December 10, 1998    
This Date's Issues: 2511 • 2512 • 

Johnson's Russia List
#2512
10 December 1998
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AFP: Russia adopts 1999 budget.
2. Reuters: Russia's Zyuganov dismisses Yeltsin show as farce.
3. Reuters: Russian reformers create centre-right grouping.
4. Voice of America: Gil Butler, Duma schedules START 2 debate.
5. Reuters: Justice Minister Seeks End of Death Penalty.
6. Reuters: Russian rights activists blast new religion law.
7. Financial Times: Carlotta Gall and Robert Corzine, RUSSIA: Oil sector
opened further.
8. Baltimore Sun: Tamara Ikenberg, A `Nutcracker' for democracy. Dance: 
Moscow Ballet dedicates its performances to the memory of a slain Russian
reform leader.
9. AFP: Vladivostok suffers from twin peaks of Russia's troubles.
10. PERSPECTIVE: Vera Tolz, 'Creating' a Russian Nation.]

*******

#1
Russia adopts 1999 budget

MOSCOW, Dec 10 (AFP) - The Russian government on Thursday rubber-stamped a
1999 budget which assumes that foreign creditors will give Moscow a big
helping hand to pull its shipwrecked economy off the rocks.
Ministers nodded through the vital finance bill and called on deputies in the
State Duma lower house of parliament to enact the document as soon as possible
to bring a measure of order to Russia's public finances ravaged by this year's
economic crisis.
"We are counting on understanding," Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov said.
"This document bears the hopes of development of the country not just for the
next year but up to the next elections," Zadornov said, in an apparent
reference to presidential polls due in 2000.
"I hope that deputies will be guided by the interests of the country."
Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov said that the budget was "tough but honest,"
and would help Russia "breathe easier in the future", Interfax reported.
"We are dropping the old pattern when we were dependent on taking loans to
mend the holes in wage and pension payments," the premier said.
Primakov's government has laboured for weeks to try and balance Russia's
perennially lopsided budget equation. This year financial planning has been
thrown further off kilter by the decision in August to devalue the ruble and
default on some state debt.
The 1999 spending plan commits Russia to running a tighter budget deficit than
ever -- just 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) according to a
finance ministry draft obtained by AFP, the broad lines of which Zadornov
confirmed.
But the minister admitted that Russia had factored barely half of the foreign
debt which it is due to repay its creditors next year into the budget
equation.
Russia is prepared to pay back 9.5 billion dollars out of about 17.5 billion
dollars in foreign debt which matures next year, Zadornov said.
He said the government was counting on the remainder being restructured, and
was also looking for around seven billion dollars in additional foreign
financing to help service debts which it could not reschedule.
Russia has repeatedly warned the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which
froze loans to Moscow after the August crisis, that it would succumb to
runaway inflation huge monetary emissions and a further run on the ruble if
foreign creditors do not help out in 1999.
In the draft budget approved on Thursday, inflation is forecast to be 30
percent next year, and the Central Bank is to print 32.6 billion rubles to
help finance the deficit.
As for the ruble, it stood at 19.76 to the dollar on Thursday, having held
firm at just below six to the dollar all year until it was effectively
devalued on August 17.
The budget is to be build around a raft of tax reforms already submitted to
parliament which provide for deep cuts in value-added, profit and income tax.
Ministers hope that the cuts, due to come into effect on March 1, will
encourage compliance and hence greater revenues from a public perenially
reluctant to pay their dues.
Analysts believe Russia has a chance of persuading foreign creditors to help
out, but remain sceptical that Moscow can improve its woeful revenue
collection record which was largely responsible for bankrupting the government
and forcing a ruble devaluation in August.
Defence analysts said that the 3.1 percent of GDP devoted to military spending
represented a small victory for Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev. The minister
dismissed lower funding levels as "deadly for the armed forces."
But at just six billion dollars, Russia's defence spending for 1999 is of the
same order as that of Israel or Greece.
The budget figures show a deficit of 101.5 billion rubles (5.1 billion
dollars) out of GDP of some four trillion rubles. Zadornov confirmed that
spending would comprise 14.4 percent of GDP and revenues 11.85 percent. 
This corresponded to figures in a final draft which the cabinet studied
Thursday morning in which spending was set at 575 billion rubles and revenues
at just under 474 billion rubles. 

