Auguust 4, 1998   
This Date's Issues: 2296•2297 • 

Johnson's Russia List
#2297
4 August 1998
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. New book: 'Allah's Mountains: Politics and War in the Russian Caucasus' 
by Sebastian Smith.
2. Claudiu Secara: RE #2291: Hough/The current crisis in Russia. 
3. Moscow News: Yulia Latynina, INSIDE RUSSIA: Fight for Taxes Can Lead 
to Tragic Ends.
4. Reuters: Russian consumers like homegrown feel.
5. New York Times: Michael McFaul, Russia Needs True Reform, Not Higher
Taxes.
6. Obshchaya Gazeta: 60 MILLION RUSSIANS IN PERIL. Former Interior Minister 
Believes Russia's Economic Security Threatened. (Anatoly Kulikov).
7. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: PRESIDENT APPROVES PLAN FOR MILITARY 
REFORM.
8. AFP: Russia to Build 16 New Nuclear Reactors by 2010.
9. The Independent (UK): Helen Womack, Street Life - My ex-friend the
neo-Nazi.
10. Jenni Bennett: Re Mike Snow on Russian Women. (DJ: I trust we are
near or at the end of this discussion. But--for the uncomfortable: in the middle of summer
with lots of dismal news I think all of us can tolerate some exploration of this
subject. JRL is a vehicle for diversity of opinion and subject. A whole lot of something
for everybody.) 
11. Rossiiskaya Gazeta: SEVERE DROUGHT DESTROYS GRAIN HARVEST.
12. RIA Novosti: WHILE COAL MINERS ARE ON STRIKE THEIR BETTER HALVES 
EARN MONEY TO GO TO CYPRUS.
13. Jamestown Foundation Monitor: LAW ON MORTGAGES COMES INTO EFFECT.
14. http://www.salonmagazine.com: Jeffrey Tayler, A midsummer night's
bacchanal in 
Moscow. (Excerpt). (DJ: Re the Hungry Duck. OK: this is where our theme for
August--
TOLERANCE--is to be exhibited. Please, no complaints. It's only a small
excerpt.)]

********

#1
Date: Tue, 04 Aug 98 
From: "Simon Koppel"<skoppel@ibtauris.com>
Subject: New publication

I've been given your name by Mr Felix Corley (book reviewer for the
Catholic Herald)
who tells me that you operate a Russian studies e-mail list. I wonder
whether you
would be able to carry a short announcement regarding a new book being
published
by our company?

'Allah's Mountains: Politics and War in the Russian Caucasus' by Sebastian
Smith
is an in-depth portrait of the diverse peoples of the North Caucasus.
Sebastian Smith
was a reporter in the region at the time of the Chechen War. Often in the
firing line,
travelling at times with the Chechen partisans, he gained an unparalleled
understanding
of the Chechen war. But going beyond the headlines, he also explored the
villages of
Dagestan, Ingushetia, North and South Ossetia, living with and learning
about the
peoples of the region. Part history, part travel writing, part front-line
war reporting,
Allah’s Mountains is a picture of a region emerging from the ashes of
Soviet oppression
only to explode into a seething mix of ethnic disputes. At the same time,
it is a portrait
of proud peoples who have maintained their traditions despite centuries of
tsarist and
Soviet rule.

The book is published by I.B.Tauris, priced at GBP19.95. In North America
it is
distributed by St Martins Press of New York at USD29.95. The book can be
ordered
directly (postage-free in the UK) by contacting sales@ibtauris.com

Simon Koppel
Publicity Assistant
I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
Victoria House
Bloomsbury Square
London WC1B 4DZ
Tel. +44 (0) 171 831 9060
Fax. +44 (0) 171 831 9061
E-mail skoppel@ibtauris.com

*********

#2
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 
From: "Claudiu A. Secara" <Algora@algora.com> 
Subject: RE: #2291: Hough/The current crisis in Russia. 

What I objected initially to and I continue to find unsatisfying in Jerry
Hough's analysis is the perspective from which he, as most of the Western
authors, approach the events in Russia. That is a voluntarist, a social
engineer’s perspective, a gung-ho political scientist's and not of a
historian, a social philosopher. 

What does it mean: "in a country like Russia the problem is to create solid
elites and institutions?" Who would be called to "create" them? the Russian
political scientists? the American political scientists? God? the oligarchs?
Shouldn’t they follow from the premises of a "democratic process," (whatever
that means) as a result of "democracy" at work? 
To say in 1998 "at the policy level, the 1990s and 1930s are almost
identical in that economic policy was based on the extreme ideology of
fashionable Westerners" is not an error of economic policy but one of
history. Setting the issues in such narrow terms, I think, helps very little
to recognize that 1998 rather resembles 1905, it resembles late 1920s, it
resembles 1985. I challenge any reader of economic policy with the question
of how much sense did it make to have a conventional opinion in those years
for the understanding of the following ten-fifteen years? Neither Sergei
Witte or Pyotr Stolypin, nor Lenin or Plekhanov in 1905 had any inkling of
what would be the political-economic landscape of Russia ten-fifteen years
later. The first two economists did indeed think themselves about "how
constitutional democracy and a mixed economy should be introduced in Russia"
but the facts on the ground did not play by the rules of economics or of the
rational actors’ politics.

