Both of my photo pages are down right now: fotopages are doing an upgrade, and photobucket is shut for maintenance... I'm sorry. Hope it'll be over soon.

Oh boy. Is justice minister Roman Zvarych fake?

Ukrainska Pravda is convinced he is, after spending two weeks investigating his educational background.

The story's too long to translate - so here're two screenshots: of Roman Zvarych's official English-language bio posted on the Cabinet of Ministers site (Jesus, couldn't they hire someone to proofread it? Couldn't he look at it himself?) - and of his degree verification requested by Ukrainska Pravda:





I can't wait to see how Zvarych reacts.

Though there is one thing I don't understand: how come they only decided to dig this up on him two weeks ago - not five years or a year ago? Is he really getting that unbearable?

***

Here's more on Zvarych, from two months ago: his resignation drama and Tatyana Korobova's take on it...

We've had Yuli Dubov's new book - The Lesser Evil - for a couple months now, but somehow I've decided to start reading it only today. Dubov's previous book, Bolshaya Payka (The Big Cut, or The Big Ration), is a prequel to The Lesser Evil - and I found it very interesting and very informative, even though it's not a literary masterpiece or something...

Here's more on the new book, from the Guardian's Nick Paton Walsh:

The life of the political exile has taken on bold new nuances in Putin's Russia, as billionaire Yuli Dubov can testify. A former associate of London resident and billionaire Putin critic Boris Berezovsky, he now has political asylum in Britain and has added to the genre of Putin-era dissent literature with his latest novel, The Lesser Evil. Part social treatise, part crime novel, part political pamphlet, it addresses the rise of a former KGB officer, Feodor Feodorovich Rogov, through the mysterious bombing of Moscow's international trade centre and the influence of a conglomerate known as "Infokar". It's a series of barely disguised references to Berezovsky's accusations, denied of course, that Putin engineered apartment bombings in Moscow to justify sending troops into Chechnya, a move that won the former KGB spy an election and led to Berezovsky fleeing the country. Safe to say that Putin is not the "lesser evil" Dubov is referring to, rather his nemesis Berezovsky. The politics of the Russian court remain as transparent and subtle as ever.

In the introduction, Dubov credits Alik (Aleksandr) Goldfarb with providing him with the idea for this new novel. He's also grateful to Yuri Felshtinskiy, among others, for his help in "gathering the factual material."

Both Goldfarb and Felshtinskiy - Boris Berezovsky's people - are now in Kyiv, sharing parts of what they have and know of Melnychenko's recordings...

Minister of internal affairs Lutsenko had an online chat at Ukrainska Pravda yesterday - they are luring the readers in by calling his answers "sensational" - though very few seem to be worth even a very quick read. Except for this one, perhaps - Lutsenko's response about the Tymoshenko incident and our relations with Russia in general:

I can't speak for Russia's Prosecutor General's Office. I can only confirm the information that YVT [Tymoshenko] has been taken off the Interpol's wanted list by the Russian Federation 2-3 weeks ago.

But I think the matter goes further than this. According to some data, the Russian chauvinists are preparing for a broadscale action aimed at repeating 1937 in Ukraine. In any case, the corresponding moves by Zatulin have already been detected.

I've no idea what Lutsenko means by this 1937 redux thing. I think he's being overly dramatic.

I've never heard about this Zatulin person until now - but he's got a website of his own (in Russian), so I learned that he's a Duma deputy, member of that pro-Putin monster, United Russia, sounds very, very hurt and concerned about what's going on in Ukraine, and "positions" himself as The Defender to his electorate, whatever that means.

I still don't understand how any movements by someone as pathetic could be interpreted as the beginning of a 1937 redux.

As for the Interpol and Tymoshenko, Ukrainska Pravda has just reported (in Ukrainian) that the search warrant would be re-activated as soon as Tymoshenko loses her immunity.

Also, Ukrainska Pravda points to a story in the Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta, which claims that Tymoshenko may resign within the next few days. Citing some unnamed guy from Tymoshenko's faction, Nezavisimaya writes this:

According to the deputy, the reason the latest scandals broke out was Tymoshenko's intention to visit Moscow in order to agree on strengthening cooperation, at a time when Yushchenko is preparing to negotiate Ukraine's NATO and EU membership, and is also about to attend the GUUAM summit in Chisinau, which may put an end to the existence of the CIS.

