- The Moscow Times

|
|
Since 1992 No. 5753 May LOOKING BACK
5-11
|
2016 WWW.THEMOSCOW TIMES.COM
LOOKING FORWARD
LIVING HERE
Hacked
Chopped
Divided
Opposition and regime figures
Taxi conglomerate Uber cuts
Authorities hijack grassroots
security flaws → Page 3
technology giant Yandex → Page 4
World War II veterans → Pages 12-13
find themselves exposed by
fares in price war with Russian
movement designed to remember
No Goodbye, Lenin
How science and the state keep the Soviet forefather
looking fresh → Pages 6, 11
18+
2
Looking Back
“We have yet to establish the
identity of [Bellingcat.] I don’t know
how believable this information is.”
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman.
The Moscow Times
No. 5753
3
The [Russian Defense Ministry] is lying
to the families of those who have been
killed. It’s really quite disgusting.” Elliot
Higgins, speaking in a BBC documentary.
Vehicles in a typical Buk
surface-to-air missile unit.
The Devil in the Details
4
Missiles can be carried by
a Buk launcher.
By Matthew Bodner m.bodner@imedia.ru | Twitter: @mattb0401
A
new report by citizen investigative journalist outfit Bellingcat has presented
new claims about the anti-aircraft missile launcher supposedly responsible for the
downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over
eastern Ukraine in July 2014. Building on earlier
work, the investigation identified superficial
qualities of a Buk anti-aircraft launcher seen
in the region, and matched it with a unit stationed in the city of Kursk in southwest Russia.
The question of who shot down MH17 is one
of the most controversial aspects of the Ukraine
crisis, with all parties to the conflict accusing
the others of destroying the civilian airliner. It
has generated a huge number of theories and
counter-theories.
Ukraine and the West have maintained that
Russian-backed separatists fired the missile.
Russia has consistently contested such claims,
and forwarded a myriad of alternate explanations pointing to Ukrainian forces. An official
Dutch-led investigation is working to identify
the culprits, but results are not expected until
later this year.
Bellingcat, a group of semi-amateur investigators, have for almost two years labored to
reach their own conclusions. They have focused
on hardware details, comparing types of equipment in use by Ukrainian and Russian forces,
and searching for open-source images of missiles and missile launchers known to have been
operating in east Ukraine the day MH17 was
VALERY MELNIKOV / RIA NOVOSTI
Activist investigators claim to have identified Russian missile
launcher responsible for downing MH17.
A Buk-M1, comparable to the one suspected of
downing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.
shot down. Russian officials have consistently
questioned the competence of Bellingcat’s investigators to conduct this kind of work.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded on May 4 by claiming the identity
of the Bellingcat group was “unknown,” and
therefore suspect. Furthermore, he deferred
questions about Buk designations to the Defense Ministry. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that an official statement would be
made only after Russian experts have time to
study the latest Bellingcat report.
In their evidence, published on May 3, the
Bellingcat team claimed to have identified the
specific Buk as unit 332. Images of the unknown
Buk in east Ukraine showed a three and a two
painted on the side, separated by an obfuscated
number. Bellingcat scoured Russian social media networks to find older photos of Buks in
Kursk with designations 312, 322 and 332.
Beyond the numbers three and two, the
mystery Buk had unique dents on the protective skirt lining its chassis, and one wheel that
didn’t match the others. The team also noticed
that all Buk launchers have unique arrangements of cables connecting the chassis to the
rotating turret. By comparing these features to
known Ukrainian Buk launchers, and the Russian units in Kursk, the team concluded that it
was a match to Russian Buk number 332.
While the activist investigators have raised
the technical sophistication of the MH17 debates, Russia has been keen to compete on technical detail. Last year, Buk missile manufacturer Almaz-Antey held press conferences in which
they claimed a Soviet-built Buk missile, no longer in service with the Russian military, was the
only weapon type that could have produced the
damage patterns seen on the aircraft body.
When photos of those missiles in service
with the Russian military were found online,
Almaz-Antey then denied Buk-specific damage
patterns were even present on the MH17 hull.
The latest Bellingcat report is unlikely to
change either side’s position on who shot down
MH17. The question is whether, by increasing
the level of technical detail and expertise, they
are also pushing the case beyond public comprehension. TMT
The Moscow Times
No. 5753 (17)
May 5 – 11, 2016
—
Editor-in-Chief Mikhail Fishman
Production Manager Igor Grishin
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m.kamenskaya@imedia.ru
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Kremlin Operates on Its Most
Demoralized Patient – The Media
F
ive years ago, then-President Dmitry Medvedev met with
leading representatives of Russia’s online media community
— digital entrepreneurs, executives, scholars, authors and
some opposition-minded bloggers. The gathering took place in a
refurbished Moscow City Youth Library, and it had the look and
style of a U.S. town hall meeting.
Back then, exactly one year before President Vladimir Putin’s
return to Kremlin, the reality of Russian media seemed so different. The participants addressed matters of the future, they
spoke about innovation and openness, competitiveness and globalization. Of course, they talked about the problems: about free
speech, media development and excessive state participation.
But the assumption was that government was open for discussion. After all, Medvedev had promised an innovation economy.
Today, however, Russian media has been transformed from
head to toe. Over five difficult years, state doctors have taken a
scalpel to any “organs” non-compliant to the new rules — like
RIA Novosti in December 2013. They applied “legal chemotherapy” to the rest, literally expelling foreign capital from media
business. Aesculapian authorities practiced laparoscopic manipulations to remove undesirable journalists and editors from
news outlets. And under a “genetic” treatment, the principles of
editorial independence and freedom of expression were replaced
by values of censorship, loyalty, manipulative propaganda and
agenda-setting.
Roughly half of the participants of the famous Medvedev
meeting in May 2011 are now either expelled from mass media,
or live under scrutiny and legal persecution. Svetlana Mironyuk
works for a bank, Anton Nossik had been charged for supposed
“extremism” in a blog post, while the Russian startup leaders are
now mostly based in California’s Silicon Valley.
An even bigger change occurred outside the media business.
Over those five years, the Kremlin learned a trick or two about its
public. It now understood that propaganda works only when you
have reframed and primed your audience. Academics have yet to
study the mass social manipulation that took place between 2012
and 2016. But we can say with some certainly that Russia has
witnessed a shift from relatively pluralistic and open media to a
new form altogether. Today Russian media channels a “besieged
fortress” mind-set, and represents a jingoistic and socially conservative tribe that negates any kind of “foreign values.” The demand for neutral journalism has all but disappeared.
This transformation could not have happened without pressure from above. But it has also taken on an energy of its own. In
order to “satisfy” the demand for a conservative mind-set, major
Russian news outlets have became even more nationalistic, antiWestern and conservative than required.
There are few truly independent media companies operating
in Russia today, and even fewer influential ones. Within dependent — controlled by state or its oligarch-agents — newspapers
and television stations, laparoscopic exercises continue. This is
the case with RBC (RosBusinessConsulting), arguably Russia’s
most thorough and independent news organization, but ultimately dependent on the wider business interests of its billion-
By Vasily Gatov
Media researcher, analyst, media
investment expert and board member
of WAN-IFRA
aire owner, Mikhail Prokhorov. Whatever the reasons that have
been given regarding the departure of editor-in-chief Yelizaveta
Osetinskaya, it is safe to assume the Kremlin pushed Prokhorov
to appoint a less combative editor to head the publication.
Putin’s five-year plan to conquer the media and free speech is
celebrating an undoubted success across all traditional, broadcast and digital media. The commercial press, whether pro-government, oppositional or neutral, has been forced to adopt his
agenda. It is an agenda that considers Russia to be more important then Russians, the state to be superior to citizens and power
to be better then freedom.
You may pray for it or you may condemn it. But you can’t
avoid it. As journalist, author or editor in Russia you act under
the scenario of Putin’s playbook, leading down a road of no return, right up to the media cemetery.
Yet, with all such apocalyptic pictures in mind, there is a professional resurgence in some distinct areas — like the Latviabased Meduza news website, the advocacy-based Takie Dela and
Mediazona, and the education-based Arzamas.Academy, Open
Lectures and Open University. Those startups feature innovative
ideas, advanced journalism and creative use of content — and
employ the creme de la creme of modern Russian journalists.
Smaller and less ambitious in scale then earlier democratic
media, these experiments, in fact, secure the future of socially responsible communication in Russian society.
When society will ask for it again, however, is another
question. TMT
GALINA GUBCHENKO
SPIN DOCTORS
Looking Back
“We’re going to wage a true
information war against MTS —
one of those Kiselyov talks about in
his programs.” Georgy Alburov.
May 5 – 11, 2016
11GB
Size of anonymous
International’s latest leak.
In 2014, anonymous International
supposedly hacked Dmitry Medvedev’s
Twitter account, sending out a tweet:
“I’m resigning. I am ashamed of this
government’s actions. Forgive me.”
2 1/2 hours
3
amount of time oleg
kozlovsky’s SMS service was
disconnected by MTS.
