Just as readers at Siberian Light are discussing communist names, the NY Times is reporting about the President of Tajikistan’s effort to ban names with Slavic endings. President Emomali Rakhmon’s (the President formerly known as Rakhmonov) decree to drop “-ov” from family names is yet another nationalist attempt to remove the vestiges of Russia/Soviet influence over Tajik society. As Ilan Greenberg of the NY Times writes,

Amid a series of idiosyncratic decrees aimed at removing traces of Soviet influence, the president of Tajikistan announced Tuesday that he had dropped the Slavic “ov” from the end of his surname and that, henceforth, the same must be done for all babies born to Tajik parents.

Most Tajiks added a Slavic ending to their surnames when the country came under Soviet rule early in the last century.

The president, Emomali Rakhmon — formerly Rakhmonov — also banned certain school holidays and traditions associated with the Soviet period, including a holiday known as ABC Book Day, when toddlers gather in a circle to read aloud. He also ordered all university students to leave cellphones and cars at home, saying they distracted from academic study.

Mr. Rakhmon won a third seven-year term in November in a presidential election widely dismissed as a farce. But Tajikistan’s political culture has not produced the sort of ethnocentric governing style that developed in nearby Turkmenistan, where Saparmurat Niyazov, the dictatorial leader also known as Turkmenbashi (Leader of All Turkmens), died three months ago.

Central Asian governments have chosen vastly different approaches toward their ethnically mixed populations, from the extreme ethnic chauvinism prevailing in Turkmenistan to an officially enforced celebration of multiculturalism in Kazakhstan, the region’s economic giant to the north. But Tajik nationalism has “not become a dominant political force” in the country, a report prepared for the Library of Congress says.

Tajiks reached by telephone in Dushanbe, the capital, said the president’s decrees had little popular support but had engendered confusion and mild annoyance at the imposition.

“It doesn’t matter to me to say the truth; I’m not thinking about it,” said Shamsiyna Ofaridyeza, 30, an accountant in Dushanbe who is five months pregnant. “But if the president says we have to use Tajik names, then I’ll change my baby’s name. What else can I do?” Ms. Ofaridyeza and her husband have Tajik surnames made to sound more Russian.

Ms. Ofaridyeza was more supportive of the ban on students driving cars and brandishing cellphones. “Students are not studying,” she said. “They are too busy sitting on their cars showing off. But you know, we are a democratic people, and everyone should be able to name his baby what he wants.”

Lyndon linked me about Nashi’s “Connecting with the President” or the “President’s Liaison Officer” campaign, so I’ll return the favor by liking his lucid breakdown of Nashi’s marketing-activist tactics. As he concludes:

The idea of using Nashi partisans as electronic “go-betweens” to/from the President (the passers-by receive special SIM-cards which will also be able to receive “all essential information about the movement’s activities,” per this description of the event) is an intriguing modern take on the Soviet idea of a loyal vanguard, though it’s supposedly an exercise in “modern democracy” (”sovremennaia demokratiia”).

I agree. What strikes me is not only how media savvy this all is, but also how these methods can be found among activists on the left and the right all over the world. The question all this poses for me is how much of Nashi’s participation in Russia’s “modern democracy” is symbolic of democratic practice around the world?

I haven’t given an update on the investigation of Anna Politkovskaya’s murder in a while. The problem is that there have been few new developments. Given the Russian authorities track record in solving journalists’ deaths, we shouldn’t hold our breath. Nor should we be so quick to substitute dramatic fantasy for truth. For example, Kommersant is reporting that the head of the Movement for Human Rights Lev Ponomarev received a letter implying that “Movladi Baisarov’s Highlander special division, FSB agents and Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov were involved in her killing.”

Ponomarev told Kommersant that the letter was received at the electronic address of his organization, and he forwarded it to Novaya gazeta and other media outlets. The letter is allegedly written by former members of the Highlander division – Timur from the village of Kirov, Aslambek from the Lenin state farm, Imran Kurkaev, Adam “the Dentist” and Roman Karnukaev from Samashek. They say that Kadyrov suspected Baisarov’s brother, who was assassinated, of being involved in the killing of his father, president of Chechnya Akhmat Kadyrov. Therefore, Ramzan Kadyrov distanced himself from Baisarov, although some of his fighters defected to Kadyrov. They committed Politkovskaya’s murder, the letter says, after being shown her apartment building by an FSB officer named Dranets. After they returned to Chechnya, they were killed as well, and their bodies burned. After that, Basiarov, who knew about the operation, was killed.

And the Apollo moon landing was shot on a CBS back lot. As if Politkovskaya’s apartment was a secret! It’s not like she lived in the Batcave. I don’t think even soap operas have more dramatic plotlines. Unsurprisingly, there are some quick to slurp up the letter’s veracity. As for the people who actually knew and worked with Politkovskaya, they were far from hoodwinked. Kommersant adds,

Journalists at Novaya gazeta did not consider the letter news. “Other members of the staff and I received similar letters several times,” said the newspaper’s military reviewer Vyacheslav Izmailov. “Their authors have accused Baisarov, Kadyrov and even Boris Berezovsky. I am familiar with the text of the letter received by Lev Ponomarev. In my opinion that information has nothing to do with the truth.” The text of the letter can be found at the Chechen separatist website kavkaz.tv. The press service of the president of Chechnya called the letter “nonsense” and refused to comment further.

Now I don’t doubt Kadyrov’s involvement but I would actually like to see some evidence first. Because if he is behind her murder, some pretty indefatigable proof will be required to nab that gangster.

All that said, I’m looking forward to reading Politkovskaya’s posthumous A Russian Diary A Journalist’s Final Account of a Country Moving Backward when it is published late May.