******

#2
Russia's Zyuganov dismisses Yeltsin show as farce
By Dina Kyriakidou

ATHENS, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Russia's Communist Party leader on Thursday
dismissed rumours that ailing Boris Yeltsin was staging a political comeback,
saying the president's Kremlin visit this week was farcical. 
``Everyone shrugged it off in the country. The Yeltsin era is over in
Russia,'' Gennady Zyuganov told a news conference in Athens. ``It was a
farce.'' 
Zyuganov, who was visiting Athens as a guest of the Greek Communist Party,
said Yeltsin was in no condition to run the country from his sickbed and
criticised his tendency to change his staff regularly. 
Yeltsin, 67, briefly visited the Kremlin on Monday to fire his chief of staff
and three aides before retreating to his Rus residence 100 km (60 miles)
northwest of Moscow to convalesce further. 
``In his six years in power he has fired seven chiefs of staff,'' said
Zyuganov, who enjoys high ratings in public opinion polls. ``Whoever has ever
worked with him has been fired. The only one left is his daughter.'' 
Speaking before the 1999 budget draft was approved by the cabinet, the
communist leader vowed to back the coalition government of Prime Minister
Yevgeni Primakov if it did right by the people. 
He reiterating that if this government failed to pull Russia out of its deep
economic crisis, the danger of a military dictatorship loomed over the
country. 
``If the Primakov government doesn't make it, the next government will be made
up of military types whose sole purpose will be to safeguard the sovereignty
of the country and population's survival,'' he said. 
Zyuganov, whose party is the largest in the State Duma, Russia's lower house
of parliament, said the current government had serious weaknesses -- Yeltsin
could fire it on the spot, it inherited empty coffers and it had no support
from the media. 
``Also, it is not allowed to make mistakes and it must act fast,'' he said. 
With Yeltsin's authority undermined by health problems and a deep economic
crisis, Primakov was approved by Zyuganov's party as a compromise premier in
September. 
He has put together an austere budget aimed at avoiding hyperinflation. The
package was approved by the cabinet on Thursday and was to be submitted to the
Duma on Friday. 

*******

#3
Russian reformers create centre-right grouping

MOSCOW, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Prominent Russian reformers gathered at a Moscow
hotel on Thursday to create a new centre-right political coalition intended to
challenge Communist domination of parliament in elections due next year. 
The bid to unite, first outlined in a joint statement at the end of last
month, was prompted by the murder of prominent liberal parliamentarian Galina
Starovoitova, an outspoken anti-Communist, on November 20. 
Among the founders of the movement are two former prime ministers -- Yegor
Gaidar and Sergei Kiriyenko -- as well as former privatisation chief Anatoly
Chubais and Oleg Sysuyev, an aide to President Boris Yeltsin. 
Another co-founder, former deputy premier Boris Nemtsov, told Thursday's
gathering the new bloc should aim to attract non-communists and ``young people
who don't know what a totalitarian system is and don't want to know.'' 
``More than half of Russians are people like us,'' Interfax news agency quoted
him as telling some 80 politicians present at the meeting. 
The centre-right of Russia's political spectrum is already somewhat crowded,
however. 
The Yabloko party of likely presidential contender Grigory Yavlinsky, which
did well in local elections in St Petersburg last weekend, is not joining the
new grouping, nor is the Our Home is Russia party led by former premier Viktor
Chernomyrdin. 
Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, another strong contender for the presidency, has
set up his own ``Fatherland'' centrist movement. 
Figures like Chubais, Gaidar and Kiriyenko are widely blamed by the general
public for landing Russia in its current economic mess through a hasty and
drastic policy of market reforms that many say benefitted only a handful of
entrepreneurs. 
The Communists, who are the largest party in the State Duma or lower house of
parliament, have increased their influence recently and are represented in the
new government of Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov which has slowed down on
reforms. 
Interfax quoted one participant in Thursday's meeting as saying the new
coalition did not expect to attract more than about 20 percent of the
electorate. 
The agency said the meeting had decided to create a coordinating council and
several committees. 