One Day, Two Hack Jobs
By Eva Hartog e.hartog@imedia.ru, Twitter: @EvaHartog | Illustration by Galina Gubchenko
Russians from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum
find their communications exposed in the space of 24 hours.
I
t was 2:25 a.m. on Friday when the SMS function on Oleg
Kozlovsky’s mobile phone was silently disabled. Fifteen
minutes later, an unknown device requested access to Kozlovsky’s account on Telegram, the messaging service with a
claim to airtight security. Telegram sent Kozlovsky’s mobile
number a verification code by SMS. That would’ve alerted him
to the intrusion. But, of course, the text message never arrived.
Instead, a third party intercepted the code. It was then used
to log into Kozlovsky’s Telegram account with another device.
Elsewhere in the Russian capital, opposition activist Georgy Alburov fell victim to a similar scam.
It would have been the perfect crime had the intruder not
left behind two trails. First, Telegram had sent the men another notification message through its own app, which they saw
later that morning. And when Kozlovsky and Alburov checked
their Telegram accounts, they could see a spook second user
was still logged in. “It was like coming home to your apartment
only to find the door open and your clothes scattered across the
floor,” Kozlovsky, a civic activist, told The Moscow Times.
When the men asked MTS, one of Russia’s largest mobile
operators, to explain how Telegram’s text messages could
have disappeared into thin air, employees initially admitted
the men’s phone settings had been tampered with by its “security department.” Since then, in statements to Russian media, the MTS spokesman has denied any “deliberate attempts”
of interference. He has blamed external hackers or technical
failure.
But Pavel Durov, the Russian founder of Telegram who
has been in exile following his own clashes with the Russian
authorities over user privacy several years ago, cried foul play.
“It looks like Russia’s security services have started pressuring mobile operators,” he told the liberal Ekho Moskvy radio
station. “Such interference is typical for cannibalistic regimes that don’t care about their reputation, in Central Asia,
sometimes the Middle East,” he said. “Now it’s happened in
Russia.”
A political motive looks plausible. Alburov is an active
member of opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Fund, which regularly pesters Russia’s elite with their
investigations into corruption. Kozlovsky mostly works with
charities and he describes his work as “civic, not political.”
But he has also organized several trips for journalists and activists to Ukraine to mend ties between the two countries.
Now, he thinks that might have drawn unwanted attention.
The past week’s events have united Alburov and Kozlovsky
in a crusade to find those responsible for the security breaches. They’ve threatened to sue MTS and have launched a social
media campaign calling upon Russians to switch operators.
Local Moscow deputy Maxim Katz has responded to that
call. In 2014, while he was participating in local elections,
two years’ worth of his private text messages were leaked to
the press. At that time, MTS also blamed hackers and investigators never followed up on his complaint, he said. “There
are too many coincidences, it’s becoming a pattern,” he says.
“Probably all Russian operators are somehow controlled [by
the authorities] but at least my new operator doesn’t have
such precedents yet.”
MTS had not responded to a request for comment from
The Moscow Times at the time of publication.
Turning the Tables
While spooks were reportedly digging through the private
correspondence of opposition-minded activists, Anonymous International, also known as Shaltai-Boltai, was
waging its own war. In a blog post on April 29, the group
claimed to have broken into the Whatsapp messaging account of propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov. All 11 gigabytes of
private correspondence — including data from two email
accounts, one of which reportedly belongs to Kiselyov’s
wife — will be sold at a Bitcoin auction in mid-May, with
bids starting at the virtual currency’s equivalent of about
$33,000, the group said.
The hackers did not explain why they targeted Kiselyov and they did not respond to a request for comment.
But Kiselyov is a central figure in Russia’s state-dominated
media landscape and the group is clearly aiming to embarrass him. Previews of the leaked correspondence allegedly
show Kiselyov employed a legal team to contest the inclusion of his name on a blacklist of figures close to Putin in
response to Russia’s role in the Ukraine conflict. Such actions contradict Kiselyov’s rabidly anti-Western public persona. He famously once said Russia could reduce the United States to “radioactive ash.”
Other leaks show that Kiselyov reportedly bought a
$4.6-million home in central Moscow in 2014. Navalny
has confirmed the purchase in a blog post, citing previously publicly available records, but added he did not know
whether the other claims were real. Meanwhile, ShaltaiBoltai’s website has been blocked in Russia.
Ring, Ring
The use of technology as an instrument in the political
standoff between pro-Kremlin forces and opposition activists has become widespread, says prominent media and security analyst Andrei Soldatov. But that doesn’t make the
fight a fair one.
In Russia, where the abuse of power by the authorities
largely goes unpunished, there are simpler ways to people’s private data than through complicated technology
hacks. Under the law on System for Operative Investigative
Activities, or SORM, authorities can freely access Russians’
phone and online communication.
And when that law fails, or is seen as too time-consuming, there’s always the tried and tested method of applying personal pressure on company employees to cast aside
their clients’ privacy.
“One phone call [from the FSB] is all it takes,” says Soldatov. “Nothing more.” TMT
4
Looking Forward
“There is no sign that we could lose
our leadership position.”
Tigran Khudaverdyan, head of
Yandex.Taxi.
The Moscow Times
No. 5753
99 rubles
Minimum fare in Moscow of
both Uber and Yandex.Taxi.
557 Bln rubles
“We are seeing very rapid growth in
Russia.” Dmitry Izmailov, head of
Uber in Russia.
Total annual
revenues from
Russia’s taxi market.
Uber Takes Fight to Russian Rivals
By Peter Hobson p.hobson@imedia.ru, Twitter: @peterhobson15 | Illustration by Evgeny Tonkonogy
Californian startup drops prices in attempt to increase market share.
3
,200 rubles to the center,” says a stocky, middle-aged
man in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, quoting a taxi
fare equal to about one-and-a-half times the average
Muscovite’s daily wage. He pauses to register amazement on
the face of his potential ride. “Alright, alright,” he says. “Special offer then, just for you: 3,000 and you’re done.”
Souk-style bargaining is still par for the course at most
Russian airport arrivals halls, with few bargains on offer. But
elsewhere in the country, technology is king. Today, three
big taxi smartphone applications are battling for position
in a large and growing taxi market, worth an estimated $8.5
billion per year. It is unclear which of Israel’s Gett, Russia’s
Yandex.Taxi, and California-based upstart Uber will eventually win out.
In late April, Uber made its latest move to capture more
Russian customers by undercutting its rivals significantly.
It announced that trips to and from Moscow airports would
begin at a fixed rate of only 700 rubles ($11), up to a third
lower than the competition.
Since entering Russia in 2013 with just a few cars signed
up to its service, Uber has expanded rapidly. In April alone, it
entered two new Russian cities, Ufa and Nizhny Novgorod,
taking the total to 10. It aims to cover some 40 major Russian
cities in the near future.
Valued at some $60 billion, Uber has been accused of using its massive financial advantage to crush the competition. When it arrives in a new market, it lures drivers to its
platform with bonus paychecks and minimal commissions.
Since beginning in 2010, Uber has entered a new city every
five-and-a-bit days and reportedly run up losses of hundreds
of millions of dollars. Its billionaire investors foot the bill
without batting an eye, banking on future profits once the
company has conquered the world.
Russia appears to be no exception. Two days after the airport price cut, Uber announced that over the long Russian
May holidays, fares in the popular Black Sea resort of Sochi
would fall by up to 25 percent.
Yet Uber in Russia is still trailing the competition, and by
some distance. Its biggest rival is Yandex.Taxi, an offshoot
of one of Russia’s biggest tech companies. Yandex got into
the taxi app revolution early, launching in 2011. Like Uber,
it offers safe, clean, modern cars — no chance of riding in a
beat-up Lada. It now has 40,000 drivers in 17 Russian cities,
and boasts more than half a million users each month. Gett,
which also quickly expanded into Russia, lags only slightly
behind with some 36,000 registered drivers.
Uber refuses to reveal data on its drivers or finances, but
a year ago it had only one-fifth of Yandex’s fleet. Dmitry Izmailov, Uber’s chief in Russia, would say only that the company is witnessing “very rapid growth.”
So far, Yandex is matching Uber’s aggression with its
own. “We don’t plan on giving up,” says Tigran Khudaverdyan, Yandex.Taxi’s chief executive. Khudaverdyan suggested
his company was “perhaps even more aggressive” than Uber.
Uber and Yandex.Taxi offer a minimum fare price of 99
rubles ($1.50) for short trips. But Uber undercuts on longer
journeys. It takes 8 rubles ($0.12) for each minute and each
kilometer in Moscow on longer routes, compared to Yandex’s 9-ruble charge.
Yandex.Taxi claims to offer better quality service, but
that pricing policy has helped Uber improve its position in
the Russian capital. It now has orders and drivers in droves.
“Uber’s are definitely the lowest rates,” says Mikhail, a goldtoothed Uber driver originally from Ukraine. “But the biggest plus is that you always get orders.” The longest Mikhail
has ever had to wait between Uber orders is 35 minutes. In
the city center, ride requests arrive much faster.
