision to change his role is the result of
Gusinsky's refusal to finance a new daily because he though that would be a
patently loss-making project.

It can be assumed, therefore, that new media projects in Russia will lean
toward economics against the background of political stability.

Speaking in a Vlast interview, Raf Shakirov, editor-in-chief of the Gazeta
project, disclosed the project's strategy. According to him, the new
newspaper will not be financed by the state. The investor is a foreign
investment fund, whose name is so far a secret. And Vladimir Lisin, CEO of
the Novolipetsk Metal Works, has agreed to be the guarantor of the
investments. "I want to get the business on its feet and demonstrate that a
newspaper can be a source of profit in Russia," Shakirov says.

******

#13
Haaretz (Israel)
6 September 2001
Passion amid the putrefaction
By Gideon Samet

ST. PETERSBURG - Vladimir Putin, who has plenty of troubles, and is hosting
Ariel Sharon today, has another. Putin, a former deputy mayor of this city,
is suspected of dealings with the Mafia in the 1970s when he arranged some
local protektzia in real estate, energy, and massive amounts of currency
laundering. Russia is one of the few countries that really understands the
term protektzia in our terms, and now Putin is using it to renovate the most
elegant city in his country and one of the most gorgeous in Europe.

In another two years, during a dizzying white night summer, the city will
celebrate its 300th birthday. The 70 years of neglect by the revolution are
now being wiped away in a massive operation of scrubbing and building. When
it's done, if the renovation of such a treasure-laden city can ever be done -
it will end up only a golden nose-ring for a country in a state of profound
putrefaction.

Characteristic of the Russian swings between recovery and freeze are the
daily signs of an energetic alternative economy. A local who earns $100 a
month as a clerk, will stop his old car on the street to anyone raising an
arm. The sideline haltura - another word we received from the Russians - will
be cheap, especially if the negotiation is conducted in Russian.

The economic indicators are more precise. Due to vast natural resources,
Russia has a positive commercial trade balance, but (in part because of those
revenues) it also has an annual 25 percent inflation rate, twice the
government's target. Capital is fleeing the country six times faster than
entering it, the per capita GDP is a 10th of the U.S.'s, and the ruble is now
15 percent of what it was a decade ago, while salaries are worth a third.

The decrepit services in the onetime imperial capital would tug at the heart
of anyone who has even the slightest nostalgia for the Russia that was. But
nothing can overshadow such pearls as the amazing Hermitage Museum. Something
in St. Petersburg's passion to return to its days of glory also can be found
in the efforts to resurrect Mother Russia. To regain its health, Russia of
course is being forced to adapt to market economy and analysts are taking
note of positive developments. A sixth of the services are in the hands of
private entrepreneurs. Putin's struggle against a billionaire like Vladimir
Gusinsky, whose reach extends all the way to Ma'ariv, is not only a result of
the threats by Gusinsky as an opposition figure, capable of media blitzes.
The former KGB officer is cleverly managing to navigate the politics of
decentralization. But at the same time he convenes every week what Israel has
already forgotten: the editors' committee, which drinks up his secret
information and swaps backslaps with him.

The effort in the face of huge obstacles is good news for an Israeli visitor
who sees no problem greater than coming to an agreement with our Arab
neighbors. And there's also a lesson in patience to be learned. The economy's
growth, for example, was cut in half this year from the 8 percent of 2000. At
that rate, it will take until the middle of the century to reach the current
government's goals. Until then, with a negative population growth rate -
Russian women have half the 2.25 children on average needed to maintain the
size of a population - and with one of the shorter life spans in the world
(60), the statistics alone will shrink 150 million Russians to half that
number.

It may be that Russia and this city, a mafia center even darker than Moscow,
is in even worse condition, because they cheat to survive. Putin's statements
about army cutbacks were proven to be falsified by about a fifth in the
official statistics of about 800,000 soldiers. Tourism is strong, but it -
and "openness to the West" - won't put up for very long with Russian
arrangements, "combinations" that would be scarce even in the Third World.
The exchange rate is significantly different for the foreigner and the local.
A stubborn inertia of spying makes every tourist who gets a half-rate ticket
for a city tour from a local friend end up having to pay the full fare if he
appears to be a foreigner.

Those amazed by the continuing flow of immigration to Israel should think
about this Russian hardships. Northwest Russia last year sent about 1 percent
of all those eligible there for the Law of Return - Jews and doubtful Jews,
alike. Because of the situation in Israel - and Arafat is to blame for this,
as well - and the slowly improving situation here, that number is expected to
decline by a third this year. Nativ, which was once an intelligence outfit,
has been domesticated by the criticism of its secrecy. Nativ nowadays
coordinates a fascinating mechanism for education and encouraging
immigration. Its representative in St. Petersburg, Shmuel Polischuk, sat down
last week with Haredi Rabbi Elazar Nazdetny to hear about the achievements of
the rabbi's school. If only it could happen in Israel. The school has 130
pupils from first grade through matriculation and Nazdetny, who returned to
his home town from Kiryat Telz-Stone ("between Abu Ghosh and the Elvis
restaurant," he quips), is proud of his graduates' acceptance levels to
university. After all - since among Gentiles, it's okay for Haredim - they
learn math, computers, English and goyische history. The rest is the fruit of
Jewish genius.

******

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