Prague Property

Special thanks to Fora.tv for this short clip of Estonian PM Ansip addressing the Hoover Institution about the impressive growth of the Estonian economy.

There’s an interesting post over at SRB about the Nashi’s 3rd Congress, which of course featured Vladislav Surkov as the keynote speaker, and the creeping “bureaucratization” of the movement: The Nashisty argue that Russia despite its success and supposed stability is besieged from within and without. Within by what Borovikov calls “fascists in disguise”–a Nashi metonym for liberals, Other Russiaists, National Bolsheviks and other “radicals”–and shadowy forces emanating from the US State Department and British Foreign Office. If the myth of a “new Cold War” serves American pundits as fodder for proclaiming Putin’s Russia as “neo-Soviet,” Cold War rhetoric allows Nashi use “fascism” as political venom against the Russian state’s real or imagined enemies. “We’re here to protect the sovereignty of our country,” said Zaur Aminov, a 20-year-old economics student and Nashi Commissar told the LA Times as if that sovereignty is under threat. And who is the source of this threat the LA Times wondered? “The American State Department,” Aminov answered.

RFE/RL is reporting that Russia is cutting back on its contributions to the OSCE budget:

Russia’s decision to reduce its payments, in a sense, fits into the ongoing debate over the OSCE’s budget for 2008, which has yet to be adopted due to a lack of consensus among the 56 participating states. Individual countries are also in separate negotiations over the size of their contribution to this year’s budget.

But the Russian Foreign Ministry’s latest note, in which it accuses the OSCE of bias toward certain member states, leaves little doubt about the issue’s political undertones.

“This is connected chiefly with the OSCE’s election-monitoring activities, both in Russia and other former Soviet countries,” says Yevgeny Volk, a Russian political analyst. “By reducing its contribution, I think Russia is seeking to voice its opposition to the OSCE’s activities and to exert pressure on the organization.”

The Daily Telegraph continues its reporting on the Belkovsky rumor over Vladimir Putin’s secret fortune, this time featuring some terrific quotes from Andrei Illarionov: Illarionov, president of the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis and a fellow of the Washington-based Cato Institute, claimed that the circle around Putin and his chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev, were increasingly adopting “the aggression of the street rabble” to stay in power.

“At the moment for many of the people who are in power, there is almost no other means left to them but to escalate violence and aggression in order to remain in power.

Today, and hopefully over the next several months, we are planning to do a significant amount of blogging about Russia from a comparative perspective - focusing often on the commonalities of the Russian experience and the Latin American experience. I would argue that those who study Russia can learn a lot by looking at popular movements across this distant continent.

Case in point, there is a terrific column by Enrique Krauze, the editor of the excellent Mexican magazine Letras Libres, in the IHT today about the Venezuelan student movements which makes mention of the Russian student idealist “Sashka Zhegulyov” (a character from a 1911 novel by Leonid Andreyev).

What can we learn about Vladimir Putin and Russia from the experiences of Alberto Fujimori, Hugo Chavez, Lazaro Cárdenas, and other populist authoritarians of Latin America?

Today: Russia’s relations wtih UK and Ukraine in trouble; Greenpeace Russia to focus on Kyoto Protocol and possibly sue the IOC; Moscow’s building boom; movie-going culture on the up.

The British Council says that its legal position in Russia is “rock solid” despite facing pressure and accusations that its continued activities are “illegal”. The council’s offices are due to reopen on January 14, after holiday closure, but Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement that Russia expects the operations to be permanently closed and “any other actions would be provocative and build up bilateral tensions.” Ukraine’s government is asking the United Nations to recognize the 1932 famine as an act of genocide, “worsening already frosty relations with Russia”.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin says that Russia will not be affected by changes in oil prices, as it has “prepared” for fluctuations with a strong reserve.

Lukoil and Gazprom have established a Regional Development joint venture to focus on a number of development and implementation aspects, including exploration and production of hydrocarbons.

Gazprom says it wants to claim 10% of the French gas market within four to five years.

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My car is a car. I start it and it drives the same all the time. I have it serviced, put gas in it, check the tires, I look after [...]