Global Voices » Russian

Russia: State TV Justifies May 6 Police Violence, Cites Spanish Bill Criminalizing Online Protest Organization as Example

Veronica Khokhlova — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:42:31 +0000

In the final segment of the report [ru] on the May 6 protest in Moscow, which ended in clashes with riot police, the Russian state-owned Channel 1 mentioned, among other things, a Spanish draft law [en] criminalizing online organization of public protests, as an example of the “much tougher” treatment of protesters by the “colleagues” of the Russian law enforcement officials “in the countries with the so-called established democracy.”

Global Voices Seeks Contributing Editor for RuNet Echo Project

Ivan Sigal — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:06:43 +0000

Global Voices is seeking a part-time Contributing Editor to support our coverage of Russian citizen media, as part of our RuNet Echo project.

The project provides comprehensive and deep reporting on and analyses of the Russian-language online community. The purpose of the initiative is to deepen our coverage and analysis of Russian-language blogospheres, online speech and social networks.

Produce original analysis, research, and reporting based on our coverage of the Russian-language Internet.
Selectively follow up stories with in-depth research into compelling topics.
Monitor target civil society initiatives, websites, and movements.

The primary focus of our coverage and analysis is Russian-language online writing from and about the Russian Federation. Secondary content may also include Russian-language content from the former Soviet Union, as it relates to the Russian Federation.

The Contributing Editor will assist in producing and editing content for the project, including regular output of stories, translation, and networking. The editor will produce and/or edit several in-depth stories per week, as well as shorter posts linking and pointing to important topics, events, and writing as it occurs. The work will involve extensive translation, analysis, and further original research and reporting when appropriate, in order to elucidate and identify trends, ideas, and social and political currents within RuNet. Analysis will also examine how content in the Russian language space relates to other online communities, languages, and cultures, and offline Russian conversation, journalism, and social and political movements.

The Project Editor will also:

Help manage an ongoing Special Coverage section to consolidate and organize content from the RuNet project.
Work closely with Global Voices' existing Russian-focused editorial editors and authors.
Cultivate relationships with Russian bloggers and writers, toward the same end.
Present at conferences and events pertaining to the Russian online world, as needed

Successful applicants will have the following qualifications:

Fluency in English and Russian. Articles will be published in English, with minimal editing. Writing samples will be required as part of the application.
Familiarity with the Russian blogosphere, Russian social networks, and Russian political, social, economic, and cultural trends.
Ability to report on, analyze, and explain the Russian online world, in English and Russian.
Have the ability to work independently, in an unstructured work environment, and to work with a virtual community.
Be computer literate, comfortable working with programmers and technical language. Programming/HTML knowledge not required but strong familiarity with the use of online social media tools (blogging platforms, aggregators, use of RSS feeds, and tagging) is important.

We will be seeking the right mix of skills and experience for these two positions. We will also have opportunities for more occasional research and analysis by other contributors The final make-up of the editorial team will depend on the interests and availability of applicants.

Interested candidates please send CV and Letter of Interest explaining why you'd be a good candidate for the job to: admin AT globalvoicesonline DOT org

Interpreting RuNet is funded by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.

Kyrgyzstan: Can a Blogger be the Fourth Branch of Government?

Chris Rickleton — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:50:52 +0000

Ilya Karimdjanov is a pest. Armed with a camera, a question and the most popular blog on Kyrgyzstan's most popular blogging platform, Kloop.kg, he is a one-man citizen media machine, the nemesis of rule-breaking cops, corrupt university teachers and the Kyrgyz monetary system. Well, someone has to keep them all in check, don't they?

Kyrgyzstan's weakened executive, unruly legislature and compromised judiciary are not renowned for enforcing their own rules and regulations. Indeed, state officials' disregard for due process is a feature of life in the country that can charm or frustrate foreign visitors to the country in equal measure. For citizens of the country, it is simply the daily minefield they must negotiate in order to get from home to work and back again.

Commissar Karimdjanov, as he has been referred to in the past, has made a habit of exposing these routine violations of law and protocol both on his blog and on the main news portal at Kloop.kg, where he works as a journalist. A recent example saw him “police” a female police officer who appeared to be drinking while in uniform at lunch time:

Karimdjanov: Look, she is drinking beer. Shall we go?

Colleague: Sure

Karimdjanov [to policewoman]: I hope you are not against us making a video. Why are you drinking beer in uniform? It is interesting for us, why is a police official drinking beer?

Policewoman: I have a praznik [celebratory day]

Karimdjanov: But you are on duty…

Policewoman: I understand that it is banned on duty but for one thing it is non-alcoholic…

Karimdjanov: It is not non-alcoholic, we asked the waitress….

Policewoman: It is non-alcoholic you can ask again, and secondly tomorrow is a praznik and [today is] my birthday. May I?

In the Facebook plugin beneath the posted video, Almaz Rakhimdinov noted [ru]:

Not for nothing Ilya Karimdjanov has the title of agent provocateur!

While Cholponbai Borubaeva said [ru]:

Interested to know what will happen to her - a warning or a sacking?

Rinat Shamstudinov argued:

The guys from Kloop [Karimdjanov and colleague, Zarema Sultanbekova] did good. But you should have taken a copy of the receipt because staff [of the police] may do anything possible to turn that Siberian Crown [alcoholic beer] into a Baltika ‘0′ [non-alcoholic].

This isn't the first time Karimdjanov's activities have earned him attention. Another recent video exposed on his blog posed the question [ru] ”Tiyini - Money No-one Needs?”

On that occasion Karimdjanov went around Bishkek with co-author Begimai Bolotbekova trying to spend tiyini, the much-loathed Kyrgyz equivalent of cents, pence and other smaller-than-small currency denominations. Refused by shopkeepers, stallholders and parking inspectors, he successfully exposed another law that doesn't work - that all denominations belonging to the national currency be accepted in cash transactions.*

Ilya's day-to-day blogging sees him defend the constitution [ru] (particularly article 33, allowing access to free information), expose corrupt university lecturers [ru] and make appeals [ru] for greater press responsibility. In this sense, he is like an onlime ombudsman, performing the functions the government, either through indifference or incompetence, doesn't.

But why does he bother? In response to a criticism by one commenter of his handling of the police-beer scandal, Karimdjanov replied [ru]:

I also thought to dismiss it at first. Just get up and leave, but my conscience would not allow me to. I know that nothing has fundamentally changed and it is unlikely to even be punished, but I have every right to approach such employees and to show them that they themselves are doing wrong.
All of us like to chew the fat and say that it is because of low salaries and all that. But fundamentally you don't even desire to do something useful. This is my country, the place my children will live ! And I will do everything possible so that before they arrive, I will make at least a few people, through examples like these, change the way they think about things and do what is correct! To sit back and criticize - is the easiest thing to do. But I respect your opinion, because my task was to convey information to you. I did this as a journalist, and how you perceive it - is up to you

* Fifty tiyin pieces, the eqivalent of 1 US cent, are accepted in the Kyrgyz supermarket chain ‘Narodni', an organization that fares pretty badly during coups in the country. Tourists in Bishkek may be forgiven for thinking that Narodni are entirely responsible for the circulation of this meloch, or small change, since only they seeem to dispense them, and only they seem to accept them….

Links to videos: 1, 2

Russia: Duma Deputy Wants Criminal Liability for Extremist Tweets

Kevin Rothrock — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:42:31 +0000

Yesterday, on May 14, Aleksandr Khinshtein [en], a Duma deputy and member of United Russia ('the party of power'), wrote a letter to Yuri Chaika [en], the Prosecutor General of Russia. In that letter, Khinshtein noted the “recent sharp rise in the number of calls for acts of violence against state officials and police officers” appearing in online social networks. Twitter and Facebook, he argued, “have effectively transformed into an instrument to coordinate the actions of extremists, becoming a channel for the dissemination of detailed instructions to their supporters.” The letter begins [ru]:

Прошу Вас принять меры к владельцам и пользователи аккаунтов в различных социальных интернет-сетях (русскоязычные сегменты Twitter и Facebook), активно содействовавшим в организации массовых беспорядков 6 мая 2012 года в г. Москве.

I ask you to take measures against the owners and users of accounts on various online social networks ([such as] the Russian language segments of Twitter and Facebook), who actively administered the organization of mass unrest on May 6, 2012, in Moscow.

Khinshtein added that bloggers are also using these services to advocate violence against “the legally elected President” and Russia's “constitutional order.” (Twitter user Lucius Aevus, for instance, wrote [ru] on April 24, “Buy weapons, stockpile food, join up, and kill Putin.”) Khinshtein called specifically for (1) the prevention of the further spread of such illegal, extremist online appeals, (2) the criminal prosecution of individuals who use social networks to disseminate extremism, and (3) any other measures legally necessary.

Screenshot of Khinshtein's official Duma webpage, 15 May 2012.

