Russia, In The News!

Teens Busy Giving Adults the Creeps:

School's out for the summer, and maybe you are wondering what those crazy Nashi kids are up to with all their free time?  ...  What's that?  Well, I'm going to tell you anyway.  They're going to camp like all hormonal pranksters!  It's like a hijinks & bad jokes-filled Disney film - only directed by a Soviet propagandist.  Items on the summer camp agenda include a daily jog, learning business skills and ... sex.  

Moscow Times: Nashi Summer Camp Tries a New Message

To teach the cadres about business, they were given play money called "talanty" and told to spend it wisely at the many stalls hawking cheap wares like custom-made T-shirts. How this was meant to train them for careers as future barons of industry was unclear.

In fact, few of the campers seemed to have drawn much more than a few stock slogans from the message of economic innovation.

"If we just keep trying to build our country on oil and gas, we won't have a future," said Ilya Solovyov, 18, from Rzhev.

Bright-eyed and articulate, Solovyov stumbled when pressed about what innovation was. The country should develop nanotechnology and high-tech industry, he said. The country needs to innovate. So, in which field does Solovyov want to work after university?

"I don't know," he said. "Energy?"

Let the losers who want to be poor and disenfranchised do the innovating.  I have a job at Gazprom waiting for me.

Whatever the youth group's future might be, this year's camp was not without the amusingly offensive hijinks, which they call "actions," that have marked previous events.

In a small wooded nook alongside a winding dirt path, Oleg Sokolov, a 23-year-old commissar, keeps watch over his prize pig. The pig, he said, was named after Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Next week they will release the pig at the Estonian border, sending him home to where he belongs, Sokolov said.

"They [Estonians] think they are a European country, but they're not," he said, standing in a pile of slop next to the porcine Toomas Ilves. "They're absolutely uncivilized."

Classy.  I can't possibly imagine why the President wants nothing to do with you.

In the end, the most striking political message may have been the complete absence of posters of Medvedev. Among dozens of campers interviewed, not a single one mentioned Medvedev when asked about Russia's leadership.

"They don't know who Medvedev is," said Markov, "and Medvedev doesn't want to know who they are."

I guess this means we won't be seeing any "Dima" bikinis in the near future.  I'm still waiting for my Vovka pair.  To all those kind souls who sent me a pair per my request, you should let the post know I've not received them yet...  

AFP: Kremlin youth group seeks new role in Medvedev's Russia

Reflecting Kremlin thinking, events at the camp included a wedding of 20 couples who were then told to go and procreate to solve Russia's demographic crisis, and the founding of an Orthodox group against Kosovo's independence.

What?!  I never attended summer camp myself, but I don't remember my friends who did mentioning a "shag zone" for procreation.  I don't know what to say, really.  Except that ... Nashi exemplifies the spirit of Odds & Ends!

More, from The Guardian...

Up a grass track from the central stage is a boutique belonging to Antonia Shapovalova -- a 20-year-old patriotic fashion designer. A student from provincial Kostroma, Shapovalova caused a sensation last year by unveiling a pair of "Putin pants" -- skimpy bikini briefs decorated round the front with the slogan "Vova -- I'm with you." (Vova is the diminutive form of Vladimir.) This act of intimate homage to President Putin went down well: Shapovalova now has an outlet in Gum, Moscow's chichi shopping centre.

"They are funny and patriotic," Shapovalova says of her pants. This year she is selling her T-shirts. One carries the slogan "I want three (children)." Another shows two rabbits with the words: "Procreation is fun and useful." The camp takes Russia's demographic problem so seriously it has its own special "shag zone" -- reserved for 20 young couples, who tie the knot in a Big Brother-style ceremony on the main stage. Each couple sleeps in a heart-shaped tent decorated with balloons; a baby conceived at last year's mass wedding, Vasya, is proudly shown off.

The tents are only a metre or so away from each other. Isn't this a bit off-putting? "I'm not embarrassed," says Artur Djakhbarov, a 23-year-old groom from Dagestan . "In fact, I would say it adds to the excitement." Djakhbarov's bride Anastasia is 22; they plan to have five children, he says.

