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Johnson's Russia List
 

 

June 3, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4343  4344



Johnson's Russia List
#4344
3 June 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. Interfax: RUSSIANS ARE POSITIVE ABOUT THE USA BUT NEGATIVE ABOUT THE CREATION OF THE AMERICAN ABM SYSTEM.
2. RFE/RL: Sophie Lambroschini, Russia: Vox Populi -- Muscovites Speak About Clinton-Putin Summit.
3. Boston Globe: David Filipov, Russian shoot-'em-up pokes holes in an America once revered.
4. Interfax: STATISTICS COMMITTEE REVISES DOWN Q1 FOREIGN INVESTMENT FIGURES.
5. Moscow Times: Jonas Bernstein, The Games Oligarchs Play.
6. Boston Globe: Marshall Goldman, Money Laundering In Russia: 
Deep Roots, Corrosive Rot.
7. Washington Times: Lawrence Kudlow, Russia on the Laffer Curve.
8. Matt Taibbi: new paper: Stringer edited by Leonid Krutakov.
9. Patricia Critchlow: Impact of Self-Help Alcoholism Treatment in Post-Soviet Russia.
10. Andrei Liakhov: Meddle in Russian Affairs - The facts the 
Washington Post conveniently forgets.]


*******


#1
RUSSIANS ARE POSITIVE ABOUT THE USA BUT NEGATIVE ABOUT THE CREATION OF
THE AMERICAN ABM SYSTEM


MOSCOW. June 2 (Interfax) - Over two thirds of Russians (68%) are
positive about the United States of America, and only 21% are negative.
11% of Russian citizens had difficulty characterizing their attitude to
the USA.
This information was provided to Interfax by the All-Russia center
for the study of public opinion on Friday. It was obtained in the course
of a representative poll in which 1,600 Russians participated and which
was conducted on May 29 (some days before the visit of the U.S.
president to Moscow). The margin of error in such polls is about 4%.
The overwhelming majority of the respondents (78%) are on the whole
positive about Americans as a nation. Only 11% of the respondents
admitted they were negative about Americans, and the same number of
respondents had no definite opinion on this matter.
51% of the respondents think Bill Clinton's upcoming visit to
Moscow important. 35% are not inclined to attach much importance to it,
and 14% were undecided.
The poll also showed that 44% of the respondents think Moscow
should not agree with the USA on the creation of an anti-missile system
as it may harm Russia's security.
Only 18% of the respondents think the Russian Federation should
agree with the USA's intention to create the ABM system.
The rest 38% of the respondents had difficulty answering this
question.


******


#2
Russia: Vox Populi -- Muscovites Speak About Clinton-Putin Summit
By Sophie Lambroschini


The first McDonald's in Russia opened on Pushkin Square 10 years ago. Now, on 
the eve of U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to Moscow to meet Russian 
President Vladimir Putin, RFE/RL's Sophie Lambroschini asks passers-by on the 
square what they think of the United States. 


Moscow, 2 June 2000 (RFE/RL) -- If it hadn't been for President Clinton's 
steamy escapade with Monica Lewinsky, many Russians would probably associate 
him only with the air strikes against Serbia last year. Russians saw NATO's 
intervention in Kosovo as an appalling example of U.S. arrogance. In that 
context, the Monica look-a-like contest that's running in Moscow this weekend 
(at the initiative of the satirical English-language Russian weekly "The 
Exile") might be more a public-relations event for the U.S. than an 
embarrassment. 


At least 15-year-old Sasha thinks so. He and four girlfriends are having a 
beer by a fountain on Pushkin Square. He says that he should hate the United 
States for bombing Serbia but that Clinton has given him a good impression.


"Probably then I would've hated him. The U.S. are uncool, but Clinton is a 
cool dude because I think he's a real guy -- when they caught him with that 
broad, Monica."


One of the girls looks at him with disapproval and explains, "It's just that 
Clinton is young and energetic, like Vladimir Putin."


An elderly lady sitting nearby also comments on the Monica affair, saying, 
"Clinton's like any young man, after all."


Just over a year ago, NATO's air strikes against Serbia spurred unprecedented 
anti-American sentiments in Russia -- and Cold War parallels. Also last year, 
Western accusations that Russian officials were involved in money-laundering, 
embezzlement, and bribe-taking had the Moscow press crying out against U.S. 
attempts to discredit Russia. 


This year, foreign condemnation of Russia's bloody war in Chechnya had many 
Russians agreeing with their leadership that the West is trying to compromise 
Russia's strategic interests in the Caucasus, to weaken the country further. 


But few of the people interviewed today brought the subject up spontaneously. 
They did not specifically mention Kosovo, but they were insistent that the 
United States has been behaving insolently. 


Olga is a music student. She admires the way the U.S. "treats its citizens 
like precious pearls," but compares its foreign and trade policy to that of a 
vampire.


"The United States is now the strongest, most powerful country in the world 
that gives the tone to everyone. Probably, they see Russia to a large extent 
as a gigantic territory that they can suck out a lot out of, because of our 
relatively cheap natural resources, our cheap workforce, and complete lack of 
laws."


Andrey, a civil servant, agrees. 


"It dictates its laws a lot. But that's maybe the way politics are -- that 
whoever is stronger dictates his rules to others. What makes me mad is that 
here everything is focused on the dollar rate. That I cannot understand."


Aleksandr, a manager of a German company, says that the U.S. should take a 
lesson from how Russia and Germany developed their relations despite the 
Second World War. 


