This is really funny - I've just stumbled upon this photoshopped image of a United Russia campaign ad of the "Putin's Plan" variety - at Discovery Institute's Real Russia Project (aka Russia Blog):



Here's a quick translation for Charles Ganske, the man who mistook this for the real thing:

I smoked it.
It kicks ass!

Putin's Plan.
Tkachev's Plan.

By 2010 - 60 tons of weed from 1 ha.
Ha-ha...
BUA-HA-HA-HA!

FUCKED RUSSIA

'Plan' is one of the words for pot in Russian slang (more - here).

The last line doesn't translate too smoothly - it should be Yedinaya Rossiya (United Russia) - but it's Yebimaya Rossiya instead...

Anyway, great job, Charles! Учи олбанский!!! :)

On Tuesday, Dec. 11, Yulia Tymoshenko may again become Ukraine's prime minister.

Or not.

Ukrainiana writes about "suspicions of sabotage from the would-be opposition" and some of the steps taken to not let it happen:

[...] Confronted with a hostile environment and a razor-thin vote margin, the Orange Coalition is offering the would-be opposition a cornucopia of political pacifiers, including the First Vice-Speaker post and control over key parliamentary committees. [...]

Ukrainska Pravda (UKR) and Korrespondent.net (RUS) have both picked up a LigaBusinessInform item (RUS) on the "enemy within" factor: this time, it's Vladislav Kaskiv, who - according to LigaBusinessInform's "reliable sources" - has recently had a surgery and is likely to skip Tuesday's vote. His absence would obviously make the already "razor-thin vote margin" even thinner.

Although Kaskiv's plans for Tuesday aren't a certainty yet, few readers at Korrespondent.net busy themselves with this consideration. Some are making guesses as to what kind of surgery he could've had - and here're their bets:

- circumcision (comment #8)

- brain removal surgery (comment #10)

- appendectomy (comment #25)

- zit removal surgery (comment #25)

- ingrown toenail removal (comment #37)

- hemorrhoids removal (comment #40)

- sex change operation (comment #55)

We here think it could have been liposuction.

Here are a few more flashbacks from 2003...

This United Russia ad across Nevskiy Prospekt from Moskovskiy Vokzal in St. Pete seemed way huge then - but compared to this campaign ad by Yuri Lutsenko at Livoberezhna this year, it looks pretty modest now...



"The President's Party" - not much has changed since then, they've just taken it one step further...



***

Although I already had this blog at the end of 2003, I wasn't really using it. I was on Fotopages.com instead, and here's a tiny entry that I did on Nov. 28, 2003:

So I decided to buy myself roses today, and I asked the woman at the store not to bother with fancy wrapping; a newspaper would do. At home, I glanced at the paper and realized that there was no way to escape politics: it turned out to be a campaign newsletter of Vladimir Yudin, one of the local candidates.

I saw his name before, sometime in October, when the whole YUKOS thing had just begun. "Yudin, hands off Khodorkovskiy" - read the writing on the wall then.

The paper is full of Putin vs. Khodorkovskiy stuff, and other oligarch-related issues. It also touches upon the problem of communal apartments and offers ways to spend some 240 billion rubles, together. It's in my garbage can now.

The roses are doing great.

And here're two pictures from the set that I posted that day - both have to do with this Yudin guy and Khodorkovsky:





***

Looking back at this, and at the 2003 notes that I posted yesterday, it sort of becomes clear that in this part of the world it hurts a lot to be an optimist - and it hurts somewhat less to be a pessimist.

As I said in that interview, it's hard to imagine anyone being surprised by the outcome of the Duma election this year - even though there are plenty of people who still care and may now be outraged or depressed. Or happy.

As for being surprised, we used up most of this emotion's reserves four years ago, when we spent half the post-election night glued to the TV, cursing the Russian opposition for their pathetic performance. This year, Mishah chose to be watching some movie instead, and I was translating Russian bloggers for GV.

I also unearthed an old notebook and read through the stuff I jotted down right after the vote of Dec. 7, 2003.

We were watching Savik Shuster's Svoboda Slova then - still on NTV, still in Russia, long before anyone could've imagined Shuster's move to Ukraine, together with his show, and his quick transformation into a Ukrainian mega-star. (Though, of course, it was also long after Shuster's dismissal from Radio Liberty, following Gazprom's takeover of NTV from Media-Most.)

- For Victor Shenderovich, it was the first appearance on NTV in three years that night - he did make some joke about it. He also said that the right-wing opposition had discredited itself, and it would be much better for them not to be represented in the Duma at all for the next four years: let "the new CPSU" - United Russia, obviously - bear all the responsibility, because when oil prices go down and Russia isn't producing anything, there'll be no one else but them to blame for the economic decline.

Oil prices have only been going up since then, of course.