That is a far cry from five years ago, when taxi drivers
would often wait hours between fares. “A taxi in Moscow
would take no less than 30-40 minutes to reach you and the
ride would cost at least 500 or 600 rubles,” says Bogdan Konoshenko, a cab company director and member of Moscow’s
chamber of commerce.
Despite some protest, Russian authorities have proved surprisingly open to Yandex, Uber and similar taxi newcomers.
One reason for this is the disorganization of potential opposition. Unlike in Europe, Moscow has no taxi lobby that traces
its history to the era of the horse-drawn carriage driver. It
has nothing like London’s “The Knowledge,” in which cabbies
memorized city maps for years to gain admission to the trade.
In Moscow the best way to hail a taxi was to stick out a
thumb and haggle a fee with a driver who might not even
have a driving license. It is hardly surprising that ordinary Russians have taken to the new technology in such
numbers.
The arrival of apps has also prompted a taxi industry
boom by increasing efficiency. Average call-out times in
Moscow are now around five minutes, giving drivers more
productive hours. According to government research published in March, the average Moscow taxi driver brings in
7,300 rubles ($110) per day — a respectable income by Moscow
standards.
Meanwhile, a constellation of smaller companies has
popped up to use the application architecture, offering vehicles and drivers for hire. The taxi market has grown by 85
percent in the five years since Yandex.Taxi pioneered its app,
the government research found. There are one-fifth more
vehicles giving rides, and the number of taxi companies has
doubled.
Moscow authorities fired a warning shot over Uber’s bows
earlier this year, threatening to ban the service if it did not
employ only drivers with taxi licenses and share with City
Hall the details of routes traveled. Other services had already
agreed to the regulations. Employing licensed drivers is
something Yandex.Taxi says sets its service apart from Uber.
Under pressure, Uber agreed to the new rules.
But both companies say their relations with Russian authorities are generally smooth. It seems to be accepted wisdom that the new industry will be dominated by applications. “Those who don’t work with apps are disappearing
from the market,” says Konoshenko.
Meanwhile, the battle between Uber and its rivals is moving to the regions. There, says Yandex.Taxi’s Khudaverdyan,
Yandex’s lead is bigger — “and we are developing faster than
our competitors.”
Uber has overtaken rivals before, and it’s value is 10 times
Yandex’s capitalization of around $6.5 billion. But Khudaverdyan says he is not scared by Uber’s financial firepower.
They may have deep pockets, but, he says “we have very
good brains.” TMT
Looking Forward
May 5 – 11, 2016
2%
“We are tired of waiting! We
will change this system with or
without the current government!”
Governor Mikheil Saakashvili.
of Ukrainians “fully support”
Poroshenko as president.
The profitability of President
Poroshenko’s confectionary
company Roshen increased ninefold
over the first year of his presidency.
20%
5
Hit to Ukrainian GDP
following Crimea annexation
and war in the east.
Last Chance for Poroshenko
Two years after his election, the Ukrainian president drifts toward an inglorious finale.
T
his month marks the two-year anniversary of Petro Poroshenko being elected president of Ukraine.
The elevation of the chocolate magnate to the top
chair came following tragic events at Maidan, the flight of former President Viktor Yanukovych and the annexation of parts
of Ukrainian territory by Russia. Poroshenko was eventually
elected president in one round, but this was only made possible after a clever media campaign and deals with leading politicians and oligarchic clans.
The results of such deals continue to undermine Poroshenko’s presidency. The oligarchs are as strong as ever, parliament
remains riddled with corruption, and the president still can’t
decide who he is: statesman or businessman.
All the while, Poroshenko’s task has been weighed down
by peace negotiations for eastern Ukraine. The Minsk agreements, which contain his signature, have become a black mark
in Ukrainian politics. Indeed, the very first stage of their implementation — the adoption of amendments to the constitution
— was marked by live grenades, bloodshed and the death of
four national guardsmen on the square in front of parliament.
Today, the Minsk agreements have become so unpopular in
Ukraine that their only real purpose could be to exacerbate internal conflict and bring forward early parliamentary elections.
It is impossible to believe that parliament will vote for the necessary laws while Russia has not played its role in implementing a full cease-fire in the Donbass, the withdrawal of heavy
weaponry and the handover of border control back to Ukraine.
The two-year mark of Poroshenko’s rule coincides with the
forming of a new Cabinet. Headed by Volodymyr Groysman,
MykOLa LazaREnkO / REUTERS
Op-Ed by Sergii Leshchenko
Former investigative journalist and MP in
Petro Poroshenko’s parliamentary bloc
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko inspects a
Dozor armored vehicle in Kiev, January 2015.
considered a Poroshenko ally, it is the president’s last chance
for a loyal government.
The new coalition controls 226 votes in parliament, a narrow arithmetic majority. Groysman’s government finds itself
having to scrape together votes from outside parties to pass
important bills. His only real allies in this mission are the oligarchic factions Vidrodzhennya (Renaissance) and Volya Narodov (People’s Will).
Meanwhile, Groysman has turned out to be more cunning
than Poroshenko expected. During the course of negotiations,
the prime-minister-to-be issued an unexpected ultimatum:
He would only agree if the president removed several loyal
ministerial underlings from the Cabinet. I witnessed Poroshenko’s anger during internal meetings of his parliamentary
bloc. Sparks flew between the president and prime minister.
In the end, Groysman emerged the victor, and demonstrated that he was unprepared to be a blind executioner. He has his
own ambitions, and his statements to the effect of him not intending to ballot for the presidency seem no more than platitudes to calm the jealousy of Poroshenko.
The main takeaway from two years of Poroshenko’s presidency has been the defeat of reform at the gates of oligarchic
consensus. Not one of Ukraine’s main oligarchs has suffered
serious losses. Igor Kolomoisky remains strong as ever, and
even supported Groysman’s bid for prime minister. Rinat Akhmetov, who for many years acted as a parasite around government tenders, still holds key influence, albeit less than was
once assumed.
Sixty percent of Ukrainians consider the president personally responsible for the continued high levels of corruption. This
figure shows just how much post-revolutionary Ukraine has
raised its expectations of its politicians. The demand from society today couldn’t be clearer: It wants zero tolerance for corruption and the complete rejection of oligarchic clans.
The anti-corruption rhetoric of the former Georgian president, current governor of Odessa, Mikheil Saakashvili, most
clearly answers this call. It has made him one of the most popular politicians in the country — despite very modest breakthroughs in Odessa itself. Saakashvili plans to bring young reformers together and to demand early parliamentary elections.
The final word on whether parliament is dismissed early
is left to Poroshenko, who is uninterested in strengthening
Saakashvili’s position. In this the president is helped by Groysman’s new government, which has pushed back early elections
by at least a year. In Ukraine, that’s a lifetime — preferences
may change many times over 12 months.
Further delays in fighting corruption will make things even
worse for the president. Poroshenko and his entourage cannot continue to make their fortunes with impunity. Journalists
and politicians of the new generation will simply not allow it.
If Poroshenko decides to ignore the warnings, the outcome
is clear. It will lead to the further decimation of his rating, and,
with it, a most inglorious end to his presidential career. TMT
6
Russian Tales
“Do you seriously think it’s possible to
preserve Vladimir’s body?”
Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife.
The Moscow Times
No. 5753
55 kg
estimated weight of Lenin’s
body in the mausoleum.
Jan. 21, 1924
at first, the soviet government
considered freezing Lenin’s body.
several months after his death,
they decided to embalm it.
The day of
Vladimir Lenin’s death.
He was 53 years old.
peTer anDrews / reuTers
Over the
years, all internal organs,
including the
brain, have
been removed
from Lenin’s
embalmed
body. A team
of dedicated
scientists
attend the
the remaining
mass of skin,
skeleton and
muscle.
In the Flesh
By Daria Litvinova d.litvinova@imedia.ru | Twitter: @dashalitvinovv
It started out as an accidental experiment, but 92 years on,
Vladimir Lenin’s embalmed body is no closer to soil.
H
e lies in a glass sarcophagus. His eyes are closed, reddish beard and mustache trimmed, and his hands rest
calmly on his thighs. Dressed in an austere black suit,
Vladimir Lenin, the first Soviet leader, looks, on first impressions, to be sleeping. His image is so lifelike that it often scares
children. Many adults assume it is a waxwork, rather than the
actual body of someone who died 92 years ago.
And yet, it is Lenin’s body, at least in part. If carefully monitored, nurtured and re-embalmed regularly, scientists believe
it can last for centuries. During Soviet times, an extensive infrastructure was developed to ensure this happened.
The public may be divided over such a prospect, but for the
time being the authorities seem committed to Lenin’s care
and keeping. Last month, the Federal Guard Service — territory
near the Kremlin, including the mausoleum, falls into their
jurisdiction — announced a tender for “medical and biological
works to maintain Lenin’s body” in 2016. The sum advertised
was 13 million rubles ($197,000).
