Global Voices » RuNet Echo

Moscow Soccer Fans Clash with Police

Kevin Rothrock — Sun, 19 May 2013 16:49:30 +0000

Following Saturday's scoreless soccer game that catapulted Moscow's CSKA club to its fourth Russian Premier League title, the team's fans clashed with riot troops in downtown Moscow. Police detained 140 people [ru], later releasing all but two. Bloggers posted photos to LiveJournal here, here, and here [ru], alleging police brutality.

Police “detain” a soccer fan, Moscow, 18 May 2013, photo by Sergey Danilov, posted to his LJ.

Tinker, Tailor, Compass, Wig: Russia's Amusing American Spy Scandal

Daniel Alan Kennedy — Sat, 18 May 2013 17:57:22 +0000

The Cold War may have ended over twenty years ago, but it's an open secret that the US and Russia continue to spy on each other. The uncovering of a Russian spy-ring three years ago in America demonstrated that for the SVR (Russia's CIA equivalent), old habits die hard. This week showed that the same holds true for the CIA, when on Tuesday 14 May 2013, the FSB (Russia's internal security service) announced they had arrested Ryan Christopher Fogle, third secretary at the US embassy in Moscow for attempting to recruit Russian citizens as spies. Fogle had allegedly written letters and placed telephone calls to potential agents offering them up to one million dollars for their services. The US State Department declined to publicly comment on which government agency Fogle works for or on the allegations of spying.

Fogle's arrest was filmed by the FSB and shown on Russian television. In the video [ru], Fogle is seen in an unconvincing blond wig and baseball cap, which are then removed by an FSB agent before Fogle is frogmarched into a waiting car. Fogle's “spy-kit” (which included two wigs, sunglasses, a compass, a cheap Nokia phone, an Atlas of Moscow, a Swiss army knife and several envelopes of 500-euro notes) is then displayed for the cameras. Later in the video, Fogle and what appear to be three of his colleagues from the Embassy are given a dressing-down by a pixilated FSB agent. In a manner strangely reminiscent of a school headmaster scolding wayward students, the agent expresses his shock and disappointment at Fogle's attempts to recruit Russian citizens, in light of the recent close cooperation of Russia with American intelligence agencies in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings.

The story catapulted the murky world of counterintelligence into the spotlight of the Russian blogosphere, where the details of the case were dissected with glee. From the start many were somewhat perplexed at Fogle's spy-kit, which seemed to come straight from an early James Bond novel.

User Best_JS [ru] quipped

Парики,черные очки и особенно–компас в Москве.Не хватает только секстанта и астролябии.ЦРУ оснащает своих агентов в магазине 99 центов?

Wigs, sunglasses and especially — a compass in Moscow. He's only missing a sextant and astrolabe. Is the CIA equipping their agents at the 99 cent store?

Tweeter user Timque [ru] also took a dim view of Fogle's spycraft.

Если наша контрразведка способна ловить только шпионов с чуть ли не надписью «ШПИОН» на лбу. То из меня бы вышел отличный агент ЦРУ!

If our counterintelligence is only capable of catching spies with the word “SPY” practically written on their forheads, then I could make an excellent CIA agent!

Fogle's alleged spy-kit generated interest for it's “low-tech” nature. YouTube Screenshot. May 17, 2013.

Somewhat surprisingly, a much more charitable appraisal [ru] of Fogle's equipment came from popular Russian tech blogger Eldar Murtazin [ru], who pointed out the pitfalls of using advanced gadgets in the world of espionage.

Начнем с самого противоречивого предмета в глазах обывателей — обычного атласа Москвы и дорог с указанием каждого дома. В век высоких технологий, когда у каждого в телефоне есть навигация и хорошие карты, это выглядит анахронизмом. А теперь давайте представим специфику работы агента, когда он не должен оставлять следов, в том числе и цифровых. Я плохо представляю себе агента, который прокладывает путь к тайнику или месту встречу в Google Maps и затем сохраняет маршрут. Этот агент должен быть конченным идиотом. Равно, как мне сложно представить как сообщить о месте встречи в электронном виде, это дополнительный риск [...] Поэтому можно долго ворчать, что разведчикам чужды новые технологии, но это не так. Эффективный способ не оставлять следов, не использовать программы навигации.

Let's start with the most controversial item in the eyes of the average person: the common Moscow road atlas with the adresses of all the buildings in it. In the high-tech era, when everyone has a phone with GPS and good maps, it seems like an anachronism. But now consider the specifics of an agent's work, when he can leave no traces, including digital ones. I can't picture the agent who looks up the way to a secret location or a meeting place on Google Maps and then saves the route. That agent would have to be a complete idiot. Similarly, it's hard for me to imagine sending information about meeting place in electronic form, this is an additional risk [...] So you can whinge all you like about intelligence agents shunning new technologies, but it isn't the case. An effective means of leaving no traces is not to use GPS.

Blogger and social media guru, Anton Nossik [ru], on the other hand, laid the blame at Americans’ inability to work with agents in human intelligence. Referencing an interview [ru] with famous Soviet defector Viktor Suvorov, Nossik claimed:

По мнению Суворова, у ЦРУ просто очень хреново поставлена агентурная работа. Потому что, с одной стороны, львиная доля разведданных собирается с помощью техсредств (спутниковая съёмка, перехват коммуникаций), а не от живых людей. С другой стороны, самые эффективные агенты на службе Америки — иностранцы, шпионящие в своих собственных странах. Которых не нужно учить маскироваться, гримироваться, носить парики, потому что их главная маскировка — реальная биография и занимаемая должность.

According to Suvorov, the CIA is simply bloody awful at working with agents. This is because, on the one hand, the lion's share of intelligence info is gathered by technical means (satelite photos, intercepted communications) and not from living people. And, on the other hand, the most effective agents in the service of America are foreigners working in their own countries, who don't need to learn to disguise themselves, apply make-up, wear wigs, because their main disguise is their real biography and the work they do.

Nossik went on to claim Fogle's alleged letter [ru] (written in awkward if grammatically correct Russian) looked like “Nigerian spam run through Google translate”.

Of course, as usual, some RuNet users saw the invisible hand of the Kremlin at work in the entire episode. As one commentator [ru] sarcastically put it

Ну, да — накладные усы, парики, шифры и прочая хуета. Почти как в кино. Не верю я в это лицедейство! Компас меня убил окончательно. Надо было еще словарь англо-русский добавить. И детскую порнографию.

Oh yeah, fake moustaches, wigs, codebooks and similar bullsh*t. Almost like in the films. I don't believe this charade. The compass was the last straw. They should have added a Russian-English dictionary. And some child porn.

Interestingly, while Fogle's competence (or lack there of) as a spy has been a hot topic of conversation, almost no attention has been paid to the potential fallout from the expulsion of a US diplomat for spying. Similarly few have bothered to speculate on why the Kremlin chose to expel Fogle now, when the Kremlin and the US are in high-level talks about Syria and intelligence-sharing. It is telling that what should normally be a major diplomatic incident now barely registers as more than an amusing anecdote for Russian netizens.

In Wake of Brutal Murder, Questions About the Roots of Russian Homophobia

Andrey Tselikov — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:55:01 +0000

Over the past year RuNet Echo has covered the woes of the Russian LGBT community [GV], specifically with regard to laws banning so-called “propaganda of homosexuality,” passed first by the city of St. Petersburg [GV] and now being championed in the Russian parliament [GV] by MPs Sergey Dorofeev and Elena Mizulina (the proposed bill is currently in its second “reading,” or amendment process).

It is unsurprising that this intolerant climate and increasingly hateful rhetoric would finally give rise to actual hate crimes. This is precisely the connection that many Russian bloggers made after learning that the three Volgograd men who were arrested for brutally murdering their drinking companion, the 23 year old Vladislav Tornovoi, on the night following the May 9th Victory Day celebrations, apparently admitted that they did so because he told them he was gay. Boris Vishnevsky blogged [ru] on the Echo Moskvy website:

Убийц, хочется верить, накажут. А кто накажет их идейных вдохновителей? Который уже год абсолютно безнаказанно разжигающих в обществе (в том числе, с использованием парламентской трибуны) вражду и ненависть по признакам сексуальной ориентации? Принимающих безумные законы о запрете «пропаганды гомосексуализма»?

I want to believe that the killers will be punished. But who will punish the ideological instigators? [Those who] for many years have, with impunity, (and with the use of a parliamentary pulpit) spread hate and enmity based on sexual orientation? [Those who] adopt insane laws banning “propaganda of homosexuality?”

One of Tornovoi's murderers (on right) describes to the police how exactly he committed the crime. YouTube screenshot, May 17, 2013.

The homophobic motives for the murder are seemingly supported by the fact that after brutally beating Tornovoi the men undressed him and forced empty beer bottles into his rectum, leading the journalist Alexander Timofeevsky to comment [ru] on his Facebook account:

Интересно, понимают ли депутаты Госдумы, шумно, с пиаром моральной позициии принимающие сейчас закон против пропаганды гомосексуализма, что эти пивные бутылки – “две вошли полностью, а третья лишь частично” – подброшены, в сущности, ими?

I wonder, do the State Duma deputies, who while noisily advertising their moral position are right now passing a law banning the propaganda of homosexuality, understand that these beer bottles – “two entered fully, and the third partially” – were basically given [to the murderers] by them?

Others blamed the murder not on Russia's homophobic parliamentarians, but simply on the homophobia endemic to Russian society, according to one theory mainly as the result of a large former inmate population and the associated stigma of homosexuality. DemVybor's Deputy Chairman and prolific blogger Kirill Shulika wrote [ru]:

Гомофобия? Может быть, но только связана она с тем, что собутыльники этого гея сидели. В России вообще гомофобия связана с тем, что полстраны сидело или знает тех, кто сидел. [...] Гомофобия Мизулиной и Милонова имеет совсем другую цель. Она рассчитана как раз на активистов протестного движения [...] с целью отвлечения их внимания от реальных проблем.

Homophobia? Maybe, but it is tied to the fact that the drinking buddies of this gay person were former inmates. In general, in Russia homophobia is tied to the fact that half the country has done time or knows someone who's done time. [...] Mizulina and [St. Petersburg deputy and champion of the original bans on propaganda of homosexuality] Milonov's homophobia has a completely different goal. It is geared towards activists of the protest movement with the goal of distracting them from real problems.

A similar point was made by journalist Andrey Gromov [ru], and publicist Pavel Sviatenkov [ru], who also blamed prison culture where homosexuality is widely practiced, and yet homosexuals are considered to be a lower caste. Because such conduct is often part of power relations in prison society, Sviatenkov says:

С точки зрения блатной философии, позорно быть пассивным гомосексуалистом, «петухом». Зато активный гомосексуалист воспринимается как «настоящий пасан».

From the point of view of criminal philosophy its is shameful to be a passive homosexual, a “rooster.” But an active homosexual is considered a “real man.”

Vladislav Tornovoi's VKontakte photograph.

The question of what constitutes homosexuality was at the forefront of reporting on Tornovoi's death, especially after bloggers found his VKontakte page [ru]. Tornovoi appears to be a fairly regular guy, and a fan of the popular rap group Kasta, which led Anton Krasovsky, a TV personality who recently came out on television and was summarily dismissed from his position, to note that he was a “common gopnik” [in modern Russian the term gopnik [ru], the etymology of which is contested, is closest to the British chav in meaning]. Tornovoi's friends were also quick to jump to his “defense” [ru] on YouTube, claiming that they “didn't notice” anything homosexual [ru] about him. In an article [ru] published several days after the murder in the Echo Moskvy affiliated online newspaper Publicpost, these friends claimed that because Tornovoi “liked girls” and because he never had an erection while visiting the public baths with them, he simply could not be gay.

