Russia This Week is a weekly review by the MEMRI Russian Media Studies Project, covering the latest Russia-related news and analysis from media in Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe.
This issue, devoted to Russian domestic politics, brings fresh evidence that the Putin personality cult is still thriving. Russian political experts do not envision an end to the Putin era until 2024, while a successor is being groomed.
Cartoon Of The Week
(Source: Twitter.com/Sandy_mustache, September 19, 2016)
The United Russia bear says: The citizens voted for stability.
The bear's stomach holds the parties that United Russia devoured in the Duma elections.
PutinMania
(Source: Twitter.com/Fake_MIDRF, October 9, 2016)
The dress features Putin as a judoka-dressed angel, supporting the world in his hand.
Quote Of The Week:
During an interview with Voskresnoye Vremya (Sunday Time) program, on Channel One, Russian Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev said:
"Structural problems have accumulated in our economy over decades - that is, distortions in the economic system. I often hear people ask: why don't you work on this issue and why haven't you changed the structure of the economy yet? But such challenges cannot be overcome in one or two years, or even a decade - because the current structure of Russia's economy stems from the Soviet economy, which had developed for 50-60 years. This is the economy we have. It has both advantaged and disadvantages, but it needs reforming. "
(Government.ru, October 2)
Putin's Birthday
Russian satirical artist Andrey Budaev (budaev.ru) created a new 2017 calendar devoted to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian newspaper Komsmolskaya Pravda published the calendar titled "White Sun Of Palmyra" (the ancient city liberated from ISIS following Russia's intervention in Syria) on October 7, to honor Putin's 64th birthday, and supplied its own captions for describing each image. The calendar features Vladimir Putin as the Red Army soldier Fyodor Sukhov, the hero of the cult Soviet movie "White Sun of the Desert" (that premiered in 1969), who has been fighting in the Russian Civil War, and is now returning home through the desert to the east of the Caspian Sea.[1]
Below are some of the calendar's photos:
The calendar's cover
The photo for the month of January, shows Putin and Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu (as Sukhov and his sidekick, the soldier Petrukha)
Komsmolskaya Pravda: "The East is a very delicate matter"
The photo for the month of February shows a modern Russian warship launch a missile - presumably towards Syria, in unison with a vessel from the movie. However, in the era recreated by the movie no such missile firing ships existed.
Komsmolskaya Pravda: The sun is so white here - it is blinding! [The sentence channels the movie's title]"
The photo for the month of April.
Komsmolskaya Pravda: "Women comrades. The revolution has liberated you!"
SUPPORT OUR WORK
Tweet Of The Week:
#Putinisourpresident (#ПутинНашПрезидент) was the most popular hashtag in Russia on October 7.
A Putin supporter wrote on his Twitter account (twitter.com/MaxDementiev): "There are various ways to bless our President with his birthday - some are doing tattoos with his portrait."
In The News:
Anna Politkovskaya's Last Interview
October 7 marked also the 10th Anniversary of the iconic Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya's murder. An outspoken critic of the Russian government, Politkovskaya reported on the conflict in Chechnya for Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. She was killed in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow, in 2006. Politkovskaya's last interview was with RFE/RL's Russian Service. Rferl.org published in its website the full interview in English.
Click here to read the full interview.
Anna Politkovskaya (Source: Osce.org)
Russia's 2024 Presidential Elections
The Russian newspaper Vedomosti published an op-ed article by Vladislav Inozemcev, CEO of the Postindustrial Society Research Center, who claims that the elections proved that there is no social demand in Russia for new political figures or a new president. He argued that while the 2018 presidential elections will provide no excitement as Putin will be virtually unchallenged, the election cycle beginning with the 2021 parliamentary elections and the 2024 presidential elections may prove different since by that time Putin will be looking for a successor and he is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term in 2024.