Life and Death
When Lenin died in January 1924, no one planned to preserve his body for this long. A renowned pathologist Alexei
Abrikosov performed the usual autopsy on the body, and,
among other things, cut its major arteries. “Later he would
say that if he had known they would embalm the body, he
wouldn’t have done it,” says Alexei Yurchak, professor of
social anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley.
“The blood-vascular system could have been used to deliver embalming chemicals to the tissue.”
After the autopsy, Lenin’s body was temporarily embalmed to prevent it from immediately decomposing, so
that it could be put on display to give people a chance to
pay their respects to the beloved Soviet leader. It was anticipated Lenin would then be buried on Red Square.
For four days, the corpse was kept in an open casket at
the Union House (Dom Soyuzov) in the center of Moscow.
People from all over the Soviet Union lined up to say their
final goodbyes. Crowds of 50,000 people passed through
the hall where the casket was placed. It was exceptionally
cold outside, and, even inside, the temperature was minus
7 degrees Celsius. Contemporary accounts recall bonfires
kept burning nearby to prevent visitors from freezing.
Despite the cold, more and more people, including
foreign delegations, wanted to pay their respects to the
deceased leader. So four days after Lenin’s death, the
government moved the casket to a temporary wooden
mausoleum on Red Square and made it available for visitors. The corpse was kept cold and had not started to rot.
It was 56 days after Lenin’s death that Soviet officials
decided to preserve the body.
The first idea didn’t involve embalming, but deep freezing
the body. Leonid Krasin, the international trade minister at
the time, was granted permission to acquire special freezing
equipment in Germany. Yet in early March 1924, when preparations for freezing were gaining momentum, two wellknown chemists Vladimir Vorobyov and Boris Zbarsky suggested embalming the body. They proposed using a chemical
mixture that would prevent the corpse from decomposing,
drying up and changing color and shape. Zbarsky argued
that freezing was not the best option — decomposing would
still continue even in low temperatures, he said.
At first, Vorobyov was reluctant to take part in the project.
He was out of the Bolshevik government’s good graces and
was afraid to fail such a high-profile assignment and face retribution. However, he was one of the best in the field and had
already successfully preserved several bodies using embalming techniques.
Eventually, after a series of government meetings and inspections of the body, the decision was made to give embalming a try. It was already late March — the weather was improving, temperatures were rising, and waiting longer could
have caused permanent damage to the body.
The corpse had, in fact, already suffered damage by that
point. Dark spots had begun to appear on the skin, including
Continued on Page 11 →
Weekly round-up of all
that’s new, delicious and
fun in Moscow.
The Balalaika
bar is set to
participate in
the Moscow
festival “Cocktail Mania,”
May 16 to June
16. This year,
bars will create cocktails
inspired by
legends of
international
cinema.
BALALAIKA
Out & About
7
May 5 – 11, 2016
Let Me Hear Your Balalaikas Ringing Out
By Fraser Barr artsreporter@imedia.ru
W
A quirky musical bar opens on the Arbat, serving traditional Russian fare.
ith its open plan and minimalist
design, Balalaika offers a refreshing
break from the Arbat’s usual coffee
chains, souvenir shops and kebab kiosks.
The brainchild of Valerie Dorodnykh and
Yekaterina Nesterova — the same duo responsible for Ukulele on Ulitsa Pokrovka — this
designer den of exposed wiring and bare lightbulbs uses balalaikas as wall decorations. Musicians take note: The instruments are available
to purchase.
Head barman Dmitry Urusov has a wide
variety of infused vodkas, spirits and specialty
cocktails. For beer lovers there’s a range on
offer from Russian craft brewery Jaws, able
to hold its own against international brews in
taste and design.
Head upstairs into the vaulted mezzanine
dining area and you’ll be able to peruse the
menu. Balalaika specializes solely in Russian
cuisine and offers hungry diners a plethora of
traditional, high-quality dishes. Hearty salads
with simple hors oeuvres make an appetizing
starter or a light bite for tourists on the run.
While the mains are hardly the most exciting or
inventive dishes in Moscow, they are full of fla-
vor and proudly Russian. Be wary, however, the
waiters’ keen desire to offer you tea before you
glance at the menu is not necessarily good customer service, but perhaps to stop you noticing
it is by far one of the more expensive options
on the drinks menu.
With its clean and trendy interior, Balalaika
doesn’t offer any innovative décor. If not for
the balalaikas mounted on the wall, it would be
indistinguishable from the array of new eateries in the capital attempting to channel the latest in European hipster chic. It is the authentic Russian menu that sets it apart, and with
its central location, Balalaika gives visitors and
Muscovites a perfectly pleasant place to have
either a meal or a drink with little pretense of
offering otherwise. Who its clientele will be
remains to be seen, but for anyone wishing to
escape the generic burger joints of Moscow and
get a real taste of what Russian cuisine has to
offer, this place will be nothing less than perfectly satisfactory. TMT
+7 (495) 740 9061
balaykabar.ru
23 Ulitsa Arbat
Metro Arbatskaya
VAPORT
BOTTEGA VENTUNO
KAFANA
TRUE COST
NEWS & OPENINGS
True Cost
The cheapest restaurant in Moscow?
Kafana
Serbian eatery with generous portions
Bottega Ventuno
Hearty food in an upmarket neighborhood
Vaport
+7 (499) 750 0050
facebook.com/Truecostbar
23/3 Ulitsa Lva Tolstogo
Metro Park Kultury
+7 (925) 570 7300
kafana.ru
12 Dobrovolcheskaya Ulitsa
Metro Taganskaya
+7 (968) 377 5005
facebook.com/BottegaVentuno-1566781750318643
21/13 Ulitsa Malaya Bronnaya
Metro Pushkinskaya, Tverskaya
+7 (495) 665 2321
vaport.club
1 Krasnokholmskaya Naberezhnaya, Bldg. 3
Metro Taganskaya
True Cost has a totally new concept: You pay an
entrance fee (150 rubles in the day, 500 rubles in
the evening) and each dish costs market price. The
menu displays the average Moscow price alongside. An espresso costs 14.8 rubles, the tasty Viennese schnitzel is 138.20 rubles and the ubiquitous
salad Olivier costs 74.05 rubles. Generally excellent
food quality compensates for slow service.
Kafana may mean bistro, but this Taganka joint
is more of a restaurant. Serbian pop music blares
from the speakers while the kitchen serves up traditional Serbian dishes. Try the Kafana platter (780
rubles), with its grilled peppers in yogurt, sausages, kaymak cheese and duck pate. The servings
are huge — you’ll struggle to finish more than one
dish. Bring cash as Kafana doesn’t accept cards.
Take it and go!
Bottega is the latest addition to the restaurant
scene around Patriarch’s Ponds. The menu covers
all the Italian basics. Try the crostini with chicken
liver (340 rubles) risotto with taleggio cheese (610
rubles) or the fregola with calamari (680 rubles)
and polenta. Order a chilled Peroni or bring a bottle of your favorite red — there’s no corkage fee.
Vaping hangout by the river
E-cigarette smokers are spoiled for choice at
Vaport, a new bar packed with an array of e-liquids. There is no rental service (prices for e-liquids are around 3,000 rubles and other equipment considerably more), so newcomers might
want to opt for a classic shisha. Vaport has a
reasonably priced bar, knowledgeable staff and
stays open until the early hours on the weekend.
Four pages packed with the best places in Moscow to eat, drink, walk, shop, listen, watch, dance and sightsee.
A new walking route and listings every week! Take it, use it, save it!
8
Walking Route
The Moscow Times
No. 5753
Honor Russia’s Past
Learn about the
War of 1812 and the
Great Patriotic War
By Michele A. Berdy m.berdy@imedia.ru | Illustration by Ilya Kutoboy
On Poklonnaya Gora, see exhibits from
the first Patriotic War of 1812
and the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45
3. The Monument to Victory and Museum of the Great
Patriotic War
Take one of the underpasses to the other side of Kutuzovsky
Prospekt. After decades of problems, Victory Park was completed and opened on the 50th anniversary of Victory Day in 1995.
Walk down the main alley with 225 fountains — the number
of weeks of the war — to the monument designed by Zurab
Tsereteli. It is 141.8 meters tall (one decimeter for each day of
war) and covered with bronze bas-reliefs. At the 104-meter
mark is a 25-ton bronze sculptural group with the goddess
of victory, Nika, and two cupids announcing the joyous news
through horns. Opposite the monument is the Museum of the
Great Patriotic War, which may be the most comprehensive
museum about the war in Russia. Various halls show the progression of the war with documents, artifacts, photographs,
film clips, letters, and memorabilia, while dioramas and other
exhibitions give you a vivid sense of some of the key battles of
the war. There is also a 3-D show called “The Road to Victory.”
Poklonnaya Gora
This area has long been called Poklonnaya Gora (“bowingdown hill”), although no one is sure why — perhaps because
travelers stopped here to pay their respects before entering the city, or maybe because they paid poklon — a fee for
temporary residence — here. Now the name is understood as
a place of homage to those who fought and died in the Great
Patriotic War — as World War II is known in Russia.