Hours after news of this petition caused a stir in the media, Khinshtein responded by publishing the full text of his letter to Chaika, claiming [ru] that his initiative is not a plea for political censorship. Khinshtein did not, however, publish the supplementary materials he attached to the letter, where he cataloged dozens of examples of bloggers advocating illegal activity. The list, to which online newspaper Gazeta.ru has access and has graciously summarized [ru], focuses on nationalist and liberal democratic oppositionists — some anonymous and others well-known.

First on the list is self-described “ultra-right” anonymous blogger odinzavseh (”one for all”), whom Khinshtein links to soccer hooligans, like the ones infamous for inciting a small ethnic riot in Moscow in December 2010. On Twitter, odinzavseh has called on protesters to beat up Putin-supporters and public figures Sergei Minaev and Konstantin Rykov. He also allegedly encouraged oppositionists to attack government buildings with Molotov cocktails on the night of May 8. Both these tweets were later deleted, though evidence of the former can still be found [ru] on Yandex. In what seems particularly outrageous to many bloggers, Khinshtein has claimed, as well, that retweeting (reposting another user's message) also carries criminal liability. Odinzavseh, for instance, retweeted user LailaMooore's call [ru] on protesters to slash the tires of police vans and bring weapons to protests.

Not one to exclude Russia's homegrown social networks, Khinshtein also cited “The Moscow Front,” a nationalist group based [ru] on VKontakte that advocated attacks on government buildings near Chistye Prudy on May 7. As soon as these allegations went public, the group published its thanks to Khinshtein for the “free publicity.” Several members immediately posted anti-Semitic comments, complaining, for example [ru], “You know, Khinshtein's Jewish snout pisses me off.”

Also gracing the list is Mikhail Svetov, Twitter user msvetov, a Russian student living in Japan, who has been an active virtual participant in the opposition protests. During the May 6 “Million Man March” at Bolonatia Square, Svetov tweeted:

Не выбрасывайте омоновские шлемы в реку, надевайте их на себя. Это броня, она вас защитит от полицейских дубинок.

Don't throw the police helmets into the river: wear them yourselves. They're armor, and will protect you from their nightsticks.

and:

Отнимайте у ОМОНа щиты, каски, дубинки, это уравнивает ваши шансы. Не нападайте на них, но отнимайте амуницию.

Take away the police's shields, helmets, nightsticks — this evens your chances. Don't attack them, but take away their ammunition.

Khinshtein also accused oppositionists Vitaly Shushkevich and Artem Chapaev of online extremism. On May 7, Chapaev tweeted:

Думаю, частью стратегии должна стать дальнейшая радикализация масс, чтобы перейти к тактике ощутимой городской герильи.

I think that further radicalization of the masses should become a part [of the opposition], in order to transition to urban guerilla tactics.

That same day, Shushkevich used his Twitter account to encourage [ru] protesters to bring coins to Chistye Prudy and throw them at police and “Nashists” (members of the pro-Kremlin youth). He also reposted several unsavory messages from Twitter users gruppa_voina, ponny1, papumaria, and moskless, including calls to spread the fear that “Moscow is out of control.”

The always irreverent artist collective Gruppa Voina [en] responded in typical fashion, quipping [ru] that its followers would soon be confronted by Khinshtein himself:

Друзья, вы все шутки шутите - но не забывайте - за КАЖДЫЙ РЕТВИТ с вас спросит @khinshtein в комнате допросов ближайшей к вашему дому тюрьмы

Friends, you're all having a laugh, but don't forget that for EVERY RETWEET Khinshtein will question you in the interrogation room of the prison nearest to your home.

Petr Verzilov, husband of Pussy Riot's imprisoned Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and a Voina member, sarcastically welcomed [ru] Khinshtein's efforts, saying that criminalizing retweets could become the “next step in the development of civil society and legal consciousness in our country.”

Aleksei Navalny is also on Khinshtein's list — included for a May 3 tweet [ru] that joked about burning down the Mayor's office. Navalny quoted the text of a Sergei Udaltsov tweet, altering the final line into a mock appeal for arson:

Чиновники из мэрии вышли на связь, обещают в течение часа согласовать марш. Если обманут – сожжем мэрию.

Officials from the Mayor's office have been in contact. They promise to approve the [May 6] march within an hour. If they're lying, we'll burn down city hall.

In reality, Udaltsov had written [ru]: “If they're lying, we'll make an announcement through the orgkomitet.”

Some RuNet voices have insisted that Khinshtein is asking the Prosecutor General to do something fundamentally beyond its legal authority, and is only causing a stir to grab a moment's publicity. In a series of identical tweets addressed to prominent RuNet bloggers, Yuri Suetin posted the scan [ru] of a letter from May 2011, where the FSB informs a certain Dmitri Goriugin that Russian law enforcement agencies are incapable of deleting or banning posts from Twitter. (Goriugin had apparently complained about personal insults directed at him, published online by pro-Kremlin blogger fritzmorgen — an account that ironically Twitter has since suspended.) Other users, however, were quick to point out that Khinshtein is citing anti-extremism laws that carry far more extensive police powers than Criminal Code 130 (to which Goriugin appealed).

Russian politician, Yuri Chaika, 8 December 2009, photo by Russian Presidential Press and Information Office, CC BY-SA 3.0; Wikimedia Commons.

Khinshtein's appeal to Chaika coincides with a draft project [ru] introduced to the Duma yesterday by United Russia deputies. The project denounces protesters who attacked police at Bolotnaia Square on May 6, and advocates criminal prosecution of those “responsible.”

The state's response to Khinshtein's letter will be an interesting test of the lengths to which the Kremlin is prepared to pressure oppositionists in their use of online social media. Services like Twitter and Facebook are widely credited with energizing the protest movement — indeed, the feasibility of recent mass demonstrations seems to have required these instruments. Likewise, heightened public scrutiny on the extremist content of oppositionists' blog posts and tweets will test the maturity and accountability of a space that until now has hosted language often violent and legally dubious according to Russian legislation.

Russia: Website Appears Publishing Civil Servants' Incomes

Siân Sinnott — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:22:41 +0000

The project “Public Profit” [ru] was established so that anyone interested could access information about the salaries of civil servants and state deputies. The information is compiled using public records and disclosed in accordance with Russian law.

In addition to general information about incomes, other interesting statistics can be found on the site, such as reports on individual government departments, as well as data about which civil servants own the biggest apartments.

Several of the facts revealed are nothing short of amazing.

Screen shot of Public Profit's website, 15 May 2012.

For example, Alexander V. Gilderman [ru], Deputy of the Administrative Department of Regional Sustainment, owns a house with land covering 4,433 square meters (1.1 acres).

However, the champion of real estate holdings is Igor I. Shuvalov [ru], whose total income exceeds 14,652,000 rubles (approximately 505,240 U.S. dollars), which only makes up less than 4% of his total family income.

The gap between spouses' earnings is a separate reason to reconsider the traditional family paradigm; Igor Suvalov's wife earns almost 25 times more than him, and Mrs. Sukhenko earns 60 times more than her husband, although their income is more modest by far.

The champion of all Russia's civil servants is Yuri Trutnev, who has earned a record-breaking 114 million rubles (3.7 million U.S. dollars) and change (and, in his case, there is more than a little change). Unfortunately, his income fell in 2010, but let's hope things will be okay. For now, his wife and four children (judging by their income declarations) can get away with not working for now.

Apart from that, we can only be happy for these people!

See the original article here [ru].

Russia: Yavlinsky Stir Reveals Opposition Rift

Kevin Rothrock — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:41:14 +0000

On May 10, Grigory Yavlinsky [en] controversially wrote [ru] in his LiveJournal blog that the Russian opposition's recent turn to more confrontational tactics is a bad omen for democracy. Yavlinsky, born the same year as Vladimir Putin, is one of Russian politics' oldest faces. He played a pivotal role in the immediate post-Soviet period, authoring important elements of Russia's transition to a free-market economy. Since the 1990s, Yavlinksy has been the face of Yabloko [en], Russia's original liberal democrat political party. In the Putin era, Yavlinsky's party has remained a curious outlier to both “systemic politics” and “nonsystemic politics,” having lost its Duma presence in 2007 but remaining an officially registered party that is still viewed by many oppositionists as compromised and pro-establishment.

Grigory Yavlinskiy, economist and politician, 15 Jan 2011, photo by Skilpaddle, CC BY-SA 3.0; Wikimedia Commons.

True to Yabloko's troubled past and present, Yavlinksy's May 10 blog post has upset many and pleased relatively few. While he made a point of praising protesters' bravery and placing “main responsibility” on the authorities ('those who falsify elections, propagate corruption and thievery,' etc.), many have focused exclusively on Yavlinsky's criticisms of the protest movement. Lenta.ru, for instance, ran an article [ru] titled, “Yavlinsky Declares Protests Meaningless.”

