(Business New Europe – bne.eu – July 25, 2013) Despite its image as a den of high tech thieves international credit card company VISA reports that fraud in Russia is 10-times less than in its other markets. The company said that card fraud in Russia costs it 5 kopecks per 1,000 annually, a tenth of the company’s global average, VISA […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 25, 2013) Russians will spend 1.7 trillion rubles ($42 billion) abroad in 2013, which represents an increase of 13 percent over last year according to an annual study Citibank released Thursday, though half that amount is being spent online. But while spending abroad continues to increase annually, growth is slowing down in some categories. […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Andrei Kislyakov, special to RBTH – July 24, 2013) Military exercises have revealed what is really going on in the Russian army. For the first time, army heads have admitted to drawbacks identified during the drills and are reporting on their progress in bridging the gaps. Another phase of the largest challenge inspection […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 25, 2013) The percentage of Russians who say it is acceptable to tell white lies has almost doubled since the fall of the Soviet Union, according to a poll on Russian morals released Thursday by the Levada Center. Just 33 percent of those surveyed in 1992 said that they considered lying for a good […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 25, 2013) Competition in the Russian economy is still weak, which is hindering the development of small and medium-sized businesses in the country, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday. “Our anti-monopoly legislation is quite strict, while competition is still weak,” Medvedev told a government meeting. The prime minister said problems remain on raw material […]
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(Pravda.ru – Margarita Troitsyna – July 24, 2013) On July 24, 1993, 20 years ago, the Central Bank of Russia announced the withdrawal of Soviet banknotes from circulation. From that day, Soviet cash was no longer valid on the territory of Russia. The reform was carried out to curb inflation in the country, but it caused huge panic in the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 25, 2013) The attitudes of Russians toward their compatriots who have emigrated are softening, according to a poll carried out by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center. Forty-eight percent of those surveyed said they understood why other Russians had left the country, citing personal comfort and security as justifiable priorities. This is up from […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 24, 2013) The number of whiskey fans in Russia is growing and the percentage of young people among whiskey consumers is on the rise as well, sociologists said. Consumption of whiskey increased in the first quarter of this year although a decline had been predicted, Romir Holding experts told Interfax on Wednesday. The opinion was based […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 25, 2013) A liturgy at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow on Wednesday will open a series of commemorative events to mark the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus celebrated jointly this year in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill will hold the service assisted by the Primates of other […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 136 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Richard Arnold – July 24, 2013) The announcement by Vladimir Tor, the leader of the unregistered far-right National Democratic Party (NDP), that he will support anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny in the election for Moscow mayor (http://lenta.ru/news/2013/06/20/navalny/) may have gone unnoticed in the West, but it is one […]
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(Interfax – July 25, 2013) The Thursday resolution by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) regarding a complaint lodged by Yukos ex-CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his former business partner Platon Lebedev should prompt the Russian authorities to annul their first conviction. “The court recognized a violation of [the right to] a fair trial. The conviction should be annulled,” Khodorkovsky’s […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – July 25, 2013) Corruption in Russia has helped drive up interest rates on loans to the point where it’s choking off economic growth. “Rates are high now and that makes it hard to do business,” Garegin Tosunyan, head of the Russian Association of Banks, said at the St Petersburg […]
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(Interfax – July 25, 2013) Russia does not have legal grounds for extraditing former CIA employee Edward Snowden to the United States, Federal Migration Service Public Council head Vladimir Volokh stated. U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul wrote on Twitter earlier that the United States had asked Russia simply for Snowden’s return home but did not file an extradition request. […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. July 24) Russian citizens received over 111,000 U.S. visas from January-June 2013, the U.S. embassy in Russia said. “Over 111,000 visas were issued in Russia in the first half of the year. Over 20% more tourist visas than the same period last year,” the U.S. embassy tweeted.
