July 28, 1997  
This Date's Issues: 1091 •1092  •1093

Johnson's Russia List
#1092 
28 July 1997
djohnson@cdi.org

[Note from David Johnson:
My apologies for any email confusion over the past few days.
The computer server for djohnson@cdi.org was down from Friday
until Monday morning.
1. Philip Reeves (The Independent in Moscow): Alan Philps in Baku.
(DJ: My careless error).
2. Dave Carpenter (AP in Moscow): author.
3. Celeste Wallander (Harvard): useful publications.
4. Nick Sivulich: Religious freedom.
5. Albert Weeks: re Kern on Lenin.
6. The Economist: You show me yours, Boris.
7. RFE/RL NEWSLINE: ZYUGANOV SLAMS PRESIDENTIAL VETOES and
COURT HEARS LAWSUIT AGAINST NEMTSOV. 
8. Agence France-Presse: Russia's chief rabbi defends religion 
bill Yeltsin vetoed.
9. St. Petersburg Times: Eric Schwartz, Outgoing U.S. Consul Bids 
a Fond Farewell to Russia.
10. Interfax: Nemtsov: Svyazinvest Auction An Example Of Honest 
Privatization.
11. Interfax: Yeltsin Instructs Envoys To Meet With Church On 
Religion Bill.
12. The Denver Business Journal: Tucker Hart Adams, The wise decision 
in modern times is to forget the past, embrace Russia.
13. New York Times: Michael Specter, Planned Military Cuts Touch a 
Nerve in Russia.
14. The Cincinnati Enquirer: Jim Knippenberg, Family reunion, the 
royalty way. (Romanovs).
15. Columbus Dispatch (Ohio): Mike Harden, Leo Gruliow: Few Americans 
knew Russia any better.
16. St. Petersburg Times editorial: Hooligans, That Great Looming 
State Threat. 
17. Paul Goble (RFE/RL)L Democrats Versus Democracy. (Re Andrei 
Sinyavsky and his book, "The Russian Intelligentsia." Comments on 
this are encouraged).
DJ: A few comments on the new Hollywood blockbuster movie, "Air Force
One." I like movies and this film from the German director of "Das Boat"
is great entertainment. Bill Clinton has already seen it twice. It is a 
hymn to Americanism and that's OK by me, as long as we don't get carried 
away with self-delusion and self-rightousness. But we have here another 
film (the last one was "The Saint") in which the enemies are Russian 
nationalist-communists. The bad guys want to kick "the capitalists out of 
the Kremlin" and restore "Mother Russia's" imperial realm. ("You have given 
my country to gangsters and prostitutes. There is nothing left.") Oddly, when 
the bad General Radek (the "neocommunist revolutionary") is released from 
prison, his fellow prisoners sing "The Internationale" as he walks through 
the prison corridors. Obviously, the villains stop at nothing in pursuit of 
their objective and therefore drastic steps are required to stop them. 
The technical verisimilitude of the film (much commented upon, including
whether an escape pod really exists on Air Force One) encourages belief
also in the reasonableness of the political context. One must conclude that 
American public opinion finds the perception of Russia conveyed in the film 
credible. And, obliviously, the film helps to shape public opinion. I know 
it's just summer entertainment but I think it also provides grounds for
reflection on the part of those interested in Russia. Such movies do help
to feed some prominent misperceptions about the real Russia.]

*******

#1
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:47:04 +0400 (WSU DST)
From: Philip Reeves <reevesp@glasnet.ru>
Subject: Alan Philps in Baku

Dear David: I know that my British colleagues in Moscow are highly
competitive, although always - of course - charming and helpful. But to the
best of my knowledge Alan Philps has not secretly started filing for our
newspaper (a competitor to his own) but remains the bureau chief of the
Daily Telegraph, which I think were the true publishers of his piece about
Baku (Oil Exploration brings the British back to Baku). All the best - Phil
Reeves, The Independent (I think). 

*******

#2
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 
From: Dave Carpenter <DCARPENTER@ap.org> 
Subject: Author

David,
The Mir article in the Montreal Gazette that you ran today was also
published in Thursday's edition of The Moscow Times. It was listed as being
written by Gwynne Dyer, a London-based independent journalist and
historian.
Cheers,
Dave Carpenter

********

#3
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:15:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: cwalland@husc.harvard.edu (Celeste A. Wallander)
Subject: useful publications

Dear David,

I thought I'd alert JRL readers to three excellent sources that came across
my desk today from the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project at
Harvard's Kennedy School (I'm not a member of that project, so I'm not
self-promoting here!). These are sources which have been available in
Russian and in parts in English, but SDI has put them together in an
accessible format.

The working papers are:
1) "The National Security of Russia," by Valery Manilov
2) "Reflections on Russia's Past, Present, and Future," by Andrei A. Kokoshin
3) "Will the Union be Reborn? The Future of the Post-Soviet Region," a
statement by the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy

The contact information to receive SDI publications is
elena_kostritsyna@harvard.edu, or (617)495-1356.

