Thursday, March 31, 2005
Just after sunset yesterday, I heard what sounded like singing outside. I looked out of the window and saw a couple dozen people gathered on the roof of the synagogue across the street. It was a wedding, with a chuppah, candles, prayers and, finally, some really cheerful whistling as everyone walked back indoors from the snow-covered roof.
Watching it from the balcony was very moving: I was sharing in somebody's joy without having been invited - in a way, it was like watching a theater play. The air around me smelled incredibly tasty, and, very briefly, I wished I had been invited to the celebration...
In the apartment building right next to the synagogue, I saw people coming over to their windows, looking out to see what's going on some ten meters away from them, on the roof... At some point, two kids walked away from the crowd around the chuppah and stood by the fenced-off edge of the roof, looking into those windows...
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Eighteen imbeciles at the Livadia Town Council have voted in favor of going ahead with the installation of Zurab Tsereteli's monument to Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill in Livadia.
The freaks plan to have the monument installed in one of Livadia's parks by May 9, the 60th anniversary of the victory in WWII. Just nine days later, on May 18, Crimean Tatars will be marking the 61st anniversary of the deportations, ordered by Stalin in 1944.
Here's part of a story re-published at the site of the Crimean Communist leader, Leonid Grach:
***
Here's more on the deportations of the Crimean Tatars, from the International Committee for Crimea.
Here's more info on Pyotr Grigorenko: his bio and his 1968 address to the Crimean Tatars.
And here's more on the contemporary Stalin monument mania, from my previous entries: here and here.
The freaks plan to have the monument installed in one of Livadia's parks by May 9, the 60th anniversary of the victory in WWII. Just nine days later, on May 18, Crimean Tatars will be marking the 61st anniversary of the deportations, ordered by Stalin in 1944.
Here's part of a story re-published at the site of the Crimean Communist leader, Leonid Grach:
Livadiya deputies and residents of the town think that the monument to the "Big Three" will become one of the popular tourist destinations of not just Livadia but of Crimea as a whole.
Leonid Grach, leader of the Crimean Communists and a people's deputy of Ukraine, was present at the the Town Council session. He admitted that certain Crimean Tatar politicians have already spoken against installation of the monument, one of whose characters is Stalin. But they, according to [Grach], should respect the feelings of the Crimeans.
"We aren't yelling that the monument to dissident Pyotr Grigorenko erected without permission by the majlis (the illegal Crimean Tatar "parliament" - the editors' note) in the center of Simferopol should be torn down. We respect the feelings of those who initiated its installation - so let them respect our feelings," said Grach.
***
Here's more on the deportations of the Crimean Tatars, from the International Committee for Crimea.
Here's more info on Pyotr Grigorenko: his bio and his 1968 address to the Crimean Tatars.
And here's more on the contemporary Stalin monument mania, from my previous entries: here and here.
From Registan.net (thank you, Nathan and Laurence):
- Elnura Osmonalieva's translation of Akayev's bullshit Radio Ekho Moskvy interview;
and
- an op-ed on Kyrgyzstan in the New York Times, by University of Alaska Professor Elinor Burkett
***
Ms. Burkett argues that while Georgians and Ukrainians protested against corruption and a rigged election, people in Kyrgyzstan "were venting their frustration over the grim economic situation." At one point, she calls what happened in Bishkek a "so-called revolution."
Back in November, I remember feeling very reluctant to call our own situation a revolution, orange or whatever, primarily because the word brings to mind the bloodshed and futility of 1917. 'Revolution' is a fearsome word. We were spared (thank God and our wonderful people) - but it proved to be much tougher for the Kyrgyz: 15 or 20 people lost their lives and all that looting occurred. And it could've been much worse.
Still, revolution is defined as 'the overthrow of one government and its replacement with another' - and "a so-called velvet revolution" would have been a better way to describe the one in Kyrgyzstan.
As for the reasons and motivations, I'm sure that the degrees of poverty in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan differ, somewhat, but it's poverty nevertheless, and it's closely connected with the corruption in the government and with the ruling folks' belief that once they get on top, they can do whatever they want, fearing no consequences. This is why Ms. Burkett's analysis seems superficial to me, and a bit too abstract:
Ms. Burkett makes totally valid points about Kyrgyzstan's new leadership - they all have too much history in both the Soviet and Akayev's past, and they do not necessarily agree with each other on everything.
But I don't think the Kyrgyz should be either more pessimistic or more optimistic about the future than we, Ukrainians, or the Georgians are: our new leaders haven't descended from heaven, either. And the way the Kyrgyz seem to fit into "the paradigm du jour" is this: just like Georgians and Ukrainians, they have shown their leaders - both old and new - that they're capable of dissent, and that it's safer not to try their patience for too long. And, hopefully, something good will eventually come out of it all.
- Elnura Osmonalieva's translation of Akayev's bullshit Radio Ekho Moskvy interview;
and
- an op-ed on Kyrgyzstan in the New York Times, by University of Alaska Professor Elinor Burkett
***
Ms. Burkett argues that while Georgians and Ukrainians protested against corruption and a rigged election, people in Kyrgyzstan "were venting their frustration over the grim economic situation." At one point, she calls what happened in Bishkek a "so-called revolution."
Back in November, I remember feeling very reluctant to call our own situation a revolution, orange or whatever, primarily because the word brings to mind the bloodshed and futility of 1917. 'Revolution' is a fearsome word. We were spared (thank God and our wonderful people) - but it proved to be much tougher for the Kyrgyz: 15 or 20 people lost their lives and all that looting occurred. And it could've been much worse.
Still, revolution is defined as 'the overthrow of one government and its replacement with another' - and "a so-called velvet revolution" would have been a better way to describe the one in Kyrgyzstan.
As for the reasons and motivations, I'm sure that the degrees of poverty in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan differ, somewhat, but it's poverty nevertheless, and it's closely connected with the corruption in the government and with the ruling folks' belief that once they get on top, they can do whatever they want, fearing no consequences. This is why Ms. Burkett's analysis seems superficial to me, and a bit too abstract:
Look at the facts. In Georgia, President Eduard Shevardnadze was swept out of power when thousands of organized protesters surged into the Parliament and demanded an end to corruption. In Kyrgyzstan, Mr. Akayev's 15-year reign was endedby a motley crowd of 20,000 who began the day in Bishkek's Ala-Too Square chanting "Akayev is dirt," then moved on to loot not only the main government building - called the White House - but also supermarkets, Internet cafes, the wholesale food market, beauty salons and A.T.M.'s.
Likewise, Ukrainians rebelled against a rigged election that threatened to install Moscow's favorite in the presidency; but the Kyrgyz mobs that seized the provincial capitals of Osh and Jalalabad before moving on Bishkek weren't demonstrating against the flawed parliamentary elections in February and March. Rather, they were venting their frustration over the grim economic situation of a nation dependent on foreign exchange coming largely from a single gold mine and two foreign military bases, one Russian and one American.
Ms. Burkett makes totally valid points about Kyrgyzstan's new leadership - they all have too much history in both the Soviet and Akayev's past, and they do not necessarily agree with each other on everything.
But I don't think the Kyrgyz should be either more pessimistic or more optimistic about the future than we, Ukrainians, or the Georgians are: our new leaders haven't descended from heaven, either. And the way the Kyrgyz seem to fit into "the paradigm du jour" is this: just like Georgians and Ukrainians, they have shown their leaders - both old and new - that they're capable of dissent, and that it's safer not to try their patience for too long. And, hopefully, something good will eventually come out of it all.
I was looking through the Guardian's archive on Kyrgyzstan and found this piece about Jonny Bealby, a travel writer and founder of Wild Frontiers, a travel agency.
Among many other things, Bealby runs horse trips in Kyrgyzstan, and owns a "little house" in the Hindu Kush, Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, "a fascinating culture populated by incredibly passionate and interesting people."
I'm timid and lazy and that's the main reason why Istanbul has been our only travel destination in the past five years (also, because Istanbul is absolutely amazing, of course, and because I'm scared of long flights, and because of how easy it is to get a Turkish visa...) - anyway, I still dream of going to Armenia, and Bosnia, and Central Asia, and Pakistan, and Israel, and Italy, and maybe someplace else I forget - and the Wild Frontiers site has made me crave travel even more, and I was beginning to feel pretty depressed, knowing full well that I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, but then I found some totally breathtaking pictures on the site and now I feel better, as if I've traveled already...
Here're the links to the photo galleries of my dream destinations (and there are more here):
- Pakistan
- Central Asia (with quite a few pictures of Kyrgyzstan)
- Georgia
The pictures are truly awesome and I'm so glad I've found them!
Among many other things, Bealby runs horse trips in Kyrgyzstan, and owns a "little house" in the Hindu Kush, Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, "a fascinating culture populated by incredibly passionate and interesting people."
I'm timid and lazy and that's the main reason why Istanbul has been our only travel destination in the past five years (also, because Istanbul is absolutely amazing, of course, and because I'm scared of long flights, and because of how easy it is to get a Turkish visa...) - anyway, I still dream of going to Armenia, and Bosnia, and Central Asia, and Pakistan, and Israel, and Italy, and maybe someplace else I forget - and the Wild Frontiers site has made me crave travel even more, and I was beginning to feel pretty depressed, knowing full well that I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, but then I found some totally breathtaking pictures on the site and now I feel better, as if I've traveled already...
Here're the links to the photo galleries of my dream destinations (and there are more here):
- Pakistan
- Central Asia (with quite a few pictures of Kyrgyzstan)
- Georgia
The pictures are truly awesome and I'm so glad I've found them!
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
A Kyrgyz woman, Fatima, a supermarket owner and a victim of the looting, on ORT: "This was done by the hungry ones to those of us who work hard."
***
Askar Akayev on ORT:
His voice and intonations are those of a somewhat feeble man, even though he looks okay; his hands aren't exactly shaking but he does have a little problem keeping them still and definitely holds the armchair more forcefully than he needs to. But who wouldn't be nervous in a shameful situation like Akayev's? At least he doesn't have to live in a tent - the interior in the room they're interviewing him in is pretty fancy.
He's saying almost exactly the same things that he said on Radio Ekho Moskvy a few hours ago - sometimes verbatim. All this molodchiki rhetoric.
Q. The opposition has been calling you a dictotor.
A. Well, the recent events have shown what kind of a dictator I am.
He's denying some of those looted stores in Bishkek belong to his family...
***
Askar Akayev on ORT:
His voice and intonations are those of a somewhat feeble man, even though he looks okay; his hands aren't exactly shaking but he does have a little problem keeping them still and definitely holds the armchair more forcefully than he needs to. But who wouldn't be nervous in a shameful situation like Akayev's? At least he doesn't have to live in a tent - the interior in the room they're interviewing him in is pretty fancy.
He's saying almost exactly the same things that he said on Radio Ekho Moskvy a few hours ago - sometimes verbatim. All this molodchiki rhetoric.
Q. The opposition has been calling you a dictotor.
A. Well, the recent events have shown what kind of a dictator I am.
He's denying some of those looted stores in Bishkek belong to his family...
No matter where I am, I'll be trying to help my country, my people, to overcome the difficulties...
Russian scientific circles - huge moral support, very grateful to them...
Q. "Green" danger - is the threat of Islamic fundamentalism real?
A. There were external influences - the revolution has even been called "tulip." Financing of democratic institutions from abroad have turned into the unconstitutional overthrow of the regime... Hizb ut-Tahrir is coming into play, too... [blah blah... he wouldn't have mentioned it if they hadn't asked...]
[Deputy editor-in-chief of Rossiyskaya Gazeta was also in the studio - they got hold of Akayev first...]
***
That's it.
Total crap.
Russian scientific circles - huge moral support, very grateful to them...
Q. "Green" danger - is the threat of Islamic fundamentalism real?
A. There were external influences - the revolution has even been called "tulip." Financing of democratic institutions from abroad have turned into the unconstitutional overthrow of the regime... Hizb ut-Tahrir is coming into play, too... [blah blah... he wouldn't have mentioned it if they hadn't asked...]
[Deputy editor-in-chief of Rossiyskaya Gazeta was also in the studio - they got hold of Akayev first...]
***
That's it.
Total crap.
Kulov and Bakieyev aren't legitimate and cannot guarantee my immunity and safety. Only the parliament and its head can give me those guarantees. If they give them to me, I'll definitely return and help them, I'm very concerned about the stability and the future of Kyrgyzstan.
