Monthly Archives: December 2007

My first article for the eXile is now online.  Here is an excerpt from “A Russian-Watcher’s Fairytale“:

Russia and the world were stunned by the assassination of Vladimir Putin as he walked out of a midnight mass at the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow on January 7, 2008.” This line is not out of Brad Thor’s spy thriller State of the Union or Robert Ludlum’s historical dystopia The Tristan Betrayal. This fanciful scenario can be found in the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ new report “Alternative Futures for Russia to 2017.” More specifically, “A Shot in the Dark … and True Dictatorship,” the second of three “alternative scenarios” Kremlinologist Andrew Kuchins, formerly of the Carnegie Endowment, predicts for Russia over the next decade, a report which caused a minor shitstorm in Russia last week.

Predicting Russia, however, is more than just an academic venture. It is a genre in and ..read more

I first learned from Andy over at Siberian Light about the press brouhaha over Putin’s alleged $40 billion tucked away in banks in Switzerland and Lichtenstein. Intrigued, I set my sights on said press accounts for the story.

Claims of Putin’s hidden money bags comes from an interview Stanislav Belkovsky recently gave to Die Welt. There Belkovsky perhaps spells out the true nature of “Putinism,” a nature that harks back to Andrei Pointkovsky’s claim that Putinism is “the highest stage of robber capitalism.” Indeed, except Russian capitalism is more like collective thievery. Under Putin’s tenure, says Belkovsky, “all the interest groups are represented in the Kremlin. The people who sit there are the direct advocates and co-owners of large enterprises.” Nothing new here. What is new is the claim that Putin himself has reaped the spoils of Russia’s economic might. ..read more

As the sun begins to set on Putin’s Presidency and his direct personal sway over Russia’s future is still undetermined, there is one legacy we can count on. A new “-ism” called Putinism.

With the help of LexisNexis, I’ve been trying to track down the first appearance of this supposed ideology attached to the person of Vladimir Putin. A search of Major US and foreign publications, wire services, and TV and radio transcripts reveals a rather serpentine history to Putinism’s literary life.

According to my search, “Putinism” was born in early 2000. The first mention of the word came a mere six days after Vladimir Putin was named acting President of Russia. It was coined by an unlikely figure, Richard Gwyn, in an unlikely publication, the Toronto Star. I say unlikely because while Gwyn is considered “one of Canada’s best-known and most highly-regarded political commentators,” he is ..read more

Time’s Person of the Year. Who would have thunk it? Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin joins Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Mikhail Gorbachev. Three other Russian leaders who’ve received the honor.

Stalin was named twice, in 1939 and 1942. The first for “dramatically switching the power balance of Europe one August night” when the vozhd’ signed the now infamous Nazi-Soviet Pact. “History may not like him” Time prophesied,”but history cannot forget him.” And how. Ironically, the 1942 honor came when Stalin became an ally of the United States against Hitler. According to Time, everything that happened that war plagued year–Chiang Kai-shek holding his own against the Japanese, Churchill’s victory over the Nazis in Egypt, Roosevelt’s bringing the full weight of the US war machine on the Axis–seemed small next to Stalin. As Time explained, “and, worthy though they may prove, they inevitably pale by comparison ..read more

Two iconic moments in television and film come to mind as I read Putin’s acceptance to be Prime Minister if his protege Dima becomes President. The first is the affable Gomer Pile ironically declaring as he often did, “Surprise, surprise, surprise.” Yes, a list Gomeric surprises since no one was really shocked by Putin taking Medvedev’s offer even though the news over the last week was full of speculation whether he actually would. The second, and probably more apt to Russian politics than Pile’s signature line, is a scene from the Godfather. (Yes, Godfather references seem to work well when thinking about Russia’s Presidential “transition.”)

The scene takes place in Vito Corleone’s office where he and Michael are informing their capos Clemenza and Tessio about the Family’s future move to Nevada. “Forgive me, Godfather, but with you gone — me and Pete’ll come under Barzini’s thumb ..read more

And so the list grows. On Saturday, the Kremlin added thirty more publications to its blacklist of extremist materials. That makes a total of 61 banned books, music, and films. The first list released in July was mostly a tally of Russian ultra-nationalist and Nazi literature. The sixteen works added in October continued along those lines. The new additions, however, mostly comprise of Muslim texts. The works of Said Nursi were particularly targeted, a move that surprised Russia’s Muslim leaders. “Said Nursi was a proponent of the most tolerant forms of Islam,” Nafigula Ashirov, the co-chair of the Russian Council of Muftis told Kommersant. He added that this seemed to suggest a “new wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in Russia” despite his and other Muslims support for United Russia. It appears that Russia’s local courts didn’t get the memo. This past ..read more