October, 12 1999    
This Date's Issues: 4574 • 4575 • 4576

Johnson's Russia List
#4576
12 October 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. FreeLance Bureau/www.flb.ru: Boris Yeltsin's Hidden Diaries.
2. Stephen Shenfield: Re: 4573-Lennon.
3. AP: Angela Charlton, Russian Museum Is Falling Apart.
4. Financial Times (UK) editorial: Russia's window of opportunity.
5. RFE/RL: Paul Goble, Agreement And Fragmentation. (re agreements
among ex-Soviet republics)
6. gazeta.ru: Kremlin Moves in on Central Bank.
7. Wall Street Journal: Guy Chazan, Russian Government Proposes 
Reducing Bureaucratic Meddling.
8. Andrew Miller: re Lally/4574.
9. Christian Science Monitor: Scott Peterson, Russia's veterans of 
Afghan war reinvent themselves. A unit of vet security guards has traded 
its Kalashnikov assault rifles for nightsticks. 
10. Moscow Times: Pavel Felgenhauer, DEFENSE DOSSIER: Hot Air Brings 
Cold Cash. (re arms sales to India)
11. www.strana.ru: George Watts, President Putin congratulates 
Russian physicist on winning Nobel Prize in physics.
12. Reuters: Larisa Sayenko, Weary Belarus village shuns election 
passions.]


******


#1
FreeLance Bureau
www.flb.ru 
Boris Yeltsin's Hidden Diaries


Political junkies and Russofiles all over the world have been waiting for the 
release of Boris Yeltsin's latest autobiography. The Russian version of the 
book, called "The Presidential Marathon", was released last Saturday in 
Moscow. But the English language version of the book - which carries the 
title "Midnight Diaries" - will appear in the West only at the end of 
October. 


The titles of the two editions aren't the only things that differ. The text 
of the Russian- and English-language versions are also different. One reason 
why: some preproduction rewriting by the Putin team. "Presidential 
Marathon"/"Midnight Diaries" was ghost-written by Yeltsin's former 
chief-of-staff and longtime ghost writer Valentin Yumashev (who wrote 
Yeltsin's fist two books) along with Presidential daughter Tatyana Dyachenko. 
But this summer, before the final manuscript was submitted to the publisher, 
the text was rewritten by current Kremlin chief-of-staff Alexander 
Voloshin.Voloshin rewrote the text from the Putin point of view, boosting 
Putin's role and changing anything that might reflect badly on the current 
president. We managed to get our hands on the English-language translation of 
the manuscript before Voloshin got his hands on it. Here are excerpts from a 
few chapters that probably won't make it into the final printing....
[DJ: Go to http://www.flb.ru/kv0017.html ] 


******


#2
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 
From: Stephen Shenfield <shenfield@neaccess.net>
Subject: Re: 4573-Lennon,


> Lennon joins Lenin on Russian town map 
> YEKATERINBURG, Russia, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Most Russian cities have a Lenin
> Street, but Chelyabinsk, a smokestack industrial city in the Ural
> Mountains, will become the first to have a Lennon Street.


Lennon and Lenin did, in fact, have one thing in common: they were both
communists, in the sense of aspiring to a world in which resources are held
in common by a stateless community of free and equal producers. The lyrics
of "Imagine" are an eloquent evocation of the communist vision, though their
meaning is never alluded to by the disk jockeys who play the song on the
radio. Of course, Lennon and Lenin sought to realize the vision by very
different methods.


******


#3
Russian Museum Is Falling Apart
October 11, 2000
By ANGELA CHARLTON

MOSCOW (AP) - Like so many landmarks, Russia's Museum of Architecture is 
falling apart. Deep cracks slice through its floors, ceilings and windows. 
Subway trains whizzing below the 17th-century mansion rattle its sinking 
foundation. 


Tavit Sarkisian, the museum's director, finds its dilapidated state ironic 
but unsurprising. Its archives bulge with records of famous buildings that 
are on the verge of collapse - including prime spots in any tourist guide to 
Russia such as the Bolshoi Theater and the Hermitage Museum. 


``And what about the other needy buildings? The thousands of estates 
throughout Russia that are just in ruins?'' Sarkisian asks. 


Russia boasts a staggering 90,000 official architectural landmarks, including 
churches and palaces from every era in its history, according to the Culture 
Ministry - and many are in danger of extinction. New-York based World 
Monuments Watch named seven Russian sites in this year's list of the world's 
100 most endangered landmarks - more than any other country. 


The government's meager budget can offer little help for these monuments. 
Wealthy sponsors who support culture in richer nations are scarce. And most 
Russian landmarks lack money-minded managers aggressive and creative enough 
to resuscitate their crumbling facades. 


There are bright spots: a few feisty curators raising funds through concerts 
and contests; tycoons refurbishing forgotten pre-revolutionary mansions into 
corporate headquarters; wood-domed churches trashed during the Russian 
Revolution undergoing stunning face-lifts. 


But Russia's economic woes, pervasive corruption and enormous bureaucracy 
often mean that money that does get donated for cultural projects disappears 
into officials' pockets, Sarkisian says. 


Sergei Mirozhanov, head of the landmark department at Russia's State 
Construction Committee, admits that the layers of approval for preservation 
projects can be stifling. 


``We are doing what we can,'' he says. ``We have to maintain them but of 
course it requires huge, huge amounts of money. ... And there's always 
politics, internal politics.'' 


Sarkisian calls it ``wrenching'' to look everyday on the Pashkov House across 
the street, a lavish, columned - and long-neglected - mansion above the 
Kremlin. 


