December 8, 1998   

This Date's Issues: 2507• 2508 • 

Johnson's Russia List
#2508
8 December 1998
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. The Times (UK): Russia isn't working. Anna Blundy on a nation 
addicted to idleness.
2. Marina Prince: Re 2501/Renew U.S.-Russian exchanges.
3. Moscow Times: Jean MacKenzie, CONFESSIONS OF A RUSSOPHILE: It's 
the Real Thing, Or Is It? 
4. The Independent: Helen Womack, Street Life - Lacking all the right
connections.
5. AFP: Russia-NATO relations cruising along despite a few bumps.
6. Interfax-AiF: Aleksey Sinyurin, "Is the Mirror of Russian Statistics
Crooked? or The Secret of the State Statistical Committee's Strange Figures."
7. Moscow Times: Andrew McChesney, Tax Ads Appeal to the Heart and Purse 
Strings.
8. Novyye Izvestiya: Yuriy Sigov, Who Will Buy Russian Army?
9. Reuters: Primakov Keeps Team Despite Kremlin Change.
10. AP: Barry Renfrew, Yeltsin Not News to Most Russians.]

*******

#1
The Times (UK) 
December 8 1998
[for personal use only]
Russia isn't working 
Anna Blundy on a nation addicted to idleness 
(annablundy@compuserve.com)

In Sunday's Kukli programme, Russia's version of Spitting Image, Boris
Yeltsin was portrayed as a shipwrecked captain, languishing in his tent as
Russia's politicians desperately tried to come up with a rescue plan. 
Yevgeni Primakov, the Prime Minister, was shown frantically trying to
radio the approaching ice-breaker IMF, which threatened to crush the men
with its almighty force. "We're taking the right course!" screamed Primakov,
as Yeltsin peered out of his tent to see what was going on. 
Yesterday Russia's President popped out of hospital for a brief period of
sacking and signing before being rushed back to bed. This system of running
a country and a crippled economy seems a bit odd to your average Westerner,
but to Russians, used to sickly leaders and unorthodox working practices, it
is no real surprise. 
Long used to thankless jobs and corrupt management, Russians are wont to
take what they can and run as far as possible where work is concerned. The
rewards of working for others have always been few and far between, but
Westerners are constantly maddened by what they perceive as the laziness and
pettiness of Russians. 
George Soros, speaking at a Times forum in London last night, may have
many a salient politico-economic reason for the failure of capitalism in the
East. But it is foundering in Russia because Russians have a
live-for-the-moment attitude. They tend as a nation to behave as though they
might die tomorrow because, well, they might. Yeltsin, with his hard
drinking, erratic behaviour and sudden sackings is an obvious case in point.
The brutality of Russian history and perhaps the cruelty of the Russian
winter have taught the people to get what they can out of life quickly - it
might soon be over. 
Nikolai Karamzin, the author of a 12-volume history of Russia published in
1829, when asked to sum up Russians and their attitude to work, said: "They
steal." 
Certain patronising Western capitalists are of the opinion that it is
communism that has ruined the Russian work ethic."The communists took the
reward out of working," you hear gleaming-toothed Americans in Moscow's
Starlite Diner say. "If only we could teach them about job satisfaction and
the benefits of long-term employment, then this country would really have a
future," 
But it is not the fault of communism that Russians are wry and ironic with
a bleak sense of humour and a fatalistic view of life, always assuming the
worst, always nostalgic for a golden past that never actually existed. 
Giles Fletcher's Of the Russe Commonwealth, written after his
ambassadorial visit from England to Russia in 1588, describes a country and
a people that have not changed much to this day. Fletcher writes that doing
business with Russians is difficult because: "The Russian neither believes
any thing that an other man speaks, nor speaks any thing himself worthy to
be believed." 
As far as Russians are concerned, work is what you have to do to survive,
enjoying yourself is the thing to be taken seriously. There is a famous
Russian joke about two brothers who visit their father. The father pours out
some vodka and says: "Now that you're here, let's drink." 
"Right you are," replies the first son and they down their shots in one.
"Now," says the second son, "let's do some work." "You don't half talk
rubbish when you're drunk," the first son tells him. 
Of course, this is a vicious circle. Russians no longer believe in the
American dream, therefore they cheat and steal in the knowledge that the
opportunity might not be open to them twice. But the very fact that they do
this, that Russian banks have swallowed up their savings, that chronic
mismanagement and corruption have effectively bankrupted the country, means
that the pessimists have had their fears justified. (The words for "in a
jar" in Russian are the same as for "in a bank" and most Russians know which
is a safer place to keep your money.) 
Perhaps if they had fully understood the principles of a market economy,
perhaps if they had not followed the examples of the robber barons like the
Rockefellers and the Morgans, things might have worked out better. Or
perhaps not. Though they claim to hate them, Russians have a grudging
respect for the young mafioso millionaires their country has lately
produced. Under communism breaking the law was a noble activity and those
who survived their prison sentences earned a silent but deep respect. 
A little of that attitude still exists and there are many here who hope
Sergei Mikhailov, or "Mikhas", currently on trial in Switzerland on
suspicion of running an organised crime group, will not go to prison. They
envy him his Geneva residence and his nice suits, certainly, but they
acknowledge that if they had had the chance to make money effortlessly, they
would have taken it, whatever the risks. As they never get enough of saying
here: "Work loves fools." 

