April 14, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4247 • 4248 • 4249

Johnson's Russia List
#4249
14 April 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Baltimore Sun: Kathy Lally, Putins amid dire poverty. 
Villagers: The people who share the president-elect's name 
retain traditions of hospitality and a little hope.
2. St. Petersburg Times: Irina Titova, City Population Gets Older, Smaller.
3. Interfax: Tatyana Bure denies speculations about her son Pavel Bure's upcoming marriage.
4. AP: Russia Lawmakers OK START II.
5. Reuters: Putin says ball in US court after START-2 vote.
6. Jerry Hough: governors.
7. Job Announcement Russian Conservation News.
8. Moscow Tribune: Stanislav Menshikov, TESTING PUTIN'S METTLE.
Some Perceive Him as Weak Leader. 
9. New York Times obituary: W. Bruce Lincoln, 61, Expert Who Enlivened Russian History.
10. Izvestia: Sergei Karaganov et al, RUSSIA SHOULD NOT PINE FOR SUPERPOWER STATUS.
11. Business Week: Rose Brady, Land of Opportunity. Capitalizing 
on chaos, Ian Bremmer opens doors for foreign business in Russia.
12. Reuters: Even Russia's Father Christmas pays tax.
13. AFP: Russia tortures Chechens in secret 'filtration' camps: witnesses.
14. US Department of State: U.S. Librarian of Congress on Russian Leadership Program.] 

*******

#1
Baltimore Sun
14 April 2000
[for personal use only]
Putins amid dire poverty 
Villagers: The people who share the president-elect's name retain traditions 
of hospitality and a little hope.
By Kathy Lally 
Sun Foreign Staff

SAGUTYEVO, Russia -- At 7 on a Sunday morning, a dark, troubled sky is 
bearing down on the earth. The village below, rooted in the rhythms of rural 
life, awakens, indifferent to the day, the weather, the century. 

Roosters are crowing. Water is standing in every rutted path. And behind the 
tall worn wooden fences that line the muddy lanes, Putins are rising. 

This is a village like so many others -- except this one is filled with 
Putins, bearing the same name as Russia's president-elect, Vladimir V. Putin. 

There's a Putin, milking her cow. Walk up the street. One person is out this 
early. A Putin! Stop to talk, and the woman across the street opens her gate, 
full of curiosity at the sight of a stranger. Of course she was born a Putin. 

No one knows how many Putins live in this village of 500 souls 300 miles 
southwest of Moscow. No one ever cared. Generations of Putins have been born 
here, to work the fields, remarkable only to their family, their friends, 
their neighbors. 

But they are part of eternal Russia, the peasants who have al- ways worked 
the land, and now their Russia is dying. Here, in Sagutyevo, the villagers 
hope their name will save them -- whether or not it turns out the Putin in 
Moscow is one of them. 

"I voted for Putin," says Yevdokia Isayenkovo, 61, "so he would give us more 
money. Life is bad here. The village is hungry." 

Isayenkovo, who lives in the first house on First of May Street, was busy 
milking her cow Ryabinka. She almost forgot she was a Putin too before her 
marriage, born Yevdokia Putina -- the feminine version of the name. "It's 
been so long I forget my previous name," she says. "But there have always 
been Putins here. God only knows who brought them." 

Nina Frolenkovo, also age 61, lives up the street, in a similar small 
wood-frame house with a high worn fence surrounding it. She wears a vivid 
orange wool scarf and an ancient quilted cotton jacket. 

"Putin must have come from here originally," she says, speculating that his 
forebears were kulaks -- peasants wealthy enough to have a cow -- and were 
driven out of the village after the Revolution. "There were three Putin 
brothers on this street. My father ... was reported missing in the war. The 
other two were killed." 

The village's World War II monument lists 14 Putins killed in the war. When 
the Germans arrived, the villagers fled to the forest, the women digging 
holes for shelter for them and their children, the men fighting. 

Yevdokia Tsybina, 57, has come out of her house, across the perilously muddy 
road, to tell how she was born a Putina in the nearby forest, during the war. 
"They spread a bed of branches on the ground for my mother," she says, "and 
that's where I was born." 

Tsybina says half the village voted for Putin "because he's a Putin and we're 
Putins" -- and the other half for the communist candidate, Gennady Zyuganov. 

"We're expecting him to help us," Tsybina says. "There's so much need here." 

Once, the entire village worked for the collective farm named after Karl 
Marx. The village, on good farmland near the Belarus and Ukraine borders, is 
all but dead now, its fields empty, its tractors idled for lack of spare 
parts. Only a few homes have gas, and most of the old people haul wood for 
heating and cooking. They carry water from pipes on the street. They all use 
outhouses. None of the roads are paved, and at this time of year, the melting 
snow traps the village in mud. 

"Sometimes there is so much mud," Tsybina says, "that if a person dies we 
can't get him out of the village." 

Nina Frolenkovo's mother, Vera Putina, age 91, lives down the street in a 
house without gas or water. She sleeps on a pile of rags on her pechka, the 
huge clay stove that traditionally occupies a large corner of a peasant home. 
Her clothes are little more than rags. 

"Our youth was very bad," she says, "and our old age is the same." 

Yevdokia Tysbina wants to write the president a letter about this, telling 
him about the old people without gas or water, about the ruined farm, about 
the miserable life for Putins and so many others. 

President-elect Putin appears oblivious to the existence of the Putins of 
Sagutyevo. The presidential Putin grew up a city boy, far to the north in 
imperial St. Petersburg. His father, apparently, grew up there too. But 
nothing is publicly known about his grandparents, or where they came from. 
The villagers here, however, have little doubt that they are related to him. 

"If he knew," Tsybina says, "he would do something." 

