Johnson's Russia List
#6031
20 January 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Newsday: Matthew McAllester, The Chechen Connection.
2. The Russia Journal: Otto Latsis, Is authoritarian liberalism possible?
3. Chicago Tribune: Colin McMahon, Progress, yes, but Russia far from
`normal.'
4. New York Times book review: Orlando Figes, 'Armageddon Averted': Who
Lost the Soviet Union? (re Stephen Kotkin's ARMAGEDDON AVERTED. The Soviet Collapse,
1970-2000)
5. Reuters: Russian Communists re-elect leader amid disputes.
6. stratfor.com: Putin Pleasing the Poles To Woo the West.
7. The Russia Journal: John Helmer, Kremlin decides how to feed bears.
8. TimeEurope.com: Yuri Zarakhovich, Putin Plays Follow the Leader.
Is Stalin coming back in style?
9. theglobalist.com: Enron — The New U.S.-Russian Brotherhood.
10. RIA Novosti: RUSSIAN POLITICIAN CRITICISES AMERICAN AUTHORITIES FOR
DISCRIMINATING AGAINST RUSSIANS RECEIVING AMERICAN ENTRY VISAS. (Nemtsov)
11. St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press: Dave Montgomery, Russians enjoying
economic rebound.
12. The Observer (UK): Faded glories of the mainline to Moscow. The
carriages are decrepit, the staff are surly and the food inedible. But, John Lee
writes, the Trans-Siberian Express remains one of the world's great rail adventures.
13. The Electronic Telegraph (UK): Ben Aris, 50,000 children spend Russian
winter on streets of Moscow.]

*******

#1
Newsday
January 20, 2002
The Chechen Connection
By Matthew McAllester
Staff Correspondent

Kabul, Afghanistan -- A videotape found in a former al-Qaida residence here
appears to buttress Russia's claim that Osama bin Laden's militant Islamic
network has been backing rebels in Chechnya.

The tape, obtained by Newsday from a Kabul landlord, features bin Laden and
a prominent but shadowy Arab militant who has played a leading role in the
Chechen insurgency. It includes footage of ambushes and suicide-bomb
attacks, main tactics of the Chechen rebels, and shows bodies of Russian
soldiers, some of whom appeared to have been executed.

The landlord said he found the tape after al-Qaida activists, including his
tenants, fled this city 10 weeks ago. Afghans have offered many such tapes,
documents and computers for sale. Newsday bought the video for $500.

The tape appears to have been produced in 2000 for propaganda or to show
potential donors how al-Qaida helps the Chechens in what bin Laden
considers part of his holy war against Christian forces.

The video prominently features an Arab fighter named Khattab who has become
famous in Russia and Chechnya as one of the key leaders of the current
Chechen uprising. With a long, black beard, frizzy hair, black beret and a
certain flair for drama, Khattab is a man about whom more is whispered than
known. His full name may be Omar Khattab. He is reportedly in his 30s,
Saudi- or Jordanian-born and perhaps the son of a wealthy family.

Disparate accounts agree that Khattab joined the Arabs, coordinated by bin
Laden, who fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Since
then, Khattab has been reported fighting among Islamic militants in Bosnia
and Tajikistan.

In the video, Khattab is shown at a meeting of Chechen rebel fighters,
introducing two Arab men in combat fatigues. "They are here to help us and
they want to teach us,” he says.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government have made broad
accusations that al-Qaida has funneled millions of dollars to the Chechen
rebels through Khattab. Russian officials have said Khattab has commanded
hundreds or thousands of Arab and other Islamic militant fighters who
Russian officials have sometimes said form the bulk of Chechen forces. They
have used such claims to help justify Moscow's heavy use of force in
Chechnya, which Western governments and human rights groups have often
criticized.

Independent analysts and a scattering of evidence suggest that the scale of
Arab and al-Qaida support has been much less. The video found here gives no
clues about how much money, weaponry and manpower al-Qaida might have sent
to Chechnya.

Much of the footage appears similar to images already available in Russia
and Chechnya, analysts in Moscow said. But the tape's emergence from an
al-Qaida residence in Afghanistan "will definitely help to prove that
Russia is right to use force in Chechnya,” said Ivan Safranchuk, director
of the Moscow office of the Washington- based Center for Defense Information.

The video opens with an image of Afghan mountains as verses from the Quran,
the Islamic holy book, scroll up the screen. "The school of al-Qaida is now
presented,” a booming, echoing voice announces in Arabic.

In a reed hut, bin Laden carries an AK-47 assault rifle to a lectern. His
guards and students wear Arab scarves, or keffiyehs, to hide their faces.
Bin Laden sits on a chair and, for about 20 minutes, lectures on how the
prophet Muhammad fought infidels and how it is the modern-day duty of
Muslims to do the same. He does not mention Chechnya or Russia.

The tape's narrator then announces "attacks on Russian troops,” and images
show huge explosions, Chechen fighters firing machine guns and shooting
what appear to be already dead Russian soldiers. Close-ups of Russians show
bullet wounds in their heads, suggesting that they have been executed.

"God has given permission to fight,” the narrator intones.

A scene titled "Consultation Meeting with Soldiers,” shows Khattab at a
table with the unidentified Arabs and with Chechen leaders, including one
of his rivals for leadership of the insurgency, the commander Shamil Basayev.

As one of the Arabs offers an inspirational speech, Khattab interprets into
fluent Russian. "What is the plan of the Russian government?” the Arab says
through Khattab. "The Russian government's plan is to kill all Chechen
mujahideen. Before they kill us we will destroy the Russian government.”

The film cuts to a segment titled "Suicide Attacks.” A young man in a
living room sits on a couch, his face distorted by an editing technique.
"This young boy loses his life in a suicide attack for his beliefs,” the
narrator says.

The youth prays before the video shows a scene it identifies as Chechnya,
south of Gudermes, a Russian-held town. The narrator explains that the
following attack killed many Russian soldiers and terrorized all Russian
troops.

Seen from across a field, a truck winds its way toward a building. There is
gunfire as the truck accelerates. It erupts in a massive explosion,
startling grazing cows and sending up a cloud of flames and smoke.

A similar bombing is shown at what is said to be Argun, near Gudermes. As
Russian forces have pinned Chechen rebels into their mountain strongholds
during the past two years, the insurgents have made such truck bombings a
common tactic, and have struck repeatedly at Gudermes and Argun.

The rebels have shown a propensity for taping their attacks, and footage
similar to that on the video has been shown on Russian television.

To underscore its point that Arabs are helping the Chechens kill Russians,
the tape shows an Arab fighter instructing Chechen guerrillas in a forest
clearing, marking out movement on the ground. Moments later, it shows
Chechen soldiers ambushing Russian military trucks and armored vehicles.

"Allahu Akbar!” ("God is greatest!”) the Chechens call out in Arabic as
they fire their weapons. Not a Russian soldier is spared.

Staff Correspondent Liam Pleven contributed to this story from Moscow.

********

#2
The Russia Journal
January 18-24, 2002
Is authoritarian liberalism possible?
By OTTO LATSIS

Two years have gone by since former President Boris Yeltsin retired. This
is two years that President Vladimir Putin has led the country and,
counting his months as acting president, this is half the presidential term
– a good time to look at the results so far.

