Monthly Archives: July 2005

I’ve made some changes to the blog over the last few days. Most of them have been cosmetic. I’ve changed the color of the fonts, etc. However, there is one change I feel I need to explain. And that is the news feeder you see on the right. The news feeder culls stories from Mosnews.com, an English language Russia news site. I don’t exactly remember how I found Mosnews, but I remember the first story I read from it: “Stray Rocket Kills Bull, Cuts Power Supply in Russia’s Far East.” At first, I thought Mosnews was the Russian answer to The Onion. After all, how else to you explain stories like: “Drunk Scuffles With Bear in Ukrainian Zoo” or “Breasts Betray Cross-Dresser Trying to Pass Moscow University Exam for His Sister“? The strange thing is that along with these stories there are rather serious one’s like today’s ..read more

Three news items appeared this week that concern Russian nationalism: the Nashi camp in Tver, the Russian government’s earmarking of 500 million rubles for “patriotic education” and the group of nationalists trying to get the Moscow courts to ban Jewish organizations. These three incidents all point to what I call in very mild terms the general redefinition of Russian national identity. In harsher terms these three signal the potentially scary growth of Russian nationalism.

I’ll first deal the attempt to ban Jewish organizations. This has been going on for a while now and would probably be ignored if Russia didn’t have such a long and strong history of anti-Semitism. The case involves the Russian translation of a Jewish text called the Kitsur Shulhan Arukh. The Kitsur is an ancient religious text that gives elaborate rules about Jewish daily practices of the self: mostly about washing, eating, ..read more

Today’s Moscow Times has an article on the Trial of “Decembrists”, the trial of 39 National Bolshevik members for seizing a Presidential office last December. The moniker “Decembrists” shouldn’t slip notice. The Decembrists were nobles and about 3000 soldiers who tried to prevent Nicholas I from being crowned Tsar after the death of Alexander I. It was said that the nobles that headed the revolt sought to install a constitutional monarchy. Always conscious of history, Limonov’s group staged their siege on December 14, the same day the original Decembrists revolted.

The Moscow Times article describes the court’s hard handedness toward the “Decembrists.” This is only going to get the Natsbols support since many Russians will probably sympathize with their and their parents’ claims that their crime doesn’t fit their treatment.

There is something to be said about the Time’s claims that Limonov’s group is “arguably the most popular political movement among urban ..read more

It is impossible to spend any length of time in Russia and not have something totally fucked up happen to you. The place is just too damn unpredictable. It lacks that well-ordered atmosphere that you immediately sense after stepping off a plane in Western Europe. No, Russia is wholly something else. If you’re not constantly jumping through the obstacle course of both official and unofficial bureaucratic hoops, you are constantly confronted by what you can only conclude as stupidity. And if that doesn’t get you, then the dilapidated state of buildings and the complete lack of safety will get you. I, and several friends, experienced the latter this Friday.

When there is a fire in Russia it is likely that people die. For example, on my first day in Riazan there was a fire down the street from where I was staying. An old woman and two children burned to death. ..read more

“This is a mass organization which is not interested in the Kremlin. The arm of the court is trying to liquidate us, but we will not stand for it and will go to the European Court on Human Rights . . . If you ban us we will flee underground and from this it will be worse for everyone!” Such were the words from the former Soviet dissident, writer, and the National Bolshevik Party founder and leader Edward Limonov at the Moscow District Court last Wednesday. Kommersant reported quite a scene. Outside the court a bus full of OMON agents (the Russian riot police) waited for signs of protest. Police lined the corridor leading to the court room. Agents were on duty in the courtroom with dogs. The Moscow District Court banned the National Bolsheviks or Natsbols because they failed to properly register as an official political party. According to ..read more

A momentary pause from Russia to give notice to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who was inaugurated this past week. From pictures of the inauguration, it seems that the crowd well represented LA both by ethnicity and by class. This was my hope despite the code orange alerts from now ex-mayor Jim Hahn’s campaign that Antonio would only serve the Latinos. A pretty bold statement that fed on the white man’s ubiquitous fear of the Other. It was also damn racist, and Hahn should be damned ashamed of himself for it. He should have known better considering that his popularity came from his father’s strong links to African Americans in South Central. But this time, the use of race by the Hahn camp was not just directed again whites in the Valley; it was also to exploit the ethnic and class divisions between Latinos ..read more