3
5. Museum of Judaica and the Holocaust
Behind the war museum is a synagogue and the Museum of
the Holocaust, opened in 1998 as the first museum of Jewish
history in Russia. The small but moving exhibition shows the
life of Jews in pre-Revolutionary Russia — the Settlements
of the Pale, pogroms, and more than 400 laws that limited
Jewish people’s rights to live, study and work where they
wanted and to practice their religion. Another section tells of
the horrors of the Holocaust, and about the role of Jews in the
resistance movement during the war, as well as their contribution to culture, art, economic and state development of the
Russian Empire, the U.S.S.R., and the Russian Federation.
3
5
6
On Poklonnaya Gora
4-hour walk
1
9
1. Battle of Borodino Panorama Museum
This walk begins outside the Kutuzovskaya metro station;
walk away from the center on the right side of street until you
see a round building. That’s the Battle of Borodino Panorama
Museum, which was built in 1962 on the spot where FieldMarshal Kutuzov held his council of war in a peasant hut in
1812. The best part of the museum is the enormous panorama
of the battle: 115 meters around and 15 meters high, painted
by Franz Roubaud to show the French and Russian armies
at Borodino on Sept. 7, 1812. Three-dimensional soldiers slide
seamlessly into the two-dimensional painting as the sounds
of battle ring out. Listen to the guided tour in English and be
sure to ask where Pierre Bezukhov — Tolstoy’s character in
“War and Peace” — fought. The tour guides love that question!
38 Kutuzovsky Prospekt
2
Kutuzovsky Prospekt
2. Triumphal Gates
When you leave the Borodino Museum, continue to walk
away from the center and use the underground passage to
cross the street to Victory Square, the area in the middle
of the highway with the enormous Triumphal Gates. The
original gates were designed by Osip Bove and put up in
1834 on Ploshchad Tverskaya Zastava — then the outer gates
of the city — in honor of Russia’s victory over Napoleon in
1812. When Josef Stalin’s first General Plan for the city went
into effect in the mid-1930s, the gates were dismantled and
put in storage. Alas, little remained in the 1960s when the
authorities wanted to put them up again. So what you see is
a beautiful reproduction from 1968 that was recently restored
for the anniversary of the war in 2012.
4
4. Church of St. George the Victorious
To the left of the monument is the Church of St. George the
Victorious, consecrated in 1995 and a fine and surprising example of a slightly modern take on traditional Russian church
architecture. It is dedicated to St. George, revered for his
strength and bravery for slaying a dragon, and much beloved
in Russia. He is the patron saint of Moscow and is one of the
emblems of the Russian state. It is no wonder that the church
here, in Victory Park, was dedicated to this warrior-saint.
6. Outdoor Exhibition of Military Equipment
If you visit the park with children, chances are they will be
tugging at your sleeves to get to the outdoor exhibition —
over 300 pieces of equipment, tanks, artillery, cars, transport
vehicles and weaponry from the war years. While most of
the pieces are from the Red Army, there are also examples
of equipment captured from Germany and Japan, as well as
fighter planes and other equipment provided by the United
States under the Lend-Lease program. Kids are welcome to
scramble all over them. In other parts of Victory Park you
can rent bikes or segways, grab a bite to eat, or simply sit
on a bench and watch kids zip by on their skateboards and
rollerblades, sipping sodas and flirting, as mothers chase
after toddlers, fathers help young cyclists, and grandparents
cluck over everyone. This festive family atmosphere, at first
unexpected, is truly the best way to celebrate victory.
The Moscow Times
No. 5753
City of Chekhov: Where to see The Seagull in Moscow
If any city has the right to call itself the city of Chekhov, it’s Moscow. Although the
great playwright and short story writer was born in the south of Russia, he spent most
of his adult life in Moscow and it was here that he solidified his status as one of the
pillars of modern theater.
“Chaika” (The Seagull) is probably Chekhov’s best-known work. It focuses on the relationships and conflicts — both artistic and romantic — between Arkadina, an aging
actress, her lover celebrity writer Trigorin, her son Treplev, and their neighbor Zarechnaya.
An enduringly popular play, “The Seagull” has recently acquired a new subtext due to
allegations of criminal activity concerning Prosecutor General Yury Chaika and his
family. The connection became obvious when opposition pranksters installed a fake
Seagull billboard in front of the Sovremennik Theater building. In another incident at
the premier of “Theatrical Insomnia: The Seagull” at the Stanislavsky Electrotheater,
Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova wore a seagull mask advertising her new video
about the prosecutor.
Whether you’re a traditionalist, or a fan of modern interpretations, Chekhov’s seminal
play can be seen at many of Moscow’s theaters. Here are our top picks.
Experimental production by 3 talented
directors
Treplev’s argument with his mother about
the “new forms” versus “routine theater” is
taken very literally in this avant-garde performance. The “new forms,” of course, win.
The production is experimental in more ways
than one. Firstly, you can only see the performance late at night — hence the insomnia.
The play starts after midnight and during
the breaks you see additional performances,
including some Chekhov-inspired rap music.
Secondly, each of the three acts is the
work of a different director, and all three
of them are up and coming talents: Yury
Muravitsky, Yury Kvyatkovsky and Kirill
Vytoptov. Finally, each act in itself is an
experiment. Muravitsky’s interpretation of
“The Seagull” is a catwalk where each of the
characters is a model repeating his or her
key lines from the play. Kvyatkovsky’s act is
a series of improvisations in which actors
adopt and shed identities faster than you
would have thought possible. Vytoptov’s final
act is set at a bar, where Chekhov’s characters
meet their contemporary equivalents. These
include Elvis Presley and Amy Winehouse
lookalikes. It’s in many ways a surreal experience, but an invigorating one.
electrotheatre.ru
23 Tverskaya Ulitsa
Metro Pushkinskaya, Tverskaya
MOST Theater
Satirikon
“Theatrical Insomnia: The Seagull”
at the Stanislavsky Electrotheater
“Chekhov” at the MOST Theater
An amalgamation of Chekhov’s best works
MOST stands for Moscow United Student
Theater. While it may have started out as a
student-led initiative, most of the actors nowadays are either semi-professional or working
at the theater full time. “Chekhov” is not one
but three plays: “The Seagull,” “Three Sisters”
and “Cherry Orchard.” All three plots take place
on the stage simultaneously. Director Georgiy
Dolmazyan put together a jigsaw puzzle of
scenes taken to conjure up a whole new Chekhov’s universe.
Of course, there is no time for all the scenes
from all 3 plays in one performance, but MOST’s
production manages to capture the central
themes of each in an imaginative way. If you
know Chekhov’s lines well enough you will be
able to distinguish where one ends and the
other one begins. If not, it will look like a single
seamless performance. Gradually, you come
to realize that the main character is not one
of the numerous people crowding the stage at
any given moment, but the master himself,
Chekhov. Familiar characters, problems and
scenarios as well as the search for answers to
life’s fundamental questions invite you to delve
deeper into Chekhov’s creative world.
teatrmost.ru
6 Bolshaya Sadovaya. Metro Mayakovskaya
Satirikon
Charlotte Tasktzar, freelance English tutor and student of Russian
“A regular haunt for when I’m craving genuine Vietnamese food is Cafe Saigon. The
interior isn’t anything extravagant, but the dishes are the most authentic I have
found outside Vietnam. And it’s not bad value either!”
“The Seagull” at the Satirikon Theater
Vast in proportion and possibility
One of the best-known interpretations of
“The Seagull” is by the critically acclaimed
director Yury Butusov from St. Petersburg,
played at the Satirikon Theater. A peculiarity of Butusov’s performances is the repetition of the same scene, each time performed
in a different mood. This technique is used
generously in “The Seagull.” Zarechnaya’s
monologue when she meets Treplev after
being gone for two years goes from psychotic to calm, from tragic to cheery, all played
one after the other.
Butusov also employs unusual choices
for his actresses. Zarechnaya is played by an
older woman, while Arkadina by a younger
one. There’s quite a bit of confusion about
which actors are playing which at points
because characters switch from one to the
other more than once. The performance
features an upbeat soundtrack and plenty of
dancing, with Butusov himself leading the
way. It’s one of the longest versions of “The
Seagull,” lasting more than four hours with
three intermissions.
satirikon.ru
8 Sheremetyevskaya Ulitsa
Metro Marina Roshcha
Tabakov Theater
Out & About
Stanislavsky
Electrotheater
10
“The Seagull” at the Tabakov Theater
Post-modernism meets tradition
Director Konstantin Bogomolov, known
for his scandalous interpretations of classics by such writers as Oscar Wilde and
Fyodor Dostoevsky, sticks to the letter in
this traditional version of “The Seagull.”