In economic terms, these two years have been the best over the last 30
years of Russian history. Russia’s GDP grew by more than 8 percent in 2000
and at least 5 percent in 2001 – unprecedented rates not only for the
Yeltsin years, but also for the last 20 years of the Soviet period. The
last time the country saw such good rates was during the "Kosygin reforms"
of the 1960s, but those reforms were broken off halfway through.

The good harvest in 2001 was another piece of optimistic news after years
of agricultural decline. For the first time in years, the country is
talking not of importing grain, but of exporting it. Added to this is a
rise in average real incomes of at least 15 percent over the last two years
and an unprecedented balance of payments surplus ($100 billion over two
years) that has enabled Russia to meet its foreign-debt commitments without
resorting to new borrowing. After growing for two decades, foreign debt has
begun to drop, while gold reserves have reached record volumes.

But these brilliant statistics look somewhat different if we remember that,
since the 1998 financial crisis, average real incomes still haven’t come
back to even their 1997 levels. Add to this the fact that real incomes fell
considerably in the late 1980s and early 1990s and grew only slowly
throughout the 1970s. The result today is that 40 million people in Russia
do not earn even the official living minimum salary.

Russia today would need 15 years of growth as rapid as that it has had over
the last two years just to catch up with the per capita production level of
Portugal. Foreign debt may have dropped, but it still represents at least
$130 billion and will continue to be a burden on the country’s finances
until the end of the decade.

But the main problem is that it’s not even clear yet to what extent the
growth of the last two years is due to temporary chance factors rather than
a sustainable foundation. These chance factors include the 1998 ruble
devaluation, which gave a boost to Russian manufacturers, and high oil
export prices. Finally, the artificially low domestic prices for goods and
services – electricity, gas and rail transport – provided by natural
monopolies cannot be a sustainable factor.

The only deliberate step the authorities have taken to support business was
to introduce a flat personal income tax rate of 13 percent. This rate is
one of the lowest in Europe, but other tax rates remain among the highest
in Europe, and businesses still consider the investment climate negative
and send their money abroad.

The political results of Putin’s first two years in power are even more
contradictory. Over most of these two years, Russia saw its authority
decline on the world scene. It became commonplace among U.S. commentators
to criticize the U.S. policy of support for Yeltsin. Russia continued its
agonizing search for its new place in the world community.

But Putin’s swift and decisive reaction to the Sept. 11 tragedy changed
this situation radically. Russia now has its place as a state that has
joined the ranks of the civilized world to fight international terrorism.
This clear pro-Western choice has even greater significance for Russia’s
domestic policy than for its foreign policy.

But this is where the problems start. Putin’s turn to the United States and
Europe, even though not backed up by any formal legal act, has far greater
repercussions for opinion in Russia than would any formal political
alliance. Is the Russian political elite, raised on decades of hostility
and mistrust toward the West, ready for this change? And is Putin himself
ready to accept the inevitable consequences of his own choice?

On Dec. 29, 2001, the Moscow arbitration court passed a ruling that would
allow independent TV company TV6 to keep working. The liberal choice looked
to have prevailed and it seemed there wouldn’t be a repeat of what happened
to independent TV company NTV, which was taken over by Gazprom, acting on
state orders. But on Jan. 11 this year, the higher arbitration court
overturned the ruling in an amazing display of disregard for the law and
blatant absurdity. All this throws any optimistic forecasts into doubt.

Hopes for progress in the judicial system grew when a court refused to hand
down a guilty sentence in the shameful and absurd case of scientist Igor
Sutyagin, accused of spying. But these hopes soon faded when a guilty
sentence was passed in the equally absurd case of journalist Grigory Pasko,
also accused of spying.

Democratically minded public opinion watched the authorities with
particular attention after Putin hinted at the possibility of contacts with
the rebels in Chechnya with the aim of ending the war. But the
intensification of military operations over the New Year and lack of news
about any negotiations soon caused new disappointment.

It’s clear that Russia’s strategic liberal choice in its international
relations will not work so long as the same liberal choice isn’t becoming a
reality on the home front. But a liberal choice at home can’t be
implemented merely by presidential decree – it would require a concerted
daily effort by the authorities. In any case, there isn’t even a decree yet.

********

#3
Chicago Tribune
January 20, 2002
Progress, yes, but Russia far from `normal'
By Colin McMahon. Colin McMahon recently completed five years as the
Tribune's Moscow correspondent

MOSCOW -- Flag down a taxi in Russia, which usually is not a taxi at all
but a private car driven by someone looking to pick up a couple of bucks,
squeeze into the cramped back seat with the worn felt coverings and the
broken springs, mumble a word of thanks and . . . get ready. "Thanks for
what?" the good-natured drivers growl. "We haven't gotten there yet."

Such is the Russian sense of humor, a mix of fatalism, resignation and
weariness that helps explain how the Russian people have put up with so
much grief over the centuries.

This fatalism, though, masks a pleasant little secret. A lot of average
Russians are romantic optimists. They just don't want anyone to know it.

President Vladimir Putin profits from this. He is so popular partly because
people desperately want to believe that he can turn the country around.

Putin has racked up some praiseworthy achievements since taking over the
Kremlin two years ago. He has pushed through changes in tax laws and land
laws that should fuel investment. He has fired corrupt politicians, felled
troublesome business titans and reined in regional leaders who had sought
to set up their own private fiefdoms.

Most promising is Putin's recent cozying up to the United States and
Europe. Many of the nation's top military, political and diplomatic leaders
oppose Putin's initiatives to make Russia a true partner of the West, but
the president vows to press ahead anyway.

Convinced that the only hope for Russia's economy is opening up to the West
and joining the rest of the capitalist world, the dour and cautious former
KGB agent is, finally, taking chances.

Still, before people in or outside of Russia bow down in gratitude to
Vladimir Vladimirovich, they should keep in mind the taxi driver's warning:

"Thanks for what? We haven't gotten there yet."

Russia is a long way from its people's oft-stated dream of becoming a
"normal country."

Independent media remain under constant threat. If Putin is not behind
this, then at best he is indifferent to it. Public debate of issues and
policies, complete with criticism of the authorities, has become less
common since the Boris Yeltsin era.

Few Russians ever talk honestly and seriously about Chechnya, for example.

It would be good to say here, for instance, how many Russian soldiers have
died since October 1999 battling Chechen separatists in that scarred and
scary Caucasian land. But the Russian army, whose credibility is in serious
doubt anyway, gives no official casualties figures for weeks at a time.
Reporters who ask about dead Russian soldiers (at last count at least
3,500) are called ghoulish.

Westerners who suggest that maybe terrorizing civilians is not the best way
to defeat terrorism are called hypocrites. Putin will hear none of it.

State intelligence agencies target civil rights groups and environmental
activists. Police and prosecutors still wield immense powers, though
recently passed legislation to overhaul the justice system finally offers
some promise of fairness for the accused.

