Russia

Take this for what it's worth, but a new poll shows that Russia's slumping economy and recent evidence of vote-rigging in national elections might finally be having an effect on public support for Russia's ruling tandem: 

Public trust in the work of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin each fell six percentage points on Oct. 24-25 from a week earlier, the poll said.

Fifty-six percent of 2,000 people polled said Medvedev held their trust, down from 62 percent a week earlier. Sixty-six percent trusted Putin, down from 72 percent.

Support for the pro-Kremlin party of power, United Russia, fell four percentage points to 53 percent, the poll showed.

That would put Medvedev's approval rating about even with Obama's.

Just six months ago, the Kremlin declared "mission accomplished" in settling the restive, largely-Muslim region of Chechnya, and pledged to withdraw at least half its troops stationed there. Russian soldiers have allegedly resorted to brutal tactics in the decade-long effort to subdue the region, including the systematic beating and raping of Chechen civilians, widespread detention and torture, and the murder of human rights and opposition activists.

But the Kremlin has claimed victory in the regional struggle time and time again, and the most recent claims of success seem as wrong as ever; yesterday the Georgian Daily reported that "Moscow is planning to increase the number of units in the North Caucasus military district by a factor of four, according to officers there..." The plans come amidst an escalating Islamic insurgency in Ingushetia, the region bordering Chechnya to the west.  

There's no doubt that the Kremlin is facing a protracted struggle. Doku Umarov, one of the most prominent members of the insurgency (who has been reported dead on a number of occasions) released a lengthy statement in 2007 on the Al-Qaeda affiliated website Kavkaz Center, in which he declared Muslim rule:

 I reject all laws and systems established by infidels in the land of Caucasus.

I reject and declare outlawed all names used by infidels to divide Muslims.

I declare outlawed ethnic, territorial and colonial zones carrying names of "North-Caucasian republics", "Trans-Caucasian republics" and such like.

I am officially declaring of creation of the Caucasus Emirate...

We will relentlessly wage war on everyone who will oppose the establishment of the Sharia, Inshaallah. And those who openly violate that which was established by Allah and scorn the Islamic religion should not think that we will leave it unpunished. That is a serious delusion."

Photo:  KAZBEK BASAYEV/AFP/Getty Images

Whenever somoene tries to express just how freaking big Russia's territory is, the phrase "11 time zones" inevitably comes up. But that may be changing soon:

The time difference between Moscow and Vladivostok might be cut to four hours from the current seven if a Primorye region lawmaker gets his way. Gennady Lazarev, a United Russia deputy and rector of the Vladivostok State Economics and Service University, said the change would promote economic ties between Moscow and the Far East.

“Our working day ends when it starts in Moscow. It’s both inconvenient for us and Moscow,” he said in a statement published on his university’s web site.

Lazarev also said the time difference created many inconveniences for businessmen and politicians who travel often between Moscow and the Far East. A change would ease traffic jams in Vladivostok because some organizations would start their working days earlier, at 6 a.m or 7 a.m., he said. He said he had the support of several colleagues and promised to raise the issue in the Primorye region legislature.

I see why that would be annoying, though it will probably be pretty confusing if various Russian regions start changing their time zone unilaterally. Then again, the opposite extreme -- China's system of having a 3,000 mile long country all in one zone -- is equally silly.

I'm not sure if it counts as hopejacking if you claim that Obama ripped you off:

There was a funny scene during Hillary Clinton's visit to the Russian republic of Tatarstan.

Tatar President Mintimer Shaimiev told Clinton that Tatarstan adopted the slogan "Bez buldirabiz " ("Yes, we can!") six years ago -- intended to promote Tatarstan as a model of political and economic development in the Russian Federation.

Clinton replied by saying that she would tell U.S. President Obama that he owes that famous slogan to the Tatars.

Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov -- the man behind the world's ugliest statue -- has a new grandiose project, keeping winter snow out of Moscow:

Moscow will blast clouds from the sky this winter to save money on snow removal, a city official said Wednesday, but the plan threatens to anger the surrounding region, which would have to cope with the extra powder. ....

Luzhkov is a long-time proponent of fighting clouds by spraying liquid nitrogen, silver, or cement particles into the cloud mass, which forces precipitation to fall before it can reach the capital and spoil holidays like Victory Day and City Day.

Last month, Luzhkov proposed expanding the technology to fight the snow drifts that snarl traffic every winter.