- As of 6 pm, the turnout was less than 50 percent, and nearly 5 percent had voted against all candidates. Someone in the audience said that the non-voting folks would eventually join together and force this regime out.

- Someone noted that SPS' campaign ad about Europe didn't really sell in the Asian part of the country.

I'm not sure which ad they meant, but I do remember something about Irina Khakamada, Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov calling people to vote for them while aboard a private jet - an ad that wasn't well-received, either.

- Khakamada seemed to imply that the results of the election reflected what the people of Russia were like, and that those who voted for SPS shouldn't be too ashamed of their choice.

One of their conclusions: they should have joined forces with Yabloko.

- "Someone fat has compared Russia to a pendulum: in four years, he said, there'll be three parties in the Duma - Yabloko, SPS, and LDPR (the latter two just for fun), and today's rulers would be afraid to walk the streets."

Mishki, a pro-Putin kids movement:


A screenshot of Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Dec. 6, 2007

Novaya Gazeta has a few photos from Bolotnaya Ploshchad, where the new movement's presentation took place.

Пиздец.

More: Radio Liberty story (RUS).

Chris Vallance interviewed me on the Duma election for BBC Radio 5 Live's Pods and Blogs show yesterday - here's the clip:

Powered by Podbean.com

The rest of the show and show notes are here.

***

Just as the previous time - back in April, following Yeltsin's death - it was way too scary to know I was being recorded for the radio. I must've lost a few kilos - which, of course, would've been good, if only I had stayed away from those coconut cookies afterwards.

Marta was asleep this time and missed her chance of appearing on the radio once again.

It's been months since the last time I really spoke English, so I couldn't remember how to pronounce the word 'Apocalypse' and, as a result, Chris had to edit out the part where I was talking of some bloggers' attempt to outspam their 'Putinjugend' counterparts, by posting Bible verses all over LJ and thus chasing the 'victors' out of the Yandex Blogs Top 30. By way of consolation, Chris told me my pronunciation was perhaps much closer to the original Greek than the way they say 'Apocalypse' in English.

:)

***

There was some more election stuff that I wanted to write about, but it took me too long to figure out how to do an audio clip, etc, so this is it for tonight.

Roman Gruzov's piece (RUS) that conveys the atmosphere in pre-election Russia beautifully, but hasn't made it into the last issue of Bolshoi Gorod. Published on the blog of Bolshoi Gorod's editor instead.

UPDATE: Lyndon Allin's English translation of the piece is here.

I've just noticed the news of the third explosion in two weeks at the Zasyadko coal mine.

Nov. 18 - 101 people dead; Dec. 1 - 44 wounded; Dec. 2 - 5 killed, 30 wounded.

How terrible.

I wanted to write so much more tonight, but Marta kept waking up and I had to run back and forth between her and my Global Voices translation, and as a result, it took me forever to finish it. Here it is - and that's it for now:

Russia: Duma Election Notes

According to the early official results, president Vladimir Putin's United Russia party has won a landslide victory in the Dec. 2 general elections.

Below is a tiny fraction of the recent election posts by Russian bloggers, translated from Russian.

LJ user brazzaville posts a joke:

Two people meet:

- Who are you voting for?
- United Russia.
- Oh, okay, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to.

In the last sentence of her post, brazzaville may or may not be revealing her voting preference, through what may or may not be an allusion to one of the contenders in this election - Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko ("Apple") party:

I'll eat an apple now and then go cast my vote.

LJ user maliar shares his plans for the post-election future:

When it gets unbearably bad, I'll move into my friend-lenta [LJ friends' feed]. There's civil society in here, and freedom of speech, and democracy, and the absolute victory of SPS [Nikita Belykh's Union of Right Forces].

SPS and Yabloko are not expected to get past the 7-percent eligibility threshold in this election.

LJ user lit_wonder posts this report from her polling station in Moscow:

Civil Duty

At the polling station, there's a line for cheap pastries. They are also selling silver and imitation jewelry there.

Observers don't look older than 18.

A woman is making a scene: "Why are you writing me down, you've written my number down and now you'll be able to trace down who I've voted for! I wanted to [vote], but now I'm not going to!"

No one wrote down my number - but I'm not making a secret of it: [I am] for Yabloko.

In a comment, LJ user vladimir_morf writes about who the observers are most likely are:

First- and second-year students. Paid 2,000 rubles [$80]. A bus takes them there and a bus takes them back. Food is included.

LJ user favorov explains his voting choice:

I'll vote for SPS, though it's not as easy for me as it was four, eight, 12, or 16 years ago (no matter what [SPS] was called then).

Because this is how I've always done. Because this is where [Anatoly Chubais] is. Because I do not see a better option. Because someone somewhere has completely lost it, and I'd like to drop him a hint.