...The new power will soon become vulnerable - in a year, the opposition will emerge and will threaten them...
Q. What's your advice to you colleagues, all Central Asian plus Putin?
A. Our democracy is weak and can't defend itself. Colleagues should defend democratic gains, with weapons, if necessary...
...The new power will soon become vulnerable - in a year, the opposition will emerge and will threaten them...
Q. What's your advice to you colleagues, all Central Asian plus Putin?
A. Our democracy is weak and can't defend itself. Colleagues should defend democratic gains, with weapons, if necessary...
Questions from the audience online: Does Akayev see the mistakes in his policies? Does he think it was wrong to have his children rule the country?
A. Russian wisdom - the one who doesn't work, doesn't make mistakes [???]. There were many mistakes, but I'm convinced the country was moving in the right direction...
[Should've been either "the one who doesn't work, doesn't eat" - or "the one who doesn't take risks, doesn't drink champagne"]
[Blah-blah-blah... He's talking of all the wonderful, democratic reforms, wonderful economy, people's lives getting better...]
President's children cannot choose their own political way - for example, the Kennedies in the States, the Bushes...
Question from NTV: Kulov says they're not gonna nationalize your property. In your declaration it says that the only thing you own is an old car. Is that true?
A. I don't remember what's written in the declaration... If you believe the myths, then half of Moscow belongs to Akayev, palaces in Moscow, in Turkey, half the world...
A. Russian wisdom - the one who doesn't work, doesn't make mistakes [???]. There were many mistakes, but I'm convinced the country was moving in the right direction...
[Should've been either "the one who doesn't work, doesn't eat" - or "the one who doesn't take risks, doesn't drink champagne"]
[Blah-blah-blah... He's talking of all the wonderful, democratic reforms, wonderful economy, people's lives getting better...]
President's children cannot choose their own political way - for example, the Kennedies in the States, the Bushes...
Question from NTV: Kulov says they're not gonna nationalize your property. In your declaration it says that the only thing you own is an old car. Is that true?
A. I don't remember what's written in the declaration... If you believe the myths, then half of Moscow belongs to Akayev, palaces in Moscow, in Turkey, half the world...
There haven't been any external intrusions...
...I order not to use force and that allowed the opposition to seize power.
...Even in a nightmare I couldn't imagine that those molodchiki, the criminal elements brought by the radical opposition, would then be directed to do the looting. I was shocked when I saw it.
...If I had known this would happen, I would've declared state of emergency. But I couldn't imagine, it's unbelievable that people would start looting...
...I was categorically against using force and my last order, right before I left, to the minister of internal affairs was under no circumstances to use force... A civil war could have started...
...I order not to use force and that allowed the opposition to seize power.
...Even in a nightmare I couldn't imagine that those molodchiki, the criminal elements brought by the radical opposition, would then be directed to do the looting. I was shocked when I saw it.
...If I had known this would happen, I would've declared state of emergency. But I couldn't imagine, it's unbelievable that people would start looting...
...I was categorically against using force and my last order, right before I left, to the minister of internal affairs was under no circumstances to use force... A civil war could have started...
Q. Many questions from Bishkek online. Does Radio Ekho Moskvy broadcast there?
A. Yes, of course, it's one of the most popular stations there.
[A question from someone whose last name is Bekbolotov - but not Ilyas.]
Akayev promises not to run for president yet another time. Declares his love for the constitution.
Q. Dialogue with the opposition?
A. The only legitimate body now is the parliament. It's head, elected yesterday, has always been my opponent, at all the previous elections. I'm ready to have a dialogue with him. [I didn't catch the name, sorry.]
...Executive branch is illegitimate now. Anti-constitutional overthrow...
Q. Were the emails from you authentic?
A. Yes, I confirm the authenticity. I had no access to other media and the computer is always with me. I did write those two letters.
A. Yes, of course, it's one of the most popular stations there.
[A question from someone whose last name is Bekbolotov - but not Ilyas.]
Akayev promises not to run for president yet another time. Declares his love for the constitution.
Q. Dialogue with the opposition?
A. The only legitimate body now is the parliament. It's head, elected yesterday, has always been my opponent, at all the previous elections. I'm ready to have a dialogue with him. [I didn't catch the name, sorry.]
...Executive branch is illegitimate now. Anti-constitutional overthrow...
Q. Were the emails from you authentic?
A. Yes, I confirm the authenticity. I had no access to other media and the computer is always with me. I did write those two letters.
Can you spontaneously gather 10,000 well-prepared molodchiki? It was, of course, a well-prepared action.
They've brought people in huge numbers from the provinces... Not a single resident of Bishkek was there during the storming, all were from the regions...
The opposition ordered physical execution of the president...
The family - wife, grandchildren - were at the dacha; the children were at the parliament.
They've brought people in huge numbers from the provinces... Not a single resident of Bishkek was there during the storming, all were from the regions...
The opposition ordered physical execution of the president...
The family - wife, grandchildren - were at the dacha; the children were at the parliament.
He's talking of how the demonstration on March 24 was supposed to be peaceful, but intead it turned into a storming... It looked like a battle to him, a battle in which one side - thousands of molodchiki brought by the opposition - definitely had an advantage... I saw how they were beating up the police, humiliating them...Then my security service demanded that I leave the building...
[The host called it Akayev's "return from Kirgizia" - not his flight...]
From the beginning, the opposition was planning to seize power, not peaceful demonstrations or negotiations, like it was in Kiev or Tbilisi...
[The host called it Akayev's "return from Kirgizia" - not his flight...]
From the beginning, the opposition was planning to seize power, not peaceful demonstrations or negotiations, like it was in Kiev or Tbilisi...
Our ADSL is down so I'm back to the dial-up for a while... It sucks.
***
Askar Akayev will be on Ekho Moskvy in a few minutes, by phone. Online questions from the audience are here (in Russian) - LOTS of questions...
***
It's already started.
Akayev's in the Moscow region, he says. He's grateful to Putin for the invitation.
Q. How to address you - the president or ex-president?
A. I'm still the only legitimately elected president, until [Oct. something] and I haven't announced my resignation yet.
[...]
A. I don't see any reasons now to resign.
***
Askar Akayev will be on Ekho Moskvy in a few minutes, by phone. Online questions from the audience are here (in Russian) - LOTS of questions...
***
It's already started.
Akayev's in the Moscow region, he says. He's grateful to Putin for the invitation.
Q. How to address you - the president or ex-president?
A. I'm still the only legitimately elected president, until [Oct. something] and I haven't announced my resignation yet.
[...]
A. I don't see any reasons now to resign.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Radio Ekho Moskvy just spoke with Yuri Samodurov on the phone, and he said that part of the reason the court had only imposed fines on them was Amnesty International's decision to declare the defendants "political prisoners" if they were given prison sentences.
A little more on the case on Amnesty International USA's Take Action page...
A little more on the case on Amnesty International USA's Take Action page...
Tagansky Court has found two organizers of the exhibition on religion guilty of inciting religious animosity: Yuri Samodurov, director of the Sakharov Center, and Lyudmila Vasilovskaya, the Center's employee, would have to pay a fine of 100,000 rubles each (approx. $3,700). Their lawyers are going to appeal the decision; Russian Orthodox Church considers the ruling just. (via Radio Ekho Moskvy, in Russian)
I'm sort of catching up on Kyrgyzstan, reading Chingiz Aytmatov again, his 1966 short novel called Farewell, Gulsary! (Proshchay, Gulsary!), life stories of an old man and an old horse.
A very interesting story, very sad. Aytmatov used to be a veterinarian before he became a writer, so the way he writes about animals is amazing: in the novel I read last year, The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years, there was a camel, and some of the stuff about the relations between the camel and his master were making me laugh out loud; in The Place of the Skull, which I didn't finish because of the Orange Revolution, there were wolves; and Gulsary (translated as 'Yellow Flower') is a horse. There are plenty of people in Aytmatov's works, too, of course - plenty of life, plenty of history.
Aytmatov, currently an ambassador in Brussels, spoke out on the events in Kyrgyzstan, calling it a "real revolution" and saying that Akayev's regime has fallen because of the "all-embracing corruption" in Kyrgyzstan (via Komsomolka, in Russian).
Lenta.ru, however, cites a reproachful comment from Fergana.ru news agency (in Russian) - "Where were you before, Chingiz Torekulovich?":
A very interesting story, very sad. Aytmatov used to be a veterinarian before he became a writer, so the way he writes about animals is amazing: in the novel I read last year, The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years, there was a camel, and some of the stuff about the relations between the camel and his master were making me laugh out loud; in The Place of the Skull, which I didn't finish because of the Orange Revolution, there were wolves; and Gulsary (translated as 'Yellow Flower') is a horse. There are plenty of people in Aytmatov's works, too, of course - plenty of life, plenty of history.
Aytmatov, currently an ambassador in Brussels, spoke out on the events in Kyrgyzstan, calling it a "real revolution" and saying that Akayev's regime has fallen because of the "all-embracing corruption" in Kyrgyzstan (via Komsomolka, in Russian).
Lenta.ru, however, cites a reproachful comment from Fergana.ru news agency (in Russian) - "Where were you before, Chingiz Torekulovich?":
...the most well-known Kyrgyz of the planet, father of the country's minister of foreign affairs, and simply a person enjoying immense authority among the population of the whole post-Soviet space, was silent during the past few days when the situation began to develop in the south of Kyrgyzstan.
Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Kyrgyzstan's acting president, has three brothers, according to Kommersant:
- Marat: director of the Courts Department of the Justice Ministry;
- Jusup: president of the Ecology and Emergencies Ministry's Republican Fund;
- Janysh: a police colonel, formerly head of something roughly translated as the Internal Affairs Ministry's Chief Department of Transportation Internal Affairs...
- Marat: director of the Courts Department of the Justice Ministry;
- Jusup: president of the Ecology and Emergencies Ministry's Republican Fund;
- Janysh: a police colonel, formerly head of something roughly translated as the Internal Affairs Ministry's Chief Department of Transportation Internal Affairs...
Sunday, March 27, 2005
The pictures load so quickly now... What a pleasure...
***
This guy is way cool - Banksy (via Wooster Collective)
***
This guy is way cool - Banksy (via Wooster Collective)
Just finished listening to a very interesting discussion on Radio Ekho Moskvy about the controversy over the Sakharov Center exhibition on religion.
At one point, a man whose name I missed was speaking about how so many of those who submitted complaints about the exhibition had not actually seen it - and how it reminded him of how, back in the 1940s, the masses were declaring they hadn't read Boris Pasternak but condemned him nevertheless.
Then there was a phone call from the audience, which went something like this: Could you please explain why Eduard Limonov calls himself a National Bolshevik - he sounds like a totally normal person, and yet...
And I suddenly realized that the man I'd just heard was Eduard Limonov. And he did sound like a totally normal person.
His answer was too ambiguous - like, the name of his party is some kind of a secret that would be revealed in five years or so...
No, but really, why does he call himself a National Bolshevik?
***
Here's some more on this exhibition ordeal:
- From a RFE/RL 2004 story:
- And a lot more info on the Sakharov Centers site (in Russian) - tomorrow, the verdict will be announced by Moscow's Tagansky Court...
At one point, a man whose name I missed was speaking about how so many of those who submitted complaints about the exhibition had not actually seen it - and how it reminded him of how, back in the 1940s, the masses were declaring they hadn't read Boris Pasternak but condemned him nevertheless.
Then there was a phone call from the audience, which went something like this: Could you please explain why Eduard Limonov calls himself a National Bolshevik - he sounds like a totally normal person, and yet...
And I suddenly realized that the man I'd just heard was Eduard Limonov. And he did sound like a totally normal person.
His answer was too ambiguous - like, the name of his party is some kind of a secret that would be revealed in five years or so...
No, but really, why does he call himself a National Bolshevik?
***
Here's some more on this exhibition ordeal:
- From a RFE/RL 2004 story:
Now, a trial in Moscow is focusing the spotlight on the issue of religious freedom, Russian ethnicity, and the role of the state. The case pits the prosecutor's office against three human rights activists charged with inciting religious and ethnic hatred for organizing a modern-art exhibition entitled "Caution, Religion."
The exhibition, hosted by the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Social Center, featured 42 artworks by 42 artists -- some of them controversial but all intended to provoke discussion about the role of religion in modern society, according to the curators. One work featured Jesus's face drawn on a Coca-Cola logo next to the words "This is My Blood."