******

#4
Voice of America
DATE=12/10/98
TITLE= RUSSIA / START-TWO
BYLINE=GIL BUTLER
DATELINE=MOSCOW
// EDS: PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE SCHEDULED TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15TH 
///
INTRO: THE LOWER HOUSE OF RUSSIA'S PARLIAMENT IS TO DEBATE 
RATIFICATION OF THE START-TWO NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT TREATY NEXT 
WEEK. ALTHOUGH THE U-S SENATE RATIFIED THE TREATY IN 1996, 
RUSSIA'S COMMUNIST-DOMINATED LOWER HOUSE, OR DUMA, HAS HELD BACK,
DESPITE PRESSURE FROM PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN FOR RATIFICATION. 
V-O-A'S GIL BUTLER IN MOSCOW HAS THIS REPORT ON A TREATY THE 
RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT WANTS RATIFIED, BUT PARLIAMENT HAS BLOCKED UNTIL NOW.
TEXT: WHEN THE RATIFICATION DEBATE BEGINS IT WILL NATURALLY 
CENTER ON WHETHER START-TWO IS GOOD FOR RUSSIA.
RUSSIA'S PRESENT GOVERNMENT AND MILITARY LEADERS ARGUE THAT 
START-TWO IS IN RUSSIA'S BEST INTEREST. UNDER THE TREATY, THE 
UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA SCRAP ONE-HALF OF THEIR NUCLEAR WARHEADS
FROM THE CURRENT SIX-THOUSAND TO THREE-THOUSAND TO 35-HUNDRED EACH. 
/// OPT /// 
TREATY SUPPORTERS SAY MANY OF RUSSIA'S OLD 
WARHEADS ARE NEARING THE END OF THEIR USEFUL LIFE, ANYWAY. 
RUSSIA'S SCRAPPING OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS UNDER THE START-ONE TREATY 
IS BEING ACCOMPLISHED WITH AMERICAN FINANCING. THE SAME IS 
EXPECTED TO HOLD TRUE FOR THE MORE EXTENSIVE DISMANTLING REQUIRED
UNDER START-TWO. 
/// END OPT ///
THE DEPUTY HEAD OF THE DUMA'S FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE -- 
ALEXEI PODBERYOZKIN -- SAYS START-TWO IS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN
THE EARLIER AGREEMENTS REACHED DURING THE COLD WAR.
/// PODBERYOZKIN ACT ///
WELL, I BELIEVE EVEN MORE BECAUSE NOWADAYS WE ARE 
TALKING AND DOING REAL REDUCTION OF NUCLEAR ARMAMENTS. 
TWENTY YEARS AGO WE DISCUSSED THE PROBLEM OF HOW TO STOP
THE NUCLEAR ARMS RACE. NOWADAYS, THIS NEW TREATY IS A 
REAL TREATY FOR REDUCTION OF THE WARHEADS AND THE 
MISSILES THEMSELVES. 
/// END ACT ///
RUSSIA'S MAIN STRATEGIC FORCE IS IN INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC 
MISSILES. THE UNITED STATES RELIES MORE HEAVILY ON SUBMARINE- 
LAUNCHED MISSILES. 
TREATY OPPONENTS SAY START-TWO, WITH ITS EMPHASIS ON MISSILE 
WARHEADS, IS WEIGHTED AGAINST RUSSIA. BUT A SCHOLAR WITH THE 
MOSCOW CARNEGIE CENTER, ALEXANDER PIKAYEV, SAYS THAT ON THE 
WHOLE, THE TREATY WILL IMPROVE RUSSIA'S SECURITY SITUATION.
/// PIKAYEV ACT ///
IF WE LOOK AT THE WHOLE RANGE OF THE DOCUMENTS -- THE 
START-TWO TREATY, THE A-B-M TREATY, AND FUTURE 
START-THREE, WHICH WOULD HOPEFULLY REQUIRE FURTHER 
REDUCTION OF STRATEGIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS OF THE UNITED 
STATES AND RUSSIA -- AGAIN, IF YOU LOOK AT THOSE THREE 
DOCUMENTS AS A WHOLE PACKAGE, IT WOULD BE JUSTIFIABLE TO
SAY THAT THE START-TWO RATIFICATION WOULD BE VERY 
IMPORTANT ELEMENT IN IMPROVING RUSSIA'S SECURITY SITUATION.
/// END ACT ///
THE RUSSIAN DUMA BILL OF RATIFICATION REPORTEDLY CONTAINS WHAT 
THE RUSSIANS CALL AMENDMENTS TO THE TREATY. MR. PODBERYOZKIN 
SAYS THEY WOULD CANCEL THE TREATY IF NATO THREATENED RUSSIA OR IF
THE UNITED STATES VIOLATES THE ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE -- OR A-B-M-- TREATY.
/// PODBERYOZKIN ACT ///
THE FIRST THING THAT BOTHERS US VERY MUCH IS THAT THE 
EXPANSION OF NATO MAY CHANGE THE WHOLE STRATEGIC 
SITUATION IN EUROPE. TACTICAL SYSTEMS MAY BECOME 
STRATEGIC FOR RUSSIA IF THEY ARE DEPLOYED -- FOR EXAMPLE
-- IN POLAND. 
/// END ACT ///
MANY RUSSIAN POLITICIANS SAY THE DUMA IS WITHIN ITS RIGHTS TO 
AMEND THE TREATY SINCE -- IN THEIR VIEW -- THE UNITED STATES 
SENATE ATTACHED RESERVATIONS WHEN IT RATIFIED START-TWO IN 1996. 
AMERICAN DIPLOMATS EXPLAIN THAT THE SENATE'S NON-BINDING 
RESERVATIONS DID NOT AFFECT THE SUBSTANCE OF THE TREATY. IN THE 
AMERICAN VIEW, THE DUMA AMENDMENTS ARE A MATTER BETWEEN THE 
PARLIAMENT AND THE YELTSIN ADMINISTRATION AND DO NOT AFFECT THE
TERMS OF THE START-TWO TREATY ITSELF.
IF START-TWO CLEARS THE DUMA DESPITE OPPOSITION FROM THE 
COMMUNISTS, IT WILL GO TO THE UPPER HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT WHERE ITS
RATIFICATION IS ALMOST CERTAIN.
MR. PIKAYEV SAYS IT IS NOT LIKELY THE START-TWO TREATY CAN BE 
RATIFIED IN THE DUMA NEXT WEEK. 
/// PIKAYEV ACT ///
A MORE REALISTIC TIME WOULD BE DECEMBER 18TH OR PROBABLY
CHRISTMAS EVE, DECEMBER 25TH (SIC; SHOULD HAVE SAID 
DECEMBER 24). IF SO IT WOULD BE A PERFECT CHRISTMAS 
GIFT FOR THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION.
/// END ACT ///
U-S SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT SAID THIS WEEK SHE 
HOPES TO BEGIN THE NEW START-THREE NUCLEAR REDUCTION TALKS WHEN 
SHE VISITS MOSCOW IN JANUARY. 