When one takes the view, as an example, that "when we deal with Lebed, we
should be making our conditionality dependent on him trying to move towards
constitutionalism, not imposing an economic reform that forces him to become
a Pinochet" -- that is based on the assumption that "we" are the fixed star
in the universe and "they" are the remote controlled meteors. Yet a collapse
in Russia today seems likely to precipitate some sort of Heisenberg effect
on us, the observers, also, and only God knows how much of a shock that
might be to us, as well. Of course, everybody understands that in a world of
realpolitik, none of this happens as a pure reaction of free chemical
agents. Rather some agents are more chemical and latent than others, I mean
more changes in Russia or elsewhere are expected to be of sweeping effect on
today's players in Washington too. 

One thing is quite a sure bet: Russia is not Nigeria with nukes. There is
more to it, at stake, in the grand scheme of things. What smells in the air
is a shakeup on the scale of 1917, although as different from it as 1917was
different 1870 or 1848. 

On the matter of the benevolent dictator, democracy and constitutional
democracy, I would submit that the distinction is only one of leadership
style and not one of substance in democratic sense. (Certainly, one can find
always some extreme case to prove a point.) The real test of constitutional
democracy ­ which is of imaginary nature of course ­ is to find out how
close is it to a state of self-governed people and how far is it from the
rule of government. On the practicality of the first state, the milk and
honey land of Arcadia, there is little evidence. Not even a co-op building
in Manhattan can self-govern in the absence of the leadership of the board
of directors. Even more so when it comes to the national board of directors.

If the real nature of government is leadership then one only needs to seek
out the ultimate source of power in the dynamics of the competing social
interests. Some TEMPORARY balance of power among the elites (in-between
various versions of civil, armed or economic, wars, etc.) is associated with
times of social peace and democracy, i.e. diffusion of power among the
privileged, at the expense of the lower classes. On the contrary, some level
of weak elite leverage brings to power the popular regimes of strong central
government; hated most by the elites, they have bad names in the eyes of the
privileged: tyranny, dictatorship, etc. or are variously labeled
revolutionary dictatorship, lord protectorship, proletarian dictatorship,
Bonapartism, etc. In other words, "democratic constitutionality" is
associated with the upper-classes’ consensus, the strong man's rule is
associated with populism. 

It is in this sense, that the democracy of the majority requires "no parties
and no politics," in the words of the benevolent and presidential General de
Gaulle. "We have had enough of this system which mixes Socialists and
Liberals, who catch votes by attacking each other and then sit together at
the table. Together we shall follow an honest path. Our destiny should not
be a mediocre one." That is how a modern leader understood of "putting
France on her feet."

********

#3
Moscow News
August 4, 1998 
INSIDE RUSSIA: Fight for Taxes Can Lead to Tragic Ends 
By Yulia Latynina
Special to The Moscow Times
Yulia Latynina is a staff writer for Expert magazine. 

Russia has been fighting for one thing or another for 80 years now. At 
first, it fought for a better future, then, in the 70s, for the harvest, 
and now for taxes. If you listen carefully to all the explanations 
accompanying the introduction of every new fiscal innovation, you get 
the impression that until now, the ailments afflicting the budget have 
all been due to the lack of a tough tax system. So taxes on pagers and 
the number of windows in a home should cure everything. 

A close study of the tax system shows just the opposite. From the very 
beginning of its existence, the tax system has been designed to suck 
enterprises dry and then eat the skin. The well-known 1992 decree "On 
Expenditure Ratios During Production and Sales" is a prime example. That 
decree spells out that a product's price is determined by the current 

prices at the moment raw materials for production are obtained, while 
profits are figured according to prices at the moment of a product's 
sale. This means that if an enterprise buys a bolt for 2 rubles and then 
six months later sells it as part of a product for 6 rubles (because 
during that time, the government has printed a lot of money and the 
price of a bolt has increased), then those four inflationary rubles are 
viewed as profit for the enterprise, and are therefore subject to 
taxation. 

The result of such policies has been tax evasion among enterprises. 
They've even stopped settling their accounts in real, taxable money. 
Instead, they have begun to use their own debts as a means of payment, 
creating an alternative financial system in the process. This 
alternative financial system has required the existence of an 
alternative legal system -- in simpler terms, a system of bandits who 
guarantee the circulation of private money, or nonpayments. The good 
thing about this system of private money is that it has made collecting 
taxes in real money impossible. However, taxes have continued to be 
levied. Goods for barter actually cost half as much as those sold for 
real money. It has worked out that taxes have been calculated at twice 
the figure these goods could have fetched in real money. 

The authorities have found this situation quite suitable. Although it 
has made it impossible to collect taxes, it has given them the ability 
to bankrupt at a moment's notice any enterprise with which the 
government is unhappy. The result is that a number of enterprises have 
had to befriend the government. 
The authorities announced another stage in the fight for taxes: They are 
prepared to slightly reduce direct taxes while dramatically raising 
indirect taxes. This latest maneuver can be explained by the 
government's intention "to transfer the weight of the tax burden from 
producers to consumers." In actuality, the government is justifiably 
supposing that a broke pensioner buying 300 grams of cheese will have 
more difficulty evading taxes than a metallurgy plant with its 200 
accountants. 