"The United States is a country that knows perfectly well what it wants but 
doesn't always take into account the fact that others also want something. I 
was very surprised by the Germans' tolerance toward Russia. You know, we 
waged a war against one another, my grandfather died, which means that some 
German soldier killed him. Nevertheless, we came to understand each other, 
that we should live in peace and cooperate. But I never, not once, saw that 
America turned towards us like that." Or is Russian dislike of the U.S. 
simply based on envy? Aleksandr, an engineer turned businessman, says that 
Russia would behave just like the United States -- if it could.


"For now, we can only learn from them, the Americans, how they have laws and 
implement them. That we should learn. And learn dignity from them, how they 
defend their citizens in every corner of the world, on every planet. I don't 
see the United States as a threat. And the fact that they're trying to gain 
control in the economic sphere and trade -- that's been around for centuries. 
The Spaniards controlled the seas? Yes. And they were the richest country. My 
God, and so what? In the same way the Americans are doing great. What can I 
say? We also want to crawl up to that level, only we can't do it for now." As 
for the Clinton-Putin summit, most see it as a perfunctory diplomatic affair 
with little immediate consequences. As 16-year-old Elizaveta put it: "It's 
great that comrade Clinton is meeting comrade Putin, but that doesn't affect 
us, does it?" 


******


#3
Boston Globe
June 3, 2000
[for personal use only]
Russian shoot-'em-up pokes holes in an America once revered 
By David Filipov


MOSCOW - If President Clinton wanted to better understand how ordinary 
Russians view America as he arrives in Moscow today for three days of talks, 
he could do worse than to check out the country's most popular movie.


The film is called ''Brother 2'' - yes, it is a sequel - and it appropriates 
slick American production techniques and familiar action-film cliches to do a 
neat twist on Hollywood's familiar Russian boogeyman routine.


The good guys are Russian killers who outwit numerous police and 
machine-gun-toting thugs, blow away a cross-section of Chicagoans, avenge the 
death of a comrade, and teach a smarmy American crime boss a lesson. All to 
the constant beat of Russian rock hits.


This is merely pop-culture entertainment, but director Alexei Balabanov has 
also willingly tapped into Russia's growing patriotic, and anti-American, 
sentiment. The film's diehard hero, Danila, played by Russian actor Sergei 
Bodrov Jr., can romance, shoot guns, crack skulls, and crack one-liners at 
least no worse than Stallone, Willis, or Schwarzenegger. And he can outdrink 
any of them.


Danila might as well be the brother from another planet as he calmly mows 
down his foes and many innocent bystanders. But Danila is also an implacable 
proponent of a very romantically Russian sense of the ideal that right is 
might.


''So tell me, American. What is the source of power? Money?'' Danila asks his 
suddenly cornered and cowed American adversary after wiping out his entire 
security detail and downing a very large glass of Stolichnaya. ''You have a 
lot of money, but so what? I think that strength is in truth. He who has the 
truth is stronger.''


This stuff is as timely as ever in Russia. The pro-American euphoria that 
followed the fall of communism had been fading for years when it finally 
disappeared for good in differences over Kosovo and Chechnya. The United 
States is still envied as the world's most powerful and rich country, but 
most Russians now believe that America intends to bully and ignore them, 
rather than share its good fortune with them. 


''Don't expect anything good from Americans,'' wrote Sergei Leskov in an 
article detailing Russian stereotypes of Americans in yesterday's edition of 
the daily Izvestia. ''They always take care of themselves. ... Americans 
think someone is better when they have more money.''


So it is that the American bad guy cheats a Russian player on a Chicago 
hockey team, the brother of Danila's friend, Kostya (who happens to be a hero 
of Russia's conflict in Chechnya). Kostya asks a Russian mob boss to 
intervene. Instead, the mob has Kostya killed, setting Danila and his wacky, 
wisecracking older brother on their overseas quest for justice.


On the way, not only do Danila and his brother break American laws, which is 
par for the course for our own action films. But the film almost gleefully 
does battle with modern American notions of cultural etiquette by dredging up 
every racial or sexual stereotype in the book. 


''We aren't racists,'' said director Balabanov in a recent online chat 
session. ''But we hold to a healthy sense of national dignity.''


Russians in the film never give up, they never leave one of their own behind, 
and they get all the best one-liners (''Are you all gangsters?'' asks one 
American. ''No, we're Russians,'' deadpans one of Danila's friends.)


After a while, it gets pretty ugly, though some critics here have suggested 
that ''Brother 2'' is, as Moscow Times writer Larisa Yusipova put it, 
''perhaps merely a response to all the nonsense `they' include in their films 
about `us.'''


Whatever the intent, the larger theme of Russia's lost illusions of America 
comes through in the last scene, when one of Danila's friends makes an 
obscene gesture at a US border official and gets on a plane home. The popular 
song ''Farewell Letter,'' with its refrain, ''Goodbye America,'' kicks in. 
Danila grins and orders a vodka. He is going home.


Ten years ago, this was a song about longing for a better, forbidden life, 
embodied by the America the singer ''will never see.'' In ''Brother 2,'' it 
is an appropriate send-off to a place best left behind.


******


#4
STATISTICS COMMITTEE REVISES DOWN Q1 FOREIGN INVESTMENT FIGURES


MOSCOW. June 2 (Interfax) - Foreign investment in Russia totaled
$2.445 billion in the first quarter of this year, not $4.961 billion as
reported earlier, the State Statistics Committee said.
Foreign investment in the first quarter of 1999 totaled $1.556
billion, so investment rose by 57% year-on-year in the first quarter of
2000, not by 220% as the committee said in its monthly report on May 31.
The mistake in investment figures arose because the Magnitogorsk
Metallurgical Combine (MMK) misreported to the regional statistics
committee that it had received a $2.5 billion trade credit from Taiwan.
Since the State Statistics Committee received confirmation of this
figure from the steel mill, it included the amount in overall investment
figures, thus inflating the figure for Russia as a whole and making the
Chelyabinsk region the largest recipient of foreign investment.
According to the revised figures, foreign direct and portfolio
investment in the quarter remained as reported earlier: $853 million and
$8 million, up 42.2% and 170% year-on-year respectively. But the correct
figure for so-called other investment was only $1.585 billion, up 66%
year-on-year, not $4.1 billion and 330% respectively as previously
reported.


