A Russian Diary (51 page)

PEOPLE OFTEN TELL ME I AM A PESSIMIST; THAT I DO NOT BElieve in the strength of the Russian people; that I am obsessive in my opposition to Putin and see nothing beyond that.

I see everything, and that is the whole problem. I see both what is good and what is bad. I see that people would like life to change for the better but are incapable of making that happen, and that in order to conceal this truth they concentrate on the positive and pretend the negative isn't there.

To my way of thinking, a mushroom growing under a large leaf can't just hope to sit it out. Almost certainly someone is going to spot it, cut it out and devour it. If you were born a human being, you cannot behave like a mushroom.

I cannot reconcile myself to the official demographic forecast from the state statistical committee covering the period to 2016. By 2016 many of my generation may no longer be around, but our children will be alive, as will our grandchildren. Do we really not care what kind of life they will have, or even whether they will have a life at all?

Many seem not to care. If we continue with the same political and economic policies, the Russian population will fall by 6.4 million people. That is the optimistic forecast: that by 2016 Russia will have a population of 138.8 million people.

The pessimistic forecast is not so easy to come by, but you can dig it out if you are sufficiently persistent, and it makes you want to do something about changing the situation in Russia right now. The pessimistic forecast is that we will be down to 128.7 million people. Millions of the poor, unable to afford privatized medical services, will die. Young people will continue to be killed in droves in the army. In wars and also outside of wars, all those who are “not on our side” will be shot or sent to rot and die in prisons.

That is if everything remains as it is now. If in a fundamental manner, we do not tackle poverty. If the disgraceful neglect of health care provision and our environment persists. If we do not embark on a determined national campaign against alcoholism and drug addiction. If the war in the North Caucasus is not ended. If a humiliating social welfare system is not changed that allows a person barely to survive with no prospect of living a fulfilled and dignified life, eating well, resting properly, enjoying sports.

So far there is no sign of change. The state authorities remain deaf to all warnings from the people. They live their own life, their faces permanently twisted by greed and by irritation that anybody should try to prevent them from getting even richer. In order to head off that possibility, their priority is to cripple civil society. On a daily basis they try to convince the Russian people that civil society and the opposition are funded by the CIA, the British, Israel, and, for all anyone knows, Martian intelligence services, plus of course the worldwide spider's web of al-Qaeda.

Our state authorities today are only interested in making money. That is literally all they are interested in.

If anybody thinks they can take comfort from the “optimistic” forecast, let them do so. It is certainly the easier way, but it is also a death sentence for our grandchildren.

GLOSSARY

A
n asterisk in the text indicates the first mention of the following significant individuals and organizations:

PEOPLE:

BASAEV, SHAMIL:
a leading commander of the Chechen guerrillas when Russia invaded Chechnya in 1994. Russian bombing killed eleven members of his family, after which he became a pitiless warrior. Accused of masterminding the hostage takings at
Nord-Ost
and the First School in Beslan, both of which the Russian government ended bloodily. Killed in an explosion in 2006.

BEREZOVSKY, BORIS:
became an oligarch in the Yeltsin era and built a media empire that aided Yeltsin's reelection, only to fall out with Putin over Berezovsky's opposition to the Chechen war and support for liberal and democratic causes in Russia. Now living in London. Accused Putin of responsibility for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a close associate, in 2006.

BONNER, YELENA:
tireless human rights campaigner whose father, an Armenian-born secretary of the Communist International, was murdered by the regime in 1937. Widow of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist and human rights activist Andrey Sakharov

CHUBAIS, ANATOLY:
deputy prime minister in 1994-96 associated with the “shock therapy” program of free-market reforms, with privatization, and the creation of the oligarchs under Yeltsin. Became a co-leader of the Union of Right Forces political party.

FRADKOV, MIKHAIL:
former director of the Federal Tax Police and
representative to the European Union, appointed prime minister of Russia in 2004 by Putin to replace the more turbulent Mikhail Kasianov.

FRIDMAN, MIKHAIL:
cofounded Alfa Group in 1988, which now owns Russia's largest private bank and has interests in oil, retailing, and telecommunications.

GORBACHEV, MIKHAIL:
last general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party (1984-90) and first executive president of the USSR (1990-91). His attempts to democratize the Communist regime led to its collapse.

KADYROV, AKHMED:
pro-Moscow Chechen mufti, later “president” of Chechnya, assassinated the day after attending Putin's second-term inauguration in the Kremlin.

KADYROV, RAMZAN:
fought against Russia in the first Chechen war of 1994-96. Changed to support Russia in the second war (1999-present). Appointed prime minister after the assassination of his father, Akhmed Kadyrov. Heads a paramilitary force.

KASPAROV, GARRY:
youngest ever World Chess Champion in 1985, at the age of twenty-two. Abandoned chess politics for Russian politics in 2005.

KHAKAMADA, IRINA:
entrepreneur and candidate in the March 2004 presidential election; chair of the Free Russian Democratic Party.

KHODORKOVSKY, MIKHAIL:
formerly Russia's wealthiest oligarch and founder of Menatep Bank and Yukos oil company. Supported democratic opposition parties and proposed the introduction of transparent Western business practices. Fell foul of the Putin regime, and was arrested in 2003 for alleged tax irregularities and sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment.

KUCHMA, LEONID:
second president of Ukraine (1994-2005). Officially accused in 2005 of involvement in the 2000 murder of journalist Georgii Gongadze.

LIMONOV, EDUARD:
Russian writer, founder of the nationalistic but still unregistered National Bolshevik Party. Imprisoned in 2002 for two years for alleged illegal arms purchase.

