 RFE/RL Russia Report 7/31/2009 6:13:04 PM A review of RFE/RL reporting and analysis about domestic and foreign-policy developments in Russia.For more stories on Russia, please visit and bookmark our Russia page . |
 Moscow Police Detains Dozens Of Opposition Activists Police in Moscow have detained dozens of opposition activists, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More  Russia's August Syndrome For most of the world, August is a time to relax, kick back, and go on vacation. But in post-Soviet Russia, it has been a time of coup attempts, debilitating economic crises, financial meltdowns, bombings, and wars. More  Gallup's Index Of Fear Gallup today released results of a poll conducted in 12 of the 15 former Soviet countries (they left out Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) asking people how they think about their leaders. And the results raised some eyebrows in the newsroom. More  Slide Show: Kirill Visits Ukraine As some Orthodox believers flocked to see Russian Patriarch Kirill during his visit to Ukraine, others came to protest what they see as an attempt to exert Russian authority in their country. More  Fight For The Faithful Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia's powerful Orthodox Church, is making a highly controversial visit to Ukraine. While some Ukrainians welcome his stated goal of uniting fractious Orthodox Christians, critics accuse Kirill of advancing the Kremlin's agenda on Ukrainian soil. More  Russian, Tajik Presidents Unveil Joint Power Plant Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev have officially unveiled the fourth and last facility of the Sangtuda-1 Hydropower Plant, 160 kilometers south of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. More  The Patriarch And The 30,000 Euro Watch We wrote yesterday about Patriarch Kirill's trip to Ukraine and some of the problems he's encountered. More  The Case Of The Missing Russian Crime Novel Many historians of literature tell us that the heart of the Western novel is property conflict -- conflict over an inheritance or some other sacred bourgeois value. The essence of the Russian novel, on the other hand, is the drama of love, the drama of a soul in torment, the tragedy of a hero misunderstood by his contemporaries. This explains why Russians have not produced great crime novels in which a shrewd detective doggedly hunts down a wily criminal and brings him to justice. More  CSTO Leaders Gather For Informal Summit Presidents of the Collective Security Treaty Organization have gathered in the Kyrgyzstan for what is being called an informal summit. On the agenda will be talks about a long-standing plan to create a regional rapid-reaction force. Meanwhile, Russian media have speculated that President Dmitry Medvedev will bring up the issue of establishing a second Russian military base on Kyrgyz territory. More  Abkhazia Seeks To Continue Cooperation With EU, UN Abkhaz Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba met separately on July 29 in Sukhumi with the EU special representative for the South Caucasus, Ambassador Peter Semneby, and with Johan Verbeke, who headed the UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG), the mandate of which expired earlier this month. More Regnum Information Agency Editor in Chief Modest Kolerov was prevented from entering Lithuania by train despite having a valid Shengen visa in his passport. He was on his way to an international conference on Russian-Lithuanian relations. More Defending Kirill With A Cossack Whip Things haven't been all plain sailing for the Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, during his 10-day trip to Ukraine. More  U.S. Diplomat Says 'Reset Button Has Been Pushed' At a Congressional hearing in Washington this week, legislators heard from the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian affairs that the United States and Russia have begun cooperating in several areas of common interest -- from nuclear nonproliferation to narcotics trafficking. More  Confusion Surrounds Purported Attack On Chechen Renegade Moscow police have yet to confirm claims by former Chechen parliament deputy Isa Yamadayev of an attempt to assassinate him at his Moscow apartment late on July 28. Yamadayev told the radio station Ekho Moskvy on July 29 that a man whom he did not identify opened fire on him. He refused to say whether or not he was injured. But he did say his attacker was apprehended. More Ingushetian Prime Minister and acting President Rashid Gaysanov met on July 27 in Moscow with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and briefed him on the political and economic situation in Ingushetia. More  Russia Draws Closer To Latin American Leftists Russia and Nicaragua have signed an agreement on visa-free travel between the two countries, in Moscow’s latest move to increase its ties in Latin America. More  Reset 2.0 U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's tough and blunt comments about Russia in a recent interview with Wall Street Journal appear to have surprised more than a few people. They shouldn't have. Biden's remarks actually fit into a pattern that has emerged over the past month as the White House tweaks its Russia policy in response to the Kremlin's recent behavior. Call it a reset of the reset. More A spoof song which makes fun of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's hard man image as the savior of Russia's battered economy has been winning fans on the Internet. More  Chechen Leadership In Exile Calls For Moratorium On Attacks On Police Members of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria (ChRI) government and parliament in exile met in Berlin on July 25 to discuss the formal announcement in Oslo the previous day that ChRI Prime Minister Akhmed Zakayev and Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov, speaker of the pro-Moscow Chechen Republic parliament, have embarked on consultations aimed at stabilizing the situation in Chechnya. More  Balkars Again Protest Perceived Discrimination Some 1,500 Balkars