Russians have held on to this conviction across the centuries, through 
serfdom and freedom, through divine rule of the monarch and dictatorship of 
the proletariat. If only the czar (or party secretary) in the distant capital 
knew how bitter life was for the poor peasant, he would soon make it right. 
If only there was a way to tell him. 

"If he has a conscience, he must help this village," Tsybina says. 

The villagers are right. They understand Putin must subdue the oligarchs who 
have gobbled up the wealth and root out the decay of corruption. But they 
also know that if he wants to restore Russia to its former greatness, as 
promised, Putin must revive the farms. 

In Soviet times, the country imported very little food, occasionally buying 
grain if the harvest was poor. But the old command economy had created an 
inefficient system, and when the Soviet Union fell apart, so did the farms. 

Imports starting coming in, driving the farms further and further into the 
ground. By August 1998, up to 60 percent of the food supply in the big cities 
and Far East was imported. After the ruble crashed that month, such imports 
dropped to about 40 percent as Russians shifted to cheaper domestic products. 

Here in Sagutyevo, no one has money to buy food. They eat whatever they can 
raise. Each family has a cow, a pig and chickens. They grow potatoes, 
cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes and cabbage. 

One of the Vladimir Putins who lives here -- four others live here and five 
in a nearby village -- drove a tractor on the Karl Marx farm for 30 years. 

"He needs to revive agriculture," says this Putin, who is age 61. "Up until 
perestroika [restructuring], our region supplied food all over northern 
Russia. We even sent potatoes to Cuba for Fidel Castro. Now, our farm doesn't 
even plant potatoes." 

His neighbor, and distant cousin, Aleksandr Putin, says the farm used to 
produce 550 tons of grain a year, 360 tons of meat, 2,000 tons of potatoes 
and thousands of gallons of milk. 

It even had its own brass band. 

"Now we don't have anything," says Aleksandr, 59, a driver for the farm for 
37 years who is unemployed like everyone else. "We don't have fuel, and the 
fields have gone to seed." 

Nearly 40 million people -- about 27 percent of the population -- live in 
rural areas like this one. Many of them work, in principle, on the 6,600 
collective farms that remain. Except most of the farms -- like the one here 
-- are no longer producing anything at all. There are no jobs, no money. 

Overcome by boredom and despair, the men of the village get drunk on homemade 
vodka. The women spend the long, empty evenings watching soap operas on the 
televisions they bought in better times. 

"I've never seen my husband sober," Yevdokia Tsybina says. "I get up in the 
morning, and by the time I've washed my face, he's drunk." 

Yevdokia Isayenkovo's husband, Boris, died not long ago at age 60. He was 
drinking and loaded his cart with too much wood. His horse was straining to 
pull it up a hill. Boris, sitting on top of the wood, was too drunk to notice 
the danger. When the horse slid back, Boris fell off with the wood and was 
crushed by his horse and cart. 

Nina Frolenkova's husband died eight years ago, in his mid-50s. Drinking 
landed him in jail three times. His lungs went bad there, and he died. 

Today, a funeral is held in the village for a man who died at age 60 from a 
stroke. Of course, he drank. 

"Sometimes," Tsybina sighs in fatigue and defeat, "I feel as if I've lived 
200 years." 

Then, she smiles, and guides the stranger she has found in the mud into her 
house. It's 8:30 in the morning. "How do you like your eggs?" she asks. 

In a few minutes, the tiny kitchen table is crowded with fried eggs, 
buckwheat porridge, little frosted cakes, slabs of homemade butter, chunks of 
pork fat -- the local delicacy. She has produced a feast, though she's 
ashamed that she has no meat to offer. 

>From the next room, she extracts a bottle of homemade vodka, hidden from her 
husband. "No, it doesn't have any grain in it," she answers tartly. "Water, 
sugar, yeast. Entirely pure." 

The visitor must throw back repeated shots of vodka to be a respectable guest 
at all, meanwhile eating enormous amounts of food. 

Tsybina's husband, Anatoly, returns from selling milk. It's a little before 9 
a.m. He prepares himself what he calls a "Marlboro" -- his home-grown 
tobacco, wrapped in a piece of newspaper. He pulls out his accordion. He 
plays exuberantly -- his face already ruddy from vodka. Tsybina sings and 
waltzes across the room. Her eyes light up, the years fall away. 

She fusses over her guest, already planning to stuff her with pancakes, 
homemade sour cream, cabbage, juice made from her own berries and more vodka 
for lunch. 

Tsybina and her husband each have a pension of $21 a month. And they are 
generous to the bottom of their souls. More vodka, she commands. Eat at least 
a little something, she begs. 

For a moment, their hearts warm with hospitality, Anatoly and Yevdokia forget 
the mud, the despair, the ruined farm, the indifferent czars and party 
secretaries. They drink to life, and love and hard work, to America and 
friendship and even to Putin. 

People, they say, deserve the leaders they get. Russia turns that adage 
inside out, and makes it a question: Do the leaders deserve the people who 
toast them? 

*******

#2
St. Petersburg Times
April 14, 2000
City Population Gets Older, Smaller
By Irina Titova
SPECIAL TO THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES

St. Petersburg: city of historic monuments, imperial architecture, famous 
museums ... and an aging population to go with them.

Medical workers who picketed City Hall last month in an attempt to draw 
attention to the poor state of local health care, had some statistics that 
show how St. Petersburg is not only following the national trend of a falling 
population, but in fact beating it.

Furthermore, the amount of money that doctors and hospitals are receiving to 
cope with the crisis has also decreased, according to Vladimir Dmitriyev, 
chairman of the St. Petersburg Health Workers' Trade Union and one of the 
participants in the protest.

Dmitriyev said that City Hall had allocated 12 percent of its budget to 
health care this year.