Yavlinsky's concerns with the new developments in Moscow protests center on spiking violence and a perceived drift away from politics. He writes:

При этом я считаю, что если у организаторов есть расчет на то, что жестокость омоновцев будет мультиплицировать количество желающих с ними сражаться, то это неверный расчет. Опыт Триумфальной показывает, что мультипликации не получится. Наоборот, люди перестанут ходить на митинги и шествия, если там льется кровь, если их там избивают. Неужели кто-то полагает, что можно чего-то добиться лобовым столкновением, гражданской войной?

[…]

САМИ ПО СЕБЕ ГРАЖДАНСКИЕ МИТИНГИ, АКЦИИ, ГУЛЯНИЯ И ПРОЧИЕ ФЛЕШМОБЫ, ПРИ ВСЕЙ ИХ ЧЕЛОВЕЧЕСКОЙ ДОСТОЙНОСТИ, ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИ НИЧЕГО НЕ ИЗМЕНЯТ И В СИЛУ СВОЕЙ БЕСПОМОЩНОСТИ БУДУТ ЧАСТО ПЕРЕРАСТАТЬ В ДРАКИ И СХВАТКИ. Разрастание насилия сделает ситуацию во всех отношениях гораздо хуже.

If organizers are counting on the brutality of riot police to multiply the number of people wishing to join their fight, I think that's a flawed count. The experience of Triumfalnaia [Square] shows that no such multiplication occurs. On the contrary, people stop coming to rallies and marches, if blood is being spilled there, or if people are being beaten. Do some people really believe that anything can be accomplished with a head-on collision, or a civil war?

[…]

BY ITSELF, CITIZEN DEMONSTRATIONS, RALLIES, WALKABOUTS, AND SIMILAR FLASHMOBS (WITH ALL THEIR HUMAN DIGNITY) WILL NOT CHANGE ANYTHING POLITICALLY, AND BY VIRTUE OF THEIR OWN IMPOTENCE WILL OFTEN ESCALATE INTO FIGHTING AND CRACKDOWNS. The spread of violence will make the situation much worse in every respect.

As an alternative to this brand of dissent, he proposes a response “personal, programmatic, idealogical, organized, professional, moral, AND POLITICAL,” saying that a gradual, long-term approach is the only real option:

Надо начинать заниматься серьезной политикой , выигрывать выборы и брать власть. Долго? Да, шесть лет очень долго, но раньше и мы ничего не успеем. И следует понимать - альтернатив будет не одна, а три: левая, демократическая и националисты. Какая победит - скажет народ.

We have to take up serious politics, win elections, and take power. Will it be a long time? Yes, six years is very long, but we'll not manage this any sooner. And it's worth understanding that there won't be just one alternative, but three: leftist, democratic, and nationalist. Which wins out, the people will say.

Reactions to Yavlinsky's comments have varied. Some bloggers have been less than polite. Anti-Putin LiveJournal user i_l_d responded [ru] simply: “Go screw yourself, Yavlinsky.” Nationalist blogger sinn-fein-front wrote [ru] gloatingly:

Ну вот и Явлинский, отчисливший Навального за национализм, в своем блоге на Эхе Москвы признал националистов равноценной силой протеста. Что ж, отрадно. Один за одним падают бастионы русофобии в публичной политике

Well look here: Yavlinsky, who expelled Navalny [from Yabloko] for his nationalism, has in his blog acknowledged that nationalists are equal members of the protest [movement]. Well, how pleasant. One by one, the bastions of russophobia in public politics are falling.

Prominent blogger Rustem Adagamov [en], linking to the above-mentioned Lenta.ru article (not Yavlinsky's original text), tweeted [ru]:

Вот и Явлинский! http://lenta.ru/news/2012/05/10/yavl/ “Надо начинать заниматься серьезной политикой” Вау, а 16 лет до этого—это что было?

And here's Yavlinksy! [link to the Lenta.ru story] “We have to take up serious politics.” Wow, and the last 16 years — what was all that?

Dmitri Ivanov, a political satirist from the website CarambaTV.ru [ru], a webtv project, tweeted [ru]:

Явлинский заявил о бессмысленности митингов. Митинги заявили о бессмысленности Явлинского

Yavlinsky has declared the meaninglessness of the protests. The protests have declared the meaninglessness of Yavlinsky.

Despite the backlash against a politician infamous for upsetting pro-Kremlin and oppositionist figures alike, support for Yavlinsky also exists on the RuNet. Some of his supporters are predictable, like Ivan Bolshakov, a deputy chairman of Yabloko's Moscow branch, who faulted [ru] critics for taking Yavlinsky's words out of context:

И каким же надо быть простачком (или сознательным дискредитатором?), чтобы этот смысл извратить до «Явлинский – против митингов» и фактически приравнять заявление Явлинского к позиции Путина его дружков!?

What kind of simpleton (or conscious discreditor) does one have to be to distort this into ‘Yavlinksy is against the demonstrations' and equate his statement with the position of Putin and his buddies!?

Vladimir Milov [en], another prominent oppositionist politician who briefly served in the Russian government as Deputy Energy Minister in 2002, is another figure who has publicized his disdain for street confrontations. He tweeted [ru] a mild attack on Lenta.ru and announced his support for Yavlinsky's comments:

Вот образчик типичного наглого хипстерского вранья http://www.lenta.ru/news/2012/05/10/yavl/ а вот оригинал, с которым я полностью согласен http://gr-yavlinsky.livejournal.com/43985.html

Here's a sample of some typical, obnoxious, hipster baloney [link to Lenta.ru story] and here's the original, with which I agree entirely [link to Yavlinsky's blog].

In the aftermath of parliamentary elections, between December 2011 and February 2012, the Russian opposition experienced an explosion of mass popularity that disadvantaged professional politicians like Yavlinsky and Milov, whose careers (or ‘activism,' if one prefers) are fixed on evolutionary improvements to Russian society and governance. Theirs is the politics of policy and statecraft — what critics view as regime-collaboration and allies see as realistic, constructive work.

Current developments in Russia's protest movement have widened the gap between populist dramatics and nuts-and-bolts politics. Consequentially, Yavlinsky's blog-post scandal is symptomatic of a growing rift between guards Old and New. And, yet, men like Milov are fairly young. (He turns forty this summer.) The question is less about age than temperament and tactical preferences. Does one work ‘within the system' for gradual change — a relatively thankless task with only distant satisfaction — or, to borrow a phrase from Yavlinsky, opt for more aggressive “head-on collisions”?

Russia: Ustream.tv Attacked Over Russian Blogger

Andrey Tselikov — Thu, 10 May 2012 00:41:55 +0000

On the morning of May 9, 2012, unknown parties launched a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on the live feed website Ustream.tv. According to Victoria Levy of Ustream.tv, the attack took place from thousands of unique IPs, based in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Iran. It was centered on one particular user, reggamortis1 [ru], who for the past four days has been covering opposition rallies and protests in Moscow.

Although Ustream.tv began operating normally after ten hours of downtime, the reggamortis1 channel remained inaccessible for several more hours. CEO Brad Hunstable said in an interview with Global Voices that this was the most serious DDoS attack on the website ever.

Screenshot of Ustream.tv's homepage featuring reggamortis1's coverage of the protests in Moscow.

Ustream.tv makes it very easy to run live-streaming broadcasts from smart-phones, making it an invaluable resource for bloggers around the world. It reaches 55 million people monthly, and a staggering 125 hours of content are uploaded to the site per minute. Ustream’s mission, says Mr. Hunstable, is to provide a platform for people to share stories and build communities.

True to this mission, Russian citizen journalists like Kirill Mikhailov, aka reggamortis1, who also tweets at @reggaemortis1 [ru] and blogs at reggae-mortis.livejournal.com [ru], have been utilizing the service to report on recent Russian protests in lieu of coverage by official Russian television networks.

One such live broadcast, by user vova-moskva [ru], gained traction through Twitter on March 5. It covered the situation on Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow during the rally against Vladimir Putin’s reelection.

Mikhailov blogged about the need for such action [ru] on February 29:

From every square we will need to maintain constant coverage and concentrate it in one place. But that’s for the future.

At this point Mikhailov was slightly behind the times. The Ustream.tv channel of Ridus, a Russian citizen journalism platform, has been posting live feeds of protests starting last December, and has since collected well over two million live views.

This type of guerilla reporting is in line with the general trend of internet-based news coverage in Russia. For example, tvrain.ru [ru] is a liberal-leaning online television channel that often interviews opposition leaders and hosts them on its talk shows. It recently provided a platform [ru] for new opposition darling Ksenia Sobchak after her political debate show had been forced out from mainstream television.

On the other side of the barricades, MinaevLive [ru] is a live-streaming “internet-show” run by Sergei Minaev, a Russian writer and blogger with reputed ties to the Kremlin. His from-the-rooftops YouTube coverage of the May 6 March of the Millions was a four-hour bird’s eye view of the conflict and its development. (A compressed and sped-up 4-minute YouTube version is located here.)

The current DDoS attack on Ustream.tv is consistent with other attacks on Russian opposition websites and social networks. RuNet Echo has previously covered DDoS attacks against Russian opposition media and blogs during the Russian parliamentary elections last December. Ridus’ Ustream.tv channel was likewise DDoS’d on December 6 and January 6.

