(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 25, 2013) Russia cannot be understood as a single whole, according to Natalya Zubarevich, but only as four different Russias whose increasingly different situations are pushing them in four different directions, a pattern that is often obscured by the use of data sets for the country as a whole. In yesterday’s […]
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(Howard Amos, RIA Novosti – VALDAI, September 16, 2013) Russian officials, opposition leaders and pundits wrestled on Monday with the disjuncture between the country’s capital and its far-flung provinces at an international conference, where two erstwhile political rivals from the mineral-rich Urals region surprised observers by publicly settling their differences. The newly elected mayor of Yekaterinburg and outspoken Kremlin […]
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(Interfax – September 16, 2013) Opposition activist Alexei Navalny will most likely continue his political career not in the 2014 Moscow City Duma elections but by opening of party offices in regions where problems are likely to occur, General Director of the International Institute for Political Expertise (IIPE) Yevgeny Minchenko said. “A lot depends on whether or not the People’s […]
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(Interfax – September 16, 2013) Parliamentary parties are losing the support of regional and local elites some of whom are shifting towards new political forces, the Civil Initiatives Committee think tank suggested. “There is an outflow of regional and local elites and voters from practically every “systemic” party [which has seats at the State Duma]. Candidates are moving from one […]
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(Kremlin.ru – Novo-Ogaryovo, Moscow Region, September 10, 2013) Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting with heads of Russian regions voted in during regional elections held on the single election day. PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Dear colleagues, good afternoon, Voting has closed and you have won your elections; naturally I must congratulate you on your victory and wish you success. I […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 11, 2013) Their identity increasingly defined not by what they are or want to be but by what they fear and view as alien, Russians as a nation are fraying at the edges with some like the Siberians identifying in terms of a region, others like the Cossacks in terms of […]
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(RIA Novosti – NOVO-OGARYOVO – Moscow Region, September 10, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday called on newly elected heads of Russian regions to get in contact with their former opponents and use their proposals. “I am urging you to build relationships not only with your support groups but with all your opponents as well, bearing in mind […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. September 9, 2013) Andrei Vorobyov won the gubernatorial election in the Moscow region with 78.94% of the vote, Moscow regional elections commission chairman Irek Vildanov told Interfax. “A. Vorobyov won the election of the Moscow region’s governor upon processing of 100% of voting result reports. He gained 78.94% of the vote,” Vildanov said. Konstantin Cheremisov (the Communist […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Dan Pototsky – September 5, 2013) People in small towns and villages are quickly getting the hang of the Internet. They account for more than 40 percent of all Internet users in Russia a total of 27.5 million according to TNS Russia. The fastest-growing segment of Russian Internet users is residents […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – August 27, 2013) Civil Platform leader Mikhail Prokhorov’s future seemed uncertain Monday as he denied a report that he would leave politics, while analysts said the billionaire may have indeed scaled down his political ambitions even as his party establishes itself ahead of regional elections. Some commentators argued that the tycoon’s refusal […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Mikhail Loginov – August 24, 2013) Mikhail Loginov is a journalist and novelist based in St Petersburg. He is the author of the recently published bestselling political thriller “Battle for Kremlin”. Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake on the planet, is part of Russia’s DNA, and many romantic ballads sing of its size and beauty. Beyond the lake […]
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(Interfax – PYATIGORSK, August 19, 2013, 2013) All Russian regions should ultimately switch to direct elections, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said. A young man asked Medvedev at the Mashuk-2013 North Caucasus youth forum on Monday whether regional elections should be direct like national elections, or if regional leaders should be appointed depending on the a region’s specific situation. “Elections should […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, August 16, 2013) Russian regions, most of which heavily rely on federal subsidies to survive, are funded in part based on how strongly they support the ruling United Russia party at elections, a new study claimed. The rule only applies to poorer regions with slow economic growth, according to the study by experts from the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – July 30, 2013) In the shadow of a much more publicized mayoral election in the capital, the upcoming gubernatorial election in the Moscow region offers a decidedly different set of campaign issues, people’s demands and opposition activity. Unlike in Moscow, residents of the region that is often separated from the city by […]
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(Moscow TImes – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – July 26, 2013) The upcoming Sept. 8 regional elections across Russia will be more competitive than the previous ones, amid declining public support for the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, experts say. Despite compounded bureaucratic obstacles for the registration of candidates, ongoing regional election campaigns show an increased outflow of candidates from the […]
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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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(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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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 16, 2013) Opposition leader Alexei Navalny will be registered on Wednesday as a candidate for the Moscow mayoral elections, just one day before the verdict for the KirovLes embezzlement case is scheduled to be delivered, Kommersant reported. The Kremlin critic is awaiting the verdict in a criminal case alleging that he embezzled 16 million […]