These claims were picked up on by nationalist/conservative blogger Natalia Kholmogorova, who insinuated [ru] that it was the murderers who were gay:

Несколько мужчин набрасываются на одного, имитируют извращенный половой акт с ним, совершают садистские манипуляции с его половыми органами (пардон за подробности), затем убивают. [...] Это не “гомофобы поймали и замучили бедного гея” – это группа садистов совершила над своей жертвой гомосексуальное насилие.

Several men attack one, imitate a perverse sexual act with him, sadistically manipulate his sexual organs (sorry for the details), then kill him. [...] This isn't “homophobes caught and tortured a poor gay” – it's a group of sadists who perpetrated homosexual violence on their victim.

Regardless of such loopy, homophobic opinions, if Tornovoi was not actually gay, then his murderers had to have made up the fact that he told them that he was. This worries Alexander Timofeevsky, because it might mean that Russian homophobia is even worse than we thought:

Это обозначает, что, на их взгляд, гомосексуальность жертвы является смягчающм, если не извиняющим, мотивом. Типа, пидаров убивать сам Бог велел. Вот и депутат Елена Мизулина, важная женщина из Москвы, по телевизору говорит, что им нет оправдания.

This means that they think that homosexuality of a victim is a mitigating, if not exonerating, motive. As in, killing fags is the natural order of things. Look at deputy Elena Mizulina, an important woman from Moscow, who says on TV that their [the homosexuals'] behavior can't be excused.

Dirty Words Russian Girls Can’t Say on the Internet

Kevin Rothrock — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:40:22 +0000

Fellatio has long been part of the rich tapestry of politics worldwide. For anyone alive and cognizant during the 1990s, Bill Clinton’s licentious escapades with Monica Lewinsky will forever color (or taint, depending on your perspective) the image of the American White House. Earlier this week, on May 13, 2013, opposition figure Maria Baronova penned an open letter [ru] to writer and political dissident Eduard Limonov, wherein she dropped a sexual bombshell of her own. Her text unabashedly refers to “masturbating in the shower” and credits Limonov—whose works [ru] are famous for their intricate descriptions of lewd sex acts—with teaching her (through his books) how to “suck dick” “without false modesty” and “fuck like an animal.” Baronova’s letter included a great deal more than these offhand sexual remarks, though it is those remarks that undoubtedly explain the online backlash that followed.

Sexism, locked and loaded

This week has been unusually cruel to women on Russian Twitter. In addition to the wave of sexist jokes that washed up after the RuNet learned about film star Angelina Jolie’s preventative double mastectomy, many Russian netizens took Baronova’s sexual revelations as an invitation to attack her specifically and female public figures more broadly.

Some of the insults came from the usual suspects, like tabloid editor Ashot Gabrelyanov, who proposed [ru] on Twitter that Jolie auction off for charity her removed breasts on eBay. Also joining the fun, however, was one of Pussy Riot’s lawyers—the infamously unpleasant Mark Feygin—who mused in a (now deleted) tweet:

Кстати сказать, насчет сисек Джоли, может это она операцию по изменению пола прикрывает. Трансгендеры отрезают. А чо?

By the way, regarding Jolie’s tits, maybe she’s using this to cover up a sex change operation. Transgenders slice off. Hey now.

Indeed, Feygin was on a roll. Commenting on Baronova’s open letter just a day before, he wrote in a tweet (that he has not deleted):

По поводу одного широко обсуждаемого сейчас текста, маленькая ремарка: …и это, пожалуй, всё, чему она научилась…

Regarding a certain now widely discussed text, [I have] one tiny remark: … this [fellatio], if you will, is the only thing she learned…

Lev Sharansky (a satirist personality run anonymously) quipped with open-ended sexism:

Вчера Баронова, сегодня Джоли. С ужасом жду завтра.

Yesterday Baronova, today Jolie. I await tomorrow with horror.

Others decided to broaden their aim and take shots at different prominent Russian women. Anna Veduta, opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s press secretary, found herself in Twitter user berdnikov’s crosshairs:

Анна Ведута более воспитанная девушка, чем Мария Баронова, поэтому она не расскажет нам чему она научилась у Алексея Навального

Anna Veduta is a better-raised young woman than Maria Barnova, therefore she doesn’t tell us what she’s learned from Alexey Navalny.

One of the many demotivators that appeared, following Baronova's open letter.

Demotivators soon popped up online, such as an image [ru] featuring Limonov above the text: “He taught Maria Baronova to suck dick. And what have you done today?” Another popular mash-up (see image to the right), which Baronova herself retweeted, included a photo of her riding a scooter below another picture of a blonde woman sitting in an expensive convertible. The caption is the Karl Marx quote: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” (The joke is that Baronova’s “ability” only earned her a scooter, rather than a sports car.)

Bringing in Baronova’s one-time boss, Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomarev (who himself retweeted [ru], rather strangely, Baronova’s line about masturbating in the shower), Twitter user fuckdaoutlaw asked:

Почему Пономарев Илья не научил свою помощницу Баронову сосать х%й?

Why didn’t Ilya Ponomarev teach his assisant Baronova to suck d**k?

Twitter user rusrusdada expanded the attack on Baronova into a jibe at the entire protest movement, writing:

На самом деле, Баронова из всей Болотной тусовки вызывает уважение. Она единственная честно призналась, что сосет. Другие тоже, но скрывают

In truth, Baronova, apart from the whole Bolotnaya [oppositionist] clique, deserves respect. She alone has honestly confessed that she sucks. The others suck, too, but they conceal it.

The LJ cesspool

On LiveJournal, where an absence of character limits accompanies the bravery of online anonymity, commentary was more substantive, but no less harsh.

A May 14 post [ru] by music critic Artem Rondarev functioned as a sort of beacon for Baronova’s critics, many of whom argued vociferously that politics is no place for raunchy women. In the comments to his post, Rondarev explained [ru] his position on Baronova’s lack of sexual modesty in her public prose, interpreting her lewdness as an endorsement of anarchy:

[…] в случае с Машей я всего лишь попытался объяснить ту простую мысль, что нельзя жить в обществе и быть свободным от него. Оно может не нравиться и все такоэ, но дилемма простая – или в обществе с конвенциями, или в Сомали. Потому что, видите ли, завтра у вас над головой сосед ночью врубит рэп на полную катушку, а когда вы ему придете предъявлять, скажет, что это его способ самовыражения, а вы ханжа, которая спит по ночам, в то время как все свободные люди слушают рэп. Ну и?

[…] in the case of Masha, I just tried to explain the simple idea that it’s impossible to live in society and [simultaneously] be free from it. One might not like everything about it, but the dilemma is simple: it’s either society with its conventions, or you’re in Somalia. Because, you see, tomorrow you’ll have an upstairs neighbor blasting rap music all night long at top volume, and when you go up to confront him, he’ll say that this is his means of self-expression, and you’re just a prude who sleeps at night, while all the free people listen to rap. Well?

In another comment [ru] on Rondarev’s post, LiveJournal user pervert_tanuki called Baronova “a furious attention whore,” to which Rondarev responded [ru] less than charitably:

Опять-таки – я не ищу тут мотивацию Маши, она очевидно лежит неглубоко […] Понятно, что девушке хочется трахаться; меня интересует, грубо говоря, почему подобным девушкам все время хочется именно трахаться, а не книжки читать.

Again—I’m not searching for Masha’s motivation. She’s obviously shallow […] It’s understandable that a young woman wants to screw; I’m interested, to put it crudely, in why similar girls always want precisely to screw, and not to read books.

Several bloggers have concluded that Baronova’s vulgarity damages any chances she has at a career [ru] in politics. In separate posts on LiveJournal, user haeldar [ru] and Google+ user mc project [ru] proposed a scenario thirty years in the future, where Baronova is now a Duma deputy serving a post-Putin Russian democracy. According to the plot, the now stately Baronova proposes some piece of moralist legislation (for example, banning sex robots), only to remind the public that “Maria Baronova in her youth was not above getting fucked in every hole.”

Even Kirill Goncharov, leader of the youth wing of Russia’s oldest liberal political party, joked on Twitter:

Я так понимаю, сегодня Маша Баронова публично закончила заниматься политикой?

So, as I understand it, Masha Baronova today publicly ceased to be involved in politics?

Twitter user VRebyata also resonated the idea that Baronova’s bawdiness causes problems for women in government, writing:

Баронова всколыхнула твиттер. Теперь самым популярным вопросом к женщинам – политикам будет вопрос об их отношении к книгам Эдуарда Лимонова

Baronova stirred up Twitter. Now the most popular question to female politicians will be the question about their relationship to Eduard Limonov’s books

In one comment thread [ru] on LiveJournal, a group of netizens even thought it fair to compare Baronova’s talk of oral sex to Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s participation in a public orgy. They even connected Baronova and Tolokonnikova to Cicciolina, the famed pornstar and member of the Italian parliament in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Baronova’s guile?

Not everyone deplored Baronova for her letter to Limonov, however. Many bloggers seemed willing to accept that her use of vulgarity was a cunning, if shrewd, ploy to gain an audience. Indeed, Norway-based Facebook user Andrew Voronkov observed [ru]:

Если бы она про это не написала, то многие бы и не прочитали бы статью.

If she hadn’t written about it [fellatio], then many people would not have read the article.

Poland-based LJ user Andrei Karatkevich enumerated [ru] four justifications for Baronova’s scandalous word choice:

1. Содержимое текста отнюдь не сводится к сосанию хуя, хотя все цитируют именно эту фразу.
2. С другой стороны, девушка, очевидно, понимала, что цитировать будут именно это.
3. …как из романа “это я, Эдичка” чуть менее чем все помнят сцену сосания хуя негру… и ничего больше.
4. А научил-то он её вещи нужной и полезной…

1. The contents of the text cannot be reduced just to sucking dick, though everyone is quoting exactly that phrase.
2. On the other hand, the girl obviously understood that everyone would quote exactly that.
3. [Limonov’s] novel “It’s Me, Eddie” is remembered more than anything for the scene where he sucks the dick of a black man … and nothing more.
4. And he [Limonov] taught her things necessary and useful…

Even some of Baronova’s critics felt compelled to acknowledge her letter’s publicity success. In a long response [ru] published the day after Baronova’s text, Pavel Zherebin (a member of Limonov’s NatsBol movement) offered the following measured praise:

Статья эта станет знаменитой, ведь Мария применила нехитрый прием – эпатаж с отсылками к сугубо сексуальным вопросам. До сих пор политическая публицистика была свободна от подобных методов форсированного продвижения своих идей. Поэтому Марии можно только поаплодировать – она храбрый новатор, которая решилась не просто на то, чтобы наполнить свою статью до краев женской гендерностью, но и на то, чтобы эту гендерность выразить прямым текстом в самых искренних и волнующих выражениях.

This article will become famous because Maria used an ingenuous approach—a shocking tone that touches on extremely sexual issues. Until now, political journalism was free from promoting its ideas by such methods. Therefore, we can only applaud Maria—she’s a brave innovator who decided not just to fill her article to the edges with female genderness, but also to express that genderness in plain speak, in the most sincere and exciting expressions.

Maria Baronova, Moscow, 25 August 2012, photo by Anton Nossik, CC 2.0.

In a comment [ru] on Rondarev’s blog, Baronova herself confirmed that she consciously employed gender as a means to generate a larger dialogue (about both Limonov and women in contemporary Russian politics):

Цель письма – получить от общества реакцию и расшевелить его, это общество. По большей части реакционное и консервативное. Цель вполне достигнута. Тонны говна и хихиканий: “ПИПИИИСЬКА” – получены. Дальше люди обсуждают. Дисскусия возникла. Каждый, в итоге придет, к чему-то своему. И мне от того, что люди поймут что-то важное (и каждый глубоко свое), будет приятно. End of story

The purpose of the letter was to get a reaction from the public and rattle it up. This society is mostly reactionary and conservative. My goal has been reached entirely. I got tons of shit and chuckles: “WEEEENIE.” From there, [though], people discuss. A discussion arose. Eventually, everyone comes to something all their own, and for me it’s nice that people will realize something important (and something deeply their own). End of story.