The camp mixes Kremlin propaganda with the chance to have a free holiday -- and, of course, to flirt with the opposite sex. There is a climbing wall, dance classes, a gym and even a Segway; the forest air buzzes with the scent of pine resin and youthful summer hormones; on the sand, young women sunbathe, apparently reading Russia's constitution. The Nashi camp is booze-free. Participants are forced to do a morning jog; they don't appear to enjoy it much.

"I'm here for the swimming and the women," says Chris Oganda, a 22-year-old Kenyan who came to the camp with Russian university friends. He made the 16-hour bus trip to Seliger from the town of Cheboksary. His two-week stay costs him nothing: the Kremlin pays all bills.

Surkov also stopped by to say hi.  He's maybe second in charge to the President, unless you count the Prime Minister, to whom the President may or may not be second in charge.  Which would still make Surkov second in charge to Medvedev, though I understand he's more like the liaison between Putin and Medvedev.  Actually, no one knows who is in charge, exactly.  Not even them.  It doesn't matter for our purposes.  All you need to know is that he's a crazy hot Chechen who is like the Dr. Frankenstein of Nashi, and when he's not doing whatever on earth his job is (advising Presidents?  running teen cults?  inventing silly new ideologies?) he writes lyrics for a Goth band.  That's right.  They're evil, but cooler than any government you'll ever have, suckers.  So I am curious to know his thoughts on the legislation before the Duma seeking to ban ... uhm, ... emo.  I can't make this stuff up!

Guardian: Russia wages war on emo kids.

Oh god.  Like the emo kids need another reason to want to kill themselves...

Last month the State Duma held a hearing on "Government Strategy in the Sphere of Spiritual and Ethical Education", a piece of legislation aimed at curbing "dangerous teen trends". There, without a clue in the world, social conservatives lumped "emos" together with skinheads, pushing for heavy regulation of emo websites and the banning of emo and goth fashion from schools and government buildings.
"The point of the bill is so that by 2020, Moscow will have someone to rule its government," explained Alexander Grishunin, an adviser to bill sponsor Yevgeny Yuryev, apparently without irony. "This is the first step in the public discourse."

Yuryev and his allies hope to pass the legislation before the end of the year

(...)

The new bill describes "emos" as 12-16 year-olds with black and pink clothing, studded belts, painted fingernails, ear and eyebrow piercings, and black hair with fringes that "cover half the face". Emo culture's "negative ideology" may encourage depression, social withdrawal and even suicide, the bill alleges - with young girls being particularly vulnerable.

"Of course, there are emo teens who just listen to their music. But our actions are not directed at them but rather at those who also hurt themselves, commit suicide and promote those acts," bill co-author Igor Ponkin explained to the Moscow Times. Though we are not certain how Ponkin intends to target people who have committed suicide, he certainly seems determined.

By 2020, I expect the fad will have died out (ooh, bad word choice) on its own.  With or without a crackdown on sad young girls and victims of suicide.  

When You Don't Want to Keep the Government out of Your Bedroom:

I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt ...

WaPo: Portrait of a Predicament: Putin's Face, or Medvedev's?

People think this is about there being some confusion over who is in charge.  I think it is about people wanting to hang pictures of Putin around the house/office and using his Presidency as an excuse.  So now that he's no longer President, they have to make up a reason to not take that charming mug down from the wall...

Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, said in an interview that the new prime minister has not put up a picture of his protege, but he noted that Putin's "permanent office is under construction in the White House, and right now he's working in a temporary office."
(...)

Ordinary Russians are also snapping up pictures, according to Maria Valiyeva, who works in a photo shop in central Moscow. "People are buying them for their offices, for presents and for themselves," she said. "We had a couple who bought a portrait of Medvedev and Putin together and the wife said, 'It's for our bedroom.' "

The phenomenon prompted a reporter and photographer at the newspaper Kommersant to put on an exhibition of joint portraits of Putin and Medvedev. The show, which closed this month, was called "Duplication of Identity" and featured 106 shots of the power couple.