******

#5
Justice Minister Seeks End of Death Penalty 

MOSCOW, Dec. 10, 1998 -- (Reuters) Russia's Justice Minister Pavel
Krasheninnikov called on Wednesday for abolition of the death penalty in a
move welcomed by human rights activists, but his proposal is expected to face
strong political opposition. 
A draft bill drawn up by Krasheninnikov and sent to the government proposed
making life imprisonment or 25-year sentences the maximum penalty for those
convicted of serious crimes, the Justice Ministry said in a statement. 
If backed by Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov's center-left Cabinet, the bill
would then have to be approved by the Duma, the Communist-dominated lower
house of parliament, by the upper chamber Federation Council and by President
Boris Yeltsin. 
Yeltsin imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in 1996 after Russia joined
the Council of Europe, a 40-state human rights body whose statutes bar members
from conducting executions in peacetime. 
But the moratorium has never been declared officially or enshrined in law and
hinges ultimately on Yeltsin. 
"Of course we welcome Krasheninnikov's bill, which is fully in line with
Russia's obligations to the Council of Europe," said Diederik Lohman of Human
Rights Watch. 
"But support for the death penalty in the Duma is enormous. This will be a
good test of how strong Krasheninnikov is and of how committed Russia is to
meeting its obligations," he added. 
Krasheninnikov's call for the scrapping of capital punishment also found
support on Wednesday from Russia's Human Rights Commissioner Oleg Mironov, a
former Communist lawmaker. 
RIA news agency quoted him as saying he believed "eventually mankind will move
to complete abolition of the death penalty." 
Lohman's organization and other human rights bodies have recently expressed
concern that Russia might suspend the moratorium as part of a crackdown on
violent crime after the murder last month by unknown gunmen of a liberal
lawmaker. 
Galina Starovoitova was shot dead outside her apartment in the city of St
Petersburg in a killing that shocked the nation. 
Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov called for the "physical elimination" of
violent criminals, though the government later said it would not take measures
that violated commitments made when Russia joined the Council of Europe. 
In Wednesday's statement, the Justice Ministry said some 900 people currently
sitting on death row would have their sentences reviewed by the courts and
commuted to life imprisonment or 25 years behind bars under the new draft law.
The current maximum prison sentence is 20 years. 
The Justice Ministry formally took control of Russia's penal system from the
Interior Ministry in September. 
Lohman of Human Rights Watch said the ministry had delivered a flurry of
liberal proposals in recent months, including cutting the amount of time
prisoners can be kept in the notorious pre-trial detention centers. 
In its statement, the ministry said Krasheninnikov, a 34-year-old former
lawyer, became convinced of the need for urgent reform after meeting people
being kept on death row. 
He felt the prisoners' uncertainty about their ultimate fate amounted to
torture. They themselves had urged the minister to decide their fate. 
"This is impermissible not only under the norms of civilized countries but
also under the most elementary moral considerations," the ministry quoted
Krasheninnikov as saying. 
"The minister expressed the hope that the problem of abolishing capital
punishment in Russia will find proper understanding among the deputies of the
State Duma and that the draft bill will be approved," the statement said. ( 

******

#6
Russian rights activists blast new religion law
By Gareth Jones

MOSCOW, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Russian activists marked the 50th anniversary of
the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Thursday with an
attack on a controversial law that curbs the freedom of minority religious
groups. 
The activists said the law symbolised a growing spirit of intolerance in
Russia seven years after the collapse of Soviet communism and was now being
used by the authorities to try to outlaw the Jehovah's Witnesses Christian
group in Moscow. 
``Anybody looking into this law will conclude that it is nothing other
than an
attempt to turn the clock back to the Soviet past,'' said human rights lawyer
Galina Krylova, who is currently helping to defend the Jehovah's Witnesses. 
``What is at stake here is not just the rights of one small religious group
but the freedom of conscience of all Russian citizens,'' she told a news
conference. 
Alexei Nazarychev, a spokesman for the Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow, said the
new religion law, approved last year despite fierce international criticism,
encouraged extremists who had stepped up physical intimidation of believers. 
``The law has given the green light to ultra-nationalist groups and some of
our meeting places and our members have been subjected to physical attacks,''
he said. 
Moscow prosecutors have accused the Jehovah's Witnesses of violating the
Russian constitution with their missionary activities. They say the group
poses a threat to Russian family life and say it should have its registration
revoked. 
But Krylova said the prosecutors had failed to find evidence to back their
claims and Nazarychev said his group stood for precisely those family values
and Christian morality that the prosecutors accused them of undermining. 
Lyudmila Alekseyeva, president of the International Helsinki Federation which
monitors human rights, said the campaign against the Jehovah's Witnesses was
politically motivated and had much wider implications for individual freedoms
in Russia. 
``We cannot stand aside, we are obliged to act. If we lose this case, it will
be the turn of other religous minorities, and then perhaps of independent
trade unions and political organisations,'' she told the news conference. 
``The 1997 law ``on freedom of conscience and religious organisations'' is a
clear violation of people's right to organise themselves for reasons of
religious faith,'' she said. 
The law, already condemned by the United States, the Vatican and international
human rights bodies, requires all religious groups in Russia to re-register by
the end of 1999. 
It imposes a 15-year waiting period for groups deemed ``non-traditional.''
Unregistered groups lack full legal rights and cannot conduct missionary work
or educational activities. 
The preamble to the law, which is not legally binding, identifies Orthodox
Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism as Russia's traditional faiths. 
The law's defenders, who include the influential Orthodox Church and Communist
lawmakers, say it is needed to halt the spread of dangerous sects trying to
exploit the spiritual vacuum left by the fall of the Soviet Union. 
The Helsinki Federation's Alekseyeva said the law left too much to the
discretion of local bureaucrats, who were generally conservative and deeply
suspicious of anything unfamiliar. 
``Most Russian bureaucrats don't like independent organisations as they are
untidy and, by definition, cannot be controlled,'' said Alekseyeva, herself an
Orthodox believer. 
``In Russia we are trying to build a civil society following the fall of the
old Soviet system,'' she later told Reuters. ``But you cannot have a civil
society without real religious freedom.'' 

