Wu Wei

For those of you with Soviet nostalgia (for food at least)

Somehow this paper found its way onto my computer: At the Center of the Table: The Rise and Fall of the Olivier Salad by Anna Kustova.  It's quite long, but a treasure trove of nostalgia, as it indeed is intended to be, although it's a really serious and long anthropology paper in its academic guise (53 pages, including 10 pages of footnotes).

In the course of the life of the salad, you are treated to the class relations of the salad, the role of hunter-gatherer (or ordinary shopper) under developed socialism, the social life of peas, the rehabilitation of the chicken, the gender bias of sausage, the one-and-only rich, hearty, Soviet Provençal-style mayonnaise, (plenty of scope for a further paper on mayonnaise as substance: "cosmetic; it joins, covers, restores"), commensality in the Soviet home, Nourriture de Passage: The Olivier Salad as a Ritual
Dish in Soviet Cuisine; its status as the “magic of the beginning”; and the place of the Olivier Salad in the gastro-cognitive map.

In fact all human life, and a variety of anthropological themes, are there. 

Putin's New Year Speech

In Britain we are very conscious that an essential part of Christmas is the Queen's Speech to the Commonwealth.  When I say essential, I mean it is essential to decide whether the family will watch it or not.  As a child we always listened to it on the radio with my mother.  I am sure my father did not hold with such royalist notions.

These days, extracts are relayed on the BBC News in any case, so you get the gist of it whether you like it or not.

At lunch today we were discussing the invasion of Russians to Vilnius over the New Year.  It seems that all the hotels and restaurants were full.  They came in civilised family groups and their main requirement was a plasma TV to watch Putin's New Year Speech and champagne to drink with it. 

My informant could not say whether the speech was favourably received, which left me with some unanswered questions:

• Was it prerecorded so without any reference to the demonstrations?
• Is it too early to predict an "Annus Horribilis"* for next year's speech?
• Was it acceptable to boo in front of the children, and in a foreign country?

And what did he say anyway?  I seem to have slept through an important message.

*One year, the Queen complained about her Annus Horribilis (horrible year) in her Christmas message.  True there had been a fire in the Castle (someone smoking in bed, the rumours were) and her children all got divorced rather publicly and crossly.  Since most people were taking Diana's side, the discussion afterwards was all about how families had coped with their own Anni Horribili, and theirs had definitely been worse, without the money at her disposal. 

Putin the consumers' champion?

Slightly different New Year messages from Putin and Medvedev, with Putin telling airport staff not to take a holiday and the usual stuff from Medvedev.

Can we hope to see more of Putin the consumers' champion in 2011? Or was someone he knew stuck waiting for a flight?  The cronies can't all have private jets can they?

But did anyone take any notice of Putin? 

From Khodorkovsky's final speech to the court

OpenDemocracy has published his speech in full here, but I couldn't resist to post this sentence:

 

If under one court sentence a company that paid more taxes than anyone else in the country – YUKOS paid more taxes than any other Russian company with the exception of Gazprom – turns out not to have fully paid its taxes; and under a second court sentence, the one now being proposed, it is clear, there has been no object for taxation at all since it was all stolen?

 

The whole speech is dignified and to the point: the loss of hope for change in Russia.  Very sad.

KGB Museum, Vilnius

Going round the KGB museum with 30 other people was not really a good idea.  I never wanted to go before (having heard about it from Bee and Sloph's school trips).  But part of my Lithuanian course includes local cultural lectures and excursions so I thought it was time to catch up.

The museum is located in the local court dating from Tsarist times but while the court was redundant for the Nazi and Soviet regimes, the prison cells were well used.  Some of the museum relates how the partisans were rounded up and passed through the prison in the late 40s and 50s.  You can see the cells, including the water torture cell and the execution cell. 

My thoughts ranged from a) thinking I didn't know much about prisons generally and what their conditions were like in the post war period, but thinking the British ones were probably  pretty much still in the Victorian conditions in which they were built and on the face of it, apart from the torture part, the cells looked pretty much like cells anywhere, not intended to be comfortable especially when crowded  b) thinking that probably these days  the political prisoners in the North Caucasus get pretty similar treatment or worse by the local Russian military or modern day FSB as the KGB meted out here.  

