A Russian Diary (52 page)

Authors: Anna Politkovskaya

BOOK: A Russian Diary

3.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

RUSSIAN FEDERATION:
successor state, from 1991, to the USSR, but does not include the USSR's autonomous republics.

UNION OF RIGHT FORCES:
liberal party formed in 1999 from a number of small parties dedicated to introducing free-market reforms
and sharply critical of Putin's curtailment of democratic freedoms. Officially polled 4 percent in the 2003 parliamentary elections, depriving it of Duma representation (which requires 5 percent support), prompting widespread suspicion of electoral fraud by the Kremlin.

UNITED RUSSIA:
party created in 2001 by the Kremlin to support Vladimir Putin; holds a constitutional majority in the Duma.

YABLOKO:
liberal party set up in 1995 in reaction to infighting within the democratic camp; speaks out against infringements of freedom of the press and of democratic political practices, supports Russia's ultimate integration into the European Union, opposes the war in Chechnya, and has called for the removal of Putin's regime by “constitutional means.”

EVENTS, GROUPS, PLACES

BASHKORTOSTAN, OR BASHKIRIA:
formed partly by the southern Ural Mountains and adjacent plains; population of four million, of which 36 percent are ethnic Russians, 29 percent Bashkirs, and 24 percent Tatars.

CHECHNYA:
situated in the eastern part of the North Caucasus and predominantly Sunni Muslim. Most of its economic potential has been destroyed in the two Chechen wars, together with huge loss of combatant and civilian life. According to the Russian government, more than $2 billion has been spent on reconstruction since 2000, though the Russian economic monitoring agency considers that no more than $350 million was spent as intended.

DAGESTAN
: located in the southernmost part of Russia, in the North Caucasus Mountains. Ethnically very diverse.

GEORGIA:
the first republic to declare its independence from Russia, shortly before the collapse of the USSR. Separatist problems with Abkhazia and South Ossetia in particular are fomented by Russia. Rich in natural resources, attractive to tourists, and famed for its winemaking, Georgia is combating corruption, which holds back the economy.

INGUSHETIA:
comprises mainly Sunni Muslims of various Sufi orders. It has many refugees from the war in Chechnya. Population of half
a million made up of 77 percent Ingushes, 20 percent Chechens, and 1.2 percent Russians.

KYRGYZSTAN, OR KIRGHIZIA:
landlocked and mountainous, sometimes referred to as the Switzerland of Central Asia. Had its own Tulip Revolution in 2005 in protest at rigged elections and the suppression of oppositionists, but the new regime is struggling to keep its promises to combat corruption and decentralize authority.

ORANGE REVOLUTION:
triggered in Ukraine in late 2004 to early 2005 by massive rigging of the presidential election by the pro-Moscow authorities. A rerun in December 2004 led to a win for Viktor Yu-shchenko, who had been poisoned shortly before the first election and who received 52 percent of the vote to Viktor Yanukovych's 44 percent.

ROSE REVOLUTION:
a series of protests in Georgia in late 2003 to early 2004 in response to massive rigging of the parliamentary elections of November 2003. President Eduard Shevardnadze's inability to cope with separatist problems and pervasive corruption caused him to lose the election to Mikhail Saakashvili. Shevardnadze claimed victory, but was forced to concede defeat after the Parliament building was seized by Saakashvili's supporters, bearing roses as a symbol of nonviolence; elite military units sided with the protesters. The election was rerun in January 2004 and Saakashvili's party won by a landslide.

UKRAINE:
declared independence from Moscow in 1991, but was slow to implement free-market reforms; heavily dependent on Russia for energy supplies, which Russia has attempted to exploit for political advantage. Its population of 46 million is 78 percent Ukrainian and 17 percent Russian.

WAHHABISM:
the dominant form of Islam in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and western Iraq, it advocates a puritanical and legalistic stance in matters of faith and religious practice. Russian-speaking Wahhabi Arabs flooded Chechnya at the end of the first Chechen war, allowing the Russian government subsequently to present Chechnya as a bridgehead of Islamic fundamentalism.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Known to many as “Russia's lost moral
conscience,” ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA was a
special correspondent for the Russian
newspaper
Novaya Gazeta
and the recipient
of many honors for her writing. She is the
author of
A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in
Chechnya, Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing
Democracy,
and
A Small Corner of Hell:
Dispatches from Chechnya.
Anna
Politkovskaya was murdered in
Moscow in October 2006.

ABOUT THE TYPE

This book was set in Scala, a typeface
designed by Martin Majoor in 1991.
It was originally designed for a music
company in the Netherlands and then
was published by the international type
house FSI FontShop. Its distinctive
extended serifs add to the articulation
of the letterforms to make it a
very readable typeface.