Just four days after the exhibition opened last year, six vandals destroyed several of the pieces, smearing on the museum's walls graffiti that accused Sakharov museum workers of being "Orthodox haters." The museum sued the men but lost the case.
"The trial reflects the legal right of the state to conduct its religious policy and it may well serve as a lesson to those people who are fostering tensions in the religious affairs of our country."
Now, prosecutors have turned the tables by charging Sakharov center Director Yurii Samodurov, exhibition organizer Lyudmila Vasilovskaya and artist Anna Mikhalchuk Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code. The article punishes actions that "incite ethnic, racial or religious hatred."
The prosecutor, speaking at the trial opening yesterday, said the exhibition had "insulted and humiliated the national dignity of a great number of believers." The three could face five years' imprisonment if found guilty.
- And a lot more info on the Sakharov Centers site (in Russian) - tomorrow, the verdict will be announced by Moscow's Tagansky Court...
Our elevator sometimes smells of old women, pretty suffocating, and sometimes of expensive perfume. This says a lot about the building: it's full of ancient, Soviet-looking babushkas - but one of our friends once sighted a pretty well-known persona with a Georgian last name here. Either way, the elevator looks like it's never been peed in.
"Summer time" is here - 7:15 pm and still very, very sunny... Hard to believe winter may soon be over - but this is one the signs!!!
***
We now have internet connection through ADSL/Wi-Fi Router - thanks to dearest Mishah! The speed is amazing, it's also much cheaper than buying those dial-up connection cards - and I can move around now without having to disconnect first... It totally rocks!!!!!!!!!
***
We now have internet connection through ADSL/Wi-Fi Router - thanks to dearest Mishah! The speed is amazing, it's also much cheaper than buying those dial-up connection cards - and I can move around now without having to disconnect first... It totally rocks!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, March 26, 2005
The way they kept announcing this documentary for two days, I thought there'd be a lot more of it... But it's already over.
Nothing special, but - no sympathy to Akayev whatsoever, and not judgmental towards the people, just a little bit of scepticism about the new leaders - they've all been one thing or other in Akayev's entourage...
Nothing special, but - no sympathy to Akayev whatsoever, and not judgmental towards the people, just a little bit of scepticism about the new leaders - they've all been one thing or other in Akayev's entourage...
First, the Kyrgyz wanted Chingiz Aytmatov, a renowned writer and currently the ambassador to the Benelux countries, to be their president. But he recommended Akayev, then merely a talented mathematician...
...an orphanage with children resembling skeletons, eating like dogs... horrible.
...a prostitute in Bishkek makes $5 an hour and, if she's lucky, she can make $15 in one night... they are being taught how to use condoms by some NGO women...
...an orphanage with children resembling skeletons, eating like dogs... horrible.
...a prostitute in Bishkek makes $5 an hour and, if she's lucky, she can make $15 in one night... they are being taught how to use condoms by some NGO women...
Yesterday, the parliament voted for the budget. Here's part of the Reuters piece (via Terry at Notes From Kiev):
***
Terry also has an entry on Tymoshenko's looks (it's brief so I'll quote it in full here - thank you, Terry!)
Ukraine's PM scores victory as budget passed
By Olena Horodetska
KIEV, March 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine's government scored a big victory on Friday in its drive to impose reforms when parliament approved, with no dissenters, a revised 2005 budget praised by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko as a "breakthrough for every citizen."
[...]
Tymoshenko, 44, clearly had her eye on a March 2006 parliamentary election, pointing to provisions for higher wages and pensions and substantial benefits for orphans, mothers and the handicapped.
"This will be a breakthrough for every Ukrainian. By boosting purchasing power, we will support every sector of the economy," she told the chamber in an emotional address minutes before the vote.
Later, a beaming Tymoshenko told reporters: "I am overwhelmed by emotions. This is not only a victory for the government. We can now see how a new presidential and parliamentary team was born. It can produce results for every citizen."
A total of 376 deputies in the 450-seat chamber -- the others abstained -- backed the draft, which cuts the deficit to about 1.56 percent of gross domestic product from 2.2 percent previously.
Revenues were set at 108.5 billion hryvnias ($20.5 billion), with spending at 115.3 billion.
***
Terry also has an entry on Tymoshenko's looks (it's brief so I'll quote it in full here - thank you, Terry!)
On questions of Yulia Timoshenko's hair.
The Timoshenko look is nothing, if not calculated. Her hair was naturally brunette and worn down until 2002. A "honey tint like Julia" can now cost up to USD 200 at a top Kiev beauty salon. The Timoshenko braid, modelled on Ukrainian peasant tradition and made famous during the Orange Revolution, is quite real. The braid scored her a typical coup in 2003, after parliament detractors accused her of wearing a hairpiece.
MP Timoshenko was ready for them, letting her hair down during rebuttal. The move proved her opponents liars and what's more placed her image atop evening newscasts and on front pages of newspapers the next morning. "Like any woman, I try to look attractive in my own way," Timoshenko told Ukrainska Pravda magazine, adding, "I think people sometimes make too much of my outfits."
Headlines should be banned. Well, some of them.
I woke up, opened Gazeta.ru and saw this:
Yushchenko Has Refused to Come to Moscow for Victory Day Celebrations
Immediately, I imagined all the stink and bullshit from certain Russian media that we'd be supposed to live through in the next month and a half. But then I read the piece:
And Ukrainska Pravda has one more quote from Yushchenko on this:
I woke up, opened Gazeta.ru and saw this:
Yushchenko Has Refused to Come to Moscow for Victory Day Celebrations
Immediately, I imagined all the stink and bullshit from certain Russian media that we'd be supposed to live through in the next month and a half. But then I read the piece:
Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko intends to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War on May 9 in Ukraine.
"I'll feel uncomfortable if the war veterans gather in Kyiv and I'll be standing at a podium elsewhere. I think it'll be easy for President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and other colleagues to understand," he said [...].
At the same time, Yushchenko noted that he intends to visit Moscow on May 8.
And Ukrainska Pravda has one more quote from Yushchenko on this:
I'm planning to go (to Moscow) on May 8, to express my respect for the veterans and presidents who'll be in Moscow.
A huge thanks to Lyndon at Scraps of Moscow for finding the link to a Bishkek LiveJournal (in Russian)!
A huge thanks to Bolshoi Gorod, too!
I think parts of her LJ were quoted by NTV during their 10 pm newscast, and I tried to find it, but LJ is such a maze - plus I was in the middle of googling for Ilyas...
Thanks!
A huge thanks to Bolshoi Gorod, too!
I think parts of her LJ were quoted by NTV during their 10 pm newscast, and I tried to find it, but LJ is such a maze - plus I was in the middle of googling for Ilyas...
Thanks!
Friday, March 25, 2005
Stuff on Akayev and The Family at compromat.ru (in Russian) - some of it pretty interesting and pretty helpful in filling in some of the gaps.
Rain and wind in Bishkek; no signs of strictly-enforced curfew - just fewer people out, and police and citizens patrol the streets.
Bakiyev, in an interview to ORT, says the Russian military base will definitely stay, and the American one is likely to stay as well.
Bakiyev is a former prime minister, married to a Russian.
Bakiyev, in an interview to ORT, says the Russian military base will definitely stay, and the American one is likely to stay as well.
Bakiyev is a former prime minister, married to a Russian.
Enough of this armchair pseudo-journalism: here're the links to the photos and text from Bishkek, by Elnura Osmonalieva, 23, posted at Thinking-East.net and Registan.net.
Minsk has been quite messy today as well: the opposition tried to hold a rally, demanding Lukashenko's resignation and the release of political prisoners, and marking an anniversary of the creation of the People's Republic of Belarus in 1918. Riot police was quick to act against the protestors and many people are reported to have been arrested.
NTV can't establish connection with Bishkek - Osokin, the host, says it may either be due to some kind of a hurricane, or to the mess taking place in the city. Sounds way too weird.
Oh! They've just got the connection back. "Aha," said Osokin as he heard the voice of Vadim Fefilov, the reporter in Bishkek. Fefilov said there had indeed been a storm there. All's clear by the store where some shooting was reported earlier.
According to Gazeta.ru, Bakiyev, the acting president, denies that the curfew has been announced.
Oh! They've just got the connection back. "Aha," said Osokin as he heard the voice of Vadim Fefilov, the reporter in Bishkek. Fefilov said there had indeed been a storm there. All's clear by the store where some shooting was reported earlier.
According to Gazeta.ru, Bakiyev, the acting president, denies that the curfew has been announced.
I'm not Yevhen Marchuk's fan - but he does have a point here (interview in Ukraina Kriminalnaya, in Russian, via Abdymok):
SBU and Kuchma do deserve some credit for the fact that the revolution ended without a single scratch on anyone's face. However, the main reasons were the calmness of the people and their awareness of their own strength. The organizers of the protests had conducted serious work on preventing confrontations. They were using important psychological tricks - children's songs, for example, that were broadcast publicly. I know that a serious group of psychologists worked there - it's rather difficult to keep such a huge number of people from aggression for too long.
Curfew from 6 pm to 6 am... I really sympathize with the people stuck in Bishkek.
Shooting has been reported near some store - between law enforcement guys and the looters.
Akayev has left Kazakhstan but no one knows yet where he's headed. Maybe to Russia? Will he be able to land in Moscow? It's snowing so hard right now...
Shooting has been reported near some store - between law enforcement guys and the looters.
Akayev has left Kazakhstan but no one knows yet where he's headed. Maybe to Russia? Will he be able to land in Moscow? It's snowing so hard right now...
Everything is moving really fast in Kyrgyzstan: government posts are being distributed; presidential election is set for June; the police is back to work in Bishkek; streets and stores are being cleaned up; people are getting together to prevent further looting; but they are also stocking up on food; prices in Bishkek have gone up 10 percent; NTV reports 15 people dead; only God knows where Akayev is, though Putin (speaking from Armenia) says he wouldn't mind receiving him in Russia; Osh, the province where it all started, is peaceful, people are praying and dancing.
Andrei Kolesnikov, one of Kommersant's most noticeable writers, is also one of the most prolific ones out there. According to Ukrainska Pravda, a presentation of his new book about the Orange Revolution will take place in Kyiv this coming Tuesday.
Ukrainska Pravda also has two excerpts from the book (in Russian): from an interview with Yushchenko, on how he decided to run for president, and on the poisoning.
[...] To be more precise, the book, according to Kolesnikov himself, is about the confrontation between Yushchenko and Putin, the confrontation the current Ukrainian president walked out as the winner of.
The book is called "The First Ukrainian: Frontline Notes" and 30,000 copies have been printed, which is considered quite a lot. Part of it is being printed in Ukraine, another part - in Russia.
Kolesnikov says that "Moscow booksellers are actually confused - they fear acquiring the book for sale, even though they're quite eager to."
[...]
"The book is comprised of the stories published in the Kommersant in the past five years - but it's a coherent narration about Ukraine's struggle for independence - from Russia. And how it has won," Kolesnikov told Ukrainska Pravda.
Ukrainska Pravda also has two excerpts from the book (in Russian): from an interview with Yushchenko, on how he decided to run for president, and on the poisoning.
I am, of course, following the events in Kyrgyzstan, but I can't claim much understanding of the situation.
Watching it all on the Russian TV is tricky - especially when one's familiar with their pathetic coverage of the Orange Revolution.
Still, I was pleased to see them interview a very nice protestor yesterday, someone I wouldn't mind standing next to at a rally: he was saying they weren't intending to resort to violence and would just stand there peacefully until Akayev flees.
Another thing that caught my eye was footage of the storming of the presidential palace: how lost one of the protestors looked, a middle-aged man, he was looking around, turning around without going anywhere, as everyone else rushed past him, and he seemed to have no idea what to do next and what he was doing in there in the first place. That was moving - I immediately imagined something like this happening in Kyiv and me somehow getting in the midst of it - I'd be totally lost and indecisive, too.
But then all this looting started, and five people are reported dead, and over 300 injured, and two Russian camera crews got attacked as they were filming the looters, and it just doesn't look good - and again I'm reminded of Ukraine, of how we were expecting something like this to happen, but it never did, thank God, and how we were all prepared for the curfew - some psychologically, others more practically - but again, it never happened... All thanks to our wonderful people.
As for the geopolitics of it all, I don't know much but it seems that Akayev's stakes were much higher: housing both a Russian and a U.S. military base in a pretty volatile region is a different type of balancing act than what Kuchma ever had to subject himself to.
