October 30, 2000   

This Date's Issues:   4608 • 4609

Johnson's Russia List
#4609
30 October 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: Kyrgyz President Leads in Elections.
2. Ekonomika i Zhizn: FACTS AND FIGURES: RAW MATERIALS EXPORTER.
3. RFE/RL Security Watch: Victor Yasmann, PUTIN READY FOR EUROPE.
4. Vremya Novostei: WHAT KIND OF A PARTY RUSSIA IS LACKING. (Nikonov, Pavlovsky, Makarenko, Khomyako
5. Matt Bivens: Re: 4608 -- Ware/Vote Fraud.
6. The Russia Journal: Otto Latsis, Old symbols for new times.
7. Boston Globe: David Filipov, Volunteers unearth answers for families of Soviet war dead.
8. Andrew Miller: Britain in Russia.
9. Environment and Natural Resource Bulletin: Gennadii Viktorovich Kononin, LET'S PROTECT THE AMUR TIGER.
10. Wall Street Journal: Andrea Chipman, Small Businesses Redeem Reputation Of the West's Russian Loan Programs.]


*******


#1
Kyrgyz President Leads in Elections
October 30, 2000
By ELENA LISTVENNAYA

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) - Kyrgyzstan's president won easy re-election in
this Central Asian nation, according to preliminary results released Monday
in a ballot marred by charges of foul play.


Askar Akayev won 73.4 percent of the vote with 99.28 percent of ballots
counted, said Sulaiman Imanbayev, chief of the Central Electoral Commission.
About 73 percent of the country's 3 million voters cast ballots.


Ballots from 15 polling stations in remote mountain villages had yet to be
counted, Imanbayev said.


Akayev, a mild-mannered physicist, has increasingly cracked down on dissent
in recent years, threatening Kyrgyzstan's reputation as Central Asia's
cornerstone of democracy - and foreign aid that hinges upon it.


Akayev faced five challengers in his bid for a third term at the helm of this
mountainous nation on China's western border. Deputy parliament speaker
Omurbek Tekebayev was a distant second with 13.88 percent, Imanbayev said
Monday. Tekebayev is an ally of top opposition leader Felix Kulov.


Tekebayev's supporters cried fraud, and on Monday they tried to block
highways in four places in the southern Jalal-Abad region in protest,
domestic election observers reported.


Several opposition leaders were barred from the presidential race for failing
a rigorous Kyrgyz language test or on technicalities. International observers
protested that the registration process was discriminatory.


About 700 ballots marked for Akayev were found in a ballot box before polls
opened Sunday in the capital Bishkek, Imanbayev said. The head election
official at the polling station, Vyacheslav Tsoi, was charged with falsifying
ballots.


Prosecutors said Tsoi told them that an anonymous caller had threatened him
and his family if he didn't produce several hundred pro-Akayev ballots.


But Akayev insisted that the election was fair.


``The Kyrgyz people are having presidential elections today with a real
choice,'' he said as he voted in the capital Bishkek. ``I think these are
democratic elections.''


Some 250 would-be observers from Kyrgyz non-governmental organizations said
they were barred from monitoring the vote and vote count, though hundreds of
others were allowed to observe.


Akayev's opponents were too obscure or lacked the money for an aggressive
campaign, and many Kyrgyz voted for Akayev because they fear more change
after the tumultuous decade following the 1991 Soviet collapse.


Western leaders pinned hopes on Kyrgyzstan as an oasis of stability and
plurality in a region ruled by authoritarian presidents, Islamic warlords and
drug traffickers.


*******


#2
Ekonomika i Zhizn
No. 43
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
FACTS AND FIGURES
RAW MATERIALS EXPORTER

* Over the 1990s, Russia's share in world trade shrank
considerably: whereas in 1990 it equalled 2.6 percent in
exports and 2.7 percent in imports, in 1999 these indicators
dropped to 1.3 and 0.7 percent, respectively. This means that
in the current decade Russia's rating as an independent subject
of world economic relations has considerably declined.
At the same time, the Russian economy's dependence on the world
market has tangibly increased.
* Russia exports from 20 to 80 percent of its output of
raw materials and intermediate products, which is the limit
amount for any country.

TECHNOLOGICAL MISHAPS

* The share of science-intensive products manufactured
with the use of electronics, computer technologies and
mathematical software dropped from 45.3 to 25 percent over the
past decade.
* Russia lags more and more behind in production growth
rates and the volume of fixed capital accumulation, which
threatens its very existence as an independent state.
* More than 70 percent of Russia's fixed assets have been
exploited for more than ten years, which sharply reduces
competitiveness of Russian goods. The situation is worsening
more quickly in the aircraft-building and aero-space
industries, electronics and communications industry.
* Russia's industrial output dropped by more than a half
over the past ten years. Mostly under the impact of imports,
the output of the textile, leather and fur, and footwear
industries fell by nearly 10 times, the clothes-making industry
- by 5 times, and the meat and dairy industries - by 3 times.
* Labour productivity, which is the main factor of
competitiveness and well-being, is 5 times lower in Russia than
in the United States.

SOCIAL LOSSES

* In industrialised countries, the share of labour
remuneration - the main element in the structure of people's
incomes - is 65 percent of all personal incomes, while income
from property does not exceed 20 percent. In Russia, not wages,
but social transfers, incomes from business activity, real
estate transactions, and dividends on deposits and shares
account for up to a half of all people's incomes. This is
evidence of the lower role of labour in Russian society.
* In the most developed European countries, the ratio
between incomes of the 10 percent of the higher income group
and the 10 percent of the lower income group of the population
varies from 1.6 to 1.8. In Russia, this gap has been constantly
increasing, to 1 : 15 in 1999. UN experts believe that after
the 1 to 10 ratio society enters a zone of social instability.
* Actually, Russia does not have any middle class, which
provides the basis for market relations and socio-political
structures. A mere 5 percent of rich and very rich people have
concentrated production capacities, raw materials and a greater
portion of current revenues in their hands, as well as
three-quarters of money savings most of which are kept abroad.