Inozemcev appraises the potential candidacy of Vyacheslav Volodin, the newly appointed Duma Speaker, in the 2024 presidential elections. According to Inozemcev, Volodin has some advantages over the others: he fits the mold of the "young but mature" candidate; has never turned Russian President Vladimir Putin down and has never disappointed him, he is very loyal yet he is not Putin's personal friend from the past, and finally he have not served in the KGB-FSB or other security oriented service. He ran successfully in competitive regional and federal elections. Inozemcev explains that by 2024, the population may have become somewhat fatigued with former military or security figures. There is another point: Volodin has created a vast network of top level bureaucrats whom he appointed almost personally, and therefore they are politically indebted to him.
(Vedemosti.ru, September 18)
According to Novaya Gazeta, Volodin and Aleksey Dumin, formerly Putin's personal bodyguard and newly elected governor of the Tula region, are effectively participating in a lengthy "casting" for Putin's substitute in the 2024 elections, while much depends on whom Putin will support more. In an authoritarian transfer of power the choice of a stand-in is the one way of establishing a new consensus figure for the people and the elite while preserving system stability. According to the newspaper the next (2024) president as opposed to Medvedev's 2008 presidency, will eventually become an independent figure, thus the political risks of the successor's "buildup" are getting higher.
(Novayagazeta.ru, September 24)
According to an article in Gazeta.ru, Volodin will turn the Duma into one of the real centers of the decision making process. His successors in the presidential administration won't enjoy the same powers and prerogatives, while Volodin may maintain some control over the processes there - thus posing a risk that he is going to gain too much power. On the other hand, if Volodin's successor carries the same political weight in the presidential administration, then it means that Putin has decided to retain the system of internal checks and balances intact - in this case the Kremlin will preserve its control over the parliament. As for Sergey Naryshkin, the newspaper claims that the new post of SVR chief is a downgrade for him, given the rumors that a Ministry Of State Security is to be established which will incorporate the Foreign Intelligence Service.
(Gazeta.ru, September 22, 2016)
Russia's Economy
In an article published in the Russian academic journal Voprosy Ekonomiki (Economic Issues), Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev wrote:
"Russia's economic development has been strongly influenced by external shocks since 2014. These include the changing price of oil and other Russian exports and sanctions (primarily financial and technological). Importantly, the problem is not just how much prices have fallen, which has happened periodically over the past few decades, but the speed of their decline. In 2015 oil prices fell by half in roughly half a year, which is unprecedented in modern economic history.
"However, the main factor contributing to low economic development rates is still rooted in the structural problems of the Russian economy, which were aggravated by two overlapping factors - the global crisis and the exhaustion of the economic growth model of the 2000s. A substantial reduction in growth rates started long before oil prices declined and sanctions were imposed on Russia...
"The banking system is undergoing a difficult cleansing process in which poorly performing banks are being shut down. The Central Bank closed 48 banks in the first half of 2016 and 93 banks in 2015. Importantly, these measures did not cause a bank panic in Russia. Its banking system is fairly stable.
"Capital outflow has been considerably reduced. In 2015 it fell more than 2.5 times to $58.1 billion (as compared to $153 billion in 2014). In the first half of 2016 it amounted to $10.5 billion as compared to $51.5 billion in the first half of 2015. Russia's aggregate external debt is also going down. It decreased from its maximum of $733 billion in mid-2014 by 30 percent (over $200 billion) to $516 billion...
"Economic growth cannot be restored automatically after a recession... To put Russia on the path of sustainable growth requires a substantial increase in the scale of investment, from the current 20 percent to 22-24 percent of GDP. Domestic private investment certainly tops the list of priorities. It is necessary to develop measures that would not only incentivize savings, but also encourage their transformation into investment.
"Interest rates are obviously not the problem. In Europe, they are even negative, while investment still tends to hover around zero. The problem lies in the high level of uncertainty, although it can manifest itself in different ways in different countries and regions. For some countries, the problem is that businesses don't understand the prospects for demand. Other businesses are inhibited by geopolitical uncertainty and a lack of clear priorities in the actions of national governments. What we call deficiencies in the business climate - poor protection of property rights, inconsistent rules of the game, and other things - also play a role...
