December 7, 1997  
This Date's Issues: 1414  •1415  •

Johnson's Russia List
#1415
7 December 1997
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Jerry F. Hough: Re 1414-Kostyukov and Sigal/Yabloko.
2. AP: Russian Teens Back Crime in Poll.
3. Toronto Sun: Matthew Fisher, Bo jangles Russians. ("Is Boris 
Yeltsin going bonkers?")
4. Chicago Tribune editorial: WOULD YOU BUY PIZZA FROM THIS MAN? 
5. Joseph McCormick: Whitehouse, Petro and Straus on the Estonian 
language situation.
6. InterPress Service: Sergei Blagov, Drugs Spark HIV Infection 
Explosion In Russia.
7. Irish Times: THE FULL CIRCLE. Irish Times Environment 
Correspondent, Frank McDonald, set off on a modernday odyssey around 
the Black Sea.
8. Baltimore Sun: Environmentalists question site of Russian oil 
terminal. Pipeline is to end near some of cleanest waters of Black 
Sea.
9. Philadelphia Inquirer: Laurie Garrett (Newsday), Russia losing 
a war on alcoholism. As Soviet president, Gorbachev made a real dent 
in drinking-related deaths. But that looks very long ago.]

*******

#1
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 
From: "Jerry F. Hough" <jhough@acpub.duke.edu>
Subject: Re: 1414-Kostyukov and Sigal/Yabloko

Anatoly Kostyukov and Lev Segal's analysis of Yabloko strikes me 
as sound and balanced. But it begs the broader question. Yabloko 
certainly has been one of the worst of Russian parties in not 
understanding that politics involves coalitions, but who should they be 
having a coalition with? In American terms Yavlinsky is trying to 
create a Republican Party. He is doing it with the base program of a 
Dick Armey, but without the alliance with Big Business that Armey would 
take for granted. Surely it is mad to think of a big conservative party 
that is not based on an alliance of Big Capital, Big Business, and the 
well-to-do as core members. Yet all of the right-wing parties we 
support have been strongly anti-Big Business. Their program has been 
expropriation of the property of big business, who they treat with scorn 
as nomenklatura. They have a simplified Leninist view of modern 
capitalism as controlled by Wall Street, by the banks, but even Lenin in 
his less propagandistic analysis used terms like state-monopoly capitalism 
that recognized the integrated character of the state, the corporations, 
and Wall Street. This may fit their personal interests, but it is not 
a sound basis of forming a coalitional party.
But, of course, electoral alliances need to be broader. The 
Republicans court the religious right; they quickly back off any attack 
on Medicare. The natural social issue in Russia has a nationalist 
tinge, and, of course, it was Franklin Roosevelt who won in 1932, not 
Herbert Hoover. He talked about job creation and a stronger role for 
government, not simply budget balancing and a cut in government 
spending. (Hoover was consistent. He was angry at Stimson for 
talking about the Japanese invasion of Manchucko in 1931, for he feared 
it would lead to political pressure to increase the naval budget.)
Eventually natural political coalitions are going to form in 
Russia. Eventually there is going to be the alliance with the 
industrialists that emphasizes production, and it is going to have a 
nationalist, protectionist core that business always requires at 
Russia's stage of capitalist development. The question is how benign is 
the nationalism. We have no problem with Mexican leaders supporting 
Castro, but Iraq and Iran are very different. By encouraging Russian 
democrats to be pure while demanding that they support an economic policy 
that gets the support of 10-15 percent of the population, we put them in 
a box and ensure that someone else will win. Hitler, we forget, had a 
first-class economic policy that did an excellent job of getting Germany 
out of depression, and the word "socialist" in National Socialist had 
real meaning in his distribution policy, but was not inconsistent with 
an alliance with Big Business. Our top priority should be to try to ensure 
that the persons who come to power in Russia with such programs do not have 
the nationalist policy of a Hitler or the foreign policy of a Napoleon. We 
have been doing the opposite.
The place to start is with a different image of Big Business. 
The concept "nomenklatura" is a Marxist concept, both analytically and 
normatively. It was popularized by Voslensky who had been a very 
hard-line analyst of German politics in identical terms. The managers 
did not oppose Gorbachev in his economic reform, but responded well to 
the chance to privatize. They are first-class administrators with a 
engineering, production orientation. They could produce if they had 
investment resources and if they were not absorped with defending 
themselves against government-sponsored expropriation programs.
Of course, to talk about a Democratic Administration working to 
build a real Republican Party in Russia by defending Roosevelt's 
policy against Hoover's may seem strange. But, of course, to think of the
United States trying to support a real Democratic Party--even a new Democratic 
Party--in Russia involves a utopianism I cannot imagine. Fortunately, 
if one successful party arises without an end to elections, a Democratic 
Party will arise to compete with it.