******

#2
From: Marina Prince <cprinhou@hypercon.com>
Subject: Re: 2501/Renew U.S.-Russian exchanges
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 20:53:03 -0600

To Chris Wright's passage: "Difficult as the current crisis is, no
reputable opinion poll has uncovered any desire among the Russian public to
return to the days when people could not travel beyond their own oblast
without special permission, when any conversation with a foreigner had to be
reported to the "proper authorities," when access to computers and fax
machines -- indeed even typewriters and copy machines -- was tightly
controlled". 
This is indeed just a few stereotypes that keep cultivating on the West. As
a Russian myself, I can assure that even before perestroika we never needed
permission to travel within USSR (unlike now - I had to get a visa to go to
Lithuania this summer), conversations with foreigners did not have to be
reported - unless one worked for KGB, which was not as widespread as often
assumed, and access to typewriters was not "tightly controlled" - I worked
as a secretary myself. Of course no Russian would want to return to those
days - they never existed. But real Russians I know do want to return to
stable and relatively prosperous society it once has been. 

*******

#3
Moscow Times
December 8, 1998 
CONFESSIONS OF A RUSSOPHILE: It's the Real Thing, Or Is It? 
By Jean MacKenzie 

I'm becoming a bit of a downer at parties. While I used to adhere to at least
some of the rules of politesse, I now have an unfortunate tendency to sit in a
corner delivering dire pronouncements on the state of Russia. 
Soon I may have to stop watching television or reading newspapers altogether,
which may put a crimp in my journalistic career. But the idiocy floating
around these days is getting to be just too much. 
The parliament voted to put the statue of the architect of the Red Terror,
Felix Dzerzhinsky, back on Lubyanskaya Ploshchad. The communist State Duma
speaker wants to bring back labor camps; people are freezing to death in
Kamchatka and starving to death in Ulyanovsk. Lawmakers are calling for the
death of the Jews, democrats are being slaughtered and the oligarchs are too
busy trying to cover their assets to do anything about the dire state of the
economy. What a country. 
At an early Christmas gathering last weekend I spread doom and gloom along
with the eggnog. There were a few neophytes there - you can always tell them
by the bright eyes and innocent smiles, the earnest comments on how
"interesting" Russia is. 
"Relationships are so much more real here," said a young Brit called Angus,
still in the first flush of infatuation with Moscow. "In London or in America,
people smile and talk to you, but they don't know you. Here it is so much
deeper." I remember with an inward wince saying this sort of thing myself,
years before being mangled by my all-too-"real" entanglements with Russia. 
There was Fedya, a slick operator and New Russian wannabe who somehow managed
to get me to take him to the States for a month, buy him a new wardrobe, a VCR
and a stereo, and who then dumped me on our return because Americans were "too
materialistic." 
Almost as "real" was my brief fling with Venya, a self-proclaimed great
writer, who spent weeks chatting me up, and, just when things were getting
interesting, absconded with my car. 
Then there was my close friend Nadya, who calmly assumed I would be willing to
smuggle $15,000 to New York for her, and showed up at my house with the cash
five minutes before I was to leave for the airport. The relationship suffered
grievously when I declined. 
I sometimes feel like I'm dragging my friendships around like Jacob Marley's
chain, and it was all I could do to keep from rattling my burden and shouting
"repent" at poor Angus. But I just smiled noncommittally,nobly refrained from
dumping my eggnog and my cynicism on his head , and went in search of another
victim. 
I found one in the person of a young American lawyer, who tried valiantly to
defend Russia from my bitter onslaught. 
"But it's such an ancient culture," she insisted. "It's like China, or India."
Ancient? There was almost no literature here until the 19th century. And
whatever culture the country managed to accumulate has been systematically
destroyed. Russia has been periodically reinventing itself since at least the
time of Peter the Great, throwing out the old to impose the new. How do you
hold on to culture in that environment? 
She tried again: "But the Communists. ..." 
Oh, no, not that again. What would we do without the Communist scapegoat? The
Communists were not conquerors or invaders. They did not materialize from Mars
to victimize a helpless population. The Communists were Russian, and the
nightmare system they created was merely the embodiment of the twisted dreams
of the lowest rungs of the Russian narod, or people: revenge on anyone who was
better educated, better dressed, better off. 
Remember the Russian "Robin Hood" in Yaroslavl? He burned down 25 "New
Russian" cottages, because he couldn't stand the rich, and is being heralded
as something of a hero. I can't quite understand what destroying so much
property did for the area's poor. 
It's like the old anecdote about simple Vanya, who catches the magic golden
fish. The fish says, "Put me back and I'll grant you one wish. But whatever
you ask for, your neighbor will get twice as much." Vanya thinks and thinks,
then says "Oh little golden fish, please poke out one of my eyes." 
The lawyer looked at me, shook her head, and said, "So, you've been here for
10 years. Why?" 
I sputtered, shook my head, and was silent. Why, indeed? "Because it's
interesting," I burbled. "Because relationships are so much more real here.
And the culture. ..." 
My chain rattled faintly in the distance. 