"We cannot allow populism either in our discourse or, more importantly, in our budget policy. We will not follow the path of printing more money and deregulating the economy, as this leads to disastrous consequences that people always pay for. If the government does not have enough money, we will not opt to print more to cover the missing revenue. Everyone understands that printing money is nothing but printing paper, which would fuel inflation and devalue people's incomes, salaries and pensions.
"Proposals to introduce very strict regulation of the economy, to return to the Soviet planning system, are equally unacceptable in the current circumstances. The rigidity of the Soviet model led to its collapse in the face of a modern, post-industrial society. There are a number of other ideas, as seemingly simple as they are dangerous, such as transitioning to a mobilization economy, nationalizing large companies and even selling off all state property.
"However, real work - in contrast to propaganda - involves deep structural reforms that are aimed, at their core, at increasing the efficiency of the public (government-financed) and private sectors. These problems and difficulties are different than the mass closure of businesses, loss of revenue, and degradation of the social sector we saw in the early 1990s...
"Despite the geopolitical issues, Russia is going to move towards economic openness and free trade areas with individual countries and groups of countries, and will sign preferential trade agreements. We see huge opportunities offered by the liberalization of international trade on the basis of equality. Naturally, the Eurasian Economic Union will be the focus of our integration agenda..."
(Gov.ru, September 22)
Strange But True
A private Russian company specializing on luxury accessories for smartphones has produced 64 special edition Iphone 7s bearing Putin's portrait in gold surrounded by Damascus steel - this special edition model is called Supremo Putin Damascus and is dedicated to marking Putin's 64th birthday. The price tag is around 3500$ per unit.
(Ria.ru, October 5)
Supremo Putin Damascus (Sorce: Ria.ru)
Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov's 10-year-old son wins by a knockout in the mixed martial arts tournament in Grozny.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVcAWYx7N_s)
Presidential spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said that knocking out a youngster during tournament is grounds for the relevant supervisory authorities to take an interest in the event. The ombudsman for children's rights in Chechnya Khamzat Khirakhmatov claimed that there were not violations of children's rights but in the future the contestants should wear protective helmets.
(Ria.ru, October 6)
The prosecution in Russia has indicted Denis Korotkov, a journalist for Fontanka.ru , for disclosing an illegal voting scheme employed during the recent parliamentarian elections. As part of his journalistic investigation Korotov successfully obtained a special mark for his ID allowing him to vote for another person. As Korotkov explained in his article depicting the scheme, those with special marks on their ID card could receive ballot papers from the local electoral commission to vote for another person. Now, he has been arrested and indicted for illegally obtaining ballot papers. Not a single member of the local commission was indicted for having illegally provided ballot papers..
(Gazeta.ru, September 27)
Endnote:
[1] "Premiering in 1969, White Sun of the Desert is set around 1923, towards the end of the Russian Civil War, and follows the adventures of Red Army soldier Fyodor Sukhov, who is returning home though the desert to the east of the Caspian Sea, in today's Turkmenistan. The desert is vast and empty; the sun is white and blinding. But all in not peaceful in this emptiness: the feuding locals bury each other alive in the sand, and Red Army units are pursuing bands of warlords. One of these warlords is Black 'Abdallah. Preparing to leave the country, he prefers to kill off his wives rather than see them become the property of another man - but he is interrupted in the process, and so manages to strangle only two of his 11-strong harem Making his way through the desert, Sukhov bumps into the Red soldiers who rescued the harem, and is asked (or rather obliged) to look after the women while the soldiers chase 'Abdallah. He is left in the desert with the nine women, a rifle, a horse and the young soldier Petrukha. But far from being pursued and captured, 'Abdallah has other plans... Some Russian film critics have identifies a genre of 'Eastern' films, a play on the word 'Western.' According to them, 'Easterns' are adventure movies based in the 'Wild East' of the Russian Empire's Central Asian republics and usually during the Civil War, with good guys and bad guys, enigmatic locals, a lot of shooting and sometimes, as in [American] Westerns, the plot is underpinned by an allegorical tale." Olga Fedina, What Every Russian Knows (and You Don't), p. 12, Anaconda Editions, 2013.