Not everyone is a hater

Many bloggers, of course, refused to attack Baronova, and some rallied to her defense. Journalist Arina Kholina, for instance, credited her in a Facebook post [ru] with capturing the collective experience of a generation of Russian women:

Не знаю, зачем все ругают Машу Баронову. Она была честна. Книга Лимонова про Эдичку, правда, была одним из сексуальных переживаний подросткового возраста. Особенно после СССР. Маше хватило смелости написать об этом. Пусть немного коряво. Может, конечно, особенно взрослые или умные читали совсем о другом, но мне было лет 16 и я думала про секс. И да – в каком-то смысле она была учебником. Наверное, если бы Маша написала, что книга научила ее шить кружевные рубашки, все бы умилились. А она, вот бесстыдница, про минет.

I don’t know why everyone is ripping into Masha Baronova. She was being honest. Limonov’s book about Eddie, it’s true, was one of the sexual experiences of adolescence. Especially after the USSR. Masha had the courage the write about it. Okay, it turned out a little clumsy. Maybe, of course, particularly mature or intelligent people read about something entirely different, but when I was 16-years-old, I was thinking about sex. And, yes, in a sense, it was a sort of textbook. Probably, if Masha had written that the book taught her how to sew a lace shirt [another part of It’s Me, Eddie], everyone would just melt for her. But she, without shame, wrote about blowjobs.

Opposition activist Ilya Yashin tried to relocate the focus of RuNet mockery to government officials, tweeting:

Надеюсь, депутат Бурматов никогда не будет писать открытых писем Вячеславу Володину. Не хочу знать, чему он его научил.

I hope [Duma] Deputy Burmatov never writes an open letter to [First Deputy Chief of Putin’s Staff] Viacheslav Volodin. I don’t want to know what he [Volodin] taught him.

Vera Kichanova, one of the opposition’s youngest figures, tweeted innocently:

А меня Лимонов только матом ругаться научил.

Limonov only taught me to curse [in obscenities].

Russia after blowjobs

One day after publishing her open letter, Baronova granted an interview [ru] to Daria Yausheva of jourdom.ru, where she addressed the backlash to her explicit sexual language:

Как сегодня написал Евгений Фельдман: «Лимонов научил сосать х** Баронову, а Путин – всю страну». Опять же, мужчина может писать о сексе достаточно свободно, а для женщин в России это по-прежнему – полузапретная тема. Тем более, если ты вовлечена в политику, то должна все время соблюдать некие рамки в которых, на самом деле, уже давно никто не живет.

It’s like Evgeny Feldman wrote [ru] today: “Limonov taught Baronova to suck d**k, but Putin taught the whole country.” Once again, a man can write about sex quite freely, but for women in Russia it’s still a semi-prohibited topic. Especially if you’re involved in politics, [you, as a woman,] must at all times observe certain confines, within which, in fact, nobody has lived for a long time.

Baronova identifies a cultural contradiction that is hardly unique to Russia. Certainly, the perseverance of sexist “confines” plagues societies the world over, no matter how developed or humane the civilization. The Internet response to Baronova’s talk of sex, whether one reads her text as a raised fist to patriarchy or a frivolous attempt at self-promotion, reveals that prejudices against freewheeling women enjoy widespread popularity among Russian netizens. That said, Baronova’s own audacity over the last 18 months—and the prospect of decades more to follow—promises to keep Russia’s male chauvinists busy indeed.

Russia's State-Contracted Revolutionaries

Kevin Rothrock — Tue, 14 May 2013 01:40:31 +0000

When Vladislav Surkov left the government last week, it triggered an avalanche of speculation about what the loss of “the grey cardinal” means for Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev in particular and his “liberal” political clan in general. The ouster followed a public fracas with the federal Investigative Committee, which recently opened an embezzlement case against managers of the state-sponsored Skolkovo innovation center, which is widely considered Surkov’s brainchild.

At the center of the feds' probe [ru] is Duma Deputy and anti-Putin protest movement leader Ilya Ponomarev, who earned a surprising $750,000 [ru] for his outreach (see below) and planning work for Skolkovo between 2010 and 2012.

In the last two months, Ponomarev’s Skolkovo income has attracted growing national media attention, but the issue has been percolating [ru] on the RuNet since last year. On September 23, 2012 (in response to a scandal involving registration fees for elections to the Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition), Ponomarev first addressed the large sum of money he earned from Skolkovo, writing [ru] on LiveJournal:

Про доходы. Моя декларация есть в открытом доступе. Я никогда не жаловался на доходы. За последний год я получил как депутат около 2 млн. рублей, и еще около 7 млн. получил как гонорары за поддержку инновационных проектов по линии Фонда Сколково.

About my income. My declaration is accessible to all. [See here for Ponomarev's 2006-2012 records.] I’ve never wanted for earnings. In the last year, I made 2 million rubles as a Duma deputy, and I earned another 7 million rubles ($225,000) in honoraria for supporting the Skolkovo Foundation’s various innovation projects.

Suspicious minds

Many bloggers reacted to these figures with suspicion. Vadim Skvortsov, for instance, highlighted Ponomarev’s apparently unique advisor position under Skolkovo President Viktor Vekselberg, writing [ru]:

Что-то мне подсказывает, что такие денежки идут частенько прямиком на финансирование антипутинских акций “болотной” либерально-анархической оппозиции.

Something tells me that such money goes directly toward financing the anti-Putin demonstrations of the “Bolotnaya” liberal-anarchist opposition.

Earlier that year in March, a Lithuania-based blogger named skolkovo_eu also raised the idea [ru] that Vekselberg was financing the opposition through Skolkovo, linking to an article [ru] in the online tabloid wek.ru titled “Viktor Vekselberg Funds Ponomarev’s ‘Million Man March’?”

An artist's impression of Ilya Ponomarev's radical politics. Remixed by author from Alberto Korda's iconic 1960 photo of Che Guevara.

On April 19, 2013, a day after police raided the offices of Skolkovo’s management, the Investigative Committee opened [ru] a criminal case against the fund’s senior vice president, Alexey Beltiukov, for embezzling money through Skolkovo’s contracts with Ponomarev. Over the next twenty-four hours, the story developed in several directions online, focusing mainly on (1) continued suspicions about Ponomarev’s large honoraria, and (2) a debate about whether or not Skolkovo serves as a funnel for state sponsorship of the opposition. Much of the controversy surrounding the high income is that almost half ($300,000) was compensation for just ten lectures, meaning that Ponomarev earned roughly $10,000 for each talk, some of which lasted less than twenty minutes. Investigators even allege [ru] that he may not have attended one of these presentations in Tomsk in October 2011 (though there is photographic evidence to the contrary, and Ponomarev did “check-in” from the event’s location, using Foursquare).

Ponomarev & friends fight back

On April 20, writing on LiveJournal, Ponomarev responded [ru] to investigators’ accusations, defending the size of his contracts and arguing that the state saved money by hiring him instead of outsourcing the labor to private firms. While his Skolkovo deal formally concerned a lecture series, Ponomarev insists that far more was included in the work:

Мероприятий было гораздо больше, но меня Фонд изначально предупредил, что надо отчитываться небольшим количеством из них, которые проходили в открытом режиме, и каждое из которых смогут подтвердить свидетели в ходе неминуемых проверок.

There were far more events, but the Foundation from the start warned me that we needed to give an account of [only] a small number—the ones open to the public, so witnesses could confirm each of these events during inevitable [future] audits.

On April 19, another Duma deputy on LiveJournal, LDPR’s Igor Lebedev, posted scans [ru] supposedly containing excerpts of Ponomarev’s Skolkovo contracts. (Ponomarev says the scans are fake.) What Lebedev published accounts for about 80% of the $750,000 work, which Ponomarev allegedly described in a March 2011 letter to Beltiukov as “scientific research.” On the subject of qualifications, questions remain about Ponomarev’s academic credentials, given that he had not completed his higher education at the time of the contracted work. (He returned for a degree in 2011, after a 14-year hiatus.)

Because of Skolkovo’s mysterious recordkeeping, the public is free either to take on faith or reject Ponomarev’s claim that his work for the government was honest. Skolkovo’s puzzling approach to contracted labor seems to have stemmed from fears that a more straightforward, transparent approach would make it vulnerable to state inspectors. Ironically, it’s the absence of a clear paper trail that now incriminates the project.

Some bloggers have tried to piece together the various input costs that Ponomarev would have incurred in his travels inside Russia and abroad (he visited a dozen foreign countries in connection with Skolkovo work). On April 20, 2013, California-based software engineer Yuri Panchul (a self-confessed admirer [ru] of Ponomarev) estimated the likely costs of the Skolkovo-related business trips throughout the United States, concluding [ru] that any Silicon Valley executive would not have taken the contract for less than $1 million. Regarding probable travel and hospitality expenses (which Ponomarev claims to have paid using his honoraria), Panchul argues that costs were as high as $700,000, meaning that Ponomarev’s real salary was only about $50,000.

Clan warfare then & now

Others on the RuNet have been less inclined to believe that Ponomarev’s income was all lost to unreported expenses. On April 22, 2013, Kremlin-sympathetic blogger Nikolai Starikov tried to connect Ponomarev’s Skolkovo work to foreign political interference [ru], implying a plot [ru] between Westerners and certain government insiders:

Нас еще ждут отставки и весьма интересные повороты сюжета. Ведь наша «оппозиция», а вернее говоря, их западные друзья и кураторы были уверены, что им удастся не допустить прихода Путина на пост президента. А, значит, все эти «шалости» останутся покрытыми тайной и туманом. И тот факт, что государственные структуры оплатят протесты против государства, так никто и не узнает.

Но вот эту правду про истинное назначение денег Илья Пономарев никогда не скажет. И предпочтет выглядеть банальным жуликом и вором.

We can look forward to resignations and some quite interesting plot twists. Indeed, our “opposition”—or better said, our opposition’s Western friends and sponsors—were sure they’d succeed in stopping Putin’s return to the presidency. That means that all these “antics” will remain covered in secrets and mist. And nobody realizes the fact that state structures are paying for protests against the state.

But Ilya Ponomarev will never reveal this truth about the money’s real purpose. He’d rather look like a common thief.

In July 2010, when Russian politics was still caught in a feverish debate about whether Medvedev or Putin would run for president in 2012, LiveJournal user _iga taunted Ponomarev on his blog, arguing [ru] that the Skolkovo project amounted to a retirement plan for Medvedev, sealing his fate as a one-term president. Ponomarev disagreed, writing [ru]:

думаю, строго наоборот – этот проект является заявкой Медведева на второй срок

I think it’s exactly the opposite. This project [Skolkovo] is Medvedev’s bid for a second term.

Almost three years later, in the immediate aftermath of the Investigative Committee’s raids on Skolkovo, Ponomarev’s thoughts about the innovation center’s place in Russian politics have changed. Whereas Skolkovo was Medvedev’s executive calling card in July 2010, Ponomarev now sees politics as an intrusion on the project:

Я не склонен оценивать происходящее как борьбу Путина с Медведевым. Но думаю, мы являемся свидетелями борьбы консервативного клана (условного кооператива Озеро) с условными либералами в правительстве. Мне не нравятся они оба. Но второй клан хотя бы что-то делает, чтобы разорвать зависимость России от нефти и газа. Первый клан устраивает статус кво, и он сознательно рушит все начинания, которые могут его поколебать.