Just a few hundred meters (yards) away, the enormous Grand Kremlin Palace 
recently enjoyed a controversial $300 million renovation. Swiss and Russian 
prosecutors are investigating whether Swiss firms involved in the 
construction paid kickbacks to Kremlin officials from the lucrative 
contracts. 


Some landmarks have sought foreign help. UNESCO, which handles United Nations 
cultural projects, is soliciting funds for 12 sites in Russia, including the 
Bolshoi and the Hermitage. But most of the money it has raised is yet to be 
spent, as cultural leaders and bureaucrats debate where help is most needed. 


The 1856 building in central Moscow that houses the Bolshoi has electrical 
wiring that dates from the 1940s. Chunks of engraved panels on its pink 
facade have fallen off. The government has been promising to renovate it 
since 1987. 


The world-renowned Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg followed a Western 
example and sought corporate support. IBM funded its Web site and 
computer-guided tours through the Winter Palace, home to the museum's vast 
collection. 


Yet the biggest project will be shoring up the Baroque green-and-white palace 
itself. Its windows overlooking the Neva River are thick with grime, and its 
wood floors sink in many spots under the daily crush of visitors. 


Some landmarks are starting to raise money from the public. The Kolomenskoye 
museum, a tranquil enclave of cathedrals and traditional wooden buildings 
from around Russia, has boosted revenues with re-enactments of old Russian 
life. 


The 1991 collapse of the atheist Soviet regime spawned renovations at 
hundreds of Russian Orthodox churches and a few mosques and synagogues. But 
most of those were privately funded, and thousands of other churches languish 
in disrepair. Most local parishes are small and poor, and renovations largely 
depend on volunteers and donated building supplies. 


Attracting aid for forgotten landmarks far from the tourist destinations of 
Moscow and St. Petersburg is daunting. 


World Monuments Watch cited the water damage threatening the fortress and 
historic core of Rostov Veliky, a city in western Russia that dates from 862 
and once served as the country's spiritual center. 


``The medieval town presents a spectacular array of vernacular wooden houses 
and ecclesiastical domes, ... (but) moisture has eaten away painted surfaces, 
ornamentation and entire foundations,'' the group says. 


******


#4
Financial Times (UK)
12 October 2000
Editorial
Russia's window of opportunity


Suddenly, Russia is flavour of the month again. Little more than two years 
after the currency collapse which led to the government's default on its 
debts, and the slamming of bankers' doors around the globe, analysts are agog 
at the country's remarkable economic recovery. Real growth of gross domestic 
product is forecast at up to 7 per cent this year, there has been a massive 
shift from a 4 per cent deficit to a 6 per cent surplus in the budget, and 
inflation is expected to dip below 20 per cent. 


All that is good news. So was the swift approval last week of the 
government's budget for 2001, at its first reading in the Duma. The detail 
still has to be thrashed out, but its ceiling has been set. President 
Vladimir Putin's good relations with his parliament are in stark contrast to 
the endless squabbles that marked the reign of his predecessor, Boris 
Yeltsin. 


But it is certainly not time to relax. The really tough part is yet to come. 
The macro-economic improvement is almost entirely due to two fickle factors: 
the devaluation of the rouble and the soaring oil price. What is needed now 
is to see a whole range of long-overdue micro- economic and legal reforms to 
revive the shattered confidence of investors. 


The latest review of Russian strategy by the European Bank for Reconstruction 
and Development thus comes at an extremely appropriate moment. As the largest 
single foreign investor in Russia, the bank has had a wealth of experience in 
the legal and financial free-for-all since the collapse of the Soviet Union 
in 1991. Its analysis is unambiguous. 


"Severe weakness in the rule of law continues to undermine investment," it 
says. "The power of vested interests to hold back critical reforms must be 
effectively checked. Standards of corporate governance need to be 
strengthened. Without demonstrable progress in these areas, Russia's 
impressive recovery is not sustainable." 


There is universal agreement among investors about the reforms that are 
needed: protection of shareholders' rights; a clear and enforceable 
bankruptcy law; properly-paid and independent legal institutions; radical 
restructuring of the banking sector; and taxation of profits, not turnover. 
All are promised. None is yet forthcoming. 


Last year the Czech republic, Hungary and Poland all had foreign investment 
rates more than twice as high as Russia. The main reason was Russia's lack of 
an enforceable law-based system. Mr Putin must curb the unfettered power of 
the financial oligarchs and national monopolies that emerged from the 
collapse of the Soviet state. They are the main obstacle to a properly 
functioning market economy. Only then will Russians finally be able to reap 
the benefit from their remarkable natural resources. 


******


#5
Russia: Analysis From Washington -- Agreement And Fragmentation
By Paul Goble


Washington, 11 October 2000 (RFE/RL) -- Agreements this week between five 
former Soviet republics to create a Eurasian Economic Community and among six 
of them to a five-year regional security arrangement highlight the continuing 
decline of the Commonwealth of Independent States as the preeminent 
organization of the 12 post-Soviet states.


And that development in turn simultaneously gives the Russian Federation 
greater opportunities to expand its influence over these countries by playing 
one of them off against another, and provides yet another opening for those 
countries which hope to expand their ties to countries beyond the borders of 
what was the Soviet Union. 


The presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, 
and Tajikistan on Tuesday signed an accord in Astana setting up a Eurasian 
Economic Community that Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka said would 
"probably be like the European Union."


Constructed on the basis of a largely stillborn customs union among these 
countries, the new organization is to work towards the establishment of 
common customs, fiscal, monetary, and employment policies. To the extent it 
does, the new body will represent a realization of the goals of Kazakh 
President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who has pushed for tighter integration among 
the post-Soviet states.