“What if we force this snow to fall beyond Moscow? The Moscow region will have more water, bigger harvests, while we will have less snow,” he said at an award ceremony for Moscow’s best-kept yard. He said that using the Air Force to prevent massive snowfall would be three times cheaper than using the regular system of trucks and snow-melting stations.

City hall estimates that the project will save the city $10.2 million in snow removal. Needless to say, officials in the surrouding region are less than thrilled with the plan. Locals have also criticized Luzhkov's previous cloud prevention schemes, noting that they make "the cucumbers turn yellow."

Alexander Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images

It appears you can talk all manners of trash about the vilest and most murderous despot the world had ever known. Is there no justice?

Josef Stalin's grandson, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, sued a Russian newspaper for libel after it claimed Stalin personally ordered the killing of Soviet citizens. He requested an apology, and of course, some money. But alas, the courts threw it out and it appears it wasn't even a show trial. For shame.  Dzhugashvili has five days to appeal, thus saving the glorious image of his grandfather.

Stalin starved millions of Ukrainians to death during his attempt at collectivization, jailed and murdered dissidents and even those suspected of possibly being dissidents. He institutionalized the Gulag, killed every single other official from the beginning of the revolution and ended up ordering more deaths in one day than Pinochet did in his entire reign. He turned neighbors against each other and forced poor Soviet schoolchildren to read his feeble attempt at prose.

But Dzhugashvili doesn't think we need to bring that up.

The BBC reports that many think the libel case was a way for the Kremlin to try to rehabilitate Stalin's image.

The ruling further proves that you can criticize leaders in Russia all you want, just not the current ones.

DMITRY KOSTYUKOV/AFP/Getty Images

It seems that Karma is alive and well in the universe.

Allegations of fraud have surrounded recent elections in Russia. In 2007, in what has been described as "the least democratic election since the USSR collapsed," opposition parties alleged that campaign literature was seized and candidates were excluded from the ballot; The Kremlin apparently forced millions of public workers to vote; and a senior election official reported that he was instructed to make sure that United Russia, the ruling party, received double the number of votes expected -- the claim of rigging is strongly supported by a number of statistical anomalies.

The 2008 election of President Dmitry Medvedev also had plenty of allegations of stacking the deck; including further claims that public employees were pushed to vote for Putin's favorite, that local officials were told to produce a strong majority on Medvedev's behalf, and that potentially strong opponents were excluded from the ballot.

Yesterday, elections for a new city council in Moscow were held, and it should come as little surprise that there have already been more allegations of fraud. But even if Medvedev had a hand in ensuring the re-election of the sitting mayor, a member of the United Russia party, there was a twist of poetic justice. The president struggled to vote -- an electronic box repeatedly refused to take Medvedev's ballot.

Photo: VLADIMIR RODIONOV/AFP/Getty Images

There's some interesting Kremlinology in Charles Clover's Financial Times piece today about President Medvedev's decision to hire two new speechwriters:

Mr Medvedev’s new head speechwriter, Eva Vasilevskaya, previously worked with him when he was first deputy prime minister and has been a member of his speechwriting team since he came to the Kremlin. She will play a central role in drafting the annual address to the general assembly, expected in late October or early November, the most important speech of the year for Mr Medvedev.

Alexei Chadaev, a conservative political commentator, is expected shortly to be named as a speechwriter working alongside the Kremlin’s first deputy chief of staff, Vladislav Surkov, who oversees management of the Kremlin’s domestic political machine. Mr Chadaev is known for a public criticism of Mr Surkov’s ideology in January. Yet to be confirmed, his appointment has been widely reported by Moscow papers with close links to the Kremlin and people in the Kremlin have confirmed that background checks are being carried out.

The reshuffle underlines a new ideological direction Mr Medvedev appears to be taking, away from that of his predecessor and mentor, Vladimir Putin, prime minister, who remains the hegemonic figure in Russian politics. Until now Mr Medvedev has made only a handful of appointments, mostly federal governors, and overwhelmingly those surrounding him are Mr Putin’s former staff.

It's easy to read too much into moves like this and it's hard to see how new speechwriters will make Medvedev more politically independent if the people surrounding him actually implementing policy are still Putin loyalists. Still, expect plenty of tea leaf reading after the assembly speech as analysts search for signs that Vova and Dima aren't getting along. 

VLADIMIR RODIONOV/AFP/Getty Images