******

#7
Financial Times
10 December 1998
[for personal use only]
RUSSIA: Oil sector opened further
By Carlotta Gall in Moscow and Robert Corzine in London

The Russian Duma, or parliament, passed amendments to oil production-sharing
legislation yesterday that removed the main obstacles confronting foreign
investors in the strategic petroleum sector.
The new law opens up 30 per cent of Russia's hydrocarbon resources for
production-sharing agreements. Under the old law, only 10 per cent of Russia's
strategic minerals were eligible.
The passing of the amendments reflects the new-found co-operation between
Yevgeny Primakov, prime minister, and the Duma, which has for years blocked
plans to open up the oil and gas sector to foreign investment.
The oil industry has welcomed the amendments, in particular because
production-sharing agreements will now prevail over both existing and future
Russian legislation.
Until now, foreign companies have been worried that new laws could undermine
any deals they might make. Stephen O'Sullivan, oil analyst at United Financial
Group in Moscow, said the move was "good news". But he noted that a
substantial amount of work needed to be done to bring other Russian laws into
compliance with the new act.
Western oil companies are also likely to be wary about making any large
investments given that crude oil prices are wallowing near 12-year lows. But
it means that some companies may put more effort into securing deals in
anticipation of higher prices. 

******

#8
Baltimore Sun
10 December 1998
[for personal use only]
A `Nutcracker' for democracy
Dance: Moscow Ballet dedicates its performances to the memory of a slain
Russian reform leader.
By Tamara Ikenberg 
Sun Staff 

The sweet, classic fantasy of "The Nutcracker" ballet is more likely to induce
visions of sugarplum fairies instead of repression, assassination and
political turmoil.
But the Moscow Ballet is dedicating this year's production of the Christmas
tradition to the memory of outspoken democratic Russian legislator Galina
Staravoitova, who was assassinated on Nov. 20 while ascending the stairs to
her St. Petersburg apartment.
"She was the last one who was willing to speak out," says Akiva Talmi,
producer of the Moscow Ballet. "Nobody thought this would dare happen. It's
like killing a saint. But the fact that there is no limit is a very special
Russian condition. Many people say the condition developed over a very long
period of being oppressed. Communism gradually denigrated human values."
Seven members of the Russian parliament have been slain since 1993.
Staravoitova, who was 54, was an adviser
to Yeltsin. She spoke out for freedom of religion, against anti-Semitism and
traveled throughout the West, lecturing about post-Soviet politics. Her
assassination is viewed as a major blow to the reform movement.
Talmi, who lives in Massachusetts but whose parents were born in Russia, says
Staravoitova's assassination is on the level of that of Gandhi, the Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr. or John F. Kennedy.
In honor of her, the company is calling this year's tour "From Russia With
Hope."
"Any kind of artistic work dedicated to an individual heightens that sense of
respect and provides an impetus to create some kind of legacy on their part,"
says Dr. Barry Scherr, a professor of Russian and associate dean of humanities
at Dartmouth.
Talmi and the company are employing several methods to draw attention to the
tragedy, including making announcements at every concert and mentioning it in
their advertising. He especially wants young people to keep faith in democracy
and never fear that they will be subject to a regime where they can't speak
out and are deceived and oppressed.
"The Nutcracker" is a great vehicle to attract children, he says, since it's
such a popular family holiday tradition in this country.
Talmi says the connection between arts and human rights is inevitable for
people caged in unstable, threatening surroundings like modern-day Russia.
"If I was in deep sand all the time, and I found something to hold on to, I
would be very intense about it. It's a philosophical position, but it is why
we marry art with a political message," he says. "Communism, in my view,
gradually became a total lie. Everything you touched was not true. The only
thing that remained true was the purity of artistic expression."
In a struggling country, witnessing and appreciating the arts is more than
recreation.
"It's searching for truth," he says.
This search for freedom and enlightenment through artistic expression has been
going on since the days of Greek playwright Aristophanes, who was prosecuted
for his plays poking fun at ancient government institutions.
While the Moscow Ballet is making its point through a dedication and auxiliary
programs, pieces of politically motivated theater and art through history have
incorporated messages into the work itself.
Perhaps the most famous artist and political activist of recent years is
Vaclav Havel, the Czechoslovakian playwright who created works condemning
Communist rule of Czechoslovakia through the '80s. He led 1989's nonviolent
overthrow of the government, known as the Velvet Revolution, and became
president of his country.
Among other noted artistic activists are Chilean novelist Ariel Dorfman,
writer of "Death and The Maiden"; the late Spanish playwright and novelist
Federico Garcia Lorca; and Athol Fugard, the South African playwright who has
written anti-apartheid plays.
Dorfman was exiled from Chile in 1973, and Garcia Lorca was killed by Spanish
soldiers.
Even before Staravoitova's assassination, the Moscow Ballet was advocating
human rights.
From 1989 to 1992, Talmi organized the traveling Glasnost Festival, in which
premier dancers from assorted countries performed and noted scholars lectured
about human rights issues at universities throughout the United States.
"Over the last 10 years, we have tried to be an advocate of safeguarding the
democratic reform, not because of the abstraction that democracy is a better
form, but because of the well-being and the survival of the world," Talmi
says.
And despite the bleak outlook in Russia, Talmi says that through efforts like
this, and the dedication of committed activists, conditions will gradually
improve.
"They can't kill all of us," he says. "The democratic movement is here to
stay."

