In the time of sanctions

The morning in Moscow was nice and clear, but cold, as cold as the relations between Russia and the West right now, a new Cold War emerging. In Moscow things appear to be normal, business as usual. In the streets, people commute to and from work in their fur-collared winter jackets and fur hats. My commute from the hotel to the office is quite short, just a 10 minute walk.

The conflict in east Ukraine is not resolved, and probably won’t be for a long time. Russia is under sanctions, from USA and its allied. The goal of the sanctions is to hit the Russian government and the rich oligarchs who support it. The exchange rate of the Ruble is down 50% compared to US dollars. Consequently, the cost of imported goods has increased a lot.  The sanctions hit ordinary people too. That’s what my Russian friends and colleagues tell me.

I doubt the sanctions will work. Russia can’t be forced in any way. The Russians don’t give in to external pressure, and never did.  They didn’t give in to Napoleon. They didn’t give in to Hitler. They certainly don’t give in to Obama. They will rather perish.

The Russians like to criticize their government, the bureaucracy, the misuse of power and corruption in their country. However, they don’t want to be criticized by foreigners. What happens when sanctions are imposed is that Putin becomes more popular than ever. He is gathering the Russian people against a common external enemy; USA, EU and NATO.

From the western point of view, the Russian annexation of Crimea is unacceptable. It violates international rules and laws. The Russians see it differently. They have bad experience with laws in general, from past and present corrupt regimes. The laws are obscure and ambiguous, and can always be twisted and interpreted in favor of the mighty and powerful. Law doesn't imply justice. For the Russian government, the same logic applies on the global scale; USA is an aggressor, supported by international regulations, which threatens Russian rights and interests.

The Russians have a good, but quite subjective, sense of justice. And justice says that Crimea belongs to Russia. When Leo Tolstoy was a young man, he served in the Tsar’s army during the Crimean war. He wrote about it in the Sevastopol Stories (a good book). Crimea was given to Ukraine by Khrushchev in the 1954. At that time it was only an administrative formality within the Soviet Union. Then Crimea drifted away when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine became independent. However, many Russians still see it as a part of Russia.

That’s what they say. I just say that different people see things in different ways. The politicians in America and Western Europe don’t understand the Russian mentality. That’s for sure.

(Picture taken in Moscow this morning, when I was walking from the hotel to our office, and crossing the bridge over the frozen Moscow River to Krasnye Holmy.)

The Moscow Times

Every morning, when waking up in a Moscow business hotel, you get The Moscow Times at the door. It’s Russia’s only English newspaper, and it’s a good paper.

The Moscow Times print some critical articles about the Russian government, and apparently Putin doesn’t care. The paper probably has relatively few readers among the Russian people, and stays under the radar of the regime.

Here are some highlights from the last Friday’s issue, the last one I received during my recent trip to Moscow:

'White Steam' Rally Ends in Trickle
The cross-country auto rally leading up to Saturday’s March of Millions arrives in Kaluga as just one car. 

One car only; does that make a rally? Maybe it does in Kaluga.

Pilot Error Blamed for Kamshatka Crash
The crash of an An-28 propeller plane in Kamchatka this week was likely caused by a pilot error in difficult weather conditions, a crash investigator said Thursday. 

Blame it on the dead. That’s easy, and the dead don’t argue about it. I’ve been flying many times on the An-24. No crashes yet. Good pilots, I guess. No vodka before take off.

Gessen Rebuffs Putin at a Kremlin Meeting
President Vladimir Putin invited Masha Gessen, fired as editor of the Vokrug Sveta magazine for refusing to cover his hang-gliding stunt with crane, to the Kremlin and tried to help her get her job back, but she refused.  

Putin’s macho-man show goes on. Obviously, it doesn’t impress everybody.

Investigator Killed in Likely Contract Hit
Alexander Leonov, 38, had just arrived at his house on Ulitsa Krylatskiye Kholmy about 11 pm Wednesday with his common-law wife when an unindentified assailant shot him in the head and chest, killing him.

Don't mess with the big guys. They might send a contract killer.

(Picture of the front page of The Moscow Times, taken by me. By the way, the paper can be read online as well; www.themoscowtimes.com/)

After the election

This morning at 9am, my Russian driver picked me up at the hotel in Murmansk. Mission completed; I was going home. He was taking me to the Russian border, or more precisely, to the nearest airport across the border.

We drove through the winter-white wilderness of north-west Russia. We crossed a scenic mountain pass with two or three war memorials by the road. There were big battles during WW2. The Russians are good at building memorials.