Nazarbaev has long argued that the creation of a common economic space would 
benefit all the parties by allowing for an expansion of trade among them. And 
at the same time, he has suggested that each of them is more likely to 
cooperate with the others if all have to follow the same rules, arguments 
that many non-Russian governments have accepted but that Moscow in the past 
has viewed as restricting its freedom of action.


But commentators in several of the capitals of countries involved have been 
extremely skeptical as to whether this new Eurasian Community can in fact be 
any more effective than its predecessors. In addition, they have pointed out 
that three of the economies involved -- Belarus, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan 
-- are currently in such difficulty that broader cooperation may prove 
impossible.


And today (Wednesday), the presidents of this group of five plus Armenia are 
scheduled to meet in Bishkek to draw up a five-year regional security plan. 
These signatories of the CIS Collective Security Agreement are to discuss 
increasing their military and political integration up to and including the 
possible formation of regional armed forces. 


Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev on Tuesday provided a clear indication 
on the specific direction the talks are likely to take. He said the five 
presidents would discuss Afghanistan and the best way to deter the Taliban 
from crossing the Tajik frontier, a border now guarded by the 201st Russian 
Motorized Division and 11,000 Russian and Tajik border guards.


But past efforts at cooperation among these countries have often fallen short 
of expectations, with one or another leader suggesting that calls for 
collective security often mask an effort by one or another state to project 
its power more broadly.


Uzbek President Islam Karimov in particular has made this point in recent 
weeks, arguing on a variety of occasions that Moscow is pumping up the threat 
of Islamic fundamentalism in order to force his country and its neighbors to 
again turn to the Russian Federation for security. Such a shift, Karimov has 
insisted, would do less to guarantee the security of the Central Asian states 
than that of Russia itself.


The record of cooperation among these countries in both the economic and 
security spheres does not inspire confidence in any of the declarations 
issued in either Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan this week. Indeed, the remarks 
reported so far recall many earlier meetings whose declarative language 
seldom was implemented. 


As a result, the more important dimension of these two meetings, one of five 
post-Soviet states and the other of six, is what they indicate about the 
future of the CIS now that Vladimir Putin is president of its largest and 
most important member. That body, which united 12 former Soviet republics and 
in which so many had placed so many hopes or fears, is made even less 
relevant by sessions which fail to attract even a majority of its members.


On the one hand, the declining importance of the CIS as an institution 
effectively frees Moscow's hands to play one of its members or one group of 
its members off against another in order to regain or expand Russian 
influence in this region. And on the other hand, this trend appears likely to 
lead some CIS states, including those in the GUUAM states (Georgia, Ukraine, 
Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova) to adopt an even more independent line.


These two trends could easily put some of these countries on a collision 
course, one likely to pose new foreign policy challenges not only for them 
but also for outside powers as well.


******


#6
gazeta.ru
October 11, 2000
Kremlin Moves in on Central Bank 

The Kremlin has launched radical reforms of the nation’s key financial
regulator that has for several years successfully combined its regulatory
responsibilities with profitable commercial activities. The Russian Central
Bank’s long resistance to Mikhail Kasyanov’s financial policies could soon
end with the dismissal of the Bank’s chief Viktor Gerashchenko. 


At the end of September, President Putin submitted a draft bill to
parliament for the introduction of amendments to the law on the Central
Bank of Russia. Apparently, Friday 13th promises to be an unlucky day for
the Central Bank. By October 13th the State Duma’s Banking Committee will
have completed the revision of the presidential amendments to the
legislation on the Central Bank. The amended bill will then be submitted to
the State Duma for a second reading and subsequent adoption. 


On Tuesday Russian Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin cautiously announced that
the Central Bank’s status would not be significantly altered. However,
business analysts predict that if the presidential amendments are adopted,
they will effectively lead to the Central Bank’s nationalization. 


According to the existing law on the Central Bank, the Bank is an
independent agency that exercises financial control over all credit
institutions in the Russian Federation. In addition, it acts as the
registrar of commercial banks and thus grants bank licenses. 


As well as the controlling state assets, the Central Bank conducts
commercial activities from which it reaps huge profits. 


President Putin insists that it is inadmissible for the Central Bank to
combine controlling state assets and implementing governmental money policy
with independent commercial operations. 


The aim of the amendments to the law on the Central Bank is to stop the
Bank from conducting commercial activities, and to transform the bank into
a purely state agency for financial banking control. 


If the amendments are adopted, the Central Bank will no longer be in charge
of determining state credit-fiscal policy. Those functions will be
assigned to the Finance Ministry. 


The Central Bank will only be in charge of the technical execution of
governmental instructions in the credit-fiscal sphere and will no longer
act as chief financial supervisor over other credit institutions. The
Bank’s licensing and controlling functions will be assigned to another
state agency. 


But the question arises; if the Central Bank withdraws from active dealing
on the financial markets, who will inherit its enormous assets? 


The Central Bank’s policies aimed at the restructuring of the bank system,
promoted by the bank’s chief Viktor Gerashchenko’s since the financial
crisis of 1998, have led to the accumulation of capital in a few banks in
which the state holds controlling stakes. 


According to the Chairman of the State Duma’s Banking Committee Alexander
Shokhin, two-thirds of the nation’s banking capital is currently
concentrated in the state-controlled banks, Sberbank, Russia’s savings bank
which holds 87% of all savings deposits, and Vneshtorgbank, thus it is
likely that in the near future there will be no private banks left in
Russia. They will be literally strangled by their mighty state-controlled
competitors. 


