Posted by Sean on September 30, 2008
Oh, how the times have passed! It seems like only yesterday that the Russian Presidential elections were in full predictable swing. Dmitri Medvedev was set to be President of all Russia. Operation Successor was all coming together without a hitch.
This is not to say that there wasn’t any excitement in this rather dull political ritual. There was . . . thanks to Vladimir Zhirinovsky. He’s always ready to don his jester hat and provide the electorate with a taste of melodrama. One of Zhirik’s best performances was on that fateful day February 20, 2008. Do you remember dear reader? Zhirinovsky certainly will. Now he’s paying for it. Literally.
Yesterday, the Moscow Nikulinsky District Court ordered that Zhirinovsky pay Nikolai Gotsa 30,000 rubles ($1,200) for verbally and physically attacking him during a televised discussion on Zvezda. During the “discussion,” Gotsa accused the LDPR leader of playing a double political game and betraying ..read more
Posted by Sean on September 27, 2008
Last night’s Obama-McCain Presidential debate was devoid of surprises. Even Russia had a place. Given “Russia’s resurgence” as they like to say in the news, it becoming a brief focus of the debate isn’t even novel. Before getting to that here of some of my general impressions about last night’s performance.
I’ve struggled to come up with one word to describe this performance and the only one I could come up with was: Boring. I watched the CNN telecast, and the network must have known that boredom would be a factor. They tried to spice things up by plopping on screen their analysts scorecards and a meter at the bottom to register Democrat, Republican, and Independent “real-time” reactions (I’m struck how Independent has attained a discursive function similar the Soviet class category “Прочий” or “Other”).
In fact, it seems that “real time” was marketing tactic since the CNN pregame repeatedly reminded viewers ..read more
Posted by Sean on September 25, 2008
The Name of Russia votes are in. The project, which started on June 12, allowed voters to decide who are the most important political, cultural, and historical figures. According to the Name of Russia website, 44,569,665 people voted. Here are the top ten Heroes of Russia:
1. Aleksandr Nevsky 2,011,766 votes.
The great Novgorodian prince who successfully repelled German and Swedish invaders in the 13th century. Could there be a better indicator of the Russian political unconscious? Once again Russia feels embattled by Western invaders and its people look for a defender of nationality (even before nationalism and Russia as a unified political entity existed) by going old school.
2. Aleksandr Pushkin 1,781,863 votes.
3. Fedor Dostoevskii 1,678,083 votes.
4. Peter I 1,511,367 votes
5. Vladimir Lenin 1,356,281 votes
6. Aleksandr Suvorov 1,271,345 votes
7. Catherine II 1,365,784 votes
8. Ivan IV 1,216,812 votes
9. Petr Stolypin 1,165,377 votes
10. Aleksandr II 1,066,896 votes
11. ..read more
Posted by Sean on September 23, 2008
The state newspaper Rossiiskaya gazeta announced yesterday that the Anna Politkovskaya murder case will soon go to court.
An official representative from the Investigation Committee saidthat charges have been made against three people: Sergei Khadzhikurbanov (he bought the murder weapon), and Dzhabrail and Ibrahim Makhmudov (they were accomplices). Former FSB agent Pavel Riaguzov, who is accused abusing his position and extortion, was already charged. The General Prosecutor plans on submitting the investigative material to the court by the end of the week. The case could be tried either in a Moscow city court or a military court said Murad Musaev, the defendants lawyer.
This however is only part of the case. Rustam Makhmudov, the suspected triggerman, is still on the loose and believed to be hidiing n Western Europe. Who ordered the hit still remains a mystery.
The editors of Novaya gazeta, which is conducting its own investigation, has yet to officially comment. ..read more
Posted by Sean on September 23, 2008
Medvedev and Putin looking Presidential
Dmitri Medvedev is not just President of Russia. Nor is he simply a rising global interlocutor. He, or really his visage, is also the subject to the whims of the marketplace. According to Kommersant Vlast,
People are even trying to sell the portrait of the President of Russia using spam. Evidently, the reason for the crisis of production which has arisen in the market of portraits of Russian government leaders, is because sellers overestimated buyers demand for portraits of Dmitri Medvedev. On the internet several internet shops exists that sell the portrait of the President and between them there is a genuine trading war.
One site, www.portrets.ru, is allowing you to download creepy portraits of Medvedev and Putin for free!
Posted by Sean on September 22, 2008
Moscow’s stock market soared almost 30 percent on Friday thanks to the Russian government announcement it would dump about $130 billion into the sagging market. Today, it injected more credit into the market just to make sure. About $24 billion worth at 8.75 percent interest. The move was to disperse more capital among banks pushed out of the previous trough. The flood from state coffers attempts to do another thing: isolate the Russian market from the American financial crisis. A staggering 70 percent of the Russian market is made up of speculative foreign money which explains why Russian stocks did such a nosedive. As Vladimir Forlov writes in the Moscow Times,
Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reacted in ways that signal a fundamental shift. The government is now seeking to reduce the stock market’s dependence on foreign portfolio investors and to attract more long-term investment from Russia’s institutional investors, including ..read more
