(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – February 14, 2013) Does anybody remember Skolkovo? What seems like eons ago, back when iPads were still must-have gadgets for the Russian elite, the scientific and technological center was the showcase project in Dmitry Medvedev’s efforts to modernize the country’s economy to make it less dependent on oil and gas. Well Skolkovo is back […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 13, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/02/window-on-eurasia-russia-beyond-moscows.html) Russian President Vladimir Putin operates on the assumption, which many observers in Moscow and abroad appear to share, that Moscow may be bubbling with popular unhappiness and organized dissent but that the rest of the Russian Federation is quiet and stable. But a survey conducted by Igor […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 25 – Richard Arnold – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – February 11, 2013) United Russia brought a bill before the Duma for a first reading on January 23, 2013, that would permit regional legislatures to cancel direct gubernatorial elections for the “multi-ethnic” regions of Russia. Instead, parties in regional legislatures would pick three candidates […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 6, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/02/window-on-eurasia-russian-regions.html) Encouraged by Vladimir Putin, Russian regions over the last year have come up with new and often harshly reactionary legislation that taken together has the effect of undermining something the incumbent Russian president took so much pride in creating during his first two terms, a common legal […]
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(Interfax – February 7, 2013) Despite the fact that members of the Kirov regional Legislative Assembly have dropped the idea of holding a vote of no confidence in Governor Nikita Belykh, his possible dismissal is still under consideration, Vedomosti reported on Thursday. “The issue of Belykh’s dismissal has not been removed from the agenda, and it is still quite likely,” […]
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MOSCOW. Feb 5 (Interfax) – Political analysts believe the intention of a group of members of the Kirov regional legislature to express no confidence in Governor Nikita Belykh has been endorsed by some influential political forces both in the region and in Moscow. “Mr. Belykh is not very popular with the local elites and is perceived as an outsider. Perhaps […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – February 6, 2013) Nikita Belykh, the liberal governor of the Kirov region and a former opposition leader, is facing a new wave of pressure from opponents after 19 regional lawmakers announced their intent to put forward a no-confidence vote against him. Investigators raided Belykh’s office last week in connection with the alleged […]
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(www.opendemocracy.net – Daniil Kotsyubinsky – February 4, 2013) Daniil Kotsyubinsky is Russian historian and journalist based in St. Petersburg Russian lawmakers have given preliminary approval to a law to allow governors to be appointed in the country’s 83 regions, reversing last year’s move to restore direct elections. As Daniil Kotsyubinsky reports, this issue is unimportant in itself, but it exposes […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – www.rbth.ru – Daria Gonzales – February 5, 2013) Today, the provocative label of “dead town” smothers a thousand human tales of departure, relocation, and long waits in the hopes of a flat in a new city. Yet, not all residents of these nearly uninhabited places have the desire to leave. RBTH explores the lives of […]
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(Kremlin.ru – January 31, 2013) The Kremlin, Moscow Vladimir Putin held a meeting of the Council for the Local Self-Government Development. Participants discussed improving the regulation of local self-government institutions. PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon, colleagues. I am glad to welcome everyone to our Council’s meeting, one which is attended by the new members. Heads of urban districts, […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – www.rbth.ru – Yulia Ponomareva, Combined report – January 31, 2013) Nine months after popular gubernatorial elections were re-introduced on the initiative of former President Dmitry Medvedev, a 90 percent majority in the Russian Duma votes “yes” on a bill that gives regional legislatures the right to scrap them. President Putin believes the measure could prevent […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – www.rbth.ru – Yulia Ponomareva – January 29, 2013) The office of Kirov Governor Nikita Belykh was searched by investigators Tuesday in a probe into the privatization of a local vodka factory, which investigators claim was sold for a below-market price in 2010. Prominent opposition leader and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, who served as an adviser […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – January 24, 2013) State Duma deputies on Wednesday overwhelming passed in its first reading a bill that would give regional assemblies the right to abolish direct elections for governors, likely weakening a key pro-democracy reform signed last year by then-President Dmitry Medvedev. A total of 403 deputies voted in favor of the […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 23, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/01/window-on-eurasia-liquidating-non.html) There has been much talk about the possibility that Moscow will liquidate the non-Russian republics, but there has been almost none about exactly how the center would do that. That makes such talks “unserious” because it means the advocates of such a change do not understand just […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 19 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/01/window-on-eurasia-real-opposition-to.html) The “real opposition” to the powers that be is not in Moscow but in the provinces, a Lipetsk writer says, because in Moscow, opposition figures simply want to replace one ruler with another while in the provinces people want the authorities whoever they are to play an ever-smaller […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – January 16, 2013) Far East Development Minister Viktor Ishayev on Tuesday publicly reviewed the first draft of a program to pull the regional economy out of a slump. Presented to an assembly of officials, lawmakers and businesspeople at the Moscow office of the Sakha republic, the program immediately revealed a couple of […]