WHO NEEDS REFORMS?

* In 1999, per capita meat and meat product consumption in
the Russian Federation was below the rational recommended
consumption norm by 38 kg, that of milk and dairy products - by
179 kg, eggs - by 67, vegetable oil - by 3.4 kg, sugar - by 6.7
kg, and vegetables - by 33 kg. At the same time, the average
per capita bread and baked goods consumption exceeded the norm
by 8 kg.
* There is nearly no deficit of any goods in Russia now.
However, the shadow turnover accounts for about 30 percent of
all trade, there is no proper control over the quality and
safety of goods, there are too many middlemen on the market,
many segments of which are controlled by criminal groups.

Compiled by M. Panova and B. Rachkov


*******


#3
RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
RFE/RL Security Watch
Vol. 1, No. 15, 30 October 2000


PUTIN READY FOR EUROPE
By Victor Yasmann


In advance of his Paris summit with the leaders
of the European Union on October 30, Vladimir Putin
has redefined his foreign policy agenda for European
audiences. And his ideas as presented in the French
newspaper "Le Figaro" are thus rather different than
those he presented in a CNN interview to an American
audience. While in the U.S., Putin attempted to remain
neutral on most questions, though now for Europe, he
has outlined far more specific goals in dealing with
European affairs and provided far more explicit
statements concerning his domestic approach.
Putin argued that Europe and Russia should be
playing a bigger role in the Middle East than they now
are. He then addressed French objections to his
policies in Chechnya by repeating his argument that
"the threat of international terrorism" justified his
position and arguing that had Russia not acted against
Chechnya when it did, radical extremist Islamist
groups might have emerged more prominently in the
Middle East.
Turning to the question of corruption in Russia,
Putin acknowledged that law enforcement agencies in
his country are "weak" and have not been effective.
But he denied that there was a mafia. But,
paradoxically, he said that the mafia is an element of
democratic societies while in totalitarian ones "like
fascist Italy," it was quickly uprooted. At the same
time, he explicitly ruled out solving the problem by
force alone. He said that force could be used and
noted that he had warned the oligarchs that "we only
keep a stick in our hands, but if we use it, it will
be only once and right at the head."
Putin was particularly assertive about what he
believes is the need to rein in freedom of the press.
He paraphrased -- quite incorrectly as it happens --
Thomas Jefferson's observation that "full freedom of
the press will deprive the rest of society of its
freedoms." He said that in his view, "everybody must
be equal before the law -- including the mass media."
Given such explicitness, European commentators
are unlikely to claim that Putin is an enigma. He has
staked out his positions clearly and now European
leaders will have to respond.


*******


#4
Vremya Novostei
October 30, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
WHAT KIND OF A PARTY RUSSIA IS LACKING


Vyacheslav NIKONOV, Politika Foundation
What Russia is generally lacking is normal political
parties. The Communist Party can serve as the criterion of a
party per se. The rest are either groups of lobbyists, or
parties for the promotion of this or that leader, or else
'pocket parties.' Sure, they seem to represent the whole
ideological spectrum. But it takes more than an ideological
platform to make a party. Parties are created in the course of
elections and are largely dependent on the nature of the
electoral system. A lot also depends on a party's proximity to
the supreme authority.
The current Russian supreme authority is non-partisan,
something that marks a serious gap between the civic society
and the authorities. I think that there will be no full-fledged
party system until the president builds a normal system of
forming the authorities. Another question is the way in which
political parties are formed. As I see it, the best way to form
parties is to change over to a majority-vote electoral system
that would promote the formation of national-level party
organizations, shape a responsible party system and facilitate
the merger of small parties whose ideologies tend to be similar.

Gleb PAVLOVSKY, Efficient Politics Foundation
There are vacant niches in the currently existing
political space, but they are hard to fill. In this country,
there are objective reasons why a part of the political
spectrum, e.g.
Social Democracy, is weakly represented. Social Democracy in
the world of today is a party for the distribution of surplus
product. In bourgeois countries, Social Democrats are existing
on the extra budgetary revenues, something that is so far
impossible in Russia.
Social Democratic parties may be in greater need of
ideological preparedness than all others are. In this country,
the Left tradition is being exploited by different forces, and
even the media are viewing the ideology in a hostile light.
Therefore, there is no possibility of forming a Left platform
today.
There is also, let's say, a supra-party niche. This is, in
effect, an opposition to Vladimir Putin. I expected it to arise
in the middle of this year. But I was wrong, for I have
underestimated the weakness of our political community.

Boris MAKARENKO, Center of Political Technologies
Russia is currently lacking all parties. The Communist
Party is the only one that exists as a normal party - in the
traditional sense of the term. But the Communist Party can only
embrace that part of society that has both feet in the
Communist past. All the other parties are in limbo. The 'party
of power' does not want to let anybody enter its niche, judging
by everything. But the Yedinstvo (Unity) has not become the
Centrist party. The Union of Right Forces and Yabloko are
moving in the direction of forming a normal Liberal party. But
such a party will be able to represent the interests of no more
than 10% of the population, for society is thus far incapable
of generating a Liberal ideology.