Attacks on online media were most recently repeated during the March of the Millions. “The tvrain.ru website isn’t working, and so are the sites of Slon [slon.ru] and Echo Moskvy [echo.msk.ru],” tweeted @tvrain [ru] on May 6.

On the same day, General Director of Kommersant, Demian Kudriavtsev, warned on his Facebook [ru] that the daily newspaper’s website was under a DDoS attack. Echo’s Varfolomeev gave the same reason [ru] for his site’s erratic behavior.

Perhaps because of this Mikhailov, an opposition activist from Ufa [ru] who charmingly calls himself “Navalny’s battle-hamster,” doesn’t put all of his eggs in one basket. Although he has been using Ustream.tv since April 15 [ru], during the May 9 attack on his channel he switched to a Bambuser.com account (Bambuser is a streaming service similar to Ustream) to continue his coverage. On his blog he also lists the Ustream channel of his colleague, romanpomych, whose stream was up while Mikhailov’s was down.

Before his current project, Mikhailov had been covering the Astrakhan hunger strike (Global Voices coverage is here and here), in which he participated as one of the strikers. Incredibly, he is conducting another hunger strike [ru] at the moment, even as he is running around Moscow and reporting. Amidst all of this activity, Mikhailov has found time to write an email [ru] to Ustream.tv, in which he implicates the Russian government and the youth group Nashi in the attacks:

[…] Russia actively tracks the current events thanks to your website. This is the only source of communication, thanks to which we will find out how Putin is killing our citizens. […] Your site currently doesn’t work only because of these bastards – kremlin.ru and nashi.su. These people, under Putin’s orders, rob the people of information and are trying to hide the mayhem happening in the capital of Russia and are conducting a DDoS attack against ustream.tv.

Brad Hunstable also finds the attack very disturbing. To him, someone is trying to take away the right of global citizens to speak and be heard, in essence subverting his company’s mission. Currently, Ustream.tv is debating the best response to the situation. In the meantime, and in a gesture of defiance, they have added a Russian-language option to the website:

Russia: Charity Crowdfunding

Catherine Lawlor — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:39:59 +0000

Private Charity: the Situation in Russia

The main representatives of the ‘third sector economy' are non-profit organizations and independent voluntary bodies. Despite the obvious importance of the contributions from volunteers, charities, and NGOs to the resolution of social, ecological, and legal problems (among others), their status is extremely unstable. The activities of NGOs are severely restricted by legal regulations, and their financial situation depends mainly on the generosity of individual donors and businesses.

Last year, Russia moved up from 138th to 130th place in the annual ‘World Giving Index' [ru] compiled by the Charity Aid Foundation (CAF). Each country's ranking is based on several indicators: private individuals' donations, voluntary work, and impromptu charitable acts (for example, giving money to beggars). Despite Russia's moving up on the list, the situation cannot be considered favorable for the charity sector.

In terms of charitable donations in Russia, business contributions remain incomparably higher than private donations. This can be explained by the fashionableness of corporate social responsibility (which in one form or another exists today even in small businesses), as well as the fact that large corporations are obliged to fulfill certain budgetary redistributions in the regions where they maintain a presence.

No provision is made in Russia for tax breaks or other incentives for donors, and — despite the best efforts of the non-profit sector to expand through social media and the wider mass media — there are very few successful cases. This is possibly because ideas about mutual aid and voluntary participation in the resolution of problems that are not one's ‘own' have yet to become mainstream.

According to the research carried out, only 5% of those questioned across Russia donate to charity. Certainly, on a national scale, this seems insignificant. But this is not to say that there is a lack of successful ‘people' projects, financed by private philanthropy. While much activity exists only in cyberspace, the effects of charitable organizations' work is quite tangible and real, and confidence in these groups is undiminished. The proof: the Tugeza [ru] (”Together”) community.

“Togetha: Suddenly Inflicting Good!”

The section on the official Tugeza site, titled ‘Who Is Doing This?' states the following:

Нас часто с опаской спрашивают: «Кто вы, ребята?» Мы теряемся, краснеем и не знаем, что ответить в двух словах. Мы не религиозная секта, не политическая партия, не благотворительный фонд, да чего уж там, мы даже плохо знаем друг друга.

We are often cautiously asked, ‘Who are you guys?' We get a bit lost, blush, and don't know how to sum it up in a nutshell. We are not a religious sect, a political party, or a philanthropic fund; really, we don't even know each other all that well.

Tugeza began its life on the blog dirty.ru [ru] and eventually became, on August 7, 2010, a volunteer project. The names of the organizers are not a trade secret, but finding them is practically impossible. This is on purpose, as Tugeza is not a hierarchical structure but a ‘charitable anarcho-syndicate,' as it is called by its creators.

Screenshot of Togeza's website, 9 May 2012.

Tugeza is now a community without leaders. The running and moderation of the portal is handled by coordinators: the founding fathers and newer volunteers, whose participation is strongly encouraged. Sometimes this coordination is carried out on a regional basis and the monitoring of activities being carried out is taken on by volunteers who live not far from (or at least closest to) to the location where the aid is being directed.

Tugeza helps to attract financing for projects all over Russia that are diverse in both theme and scale: at the moment, volunteers are raising funds for a rehabilitation and education complex in Kaluga [ru] and last month helped an equine therapy center in the Pskov region [ru].

The technology on which the work of Tugeza is built is called crowdfunding [ru]: the collective collaboration of people who voluntarily pool their money or other resources (as a rule, via the Internet) in order to support the efforts of other people or organizations.

How Tugeza works

It all begins with a discussion through the community's social networks: who needs help? And what kind of help? Each project is jointly organized, so that anyone wishing to can make a contribution and share what they have to offer — transport, for example, or the possibility of helping not by collecting money but by donating unneeded clothing, a drumkit, for instance, or bringing friends along to volunteer. This way, as practice shows, significant resources can be shared: time, as well as money.

Next comes the most interesting part: information about the new project is posted on the Tugeza site, such as how much money must be raised and the timeframe involved, what it is being spent on, and who is being helped. Sometimes the beneficiaries are located in isolated rural regions where there is no Internet access, without the chance to comment on what is going on or take part in the fundraising themselves. In such cases, this work is undertaken by Tugeza organizers, who more often than not remain behind the scenes.

All funds are raised virtually, via e-wallet. On the one hand this complicates fundraising (not everyone has an e-wallet) but, on the other, it makes it simple to keep track of things. Tugeza fights the mistrust of e-payments and, even moreso, of ‘e-philanthropy' as best they can: they have released data regarding the proceeds of their Yandex e-wallet, so that everyone can see that their donations have been received. After the completion of the project, they can see on the same site how their money has been spent.

Original [ru]

Russia: Putin's Return Rouses Online Polemics

Donna Welles — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:03:03 +0000

In the wake of protests against Vladimir Putin's inauguration, the reactions of Russian bloggers demonstrate a wide spectrum of opinion online. That oppositionist activism has suddenly taken on a more radical tone has only further inflamed the passions of already polemicized observers.

In the Eyes of History

Certain bloggers have raised vivid, though not always convincing, historical analogies in their posts about the May 6 protests.

Vladislav Naganov, oppositionist blogger and frequent author at Novaya Gazeta, authored a post [ru] titled, “This is War,” where he compared police brutality on May 6 to the French invasion in 1812, as well as the Nazi offensive in 1941:

Скажу сурово, без прикрас – как оно есть. Это – война. Идёт битва за Россию. Я надеюсь, что каждый, кто до сих пор этого не понимал – теперь, наконец, это понял. Уже сброшены все маски. Расставлены все точки над «i». Отныне война народу объявлена публично.

I'll say this harshly and without embellishment — just how it is: this is war. The battle for Russia is underway. I hope that each person, who didn't understand this before, finally understands now. Everyone's true colors are at last revealed. All the i's have been dotted. From here on out, war has been declared publicly on the people.

In a post [ru] titled, “The Bloody Sunday of the 21st Century,” blogger Sparkman likened the violence outside Bolotnaia Square to the 1905 massacre [en] of protesters outside Tsar Nicholas II's Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

Собственно, ведь и демонстрация 9 января 1905 года рассматривалась не как начало Революции, но как последний всплеск петиционной кампании, начатой осенью 1904 года – сперва банкетами во славу призывов к реформам, затем принятием либеральных обращений от имени земств, адвокатских и профессорских собраний.

In fact, the actual demonstration on January 9, 1905, is seen not as the beginning of the [Bolshevik] Revolution, but as the final episode of the petitions campaign, which first began in 1904 as a series of banquets celebrating the calls for reform, and then grew into various liberal public appeals from groups of councilmen, lawyers, and professors.

What It Means For the Future

Putin and his wife in the Kremlin's Cathedral Square in Moscow after the inauguration ceremony, (7 May 2012), photo by the Presidential Press and Information Office, CC BY-SA 3.0; Wikimedia Commons.