For all of Putin's stated zeal to modernize Russia, he has done little to
disassemble the snaking bureaucratic machinery that invades so many aspects
of Russian life. The bureaucracy is larger now in a supposedly free market
Russia than it was under the socialist system of the Soviet Union.

Even small stuff, like customs rules, exposes big problems.

Foreigners trying to do business in Russia face tremendous challenges from
the minute they land at Moscow's dank and depressing airport. A typical one
is the rule on how much money one can take out of the country. A leftover
from Soviet times that rankled people even then, the law changes so
frequently now and so often without warning that business people fume.

When you come into Russia now with U.S. dollars or other foreign currency
you have to fill out a form stating how much you have. Then you have that
form stamped and signed by a customs officer.

Then in order to leave Russia with any foreign currency, even as little as
$50, you have to present that signed and stamped declaration showing you
brought money into Russia. You cannot take out more than you brought in.
You can use the declaration only once, and then you must surrender it.

This plays havoc with foreign business people who travel frequently,
particularly to other countries in the former Soviet Union where you need
dollars. It encourages people to break the law. It forces them to
disrespect it. It also makes little sense for a nation that Putin says
should be run by a "dictatorship of law," for a nation that Putin says
wants to draw investors.

That Russian customs or its railroads ministry or its security agencies or
any number of other bureaucratic organizations can act pretty much as they
choose with only rare interference from federal officials or oversight by
legislators points up what is in fact Putin's greatest challenge.

Putin's greatest challenge over the next year, over the next two years of
his presidency (or, as skeptics of Russian democracy suggest, the next 20
years of Putin's presidency) is not NATO expansion or the U.S. pullout from
the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. It is not even how to participate in
American-led efforts to counter terrorism.

Putin's greatest challenge will be to assert control over whole swaths of
Russia and Russian government that now elude him.

********

#4
New York Times
January 20, 2002
book review
'Armageddon Averted': Who Lost the Soviet Union?
By ORLANDO FIGES

ARMAGEDDON AVERTED
The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000.
By Stephen Kotkin.
Illustrated. 245 pp. New York: Oxford University Press. $25.

By any reckoning, the disintegration of the Soviet Union was one of the
most astonishing events in modern history. The largest and most threatening
empire in the world, with five million soldiers in Soviet garrisons from
Budapest to Vladivostok, fell apart and ceased to exist, its leaders
abdicating under pressure from crowds of unarmed people in the streets,
with barely a shot fired. The whole thing unraveled in just six years,
between 1985 and 1991, and it all took place so unexpectedly that 10 years
later we are still unable to make sense of it -- or of the societies it
left behind.

It is probably too early for a comprehensive history of this huge event --
and despite its ambitious title, that is not what Stephen Kotkin's
interesting book of essays really is. Kotkin is the director of Russian
studies at Princeton University and a highly regarded specialist on Soviet
industrial history. His central interest in ''Armageddon Averted: The
Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000'' is the breakdown of the planned economy and
the institutional problems that were left for the transition to a market
system after 1991. The focus on political and economic institutions is a
fruitful one. It enables Kotkin to highlight some long-term structural
factors of the Soviet collapse and its aftermath.

He begins with the oil crisis of the early 1970's. As a major oil producer,
Kotkin argues, the Soviet Union was protected from the crisis. It was not
forced, as the West was, to reform its industrial economy, which thus
became as old and decrepit as the Soviet leadership. Things changed only in
the 1980's, when the decline in Soviet oil production and in world oil
prices exposed the extent of the economic crisis to reformist leaders like
Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Gorbachev was the child of a rapidly developing society. Born in 1931, he
was old enough to be indoctrinated in the Bolshevik ideals of the Russian
Revolution; the ideals he held as a young man in the Khrushchev era became
the raison d'etre of his political personality. Yet, as Kotkin underlines,
Gorbachev was also part of a new generation of better educated, more
sophisticated and independent-thinking Soviet leaders, compared with the
older generation of Stalinists.

The Soviet Union was transformed from a predominantly rural society in the
1930's to one in which, by the 70's, the urban population outnumbered the
rural one by almost two to one. Millions of people were acquiring
television sets, where Western programs gave a glimpse of material life in
the capitalist world. Well-dressed Western tourists appeared in growing
numbers on Moscow's streets. And technologies like shortwave radios and
tape recorders made it harder for the K.G.B. to seal off the Soviet
population from capitalist culture and the ideas of the West. People were
becoming increasingly aware that the Soviet Union was lagging far behind
the living standards of the West. The regime's propaganda was a lie.

It is questionable whether this consumer consciousness ever really became a
democratic pressure for political reform, as Kotkin appears to suggest. But
it is plausible that the K.G.B. and the Kremlin leaders, who regularly
watched the Western news media and were highly sensitive to the propaganda
war, responded to their own perception of it as a threat. Reformists like
Yuri V. Andropov, the K.G.B. chief who became party leader, and then
Gorbachev, his protege, toned down their anti-Western rhetoric and began to
call for the adoption of more advanced and technocratic (Western) methods
to rescue the Soviet economy.

But Gorbachev's reforms were undermined by structural contradictions in the
economy and the one-party state, as Kotkin demonstrates, although it is
unclear whether he believes the system was reformable at all. It proved
impossible to combine the stimuli of the free market with the basic
structures of a planned economy, just as it was unrealistic to infuse
democratic elements in the one-party state. Above all, the Soviet Union was
undone by its own state structure as a federation of 15 national republics
-- Russia the biggest of them all.

Once Boris N. Yeltsin was returned by a popular vote to the presidency of
Russia, the Soviet Union and Gorbachev, who had never been democratically
elected to its presidency, became undermined. The structure of the union
allowed the Communist elites in the non-Russian republics to abandon
Gorbachev and the Soviet Union when the Kremlin became threatened by
popular protests in 1991, and to re-emerge as the ''democratic'' leaders of
the breakaway republics that joined Russia in the Commonwealth of
Independent States. The old party bosses of some Soviet republics -- Leonid
M. Kravchuk in Ukraine or Nursultan A. Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan --
manipulated nationalist feeling against Moscow to consolidate their power
in an independent state. As Kotkin puts it, ''the larger truth about 1991
was that the 'triumph' of democracy involved a bid for power by Russian
republic officials, joined at various points by patriots and opportunists
from the all-Union elite -- a process paralleled in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and
other national components of the Union.''

This political maneuvering had important consequences for the transition to
capitalist democracy in Russia and the other former Soviet states after
1991. The Soviet apparatchiks of the second and third tier, who had been
the most upwardly mobile in the 1980's, emerged in the 90's as the business
and political leaders of the new post-Soviet states. They picked up jobs
and became millionaires as the directors of the newly privatized utilities
and banks. They amassed private fortunes by import-export scams, corrupt
sales of Soviet industries and private purchases of real estate at
knockdown prices from their old allies in city hall.

Viktor S. Chernomyrdin personified this new relationship between government
and business. As a minister for gas under Gorbachev, he hived off the most
efficient installations of his ministry and used them to create a company,
Gazprom, which was privatized in 1994. Thanks to the tax breaks and the
favored treatment it received from Chernomyrdin during the six years when
he was the prime minister of Russia (1992-98), Gazprom became a huge
conglomerate, buying up a whole range of other industries (including much
of the country's news media) and exerting a major influence on the
country's politics.