"During the Soviet era, municipal health care used to receive 20 percent of 
the city budget," he said, "whereas in 1999 this had already fallen to 14.2 
percent."

The indirect consequences are an annual decrease in population of 1 percent, 
the number of deaths of working-age adults on the up, and the mortality rate 
substantially surpassing the birth rate.

For example, last year 72,000 people died in St. Petersburg, 7,300 more than 
in 1998.

"This is against only 29,400 babies born in 1999, which is 1,800 fewer than 
in 1998," Dmitriyev said.

And he said that the birth rate puts St. Petersburg in 89th - last - place 
out of all of Russia's regions.

Viktor Titov, the deputy chairman of St. Petersburg State Statistics 
Committee, had more figures to illustrate the situation, comparing the 
average birth rate in 1985 of 1.7 children to 0.95 in 1999.

At the same time, Titov's statistics for the death rate over a similar period 
showed an increase from 12.2 deaths out of every 1,000 people in 1985, to 
15.4 per 1,000 last year.

What this means in overall figures, according to Titov, is that the St. 
Petersburg population fell from an all time high of 5.03 million residents in 
1990, to 4.7 million at the moment.

"If the situation doesn't change, we can prognosticate that in 2016 the St. 
Petersburg population will comprise of 4.1 million people," Titov said.

The woeful tale of Russia's falling population is not new. But it seems that 
the prospects for this city are worse than in the rest of the country. Where 
the national average population growth rate is currently running at minus 4.8 
per 1,000 people, the figure for St. Petersburg is minus 7.1.

Compared to Europe, the trend is even more striking. Great Britain's growth 
rate is stable at plus 1.6, while Norway is at plus 3.8. The United States is 
growing at plus six, with Mexico at a rapid plus 23.5.

Many countries in Eastern Europe have falling populations, but at a much 
steadier rate than in Russia.

There are several reasons for the drop, according to local experts.

The first is that young St. Petersburgers feel that they simply cannot afford 
to have children, even if they wanted to.

Lev Erman, chief pediatrician in St. Petersburg, said that the main reason 
for the low birth rate here was that "many families are postponing their 
babies until financial times are better."

Natasha, a 26 year-old actress, said she will in all likelihood never be a 
mother. The total income for her family is barely $100, she said.

"And our state family allowance [at $2 per month] is ridiculous in the 
context of today's prices."

Svetlana, 21, is unemployed, although her boyfriend earns $100 a month. 
Svetlana said that at first she had wanted to keep the child, but decided to 
have an abortion when she was three months' pregnant because she realized 
there was no way she and her boyfriend could feed another mouth.

Sergei, a 24-year-old driver, said that when one of his friends got married 
and said he wanted children, everyone around him thought he was a fool.

"He will just add to [the number of those] living in poverty," Sergei said.

A second reason, which is also connected to money, is the lack of basic 
medicines, closure of hospitals and polyclinics, and poor payment of health 
workers. Some local hospitals have even taking to discharging patients after 
a set period, regardless of their condition.

"Now, the official maximum term for keeping a client in hospital is not more 
than 21 days," said one city doctor who asked not to be identified. "Once, 
those people like the elderly, who had no one [outside] to take care of them 
could stay in until they were fully recovered."

Dmitriyev said that the low salaries of medical workers was a major concern 
for Health Care Trade Union. "Public health staff are the lowest paid of all 
city-paid workers," he said, adding that local hospital doctors receive $30 a 
month on average.

"How can they live and support their families, when the official minimum cost 
of living is [around] $50?" Dmitriyev said.

"No wonder people complain about the indifference of medical personnel and 
[having to pay] bribes."

And when economic crisis hits, affecting the health of the population and the 
ability of medical workers to deal with it, the effects are particularly 
pronounced.

In 1993-94, according to Titov, the death rate per 1,000 citizens in St 
Petersburg jumped up to 17 people, compared to 13 in 1992, a leap Titov 
attributes to the rocketing prices of the time.

With the socially devastating phenomena of heart disease, alcohol poisoning, 
tuberculosis, AIDS and other diseases on the up, St. Petersburg is a steadily 
aging city. "In 2001," said Titov, "the elderly will comprise 24 percent of 
this city. Fifteen years after that, the figure will be 30 percent."

Erman agreed, saying that "the endless stressful factors of today's reality" 
were the main factor in the high death rate among working adults.

"Stress causes early heart attacks and strokes," he said. "Added to which, it 
leads to unpredictable tendencies in standard diseases."

******* 

#3
Tatyana Bure denies speculations about her son Pavel Bure's 
upcoming marriage

MOSCOW. April 14 (Interfax) - Tatyana Bure, world ice hockey star
Pavel Bure's mother, has denied rumors about her son's engagement to
well-known Russian tennis player Anna Kurnikova.
She said her older son and Kurnikova "have been acquainted for
just a few months." "There has hardly been any love affair, passion or
even romantic relations between them," Tatyana said in an interview
with Komsomolskaya Pravda published Friday.
She confirmed that the two sports stars had had a meal in a
Florida restaurant. "Well, he gave her a flower, but he neither fell on
his knees in front of her, nor gave her fabulously expensive jewelry,"
she said in commenting on the engagement scene described in the press.
"Annoyed by stories about a million-dollar engagement ring which he had
supposedly given to Kurnikova, Pavel once asked reporters whether they
had ever seen a ring which costs $1 million," Tatyana said. "How can
one wear such a ring? In a special vehicle? All this is a mere
fantasy," she quoted her son as saying.
She said Pavel does not plan to get married for another year or
so. "So the press does not need to worry at this time," she said.
"My son is so busy playing ice hockey and gets so tired that he is
not even thinking of getting married yet. He needs a woman who would
take care of him. Anya [Kurnikova] is only 18 years old and she will be
actively playing tennis for the next ten years. What sort of life would
they have?" she said.
She also said that Pavel "has a girlfriend, an American model - an
excellent choice." "Of course, she was very much upset by all those
rumors and articles. Pavel told her that nothing of that sort had ever
happened. She is a smart girl and understood everything," said Tatyana.