It is true that metallurgy plants have been able to strike deals with 
the government or to bribe tax authorities. This is something that 
pensioners cannot do. However, they can take to the streets. 

Whatever Russia's social problems, it has so far not encountered unrest 
due to high prices. While the attempt to tax giant industry has 
feudalized Russia, the attempt to tax the masses could lead to an 
outcome about which the government has forgotten: bread riots. 

*********

#4
FEATURE - Russian consumers like homegrown feel
By Hester Abrams

LONDON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - When the snow melts at last, galoshes are put away
and ice cream appears on the streets, advertisers in Russia sense a change of
mood that could mean a lot for big brands. 

When summer is coming people are positive about the future. But when it
changes to autumn and winter, people view the world very poorly, everything is
bad, says Bruno David, general manager of Publicis Moscow. The weather has a
very big impact on Russians mind and mood. It affects sales and the reaction

to advertising. 

Such close attention to the rude Russian climate is part of a growing
realisation among advertising agencies that thinking globally and acting
locally in this vast market means seeing life through Russian eyes. 

Russias booming advertising market is increasingly competitive. Russians are
exposed to 43 minutes of advertising a day, agencies say, with cheap airtime
producing a blizzard of TV commercials and local newspapers chock full of
small ads. 

But the multinational companies which have promoted goods in Russia since the
early 1990s are fighting to stay on top as consumers become more ad-aware and
start yearning for goods that are sturdily Russian, not irrelevantly Western. 

The future growth of multinational advertising agencies lies in Russia and the
developing countries. The two biggest opportunities are Russia and Ukraine,
said Lance Price, regional managing director for DMB&B in an interview. 

DArcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B), part of the MacManus Group, had $86
million billings in Russia in 1997 and sees market growth of some 20 to 30
percent this year, even despite Russias volatile economy, Price said. 

The Russian Association of Advertising Agencies calculates that overall
advertising expenditure approached $2 billion in 1997. The market is
extraordinarily big and very empty, said Maxima Advertising Group chief
Vladimir Evstafiev, its head. 

There are almost more proposals in Moscow than in Paris or London, Evstafiev
said in an interview in Cannes, France. I tell my clients to go to the regions
because there are people there with money but not enough proposals. 
GROWTH WILL COME FROM FOREIGN COMPANIES 

Agencies say growth will come from the hundreds of international companies
which have not yet posted a brand presence in Russia. 
But some sense saturation, saying sales of some goods have slowed up to 40
percent this year in Russias financial crisis. 

All these people have bought a lot of products, but the middle class is not
spending enough, says Christophe Marchal, client services director Russia and
CIS for Omnicom Groups DDB Needham. Its about making a choice between buying a
pair of really expensive Reeboks, buying a kettle or going on holiday. 

RUSSIAN PRODUCTS MAKE A COMEBACK 

Amid a cacophony of foreign brands, consumers are switching on to the familiar
sounds of Russian produkty (products). 

If you look for an exhaustive list of all Russian brands you would come down
to 10, said DDBs Marchal. But there has been a comeback of...Russian origin.
They say If its from Russia, its natural, its healthy, even if it cant be
proved. We take this more and more into consideration. 

Homo Sovieticus is a reality, said Publicis Bruno David in a telephone
interview from Moscow. There is a strong Russian identity and its clear that
if they can defend it through the way they consume, they will. 

Recent work by Publicis for Coca-Cola uses overtly Russian imagery based on
the Firebird folk tale to promote the idea Drink the Legend. It aims to make
an historic association for Coke to parallel brand values that made it an icon
in the West. 

The Coca-Cola campaign and insights about the effects of the weather on
Russians moods resulted from Publicis Insight Mining research which explores
the perceptions and cultural references of people facing a revolution in
consumption. 

Publicis has since applied the technique to other brands like Diageos
Beefeater gin and to consumers in Greece, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan. 
Russians make decisions very quickly, but at the same time they are really
idealistic. Some brands talk to one side or another, but rarely to both, Bruno
said. 

Insight Mining gives marketers an opportunity to understand what is irrational
in consumers. Nothing is obvious here. 

*********

#5
New York Times
August 4, 1998
[for personal use only]
Russia Needs True Reform, Not Higher Taxes 
By MICHAEL MCFAUL
Michael McFaul is a professor of political science at Stanford University,
a fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior associate at the Carnegie
Endowment. 