*****

#9
Vladivostok suffers from twin peaks of Russia's troubles

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, Dec 10 (AFP) - Baba Masha flashes a set of golden teeth
as she collects empty beer bottles off street corners to help pay for her
family's daily meal of four loaves of bread and some butter.
"Vegetables are cheaper this year," she smiles, "but still out of reach."
Larisa Naumkina, meanwhile, sports a fine fur coat and a shiny black leather
bag packed full of groceries as she high-steps her way from work through the
snow.
Although they live in different worlds, both women also live on the wrong side
of this frigid, remote, far east Russian city. So wrong in fact, that they and
their children have to wear clothes to bed because temperatures in their
apartments hover barely above freezing point.
Only a few buildings away, in homes with the same leaky pipes and the same
flaking yellow facades, people sleep in relative warmth.
The two women blame the outrageous discrepancy on the twin peaks of Russia's
troubles this winter -- a frightening economic collapse and endemic corruption
by regional barons.
"People there have heat and we don't. Do you really want me to explain further
about the politics surrounding our local boiler?" Naumkina demands.
"It is three degrees (Celsius) in my apartment," says pensioner Masha, shyly
starting to shuffle away. Told that the mayor's office announced that all heat
had just been turned on in her district, she added with spirit: "They lie."
Vladivostok is a port of 800,000 inhabitants further from Moscow than almost
any major European city is from New York. Vast Siberian wastes and deeply
frozen tundra separate the city from the Kremlin, some 7,000 kilometres
(around 4,400 miles) to the west.
The distance means that local politics plays a decisive role in Vladivostok.
Unfortunately local politicians do not live up to the part, locals say.
At least 500 appartment buildings here have had no heat for the past two weeks
according to the mayor's office, a span that has seen temperatures dip below
minus 30 degrees Celsius.
Vladivostok this week declared its own state of emergency sending an urgent
telegramme to President Boris Yeltsin that read in part: "Fifty percent of our
city is standing in total paralysis."
But this, Baba Masha complained, is completely the local government's own
fault. The part of town that was supplied by a generator now controlled by
Vladivostok's privately-owned Trading Port has been cut off.
"The port did not get paid for the heat it gave us. The other day the city
supposedly paid them but our radiators are still cold," street vendor Sanya
Myshkov agreed.
The rest of the town is serviced by a larger regional provider called Dal
Energo that is under the control of new Russian energy tsar Anatoly Chubais.
But neither Dal Energo nor the port seem to like the town's enigmatic mayor,
Viktor Cherepkov, and according to some observers the two are conspiring to
undermine his record ahead of elections next month. Ironically, Cherepkov
himself is currently in hospital -- with a respiratory ailment.
For those left languishing by the political games near the port, the
neighbourhood has quickly gained a smack of notoriety as the run-down part of
town.
But cold though she is, Baba Masha says it could be worse.
"On the radio they said we are cold because Yeltsin told them to send all the
energy further north," Baba Masha says. "Who knows? They don't even have
lights on the streets there." 

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#10
Subject: 'Creating' a Russian Nation by VERA TOLZ
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 98 
From: Miriam Lanskoy <mlanskoy@bu.edu>

PERSPECTIVE 
Volume IX, Number 2 (November - December 1998)
To access back issues of Perspective, the Database, the Editorial Digest,
and information about the Institute and its work, please see our web site at
http://www.bu.edu/iscip/