*******

#4
The Independent
December 8, 1998
[for personal use only]
Street Life - Lacking all the right connections
By Helen Womack (goblin@sonnet.ru) 

Samotechny Lane, Moscow 

There are many dreaded words in Russian, but among the most feared are the oh-
so- innocent-sounding "In connection with". Whenever you see a notice start in
this way, you know to expect some bureaucratic excuse and you can work out for
yourself how you are about to be inconvenienced. 
"In connection with works on the bridge": this means that traffic on the only
highway between Moscow and St Petersburg will be reduced to a single lane and
you will experience mile-long tailbacks for the next two years. 
"In connection with repairs to the pipes": the hot water in your apartment is
going to be switched off indefinitely and you will have to boil pans of water
to wash up or have a bath. 
The "in connection with" notices went up in Samotechny Lane last week. The
basement had been chemically treated for vermin, we were told, and so we could
expect waves of cockroaches and possibly even mice and rats seeking asylum in
our apartments. Later we had a visit from a woman dressed in battle fatigues
and a purple chiffon headscarf, who offered us a cocaine-like powder to
sprinkle round the skirting boards. "Deadly to cockroaches, won't harm your
pets," she said. My black cat rolled in it and turned white. 
"In connection with" something else, we also lost our telephone links. This
was a blow, as we natter incessantly, taking advantage of one of the happy
vestiges of the Soviet system, free telephone calls within Moscow. Thus, the
concept of street life extends to include not only neighbours but also friends
on the other side of the city. Suddenly we had to sit in icy trolley buses and
actually visit each other if we wanted to exchange tales of misery. 
In the far-flung suburb of Khimki, which belongs spiritually to Samotechny
Lane, they were having power cuts "in connection with" something or other. The
cheerful ladies in the local bakery were selling loaves by candlelight. 
All this, of course, was trivial compared with the suffering of people in
Vladivostok, in the far east. If there is one thing worse than an "in
connection with" notice, it is no notice at all, just unexplained breakdown.
This means that all responsibility for the problem has been abandoned. 
The television showed pictures of desperate people, left for days in the depth
of winter without any heating in their homes. Some were bearing the ordeal
patiently, like the woman, bundled up in jumpers, who showed a reporter her
goldfish, belly-up in cold water. She had put jumpers round the bowl but they
had not helped. The implication was that jumpers would not save her either.
You could see her breath as she talked inside the flat, where the temperature
was zero. 
Others, who had gone outside because it was warmer around the street bonfires
than inside their refrigerated homes, were close to rioting. "We are being
treated like cattle," cried one woman. Various factors, from unpaid bills to
neglected maintenance work, appeared to be behind the problem. Yet, the homes
of senior officials were warm. The crowd rocked one of the officials'
limousines and tried to overturn it. It was the nearest I have seen to
Russians losing their legendary patience. 
"In connection with" the near total collapse of the country, there is a
possibility of imminent revolution. As far as utilities are concerned, the
mess we are in now is because of the failure of a quiet revolution planned by
ousted reformers. We are paying for years of dependence on the nanny state,
which subsidised us on the one hand (hence the ridiculously low telephone, gas
and electricity bills) while on the other, denied us choice and
responsibility. 
The reformers wanted to change all that but never got round to it. Now the
state is verging on bankruptcy and its services are increasingly patchy. 
Ironically, while most people were freezing, one building in Moscow had too
much heat last week. "We are wearing T-shirts in here and still we are
sweating," said Kirill, who lives in a block once set aside for artists from
the Bolshoi Theatre. There are no knobs on Russian radiators. God forbid that
individuals should be able to decide for themselves whether they are hot or
cold. Such freedom would lead to anarchy, or so the old Soviet planners
believed. 
"I suspect that Yeltsin keeps the central heating button in his briefcase
along with the nuclear button," joked Kirill. But no, only the bureaucrats at
the central heating station can decide whether to turn the heat up or down.
Officials working in the Kremlin complained that they were shivering and,
according to a television report, asked for the heat to be turned up by three
degrees. 