Rather than turn to the Imperial or Soviet past, other bloggers have focused instead on what the current protests mean for Russia's future.

Viacheslav Egorov, who blogs as jurist_egorov, discussed the recent violence in a post [ru] titled, “Who Scares the Authorities?” exploring possible motives for what he believes was excessive police force:

Чего она боится, заставляя полицию применять слезоточивый газ, избивать митингующих, задерживать спокойно сидящих на земле оппозиционеров Навального и Удальцова, задерживать сейчас спокойно митингующих на «народных гуляниях» Алексея Навального и Ксению Собчак??? Чего боится Власть? Чего боится Король? Революции? Бунта уставшего народа? Так бунт неизбежен, если Власть будет так вести себя. Революция неизбежна, если Правительство (новое) и Король (старый новый) не станут прислушиваться к своему народу!!!

What are the authorities so afraid of that they force the police to use tear gas, to beat protesters, to detain the oppositionists Navalny and Udaltsov, who sat calmly on the ground, and now to detain Aleksei Navalny and Ksenia Sobchak as they protest calmly in the ‘people's walks'??? What are the authorities so afraid of? What is the King so afraid of? Revolution? A rebellion of Russia's weary people? Ah, but a rebellion is inevitable, if the authorities continue to behave as they have. And a revolution is inevitable, if the Government (the new one) and the King (the old-new one) don't learn to listen to their own people!!!

Blogger Nazavrik reviewed [ru] a controversial statement made by President Putin's Press Secretary, Dmitri Peskov, who said that police displayed too much self-control and should have used greater force against the May 6 protesters. Nazavrik posted photos of similar police measures used against crowds in Italy and Chile, arguing cynically that Moscow's police are increasingly eager to hone their skills studying the West's police history:

Он прав. У нашего омона пока ещё недостаточно опыта для разгона массовых мероприятий. На Западе давно уже отточены все действия по применению газа, резиновых пуль, провокаторов, водомётов и прочей спец.техники. На Западе в этом плане и законы жёстче и полномочий побольше. […] Но теперь, когда стабильность вновь воцариалась в стране, наш омон быстро нагонит зарубежных коллег и все приёмы, годами репетируемые на учениях, отработает на протестующих, действуя жёстко в угоду переживаниям Пескова.

[Peskov] is right. Our riot police still lack the experience to disperse mass public events. In the West, they have already fine-tuned the use of [tear] gas, rubber bullets, provocateurs, watercanons, and other special tactics. In the West, in this respect, the laws are stricter and the police powers are greater. […] Now, however, when stability in the country reigns again, our riot police will quickly overtake their colleagues abroad, and every technique they've spent years studying and rehearsing will be employed against the protesters, and done so severely, in order to allay Peskov's worries.

A Digital Delusion?

Other bloggers have pointed out that Moscow's street demonstrations are far from the concerns of average citizens, dismissing as hysteria rumors about “revolution.” In a reversal of the typical oppositionist claim that digital and citizen media breaks through censorship to reveal a truer picture of everyday life, Dmitri Kotukov argues [ru] that protesters have constructed a false reality by tweeting and writing endlessly about their adventures with the police:

Несколько дней практически не открывал ноутбук, не использовал айпад, короче как и положено в праздники - отдыхал. Сегодня открыл ленту и удивился. Читаю все эти надрывные истории о столкновениях непонятных людей с ОМОНом, какие-то нелепые призывы куда-то выйти, про марши миллионов-триллионов, революции […]. […] Что самое удивительное, эта видимость существует только в инете. В реалии люди отдыхают, радуются весне, гуляют, встречаются на праздники.

For a few days, I practically didn't open my laptop, didn't use my iPad, and — in short and as is appropriate during the holidays — I relaxed. Today I looked at the headlines and was surprised. I'm reading all these hysterical stories about clashes between these incomprehensible people and the police, about various absurd calls to march off somewhere, about million-man marches and trillion-man marches, [and] revolution […]. […] The most remarkable thing is that this illusion exists only on the Internet. In reality, people are relaxing, enjoying the spring, taking walks, and meeting for the holidays.

Russia: Open Hostility in Moscow Surrounding Putin's Inauguration

Donna Welles — Tue, 08 May 2012 10:52:46 +0000

Both civilians and those charged with keeping order in the city displayed open hostility on Sunday, May 6, when protesters took to the streets of Moscow in anticipation of Vladimir Putin's inauguration.

Russian LJ user gyperbol provided [ru] readers with a detailed city map where the events of the day took place, along with the following numbered explanations:

1. Демонстранты пришли по Большой Полянке.

1. Demonstrators arrived along Bolshaya Polyanka St.

2. Поперек улицы Серафимовича от «Ударника» до угла сквера тянулась тройная цепь ОМОНовцев и солдат внутренних войск.

2. Across Serafimovich St. from the «Udarnik» [movie thater] to the corner of the park ran a triple chain of riot police and soldiers of internal troops.

3. Болотная площадь также была оцеплена и никого туда не пускали. Демонстрантов загоняли на Болотную набережную.

3. Bolotnaya Square was also blocked off and nobody was allowed in there. Demonstrators were driven to Bolotnaya Embankment.

4. Мосты, ведущие в центр, были перекрыты грузовиками и огромными кордонами ОМОНа.

4. Bridges leading to the center were blocked by trucks and huge cordons of riot police.

5. Сцена находилась далеко в стороне, в конце узкого коридора Болотной Набережной.

5. The stage was located far away, at the end of the narrow corridor of Bolotnaya Embankment.

6. Проход к сцене был перекрыт рамками металлоискателей. […]

6. The entrance to the stage was blocked by a metal detector. […]

The Russian blogosphere has surged with photographs and videos of the events that followed when protesters clashed with police.

LJ user berendeishche published several photographs of the more peaceful events of the day, including the sit-in.

Twitter users spread around a ridus.ru article [ru], which included several powerful photographs of people being arrested. One video that appeared (see below) on Twitter showed a giant crowd pushing against a police barricade. (More of May 6 Twitter reactions [ru, en] are here.)

Novaya Gazeta's Facebook page posted photographs from one of their articles [ru]. User Nickolai G. Bondarenko, in a comment, included a link to a YouTube video (see below) that showed police using force.

RIA Novosti, a state-owned Russian news agency, published an article on Sunday titled, “Moscow Riots Show Anti-Putin Drive Sustainable – Pundits” along with a photo gallery of images from the day.

Many bloggers have already begun to analyze both the immediate and long-term causes of the clash.

Activist Yevgeniya Chirikova discussed [ru] what she viewed as the two immediate causes of Sunday's events:

1)Сотни тысяч людей вышли зимой на площади с вполне конкретными, осмысленными и реализуемыми требованиями - реформы избирательной системы, перевыборов, отставки Чурова, освобождения политзаключенных. НИ ОДНО из этих требований не было выполнено

2) Преступное и бессмысленное решение полицейского руководства начать разгон “сидячей забастовки” (вероятно, санкционированное на “самом верху”, судя по заявлениям Пескова) - которое, собственно, и запустило насилие

1) Hundreds of thousands of people came out [to protest] last winter with concrete, sensible, and realistic demands - reforms of the electoral system, a re-vote, resignation of [the head of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov], and the release of political prisoners. NONE of these demands has been honored. […]2) The criminal and pointless decision made by the police authorities to break up the “sit-in” (probably sanctioned at [the highest level], judging by the statements of [Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin's spokesperson]) - that, in fact, was what set the violence in motion.

LJ user drugoi further condensed [ru] the causes of Sunday's events:

Я думаю, что настоящий виновник произошедшего — нынешняя власть, которая, выкрутив народу руки, устроила жалкое посмешище из основного инструмента управления демократическим государством — выборов. Сначала парламентских, а потом президентских. Люди чувствуют себя обманутыми и точка кипения вчера пришлась на Болотную.

I think that the true culprit of the events is the current regime, which, by twisting the people's arms, organized a pathetic mockery of the basic instrument of managing a democratic state - the elections. At first it was the parliamentary, and later the presidential elections. The people feel cheated, and the boiling point came at Bolotnaya yesterday.

Russia: Violence Plunges Opposition into Debate About Tactics

Kevin Rothrock — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:17:13 +0000

Yesterday, the Russian opposition's mass protests against Vladimir Putin for the first time produced mass violence. Dozens of protesters and police officers alike reported injuries, with several on each side requiring hospitalization.

The countless aspects and minutia of Moscow's “Million Man March” (which attracted about a tenth of that many people, according to the very highest estimates) are already the subject of immeasurable debate, which generally orbits the question of responsibility for the fighting. Why did yesterday's rally at Bolotnaia Square, the site of two previous peaceful demonstrations, end with blood spilled and Muscovites brawling?

One of the most important sticking points in the interpretation of events has been organizer Sergei Udaltsov's decision to conduct a sit-in outside the Square, which some call a provocation and others believe to have been a necessary response to police force.