******

#2
Russian Teens Back Crime in Poll
December 7, 1997

MOSCOW (AP) - An informal survey of a group of teenagers in the Russian Far
East shows that many see their future in a life of crime.
Twenty-five percent of the teen-age girls polled said they would like to
become prostitutes, while 27 percent of the boys queried said they wanted to
become racketeers, the Interfax news agency reported Sunday.
Crime has become endemic in Russia at a time when good jobs are scarce.
The informal poll was conducted among local youths by a teacher training
institute in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, on the Sakhalin Peninsula. There was no margin
of error.
Nine percent of all respondents said they wanted to become contract killers,
Interfax reported.
The findings were quoted at a weekend seminar on juvenile delinquency in
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the news agency said.

********

#3
Toronto Sun
7 December 1997
[for personal use only]
Bo jangles Russians
By MATTHEW FISHER (74511.357@CompuServe.com)
Sun's Columnist at Large

 MOSCOW -- Is Boris Yeltsin going bonkers? 
 That's what friends in Scandinavia wanted to know when they called the 
other night. They were puzzled by Yeltsin's bizarre behavior during a 
state visit to Sweden last week. 
  Yeltsin first promised that Russia would unilaterally cut its nuclear 
warheads by one-third, leaving astonished aides to say that this was not 
so. A day later Yeltsin announced that Russia would cut its troops by 
40% in the Russian Northwest. This, too, was quickly denied by his 
aides. 
  The Russian president pulled the same sort of stunt two months ago in 
France, stunning his generals by suddenly declaring his country's 
intention to sign a Canadian-backed treaty banning anti-personnel mines. 
When Yeltsin met Canada's Jean Chretien a few days later in the Kremlin, 
he fudged the issue so much it was impossible to tell what Russia's 
position actually was. So it was hardly surprising that when the 
anti-land mine accord was finally signed by more than 100 countries in 
Ottawa last Thursday, Russia was not on the list. 
  Perhaps, as most Russians concluded, Yeltsin was just being mischievous 
in Sweden. He loves playing the rogue. He enjoys being unpredictable -- 
even when discussing deadly nukes. 
  But that doesn't explain why the president was so disoriented that he 
didn't know where to stand when he came to give his speech to the 
Swedish parliament last week. Nor does it explain why part of Yeltsin's 
chat with the Swedes was a baffling digression about Finland's Great 
Winter War with Russia, a ferocious battle which he seemed to think took 
place in the 1920s, not in 1939-1940. 
  Yeltsin has seemed much stronger physically since undergoing quintuple 
heart bypass surgery early last winter. Nobody is talking about this 
quite yet, but one of the well known possible side effects of such 
surgery is mental instability. 
  It is not much of a stretch to draw sad parallels between Yeltsin's 
recent fog and the last years of Ronald Reagan's presidency. 
  Having sleep-walked through the Golden Age of Stagnation with Leonid 
Brezhnev and having witnessed Yeltsin's steep physical decline before 
heart surgery miraculously brought him back to life, Russians are not 
yet troubled by Yeltsin's recent public performances. Until now the 
president's erratic conduct has only served as an excuse to recycle some 
old Brezhnev jokes. 
  Russians don't much mind if their leaders are brain-dead so long as 
they are authoritarian. More than anything, they want the man at the top 
to be a symbol of power. With his frequent rants about how all his 
ministers and top generals have failed him and must be sacked and his 
willingness to ignore parliament and rule by presidential decree, 
Yeltsin fits the bill. 
  Because so many aides and generals have come and gone recently, saying 
who is the real power behind Yeltsin is much more difficult today than a 
few years ago. The only constant in Yeltsin's inner circle has been his 
colorless prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin and his daughter, Tatyana. 
  The president's longtime henchman, Alexander Korzhakov, is off counting 
the take from his unflattering biography of their boozing life together. 
Economics guru Anatoli Chubais, who is loathed by the public, is in the 
boss's bad books at the moment for having taken bribes. Another youngish 
reformer, Boris Nemtsov, is on a short leash. Billionaire Boris 
Berezovsky, who helped buy Yeltsin's re-election last year, has been 
bounced from his security post. 
  The problem for Yeltsin and for Russia is that the country needs more 
than an authoritarian hand just now. The artful use of raw power may 
keep the masses and the president's underlings in check, but it does 
nothing to resolve Russia's complex and desperate financial situation. 
  What good is Boris Yeltsin to Russia if he is physically stronger but 
mentally weaker than he was a year ago? 
  
******

#4
Chicago Tribune
December 7, 1997
[for personal use only] 
EDITORIAL 
WOULD YOU BUY PIZZA FROM THIS MAN? 