LUKASHENKO, ALEXANDER:
authoritarian president of Belarus since 1994.

MASKHADOV, ASLAN:
foremost Chechen military leader in the first
Chechen war; elected president in 1997 and signed a peace treaty with Yeltsin in the Kremlin, but was unable to prevent a split between secular nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists. Killed by the FSB in 2005, apparently while attempting to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the conflict. His body was not returned to his family for burial.

MIRONOV, SERGEY:
since 2001 speaker of the Soviet of the Federation, the upper house of the Russian Parliament. Since 2003 chairman of the Russian Party of Life, which merged in 2006 with the Rodina and Russian Pensioners’ parties to form the Russian Justice Party, which he leads. Pro-Putin.

PAMFILOVA, ELLA:
Duma deputy in the 1990s and presidential candidate in 2000. Chair of the Presidential Commission for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.

PUTIN, VLADIMIR:
resigned from the KGB in 1991 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Director of the FSB (1998-99) and succeeded Boris Yeltsin as president of the Russian Federation in 2000. Reelected in 2004. His term as president expires in 2008.

RAKHIMOV, MURTAZA:
elected president of Bashkortostan in 1993, and reelected in 1998 and 2003. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe described the 2003 election as marred by “elements of basic fraud.”

ROGOZIN, DMITRY:
leader of the nationalist Rodina (Motherland) Party, which loudly defended the rights of ethnic Russians until early 2006 when, seemingly under Kremlin pressure, he stepped down. His party was apparently posing an increasing challenge to the state authorities’ United Russia Party.

RYZHKOV, VLADIMIR:
Duma deputy since 1993 and cochairman of the Russian Republican Party.

SAAKASHVILI, MIKHAIL:
leader of the 2003 bloodless Rose Revolution in Georgia, which obliged Eduard Shevardnadze to step down after elections considered to have been rigged. Became president of Georgia in 2004. Successfully defused separatist confrontations in Adjara and Abkhazia, but still has serious problems with South Ossetia.

SAKHAROV, ANDREY:
regarded as the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, Sakharov became one of the regime's most courageous critics.
Awarded the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize, but was unable to travel to receive it. His stand against the corruption and lack of legitimacy of the Soviet regime was highly influential within the elite itself. Died in 1989.

SURKOV, VLADISLAV:
foremost Kremlin ideologist and spin doctor, who held senior positions in Menatep and Alfa banks during the 1990s. Public relations director of ORT television company (1998-99). Deputy head of Putin's presidential administration. Himself half Chechen, Surkov is believed to be the main supporter within the Kremlin of Ram-zan Kadyrov and the policy of Chechenization of the war in Chechnya.

YAVLINSKY, GRIGORII:
author in 1990 of an unsuccessful program to transform Russia from a Communist to a free-market economy in two years. Cofounded the Yabloko political party in 1995, which later attempted to impeach President Yeltsin. Refused to run for the presidency in 2004 on the grounds that Putin had rigged the 2003 parliamentary elections to ensure no Yabloko representation in the Duma.

YELTSIN, BORIS:
first president of the Russian Federation (1991-99). Succeeded in banning the Communist Party within the Russian Republic and dismantling the USSR in favor of a Commonwealth of Independent States. Believed to have started the first Chechen war in order to retain his personal power with army backing, and to have handed over power to Vladimir Putin in 1999 to outflank his rivals’ bid for the presidency in 2000.

ZAKAEV, AKHMED:
presently foreign minister of the separatist government of the Chechen republic of Ichkeria, hero of the resistance in the first Chechen war, representative of Chechnya in 1996 at peace talks that led to a Russian withdrawal, then deputy prime minister, later foreign minister. Wounded early in the second Chechen war (1999-present), Zakaev left Chechnya in 2000 and became the most prominent representative of the Maskhadov government in Western Europe. Granted political asylum by the UK in 2003 and lives in London.

ZHIRINOVSKY, VLADIMIR:
outspoken populist and ultranationalist politician, and leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party. Commented on the poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 that “a traitor must be eliminated using any methods.”

ZYAZIKOV, MURAT:
president of Ingushetia, a republic that borders
and has close ethnic links with Chechnya. A member of the KGB in the 1980s, he was elected president (with heavy FSB involvement) in 2004.

ORGANIZATIONS

COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES
(
CIS
): established in 1991 and loosely binding all the former republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics except Georgia and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

DUMA:
the Russian Parliament that, under the Yeltsin Constitution, replaced the Supreme Soviet in 1993. Consists of 450 elected deputies.

FSB (FEDERAL SECURITY BUREAU):
the present domestic state-security organization; successor to the Federal Counterespionage Service.

KGB (COMMITTEE OF STATE SECURITY):
the Soviet secret police, replaced in 1991 by the Federal Counterespionage Service after its involvement in the attempted anti-Gorbachev coup.

LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY:
the first opposition party to be registered, in 1989, after the breaking of the Communist Party's monopoly. A confusingly named, vociferous nationalist party led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, believed to have been subsidized by Yeltsin to draw support from the Communist Party.

OMON (SPECIAL OPERATIONS UNIT OF THE MILITIA):
first established in 1979 to protect the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow from terrorist attack. Subsequently used as riot police, a unit is to be found in every territory of the Russian Federation.

RODINA:
nationalist and generally socialist party founded in 2003, led by Dmitry Rogozin. Some believed it was set up by the Kremlin to take votes from disillusioned Communist Party supporters. In the 2003 elections it won thirty-seven seats in the Duma and now says that it is “For Putin, but against the government.”