Watching it all on the Russian TV is tricky - especially when one's familiar with their pathetic coverage of the Orange Revolution.
Still, I was pleased to see them interview a very nice protestor yesterday, someone I wouldn't mind standing next to at a rally: he was saying they weren't intending to resort to violence and would just stand there peacefully until Akayev flees.
Another thing that caught my eye was footage of the storming of the presidential palace: how lost one of the protestors looked, a middle-aged man, he was looking around, turning around without going anywhere, as everyone else rushed past him, and he seemed to have no idea what to do next and what he was doing in there in the first place. That was moving - I immediately imagined something like this happening in Kyiv and me somehow getting in the midst of it - I'd be totally lost and indecisive, too.
But then all this looting started, and five people are reported dead, and over 300 injured, and two Russian camera crews got attacked as they were filming the looters, and it just doesn't look good - and again I'm reminded of Ukraine, of how we were expecting something like this to happen, but it never did, thank God, and how we were all prepared for the curfew - some psychologically, others more practically - but again, it never happened... All thanks to our wonderful people.
As for the geopolitics of it all, I don't know much but it seems that Akayev's stakes were much higher: housing both a Russian and a U.S. military base in a pretty volatile region is a different type of balancing act than what Kuchma ever had to subject himself to.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
I'm watching/listening to a TV "duel" between two Russian "political technologists" on NTV: Gleb Pavlovskiy vs Stanislav Belkovskiy. Belkovskiy - who, unlike Pavlovskiy, didn't believe Yanukovych had any chances to become president of Ukraine - says that the current Russian leadership has no more than two years left and then they're gonna be swept away.
At the very same time, I'm reading Natalya Gevorkyan's latest column in Gazeta.ru (in Russian) - and here's one of the paragraphs closer to the end:
At the very same time, I'm reading Natalya Gevorkyan's latest column in Gazeta.ru (in Russian) - and here's one of the paragraphs closer to the end:
I personally think that the threat to Kremlin isn't in the fact that in the countries close to us historically people have gone out into the streets and brought to power those who they wanted - and not those who their former leaders, supported by Moscow, wanted. The danger is in those two years separating the recent revolutions from the upcoming Russian election. It's all very simple. If the new people who came to power in the countries of the now almost extinct CIS manage to prove in the next two years that they are more efficient than their predeccessors, that the reforms really work in their countries, that the economy is developing, that democracy really exists, that the mass media are really free, that the judicial system really works, that officials deserving punishment are indeed being punished, that the citizens are really safe and socially secure - then the result may indeed turn lethal for the current leadership of Russia. Countries that have not just liberated themselves from "Moscow's hand" but are developing successfully - this is the reality capable of disturbing Kremlin's heavily PRed sleep.
A few more backlog notes from our last week's visit to Kyiv :
- Our Moscow friends were coming over and asked us to book a nice hotel room for them. One of the hotels at Andriyivsky Uzviz charges nearly $200 a night for a tiny little room, clean and not remindful of the Soviet Union, but nothing really special still.
With the Eurovision contest approaching, the contrast between Kyiv and Istanbul is getting more and more alarming: in Istanbul, you literally stumble over all those little and decently priced hotels, while in Kyiv a cheaper alternative would most likely be an ugly room with ugly furniture in an ugly Soviet hotel with ugly Soviet-style service. Or a rented apartment.
- A large, bearded man approached me just off Khreshchatyk during my Saturday walk and asked me if I spoke English. When I said I did, he thanked God and produced a payphone card from his pocket. I thought he needed help in making a phone call, so I offered him to use my cell phone, because I didn't really remember how to use those cards anymore plus I was feeling too lazy and cold to walk around with him looking for a payphone. But he interrupted me and said in a slightly accented English that he needed me to buy this card from him for 5 hryvnias ($1) or so, because he'd lost all his money the day before and hadn't eaten since then: if he managed to sell the card, he'd be then able to buy himself some kefir and stuff like that, he said.
I felt uneasy for a moment: it reminded me of how stupid I was to have lost all that money to a Bengali bastard on the day of the third round of the election. But this man was asking for 5 hryvnias, not 200, and I could survive that.
I asked him where he was from and what had happened and he replied - in a very whining voice, which was poignant, considering his size and manliness - that he was a journalist from Austria and that he'd lost all his money together with the keys from an apartment he was sharing here with a BBC journalist friend. He did look like a bum a bit, a foreign bum, so I kind of believed his story. I asked for the friend's name - Mike Whitlock or something: I haven't heard it before so maybe I got it wrong. I asked if he knew his way around Kyiv and he told me he used to work for some Western airline and knew Ukraine like his own palm, including Kyiv, and because of that it was even more ironic that such a terrible thing had happened to him here.
At some point, he looked like he was beginning to cry, so I quickly gave him 6 hryvnias. He thanked God and me profusely, turned around and went off in the direction of the food store.
- My Yushchenko Administration friend (formerly known as "my Kuchma Administration friend") is complaining his ass off about his new boss.
My friend didn't lose his job, as he had expected, with Yushchenko's victory, but his former boss obviously did. The new guy, according to my friend, is highly unprofessional, treats him like shit, criticizes the old system but offers few ideas on how to improve things, never gives my friend credit for his work but often steals his ideas and presents them as his own.
I'm no insider there, so it is as easy for me to suspect that my friend is exaggerating as it is to believe that, after all, not everyone on Yushchenko's team is worth the time and the health of the people who spent a month freezing at Maidan. But my friend was so upset and pissed that I couldn't help but talk some stuff over with him.
My main suggestion was for my friend to catch this new guy doing something outrageously unprofessional and then confront him with one simple truth: the guy should be aware that even though my friend isn't drawing negative conclusions about all those who came on board with Yushchenko on the basis of one particular person's lack of qualification, such inadequate behavior may eventually tarnish the reputations of others, unjustly. Which wouldn't be a good thing at all.
At the end of this part of our conversation, my friend said: "This is one of the reasons I love you so much, Neeka: because you always come up with very sober ideas." And I laughed so hard: I took it as a huge compliment because at that very moment I was finishing up my fifth beer.
- A Moscow friend who used to teasingly - and annoyingly - call me a banderovka every time I mentioned something totally apolitical but somehow related to Ukraine (like, the weather in Kyiv), had beer with us at a Kyiv bar frequented by Stepan Bandera's grandson. I told him about it and he shrugged and looked just slightly uncomforable for an instant (though, in general, he was enjoying Kyiv and this particular bar immensely). Minutes after our friend left, Stephen Bandera, the grandson, showed up - and I was introduced to him as a banderivka currently living in Moscow!
- Our Moscow friends were coming over and asked us to book a nice hotel room for them. One of the hotels at Andriyivsky Uzviz charges nearly $200 a night for a tiny little room, clean and not remindful of the Soviet Union, but nothing really special still.
With the Eurovision contest approaching, the contrast between Kyiv and Istanbul is getting more and more alarming: in Istanbul, you literally stumble over all those little and decently priced hotels, while in Kyiv a cheaper alternative would most likely be an ugly room with ugly furniture in an ugly Soviet hotel with ugly Soviet-style service. Or a rented apartment.
- A large, bearded man approached me just off Khreshchatyk during my Saturday walk and asked me if I spoke English. When I said I did, he thanked God and produced a payphone card from his pocket. I thought he needed help in making a phone call, so I offered him to use my cell phone, because I didn't really remember how to use those cards anymore plus I was feeling too lazy and cold to walk around with him looking for a payphone. But he interrupted me and said in a slightly accented English that he needed me to buy this card from him for 5 hryvnias ($1) or so, because he'd lost all his money the day before and hadn't eaten since then: if he managed to sell the card, he'd be then able to buy himself some kefir and stuff like that, he said.
I felt uneasy for a moment: it reminded me of how stupid I was to have lost all that money to a Bengali bastard on the day of the third round of the election. But this man was asking for 5 hryvnias, not 200, and I could survive that.
I asked him where he was from and what had happened and he replied - in a very whining voice, which was poignant, considering his size and manliness - that he was a journalist from Austria and that he'd lost all his money together with the keys from an apartment he was sharing here with a BBC journalist friend. He did look like a bum a bit, a foreign bum, so I kind of believed his story. I asked for the friend's name - Mike Whitlock or something: I haven't heard it before so maybe I got it wrong. I asked if he knew his way around Kyiv and he told me he used to work for some Western airline and knew Ukraine like his own palm, including Kyiv, and because of that it was even more ironic that such a terrible thing had happened to him here.
At some point, he looked like he was beginning to cry, so I quickly gave him 6 hryvnias. He thanked God and me profusely, turned around and went off in the direction of the food store.
- My Yushchenko Administration friend (formerly known as "my Kuchma Administration friend") is complaining his ass off about his new boss.
My friend didn't lose his job, as he had expected, with Yushchenko's victory, but his former boss obviously did. The new guy, according to my friend, is highly unprofessional, treats him like shit, criticizes the old system but offers few ideas on how to improve things, never gives my friend credit for his work but often steals his ideas and presents them as his own.
I'm no insider there, so it is as easy for me to suspect that my friend is exaggerating as it is to believe that, after all, not everyone on Yushchenko's team is worth the time and the health of the people who spent a month freezing at Maidan. But my friend was so upset and pissed that I couldn't help but talk some stuff over with him.
My main suggestion was for my friend to catch this new guy doing something outrageously unprofessional and then confront him with one simple truth: the guy should be aware that even though my friend isn't drawing negative conclusions about all those who came on board with Yushchenko on the basis of one particular person's lack of qualification, such inadequate behavior may eventually tarnish the reputations of others, unjustly. Which wouldn't be a good thing at all.
At the end of this part of our conversation, my friend said: "This is one of the reasons I love you so much, Neeka: because you always come up with very sober ideas." And I laughed so hard: I took it as a huge compliment because at that very moment I was finishing up my fifth beer.
- A Moscow friend who used to teasingly - and annoyingly - call me a banderovka every time I mentioned something totally apolitical but somehow related to Ukraine (like, the weather in Kyiv), had beer with us at a Kyiv bar frequented by Stepan Bandera's grandson. I told him about it and he shrugged and looked just slightly uncomforable for an instant (though, in general, he was enjoying Kyiv and this particular bar immensely). Minutes after our friend left, Stephen Bandera, the grandson, showed up - and I was introduced to him as a banderivka currently living in Moscow!
Came home last night to find the phone line silent; couldn't get online and, for about half an hour, felt as if all the oxygen was suddenly gone; then I calmed down and ended up enjoying this forced isolation.
Besides reviving my very private Dear Diary (more or less dormant since late August 2004, the time I revived this blog), I also finished reading a really interesting book, Hearing Birds Fly: A Nomadic Year in Mongolia, by Louisa Waugh.
Mongolia is a lot more obscure than Ukraine, and I know only one person who visited it briefly, and the book is about the most obscure and remote area of Mongolia, the village of Tsengel in the Bayan-Olgii province, populated mainly by the Mongol Kazakhs and the Tuvans. A very intimate and honest account of an extremely tough, year-long expat experience; when I read the last page, I felt quite brokenhearted - as if I myself had befriended all the people mentioned in the book and then had to part with them for good.
Interestingly, Louisa Waugh had been in Sarajevo, researching the city's literary scene, shortly before I suddenly got an urge to go there: here's her piece in the Guardian on her Sarajevo encounters.
Back to the phone situation: at around 8 am today, I heard a single ring of our phone, and then, ten minutes later, another one. Two guys came to repair it around noon, but the problem had been long gone by then. (Why it took them almost 18 hours to show up is another story - this is how things work here. Also, I still have no idea what the problem was - but who cares when everything's fine again...)
Besides reviving my very private Dear Diary (more or less dormant since late August 2004, the time I revived this blog), I also finished reading a really interesting book, Hearing Birds Fly: A Nomadic Year in Mongolia, by Louisa Waugh.
Mongolia is a lot more obscure than Ukraine, and I know only one person who visited it briefly, and the book is about the most obscure and remote area of Mongolia, the village of Tsengel in the Bayan-Olgii province, populated mainly by the Mongol Kazakhs and the Tuvans. A very intimate and honest account of an extremely tough, year-long expat experience; when I read the last page, I felt quite brokenhearted - as if I myself had befriended all the people mentioned in the book and then had to part with them for good.