The museum itself was informative and the guide sufficiently practical herding groups and giving just enough information without the previous Soviet resort always to statistics.

But going round in groups just trivialises it all, for me.

Google - Moscow-Vladivostok: virtual journey on Google Maps

As the website says:

The great Trans Siberian Railway, the pride of Russia, goes across two continents, 12 regions and 87 cities. The joint project of Google and the Russian Railways lets you take a trip along the famous route and see Baikal, Khekhtsirsky range, Barguzin mountains, Yenisei river and many other picturesque places of Russia without leaving your house. During the trip, you can enjoy Russian classic literature, brilliant images by photographer Anton Lange and fascinating stories about the most attractive sites on the route. Let's go!

via www.google.ru

It's fabulous, especially if you set the music to the balalaika, which then is just like the radio that couldn't be turned off in the carriage. 

In 1975, I went from Moscow to Khabarovsk with a stop off for a week in Irkutsk.  Photos on Flickr here.

I got so tired of managing only simple conversations in Russian that when I came back, I gave up my yuppie job in London and went off to do a one year full time Russian course and then started a PhD in Birmingham.  At the time it was just a gamble which didn't pay off till the break up  of the Soviet Union.

But it sure paid off later, as anyone reading this blog would realise.

Trouble ahead for Mazeikiu Nafta?

TNK-BP looking for market expansion beyond Russia

Published 27 February, 2010, 10:38 here

Edited 27 February, 2010, 15:16

TNK-BP has told RT it is considering making further investments beyond Russian borders after the company dropped its previous objections to the expansion of the company into foreign markets.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited the company's research center in the city of Tyumen on Friday to see where TNK-BP was exploring and extracting oil. During the visit, RT spoke with major TNK-BP shareholder German Haan, who said that the company was eyeing refining assets in Lithuania.

via rt.com

August war again?

Latest from Yulia Latynina in the Moscow Times here:

The Kremlin's behavior is driven by both rational and irrational motives. An irrational motive is Putin's stated desire to hang Saakashvili by the balls. A rational motive is the desire to convince the world that Saakashvili has already hanged himself by the balls.

"Caucasus 2009" is strikingly similar to the Russian exercises that preceded the August 2008 war with Georgia. The smell of war is once again in the air. Counterterrorism operations have been instituted in the Prielbrusiye region on the Russian-Georgian border, many people have been evacuated from the region and Russia has beefed up its forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Like deja vu, the Kremlin is again accusing Georgia of aggression, and yet it is Moscow that has insisted that all observers from the United Nations and Europe leave the region to remove unnecessary witnesses to Russia's planned aggression. It would be difficult to label these moves as simply blackmail. Russia is mobilizing for war.

The Kremlin's foreign policy is driven by one basic principle: It will pursue an aggressive, hostile policy as long as it believes it can get away with it.

Joe Biden is coming to Tbilisi  between July 22 and 24.  After that there's a clear run for Putin unless Sarkozy has any plans to visit as well.

More gloom

From here

So now everyone awaits Obamas mission to Moscow on the 6th of july. Most analysts think that his performance would mean the difference of "invade" or "not invade" Georgia. I really hope Obama will be firm, and won't proceed with the naïve "reset" project. Russia needs US as an enemy in order to keep the current cleptocracy at the power, thus persuing the "reset" project will only serve to project US as weak, and confirm the image Putin want's to create.

The rest of the discussion and comments suggest that Russia has enough conflict in the North Caucasus to want to have more in the South.

On the other hand, in the 19th century, Russia conquered the North Caucasus only when it had conquered and created a stable peace in Georgia and control of its southern border.  So trouble erupting on its southern border would need to be sorted out first, with this line of thinking.

And this year in Georgia we have ...

From the Jamestown Foundation archive:

7 May 2009  Increasing risk of Russian Intervention in Georgia

12 May 2009 Radical Georgian Opposition Considers Shift in Tactics

21 May 2009 Radical Opposition Threatens to Disrupt Georgian Transportation

29 May 2009 Moscow Playing with Multiple Options on Black Sea Pipelines

2 June 2009 U.N. Secretary-General Revises Report on Abkhazia under Russian Pressure

12 June 2009 Moscow Ready to Scuttle U.N. and OSCE Missions in Georgia

18 June 2009 Russian Military Chief Accuses Georgia of Preparing Aggression

Sounds familiar doesn't it?  