It was a four-hour drive, and we had plenty of time to talk. We duscussed history, fishing, cars and kids. Then we talked about moving to Kaliningrad (not me, of course), and the recent Russian presidential election.

The driver doesn't like Putin. And I expect he didn't vote for Putin, but I didn't ask directly.

"What's wrong with Putin?" I said.

I have my own opinions, but would liked to hear his views.

"The main problem is that he's been in office too long; eight years as president, then four years as prime minister. People want change. Now we fear another eight years with Putin, at least."

Putin is in control of everything; the natural resources and the state-owned compenies, newspapers and television. He even dictates the super-rich oligarks, or jail them if they don't obey. The longer he rules, the more he behaves a Tsar, or a blend of Tsar and KGB officer (which he used to be).

Still people voted for Putin. According to official figures, he got 65% of the votes. Even the dead voted for Putin, thousands of people who had been dead for years. If the false votes are subtracted, he still gets more than 50% (estimated by international observers).

Halfway we stopped in Titovka, a small place in the middle of nowhere, with a cafe that serves instant coffee and something they called pizza. Maybe it was omelette; I'm in doubt.

Then we entered the military zone, where the roads are very wide. They were built for tanks, during the cold war. Built for a Red-Army invasion, that never came, fortunately.

We passed by the medieval town of Pechenga, and the depressive and polluted mining towns Zapolyarny and Nikel, where nothing has changed in decades. Then, some 10 km (6 miles) before the border, there is a check point. A grumpy guy in army uniform looked at our passports and searched the trunk of the car. He nodded , OK, but didn't smile.

Between the check-point and the border is a transit zone. You can drive through, but stopping is prohibited. At the boarder there is double-checking. A Russian officer stamped my passport, and let me through. Then finally, at the last check point, the officer greeted me: "Welcome home".

I was out of Putin's reach, for this time. Back from the USSR.

(Some pictures taken along the road; Pechenga and Nikel.)

Christening of Christ

I've been somewhat reluctant to traveling to Russia recently. In Moscow there has been big protests against Putin, since the irregularities in the recent election. More than 100.000 people have gathered in demonstrations in the city center.

In Murmansk a nuclear-powered submarine caught fire in the shipyard. According to Russian authorities, the situation is fine, and no radioactive waste has leaked.

History has shown that when Russian authorities say everything is under control, there are reasons to be worried.

What would you choose? Anti-Putin demonstrations or a burning nuclear submarine? Where would you go? Moscow or Murmansk?

This week, my choice was easy: I take both.

According to our Moscow office, the situation is OK. There's no risk traveling to Russia, really.

My trip had a bad start. The airport in my hometown was closed due to fog, so I missed my subsequent flight with Aeroflot to Moscow. Fortunately, I got an alternative route, with Air Baltic to Riga, and connection to Moscow. I arrived in the hotel at midnight, some four hours delayed.

Yesterday was a exhausting. I was in a work meeting from 9am to 6pm. Then a driver took me through the Moscow traffic jam to the airport. I had a quick (so-called) dinner in the airport, before boarding the plane to Murmansk together with a Russian colleague. I'm completely dependent on help from a translator to get my job done.

Today is a popular Russian holiday, the epiphany. My Russian friends explained to me that they're celebrating the "Christening of Christ", when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River. Maybe that's when he got the nickname Christ?

The celebration started last night, with mass in the churches, and hordes of Russians seeking frozen rivers and ponds. They cut a hole in the ice and jump into the water, three times, while saying magic and saving prayers.

Many people didn't show up at work today. I'm not sure if it was due to the dives in the cold water, or the following vodka.

Tonight I'm just relaxing in the hotel, reading and writing. Mission completed. There's nothing more i need to do.

Tomorrow I'm flying back home on an Antonov 24, an amazing old propeller plane from the Soviet times. This type of plane was built from 1960 to 1980. There are still more than 1000 of them flying. The plane feels pretty safe. It's shaking like Hell on start-up and take off. But at cruising speed, it's quite pleasant. It's a simple and robust aircraft, built for hostile conditions.

I've taken this route before, but only in summer time. Tomorrow will be another interesting experience; flying on an Antonov 24 across the white tundra >:)

(This trip, I've only been working and traveling, no opportunity to take pictures. Above is a picture I took last summer, onboard the Antonov 24. A nice stewardess was serving lunch, with all kinds of Russian drinks)