Yet Bogomolov still finds ways to insert
interesting elements even in a completely
traditional performance. To begin with,
stage arrangements are quite unusual. The
whole first half is performed on benches
which in turns face the audience and away
from it. The backdrop itself is a screen with
a projection of the action onstage. Except
that on the screen there is an actual curtain, absent on the real stage. This setup
casts the whole production in a somewhat
surreal, post-modernist light. To add to the
feeling sometimes there is a text on the
backdrop notifying where and when the action is taking place (“Tree,” “Day of departure,” etc.). The second act, in total contrast
to the first, uses traditional stage decorations — the interior of a house complete
with cupboard, table, and chairs. Another
twist is that Zarechnaya is played by one
actress in the first act and a different one
in the second. First part’s Zarechnaya is
a young flirty girl, while the second act’s
Zarechnaya is a hollowed out, grim middleaged woman.
tabakov.ru
MKhAT stage at 3 Kamergersky Pereulok
Metro Teatralnaya, Okhotny Ryad
Russian Tales
11
May 5 – 11, 2016
60%
“Lenin is buried under Orthodox
rules. I consulted with priests
on that.” Gennady Zyuganov,
Communist Party leader.
of russians are in favor of a
proper burial for lenin.
Aug. 1, 1924
According to studies, lenin died as a result
of cerebrovascular disease. some have
speculated that he had neurosyphilis.
the red square
mausoleum first
opened.
← Despite
freezing
temperatures, tens of
thousands of
mourners attended Lenin’s
funeral on
Red Square,
Jan. 27, 1924.
riA novosti
AnAtoly GArAnin / riA novosti
→ View over
Red Square
and Lenin’s
tomb, September 1941.
The permanent granite
mausoleum
was completed in 1933.
← Continued from Page 6
embalmed body lay alongside Lenin from 1953 to 1961.
The embalming process was carried out in complete secrecy, with scientists from the lab, occasionally flying to
Vietnam or North Korea to provide maintenance, reluctant
to share information with their foreign colleagues. “Junior
specialists — like I was at the time — weren’t told any of the
specifics,” Vadim Milov, an embalmer who worked in the lab
from 1987 to 1997, told The Moscow Times. “And yet I had
enough information to travel to Vietnam to work on Ho Chi
Minh’s body.”
Attempts by The Moscow Times to interview someone currently assigned to the lab were unsuccessful. After several
written requests to provide comments, Nikolai Sidelnikov, director of the All-Russia Institute of Medicinal Plants, refused
to provide access to the lab, saying it was “subject to commercial and state secrets.”
Yurchak, who has been studying Lenin’s body for years and
has interviewed scientists of the lab, says such secrecy hasn’t
always been the case. “They gave plenty of interviews in the
1990s, one Russian television channel even filmed a detailed
documentary featuring the facilities under the mausoleum.
But the new management of the lab doesn’t want journalists
to turn their work into a joke, which they often do,” the anthropologist said. It is quite likely that authorities have imposed a ban on talking to the media, he added.
Lenin’s face, and his eye sockets were deformed. So, for several
months, scientists set about whitening the skin and calculating
the correct chemical mixture for successful embalming. Under
the pressure of reporting to Soviet officials, they worked day
and night.
On Aug. 1, 1924 the mausoleum on Red Square finally
opened for visitors. “Amazing! It’s an absolute victory,” Zbarsky was reported as saying.
From then on, a group of scientists has been tasked with
maintaining the body. At the peak of its activity during Soviet times, the “Lenin lab” had around 200 specialists working
on the project, according to Yurchak.
Today, the group is a dozen times smaller, but the work
has hardly changed. Every few days scientists visit the mausoleum to check on the body, where it is preserved under
carefully calculated temperature and lighting. And every 18
months the body is re-embalmed in a special facility located
beneath the mausoleum. Here, scientists cautiously wash the
body, immerse it in embalming liquids and inject it with the
necessary chemicals.
Lenin’s body is now little more than a skeleton held together with muscles and skin. All internal organs have been
removed, including the brain. Lenin’s brain was meticulously
examined by the Soviet “Brain Institute,” created not long after Lenin died with the specific role of studying his “extraordinary abilities.” Pieces of Lenin’s brain are still preserved in
the institute, which now forms part of the Neurology Center
at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In addition to ensuring the body looks natural, scientists
nowadays also keep the joints working, monitor the condition of the skin, and sometimes replace damaged tissue with
artificial material. Experimental treatments and new chemicals are usually tested on so-called “experimental objects” —
unidentified embalmed bodies that are kept in the lab — in
order not to accidentally damage Lenin.
The unique technique developed by Soviet scientists has
resulted in several “customers” from abroad. Besides Lenin,
the lab in Moscow also embalmed and preserved, among others, Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh, Bulgarian leader
Georgi Dimitrov, North Korean leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim
Jong-il. Not to mention Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, whose
riA novosti
The Lenin Lab
Post-Soviet Lenin
Lenin’s lab hit hard times after the Soviet Union collapsed.
In 1991 many of Russia’s new democratic rulers called for
the demolition of the mausoleum, and for Lenin to be buried elsewhere. This caused a big protest, recalls Yevgeny
Dorovin, State Duma deputy from the Communist Party and
chair of an NGO supporting preserving the mausoleum in its
current state. “A lot of people went to Red Square to protest
this blasphemy,” he says. “Fortunately, the commandant of
the Kremlin garrison eventually came out and calmed everyone down, and told them that the mausoleum is safe.”
But the government pulled the plug on the project’s funding, once again putting the future of the mausoleum under
question. The Communist Party responded by collecting donations to support the mausoleum and the scientists who
worked on maintaining Lenin’s body. “We paid for everything
except gas, water and electricity,” Dorovin said, though he refused to specify how much money the foundation raised and
spent. The state only began funding the mausoleum again a
couple years ago, he added.
The Federal Guard Service told The Moscow Times “it was
impossible” to reveal how much had been allocated to preserving Lenin and the mausoleum. They also refused to specify at what time they became responsible for the mausoleum.
The bigger threat to the future of the mausoleum is generational. The scientists are getting older,
and there are no young scientists willing to
Still from the
replace them. “Young people are not that indocumentary
terested in mausoleum science, it’s not pres“Woeful Janutigious anymore,” Yurchak says.
ary of 1924.”
There is one obvious solution, but the
Bolshevik
idea of burying the Soviet icon is not a popurevolutionary
lar one among the Lenin scientists. If that
Mikhail Kaliwere to happen, it would mean an unparalnin stands in
leled 92-year-long experiment will come to
honor guard
an end. “It would represent a loss of science,
near Lenin’s
studies and discoveries — that is what scientomb. Kalinin
tists fear,” says Yurchak.
was an ally of
Stalin during
In the meantime, the mausoleum is
the power
closed — but only temporarily: Authorities
struggle that
are preparing Red Square for the Victory
followed
Day Parade on May 9. It will open again on
Lenin’s death.
May 18, with Lenin looking as sprightly as
ever. TMT
12
Living Here
The Moscow Times
No. 5753
1965
“The initiative was created not
in an office or by administrative
structures, but in the hearts of
our people.” Vladimir Putin.
Leonid Brezhnev turns
May 9 into a public holiday.
12M
“There are fewer and fewer
veterans, and less and less truth on
Victory Day.” Sergei Lapenkov, cofounder of the immortal regiment.
Reported immortal
regiment participants
last year.
RIA NovosTI / ReuTeRs
Students of
the Sevastopol Presidential Cadet
School take
part in the
2015 Immortal
Regiment
march on
Victory Day in
central Moscow. They
carry pl acards
showing
World War II
soldiers.
Seeking Immortality
By Peter Hobson p.hobson@imedia.ru | Twitter: @peterhobson15
A grassroots movement to remember the World War II generation proved
so popular that the authorities adopted it as their own.
O
n Victory Day, May 9, last year, a giant procession took
over central Moscow. Its participants held aloft placards, with faded, black and white photographs of men
and women, many of them in uniform, most of them somber,
unsmiling. Crowds filled Moscow’s eight-lane central avenue,
Tverskaya Ulitsa, for a full 3 1/2 kilometers. On the same day, in
hundreds of other cities, millions more marched with their
own photographs.
These were Russia’s “immortal regiments,” an homage to
the generation that lost more than 20 million people in the
fight against the Nazis. The portraits people held were of relatives who had lived and died during World War II.
Alongside the sense of loss, the mood everywhere was of
elation and national pride. This wasn’t necessarily what its
founders had intended.
Origins
Four years earlier, a man called Igor Dmitriyev wrestled with
his own worries over Victory Day.
As a boy, Dmitriyev would mark May 9 with his grandfather,
who had fought his way to Berlin and returned home, miraculously, to push ahead with life. Each year, Dmitriyev’s family
would gather around the table. Sometimes they would play the
accordion and sing. There were more jokes about the war than
discussions of its horrors.
When his grandfather died, Dmitriyev still sought the company of the World War II generation. On Victory day, a public
holiday, he and his daughter would chose a veteran among the
crowds. “It may sound stupid, but we’d find a grandpa that we
liked,” he says.
Then the aging veterans began to disappear. Unwilling to
abandon their tradition, Dmitriyev and his daughter began to
pick out other pensioners and military officials. But it didn’t
feel right. He puzzled over the problem with friends in Tomsk,
his Siberian hometown of half a million people. With fewer
veterans, they thought, Victory Day had begun to lose its truth.
From being an event of remembrance, it was fast becoming an
official government party.