Valery KHOMYAKOV, Agency of Applied and Regional Politics
If we are talking of the ideological spectrum in toto, all
niches have been occupied. There is an influential political
force in effectively every niche. Only the Social-Democratic
niche is vacant - in the European sense of the term. The
parties represented in it have no influence on the Russian
politics.
Society should feel the need for Right Liberal ideas before the
country takes to a Right-Liberal course. The prospects of
Rybkin and Gorbachev are rather ethereal therefore, as I see it.
Zyuganov effectively commands the Left electorate.
There are also exotic niches, e.g. a Nationalist-Socialist
one. But judging by the number of fans this ideology has, our
society organically rejects this sphere.
There may appear a federalist organization, especially if
the federal center continues to stubbornly suppress all
provincial initiatives. It would be, conventionally speaking, a
'gubernatorial party,' i.e. a political organization that would
uphold the provinces' economic independence.

******


#5
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000
From: Matt Bivens <bivens@imedia.ru>
Subject: Re: 4608 -- Ware/Vote Fraud


Robert Ware misses the point when he says I could have found out who
he had in mind when he wrote, in the Christian Science Monitor, that
"Dagestan's leading independent political observer" had "refuted" our
elections reporting. Mr. Ware did not name this person for Christian
Science Monitor readers -- that's the point. (And I'm still not sure
Mr. Ware is properly using the word "refute.") The same goes for Ware
offering a figure in the Monitor for Dagestani fraud of
350,00-400,000 based on his "analysis" -- the point is not that I
could have gotten his methodology, but that Monitor readers didn't.


As to the substance: Mr. Ware reads much meaning into a sentence in
our Sept. 9 election report sentence that says fraud in republics
like Tatarstan and Bashkortostan was on a scale of that of Dagestan,
ie hundreds of thousands of votes stolen. We did not intend for that
to be read as saying that Dagestan was the benchmark for fraud in
other republics -- although that is one way it could be read, and so
we should have been clearer. But even if Dagestan WERE the benchmark,
and we came up with a figure of 550,000 stolen votes and Mr. Ware
came up with 400,000, it's hard for me to see how Mr. Ware can cite
this 150,000-vote difference as evidence that the rest of the
reporting is weak. It seems to me that we then end up arguing over
whether 7 million votes were stolen for Putin or 5 million, in a race
where he won by 2.2 million.


We were careful in the report to note that Putin is the No. 1 victim
of this fraud -- he is a much weaker president than Yeltsin was after
Yeltsin's second-round landslide. I suspect this was always the
point: When Berezovsky et al. insisted a first-round win would keep
Putin strong (and Putin himself agreed), Berezovsky et al. really
meant a narrow, fraud-based win would keep Putin weak.


Matt Bivens
Editor
The Moscow Times
bivens@imedia.ru


******


#6
The Russia Journal
October 28-November 3, 2000
Old symbols for new times
By Otto Latsis


Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov has revealed his choice for Russia’s
national anthem ­ the music from the Soviet national anthem, composed by
Alexandrov, only with new words. Kasyanov isn’t alone in his preference,
it’s probably that of a majority today in Russia, but in Kasyanov’s case,
it deserves special attention.


This is, first of all, because Kasyanov isn’t just an ordinary citizen; his
opinion is that of the head of government. There was no reason for Kasyanov
to speak on this point ­ his words came at a meeting with journalists on
the tasks ahead, primarily social and economic development issues.
Kasyanov’s opinion is also noteworthy in that it coincides with the view of
the main opposition party, the Communist Party (KPRF).


All the fuss began when the strange new state organ that is the State
Council was assigned to begin its activities with an equally strange issue
­ deciding what to do about the national anthem.


Russia has a national anthem. For a number of years now, Mikhail Glinka’s
"Patriotic Song" has served the purpose. No one doubts Glinka’s musical
talents, but there are two problems. First, the music is too complicated
for just anyone to sing along to. Second, there are no words.


There are other countries that have elaborate national anthems, and
countries whose anthems have no words. The underlying political subtext in
Russia is too obvious to not get attention. The Kremlin is reviving a
problem that Boris Yeltsin had considered resolved. And it doesn’t seem to
bother the current administration that they’re giving Yeltsin’s main
political opponents ­ the Communists ­ a chance to once again try and get
their way.


But what significance does all this have on a practical political level? To
answer this, we should remember some other, at first glance unrelated,
events. First was the debate on restoring the statue of Cheka (KGB
forerunner) founder Felix Dzerzhinsky to its place on Lubyanka Square. One
of the first things victorious democrats did in August 1991 was pull down
the statue, which had watched over central Moscow for more than 30 years.
But with a change at the top, left-wingers began pushing for the statue’s
return, even trying to get the State Duma (lower house) to vote on it,
though such issues are outside the Duma’s jurisdiction.


The second noteworthy event was in Kursk Oblast, where the clear favorite
in the regional elections, former vice president and current Gov. Alexander
Rutskoi, was taken off the candidate list only a few hours before voting
began. The disqualification was the result of an obvious judicial
manipulation, deliberately planned so as not to leave Rutskoi any time to
appeal.


What the national anthem, Dzerzhinsky’s statue and intrigues against
Rutskoi have in common is that in all three cases, it’s not the actual fact
that counts so much as its symbolic nature.


The issue is not about the merits of the music composed by Alexandrov, a
general who headed the Red Army song and dance ensemble. The issue is that
this is the music of the old Soviet national anthem, which before getting
Kasyanov’s support, had that of Josef Stalin.


The issue is not what kind of person Felix Dzerzhinsky really was. For the
politician, it’s not the truth about Dzerzhinsky that counts, it’s the
symbolic approval of the repressive Soviet secret police’s past activities
that restoring the statue to where it stood outside their headquarters
would imply.