With examples like this it is easy to see the force of Kotkin's argument
that Russia's problem since 1991 has been a ''problem of institutions'' and
not ''some supposed 'cultural' deficiency or peculiarity'' -- like the
common Western prejudice that the Russians are inclined to criminality.

Today Russia's problems are the weakness of its legal institutions, its
need for better organs of financial regulation, the unaccountability of its
executive and the inability of its government to collect taxes. But
institutions are not everything. There are also problems of morality --
criminality, drunkenness, indifference and inactivity -- that influence
people's attitudes to work, to politics, to society.

This relates to a broader criticism of Kotkin's work. ''Averting
Armageddon'' plays down the importance of two vital factors in the Soviet
collapse. One is the role of ideology -- or more specifically the way in
which it lost all meaning to the apparatchiks who deserted Gorbachev in
1989-91. Gorbachev was the last of the believers in the Communist ideal --
but his party comrades, for the most part, had long ceased to believe.
Their ideology had become little more than an empty slogan, a means of
entry to the special shops reserved for the Soviet elite. This fact is
essential if we are to understand why so few Communists were prepared to
fight for the Soviet regime. The August putsch of 1991 was doomed from the
start by the inertia of the middle and the upper ranks of the party. The
plotters' leader, poor old Gennadi I. Yanayev, was aware of this when, his
hands in an alcoholic tremble, he read out to the world's press a
declaration of emergency.

The other factor is human agency -- or more specifically Gorbachev. He may
have started out as a Communist reformer, but there must have been a moment
(for he tells us there was one) when he realized the need to dismantle the
regime without a violent backlash from the hard-liners. His political
maneuverings were intended to avoid a civil war or a crackdown against
Eastern Europe that might have led to a disastrous loss of life. He was a
sort of political Columbus -- setting out with high ideals to find one
thing and achieving something better by discarding them. He is a hero of
our times.

Orlando Figes is a professor of history at Birkbeck College and the author
of ''A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924.''

******

#5
Russian Communists re-elect leader amid disputes

MOSCOW, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Russia's Communist Party re-elected veteran
Gennady Zyuganov as its leader on Saturday, but cracks appeared in the
ranks with some members suggesting selective cooperation with the Kremlin.

Zyuganov was backed by all but a handful of the 300 delegates at a special
Congress, said Gennady Seleznyov, Communist speaker of Russia's lower house
of parliament, to reporters as he left the Congress.

But the party chief, beaten in the last two Russian presidential elections
by Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, came under attack after his 80-minute
address from some delegates who wanted a new strategy to boost their
electoral chances.

Mikhail Mashkovtsev, governor of the far eastern region of Kamchatka, said
Communists should consider cooperating with Putin on "key issues" as he was
sure to be re-elected in 2004. An attractive, dynamic Communist candidate
was needed for 2008, he said. "Large sections of the population denounce
the ills of capitalism, but have no intention of going back to socialism
for the moment," he told Russian television stations.

"Our task, a long and difficult one, is to work on society's views for a
return to a socialist form of development. You cannot achieve that merely
by criticising everything."

The Communist Party gave up its constitutional monopoly on power in 1990, a
year before the collapse of Soviet rule. It remains the largest single
group in parliament and wins about a quarter of the vote in parliamentary
elections.

After an initial period of tacit backing for Putin when he took office in
2000, it is now firmly in opposition. Zyuganov accuses the president of
leading the economy to ruin and yielding too much to the United States in
foreign policy.

Zyuganov dismissed any talk of a major rift.

"You only get unanimous votes in a cemetery. We all want the same thing,"
he told reporters after the congress, called to bring party rules into line
with a new law on political parties.

He told the party the situation in Russia was "extremely serious and
getting worse" and said it was "the essence of nature to make calls in
favour of socialism."

Delegates at the closed-door meeting had earlier heard greetings from Putin
wishing them a "constructive and creative meeting" and saying Russia's
problems needed "the unity of efforts of all positive forces in the country."

******

#6
stratfor.com
Putin Pleasing the Poles To Woo the West
18 January 2002

Summary

Russian President Vladimir Putin has just made his first trip to Poland. It
is in sharp contrast to Polish-Russian relations a year ago that Putin has
been nothing but conciliatory and complementary toward Warsaw. Conceding to
many of Poland's demands may cost Russia a bit in the long term, but Putin
is looking at the big picture. A secure and friendly Warsaw is Moscow's
best conduit to gain influence in Europe.

Analysis

Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled Poland Jan. 15-17 in the first
visit by a Russian head of state in eight years. Despite the fact that
relations between the two nations turned hostile after Poland joined NATO
in 1999, Putin had nothing but warm smiles and complements for his host,
newly elected Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

Putin recognizes that accommodating Warsaw and building closer ties will
allow Russia to advance its economic and political goals not only
throughout Europe but also in Poland itself. The cost of appeasing the
Poles is miniscule compared to the payoff, and for Russia, time is of the
essence.

Putin unexpectedly hailed Poland as a "full and equal partner," which is a
far cry from the traditional Russian view of the country as an ungrateful
prodigal son. In his comments, reported by the Los Angeles Times, about the
failure of the Soviet empire in Central Europe, he pointed out with his
trademark dry humor that "Poles are not willing to accept any form of
dictate." This was about as close as a Russian leader can come to an
apology for 45 years of Soviet rule.

Putin appealed directly to Polish pride by expressing admiration for
Poland's favorite son, Pope John Paul II. Putin even raised the possibility
of a papal visit to Moscow, suggesting that the pope could come as the
Vatican's head of state rather than as a religious leader. To date, the
Russian Orthodox Church has squelched any possibility of a papal visit for
fear of losing influence to the Roman Catholic Church.

In a surprise move, Putin also visited the Home Army monument, a shrine
commemorating Polish resistance fighters who were killed by Russian forces
in the early years of Soviet rule.

The Russian president's actions during the visit reflect Poland's
importance to his intensifying efforts to link Russia to Europe, with Putin
himself directly appealing to Warsaw to serve as an intermediary between
Moscow and both NATO and the European Union. Poland is also an important
power in its own right.

Two-way trade topped $4.6 billion in 2001, and both countries want to
expand their trade links. After the Soviet empire's breakup, steady growth
in Poland -- which has a population about a quarter the size of Russia's --
combined with Russia's only recently halted contraction, grants the country
a GDP two-thirds as large as Russia's.

Poland's overall political importance is rising concurrently. It will be
the European Union's sixth-largest state when it joins the grouping in
2004, and aside from France, it will also be the most active counterweight
to Germany. Russia has traditionally looked to Berlin to represent its
interests in Europe, but Putin acknowledged the evolving power balance
during his trip by visiting both Poland and France but not Germany.

When viewed through Russian eyes, Poland's star is even brighter than its
balance sheet would otherwise indicate. A constant in Putin's foreign
policy is his desire to lash Russia firmly to Europe. Various aspects of
his plan include a huge natural-gas line from Russia's Yamal Peninsula and
a rail network from the Koreas, which both have connecting infrastructure
in Poland.