The government will probably select a few major banks in which to deposit
state finances, including the CB’s assets. Thus a few state-owned financial
monsters will emerge. Apparently, the lucky survivors will be,
Vneshtorgbank, an institution in charge of export-import operations,
Sberbank, Rosselkhozbank, the bank for the rural economy and the Russian
Bank of Development (Rossiisky Bank Razvitiya). Those huge banks would
effectively eliminate all other smaller private commercial banks. 


On Monday, Russia’s Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov met with foreign
investors. During the meeting he announced the government’s plan to launch
an overall reform of the nation’s banking system, and in particular he
promised that as a result of the reforms, only three or four state-owned
banks would be left in Russia. 


On Tuesday Mikhail Kasyanov met with the president of the European Bank of
Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Jean Lemierre. Among other issues,
they discussed the issue of the Central Bank. 


Jean Lemierre raised concerns over the Central Bank’s policies. The Russian
government officials and the EBRD executives are vexed at how slow the
Central Bank has been in introducing international accounting standards to
the Russian banking system, as a result of which the financial operations
of Russia’s credit institutions remain very opaque. 


Russian government officials and the so-called oligarchs, Russia’s most
powerful businessmen, are not happy with Gerashchenko’s staunch resistance
to lifting restrictions on capital export. 


According to the renowned Russian economist Yevgeniy Yasin, half of all
capital that has been channeled from Russia to offshore banks is actively
used for servicing financial operations which are of vital importance for
Russian economy. It is easier for the owners of that capital to carry out
their transactions via offshore banks. Yasin estimates that the majority of
those transactions are legal. 


On October 3rd Kasyanov met with a group of oligarchs who demanded the
government to recognize their right to export capital and assured Kasyanov
that they would pay all due taxes. Those who attended the meeting said
afterwards that the Prime Minister was about to take their side in the
dispute with the Central Bank. 


Thus, the anti-Gerashchenko coalition has grown and is gathering strength. 


EBRD’s Jean Lemierre also backed Kasyanov and highly praised the Russian
PM’s efforts. Mr.Lemierre emphasized, he was “very impressed with how fast
the government’s programme for reform of the Central Bank was elaborated
and Mr.Kasyanov perception of investors’ problems” and promised to increase
the EBRD’s investment in Russia. 


******


#7
Wall Street Journal
October 12, 2000 
[for personal use only] 
Russian Government Proposes Reducing Bureaucratic Meddling
By GUY CHAZAN 
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


MOSCOW -- The Russian government says it is drawing up legislation to reduce 
state interference in business and cut the frequent official inspections that 
entrepreneurs complain are often a pretext for extorting bribes.


Alexander Maslov, deputy economics minister, said a series of bills 
simplifying registration and licensing procedures for businesses, speeding up 
the approval of investment projects and slashing the number of state control 
agencies will be ready by the end of next month.


The legislation will be welcomed by businessmen fed up with heavy-handed 
bureaucratic meddling in their affairs. Representatives of 20 state bodies, 
ranging from tax police to health and safety officers, can inspect, fine or 
even close a business at will.


"Some state organs, regardless of their official purpose and their 
theoretical benefit, have in fact turned into organizations whose natural 
function is to extort bribes," says a recent report by the Working Center for 
Economic Reforms, a government think tank.


The report says surveys show that businesspeople waste as much time dealing 
with police and tax inspectors -- who often camp out in their offices for 
days on end rifling through company documents -- as they do with racketeers 
demanding protection money.


The report singles out the State Fire Inspectorate for particular criticism, 
saying it exploits its power to "close down any commercial structure under 
the pretext of technical 'defects' to extort bribes." It says the 
inspectorate should be replaced by a system of compulsory fire insurance for 
businesses.


Mr. Maslov acknowledged that checks by control agencies are "often carried 
out at the behest of a firm's competitors, or by local authorities trying to 
put pressure on certain companies."


Seen as the motor of economic growth in most developed countries, small 
businesses in Russia are stunted and hobbled by red tape. The country has 
only 890,000 small enterprises, responsible for about 6% of the country's 
gross domestic product -- compared with more than 50% in many Western 
economies. While the U.S. has 74 small firms per 1,000 people, Russia has 
only six, according to the liberal Yabloko party.


Vladimir Putin was elected president in March promising to improve the 
investment climate and create a level playing field for business. By 
reforming Russia's cumbersome tax code last summer, his government eased the 
fiscal burden on companies. But so far, there have been no serious attempts 
to deregulate the economy.


******


#8
From: "Andrew Miller" <andcarmil@hotmail.com>
Subject: Education re JRL 4574
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 


In JRL 4574 Kathy Lally of the Baltimore Sun wrote:


"In sports, as in their professions, Russians refuse to lower their
aspirations to meet weakening finances. Teachers earning less than $80 a
month keep teaching. Doctors earning less than $100 a month keep 
performing surgery. Rocket scientists on similar pay keep on patching 
together the Mir space station, long after the station has exceeded its 
natural life and budget."


This is incomprehensible. Is Lally suggesting that Russian medicine and 
education is also just behind the USA, as the Russians were in their gold 
medal counts? Is she as willing to have surgery performed on her in Russia, 
or to educate her children in a Russian school, as she would be to bet on a 
Russian athlete in the Olympics?


I don't know anyone who isn't terrified by the prospect of surgery in 
Russia. Indeed, President Boris Yeltsin himself declined the prospect of 
going under the knife without foreign intervention. And the JRL has just 
documented the near total inability of Russians to communicate in English. 
I myself have seen, at the highest prestige Russian universities, Soviet-era 
anti-American textbooks being used in English classes. I myself have 
documented this on the JRL.


Ask yourself this question: how easy would it be to bribe a teacher who 
earns $80 per month (this is more than double what most teachers I know 
earn) for an "A" when your parents give you that much each week for 
allowance?