The friends decided it was time to bring their grandparents
back. “We thought our grandfathers should march,” Dmitriyev
says in a gentle, serene voice. “Even if they were in our arms.”
He recruited two friends working at a local television station in Tomsk, Sergei Lapenkov and Sergei Kolotovkin, to put
out the word. They expected a few hundred people to come to
the first immortal regiment in 2012. Six thousand showed up.
The idea immediately proved infectious. News of the march
through Tomsk spread, and people began calling in from across
Russia wanting to participate or organize their own event the
following year. In 2013, immortal regiments marched through
120 towns. A year later, they paraded though 500.
The founders set up a website and wrote a charter. It proclaimed that the immortal regiment would forever remain a
loose collection of volunteers; that it would be non-commercial, apolitical and non-state, and never be hijacked to improve
anyone’s image. Its meaning was simple: Help families remember their members who endured the war.
Infiltration
The purity of the movement soon made it vulnerable.
From the very start, the organizers were approached by politicians and corporate sponsors eager to piggyback off their success.
By the beginning of last year, they had begun to lose control. The
main reason for this was Nikolai Zemtsov, a Communist Party
deputy in Moscow’s local parliament. Soon after making contact
with Dmitriyev, Lapenkov and Kolotovkin in 2013, Zemtsov began
to insist that the immortal regiment in Moscow work with local
authorities for funding and organization.
When the Tomsk activists refused, Zemtsov went rogue and
set up a copycat movement called “The Immortal Regiment of
Russia.”
Zemtsov did everything the original organizers had wanted to
avoid. He wanted on-stage speeches to the Moscow crowds. He
forged links with political movements linked to President Vladimir Putin. He canvassed for funding. He announced on television that immortal regiments would march through Donetsk
and Luhansk with “portraits not only of war veterans, but those
who have died now, in the battle against Ukrainian fascism.”
Zemtsov wrested control of last year’s march through
Moscow. Afterward, his influence spread as he lobbied
other cities across Russia to adopt his surrogate immortal
regiment as official organizer. Given their original open
Living Here
“The immortal regiment isn’t feeling
even a fraction of the tragedy of war.
It’s turned into a parade of military
glory.” Nikita Petrov, historian.
May 5 – 11, 2016
1995
first victory Day parade
since end of communism.
“They are trying to organize a
folk tradition and turn it into a
political lever.” Igor Dmitriyev,
immortal regiment co-founder.
On May 9,
2015, people
take part in
the Immortal
Regiment
march in Chita, in Siberia’s
Zabaikalsky
region.
319,240
13
Personal war stories were
on the immortal regiment
website in early May.
The word’s worTh
Giving Life and
Bouncing Back
RIA novosTI / ReuTeRs
By Michele A. Berdy
Moscow-based translator and
interpreter, author of
“The Russian Word’s Worth” (Glas),
a collection of her columns.
I
proposal, there was little that the Tomsk founders could do
to stop him.
Under Zemtsov’s direction, the movement in many cities
now bears little relation to the apolitical vision mapped out in
the original charter. Organization committees have popped up
across the country, some drawing state salaries. Political parties
and local authorities use immortal regiment logos on their websites and in election pamphlets. Banks distribute placards with
corporate logos. In schools across the country, children are tasked
with making placards and sent to march in groups.
Zemtsov defends all of this. He says the regiment’s founders
were naive to think hundreds of marches could be run by volunteers without a budget. “The organizers’ role is limited and they
are needed, considering the scale of things,” he says.
But the original founders are suspicious of Zemtsov’s motives.
One of them, Sergei Lapenkov, says the people taking control of
the regiment are destroying its focus on personal family histories and on individuals. He says Zemtsov and those like him are
pursuing career advancement and financial gain.
More fundamentally, he says, the takeover is about government taking control. All significant opposition parties, youth
movements and NGOs have either been brought under the
thumb or crushed during Putin’s reign. Here was an independent movement that was expanding exponentially. “This must
have seriously worried somebody at the top,” says Lapenkov.
“Someone thought: ‘What else might these people do?’”
Pomp
RIA novosTI / ReuTeRs
Lapenkov says “placard patriotism” is the inevitable result of
bureaucrats getting involved in voluntary endeavours. This
kind of state-engineered patriotism has been rife since the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, and
it reaches fever pitch during the pageantry of Victory Day.
But it wasn’t always like this.
In the postwar decades, Victory Day was much quieter, and
a family event. Veterans tended to avoid speaking about the
war. Lapenkov’s says his own grandfather would never watch
war films (he lost both legs in the war, but afterward learned
to dance on his prostheses).
Victory Day was usually overshadowed by May 1, Labor Day.
It was in this celebration of workers that the Communist Party
invested more energy. Victory Day only became a public holiday with military parades after 1965, under Leonid Brezhnev,
with his government made from the war generation.
After a lull following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
May 9 parade was rehabilitated in 1995, on the 50th anniversary of victory. In a demoralized, broken country, politicians
quickly saw Victory Day’s value as a uniting force, and made
the parades an annual fixture. The final step came in 2008,
when Putin reintroduced processions of tanks and intercontinental missiles across Red Square.
Alongside the rising pomp of May 9, history itself has been
moulded by the government to solidify its position. A mythologized version of war heroism has emerged, reinforced by a
steady flow of glossy state-subsidized patriotic movies.
The immortal regiment project aimed to puncture that mythology and preserve real stories of personal loss. That idea
survives on the founders’ original website, moypolk.ru, which
invites people to share their soldiers’ tales. In early May, there
were 319,240 entries. “The stories are remarkable, sometimes
wild,” says Dmitriyev. And often, they are touchingly unheroic.
One tells of a father who reported a day late to his dispatch
station. For this failure, the man was placed in a “punishment
battalion.” These battalions were practically a death sentence
— commanders used them for such tasks as running through
minefields to clear them. That soldier disappeared without a
trace, leaving his wife in lifelong mourning.
For some, not only the increased government control but
the scale of the immortal regiment risks undermining that
humanity. This year’s event promises to be the biggest yet.
Regiments will march not only in hundreds of Russian cities, but in dozens of countries, including the United States,
Spain and Indonesia.
That worries Nikita
President
Petrov, a historian. “When
Vladimir
this sort of action becomes
Putin holds
mass, it takes on a revana portrait of
chist, militaristic character,”
his father,
he says. “It is no longer perwar vetsonal remembrance, but a
eran Vladimir
state event.”
Spiridonovich
Dmitriyev, the idea’s origiPutin, while
nator, is also anxious. “Evtaking part in
erything this is now turning
the Immortal
into is not right,” he says,
Regiment
march on Red
“all of this organization and
Square on
agreed numbers and times.
May 9, 2015.
Guys, stop, just stop. You’re
all people. You all have grandfathers who fought. Let’s just
remember them. Sometimes
this turns into dancing on
bones. Who needs it?” TMT
f you hopped on a plane, bus, or train last weekend to
travel to a country with few Orthodox Christians, you
might have forgotten the Easter rituals. But if you stayed
in Russia, you were probably overwhelmed by colored eggs,
кулич (Easter sweet bread), пасха (a spread that tastes a
bit like cheesecake), and of course the cheerful greeting
Христос воскресе! (Christ is risen!) to which people reply:
Воистину воскресе! (Verily He is risen.)
Wait a sec — воскресе? That doesn’t sound like Russian.
Good catch! It isn’t. It’s Church Slavonic. You can also say in
Russian: Христос воскрес! Воистину воскрес! — although
that’s a bit down to earth.
In any case, the verb being used is воскрес-, that is, воскреш-, no — hold on I’ll get it …
Ah. Here’s the tricky bit. There are two verb pairs that
are almost but not quite synonyms: воскрешать/воскресить and воскресать/воскреснуть. Blink and you mix
them up. But the meaning and way you use them differs.
Воскрешать means to resurrect someone or something.
It’s a transitive verb, which means in everyday language
that you carry out the act of resurrecting on a person or
object. Usually you come across this in a religious context:
Христос воскрешает нас, как воскресил когда-то Лазаря
(Christ resurrects us the way he once resurrected Lazarus).
But we humans can also resurrect things, like memories: Нам легко воскрешать в нашей памяти радостные
моменты прошлого (It’s easy for us to resurrect the joyful moments of our past in our memories). Or we can give
concepts a second life: Это давным-давно умершие понятия нашего проклятого прошлого, и я не пойму, кто
и зачем их воскрешает (Those are concepts of our cursed
past that died out long ago, and I can’t understand who
is resurrecting them and why). Or we can bring someone
back to life, albeit in a human way, like this prison camp
inmate described by Varlam Shalamov: Даже пятьсот
граммов ржаного хлеба, три ложки каши и миска жидкого супа в день могли воскрешать человека (Even 50
grams of rye bread, three spoonfuls of porridge and a bowl
of watery soup a day could bring a man back to life).