*******

#5
Russia-NATO relations cruising along despite a few bumps

BRUSSELS, Dec 7 (AFP) - Russia and NATO will on Wednesday adopt a political
and military calendar for 1999, a sign of the good relations between the two
despite some fundamental differences and occasional flare-ups over issues such
as Kosovo.
The programme will be signed during a ministerial meeting in Brussels.
Moscow remains vehemently opposed to NATO's expansion to include former
Eastern bloc countries. Russian political circles and the press, which almost
unanimously oppose the integration of the former Soviet republics into the
alliance, still believe NATO to be hostile to Russia.
During the Kosovo crisis in October, and more recently during the arrest of a
Serb general in Bosnia suspected of war crimes, Russia condemned any NATO
plans to use force. Moscow threatened a "return to the Cold War" and to break
off relations with the alliance.
But the newfound friendship between the former Cold War enemies has suffered
little from such talk, and the Joint Permanent Council (JPC), created in May
1997, has played its role to perfection.
Moscow has held the status of NATO observer with the right to consult but not
to vote since the birth of the JPC.
"Even if we disagree on certain points, these do not hamper our exchanges
which are stronger in periods of crisis, such as the one on Kosovo. The joint
council proved itself, enabling the alliance and Russia to work hand in hand
regardless of the weather," a NATO official said.
Several other diplomats confirmed the strong ties between Moscow and the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization.
"The Russians are playing the game" and the two partners passed "the Kosovo
test" without too much difficulty, they said.
"Russia is not a member of NATO, it does not want to be and does not act as
such. But it is a partner. It informs the allies, asks about its positions,
tries to influence debates, in short, it fully plays its role as partner," one
diplomat said.
After an initial phase during which "the two parties grew accustomed to one
another, we are now in a period of relative trust," another western diplomat
said, calling the development "remarkable" for "two parties that had no
dialogue and did not want one."
The 1999 calendar of activities, which will be adopted on Wednesday by NATO's
and Russia's foreign ministers, consists of about 20 points, most of which
have already been discussed this year.
The JPC recently debated nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons,
doctrines, military infrastructures and aid to help soldiers reintegrate into
civilian life -- a sensitive subject in Russia.
A week ago, NATO proposed to add the millennium bug to a list of subjects
already agreed upon. According to diplomats in Brussels, Russia is expected to
accept the offer.
Several allies, including the United States, are very concerned about the
impact the bug will have on Russian computer systems, especially those linked
to nuclear weapons.
While Washington has already spent billions of dollars to limit the effects of
the millennium bug, Russia is the furthest behind in Europe on the issue,
according to specialists. 

*******

#6
Economics Statistics Accuracy Questioned 

Interfax-AiF
November 27-December 3, 1998
[translation for personal use only]
Article by Aleksey Sinyurin: "Is the Mirror of Russian Statistics
Crooked? or The Secret of the State Statistical Committee's Strange Figures"

In mid-November the Russian State Statistical Committee published its
latest report on the monthly inflation rate in our country based on October
figures. That event unleashed a new wave of negative emotions in society,
the gist of which was familiar accusations along the lines of "Statistics
are lying again!"

What Would Have Surprised Disraeli

According to official statistics,
during the two and a half months that have passed since the start of the
crisis, inflation in Russia was just 49.2%. "All you have to do is visit
stores to see that that is not true," has been a common refrain in
recent months.
It should be acknowledged that Russian society, in contrast to the
West, views the science of statistics with some disdain. Thanks to the
movie "Office Romance" the image of dried-up statisticians who can think of
nothing except plans, reports and tables lives on in people's mind to this
day. But the most important point is that for years statistical data were
cited to convince us that "life has become better, life has become
brighter." This created the persistent impression that "all statistics
lie," and that is something that cannot be overcome overnight.
A saying by British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli from almost 100
years ago and now virtually forgotten in the West remains popular to this
day in Russia: "There are lies, damned lies and statistics." Russians
also love Bernard Shaw's simple calculation: if one man eats two chickens
and his neighbor eats none, then on the average they have both eaten one.