Kommersant reporter Andrei Kolesnikov offered some advice to the country's mandarins via an interview on the television channel NTV. "Whose portrait should they hang? Putin's or Medvedev's? Medvedev's or Putin's?" asked Kolesnikov, a consistently wry observer of the new prime minister. "So as not to make a mistake, such a portrait should be . . . one picture and two people."

Soooo glad I'm not the only one with a portrait of Putin in my bedroom!  Whew.  I feel like less of a freak now.  Haha.  Just kidding!  Maybe.

Apparently I'll be getting my very own sex symbol world leader sometime soon.  I think he'd do more for my libido if he actually cut it out with the sweet nothings and charm offensive and went and, I don't know, challenged Bush to a duel to defend my honor.  I never trust those consumate gentleman types.  Or as a friend refers to them, "slimy red wine men."  Like Obama, they just beg the question, What are you doing when you're not trying to get someone into bed with you?

The Nation: Obama as Sex Symbol

In politics as in pop, legions of little girls jumping out of their panties can't be wrong. That's the vital lesson so far of Election '08. I watched a throng of them in November 2006, teenagers in their short skirts and breathlessness, jumping and jittering, hands to cheeks, screaming for Barack Obama. White and black, they crowded to the front of a rally for Jim Webb in the onetime capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia. Jim who? One of the white girls awkwardly told me that she didn't really know anything about the beet-faced warrior for the white working class running for the Senate, and she wasn't really there to find out. Obama hadn't come there to say much about the candidate or Virginia or even that year's election, either. He glided across the stage like a crooner, one slender hand gracing the microphone, the other extending long fingers to trace the imagined horizon of his hopes and dreams. He must have talked for thirty minutes. It didn't matter what he said; he smiled a thousand watts, put a little Southern sugar in his voice and mentioned his mama. Webb steamed in the wings as the girls keened, and from somewhere in the crowd grown-ups started calling out, "Obama for President." He wasn't yet a candidate. He was Frank Sinatra, so cool he's hot, a centrifugal force commanding attention so ruthlessly that it appeared effortless, reducing everyone around him to a sidekick, and the girls in the front rows to jelly.

(...)

America, they say, you can be cool and sexy again, "back!" and swinging, but secure this time. Those "excesses" of the '60s that Barack mentioned, those family fractures across the demographic board, they can all be resolved through hot married love.

Ew.  Now the adults are creeping me out.

However, if you're of the opinion that Obama's bringing sexy back, you can spice up your life with the Obama pop.  Yes, he's turning the country - and your tongue - blue.

This Week in The New Cold War:

This New Cold War has really taken off.  I mean, we have a new Cuban Missile Crisis and everything.  It's but a matter of time until another dashing Russian ballerina fleeing Soviet oppression comes to America and starts charming the pants off the Studio 54 set.  Or wait.  Would that be until an American ballerina fleeing BushCo. oppression comes to Russia and starts charming the pants off the intelligentsia? Well, someone's going to defect at some point. Until then, here are some minor developments on the front line of the NCW:

Economist: Who's captive now?

They say even a stopped clock is right two times a day.  The Economist must be stopped at, "Czechoslovakia's not even a real country anymore, idiots."

Each year since 1959, in the third full week of July, America has marked Captive Nations Week. The original Congressional resolution is worth reading. It highlights both what the drafter, the late Lev Dobriansky, saw as the success of the United States in "e pluribus unum" (making one nation out of many), and the failure of Communist empires to do the same. The continued celebration of the week is something of a totem for old cold warriors who believe that the victories of 1989-91 are still sadly unconsummated.
Yet the resolution's wording rings oddly. The list of "captive nations" reads: "Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Estonia, White Ruthenia, Rumania, East Germany, Bulgaria, mainland China, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, North Korea, Albania, Idel-Ural, Tibet, Cossackia, Turkestan, North Viet-Nam, and others [sic, throughout]".