Perhaps the touchiest aspect of EU expansion in 2004 is that Kaliningrad --
a Russian Baltic enclave bordering Poland and Lithuania -- will be become a
Russian island in an EU sea after both those countries join the grouping in
2004. Building ties with Poland will ensure that the region does not become
completely isolated.

As a current NATO member, a prospective EU member, the most pro-U.S.
country in Europe and the largest and most influential country in Central
Europe, Poland has a unique ability to sabotage Russia's increasingly
chummy relations with the West on many levels. Simply put, for Moscow to
have meaningful relations with Europe, it must have at least tolerable
relations with Poland.

And it needs to have them soon.

After Sept. 11 Putin decided to throw his lot in with the West,
specifically the United States. But after an initial love fest, Washington
began treating Moscow rather shabbily. The Bush administration has already
unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, making hash of an
issue near and dear to Russian nationalists.

Putin probably fears he will be unable to maintain such a friendly stance
vis-a-vis the United States much longer. If those relations break down,
Washington could get the Polish government to snarl the Yamal project,
which would transport Russian gas to Germany through Poland. If the project
is completed, Russia would become Europe's largest energy provider, and
Moscow's influence through the Continent would rise immeasurably.

Russia's current pro-Western tilt also gives China reason to sabotage the
Korea-Europe rail link, which for Europe would make Russia its primary
infrastructure link to Asia. That makes sealing good relations with Poland
now absolutely crucial.

The Poles will be a hard sell. Russia's record on Poland is hardly
sparkling, and there are a number of very touchy topics plaguing bilateral
relations. Putin will have to concede much more than the pleasant
platitudes he offered during his visit if he is to transmute Polish fear of
the Bear into anything resembling cooperation.

Among the Polish demands that Putin will likely have to agree to are better
deals on transit income, gas purchases and a preferable route for the Yamal
line that includes Poland's major cities. Warsaw also wants Russian
information on the Katyn massacre of 1940 in which Soviet forces killed
4,000 Polish officers, and on the mysterious circumstances surrounding the
1943 death of Poland's wartime leader Wladyslaw Sikorski.

All are headline issues for Warsaw, but aside from the inconvenience of
having to spend a few million dollars to change the Yamal route, they are
mostly issues of pride for Moscow. Unlike previous Russian leaders,
however, Putin has shown he can quell his country's nationalistic tendencies.

Putin will cave to the Poles on most issues in the coming weeks because in
the grand scheme of things, the president knows that minor sops to Poland
are a small price to pay for binding Moscow closer to Europe. Pleasing the
Poles, therefore, is something that dovetails nicely with Putin's long-term
plans.

Conveniently, a completed Yamal will also translate into a permanent hold
over Poland. Poland already gets more than 60 percent of its natural gas
from Russia, and extending the Yamal project will lock that percentage in
permanently. Placating the Poles on Yamal should also nix a Norwegian plan
to displace Russian gas with their own from the North Sea.

Although Warsaw might not be altogether comfortable being close to Russia
economically, much less politically, sealing a Yamal deal is a far more
desirable outcome than Poland's traditional role regarding Europe and
Russia: that of being the region's most well-trod invasion route.

*******

#7
The Russia Journal
January 18-24, 2002
Kremlin decides how to feed bears
By JOHN HELMER

Now that we are all done with cheering and feasting, it is worth
remembering the pagan roots of the 12 Days of Christmas and the celebratory
season in general.

Long before Jesus Christ was born, the ancient Greeks and Romans held
festivals in late December to mark the winter solstice. For them, the
rebirth of the sun and the return of daylight were worth celebrating. It's
one of the reasons the Roman Christians picked Dec. 25 for Christmas Day.
The date coincided with the festival of the sun god Mithras. His rebirth,
and the birth of Christ, weren't far from each other in meaning in the
Fourth Century.

For the ancients, who also used to bring a green tree branch into the
house, this was a time of year to appease evil spirits lurking in hiding
places within the house or outside under the ground. In the snow-covered
regions of northern Greece, for example, it was the custom to feed the
bears. This was appeasement of a practical, not simply symbolic, sort. For,
if the bears could easily find the food offered to them, they would be less
likely to come looking for it in the villages.

I don't know if the Kremlin staff still employs diviners and astrologers,
as in the Yeltsin days. I suspect, though, that they haven't given up on
the old practice of feeding the bears. A presidential election-campaign
staff is already being formed which is going to need cash, not to mention
regional vote-gathering machines. Both require a lot of appeasing in the
early stages. In any event, those whose fortunes depend on harvesting
presidential power are bound to lay their offerings in front of the bears,
even if they have not been explicitly ordered to do it.

In no particular order of size or merit, then, let us imagine what the
bears, if awakened at this time of January, might want to find lying about:

• Vladimir Potanin. Controller of the Interros holding, whose principal
asset is Norilsk Nickel – the world's leading miner of nickel and palladium
– Potanin has been selling off non-core assets in the shipping business,
only to buy others in the food sector. It is almost two years now since
Potanin made an overpriced offer for a 34-percent stake in steelmaker
Novolipetsk. That deal, urged on Potanin by Boris Jordan, cost Interros
$170 million – $30 million more than Novolipetsk chairman Vladimir Lisin
had offered the sellers, the Reuben brothers of Trans World. Maybe Jordan
had told Potanin that if he paid the premium, in no time at all he could
take over the rest of Novolipetsk, ousting Lisin. Maybe Potanin was not
listening. At any rate, the threatened takeover by Interros has failed to
deter or daunt Lisin, although the conflict between the shareholders has
slowed down the steelmaker's move toward modernization and
recapitalization, thus hurting the very share value Potanin was after. What
morsel will it take for Potanin to abandon his taste for Novolipetsk, and
in a steel market as depressed as this one, can Lisin afford the price?

• Oleg Deripaska. Head of Base Element (the new name of Siberian Aluminum,
now that its aluminum assets have been transferred to Russian Aluminum) and
managing shareholder of Russian Aluminum, Deripaska is probably more
dependent on the Kremlin than the other bears. On the one hand, having
acquired a group of automotive assets, including the Gorky Automobile
Plant, three bus manufacturers, component makers and a possible interest in
acquiring more, Deripaska cannot afford rapid progress by Russian
negotiators seeking accession to the WTO. A cash flow of around $1.8
billion in these auto assets – equal to or greater than Deripaska's
original Siberian Aluminum revenues – depends on a variety of protections
from imports and domestic price increases. If the Kremlin wants WTO
membership, it will have to sacrifice some of the protections Deripaska is
counting on.

At the same time, his stake in Russian Aluminum, the largest producer of
primary aluminum in the world after Alcoa – would benefit from the greater
freedom of trade to be enjoyed once Russia enters the WTO. A smart bear
will try to keep the one without relinquishing the other. In addition, in a
market of falling aluminum prices, Deripaska's profit margin and dividend
from Russian Aluminum can be sustained by a variety of tidbits that require
Kremlin generosity: for example, low electricity rates and discounts off
rising rail freight charges.

• Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven. Here the bear specialists may dicker
among themselves. Is Aven a shareholder on the same level as Fridman, or is
he something less? Whatever the answer, there is no doubt the Alfa Bank
bear is hungry, and this will be a testing year. A European syndicated bank
loan for $20 million it received in December was the first sign of
international confidence in unsecured lending to Russian institutions. Can
Alfa go on to attract buyers of unsecured bonds worth, say, 10 or 20 times
the loan value? Or can Fridman and Aven find a Western bank of greater size
willing to offer a billion dollars or more for a small piece of Alfa
equity? This is more a question of bear-training – a complicated and
riskier matter than bear-feeding, which, as I have said, the ancients
believed to be an exercise in pacification, not partnership.

But, look, there are so many bears in Russia and only so much the
villagers, even the Kremlin ones, can afford to proffer. Matching offering
to appetite is always difficult when villagers encounter bears and men meet
the spirits of the netherworld. Doubtless, for those with a taste for blood
sports, the miscalculations are interesting to watch for.

********

#8
TimeEurope.com
January 20, 2002
Putin Plays Follow the Leader
Is Stalin coming back in style?
BY YURI ZARAKHOVICH/MOSCOW

Friday, Jan. 18, 2002
Back in 1941 as Hitler attacked the U.S.S.R. and the Red Army crumbled,
General Georgi Zhukov is said to have muttered after a dressing down from
Stalin: "Damn the mustachioed bastard!" Stalin stroked his moustache and
asked: "Who do you mean, Comrade Zhukov?" "Hitler, of course," Zhukov said.
"Who else?"

On an official visit in Poland this week, Putin suggested that the Russian
law regarding the compensation of victims of Stalinist repression should
extend to Polish citizens as well. "We won't compare [these] repressions to
Nazism," said Putin, "But we don't want to close our eyes to the negative
sides of the Stalin regime."

A couple of days earlier, Polish journalists asked Putin about Stalin's
place in Russian history. Putin regarded the question as "provocative", but
answered reluctantly that Stalin was a dictator. However, he added, "The
problem is that it was under his leadership that this country won World War
II ... It would be stupid to ignore that." If Nazi Germany had won that
war, would we have seen some president of a post-Nazi democratic Germany
suggesting 56 years later that the Hitler regime had other sides beyond the
negative ones? Hitler built highways, won the war, etc...

Putin, has shown some sympathy for Stalin. He restored the music of the
Stalin era-national anthem and seems bent on controlling the Russian media
and regional governments as well. What does this portend for Russia? If the
country won the war under Stalin's leadership, it only proves the sad adage
ascribed to Churchill: Russians are adept at creating problems first and
heroically overcoming them later.

Was it not Stalin who facilitated Hitler's rise to power by his policy of
setting communists against social democrats in Germany? Was it not Stalin
who dreamed of setting Hitler against the bourgeois West to advance the
communist revolution? Was it not Stalin who made a deal with Hitler in 1939
to carve up Europe between the two dictators? Was it not Stalin who ignored
all the warnings that Hitler would attack the U.S.S.R.? By 1945, Stalin had
learned enough about warfare to defeat Hitler. But this victory had a
price: over 26 million lives in four years. Not much of a bargain. All in
all, Stalin's dictatorship cost Russia over 100 million lives. This is what
Stalin's regime was really all about--and "It would be stupid to ignore this."

Back in the victorious 1945, Stalin raised a toast to the patience of the
Russian people. "Any other people would have overthrown such a government,"
Stalin said in reference to his own regime, and went on to praise the
patience and the steadfast confidence the people had in his leadership.

Today, many Russian are befuddled by poverty, mayhem and a reform process
that seems to lead nowhere. Putin is positioning himself as a firm and
resolute leader, a father figure for the democratic era. Hence, his
respectful references to Stalin. Why should the Russian President consider
a question on Stalin's place in history "provocative?" To quote Stalin once
again: "When provoked, don't succumb to provocations." Indeed, we
shouldn't--not to Stalin's provocations, nor to Putin's.

*****

#9
theglobalist.com
January 18, 2002
Enron — The New U.S.-Russian Brotherhood

Following a brief hiatus after September 11, chilly U.S.-Russian relations
seem to be back. Observers point to frost in such areas as arms control,
media freedom and Chechnya. Yet, there is one vital area that unites the
two nations' political agendas — the nexus of energy and politics.

Top managers of an energy giant have been taken into custody. They are
charged with using shady subsidiaries and accounting practices to transfer
hundreds of millions of shareholders' dollars into their own pockets.

Taking control

The arrests came despite the fact that the company in question — a world
leader in its sector — has excellent political connections. These
executives, if convicted, will face lengthy jail sentences.

If you think we're talking about Enron, the U.S. energy giant whose sudden
collapse in late 2001 has shaken America's business and political
establishment, think again. The corporate culprits we are referring to
worked for Gazprom, Russia's largest company — and the world's biggest
producer and distributor of natural gas.

In 2001, Russia's President Vladimir Putin reasserted the government's role
in Gazprom's management. Partly state-owned, Gazprom had been run as a
personal fiefdom by its former head Rem Vyakirev and his associates. Mr.
Putin appointed his own man, Alexei Miller, as Gazprom's chief executive —
and gave him a mandate to clean up the mess.

The executives now under arrest were associated with Sibur, a little-known
Gazprom petrochemical subsidiary. Sibur's main function appears to have
been the enrichment of its managers.

Acquisition spree
The subsidiary plunged into a spree of acquisitions — and its transactions
illegally shifted shareholder assets to companies controlled by Gazprom
executives.

This business practice is commonplace in Russia. But the Gazprom crackdown
has other Russian energy magnates quavering in their shoes. Despite
generous contributions to Mr. Putin's presidential campaign, they wonder if
they will now be saved from jail.

The United States prides itself on being world leader in corporate
governance, accounting transparency and financial market oversight. Yet, as
details about Enron's business practices and the political ramifications
emerge, the story seems to come straight from Russia.

Brothers in harm
One key difference is that Gazprom's executives embezzled money that at
least partially belonged to the Russian state which is quite able to defend
itself. By contrast, the victims of Enron's financial shenanigans are
mainly small-fry — its workers and numerous small investors.

The only good news for Russia in the Gazprom case, or so it seems, is that
no major accounting firm is on the hook for aiding and abetting shady
corporate practices — as Arthur Andersen is in the United States. What's
saved Russia from this embarrassment, of course, is that the country's
accounting profession is still in its infancy.
Now that investigations have begun, Enron's defrauded shareholders and
jilted employees might wonder if anyone in the company's management ranks
will share the fate of Gazprom's executives.

Enron's generous political contributions to both Democrats and Republicans
were not enough to save the company from bankruptcy. But will they suffice
to keep its executives out of prison?

Indeed, one wonders if the characters in the dark fable of oil and power in
the United States, so similar to those in Russia's tale, will meet the same
unhappy end?.

*******

#10
RUSSIAN POLITICIAN CRITICISES AMERICAN AUTHORITIES FOR DISCRIMINATING AGAINST
RUSSIANS RECEIVING AMERICAN ENTRY VISAS

MOSCOW, January 18, 2002. /RIA Novosti correspondent Alexandra
Chebanu/--Boris Nemtsov, leader of the Russian Union of Right Forces (SPS)
party, has criticised US authorities for more stringent procedures introduced
for Russians to obtain American entry visas, in particular an additional
application questionnaire.