*******


#5
Moscow Times
June 3, 2000 
PARTY LINES: The Games Oligarchs Play 
By Jonas Bernstein 


The week's most noteworthy event was Boris Berezovsky's debut as a 
pro-democracy activist with his attack on President Vladimir Putin's plan to 
rein in the country's regional barons. It was all the more noteworthy given 
that the tycoon-legislator had not previously been known for a deep and 
abiding respect for democratic institutions. 


In April 1996, for example, Berezovsky reportedly masterminded the "Letter of 
the 13," in which he and a group of fellow oligarchs called for a 
"compromise" between supporters of President Boris Yeltsin and those of 
Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov. While the letter did not explicitly call 
for canceling the June 1996 presidential election, Berezovsky said a few days 
after its publication that the compromise should include "sharing real 
executive power with the opposition," which would require "the creation of 
certain structures which will exist temporarily, in this complicated 
transitional period." Meaning a junta. 


So the likelihood is small that Berezovsky was suddenly possessed this week 
by the spirit of Andrei Sakharov. What, then, was his motive in attacking 
Putin's centralization plan? 


The Russian press, as always, was full of versiya, or versions. According to 
one, Berezovsky has been frozen out not only by Putin but by "the family," as 
the Yeltsin-era Kremlin inner circle is called, and is thus seeking allies 
among the regional leaders, whose powers will be limited by Putin's plan. 
Another "version" is that Berezovsky's criticism of the centralization plan 
is a way to ensure that Putin is "separated" from him "in the public 
consciousness," as the Russky Deadline web service put it. Which would be a 
real favor to Putin, given the number of decisions he has made that have 
benefited "the family." 


Berezovsky, on the other hand, is a master of elaborate combination plays, 
and it is entirely possible that he thus intended both to do Putin a favor - 
and thus make the president more beholden - while simultaneously distancing 
himself from Putin's centralization plan. If so, Berezovsky's was a move 
worthy of his old patron, Boris Yeltsin, and reflected an understanding that 
any attempt to impose a strictly centralized power vertical is doomed to 
failure. 


Indeed, Berezovsky - like Yeltsin in his time, and unlike Putin, apparently 
-seems to understand that the system that has emerged since 1991 is, at its 
core, oligarchical and corporatist, meaning there is no unified set of 
interests or beliefs that supercedes the separate interests of the system's 
constituent parts i.e. big business and the regional leaders. Thus, while one 
or more of the new elite's members might be ritually sacrificed in the name 
of nationalism or "consolidation" or "dictatorship of the law" - Media-MOST's 
Vladimir Gusinsky, for example, or Ingush President Ruslan Aushev - the 
essence of the system will remain unchanged. (Note to visiting U.S. officials 
and dignitaries: This system's "pluralism" is no more democratic than was 
feudalism.) 


And with that, I will leave it to Matt Bivens to carry on trying to explain 
or even predict the neutrino-like trajectory of Russia's Byzantine politics. 
For those readers who have come to rely on Party Lines for a reliable weekly 
dose of pessimism, cynicism and naysaying, I'm certain that Matt is up to the 
task and will deliver the goods - albeit more from the portside of the 
political spectrum. 


At the risk of engaging in 11th hourself-justification, I'd like to note that 
I didn't engage in pessimism, cynicism and naysaying just for kicks, although 
I won't deny that it was fun. On the occasions that I saw what appeared to be 
a positive development, I noted it. 


In March 1997, for example, I suggested that Boris Nemtsov, then the newly 
appointed deputy prime minister, had earned his reputation as "an untainted 
reformer," and basically wished him good luck - without abandoning skepticism 
- in his crusade to move Russia away from corrupt mafia capitalism toward 
democratic capitalism. Later that year, I gave Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov "two 
cheers" for making the trains run on time - true, my purpose was to attack 
the then-popular "energetic young reformers." Earlier on, I had even written 
that while Russia continued to be misgoverned, a genuine private sphere had 
appeared for the first time in nearly 80 years, giving hope that civil 
society would grow and that Russians would one day "expect their government 
to serve them, not the other way around." Well, maybe someday. 


Three columns out of 100 may not be much. But you can't say I didn't try. 


Jonas Bernstein claims this is his last Party Lines column. 


******


#6
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000
From: Daniel Gurvich <dgurvich@fas.harvard.edu> 
Subject: Marshall Goldman article


Boston Globe
June 2, 2000
Money Laundering In Russia: Deep Roots, Corrosive Rot
By Marshall I. Goldman
Professor of Russian Economics, Wellesley College,
Associate Director, Davis Center, Harvard University


President Clinton's agenda while he is in Moscow will focus primarily on
arms control issues. But he should also press his counterpart Vladimir
Putin about the behavior of the Russian Central Bank and its role in the
money laundering scandal. Until remedial steps are taken, foreign
investors will continue to doubt Putin's efforts at true reform.


What we only now are coming to understand is that money laundering in the
former Soviet Union has a long history. Like Eurobonds, money-laundering
itself may have been invented by Soviet-era bankers.


Masked behind the facade of state ownership, the Soviet Union ran a network
of overseas banks and, later, multinational companies. Little was said
about such ventures because they belied the USSR's official
anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist rhetoric. By the 1980's however, the
Soviet Union's overseas bank network grew to encompass as many as nine
different banks, strung our through such capital market centers as London,
Paris, Frankfurt, and on to Beirut and Singapore.