It is hard to find rhyme or reason in that, even in its original context. Cossacks are Russian patriots; their beastly treatment under Soviet rule does not equate to a desire for national independence. Others whose history gives them every cause for complaint, such as the Circassians, don't appear at all. Is the aim of the resolution ethnic self-determination, or the destruction of communist rule? As it stands, the two are conflated.

Moreover, the phrase "Communist Russia" is wince-making. Many Russians find it unfair or outright racist to link Soviet rule, under which more Russians perished than any other nationality, with Russia itself.

"Cossackia?"  Where the hell is "Cossackia!?"  And don't give me that cock and bull about "Cossackia cannot be understood with the mind, nor its land measured by the acre. It is a special case. You can only believe in Cossackia."

Robert Kagan: Autocratic, by design.

I'm not actually going to make you read all of Kagan's article.  Even angelfish have their boundaries.  But I could not pass up this little gem:

Vladimir Putin and his spokesmen speak of "democracy," but they define the term much as the Chinese do. For Putin, democracy is not so much about competitive elections as about the implementation of the popular will.  The regime is democratic because the government consults with and listens to the Russian people, discerns what they need and want and then attempts to give it to them. As Ivan Krastev notes, "The Kremlin thinks not in terms of citizens' rights but in terms of the population's needs."

Oh.  I see the problem.  Yes.  Population's need.  Popular will.  Unconscionable.  If Russia had ever bothered to learn anything from America, they would know quite well that proper Democracy is intended to IGNORE of the will of the people and their needs.  Sheesh.  It's Democracy 101, people!

So.  Let's take inventory.  We've got a Cuban Missile Crisis, a Czechoslovakia & an East Germany to pray for, a spot or two of deranged propaganda, yet it feels like we're missing a crucial ingredient.  Anyone think so?  Hm.  What could it be?  What would make this New Cold War pack the same punch as the first one?  ... Oh!  I've got it!

Dolph Lundgren!!  Aw yeah!

Eternal Remont: Make Rakia a Part of Your Balanced Breakfast....It's GRRREAT!

The star from Universal Soldier and Rocky IV is in Bulgaria for the shooting of his new movie Command Performance.

In Command Performance Lundgren will star as the drummer for a Russian band who is the opening act for a major American rock group. Their concert in Moscow with the Russian Prime Minister in the audience gets interrupted as a group of terrorists take over. The band's drummer, however, happens to be an ex-Marine, and salvages the situation.

I can't believe Lundgren stole my movie idea.

This must be set 8 years in the future when Medvedev is PM and Putin returns to his post as President.  Otherwise, it sounds totally believable.  Hold on a sec while I go add this to my Netflix queue before I forget...

Ok, I'm back.  And so are your refugees.

Stop!  You've misunderstood!  It's Only the Mexican Immigrants We Want to Go Back to Where They Came From.

N.B.  I do NOT want Mexican immigrants to "go home" unless by home you mean "where they live now, not causing anyone any harm, so leave them alone!"

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a safe trip home...

You might judge Eastern Europeans who've come to America to live the American dream, who, upon finding out it's more like a nightmare, decide to pack their bags and jump this sinking ship as opportunists or traitors or spies.  But if you think about it, what is America but a group of people who up and leave for a new country when their current one just isn't working out for them?  A nation of immigrants is also a nation of emigrants.  

Dubuque Telegraph Herald: Illinois: Russia's renewed strength stokes immigrant pride.

Now this is the kinda grassroots movement I'm talking about!  Russophilia in the Heartland!

CHICAGO (AP) -- Allan Prikhodko has never set foot in Russia, speaks Russian with a slight American accent and struggles to read the language.
Still, the 18-year-old dreams of becoming the mayor of Moscow.

"I feel like as a patriot I should do my bit in contributing to the improvement of Russia," the U.S.-born son of Soviet immigrants said from his suburban Chicago home.

(...)