The issue is not what kind of politician Rutskoi was. What is important is
that Rutskoi, who is not a Kremlin opponent, just a strong and independent
politician, was shown dismissive and casual treatment, and this is a sign
that the Kremlin doesn’t have any need for strong and independent politicians.


The new administration is looking for guidelines for self-identity. This is
no easy task. Backing out of market reforms isn’t an option, but no one
wants to share responsibility for subjective mistakes on the part of the
Kremlin or for the previous administration’s policies. It also looks as if
Putin’s administration isn’t keen on keeping to the democratic principles
that go hand in hand with a market economy.


Joining forces with the Communists isn’t an option, but it would be nice to
be able to draw on their political resources now and then. Then there’s the
fact that Putin’s strong-state leanings find a patriotic echo in the
Communist rhetoric. With all these dilemmas at hand, there’s no inclination
to take a firm stand and define clear priorities. The temptation is to
first speak the language of symbols, a conventional language of easy to
understand political signals that those who need to know will understand.


In itself, this political tactic is neither good nor bad. The question is
which symbols are chosen and how they will be used. Playing with the old
Soviet symbols, in particular, could be a game that goes a lot further than
the current players necessarily want.


*******


#7
Boston Globe
October 30, 2000
Volunteers unearth answers for families of Soviet war dead
By David Filipov


AKSINKINO, Russia - Like all the young men from his village in southern
Russia, Pyotr Yemelyanov answered the call to arms when Nazi Germany invaded
the Soviet Union 59 years ago.


And like millions of his countrymen, Yemelyanov never came home. He died
here, in a tiny farming hamlet 100 miles northwest of Moscow, where the
Soviet army stopped the German advance in December 1941.


But until this month, no one ever knew what became of him. It was only then
that his remains were found, and a small strip of paper in a graphite
capsule, found in his badly decayed pants pocket, peeled back the decades-old
mystery of Yemelyanov's fate.


Yemelyanov was one of 135 Soviet soldiers whose remains were found by a group
of volunteers who work to discover what happened to hundreds of thousands of
World War II troops who were officially declared missing in action. They have
made it their mission to find, try to identify, and bury the remains of
soldiers whom the rest of Russian society forgot long ago.


So it came as a stark contrast when Russia for the past week mounted a daring
and costly operation to recover the bodies of 118 men who died when the
nuclear-powered submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea in August. Ordinary
Russians have been riveted by hourly news accounts of the operation by an
international team of undersea divers.


The recovery operation represents a radical change in the way Russia treats
its men who die in the military. The evidence of that is just three hours by
car north of Moscow, in the Tver region, a province roughly the size of Iowa.
Officially, 350,000 Soviet soldiers died here during World War II. Local
historians say the real number is probably closer to 1 million.


Many of them still lie where they fell - in fields, forests, and hastily dug
mass graves. The Soviet government was never able, or willing, to determine
their fates. The families of some 3 million Soviet soldiers received only a
notice that their sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers were missing in
action.


Sonya Madanova's family got one in the spring of 1942: a terse note from the
local draft board saying that her brother, Ivan Madanov, a lieutenant, had
been wounded in heavy fighting in Tver region, and had gone missing. Over the
following decades, the family repeatedly sought more information, but there
was none.


For the remaining 19 years of her life, Madanova's mother waited for her son
to come home alive. After she died, Sonya and her sister kept on waiting.


The call finally came last spring: What was left of Ivan's body had been
discovered among the remains of 400 men in a forest in Tver region.


The call came from a group called Podvig (''heroic deed'' in Russian): a
diverse team of history buffs, wilderness enthusiasts, and veterans of
Russia's wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya, who spend their time finding,
documenting, and reburying the remains of World War II soldiers.


Documenting them is the hardest part, because few soldiers filled out ID
papers in the little graphite capsules that served as dog tags in the Red
Army. Most soldiers considered it bad luck to fill out a paper that would be
read only if they died. After 1942, Soviet leader Josef Stalin outlawed the
capsules altogether in an effort to conceal troop losses.


But Madanov filled out his form, which allowed Podvig to contact his family,
58 years after he died.


''Ivan was always an accurate boy,'' said his sister Sonya, whose family name
is now Zhulyova. ''We were finally able to go visit his grave.''


Yemelyanov also filled out his ID form, but none of the others he was buried
with did. Podvig's director, Sergei Balashov, said he would try to find any
remaining relatives of Yemelyanov this winter, so they can visit the new
burial site near Aksinkino.


In 1941, Anatoly Chekanov was a 6-year old boy, and he witnessed the battle
in Aksinkino in which Yemelyanov and his comrades died. Later, he remembered
the mass graves where advancing Soviet troops hurriedly deposited their dead,
with a promise to give them a decent burial when they came back.


But the troops never came back. The fighting slowly moved west and the war
eventually ended. For 55 years, Chekanov has known the graves' rough
location. On several occasions, he has tried to get local authorities to dig
up the graves, but each time he was rebuffed.


''They would tell me, `Who needs it? We have to think about the living,'''
Chekanov said.


A few weeks ago, he heard about the Podvig group and contacted Balashov. With
Chekanov's help, the organization found the mass grave that contained
Yemelyanov's remains. They failed to find another, larger burial site, but
they hope to try again in spring.


Podvig's volunteers do their work on a shoestring budget and receive little
pay, in exchange for mucking around swampy forests and digging up live
ordnance and bones of the dead.


Balashov, who says he has reburied 15,000 soldiers since 1990, said he is
also motivated by the chance to help surviving relatives learn the fate of
their loved ones.


''Maybe we'll find someone's grandfather who left home in 1941 and never came
back,'' Balashov said.