Journalist and popular blogger Oleg Kashin published an article [ru] hours after the violence, endorsing the sit-in, and thanking Udaltsov and Aleksei Navalny (who also participated) for injecting the protest movement with new energy. In the article, Kashin compared the opposition's situation to that of the protagonist of the 1994 Russian film “Burnt by the Sun“, where a naive Soviet general is betrayed by Stalinism and arrested by the secret police.

The hero of that movie had behaved as though the state was just, right up until he had his face bashed in by a NKVD agent. By abandoning the usual moderate speakers of past demonstrations, Kashin argues that the “Million Man March” succeeded in revealing the true nature of today's Russian authorities:

Но что знаю точно — что если бы это был митинг, как в марте на Пушкинской или на Новом Арбате, мне было бы за него стыдно, хоть я к нему и не имел никакого отношения. Но Удальцов, Навальный и прочие сели на асфальт, и, благодаря этому, мне теперь стыдно за то, что меня не было рядом с ними.

But I know for certain that, if [the usual speakers] had been at the rally (like they were in March at Pushkin Square or at Novyi Arbat), then I'd be ashamed for them, even though I wasn't involved. But Udaltsov, Navalny, and others sat on the pavement, and because of that I'm ashamed because I wasn't out there beside them.

Kashin's attitude, the embrace of more confrontational tactics, is shared by many, including perennial dissident and controversial figure Eduard Limonov, who declared [ru] in his LiveJournal relievedly, “At last the protest [movement] has radicalized,” concluding, “After what happened today, there's no longer any doubt (in case anyone still had some) that a Revolution is underway in Russia.”

Oppositionist blogger and favorite of Navalny's, Vladislav Naganov, exceeded his own typically alarmist tone when he titled his most recent blog post [ru], “This Is War,” comparing yesterday's clashes to the Nazi invasion of the USSR in 1941.

In a comment [ru] on the website Snob.ru, typically oppositionist Elena Panfilova, the director of Transparency International Russia, challenged demonstration leaders' version of events, claiming that the sit-in was clearly planned in advance, and not in response to police restricting access into Bolotnaia Square:

[…] немаленькой группы людей, был план продемонстрировать свою силу, показать, что они могут делать все, что считают нужным. […] Я пришла как наблюдатель от Общественной палаты и увидела, как огромное количество людей, пройдя всю Якиманку, поворачивает на Болотную. И на повороте стало видно, что организованные колонны остановились посредине моста и не сворачивают. Их обтекали справа и слева “неорганизованные”, а они стояли. В этот момент стало ясно, что у стоящих людей есть план: продемонстрировать силу протестного движения […].

[…] it was a small group's plan to demonstrate their own strength and show that they can do everything they think necessary. […] I was there as an observer from the Public Chamber, and I saw the large number of people coming down Yakimanka Street and turning down Bolotnaia. At the intersection, it became clear that organized columns of people had stopped in the middle of the [Malyi Kamennyi] Bridge and weren't turning off. To the right and the left, ‘unorganized' [protesters] were walking around them, but these columns of people just stood there. At this moment, it became clear that those standing had a plan: demonstrate the strength of the protest movement […].

“They deceived people!” Panfilova explained, criticizing the rally's organizers for deliberately staging a scene that would flood the crowd with “adrenaline.”

Russian celebrity and recent oppositionist figure Ksenia Sobchak also weighed in on the sit-in, despite not attending yesterday's rally. “I'll say openly,” she wrote [ru] in her blog, “why I decided not to go: because I knew in advance that the main objective would be standing on the bridge, charging the police lines, and conducting a sit-in.”

Echoing Panfilova's critique, Sobchak affirmed her commitment to peaceful resistance and gradual “perestroika,” rejecting the radicalization of protest tactics.

The events of Moscow's “Million Man March,” which clearly divide oppositionists and pro-Kremlin activists, will also exacerbate the internal frictions among the anti-Putin protesters. That prominent figures are openly contesting the merit of more confrontational methods is proof of the opposition's commitment to transparent discussion, but fissures this ‘radicalization' is already aggravating could prove more weakening than empowering.

Ksenia Sobchak, for her part, maintains hope in the salvation powers of the Internet, writing on LiveJournal, “Please, Mother of God, send Putin a computer — it's the last chance we've got.”

Russia: Surprise Resignations Threaten New Governor Elections

Andrey Tselikov — Mon, 07 May 2012 09:02:06 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage International Relations & Security.

On April 25, 2012, the Russian Duma passed a law [ru] that restored direct gubernatorial elections (elections of governors) to Russia's federal subjects, reversing a policy of direct presidential appointments. The law is one of several concessions President Dmitry Medvedev offered in response to the Bolotnaya Square protests last winter.

However, on April 28, Medvedev accepted the resignations [ru] of the Governors of Permskiy Krai and Yaroslavkaya Oblast. These resignations have sparked outrage from opposition bloggers who believe that the Kremlin is reneging on promises to loosen its grip on central power.

The Russian Federation is composed of 83 “federal subjects” that are a mix of Republics, Oblasts and Krais with various degrees of autonomy. During the tumultuous decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union some of them gained a large measure of independence. Some, like the Chechen Republic, tried to leave the Federation altogether.

The State Duma — the house of parliament of the Russian Federation. By Michael Chu on flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

After becoming President, Vladimir Putin consolidated central authority, a campaign that culminated in 2005 with presidential appointments of hitherto elected federal governors. These appointments were a cornerstone of Putin’s “power vertical” framework, and as such, a return to elections seemed welcome reform.

Russian bloggers began to question these reforms even as the new legislation was moving through the Duma. They pointed to recent resignations by several governors, and the interim appointment of new ones.

Some of these resignations, like that of the longtime Governor of Moscow Oblast, Boris Gromov are particularly suspect. As Governor Gromov’s term was coming to an end in 2012, his seat would have been contested in the new elections.

General Boris Gromov, Governor of Moscow Oblast (2006) Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev (CC BY-SA 2.5)

But with the appointment of his replacement elections will not happen for another five years. Opposition activist/blogger Oleg Kozyrev calls this “electoral theft” [ru] and a conscious plan of deception.

Indeed, 6 of the 14 governors whose seats would be eligible for elections in 2012 [ru] have so far resigned. However, not until the resignation of Perm’s Oleg Chirkunov, and the interim appointment of Viktor Basargin, has there been a larger public outcry.

Although Chrikunov’s appointment would have lasted until 2015, he decided that he would resign early to make way for elections [ru]. Yet because the resignation took place earlier than expected, most analysts believe Basargin will become governor by appointment.

As political strategist Gleb Pavlovsky told a Perm website, once Basargin has established himself, “he will head the region, whether Perm wills it or not.” [ru]

Residents of Permskiy Krai view this as a betrayal, states a resolution [ru] by the Perm Coalition for Direct Elections [ru]:

The replacement of the head of the region using an old procedure… is a political insult and disrespect towards the citizens… of a three million strong region that has earned these elections and is already actively preparing for them.

The Coalition is using social networks to organize a protest march on May Day as part of a campaign to make sure elections do take place.

But not everyone believes that the epidemic of resignations is solely an attempt to delay local elections for a few more years [ru]. Although six of the resignations came from governors with expiring terms, six more have resigned without such pressure. And, although former minister Shoigu was appointed to replace Gromov in Moscow Oblast, polls show that he would have won had he run, notes Echo Moskvy blogger Boris Nadezhdin [ru].

Economist and blogger Sergei Aleksashenko believes that Chirkunov was forced out for delivering low results in recent parliamentary elections [ru]. Indeed, the resigned governors share one trait – Putin's party, United Russia, won less than 40% of the vote in these regions last December [ru].

In some ways this scenario is worse. If the “resignations” are in fact punishments for electoral loss or refusal to falsify elections, the Kremlin is definitely consolidating power, and not devolving it.

This post and its translations to Spanish, Arabic and French were commissioned by International Security Network (ISN) as part of a partnership to seek out citizen voices on international relations and security issues worldwide.

Visit the ISN blog and see more related stories.

Russia: Varlamov's Failure in Omsk

Kevin Rothrock — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:32:19 +0000

Ilya Varlamov, the Moscow photographer and popular blogger whom an online primary nominated last month to run for mayor of Omsk, has ended his election campaign. On May 2, Varlamov's campaign chief, fellow blogger Maksim Kats, announced the decision, claiming that it was impossible to collect the necessary 10,000 signatures to officially register Varlamov for the election. Kats lashed out at Omsk's other candidates, writing:

Мы закрыли кампанию. […] Совершенно ясно, что все подписи за всех остальных кандидатов рисованые — все платные сборщики, к которым мы сегодня обратились (к нам в штаб житель Омска принес 40,000 рублей и предложил заплатить волонтерам за сбор подписей), все платные сборщики сообщали, что “ну вы же понимаете как это делается? У нас тут база…”. Именно так собираются 10,000 подписей за 6 дней.