As for the rest of it:

Lately, there's been one thing that's beginning to frighten me: logic has disappeared from the regime's actions. The logic that I can understand, that is - I disagreed with them on certain things before, but I could always understand their reasoning.

I don't understand why Putin is so scared, why [United Russia] is overreacting like this, why they are strangling SPS, who needs such an exaggerated image of the enemy.

The only possible - though not universal - explanation is that the West and [a collective Sechin], acting spontaneously together, have chased [Putin] into the corner.

I still hope - even though it's getting more and more difficult to have hope - that he'll leave. I'm positive that he wants to leave.

Something along these lines.

LJ user puschaev_y posts this comment to favorov's entry:

Don't you think that he really cannot leave [...] - and one of the reasons is that he needs guarantees that [Mikhail Khodorkovsky] will remain in prison. And he's the only person who can provide such guarantees to himself - and only if he stays, one way or another. Otherwise, he risks switching locations with [Khodorkovsky]. Basically, the year 2008 was predetermined by the year 2003 [the year Khodorkovsky was jailed].

LJ user mcmamus posts a photo of a rather huge United Russia's campaign ad, seen on the election day at Manezh Square in downtown Moscow. LJ user kuteev, in a comment, reports that such ads have not been taken down all over the Russian capital, in violation of the election law.

LJ user ervix shows off a smiley that he put in the United Russia box on his ballot (see photo).

LJ user karimova responds, in a comment:

Up until this moment, I did not believe in the existence of the people who vote for United Russia.

On her own blog, karimova writes:

I text-messaged the family we are helping and asked: "How is it going? Did you go to the polling station?" The head of the family replied: "Yes, we did. I've voted for United Russia, because I'm a member of this party and I'm obliged to."

Damn. They live a half-hungry life, their house is half-ruined, the state is throwing miserable bits their way. They are now re-registering disability status for their boy, and that's why they cannot count on getting pension money in the next few months. If it hadn't been for the volunteers with their humanitarian aid, I can't imagine how they would've survived.

The conditions they live in are nightmarish, a child with oncology should not live in such quarters. In addition to this, they've got a grandmother there who can't get up from her bed, and the toilet, please excuse me, is outdoors. I decided that we should somehow try to get them a new house next year. That we should write to the governor, demand something from the local authorities. I asked one experienced person whether it is true that the officials might respond that since the boy is severely ill and would die sooner or later, they have no reasons to give them a new house. Is it possible that they might respond this way? "Yes, they might." This is how they respond more often than not.

Why are they voting for United Russia? I don't understand this.

It's making me feel utterly discouraged. Volunteers and charity foundations have to mend the holes created by the state, and people who are suffering and need help don't even understand what's going on.

Some quick pre-election linking:

The text of Victor Shenderovich's Plavlennyi Syrok show, aired on Dec. 1 on Radio Echo of Moscow - it's in Russian, however, and there's no audio posted yet, but it should appear there eventually.

God bless Shenderovich, is all I can say.

Here's the wrap-up section:

And finally, about what matters most. In your letters, you often ask me who to vote for on Dec. 2. Unfortunately, the election is already tomorrow, and campaigning is prohibited, so I'll try to answer your question ... well, in the most general terms... Anyway, I think one shouldn't vote for the party headed by a hypocrite and a scoundrel. To the contrary, one should vote for the party that's the most articulate of all in calling this hypocrite and scoundrel a hypocrite and a scoundrel. Here, I guess I've answered your question without violating the law. Happiness to you all!

On his blog, on Nov. 26, Shenderovich revealed that he'd be voting for SPS (Union of the Right Forces). This post of his - also in Russian - has received 547 comments, which I haven't had the time to read yet.

Mama has told me today that they've planted new chestnut trees on Khreshchatyk, replacing some of the old ones that seemed to be dying. This is really good news.

The newly-planted trees are 15 years old, which means they'll be blooming as early as next spring. Hopefully.

For the past few years, Khreshchatyk looked kind of ugly not only because of the crazy parking lot in the middle of the sidewalk, but also because of the chestnut trees that grew depressingly rusty by mid-summer.

By the way, what we have in Kyiv, are they called chestnut trees or buckeyes? I think it's the latter, but I wasn't aware of this until a friend who studied at Columbus, Ohio, told me so.

Our birthday girl:

Beeline and Megafon, major Russian mobile operators, are promoting the Dec. 2 election by text-messaging all their subscribers, regardless of their citizenship.

Here's an sms that I have received today/yesterday:

2 ДЕКАБРЯ ПРИХОДИТЕ НА ВЫБОРЫ! ВАШ ГОЛОС ВАЖЕН ДЛЯ СТРАНЫ!!!

Translation: "Come and vote on December 2! Your vote is important for the country!!!"