SDI has put out a number of excellent working papers, including one which
got some press attention a while back by Fiona Hill and Pamela Jewett,
"Back in the USSR." These three current papers, it seemed to me, provide
some primary source background for some issues which have been debated on
JRL of late, especially Russia's security interests and the question of
"empire" in the near abroad. Wild speculation will never be eliminated, I
suppose, but this might help inform the debate.

********

#4
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 
From: nick sivulich <nicks@ptd.net>
Subject: Religious freedom

Nobody, including Ken Duckworth, has responded to the
suggestion that although countries like Poland (or Spain,
Italy, Israel, etc.) have religions as "official" as
Russia's, none have been asked, as Russia has, by the
U.S. government, to officially grant all religions any sort
of legal equality within their boundaries. Anybody to
comment on this?

******

#5
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 04:38:22 -0400
From: Albert Weeks <AWeeks1@compuserve.com>
Subject: Copy of: Kern on Lenin

Dear David:
Gary Kern's proposals for how to handle the matter of
Vladimir Ilyich and his Mausoleum (Kern: drop kick 'im outa Red Square,
melt down the wax for candles) struck some chords. 
As the author of the first book in English on Lenin's
(unmentionable) forerunner (how could the "genius of mankind" have a
"forerunner"??), Petr Nikitich TKACHEV (1844-86, a Russian Blanquist), I
have on my mind a few recollections about the Lenin Cult that Kern and
others may also share. For his 100th anniversary (1870-1970), Lenin, the
first totalitarian dictator of the 20th century ({AFTER him and COPYING
him, Comrades, came Mussolini and Hitler), was posthumously honored by
UNESCO. I mentioned this fact as the opening speaker of the commemorative
conference (using Tkachev as my motif) that was held on the campus of
Oklahoma State (under American Bar Association sponsorship) that same year.
Also attending were Bertram Wolfe, Shapiro, Possony, and many other
well-known writers and/or specialists. During the q. amd a. period someone
in the audience started wildly shouting criticism at me from the balcony
for my book on Tkachev. In other words, there was then a sort of Lenin
claque, not necessarily pro-Communist, that wanted to preserve the unique,
"genius" aspect of Lenin, it seems, for their own academic or
book-publishing motives. 
Moreover, my book was also roundly assaulted, of course, in the
USSR. It was placed in the off-limits "Special Collection" (Spetskhran) of
the (former) "Lenin Library" in Moscow. Yet for my subtitle in describing
Tkachev, "the first Bolshevik," I had merely reproduced a quotation from a
SOVIET publication free enough then to make this claim for Tkachev in the
early 1920s. After the fall of Communism, an article oif mine on Tkachev
was published in `Rossiiskiye Vesti.' Comeuppance of a sort, I suppose.
I've also heard that a seminar on Tkachev has been held recently in the
city of Vladimir, that my book was included in the discussion. (My hometown
here in Florida is Sarasota, Sister City to Vladimir, RF, from which some
visitors a few years ago apprised me of that Tkachev seminar held there.)
When I was in Moscow in the Brezhnev period (anyone remember how
"progressive" some academic Sovietologists found Leonid Ilyich to be?? some
of the same Sovietologists who are around today??), I heard some jokes
('anekdoty') voiced right in front of that same Mausoleum.
Comrade N: Who is the luckiest muzhik in the Union?

Another Muskovite guy: No one I know... 
Comrade N: LENIN! you fool. 
Muskovite guy: (pointing to the Mausoleum): Him??? 
Comrade N: Da. He slept komfortabelno through the First 
Five Year Plan, the Second Five Year Plan, etc., 
collectivization, the purges, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, 
June 22, 1941, Khrushchev's slums...etc.," ---ad infinitum.

Well, a "Russian George Washington" Lenin wasn't!

***********

#6
The Economist
July 26th - August 1 st, 1997
[for personal use only]
You show me yours, Boris
Moscow