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[Failed Reforms: Political Reforms: Gubernatorial Elections Resemble Appointments, Competition Among Parties Remains Inadequate – Vedomosti – Maria Zheleznova – January 15, 2013 – no public link to English-language version] Vedomosti covers analysis by Alexei Kudrin’s Civil Initiatives Committee (CIC) that finds that gubernatorial elections resembled appointments, competition among political parties remained inadequate, and turnout continued to decline. Changes in party […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 9, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/01/window-on-eurasia-putin-playing-regions.html) Like Nicholas II and Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Putin is putting the regions and their more traditionalist values in play against the emergent civil society in Moscow as part of his effort to keep himself and his allies in office and in control of Russia’s enormous natural wealth, […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 27 (Interfax) – The heads of Russian regions ought to bear a political responsibility for their territories, President Vladimir Putin said. “Governors in the regions should bear a political responsibility for the quality of the business climate there. It is a test of his [governor’s] management skills,” Putin said at a State Council session on Thursday. “As for […]
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MOSCOW, December 27 (RIA Novosti) Russian regions should prepare regional investment roadmaps with clear-cut goals to attract investors and boost the county’s flagging economy, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. Putin made the statement at a meeting with Russian governors to discuss how to make the regions more appealing as investment destinations. Russia’s regions should demonstrate their potential to […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – Anna Arutunyan is the politics editor of The Moscow News – Dec. 17, 2012) I should say something about the latest anti-government protest how about 2,000 people showed up to the first white-ribbon demonstration that failed to get City Hall authorization, but… snore. The rallies have disintegrated into a mere tribute […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 12 (Interfax) – Provincial intelligentsia should be revived as a moral pillar of the country, President Vladimir Putin said in the state-of-the-nation address he presented at the parliament on Wednesday. “I would like to speak particularly about the social sphere. Specialists working in this field are formally indentified as ‘public sector employees’. These people have a good education […]
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NOVO-OGARYOVO, November 29 (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he was ready to rejuvenate government plans to create a mega state corporation to develop Russia’s depressed eastern Siberia and Far East. “The idea of a government corporation was discussed and I know that far from everyone shares this approach,” Putin said at a State Council meeting […]
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MOSCOW, November 6 (Dan Peleschuk, RIA Novosti) Economic progress, a clear political mandate, and good press: these are the things, according to a new report by a leading Russian think tank, that make a Russian region truly stable. It was otherwise largely unnoticed regions, such as Mordovia, that fared best in the rating, despite other ostensibly more likely contenders […]
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(Mikhail Loginov – www.opendemocracy.net – November 2, 2012- 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”.) October is Russia’s local election month, and some regions have just elected governors for the first time in seven years, part of an electoral reform designed to […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 19 (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 80-fold, the Federal State Statistics Service Rosstat said in a report on employment and unemployment in September. The lowest level of unemployment, in accordance with ILO criteria, was in the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Rachel Nielsen – October 16, 2012) In a recent comedy sketch show, a police officer forks over the pay raise that he hid from his wife after she hears President Vladimir Putin announce the increase on TV. “Vladimir Vladimirovich,” the policeman mutters on the “6 Kadrov” television show, “thank you for raising our salaries, but […]
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Kremlin.ru – October 15, 2012 – photo is a file photo Meeting with Central Election Commission Chairman Vladimir Churov Novo-Ogaryovo, Moscow Region Mr Churov briefed Vladimir Putin on the results of elections held in a number of regions around the country. Local and regional elections took place in 77 regions around Russia on a single voting day on October 14. […]
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Russian elections preserve Putin’s dominance, opponents cry foul – Reuters – Gabriela Baczynska and Maria Tsvetkova – October 14, 2012 – http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/14/us-russia-elections-idUSBRE89D0GC20121014 Reuters covers Russia’s recent regional elections. Vladimir Putin-backed ruling party United Russia came out on top, but amidst widespread allegations of voting violations: The first big elections since Putin began a new six-year term in May will do […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Yulia Ponomareva – October 15, 2012) The recent APEC summit hosted in Vladivostok once again brought to the fore the need to develop Russia’s Far East, a region that accounts for a third of the country’s territory but only 4 percent of its population, and which is challenged by the bustling economy of its southern […]
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Business New Europe – bne.eu – Julia Reed in Moscow – October 5, 2012 A round of 73 regional and municipal elections that start on October 14 will be the first real test for Russia’s nascent protest movement. The first protests were sparked by popular outrage to rigged Duma elections last December and were followed by large crowds protesting against […]
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