Interestingly, Louisa Waugh had been in Sarajevo, researching the city's literary scene, shortly before I suddenly got an urge to go there: here's her piece in the Guardian on her Sarajevo encounters.
Back to the phone situation: at around 8 am today, I heard a single ring of our phone, and then, ten minutes later, another one. Two guys came to repair it around noon, but the problem had been long gone by then. (Why it took them almost 18 hours to show up is another story - this is how things work here. Also, I still have no idea what the problem was - but who cares when everything's fine again...)
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
I ran into Yanukovych supporters during my walk in Lipki this past Saturday, and I really wanted to write about it sooner but was too lazy/busy until now.
There were no more than 50 of them, most middle-aged but a few young ones as well, all waiting for Putin, who was staying nearby during his one-day visit to Ukraine. I noticed them from quite a distance, because of the flags they were waving: one Ukrainian blue-and-yellow, one Russian white-blue-and-red and a few blue-and-white with Yanukovych's 2004 campaign logo and without it. No orange whatsoever, which is quite eye-catching these days. But somehow, I wasn't surprised to see this crowd, not at all.
Despite the wind and the freezing cold, I started photographing them. I was walking back and forth a few meters away from them (not circling around, you see, because they stood face to face with half a dozen indifferent cops, and going in front of the crowd meant crossing the police line no one was supposed to cross). I really regretted there were so few of them packed so close together - I couldn't mix with them and remain anonymous, and I wasn't in a chatty mood right then. Anyway, most of the pictures I was getting were really boring, and when two guys started sort of posing for me, all my energy went into smiling back at them and I kept missing the best moments by a fraction of a second.
I was preparing to leave when an anemic-looking, middle-aged woman came up to me and demanded to know who I was and why I was taking pictures. That was something I didn't expect. She repeated her questions several times, in a rather hostile way, before I managed to say something like, 'What difference does it make?"
It wasn't just this surprise factor that made me mute for a while, though - it was also this deja vu thing: suddenly, I felt like I was back in St. Pete, at that babushkas protest back in January, and not in Kyiv. It was there, in St. Pete, that they were paranoid and kept asking me who I was, as if I were some paparazza spying on their private lives. It had been quite shocking to experience this kind of attitude in St. Pete, after two months of the wonderful exposure to the wonderful orange crowd - and it was as shocking to experience it here in Kyiv, some three months after the Orange Revolution.
The pale woman was determined to either scare me away or force me to confess my identity. She was soon joined by four or five of her friends, all bloodless except for one who looked like a Soviet bartender, fat and wearing at least three tons of the most ridiculous makeup. Our conversation went something like this:
- Who are you? Why are you taking pictures here?
- It's none of your business.
- Who are you?
- A tourist.
- A tourist? Where from? What country?
- Do you want me to show you my passport? It's none of your business.
- Who is she? What's your color? You can't photograph here.
- Yes, I can. I can take pictures of anything and anyone I want to in the street. And especially when it's a rally like yours.
- No, you can't. I don't want you to photograph me.
- Okay, I won't take pictures of you.
- Me, too. I don't want to be photographed.
- Wonderful. I'm not going to include a picture of you in my tourist photo album, either.
This sounded so idiotic that this other woman who didn't want to be photographed smiled a barely noticeable smile and then walked away.
- Why are you hanging around here?
- Do you mind?
- Yes, we do!
- And what are you all doing here?
- We're waiting for President Putin.
- Oh yeah? And what are you gonna tell him?
- We'll tell him that we love him, and that we love Russia, and that we want to be together with Russia, and that we do not want NATO here!
The bartender woman was yelling all this at me, and I was smiling and nodding, and then another woman told her to shut up and stop wasting all her energy on me, and soon they all walked away to a nearby cafe to get warm. The men who'd been sort of posing for me earlier told me not to pay attention and to continue taking pictures if I wanted to. One had a Yanukovych campaign kerchief around his neck, the other was holding a little Yanukovych flag in his hand.
I took a couple more pictures and then went away to get warm myself. Over coffee, I was thinking, among other things, of the irony of this encounter: I told them I was a tourist because it was the easiest way to avoid a pointless political argument, and I did feel like a tourist at that moment, even though I've spent most of my life in Lipki, could walk with my eyes closed there and have always felt most comfortable and most relaxed there.
I returned to the mini-rally half an hour later and noticed that, first, the aggressive women hadn't come back yet, and, second, that a TV crew had appeared. Those who remained chanted the following for the camera: YULIA - OUT! YUSHCHENKO - OUT! UKRAINE AND RUSSIA TOGETHER! PUTIN - YES, NATO - NO!
***
And here's Andrei Kolesnikov's take on the same crowd (his whole text in the Kommersant (in Russian) is worth reading but I'm too sleepy to translate it... And God, the picture of Yushchenko next to Putin is hideous... the way his skin looks is too sad and scary...):
There were no more than 50 of them, most middle-aged but a few young ones as well, all waiting for Putin, who was staying nearby during his one-day visit to Ukraine. I noticed them from quite a distance, because of the flags they were waving: one Ukrainian blue-and-yellow, one Russian white-blue-and-red and a few blue-and-white with Yanukovych's 2004 campaign logo and without it. No orange whatsoever, which is quite eye-catching these days. But somehow, I wasn't surprised to see this crowd, not at all.
Despite the wind and the freezing cold, I started photographing them. I was walking back and forth a few meters away from them (not circling around, you see, because they stood face to face with half a dozen indifferent cops, and going in front of the crowd meant crossing the police line no one was supposed to cross). I really regretted there were so few of them packed so close together - I couldn't mix with them and remain anonymous, and I wasn't in a chatty mood right then. Anyway, most of the pictures I was getting were really boring, and when two guys started sort of posing for me, all my energy went into smiling back at them and I kept missing the best moments by a fraction of a second.
I was preparing to leave when an anemic-looking, middle-aged woman came up to me and demanded to know who I was and why I was taking pictures. That was something I didn't expect. She repeated her questions several times, in a rather hostile way, before I managed to say something like, 'What difference does it make?"
It wasn't just this surprise factor that made me mute for a while, though - it was also this deja vu thing: suddenly, I felt like I was back in St. Pete, at that babushkas protest back in January, and not in Kyiv. It was there, in St. Pete, that they were paranoid and kept asking me who I was, as if I were some paparazza spying on their private lives. It had been quite shocking to experience this kind of attitude in St. Pete, after two months of the wonderful exposure to the wonderful orange crowd - and it was as shocking to experience it here in Kyiv, some three months after the Orange Revolution.
The pale woman was determined to either scare me away or force me to confess my identity. She was soon joined by four or five of her friends, all bloodless except for one who looked like a Soviet bartender, fat and wearing at least three tons of the most ridiculous makeup. Our conversation went something like this:
- Who are you? Why are you taking pictures here?
- It's none of your business.
- Who are you?
- A tourist.
- A tourist? Where from? What country?
- Do you want me to show you my passport? It's none of your business.
- Who is she? What's your color? You can't photograph here.
- Yes, I can. I can take pictures of anything and anyone I want to in the street. And especially when it's a rally like yours.
- No, you can't. I don't want you to photograph me.
- Okay, I won't take pictures of you.
- Me, too. I don't want to be photographed.
- Wonderful. I'm not going to include a picture of you in my tourist photo album, either.
This sounded so idiotic that this other woman who didn't want to be photographed smiled a barely noticeable smile and then walked away.
- Why are you hanging around here?
- Do you mind?
- Yes, we do!
- And what are you all doing here?
- We're waiting for President Putin.
- Oh yeah? And what are you gonna tell him?
- We'll tell him that we love him, and that we love Russia, and that we want to be together with Russia, and that we do not want NATO here!
The bartender woman was yelling all this at me, and I was smiling and nodding, and then another woman told her to shut up and stop wasting all her energy on me, and soon they all walked away to a nearby cafe to get warm. The men who'd been sort of posing for me earlier told me not to pay attention and to continue taking pictures if I wanted to. One had a Yanukovych campaign kerchief around his neck, the other was holding a little Yanukovych flag in his hand.
I took a couple more pictures and then went away to get warm myself. Over coffee, I was thinking, among other things, of the irony of this encounter: I told them I was a tourist because it was the easiest way to avoid a pointless political argument, and I did feel like a tourist at that moment, even though I've spent most of my life in Lipki, could walk with my eyes closed there and have always felt most comfortable and most relaxed there.
I returned to the mini-rally half an hour later and noticed that, first, the aggressive women hadn't come back yet, and, second, that a TV crew had appeared. Those who remained chanted the following for the camera: YULIA - OUT! YUSHCHENKO - OUT! UKRAINE AND RUSSIA TOGETHER! PUTIN - YES, NATO - NO!
***
And here's Andrei Kolesnikov's take on the same crowd (his whole text in the Kommersant (in Russian) is worth reading but I'm too sleepy to translate it... And God, the picture of Yushchenko next to Putin is hideous... the way his skin looks is too sad and scary...):
Some ten minutes before Putin and his entourage reached the residence, a group of 30 demonstrators showed up by the barriers set up to cordon off the street. "Yanukovych-2004" was written on their yellow-blue flags. [Actually, those flags were white-blue, not yellow-blue, the Ukrainian national colors.] These people must have been still in the midst of the Ukrainian presidential election.
- Russian? - they asked me. It was useless to deny it.
- God! - They were shining. - He is from Moscow! One of us!
And, interrupting each other, they started telling me how cruelly the new government was treating them, how it refused to agree that Ukraine needed the fourth round of the election. But the government didn't want the fourth round, thus admitting its weakness and the fact that their candidate, Victor Yanukovych, would have won in the fourth round automatically. And if not in the fourth, then definitely in the fifth.
- We wanted to greet Putin, but they sent us away from Maidan to the Mariinsky Palace, telling us that he was going to be there. But there's no one there! They lied to us! We've been fooled again!
Finally, they asked me the main question: could I help them with a flag? They had only one Russian flag for all of them. And they were aware that they had fewer chances for victory with one flag than with two.
At some point, I realized I couldn't bear listening to them anymore. I left but they did manage to hand me their most precious possession as a good-bye gift: a photo of Victor Yanukovych giving autographs. I couldn't reject this gift, even though later I would reproach myself for this fit of weakness. I should have let them keep the photo. They need it more than I do.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Our first impression of Kyiv this time was: "Oh my God, it's so warm here!" and "They should do something about those ugly, huge, black snow piles lying around everywhere..."
On Friday, it was warm but gloomy - and then it got unbearably cold, snowy and windy on Saturday.
As for the snow, no city is too pretty this time of the year, in between seasons, mezhsezonye, but there's also lots of garbage everywhere except Khreshchatyk, and the city mayor's office seems to be on vacation - or on strike.
Friends who live very far from the city center complained the garbage hadn't been taken away in two weeks. What really pissed me off was a makeshift parking lot that has appeared on the square in front of St. Sophia's Cathedral - the cars are parked in three rows, separated by the enormous, dirty snow piles, in front of the relatively new "elite" building there. It used to be so cool to ride a bike there, and just walk through the square, admiring the bell tower and the cathedral, but now all you see are the fucking cars. Real estate is said to be extremely overpriced there - and I can't believe they don't have some kind of underground parking there or something. But it does look like Mayor Omelchenko is waiting to be replaced by someone else and isn't bothering too much to make the city look pretty.
The picture below was taken in Lipki, one of the best neighborhoods in Kyiv, right behind Hotel Kyiv and within a three-minute walk from the Parliament (a full-size photo is here - though I do realize this isn't a sight anyone would want to spend time looking at...):
On Friday, it was warm but gloomy - and then it got unbearably cold, snowy and windy on Saturday.
As for the snow, no city is too pretty this time of the year, in between seasons, mezhsezonye, but there's also lots of garbage everywhere except Khreshchatyk, and the city mayor's office seems to be on vacation - or on strike.
Friends who live very far from the city center complained the garbage hadn't been taken away in two weeks. What really pissed me off was a makeshift parking lot that has appeared on the square in front of St. Sophia's Cathedral - the cars are parked in three rows, separated by the enormous, dirty snow piles, in front of the relatively new "elite" building there. It used to be so cool to ride a bike there, and just walk through the square, admiring the bell tower and the cathedral, but now all you see are the fucking cars. Real estate is said to be extremely overpriced there - and I can't believe they don't have some kind of underground parking there or something. But it does look like Mayor Omelchenko is waiting to be replaced by someone else and isn't bothering too much to make the city look pretty.