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(RIA Novosti – Moscow, July 11, 2013) Parties represented in the State Duma and (regional) legislative assemblies, rather than just the victorious party in regional elections, will have the right to nominate gubernatorial candidates to the president in the regions that have decided not to hold direct elections (for regional governors), says the president’s degree published on the official portal […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Arkhipov – July 11, 2013) The mood for protest has shifted from Moscow to the regions as Russia’s economy slows, according to the Center for Strategic Studies in Moscow. Approval ratings for President Vladimir Putin, 60, have stabilized, and he’s now more popular in the capital than in the rest of Russia, according to the […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Jake Rudnitsky – July 3, 2013) A Russian mayor who won a landslide victory against a candidate backed by President Vladimir Putin’s ruling party last year was detained by police on suspicion of demanding a 14 million-ruble ($421,000) kickback. Yaroslavl Mayor Yevgeny Urlashov and two deputies threatened to stop payments to a local businessman for a […]
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(RIA Novosti – Natalia Antonova – Natalia Antonova, Acting Editor-in-Chief of The Moscow News – July 2, 2013) Last week, a couple of foreign journalists I know traveled to a small town very far from Moscow in order to explore local culture and possibly write about it. Before they went, they posted an innocent question on a local forum, […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Nathan Gray – ST. PETERSBURG, June 21, 2013) Russia’s government was rushing in where investors feared to tread and used the St. Petersburg Economic Forum as a rallying call for aggressive spending in the country’s regions. Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East have especially attracted attention in recent years in terms of the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova and Alexander Panin – June 21, 2013) Russian Railways chief Vladimir Yakunin on Thursday attributed rumors of his voluntary resignation to a fight for control over large-scale projects of his company. But experts said Yakunin may have angered regional authorities by receiving huge subsidies for his agency and failing to significantly improve railway […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – June 18, 2013) Opposition leader Alexei Navalny took the stand in court on Monday, denying charges that he stole 10,000 cubic meters of timber from KirovLes in 2009 and saying he had tried to fight corruption at the state-owned company. Navalny, who is also a prominent anti-corruption blogger and a lawyer, began […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Vladimir Kara-Murza – May 23, 2013) Next year, Moscow will hold its legislative elections. Traditionally, elections in Russia’s capital city are considered a national event. IMR Senior Policy Advisor Vladimir Kara-Murza contends that the democratic opposition stands a significant change of success-but only if it finally manages to unite. Russian politics are made […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 22, 2013) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is not changing his position regarding the need for the government to keep out of the media, especially in the regions, and he regrets that this has yet to be done. “It’s a shame that we didn’t bring this topic to its conclusion. The government’s presence in the media […]
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(RIA Novosti – KIROV, May 22, 2013) Russia’s beleaguered opposition figurehead, Alexei Navalny, was given a boost in his fight against controversial embezzlement charges on Wednesday when a regional governor testified in his favor. Navalny and a former political ally, Kirov businessman Pyotr Ofitserov, are charged with heading a criminal group that investigators say embezzled 16 million rubles’ ($500,000) […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Grigorii Golosov – May 20, 2013) Grigorii Golosov is Professor of Political Science, Project Director, Center for Democracy and Human Rights Helix, St. Petersburg Recent protest rallies and continuing opposition sentiment have provoked the Kremlin into reform. The first part of the process sees the partial return of regional governor elections, abandoned nine years ago in favour of […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 17, 2013) Homophobia is rather common in Russian society and attitudes toward the LGBT community have been changing slowly throughout the past year, sociologists said. The same as a year ago, three-fourths of Russians brand gays and lesbians as morally loose (43%) or mentally deficient persons (35%). Only 12% acknowledge homosexuality’s right to existence, the Levada […]
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(RIA Novosti – BOCHAROV RUCHEI (Sochi), May 16, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the majority of Russian regions is likely to choose their leaders by direct popular vote. The return of direct gubernatorial elections, scrapped in 2005, was signed into law last year in the aftermath of a wave of anti-Kremlin protests. Earlier this year, Putin […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos – May 13, 2013) On the face of it, there are few similarities between the city of Blagoveshchensk, located in the Far East, and the country’s natural gas capital of Novy Urengoi, 3,000 kilometers away in the tundra just below the Arctic circle. But both cities are part of official border zone territory: […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, May 13, 2013) The idea that “Moscow is not Russia” has long been a commonplace among both residents of the capital and residents of the portions of Russia beyond the ring road, but the two are increasingly dissimilar, raising the possibility that a conflict between the capital and the rest of the […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Alexandra Ilina, Moskovskiye Novosti – May 8, 2013) GALKINSKOYE, Sverdlovsk region – The village of Galkinskoye is no different from any of the other towns and villages around the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, with its old wooden houses, rickety fences and decaying former farm buildings. However, in 2008, Vasily Melnichenko came up with the idea […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 28, 2013) Russian opposition leader Aleksey Navalny says that Russia does not need federalism and should become a unitary state in which cities rather than the current federal subjects would be the fundamental political link between individual Russian citizens and the Russian state. In an interview published in the May issue […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 23, 2013) The demographic decline of the ethnic Russians is leading to a hollowing out of predominantly Russian regions, leaving many of them with only a few cities surrounded by a decaying and increasingly empty countryside, according to the latest demographic data. With the release of ever finer-grained data from the […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 22, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/04/window-on-eurasia-ethnically-based.html) The clash between Chechnya and Ingushetia over the border between the two became possible and is more serious because the authorities in each, with Moscow’s approval, have formed units in their force structures that consist largely or entirely of people from the titular nationality. And because that […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 17, 2013) Most of Russia’s regions would rank speculative grade, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said. In an article published on April 16 and titled “Most Russian Regions’ Creditworthiness Is Below Investment Grade Due To A Weak Intergovernmental System, Economy, And Management”, S&P explains its estimate of the credit quality of all 83 Russian regions. The […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 8, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/04/window-on-eurasia-70-major-russian.html) Slightly more than one in every six Russians — some 24.5 million people — lives in a company town facing serious economic and demographic decline, with 68 of these 799 places rated as being high risk of complete depopulation unless a new five-year government program can reverse […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – April 2, 2013) Russian law enforcement authorities have widened their search for opposition figures involved in the violent May 6 protest rally last year, with a series of raids in at least four regional cities, activists said. The raids were part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the violence that broke out […]
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MOSCOW, April 2 (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a law that allows regions to decide whether they want to elect a governor by a direct popular vote or let regional legislatures choose them from nominees approved by the president. The State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian parliament whose members initiated the bill, passed […]
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(Interfax – March 28, 2013) Russia’s rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin presented a report on the observation of human rights in Russia in 2012 to President Vladimir Putin, the Interfax news agency reported on 28 March. He highlighted that not enough attention was paid to rights issues in some regions and expressed concern about pressure on regional ombudsmen. Lukin said that […]
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MOSCOW. March 26 (Interfax) – Differentiation between the levels of unemployment in Russia’s federal districts remains strong – the gap in the districts can surpass four-fold and in the regions 40-fold, the Federal State Statistics Service Rosstat said in a report on employment and unemployment in February. The lowest level of unemployment, in accordance with ILO criteria, was in the […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, March 22, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/03/window-on-eurasia-136-national.html) Some 136 national languages of the Russian Federation are at or already beyond “the edge of extinction,” according to UNESCO. Many of these languages are subgroups of others, but the danger of disappearance exists for groups as large as Avars, Bashkirs and Chechens. According to the United […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, March 21, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/03/window-on-eurasia-contraction-of.html) The death of Russian villages is already an old if very sad story, but that country’s economic decline is now leading to the contraction of the population of many small and mid-sized cities, a development that has received little attention but that entails enormous social, economic and […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – March 17, 2013) Around 250 languages are spoken in Russia, including Russian, which is spoken by some 150 million people. Russian, along with several Turkic-based languages, is doing fine. However, the linguistic situation for many lost tribes and Small Indigenous People in Russia is far more Dmitry Sukhodolsky, special to RBTH Russia’s many […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Olga Doronina, special to RBTH – March 12, 2013) While Moscow’s street politicians take a breather, experts observe a rise of social activity in the Russian regions. In contrast to the capital, the demands of the Russian hinterland are social rather than political. In its monthly analytical ranking of social and political stability […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – March 11, 2013) Two municipal deputies picketed outside the Moscow City Duma last month, but nobody seemed to notice. Few passers-by stopped to ask what their handmade signs meant, and only a handful of journalists showed up to record their entreaties. To be ignored, it seems, is the plight of the municipal […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, March 11, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/03/window-on-eurasia-moscow-centrism.html) The “main mistake” of the Russian opposition in the past has been its focus that on Moscow rather than on the regions, but clashes between demonstrators and the authorities in Russia’s regions are prompting them to redirect their attention, a shift that will generate “a wave of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – February 19, 2013) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the government to find ways to reduce bureaucratic obstacles to regional investment amid a drive to boost regional economies. Medvedev has called for the Economic Development, Finance and Regional Development Ministries to present proposals to increase regional investment, RIA-Novosti reported Monday, citing the […]
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