These banks served several purposes. Ostensibly they were needed to help
finance the USSR's foreign trade. But in incident after incident, many of
the bank's employees (at least the Russians) spent more of their time
spying than speculating. But there was a third function as well. Most of
their banks were also involved in financing communist parties around the
world. This is where the money laundering began.


The Soviet procedure was relatively simple. Foreign businessmen seeking to
export to the Soviet Union were frequently pressured to provide a kickback
or make a payoff to a local businessman acting on the Soviet Union's
behalf. Thus, an American executive negotiating for a contract to supply
the 1980 Moscow Olympics explained to me that he was told he could have the
contract only on the condition he agree to kickback $400,000, as well as
3-5 percent of his revenue, to an American leftist resident in Paris. This
American expatriate would then funnel most of the money to local communist
officials, often through Russian owned banks.


With the collapse of the Soviet Union, these banks continued to operate;
only now, they are controlled by the Russian Central Bank. Continuity in
such practices was assured, however, when Viktor Gerashchenko was appointed
Chairman of the Russian Central Bank in July 1992. Previously, from 1989
until the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, he had also been the Chairman of
Gosbank. Even more intriguing, beginning in 1965, he began a series of
assignments in the Soviet overseas banks in London, Beirut, Frankfurt and
Singapore. Given his experience, there was no one better versed in how to
move money around.


Putting his talents to work, Mr.Gerashchenko agreed in 1993 to the
diversion of over $1 billion of an International Monetary Fund loan. He
moved it from Eurobank, Russia's Paris bank, to FIMACO, an even more
obscure agency that the Russian Central Bank controlled offshore in the
Channel Islands. This was done to hide the money from western creditors
owed hundreds of millions of dollars, who had discovered that they could
seize or arrest funds in these overseas Russian banks. The use of FIMACO
to hide the receipts from IMF loans was repeated again in 1996 by Mr.
Gerashchenko's successor. When they learned of it, this angered and
embarrassed IMF officials, who accused the Russians of hiding the true size
of their reserves.


Since it led the way, it was reasonable to assume that others would seek to
emulate the Russian Central Bank. That helps to explain why now the IMF is
also investigating the Ukrainian Central Bank. It has been charged in a
similar way with diverting $600 million of IMF and other monies to Cyprus
banks for later speculative reinvestment.


Against this background, few Russians seemed surprised or distressed by the
confessions of a former Bank of New York vice president and her husband
that they helped launder as much as $7 billion in less than three years.
Some of this was very dirty money, including ransom paid for a kidnapping.
Most of the rest was sent to evade taxes by Russia's "new Russians" who saw
nothing wrong in shielding the assets they had only just "piratized" from
the state.


Given Mr. Gerashchenko's initial denial and even his indignation that he
and the Central Bank had been accused of doing something that was wrong, it
is likely that preventing similar practices will come slowly at best. The
$2 billion Russian Central Bank diversion of IMF funds to FIMACO and the $7
billion flood of ill-gotten gains through the Bank of New York are just a
hint of what has been going on behind the surface. Economists estimate
that there may be as much as another $150 billion in capital flight from
Russia that has not as yet been identified. Moreover the Russian banks
involved are controlled by some of the country's most notorious oligarchs,
whose influence extended into Boris Yeltsin's Kremlin and apparently still
influences Vladimir Putin.


If change is ever to come, world leaders and foreign businessmen must begin
to insist on more than pro forma transparency. Lenders such as the IMF,
World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and even
US government lenders have been too tepid, if not complacent, even when
they find that their funds have been used to generate illegal bonuses for
central bank officials. Foreign officials including President Clinton must
insist on rigorous accounting procedures and show that they will not
approve additional loans and grants until those responsible are punished.
Only then will the Russians feel the need to clean up their act.


******


#7
Washington Times
June 2, 2000
[for personal use only]
Russia on the Laffer Curve
By Lawrence Kudlow
Lawrence Kudlow is chief economist of CNBC.com and Schroder & Co. Inc.


When President Clinton meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at 
their forthcoming summit, he may be surprised to learn Russia has sworn off 
IMF austerity policies on the economy and is instead turning to a free market 
reform plan developed by an international advisory panel that has consulted 
with Mr. Putin in recent months.
Mr. Putin's apparent bias toward economic liberalization is one reason 
for the excellent performance of the Russian stock market. Since last 
December, when rumors rippled through Moscow that the former KGB head would 
replace the ailing Boris Yeltsin, the Russian bourse has been one of the best 
performing stock market indexes in the world, rising 134 percent by late 
March. The Russian bear has turned into a bull.
Since then Russian stocks have given back 23 percent of their gain, 
largely in response to aggressive liquidity tightening moves and interest 
rate increases by the U.S. Federal Reserve. It is widely reported that more 
U.S. dollars circulate in Moscow than Russian rubles. So Fed policies rule 
the monetary roost in Russia as well as elsewhere around the globe.
Still, the 79 percent net Russian market gain shows confidence in the 
recently elected Mr. Putin. This is in part because as a former deputy mayor 
of St. Petersburg the new Russian president has a track record of pro-market 
reforms. There is more substance to this guy than Western reporters recognize.
So it is not surprising that Mr. Putin and his staff invited a group of 
free market types to consult on the economy. U.S. congressional staff 
economists Jim Carter and James Gwartney, along with Ohio University 
professor Richard Vedder, a Joint Economic Committee consultant, were part of 
the group.
Additionally, the advisory panel included University of Chicago 
professor Arnold Harberger (one of the original "Chicago boys" who reformed 
Chile in the 1980s), Chilean Social Security reformer Jose Pinera and former 
New Zealand deregulatory Prime Minister Sir Roger Douglas ("Rogernomics").
Meeting with Mr. Putin and his top economic deputies, the panel hammered 
out a pro-growth reform plan that features a 13 percent flat income tax-rate 
and significant payroll tax cuts (below the current astronomical 41 percent 
rate).
None other than the New York Times has endorsed these supply-side 
reforms, editorializing that "Russia has created the worst of all tax worlds: 
high rates and little revenue." Ah, the Laffer Curve is alive and well in 
Russia.
Mr. Putin's reform plan is also expected to include personal investment 
accounts for pension reform, a currency board to prevent inflation, abolition 
of customs duties for freer trade, additional privatization of state-owned 
industries, private property rights protection and major openings for foreign 
investment. Much of this was first reported a week ago by former Wall Street 
Journal editorialist Amity Shlaes in her new Financial Times column — a
must 
read by the way.
The Putin plan is expected to be unveiled in June. The ambitious and 
strong-willed president believes a Russian growth strategy of 8 percent to 10 
percent yearly over the next decade will enable Mother Russia to surpass the 
economies of Spain and Portugal and equal the size of Britain's gross 
domestic product.
The jury is still out as to whether Mr. Putin will respect press 
freedoms and human rights, end the hostilities in Chechnya and negotiate in 
good faith on arms control and foreign relations. But economic liberalization 
would surely be a step in the right direction. Come to think of it, perhaps 
Mr. Putin will counsel Bill Clinton on the merits of a flat tax for the 
United States.