It is a difficult task. Troop dispositions are still considered secret. Many
soldiers who were held prisoner by the Germans were immediately declared
politically unreliable by Stalin's regime and sent to Soviet concentration
camps. Their fates are still kept secret in the archives of the former KGB.


''We have lost millions of people who disappeared in action. They just
disappeared into nothing; no one knows anything,'' said Yevgeny Kirichenko, a
war correspondent who has created a television program called the ''The
Forgotten Brigade,'' which tries to investigate the fate of soldiers missing
in action in World War II, Afghanistan, and Chechnya.


A recent program had one happy ending: the reunion of a Russian paratrooper
who had been mistakenly reported killed in Afghanistan in 1985 with friends
who had thought he was dead. But the program also showed the grisly fate of
Russian servicemen who had gone missing in Chechnya in 1995 and whose remains
were only recently discovered outside the separatist region's capital, Grozny.


''I saw that this was a problem that we have to talk about, to scream
about,'' said Kirichenko, whose own grandfather went missing in action in
1941. His grandmother is still waiting for her husband to come back.


The Russian military is trying to change. Last month, in a cemetery in
Noginsk, a town 30 miles east of Moscow, the remains of 56 Russian soldiers
who died in Chechnya in 1995 received an honorable burial. The families of
hundreds of Russians who have gone missing in Chechnya were present.


These were men whose deaths were so violent, and their remains so badly
charred, that their identities could not be established even by DNA testing.
Continuing the superstitious tradition that has condemned countless Soviet
and Russian soldiers to eternal anonymity, many servicemen in Chechnya do not
wear their metal dog tags. For five years, these remains had been stored at a
forensics laboratory in the southern Russian city of Rostov.


For those five years, Lidiya Belous searched for her son Kostya, who was 19
when he went missing in action and his letters home, the ones that always
started ''My Dear Sweet Beautiful Mamma,'' stopped arriving.


''We just wanted some kind of memorial,'' Belous said after the ceremony last
month. ''Maybe my Kostya is there. We will come here and remember him. But
I'll keep looking for him.''


Maybe someday someone will come to remember Pyotr Yemelyanov in Aksinkino.
There, under a small Soviet-era monument that underestimates the number of
men who died here by several thousands, Yemelyanov and his comrades were
lowered in wooden coffins into a large pit. Local schoolchildren, on a field
trip to better understand local history, looked on as a military band played
a funeral march, and an honor guard fired a salute.


A Russian Orthodox priest, Father Dmitry, blessed the coffins and said a
prayer.


''We must remember what happened to these men, to be ready to prevent these
events from repeating themselves,'' he said.


Father Dmitry was talking about the war. But he also could have been talking
about the anonymity that is still the fate of millions of fallen Soviet
soldiers.


*******


#8
From: "Andrew Miller" <andcarmil@hotmail.com>
Subject: Britain in Russia
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000


Topic: Britain in Russia
Title: Long to reign over U.S.?


A well-known British confectioner makes a chewy candy like Starburst
imaginatively called Chewits and marketed in Russia. In its television
commercial, its animated dinosaur mascot is shown marching into New York
City, plucking the torch out of the Statute of Liberty’s hand, taking it for
an ice cream cone, and munching it down. Then the critter returns to
Moscow, sits down in the Kremlin, and starts passing out free Chewits to all
the good little boys and girls.


A giant British tobacco concern manufactures a brand of cigarettes for
Russia called Zolotaya Yava. There are dozens of billboards in Russia in
which various hapless American icons are shocked into apoplexy to discover a
pack of Yavas (for example, Neil Armstrong landing on the moon is depicted
recoiling in horror when, attempting to plant Old Glory on the lunar
surface, he is suddenly confronted by the fact that Russia, via a giant pack
of Yavas, has been there, done that). Marilyn Monroe, King Kong, and even
the Coca-Cola bears also come in for “the treatment.” The company’s
ubiquitous slogan is: “Zolotaya Yava: Answering Fire!”


Almost all basic English teaching materials in Russia have a British frame
of reference (they are Soviet, and pursue the “divide and conquer” logic).
Russian students learn the basics about Britain and are familiar with its
major tourist attractions and history. What they know about the U.S.A.
comes from the street (McDonalds, Coke, Levis) and so most don’t know a
thing about American literature (as many Nobel Prizes by native authors as
Britain and Russia combined) or tourist attractions like the Redwood Forest,
Grand Canyon or Niagra Falls. Russians learn British grammar, vocabulary
and spelling and even the Queen's pronunciation - though like Lennon and
McCartney few can master it.


The ease with which anti-American hysteria can be whipped up in Russia, even
for crass commercial purposes by supposed allies of the U.S.A., is a clear
measure of the utter failure of U.S. policy toward Russia over the last ten
years. How ready Russians were to blame the U.S.A. alone for the NATO
attack on Yugoslavia, how willing to endorse violent attacks on the U.S.
Embassy in Moscow! It says something, too, of course, about the level of
sophistication of the average Russian, who fails utterly to comprehend that
the level of animosity toward Russia and Russians is far higher in Western
Europe than it is in the U.S.A. (a nation with which, viz a viz Europe,
Russia has much in common).


The leaders we Americans have chosen to represent our interests in Russia
have been utter fools and their policies have lead to the current
nightmarish relationshiop for which we must, deservedly, suffer. America is
the only nation in the world which could send as its Ambassador to Russia
any one of any number of American citizens who are also Russians, who speak
perfect Russian and understand Russia as well as it can be understood. What
a mark such a person could make in Moscow! But instead, our point man is
Strobe Talbot, whose name alone ought to disqualify him from public service.