STANFORD, Calif. -- Russia's Government has come up with a new cure for the
country's economic ills: higher taxes. 
A chorus of Western officials, including International Monetary Fund
bureaucrats and Vice President Al Gore during his trip to Moscow last
month, have praised the Government's new financial plan, which includes big
tax increases, as important steps to advance reform. 
The problem with this prescription is that the Russian economy produces
very little to tax. Russia does need a more rationalized tax code, which
might help collect revenue from a handful of oil and gas companies that do
generate profits. But the vast majority of Russian companies are bankrupt
and have been operating at a loss for several years. 
Neither the $22.6 billion I.M.F. bailout nor the Yeltsin Government's
so-called anti-crisis program addresses this deeper cause of Russia's
economic problems: poorly defined property rights and the consequent dearth
of profit-making companies. 
In 1992, the Russian Government began an ambitious effort to privatize
most of the economy. Two years later, Russia (and its Western advisers)
trumpeted the program's success as more than 100,000 enterprises were
declared to be in private hands. 
While speedy, this privatization program did not produce effective
owners or profitable enterprises. Instead, insiders -- that is, Soviet-era
enterprise directors in cahoots with trade union officials loyal to them --
gained controlling shares at three-quarters of all large enterprises. These
insider owners were interested first and foremost in securing control of
their companies and thereby maintaining their jobs. Attracting investment
or expanding market share were distant, secondary concerns. 
Because these directors do not report to outside shareholders interested
in profits, they have avoided pressure to become more efficient, to
downsize and improve their products. Through complex arbitrage schemes,
delays in paying workers and the stripping of assets, these directors can
amass individual wealth while their companies continue to operate in the red. 
Under market conditions, the companies would be forced into bankruptcy. 
Their assets would be reorganized and auctioned off, and either new
owners interested in making profits would assume control or the enterprises
would be shut down. In Russia, however, bankruptcies rarely occur. Instead,
the state has continued to subsidize ailing companies, initially through
direct state transfers and now by allowing these companies to not pay taxes
or bills owed to other enterprises. 

Given these conditions at the grass roots, the Russian Government's
plan to raise revenue will not have any sustainable effect. No matter what
the tax rate, you cannot generate revenue by taxing bankrupt businesses.
Collecting taxes from the handful of companies that do generate profits is
a necessary but only short-term solution. After all, most of these
profit-making companies are owed huge sums from the same
Government-supported, bankrupt enterprises. 
At some point, the Russian state must break this vicious cycle by
enforcing bankruptcy procedures as the first step toward restructuring
enterprises, establishing real property rights and ultimately finding new,
more responsible owners for the country's industries. The new owners, it
must be remembered, will invest only under the right conditions, which
include lower interest rates, state protection of their property and lower
-- not higher -- taxes. 
Those with a stake in the status quo are quick to warn that an embrace
of a real free market risks creating more pain for the people and igniting
social unrest. When companies are allowed to go bankrupt, workers lose
their jobs. 
But in contrast to Russia's first attempt at privatization, this next
attempt should not be undertaken at all enterprises simultaneously. 
By moving more methodically, the Government can build a case that
bankruptcy is necessary to clear away growth-stifling debt and to make
companies more productive. 
Here is where Western assistance can be most useful. Instead of allowing
the Government to keep bankrupt companies afloat, Western money can help
construct a social safety net so that Russian companies get out of the
welfare business. 
Without this fundamental shift, enterprise directors will continue to
blackmail the state by threatening mass layoffs of workers, and the workers
will continue at their jobs even if they are only sporadically paid. 
And investors will keep their money elsewhere. 
A real social safety net in Russia would be expensive, but would it be
any more expensive than the current I.M.F. bailout? Twenty-two billion
dollars would pay for a lot of unemployment checks and job retraining
programs. 
Carrying out these reforms would take years, if not decades. And they
can occur only if the I.M.F. remains engaged in Russia for the long haul. 
But Western assistance should continue only if the Russian Government is
committed to allowing real private control of its industries. The
consequence of continuing to subsidize bankrupt enterprises will only be
even more expensive bailouts down the road -- no matter how high the tax
rate climbs. 

******
#6
From RIA Novosti
Obshchaya Gazeta, No. 30
August 1998
60 MILLION RUSSIANS IN PERIL
Former Interior Minister Believes Russia's Economic Security Threatened

Fired for unknown reasons over four months ago,
Anatoly Kulikov shies public scrutiny. Even
contacting him on the phone presents a problem. This
newspaper has data to indicate that the former
interior minister spends most of his time abroad.
Not long ago, Kulikov gave a three-week course

of lectures in the United States, from where he flew
directly to Germany. 
This newspaper's request of an interview was
politely refused: "I am not used to telling untruths,
and truth can harm both me and other people."
The rumour is that he has been offered a post in
the Moscow government, but Kulikov was evasive: "I am
on vacation until 7 November. If no offers are
coming, I will have to make up my mind."
Instead of an interview, the ex-minister
suggested an article on matters which continue to
concern him even after his forced resignation. 
Follows an abridged version of the article.

Anatoly KULIKOV

An unbiased analysis of Russia's economic security at the
present time indicates that it is insufficient by the generally
recognised measure. The reasons are many. 
The main reason is that the protracted and deep
socio-economic crisis this country has been living through
since the early 1990s, has not been overcome. Without citing
the generally known factors to demonstrate the depth of the
crisis, let me say that the limits of many critical parameters
of economic security have been exceeded.