I’m not inclined to see events as a battle between Putin and Medvedev, but I do think that we’re witnessing a battle between the conservative clan (your Ozero co-op) and your various liberals in the government. I don’t like either of them, but the second clan is at least doing something to break Russia’s dependence on oil and gas. The former clan is satisfied with the status quo, and it consciously destroys all endeavors that might shake it.

RuNet Apprehensive over Surkov's Dismissal, End of Political Era

Andrey Tselikov — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:27:48 +0000

RuNet Echo recently reviewed a London talk given by Vladislav Surkov, Russia's grey cardinal, the inventor of NASHI and “sovereign democracy,” wherein he claimed that the Kremlin has defeated the opposition. A few days later, Surkov was harshly criticized for some of his statements by Russia's Investigative Committee spokesman, Gen. Markov, in an Izvestiya article. This week, Surkov was dismissed [ru] from his post of Deputy Prime Minister and head of the ministerial apparatus. Failure to carry out Putin's electoral promises was cited as the official reason.

While it is commonly assumed that Surkov fell from grace a year earlier, when he was replaced as the powerful Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration by Vyacheslav Volodin, and given a post many viewed as a demotion, he was also thought to still be immune to political travails. And so, the RuNet reacted to his resignation with equal parts of disbelief, glee and worry.

As illustrated by this meme, Surkov is often credited with creating Russia's current party system — a set of false alternatives to United Russia. Anonymous image widely distributed online.

The glee is easy to explain — to the opposition Surkov is the architect of Russia's repressive political system, in short, a villain. Other Russia's Eduard Limonov was particularly ecstatic [ru]:

Нацболы радуются падению этого типа, поскольку с 2005 года он возглавлял гонения на нас (возможно и раньше,но в феврале 2005-го он создал организацию “Наши”, основной целью которой определил борьбу против Национал-Большевистской партии). [...] то что наш заклятый враг в настоящее время лишился власти, – отлично. [...] Сегодня мы выпьем за его уход. Гип-гип-ура!

The natzbols are happy for the fall of this guy, since he has headed our persecution from 2005 on (maybe even earlier, but in February of 2005 he created the NASHI organization, the main purpose of which he made the struggle against the National Bolshevik party). [...] the fact that our sworn enemy is currently out of power, is great. [...] Today we drink to his leaving. Hip hip hooray!

But then, why the worry? As Afisha's editor-in-chief Ilya Krasilshchik quipped [ru]:

вот и дожили до момента, когда увольнение суркова воспринимается как что-то плохое.

and so we've lived to see the moment when Surkov's firing is construed as something bad.

The reasons for this are a bit more complex. Many of those indulging in kremlinology assume that Surkov was fired after pressure from the Investigative Committee, a worrisome idea because it would mean that the siloviki are currently winning their battle against the “liberals” in the government (roughly speaking Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his allies, who Surkov has supposedly joined). For Pavel Pryanikov, of ttolk.ru, the situation is reminiscent [ru] of the role the security apparatus had in the Soviet Union:

[...] Следственный Комитет сегодня – это аналог НКВД 1936 года, суперведомство с суперполномочиями. Ну и скорее всего теперь следует ожидать окончательной зачистки во власти сислибов [...]

[...] the Investigative Committee today is analogous to the 1936-era NKVD, a super-institution with super-powers. And, more likely than not, we should expect a final purge of syslibs [system liberals] from power [...]

If true, this is especially troubling news for Alexey Navalny, who has recently been incessantly harrying Investigative Committee head Gen. Bastrykin for the past year. Maksim Kononenko, a Kremlin supporter and a big fan of Surkov, was despondent [ru] for similar reasons:

Версия о том что теперь Маркины главные, конечно, наиболее вероятно, но лично мне о ней вообще не хочется думать.

The theory that now the “Markins” are in charge, is, of course, the most probable one, but personally I don't even want to think about it.

Instead, as a long shot, Kononenko is hoping that dismissals are simply one way for Putin to distance his most trusted allies from Medvedev's government, because he is planning to dissolve it some time soon. Kononenko's one-time boss, Marat Gelman (currently a modern-art promoter and gallery owner, Gelman used to be a political spin-doctor), was less optimistic [ru], thinking that the attack on Surkov signals a shift in the ruling paradigm:

Бояться должны все. Сначала вычистят сурковскую клиентелу, потом Медведевскую, потом Сечинскую.

Everyone should be afraid. First they'll purge Surkov's clientele, then Medvedev's, then [current RosNeft chairman] Sechin's.

Surkov's troll-face is his true face. Anonymous image widely distributed online.

DemVybor's Kirill Shulika agreed [ru], referring to Surkov's style of “governance through deception”:

Раньше были разводки, теперь они заменены уголовными делами и тюремными сроками. Сурков, как бы к нему ни относиться, во-первых, политический эстет, который не будет бить горшки молотком

Before there was trickery, now it has been replaced with criminal charges and prison sentences. Surkov, whatever you may think of him, is, first of all, a political aesthete, who won't break pots with a hammer

Boris Nemtsov had a similar idea, saying [ru] that Surkov's light propaganda touch is not needed any longer:

ПУТИН взял курс на репрессии и посадки. Сурков ему в этом деле помочь не может. Бастрыкина достаточно.

PUTIN has taken a course for repressions and prisons. Surkov can't help him with this. Bastrykin is enough.

The nationalist publication Sputnik&Pogrom took an all too familiar tack with its borderline racism when commenting on the story, but ended up making the same basic point [ru]:

[...] противостояние русского европейского образованного класса и советской азиатской рабоче-крестьянской власти более невозможно маскировать томными чеченоевреями, пишущими романы и рассуждающими про «дискурс», пытающимися примирить белых европейцев и советских монголов.

[...] the conflict between Russian-European-educated classes and the Soviet-Asian-worker-peasant government can no longer be masked with languid Checheen-Jews [Surkov is half-Chechen on his father side], who write novels and talk “discourse”, and try to reconcile white Europeans and Soviet Mongols.

Others are worried for a different reason. Surkov's political acumen is of such mythical proportions, that people have trouble believing his dismissal isn't simply the latest in a long series of grifts. The poet Igor Karaulov, for example, joked [ru] that Surkov will be sent to subvert the protest movement from the inside:

Через месяц на Болотной. Навальный (громко, призывно): “Кто мы”? Публика, хором: “Мы – сурковская пропаганда!”

In a month, on Bolotnaya Square. Navalny (loudly, invitingly): “Who are we?” The Public, all together: “We are surkovian propaganda!” [a play on the phrase "you are surkovian propaganda" used by opposition members, sometimes ironically, to label government supporters]

For some, there is a seed of truth in the joke. Alexander Artemyev, a journalist, tweeted [ru] that Surkov will soon be standing in the opposition ranks, along with another former Kremlin stalwart Gleb Pavlovsky, who became a fixture at anti-government events over the last year. Olga Romanova tweeted [ru] the same prediction. In a bit of a twist on this meme Yevgeny Levkovich, another journalist and opposition activist, darkly hinted [ru] at a new Kremlin project to create an American style two-party system, and thought that Surkov is perhaps being moved to this project.

We may never know the real reasons for Surkov's leaving, but the story is in all likelihood rather mundane. Which is why the theory [ru] put forth by Kirill Shulika on his blog is particularly attractive: Surkov simply did not like his job, which, unlike his creative policy-based position at the President's Administration, saddled him with heaps of bureaucratic work and late hours:

Получилось так, что в Кремле его сожрал Володин, а на должности, которую ему дали в качестве компенсации, он просто себя не нашел.

So it turned out that at the Kremlin he was consumed by Volodin, but at the position assigned to him in compensation [for the old one], he simply couldn't find himself.

Or perhaps the reason is even more simple, suggests Stanislav Yakovlev:

Почему ушел Сурков? Да заебали вы его.

Why did Surkov leave? He's just f*cking tired of your sh*t.

Police Raid Navalny's HQ in Kirov

Kevin Rothrock — Wed, 08 May 2013 23:52:53 +0000

At this very moment, Kirov police are searching [ru] Alexey Navalny's local headquarters, established to coordinate the blogger's public outreach in the city where he currently stands trial for embezzling roughly half a million dollars. The case has attracted international attention as the latest in a long series of politicized Russian judicial proceedings, including the trials of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, three members of Pussy Riot, and others. (more…)

After Fatality, May 6 Displays Troubles & Resilience of Russian Protest Movement

Daniel Alan Kennedy — Wed, 08 May 2013 12:30:06 +0000

The Russian opposition, it seems, can't catch a break. Sometimes, this is because the Kremlin's political technologists outmaneuver them. Other times, it is thanks to internal bickering. On May 6, 2013, however, the culprit was plain bad luck. On May 6, Muscovites planned to assemble at Bolotnaya Square for the largest rally in a year, in order to commemorate the anniversary of the now infamous protests at the same location on May 6, 2012, when demonstrators and riot police clashed violently for the first and only time in Russia's 2011-2012 protest season. Investigators have charged twenty-eight people with varying degrees of involvement in the “rioting,” making this group a cause célèbre for the Russian opposition, which views them as political prisoners.

After months of preparation and weeks of wrangling with the Moscow authorities for permission to hold the protest, a tragic fatality marred the event before it could even begin. When the rally's start was just six hours away, a falling speaker crushed to death 25-year-old Maksim Melkov, a volunteer helping to set up the stage. When police declared the stage area a potential crime scene, it seemed possible that organizers might have to cancel the entire event. Shortly thereafter, however, the Mayor's office announced the demonstration could continue without the stage. Amidst the confusion, anti-opposition spambots flooded Twitter with messages bearing the hashtags “sick of protests” [ru] and “the opposition has faded away” [ru].

Twitterbots simultaneously tweeting the hashtag “the opposition has faded away”

Such tactics failed to distract Ekho Moskvy journalist Serguei Parkhomenko, who quickly took to Facebook, where he tried to coordinate alternative logistical arragements in a post [ru] that attracted over 130 “shares”:

Друзья, пожалуйста, прекратить битья головами об углы и причитать,”какой кошмар”. Да, случилось ужасное несчастье. Но именно потому, что оно ужасное, сейчас не истериковать нужно, а очень слаженно работать, чтобы в создавшейся ситуации ситуация не пошла вразнос.

Ситауция таков: поскольку трагедия случилась в самом начале работ, сцены нет, и звука нет. Место монтажа оцеплено полицией. Организаторы (не я) продолжают переговоры с мэрией о том, как быть дальше [...]

Итак, нужны:

1) Большой грузовик с откидывающимися бортами
2) генераторы
3) мощные динамики
4) усилители
5) пульт
6) кабели для всего этого

[...]

Если кто-то может помочь – немедленно пишите мне в личные сообщения.

И пожалуйста, не истерите здесь больше. Не накачивайте друг друга, не орите истошно. Просто помогите.

Friends, please stop beating your heads against the wall and proclaiming “what a disaster.” Yes, a horrible accident has occurred. But, exactly because it is horrible, we don't need to get hysterical. Instead we need to work as a team, so the situation doesn't get away from us.

The situation is this: insofar as the tragedy happened at the very beginning of the work, there is no stage and no sound. The rigging is cordoned off by police. The organizers (not me) are in talks with the mayor about how to continue. [...]

And so we need:

1) A large truck with removable sides.
2) generators
3) powerful speakers
4) amplifiers
5) a mixing board
6) cables for all of this

[...]

If someone can help, quickly get in touch with me.

And please, no more hysterics about this. Don't work yourselves up, and don't lose your heads. Just pitch in.

Some oppositionists were keen to turn Melkov into something of a martyr. User social_hipster[ru] tweeted:

Максим Мелков – жертва режима!

Maksim Melkov is a victim of the regime!