'Creating' a Russian Nation 
By VERA TOLZ
University of Salford, UK

The disintegration of the USSR intensified the debate among intellectuals
and politicians on where the "just" borders of the Russian state should be
and who should belong to the Russian nation. 
The attitude of the Russians towards their state and their view of
themselves have traditionally been shaped by the existence of the empire.
Some argue that Russians have failed to acquire a properly developed ethnic
national identity, as opposed to an imperial "Soviet" personality. In turn,
in the absence of necessary political freedoms and civil society, civic
identity, based on inclusive citizenship, also could not emerge among
different peoples of the empire.(1) This peculiarity of the Russian
situation was well understood by pre-revolutionary and emigre Russian
thinkers, who argued that Russians managed to create a new type of a
community, different from nations as they existed in Western Europe.
According to this position, the Russian empire also could not be compared to
the empires created by West European nations. In this new community, the
argument went, peoples of different ethnic origin, cultural and religious
backgrounds peacefully co-existed, retaining their essential ethnic
characteristics. The best members of every group were invited to work in
the governing bodies of the state. 
After the October revolution, Soviet ideologists continued to propagate
similar views concerning "a new community of one and united Soviet people."
As a result, some Russians disregarded the fact that they lived in a
multiethnic empire and they saw the entire USSR rather than their own Union
republic, the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, as their homeland. 
Only in the 1960s did some Russians for the first time begin to question
whether the maintenance of this multiethnic community was in the interest of
Russians. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and others argued that the preservation of
the USSR led Russians to make unnecessary economic sacrifices and distorted
its culture and religion. Thus, they urged their people to shake off "the
burden of Central Asia and the Caucasus," let the Baltic republics go
independent, and thus pave the way for the creation of a modern
nation-state. But who would be the members of the Russian nation and where
would be the borders of a new Russian nation-state? For Solzhenitsyn and
those who shared his views, the Russian nation was to consist of all eastern
Slavs, i.e., it included Ukrainians and Belarusians. Linguistic and
cultural similarities between eastern Slavs and alleged common history,
stretching back to the medieval principality of Kievan Rus, were regarded by
these Russian nationalists as markers of common national identity. 
By the end of Gorbachev's perestroika the idea that the preservation of
the empire was not in the interest of Russians penetrated the Russian
political establishment, including President Boris Yel'tsin. Yel'tsin
argued that the Russian Federation should become a new nation-state for
Russians. However, a few years of the Russian leadership juxtaposing the RF
and the USSR was not a long enough period to make Russians, including
members of the political elite themselves, fully identify with the Russian
Federation as a legitimate Russian national statehood. Therefore, after the
demise of the USSR, the belief that Russians were ultimately an imperial
people and could survive as a distinct community only within some form of a
union remained strong. At the same time, politicians and intellectuals who
argued that the time had come for Russians to put the "imperial temptation"
behind them and build a modern nation-state did not agree on the geography
of the state and membership of the nation. 
The post-communist imperialists are best represented by
neo-Eurasianists,(2) who in 1990 established their own newspaper Den'
(renamed Zavtra in 1993). Neo-Eurasianists concentrate their efforts on
trying to foresee Russia's future, which they picture as an imperial one.
As the philosopher Yuri Borodai put it: "I can say frankly and openly that I
am an imperialistŠ I believe in the resurrection of the Russian state after
Golgotha."(3) Another imperialist, writer Eduard Limonov, argued that "a
single powerful state within the borders of Russian civilization" would
reemerge. Where are those borders? Limonov continued: "1. Minimal: Where
Russian people live, there is Russian territoryŠ 2. Maximal: Where people
who regard themselves as belonging to Russian civilization live, there is
Russian territory, protected by Russian might."(4) According to the
imperialists, the majority of former Soviet citizens felt they belonged to
"Russian civilization." 
The program minimum of imperialists and the first step towards the
re-creation of a full-fledged union on the territory of the USSR is to
incorporate into the Russian state those areas of non-Russian newly
independent states where Russians and Russian speakers constitute a
majority. The view that all Russian speakers are of special concern to the
Russian government is not limited to extreme politicians and ideologists.
In 1993-1995, the idea that all Russian speakers regarded the Russian
Federation as their homeland and that, therefore, the Russian government
should use a wide range of measures to protect them from discrimination
constituted a core of Yel'tsin's foreign policy. Various members of the
government made statements in which they included Russian speakers outside
the borders of the RF into the Russian nation. 
Many ordinary Russians in the RF also supported this view. According to
the Moscow-based Public Opinion Foundation (renamed the Institute of
Sociological Analysis in 1997), in 1995 up to 33 percent of those polled
supported the view that Russia should incorporate territories of other newly
independent states where Russian speakers lived in a compact majority.(5)
Yet, Russian speakers themselves did not share this view. According to the
polls conducted in 1992-1995 by the Institute of Ethnography in Moscow, a
maximum of 10 percent of Russian speakers viewed the RF as their homeland,
whereas the majority still regarded the defunct USSR as such.(6) 
The view that Ukrainians and Belarusians also belong to the Russian
nation is, in turn, very popular among intellectuals, politicians and
average Russians. Indeed, when by 1993 it became clear that the quick
re-creation of the union was not forthcoming, some Russian intellectuals