Let Us Try To Calculate Together

Nevertheless... In order to calculate
the inflation rate, one has to know two main things. Firstly, how much
prices have changed for all types of goods and services purchased by the
public and, secondly, what percentage of a given individual's cash expense
each item comprises. For example, if one product has doubled in price and
a second one has quadrupled, yet no one is buying it, that means that on
average prices have doubled. If both items are bought in equal proportion,
then prices have tripled. If the public allots 20% of its spending to the
first item and 80% to the second item, then prices have increased by a
factor of 3.6 ((2 x 0.2) + (4 x 0.8) = 3.6), and so on. This seemingly
simple truth also needs to be explained.
In order to calculate how much prices have changed for a specific
product, the Russian State Statistical Committee records prices all over
the country on the last Monday of each month. In each oblast center and in
all large cities specially-trained employees visit large stores and markets
and record prices for the same group of products. The cost of food and
beverage items alone is based on a list of 100 products recorded at a
minimum of 5-10 sites. This is done inconspicuously: the counter
approaches a salesperson, asks for example how much carrots are, and moves
on. Off to the side, he or she writes the figure down in a notebook
&mdash; one more price recorded.
After recording prices for all types of goods and services, it is
necessary to determine how much they have gone up or down on the average in
each region of the country. But it is impossible to lump together (even
within a single oblast, kray or city) an increase in the price of cabbage
and an increase in the price of milk or meat, not to mention higher prices
for clothing, cosmetics, utilities or transportation. For that purpose
statistics has a system of selective family budget studies, a system that,
incidentally, is commonly accepted throughout the civilized world. The
gist of it is that over the course of each year a certain number of
families with various income levels in each component of the Federation
report on what portion of their money they spent for their consumer needs.
Those families are selected by the Russian State Statistical Committee
with great care. The number of children and retirees in each family should
be roughly the same as the average for a given region. Their income level
should be such as to reflect the structure of the region's population as
precisely and proportionally as possible. That is, if in an oblast as a
whole 15% of families have income per family member of less than R400
[rubles], 50% between R400 and R1,000 and the rest more than R1,000 per
person, then families are selected in precisely that ratio.
It is important that the families report their consumer spending with
absolute accuracy, without overstating or understating it. That is because
how the families report to statisticians determines how statistics will
present the personal spending of an entire region and, consequently, how
consumer price changes (inflation) will be reported.
It should be noted that these informants are regularly paid a fee so
that they will consent to ongoing participation in the studies, as the data
must be collected year after year. These families are obligated (and this
is what they are paid for) to keep a special journal in which they record
all spending by every family member, including minor expenses.
Yet the families studied constantly understate their income. It is
only rare individuals who do not do this. Some understate their income in
order to conceal black-market earnings and avoid taxes. Some hope to gain
more cash compensation or public assistance. Some simply do not maintain
the journals out of carelessness, even though they are required to do so.
However, by and large Russian citizens are quite simply too poor,
something that not everyone in our country realizes. This is especially
true in smaller cities, where wages may go unpaid for months and virtually
every family has its garden plot and keeps chickens or pigs. These people
simply cannot spend money on goods and services, because they do not have
any. They all live in an in-kind economy based on barter. But where there
is no money in circulation and people buy virtually nothing, neither can
there be any inflation.

Dialogue Between the Blind and the Deaf

Back in 1993, when statistics
from selective family budget studies were first being created, specialists
from outlying regions reported how they visited the survey families to
collect information. They found half-empty journals with notes stating
that over the past month or quarter only a few types of cheap products had
been purchased. "We do not have money for anything else, everything is so
expensive," they replied. As a result, at times it seemed that for a whole
quarter not a single refrigerator, vacuum cleaner or iron had been
purchased in an entire region. State Statistical Committee specialists had
to gauge these based on retail sales volume. The public's expense
structure was dominated by vegetables, fruit, bread and milk. A
considerable portion also went to vodka. It is interesting to note that in
this latest financial crisis these products have shown the smallest price
increases. For that reason in those regions where families primarily were
buying those items, the inflation rate was also fairly low.
Imagine the following experiment. Someone visits one of the
provincial families which the State Statistical Committee surveys to
determine their consumer expenses, and says: "Well, the current financial
crisis has had virtually no effect on you; you haven't experienced the same
large price increases we have in Moscow." In response you can expect a
dialogue something like this:"Do you know how much milk costs now?"
"But you don't buy milk, your country relatives bring it to you."
"And how much more does meat cost?"
"But you and your family only buy one kilogram of meat per month
&mdash; you don't have enough money for more than that."
"Have you seen how much cigarettes cost now?""But you don't smoke."
And so on. In other words, it reminds one of a dialogue between the
blind and the deaf.
It is only natural that the State Statistical Committee has not yet
come up with an ideal way to calculate inflation. Many comments about its
work could be made, but these will be more in the nature of a scientific
discussion instead of the man on the street accusingly saying: "That can't
be true, because that just never happens!" Would it not be better for
statistical agencies to explain to citizens in plain language how they
calculate statistical indicators instead of playing cat-and-mouse withthem?

Does Our Neighbors' Experience Mean Nothing to Us?

Consider the example
of our recent neighbors in the Soviet Union, the Baltic countries. 
Statisticians there do a very professional job. In Latvia, which uses the
very same inflation index, the form in which the materials are presented is
so simple that anyone familiar with the basics of statistical science can
understand it. All you need to do is drop by the republic's statistical
bureau and in its library you will be given the necessary information,
along with an explanation of its meaning. Anyone can calculate the index
for themselves and verify whether or not it was calculated correctly. The
table has an overall price index corresponding to 100% of Latvians'
consumer spending, plus individual components thereof indicating their
proportion relative to overall spending. Next to each item is the price
index corresponding to it. You multiply this times the percentage of total
consumer spending, add the results, and you come up with 100% of spending,
i.e. the aggregate inflation index.
Why does our country not publicize the percentage of each product in
the consumer spending structure? If that were the case it would be clearer
that if prices are up by 50% it is due to manufactured goods doubling in
prices while vegetables, fruit, bread and milk increased in price by just
5-10%. And since the latter play such a decisive role in consumer
spending, they were the ones that "tugged on the inflation rope." In such
cases State Statistical Committee employees reply that there is information
that they are required to make public, and information that they are not
required to make public and which is for internal use only. Well, in that
case the public reserves the right not to believe statistics.
Could that be why Russians understate their income and refuse to keep
the journals by which the State Statistical Committee assesses the consumer
spending structure? A vicious cycle: if people do not under the purpose
of their actions, they lose interest in them.