******


#8
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 
From: Matt Taibbi <exile.taibbi@matrix.ru> 
Subject: new paper-Stringer


David-


I would like to announce to your readers the launch, this coming Monday, of 
a new Russian newspaper called "Stringer". Edited by the well-known and 
oft-fired journalist Leonid Krutakov, the paper will be a vehicle for 
hardcore investigative reporting and an outlet for investigations and 
articles suppressed elsewhere. The paper has an unusually egalitarian 
management structure; the editors are also the writers, and vice-versa.


The first issue, which hits the newsstands Monday, features an article 
revealing the machinations behind the Trans-World holding sale, an expose 
on German Gref, and an investigation citing Russian intelligence sources 
which concludes that the U.S. government bombed the Chinese embassy 
purposefully. Western readers will also be amused to find a 
behind-the-scenes account of the behavior of Forbes reporter Paul 
Khlebnikov in the wake of the filing of Boris Berezovsky's libel suit.


Incidentally, those same Western readers will be able to find at least some 
of Stringer's articles in English in the eXile, as our two publications 
have agreed to act as partners and exchange articles. The upcoming issue of 
the eXile, coming out next Thursday, will feature Stringer material.


For more information about Stringer, you can write to Leonid Krutakov at 
stringer_np@mail.ru, or to me at exile.taibbi@matrix.ru


Stringer's website is due to be launched on June 20. The address will be 


www.stringer-agency.ru


By way of providing more background, I've enclosed a translation of the 
letter from the editor for the first issue. I encourage JRL readers in 
Moscow to look for the paper this Monday.


Thanks again and take care,
Matt Taibbi



Leonid Krutakov
Letter From the Editor
Stringer


It was "Komsomolskaya Pravda" that made me a Stringer. The people I worked 
with there between 1990-93 were all true professionals. All the rest 
(burning the midnight oil, being straight with yourself, looking people 
directly in the eye) I learned from Mama-a telegram deliverer in polar 
Murmansk.


After leaving "Komsomolka" I worked at practically every major newspaper in 
the capital. I never participated in intra-newsroom intrigues. I only wrote 
about what was interesting to me personally. I didn't permit any 
ideological corrections in my articles. If they didn't print it-I went to 
another newspaper.


Viktor Loshakh, the editor of "Moscow News", considered me a traitor 
because of two pieces I wrote for "Komsomolskaya Pravda" that had met with 
his disapproval: an interview with two big shots from the General 
Prosecutor's office about a scandal involving Ilyushenko, and a story about 
a homeless man from the Podmoskoviye, in whose name Oneximbank had 
registered a shell company they used to buy Norilsk Nickel. I left with no 
regrets.


The editor of "Novaya Gazeta", Dmitri Muratov, was much more subtle in his 
approach. He cut my salary in half for writing a story about Yuri Luzhkov's 
wife, Elena Baturina, and her connection to the "Knyaz Rurik" brewery.


Artyem Borovik refused to print an article about a three million-dollar 
credit given to Anatoly Chubais by SBS-Agro. That article was eventually 


published in "Izvestia", by then-editor Igor Golombiyevsky. His 
replacement, Mikhail Kozhokin, announced that I was a KGB agent and, at the 
request of Chubais's press secretary Trapeznikov, basically had me fired. 
Actually I was given a choice: take a job as Izvestia's field correspondent 
in Odessa, or a spot on the culture desk.


I was forced to leave "Noviye Izvesitiye" after an article I wrote entitled 
"Why Don't Elephants Fly?" appeared in "Moskovsky Komsomolets". The 
newspaper's general director, Oleg Mitvol, told me that the fact that I had 
written about how Boris Berezovsky laundered Aeroflot's money had cost him 
seven million dollars. Meanwhile, that very same Trapeznikov complained in 
the wake of this incident that our speech freedoms were being violated.


Vitaly Tretyakov, the editor of "Nezavisimaya Gazeta", once honored me with 
a full page story in his illustrious publication in which he tried to argue 
that no such person as Leonid Krutakov actually existed in nature. His 
theory was that there was a group of people writing analytical articles 
under a collective pseudonym.


Then and now I've been grateful to all my editors, each of whom taught me 
something, although no one took anything away from what Mama taught me. I'm 
especially grateful to Pavel Gusev, the editor of "Moskovsky Komsomolets". 
I wrote a lot for "MK", although there wasn't always enough column space.