So this is what it's come to for Mikhail Gorbachev. Once one of the world's
most powerful people, the former Soviet president is about to star in a TV
commercial for Pizza Hut. He'll earn a hefty fee for his endorsement,
reportedly close to $1 million. But surely this must be a humiliating comedown
for the proud man who once called the shots in the Kremlin.
Not that he'll get much sympathy from his fellow Russians. In the West,
Gorbachev is still hailed as a hero who led his country out of the communist
wasteland and played a pivotal role in ending the Cold War. But he is about as
popular as frostbite in Russia, where people remember him as a vain windbag
who droned on about reforming the Soviet system but lacked the smarts and the
backbone to carry it off.
When he ran for president last year, bitter Russians really rubbed his nose
in it. He won less than 1 percent of the vote. So deeply disliked is he in his
native land that the Pizza Hut commercial he just finished filming will not be
televised in Russia, just in those countries where he is still held in high
esteem.
"I thought that it is a people's matter--food," he explained in that
pompous way that used to drive Russians nuts. "This is why if my name works
for the benefit of consumers, to hell with it--I can risk it." Too bad
Gorbachev didn't take that attitude when the shelves in Russian food marts
were meagerly stocked, thanks to his half-hearted efforts at reform. If he
had, he might still be in charge today.
Instead, Boris Yeltsin runs the place, and he has no plans of appearing in
his own TV commercial. But Yeltsin's already the star of the world's weirdest
circus sideshow. During last week's trip to Sweden, he confused that country
with Norway and mistakenly described Japan as a nuclear superpower. Then he
drove his own aides wild by announcing Russia had decided to disarm
unilaterally. It wasn't true.
The aides spent the next few days cleaning up the mess. Like the guys in
the circus who follow the elephants with brooms.

*******

#5
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 1997 11:54:25 -0500
From: "Joseph McCormick" <jmccor@osi.ru> 
Subject: Whitehouse, Petro and Straus on the Estonian language situation

Tom Whitehouse and Nicolai Petro question the appropriateness of drawing
analogies between the language situation in Quebec and Catalonia on the one
hand, and Estonia and Latvia on the other. It's true, of course, that
Estonian and Latvian speakers are now in the majority in their respective
countries, the same way that French and Catalan speakers are in their
respective province / region. However, in Canada and Spain the debate is
not about the fate of French or Catalan on the federal / national level;
the main concern was to stop, and if possible, reverse, a slow but steady
drift away from French / Catalan in the sole province / region where
they're still widely spoken. French may be healthy in France and
francophone Africa, but in the North American context it's an endangered
species; as for Catalan, it's spoken basically nowhere other than in
Catalonia. After tremendous effort in the form of teaching materials,
advertising campaigns, and, not the least, language laws, French-speakers
in Quebec and Catalonian-speakers in Catalonia have shored up their
linguistic position, while English in North America and Castilian in Spain
thunder along unaffected.
Just as we now have a better understanding of the need to protect
biodiversity, I would argue as a linguist that humankind has an interest in
maintaining linguistic diversity. It is from this perspective --
temporarily leaving aside, if possible, the issue of real or perceived
historical injustices -- that I would encourage JRL readers to consider
the language situation in the Baltics. Aside from some diaspora
communities, Estonian and Latvian are spoken nowhere outside of Estonia and
Latvia. Russian, by comparison, is a strong, thriving language spoken over
a vast geographical territory; in terms of functional utility and cultural
appeal, Russian tends to overwhelm minority languages (like Tatar or
Udmurt) the same way that North American English has marginalized Navaho
and Ojibway. It's a fact of life that far more chemistry textbooks, music
videos, webpages and bubblegum wrappers are produced in Russian and English
than in Buryat and Cree -- or in Estonian and Latvian. Moreover, even in
the best of circumstances, it's not easy to guarantee the full
functionality of small, geographically limited languages -- such as
Icelandic, Finnish, Swiss German -- against the pressure of a global
language like English (even languages with vast numbers of native speakers,
like Bengali or Tagalog, are flooded with borrowings from English).
Russian-speakers are now a minority in the Baltic countries, but like
English-speakers in Quebec vis-a-vis French, they have access through
Russian to a vast, geographically widespread array of educational, cultural
and entertainment resources.
I again stress the sociolinguistic issue of asymmetric language domains --
most adult speakers of Estonian and Latvian are proficient in Russian,
whereas even today, most Russian-speaking residents of Estonia and Latvia
are not proficient the other way around (although the situation is
noticeably improving). Eight years after the first language laws were
passed, many Russian-speakers in the Baltics still wonder why they should
spend so much time and effort mastering such geographically limited
languages; English will take them around the world, while Latvian stops at
Bauska, Estonian at Parnu. Then there's the natural human tendency toward
inertia: rather than stumbling through a broken conversation in an
imperfectly-mastered second language, it's all too easy in ethnically mixed
company for Russian-speakers to keep on using Russian, and bilingual
Estonian or Latvian speakers (i.e., the majority) are often quick to
oblige; this in turn feeds a vicious circle of Balts complaining that
Russian-speakers won't learn the state language, while Russian-speakers
complain that they never even get the chance to try. As Straus rightly
points out, this can degenerate into a comparative grievance competition,
where the victims talk past each other.
Petro rightly encourages Estonians and Latvians to think of themselves as
independent countries, but the psychological shift is far from complete.
Just as it has not always been easy for Russian-speakers to adjust to their
sudden, unsolicited and often unwelcome status as national minorities, so
have many Estonians and Latvians not been able to shed the mental baggage
(in Russian, kompleksy) arising from decades of underdog status within
their own homelands. Stable borders, prospering economies, a less
confrontational Russian foreign policy toward the Baltics, and -- perhaps
most of all -- a bit of time, will all help Estonians and Latvians to
develop a more inclusive national identity that feels less threatened by a
Russian-speaking minority. The issue for the Baltics is not minorities per
se -- no Latvian, for example, has ever felt threatened by the historic
Liv, Latgalian, or Russian Old Believer communities -- but rather a
significant population of relatively recent immigrants whose very
immigration was a.) made possible by forced incorporation into a repressive
Soviet state; b.) planned in part with a deliberate subtext, at least in
the 50's and 60's, of diluting the titular nation's majority; and c.)
accompanied by Russian as the language of state. Estonia and Latvia were
never strong, centralizing nation-states; it would be unrealistic to expect
them to instantly develop the same kind of confident nonchalance with
which, for example, Paris regards speakers of Breton and Provencal, let
alone for Estonians and Latvians to reach the point where they can
subsidize and nurture their Russian-speaking communities they way the Dutch
cultivate Frisian, or the Finns Swedish.
Here is where Straus' acknowledgement of Jens Jorgen Nielsen's work is so
apt; the EU is to be commended for helping to finance Estonian-language
classes for Russian-speakers in the northeast. But no amount of learning
materials, no matter how state-of-the-art, can make up for a lack of will.
During the Soviet period, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of
Russian-speakers had some basic instruction in Estonian or Latvian at
school; even in Narva, anyone who wanted to could tune into
Estonian-language radio or television. Until independence, though, poor
knowledge of the local language had no professional consequences, since the
burden of comprehension could always be safely shifted off the
Russian-speaker and onto the local. Now, thanks in part to language laws
which insist that Estonian and Latvian are to be taken seriously in every
sphere of public life, the tables are turning. Let us encourage Estonians
and Latvians to view the new language situation in a confident, inclusive
way, but let us also encourage Russian-speakers in the Baltics to turn on
the radio, work through a newspaper article, watch a TV show, read the
blurb on the milk carton, eavesdrop at the bread shop, or strike up a
conversation with a co-worker in her native language for once -- in short,
to try as hard as humanly possible, using even the simplest
language-learning resources at hand -- to become proficient -- not
necessarily fluent, merely functional -- in the language of the countries
they call home.