The picture below was taken in Lipki, one of the best neighborhoods in Kyiv, right behind Hotel Kyiv and within a three-minute walk from the Parliament (a full-size photo is here - though I do realize this isn't a sight anyone would want to spend time looking at...):
I'm back from our Kyiv vacation - it was terribly cold Saturday, but otherwise everything was great.
I've started posting some pictures here - but it was too freezing, so I don't have many.
More later.
I've started posting some pictures here - but it was too freezing, so I don't have many.
More later.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
I've just realized that the Evil Trains text on the 3 A.M. Magazine site no longer has the pictures that used to be there. So here they are:
(Commuter train in Yaremche, the Carpathian Mountains)
(Bus in Yaremche)
(Me pretending to work in a makeshift office on a train from Uzhhorod, and me pretending to relax after work in Lviv - six years ago...)
(Commuter train in Yaremche, the Carpathian Mountains)
(Bus in Yaremche)
 |  |
In a comment below, Elya writes that it's only 12 hours from Cologne to Uzhhorod by train!!!...
The reason it got me so agitated is because Uzhhorod's one of my favorite places in Ukraine - but it's 19 hours or something from Kyiv... Moreover, I had my worst train experience on my way there back in 1999 - train #237, car #8, I still remember that!.. - cockroaches... It's been six years so, though, and maybe they've killed them all by now... I wrote about the experience in Evil Trains - here...
Anyway, Uzhhorod is a wonderful town, we used to go there a lot in the Soviet times, for kids' tennis tournaments, mainly in winter, so when I got there at the beginning of May 1999, I was pleasantly shocked to discover that Uzhhorod was as breathtaking as Kyiv then: that's the time when sakuras are in bloom there...
We were staying at a really cozy, tiny hotel near the Market, called Atlant or something. I wonder if it's still there.
And Uzhhorod has one of the most charmingly named little streets I've ever seen, somewhere uphill from the Market: vulytsya Dayboz'ka - translated roughly as God-Willing Street, or Inshaallah Street!
***
Elya and everyone - thank you so much for your comments and warm wishes - and all the very best to you, too!
The reason it got me so agitated is because Uzhhorod's one of my favorite places in Ukraine - but it's 19 hours or something from Kyiv... Moreover, I had my worst train experience on my way there back in 1999 - train #237, car #8, I still remember that!.. - cockroaches... It's been six years so, though, and maybe they've killed them all by now... I wrote about the experience in Evil Trains - here...
Anyway, Uzhhorod is a wonderful town, we used to go there a lot in the Soviet times, for kids' tennis tournaments, mainly in winter, so when I got there at the beginning of May 1999, I was pleasantly shocked to discover that Uzhhorod was as breathtaking as Kyiv then: that's the time when sakuras are in bloom there...
We were staying at a really cozy, tiny hotel near the Market, called Atlant or something. I wonder if it's still there.
And Uzhhorod has one of the most charmingly named little streets I've ever seen, somewhere uphill from the Market: vulytsya Dayboz'ka - translated roughly as God-Willing Street, or Inshaallah Street!
***
Elya and everyone - thank you so much for your comments and warm wishes - and all the very best to you, too!
We're going to Kyiv tomorrow (today, tonight, whatever it is) - just for three days, till Sunday. It's time to get used to being in Moscow - only a night on a train away from Kyiv, not 24 hours as it was with St. Pete. No need to wait the whole of three months that we're allowed to stay here without registration anymore, before going home for a visit. And no need to stay in Kyiv for as long as Mishah would survive without me. Life is getting better! I can't wait!
Today (yesterday) was four years since I quit my U.S. NGO job, which had taken me all over Ukraine and which I sort of miss every now and then. I wish it hadn't been so exhausting most of the time - I would've had a lot more wonderful notes now.
Here's one, from the end of 1999:
And here's another one, from Sept. 29, 1999, on the eve of that year's presidential election/Kuchma's re-election:
Here's one, from the end of 1999:
At the hotel in Chernivtsi, [my colleague] went looking for an iron in the morning and came back really pissed: a young floor maid refused to open the door to a room in which they stored their ancient, broken-down iron - because she had just painted her nails and they hadn't dried yet.
And here's another one, from Sept. 29, 1999, on the eve of that year's presidential election/Kuchma's re-election:
Donetsk, a cab to the train station - signs seen along the way, most of them stretched up high from one side of the street to the other, some posted at bus stops:
- Donbass for Kuchma, Kuchma for Donbass!
- Love Ukraine and treasure its stability. (L. Kuchma)
- Let the land of Donbass bloom! Happiness and good will to you, Ukraine! (L. Kuchma)
- Donbass supports Kuchma, Kuchma supports Donbass.
- Leonid Kuchma - our president, our president - Leonid Kuchma!
- State support to Donbass! (L. Kuchma)
- To Ukraine's revival - through unity and consensus! (L. Kuchma)
- Social security and support to the veterans! (L. Kuchma)
- Together let's revive Ukraine and Donbass! (L. Kuchma)
Blogger was down most of the day today (yesterday) and at some point I began to worry it was my computer's fault. They seem to have fixed it now.
***
Here's a picture I took by the House of Photography today - I was passing by, decided to go in, but it was closed because they were getting ready for a new exhibition. Seeing this graffiti on the wall - Sick and the City - made my day, though (full-size is here):
***
Here's a picture I took by the House of Photography today - I was passing by, decided to go in, but it was closed because they were getting ready for a new exhibition. Seeing this graffiti on the wall - Sick and the City - made my day, though (full-size is here):
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Connard's back from Argentina and is complaining about Kyiv's tap water.
I couldn't resist leaving a comment: compared to St. Pete, Kyiv's water is perfect.
And Moscow's water is perfect, too. One perfect thing about water in Kyiv and Moscow is that it doesn't smell: no smell at all compared to St. Pete's water.
Here's a picture I took at our St. Pete apartment Sept. 25, 2003:
As I may have bitched about before, the water in this city really sucks. It's not even close to potable. Besides being riddled with bacteria, there's tons of particles and debris in it. Pipes (not drainage pipes either) frequently clog just from the crap that's in the water and you have to clean them out regularly. It's not very rare when I'll turn a faucet on and the water will run brown for a couple of minutes before it turns relatively clear.
I couldn't resist leaving a comment: compared to St. Pete, Kyiv's water is perfect.
And Moscow's water is perfect, too. One perfect thing about water in Kyiv and Moscow is that it doesn't smell: no smell at all compared to St. Pete's water.
Here's a picture I took at our St. Pete apartment Sept. 25, 2003:
My parents got robbed Feb. 23, and I kept meaning to write about it but with all the Kravchenko and Maskhadov news, it was really hard to focus on something personal.
I call my parents once or twice a week (the phone bills are enormous but nowhere near as bad as when I lived in the States). So after mama and I had spent about an hour chatting the morning of Feb. 23, she quickly got dressed and ran out to Bessarabka Market to pick up that really good cottage cheese (tvorog) that one village woman brings her every Wednesday. Since the market is across the street, mama got back home pretty soon, within half an hour or so.
There are two locks on our door; the upper one kept getting stuck for over a year and I kept telling my parents to change it - because it looked suspicious, as if someone had been trying to break in, and it was also a pain in the ass to use it, especially when in a hurry. But in our family, things are never done quickly.
First, mama found the lower lock unlocked - she thought that maybe my father was already home. Then she realized that the upper one was totally messed up and she knew right away what had happened. She should have locked the lower lock, thus preventing the robbers from getting out - in case they were still inside - and then she should've called the police. But she couldn't think too clearly that very instant, so she opened the door and went in.
Two guys dressed in black were in my room, shuffling through the bookshelves, and, within seconds, they started moving towards the door, past my mama, hiding their faces. One was short, the other tall, both quite athletic but skinny. She didn't see their faces, but met the eyes of one of the guys.
"They were like two black cats, swift, making no sound as they rushed away," she told me.
She stepped aside, shocked, mesmerized, and they didn't touch her. Seconds after they were gone, she recovered and ran after them downstairs, yelling, "Thieves! Thieves!"
But she stopped after one flight of stairs, realizing that she was on her own with the two of them and that they'd be waiting for her by the exit and would make her shut up somehow, would do anything to prevent her from running after them all the way to Khreshchatik, screaming and all. So she turned and went back to the apartment.
The first thing she checked for were the cats, our two precious black cats. They were okay. Kosya Koskin, the blind one, loves to greet the guests, so he was sitting in the middle of the room, probably thinking that we were having a party. The young cat, Nur, was hiding.
After locating the cats, mama decided to see if anything had been stolen: her watch was gone, her cell phone, papa's cheap digital camera and a broken video camera, and a tiny amount of family gold - a couple of beautiful, old Orthodox crosses, mama's wedding ring, and a 1900 golden 5-ruble coin with Tsar Nickolay II on it, our only treasure in the Soviet times, which my grandmother gave mama for her 30th birthday and my mama gave me on mine last year. And the money: cash that was laid aside to pay for the remont that we're in the middle of right now - cash for remodelling the bathroom, something my mother had been planning to accomplish since last October, but kept getting interrupted, first by the Orange Revolution, then by flu...
The remont aspect is my favorite in this story: I almost sympathize with the robbers. They must've spent quite a while observing mama's daily routine (except for Wednesdays, she goes to another market, by metro, and is never back home so soon); they must've spent quite a while fiddling with the upper lock; they must've decided to rob our place because we'd just installed two new plastic windows, and they must've been imagining our place to be orderly and well-packed.
And boy, were they in for a huge disappointment! The mess in our apartment is unbelievable right now. There are mounds of stuff stored in my parent's room and as much lying around in my room, most of it waiting to be thrown away, old and useless. All the books gradually being moved from the hallway and my room into my parents' room... I don't have the energy to describe what it looks like right now - but the robbers must've thought they weren't the first ones to attempt robbing our place...
Seriously, though, it's good that we had all that cash lying in the open - they didn't have problems finding it and they left with no hard feelings. Otherwise, God forbid, they could've hurt mama. It's also good that she didn't see their faces.
Mama did call the police, the police arrived, asked lots of questions that mama didn't know the answers to (like, how much does your cell phone cost, etc.), and no one really expects them to solve the case, not because it's not that big of a deal but because this is how things work in this part of the world.
I was very shocked by it all. My parents are shocked, too. But it's good that it ended well. It's good that the guys were probably professional thieves, for whom it's a matter of honor not to hurt anyone, especially a woman. God, I'm so glad the assholes didn't touch my mother.
I call my parents once or twice a week (the phone bills are enormous but nowhere near as bad as when I lived in the States). So after mama and I had spent about an hour chatting the morning of Feb. 23, she quickly got dressed and ran out to Bessarabka Market to pick up that really good cottage cheese (tvorog) that one village woman brings her every Wednesday. Since the market is across the street, mama got back home pretty soon, within half an hour or so.
There are two locks on our door; the upper one kept getting stuck for over a year and I kept telling my parents to change it - because it looked suspicious, as if someone had been trying to break in, and it was also a pain in the ass to use it, especially when in a hurry. But in our family, things are never done quickly.
First, mama found the lower lock unlocked - she thought that maybe my father was already home. Then she realized that the upper one was totally messed up and she knew right away what had happened. She should have locked the lower lock, thus preventing the robbers from getting out - in case they were still inside - and then she should've called the police. But she couldn't think too clearly that very instant, so she opened the door and went in.
Two guys dressed in black were in my room, shuffling through the bookshelves, and, within seconds, they started moving towards the door, past my mama, hiding their faces. One was short, the other tall, both quite athletic but skinny. She didn't see their faces, but met the eyes of one of the guys.
"They were like two black cats, swift, making no sound as they rushed away," she told me.
She stepped aside, shocked, mesmerized, and they didn't touch her. Seconds after they were gone, she recovered and ran after them downstairs, yelling, "Thieves! Thieves!"
But she stopped after one flight of stairs, realizing that she was on her own with the two of them and that they'd be waiting for her by the exit and would make her shut up somehow, would do anything to prevent her from running after them all the way to Khreshchatik, screaming and all. So she turned and went back to the apartment.
The first thing she checked for were the cats, our two precious black cats. They were okay. Kosya Koskin, the blind one, loves to greet the guests, so he was sitting in the middle of the room, probably thinking that we were having a party. The young cat, Nur, was hiding.
