A small protest …

Russian elections: "No choice."

The notice above was recently posted outside my apartment building, inviting citizens to take part in the “review and additional clarification of voter lists” for the Municipal Council of Education elections on March 1.  Somebody scrawled “byez vybora” (literally, “without choice,” in other words, “no choice”) over the sheet as a pint-sized protest against Russia’s finely orchestrated elections.

As Russians are famously apathetic about elections, I doubt an 8.5 by 11 posted inconspicuously in the courtyard’s going to really get out the vote.  You need a better incentive, like an order from your boss to take a picture of your vote for the pre-approved party (i.e. Putin’s United Russia) on a cell-phone camera.

The latest news in Petersburg has been filled with crackdowns on the small opposition movement in the lead-up to the March 1 elections.  Opposition groups like Solidarity and Yabloko, having registered demonstrations with the government as required by law, have nevertheless been denied gathering places for inane reasons.  Two-thirds of the opposition candidates who gathered the required signatures have not been registered for the elections after government experts declared their petitions invalid.

Most recently, it’s come to light that Russian police, in the finest tradition of the NKVD and the Black Marias, have been visiting the homes of people who signed opposition candidates’ petitions to intimidate them into retracting their signatures, often late at night.

All the same, Putin enjoys immense popularity and most Russians are hardly perturbed to be pressured into supporting his “authoritarian democracy.”  So to whoever wrote “No choice,” way to fight the power.

An American-bashing vacation in Moscow

Katya brought along her camera to document the protesters' agenda (which turned out to be nebulous discontent directed at America). "It interests me how the government brainwashes the youth," she says.

I finally had my first run-in with Nashi (“Ours”), that foreigner-bashing, Putin-loving, sex camp-organizing government-sponsored Russian youth movement, and even lived to tell the tale.

Nashi and its “Dobrovolnaya molodyozhnaya dryzhina” (“Volunteer youth brigade”) organized yesterday’s “American show” protest outside the American consulate here in Moscow, which I checked out with a couple Russian friends.  Buses were parked up and down the block, having brought in massive amounts of youth from the provinces.

It wasn’t clear exactly what the protest was about (the announcement on americanshow.ru enigmatically reads “You will find out what the real American show means”), but the theme definitely centered around some sort of vague, anti-American rhetoric.  Attendees were asked to bring pumpkins — Halloween is indeed celebrated in Russia, mainly by nighttime revelers — which were then supposedly going to be decorated with the names of Iraq War victims.

The mysterious protest pumpkins, which were somehow related to the Iraq War.

I kept a low profile given the high number of xenophobes and policemen (also often unfriendly to foreigners), but my friend Katya was luckily up to the task of ferreting out the motivating factor for these young protesters.

Besides a free vacation to Moscow, there wasn’t much of one.  The first “chuvak” (dude) we asked said he was protesting war and especially the wars for which America is responsible.  The second cited the world economic crisis caused by the U.S.A.

“If Europe is also shown to be responsible, would you protest against Europe?” our intrepid citizen reporter inquired.

“I don’t know, it’s all the same to me.”

“And how is the economic crisis connected to the names on the pumpkins?”

“I have to go.”

Admittedly, the U.S.A. is no angel.  But especially now that the ruble is falling, it’s just a convenient scapegoat.

Almost any Russian who actually knows Americans seems to disagree with such comfortably ill-defined hatred.  As Katya said, “No country is all bad or all good.”  But when so many of the next generation here think otherwise, and do so with the Russian government’s wholehearted support, it’s clear we’re careening toward another Cold War-style cultural conflict.

As evinced by the “American Show” video on the Web site, the cheesy propaganda has already arrived … but more on this in the next post.

Volga Boatman Episode 5: Saratov

The infamous "serp and molot" of the USSR, with the wrench-and-hammer symbol of the Soviet Ministry of Railways underneath.

Somewhere deep in the Russian psyche lies a desperate need to commune with past glory.   As we saw with Samara’s Stalin bunker, this does not mean a close analysis of what actually happened: The Soviet era lingers like the memory of a crusty grandfather, fondly reminisced over whenever his mug shows up in the family photo album, but never condemned for beating up grandma (Let a dead dog lie, to used a mixed metaphor).

Communist Party is still alive and actually growing in Russia, as this rally shows. Probably the most serious competitor to Putin and Medvedev's United Russia.

In Saratov, this deliberately simplified relationship with the past comes to life at Park Pobedi (Park of Victory, only the millionth such-named park in Russia), where you can clamber around on Soviet tanks and pose for funny pictures under Communist-sloganed rail cars, all while paying your respects to the victorious soldiers of the Great War of the Fatherland.

Little engine that could: The "Death to Fascists" locomotive.

On the flag: "For the homeland, for honor, for freedom!" Below: "All as one for the defense of the Fatherland."

And since every Russian city has a fetish with some historical figure (possibly an outgrowth of the Russian inferiority complex based in its mixed history), you can also get yer yuks from the many memorials to first man in space Yuri Gagarin, who learned to fly here, and ironically landed (crashed?) nearby after his historic space flight.

The cultural side of the city — a stroll through the market and the pedestrian street — was better than nearly cutting my feet on the broken bottles lying around the famed beaches of Samara, but it also served as a reminder of the current collision between the brashness of consumer culture and the stoicism of tradition.

East meets West: A Baskin Robbins stands next to a Russian Orthodox church.

A meat seller displays the front of a cow's face at the rinok.

In Saratov, cops only have to go to the other side of the police station to get a donut.

Who cares who started it?

On the debate sparked by Georgian recordings purporting to show that Russian troops invaded first:

Start by realizing it was disadvantageous for the Georgians to storm South Ossetia regardless of whether there was already a Russian invasion underway. Because of Russia’s clear military presence (and therefore dominance) in the region — Russian planes had been overflying Georgia for months — the Georgians really should have realized what a colossal blunder they were making.  Maybe they did and felt they had no choice, moving in a last-attempt bid to win quickly and seal off South Ossetia from Russia via the Roki Tunnel.

In the end, who really cares who started it? Both sides have been aching to throw down for South Ossetia since long before shells started falling. Since at least January, Medvedev/Putin and Saakashvili have been shuffling their military forces around the region like impetuous Battleship players impatient to start calling out shots, with ominous but under-reported trash talk to match their posturing.

The only real mystery is why.  Because of this conflict, Tbilisi has lost any chance at control of South Ossetia, and Moscow now has to commit even more money and resources to the war-torn region.  Saakashvili looks like too much of a hothead for the prim-and-proper NATO kids, and Medvedev/Putin are still the rabid dog scaring the citizens of the international community.  Talk about senseless loss of life.

Why is it that the biggest political stage so often resembles the smallest, i.e. the playground?

“C-1!”  “Hit!”