Pro-regime netizens were less impressed by oppositionists’ handling of the tragedy. Twitter user xstazik was happy to take the opportunity to troll the protestors:

погиб человек, а этим лишь бы помитинговать #6мая #ОппозицияСдулась

A person has died, but these guys just want to have their rally #6may #TheOppositionHasFadedAway

Blogger alekssidor [ru] also disapproved:

Организаторы готовят аппаратуру к митингу на крови

The organizers are setting up the equipment for their protest on blood

While organizers did manage to acquire a truck and a sound-system, a lack of adequate amplification plagued the event's speeches. Journalist Oleg Kashin, perhaps given the circumstances, decided to forgo a speech. Instead, he sang an a capella version of seminal Soviet punk band Grazhdanskaya Oborona‘s best known song, “Everything is going to plan” [ru], to the apparent bafflement of many in attendance.

The confusion was shared by others online, as well, including those who enjoyed it. LiveJournal user langobard wrote [ru]:

сказать откровенно, я Кашина после вчерашнего зауважал.

Хотя один мелкий обывательский вопрос все равно мозолит мозги. Все-таки он бухой был или нет? Ну чего уж, ну принято интересоваться про это в таких вот случаях.

I can honestly say that I respect Kashin after what happened yesterday.

Just one little parochial question all the same pops into my head. Was he wasted or what? No big deal, it's just interesting to know in such cases, that's all.

Kashin, of course, is an extremely prolific tweeter [ru] and occasionally posts entire song lyrics, 140 characters at a time. SimonKostin [ru] noted the collision of the journalist's online and offline personae.

Похоже, Кашин перенес свои принципы ведения твиттера в реальную жизнь

It's as if Kashin has carried his tweeting principles into real life

The event finished with a speech from Alexey Navalny, who appeared onstage alongside his wife. In a straightforward address, which Navalny himself admitted contained “nothing new,” he promised to continue to fight the criminal charges against him and the corruption and excesses of the government. He closed with “Russia is our country! Russia will be free!” The crowd repeated the slogan in a shout, and Navalny's speech was over.

Though the final attendance of the event (estimated to be around 27,500) was much smaller than the mass demonstrations of December 2011 and early 2012, the turnout does testify that that there are still people in Russia willing to come out on an unseasonably cold day and make their displeasure known to the regime, despite accidents, soundsystem failures, and the ever-present fear of arrest and provocation. Despite its setbacks, the opposition has not faded away, which—a year on from Putin's reinauguration—could be an achievement in and of itself.

RuNet Speculates on Protest Rally Size, Again

Andrey Tselikov — Mon, 06 May 2013 21:04:29 +0000

Every Russian opposition rally and march attracts wild online speculation about the numbers of participants — both by observers and the participants themselves. This week's May 6 rally commemorating last year's event which ended in violence and arrests (the so-called Bolotnaya prisoners) was no exception.

As usual, the estimates ranged widely even before the scheduled start of the rally at 7:00 PM. At 6:38 PM journalist Alina Grebneva tweeted [ru] that she thought there were 2.5 thousand people present. Just two minutes later she tweeted again [ru] that another journalist next to her estimated 5 or 6 thousand. Around the same time, at 6:46 PM, Coordinating Council member Ilya Yashin estimated [ru] that there were already 30,000 participants.

Journalist Oleg Kashin singing cult punk classic “Everything is According to Plan” in lieu of a speech at the May 6, 2013 rally in Moscow. YouTube screenshot, May 6, 2013.

The next batch of estimates came after 7:00 PM: first, at 7:06 PM leftist leader Sergey Udaltsov (who is under house arrest, and therefore was not actually present at the rally) tweeted [ru] that there were 50,000 people, Yashin repeated [ru] this figure at 7:10. Meanwhile, by 7:26 PM Grebneva updated her estimate [ru] to 10,000. At around the same time Moscow police low-balled with an estimate [ru] of 7 thousand people passing their metal detector checkpoints, while Radio Svoboda said [ru] that the “consensus” seemed to be around 15-20 thousand. At 7:46 PM Echo Moskvy's Alexey Venediktov did some “math” based on the area of the Bolotnaya Square and arrived at anywhere from 28 to 42 thousand people (at 2 and 3 people per square meter).

Of course, all of these numbers were pure guesswork (doubly so on Udaltsov's part). It is extremely hard to judge the size of a crowd even with a bird's eye view, harder still when you are actually part of the crowd, or looking at it from one side — which is the reason why such estimates always vary widely (one is reminded of journalist Oleg Kozyrev's tweets about hundreds of thousands of participants at one of the prior marches). What is surprising is the ease with which the people guesstimating could arrive at a reasonably accurate number, if only they were willing to put in the time.

SONAR's website. Screenshot, May 6, 2013.

Enter SONAR [ru], a group of electoral observer volunteers, who have organized a hand count of rally participants using tally counters (RuNet Echo has previously reported [ru] on their attempts to arrive at accurate rally counts). SONAR has been tweeting [ru] and updating its Facebook page [ru] live, as the results came in, and it is interesting to compare these results to the various numbers thrown around on Twitter.

At 6:30 PM SONAR counted 7,000, by 7:00 PM the number grew to 13,900 — a far cry from 30,000 first estimated by Yashin, but already higher than the final police estimate. At 7:30 SONAR counted 22,100 people, a number which oddly continued growing until the rally ended at 8:30, with 27,500. It is unclear if the count reflects a lag in reporting, or if there were indeed 5 thousand stragglers who showed up to see the last few minutes of speeches (and missed Oleg Kashin's singing). Although the final number will probably upset both supporters and detractors of the protest cause, it appear to be relatively accurate, as it is in line with some of the saner estimates. Incidentally, SONAR has shown once again that a simple averaging of highest and lowest estimates often works perfectly — Yashin's 50,000 plus the police's 7,000, divided by 2, is 28,500 people.

Absurdity Takes to the Streets in Russia

Andrey Tselikov — Fri, 03 May 2013 17:18:52 +0000

May Day might not be as big of a celebration in 21st century Russia as it was in the Soviet Union, but it is still a day for demonstrations and marches. This May 1, along with photographs of political signs urging to Free Navalny! [ru] and accounts of arrests at political rallies [ru], RuNet was flooded with reports of a different kind. The photographs stand out from a sea of red (Communist) or blue (United Russia) flags — an odd slogan here, a carnival mask there. These are participants in “Monstration” (the word comes from “demonstration” with the “de-” removed, rather than “monster”), a quirky celebration of absurdity brought to you courtesy of Siberia.

This year was the tenth anniversary of Monstration. Founded in Novosibirsk by the artist Artyom Loskutkov, and always held on May 1, it quickly caught on in other Russian cities, as well as the Ukraine. The idea is simple — a public art performance in the form of a political march, with absurd posters and costumes used by participants to express themselves. As one Omsk blogger described it in his report [ru] from the event:

Монстрация — это пародия на традиционную демонстрацию с абсурдными требованиями и плакатами, где каждый участник заявляет то, о чём хочет.

A Monstration is a parody of a traditional demonstration, with absurd demands and slogans, where every participant says what he wants.

Although it has been adopted by other cities, Monstration still remains a largely Siberian, and specifically Novosibirsk, endeavor. This year it took place in Omsk, Tyumen, Khabarkovsk, and Novosibirsk (all Siberian cities), as well as Krasnoyarsk, Yekaterinburg, Yaroslavl, and five cities in the Ukraine and Moldova. Attendance is telling — this year Novosibirsk drew a crowd of over two thousand [ru] (as it has for the last four years), while Krasnoyarsk had around 40 participants [ru], and Omsk does not look to have broken [ru] the several dozen barrier. Even Moscow's rally in 2011 only had 200 in attendance. Curiously, Yekaterinburg's first attempt at a Monstration this year was a major success — the citizen journalism portal Ridus reports [ru] that there were over 1000 marchers.

Leonid Agutin performing in 2003. “Russia without Agutin” is a slogan many people could probably get behind. Public domain. Wikimedia Commons.

Monstration is all about funny slogans, and the slogans are funny. The one above reads “Россия без Агутина” (“Russia without Agutin”) referring to the cheesy 90′s era pop singer Leonid Agutin [ru], and plays on the fact that the name rhymes with Putin. Although this slogan could be construed as marginally political, most aren't — for example monstrators at the Krasnoyarsk event chanted “Хей, хей, хей, к нам едет Саша Грей” (“Hey, hey, hey, who's coming to town, Sasha Grey”), namechecking the famous retired porn-star who for some inexplicable reason is immensely popular in Russia. (The fascination with Grey's upcoming visit to Russia led the poet and journalist Ivan Davydov to joke on his blog [ru]:

Национальная идея начинает постепенно вырисовываться: всей страной влезть в желтую Ладу-Калину, и овладеть решительно Сашей Грей. Как Америкой, ненавидимой и вожделенной. Желательно – на фоне ковра.

A national idea is slowly emerging: the whole country wants to get into a yellow Lada-Kalina [ru], and to decisively “take” Sasha Grey. Like America, hated and coveted. Preferably with a wall carpet [ru] in the background.)

Other examples of slogans from this year included [ru]:

Вперёд в тёмное прошлое!

Forward into the dark past! [A play on the old "bright future" canard.]

Виктор Цой предупреждает — автобусы убивают!

Victor Tsoi warns — buses kill! [The famous rock star died when his car collided with a bus]

Хватит выкладывать еду в Инстаграм

Stop posting food in Instagram

and

Я живу с циничным сусликом

I live with a cynical gopher

“Forward into the dark past!” YouTube screenshot, May 2, 2013.

Although it is technically not a “flashmob,” the Monstration phenomenon probably would not exist without the internet. The events in the various cities were organized through the monstration.ru [ru] blog, which posted the time and place of the meetups, as well as city-specific [ru] pages [ru] on the social network VKontakte [ru]. The pages also noted whether the event was coordinated with the respective city governments. The importance of the Internet also goes for the slogans and posters. There are several online repositories of past Monstration slogans — the biggest one [ru] lists them by year and city, presumably for those people too lazy to come up with their own. And sure enough, the “Russia without Agutin” slogan already appeared once in Novosibirsk, 2011.

Because Monstrations are consciously apolitical, attempts by political groups to hijack the movement are usually met with hostility. For example, after members of the opposition tried to associate themselves with Moscow's Monstration in 2012, Loskutkov reportedly forswore any future Monstrations in Moscow. Of course, the fact that these events take place on a day that is consummately political, just adds to the absurdity, and makes for some ironic opinions [ru], like this gripe from one Monstration attendee:

Не понравилось, что коммунисты вышли с коммунистическими плакатами. Извините, что это, блядь, такое? [...] Зачем вы вечно лезете даже туда, где вам нет места?

I didn't like the fact that the communists came with communist posters. Sorry, but what the f*ck is that? [...] Why are you constantly trying to infiltrate even where there is no place for you?

The Kremlin Defeated the Russian Opposition?

Kevin Rothrock — Thu, 02 May 2013 18:58:09 +0000

“Do you really have the feeling that the old system collapsed after the December 2011 protests? The system defeated the opposition. It’s a fact.” Vladislav Surkov delivered this line [ru] earlier today to a crowd of reporters and students at the London School of Economics. Surkov is the former First Deputy of the Chief of the Russian Presidential Administration, having worked in the Kremlin for over a decade, under both Putin and Medvedev, until his ouster in late December 2011. He is also widely credited with having masterminded the federal government’s “ideological policy” of engaging, but mostly suppressing, the protest opposition throughout the post-Yeltsin era.

The 2011-2012 winter protests that erupted in Moscow and other large cities owe much of their organizational success to the country’s increasingly active netizens, who reacted to Surkov’s statement today with the expected explosion of anger.