St. Petersburg has many foreign firms which require their employees to know 
English and screen them on that basis. But every one is forced to hire 
English teachers (I personally benefit from this), and they always insist on 
native speakers (I don't think the concept of "native fluency" exists in 
Russia), to make up for what was not done in school. Every one complains of 
being unable to communicate basic ideas to the staff, who may know the rules 
of basic grammar but acquire not the least cultural or social sensitivity 
during their training (rather, Russian nationalism is reinforced). I have 
visited dozens of Departments of English throughout Russia, but I have never 
once heard the staff conversing in English. Always Russian. When I was a 
student studying French, I never heard a word of English at the French 
Department. I assumed this was because the professors loved the language 
and would lose no opportunity to practice.


Finally, I fail to see how it can be considered admirable to go on working 
at slave wages without complaint. The teaching staffs are in fact getting 
older and older every year, as no intelligent young person would even dream 
of entering the field. Soon, the staffs will be dead, and then surely they 
will give up teaching once and for all. Meanwhile, there is no serious 
activity by either students or teachers to raise salaries anywhere in 
Russia, nor any attempt to deviate from the curriculum prescribed by Moscow. 
Russia is being left in the dust by the other nations of Eastern Europe in 
terms of its ability to communicate with the outside world.


Perhaps Ms. Lally would be interested to know that Russian athletes were 
promised a million-dollar bonus plan for gold medals, and that no such plan 
for doctors or teachers exists in Russia.


Andrew Miller
St. Petersburg, Russia


******


#9
Christian Science Monitor
October 12, 2000
Russia's veterans of Afghan war reinvent themselves 
A unit of vet security guards has traded its Kalashnikov assault rifles for 
nightsticks. 
By Scott Peterson 
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor 


As captain of a Soviet tank battalion in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Valery 
Guskov knows the flavor of war - and the bitter taste of defeat. 


"It was very difficult for most of us to come back to civilized life, and in 
Afghanistan my view of the world changed," he says, his three gold front 
teeth flashing. 


Since the Soviet Union's humiliating retreat from Afghanistan in 1989, the 
subsequent neglect of veterans within society has often led to alcoholism, 
drug abuse, and organized crime. 


One million Soviet soldiers rotated through Afghanistan. But when they 
returned home, the country they fought for collapsed, and the economy began 
falling apart. And so by choice or by circumstance, many vets turned to 
criminal activities. 


But Mr. Guskov and some other Afghan veterans are determined to change that 
reputation. He now heads a unit of 30 vet security guards who monitor an 
apartment complex in Moscow's Sokolniki district - trading Kalashnikovs for 
nightsticks and blue uniforms. 


Guskov wants to reverse the stereotype perpetuated by post-Soviet movies of 
Afghan vets as bad guys and mafia bosses. 


"People believe we are professional soldiers with high moral qualities," he 
contends, "and that we are honest, not careless. They know our experience 
dealing with explosives." 


The guards from Herat, an Afghan veterans group, began work here after a 
string of apartment-building blasts across Russia last year left more than 
300 people dead. They are paid by the municipality to monitor 400 
apartment-building entrances. The guards patrol in vehicles and have a radio 
network directly linked to the local police station. 


"It's good that they are here to protect us," says Yevgenia Medviedeva, an 
elderly woman standing on the steps of her building. "They are well trained, 
well behaved, and have experience - not like those other boys [police] who 
used to be here." 


This is music to the ears of veterans like Guskov. Herat fields about 200 
security guards, who are also responsible for guarding Botkin Hospital, one 
of the biggest in the capital, and the office of DHL couriers. They sometimes 
accompany special packages across Russia. 


But other security operations are more dubious. At one location, a parking 
lot for foreign residents in Moscow, guards reap $100 a month for each car - 
a hefty sum in this very expensive city where 52 percent live below the 
poverty line. In previous years, some car owners who declined to pay the fee 
found their tires slashed. 


Such cash turnover dwarfs the few official veterans benefits, such as free 
public transport, that survived the collapse of the Soviet system. Herat, 
named after a city in western Afghanistan, is one of the five largest Afghan 
veteran groups in Russia, and provides everything from cash for VETS PATROL: 
Mikhail Dugin watches over a Moscow neighborhood for Herat, a security 
service made up of Afghanistan War veterans. Many of these vets have a 
reputation for criminal activity. 


Soviet veterans of World War II - called here the Great Patriotic War - 
receive recognition and benefits. But it wasn't until a special decree in 
1994 that Afghanistan veterans were granted equal status. 


The problem? Most Russians think as negatively about the Afghanistan War as 
many Americans do about Vietnam. So on both sides of the cold war divide, 
veterans were treated with callous disrespect. 


"They are absolutely neglected by the state, and the result is 'Afghanski 
syndrome,' just like 'Vietnam syndrome,' " says Maj. Gen. (ret.) Vladimir 
Kosarev, head of the Military News Agency in Moscow. 


"Most of the population does not know why that war was fought. Soldiers did 
their best, were heroes sometimes, and thought they were doing something 
needed by their nation," General Kosarev says. "But when they came back, they 
found they were abandoned by society, and that their acts were not needed by 
anybody." 


Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's declaration in 1990 that the war was a 
"mistake," Kosarev says, "crushed all of their illusions." The suicide rate 
among veterans of the Afghan conflict is far higher than in the rest of the 
demoralized armed forces, and military experts estimate that some 70 percent 
have psychological problems. 


Veterans from the two Chechnya conflicts have been aided by mothers groups 
who fight for their rights. But vets of the Afghan war say it is incredibly 
difficult to cope with the pressures of rejoining Russian society. 