Why "Stringer"? Maybe because I'm fed up. Fed up with corporate solidarity 
working like the law of "Omerta", and financial interests working on a 
higher level still. Maybe because a stringer is only dependent upon his 
information and his convictions. Maybe because a stringer cares about his 
profession, not his place on the masthead.


So why call it "Stringer", after all? To be honest, I don't know. I only 
know why we didn't call it "Novaya" or "Nezavisimaya". Because newspapers 
can never be new or independent-just like you can never find a newspaper 
that's truly "yellow", or "business-minded", or "elite" or "intelligent".


Once a famous journalist from "Moscow News" said to me: "I hear you're 
working for Moskovsky Komsomolets now. You couldn't go any lower." I 
answered that it was, in fact, possible to go lower-I could work for 
"Moscow News". There are only two kinds of newspapers: interesting, and not 
interesting.


We will try to be interesting. We won't pretend to always be right. As is 
well known, you can't expect concrete and irrefutable answers to every 
question. But every question must be asked. And questions are one thing we 
can guarantee.


We also guarantee that no sacred cows won't ever exist for us. As for our 
foreign name, what of it? After all, no such word exists in the Russian 
language. Not yet.


*******


#9
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 
From: Patricia Critchlow <critchj@seacoast.com> 
Subject: Impact of Self-Help Alcoholism Treatment in Post-Soviet Russia


The Soviet collapse did nothing to relieve Russia of its age-old
scourge of alcoholism. If anything, low morale and a sense of
disillusionment, fueled by economic insecurity, have contributed to an
increase in excess drinking. For the foreseeable future, Russian per
capita alcohol consumption shows signs of remaining near the present 14
to 15 liters a year, well above the “safe level” of 8 liters set by the
World Health Organization. This corresponds to an alcoholic population,
depending on definition, of as many as 20 millions, to annual deaths
from alcohol poisoning ranging from 25 to 40 thousand, and reduced life
expectancy for the population, especially for males. According to a
recent report (see Johnson’s Russia List, 15 May 2000), Russia has the
world’s highest male mortality with alcohol abuse a major factor.
If there is a silver lining to this brooding alcoholic cloud, it is
because political change, particularly since 1991, has opened the way to
more enlightened methods of treatment that are available to Russians for
the first time in their history. The potential of these methods has yet
to be realized, but they offer promise for the future. Key to
innovation is the so-called “Minnesota Model,” an approach to treatment
based on decades of self-help experience gained by Alcoholics Anonymous
(AA) groups in the United States and other Western countries. Soviet
society was off-limits to AA until the late perestroika period. The
Soviet leadership could not tolerate the autonomy and anonymity which
are the underlying principles of AA, as formulated in the “12 Steps” to
which members adhere. The first AA group in the Soviet Union did not
come into being until 1988, in Kyiv. Today there are some 180 groups in
Russia, spread out from the Baltic to the Pacific. Groups have also
come into being in some of the other ex-Soviet republics. There are
also 12-Step Narcotics Anonymous (NA) groups in many cities, as drug
addiction becomes an increasing menace, especially among urban youth.
The two movements co-exist well with each other, often holding joint
meetings.
During a visit to Russia in 1999 to gather data for a Master’s
thesis on alcohol treatment, I was able to observe AA groups in Moscow,
St. Petersburg, Nizhni Novgorod and Kazan. Some of the groups are
connected with psychiatric hospitals, out-patient clinics, or other
treatment centers. Others operate independently of institutional
affiliation, holding meetings in any space they can find. On the
outskirts of St. Petersburg there is a unique facility called “House of
Hope on the Hill” which is so far the only free, private alcohol
treatment center in Russia. Operating according to the AA 12 Steps and
with financial support from a wealthy American, it has been in existence
for only three years but has already helped 500 patients at no cost to
them. Until recently all of the patients were men, but early in the
year 2000 a women’s wing was added. The remission rate is high: 45
percent of patients have stayed sober for at least a year, compared with
a corresponding figure of 7 percent or less for older Russian treatment
centers that rely heavily on drug therapy and intimidation. Patients
who have relapses are eligible to come back to the House of Hope for a
refresher course, and many do.
What struck me during my research visit to Russia was the number of
recovering alcoholics I met who told me that drinking had once cost them
their jobs and families, making them become “BOMZhI,” homeless bums.
Some of these former derelicts had by the time of my visit been sober
for seven or eight or nine years, again leading normal family lives and
occupying responsible positions in the society. Every such person I met
credited AA for his or her salvation. Yet there are obstacles to the
spread of the self-help movement. Members of the Russian Orthodox
clergy have distrusted the self-help movement because invocation at AA
meetings of a “higher power,” although non-specific and essentially
definable by individual members for themselves, has led at times to the
mistaken belief that it is a competing “cult.” In 1993, a public
blessing of AA by Patriarch Alexei II helped to overcome such
misgivings. There are also signs that Russian nationalists may be leery
of AA because of its foreign origins. Nationalist feelings cut both
ways, however: a psychiatrist from South Russia, himself a recovering
alcoholic, told me firmly that “AA works better in Russia because as a
people we are more spiritual than you Americans.”
The greatest hurdle to be overcome is the inertia, sometimes
manifested as outright opposition, of some members of the medical
profession, either because their training leaves them skeptical of AA’s
ability to get results or because they see it as encroaching on their
territory. The head of one non-profit organization which has taken on
the task of promoting alcohol and drug treatments using the 12 Steps
commented to me that it is hard to get Soviet-era doctors to change
their mentality as they have no incentives to do so. In some ways, the
success of AA where it has been given a chance seems to harden
resistance to it. As a self-supporting organization that does not
require fees, it presents the possibility of undercutting physicians’
income. AA is a particular threat to those physicians who privately
collect large fees for “curing binges,” thus leaving their “patients”
with the idea that they can resume drinking with impunity; ads for such
services, which usually offer house calls, are easy to find in
newspapers.
To put the inertia of the medical establishment into perspective,
let it be noted that in spite of the growing number of AA groups in the
Russian Federation, medical institutions have been slow to adopt the
self-help philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous for their inpatient,
psychotherapeutic treatment programs. At the present time, there are
only two round-the clock inpatient programs in Moscow that use in their
work the 12-Step principles of the Minnesota Model, and two in St.
Petersburg. In addition, there are outpatient programs that use the
12-Step principles in their treatment activities—the “Zebra” program of
the NAN Charitable Foundation (Moscow) is one, as well as programs of
the “day inpatient” type in Novosibirsk, Ryazan, Samara, Nizhni Novgorod
and Chita. Mention can also be made of a number of outpatient
consultative units in the Moscow region (cities of Dubna, Taldom,
Dmitrov, the settlement of Zaprudnya, and the cities of Sergiev Posad
and Klin), where work with alcoholism and narcomania patients and their
relatives is conducted on the basis of the 12-Step program of Alcoholics
Anonymous.
Still, despite barriers to acceptance there can be little doubt of
widespread enthusiasm for AA among those who have been helped by it. AA
is not only multicultural but is also free to all. During my
investigation, I encountered almost universal belief in the
effectiveness of AA’s 12-Step methodology on the part of those who were
familiar with it. AA has by now won ardent supporters among recovering
alcoholics, many of whom speak of its benefits as a “miracle,” and among
some professionals in the field of treatment, many of whom are
alcoholics themselves and see the value of the program at first hand.
One health-care specialist who filled out my questionnaire commented
that “it is the only realistic help for those who suffer from
alcoholism.” Other respondents rated it “successful.” Similar views
were brought out in many unstructured interviews.
Despite such warm acceptance, there is a practical limit to the
speed with which AA’s rate of growth can effectively alleviate the
problem of alcoholism in Russia. Even if the self-help movement
develops under the most favorable conditions, its ability to impact on
the problem of Russian alcoholism will be gradual. If one makes the
optimistic assumption that the present 180 AA groups have an average of
30 members and that each group annually attracts 10 new members, the
maximum growth in one year would be only from 5400 to 7200. Using the
AA rule of thumb that usually the recovery rate is 60 percent for new
members (includes those who relapse and return), the net growth in
recovering alcoholics would actually be only by 1080, to 6480,
corresponding to a rate of 20 percent per year. After five years the
growth would be 2.49 times, after 10 years 6.49 times. Thus, in ten
years the self-help movement would perhaps be able to help 35,000
alcoholics find and maintain recovery. This would be a fact of cardinal
importance to those people and their families, but would have only
limited impact on an estimated alcoholic population of 10 to 20 million
and the wellbeing of the country as a whole. The best hope is that
expansion of self-help programs will acquire momentum as word spreads of
their effectiveness, possibly with greater media coverage.
Combatting alcoholism successfully will depend ultimately on
improved life-styles, with proper health maintenance and family support
backing up the impact of self-help programs like AA. I believe that in
the long run progress must be stimulated horizontally in the society
rather than from the top down. Without voluntary participation of the
citizenry, any lowering of alcohol consumption will be superficial and
short-lived. By the same token, in AA as well as in the AA-based,
12-Step treatment programs, the alcoholic participates directly in his
or her recovery. If Russia continues to develop democratically, the
climate will continue to encourage the expansion of self-help alcoholism
treatment there.
Beyond the problem of alcoholism, the growth of AA and NA groups
has implications for the society as a whole. These are true
collectives, existing without higher authority and based on ties of
mutual trust among the participants. As the head of a Russian
charitable foundation which advocates the 12-Step concept told me: “The
rise of AA is an integral part of the emergence of a civil society in
this country.”