We have closed down the campaign. […] It's absolutely clear that all the signatures for all the other candidates are forged. All the paid collectors, whom we contacted today (an Omsk local came to our headquarters with 40,000 rubles [1,300 USD] and suggested that we pay volunteers to collect signatures), all these paid collectors told us, ‘Well, don't you understand how this is done? We have a base here [of forged signatures]….” And that is precisely how 10,000 signatures are collected in six days.

In his own blog, Varlamov defended the choice to quit the election, saying:

Начинать кампанию с жульничества - это первый шаг к грязной политике, к которой мы все привыкли. Потом нужно будет платить за компромат, нужно платить журналистам на правильные статьи, нужно платить судам, полиции и так далее. Эта не та игра, в которую мы хотим играть.

To begin a campaign with fraud is the first step toward the dirty politics that we're all used to. Next, we'd need to pay to dig up dirt on our opponents. Then, we'd need to pay journalists for favorable articles, and then pay the judges, and then the police, and so on. This isn't the game we want to play.

When Varlamov entered Omsk's mayoral race, he provoked a serious rift between the Russian opposition's supporters and opponents of ‘blogger politicians.' Now that he's abandoned the race, the debate has only grown more heated.

Before Varlamov ended his campaign, a schism [ru] broke out between oppositionists when Vladislav Inozemtsev ignored his promise to stay out of the Omsk race, after failing to win the nomination in the online primary. Anti-Kremlin blogger and longtime primaries-supporter Aleksei Navalny sided with Varlamov. Vladimir Milov's group DemVybory, on the other hand, backed Inozemtsev, who belongs to the organization.

Varlamov's decision to cancel his campaign — particularly that he did so with still nearly a week left to collect signatures — has dealt a significant blow to Navalny and those who have championed the real-world political potential of bloggers and online activists. While Navalny has emphasized the campaign's success in drawing a new level of attention to primaries and political life, he criticized Varlamov for his apparent ignorance in beginning something he was unprepared to finish:

Сбор подписей - специальная процедура, которая придумана жуликами из Кремля и ЦИКа, чтобы не пускать на выборы неугодных. Собрать их правильно практически невозможно. Ну так мы все это и раньше знали. Вы же сами решили сыграть в эту игру.

Если в игру играть не хотите, то надо не на выборы мэра Омска идти, а на митинги “За честные выборы”. Потому и митингуем, чтобы отменили весь этот бред и допустили до выборов всех желающих, а ограничения были разумны.

The collection of signatures is a special procedure concocted by the cardsharps in the Kremlin and the Central Elections Commission to bar undesirables from elections. Collecting the necessary quantity truly is a practical impossibility. But we all already knew that. You're the ones who decided to play this game.

If you don't want to play the game, then you needn't enter Omsk's mayoral race. Instead, you belong at a ‘For Honest Elections' rally. That's exactly why we protest: to end all this crap and all the unreasonable restrictions, and allow into elections anybody who wants to run.

Navalny went on to anticipate correctly that some traditional oppositionists would use Varlamov's half-baked campaign to advocate formal congresses instead of online primaries to nominate the movement's leaders. Finally, Navalny criticized the Omsk primary for a lack of debates, which he believes would have exposed Varlamov's untenable approach to collecting signatures.

Russian blogger Ilya Varlamov in Moscow. Photo by VITALIY RAGULIN, (04/08/11) CC BY-SA 3.0.

Vladimir Milov has also emphasized the need for public debates, ironically arguing roughly the same thing as Navalny, despite their opposite positions on Varlamov's Omsk candidacy:

Необходимо для того, чтобы отсечь “бумажных” (или “интернетных”) кандидатов, которые в интернете Рэмбо, а на публику их выпусти - так сплошная пустопорожняя болтовня и демагогия про “борьбу с коррупцией” и т.п., и шансы выиграть реальные выборы равны нулю. Нужны кандидаты, которые могут убедительно говорить, в том числе не только о жуликах и ворах, но и о том, какую политику проводить в сфере промышленности, сельского хозяйства, ОПК, медицины и т.п.

[Debates are] necessary in order to cut out the ‘paper' (or ‘Internet') candidates, who are Rambos online, but put them in public and all that empty blathering and demagoguery about ‘fighting corruption' and what not, and their chances of winning real elections drop to exactly zero. We need candidates who can speak compellingly, and not only about cardsharps and thieves, but also about the kinds of policies they would introduce for industry, agriculture, the military, healthcare, and so on.

Milov then further explained why he has such little faith in the Internet:

Поэтому к голосовалкам в интернете я отношусь плохо даже не потому, что они вечно продуцируют конфузные результаты типа побед Тесака, Мавроди или Варламова (объяснение понятно - голосование по клику не предполагает никакой реальной ответственности “кликующего”), но скорее потому, что […] не позволяют определить наиболее сильного кандидата, способного в будущем реально выиграть выборы.

I take issue with online votes not because they always produce embarrassing results like the victories of Tesak, Mavrodi, or Varlamov (the explanation is understandable: voting by clicking [a computer mouse] does not involve any real responsibility on the part of the ‘clicker'), but rather because […] they prevent us from finding the strongest candidate, who could actually win a future election.

St. Petersburg city assemblyman and Yabloko member Boris Vishnevskii weighed in [ru] on Varlamov's abandoned mayoral run, calling it “an overwhelming defeat” that “once again shows that politics and clownery are fundamentally different.” Like oppositionist blogger Oleg Kozyrev [ru], he rejects Kats' idea that it is impossible to collect 10,000 signatures honestly. Vishnevskii also laments that Yabloko's candidate in Omsk, Aleksandr Korotkov, has not generated more public interest, saying:

Но о Короткове ничего не сообщают популярные сайты и знаменитые блогеры – их внимание привлечено исключительно к пиар-акции Варламова-Каца и обсуждению причин ее провала. Впрочем, ничего удивительного: обсуждать клоунаду всегда было куда более занимательным занятием, чем обсуждать политические действия…

А у Александра Короткова, - о ужас!, - кажется, вообще нет блога. Но я уверен, что он будет очень хорошим мэром Омска.

Popular websites and famous bloggers aren't publicizing anything about Korotkov. Their attention is fixed on Varlamov's and Kats' PR scheme, and discussions about why it collapsed. Admittedly, it's no surprise: discussing clownery has always been a far more entertaining experience than looking at political actions…

And, oh dear, it seems that Aleksandr Korotkov doesn't even have a blog! I'm confident, all the same, that he will be a very good mayor for Omsk.

Viktor Korb, one of the activists who founded Citizen Mayor [ru], the group that organized the Omsk virtual primary, penned a particularly shattering response to Navalny's blog post about Varlamov's exit from the mayoral race. As it turns out, Korb explains, the Omsk primary did feature public debates, however Varlamov (and Inozemtsev, for that matter) ignored them entirely. Korb writes:

Прочитал пост Алексея Навального Варламовокацное о “Казусах Иноземцева и Каца” и сначала даже опешил. Ну зачем, зачем честный Навальный так откровенно передергивает и извращает факты, а если говорить прямо, просто врет? Ведь ему не стоило никакого труда узнать фактические обстоятельства и изложить их максимально точно. Чтобы несколькими досадными “мелочами” не смазывать общий пафос своего, в целом, верного рассуждения об ответственности гражданских лидеров.

I read Aleksei Navalny's post about the ‘Inozemtsev and Kats Cases,' and at first I was actually taken aback. Why oh why is Honest Navalny so openly distorting and misrepresenting the facts — or, put more directly, why is he simply lying? It's not as though it would have cost him any great effort to learn all the factual circumstances and represent them as accurately as possible, so that the general pathos of his fundamentally correct assessment of civic leaders' responsibility wasn't smeared with a few embarrassing ‘trifles.'

Firmly planting his tongue in his cheek, Korb then explained how he nearly forgave Navalny for the misrepresentation of the Omsk primary:

Алексей Навальный совсем не случайно стал одним из самых популярных лидеров мнений. И дело вовсе не только в очевидных качествах: честности, неангажированности, решительности и т.п. Лидер, владеющий умами миллионов, обязан владеть особым навыком - формулировать мифологические представления, простые и яркие образы, выстроенные по особенной логике, логике мифа. В этой логике “реальность” обеспечивается не фактическими обстоятельствами, а “очевидностью”, доказательства заменяются “убедительностью” и т.п.

It is no accident that Aleksei Navalny has become one of the most popular opinion leaders. And it's not just a matter of his obvious qualities: decisiveness, honesty, a lack of partisan bias, and so on. A leader of millions must be especially skilled at forming mythological conceptions — simple and vivid images — built on a particular logic — the logic of myths. In this logic, ‘reality' is established not by factual circumstances but ‘obviousness.' Actual proof is replaced by ‘force of conviction' and so on.