*******

#7
Moscow Times
December 8, 1998 
Tax Ads Appeal to the Heart and Purse Strings 
By Andrew McChesney
Staff Writer 
The teacher hands a textbook to a group of students. Young hands eagerly turn
the pages. "Our schools don't have enough textbooks," a male voice gravely
says. 
The message flashes up: "No one will help Russia except ourselves." 
Then the teacher's somber face fills the screen. "Please, pay your taxes." 
This is the scenario for a television ad in a new State Tax Service campaign,
billed as the first not to use scare tactics to encourage citizens to pay
their taxes. 
The 15-second spots, which began appearing on the ORT, RTR and NTV television
stations last week, are a sharp departure from previous ads that warned
viewers they would face insomnia and impotence for cheating on taxes. 
"This is a campaign of great social importance," said Dmitry Korokov, general
director at Adventa advertising agency, which produced the four-month public
awareness campaign. "This is not like selling Snickers." 
Adventa, ranked the fourth largest Russian ad agency by Advertising Age last
year, has a client list that includes multinationals such as Unilever, R.J.
Reynolds and Johnson & Johnson. The new spots, which cost $10,000 to $20,000
each to produce, are the agency's first step into social advertising, Korokov
said. 
"The basic strategy is not to threaten people but to tell them where the taxes
are going and to show them what a bad budgetary situation the state
institutions are in at the moment," he said. 
A second ad shows a pensioner retrieving an empty bottle from a park bench as
the voice intones, "Our old people live in poverty." The camera zooms in to
the woman's well-lined face. "Please, pay your taxes," the voice says. 
The other three ads focus on the state's hospitals, ambulance services and
orphanages. But all five are simple and to the point: In vivid black and
white, they paint the social cost of unpaid taxes. 
"The idea of our campaign was to be emotional and appeal to the senses of the
Russian people," Korokov said. 
The ads are the brainchild of tax service public relations director Renat
Dosmukhadov, who was brought in under new tax chief Georgy Boos, Korokov said.
Dosmukhadov and other tax officials were unavailable for comment. 
Korokov stresses the departure from previous tax service campaigns which used
a combination of flippancy and threats. Those aggressive ads ran alongside
minute-long cartoons aimed at children, in which fairy tale tax evaders go to
pieces after not paying their social dues. 
Analysts said that with the new ads, the tax authorities seem to be either
trying to play a good cop, bad cop routine or they had for the moment given up
trying to harass taxes out of the people. 
All agreed, though, that while the commercials could increase awareness, the
authorities stood little chance of improving their dismal collection. 
"Why don't people pay their taxes? Because they don't trust the state," said
Scott Antel, a tax attorney at Arthur Andersen. 
"When it cleans up its act, people will come into the system because they too
want services," he said. "They want hospitals to work, pensioners to get
paid." 
The tax service collected only 52 percent of its targeted amount in 1997, and
this year's revenues look just as grim. 
"The ads themselves are brilliantly executed," said a Russian analyst, who
asked not to be identified. "But who is going to believe the government is
using tax money for textbooks and pensioners when they spend hundreds of
thousands of dollars dreaming up new campaigns?" 
Korokov, meanwhile, said Adventa was glad for the chance to try social
advertising for the first time, adding that he believed such campaigns may
become the wave of the advertising future in Russia. Adventa, like all other
ad firms in Russia, has seen orders drop as Western companies reconsider their
marketing moves amid the financial crisis. 
"We see this as our debut in social advertising," he said. "We think we will
see a lot in the upcoming few years because the ad market is shrinking so we
need to find new outlets." 
Adventa has also prepared ads under the "No one can help Russia except us"
slogan for outdoor venues and the printed media. 
Natalya Ghittori, public relations director at Adventa, said the tax
authorities in the end decided where the ads appeared, but the agency had
recommended that they be placed as widely as possible. 