The second reason is yesterday's arrival to Kyiv of Boris Berezovsky's representatives. The very fact of their arrival has significantly strengthened the position of one person close to Yushchenko, the head of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council Petro Poroshenko, whose relations with Yulia Tymoshenko aren't too good. "If she [Tymoshenko - NG] gives in to the pressure and signs her resignation papers, it'll be Poroshenko who gets the premiership," thinks the deputy.

Lyndon of Scraps of Moscow wrote in a comment to the previous post that Radio Ekho Moskvy had also been talking about the possibility of Tymoshenko's resignation: "rumor-mongering and speculation seasoned with bias is what it looks like to me." Exactly.

ORT has invited the "experts" to comment on the Tymoshenko incident: Markov and Pavlovskiy...

They are making such a big deal out of it... Are they hurt or what?

Pavlovskiy thinks that Tymoshenko's decision to postpone the visit is a clear sign that Ukraine is going through some very serious post-revolutionary problems - sounds like a good Ph.D. dissertation theme to me, abstract and meaningless enough...

NTV is bitching about no reasons given for cancellation of Tymoshenko's visit.

NTV's own guesses:

- Ustinov's episode;
- Agricultural problems;
- Problems in Donetsk (Kolesnikov and his fans' tent city in Kyiv);
- Problems in Crimea (Crimean Tatars and their tent city in Simferopol)...

ORT doesn't sound neutral about the Tymoshenko incident - they are half-arrogant, half-bitter...

Jesus, and they are quoting Vitrenko... and Chornovil... Assholes.

(Though at the very beginning they showed Serhiy Teryokhin, Ukraine's economy minister, and he looks quite gorgeous, very sexy, strange I haven't noticed it before...)

RTR mentioned Tymoshenko's postponed visit to Moscow right after their story on Ustinov's second-term confirmation as the prosecutor general - but there was not a word about Ustinov's remarks on Tymoshenko: they just showed Russian foreign minister Lavrov confirming that Tymoshenko had to sort out problems caused by shortage of gas and the approach of the spring sowing before she could come to Russia.

Gazeta.ru, however, seems to have had a slow news day today and came up with a more edgy (and badly written) reaction - [Yulia Tymoshenko] Hasn't Showed Up for Interrogation:

In a way, Tymoshenko's actions can be considered posturing. The thing is, beginning from Victor Yushchenko's election as president and his first visit to Moscow in January, Moscow has been declaring, at different levels, that Tymoshenko would be safe if she came to Moscow. Even prosecutor general Ustinov talked about it on Feb. 15. "Tymoshenko may come to Russia without any worries, if she wants, because she has got the immunity," he said in February. In any case, the loudest political scandal has taken place today in the relations of the two countries ever since Victor Yushchenko's team came to power.

According to Gazeta.ru (in Russian), Tymoshenko has cancelled her trip to Russia; an unnamed source says this is because of what Prosecutor General Ustinov said about her the day before: Tymoshenko's case is still open and she's on the 'wanted' list, but during her visit the rules of the protocol are going to be observed and she won't be touched.

I heard about this comparatively huge student rally by the White House (the Government Building) today/yesterday and decided to go see it: 2 to 5 thousand students demanding - somewhat unrealistically - free education and stipends corresponding to the minimum maintenance rate.

There was not a trace of the rally when I got there - I was late, I guess, though I'm still wondering how such an impressive crowd could vanish so fast. (One of the clues to this riddle could be Zhirinovsky: according to Gazeta.ru (in Russian but with photos), he showed up at one point and started handing out 500- and 1,000-ruble bills (approximately $18 and $37), which pissed off the Rodina Party guys and caused a little fight between them and Zhirik's bodyguards - but "the 500- and 1,000-ruble bills have played their role: the students quickly moved under Zhirinovsky's flags, and that was the end of the protest rally.")

***

I walked around the White House - for the first time in my life - and found it as ugly and scary as our own Cabinet of Ministers building in Kyiv. Too huge, too Soviet - the closer you get, the worse.

Then I stumbled on a makeshift memorial to those who got killed during the riots of October 1993 - and it was quite something...



The branches of every tree and every bush in the alley leading up to the entrance to the White House compound had little red and black ribbons on them. So did the fences. There were little signs on the spots where someone had died, and big wreaths, and artificial flowers, and icons, and huge wooden crosses, and red flags, and car tyres, and what not. A tall thing with pictures of those who died, and a few stands - with pictures and bios. USSR, hammers and sickles on the fence... Copies of some letters to Moscow's mayor Yuri Luzhkov - with lots of curses handwritten on them, curses cursing the enemies of Russia, all the usual suspects...