Korb concludes with a warning about the dangers of ill-gotten success, complaining that too many oppositionists seem to share Navalny's defects:

Яркие и убедительные образы вполне можно строить на основе фактов, а не домыслов или откровенного вранья. И это необходимо делать, если есть интерес не в локальном, а в стратегическом и устойчивом успехе. Потому что успех, основанный на лжи, даже кажущейся “незначительной” и “оправданной”, таит в себе серьезную угрозу разрушения главной опоры любой общественной конструкции - доверия. Похоже, Алексей Навальный, как и другие “вожди”, этого пока не понимает. И советы соратников слушать не научился.

Vivid and compelling images can also be built on facts, rather than speculation and open lies. And that's what is necessary, if one is interested in not just an isolated but a strategic and sustainable victory. Because success built on lies — even when they seem innocent and justified — poses the serious threat of destroying the backbone of any public project: trust. It seems that Aleksei Navalny, like other ‘leaders,' still does not understand this, and neither has he learned to listen to the advice of his comrades.

The collapse of ‘Mayor Varlamov' is a black-eye for individuals like Navalny, who rely heavily on the Internet to generate publicity and public support for their political careers and various civic initiatives. That a prominent blogger was nominated in an online primary, but then failed so miserably to run an effective campaign, is undeniably a setback for Russia's digital activists. While the stigma of Varlamov's candidacy can only be temporary, one wonders what effect it will have at this stage in Russian history, as Vladimir Putin returns to the Kremlin, and the country prepares for subtle but significant expansions of democratic rights brought about by recent electoral reforms.

Russia: Tolstoy's ‘War and Peace' Legacy Today

Donna Welles — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:05:58 +0000

RuNet Echo continues its series examining the 200th anniversary of Tsarist Russia's Victory over Napoleon by examining Leo Tolstoy's novel ‘War and Peace' and the role it plays today online. Although the book was initially published in 1869, its story begins in July 1805 and progresses through the 1812 French invasion, the Battle of Borodino, and the occupation of Moscow, all the way to the French retreat and rebuilding of Russia.

A recent survey of over 100 respected British and American authors revealed that ‘War and Peace' is considered to be one of the greatest works of the past two centuries. Russian blogger paradise-apple enthusiastically reported these results in a post titled, “Anna Karenina Won!”

These works were listed as the nineteenth century's best:

‘Anna Karenina' by Leo Tolstoy, ‘Madam Bovary' by Gustave Flaubert, ‘War and Peace' by Tolstoy, ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' by Mark Twain, Anton Chechov's short stories, ‘Middlemarch' by George Eliot, ‘Moby Dick' by Herman Melville, ‘Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens; ‘Crime and Punishment' by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and ‘Emma' by Jane Austin.

Additionally, TheRussianAmerica.com reviewed the authors whom the British and American judges selected as the greatest writers of all time. Again, Tolstoy was listed at the top, followed by William Shakespeare, James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Kramskoy's portrait of Leo Tolstoy (1873), public domain.

On the RuNet today, discussions about ‘War and Peace' and Tolstoy's literary style are common, often addressing a variety of issues such as the proper translation of the title, the length and depth of the work, and Tolstoy's use of the French language.

Translation of the Title

The title ‘War and Peace' is written in Russian as ‘Вoйнá и мир' (Voina i mir). ‘Voina' is the Russian word for ‘war.' In the context of Tolstoy's novel, ‘mir' is traditionally translated as ‘peace,' although an alternate translation of ‘mir' in a variety of contexts is ‘the world.'

Recently, two RuNet Twitter users debated whether or not the common translation, ‘War and Peace,' is what Tolstoy intended, rather than ‘War and the World.'

Evgeny:

Вчера узнал, что слово “мир” в “Война и мир” Толстого имеет значение “сообщество”, а не “перемирие”.

Yesterday I learned that the word “mir” in Tolstoy's “Voina i mir” carries the meaning “the world,” not “peace.”

Sergei:

А я не согласен. Я считаю, что он сравнивал их. Ведь у него через том описывается то война, то мир (перемирие).

I disagree. My reading is that he was contrasting [war and peace]. Why, he writes about war and about peace throughout the book.

Evgeny:

Влияние войны на общество.

[Tolstoy wrote about] the influence of war on the world.

Sergei:

Ты так говоришь, как-будто сам Толстой встал из гроба и тебе об этом рассказал :) Это же не математика!

You speak as though Tolstoy himself somehow rose from the grave and explained everything to you. :) This can't be explained like math!

Evgeny:

Добавь к моему мессаджу “мне кажется”))

Well, add a postscript that this is my personal opinion. :)

Length and Depth of the Novel

Famous for being one of the longest books ever written in either the Cyrillic or Latin alphabets, ‘War and Peace' is divided into four volumes. The novel is unique for its detailed and realistic discussion of the nature of war. Tolstoy combined his own Crimean War experiences with interviews he conducted with survivors of the French invasion to write something that resembles Thucydides' ‘History of the Peloponesian War' as much as it does a traditional novel.

On Twitter, RuNet users often focus on the magnitude of the work in terms of both its size and gravity, frequently referencing other Russian authors like Pushkin, Dostoevsky, and Bulgakov.

Lira:

Школьники, которым предстоит прочитать 4 тома «Войны и мира» очень жалеют, что на дуэли убили не Толстого, а Пушкина!

Schoolchildren, who will have to read the four volumes of ‘War and Peace,' are filled with regret that it was Pushkin who died [prematurely] in a duel, and not Tolstoy!

Ruslan Tomatov:

Читал войну и мир, только позже, когда проникся мировоззрением толстого. у булгакова до сих пор люблю только записки юного врача

I read ‘War and Peace' only later, when I appreciated Tolstoy's worldview. Until now, of Bulgakov's I've only liked ‘A Young Doctor's Notebook.'

Tolstoy's Use of French in the Novel

The French language was effectively the language of Russia's nobility, when Napoleon's army invaded in 1812. Tolstoy underscored the elite's relationship to this foreign language by writing parts of ‘War and Peace,' including the opening paragraph, in French.

In comments following an April 2012 post, Russian LiveJournal blogger dohlik_nemruchi discussed the practice of creating art in a foreign language, comparing ‘War and Peace' to Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov's award-winning 2011 film ‘Faust,' which was made in German. LJ user menelik3 reminded readers that some of Tolstoy's ‘War and Peace' had been written in French, arguing that Sokurov had likely used German simply to incite controversy. dohlik_nemruchi responded that Tolstoy's use of French was a tool to show progression in the novel — that ‘War and Peace' is initially in both Russian and French, with the latter fading as the plot develops and anti-French sentiments grow.

Some Russian bloggers prefer not to analyze Tolstoy's literary style, instead simply posting notable and perhaps timeless lines from ‘War and Peace' to their journals as status updates:

**Lovely Girl**:

Обратите все ваше внимание на самого себя, наложите цепи на свои чувства и ищите блаженства не в страстях, а в своем сердце. источник блаженства не вне, а внутри нас…

Turn all of your attention inward, restrain your feelings, and look for bliss not in passion, but in your own heart. The source of bliss is not outside, but inside us…

Russia: Crowdsourcing to Solve Local Urban Problems

Daniel Alan Kennedy — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:12:48 +0000

Solving problems at the local level, the kind encountered by inhabitants of big cities and regional centers, is becoming more and more feasible thanks to projects based on crowdsourcing technology. Crowdsourcing is getting groups of people involved in the discussion and resolution of all sorts of different problems, ranging from firefighting to election-monitoring.

Map of Moscow and the Moscow Region

In theory, there are already various government agencies and institutions working to manage local life so that citizens can live in comfort and security. But in practice the results are not always satisfactory: the illegal cutting down of trees, broken lifts, and burnt-out light streetlights are still problems people encounter on a daily basis. To solve these and similar problems “clouds” have been created — virtual projects, in which anyone with an Internet connection and a desire to improve things can take part.

StreetJournal.org [ru] is a project launched in the city of Perm, now operating in several major cities across Russia. The site has publicized nearly 8,000 problems, of which more than a third have been resolved. In addition to ordinary citizens, the platform is also being using by local authorities, who can use it to monitor the work of their contractors and to react to serious reports efficiently and directly.

The third group of people using the platform are nonprofit organizations, which can get access to up-to-date information and use it to monitor a situation and direct volunteers towards solving it.

ДайСигнал [DaiSignal] [ru] is an alternative project concerned with the eternal problems of roads and urban infrastructure and services. The portal receives information from more than 220 cities and towns.

The problem-solving process becomes itself the biggest problem.

In a majority of our encounters with life's daily problems (which we are individually incapable of fixing ourselves), the “problem-solving process becomes itself the biggest problem.” While the complaints submitted to DaiSignal are from individuals without any connection to one another (and are resolved privately, as well), the platform is a tool that allows people to view a situation holistically.

In cases where the number of reports in a given region is “off the scale,” one can conclude that specific services there are ineffective, and take the necessary measures, not by informing the authorities but instead informing those competent to fix things.

How effective such a system can be is demonstrated by the British analog FixMyStreet, which has accumulated more than 1,600 reports a week, including photographic and video evidence, of overflowing trash-bins, broken footpaths, and illegal graffiti.

Original [ru]