"A lot of Afghan vets were recruited at 18, and know only war," says 
Alexander Kudelkin, head of the Herat's security section. "They can do 
nothing else. The war defined their lives, so they go for security." 


That is not all they have gone for. Organized crime is rampant in Russia, and 
Afghan vets - bringing to bear a battle-hardened toughness and military 
mindset that also makes them good security guards - have played a key and 
sometimes bloody role. 


Their influence ballooned after December 1993, when former President Boris 
Yeltsin sought to give disabled Afghanistan veterans relief from shrinking 
state benefits by allowing them to import alcohol and cigarettes duty-free. 
The Russian Orthodox Church, the society for the deaf, and the National 
Sports Foundation - as charities - all received the same privilege. 


But criminal gangs soon began tapping in to - in some cases taking over - the 
lucrative operations. In 1995 alone, the Afghan invalid fund reportedly made 
$200 million. Then, factional disputes between Afghan-fund groups led to 
deadly turf wars. 


The disputes culminated in a gangland-style bombing at a Moscow cemetery that 
killed 14 people in 1996 - one of the most grisly incidents of underworld 
violence since the end of the Communist era. 


Abused by all - the church imported 10,000 tons of cigarettes, reportedly 
worth $75 million, duty-free as "humanitarian aid" in 1994 - those deals have 
since been abolished. Mainstream veterans' groups have since kept clear of 
them, too. 


"It was a huge stream of money that became extremely attractive to criminal 
groups, but it did not go to the vets," says Kosarev. 


"Many veterans did join the bandits, but most are absolutely normal," says 
Col. Alexander Oliynick, an Afghan veteran and correspondent for Red Star, 
the official Russian military newspaper. "When Afghan vets meet anywhere in 
the world, we kiss each other and cry." 


But humiliations have been numerous. Guskov recalls that during the '80s, 
approved benefits were "state secrets" since the Afghanistan invasion was not 
recognized as a war, but as "provisional help." 


"Bureaucrats used to say: 'We never sent you to that war,' " he says. "When 
soldiers used to wear their orders and awards, people taunted them." 


Attitudes have changed in a decade. There are 21 Afghanistan veterans in the 
state Duma, the lower house of Parliament. But veterans are still fond of 
repeating a Russian proverb: "It is the job of a sinking person to save 
himself." 


For Guskov and those like him, that means taking up the nightstick, to win 
hearts and minds of a different kind. In recent days at the Sokolniki 
complex, guard Viktor Grokhotov and his patrolling partner stopped a 
car-jacking, and alerted police to an abandoned thermos full of mercury, a 
toxic heavy metal. 


The residents "know our faces and thank us very often," says Mr. Grokhotov, 
while driving his rounds. But not all are convinced of veterans' efforts to 
shed their bad-guy reputation. 


"These guys are not inclined to make a contact of trust," says a man who gave 
his name as Georgi. "And in a criminalized city, it is very difficult to 
establish the line between a guard and a bandit." 


******


#10
Moscow Times
Thursday, October 12, 2000 
DEFENSE DOSSIER: Hot Air Brings Cold Cash 
By Pavel Felgenhauer 


Last week, President Vladimir Putin signed a strategic partnership agreement 
with India and was expected to add to it a number of multibillion arms sale 
contracts. It was even reported that deals worth more than $3 billion were 
signed. 


But only agreements of intent, not legally binding contracts, were approved. 
Russian authorities have been indicating that this delay is in fact only 
technical, caused by some last-minute bargaining between Russia and India. 
But this does not seem to be the complete story. 


Sources in the Russian delegation who accompanied Putin to Delhi say that the 
talks were not as easy and friendly as it seemed from the outside. 
Apparently, the Indians believed that the strategic partnership agreement in 
fact meant the two countries have become true allies, and they demanded 
access to our advanced nuclear and ballistic technology. Delhi pays hard cash 
for our conventional arms, and apparently the Indian government believes that 
now it is qualified to get nonconventional (read: mass destruction) assets 
from Russia. 


But Putin defines "strategic partnership" more discreetly than his Indian 
counterparts; in Delhi he didn't cave in to demands for nonconventional arms. 
Moscow's new "strategic partners" got annoyed and, to reprimand Russia, 
Indian leaders have put conventional arms deals temporarily on hold. 


India is increasingly surpassing Russia in economic development, and this 
fact is beginning to affect the traditional Moscow-Delhi axis. If India pays, 
it can order the tune and ask Russia to dance. 


But Russia is reluctant to sell its most powerful weapons. And there is 
another problem complicating arms trade relations: Russia's growing inability 
to fulfill contracts. 


India has already ordered up to 50 Su-30MKI fighter bombers and is now 
seeking a license to build more on its own. Russia has also agreed to sell 
the same advanced jet to China. But there is a major hitch: Our defense 
industry has not managed for several years to begin serial production of the 
Su-30MKI. In fact, Russia has sold a plane that it does not actually have in 
its inventory. 


To date, India has been supplied with a simpler version of the Su-30, a 
modified vintage two-seater trainer jet (Su-27UB) built into a fighter 
bomber. Moscow assured India that these planes will eventually be upgraded or 
replaced by up-to-date Su-30MKIs, which have advanced electronics and 
regulated thrust jet engines. India has paid Russia several hundred million 
dollars to help develop the Su-30MKI, but the new superfighter continues to 
be a mirage. 