In MAY, Russia's president, Boris Yeltsin, proclaimed a war on
corruption: to begin it, he would order holders of about 500 high state
offices in Russia to publish details of their assets and earnings. it
seemed an improbable scheme in theory; it has proved absurd in practice.
The last date fbr filing was July 20th; the collated results went to Mr
Yeltsin this week. only a few officials were dragooned into making their
statements publicly. Most were allowed merely to file the figures with
local tax authorities, and not all did so within the time-limit. Assets
held by family members do not have to be disclosed. No systematic audit of
declarations was planned. No punishment was specified for those who failed
to file. The way was left clear for officials who so wished to submit
declarations wordiy of a mendicant monastic order.
Mr Yeltsin's honesty in such matters has rarely been questioned. He
began the stript ease by declaring a plausible income of $42,000 for 1996,
plus ownership of a 1995 BMW and of a dacha with land near Moscow. He said
the state provided him with a large flat in Moscow, which he shared with
his wife and younget daughter. That was enough to place him sixth in the
list of known high earners. Above him came Ivan Rybkin, his security
adviser, and Alfred Kokh, a deputy prime minister, both of whom said they
earned about $100,000 last year.
Mr Rybkin, like several of his colleagues, seemed to have old-fashioned
ideas about Moscow property prices. He valued his large flat near the
foreign ministry at $l00,000 (it could probably be sold for two or three
times as much). Mr Kokh said he earned almost all his money by selling a
book on Russian privatisation to a Swiss publisher, a feat that will have
other authors scrambling for the number of his literary agent.
Viktor Chernomyrdin, the prime minister, declared an income of $8,000,
his official salary. He described an estate worth about $50,000, the main
features of which were a Chevrolet utility vehicle and a house near Moscow.
He had no securities or property overseas, he said. So yah-boo, as it
were, to the popular belief that he salted away a fortune from the
privatisation of Gazprom, the gigantic gas monopoly he used to run.
Of the three men who admitted to earning serious roubles last year, two
had little choice but to go public. Bank records leaked to newspapers in
January had already shown Anatoly Chubais, a first-deputy prime minister,
to have got $278,000 in fees and investment income during a passage through
the private sector. Mr Chubais said his total income for the year was a
little short Of $300,000. Boris Berezovsky, a well-known tycoon who took a
job as Mr Rybkin's deputy last year, disclosed earnings Of $430,000. But
Mr Berezovsky's declaration of personal assets totalling $40,000 was, to
put it mildly, something of an eye-stretcher: Forbes magazine guessed him
this month to be Russia's richest man, worth $3 billion.
Mr Berezovsky was kept out of the top spot for declared income by Kirsan
IIyumzhinov, president of Kalmykia, 1 pitifully poor republic on the Volga.
The chess-mad, perpetually smiling Mr IIyumzhinov, who is 35 and made a
youthful fortune in car-dealing (where Mr Berezovsky also made his first
fortune), said he earned $im last year from sources "in line with the law
on state service". What was more, he paid almost half of it in tax. No
doubt somebody in Moscow could introduce him to a better accountant.

Scraping by
Annual salaries, 1996
President 21,000
Prime minister 8,000
Provincial governor 7,000
Deputy finance minister 5,000
Member of Duma 4,000
Senior civil servant 2,000
Army lieutenant (when paid) 1,000
Cleaner 325
National average 1,700
Average pension 625
Lawyer (upto) 50,000
Secretary/translator 12,000
Driver 6,000

********

#7
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol 1, No. 82, Part I, 28 July 1997

ZYUGANOV SLAMS PRESIDENTIAL VETOES. Communist Party leader
Gennadii Zyuganov says President Boris Yeltsin "has begun a new
stage of the crusade against Russia" by vetoing the law on religious
organizations and the land code, Interfax reported on 26 July. The
previous day, Yeltsin vetoed the code, primarily because it would
have banned the purchase and sale of farmland (see "RFE/RL
Newsline," 25 July 1997). Zyuganov charged that Yeltsin "has already
sold two-thirds of the country" through privatization and now "is
preparing the third re-distribution of property" through land sales.
However, he admitted that the State Duma will find it "very, very
difficult" to override the veto. At the same time, Zyuganov expressed
confidence that both the Duma and the Federation Council will
override Yeltsin's recent veto of the religion law. A two-thirds
majority in both houses of parliament is required to override a
presidential veto.

COURT HEARS LAWSUIT AGAINST NEMTSOV. A Nizhnii Novgorod
court heard the first arguments in Communist State Duma deputy
Gennadii Khodyrev's lawsuit against First Deputy Prime Minister
Nemtsov, RFE/RL's correspondent in Nizhnii Novgorod reported on 25
July. Appearing in the Republic of Mordovia on 30 June, Nemtsov
repeatedly asked his audience whether they wanted a "Communist"
or a "normal person" to be in charge of the neighboring oblast. Those
comments were broadcast on local television in Nizhnii Novgorod on
1 and 2 July, and Khodyrev lost a gubernatorial election to Ivan
Sklyarov on 13 July. Khodyrev claims that by implying that all
Communists are abnormal, Nemtsov insulted his honor and dignity
and damaged his business reputation. He is demanding that Nemtsov
apologize and publicly retract his statement. The next court hearing
in the case is scheduled for October.

*******

#8
Russia's chief rabbi defends religion bill Yeltsin vetoed
Agence France-Presse 
MOSCOW (July 28, 1997 07:33 a.m. EDT) - Russia's chief rabbi spoke out
Monday in favor of a controversial bill on religion which President Boris
Yeltsin vetoed last week, the Interfax agency reported.
In an interview with the Russian agency, Rabbi Adolf Shayevich said the
text of the law was "the best possible, even if it was far from being
perfect."
"It contains no formula hostile to the world's traditional religions, in
particular to Catholicism," he said.
The rabbi's support for the law follows pressure from the heads of the
Russian Orthodox, Muslim and Buddhist religions in Russia to have the bill
promulgated.
The bill is intended to halt the spread of sects, which have flourished
in Russia since the demise of the Soviet Union.
In its preamble, it declares that Orthodox Christianity is "an
inalienable part of all-Russian history."
Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, all of which have long-established roots
among Russia's ethnic minorities, would be treated as "traditionally
existing" religions, to be accorded the state's "respect."
But critics -- including Pope John Paul II -- argued that this wording
failed to recognize other legitimate religions including Roman Catholicism
and Protestantism. 
Yeltsin announced Tuesday that he would not sign the bill, which had
overwhelming support in the Russian parliament. He said some of the bill's
provisions curbed Russians' constitutional rights.
Shayevich said he believed the law would "put up a legal barrier"
against the proliferation of sects.
The presidential veto could be overturned by a two-thirds majority in
each chamber of parliament.