Most Russians take Zolotaya Yava for a Russian product, and imagine that by
purchasing it they are striking a blow for Russian nationalism. Hence, the
brand is the market leader. In fact, of course, the profits flow to British
stockholders. Chewits, on the other hand, seems to be after some sort of
condominium arrangement, an odd Anglo-British anti-American consortium, a
“we’ll show the yanks, won’t we” kind of thing. As long as I’ve been in
Russia, I’ve never seen an American product advertised in this way, which
may indicate either that (a) Americans are far behind their European
counterparts in advertising theory (Coca-Cola, for example, is still taking
losses in Russia), or (b) Americans have substantial diplomatic work to do
in Europe as well (who IS the U.S. Ambassador to England?), or perhaps both.


Andrew Miller
St. Petersburg, Russia


*******


#9
http://gazeta.priroda.ru
Environment and Natural Resource Bulletin
25(42) / September 2000 / 7
The World of Nature


LET'S PROTECT THE AMUR TIGER
Gennadii Viktorovich Kononin
Coordinator
Russian Program for Tiger and Leopard Protection
Ministry of Natural Resources
Moscow


The Amur tiger - the largest and the most beautiful wild cat in the world -
is
protected only in Russia. At the beginning of the 20th century there were
eight
subspecies of tiger in Asia, but in the 1940s, the Bali tiger living in
Bali and
Indonesia, disappeared, and in the 1970's, the Caspian tiger that was still
encountered in the Tugain Forests of Amu Darya in the 1950s, also
disappeared.
Despite desperate attempts to save the last of the Java tigers, a subspecies
that lived on the island of Java, this tiger also disappeared in the wild
in the
1980s. Of the remaining subspecies, aside from the South China tiger -
there are
less than fifty of those tigers left in the wild - the Amur tiger is one of
the
most vulnerable.


At the end of the 19th century, the Amur tiger ranged across an extensive
portion of northeastern China, the Korean peninsula and the Russian Far
East. In
the early 20th century, as a result of relentless pursuit, tiger numbers
steadily declined, and in the 1940s, there were less than fifty animals
left in
the wild. Our country was the first of those with tiger habitat to
introduce a
full ban on tiger hunting. This occurred in 1947. This measure played a
decisive
role in the Amur tiger's salvation. Tiger numbers began to gradually
increase,
and by the middle of the 1980s, tigers had settled all suitable habitat in
the
Sikhote-Alin mountain system. Simultaneously, the tiger began to feel
"cramped"
in the taiga and increasingly more often appeared along roads, near
settlements
and villages. Several animals, in the light of day, began to enter villages
where they frightened residents and snagged; as is well known, tigers have an
inexplicable attraction to dogs, their favorite dish. One tiger family even
moved into the suburbs of Vladivostok. I was living in Vladivostok at that
time
and I remember the concern among people living in the region. A tiger, of
course, a dangerous animal and its appearance in populated areas in matter
for
concern. It needs to be pointed out, thought, that in contrast to the Bengal
tiger, Amur tigers have never been man-eating tigers. The Amur tiger
attacks a
human, as a rule, when the victim has either shot at the tiger, is tracking a
tiger that has been trapped or shot or the person has gotten too close to
cubs.


The Amur tiger began to again experience tough times starting in the 1990s.
Unemployment in forest villages and an opened border with China created ideal
conditions for poaching. The tiger was hunted for the cash it could bring.
Chinese smugglers appeared in villages and paid hunters thousands of
dollars for
a dead tiger. Tiger bodies were exported to China where demand for this
animal
was unlimited given that tiger bones and other body parts are highly valued
in
traditional Chinese medicine and are used to prepare various medicines.


The rate of tiger poaching became unprecedented. Scientists in the Russian
Far
East estimate that poachers shot several dozen tigers annually. As the
threat of
extinction became a reality for the Amur tiger, scientists, the general
public,
and especially the international community, sounded an alarm. Journalists
began
to write on matters in the Russian Far East and alarming articles appeared in
prestigious foreign publications. In the US and in European countries, NGOs
were
created to protect tigers, letters and appeals were sent to the President
of the
Russian Federation in huge volumes with a demand that immediate action be
taken
to save the Amur tiger. International foundations began to offer financial
assistance.


The concern of millions of people around the world for the fate of the Amur
tiger did not go unnoticed. In Primorskii Krai, as part of the Committee on
Ecology, a special department was created to protect the tiger. Field teams
from
this department began an uncompromising battle with poachers. In 1995, the
Russian Federation issued a special decree to protect the tiger, and in
1997 a
Federal target program "The Protection of the Amur Tiger - 1998-2003" was
approved. Russian scientists developed a national strategy to protect the
Amur
tiger, and in November 1997, during Boris Eltsyn's visit to Beijing, a Sino-
Russian Intergovernmental Protocol on Tiger Protection was signed.


The measures taken had their desired result and poaching declined. Along the
Sino-Russian border, custom's control has intensified. There are currently
ten
specially equipped anti-poaching brigades operating in Primorskii Krai, and
two
similar brigades in Khabarovskii Krai. These brigades operate thanks to
funding
from number of environmental funds, including Global Survival Network (GSN),
WWF, the Russian Federal Environmental Fund. These organizations have made a
significant investment in these brigades. In six years of operations, the
members of Inspection "Tiger" have uncovered more than 800 hunting
violations,
confiscated 700 weapons and more than 40 tiger skins and skeletons. Based on
evidence turned over to investigators, 94 criminal cases have been brought to
court.


Thanks to Inspection "Tiger," the amount of poaching has declined. The sale
and
export of tiger parts abroad, however, still exists and is controlled by
powerful criminal elements. There is now a new category of consumers: "new"
Russians. If the Chinese are mostly interested in tiger bone and its
organs, the
"new" Russians are after the skins. And if this fad grows, the situation with
the Amur tiger will become catastrophic.