congregated on July 25 at the monument near Nalchik to the victims of Soviet-era political reprisals to discuss the impact and repercussions of the "counterterror operation" conducted in the Elbruz district in the extreme west of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic (KBR) from June 30 until early on July 13. More  A Decade With Putin We are fast coming up on the 10th anniversary of Putinism. On August 9, 1999, Putin was named first deputy prime minister after the government of Sergei Stepashin was dismissed. The same day, President Boris Yeltsin named Putin acting prime minister and anointed him the presidential successor. On August 16, the Duma approved Putin as premier, making him Russia’s fifth prime minister in 18 months. And the rest is history: Yeltsin resigned on New Year’s Eve, and Putin was elected president on March 26, 2000. More  Post-Soviet Musicians Hit U.S. Mainstream The U.S. pop music scene owes a certain debt of gratitude to post-Soviet musicians like Regina Spektor, Eugene Hutz of the band Gogol Bordello, and other acts that are steadily climbing into the American musical mainstream and bringing, in varying degrees, their ethnic heritage with them. More  Can Chechen Talks Bring Peace To North Caucasus? Representatives of the Chechen government in exile and the pro-Moscow Chechen Republic have announced that they have started consultations aimed at promoting national reconciliation in Chechnya. Is this process likely to bring an end to the ongoing fighting across the North Caucasus? More  It's Time To Get Serious On The Southern Corridor Looking at media coverage of Nabucco, one would think the strategic project to bring Caspian gas to European markets while bypassing Russia was already under construction. But competing visions are still on track to eclipse EU and U.S.-backed ambitions. More  As Leaders Debated, A Dialogue Was Born When we guides arrived in Moscow for the American National Exhibition in 1959, we encountered a mighty crowd of Russians hungry for contact with the outside world. It didn’t take long to realize we were learning at least as much as we were teaching. More  Fifty Years Ago, American Exhibition Stunned Soviets The Nixon-Khrushchev kitchen debate marked an iconic episode of detente at the height of the Cold War, something 50 years later its organizers say was an important precedent for U.S. President Barack Obama's efforts to improve relations with Moscow. More U.S. President Barack Obama has inspired an African immigrant to proclaim himself the "Obama of Volgograd" and run for mayor in the southern Russian region. More  Reset-Phobia In Tbilisi The message the Georgians wanted to send to Vice President Joe Biden was clear almost from the minute Air Force Two landed in Tbilisi. And it was not subtle. More  More Calls For Justice For Estemirova Seven leading UN human rights experts released a formal statement on July 21 affirming their readiness to assist the Russian authorities in carrying out an independent investigation into the murders of lawyers, journalists, and human rights activists in Russia, including the recent killing of Natalya Estemirova. More  Couple Takes On Russia In Fight For Same-Sex Marriage Thirty-year-old Moscow resident Irina Fedotova-Fet has big plans this September. She'll travel to Canada, a country she's never visited, and marry her longtime partner, 32-year-old Irina Shepitko. Then comes the hard part -- trying to get her same-sex marriage recognized by authorities back home, where homosexuality remains a deep taboo. More  Why Do Russia's Streets Carry The Names Of Killers? No one is surprised that the map of today’s Berlin does not show an Adolf-Hitler-Platz or a Hermann-Goering-Strasse. So why do the cities and streets of Russia continue to carry the names of executioners who are covered in blood; who plundered its riches; who executed and deported its peasants, priests, and writers... More  Chechens Left With Nowhere To Turn Slain activist Natalya Estemirova helped hundreds of ordinary Chechens document abuses. Now, in the wake of her murder, rights group Memorial is suspending operations in Chechnya. The step effectively removes the last remaining line of defense for the republic's vulnerable residents. More  'Grave Dangers' Shut Down Rights Group In Chechnya The Russian human rights group Memorial is stopping its work at its office in Chechnya after one of its activists, Natalya Estemirova, was kidnapped and murdered on July 15. RFE/RL’s Tajik Service correspondent Khiromon Bakoeva spoke with Memorial executive committee member Alexander Cherkasov, who said the office was being closed because of concern for the staff’s safety. More  Cosmonauts Recall Failure To Beat U.S. To Moon On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot upon the moon. The "giant leap for mankind," a triumph for the U.S., was a devastating blow to the Soviet Union. Three veterans of the Soviet space program talk about where Moscow's lunar ambitions went wrong. More  'Such People Are The First To Be Killed' What happened to Natalya Estemirova is something that has already happened thousands of times over the last 10 years. A person was abducted and murdered. Even when the bodies are not found, it is clear that they have been murdered. Of these 3,000 or 5,000 "disappearances," how many have been followed up to the point that a court sentenced the guilty? More  A String Of Silenced Voices On Chechnya Natalya Estemirova's killing is not an isolated act of violence -- it is the latest in a string of assaults and murders of human rights campaigners and others who have denounced abuses in Chechnya and the surrounding republics. Many say the trail of blood leads to Chechnya's leader, iron-fisted Ramzan Kadyrov. More  Activist's Death Raises Questions About Kadyrov's Power Another Russian activist has been murdered. Natalya Estemirova's colleagues believe her killing was sanctioned by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Is Kadyrov's independence from the Kremlin enabling violence to grow in the volatile North Caucasus? More |