*******

#9
St. Petersburg Times
JULY 28-AUGUST 3, 1997
Outgoing U.S. Consul Bids a Fond Farewell to Russia 
By Eric Schwartz
STAFF WRITER

Outgoing U.S. Consul John Evans left St. Petersburg with words of love
Thursday.
At his farewell press conference, Evans recited his own reworked version
of one of Pushkin's most famous poems - "Ya Vas Lubil," ("I Loved You") -
working in references to the Russian Foreign Ministry and the eternal
repair works on Liteiny Prospect.
Evans, 49, is going to Washington for another position with the U.S.
State Department. He said discussions are in progress about what the job
will be. His successor, Lynch Thomas, will be taking over the St.
Petersburg office Aug. 20.
Evans, who has been here for three years, said Russia has made
tremendous progress.
"It is simply a miracle that Russia has been able to achieve so much in
the last six years. Of course, there are many problems, but I don't know of
another country where it would be possible to do so much in such little
time," he said.
Among the changes, Evans noted, has been an improvement in the caliber
of the local press. He urged journalists, however, to devote more attention
to outlying cities in Northwest Russia.
"St. Petersburg, as a cultural center of the region, has a
responsibility to inform people about these other cities," he said. "Also,
it would be interesting for people. Investors want to know what is going on
in these cities."
Evans had a few words of advice on improving St. Petersburg's economic
climate. For one, he said, the city has much unrealized tourist potential.
"The tourist industry is growing very quickly everywhere. But the
infrastructure for tourism here is not good," he said. "The government
could and should do more to develop this area."
The city authorities could also make St. Petersburg more attractive for
investors.
"The best thing that the city could do is to take better care of the
companies that they have here," he said. "When an investor is interested,
they don't necessarily come to the consulate; they talk to other
businesses. They all talk to each other. The government should be trying to
keep them happy."
While Evans acknowledged that crime is a problem in the city, he
downplayed its significance.
"I walked to work every morning and walked home every night. I never had
a problem in three years," he said. "I think it's worse in New York City,
although the problem has improved there."
Evans compared his work with the State Department to being a gardener.
"You work constantly, but you don't always see results. There are always
problems to be solved," he said.
Evans said the biggest challenge he faced while serving in St.
Petersburg was preparing for U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit here last
year.
"It's always a big responsibility when a head of state visits, but when
the president comes, it's even more important to prepare everything," he said.
Evans recalled that the last serving president to visit St. Petersburg
had been Richard Nixon.
Evans took advantage of the press conference to introduce Janet Demiray,
who will be the cultural and press officer at the consulate. She succeeds
Mary Kruger, who left this spring.
Evans, a native of Williamsburg, Virginia, is a State Department
veteran, entering the service in 1971 after receiving degrees from Yale and
Columbia Universities. His first service in Russia was from 1981 through
1983 when he was political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. He came
to St. Petersburg in 1994 after spending three years as consul at the
Prague embassy.
Evans speaks Russian, Czech, French and Farsi. He and his wife, Donna,
have one daughter who works in New York City. 

********

#10
Nemtsov: Svyazinvest Auction An Example Of Honest Privatization
NOVOSIBIRSK, July 28 (Interfax) - Russian First Deputy Prime Minister
*Boris Nemtsov* Monday described the auctioning of a major stake in Russian
telecom Svyazinvest last Friday as an example of "honest privatization. 
"Some individuals thought they would be given the country's
telecommunications free of charge," he told a session of the Siberian
Accord association in Novosibirsk. "This will never again happen in the
future." 
The starting price of the 25% stake in Svyazinvest was $1.1 billion, but
it was sold at $1.88 billion. "The side that paid more won. Instead of
calming down, the loser is going into hysterics on TV," Nemtsov said. 
Nemtsov said there will no longer be privatization for free in Russia,
no free distribution of property and privileges at contests for individual
Moscow and non-Moscow companies. 
"Contests will be won by those who pay more than the others immediately,
in cash," Nemtsov said. 