"In the U.S., there has been an explosion of internal Russian patriotism -- they have remained Americans but they increasingly associate themselves with Russian culture," said Ilya Merenzon, CEO of the Press Release Group, a New York-based communications research agency specializing in Russian-American communications.

In cities like Chicago and New York with large and organized Russian communities, the renewed patriotism has come in the form of more interest in Russian culture.

Excellent...  Everything is going perfectly according to plan.  

NY Daily News: Bostjan Nachbar says 'Nyet' to Nets, signs with Russian team

At least one of the Nets' revolving doors leads to Russia.
Free agent forward Bostjan Nachbar decided Monday to sign with Russia's Dynamo Moscow team for a reported $14.3 million over three years - far more than he would have gotten from the Nets or any other NBA team. Nachbar made $2.5 million with the Nets last season, when he averaged 9.8 points off the bench.

Nachbar's new deal is said to include buyout options following each season so that he can return to the NBA if the opportunity arises.

I've said it once and I will say it again.  Russia's not going to take over the world using tanks, but their checkbooks.   And they have discriminating taste.  Which is impressive for people raised on shchi and kotlety.

Russia's Holy Fools Making Comeback 90 Years after Revolution:

The Other Russia: Russian Authorities Put Pressure on Jehovah's Witnesses

Russian law enforcement officials have reportedly interfered with Jehovah's Witnesses congregations.  Jehovah's Witnesses have repeatedly interfered with my sitting at home enjoying life and being quite happy NOT talking about Jesus, thank you.  They've put pressure on me to accept the Lord as My Savior.  It's all roses when they get up in our business, but oh, the humanity if anyone tries to cramp their style.  Anyone in the mood for the world's tiniest violin sonata?

Russian authorities have turned up the pressure against the Jehovah's Witness religious group in a series of Russian regions. Law enforcement officials have reportedly interfered with the group's congregations in the cities of Yekaterinburg, Asbest, Taganrog and Murmansk.
On July 16th, the Federal Security Service (FSB) led a search of a building used by the Jehovah's Witnesses in Yekaterinburg, the ANN Information Agency reports (Rus). Officers initiated the search in connection with a criminal case against the Witnesses launched in Asbest, a city some 70 kilometers away. The local prosecutor's office believes that books, flyers and magazines distributed by the group are "extremist". FSB agents seized literature, to investigate the prosecution's assertion that it is "overtly, clearly and directly aimed at inciting hatred, propaganda of the exclusivity of the Jehovah faith, and the humiliation of human dignity on account of a person's attitude towards religion."

Meanwhile, proceedings against another branch of the Jehovah's Witnesses were being seen by a regional court in the southern Rostov oblast. As the the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis reported, "Jehovists" from the city of Taganrog were being similarly tried for "extremism" under article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Incitement of National, Racial, or Religious Enmity").

Hm.  This is actually worthy of a diary of the non-bottom-feeder variety.  Because my immediate reaction was ... well, my immediate reaction was, "Good!"  Then I thought, well, all the major religions incite religious enmity.  It's almost unavoidable.  Sure they all preach peace and love thy brother and all that jazz.  But most religion is about being angry at the world around you and finding someone to blame.  Sorry.  But that is how it works in practice.  But you can't outlaw all religion.  So people hide behind "religious freedom" to protect their hobby of inciting enmity.  What's the answer?  Jehovah's Witnesses, however, probably don't even require anti-extremism legislation.  Surely they are already breaking laws against harassment....

Also, some nut in Siberia thinks he's Jesus.  People don't seem to like him much.

ABC: Ex-Traffic Cop Says He's Jesus

Deep in the heart of Siberia's birch forests lies one of the largest and most remote religious communes of the planet. More than 5,000 people have left their families and their homes to move here and join the Church of the Last Testament, which has more than 10,000 followers worldwide. The church centers on one man. He is known simply as Vissarion, meaning "he who gives new life," or simply as the teacher, and he claims that he is Jesus Christ.
I had heard about a self-proclaimed messiah in Siberia and I decided to try to find him myself. Getting to Vissarion's commune is not easy. From Moscow, the Russian capital, it is more than 2,000 miles and four time zones away. One begins by flying to Abakan, a bleak city near the Mongolian border, dotted with crumbling tsarist buildings and Soviet-style blocks. Driving through, I decided to ask residents whether they had heard of Vissarion and what they thought of him. Most people knew who he was, but they didn't seem to like him much.