They died fighting against "demofascism" - democratic fascism or something... They died defending "Sovietskaya vlast'" - the Soviet government...

Two babushkas came up to one of the crosses as I was taking a picture of it. They stood right next to me, crossing themselves over and over again, and saying proudly: "They died for Sovietskaya vlast'." Then they moved over to the next cross, and then to yet another one. Finally, they walked across an open space to join a bunch of teens drinking beer by the fence at some distance from the crosses - and very soon the teens started yelling, "Putina na hui!" (translated roughly as "Fuck Putin!").

It was 6 pm by then, and all the secretaries and other common-folk White House staff were walking to the nearby subway station.

That was a very surreal experience.

***

More pictures from the "memorial" - here.

***

I'm really sick of all this revolution-in-Russia talk. You know, stuff like this:

"Orange spirit" creating sense of unrest in Russia

By Peter Finn
The Washington Post

MOSCOW — Suddenly in Russia, everybody's talking about a revolution.

In a country with a popular president, a growing economy and a fragmented and weak opposition, Russia does not seem ripe for the kind of revolt that toppled governments in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan over the past 17 months.

But as Lenin once said, "a revolution is a miracle," and the Kremlin and its political opponents seem bewitched by the possibility of one.

"There is an Orange spirit in Russia," said Andrei Sidelnikov, the young head of the new Russian youth group Pora! (It's Time!), which took its name from the young activists at the heart of the street protests late last year that ultimately brought Viktor Yushchenko to power in Ukraine.

"We are living through a new era of street politics. Our young people are becoming more and more active. ... They might explode when they can't take it any longer."

[...]

***

I wouldn't want to be stuck in the middle of a revolution in Moscow. I'd rather watch it on TV from Kyiv - or read about it on someone else's blog. It'd be safer that way - and more fun.

***

Here's Masha Lipman's analysis of the October 1993 events in Moscow, ten years on (the Washington Post, Oct. 3, 2003): The Legacy Of 1993...

Ten years ago I was standing in front of the Moscow mayor's office feeling horror and despair. The space around me was filled with an infuriated crowd that looked ready for violence. Suddenly a heavy truck burst through the glass doors of the Moscow municipal offices, smashing everything in its way. People in the crowd cheered, hailing the destruction. The day was Oct. 3, 1993. Two years after the collapse of communism, discontent was turning into counterrevolution.


The crowd around me hated everything that was the new Russia. What was freedom to me was to them the work of a regime that was against the people. We were enemies. What was happening around me was a mini-civil war.

[...]

Here they go again, confusing Russia with Ukraine...



(The Scotsman, Tuesday, April 12, 2005: Russian Premier Still Faces Prosecution in Russia)

A wonderful feature on Ukraine and the Orange Revolution in the New York Review of Books (via 3 Quarks Daily, a wonderful blog):

Here were ordinary people doing an extraordinary thing. One was irresistably reminded of Prague in 1989 or Poland during the first Solidarity revolution in 1980 and 1981. But where in Poland a quarter-century before it was workers and peasants who were in the vanguard, here it was a fledgling middle class—students, travel agents, the owner of a beauty parlor.

[...]

The orange revolutionaries' first commandment was: never us violence. This is the feature that most plainly distinguishes velve revolutions from the Jacobin and Bolshevik models of 1789 and 1917 As in several other cases during and since 1989, members of th security forces stepped back from the very brink of using force agains the protesters [9] Yushchenko, Tymoshenko, and their allies kept Independence Square full, they maintained peaceful blockades around government buildings, and they waited for the chance to negotiate.

A thing or two in this text that I would have never noticed or paid attention to. Here's one:

Kyiv is a Russian-speaking city whose people know when to speak Ukrainian. Kyivans always pronounce the name "Independence Square" in Ukrainian, even when they are speaking Russian.

That's so true - and something everyone takes for granted, totally. Maidan Nezalezhnosti - not Ploshchad Nezavisimosti. An awesome detail - makes me jealous, makes me wish I were a foreigner, every now and then, at least...

Esquire's Russian-language edition has just been launched - and here's part of their ad campaign (my favorite shot from today's walk)...

Right now, I'm spending more time on my photo page than here.

Khokhlovskiy Pereulok and Khokhlovskaya Ploshchad - in Moscow. Photos: by Veronica Khokhlova!