********

#11
Yeltsin Instructs Envoys To Meet With Church On Religion Bill
MOSCOW, July 28 (Interfax) - President *Boris Yeltsin* has instructed
government and administration representatives to meet the leadership of the
Russian Orthodox Church to discuss ways of reworking the controversial
bill, "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations," reliable
sources in the Kremlin told Interfax. 
Last week Yeltsin vetoed the bill approved by the Federal Assembly,
saying some of its provisions contradicted the constitution. 
Kremlin sources say Yeltsin is determined to sign a law blocking the
penetration of Russia by totalitarian sects and religious organizations. He
also thinks it necessary to guarantee conditions for the psychological
health of the nation and support traditional religious associations. 
Yeltsin has said he also supports a religion law the final version of
which must take into account the opinion of the key religious communities,
the biggest of which is the Russian Orthodox Church. 
Kremlin sources believe active consultations may begin this week between
government and administration representatives and the leaders of key
religious communities to work out a compromise version of the bill. 

********

#12
The Denver Business Journal
28 July 1997
[for personal use only]
My Turn 
The wise decision in modern times is to forget the past, embrace Russia 
By Tucker Hart Adams 
Tucker Hart Adams is chief economist for Colorado National Bank. 

It seems to me that you missed the point in your two editorials about
Russia's being included in the Summit of Eight meetings in Denver. 
Russia was wisely included, not because of her current economic strength
but because of her past and future strength. 
It behooves us to remember that Russia is more eastern than western and
that saving face, appearances, etc., are far more important to her than to
us. Also, it is a country of people with long memories: When she is
powerful, she will remember those who treated her well during her times of
difficulty. 
Don't pay too much attention to reported data on GDP. Before
perestroika, there was every incentive to overreport output. Today, there
is every incentive to underreport. Tax rates on corporate profits run from
about 94 percent to 106 percent. You don't stay in business if you report
honestly. 
A huge portion of output -- probably most of what is expanding -- is
new, from entrepreneurial ventures that are totally outside the reported
statistics. Even reported output is finally growing once again. 
We are incredibly stupid when we ignore Russia and treat her as a
has-been, as we did when we did not invite her to participate in the D-Day
celebrations a year or so ago. We lost fewer than 500,000 soldiers in World
War II, thanks to the fact that Russia kept 70 percent of the German army
occupied on the Eastern Front so that we only had to deal with 30 percent.
Russia lost 25 million soldiers and another 20-plus million civilians. 
If we measure only on the basis of numbers, I guess we shouldn't have
been invited to D-Day. 
Anyway, I think treating Russia as a great nation going through a
temporary downturn is far wiser than treating her as a has-been that can be
ignored. 
We must move into the 21st century as friends and allies. It's too
costly to return to the Cold War mentality of a few years ago. 