*******

#4
Russia Lawmakers OK START II
April 14, 2000
By ANNA DOLGOV

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian lawmakers today approved the long-delayed START II 
treaty on scrapping thousands of U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads, clearing 
the way for further arms reduction. 

The State Duma, the lower chamber of parliament, voted 288 to 133 to approve 
the treaty after President Vladimir Putin urged lawmakers to pass the 
measure. He said Russia did not want to be dragged into a new global arms 
race. 

The measure, which was approved by the U.S. Senate in 1996, must now be 
approved by the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian 
parliament, where swift approval is expected. 

START II would halve U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to about 3,000-3,500 
warheads each by the end of 2007 and enable both nations to step up efforts 
on working out an additional treaty, START III, for even deeper cuts. 

But Putin warned that Russia would pull out of all nuclear and conventional 
arms control agreements if the United States does not adhere to the 1972 
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Washington wants to amend the treaty so it can 
build a limited missile defense system. 

``I want to stress in this case, we will have the chance and we will withdraw 
not only from the START II treaty, but from the whole system of treaties on 
limitation and control of strategic and conventional weapons,'' he told the 
Duma shortly before the vote. 

The Communists and their allies urged lawmakers not to approve START II, 
saying it would fatally weaken Russia and give the United States a huge 
military advantage. Centrist lawmakers rejected the plea, saying approval was 
in Russia's best interests. 

The Communists blocked approval of the treaty for years, but lost their 
majority in the Duma after elections last December. Putin, who won 
presidential elections in March, called for swift approval of the measure and 
the new centrist majority in the Duma was quick to back the treaty. 

Russia fears the U.S. plan to build a limited nuclear defense system would 
make their nuclear forces ineffective. 

About 150 mostly elderly Communists demonstrated outside the Duma before the 
vote, urging lawmakers not to approve the measure. They carried placards 
denouncing Putin and the United States. 

U.S.-Russian relations, troubled by a series of recent disputes, will receive 
a boost from ratification, but not resolve a growing dispute over 
Washington's call to amend the ABM treaty. 

Washington wants to change the 1972 treaty so it can build a limited 
missile-defense system to protect against possible missile attacks from 
``rogue nations'' such as North Korea. 

Russian officials had said that approving START II would strengthen Russia's 
position on the ABM debate. Ivanov said today that Russia would propose 
several alternatives to changing the ABM treaty in talks at the end of the 
month in the United States. 

Russian supporters of START II said that many Russian strategic missiles are 
past their service lifetime and will have to be scrapped soon anyway. Short 
of everything from new weapons to uniforms, the Russian military is in a 
shambles and the government cannot afford massive new military spending. 

The Russian government and centrist lawmakers say the country's nuclear 
program should shift to developing a smaller arsenal of modern weapons, such 
as Russia's new Topol-M missile. 

``A few modern missiles, capable of breaking through a missile-defense system 
in a retaliatory strike, would be a much more effective deterrent,'' centrist 
lawmaker Andrei Kokoshin said. 

*******

#5
Putin says ball in US court after START-2 vote

MOSCOW, April 14 (Reuters) - President-elect Vladimir Putin said on Friday he 
was pleased Russia's parliament had ratified the START-2 nuclear weapons 
reduction treaty and now the arms control ball was firmly in Washington's 
court. 

Speaking to reporters after the State Duma lower house voted by a clear 
majority to back the treaty, Putin said the decision would allow Russia to 
retain and modernise its nuclear shield and also divert scarce funds to 
conventional forces. 

``For this reason I not only welcome but fully support the decision,'' he 
said. ``Our partners should make the next steps. The ball is in their court. 
We are now in a very good position diplomatically and politically to continue 
dialogue and strengthen international security.'' 

*******

#6
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 
From: "Jerry F. Hough" <jhough@duke.edu> (by way of David Johnson
<davidjohnson@erols.com>)
Subject: Re: 4243-Warren/Putin Humiliated in St. Petersburg

The press discussion of the Yakovlev fiasco in St. Petersburg 
gives every explanation, but the most obvious: with the Federation 
Council being the important organ for the president, the question of 
who the governors are responsible to is crucial. With Voloshin being 
head of presidential administration and with Berezovsky long having been 
Yeltsin's second secretary, their opposition to any change in Yeltsin's 
regional governors is yet another piece of evidence of Yeltsin still 
ruling. I am not 100 percent certain about this, but it would be nice 
if correspondents would at least mention it as a possibility and we 
had a debate. It has major implications. 

The problem is the same as with Brezhnev. Yeltsin, like 
Brezhnev after 1975 (or Mao in his last years), cannot rule in the 
traditional detailed sense, but he can have absolute power as a veto on 
policy change. As long as Putin is the scapegoat for being weak and
passive instead of Yeltsin (if he does have power) preventing him from 
acting (as occurred with previous premiers), Yeltsin and the family get a
free ride and Russia continues to suffer. I understand the interests of 
the Clinton-Gore Administration on this issue and I see the deals on 
oil and alumininum for START, but I am surprised that other Russians are 
not willing to explore alternate explanations, at least privately with 
American correspondents. 