Similarities with last year                                   
Disillusionment with Saakashvili                         
Disorganisation of the Opposition (and now more angry)                     
Russian military activity in breakaway areas (and increased  informal militias)  
Ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia and South Ossetia
Ineffectiveness of UN and OSCE monitoring  (no monitoring in breakaway areas)                                     
Russian military manoeuvres in the North Caucasus again in July
Holiday season coming up

Extra disruptive factors
Global financial crisis distracting the rest of the world
Sever financial trouble at home in Russia needs adventures abroad as distraction
President Obama still supporting Georgia even though Europe has gone cool
NATO manoeuvres held in Georgia
More trouble in Moldova and Ukraine
Increasing troubles in North Caucasus this month
Awareness of the lack of readiness of Russian army

From the 16 June Jamestown article we have the following:

The most dangerous period within which a new full-scale war with Georgia might occur will be from July 10 until after President Barack Obama visits Moscow in August, while the invasion forces are already deployed and poised for action, under the cover of "Kavkaz-2009." If Russian forces go into action, their objectives will be decisive.

The author of the 16 June article, Pavel Felgenhauer, continues that the Russian strategic objectives will be:

1. Regime change and the forceful demilitarization of Georgia, fully dismantling and disarming the regime-loyal Georgian army, border guards and special police forces.

2. Establishing a secure land corridor linking Russia to its strategically important military base in Armenia.

3. Transforming Georgia into a loose confederation of its many semi-independent regions with their regional king-pins, with a weak central government and without any national military-security forces. Russian military forces will be permanently stationed within the Georgian confederation, ensuring influence, control of energy supply corridors to the Caspian and Central Asia, and ending the country's aspirations to join NATO.

The first objective will hardly be difficult given the performance of the Georgian army last year, since the global financial crisis has meant that it could not be re-equipped and it can hardly be much better trained now.  While the Russian army was not better equipped or much better disciplined, it comes with bigger numbers and fire power.

The second objective is essential, as currently not only is there no land access, but Georgia also controls the supply of gas to Armenia, and we all know that gas can be used as a political weapon.

The ease of achieving the third objective was amply demonstrated last August when Georgia was effective cut in two after the advance up to the main east-west highway at Gori, which also houses a large military base.  The advance on Tbilisi will be aided by the new motorway being constructed as part of Georgia's ambition to be a transportation transit corridor, to which it is dedicating most of its development resources, without considering the risks of putting all its eggs in one basket.

Felgenhauer continues that the Russian operational objectives will be to:

1. To engage and fully decimate the most capable Georgian government forces (artillery and special forces, including police special forces) in decisive battles.

2. To isolate Georgia from any possible external aid by taking under control its ports, major roads and airfields. One of the prime military targets of any future campaign could be the cluster of airfields and airstrips east of Tbilisi (Vaziani).

3. When the regular Georgian army, police and security forces are smashed, the existing political internal tensions could precipitate the disintegration of the present unified Georgian state. The international community may eventually leave Russia to manage the ensuing mess.

Russia managed to bomb Poti and the military airports last year without any problem. Felgenhauer has already described here in February the plan for taking Tbilisi so it is already well known.

And what else is reassuring?

With its present array of weapons, training and capabilities, the Georgian forces do not appear sufficient to deter Russia. The international community is doing almost nothing, apparently hoping that marginalizing Georgia and charming Russia is the best possible policy. The U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs Philip H. Gordon has confirmed that the U.S. will not provide Georgia with any defensive or other weapons (RIA Novosti, June 9). This development has been eagerly awaited in Moscow.

And I forgot: this year we don't have any distractions like the Olympic Games.  Luckily Joe Biden is coming to Georgia for 20-24 July.  That should give us till the end of July at least.

If that's not enough for you, I recommend this week's International Crisis Group report here, encouragingly titled "Georgia-Russia: Still Insecure and Dangerous".  That's only South Ossetia, apparently there's worse to come on Abkhazia.