Table 
-----------------------------------------------------------
Limits Actual state
-----------------------------------------------------------
GDP fall 25% 50%
Investments in GDP 25% 16%
Share of imports in consumption 30% 53%
Volume of hard currency cash
in relation to cash roubles 25% 100%
Share of income earners
below subsistence minimum 7% over 20%
Gap between highest and
lowest incomes 8 times over more than
15 times over
-----------------------------------------------------------

Criminal, shadow economy presents a serious threat to
Russia's economic and national security. The underworld has
permeated effectively all spheres of the economy: property
relations, production and distribution of product, finances,
banking, state management and foreign trade. 
Experts point out that in 1990-91, the shadow economy
accounted for no more than 10% or 11%, i.e. was comparable to
that of the developed market economies. Five years later, it
reached the level of 45%, or nearly 750 billion roubles (over
US$ 100 billion) in monetary terms. This is three times the
volume of capital investments in the country's economy in 1995.
The shadow economy was growing at an especially fast rate
in 1994, the year of the initial redistribution of state
property. That year, the shadow economy's share in the GDP grew
over four times to reach nearly 100% of its current absolute
volume.
The leading shadow industries were fuels, power production
and raw materials, and the services is the dominating sector:

in 1994 and 1995, it accounted for 70-75% of the shadow
product.
Experts believe that as of the beginning of 1998, over
40,000 economic operators of various forms of property were
controlled by the underworld, including 1,500 state-owned
enterprises, 4,000 joint-stock companies, over 500 joint
ventures, 550 banks, and nearly 700 wholesale and retail
markets. 
These days, approximately 60 million people are employed
in the shadow economy. Close to 9 million people are engaged in
openly criminal activities. Some theoreticians hoped that the
shadow capitals would enhance investment processes once
involved in legitimate businesses, but the hopes have never
materialised. The country's economy is sick and needs a radical
treatment. 
I mean a serious correction of the economic strategy, in
particular the vision of the market as a self-tuning and
self-regulating mechanism which calls for no government
interference. 
Market relations, not unlike a flood, surely did prod the
economy in the right direction, but they also swept away all
negative and positive elements and institutions which have
found their introduction into market relations relatively
painless and which are making these relations more civilised.
China provides a graphic positive example. 
Of course, abolishing market relations is a blind alley.
At the same time, the approaches to developing market relations
may have specificities explained by the natural, economic and
national peculiarities. 
Russia's economy cannot survive without a public sector
which should be dominating in a number of industries. All hasty
steps to denationalise production can eventually lead to a
collapse of the economy. 
While launching the market reforms, the state should have
chosen an evolutionary, rather than a revolutionary, model of
modifying the forms of ownership, building monetary
institutions, devising a tax system, etc. 
Moreover, the state should have undertaken to guarantee at
least the basic social rights of the individual and to become
the arbiter in social conflicts in order to pre-empt political
confrontations. 
From the point of view of economic security, the shadow
sector should be consistently suppressed, including by way of
efficiently fighting economic felony. The law enforcers have
done a lot to this end; the number of economic crimes and
misuses of office they have uncovered in the past few years is
on the rise. 
But it takes an additional and concerted effort of all
tiers of the authority if we want to overcome the negative
trends. 
Deep in my heart, I do believe that if the current trend
of the economy sliding back into chaos and the underworld is
not overcome, all concerns for the country's economic security
interests would be in vain.

********

#7
From RIA Novosti
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
August 4, 1998
PRESIDENT APPROVES PLAN FOR MILITARY REFORM 
The Russian political leaders believe that "large-scale
wars against Russia are improbable"
By Vadim SOLOVYOV

At long last the Defence Ministry, accused of making
secret decisions on the reform of the armed forces and the

state as a whole, has washed itself white. The other day
President Boris Yeltsin signed The Foundations (Concept) of the
State Policy on Military Development for the Period Until 2005,
thus turning it into a federal process. 
For the past year, the military reform proceeded in
accordance with a three-page document, The Guidelines of
Military Development in Russia, initialled by the President.
The Defence Ministry used this document to integrate the Air
Force and the Air Defence Force, change the subordination of
the ballistic missile defence force, deprive the Land Force of
the title of the leading service of the armed forces by making
it subordinate to a deputy defence minister, and
correspondingly increase the weight of the Strategic Missile
Force in ensuring the military security of Russia. It also
started overhauling the logistic and other structural units of
the armed forces. 
In fact, the new Foundations reflect first and foremost
the viewpoint of the Defence Ministry and the General Staff.
The Ministry collegium held a special session to discuss this
document some three months ago. 
After its coordination in the corridors of power, Security
Council Secretary Andrei Kokoshin presented this basic document
of the military reform yesterday. The Foundations offer a
detailed analysis of conditions in the country and the strict
limits put on the development of the armed forces and defence
industries, he said. 
It consists of several major blocks, in particular, the
description of the current political and economic situation,
the tasks and goals of military development, its basic
directions, funding, and some other aspects. 
The underlying idea of the document is that "large-scale
wars against Russia are improbable." On the other hand, it
stresses that military development should spotlight local wars
and conflicts, especially along the perimeter of Russia and the
CIS states. Andrei Kokoshin pointed out that Russia might be
called upon to take "resolute and uncompromising actions." 
The structure of the armed forces will be changed to suit
the new tasks of ensuring military security. The number of
departments which have military units will be cut, the General
Staff will be given a greater role in strengthening the
national defences, and clear-cut definitions will be given for
the system of mobilisation readiness and the system of
logistics and technical maintenance.
The number of military districts is to be reduced from
eight to six, and ten Land Force divisions, fully manned and
kept in constant combat readiness, including one peace-keeping
division, will be created, the Security Council Secretary 
said. 
The Interior Troops play the key role in settling internal
tasks, while the army should only ensure technical maintenance,
Kokoshin pointed out. A new document, The Military Doctrine of
Russia, is being drafted and will be presumably ready by
autumn, he said. 