******

#7
From: "Margaret Williams" <margaret.williams@wwfus.org>
Subject: Job announcement
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 18:54:16 -0400

Director, Bering Sea program & Russian liaison, World Wildlife Fund
Editor, Russian Conservation News

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT:
Live, work and travel in Russia while helping to conserve Russia's nature!
RUSSIAN CONSERVATION NEWS, an English-language journal on biodiversity
conservation in northern Eurasia, is now inviting applications for the
position of Assistant Editor. The candidate, to be based in Moscow, must be
highly organized and able to meet deadlines; must have excellent English
writing and editing abilities, good Russian, and a strong interest and/or
experience in conservation issues. Duties include everything from planning
publications, to translating, editing and communicating with
conservationists around northern Eurasia and other parts of the world.
Assistant editor will work with small editorial team in Moscow as well as
numerous NGOs, nature reserves and parks, and other organizations in the
region. Send resume and cover letter no later than May 15 to Margaret
Williams, Editor. Russian Conservation News. For more information E-mail:
margaret.williams@wwfus.org or rcn@igc.apc.org

******

#8
From: "stanislav menshikov" <menschivok@globalxs.nl>
Subject: TESTING PUTIN'S METTLE Some Perceive Him as Weak Leader 
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 

Moscow Tribune, 14 April 2000
TESTING PUTIN'S METTLE
Some Perceive Him as Weak Leader 
By Stanislav Menshikov
http://www.fast.ane.ru/smenshikov
http://www.ecaar-russia.org

As Vladimir Putin makes his first foreign visit as president-elect this
coming Sunday, the country and the world will be watching to see what kind
of a leader he is. His recent travel to Russian nuclear centres and
military bases, flying a fighter aeroplane and sailing in a nuclear
submarine were meant to project a macho image. His favourite motto during
the recent campaign was the intention to restore this country to greatness
as a military and economic power. The other day, he also stressed that from
now on Russia would switch in foreign policy matters from a defensive to an
offensive stance. So when Putin enters Downing Street this weekend we shall
see whether his bite is as good as his bark. Far from everybody is sure
about that.

David Johnson who runs an international Russia club on the Internet,
recently made a projection which he himself called "provocative". He sees
Putin as a weak leader with no experience as a statesman will very soon
become a disappointment and have to rely on western money and support to
stay in power. With its self-assurance restored the Russian elite will
continue on the robber capitalism path under the guise of superficial
reforms blessed by the West as the "real thing". 

What strikes one most in this characterisation is the expectation of weak
leadership. Is it possible that a man who managed to crush the Chechnya
rebellion and win presidential elections in the first round, who has an
open cheque from the electorate to change things for the better - that such
a man could indeed be weak? Hardly. And yet there are many who would love
this prediction to come true and who at this moment are eager to test
Putin's resolve.

Consider, on the international front, the spectacle of "outlawing" Russia
at the PACE, repeated arrests of Russian tankers in the Persian Gulf while
the Russian navy stays idle, the continued financial blocade of Moscow by
the IMF, successful pressure on the OPEC to cut down Russia's main source
of foreign currency earnings. How does the new President respond? Meekly,
to say the least. Europe is thanked for "trying to help Russia", America
thanked by expediting SALT-II ratification. Putin, not his aides, receives
Stanley Fischer, co-architect - together with Chubais and Kiriyenko - of
the failed Russian reforms so far, as well as of the August 1998 default.
This author is against isolation from the West, for reducing numbers of
nuclear weapons and for further co-operation with centres of international
finance. But why all the hurry at this particular time? Why not wait at
least until inauguration, even after the US presidential elections, wait
for more promising statements from the IMF? Diplomacy is like horse
trading, never undercut your own market.

Nor is testing Putin's mettle limited to external pressures. Inside the
country, an economic programme is in the making which will never succeed in
bringing about promised fast growth. Authors of the programme have publicly
refuted practically all principal elements of his declared strategy -
conversion of the armaments industry, protection for domestic
manufacturers, steady increase in consumer demand. Some of them have called
for closing half of Russia's industrial enterprises under the pretext that
they "do not produce surplus value" while Putin specifically objected to
such demands. Actually, the share of profitable enterprises is quickly
rising together with economic growth and is approaching two thirds so that
the need for more bankruptcies is falling. Yet, Putin has shown no
intention of bringing his advisers in line with his stated guidelines. 

The latest test is the energy crisis jointly engineered by Chubais and
Viakhirev. Up to a month ago nobody even suspected that Russia was facing
shortages of natural gas and cutting down electric power to leading
industrial centres. In fact, statistics do not support that story. But even
if a genuine energy crisis is looming, the key question is why neither
Gasprom, nor RAO EES invested enough resources into maintaining and
expanding their production potential. Both are government controlled
companies, yet they perform like private fiefdoms where asset stripping is
the order of the day. Their current behaviour is seen by many as
blackmailing Putin into firing the present Fuel Minister, a member of a
rival business clan, and demonstrating to the president who is who in
Russia. As one oligarch said recently, it is all right for the president to
proclaim independence from big business, but it is not realistic in
practical terms. 

Unlike western leaders with whom Mr. Putin has to be diplomatic, Viakhirev
and Chubais are functionaries of the state-controlled companies and, in the
last resort, serve at the pleasure of the Kremlin. They could not remain in
their jobs if the president wishes them out. At this writing, the outcome
of Putin's direct intervention into the energy crisis is not known. But
unless he stops lecturing these pirates about the national interest and
instead disciplines them here and now and making them do their jobs, his
position as a strong leader is doomed.

******

#9
New York Times
April 14, 2000
[for personal use only]
W. Bruce Lincoln, 61, Expert Who Enlivened Russian History
By ERIC PACE

W. Bruce Lincoln, a historian known for his gripping books about Russians and 
their history, died on Sunday at Kishwaukee Community Hospital in DeKalb, 
Ill. He was 61 and lived in DeKalb. 

He had cancer, Northern Illinois University in DeKalb said in announcing his 
death. He had taught there for 31 years. 

Dr. Lincoln, whose doctorate in Russian history was from the University of 
Chicago, spent several years in Russia as a exchange scholar. He recalled in 
the 1970's: "I have become convinced that the historian who writes only for 
other specialists neglects an important part of an historian's broader task. 
Therefore, I have begun to write for a broader audience in the hope that my 
efforts to explain Russia's past may enable readers to better understand 
Russia's present. I like to think that I have succeeded in that broader 
effort, at least to some extent." 

He first used that approach in "Nicholas I: Emperor and Autocrat of All the 
Russias" (1978, Northern Illinois), and much of his writing was about 
Nicholas's dynasty, the Romanovs, who held sway for three centuries, until 
1917. 

Dr. Lincoln won particular praise for "Red Victory: A History of the Russian 
Civil War" (1990, Da Capo). It was listed as a notable book of year by The 
New York Times Book Review, in which John A. C. Greppin, a writer on Russian 
literature and history, said in reviewing the book, "It is successful not 
because of a new analysis of fact but because of its author's abiding 
descriptive powers; he presents a vast warring frontier filled with people 
who, no matter how familiar their names and actions have become, often baffle 
us." 

Publishers Weekly called his book "The Conquest of a Continent" (Random) one 
of the best books of 1994 and said: "In Lincoln's compulsively readable epic 
narrative, Siberia's dark history comes alive as a vast human drama of greed, 
adventure, exploration, ambition, persecution and protest. Tamerlaine, Danish 
explorer Vitus Bering, Dostoyvesky, Lenin, rogues, reformers and Siberia's 
natives people this prodigiously researched tapestry." 

So did Lenin's wife, whom Dr. Lincoln described in the book as "a typical 
turn-of-the-century radical woman with short-cropped hair, an upturned nose 
and eyes that were just beginning to protrude as a result of the goiter that 
would plague her the rest of her life." 

Colleagues of Dr. Lincoln said this week that more than 100,000 copies of 
each of several of his dozen books had been sold. 

His "Between Heaven and Hell: The Story of a Thousand Years of Artistic Life 
in Russia" (1998. Viking Penguin) had some editing from Jacqueline Kennedy 
Onassis while she was an editor at the work's original hardcover publisher, 
Doubleday. But she died before she finished her work on the book. 

Dr. Lincoln said he had learned from Petr Andreevich Zaionchkovskii and other 
contemporary historians of Russia whom he revered "that the writing of 
history is an all-consuming craft that demands not sporadic attention but 
daily devotion." 

Indeed, while keeping up with his teaching, he worked continuously on his 
books and wrote at least one page a day. 

He worked hard to find poignant details for his books. While researching a 
work on St. Petersburg, Dr. Lincoln turned up cookbooks that had been 
compiled while Petersburg was known as Leningrad and was under siege and 
painfully sort of food. The books included recipes for cooking rats. 

Dr. Lincoln was born in Suffield, Conn. He earned a bachelor's in 1960, at 
the College of William and Mary, and a doctorate in 1966. He retired from 
Northern Illinois in 1998. 

A first marriage ended in divorce. Surviving are his wife, Mary; two 
daughters, Dr. Virginia Wallace of Milwaukee and Mary Margaret Matzek of 
Minneapolis; a brother, Charles who lives in Connecticut; and two 
grandchildren. 

******

#10
Izvestia
April 14, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
RUSSIA SHOULD NOT PINE FOR SUPERPOWER STATUS
Izvestia continues publishing opinions about Russia's 
foreign policy under the new president. 
Today, it is presenting excerpts from the book 
"Strategy For Russia: 2000 Agenda For the President" compiled 
by the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy and edited by 
Sergei KARAGANOV, the Council presidium's chairman.

Russia had found itself in a tight spot by the beginning 
of 2000--from the viewpoint of foreign policy. There had 
appeared new challenges, but no adequate reactive stance had 
been devised.
The impression was that the policy was amid a crisis. 
Regrettably, the country has no foreign policy strategy, 
and not even a wholesome doctrine, today. 
At the same time, Russia's standing is not catastrophic. 
The negative trends are reversible in their majority. 
The relatively passive debates on a foreign policy 
notwithstanding, four schools, or concepts, are rather clearly 
discernible in it.
One can be described as a concept of revanche. Its 
proponents stand for a buildup of military might, a 
mobilisation economy, support for states whose positions are 
anti-West (Iran, Iraq) and rapprochement with China on the 
anti-West basis. This is the only isolationist school by 
definition. This policy is not only realistic from the 
viewpoint of Russia's potentialities, but would lead to a 
series of new defeats, a cordon around Russia, self-exhaustion 
and the country's eventual disintegration.
Paradoxically, the 'revanchist' school exists side by side 
with advocates of partial self-isolationism from the ranks of 
former reformers and oligarchs. These people are hoping to stay 
in power and to get rehabilitated for their past mistakes by 
way of bringing a Russian Pinochet to power. This second 
concept is potentially slightly less dangerous as the first 
one, and is nearly as un-realistic. 
The third school, that of 'voluntary subjugation', has few 
overt followers. This concept stands no chance for renaissance. 
The fourth, most popular and thus far official, concept of 
multi-polarity suggests an active foreign policy pursued across 
the board and aimed to maintaining geostrategic balances. On 
the whole, this approach correlates to Russia's interests, but 
it is in no way ideal. 
To start with, it does not reflect the current realities 
of the world in full. 
Second, this approach is hardly thrifty, because it 
stretches the very limited diplomatic and other resources and 
prods Russia to conduct the policy of a global power, while in 
reality it is a weakening regional power. Should it have been 
involved in the conflict around Yugoslavia, what with the 
resources it had? What has it gained in the medium-term 
perspective from its manoeuvres around Iraq?
Third, this approach leaves are rather limited room for 
Russia to manoeuvre in, and well-nigh automatically draws it 
into confrontation with the West. 
Fourth, Russia is thus far a weakening 'pole'. Do we need 
the standing of a weakening 'pole'--even conceptually?
Fifth, this concept, once applied to the Russian-Chinese 
dialogue, clearly involves Russia into the Chinese-American 
relations, even though on the side of the friendly China.
Meanwhile, we have no serious ability to influence the policy 
of either Beijing or Washington.
This is why we deem it necessary to put forth a relatively 
novel concept of the country's foreign policy strategy. It may 
be described as the concept of discriminative involvement. 
The new approach should be based on a serious revision of 
this country's strategic priorities, the main and indisputable 
ones being: recovery of the state authority, a stable and high 
economic growth, and the course of sensible integration into 
the global economy. 
The first principle of such revision should be the course 
to the toughest upholding of Russia's really vital interests.
Russia's stance on other issues should be principled but 
non-confrontational. 
The second principle is deliberate refusal by the 
political class and society to pine for the phantom of being a 
'superpower'. 
Third is the line to maximally avoiding confrontation, 
especially with those countries and regions which are 
instrumental for Russia's economic development. 
The fourth principle is orientation to the future. Not the 
protection of former--sometimes redundant, sometimes 
exorbitantly expensive--positions, but rather the striving to 
get adapted to and win a niche in the world of tomorrow.
Fifth, the suggested philosophy of the approach is seeking 
to profit, especially economically. 
The sixth, and most important, principle of foreign policy 
is all-round support for the interests of Russian businesses 
abroad. 
Seventh, the foreign policy should seek to attract foreign 
investments. 
Lastly, do not resort to tough rhetorics. Nobody believes 
our threats any longer, but they irritate and keep off those 
who would want to have partner relations with Russia.