Joseph McCormick
Open Society Institute - Russia
[The views expressed above are the author's own.]

********

#6
>From InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
HEALTH-RUSSIA: Drugs Spark HIV Infection Explosion In Russia
By Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW, Nov 28 (IPS) - Moscow heroin addicts use a simple, unscientific and
potentially deadly method to test whether their drugs are ready for use --
they slit a vein and see if the blood coagulates in the liquid.
If it passes the test then the narcotic is often shared round in a single
syringe, doubling the chance that the users will contract HIV. the virus 
that leads to AIDS.
The threat of the deadly disease means little to the addict:
''I don't care about safety and AIDS,'' says Alexei G., 23, an addict for two
years. ''I just need my dose of heroin.''
''The rapid proliferation of HIV this year is explained by AIDS spreading
among drug addicts who use drugs intravenously, mostly using shared needles,'' 
the institute's Natalya Ladnaya told IPS, citing a near 12-fold increase in 
new cases in the first el even months of this year, compared to 1996.
The Russian Institute for Preventing and Combating AIDS says 3,841 more 
people had tested positive for HIV, the infection which can lead to AIDS, 
from January to November 25 this year.
Since HIV was first confirmed in Russia in 1987, a total of 6,448 HIV cases
had been reported in Russia, Ladnaya said,
including 360 children. Over the past 11 years, 264 Russians have been
diagnosed with AIDS, including 103 children, of
whom 250 have di ed. The Kaliningrad region (1,639 cases) and Krasnodar (1,059
cases), both home to major Russian sea ports, top the list of the areas most
seriously affected.
Interestingly, Moscow, Russia's largest urban centre, with a population of
about ten million population and a major hub
of international contacts, has recorded only 458 HIV-positive people so far.
But Vadim Pokrovsky, director of the Russian Institute for Preventing and
Combating AIDS is careful to stress that these reported cases only show a 
tenth of the problem.
''At the moment there are some 60,000 HIV-positive people in Russia, or
roughly tenfold as compared with the total of reported cases,'' he told IPS. 
''I think there could be up to one million
infected Russians by the year 2000, most of them being drug-us ers,'' he said.
''Moscow and other major urban centers are likely to be increasingly
affected,'' he added.
The Russian Health Ministry agrees that the rapid spread of the HIV virus
across Russia over the past two years has been led by intravenous drug use, 
not sexual intercourse, and expected the
situation to remain unchanged.
But though 90 percent of this year's registered AIDS cases are drug addicts,
last year the principal cause of infection
was through sexual intercourse -- underlining the need for better safe sex
education programmers.
According to Russia's veteran sexologist Igor Kon, the number of males having
their first sexual experience at age 16 increased from 38 percent in 1993 to 58 
percent in 1995. The figures for young
women were 25 percent and 33 percent respectively.
The Health Ministry this year says the number of reported cases of syphilis
among teenagers has increased 51 times in the last five years ago -- a 
situation that owes as much to the declining
standards of Russian health care in a 'reforming economy' as i t does to
changes in the sexual mores of Russian youths.
The ministry declined to provide statistics of HIV infection among teenagers.
The problem has many more causes. Some experts argue that the police's
crackdown on drugs just forces the addicts to use home made and often 
contaminated drugs. Some suggest decriminalising 'soft'
drugs like cannabis to allow the police toconcentrate on hard drugs and the
dealer network, though the police themselves are opposed to the idea.
''I don't think that legalisation of drugs would be a solution,'' said
Pokrovsky, though some leniency might help. ''The prescribed use of the 
soft drug methadone can help some addicts to fight the
addiction, but methadone is also illegal in Russia,'' he noted.
Interior minister Anatoly Kulikov recently said that drug-related crime has
skyrocketed almost 80 percent over last year's level to 131,000 in the first
nine months of 1997. ''We consider this figure catastrophic for our country,'' 
Kulikov said.
Although the absolute figures of people with HIV and AIDS in Russia are low
compared with the United States, health officials here are still concerned by 
the rapid spread of the disease in Russia. There were as many new cases 
this year than there were fo r all 1987 through 1996.
In 1997 Russia spent an estimated 4.5 million dollars on combating AIDS, an
inadequate figure, say medical experts. The State Duma, the lower house of 
the Russian parliament asked the government
for an additional four million dollars this year, but the cash-strapped
Russian government refused it.
The Institute for Preventing and Combating AIDS has been unable to pay
its own
wages bills. ''The government already owes funds to pay wages for November and 
December,'' Pokrovsky said.
About 30.6 million people, about one in every 100 people of reproductive age
on Earth, are infected with HIV say the United Nations in figures released 
ahead of Monday and World AIDS Day. Last year's estimate was 22.6 million.

*******

#7
Irish Times
December 6, 1997
[for personal use only]
THE FULL CIRCLE 
Irish Times Environment Correspondent, Frank McDonald, set off on a 
modernday odyssey around the Black Sea 

It was an offer nobody in his right mind could have refused - an 
invitation to take part in an eight-day environmental symposium cruising 
around the Black Sea aboard the Venizelos, a luxurious Greek ferry. Call 
it a junket if you will, but this was serious stuff, with Jacques 
Santer, president of the European Commission, and His All Holiness, 
Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, as the joint 
patrons.
Scientists, environmentalists and theologians were lined up for this 
modern-day odyssey around a sea steeped in more history and myth than 
anywhere else on Earth. The participants included such luminaries as 
Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan; EU Environment Commissioner, Ritt 
Bjerregaard; Canadian zoologist, David Suzuki; and Bishop Richard 
Chartres of London, as well as journalist Neal Acherson, author of a 
definitive book on the Black Sea.
Many of the 400 participants had packed Acherson's book as a primer for 
the voyage. In it, he describes the Black Sea as a "kidney-shaped pond 
connected to the outer oceans by the thread-like channel of the 
Bosphorus and the Dardanelles". Across this body of water, Jason and the 
Argonauts had sought out the Golden Fleece, and the Greeks, Romans, 
Genoese and Venetians had established their footholds in territories 
controlled by an ever-changing cast of humanity.

DAY 1: TRABZON, TURKEY 

"Welcome to Trabzon", says the notice in the arrivals area at the 
airport. "Have you met the tourism police? You are no longer alone. We 
are ready to help you with any security problem." But this turns out to 
be just for show, because we are held up there for almost as long as our 
two-hour flight from Athens. Amid chaotic scenes, the symposium 
organisers argue with armed immigration police, who insist on us paying 
up to $20 each for visas which had already been paid for. Later, we 
learn that the buses carrying an earlier batch of participants were 
stoned and spat upon at the airport by about 35 Grey Wolves, a rightwing 
militant group dedicated to keeping Turkey Turkish. They shouted 
menacing slogans and became particularly aggressive when they spotted 
several Orthodox priests in their black robes; one Byzantine scholar 
commented later that it was the "equivalent of sending three Cardinals 
in full regalia up the Shankill Road".
The following morning, two field trips are cancelled on the grounds that 
the security of participants cannot be guaranteed - and we learn that 
the governor of Trabzon has retaliated by ordering a group of local 
folk-dancers not to perform on board the Venizelos. Some of us venture 
into the town "at our own risk" and encounter no Grey Wolves or any 
other danger. But it seems that the presence of our Greek ship at 
Trabzon's docks is like a red rag to a bull for local Turkish officials.

DAY 2: BATUMI, GEORGIA: 

Our arrival the next morning in Batumi, one of Georgia's main ports, 
could not have been more different. Most of us manage to leave the ship 
and enter what was once a part of the Soviet Union to attend an Orthodox 
eucharistic service without a single policeman asking to see our 
passports. The cathedral is crowded for the service because it is being 
celebrated by Georgia's Patriarch in the presence of Bartholomew I, the 
first Eastern Orthodox Patriarch to visit Batumi.
The cathedral, once a Catholic church, is full of people with dark eyes 
and long, sad faces, who are constantly moving about. There is a smell 
of incense, burning candles and poverty. All the women are wearing 
head-scarves, just like Ireland in the 1950s. The chanting from the 
choir in the gallery is unspeakably beautiful; this is the antidote to 
Folk Masses with guitars.
Outside, rain is pouring out of the heavens. Batumi is one of the 
wettest places in the northern hemisphere, with an annual rainfall of 
nearly 100 inches. God help all here, we think. The people are dirt-poor 
- our tour guide says she earns $30 a month - and the only decent 
weather they get is in July. The clapped-out buses taking us all to see 
the botanical gardens are all leaking so badly that some symposium 
participants have put their umbrellas up to prevent themselves getting 
soaked.