After locating the cats, mama decided to see if anything had been stolen: her watch was gone, her cell phone, papa's cheap digital camera and a broken video camera, and a tiny amount of family gold - a couple of beautiful, old Orthodox crosses, mama's wedding ring, and a 1900 golden 5-ruble coin with Tsar Nickolay II on it, our only treasure in the Soviet times, which my grandmother gave mama for her 30th birthday and my mama gave me on mine last year. And the money: cash that was laid aside to pay for the remont that we're in the middle of right now - cash for remodelling the bathroom, something my mother had been planning to accomplish since last October, but kept getting interrupted, first by the Orange Revolution, then by flu...
The remont aspect is my favorite in this story: I almost sympathize with the robbers. They must've spent quite a while observing mama's daily routine (except for Wednesdays, she goes to another market, by metro, and is never back home so soon); they must've spent quite a while fiddling with the upper lock; they must've decided to rob our place because we'd just installed two new plastic windows, and they must've been imagining our place to be orderly and well-packed.
And boy, were they in for a huge disappointment! The mess in our apartment is unbelievable right now. There are mounds of stuff stored in my parent's room and as much lying around in my room, most of it waiting to be thrown away, old and useless. All the books gradually being moved from the hallway and my room into my parents' room... I don't have the energy to describe what it looks like right now - but the robbers must've thought they weren't the first ones to attempt robbing our place...
Seriously, though, it's good that we had all that cash lying in the open - they didn't have problems finding it and they left with no hard feelings. Otherwise, God forbid, they could've hurt mama. It's also good that she didn't see their faces.
Mama did call the police, the police arrived, asked lots of questions that mama didn't know the answers to (like, how much does your cell phone cost, etc.), and no one really expects them to solve the case, not because it's not that big of a deal but because this is how things work in this part of the world.
I was very shocked by it all. My parents are shocked, too. But it's good that it ended well. It's good that the guys were probably professional thieves, for whom it's a matter of honor not to hurt anyone, especially a woman. God, I'm so glad the assholes didn't touch my mother.
I'm tired of politics, news and other such things. Here's something else (thanks for the link, Jane!):
That's me - a South Park me (via South Park Create-A-Character).
That's me - a South Park me (via South Park Create-A-Character).
Monday, March 14, 2005
While the Ukrainian clowns are in Moscow, the Russian oligarchs are in Kyiv...
Natalya Vitrenko said this (in Russian) in Moscow today:
Yushchenko, also today, spent nearly two hours with representatives of major Russian companies in Kyiv. Here's Gazeta.ru's take on the meaning of today's meeting (in Russian):
Natalya Vitrenko said this (in Russian) in Moscow today:
Russian business should understand that if politicians fail to secure the common economic space, it [Russian business] is doomed in Ukraine, it'll be thrown out of there.
Yushchenko, also today, spent nearly two hours with representatives of major Russian companies in Kyiv. Here's Gazeta.ru's take on the meaning of today's meeting (in Russian):
Having invited the Russian oligarchs to Ukraine on the eve of Vladimir Putin's visit, [Yushchenko] is making it clear that he intends to discuss the issue of the guarantees for the Russian investments directly, and not through his Russian colleague. He is making it clear that the issues of business development in Ukraine have to be considered in Kyiv, not in the Kremlin.
Natalya Vitrenko's press conference is taking place right now at Interfax here in Moscow; Yanukovych visited last week; Korchynsky did, too, according to Obozrevatel... Jesus.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
A nice - and relevant - piece on football and Saadi el-Qaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi, in the New York Times:
And - irrelevant but still nice - this:
***
On a different note, Grozny's Terek has just lost to Moscow's CSKA, 0:3...
"Always, my father looks at things in a political way," Mr. Qaddafi lamented, adding that his father did not understand fans. "They aren't political, and I've told him I don't want any of that stuff. Every day I'm with him, I explain to him the mentality of the fans, how it helps young people, how it's like breath for youth."
In 1996, he became president of Libya's soccer association with the intent of building up a semiprofessional league. He paid for premium players to go to Libya and hired one of the world's best coaches, Carlos Bilardo, who led Argentina to victory in the 1986 World Cup, for Libya's national team. He continued cajoling his father to ease the rules that ban professional sports in the country.
His success has been one of the least heralded changes in Libyan society, but one that made a huge difference in many people's lives. Soccer matches between the 14 teams of Libya's national soccer league are now wildly popular, providing the most regular entertainment available for idle young men who might otherwise look in less salubrious places for excitement.
And - irrelevant but still nice - this:
He has an idea for a movie about Hannibal, the legendary military commander of ancient Carthage, that would be filmed in Libya. But when Mr. Qaddafi approached Harvey Weinstein, the Miramax boss, at a film festival in Venice late last year, Mr. Weinstein cut him off, telling him curtly that if he wanted to do movies with Miramax, Libya would have to recognize Israel first. "The first touch was a very hot touch," said Mr. Qaddafi, laughing quietly about his brief brush with Hollywood. "I didn't have time to breathe."
***
On a different note, Grozny's Terek has just lost to Moscow's CSKA, 0:3...
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Ukraine's billionaires are out of the closet, at last.
#258 - Rinat Akhmetov, 38 - $2.4 billion
#507 - Victor Pinchuk, 44 - $1.3 billion
#620 - Serhiy Taruta, 50 - $1 billion
According to Forbes.com, we've got three and Russia's got 27...
#258 - Rinat Akhmetov, 38 - $2.4 billion
#507 - Victor Pinchuk, 44 - $1.3 billion
#620 - Serhiy Taruta, 50 - $1 billion
According to Forbes.com, we've got three and Russia's got 27...
Wonderful Lviv photos from Molcha - all 60 of them.
I don't remember how I found them - just followed a link somewhere, then another, and then ended up there.
At first, I saw too many things that reminded me of St. Pete - but then I managed to sense a smell, and it was Lviv's smell, totally different from the smell of St. Pete - because Lviv is a totally different world.
I can't wait to go there again - it's been nearly three years...
I don't remember how I found them - just followed a link somewhere, then another, and then ended up there.
At first, I saw too many things that reminded me of St. Pete - but then I managed to sense a smell, and it was Lviv's smell, totally different from the smell of St. Pete - because Lviv is a totally different world.
I can't wait to go there again - it's been nearly three years...
Peter Byrne at Abdymok, Robert Mayer at Publius Pundit and Daniel Berczik at Bloggledygook have joined efforts in telling about one of the less known "tapegate" cases - Borys Feldman's story:
This is but one such story from the reign of Leonid Kuchma. As the Gongadze case gets more and more attention - primarily here in the States because of its sensational details - it is important that the world knows about what has happened to people like Borys Feldman, a man Peter Byrne calls a "modest survivor of the Kuchma regime."
According to Obozrevatel (in Russian), NTV has decided not to air a documentary on the investigation of Gongadze's murder today (Saturday), after receiving an order from the Kremlin to avoid this topic.
One of the people interviewed for the documentary, Yevgeniy Lauer, editor in chief of the Internet news site "Tribuna," allegedly spoke of Russia's involvement in Gongadze's case.
***
It looks like NTV has replaced the Gongadze documentary with the one on Russian porn industry:
One of the people interviewed for the documentary, Yevgeniy Lauer, editor in chief of the Internet news site "Tribuna," allegedly spoke of Russia's involvement in Gongadze's case.
***
It looks like NTV has replaced the Gongadze documentary with the one on Russian porn industry:
Extreme life of Russian porn actors: exhausting filming sessions and unprotected sex. And the majority of actors are family people. Is it easy to fulfill your marital responsibilities after a work like this? Why men in the porn business are paid less than women? [...]
Friday, March 11, 2005
NTV 10 pm news just had a story on the Interim Government of the Republic of Texas, based in Overton, Texas.
The Republic of Texas is not an organization, a social club, a fraternity, a militia, a terrorist group, or a political party. The Republic of Texas is an independent nation comprised of Texans or Texians.
The Republic of Texas is a constitutional republic; a government with very limited national powers. The nation is currently in transition as we begin to move toward independence.
I've just started reading a book by Bashir Dalgat (1870-1934), "Pervobytnaya religiya chechentsev i ingushey" ("Ancient Religion of the Chechens and the Ingush"). One of the first works by the author was an 1892 translation into Russian of 12 folk songs in the Dargwa (Dargin), one of the languages spoken in Daghestan.
Here's one of these songs, which I wish I could listen to - not read in translation and then translate awkwardly myself. In the song, a young woman who just learned of her fiance's death, addresses the grave-diggers:
Here's one of these songs, which I wish I could listen to - not read in translation and then translate awkwardly myself. In the song, a young woman who just learned of her fiance's death, addresses the grave-diggers:
Do not dig a grave for my friend: I'll lay him into a silver coffin; but if you do make the grave, do not throw earth into it: I'll fill it with precious stones instead; and if you do throw the earth, do not put up a gravestone: I will stand facing the South in its place; but if you do erect the gravestone, then don't read the burial prayers: I'll sing love songs instead.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
The fan site of a Russian Premier League football team FC Terek Grozny launched a wonderful little service on its forum on Jan. 23: "Photo of Grozny on Request." Here's the translation (from Russian) of the details provided by one of the site's admins, Solid:
Dear users,
We'd like to let you know that at our site we're now trying out a service called "Photo of Grozny on Request." In this thread, you may leave your requests for photos of specific places in Grozny (street, neighborhood, house, school, offices, etc.), and our representatives will photograph the location and post a picture here.
Please understand that the requests will not be fulfilled right away (from one to seven days, and possibly longer). At present, only one person will be working on it (Virus), and he does not always have the time or opportunity to visit the requested locations.
Please, only one request from the same person per week. The service is free. Requests will be accepted only from the registered users.
One more person - nicknamed DiNaMiT - very soon agreed to join Virus in finding and photographing the Chechen capital's sites. So far, only two people have sent in their requests.
The first one came five days ago, on March 4, from Boris:
I'd really like to see what happened to my native house and backyard. Pervomayskaya #83. It's near School #7. There were two 9-storeyed buildings there, one was long, the other shorter and with two entrances. The short one is #83. Thank you very much in advance.
It took them one day to get the picture (follow the link to view the photo full-size):
And here's Boris' reply:
You can't imagine how grateful I am to you. I was happy to see that the building is intact. My dearest childhood memories are connected with this building and with Grozny in general. A huge thanks to you! I'm glad there are people like you who are ready to help us - we miss our native city and the favorite places in it so much!
The second person, Yanchik, a female, must have had two requests but I've only found one:
Solid, you remember my request, and here's one more, at Staryye Promysly there was a plot #69 and I basically spent my childhood there, and I'd really love to have a look at what became of it.....I haven't seen it in like 20 years.....if you have questions about its whereabouts, knock on my icq and I'll explain....thanks in advance
Here're two photos from what must be the first location - a view of Yanchik's building and a view from one of the balconies in her building (follow the links to view the originals):
And Yanchik's thank you note, typed in a large, red font:
well what can I say...huge thanks to you guys...I feel like I've visited home...oy, no words only emotions.....anyway, huge RESPECT to you people.....thank you....and a special thanks to solid for having once given me a link to your forum.....
Solid, and to you also here's a huge thanks from my parents...they were totally delighted
A really depressing piece in the New York Times on a woman who might have been Maggie Fitzgerald's prototype: Far From Hollywood, a Boxer Whose Dreams Died in the Ring...
For a brief period in the late 90's, the injuries that left Ms. Dallam near death were notorious in the boxing world. Even today, when proponents of the sport talk about its safety, they are quick to say that Ms. Dallam is the only female boxer in America to have suffered anything similar to what happens to Maggie Fitzgerald, the boxer played by Hilary Swank in the film.
Stephanie Dallam, a nurse who has been her sister's prime companion and chief caregiver, said her family believed that F. X. Toole, the author of the short story that was the basis for the movie, must have heard or read about Katie and used her as the seed for his tale. "There are just too many similarities," Stephanie said of the story, published four years after Katie's injuries.
They are quick to add that they are not accusing Mr. Toole, who died in 2002, of stealing anything from Katie, merely suggesting that he used her life as the starting point.
From Gazeta.ru, in Russian:
Those people are sick beyond hope. And they must have been as sick when they were fighting on the other side, alongside Maskhadov and against the Russians, a relatively short time ago.
I feel very sorry for those women of Chechnya, and for their kids: it's very sad that they aren't likely to get a sensitive human being for a leader anytime soon.