*******


#10
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 
From: "Andrei Liakhov" <liakhova@nortonrose.com> 
Subject: RE: 4340-WP/Meddle


Meddle in Russian Affairs - The facts the Washington Post (the WP)
conveniently forgets


I would like to comment on only two of the most striking passages of this
remarkable in its hypocracy and frankness article:


1. The best passage goes like this:


"Past administrations also paid attention to internal matters: 
encouraging "moderates" within the Soviet regime, pressing for human rights,
urging freedom to emigrate. Mr. Clinton's tactics may have misfired, but his
mistake did not lie in caring too much about Russia's internal development. 
Whether democracy progresses in Russia greatly affects U.S. national
security."


Let's see who in fact were supported and what seem to be the results:


a. "encouraging "moderates" within the Soviet regime" was a major factor in
an extremely painful break-up of the USSR (which created more problems than
it ever solved), which in its turn inter alia led to the unprecedented
increase in economic and political instability, dramatic drop in the quality
of life, life expectancy and increase in crime and bureacracy - presumably
this was not an intended result of US foreign policy, but if it was - then
we can talk genocide of the Soviet people. These moderates then stormed the
Parliment, killed thousands in Checnia, are starving their own people to
death (in some cases literally) and stole everything which has been created
over the last 200 years or so of industrial development. Like bolsheviks did
in 1917..... 