Russia has agreed in principle to sell India the Soviet-made aircraft carrier 
Admiral Gorshkov. (Today, the Gorshkov is a helicopter carrier, since its 
Yak-38 vertical take-off jets, designed in the 1970s, turned out to be 
unusable and were all scrapped in the 1980s.) Russia has promised to renovate 
the Gorshkov and equip it with MiG-29K jets. But no one in the world has ever 
yet managed to convert a relatively small carrier designed for vertical 
takeoff planes to accommodate regular jets instead. 


Russia never managed to equip its carriers with takeoff catapults. Because of 
that, our only true aircraft carrier f the Admiral Kuznetsov f cannot send up 
jets carrying heavy ordinance. The Kuznetsov has an airwing of pure fighters 
(Su-27K). The Kuznetsov has been operational for 10 years, but our pilots are 
still given medals for virtually every takeoff and landing, since the risk is 
so high. (Test flights from the Kuznetsov happen from time to time, in very 
good weather, but not every year.) 


The MiG-29K was designed for the Kuznetsov, but the navy decided not to buy 
the plane. It would be a miracle if anyone ever managed to fit the Gorshkov 
with a fully operational MiG-29K airwing. 


It would seem that we are taking the Indians for a ride, and not just the 
Indians: Our defense industry cannot equip its own armed forces with modern 
weapons. Our designers can still build prototypes of new weapons, but serial 
production is becoming impossible. The subcontractor components industry has 
disintegrated, and its output was already totally out of date 10 years ago. 


Russian arms trading is becoming a confidence trick game, attracting numerous 
Russian carpetbagger "oligarchs" who specialize in selling hot air for hard 
cash. But at the same time, China and India are increasing their arms orders. 
Maybe our new Asian strategic partners are hoping that Russia will in the end 
be forced to repay them with advanced nuclear and ballistic technologies. 


Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent, Moscow-based defense analyst. 


******


#11
www.strana.ru
October 11, 2000
President Putin congratulates Russian physicist on winning Nobel Prize in 
physics
By George Watts

President Vladimir Putin has congratulated Russian physicist, Zhores 
Alfyorov, on winning the Nobel Prize in physics for this year. The Russian 
President considers that the award of the coveted prize to Alfyorov is "not 
only the personal triumph of the scientist," but "a great, illustrious 
victory for Russian science."


In his message to the scientist, Putin emphasizes that "today is a real 
red-letter day for your colleagues, friends and pupils, for millions of 
Russians who received the good news from Stockholm with a feeling of pride."


The President points out that Alfyorov's scientific discoveries represent 
"the technological key in the third millennium, a decisive and bold 
breakthrough into the era of new information technologies."


The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the prestigious prize to 
Alfyorov for his fundamental research in the area of semiconductors. He 
shares half of the prize with Herbert Kroemer, a German-born researcher at 
the University of California in Santa Barbara. The other half of the prize 
will go to American scientist Jack Kilby for his part in inventing the 
computer chip.


Alfyorov heads the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg. He is 
the first Russian physicist to win the Nobel Prize since it was awarded to 
Pyotr Kapitsa in 1978.


Alfyorov's research was not conducted in an ivory tower. The results of his 
scientific discoveries were down-to-earth. Every man, woman and child in the 
world today benefits from them. His works paved the way for the creation of 
such everyday devices as cellular phones and CD players. 


Hermann Grimmeiss, a member of the Swedish Academy, said the work of the 
three scientists was invaluable in the development of modern information 
technology. "Without Kilby it would not have been possible to build the 
personal computers we have today, and without Alfyorov it would not have been 
possible to transfer all the information from satellites down to earth or to 
have so many telephone lines between cities," the Swedish scientist pointed 
out.


Alfyorov, Novyye Izvestia writes in its story, is widely known for his 
leftist, communist views. For a period of 12 years, during the years of 
perestroika, he was elected to the bureau of the Leningrad regional Communist 
Party committee. In 1999 he was elected to the State Duma from the Russian 
Communist Party. He sits on the Scientific Board of the Russian Security 
Council. Many believe that Alfyorov's political views crystallized on the 
basis of the pauperized condition of scientific research in the country 
today. 


Nonetheless, Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes in its coverage, the Russian 
scientific community today has a right to be proud on this occasion. Even in 
spite of the fact that Russian science is in crisis: the outlays for research 
and development proposed by the government in the 2001 draft budget and 
passed by the State Duma in the first reading correspond to the level of 
funding in Malaysia. Now, after winning the Nobel Prize, Alfyorov, who is 
Chairman of the Duma Subcommittee on Science, will be in a better position to 
influence his colleagues in the right direction. 


What are the new Nobel laureate's forecasts for the future? Alfyorov is 
convinced that the 21st century will be a century of atomic energy. The 
hydrocarbon sources of energy are exhaustible, while atomic energy has no 
limits. The Russian physicist believes that safe atomic power engineering is 
possible.


Some consider Alfyorov a dreamer. Well, it is true that he is fond of 
dreaming, but all his dreams are strictly scientific. That is why Zhores 
Alfyorov is a real scientist.


Russian/Soviet Nobel Laureates:
1904. Ivan Pavlov physiology
1908. Ilya Mechnikov physiology
1933. Ivan Bunin literature
1956. Nikolai Semyonov chemistry (joint)
1958. Pavel Cherenkov, Ilya Frank, Igor Tamm physics
1958. Boris Pasternak literature (refused) 
1962. Lev Landau physics
1964. Nikolai Basov, Alexander Prokhorov physics (joint)
1965. Mikhail Sholokhov literature
1970. Alexander Solzhenitsyn literature
1975. Andrei Sakharov peace
1975. Leonid Kantorovich economics (joint)
1978. Pyotr Kapitsa physics
1987. Joseph Brodsky literature
1990. Mikhail Gorbachev peace
2000. Zhores Alfyorov physics (joint)
Sources: Argumenti i Fakty, Vlast


*******


#12
Weary Belarus village shuns election passions
By Larisa Sayenko

DUBLIN, Belarus, Oct 12 (Reuters) - The weary, impoverished villagers of 
Dublin, leaving thatched houses to tend fields with ploughs, want none of the 
passions generated by big-city politicians in Belarus's disputed general 
election this weekend. 