*******

#8
US Aid, 'Purchase' of, Russian Army Eyed 

Novyye Izvestiya
December 4, 1998
[translation for personal use only]
"Who Will Buy Russian Army?" 
By Yuriy Sigov

Washington -- The worsening economic and political
situation in Russia, particularly in connection with the
recent assassination of Deputy G. Starovoytova, gives the Americans no
rest. Ideas about what the United States can do to prevent
chaos and a total political and economic collapse in Russia are being
heard every day from scientific circles, from high state offices, and
even from prominent politicians. The Americans differ in their opinions.
Army General, Retired, William Odom has published a book
entitled "The Collapse of the Soviet Army," in which he advised the U.S.
Administration to completely stop assisting Russia and its
military at the present time of crisis. "All our aid to the Russian
military, however good their guys may be and however we may cooperate
strategically with them, is stolen shamelessly," the U.S. general writes.
"The troops are not paid not because the Kremlin does not have
the money for this but because all the money allocated to the Army goes to
the top generals, and the generals themselves use their
subordinates like slaves. It is a real crime to give financial support to
such an army." 
The book by the recent combat general in the U.S. Army is full of
descriptions of sundry horrors in the Russian Armed Forces -- one
soldier in every 10 in Russia is raped by his comrades in the military
unit, one in five is a drug addict, and nine out of 10 new recruits fall
victim to hazing. "If tomorrow some political force in Russia were to urge
the Army to mutiny, then virtually any military unit in the
Russian Army would take to the street and participate in pogroms," W. Odom
asserts. 
The general is also sure that the United States must without delay stop
funding the destruction of Russia's nuclear arsenals out of U.S.
taxpayers' pockets under the Nunn-Lugar program. "It is better to let
Russian missiles rot in their silos. After a month without preventive
servicing their launch mechanisms and electronics will go out of
commission of their own accord. Why do we give the Russians money
to extract nuclear fissionable components? Because all this is then bought
on the cheap by the Iranians, who will threaten us with what is
virtually our own money." 
The arguments of supporters of aid for the Russian Army appear equally
convincing. U.S. Senator R. Lugar has just advocated new
appropriations for the destruction of Russian nuclear munitions (right
after visiting Russian installations). He is supported by Brent
Scowcroft, former national security adviser to the U.S. President. "It is
in the interests of U.S. politicians to help the Russian military. The
Russians are still chockablock with nuclear munitions, and, as practice
shows, people who have been reduced to despair quite
unexpectedly carry out desperate actions, from which not only Russia but
also the United States may suffer directly." 
Scowcroft believes that the Russian Army, given the amorphous and
helpless nature of the present political structures in the
country, can act as the guarantor of legality and order. "With normal
funding Russian troops can be used to deliver food to parts
of the country that are experiencing a food shortage. In that case
this food, coming in from the United States, will be guaranteed
not to fall into the hands of sundry thieves, who traditionally
pilfer any humanitarian aid from abroad. They will fear the military,"
the former White House official believes.
In addition to the two radical options -- helping the Russian military or,
conversely, giving them, as well as all of Russia, up as a bad job --
some U.S. specialists associated with the Pentagon are also discussing a
very exotic option for resolving the Russian Army's financial
problems. For this they propose to simply...purchase the Russian Army
itself. It has been calculated that the Russian Armed Forces are today
worth, according to very preliminary estimates, approximately $1 billion
-- in other words roughly the cost of one nuclear submarine
for the U.S. Navy. 
The calculations are based on data published in Russia relating to the
wages of soldiers and officers, as well as data from the official
military budget of the Russian Armed Forces. Thus, a private's wages now
stand at approximately $4 a month, while the Americans can
spend just $48 million a year on "acquiring" our Army's entire enlisted
ranks. The remaining expenditure will go on officers' wages, arms
purchases, and the upkeep of military camps and military bases. 
To give readers a rough idea of what $1 billion means to the U.S. budget,
I will explain: Each year the extremely efficiently functioning
taxation system in the United States provides the country's budget with
more than $250 billion in the form of "superfluous funds," which
is then spent, under Congressional supervision, on aid to various
countries (including Russia), on eliminating the aftermath of
hurricanes, earthquakes, and so forth. 
"The Russian defense minister recently told his parliament that the budget
which has been laid down for his subordinates for 1999 is
absolutely ruinous for the Armed Forces. It would be better for us
Americans to take over the upkeep of the Russian military, particularly
as this does not cost a lot," a New York newspaper wrote. "Otherwise the
Russian Mafia will easily gather together the sum of $1 billion.
Then this will be a headache not only for Russian political experts and
politicians but also for all the states that surround Russia." 