The status of the Amur tiger's prey base is also a matter for concern. Tigers
prey on wild boar and Manchurian red deer, and the population numbers for
these
ungulates, in part as a result of incessant poaching, is declining
dramatically.
Without adequate prey, tigers will be forced to leave the taiga to look for
food
in settled areas and that will increase the threat of conflicts with humans.


The future of the Amur tiger depends upon the attitude of local people. With
funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Tiger-Rhinoceros
Conservation
Fund, specialists in the Russian Far East developed a set of "Rules on How
People Should Behave and Maintain Livestock In Areas of Tiger Habitat." The
"Rules" provide guidelines on how people should act in the taiga to ensure
their
safety, to reduce, to an absolute minimum, the probability of a conflict
with a
tiger. In 1999, these Rules were approved by the Primorskii and Khabarovskii
Krai administrations. This is the first attempt to develop rules for
behavior in
tiger country; no other country in the world with tigers has such a set of
rules. International organizations have shown an interest in the document and
the Rules have been translated into English for possible adaptation in other
countries.


Scientific work on the tiger continues. At the Sikhote-Alin Biospheric
Zapovednik in Primorskii Krai, Russian and American scientists, for more than
ten years, have jointly studied the territorial behavior of tigers by using
radio collars. One finding is that while individual female home ranges do not
overlap, males do have a tendency to use the home range of several females.


In a village in Primorskii Krai, one can observe wild Amur tigers in natural
conditions. At the Russian Academy of Science's Biology and Soils field
station
in Gaivoron, Viktor Yukakov, a zoologist and wild cat enthusiast studies
tiger
behavior and reproduction. He built, through his own efforts, an enclosure
that
fences off a small area in the forest. Several years ago, he obtained tiger
cubs
that were abandoned after poachers killed their mother. Two of the cubs, a
male
and a female, managed to survive. They have had their own cub, then a second,
and a third. Now the parents and their three kids are resident in the
enclosure.
The animals live in wonderful conditions and it is hard to break away when
observing the gracious movements of these wild cats in natural conditions.
People from surrounding villages and cities come to Gaivoron to observe this
miracle. And most don't take the time to calculate just how much labor and
material the scientist and his wife expend to maintain this enclosure. Not
only
must the find food for these predators on a daily basis, they must also
protect
the enclosure at night, repair the fences and vehicles, maintain a
laboratory,
all this without forgetting about their other charges: Himalayan bears,
wolves
and roe deer.


Russia is truly fortunate to have such a wonderful animal as the Amur tiger
living within its boundaries. But this means Russia has a special
responsibility
to provide for the tiger's protection. The 1996 census conducted in Russia
with
financial support from the US Agency for International Development shows
there
are around 400 tigers in Primorskii and Khabarovskii Krai. No tigers now
live on
the Korean peninsula. China has no more than twenty animals and these live
along
the border with Russia. One hopes that should all the measures stipulated
in the
Federal Target Program be implemented, the existence of a wild tiger
population
in the Far East will be assured for many years to come.


Unfortunately, the Federal Target Program is carried out almost exclusively
with
funding from non-government environmental groups. The funding promised by the
Russian government has not been made available. And now there is a proposal
to
deprive the Federal Target Program for the Protection of the Amur Tiger of
its
independent status and include it as part of another federal program. If the
Federal Program looses its independent status, and in view of no government
funding for the program, this will be a sign to foreign investors that the
Russian government has little interest in tiger protection. And should the
international community halt its funding the Federal Program, this will
reduce
the effectiveness of Inspection "Tiger" and lead to a new wave of poaching,
to
increased threats and potentially, to the final destruction of the Amur
tiger in
the wild.


Translation: Staff Ink.


*******


#10
Wall Street Journal
October 30, 2000
[for personal use only]
Small Businesses Redeem Reputation Of the West's Russian Loan Programs
By ANDREA CHIPMAN
Dow Jones Newswires


NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia -- The triangular mirrors and chrome accents in
Nadezhda Ivanova's beauty parlor are as trendy as those in any London salon,
and Ms. Ivanova is happy to share the credit with Western taxpayers.


After years of fighting to borrow from Russian banks, Ms. Ivanova received a
$40,000 (48,312-euro) loan in 1999 from the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development's Bank for Lending to Small Businesses -- known by its
Russian acronym as KMB.


Ms. Ivanova opened a beauty academy and cafe with the money and refurbished
her salon here. Future plans include the acquisition of second building where
she plans to put amputees, including Afghanistan and Chechen war veterans, to
work making hair extensions and other products.


"With this bank, it took two weeks to get the loan," she said. "They rescued
me."


The expansion of small businesses in Nizhny Novgorod and other cities across
Russia is due in large part to two large foreign investors -- the EBRD and
the U.S.-government financed U.S.-Russia Investment Fund. Both say they have
been vindicated after more than five years of lending to clients perceived as
high risk.


Stimulating Competition


Working through partner banks and, in the case of the EBRD, through its own
microlending institution, the institutions have achieved two goals in one:
offering Russia's small entrepreneurs unprecedented access to credit while
spurring competition for clients among the country's commercial banks.


Borrowers like the quick approval times, emphasis on the lender-client
relationship and cheaper rates -- around 15% a year, compared with as much as
90% demanded by some Russian banks in years past. Russian banks, meanwhile,
have been attracted by repayment rates of around 98%.


"The idea is to stimulate competition, show some best practices in lending,"
said Christoph Freytag, chief operating officer of the EBRD's KMB Bank. Other
banks, he said, "use us as a kind of ratings agency."