b. "pressing for human rights, urging freedom to emigrate" - what rights did
Russians acquire recently? - the right to be killed by a hired hand or the
right to beg on the streets? Yes, a small number of dissidents who enjoyed a
strong vocal support while inside got their long deserved freedom, but can
anyone say that the other 99.99% of the Russians have their rights better
protected? Do they care about the right to free associations when there is
no bread on the table? Or are we talking about the right to steal from the
state and people? Is WP referring to the right of the Family to establish
and run a de facto neo-tsarist regime which was even bloodier than its
predecessor and more intolerant of criticism than even Stalin? Freedom to
emigrate is fine, but to where and for whom? 
For Whom: Mobsters to Switzerland or the US, or 15 year old girls into
Turkish and Kosovo brothels for sex games of rich tourists or US Army
personel respectively? Or billionaire thieves to Monako and France? To
where: Is WP aware that apart from Jews and "Volga" Germans, other peoples
of ex USSR are not welcome anywhere? WP probably forgot that unlike
Americans who are nation of emigrants, the Russians live on their current
lands for thousands of years (Russians here mean all ethnic groups and
peoples currently living in Russia) so that the "freedom of emigration" so
worshipped by US Administration is of no particular relevance to ordinary
Russians? The only emigration from Russia in which the US may really be
interested is a "brain drain" - the best way for the US to acquire highly
skilled intellectual potential at extremely low cost. Is it really what
Russia needs now? 


c. So what kind of democracy has to progress in Russia in order for the US
to feel "secure"? Democracy where elections are openly rigged and bought,
democracy where the person with more ammo rounds and deeper pocket is always
right and is untouchable, democracy where rights of millions are sacrificed
for the intersts of the few, democracy where the amount of stolen assets is
the measure of one's respectability? That's exactly the results of US
meddling in Russian affairs. Let's leave aside the issue whether these are
intentional or not and proceed to analyse another piece of WP's advice: 


2. "So Mr. Clinton should stress the importance of religious and press
freedom, 
toward which Mr. Putin has adopted a cavalier attitude. With Mr. Putin 
talking about firing elected governors and subordinating them to appointed 
viceroys with secret-police and military connections, Mr. Clinton should 
reaffirm the value of electoral democracy. He should welcome economic
reforms 
such as Mr. Putin's proposed tax simplification but stress that no reforms 
will succeed if unaccompanied by an independent judiciary, shareholder 
rights, contract enforcement and other signs of respect for law. He should 
take care not to bless--as he has seemed to in the past--Russia's brutal 
methods in Chechnya."


A. "the importance of religious and press freedom" - what exactly the WP is
referring to here? The fact that the Japanese militant sekt responsible for
blasts in Tokyo metro a couple of years ago has been refused permission to
register its representative office in Russia? Or the fact that the Russians
preferred not to storm the compound of Adventists's sekt like the US did in
Waco some years ago? What press freedom WP is referrring to and why,
irrespective of previous Russian record (killings of Kholodov, Listiev, and
other journalists who tried to stand up to the ruling junta (oh, sorry,
"democratically elected" Family) remain unsolved, the purges of whole teams
of journalists from leading publications (e.g. Izvestia) who dare to believe
in independence of the press) it became so high on Mr.Clinton's agenda now?
Surely not because Putin seems to have decided to act at least in respect of
one grouping of mobsters, billionaires and thieves who prospered by stealing
under US advice? Or does it mean that only "friends of the US" are allowed
such privilege as "freedom of expression" in Russia?


B. "firing elected governors and subordinating them to appointed 
viceroys with secret-police and military connections, Mr. Clinton should 
reaffirm the value of electoral democracy" - oh, yes, of course, the fact
that these "democratically elected" (read self appointed) ex CPSU oblast
bosses (en masse with few exceptions) were allowed for ten years to rule in
their regions as absolute monarchs to whom the only known law is their
current whim? Oh, yes the proposed measures will redraft the balance of
power in Russia, but they will invitably make Russia much more stronger -
and it surely should be in the proclaimed US interests? "Secret police
connections" - well Mr.Bush was CIA Director for a long time (the secret
police in its absolute form) and Mr.Eisenhauer was a 4-star general, but I
doubt that that was ever considered as a disadvantage - on the contrary both
were praised as being one of the best trained people for the job of US
President. 


C. "no reforms will succeed if unaccompanied by an independent judiciary,
shareholder 
rights, contract enforcement and other signs of respect for law" - By
allowing such scams as Harvard Russia programme to go unpunished because too
many Russian friends of the US would be affected by it and too many
prominent Americans would be embarrassed the US sets an example of
sacrificing law and order for political expediency. By continuing to have
contacts with the Russians tainted by the scandal the US vividly
demonstrates to the eager Russian student that you can get away with
anything if you have stolen enough money to buy yourself political
protection. 


D. "Russia's brutal methods in Chechnia" - the only appropriate reply to
Clinton will be - look at Kosovo: where are alleged 100,000 victums of Serb
cleansing which were the reason for invasion? Why has not US prevented
Albanians from expelling over 300,000 Serbs from Kosovo? Why does US allow
Kosovo to turn into the principal drug running province of Europe? 
As to Chechnia - Why does the WP see the Russian atrocities and completely
ignores the suffering of tens of thousands of kidnapped civilians who were
turned into slaves by Chechen bandits? Why does the WP ignore the fact that
Chechnia was no man's land for the last 5 years with no semblance of law and
order whatsoever and is one of the main drug routes from Afganistan to
Europe and the US? 


These and many other questions arising on a slightly more than cursory
reading of this WP "masterpiece" allows to suggest that meddling into
Russian affairs apart from being an abundant breach of every concievable
rule of international law (not that it matters in today's Washington), but
also will achieve the result opposite from the proclaimed goals of US Russia
policy, i.e. to help Russia's transformation into the democratic state with
stable economy. Unless of course the real US aspirations in respect of
Russia are cardinally different from what is proclaimed..... But all US
Administrations must be aware that although Russians are probably the most
patient nation on Earth, when their patience expires it tends to blow up
with devastating effects, as the History proved time and time again. 


Yours, 
AL
PS - David apologies for taking so much of your precious space!


*******

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