*******

#13
New York Times
28 July 1997
[for personal use only]
Planned Military Cuts Touch a Nerve in Russia
By MICHAEL SPECTER
MOSCOW -- One bright day last week, Col. Alexander Terekhov walked out of
his office in the Moscow Military District headquarters to the nearest
subway station. There, he sat down in front of the marble entrance and
doused himself in alcohol. Then he dropped a match on his lap. 
Terekhov, the chief financial officer at the prestigious Moscow base,
died two days later. Friends released a statement saying his suicide had
been prompted "by the grave financial position of Officer Terekhov's family." 
On the other side of the country, Pvt. Sergei Polyansky apparently
grappled with the same problem. While standing guard at a checkpoint in the
remote Far East, Polyansky -- who earned the standard conscript's pay of $3
a month -- turned his gun on himself. 
He left behind a note saying he could no longer bear the extreme poverty
of life as a soldier. 
In any other week, two such deaths in Russia's giant, beleaguered army
might hardly be noticed. After all, 500 Russian soldiers committed suicide
last year, and so far this year's figures are worse. 
But last week, after a decade of watching his country's military forces
crumble before him, and along with them the intense pride that Russia has
always reserved for its soldiers, President Boris Yeltsin signed a series
of decrees that will introduce the most fundamental military reforms in the
country's modern history. 
Within three years the military is to shrink by a third -- from 1.8
million to 1.2 million members. Entire branches of service will disappear,
and so will the careers of tens of thousands of officers. 
The plan also means the end of hundreds of gigantic, useless factories
and scores of towns that for nearly a century have existed only to serve
the military. 
"This is a monumental decision," said Pavel Bayev, a defense specialist
and senior researcher at the Institute of Europe in Moscow. "It will be
painful, and it will affect the entire nation. But it is just physically
not possible to put this off any longer." 
Russia's army is starving in every possible way. 
Most military analysts say the Russian army could fully supply only one
of its 78 divisions for battle. Giant ships from Murmansk to Vladivostok
lie rotting in their berths; rusted hulls have become the central symbol of
any former Soviet port. 
Army privates are allotted 5,000 rubles (about 70 cents) a day for food.
By contrast, prisoners, in conditions that are habitually called appalling,
receive 7,750 rubles worth of food each day. 
There is never a good time for a president to announce that he is being
forced to drastically reduce the size of his country's military. But for
nearly a century, the power of Russia's army was immense. After the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the army's humbling defeat last
year at the hands of separatist guerrillas in Chechnya, its diminished
status became obvious. 
Still, the psychological pain for a nation whose once invincible
soldiers now routinely beg for food is hard to overstate. 
Coming immediately after Russia endured the humiliation of watching the
NATO military alliance advance nearly to its borders, the political freight
was especially heavy for Yeltsin. His decision was denounced instantly and
widely -- not only by generals desperate to retain their privileges, but by
a society that too easily sees its own anguish and loss reflected in its
pitiful army. 
"I am certain that reform should not be implemented," said Mayor Yuri
Luzhkov of Moscow, normally an ally of Yeltsin, but one with strong
nationalist leanings. "What does it mean for the country? The situation is
too shaky and dangerous and controversial now." 
But with a military too poor even to train its soldiers for combat, with
100,000 families of officers homeless and with only 10 percent of
servicemen issued boots, topcoats or full uniforms, Russia can no longer
afford to pretend that its military is not withered or weak. 
"My heart aches for our hungry soldiers, for our officers who do not
receive their pay on time, for their families roaming about for years with
nowhere to live," Yeltsin said Friday in a radio address. "My heart aches
deeply over the constant fall in the prestige of the military profession." 
Yeltsin has said he envisions a smaller, more mobile and technologically
adept fighting force emerging from the reorganization. With its immense
distances, Russia needs a more mobile force. 
Probably the longest distance that U.S. forces would have to cover
quickly would be from, say, Fort Bragg, N.C., to the Middle East. But that
is not as far as from Moscow to Kamchatka, in the Russian Far East. Such
distances require mobility, but they also demand bodies. 
Yeltsin has promised to build 100,000 new apartments for the servicemen
who will lose their jobs. But he has insisted that no more than 3.5 percent
of the gross domestic product can be spent on the military, and even many
who support the military overhaul do not see how that would provide enough
money to accomplish its goals. 
Currently Russia spends less than $20 billion on defense each year --
about 10 percent of the U.S. figure, and a third of what Britain spends. 
Even cutting personnel is not without costs. Each general who is retired
-- there are 3,000 on the roster now, half of whom will have to go -- will
receive a large pension and two years' severance pay. In the short term,
when savings are needed most, the price for that will be enormous. 
"The government has said that it will spend money on defense when the
economy improves enough to do that," said Pavel Felgengauer, a leading
military analyst. "I don't disagree. But they should tell the country the
truth. There is going to be no army. Russia does not have the money to have
a real army anymore, particularly if it intends to remain a nuclear power.
Russia can afford its nuclear forces and an honor guard to put around the
Kremlin. And not much more." 
It is the issue of nuclear weapons that causes much of the controversy.
Russian leaders have repeatedly asserted that Russia's large nuclear forces
must be maintained -- and they could hardly say otherwise. 
The country's last claim to might in the modern world is its stockpile
of nuclear weapons. Without them the humiliation that so many people feel
about the collapse of the Soviet Union would be complete. 
Yet the immediate military threats facing Russia today are not from NATO
forces, but from along its own borders and from warring regions within the
nation. Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Ossetia -- those are
the places where battles that threaten the security of Russia have become
common. In none of them would the use of nuclear weapons solve any problem
Russia could have. 
Still, nuclear weapons are not just weapons. They are symbols and they
stand for a place in the world, and it is a place that many in Russia are
simply unwilling to relinquish. 
"There was once, as they say in the West, a monster," said Lev Rokhlin,
a retired senior general and former head of the parliamentary defense
committee. "It was called the Soviet Union, with its vast military
'machine,' the Warsaw Pact. But for all the West's hostility to the Union,
no question anywhere in the world was resolved without its being consulted
first." 
Rokhlin has unnerved the Kremlin by forming a large organization to tap
the vast disaffection over the planned dismemberment of the military. He
says the way to save the military -- and the economy -- is to spend money
building it up. 
"All the reforms that we have seen or heard about," he said, "really
lead to one conclusion: the disintegration of the army and its potential.
Is that what we want?" 
The better question is what can Russia afford, politically and
economically. Even government leaders are not optimistic about that. 
"We must finally look at the real needs of defense and the country's
objective possibilities," Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev told Parliament
last week. Sergeyev is Russia's third defense minister in less than a year. 
"And of course," he said, "the situation in the country is critical. So
we must reform our army against the backdrop of sharply deteriorating
social conditions and the demographic situation in society, the falling
prestige of military service and Russia's weakening geopolitical positions
in general. It won't be easy. But all the other choices would be worse."