Vladislav Surkov, 25 September 2009, photo by Juerg Vollmer, CC 2.0.

Opposition activist Ilya Yashin tweeted [ru]:

“Система победила оппозицию”, сказал Сурков. Пока она, по-моему, победила только самого Суркова, которого в аппаратной борьбе сожрал Володин

“The system defeated the opposition,” Surkov says. Though it seems to me that it defeated only Surkov, who was gobbled up by Volodin in the fight for top dog.

Offering quick proof of Godwin’s Law, Twitter user Vagif Abilov wrote [ru]:

Сурков считает, что система победила оппозицию. А Гитлер победил евреев.

Surkov thinks that the system defeated the opposition. And Hitler defeated the Jews.

Albert Alkhazov, on the other hand, tweeted [ru] earnestly:

Сурков:”Cистема победила оппозицию” ? Cмешно :) Победить оопозицию можно только на честных выборах, которых вы боитесь.

Surkov: “the system defeated the opposition”? Hilarious ☺ You can only defeat the opposition in honest elections, which you fear.

Meanwhile on Facebook, the group “We Were at Bolotnaia Square and Will Come Again” posted [ru] a link to an article containing Surkov’s London remarks. Facebook users’ reactions to that post are universally hostile.

In a comment that attracted 30 “likes” (more than any other comment) and attacked another of Surkov's jabs at oppositionists’ “extremism,” Nikolai Kladovoi wrote [ru]:

Я думаю, слова Суркова следует трактовать по статье УК “Клевета”, и подать соответствующее заявление, от лица кого либо из участников “Болотных” событий. НИКТО из этих участников не был привлечён к ответственности по статье “Экстремизм” (282), и г-ну Суркову, конечно же известно об этом. Следовательно, данное заявление, 100% клеветническое.

I think that Surkov’s words ought to be addressed according to the criminal code against slander, and any one of Bolotnaia’s participants should file suit against him. NOT ONE of these participants has been convicted of violating the extremism statute, and Mr. Surkov is of course aware of this. And so Surkov’s announcement today is 100% slanderous.

In another popular comment, Victoria Koshkina wrote [ru] ironically:

это он в очень правильном месте сказал – Лондон должен знать, кому предоставляет визы

he said this in a very appropriate place—London should know whom it grants visas

Today in London, Surkov didn’t only taunt the protest movement. He also responded to questions about the Skolkovo Innovation Center, a high technology “science city” (still under construction) that’s meant to become Russia’s own Silicon Valley. Federal investigators have recently opened an embezzlement case [ru] against Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev, who earned $750 thousand between February 2011 and February 2012.

Today, Surkov criticized investigators’ conduct in the case, saying [ru]:

На мой взгляд, так громко говорить о правонарушениях до решения суда, это может быть, и неправильно. Говорить нужно, но вопрос в громкости, можно говорить громко, а можно – не очень громко.

In my view, talking so loudly about legal offenses before a court decision might be inappropriate. We need to talk about it, but the question is about that conversation’s volume—we can talk loudly, but we can also talk not so loudly.

Ponomarev, incidentally, was a prominent figure in the winter protest movement. In an article [ru] for the website Slon.ru (written before Surkov’s London performance), political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky noted that Ponomarev’s scandal could harm Medvedev and anyone else associated with Skolkovo. Did Medvedev and Surkov funnel three-quarters of a million dollars to a man who played a central role in the massive anti-Putin protests of 2011-2012? Could this compromising link have influenced Surkov’s London declarations of victory over protesters? What’s he trying to prove? And who exactly was his intended audience?

Potty-Mouthed Russian Blogger Faces Prison for Ethnic Slurs

Andrey Tselikov — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:05:22 +0000

Last week, the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, a Russian watchdog group that focuses on xenophobia, religion and “government misuse of counter-extremism measures,” drew public attention to a peculiar legal case [ru] in which a blogger from the Republic of Bashkortostan (a small autonomous republic neighboring Tatarstan in southern Russia) was charged with hate speech for a post she published on her Facebook account late last year. SOVA cites the case as an example of misuse of counter-extremism measures, which it defines as [ru]:

[...] действия государства и общественных групп, предпринимаемые в рамках противодействия агрессивному национализму или иным формам неприемлемого радикализма, но фактически направленные преимущественно на неправомерное ограничение гражданских свобод или даже прямо попирающие гражданские свободы.

[...] actions of the state or social groups, taken within the framework of combating aggressive nationalism or other forms of unacceptable radicalism, but in reality aimed mainly at unlawful limiting of civic freedoms or even directly trampling civic freedoms.

According to Bashkortostan's Investigative Committee [ru], the woman in question, Guzaliya Galimova, is in indeed being charged under the now infamous article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code, for “inciting hatred or enmity, as well as denigration of human dignity.” Specifically, she is alleged to have had:

[...] находясь у себя дома разместила в открытом доступе в социальной сети Интернет «Facebook» текст, содержащий негативную информацию в отношении представителей русской национальности, создающую у читающего резко отрицательные психологические установки в отношении другого лица либо группы лиц [...]

[...] while in her home, placed into the public domain in the Internet social network “Facebook” a text, containing negative information about members of the Russian nationality, creating in the reader a sharply negative psychological attitudes agaisnt other person or persons [...]

What does this mouthful of a formulation mean? It turns out that last year Galimova, formerly a history teacher, went on vacation to Turkey (a popular beach destination among Russians), and came back dissatisfied with the experience. In fact, she was so dissatisfied that when she returned she went straight for her Facebook and wrote a profanity laced diatribe [ru], in which she somewhat unexpectedly blamed Russian women for the various problems she encountered, specifically singling out “Russian” as an ethnicity, rather than a civic identity:

О русских бабах, не о россиянках, а именно о русских бабах! Русское бабье как вас научилась ненавидеть, отдыхая в Турции. Как можно загадить все вокруг и испортить своим поведением менталитет турков мужчин. Еще отдыхая в Чамьюва, испытала на себе все прелести поведения русских сучек, иначе не назовешь.

About [ethnically] Russian broads, not [civically] Russian women, but precisely Russian broads! Russian broads, how I've learned to hate you, vacationing in Turkey. How you can turn everything around you into crap, and spoil the mentality of Turkish men with your behavior. While still at Çamyuva, I experienced the charming conduct of Russian b*tches, no other way to call it.

Russian tourist dancing at a Turkish resort. YouTube screenshot, April 30, 2013.

Galimova continued with a description of “stereotypical” Russian conduct at Turkish hotels — heavy drinking, promiscuous behavior, and being victims of robberies. Later she again emphasized the promiscuity:

[...] русское бабье на охоте за турками. Турки – тоже самое. Мне пришлось даже прибегнуть к помощи охраны, чтобы избавиться от назойливого турка, которому даже повода не давала. Спасибо охране – они четко выполняют свои обязанности. Знаю, что ни один турок не может ко мне прикоснуться без моего желания. [...] Идешь и тебе прямым текстом предлагают секс, причем каждый второй. А причина проста как 3 копейки. Русские сучки! Знаете, всегда вношу ясность – я татарка, этим все сказано.

[...] Russian broads hunting Turks. Turks – the same. I had to resort to asking the security to get rid of an annoying Turk who I didn't even give cause [to hit on me]. Thanks to the security – they do their jobs well. I know that no Turk can touch me if I don't wish it. [...] You are walking and you simply get offered sex, every second person. And the reason is as simple as three pennies. Russian b*tches! You know, I always make it clear – I'm a Tatar, and that says everything.

Describing herself as a historian, Galimova concluded by hypothesizing that this state of affairs exists because of Russian women who smuggled Turkish goods into the Soviet Union in the late 80s, and had sex in exchange for free merchandise.

The post went viral, and Galimova eventually ended up deleting it (she later removed her entire Facebook profile), but not before it was captured by several other bloggers, one of whom wrote a complaint [ru] to the local prosecutor's office. Galimova later asserted [ru] that the text was part of a “philosophical treatise on Russian women” which she says she wrote 2009.

As vitriolic as it was, it is unclear if such polemic should qualify as “inciting hatred,” or fall under free speech provisions. It is pretty clearly “denigrating human dignity” based on an ethnic distinction. If Galimova had not mentioned her Tatar ethnicity or made such a point to distinguish between ethnic and civic Russianness in her post, it is unlikely that anyone could make it fit under the Article 282. There is also the “public domain” aspect to consider — as usual with the Internet, the line between privately letting off steam and displaying opinions publicly is blurry. But is prosecuting Galimova worth the resources? Probably not. In the end, frivolous cases like this devalue the already controversial Russian hate speech laws.

Pavel Durov, Russia's Zuckerberg, Fights for Control of His Creation

Kevin Rothrock — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 05:22:01 +0000

Something strange is happening with Vkontakte, Russia’s homegrown version of Facebook. In the last couple of months, the company’s founder and current head, Pavel Durov, has suffered three very public “kicks in the teeth,” one of which might even lead to criminal charges.

The setup

First, on March 27, 2013, there was Novaya Gazeta’s Andrei Kolesnikov, who published [ru] hacked emails supposedly written by Durov and former Vkontakte Press Secretary Vladislav Tsyplukhin, addressed to Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s former chief ideologist. In those emails, Durov and Tsyplukhin indicate Vkontakte’s secret cooperation with federal police to suppress the online organizing efforts of the country’s political opposition in December 2011.

Pavel Durov of Vkontakte speaks during the Digital Life Design conference, 24 January 2012, photo by Hubert Burda Media, CC 2.0.

Second, on April 5, 2013, someone driving a white Mercedes registered to Vkontakte Vice President Ilya Perekopsky disobeyed a police officer [ru] on the streets of St. Petersburg, actually hitting the traffic cop with the front of the car, in a frustrated effort to change lanes. (See dashboard video footage here [ru].) When police pursued, the driver booked it on foot, escaping thanks to the efforts of his private bodyguard, who stayed behind to intervene and prevent a chase. About a week later, police identified Durov as the man behind the wheel. Within days, law enforcement officers descended on Vkontakte’s Petersburg office and Durov’s apartment (though he was present at neither). Shortly thereafter, Petersburg investigators called in Durov for questioning on April 19. When he didn’t show up, investigators called him in again on April 22. Again, the Vkontakte creator was a no-show.

Third, on April 21, 2013, Dozhd Television’s Leonid Parfenov announced [ru] that Durov had relocated to Buffalo, New York, where he is working through a new company called “Digital Fortress” on a new social network that will compete directly with Vkontakte, adding, “It’s clear that [Durov] has no intention of returning to Russia.” Parfenov’s bombshell came four days after a major shakeup [ru] in Vkontakte’s ownership, when investment group United Capital Partners bought up the shares cofounders of Lev Leviev and Viacheslav Mirilashvili (the original startup money behind Durov’s original vision), giving UCP 48% control of the company. UCP’s president, Ilya Shcherbovich [ru], is a man said to have strong ties to the Kremlin, given his seats on the boards of directors at state-owned industrial giants Rosneft and Transneft. In the April 21 television broadcast, Parfenov interviews Shcherbovich and airs a statement from Leviev and Mirilashvili, all of whom deny any hostile intentions against Durov. (Indeed, Shcherbovich says UCP wants to see Durov remain Vkontakte’s head.) After the show, Durov immediately denied [ru] Parfenov’s emigration insinuation and clarified that Digital Fortress is working on a cloud-storage side project that does not compete with Vkontakte.