*******

#9
Primakov Keeps Team Despite Kremlin Change 

MOSCOW, Dec. 08, 1998 -- (Reuters) Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov
said on Tuesday he saw no need to make changes to his government after
President Boris Yeltsin's dramatic reshuffle of the Kremlin administration
on Monday. 
The president, seeking to reassert his authority, had returned to work
briefly to sack his chief of staff and three deputies and to berate other
Kremlin aides for their poor work. He later returned to hospital for more
treatment for pneumonia. 
Primakov, whose stature has grown as Yeltsin's has diminished, said he
saw no need to tinker with his Cabinet. 
"We are not planning any sackings unless someone proves incompetent,"
Primakov told reporters during a visit to a state-run television company.
"As far as my deputies are concerned, I am quite happy with their work." 
Primakov was approved by Yeltsin and the Communist-dominated parliament
as a compromise premier in September. He faces the difficult task of
steering Russia out of financial crisis without further antagonizing
millions of unpaid workers. 
The government has promised to approve and present its long overdue 1999
draft budget to parliament soon. The draft is widely seen as the Cabinet's
rescue blueprint. 
Interfax news agency quoted government sources as saying Primakov's inner
Cabinet was likely to consider the draft budget at a meeting on Wednesday. 
Primakov has said the budget will be austere to avoid hyperinflation. The
ruble fell marginally on Tuesday in interbank trading to 20.43 to the dollar
from 20.40 on Monday -- having traded at around six to the dollar before
crisis struck in mid-August. 
The Communists have indicated they could look favorably on budget if
Primakov agreed to back the idea of imposing so-called "supervisory
councils" at the state-run television company VGRTK. 
Liberals regard the Communists' proposal as an attempt to reintroduce
censorship through the backdoor. 
"No one plans or wants to introduce press censorship," Primakov said
during his visit to VGTRK. 
Taken aback once more by the unpredictability of Yeltsin, Russian
newspapers speculated whether the ailing and isolated Kremlin chief could
stage a political comeback. 
The 67-year-old president has often been written off as a spent force in
the past, only to bounce back. 
This time he drove to the Kremlin for three hours to fire Valentin
Yumashev, the loyal, secretive head of his administration who had been
referred to in Russian newspapers as "Yeltsin's son," not least because of
his friendly ties to the president's daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko. 
"The President is cured" said the daily Izvestiya in a front page
headline, overlooking the fact that Yeltsin had returned to the hospital
outside Moscow where he has been recovering from pneumonia, the latest of a
series of illnesses that have led commentators and opponents to write him off. 
"He felt around him an information and political sarcophagus, built not
without the participation of his so-called 'family circle,' and only
gathered the strength to break through," it said. 
Izvestiya also said the decision to replace Yumashev with Nikolai
Bordyuzha, a career officer who was already secretary of the advisory
Security Council, was a sign that Yeltsin was gearing up for a showdown,
both with his Communist opponents and, if necessary, with members of the
government. 
"The president has militarized his administration," it said. 
But not all newspapers were convinced there was a plan. 
Moskovsky Komsomolets ran a front-page cartoon showing a squinting
Yeltsin in bandages and pajamas, riding a bewildered horse in front of a
Kremlin fortress in flames, lopping off heads left and right with a sword. 
"What to expect from Yeltsin -- the building of a new pyramid of Cheops
or a last farewell showdown with his opponents gone wild -- already nobody
can predict," the paper said. ( (c) 1998 Reuters) 

*******

#10
Yeltsin Not News to Most Russians
December 8, 1998
By BARRY RENFREW

MOSCOW (AP) -- Boris Yeltsin has made yet another surreal, unconvincing
attempt to show Russia and the rest of the world there is nothing wrong with
him.
Yeltsin left the hospital Monday and went to the Kremlin for three hours
to dismiss aides who said what everyone knew -- the president has health
problems. Never mind that they also said Yeltsin would and should stay in
office.
While the rest of the world worries about Yeltsin's health, most Russians
don't seem to care. It's just not big news anymore.
The real irony is that while ordinary Russians have written Yeltsin off,
there still is one important group which does not want him to step down --
the country's political leadership, including some of his most vehement foes.
If Yeltsin were to resign early or die in office, there would almost
certainly be presidential elections, as the constitution stipulates.
Many Russians would welcome elections, saying the country needs a strong,
effective leader to tackle its problems.
But with Russia in the grip of the worst economic crisis since the fall
of the Soviet Union, most political leaders and aspiring presidential
candidates prefer that Yeltsin stay in power for now and take the blame.
Nobody has any real idea of how to tackle Russia's enormous problems.
The economy is stuck between the old-Soviet system and failed market
reforms; the government's economic ministers don't know what to do beyond
begging for Western aid, even though billions have already been wasted or
stolen.
Even the Communists, the president's fiercest opponents, don't seem keen
to have their favorite target actually leave office any time soon.
Top Communist leaders too have few solutions, and little confidence that
the electorate will back them.
The liberal reformers, who have backed Yeltsin in the past, are deeply
divided. Discredited by the failure of market reforms, they can't agree on a
presidential candidate.
The top two presidential candidates have problems of their own.
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who has the most powerful political machine,
is struggling to build support in the provinces, where distrust of Moscow is
strong and a major obstacle to his ambitions.
Nationalist leader Alexander Lebed constantly calls for Yeltsin's
removal, but still lacks the money and allies vital to win the presidency.
Yeltsin has no idea of how to fix Russia's problems either. His sole
concern is clinging to power and telling everyone that he's in charge, even
if he stopped pretending long ago that he has any solutions.
An ailing president who tries to rule from a hospital, some Russians
quip, is appropriate for a nation that is disintegrating.
Editor's Note: Barry Renfrew is the AP Moscow bureau chief.

******