#4 - JRL 6597
Moscow News
December 11-17, 2002
Why Russia is Feared
By Viktor Loshak
Moscow has lost the battle for the right to host Expo 2010. For us, this was one of last week's saddest stories. The international exhibition will be held in Shanghai. This begs the question of why the odds are heavily against us when it comes to hosting an event of global significance. Why won't the world believe what we say about ourselves, come to that?
This attitude stems largely from reports by major television companies and newspapers, especially European. Much of the blame for that lies with Russia itself, what with its endless war and civilian suffering. However, the last few years have seen the emergence of periodicals that are so blatantly anti-Russian that they are simply not interested in what is actually happening in this country.
Our Denmark correspondent Sergei Djanian sent in an excerpt from an article by a local press analyst. "The level of information trustworthiness may be quite high when it concerns other countries. But in Russia's case, it is abysmally low," the Danish professor writes.
Among German champions of such an approach toward Russia is Suddeutsche Zeitung, which infuriates Germany's own Russia experts. In France, the mouthpiece of anti-Russian rhetoric is Le Monde. Just a week ago, it treated its readers to another "debunking" of the Russian authorities, the Kremlin "family," and the Russian mafia. The expose appears to be based on the confessions of Djalol Khaidarov, a former co-owner of the Kachkanar Ore Concentration Combine. Khaidarov and the notorious Mikhail Zhivilo, currently on the run, are litigating in America with Russian Aluminum.
What has the world learned from Le Monde and Khaidarov, who boasts that at one time he was Russian Aluminum's chief expert on transferring money from Russia? Khaidarov, by his own admission, became so adept at that shady business that he opened 50 or 100 offshore companies for just one of his partners. Khaidarov told Le Monde that Kemerovo Governor Aman Tyleyev had personal bank accounts in Liechtenstein; that former Railways Minister Aksyonenko "received kickbacks from every major plant that needed rail transport"; that his (Khaidarov's) own partner, an American-Israeli entrepreneur, had been put out of Russian business by the simplest expedient - "a kilo of heroin was planted in the toilet of his hotel suite."
These rumors are widely discussed, in Russia at any rate. Yet the response is nil - no indignation, no refutations, no attempts to investigate.
To my mind, one reason why the world feels put off by Russia is that we let them say what they like about us. Their portrayal of us is a mixture of truths and untruths; Russia's commercial wranglers are depicted as freedom fighters, just as the gunmen in the Nord Ost hostage-taking are titled "rebels."
Is it surprising, then, that the world is afraid of holding high-profile events in Russia? To be sure, Shanghai is infinitely preferable.
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