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#135 :: 25 July 2013 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#134 :: 24 July 2013 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php POLITICS 1. Moscow Times: Foreign Language Skills Valued by Russians, Poll Says. […]
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(RIA Novosti- MOSCOW, July 24, 2013) Russia has allocated significant spending power to Rossotrudnichestvo, Moscow’s vehicle for promoting its influence abroad, as part of an apparent drive to improve the country’s image, according to a decree published on the government’s website Wednesday. Federal money has been redirected from the Foreign Ministry, formerly responsible for the financial support of Russians living […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Maria Balyuk, special to RBTH – July 22, 2013) In 2012, the McDonald’s fast food restaurant chain increased its sales in Russia by 19.6 percent, SPARK-Interfax reported. Although growing costs prevented the burger chain from scoring a more successful year than 2011, McDonald’s has remained one of the most successful restaurant operators in […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Joy Neumeyer – July 22, 2013) On July 19, Moscow marked the 120th anniversary of Vladimir Mayakovsky, the rebellious Futurist poet who rose from a childhood in Georgia to become the voice of the October Revolution. The commemorations came on the eve of the controversial renovation of Moscow’s Mayakovsky Museum, which some fear will remove […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 23, 2013) Acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin running for reelection has reaffirmed his intention to do all he can to ensure that the mayoral elections scheduled for September 8 be truly honest. “We don’t need a victory at all costs. We need honest elections, I mean really honest elections,” Sobyanin said at a meeting with members […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, July 24, 2013) Neither Ukraine nor Russia has it easy as a result of their Soviet pasts and the collapse of Western moral leadership, but nevertheless, Ukraine by virtue of its pluralism, regionalism and more honest dealing with the past offers far more reasons for optimism than does the Russian Federation, […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Witold Jancszys, special to RBTH – July 23, 2013) The business landscape in Russia has changed in the last decade and, now, more and more foreign nationals are starting businesses in the country, attracted to the opportunities for growth and space for new ideas in the Russian market. Foreign entrepreneurs doing business in […]
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(Interfax – July 23, 2013) According to an opinion poll carried out in Moscow on 20-21 July, only 9 per cent of those polled would vote for opposition leader Aleksey Navalnyy in the Moscow mayor election to be held on 8 September, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 23 July.(1) The figure has gone up 1 per cent since […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 23, 2013) A website, vybory.mos.ru, will go online soon to allow Muscovites to monitor the mayoral elections, Moscow’s IT Department head Artyom Yermolayev told the city government on Tuesday. “A technical scheme has been devised that will link up the video cameras intended for the police and housing utility services into an integrated video monitoring system, […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Sam Greene – July 23, 2013) Samuel A. Greene is Senior Lecturer in Russian Politics and Director of the King’s Russia Institute at King’s College London. Can manipulating the democratic process ever play out in the interest of progressive politics? Samuel A. Greene suggests not: we’ve been in this situation before, in post-Soviet Russia, with largely calamitous results. […]
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(Kremlin.ru – July 23, 2013) Vladimir Putin gave an interview to the makers of the documentary film The Second Baptism of Rus, which screened on Rossia 1 television channel on July 22. The Second Baptism of Rus is a full-length documentary film about the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia over the last 25 years. The film gives […]
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(Interfax – July 23, 2013) More Russian citizens than not distrust local elections, Russian Interfax news agency reported on 23 July, quoting an opinion poll by the Levada Centre. According to the poll, 34 per cent of the respondents (33 per cent in Moscow) are confident that local elections in the town, district or region are honest; 43 per cent […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 24, 2013) Nearly 60 percent of the Russians speak at least one foreign language, while almost half would like to learn one, a poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation found. Fifty-seven percent of the poll’s participants said they know a foreign language with English the most common at 38 percent of respondents. German […]
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(Interfax – July 23, 2013) Russia’s business ombudsman Boris Titov, who proposed the idea of economic amnesty, has said that it is difficult to grant it now to opposition leader Aleksey Navalnyy and former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovskiy from the legal standpoint. Titov said this at a news conference in Moscow on 23 July, as reported by Russian news agency […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 23, 2013) The trial of the alleged murderers of Russian investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya that is starting on Wednesday will be “patently illegitimate,” the journalist’s son and daughter said on Tuesday, refusing to attend the trial. “In our absence and that of our lawyers, the judge began to select jurors and approved the jury,” Ilya Politkovsky […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#133 :: 23 July 2013 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php POLITICS 1. The Conversation: Christopher Read, The stunts are silly, but Vladimir […]
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Subject: Invitation: US-Russia Relations and the Asia-Pacific | Friday, July 26th, 10:00am From: IISS-US Events <IISS-USEvents@iiss.org> Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 The International Institute for Strategic Studies–US IISS-US Panel Discussion U.S.-Russia Relations and the Asia-Pacific Oleg Barabanov Professor, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and Jeffrey Mankoff Deputy Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program Center for Strategic and […]
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Subject: Call for Nominations Klebnikov Fellowship Program From: The Paul Klebnikov Fellowship at the Harriman Institute <lch2111@columbia.edu> Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 Columbia University Harriman Institute Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies Dear Friends and Colleagues, We write to ask for your help in identifying extraordinary candidates for the Harriman Institute’s Paul Klebnikov Russian Civil Society Fellowship for the 2013/14 […]