DAY 3: NOVOROSSIYSK, RUSSIA 

The dawn sky is fringed red this morning as the Venizelos steams into 
Novorossiysk, capital of the "New Russia" conquered by Catherine the 
Great, so it's clear we're going to see the sun again today. A large 
official delegation, led by the local "Mr Big", turns up later, preceded 
by a smiling, well-fed woman in traditional costume carrying a huge 
Russian brioche. She presents it to His All Holiness, who pinches off a 
piece, dips it in a well of sugar on top and eats it. 
Later, we are taken on a tour of Novorossiysk. The people here are 
obviously more prosperous than the woebegone residents of Batumi. A 
statue of Lenin stands in the main square and we are also shown an 
impressive monument above the sea where the Russian navy scuttled its 
fleet in 1918 to prevent it falling into German hands. Another outsized 
monument, like a huge gantry over the main road, marks the spot where 
the Red Army halted the Nazis during the second World War.
A performance by two bedraggled dolphins is abruptly cancelled in 
deference to protests by Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, who has spent $4 
million closing down similar dolphinariums elsewhere.

DAY 4: YALTA, CRIMEA 

Yalta looks magnificent in the morning sun as the Venizelos docks near 
the Diana Casino on its harbour front. There are trees everywhere, all 
over the rising ground up to the high escarpment which protects this 
legendary resort from the cold northerly winds sweeping in over the 
Steppes. Nineteenth-century villas and an unexpectedly large number of 
tower and slab blocks are dotted through the trees, including some 
particularly hideous monoliths which are still under construction.
Our laconic tour guide tells us that 70 per cent of the people here in 
the Crimea are really Russians, who have unwittingly ended up in Ukraine 
because of a diktat issued by Khrushchev in 1956. During the good old 
days of the Soviet Union, Yalta had 160 sanatoriums and every worker was 
entitled to take three weeks' holidays, with 70 per cent of the cost met 
by the trade unions. Now the cheapest room costs $40 per night (the 
dearest is $500) and the tourist industry is on its knees.
Inevitably, we are taken to the Livadia Palace where Stalin, Churchill 
and Roosevelt carved up Europe over dinner in February 1945, before the 
second World War was even over. We also visit Count Vorotsov's palace, a 
Scots baronial pile with a Moorish front overlooking the sea; this guy 
had 80,000 serfs, yet he chose a gloomy north-facing room as his study! 
Even more depressing is our discovery that about 90 per cent of the 
goods now being sold in Yalta's market are imported.

DAY 5: ODESSA, UKRAINE

One of the symposium organisers had the brilliant idea of showing 
Eisenstein's classic silent film, Battleship Po- temkin, as we sail 
overnight towards Odessa. It is an excellent orientation programme, 
particularly the dramatic scenes on the Odessa Steps. The steps are 
still there, of course, though they are now unfortunately occluded by 
the concrete-and-glass Ocean Terminal, which was plonked right in front 
of them, removing their relationship with the sea.
Odessa is a great neo-classical confection, with a huge Paris-style 
opera house as its centrepiece. It's about the same size as Dublin, in 
population terms, but much more decrepit, with broken footpaths almost 
everywhere. However, it gets an average of 250 days of sunshine a year, 
which explains all the vines growing on its decaying buildings. 
Amazingly, we find that Odessa also has an Irish pub called Mick 
O'Neill's, written in Cyrillic script! 
We are taken to see the Tomb of the Unknown Sailor, marked by an obelisk 
in a large park beside the sea, where an honour guard is still provided 
throughout the year by a rota of high school kids in uniforms. But Alexy 
V, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, is coming to lunch and we 
rush back to witness his encounter with Bartholomew I. Alexy, with his 
darting eyes and sly grin, doesn't look remotely holy and even lets the 
Aga Khan play with the spring-loaded gold cross on his head.