As is noted in an open letter by Nemtsov to US President George W. Bush,
received by RIA Novosti on Friday, this step "in no way corresponds to the
level of mutual understanding and mutual support that emerged between our
countries following the tragic events of September 11th".

"Russia has suffered from terrorism to no less extent than the US, but we did
not start building up an 'iron curtain'," Nemtsov says in his letter to the
American president.

According to the SPS leader, "it is impossible to guarantee security by
shutting oneself off from one's partners and allies." The Union of Right
Forces considers "unacceptable an encroachment on one of the fundamental
democratic norms - the right to free travel," Nemtsov says.

He believes that the decision to introduce an additional application
questionnaire for Russian citizens wishing to enter America was dictated "not
by evil intent, but by the natural state of affect prompted by the September
events".

"We expect that the traditional American common sense will prevail and hope
that the US administration will revoke its discriminatory act," the SPS
leader emphasised.

*******

#11
St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press
January 20, 2002
Russians enjoying economic rebound
BY DAVE MONTGOMERY Knight Ridder Foreign Service

MOSCOW -- While the United States and other industrial powers confront
economic uncertainty, Russia has bounded into the new year on a wave of
prosperity that seemed unimaginable three years ago.

The Russia of 2002 is almost a mirror opposite of the Russia that weathered
a financial crash in 1998. Today, the country's oil-driven economic growth
is outpacing the rest of the world, apparently unaffected by the financial
turbulence that rocked other countries after Sept. 11.

Higher prices for oil and gas, which compose half of Russia's exports,
fueled the economic rebound and spawned broad investment in other sectors.
Analysts also credit two years of political stability under President
Vladimir Putin and a series of pro-business economic changes, including
lower taxes.

As a result, the land of Lenin is awash in capitalism and consumerism.

Wages rose 20 percent last year, giving Russians more buying power. Store
shelves brim with nearly every conceivable product, from Tommy Hilfiger
sweaters to Red Dawn lingerie.

The Russian stock market was the fastest-growing in the world in 2001.
Thousands of merchants had record profits during the holiday season.

"Russia has one of the star economies of the world," said Ed Parker, an
analyst with the Fitch Rating Agency of London, which tracks global
economic performance.

Still, Russia is a long way from joining the ranks of the world's economic
superpowers. Its $308 billion gross domestic product is roughly the size of
Portugal's and about 5 percent of the United States'.

What's more, many of Russia's 145 million people aren't sharing in their
country's newfound prosperity. Average income remains far below Western
standards at about $72 a month. Most of the new spending power is centered
in cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Nevertheless, national economic growth has been strong in recent years,
ending nearly a decade of decline since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Russia produced 8.3 percent growth in 2000 and 5.5 percent last year.
Economic analysts project 3.5 percent growth in 2002, while the global
economy is expected to produce its smallest rate of growth in two decades
-- about 1 percent.

Russia's strong reliance on oil exports has raised fears that a collapse in
oil prices could put the country back into crisis. Although benchmark oil
prices have dropped to about $20 a barrel, experts think Russia can avoid
economic damage as long as prices fall no lower than $12 to $15 a barrel.

"We don't foresee any major problems," Parker said.

The new prosperity is everywhere on the streets of Moscow. Gone are images
of stoic Russians lined up for hard-to-get food or imports. With money in
their pockets, Russians shop at stores that offer a mix of domestic and
imported goods.

Alexander Khailov, a 45-year-old driver for a family of French expatriates,
typifies the eager-to-spend consumer. Growing up, he shared a two-room
apartment with his grandparents, parents and sister. Now, his $700-a-month
salary has enabled him to build his own house and buy a Russian-built Lada
car and creature comforts such as a CD player, color TV and a microwave. "I
have everything I want," he said.

*******

#12
The Observer (UK)
20 January 2002
Rail journeys
Faded glories of the mainline to Moscow
The carriages are decrepit, the staff are surly and the food inedible. But,
John Lee writes, the Trans-Siberian Express remains one of the world's
great rail adventures

It's 10.30pm on a crisp September night when my friend and I sweep into
Beijing central railway station. We pile our packs on the floor and lean
self-consciously against a pillar near the entrance.

The station is not well lit and it's difficult to focus on details. Red
marble floor, grand central staircase, large stained-glass window. A grimy
pre-Communist building modified with gold stars and political inscriptions
that are beginning to fade. I feel as if we're being scrutinised but no
one, not even the teenage soldier wearing an oversized khaki jacket, is
looking at us.

After a week in Beijing, we're about to take the six-day, almost 6,000 mile
Trans-Siberian express to Moscow. Built by Russian imperialism and adapted
to Soviet needs, it's the world's longest passenger rail route, now mainly
used by black market traders and foreign tourists.

Our train is announced and we pass through to the platform and pull
ourselves up the steps of the Russian train, the only one in the station.
It's suffocatingly warm inside and smells like my English grandmother's
house - coal smoke and unaired rooms. Squeezing along the corridor,
scraping our packs against the wood-patterned Formica walls, we find our
compartment. The train lurches and we drop our bags and collapse on the
long red seats.

We exchange our tickets for bed linen with a middle-aged Russian attendant,
or provodnitsa, who fills the doorway. She smiles but doesn't speak, and we
do the same. Later we use the musty sheets to turn the seats into beds and
try to sleep as the train bounces us on uneven tracks.

Opened in the early 1900s, the Moscow-Vladivostok stretch of the
Trans-Siberian railway was a textbook example of how not to build a
railroad. Reckless methods and haste characterised the construction, as
light rails that snapped easily were laid over land that often could not
support the weight of a train. But the line endured and there are now three
Trans-Siberian routes, each sharing the same tracks through Russia but
separating before northern China.

The original line to Vladivostok can now be extended by taking a ferry
across to Japan. The second route, the Trans-Mongolian, branches off near
Siberia's Lake Baikal and cuts down through the People's Republic of
Mongolia. The Trans-Manchurian route leaves the Russian line further along,
enters northern China and circumvents Mongolia. The Trans-Manchurian line
that we are on terminates in Beijing.

In the line's early days, sumptuously decorated carriages with deep carpets
and oak panelling were exhibited at the Paris Exposition to attract wealthy
travellers, but today's railway is more a reminder of later Soviet
functionalism. Our train, the Vostock, was built in East Germany in the
1970s and contains 13 carriages, each with 10 compartments and a hot water
samovar. There is one first-class car, mostly used by foreign tourists.
Each compartment is about six feet across and has long padded seats
separated by a folding table. Ours is of the stubborn non-folding variety,
however. Above the grimy window is a radio speaker covered with tape that
can't be turned off and hisses at us for most of the trip. Nothing seems to
have been replaced since the carriage was built, except the new gold
curtains.

There are two well-designed washrooms in each carriage but they are dirty
enough to make us want to avoid them. A hot tap delivers only cold water
and the toilet flushes half-heartedly, perhaps in protest at the
maintenance man who beats it with a sledgehammer every morning.