Everyone knows you can trust Russian traffic cops!  

Dregs O' The Odds & Ends:

Rawr!

First their Arctic station had to be evacuated when the ice it was built atop melted.  Now they're being eaten by hungry bears who'd rather have salmon, to be honest (and who wouldn't?)  Perhaps they will have to admit there may be something to this whole Climate Crisis business.  If there is a smart person in the Kremlin, they're buying at least as many windfarms and solar cells as they are basketball players and Italian restaurants.  (Roman's girlfriend liked a certain restaurant in Italy - so he bought it for her.)

Reuters: Russian bears trap geology survey crew.

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, July 22 (Reuters) - At least 30 hungry bears have trapped a group of geologists at their remote survey site in Russia's far east after killing two of their co-workers last week, emergency officials said on Tuesday.

The team of geologists on Russia's seismically active Kamchatka peninsula refused to leave their camp after the bears showed up, a press spokesman for the Kamchatka emergency services ministry said.

"In the interests of safety they didn't come out to work -- the people are scared by the invasion of bears," the spokesman said.

A bear killed two geologists at the worksite on July 18, officials said.

In a weird twist to the story, the scientists being held hostage by the bears could not defend themselves as it is illegal to shoot bears.  Poor bears...  

And lastly, it would be irresponsible of me not to mention the Name of Russia contest which has journalists up in arms, as popular vote has Stalin leading the pack.  Anyone can vote, so I'm not sure how much faith we should put in an Internet poll for deep insights into the psyche of the average Russian citizen.  On the other hand, you can vote!  I voted for Dostoevsky.  Aw yeah, represent!

Transparent Language: Имя России ['Name of Russia']:  Who's Your Pick?

Russia is an enormous country. It is inhabited by millions of different people. Its history is colorful [to say the least], the culture exceptional and vivid, it is a country that has given many great artists, writers, thinkers, scientists [the list could go on and on] to the world, but never mind all that now, дорогие мои [my dear ones], because the time has come to narrow everything, all of that, down to one. One person to become «Имя России» [Name of Russia]. Or at least that's the plan according to Russia's Number One State TV-channel, appropriately named «(Телеканал) Россия», something they proclaim with a flashy banner on the main site going: «Исторический выбор 2008» [Historic Election 2008], and no, I suppose they're not talking about picking Medvedev for president back in March. That was only about politics, but this election is more than politics - this is about picking one single person from all of Russian history to represent it, to give it a face, and yes, a name. Apparently, those red `cheburashkas' («Чебурашка») that are going to be the symbol of Russia in Beijing during the Olympics next month are not enough. Obviously, this country feels the need for a mascot that's a little less cuddly, and this might have been the reason for the vote that started out with 500 nominees, but was narrowed down to the 50 most voted for after June 12th. And yes, you can vote too, all you need to do is click here and pick your own favorite. And if you click on «рейтинги» you'll find the top twelve, which, unless they fall out of favor that is, will go to the third round on September 1st. And who's number one, if not Stalin? Well, I'm all for a less hug-able and snuggle-worthy Name of Russia (despite having a little soft `cheburashka' dangling from my bag), but a... dictator?

Vote!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ok, That's all I have for this week, my angelfishes.  Oh, wait.  Robert Amsterdam had this fabulous pic of Vovka up today.  They hate when I insinuate that they like these pictures too, but for some reason they just keep putting them up.  I'd be perfectly happy with more pictures of Misha.  But Misha's lawyer seems to have some Putin fetish.  Who am I to judge?...

V-Dawg.  Looking particularly Original Gangsta today...

Ok, thanks for reading.  I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Ciao!