***
Here's one of the versions, from the same Gazeta.ru piece:
***
The reason we were given so many chances yesterday to admire Maskhadov's corpse on TV is probably because the rumors of his death have been circulating for too long: on and off since 1995.
Kommersant lists nine instances (in Russian, and I'm too sick of it to translate) of either such rumors or the actual attacks on Maskhadov witnessed by others.
Finally, Maskhadov's death has been confirmed and eagerly commented on by the current Chechen government, which has enough representatives who used to be Maskhadov's underground comrades. Ramzan Kadyrov was satisfied more than others and joked willingly about what happened.
"This is a present to all the women of Chechnya for March 8th," Kadyrov said about the dead Maskhadov.
"With all responsibilty I declare," continued Kadyrov, "that a similar fate awaits Shamil Basayev in the nearest future. We'll exhibit him in the center of Grozny for everyone to view."
"It is symbolic that our president Akhmat-Haji Kadyrov died as a hero on a men's holiday, the Victory Day," said the republics minister of internal affairs Ruslan Alkhanov, as if continuing [Ramzan] Kadyrov's thought. "And this so-called president of Ichkeria found his death in a damp cellar on the International Women's Day. There's nothing to add to this."
Those people are sick beyond hope. And they must have been as sick when they were fighting on the other side, alongside Maskhadov and against the Russians, a relatively short time ago.
I feel very sorry for those women of Chechnya, and for their kids: it's very sad that they aren't likely to get a sensitive human being for a leader anytime soon.
***
Here's one of the versions, from the same Gazeta.ru piece:
Many people have been talking in the past few hours about [Ramzan] Kadyrov's role in the liquidation of Maskhadov. On one of the rebels' sites, for example, some sources are being quoted as saying that Maskhadov was killed a few days ago by Kadyrov's people. But, according to those sources, Kadyrov didn't want to assume responsibility [for the killing], fearing revenge, and that's why the success was ascribed to the federal forces.
***
The reason we were given so many chances yesterday to admire Maskhadov's corpse on TV is probably because the rumors of his death have been circulating for too long: on and off since 1995.
Kommersant lists nine instances (in Russian, and I'm too sick of it to translate) of either such rumors or the actual attacks on Maskhadov witnessed by others.
Crimean Tatars marked the 60th anniversary of their deportation from Crimea slightly over a year ago.
In May 2004, an exhibition of Crimean Tatar samizdat was held in Crimea's capital, Simferopol. Here's a passage on it (in Ukrainian) from Qurultay.org:
From the official literature that began to be published in the Crimean Tatar language in the 1960s, censors used to painstakingly delete any mentions or even associations with Crimea, including the mountains and the sea.
(Other deported nations, including the Chechens, were allowed to return to their native lands in the 1960s.)
Here's my (rather sleepy - sorry...) translation of parts of a very interesting and very important interview with Mustafa Jemilev, a former Soviet dissident and head of the Majlis of the Crimean Tatar people. The interview, conducted by Marina Tkachuk, first appeared in the Ukraina Moloda newspaper on Feb. 14, and is reprinted at the Majlis' site (in Ukrainian).
[...] You're aware that the overwhelming majority of the Crimean population voted for Yanukovych. Absolutely all state structures and mass media worked for him. During this election campaign, very mean strategies were used. For example, leaflets were being distributed on behalf of Yushchenko, pronouncing that if he won, Crimea would be given to the Tatars and the Russian-speaking population would be deported. And now these people fear responsibility for what they've done. But at the same time, they hope that since there are many of them, and there's a possibility of sabotage, and the population is pro-Russian, they'll go unpunished.
In this situation, we, the Crimean Tatars, are surprised about the following: the election is over, and government appointments are being made now, but for some reason no one is consulting with us. Even though almost two thirds of all those 15.4 percent of the votes that Yushchenko received in Crimea came from Crimean Tatars. To support Yushchenko was our joint decision, adopted at a national congress. And this is why the fact that the Crimean Tatars' opinion is being ignored as the government positions are being distributed causes a wave of indignation: it turns out that we've been pushed aside.
When we were making a decision to support Victor Yushchenko we didn't really hope he'd win. This is our tradition to always support the democratic forces. In 1991, for example, we were sure that Vyacheslav Chornovil wouldn't win, but we decided to support him during that election. Or, during the 1999 presidential election, we understood that [member of the People's Movement Party] Udovenko didn't have any chances, we still decided to vote for him.
[...]
We've sent a letter to President Yushchenko, in which we mentioned those areas where most Crimean Tatars live - it's necessary to appoint heads of the state administrations there taking into account our propositions. It doesn't have to be a Crimean Tatar person; the main thing is to discuss the candidate. We'd like to obtain positions in the government bodies because we do have enough professionals. And by the way, we would have demanded this of Yanukovych, too, had he won.
[...]
One of our political demands is to introduce changes into the consitution of Autonomous Republic [of Crimea] and to allow the Crimean Tatar language to become one of the functioning languages of the peninsula - equal to the Russian and Ukrainian languages; the way it had been prior to the deportations [of 1944]. We insist on the adequate, proportional representation on all government structures. (Right now, there're only 7 deputies representing the Crimean Tatars in the parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, even though our people constitute 13 percent of the Crimean population. And in the executive branch, there would have been four times as many of our representatives as there are now, had the proportional system been maintained.)
The land issue is a very important one. When the Land Code of Ukraine was adopted, the peculiarities of the Crimean peninsula were not taken into account. There's an article in it, according to which the land is given into private ownership to those who worked on it, i.e. to the former members of collective farms. But if the Crimean Tatars did work at collective farms, it was in the land of exile. When they returned to the Motherland, moving into predominantly agricultural areas (over 70 percent of the Crimean Tatars live in villages), they ended up getting twice as little land as the Russian-speaking population, if at all. This increases both the ethnic and social tensions. Another detail: in 1988, Crimea's Council of Ministers issued a decree according to which it was banned to register Crimean Tatars in certain areas of the peninsula - those that had access to the sea. It turned out that they had no chance to settle at Crimea's Southern Coast, whose population used to 70 percent Crimean Tatar, and all the land there is now taken. People have no means to existence.
[...]
I understand the attempts to less the Crimean Tatars' role during the election. We are already hearing things like this now: "How can we separate ourselves from the Crimean Tatars, without offending them?" Elbows are coming into play now. But this has nothing to do with Victor Yushchenko personally...
[...]
The atmosphere imposed by whole generations since as far as 1944 is producing the results. The government that deported Crimean Tatars was looking for moral justification and was thus promoting the propagandistic view that the deportations were legal because the Crimean Tatars were a less worthy people, the traitors. Russians were resettled to the emptied lands, they were given everything [that used to belong to Crimean Tatars] - the cattle, even the children's toys. Now the re-settlers are experiencing a syndrome of those who are using the stolen property. And they really hate to see the owners of that property. And that's why all kinds of propaganda are perceived very well.
Here's an example. On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Crimean Tatar deportations, the Krymskaya Pravda newspaper did a survey among the students on their attitudes toward the deportations of 1944. Nearly 70 percent of those surveyed thought that the deportations had been just, and a significant share of the respondents thought that the Tatars should be deported once again. Such an obviously unhealthy, fascist worldview.
There're quite a few chauvinist - yet popular - newspapers in Crimea. And they are not held responsible for igniting interethnic conflicts. We tried to sue the newspapers publishing shameful lies. In 1999, when someone threw explosives at the Majlis building, one Crimean paper wrote that we ourselves staged the attack. We went to court at once, and two years later an unexpected judgment was passed: it's impossible to hold the newspaper responsible because the Majlis isn't an organization registered legally in Ukraine. This is like letting a murdered go free because the victim didn't have a registration stamp in his passport. We hope that things like this will be cleared up.
[...]
There are politicians who keep afloat only thanks to such propaganda. Especially during the election, there emerge many defenders of the Russian-speaking population from the Crimean Tatars. Also, there are grounds to believe that Russia wouldn't mind [Ukraine] having "its own Chechnya."
[...]
We are indeed somewhat concerned about the influences of the emissaries from the Arab countries, who are propagating non-traditional forms of Islam, distributing literature of the kind that says that when a Muslim lives in country ruled by a non-Muslim, he is free from observing the laws of this country. This is a pure provocation, which contradicts the norms of Islam. But the young boys are sometimes pushed towards extremism because of the lawlessness and violations of the Crimean Tatars' rights. The first time we paid attention to such organizations was at the time when the resolution on the Iraq war was being adopted - a leaflet appeared then, threatening execution to the Muslim leaders who either supported or kept silent about the war. We invited representatives of these organizations for a discussion, and the threats didn't materialize.
Supporters of Hizb-ut-Tahrir al-Islami party have indeed appeared in Crimea. The party was created in 1953 in Palestine and was declared a terrorist organization. But such organizations have few members. They are created artificially in Crimea. And what's alarming is that certain government officials encourage the development of such trends. It is important for them to weaken and split the Crimean Tatars' national movement. But I'll say this, and it won't be an overstatement: the Majlis' influence on the Crimean Tatars is strong enough. We keep the situation under control.
Maskhadov's obit on BBC is here.
Four days before he died, Maskhadov had emailed his answers to the questions asked by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The story published March 7 is here (via David McDuff):
Four days before he died, Maskhadov had emailed his answers to the questions asked by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The story published March 7 is here (via David McDuff):
Maskhadov denied that his January cease-fire offer was prompted by the abduction of his relatives. Asked how the situation will develop if peace talks do not take place in the near future, Maskhadov said, "the war will continue.... Chechen mujahedin will resist to the end in this struggle, and the flame of this conflagration will spread to the entire North Caucasus." And in seeming contrast to his earlier prohibition on terrorist acts outside Chechnya and directed against the Russian civilian population (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 18 June 2003), Maskhadov continued: " The people of Russia will experience constant fear of possible retribution by suicide bombers in revenge for the evil deeds of the [Federal Security Service] and the federal forces in Chechnya."
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Aslan Maskhadov's body, a "March 8th [International Women's Day] present to all the women of Chechnya" - from Ramzan Kadyrov.
Footage of the body and the scene is all over the Russian TV now.
Footage of the body and the scene is all over the Russian TV now.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Kravchenko's family denies having turned to the Prosecutor General's office with a demand to prosecute Omelchenko and others (via Ukrainska Pravda). Kravchenko's daughter said they had other things to worry about right now.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Kravchenko's widow holds Hryhoriy Omelchenko and certain other politicians responsible for her husband's suicide and demands that the Prosecutor General's office file a lawsuit against them (via Gazeta.ru).
Kravchenko himself put the blame on Kuchma and his circles - according to his suicide note, at least.
Kuchma returned to Kyiv yesterday afternoon but refused to speak to the journalists waiting for him at the airport.
Kravchenko himself put the blame on Kuchma and his circles - according to his suicide note, at least.
Kuchma returned to Kyiv yesterday afternoon but refused to speak to the journalists waiting for him at the airport.
From Tribunal: The Chronicle of an Unfinished War
by Andrei Sharyi
"Prava Cheloveka" Publishing House
Moscow 2003
The book also contains very powerful photos by Ron Haviv.
Man crosses bridge in Sarajevo.
Bosnia 1994
by Andrei Sharyi
"Prava Cheloveka" Publishing House
Moscow 2003
There was no serious anti-war movement in Serbia in the 90s. History shows that this does not happen always: think of Vietnam. History teaches that this happens often: think of Chechnya.
The book also contains very powerful photos by Ron Haviv.
Man crosses bridge in Sarajevo.
Bosnia 1994
Saturday, March 05, 2005
One of the "minimemories" from Abdymok:
And here's Yuri Lutsenko's reaction to Kravchenko's appointment (Ukrainska Pravda, Dec. 1, 2001):
“i was satisfied with his performance as a minister in my government,” yushchenko said.“he is a man of military honor. he has his faults like the rest of us, but he was an effective member of my government, with clear, positive principles, which i respect.”
- former prime minister viktor yushchenko on kravchenko after kuchma appointed him kherson governor on nov. 30, 2001.
And here's Yuri Lutsenko's reaction to Kravchenko's appointment (Ukrainska Pravda, Dec. 1, 2001):
To be honest, this appointment sucks. On behalf of the committee "For Ukraine Without Kuchma" I'd like to warn journalists of Kherson region against walking outside on their own and against approaching the places of dislocation of the new governor's eagles. We sympathize with the people of Kherson region and hope they'll be able to survive this. [...]
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