The washrooms, according to my guidebook, are supposed to be cleaned by our
provodnitsas, but they seem as disgusted by them as we are. Most of their
time is spent checking boxes of cheap ornaments they have piled to the
ceilings in unused compartments.

For those not working or engaged in commerce, time is a nebulous concept on
the Trans-Siberian. The route crosses several time zones, and although I
try hard to keep my watch adjusted, it never matches the clocks at the
stations. Many passengers adopt a more intuitive existence, getting up when
they want breakfast and going to bed when they're tired. We spend most of
the time playing cards, drinking warm Chinese beer or gazing at the endless
golden larch trees.

We only eat when it feels like time to eat and venture to the restaurant
car only once. The floor is scarred with food spills and the tablecloths
are grey. Now, despite the extensive menu, which the waiter insists on
handing out, there's only one dish anyway. It's a £5 set meal of rice,
greasy slivers of meat, watery mushrooms and tea, which is always served
black and sugared in Russia. There are no other diners and we finish our
meal in silence while the waiter rubs the counter top with his apron and
watches us closely.

We have some food packed with us: dry noodles, oatmeal, and soup that we
rehydrate from the samovar. But most of our sup plies are bought at
stations along the route, where the train stops for about 20 minutes two or
three times a day. The best food comes from the droves of gnomish old
women, babushkas , who descend on each new train. Dressed in head scarves,
most have red faces, bright blue eyes and strong, scarred hands. Many sell
stews and boiled vegetables, cooked in their kitchens and warmed on their
car engines for the trip to the station. Others walk the platforms with
pale cheeses, brown curled sausages, smoked fish and leather-skinned rye
breads.

The train bursts into life at these stops, and it's often the only time we
see the other passengers. Many are Chinese merchants, and they hit the
platform running before the train has even stopped. Different goods are on
sale at each station and the locals wait in groups to see what the
travelling market is bringing. Striped sweaters in Omsk, fur coats in
Irkutsk and gaudy clocks and ornaments in Ekaterinburg.

It starts to feel colder in our compartment and the trees begin to thin out
as we approach Eastern Siberia's Lake Baikal, the world's deepest
freshwater lake, known locally as the Holy Sea. All we can see is brilliant
blue because the train is right on the edge. When I pull down a window, one
of the provodnitsas leans out into the corridor, narrows her eyes, shouts
something and gestures at me to push the window back up.

The rest of the day, during which we never leave the shore of the lake, is
a running battle with the attendants to keep the window open. I am told off
for waving my camera through the opening, but the provodnitsa runs back
into her compartment when I point it at her instead.

Lake Baikal is the turning point on the Trans-Siberian. Small villages and
deep forests are replaced by sprawling grey cities and factories belching
black smoke as we move into the industrial heartland of Russia. The sun
disappears. Fog and rain take over. For hours, we crawl through the thin no
man's land between the backs of houses and the railway line. It's strewn
with rusting car hulks and mounds of broken machinery. We are approaching
Moscow.

Factfile

Access: It is possible to book a trip on the Trans-Siberian independently
but it is far easier to use a travel agent who knows the system. Worth a
look are Travel CUTS and the Hong Kong-based company Monkey Business, which
has a useful website on all things Trans-Siberian at www.monkeyshrine.com.

Ticket prices: Subject to change but usually start from around £350 for
non-stop itineraries on any of the three routes. Book well in advance for
summer travel.

Packages: Regent Holidays (0117 921 1711) offers a 14-day trip, which
includes a night in Moscow, three nights in Beijing, and a second class,
four-berth apartment for £1,445 per person. Flights and sightseeing tours
in Moscow and Beijing are included. An upgrade to a first-class, two-berth
apartment costs £137 per person.

*******

#13
The Electronic Telegraph (UK)
20 January 2002
50,000 children spend Russian winter on streets of Moscow
PUBLIC criticism about the rising number of homeless young people turning
to crime and living rough on the streets of the capital has finally forced
the Kremlin to take action, reports Ben Aris from Moscow.

Sasha, 12, Andrei, 13 and Kolya, 14, wander the streets around Yaroslavsky
station in Moscow. When they can beg or steal enough money, they buy glue
to sniff from a station stallholder. At night, they compete for sleeping
space above one of the metro air-vents, as the temperature plunges far
below zero.

An estimated 50,000 homeless children live like this in Moscow's streets,
slipping into lives of petty crime, drug-taking and prostitution. As winter
bites, the more resourceful have found their way into the relative warmth
of the capital's sewer system, risking disease and carrying it into the
heart of the city centre. Abandoned to squalor and accustomed to living
outside the law, these bezprizorniki, or neglected ones, arouse as much
fear as sympathy in passers-by.

Some, such as Sasha, have fled a family home where alcoholism is rampant.
Others have absconded from the often brutal regimes at the 800 state-run
orphanages. Most have two economic options: begging or crime.

Terrified by the marauding packs of teenagers who stalk the train stations
and shopping malls of the city, ordinary Muscovites have long pushed for
radical action to remedy a social malaise that, until now, the Kremlin
chose to ignore. Last week, stung by the public criticism, President
Vladimir Putin belatedly responded.

The president told his prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, that "the number
of homeless children and the criminalisation of teenagers has reached
threatening proportions in the country. Urgent measures are required".
Later, on national television, he issued a public rebuke to Russia's social
affairs minister, Valentina Matviyenko, for doing too little to solve the
problem. A government inquiry has been rapidly launched.

Some steps to curb the activities of the homeless gangs have already been
taken. Bands of children were recently rounded up and ejected from central
sewer networks. New legislation is also being planned to toughen up the
status of parental obligations to children. Seven new Moscow orphanages are
to be built during the next year and Russia's beleaguered social services
will be provided with dedicated funds to deal with 'families in crisis'.

The experiences of Sasha, Andrei and Kolya, suggest that legislation and
new orphanages may not be enough. In the economic and social chaos of the
new Russia, becoming a homeless Muscovite can seem a highly desirable option.

More than one million children are homeless across Russia. But Moscow,
where average incomes are five times the national average, acts as a
national magnet. The Independent Street Children Centre estimates that only
six per cent of homeless children in the capital are actually Muscovites.

Sasha and his friends arrived at Yaroslavsky station about four years ago,
after leaving the small rural town of Kazovanova. By Russian standards they
now have a good life, earning between 400-500 roubles (£8-£10) a day from
begging on the metro - an income just below Russia's average wage.

"Life at home was bad because of all the drinking," says Sasha, while
munching some sunflower seeds which the boys had just stolen from an
elderly stallholder. "I had to get out so I came here."

Kolya's father left before he was born. Unable to cope, his mother
abandoned him to the state orphanage system. He ran away to Moscow when he
was nine.

For now the priority is to survive the winter. Moscow has just suffered a
week of nights where the temperature has dropped to -4F (-20C) and
temperatures are still below zero. As Sasha, Kolya and Andrei begin to size
up possible sleeping spaces, a group of teenage girls, who also live at the
station, walk through the snow to say hello. One, a girl of 16, maternally
embraces Andrei and gives him a kiss.

"This is my family now, says Sasha, defiantly.

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