Few debate the importance of expanding credits to small entrepreneurs. But
some analysts caution that the foreign money could underwrite risky loans by
subsidizing lending that most commercial banks wouldn't normally consider to
be profitable in the first place.


While small businesses have been the motor of economic development in most
Western countries, the sector has been woefully underdeveloped in Russia,
where banks traditionally favored larger, politically well-connected
companies.


Russia has six small businesses for every 1,000 in the population, compared
with more than 50 such businesses in Poland, World Bank Vice President for
Europe and Central Asia Johannes Linn said last spring.


Both the EBRD and U.S.-Russia Investment Program, which works through its
management arm, Delta Capital Management, have been active in Russia since
the mid-1990s, issuing loans of up to $150,000 and, in the case of the EBRD,
micro-credits of up to $30,000.


The credits, with terms of up to two years, can cover short-term trade
finance or longer strategic investments. As businesses grow, they can qualify
for larger loans.


Faced with the collapse of a number of its partner banks in the wake of the
1998 financial crisis, the EBRD opened the future KMB in July 1999. At the
same time, it kept its largest partner, state-owned savings bank Sberbank,
and several smaller regional lenders that compete against KMB in their
markets.


Delta Capital Management, which also lost several partner banks in the
crisis, works with 26 lenders in 13 cities, overlapping with the EBRD in
fewer than half.


Crisis Was a Good Thing


While the events of 1998 proved disastrous for the reputations of many
Russian commercial banks, they reflected much more favorably on small
businesses. Although many EBRD and Delta clients found it challenging to meet
their dollar-denominated loan payments in the wake of the devaluation of the
ruble, nonperforming loans were kept to a minimum.


"The crisis was the best thing that could have happened to us," said James
Cook, Delta Capital's senior vice president. "It was really a good
demonstration to commercial banks of how well they could diversify their
risks," with smaller borrowers.


By August, the EBRD had issued a total of 40,000 loans valued at $465
million. Delta Credit, which has loaned $54 million since 1995, offers both
loans and leasing credits, with the latter directed toward purchase of
equipment.


In addition to offering smaller clients previously inaccessible funds, the
programs allow more established companies to refine their reputation as
borrowers.


In a refurbished workshop on the grounds of a metal parts factory in Moscow,
the Vitrina A advertising group concocts marketing designs and store
promotions for a roster of clients that includes Coca-Cola Co. and Philip
Morris Cos.


The firm, which set up operations in 1995 with an initial investment of
$50,000, expanded quickly, purchasing its factory for $3 million by 1996,
said General Director Vadim Kulikov.


"Up to then, we had enough of our own funds and we didn't worry about finding
money," Mr. Kulikov said. "But we began to work with financiers fairly
actively by 1996, and decided we needed a credit history."


The company took its first $150,000 credit line that year from
Probusinessbank, initially an EBRD partner bank and later an affiliate of
Delta Capital's program. In the three years since, Vitrina A has repaid its
loans each year and is developing a strategic borrowing plan with
Probusinessbank that will include auto and mortgage loans for the company's
employees.


The foreign lenders' straightforward approach is a welcome change from the
"degrading" system of verifications imposed by Russian banks, Mr. Kulikov
said. Local banks, he added, have had to change their tune to solicit the
most attractive clients.


Jumping on Bandwagon


As Russia's economy has improved over the past two years, larger Russian
commercial banks and regional institutions have recognized the appeal of
small business lending and raced to catch up.


Sberbank and Probusinessbank, principal partners of the EBRD and Delta
Capital, respectively, were among the first to issue their own loans in
addition to offering credits through the foreign lending programs.


Probusinessbank's own credit program, which lends at slightly higher rates of
18% to 24%, makes up some 30% of its total loan portfolio, said Oleg
Safronov, head of the bank's small business center. The credits the bank
issues from its own resources are used largely for turnover capital, while
the longer Delta Capital loans take the form of investment finance, he said.


But some analysts question the incentives the programs offer Russia's still
struggling banking sector.


"If you have a nonmarket-oriented body lending money, you're distorting the
system," said Kim Iskyan, banking analyst at Renaissance Capital investment
bank in Moscow. Subsidizing entrepreneurs with foreign money creates
"artificially low prices" and undercuts "truly market-oriented banks," he
added.


Probusinessbank's Mr. Safronov acknowledged that Delta Capital and the EBRD
get their funds more cheaply then Russian commercial banks, which rely on
short-term deposits and must limit the term of their loans to less than a
year.


"The more banks that get involved in lending to small businesses the better,"
KMB's Mr. Freytag said. "The only thing I fear is when the quality of loans
offered becomes worse."


Looming Risks


At least one bank, he said, has tried to lure KMB clients with longer loans
and lower collateral requirements.


Other analysts, however, said foreign-currency exposure is the programs' main
danger.


"The fundamental unfairness is that the EBRD as the stronger partner is in a
better position to take on risk," said Richard Hainsworth, Moscow
representative of ratings agency Thomson's Financial Bankwatch.


The EBRD hopes to issue ruble-denominated bonds next year that, officials
say, will help mitigate the currency-exposure risk for their small business
borrowers.


Delta Capital officials say they have no immediate plans to offer
ruble-denominated loans.


Russia's government is also trying to ease the pressure, reserving 10% of its
30 billion ruble (1.3 billion-euro, $1.1 billion) regional development budget
to help guarantee bank credits to small enterprises, said Anatoly Aksakov,
chairman of the State Duma's Committee on Economic Policies and Enterprise.


Salon owner Ms. Ivanova acknowledged dollar-denominated loans could present
new difficulties in the event of another financial crisis, but she remains
philosophical. "If you don't take risks, you can't live," she added.


Write to Andrea Chipman at andrea.chipman@dowjones.com

******


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