The other pair, воскресать/воскреснуть, also means to
resurrect, but the verb pair is intransitive — someone or
something resurrects itself. This is verb you’re using at Easter with the greeting Христос воскрес. And even though
this is a very religious word, you can find it used figuratively
— or at least secularly: Воскреснет твёрдый знак, вернутся ять (The hard sign will be resurrected and the letter yat
will return, too). Of course, most of the time it’s rather lofty:
Я шёл так, словно мне шестнадцать лет, всё апрельское волнение и юношеские страхи воскресли во мне (I
walked along just like I was 16 years old, and all the excitement of April and fears of youth came to life in me again).
Now you might not have cause to talk about resurrection much, but you do bring things back to life, like your
garden in the spring. With these secular verb pairs, it’s
the same story: оживлять/оживить (to bring someone or
something to life) and оживать/ожить (to come to life).
You even have the same problem telling the verbs apart.
Мы оживляем газету (We’re bringing the newspaper back
to life). And in fact: Газета ожила! (The newspaper has
bounced back!)
Hey, it’s the season of miracles. TMT
YevGenY PARfYonov
Воскрешать: to resurrect
14
Tips for Life
HEALTH
NigHTLifE
What is больничный лист? What is face control?
TMT: If you’ve lived in Moscow long enough
Do I need one?
and partied hard enough you’ll probably have
TMT: Depending on your workplace, this
больничный лист — sick leave certificate —
may be the most important document you
get or something to ignore. It’s an official
document issued by a licensed medical provider that certifies that you really were sick
last week, not just goofing off, hungover, or
painting the garage at the dacha.
When you are too sick to go to work, you
have to immediately “open” the certificate by
going to your clinic of choice. Then you return when you are better and “close” the certificate. You deliver the certificate to the HR
department at work, where they will determine your salary for the days you were out of
the office, which depends on how long you’ve
been working there and other factors.
Often you’ll be feeling better but either
you can’t get an appointment to “close” out
your certificate, or the doctor thinks that
bronchitis demands two full weeks in bed.
You can go back to work ahead of time, but
you will be paid sick leave rates until the certificate is closed. So you might as well stay
home.
heard of face control. A ritual barbarism carried
out by stern-faced bouncers at the city’s more
upscale establishments, it essentially involves
you either getting the nod of approval or the
brutal statement “tonight there is a private party.” The latter is often combined with a gesture
to the exit or an aggressive crossing of the arms.
Rejectees are plunged into an existential crisis. Why me? What did I do wrong?
Waving a foreign passport just isn’t going to
cut the mustard, and while the decisions and
reasoning of heavies at the door are both mysterious and sometimes illogical — you may get
in one week, and not the next — there are a few
rules of thumb you can follow to improve your
chances.
Firstly, dress to impress. It has been argued
there is no such thing as overdressed in Moscow, unless you’re aiming to get into a grimy
but cool basement club. Secondly, Moscow is
one of the few places where being a girl isn’t
necessarily an advantage — probably due to the
abundance of supermodel types. If you’re in a
large group, split into smaller groups of three or
four with a mix of genders. And the obvious. Be
The Moscow Times
No. 5753
Advice, answers and
lifehacks to help you
enjoy Moscow.
fashionably early, don’t be loud in the line and
definitely don’t exude the air of being drunk
and/or obnoxious. If you don’t get in, take heart
that you’ll probably have a better time somewhere else.
REPAiRS
How do you clean super
glue off your hands?
TMT: Ah, the May holidays: cleaning, washing windows, digging up the garden, fixing all
those broken things around the house. You limp
back to the office sunburned, with blisters, cuts
and other weekend warrior injuries.
In Russia, the land of malls, for your DYI
projects you can buy a variety of imported and
domestic glues. A Russian favorite is actually a
German-produced glue called Moment because
it dries in a moment. That’s very, very good
when it’s on your mother-in-law’s favorite china teapot that you broke. But when it’s sticking
your fingers together forever? Not so good.
Here’s a Russian lifehack to clean it off: Take
table salt — or ask someone else, if your hands
are immobilized. Drip a bit of water on top. Rub
the salt and water mixture for several minutes until all the glue dissolves or is rubbed off.
Genius.
fuN STuff
Where can I watch the
Victory Day parade?
TMT: Unless you’re a veteran, government
worker or a close friend of Putin, you can forget
about watching the Victory Day parade in Red
Square on Monday. It’s very much an “invite
only” affair.
But don’t fret, there are plenty of other spots
around the city to get your fill of tanks, uniforms and heavy artillery. As with last year, the
central parade will pass along Tverskaya Ulitsa, the city’s main thoroughfare, before entering Pushkin Square, Manege Square and Red
Square. On its return the parade will pass along
Novy Arbat.
If you’re hoping to catch the parade on Tverskaya Ulitsa, get in position early and sharpen
those elbows. Soldiers and tanks will be in position on Red Square at 10 a.m., so aim to either
catch processions on the way to or from the
center. Alternatively, if you’re interested in the
spectacle but also love a lie-in, why not tune in
to a live stream via the May 9 website from the
comfort of your own home? Invite some friends
over and make a morning of it.
Live stream at 9maya.ru
Route map at pro-stranstva.ru/parad-pobedy
Classifieds
May 5 – 11, 2016
Advertising. To place an ad, please contact Yulia Bychenkova
Tel.: +7 (495) 232 4774 bychenkova@imedia.ru
15
16
What’s On
The Moscow Times
No. 5753
See www.themoscowtimes.com
for more listings.
May 5 – 11
Fireworks
An Eagle Eye on Festivities
Watch the Victory Day fireworks from the
58th floor of Moscow City’s Empire building
Empire building Moscow City
smotricity.ru
AFIMall City. Metro Delovoi Tsentr
May 9 at 9 p.m.
FesTival
Oriental Culture Festival
TReTyAKOV GAlleRy
Learn about Oriental crafts, languages and
cuisine
Sokolniki Park
facebook.com/orientalexpo2016
1 Sokolnichesky Val. Metro Sokolniki
May 2 through May 6
Symphony of Colors: Kandinsky at New Tretyakov Gallery
By Timur Zolotoev artsreporter@imedia.ru
To mark the 150th anniversary of Kandinsky’s
birth, the Tretyakov Gallery has collaborated
with the Hermitage Museum to bring two of
Vasily Kandinsky’s most iconic works to Moscow. “Composition VI” and “Composition VII”
were created in 1913, and are considered to
embody the key ideas of one of the founding
fathers and principle theorists of abstract art.
The masterpieces face one another other in a
hexagonal pavilion — built by the renowned
Russian architect Sergei Chobin — within the
New Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val.
The exhibition also features a multimedia
project that visualizes Kandinsky’s path to
his masterpieces by collecting the sketches
and other works that preceded both compositions.
Kandinsky believed that figurative art distracted the observer by its visual references
to the real world, thus making color and
form secondary. Abstract art in its turn sets
color and form free, liberating them from any
fixed references.
Music was a key driving force behind Kandinsky’s search for pure forms and colors. Likening painting to composing music, he often
used musical terms, such as “impressions” and
“compositions” to identify his works. A crucial
concept for Kandinsky was counterpoint —
the art of combining different melodic lines
in a musical composition. Borrowing the idea
from musical theory, he applied it to painting,
describing it as a superior way of organizing an
artwork.
“He did not want any ideas to be directly
reflected in his paintings, but rather wanted
his paintings to provoke observers to reflect on
themselves,” said Lyudmila Bobrovskaya, the
curator of the exhibition, in an interview with
The Moscow Times. “The main advantage of
abstract art is that it does not bind you to any
literary allusions or history. Kandinsky’s key
achievement is that in the beginning of the
20th century, the age of scientific discoveries,
he tried to appeal to people’s souls.”
Trying to explain “Composition VI” and “Composition VII” is a daunting task, as they are first
and foremost meant to resonate with observer’s
soul. “Everyone will see what they want to see
— be that a cat, a whale or an angel blowing a
trumpet,” Bobrovskaya said of “Composition
VII.” “What is really important for Kandinsky
is the state of mind into which the observers
immerse themselves.”
The whole exhibition is binary in its focus
on the two masterpieces — they collide and
harmonize at the same time. In short, they embody the Kandinsky counterpoint that allows
the creation of a symphony on canvas. TMT
“Vasily Kandinsky. Counterpoint: Composition VI
— Composition VII” runs until June 13
tretyakovgallery.ru
10 Krymsky Val. Metro Oktyabrskaya
ConCerT
Moscow Easter Festival
Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra
performs Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1
Tchaikovsky Concert Hall
meloman.ru
4/31 Triumfalnaya Ploshchad
Metro Mayakovskaya
May 9 at 7 p.m.
opera
Iolante
Directoral debut of actors from the Seventh
Circle produce Tchaikovsky’s opera
Gogol Center
gogolcenter.com
8 Ulitsa Kazakova. Metro Kurskaya
May 7 and 8 at 8:30 p.m.
FesTival
French Cinema
Films including “Chocolat” and “Marguerite”
will be shown in French with Russian
subtitles
Cinema Park Riviera
institutfrancais.ru
18 Avtozavodskaya Ulitsa
Metro Avtozavodskaya
May 10 through May 14