abandoned their pro-Soviet sentiments and limited their claim to the East
Slavic lands. For instance, in the summer of 1993 a significant split
occurred in the National Salvation Front (NSF), which was at the time an
important opposition group. Its leaders--Nikolai Pavlov, Ilya Nikolaev and
Yuri Belyaev--left the ranks of the NSF to set up their own National
Opposition. They denounced the NSF's adherence to the re-creation of the
USSR and pledged their commitment to the creation of a Slavic state that
would incorporate Ukraine and Belarus. 
In the political establishment, the idea of special ties between eastern
Slavs enjoys a great popularity. In May 1997, the idea of Slavic unity was
used by President Yel'tsin to justify signing a charter on a union with
Belarus. In turn, in his book Derzhava, the Communist Party leader and a
member of the State Duma, Gennadi Zyuganov, unequivocally included
Ukrainians and Belarusians in the Russian nation. 
Polls by the above-mentioned Institute for Sociological Analysis have
also established that the idea of a Slavic unity finds a broad resonance
among the Russian population at large. A poll in the spring of 1997
demonstrated that 64 percent of the respondents supported the idea of
merging Ukraine and Russia into one state. In April 1997, 75 percent
endorsed a union with Belarus. (In turn, all the nostalgia for the USSR
notwithstanding, in 1997, only 7 percent of RF citizens polled by the
institute endorsed the re-creation of the full-fledged union.)(7)
The post-communist period also has witnessed the proliferation of purely
racist groups, whose leaders appeal to popular resentment against the
growing influx of refugees and exploit people's frustrations over economic
hardships. Those advocating racial definition of Russianness argue that, in
order to survive, Russians should safeguard themselves from harmful
influences of other "ethnoses," especially the Jews and peoples of Central
Asia. The leader of the Russian Party, Nikolai Bondarik, states: "In
Russia, there must be only a Russian government, a Russian parliament
consisting of ethnic Russians belonging to the Great Nation by blood and
spiritŠ."(8) Some of the racists found their way into the mainstream
political institutions. For instance, Nikolai Lysenko of the National
Republican Party of Russia was elected to the 1993 Duma. Racist statements
can also be found in official statements of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal
Democratic Party, whose platform, on the whole, is imperialist. And yet,
despite the fact that the activities of racist groups attract a lot of media
attention, they exist on the margins of Russian politics. 
The above-mentioned views on what it means to be a Russian and where the
borders of the Russian state should be are rooted in either
pre-revolutionary imperial or Soviet past and their advocates apply concepts
which have been elaborated under entirely different circumstances. 
There is, however, a novel idea concerning Russian national identity
which entered Russian intellectual discourse in the late 1980s and gathered
some strength in the post-communist period. This is the idea of a civic
Russian (rossiiskaya) nation whose members are all citizens of the Russian
Federation regardless of their ethnic origin and cultural background, united
by loyalty to the newly emerging political institutions and the
constitution. (Before the late 1980s, when Western scholarly literature on
civic forms of nationalism began to be translated into Russian, only the
ethnic definition of a nation as a community of persons united by common
culture, religion, language and tracing its history back to a common
ancestor, was in use.) The main advocate of a civic Russian nation is the
former head of the State Committee on Nationalities Relations and director
of the Institute of Ethnography, Valeri Tishkov. He calls on the Russian
government to encourage dissemination of common civic values and symbols
which would have a meaning for all citizens of Russia, not only for ethnic
Russians.(9)
Attempts to forge a compound civic identity among all peoples of the
Russian Federation strongly marked the policies of Yel'tsin's government in
1991 and 1992. No specific Russian ethnic characteristics are reflected in
the 1991 Russian citizenship law, which does not even require a basic
knowledge of the Russian language as a condition for obtaining Russian
citizenship. Although in 1993-1995, the Russian government defined the
Russian nation as a community of Russian speakers throughout the former
USSR, the 1993 Russian constitution mentions a civic Russian (rossiiskaya)
nation as a community of all RF citizens. 
The supporters of a civic Russian nation are in the minority among
Russian political and intellectual elites. This concept is also opposed by
leaders of ethnic autonomies in the RF, who regard it as a new attempt at
Russifying national minorities. How widespread civic nationalism is among
the RF population at large is to be further investigated by scholars.
Whether civic Russian nationalism has a future will depend on the success of
Russia's democratization and economic reform. The failure of Russian
democracy will inevitably strengthen either imperial or racist views on
Russian identity with disturbing consequences for Russia itself and other
newly independent states. 

NOTES:
1 For the development of this argument, see Geoffrey Hosking, Russia.
People and Empire 1552-1917 (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997).
2 These people reiterate the ideas of the émigré intellectual movement of
the 1920s, Evrazitsy, who argued that a unique civilization of
"Russia-Eurasia" emerged out of different peoples of the Russian empire.
This civilization was neither European no Asiatic in nature.
3 Nash sovremennik, no. 7, 1992, p. 130.
4 Sovetskaya Rossiya, 12 July 1992.
5 Polis, no. 5, 1995, pp. 94 and 96.
6 Russkie v novom zarubezhe: Programma etnoso-tsiologicheskikh issledovanii
(Moscow: 1994), p. 125.
7 Argumenty i fakty, no. 27, July 1997. See also T. Kutkovets and I.
Kliamkin, "Postsovetsky chelovek," Informatsionno-analitichesky biulleten,
nos. 1-2, 1997.
8 Rech, no. 1, 1994, p. 4.
9 V. Tishkov, Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in and after the Soviet
Union. The Mind Aflame (London: Sage, 1997), p. IX.

COPYRIGHT ISCIP 1998
Published by
The Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy at Boston
University,
141 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215

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