Russia’s mighty independent media

Reading Westerners’ descriptions of the Russian media is an experience much like looking up the word “bad” in a thesaurus. Critics frequently except from their denunciations certain “respected” newspapers that focus on business, like Kommersant and Vedomosti. Novaya Gazeta is another publication that often gets a pass, thanks largely to its investigative journalists, many of whom have exhibited great bravery over the paper’s twenty-year history. Past Novaya reporters like Anna Politkovskaya (assassinated in 2006) are key to its reputation today as a newspaper many consider to be beyond reproach. In other words, when Novaya Gazeta publishes leaked emails implicating Pavel Durov and Vkontakte in secret cooperation with the Kremlin, it carries the force of Politkovskaya’s ghost and two decades of “speaking truth to power.”

Not everyone sees it that way, however. Anton Nosik, one of the most influential and established figures on the Russian Internet, wrote [ru] on LiveJournal on March 28 that Novaya’s exposé was a lie—an example of mercenary journalism (“zakazukha”). In that post, Nosik cites a series of Novaya Gazeta articles published in 2002 that were in fact part of coordinated media campaigns [ru] by warring business interests.

Leonid Parfenov (with the aid of some CGI) reports that Pavel Durov isn't likely returning to Russia, 21 April 2013, screen capture from YouTube.

On April 5 (the same day as the white Mercedes incident), Novaya published a follow-up [ru] to its March 27 article, this time focusing on Kremlin-cooperation by Tsyplukhin and “The Twitter Journal,” a Web project [ru] that received its $25 thousand startup funding from “Start Fellows”—a grant program administered by Durov and investor Yuri Milner. (Later that day, Tsyplukhin apologized [ru] and admitted that this second batch of leaked emails is genuine.) On April 6, firebrand radio host Yulia Latynina criticized [ru] Nosik’s March 28 comments, calling him a “friend” of Durov’s and highlighting that Nosik’s 2002 zakazukha example is eleven years old. On April 9, Nosik responded again, publishing a 2,500-word monster [ru] on his LiveJournal blog, addressing both Novaya’s more recent past and the details of its suspiciously anti-Durov reporting.

Nosik dissects Novaya

“If this had been any other newspaper,” Nosik writes, “a leak like this coming from a journalist would have been fact-checked by colleagues with some [technical] expertise.” Indeed, Novaya’s March 27 article says nothing about how Kolesnikov obtained the hacked emails, and the paper offers no way to verify their authenticity. Strangely, Novaya presents this sensitive content as image files [ru] containing print-view text, without any DKIM-signature. (The April 5 follow-up leak, featuring emails written by Tsyplukhin but not Durov, did contain the messages’ digital signature data.)

And then there is Durov’s email itself, which begins rather ludicrously:

Как вы знаете, мы уже несколько лет сотрудничаем с ФСБ и отделом «К» МВД, оперативно выдавая информацию о тысячах пользователей нашей сети в виде IP-адресов, номеров мобильных телефонов и другой информации, необходимой для их идентификации.

As you know, we’ve already been working for a few years with the FSB and the MVD’s special division “K,” promptly supplying information about thousands of our network’s users in the form of IP addresses, mobile phone numbers, and other information necessary to identify them.

If Durov—often described as a genius, not unlike Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg—had indeed collaborated with the Kremlin, would he really have announced it so plainly in a letter to Vladislav Surkov? Remarking on this curiosity, Maria Sergeyeva joked [ru] on Facebook that “only the lobotomized” write phrases like “we’re working with the FSB” in official documents. (Sergeyeva also mentions that Surkov is famous for refusing any letters longer than a single sheet of A4 paper, whereas the note allegedly authored by Durov runs a whopping four pages.)

Nosik also takes issue with Novaya’s peculiar presentation. For instance, its April 5 article features 18 emails written by Tsyplukhin about “The Twitter Journal,” but the headline instead takes aim at Durov’s company (“Micro-gods [a play on “microblog” in Russian] Are Vkontakte [In Contact] with Staraya Square [the Presidential Admistration]”), as though Tsyplukhin was scheming on Durov’s behalf. Novaya’s tenuous implication (by pun no less) seems to be that the Start Fellows program incriminates Vkontakte in Tsyplukhin’s dirty dealings with the Kremlin.

Nosik concludes his post with a scathing attack on Novaya Gazeta as a relic of Russian journalism from the 1990s, speculating that certain powerful people have decided at last to poison the country’s burgeoning Internet culture:

А сейчас какие-то люди, для которых ведение чёрных PR-войн является привычным занятием, решили влезть с этой дубиной в Интернет. И мне не очень важно, кто эти негодяи: володинские они, сурковские, малофеевские, или чьи-то ещё. Мне в любом случае не хочется, чтобы они тащили это своё говно в Рунет. Мне хватает Единого реестра и уголовных дел против блоггеров.

But now certain people, for whom running black publicity wars is an ordinary job, have decided to butt in on the Internet with this bludgeon. And it doesn’t matter to me who these scumbags are: Volodin’s people, Surkov’s, Molofeev’s, or someone else’s. Whoever they are, I don’t want them dragging their shit onto the RuNet. I’ve had enough of Internet Blacklists and criminal cases against bloggers.

Not a straightforward conspiracy?

On April 19, after learning that UCP now owns almost half of Vkontakte, Nosik again addressed the scandals surrounding the company, announcing somewhat unexpectedly [ru] that he doesn’t think the shareholders shakeup (which is rumored to have cost UCP roughly $700 million) is the reason for the media campaign against Durov. (Though, Nosik does harbor certain suspicions about UCP’s self-reported $3.5 billion under management, asking distrustfully whose money it is, if none of the investment fund’s five founding partners is worth even a fraction of that.)

Nosik points out that Durov’s partners, Leviev and Mirilashvili, made no secret about their long-held desire to cash out and disinvest from Vkontakte. Indeed, this tension features prominently in Nikolai Kononov’s 2012 book [ru], “Durov’s Code: the Real Story of the Social Network ‘Vkontkate’ and Its Creator.”

Just days later, on April 22, Kononov himself weighed in on Durov’s current crisis, offering five potential conclusions [ru] to the story. In the most probable scenario (which Kononov amusingly assigns a “95% likelihood”), Vkontakte’s majority shareholders sue Durov over his Digital Fortress project (which turns out to be a sleek instant messenger app), and Durov must sell off his remaining Vkontakte shares at a depreciated price to pay the legal damages.

Durov’s enigma

Throughout his tenure at Vkontakte, Pavel Durov has not shied from controversy. In July 2011, after billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s Mail.ru Group expanded its Vkontakte ownership to 39.99%, Durov fought bitterly to maintain control of the company, refusing to acquiesce to Usmanov’s stated desire to buy out Leviev and Mirilashvili. On July 22, Durov posted [ru] to Instagram a photo [ru] of himself gesturing obscenely at the camera, captioned, “[My] official response to the trash-holding [fund] Mail.ru regarding its latest attempt in vain to swallow Vkontakte.” Shockingly, Usmanov backed down [ru], apparently impressed by Durov’s gall (or perhaps instructed by the Kremlin to lay off). In April 2012, Mail.ru Group granted Durov full stewardship of its shares [ru], giving him majority control of Vkontakte, dependent of course on Usmanov’s continued good graces.

Durov's message to the FSB, 8 December 2011. Photo posted to Durov's Twitter account.

In early December 2011 (at precisely the time that Novaya’s article would have us believe he was writing love notes to Surkov), Durov tangled with St. Petersburg’s FSB, which had requested that Vkontatke delete seven groups on its network that were directed at organizing Russians against United Russia at the height of the Winter Protest Movement. Repeating his stunt against Mail.ru Group, Durov went public with the FSB’s request, posting a scan [ru] of the official police petition, along with a humorous image [ru] of a dog wearing a hoodie (reminiscent of Durov’s trademark cartoon dog).

Rather than ban oppositionist groups, Vkontakte actually lifted network restrictions [ru] on its groups, allowing them to host more than the 16,384-posts-per-day limit. Later that night, government investigators and camouflaged police special forces came knocking on his door, demanding entry to his apartment. Durov didn’t let them in, and the authorities left and never returned. (Durov’s bodyguards later told Nikolai Kononov that they nearly opened fire on the police, fearing they might attempt to breach the door by force.)

Days after this incident, Durov penned an open letter [ru] explaining his defiance as an act of business savvy, arguing that the FSB had tried to handicap Vkontakte in an area that foreign social networks operate freely. Clearly uncomfortable with his newfound status as a hero of the protest movement, Durov tried to reclaim his identity as a more ambiguous, business-focused figure:

Те, кто бросились благодарить нас за содействие политическим протестантам, теряют из вида простое обстоятельство. Если бы в те же дни мы стали проигрывать в конкурентной борьбе из-за отсутствия какого-нибудь сервиса виртуальных массовых репрессий, нам бы пришлось ввести и его. И будьте уверены – наши репрессии были бы самыми массовыми и самыми кровавыми на рынке.

Those who rushed at the chance to thank us for aiding the political protesters are losing sight of a simple fact. If in that same period, we’d started to lose our competitive edge because of a lack of some kind of virtual mass repression service, then we’d have introduced one of those, too. And rest assured, our repressions would be the most massive and most bloody on the market.

In yet another stockholders scandal, Durov revealed [ru] in November 2012 that Konstantin Malofeev [ru] (then head of Marshall Capital Partners and a trustee at the League for a Safe Internet) had ordered media attacks on Vkontakte in August earlier that year, exploiting his position at the League to accuse Vkontakte of hosting large amounts of child pornography. Malofeev, it seems, tried and failed as Usmanov had a year before to buy out Leviev and Mirilashvili. Durov says that the media campaign against Vkontakte stopped on a dime the moment that he approached Malofeev for negotiations, and restarted the moment those talks broke down.

Today’s mystery

Western coverage of Durov’s current predicament largely assumes that forces loyal to the Kremlin have swooped down on Vkontakte to claim the country’s biggest social network for federal police, who have clearly demonstrated their interest in controlling the website’s capacity to mobilize opposition sentiments. Miriam Elder of the Guardian writes that recent events have occurred “amid fears the Kremlin is looking to tighten its grip on the Internet,” adding that “Kremlin fears over the Internet have grown since Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin last year amid an unprecedented wave of protests.”

Nevertheless, almost half [ru] of Vkontakte has belonged to Mail.ru Group for nearly two years already, and Usmanov’s ownership has been above 30% [ru] since 2010. In all those years, Durov’s reign over the company, however colorful and rebellious, has depended entirely on the support of Russia’s richest oligarch [ru]. That being the case, what does the Kremlin gain from engineering “black PR” attacks on Durov? How does defaming Vkontakte for FSB collaboration “tighten the Kremlin’s grip on the Internet”?

It’s a tired trope in Russian politics to draw stark generational lines when discussing the country’s development. Alexey Navalny did it when he finished two-weeks imprisonment in December 2011 and declared that he’d entered jail in one country and emerged in another. Anton Nosik does it when he labels Novaya Gazeta an antique of the 1990s, and nods to the great mass of the Internet as a media culture reborn. Current attitudes about Pavel Durov and Vkontakte aren’t so different. People want to believe that “the Russian Facebook” and the promise of the Internet represent something new that can bring about a break with the past.

Remember, however, that Dozhd TV—the opposition’s foothold in televised media—was also a willing participant in (or at least enough of a sap to join) the PR campaign against Durov. Moreover, many netizens were ready to believe Novaya’s anti-Durov publications, despite the supposed outmodedness of 1990s journalism in today’s Internet age. Oleg Kashin, for instance, theorized [ru] on April 5 that a staff member working for Surkov’s replacement had spotted the incriminating emails in a random archival sweep and sent them over to Novaya Gazeta for his own entertainment.

Whoever is behind the media campaign and whatever its significance to Russian society, Durov’s legal strategy regarding the traffic incident in St. Petersburg seems to mirror his approach in December 2011, when police first came banging on his doors: he’s simply not answering. According to the Kremlin-friendly daily Izvestia, Durov’s plan could actually pay off. That newspaper published an article [ru] last week on April 26, indicating that Petersburg investigators might close the case on the white Mercedes, if they’re unable to reach Durov by early June. Is this casual speculation, or could it be a message to Durov to stay away? Will he?