DAY 6: CONSTANTZA, ROMANIA 

It is cold and wet as the Venizelos comes into this vast port, with 
dozens of vessels moored at its quaysides. Our ship's Greek flag is 
wrapped around the flagpole and I take the liberty of unfurling it in 
the wind, in deference to the Romanians who have provided a naval band 
and guard of honour to greet Bartholomew I. Their own Orthodox 
Patriarch, all dressed in white, is also present for the ceremony; like 
Alexy of Moscow, he had no difficulty fraternising with tyrants.
The awful legacy of Ceaucescu is evident on an hour-long bus trip 
through the countryside to the Danube delta. It's a Nebraska-like 
landscape of endless cornfields, with suspiciously few villages along 
the bumpy road and, in the distance, dark satanic mills with tall 
chimneys belching God-knowswhat into the atmosphere. At the end of the 
journey, we reach Tulcea, a bleak town full of Ceaucescu-period 
apartment buildings. Not without reason, we dub it "Grimsville".
A flotilla of boats takes us up the Danube to see its protected 
wetlands, reputedly full of bird life. The trip turns out to be quite 
pointless, as few of us get to see any birds. Back in Constantza, we 
walk down streets lined with art nouveau villas; clearly this city had a 
golden era at the turn of the century. Shopping for vodka with such 
brand names as Draculina, Rasputin and Stalinskaya, we avoid any 
entanglement with the currency touts who operate like three-card 
tricksters here.

DAY 7: VARNA, BULGARIA

"Four Patriarchs Hit Varna", the local tabloid newspaper proclaims, as 
th e heads of the Orthodox church from Constantinople, Georgia, Romania 
and Bulgaria concelebrate a eucharistic service in the dark, late 19th 
century cathedral. 
Varna is particularly proud of its archaeological museum, which contains 
an impressive collection of icons as well as the world's oldest hoard of 
prehistoric gold. This spectacular find of grave goods, weighing 1.5 
kilos (they're dab hands at statistics in these parts), is arranged 
around a human skeleton and even includes a gold penis sheath. In the 
museum's foyer, the guides run their own market stall, selling medals 
and trinkets to boost their meagre income.

DAY 8: ISTANBUL, TURKEY 

Many of us get up before dawn as the ship sails through the Bosphorus 
under the huge suspension bridge linking Europe with Asia Minor.
Rahmi Koc, a Turkish shipping billionaire whose companies employ 40,000 
people, quotes W.B. Yeats's poem Sailing to Byzantium before we leave 
the ship for a bus tour. Someone else describes Istanbul as a city of 12 
million people "all furiously trying to sell things to each other". 
Tourists, of course, are the real targets and I find myself taken to the 
cleaners by a clever little street vendor who sells me a guide book for 
about six times its true price.
We are taken first to the Blue Mosque of 1609, one of the great triumphs 
of Islamic architecture. But, like Istanbul itself, nothing you have 
heard or read about it can prepare you for the real thing. Its interior 
is beautiful beyond words, a gobsmacking symphony of faience and gilded 
filigree, marble and stained glass. Still reeling, we walk the short 
distance to Haghia Sophia, built in 537 by the Emperor Justinian as a 
Christian church, later turned into a mosque and now a museum.
We also visit the Roman Hippodrome and underground water cistern, with 
its forest of classical columns, before walking through the labrynthine 
Covered Bazaar, with its 4,000-plus shops and more sights, sounds and 
smells than a body could absorb. Men are fishing from the Galata bridge 
over the Golden Horn as we make our way back to the Venizelos, vowing to 
return. Because, while every port we visited was fascinating in its own 
way, we had all come for old Byzantium. `It seems that the presence of 
our Greek ship at Trabzon's docks is like a red rag to a bull for local 
Turkish officials' 

******

#8
Baltimore Sun
7 December 1997
[for personal use only]
Environmentalists question site of Russian oil terminal 
Pipeline is to end near some of cleanest waters of Black Sea 
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NOVOROSSISK, Russia -- A coffin marked "Black Sea" is delivered to the 
offices of an oil pipeline consortium.
Consortium representatives open a public relations counterattack: 
newspaper columns, weekly visits to local television and radio, an 
information hot line.
It is a messy environmental dispute unfolding near some of the cleanest 
waters of the Black Sea.
At stake is an estimated $4 billion conduit from oil fields in Kazakstan 
to Russia's main southern port -- part of a great rush to tap into oil 
reserves around the Caspian Sea.
Environmental activists want the proposed 950-mile pipeline to end up in 
the already fouled Black Sea harbor at Novorossisk, where they believe 
any spill could be better contained.
They also warn that with the region prone to earthquakes, a major 
temblor -- such as the significant quake of 1966 -- could destroy the 
pipeline.
The powerful Caspian Pipeline Consortium, backed by the Sultanate of 
Oman and eight Western oil giants, including Chevron and Mobil in the 
United States and Agip in Italy, wants an oil terminal on a beach of 
smooth gray stones six miles north of Novorossisk.
It would connect to an oil-loading site three miles off the seaside 
hamlet of Yuzhnaya Ozereyevka, near some of the most untouched stretches 
of Black Sea coast.
Consortium officials contend that the offshore facility would be safer 
because tankers wouldn't have to maneuver into the crowded harbor.
"Nothing is 100 percent safe, but this is as good as we can get," said 
Victoria Dergachiova, spokeswoman for the consortium. "The benefits, we 
believe, outweigh any perceived risks."
The project would bring 4,000 construction jobs on the pipeline and a 
tax windfall for Russia of nearly $1.5 million a day, she said.
The pipeline, which the consortium hopes to begin using in 2000, would 
have a capacity of 67 million tons of oil a year -- more than double the 
current flow to Novorossisk along the old state-built network from which 
Russia draws little revenue.
But it's the oil that never makes it through the pipeline that scares 
activists most. In May, about 400 tons of oil gushed from a rupture in a 
new pipeline near Novorossisk harbor. Almost a quarter of the oil flowed 
into the water. The resort beaches down the coast are still dotted with 
sticky black residue.
Environmental experts are in the middle. They are wary of the 
consortium's plans but know that Novorossisk harbor is beyond capacity 
and could not handle the wastes from a sharp rise in tanker traffic.
Some others see it as a hopeful quest nevertheless.
"At least there is an environmental dialogue going on," said Vikki 
Spruill, executive director of SeaWeb, a Washington-based marine 
education group. "In Soviet times, there was no such thing as public 
debate on projects like this. Maybe we are witnessing the beginning of 
an environmental movement."