********

#14
The Cincinnati Enquirer
July 27, 1997
[for personal use only]
Family reunion, the royalty way 
BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Well dang, here's something you don't often see in Russia: A reunion of
the Romanov Clan. That's Romanov, as in royal family.
This was the first one, says Cincinnatian Michael Pavlovitch
Romanov-Ilyinsky, grandson of Grand Duke Dmitri (the guy who allegedly
assassinated Rasputin) and Cincinnati's Audrey Emery, of the famous and oh
so wealthy Emery Clan.
You remember the Romanovs: They ruled Russia until 1917, when Czar
Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra and their five children were executed by a
Bolshevik firing squad.
Surviving members of the clan weren't welcome in the former Soviet
Union. In fact, only a few of them ever went back.
Until now. Eight members of the family, including Ilyinsky, did the
royal reunion thing in Russia. They were in St. Petersburg last week to
take part in the opening of the exhibition The Princes Romanovs: Family
Album of the Period of 150 Years.
''Way cool,'' Ilyinsky says. ''Meeting all the cousins like that, it was
like putting a big jigsaw puzzle together. We all knew of each other, but
not very much, so it was interesting putting together the family history.
''We decided to meet on a regular basis and get involved in some
projects.''
Project No. 1: A memorial to Tsar Alexander II, made with materials from
cities where Romanovs live. Project No. 2: Lots of bells. Several
cathedrals, Ilyinsky says, need bells, so he'll investigate working with
Cincinnati's Verdin Co. to get those babies ringing.
Ilyinsky and clan spent a week going to functions, making appearances,
touring sites of family interest (Church of the Spilled Blood, archives
housing family documents) and, as they say in regal circles, getting feted
all over the place.
Oh yeah, and learning the hard way not to drink the water: As of
Wednesday, Ilyinsky's first day back, he was still suffering a monumental
case of Montezuma's revenge, Russian-style. Rasputin's revenge, we guess.

*********

#15
Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
July 27, 1997
[for personal use only]
Leo Gruliow: Few Americans knew Russia any better 
By Mike Harden
Dispatch Columnist 

The boom box beside Leo Gruliow's deathbed in Kobacker House played
Schubert's Trout Quintet as the last trickle of sand slipped through the
waist of the hourglass.
Heavily sedated and perhaps groping his way through a fog of delirium,
Gruliow called out, "Shakespeare! Shakespeare. And where is Marlowe?"
"He must have been having a meeting with somebody," mused Agnes, his
wife, partner and collaborator for more than 50 years.
The professional commerce of Gruliow's life was as vast as it was varied.
Self-taught and self-made, he was a working journalist during Stalinist
Russia's famine years, before he turned 21.
In his time, he would come to know the country, from purge to
perestroika, as few other Americans did.
He was in Stalingrad only days after the Nazi siege was lifted, taking
food and medical supplies -- as part of a U.S. relief program -- to
beleaguered defenders of the city.
"He found people living underground," his wife said. "He saw wraiths,
people like ghosts walking around. There was a different kind of reality
there, and he said it made him ashamed of how well and healthy he was."
For years, Gruliow would encounter Soviet citizens who owed their
survival to the trainloads of aid that made it to starving and war-stunned
citizens.
He was one of only four Americans to be awarded a medal by the Kremlin
for war relief efforts.
Later, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union would downplay the impact
of that U.S. relief.
Gruliow was a child of emigrants from St. Petersburg; a part of his
heart would be forever Russia.
Nancy Kramer, a Columbus friend, suggested, "The one thing that was so
uniquely precious about him was that he was always a citizen of the world."
Returning to the U.S. after the war, he founded the Current Digest of
the Soviet Press out of Columbia University.
"When he started the digest, they said I was the midwife," his wife
said. "We were partners."
The Digest, a weekly compendium of articles translated from the
Russian-language press, eventually would be moved to Columbus and an
affiliation with Ohio State University in 1969.
It was Gruliow who translated Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward into
English for Dial Press in 1968. Eager to see the controversial writer's
works reach Western readers, he also was justifiably concerned about
jeopardizing his chances of returning to the Soviet Union. Thus was he
credited as the translator under the name Rebecca Frank, the names of his
daughter and son.
In time, he did return, serving as the Christian Science Monitor's
Moscow correspondent and bureau chief from 1972 to 1975 and covering, among
other events, the meetings that produced the Helsinki accords.
In 1979, he and Agnes traveled throughout Siberia as the nation was
building the 2,600-mile Baykal-Amur Mainline. Living in worker dormitories
along the railway, he eventually produced a story of that undertaking. The
work was published in the Saturday Evening Post under the title "Ivan
Working on the Railroad."
"He was one of the most compelling, yet modest and unassuming men you
could ever meet," observed his friend Anne Marie Robinson.
Robinson, who is affiliated with Columbus' Grandparents Living Theatre,
said her troupe will perform From America With Love in Gruliow's honor next
March. He was, after all, the play's translator.
"He had such a mentoring influence on people who came into his life,"
Kramer said.
Former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union John Matlock (who once worked
for Gruliow's Digest) inscribed a copy of his Autopsy of an Empire: "To Leo
and Agnes, who taught me more than anyone else did about the Soviet Union."
The high praise and inflated endearments of book inscriptions can
sometimes be dismissed as unctuous flattery.
Anyone who knew Leo Gruliow knows this is not one of those times.

