Monthly Archives: May 2008

My new eXile article, Nemtsov’s White Paper: Bombshell or Dud?, is now online. Here is an excerpt:

Lilia Shevtsova, a fellow at Moscow’s Carnegie Center, called it a “bomb, which anywhere but in Russia would cause the country to collapse.” Writing in the New York Review of Books, Amy Knight called it “a devastating picture of Putin’s eight years in the Kremlin.” In the Daily Mail, Jonathan Dimbleby declared that if such information was released about Britain, it “would certainly have provoked mass outrage, urgent official inquiries and a major police investigation – if not the downfall of the government.”

What, pray tell, is this devastating toppler of governments? Why, it’s Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov’s Putin -The Results: An Independent Expert Report (2008).

Russia watchers might have already heard about the liberal dynamic duo’s breakdown of Russia after eight years of Putin. If you’ve never heard of them, Boris Nemtsov is ..read more

Dima Bilan’s victory at Eurovision is bound to bring more interest in Russian music. But where is a English speaker to go? I recommend directing your browser to Far from Moscow, a new blog by UCLA Slavic Professor David MacFadyen. MacFadyen has written several books on Russian popular television, music, film and culture. Far from Moscow is a more publicly accessible extension of that work, and promises to keep fans in tune with the latest twists and turns, releases, up and coming artists, and goings on in the popular and underground Russian music scenes. I recommend anyone interested in Russian tunes to follow the site closely. I plan to.

Russian Communists don’t like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, reports the Associated Press. But the communists in question are not the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), as the report implies. There are several communist parties in Russia and the one that has began a campaign against Indy is a small 500 member sect called Communists of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region (KPLO).

According to their website, KPLO have no official affiliation with the KPRF. Rather they, “are communists, like the KPRF, only better: more modern, younger, lively, and creative.” They forgot to add freakier. Just check out the accompanying photo. I’ve seen a lot of things but never communist vestments. And what’s up with that Young Pioneer? He looks like should adorn someone’s lawn.

And what has the good Dr. Jones done to get the KPLO all hot and bothered? As ..read more

Russia just can’t catch a break when it comes to global indexes. Whether its corruption, living standards, media freedom, and or just plain freedom, Russia always lands on the wrong side of fence. Russia’s new failed grade is in “peace.” According to Global Peace Index, a survey conducted by Vision of Humanity, Russia ranks 131st out of 140 countries in peace. That places it right between Colombia and Lebanon. As for some other countries? The most peaceful nation is Iceland, which is followed by mostly European nations plus Japan and New Zealand. China comes in at 67th, Britain at 49th, and France at 36th. The United States comes in at 97th. Israel is squeezed between Chad and Afghanistan at 136th. Iraq is dead last at 140.

As for what “peace” is, the Global Peace index is hesitant to give ..read more

I found a great PBS documentary called Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy while searching for video for a lecture on the Yeltsin years. PBS has put all the film’s chapters online, and I wanted to let readers know about the segments on Russia:

Communism on the Heights, 6:16

The Ghosts of Norilsk, 4:27

Behind the Iron Façade, 8:18

Heresy in the USSR, 8:08

Gorbachev Tries China, 7:17

Soviet Free Fall, 4:52

Reform Goes Awry, 4:26

Russia Tries to Privatize, 5:33

Loans For Shares, 6:18

Closing the Deal, 3:50

The Moscow Times has a review of Letter to Anna, a new documentary by Swiss director Eric Bergkraut on the life, work, and death of Anna Politkovskaya. Bergkraut met Politkovskaya while making his award winning film Coca: The Dove From Chechnya, which chronicled the efforts of Zainap Gashaeva and other Chechen women to document human rights abuses in the North Caucuses. Letter to Anna premiered at the Hot Docs International Film Festival in Toronto last month. The director doubts that it will make it to Russia. The film features a cast of anti-Kremlin characters, including Berezovsky, Kasparov, not to mention Politkovskaya herself. Another reason Bergkraut believes that his film won’t reach Russian audiences is the fact that in one segment Politkovskaya argues that the Chechen War is “genocidal.” The Chechen War is a lot of things, many of them tragic, horrendous, and brutal, but ..read more