******

#11
Business Week
April 24, 2000
[for personal use only]
Land of Opportunity
Capitalizing on chaos, Ian Bremmer opens doors for foreign business in Russia.
By ROSE BRADY 

In August, 1998, soon after launching a consulting firm aimed at helping U.S. 
companies do business in the former Soviet Union, Ian Bremmer got a surprise: 
the near-collapse of the Russian economy. He couldn't have been happier. 
``It's precisely because of the chaos that we are a successful business,'' 
says Bremmer, president of New York-based Eurasia Group.
Bremmer has built a thriving company by helping clients negotiate the 
confusing byways of post-Soviet commerce. Revenues for Eurasia Group reached 
$1.5 million in 1999, Bremmer says, and he expects them to soar as high as $5 
million this year, thanks in part to widespread uncertainty about Russia's 
newly elected President Vladimir V. Putin. ``Putin remains a huge question 
mark,'' he says.
Bremmer has thrived without a minute of business education or even much of 
an intention to become an entrepreneur. The 30-year-old expert in Russian and 
Central Asian politics--a Stanford University PhD--was on the fast track to 
the Ivory Tower. Then history intervened. After the Soviet Union 
disintegrated in 1991, U.S. companies eager to do business in the region were 
scrambling for information. Bremmer realized that his network of sources 
could be the basis for a profitable business. With the former Soviet Union 
changing so rapidly, Bremmer decided it would be interesting to do more than 
just teach about it.
In January, 1998, with just $25,000 in savings, he took the plunge. ``For 
the first six months, it was trial by fire,'' he recalls, as he scrambled to 
learn such mundane tasks as processing a payroll, calculating taxes, and 
writing contracts. But he now has 15 people working for him in New York, 
Moscow, Istanbul, and Houston.
The company's 25 clients include Goldman Sachs, News Corp., and the giant 
Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding, each of which pay $25,000 annually for the 
group's basic services. That includes regular political reports, packed with 
insider information, as well as frequent meetings for companies with 
government officials and business leaders in the region.
Eurasia Group provides extensive problem-solving and dealmaking 
assistance, too. The company is introducing Metromedia International 
Telecommunications--a New York-based company that runs Russia's largest 
digital satellite and fiber-optic networks--to local partners for cable-TV 
and wireless phone businesses in Central Asia. If dealmaking picks up, 
Bremmer thinks annual revenues could soar as high as $40 million over the 
next several years.
How does a little guy compete against global powerhouses like 
PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young? Bremmer sticks to his geographical 
niche and tries to offer more in-depth, inside political information, 
capitalizing on his network of 350 legal, business, government, and academic 
contacts in Russia and Central Asia. So far, he has attracted some big fans. 
Eurasia Group ``is one of the aids that helps us make rational decisions in a 
marketplace that often behaves irrationally,'' says James Hatt, CEO of 
Metromedia, which is expanding its TV and phone businesses throughout the 
former Soviet Union.
What's next for the former academic? Eurasia Group's growth ultimately 
depends on the economic and investment climate in the former Soviet Union. 
Bremmer is guardedly optimistic. A new generation of business-friendly 
political leaders is emerging in provincial capitals around the region. But 
much depends on what Putin actually does as President. ``Things can get worse 
before they get better,'' Bremmer says. If that happens, his Eurasia Group 
will keep trying to cash in on chaos.

******

#12
Even Russia's Father Christmas pays tax

MOSCOW, April 14 (Reuters) - Cash-strapped Russia is squeezing everyone for 
taxes, including Santa Claus. 

``Even Father Frost...has filed his income declaration,'' Tax Minister 
Alexander Pochinok told a news conference, referring to Russia's version of 
the mythical giver of presents. 

Two years ago Russian authorities, keen to promote national traditions, 
established Father Frost's headquarters in the northwestern town of Veliky 
Ustyug and picked an actor to play the role. Pochinok visited Veliky Ustyug 
last week. 

Russia needs every tax cent it can gather because it owes billions of dollars 
in debt and has a huge welfare state. 