*******

#8
Russia to Build 16 New Nuclear Reactors by 2010 
August 3, 1998

MOSCOW -- (Agence France Presse) Russia plans to build 16 new nuclear
reactors by 2010 as part of a strategy to develop civil atomic energy, a
top Russian nuclear energy official said Monday. 
Yevgeny Ignatenko, head of the Rosenergoatom nuclear power operator,
told a press conference that over the same period, nine reactors would be
decommissioned. 

Itar-Tass news agency reported last week that only seven new reactors
were to be built by 2010. 
Once the 16 new reactors are built and the nine taken out of service,
Russia will be left seven more reactors in 2010 than the 29 it currently
operates. The entire program will cost 114 billion rubles (18 billion
dollars) and will entail the construction of eight new nuclear power
plants, which will house some of the new reactors. ( (c) 1998 Agence France
Presse) 

********

#9
The Independent (UK)
4 August 1998
[for personal use only]
Street Life - My ex-friend the neo-Nazi
By Helen Womack
Samotechny Lane, Moscow 

I wish I knew who or what has hurt Sergei for, as I keep telling myself,
it is hurt that lies at the root of hostility. But I will probably never
know, as he has stopped visiting me at Samotechny Lane and now regards me
as an enemy. 
It was not always so. On the contrary, 11 years ago he was such a good
friend that my husband, Costya, and I invited him to our wedding. But for
Sergei, who has become an extreme Russian nationalist, the honeymoon with
the West is over, and so, therefore, is his friendship with me. 
Sergei had unnerved me before with odd, anti-Semitic things he said. But
it only became clear how far apart we had grown when he dropped in for a
drink a few weeks ago and we ended up having an argument. The conversation
began harmlessly enough, with a few jokes, but before I knew it we had
plunged into politics. 
"It's all the fault of the foreigners," said Sergei. 
"Pardon?" 
"The West is to blame." 
"Well, yes," I said, "the West has made some mistakes, raised
expectations that life after Communism would be easy. Unfortunately Russia
has not always seen the best side of the West. You've seen our unscrupulous
businessmen, our cheap products in the kiosks: but surely Russians
themselves must bear some responsibility for their problems. After all,
Yeltsin, the members of the government, are Russian." 
"They're traitors," said Sergei. "They have got us into debt with the
IMF. The only mistake we Russians have made is not resisting the aggression
of the West." 
I was stunned. If I had heard that argument from some shaven-headed
blackshirt in Alexander Barkashov's Russian National Unity Party, I would
not have beensurprised. But Sergei is a highly educated man whose father
was a famous writer who advised Mikhail Gorbachev on literary freedom. 
In the heady days of perestroika and glasnost, when Russians and
Westerners met with excitement, we used to sit in Sergei's flat, speaking
French because my Russian was still rudimentary, and Sergei would talk of
dreams of knowing the wider world. 
"Yes, then I only wanted to listen to Western rock music," he said, when
I reminded him. "But now, I get tears in my eyes when I hear the balalaika
on the radio." 
There is nothing wrong with Russian folk music, but something disturbing
about Sergei's new-found appreciation for Stalin. And his hatred-filled
form of Russian Orthodoxy seems very far from true Christianity. 
Most of all, I was shocked by Sergei's definition of the West. It was,
he said, not a place, but a world-view based on respect for democracy (to
him, a pejorative word), women's liberation (also negative) and a positive
attitude to Jews (very bad indeed). 
I said I would like to think of the West as a community of countries
where everyone counted, man or woman, black or white, Christian or Jew. He
called me a "rootless cosmopolitan". 

He said that once England, France and Germany were countries with a
strong national identity but "the West" had "colonised" them. Russia was
falling, too. The Great Satan was America. 
"It is an incredibly corrupt and decadent place. It is not only the
enemy of the Arabs but of the whole world. But you mark my words, soon it
will be destroyed. The Statue of Liberty will be shattered in a thousand
pieces." 
"I think you really want to see that, don't you?" I said incredulously,
remembering how a few years ago Sergei had gone in great excitement on a
business trip to Florida. (He also spent two weeks in my family home in
Yorkshire, and ought to know that we in the West are human too.) 
"Yes, I do," he said, "I dream of seeing America on its knees." 
At that, I stopped debating.I felt stone cold, despite the summer heat. 
"Well, I'm sorry," I said, "I came to Russia to learn, to help if I
could, I did not mean any harm." 
"We do not need your help. It's nothing personal, Helen, but you
represent the enemy. You are on a Masonic mission." 
He was my friend. Those were his parting words. 