**********

#16
St. Petersburg Times
JULY 28-AUGUST 3, 1997
Editorial
Hooligans, That Great Looming State Threat 

CENTRAL BANK Chairman Sergei Dubinin's apartment has come under gunfire
yet again. He didn't even notice at first - maybe he's getting used to it.
The tip-off was a crack in the window's armored glass. (Armored glass? Of
course! He's in Russian banking).
When Dubinin's apartment was last fired at, in March 1996, police
dismissed it as random "hooliganism." That was the same police verdict when
the building where President Boris Yeltsin and then-Defense Minister Pavel
Grachev lived was fired on just one month later. 
The hooligan situation seems out of hand; one wonders why there isn't
some sort of Kremlin-level Anti-Hooligan Task Force.
While we're mulling over the dangers that hooliganism presents to the
Russian state, a word about corruption may be in order. For starters, a
guide to today's relevant news:
. On page 1, see how St. Petersburg's district administrations have been
allegedly shaking down small businesses. Also note the charges filed
against an aide to former mayor Anatoly Sobchak for bribe-taking. 
. Also on page 1 we have, along with those hooligans plaguing Dubinin,
the latest series of corruption allegations between him and Andrei Vavilov,
the former deputy finance minister.
But, some of you protest, things are about to get all better because
Yeltsin had this heart operation and now he is on the case and has brought
in boyish, squeaky clean Boris Nemtsov.
That position would involve further soul searching: Do you believe Prime
Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin earned just $8,000 last year? (See page 3).
How much comfort can you find in reformer Nemtsov's sale of a few used
Volvos confiscated from bureaucrats, while Sibneft, an enormous oil
company, was sold off in the same dodgy way Norilsk Nickel has been? (See
page 8).
And why is it that poor Yeltsin gets so much bad advice? He seems such a
nice man. 
His advisers must be hooligans. 

*********

#17
Russia: Analysis From Washington--Democrats Versus Democracy


By Paul Goble

Washington, 28 July 1997 (RFE/RL) - Some self-styled democrats in
post-communist countries now represent a major threat to the development of
democracy there, according to a posthumously published essay by a leading
dissident of the former Soviet Union. 
The late Andrei Sinyavsky argues in his book, "The Russian
Intelligentsia," that many who see themselves as genuine democrats are
seeking to introduce that political system by anything but democratic means. 
And he suggests that many other figures in these societies have
cynically appropriated the term to cover their otherwise unjustified quest
for greater personal wealth and power over others. 
Both groups of "democrats" not only subvert the possibility that these
countries will successfully democratize but also undermine popular support
there for democracy by casting doubt on the claims the "democrats"
regularly make for it. 
Long a controversial figure in life -- in 1966 he became the first
Soviet citizen since the 1920s to be explicitly tried for expressing his
opinions and in 1971 he was forced into emigration -- Sinyavsky seems
certain to remain controversial in death as well. 
Even if his argument that democrats may be a threat to democracy seems
farfetched, Sinyavsky's latest challenge to the prevailing orthodoxy
deserves to be taken seriously if only to force those who disagree to
respond to his charges. 
Sinyavsky's argument that efforts to introduce democracy by
non-democratic means inevitably subvert the possibility of democracy is
perhaps his strongest one. 
Across the post-communist region, many democrats are doing precisely
this. Sometimes they appear to be doing so because their backgrounds have
led them to see "democracy" as but the latest ideological line. 
At other times, they appear to be doing so because the obstacles to
democracy appear to be so large that non-democratic means are the only ones
that will sweep these obstacles away. 
And at still other times, they appear to be doing so because their
understanding of democracy is in one or another way defective. 
But Sinyavsky fails to explain how it could be otherwise. Every
democracy has wrestled with the problem of overcoming obstacles to its
establishment, and most have had to resort to non-democratic means at one
time or another. 
And he fails to explain how people conditioned to an ideological
environment could comprehend any political change except in ideological
terms. 
Sinyavsky's other argument -- that many people cynically call themselves
democrats -- is significantly weaker, but it poses a much more serious
challenge for the future. 
At all times and places, people have cynically exploited terms enjoying
widespread support in order to advance their own selfish interests. 
In the past, any number of communist regimes described themselves as
people's democracies, a double lie but one that was often effective in
impressing others. 
More recently, in post-communist states, many individuals -- former
communists and not -- have appropriated the democratic label to win power. 
And their behaviour has compromised the value of democracy in the eyes
of their once-hopeful fellow citizens. 
All this is true. But there is one argument, perhaps even more
important, that Sinyavsky does not make: The willingness of Western
democracies to extend the term to regimes that are anything but democratic
also represents a threat to democracy. 
Following the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe, some Western governments rushed to proclaim that democracy had
broken out and to label many leaders there convinced democrats. 
Most governments have pursued a more nuanced approach recently. But the
willingness of those who should know the most about what democracy really
means to label regimes that are democratic only in the loosest sense of the
word has had an impact. 
For many people in the post-communist states, this tendency has helped
undermine public support for democracy and called into question the actual
goals of Western countries in promoting it. 
Anti-democratic politicians in these states have exploited this sea
change in attitudes to promote themselves and a narrow xenophobic
nationalism. 
For that reason then, Sinyavsky's argument may ultimately prove true.
That would be a tragic epitaph for a man who struggled all his life for the
freedoms that only a democratic society can provide. 

********