Its tax police have tried everything to get people to pay up, from 
spectacular commando-style raids on businesses to advertisements featuring 
pensioners and unpaid doctors to pull on the heart strings. 

Russians have until May 3 to follow the example of Father Frost, who brings 
Russian children gifts on New Year's Eve. 

*******

#13
Russia tortures Chechens in secret 'filtration' camps: witnesses

NEAR GROZNY, Russia, April 14 (AFP) - 
Russia is torturing detainees at secret "filtration" camps across Chechnya 
despite an international outcry over abuses at the notorious Chernokozovo 
prison, witnesses say.

Ex-inmates interviewed by AFP in Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia 
confirmed the existence of detention centres such as PAP-5 in Grozny and one 
housed in a former school in the southwestern town of Urus-Martan.

Ruslan, 21, spent nearly two months until March 30 in a dark underground cell 
in PAP-5 in the depths of a former bus maintenance depot, where he said 
guards meted out brutal beatings, torture and even committed murder.

The Russian military denied the site existed when UN High Commissioner for 
Human Rights Mary Robinson pressed to see it and neighbouring PAP-1 on a 
visit to the war-ravaged Chechen capital a fortnight ago.

"The guards would come in and say 'it's time for massage'," said Ruslan, 
interviewed in his home village near the northwestern outskirts of Grozny 
where Russian troops arrested him on February 5th.

Placed on a stool, his hands tied behind his back, two or three masked 
soldiers would beat Ruslan with rubber truncheons and rifle butts for half an 
hour at a time, swinging blows at his legs, arms and back.

"I lost consciousness many times," the young man mumbled hesitantly with a 
pained look on his face, before burying his head in his hands.

On international women's day on March 8th, the guards got drunk and decided 
to experiment on the prisoners, Ruslan said.

Pulling up his trousers to show a deep scar in his left leg stretching up 
from the ankle nearly to the thigh, he explained: "They stuck a knife in me 
and then slowly, very slowly cut upwards into my leg.

"You are a boyevik (a Chechen guerrilla fighter), we know you are," the 
soldier wielding the knife taunted Ruslan.

But he was far luckier than others among the nine men squeezed into his tiny 
cell.

Four were killed, including a 23-year-old from his village, Ruslan said: "I 
heard the shots when they finished them off after beating them nearly to 
death" in the nearby interrogation room.

Deaths under detention also occurred in the former school in Urus-Martan, 
according to 30-year-old Alikhan Shakiyev, who was kept there for four days 
from February 29.

One fellow-inmate, Aslanbek, 20, was dying when the guards dumped him back in 
their cell, but was refused permission to see a doctor.

His wrists, hands, and fingers broken, he lay rasping as he tried to breathe, 
blood oozing out of his mouth. One hour later the soldiers took him out of 
the cell, and relatives then found his body abandoned on the street.

The beatings and torture by elite interior ministry OMON troops took place in 
a windowless room, bare except for a table and chair, with a light bulb 
dangling from the ceiling.

Seven metres (21 feet) away, Shakiyev and the others in his cell could hear 
cries of pain all day long.

Many had nails torn out and on the back of one 18-year-old man, Aslan, the 
guards burnt a drawing into his skin with lighted cigarettes, according to 
Shakiyev.

"It wasn't a filtration camp. It was a concentration camp," he said, 
interviewed in the Ingush border town of Sleptovskaya where he has taken 
refuge.

Fear permeates the survivors, who said they had been threatened with severe 
reprisals if they spoke about their experiences.

Just before a delegation from the Council of Europe led by Lord Frank Judd 
visited Chernokozovo in northwest Chechnya on March 12, Ruslan and others in 
PAP-5 were threatened by guards nervous the Western observers might turn up.

"They warned us, 'If you speak to the foreigners don't tell them you were 
beaten. If you do, we'll kill you, they'll go away in any case and then we'll 
deal with you'," he said.

Apart from the fear of talking, information is also scant because very few 
recent inmates of detention centres have managed to flee to Ingushetia since 
the Russian military do not return their passports.

But Russian human rights organisation Memorial estimates there are already 
nearly 15 'filtration' camps holding several thousand people in Chechnya, not 
counting police cells and underground pits at many military checkpoints.

******

#14
Excerpt
US Department of State
13 April 2000 
Transcript: U.S. Librarian of Congress on Russian Leadership Program 
(Website www.loc.gov/rlp) (8,590)

U.S. Librarian of Congress James Billington discussed the Open World
Russian Leadership Program on the Department of State's "Dialogue"
television show April 11.

Billington said the leadership program -- which was launched by
Congress in 1999 and of which he is chairman -- pairs Russian visitors
with their American professional counterparts for ten days of
meetings, consultations, and on-site experiences. More than 2,000
persons from 83 of Russia's 89 political districts participated during
the initial year. Billington said the program gives participants an
opportunity "not just to see how the government operates, not just to
see how the market economy operates, but also to see how
improvisationally a civil society operates."

The television broadcast was interactive, giving audiences in Moscow
and St. Petersburg the opportunity to question the Librarian of
Congress.

Asked his assessment of Russia's current and future prospects,
Billington said he is very optimistic that Russia has a bright future.

"Russia has an enormous opportunity," he said. "Its problem is to find
its real identity in the richness of its culture, in the moral force
of its literature, of the strong family life of its deep and very rich
religious and cultural positions rather than in its less fortunate
history as essentially a kind of military power in constant conflict
with and endless suspicion of those on its borders and suspected
groups within its borders."

Billington said he also sees Russia as a potential bridge between the
European world and the many worlds of Asian and extra-European
culture.

Regarding the influence of Russian culture on America, he described
the impact as "enormous," particularly in music and art. "Much of
Russian culture has already been sort of internalized, has become part
of our culture," he said.

******

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