*******

#10
Date: 4 Aug 1998 09:33:18 -0500
From: "Jenni Bennett" <Jenni.Bennett@extott08.x400.gc.ca>
Subject: Re Mike Snow on Russian Women

I suppose I should have responded earlier to Mike Snow's 'rebuttal' to
my reaction to his original comments, but I have been busy reading the
comments and reactions by other DJL readers. Obviously there are two very
different sides to this argument, and the feminist debate as it applies to
Russia is not going to be resolved within these columns. However, I wanted
to clarify why I responded to Mike Snow's comments in the first place.
I felt that Snow's first description of Russian women was at times,
accurate, but on the whole unfair. I reacted to certain phrases and ideas
that he used. And his response showed that he did not mean to come across
in such a shallow way and indeed cared deeply for the Russian women he
knows and doesn't know. That clarification was all I was after. (Also, I
did not interpret "Russia is the best place in the world for women" as "the
best place to find a good woman" until after Snow expanded on his comment.
His explanation makes much more sense now, although that is if one agrees
with alluding to a country as an outlet mall being the best place to find
something.)
But there I go again being immature and unacademic, and I will admit I
have been known for 'youthful enthusiasm'. But if there is any time for me
to be idealistic about the way men and women should be treated in the
world, and react to what I think is an injustice, then I figure now is the
time before I become wise, jaded and apathetic. In truth, I am not a
raging femi-Nazi and I have no problem with a man being chivalrous, as long
as it means that I can do anything I want in life without being limited by
my gender. If that's asking too much, then we share a difference in opinion.
The fact that I reopened what appears to be some serious emotional
scarring inflicted by American women (and most likely by Canadian women
too) on men, was entirely unintentional. I was under the naive impression
that men and women shared a certain equality in my generation and that both
sides liked it better that way. I never meant to say that we should force
North American feminism on Russia - they are dealing, and have been
dealing, with the subject in there own way for many years. Economic
problems obviously dominate the social sphere in Russia and I believe that
it's been proven a number of times that Western solutions don't necessarily
work for Russia. But I believe that our system of greater equality makes
for a better standard of living and perhaps if Russian women were more
exposed to that example, they might see it too. I suppose that is merely
my naive opinion, is incredibly banal and isn't worth much - is that right,
gentlemen?


*********

#11
From RIA Novosti
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
August 4, 1998
SEVERE DROUGHT DESTROYS GRAIN HARVEST
An unheard-of drought has destroyed the grain harvest 
on 11 million hectares

In the European part of Russia the main grain-growing
regions are completing grain harvesting. The farmers had bad
luck there. The long-standing heat and the scorching sun have
virtually burnt the fields under grain crops. Now the areas
where there is nothing to harvest are being identified.
Specialists say that the grain harvest has been destroyed on
11 million hectares.
The heat which lasted for a long time in the country's 37
regions has caused considerable damage to agriculture. But the
farmers are optimistic and hope to gather as much as some 70
million tons of grain. With the 20 million tons left from the
last year's harvest, this will be enough for food and fodder.
Besides, the heat is abating and rains become more frequent.
The ministry of agriculture and foodstuffs told an
ITAR-TASS correspondent that grain crops have been threshed on
an area of nearly 9 million hectares. Some 15.5 million tons
of grain have been threshed in terms of bin weight. The
average grain yield is 17.7 centners per hectare.

*********

#12
WHILE COAL MINERS ARE ON STRIKE THEIR BETTER HALVES 
EARN MONEY TO GO TO CYPRUS

NICOSIA, AUGUST 4, 1998 /FROM RIA NOVOSTI CORRESPONDENT
EDUARD ASLANYAN/ -- Who in Russia can presently afford vacation
on Cyprus? Just five years ago they were bankers, businessmen
and other deep pocket owners, better known as 'new Russians',
mainly arrivals from Moscow and St Petersburg.
At present the situation is turning all the way
around--recently appeared direct air routes which connect 
numerous regions with Cyprus make trips to the island more
habitual in Russia.
'Just recently we have seen off a tourist group from
Vorkuta, coal-mining town in northern Russia, back home' said
Marina, tourist operator in the agency Aurora in the interview
with a RIA Novosti correspondent. Aurora is one of 20 tourist
companies working with Russia and located in Limassol, major
resort town in South Cyprus. According to Marina, the above
mentioned group consisted of coal-miners' wives. One would never
know whether they were better halves of those who picketed the
government house in Moscow.
'They said their husbands are on strike and mines do not
pay wages, however, they could afford to come to Cyprus.' 'And
here is a real paradise for tourists--secure place to stay and
hospitable locals. But above all are mild and sunny climate, and
unpolluted sea,' notes Marina.
Tatyana and Natalya are from Magadan and have their first
experience in Cyprus. The two ladies run their private
businesses. In a brief interview they noted that free-visa
Cyprus impressed them with its hospitality and top-notch
service. That opinion was shared by Valentina from Samara, Alla
from Magnitogorsk, and other Russian ladies from Chelyabinsk,
Petrozavodsk, Rostov, Barnaul, and Irkutsk. They were all happy
that the two week vacation on Cyprus completely isolated them
from Russia's politically saturated society. Having most common

background, i.e. constructor, doctor, accountant, and zoologist,
they managed to earn enough money to go abroad.
'While our men are on strike, Russia's burden lays on
women's shoulder,' they laughed. 