Dublin is typical of the bedrock of support for President Alexander 
Lukashenko -- accused by the West of running roughshod over his liberal 
opponents -- and of the tragic history of a country partitioned four times 
over the centuries. 


Lukashenko is not running in the parliamentary poll, but is on the stump 
ahead of next year's presidential election, which he plans to contest. Most 
opposition groups are refusing to take part, saying the assembly is 
meaningless. 


For the West, Belarus and its 10 million people wedged between old imperial 
master Russia and new NATO member Poland, remain a conundrum as they cling to 
Soviet-era realities. 


In Dublin, the opposition's policy planks generate little more than a shrug. 
Villagers working mainly at the crumbling Yuri Gagarin collective farm praise 
Lukashenko for providing a degree of stability after a century of turmoil and 
destruction. 


``Yes, we are worse off,'' said an elderly man on the steps of the 
dilapidated village hall. ``But many thanks to Alexander Grigorevich 
(Lukashenko) for keeping us from starvation.'' 


Belarussians have backed him -- and his dream of reuniting with Russia -- 
overwhelmingly since he took office in 1994. 


The liberal and nationalist opposition hopes for a popular revolt -- similar 
to that in Yugoslavia -- to oust the man they call Europe's last dictator. 


Locals express pride in Dublin's supposed link with the Irish capital. 
Old-timers say it was named by mercenaries summoned by a mediaeval prince to 
put down a peasant uprising. 


But notions of civil disobedience in response to Lukashenko's crackdowns on 
opponents and iron grip on state-run media are alien when the chief 
consideration is survival. 


``No one should have to live like this. Our pay just about buys bread,'' said 
Fyodor, 39, who takes home what amounts to $10 a month mucking out cow barns. 


Bad feed and resulting bovine disorders usually mean the job has to be done 
with a bucket. Fyodor and others keep going out of love for their 
undernourished charges. 


``Strikes are not for the likes of us. We want to work.'' 


BELARUSSIANS A SUBSERVIENT PEOPLE? 


Longstanding myths portray Belarussians as a subservient people seeking peace 
with their neighbours as coined by the folk aphorism: ``May it stay quiet and 
may the house not catch fire.'' 


Lukashenko, shunned by the West for dissolving parliament and extending his 
term in office through a disputed 1996 referendum, feeds on this image in 
public pronouncements. 


``Our people are communal, socialist in spirit and accept no rash changes,'' 
he says on ``meet the people'' tours. 


A glance at the disasters befalling this nation goes some way to explaining 
its tacit acceptance of authority. 


But history does not bear out the notion that Belarussians were always 
unswerving allies of their Russian neighbours. 


They looked to western Europe in the Middle Ages and dominated an alliance 
with Lithuanian princes. Russian tsars stripped Belarus of its name and 
turned it into a province used as a bargaining chip with the Polish monarchy. 


A People's Republic founded in 1917 was crushed within months by the 
Bolsheviks. Hundreds of thousands died in Stalin's forced collectivisation 
and the dominance of Russian left the Belarussian tongue spoken only by 
academics and a few villagers. 


Worse was yet to come. 


One in four Belarussians died under Nazi occupation in World War Two. 
Hundreds of villages were burnt down in punitive operations as the Germans 
tried to disrupt partisan warfare. 


CHERNOBYL A DISASTER FOR BELARUS 


A new calamity struck when a quarter of Belarus's territory was contaminated 
by radioactivity from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster just 
over the border in Ukraine. 


Dublin was downwind from the explosion and black and yellow ``Danger: 
Radiation!'' signs dot the surrounding countryside, but unlike neighbouring 
villages its residents were allowed to stay. 


``This must be an experiment,'' said Mikhail Gordiyenko, 61. ``We should be 
used as an example of life after a technological disaster. We live here like 
guinea pigs for tests.'' 


As communism crumbled, Belarussians were not asked, like neighbouring 
Ukraine, to vote on independence from Soviet rule. Early post-communist 
attempts to revive national sentiment foundered on the economic hardship that 
put Lukashenko in power. 


But some rural Belarussians question Lukashenko's drive to form a ``union 
treaty'' with Russia and a ban on the traditional red-and-white flag in 
favour of Soviet-era symbols. 


``Belarussians are good, but poor people. And poor people don't need 
freedom,'' said Nikolai, an artist and signpainter impassioned by Belarussian 
history. ``I've nothing against our president. But as a painter I find it 
offensive that our historic flag and coat of arms were taken away.'' 


Belarus's small nationalist camp, whose rallies in Minsk sometimes degenerate 
into clashes with police, challenges the notion that Belarussians are doomed 
to Russian assimilation. 


``Belarussian people are not by nature purely Soviet or obedient,'' said Yuri 
Khodyko of the Belarussian Popular Front. 


``They have been moulded in this way by a state ideology and the machinery of 
state-controlled media. We're like everyone else. The state needs this myth 
to justify authoritarian rule.'' 


Lukashenko's speeches are peppered with slogans denouncing the West and 
accusations that his opponents are inspired and funded by Westerners intent 
on dictating terms to him. 


Western countries routinely denounce what they sees as a travesty of 
democracy and are sending only a low-level delegation of monitors to oversee 
Sunday's vote. 


******