********

#9
Philadelphia Inquirer
7 December 1997
[for personal use only]
Russia losing a war on alcoholism 
As Soviet president, Gorbachev made a real dent in drinking-related 
deaths. But that looks very long ago. 
By Laurie Garrett
NEWSDAY

MOSCOW -- In the six years that Mikhail S. Gorbachev led the Soviet 
Union, he saved at least a half-million-plus lives -- but not because of 
any military or political decision.
Gorbachev waged an all-out war on alcoholism, using the classically 
repressive apparatus of the Soviet state. Warehouses were destroyed; 
illegal sellers were jailed; vodka prices were artificially increased; 
and police got free rein to arrest public drinkers.
But in 1988, the campaign collapsed, a surprise victim of Gorbachev's 
political reforms. And now, alcohol has so regained its stature that 
Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, an ultranationalist presidential hopeful, 
raises campaign funds selling his own brand of vodka, picturing him on 
the label.
The results, experts say, are palpable. A recent study by the Russian 
National Academy of Sciences found that Gorbachev saved 600,000 lives 
over three years, dropping the combined incidence of alcohol poisoning, 
cirrhosis of the liver, and alcohol-induced violence and accidents to 
179 deaths per 100,000 in 1988, a level not seen since 1965.
Since then, per-capita consumption has jumped by 600 percent and 
incidences of alcohol-related deaths are following suit. Government 
figures from 1995 -- the latest available -- show a rate approaching 500 
per 100,000, in contrast to a U.S. rate in 1995 of just 77.
Murray Feshbach, a demographer at Georgetown University in Washington, 
has visited Russia regularly since 1972. He says Russians are not only 
drinking more but are also drinking more dangerously. What is marketed 
as vodka or whiskey in Moscow may be anything from 100-proof genuine 
vodka to "rotgut moonshine," watered-down aftershave or jet fuel.
And much of the alcohol is sold in pop-top, non-resealable bottles that 
prompt the drinker to consume the entire contents in a single sitting.
"It's not just that consumption is high," Feshbach said. "It's the way 
they consume. It's chug-a-lug vodka-drinking that starts at the office 
during the morning coffee break and goes right into the nighttime."
This form of abusive binge drinking is historic in the region, although 
not at the levels now being evidenced, experts add. Two Russian customs 
add to the problem: one, that a vodka bottle once opened must be 
finished, never recorked; and two, that a shot glass of vodka must be 
downed in one gulp. Violation of either custom within the male 
community, in particular, is roundly considered insulting to one's host, 
and prima facie evidence of a lack of manhood.
Drinking on the job is a practice that cuts across all levels of society 
and gender, experts say. It is even common for physicians to drink 
steadily on the job, though they often condemn its effects overall.
While drinking is considered a "social necessity," it also causes some 
decidedly antisocial behavior -- a huge increase in day-to-day violence 
that is placing an uncomfortable burden on a health-care system already 
on the ropes.
The problem is not only among young men, many Russians said. Teenage 
arrests for alcohol-related crimes have more than tripled since 1991, 
and suicide rates -- which many health experts link directly to drinking 
-- also are on the rise.
Psychologist Anna Terentjeva, on the staff of the Moscow-based drug 
group NAN, which stands for No to Alcoholism and Drug Addiction, she 
routinely sees suicidal young men and women.
The issue for many of them "has to do with recognizing oneself, one's 
identity," she said, adding, "they think they have nothing else" other 
than alcohol or drugs.
It is an alternative that is easily available, legal and fairly cheap, 
she pointed out.
While export-quality vodka, such as Stolichnaya Cristall, sells for 
about $30 a liter (just over a quart) in Moscow or Kiev, few local 
people would dream of wasting their money on such a product. Most vodka 
is sold for less than $8 a liter, and some is available for a dollar.
In 1996, distilled-alcohol consumption in Russia (combining officially 
recorded and estimated black-market sales) reached a new high of 15 
liters of pure alcohol a year for every man, woman and child. Assuming 
most children were not drinking, adjusted adult consumption was 18 
liters a year of pure alcohol, or the rough equivalent of 38 liters of 
100-proof vodka, according to the Russian Ministry of Health.
By comparison, the National Institute of Drug Abuse and Alcoholism in 
Bethesda, Md., says the consumption rate for American adults annually is 
8 liters, or less than half that of Russians.

*******