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Subject: No. 133: Putin 3.0: The Economic Plan Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 From: “Russian Analytical Digest (RAD)” <newslist@isn.ch> RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST Newsletter 18 July 2013/No. 133 PUTIN 3.0: THE ECONOMIC PLAN To download this issue please click here: http://www.css.ethz.ch/publications/DetailansichtPubDB_EN?rec_id=2626 Analyses The Political Economy of Putin 3.0, by Peter Rutland, Middletown, CT Economic Growth and Strategies for Economic Development in […]
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From: “US-Russia Dialogue, Moscow” <US-RussiaDialogue@state.gov> Subject: US-Russia Peer-to-Peer Dialogue Program Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 U.S.-Russia Peer-to-Peer Dialogue Program To help foster greater contacts between Americans and Russians, the State Department is announcing the U.S.-Russia Peer-to-Peer Dialogue Program, which will provide small grants to support collaboration, including meetings, virtual interactions, exchanges, and internships, between American and Russian organizations. Applications from […]
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Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 Subject: Facilitating Learning Russian From: Ron Pope <ron42.pope@gmail.com> The current (July 29) issue of Time magazine has an article entitled “The Power of the Bilingual Brain” that presents a powerful case for encouraging every child with a connection to Russia — the children of emigres and adopted Russians – -to learn what could have been […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Hobson – July 22, 2013) The Russian government faces an uphill struggle to make underdeveloped regions more attractive for investors. Officials and business leaders disagree on the feasibility of a draft set of mandatory standards designed to improve the investment attractiveness of districts and towns, which are set to enter into force by 2014. […]
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(RIA Novosti – Moscow, July 22, 2013) Head of research at the Higher School of Economics Yevgeniy Yasin has described the Russian government instruction placing heads of state companies under obligation to account for their income and spending on par with officials as “absolute piffle”. Instead of building these mechanisms, one should continue the course to privatization, the economist has […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 23, 2103) Moscow was ranked the world’s second most expensive city for expatriates in this year’s Mercer Human Resource Consulting survey, published Tuesday. Moscow follows Angolan capital Luanda as the second most expensive city because of high costs for rental accommodation a luxury two bedroom unfurnished apartment rental for one month in the […]
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(Interfax – KALUGA, July 23, 2013) Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev considers the 2.4% slump in investments in fixed capital in June, factoring in seasonal and calendar factors, is a worrisome sign, but there is an improvement trend and the 2.4% GDP growth forecast is not changing. “Generally, of course, the sign is troubling,” Ulyukayev told the press on […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yulia Ponomareva, RBTH – July 22, 2013) After the latest in a series of murders in the North Caucasus, Russian Duma deputies are proposing an increase on the maximum prison sentence for violence against journalistsfrom six years to ten. On Wednesday, July 10, a bill toughening the penalty for offenses against journalists was […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, July 23, 2013) A year ago, Dmitry Travin, a professor at St. Petersburg’s European University, examined several possible trajectories for Russian development which he labeled the Polish, the Korean, the Mexican and the Russian, each of which he argued reflected radically different choices by the population and the elite. The Polish variant, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – July 23, 2013) Former Tula Governor Vyacheslav Dudka will spend nearly 9 1/2 years in a high-security prison in what marks the first time a former governor has received such a harsh sentence in modern Russia. Dudka was sentenced by a local court Monday for accepting 40 million rubles ($1.3 million) in […]
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(Interfax – DUBNA, Moscow region, July 23, 2013) The number of children who live in orphanages in the Moscow region has decreased by more than 22,000 in the past year, Russian children’s rights commissioner Pavel Astakhov said. “Whereas there were 124,000 orphans in Russia in 2008, last year this figure stood at 74,700. It was an almost 50% reduction. Of […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 23, 2013) The first thirteen businessmen have been set free in Russia as part of an economic amnesty for white-collar criminals that came into effect earlier this month, business ombudsmen Boris Titov said Tuesday. “As of now, 13 people have been released under the amnesty,” Titov told reporters. Eight people have left pre-trial detention […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Lyudmila Nazdracheva, special to RBTH – July 22, 2013) Almost 6 percent of Russian university graduates register at the unemployment office immediately after graduating. Lawyers lead the way in this area. There is also an excess of economists, real estate agents, travel managers, civil engineers, bankers, teachers and psychologists. Russian universities are still […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yuri Paniyev, special to RBTH – July 23, 2013) The G20 financial meeting in Moscow on July 19-20 focused on economic growth, unemployment rates and tax evasion by multinational companies. Russia, playing host for the event, was placed in the position of arbiter between emerging and developed countries. At a meeting in Moscow […]
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(Moscow News – Anna Arutunyan, Editor and Correspondent at themoscownews.com – July 22, 2013) For all the Byzantine intrigue behind the decision to let opposition blogger Alexei Navalny go free pending appeals, I was sincerely glad for him, his family and his supporters. Last Thursday’s ruling, which slapped Navalny with a five-year term in a penal colony, brutally wiped out […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 23, 2013) Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s participation in the Moscow mayoral elections will enhance their legitimacy, although no one thinks Navalny will win, political analysts said. “Navalny will definitely lose in an honest game,” Konstantin Kostin, chairman of the Civil Society Development Foundation, said at a press conference in Moscow on Tuesday. The front-runner, Sergei Sobyanin, […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – July 22, 2013) Vladimir Putin submerging into the depths in a submarine. Aleksei Navalny being greeted by an adoring crowd as he triumphantly returned to Moscow. Something old, something new. The two images bookended what was a remarkable — and highly consequential — week in Russia. As the Navalny saga was unfolding — […]
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