:)

Here we go again: I'm removing Elmer's comment from the post he has made it on - and re-posting it here. Comment moderation is a pain in the ass - I keep forgetting to approve comments - but if Elmer again chooses to litter posts about my family with political discussion, I'll have to turn it back on.

This comment was posted on Marta's birthday reminder:

elmer said...

Just out of curiousity, and submitted only in the politest sense -

If you are a resident and citizen of Ukraine - why the Russian?

Why not the Ukrainian language?

8:42 AM, November 30, 2007

I'm not sure why Elmer is assuming there's no Ukrainian spoken in our family. There is.

There is also English, and, hopefully, there'll be a couple more languages in the future. Maybe I'll learn a new language together with Marta. Turkish, for example. Or French. I'd love to.

As for why I consider Elmer's 'polite curiosity' political, please have a look at this language issue discussion over at the wonderful Ukrainiana.

There's one point in La Russophobe's comment that I agree with - and it's the timing of the New York Times' Simachev piece:

[...] First, how you can justify diverting attention from the outrageous decline of democracy in Russia by publishing a piece that could easily have issued from the Kremlin itself is beyond me [...].

I cannot "justify" that. Even if there were no urgent matters to cover in Russia - and there are plenty, of course - one would expect them to run something on Ukraine or Belarus - coal mines, oil spills, you name it - before turning to Simachev, a relative non-newsmaker.

One of the results that a 'Ukraine' search at the New York Times site has landed me today is pretty symbolic:



Here's this brilliant, albeit a bit too laconic, piece:



So yeah, Simachev piece is indeed "diverting attention" - but I can't say I'm surprised: it's always been like this.

Take those "no snow in Moscow in December" stories.

Here's one, from the New York Times, published on Dec. 12, 1996:

[...] There has been no snow in Moscow at all this season, a fact so depressing to average Muscovites that they have trouble even speaking about it.

"It's wrong," said Vyacheslav Sesoyev, 65, the proprietor of a central Moscow sporting goods store. "It's not Russia if it doesn't snow. In the old days we would have thought the C.I.A. did it. The last time this happened was in 1938. I remember it well because my mama cried for the whole month of December." [...]

And here's another one, published in the Washington Post ten years later, on Dec. 20, 2006:

[...] The winter of 2006 has yet to arrive, however, and Muscovites are deeply discombobulated. "I want snow. I want the New Year's feeling," said Viktoria Makhovskaya, a street vendor who sells gloves and mittens. "This is a disgusting winter. I don't like it at all." [...]

As a Kyivite, I am biased, of course: I think it's unfair and wrong that the whole world seems to revolve around Russia, and that even when they do write about Ukraine, they manage to shift the focus to Russia in the end, one way or another, more often than not. Andrey Slivka's Kyiv traffic piece in the Washington Post is the most recent example of such coverage. Part of me thinks that relative obscurity may even be better than the kind of spotlight that's normally available to us.

***

As for La Russophobe's other points, I think it is barking up at least a couple wrong trees.

***

How strange: I've just run into another Simachev piece - published in the International Herald Tribune on Nov. 23, four days before the New York Times ran Natasha Singer's story.

Written by Nora FitzGerald, the piece - Moscow Has Hot Clubs - But It's a Cold Wait If You're Not On the List - is more about Moscow nightclubs than it is about Simachev, but still:

[...] At 33, Simachev is best known as an international designer and pioneer of Russia's fashion scene, with a standing place in Milan's Fashion Week. He has captured the imagination of the youth culture here with his ironic, nostalgic celebration of all things Russian - from oil-rich gangsters and absent-minded aristocrats to Soviet cartoons and communist style. A little over a year ago, he decided to open a club in his store and try his hand as a D.J. On Web sites and in alternative weeklies, it is frequently rated as one of Moscow's hottest nightclubs.

[...]

Finally, close to 1 a.m., Simachev arrives, creating a stir. His black hair is in a high ponytail with the sides of his head shaved, a look he said is inspired by the Chukotka people in Russia's far east. Hands stuffed in his oversized jean pockets, he greets his guests like a visiting dignitary and makes his way to the small stage. Soon, with a heavy-set security guard standing next to him, he remixes Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, then the Stereo MCs.

"I like to mix '70s and '80s pop with electronic music. My idea is to create a Russian salad," Simachev shouts over the club's din. Part of Simachev's appeal is his retro choices; he likes to mix David Bowie and Kate Bush. [...]

Again, the timing is excellent.

But when I think about it some more, I feel I finally get it: Russian politics is too depressing, pointless and hopeless right now - and drinking, dancing, and partying through this gloomy period may seem like an awesome idea. Hence, Simachev.

Or, how about this: what if Simachev is Putin's successor? And hence all this publicity? Wouldn't that be fun?

:)