Russian Conspiracy Theories About Boston Bombings Abound

Daniel Alan Kennedy — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 17:40:52 +0000

Conspiracy theories flourish in times of confusion and uncertainty. Claims that the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings were part of some sort of US government-led false flag operation were circulating on the English-speaking internet before the dust had literally settled, particularly on conspiracy forums and social media groups like the Citizens Action Network.

The news that the two bombing suspects were ethnic Chechens turned what had been a passing interest for the RuNet into the number one topic of conversation [GV]. Because the RuNet, just like the Internet at large, has always had a penchant for conspiracy theories, the events in Boston provided ample fodder for some its more paranoid denizens. For example, the pro-regime nationalist LiveJournal community vvv-ig [ru] was quick to place the blame on the American intelligence services, running an extremely graphic post [ru] from the blogger frallik [ru], outlining how the bombings had in fact been faked using actors. The post, mainly using materials and memes sourced from western sites, alleged, among other things, that a man who was in the epicenter of the explosion and lost both of his legs was in fact an Iraq war veteran and previous amputee named Nick Vogt.

Despite the fact that the vvv-ig commonly deals in anti-American conspiracies, the allegation that the bombings had been faked proved too bizarre for some contributors. Blogger proobman [ru] published a rebuttal [ru] in the same community, pointing out that the man who lost his legs was in fact named Jeff Bauman, who has a Facebook page and a fund set up to aid his recovery. Interestingly, proobman's issues with accusations of “staging” appears partially due their similarity to ones leveled at the Russian security services: that they were behind the bombings of several apartment buildings in 1999 [en] as a pretext for the Second Chechen War. proobman quipped:

Башни-близнецы взорвал Буш, Буйнакск и Волгодонск – Путин. Обама взорвал марафон. Продам шапочки из фольги, недорого.

Bush blew up the Twin Towers, Putin blew up [the towns of] Buinaksk and Volgodonsk. Obama blew up the marathon. Tin foil hats for sale, cheap.

The two suspects, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. FBI.gov, April 25, 2013

While many Russian bloggers were quick to accuse the FBI and CIA of carrying out or staging the bombings, one group in particular has almost entirely rejected the official version of events: the Chechens. The Tsarnaev family itself continues to profess their sons’ innocence. The belief that the Tsarnaev Brothers are innocent (or have at least been set up in some way) is common among groups and individuals ranging from Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, to his sworn enemies at KavkazCenter [ru], the online mouthpiece of the Caucasian Emirate. While the Tsarnaevs’ innocence may be one of the incredibly few things Chechens can agree on, radically different conclusions have been drawn about who is to blame. Kadyrov stated publicly [ru] that “what happened in Boston is the fault of the American security services”. Kavkaz Center pointed the finger [ru] squarely at Kadyrov himself, and claimed he was acting on orders from Putin.

Кадыров очень удобная фигура для выполнения «грязных дел». В случае необходимости его можно в любой момент ликвидировать, спрятав все концы, и никто этому не удивится. На нём кровь десятков тысяч чеченцев, да и моджахеды ведут на него постоянную охоту.

Kadyrov is a very useful figure for carrying out “dirty business”. If the situation required it, he could be liquidated at any moment, concealing all evidence, and no one would be surprised. He has the blood of tens of thousands of Chechens on his hands and the mujaheddin are constantly hunting him.

Chechen blogger Zulikhan [ru], whose views on the Boston bombing are discussed in detail here [GV], saw the hands of both the Russian and American security services at work in the bombings.

Путин и Обама, по инициативе российской стороны, договорились по телефону о координации усилий в борьбе с международным терроризмом. Считаю, что за событиями в Бостоне торчат уши российских спецслужб. По принципу “кому выгодно”. [...] Путину выгодно – чтобы Штаты не мешали России творить на Северном Кавказе все, что угодно, под видом борьбы с терроризмом.

Putin and Obama, at the initiative of the Russians, have come to an agreement about coordinating efforts in combating international terrorism. I think that the Russian special services are visible behind the events in Boston. Based on the “who profits” principle. [...] Putin profits — so that the States let Russia do what it wants in the North Caucasus under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Netizens have not confined themselves to speculation and counterfactuals. Some have set up an active defense of Tsarnaev. An April 21 petition on Avaaz.org entitled “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is innocent” [en] gained over 5,500 signatures in four days. Ethnic Chechens actively distributed links [ru[ to the petition on social media. A rolling tally at the side of the page showed the names and locations of the signatories, many of whom were located in Russia and many of whom had Chechen names. According to the author of the page, when enough signatures are collected the letter will be delivered to Barack Obama.

List of recent signatures to an online petition proclaiming Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's innocence. “Lom-Ali” and “Khamzat” are Chechen names. Screenshot. April 25, 2013

Chechnya and her people have suffered greatly throughout this century and the last. It seems in this case they are reluctant to suffer yet another indignity – that of having their people's name tied to a terrorist act half way around the world. Someone is to blame no doubt, but few in Chechenya want to believe it is the two young men whose family left their war-town country years ago.

RuNet: What Does Boston Mean for Chechen Cause?

Andrey Tselikov — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:21:09 +0000

In the days since the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, ethnic Chechen and “Suspect #2″ in the Boston Marathon bombings, there has been surprisingly little cogent analysis of the situation from Chechen bloggers active on the RuNet. Of course, some have commented on the matter, but mostly to link to viral conspiracy theories (some of these were alluded to in RuNet Echo's original article [GV]; a more in-depth look is to follow).

This makes a recent post by one Chechen blogger particularly interesting. Like many others, Zulikhan [ru], “a Chechen, an Ichkerian [wiki], a Muslim, a wife, and a mother” who runs a popular blog on LiveJournal, subscribes to the theory that the Boston bombings were planned by Putin and Russian special forces, using the Tsarnaev brothers as pawns. In her first post on the bombings she wrote [ru] about the potential motivation for such a plot:

Ну вот, что-то уже прояснилось. Путин и Обама, по инициативе российской стороны, договорились по телефону о координации усилий в борьбе с международным терроризмом. Считаю, что за событиями в Бостоне торчат уши российских спецслужб. По принципу “кому выгодно”. [...] Путину выгодно – чтобы Штаты не мешали России творить на Северном Кавказе все, что угодно, под видом борьбы с терроризмом.

Well, some things are clearer now. Putin and Obama, at the initiative of the Russians, have come to an agreement about coordinating efforts in combating international terrorism. I think that the Russian special services are visible behind the events in Boston. Based on the “who profits” principle. [...] Putin profits — so that the States let Russia do what it wants in the North Caucasus under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Regardless of her suspicions (which are rather mild compared to those professed by some of the others), it is worth looking at Zulikhan's later analysis of what Boston means for the Chechen people, the cause of Chechen independence, and for the North Caucasus in general. Her opinions should be viewed through the prism of Chechen nationalism. She is no fan of Putin, and names Dzhokhar Dudayev, ex-Soviet military leader of Chechnya's bid for independence in the early 90s, (and likely the man Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was named for) as a personal hero. (As more conspiracy fodder for the aficionados, Dudayev was born on April 15, 1944, which means that the bombing took place on his birthday. [Update: there seems to be some controversy as to when Dudayev was actually born. Most Russian-language online media (including the Russian version [ru] of the Wikipedia article) cite February 15, however some sources do claim April 15 [ru], and even May 15 (the Chechen version of the Wikipedia article). The controversy can be traced to a 2004 Kavkaz Center forum thread [ru] where April 15 is claimed as the birth date. However, because it looks like the English-language Wikipedia article on Dudayev was edited from February 15 to April 15 following Tsarnaev's arrest, the motivation of the edit is questionable.]

Dzhokhar Dudayev addressing his Chechen troops. YouTube screenshot. April 24, 2013.

With that said, here are some excerpts from her most recent post [ru]. First, Zulikhan makes sure to note that the repercussions of the Boston bombings will be felt by all of North Caucasus, including Dagestan and Ingushetia where much of the separatist movement is concentrated at the moment:

Если бы несчастные Тамерлан и Джохар устроили мозговой штурм именно с этой целью – как сильнее навредить своему народу – вряд ли додумались бы до такого. [...] для Запада все кавказцы, которые что-то такое творят – чеченцы. Бренд работает. Как в том анекдоте про ингушей, которые позавидовали чеченцам, что весь мир их знает, решили переплюнуть их достижения и захватили Кремль. После чего все СМИ сообщили: “Группа чеченских террористов захватила Кремль. Непонятно почему они называют себя ингушами”.

If the hapless Tamerlan and Dzhokhar brainstormed with precisely this question in mind — how to greater harm their people — they would have hardly thought of this. [...] for the West everyone from the Caucasus that does something bad is a Chechen. The branding works. It's like that joke about the Ingush [a neighboring, rival culture of mountaineers similar to the Chechens], who became jealous of the Chechens because the whole world knows them, decided to one up them, and took over the Kremlin. After this mass media reported: “A group of Chechen terrorists hijacked the Kremlin. It's unclear why they keep calling themselves Ingush.”

She predicts, rather astutely, that the days of Chechens being unequivocally accepted as political refugees in the West are over:

Из-за этих двоих чеченцев – всего лишь двоих! – и в Штатах, и в Европе кавказцам перестанут давать убежище. Будут высылать чеченцев прямо в руки Путину и Кадырову – не только каких-нибудь грабителей, но и воинов, т1емлой. Тех, кто будет сидеть тихо-тихо, может, и не вышлют – просто будут мучить и унижать всевозможными проверками.

Because of these two Chechens — only two! — in the States and in Europe they'll stop accepting refugees from the Caucasus. They will extradite Chechens into the hands of Putin and Kadyrov — not just robbers, but warriors, “tlemloi”. Those who will sit there quietly, maybe wont be expelled, but will be tormented and humiliated with all sorts of checks.

She also talks about the difficultly of distinguishing an actual extremist from someone like her, who simply supports the idea of Chechen independence:

Какие-то американские сенаторы или конгрессмены уже возмущаются, почему ФБР не отреагировала должным образом, получив от российских спецслужб сведения, что Тамерлан Царнаев связан с террористами. Значит, теперь ФСБ сможет про любого беженца, любого эмигранта заявить, что он террорист, и ФБР отреагирует. “Доказательства” долго искать не придется – ведь все мы регулярно посещаем “сепаратистские” сайты и форумы. Значит, все связаны с террористами.

Some American Senators or Congressmen are already outraged that FBI did not react properly, having received notice from the Russian special services that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had ties to terrorists. So, now the FSB can say about any refugee, any emigrant, that he is a terrorist, and the FBI will react. It won't be that hard to find “proof” — we all regularly visit “separatist” websites and forums. So, we are all tied to the terrorists.

Finally, she predicts a general crackdown on Chechen organizing in the West:

Чеченцев в Европе и Штатах начнут преследовать за любую политическую и общественную активность. Станут невозможны мероприятия, подобные этому – когда чеченская молодежь из разных стран собралась в Эстонии под ичкерийским флагом для знакомства и обсуждения политических и культурных проблем.

Chechens in Europe and the States will be persecuted for any kind of political and social activity. Eventss like this — when Chechen youth from different countries came together in Estonia under the Ichkerian flag, to meet and discuss political and cultural problems — will become impossible.

According to Zulikhan, such meetings are important if exiled Chechen separatists are to ever organize into a structure that would be able to take over Chechnya once it finally gains its independence (of which she has no doubt).

Are some of her predictions over-the-top? Perhaps. However, even if one does not agree with the analysis in all of its particulars, one thing is certain — life has definitely gotten more difficult for Chechen emigrants.