*******

#13
Jamestown Foundation Monitor
August 4, 1998

LAW ON MORTGAGES COMES INTO EFFECT. Russia's new law on mortgages came into
effect last week. (Izvestia, July 29; Rossiiskaya gazeta, July 30) Its aim
is to widen the access of ordinary, middle-income families to the credit
necessary to purchase their own homes. The Moscow city government has
responded by setting up a fund that will lend money to potential
house-buyers at lower rates of interest than those available from most of
Russia's commercial banks. The fund will come into operation in September.
There are hopes that other regions will follow Moscow's example.

Ivan Grachev, one of the drafters of the law and a member of the State Duma
from the Republic of Tatarstan, predicts that access to mortgages will
enable about a third of Russia's population to improve their living
conditions by buying their own homes--until now, a privilege available only
to the very rich. Grachev says that the law will also help to get the
economy growing by fueling a building boom. For these reasons, Grachev
boasts, the law will have a more positive effect than all the government's
"anti-crisis" measures taken together. (Izvestia, July 29) 
Grachev told Vechernyaya Kazan that it had taken three years to get the bill
through the Duma. Many deputies opposed the bill, Grachev said, until they
realized that it was middle-income families, not the three to five percent
of rich ones, who stood to benefit. He said the law draws on German, British

and American models. It will allow people to borrow money for twenty or
thirty years at an estimated annual rate of interest of between 6 and 7
percent. (Vechernyaya Kazan, July 29)

********

#14
Excerpt

http://www.salonmagazine.com/wlust/feature/1998/08/cov_04feature.html
Salon Wanderlust: Travel with a passion
A midsummer night's bacchanal in Moscow 
Inhibitions -- and underclothes -- are tossed into the sweating air on
Ladies Night at the Hungry Duck Bar and Grill. 
BY JEFFREY TAYLER

Every year on June 21, the Earth, careening around the oval track of its
orbit, turns lopsided and tips its northern pole to the sun. The solstice
means little to ever-sweaty tribesmen in the Congo or perpetually
overheated headhunters in the Amazon, but for Russians who have sat through
seven-month winters indoors, the advent of summer heralds no less than a
liberation, a release from musty flats, a rush to recreate and procreate in
a flood of light and warmth. For as surely as the solstice of Pan arrives,
ushering in days with 21 hours of sun, it will depart, and in its place six
months later its Hadean counterpart will show up to drag the whole
benighted Motherland into the dumps. 
One recent midsummer afternoon in Moscow, my Dutch friend -- let him
here be known as Serge -- and I were talking on the phone, casting around
for ideas on how to pass the evening. Sandwiching the receiver between jaw
and shoulder, I held before me the entertainment section of a local
newspaper and scrutinized its ho-hum offerings -- night life in the Russian
capital, we both agreed, has become duller and more predictable over the
past year. We were on the point of giving up the search when I lit upon an
advertisement for Ladies Night at the Hungry Duck Bar and Grill: From 7
o'clock until 9, free alcohol for women, male strippers and no male
customers. At 9 the strippers would end their act and men would be allowed
in. I proposed we check it out -- my first visit to the Duck a year earlier
had been pretty wild, and anyway, there was nothing else to do. Serge
huffed: "What kind of loser would go to such a thing?" But having nothing
better to offer himself, he agreed. 
It was hot, hotter than anything on record in Moscow for the past
century. Just before 9, I arrived at the iron gates outside the Duck,
wilted and wet and cursing the damnably still-radiant sun. Minutes later,
Serge sauntered up in Cartier and Versace, presenting the very picture of
sang-froid, of cool moneyed ease and European nonchalance -- 40 years old,
slender and wealthy, there was nothing he couldn't afford to do, nothing he
particularly wanted to do that he hadn't already done and little he got
worked up over. Even the heat had barely dampened his repose. 

We looked at the line of men forming outside the Duck's door. Serge
shook his head. 
"A bunch of losers, just like I thought." 
"You're so negative. I don't orient myself by those around me," I said,
and got in line behind the assembly of beet farmers, borsht-brewers, Moscow
State dropouts, halfway-house inmates and pimple-picking accountants in
horn-rims. For some reason the guard motioned us inside ahead of them; we
paid the cover charge and headed up the stairs. 
As we ascended we heard the "Titanic" theme song playing, but feminine
shrieks drowned it out. Past us stumbled shoeless teeny-boppers carrying
sloshing cups of beer, their blouses sodden and translucent, their lipstick
awry and bras askew. 
Serge paused and cast me a sidelong look of surprise. The striptease
show was supposed to have ended already. 
Ahead of us, at the end of the corridor, in the Duck's redwood-paneled
main room, some 200 young women, mostly teens, were facing stageward (there
was a stage inside the rectangular bar runway), howling and hooting. Some
had disrobed to their bras and were waving their shirts above their heads.
A few, in fact, were waving their very bras, their breasts doing Hula-Hoop
loops and spinning out sweat in centrifugal circles. It must have been 110
degrees in there....

*******