Raising a valedictory glass to Boris
Farewell, then, to the late, great Boris Yeltsin. And by way of a last raising of the glass, here’s the story of when he visited John Major at Chequers (the UK Prime Minister’s country residence)…
Putin bans his government from going to London forum
The latest news here in Moscow is that Putin has decreed the country’s elite should not go to this weekend’s Russian Economic Forum in London. The Forum happens every April, and is a merry jamboree where 2000 Russian politicians, CEOs and journalists mingle with British investors, politicians and journalists. It’s perhaps the major social event in Russian business networking.
This year, however, the word has come down from the Kremlin that top politicians and businessmen should not support what a Kremlin source calls “a gathering of emigrants”. Instead, they should go to home-grown conferences such as the St Petersburg Economic Forum, which takes place in June. The Kremlin has long railed against what it calls the “offshore aristocracy” of its business elite, and now it looks like its put its foot down.
The Kremlin has directly forbidden top politicians from going to the Forum and apparently many businessmen also fear the wrath of Putin more than alienating their foreign investors, and have also cancelled their trip west.
It’s a fascinating moment in post-Soviet politics. Many have used the new freedom of travel and of capital movement to shift towards Europe, and especially towards London. And yet the Kremlin is still able to rattle its sabre and stop the elite travelling there for a Forum! Tsarist times…
Democracy, Russian-style
As I write this, insipid pop music is being blared out from speakers about 100 metres from my flat. There’s a big stage being constructed there, with expensive lights and monitors, and a giant pile of white balloons.
This is democracy, Russian-style.
Up the road, a slightly less-well-funded protest by the ‘Other Russia’ movement, which is what passes for an opposition movement in Putin’s Russia, is underway. About 4,000 protestors, led by the unlikely figure of chess champion Garry Kasparov, are marching for the right to hold free elections, while around 9,000 cops, riot cops and soldiers circle them and go in to drag out the ring-leaders.
Actually, looks like Kasparov just got arrested. Best thing that ever happened to his campaign.
Whenever the opposition holds a rally, the Kremlin always tries to trump it, to show how happy the people are and how little they give a crap about the opposition (which is basically true). Last December, the Other Russia held a rally attended by about 3000 people. The next day, the Kremlin-funded youth group Nashi held a rally attended by about 150,000 students, all of them dressed as Santa Claus, clutching sacks of goodies to give out to WWII veterans. You can read an account of that surreal weekend here.
This time, the Kremlin seems content to put on a rock show on Tverskaya, right outside my flat, the swines.
The sentimentalization of the armed forces
I’m glad the government is finally realizing how badly it has played the Iran hostage crisis. It reacted in a typical New Labour way, just like Tony Blair reacted to Diana’s death – get them out there, talking to the press about how difficult the experience was for the poor fellows. There was no sense that this was a major national embarrassment, that they’d given up without any sort of resistance, that it made us look weak to the rest of the world. There was no sense of the Stoicism once associated with British military strength. Instead it was all touchy-feely sentimentalism. I’m not saying I wouldn’t crumple like a box of corn flakes at the first hint of torture, but if I was a soldier, I wouldn’t then sell the story of how I crumpled to the international media.
This is an example of how the rest of the world sees the episode. It’s an opinion piece by Yulia Latinya, a leading Russian journalist (as well as classicist) who hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio: