Russia 100304 Basic Political Developments

RIA: Siberian mayor says no to WWII veterans' calls for Stalin monument

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20100304/158088811.html
09:4204/03/2010

There will be no monument to Joseph Stalin in Irkutsk, despite demands from World War II veterans to honor the Soviet dictator, the mayor of the East Siberian city said.

Veterans and Communist Party members rallied in the city on Wednesday to call for the erection of a monument to the man who led the Soviet Union to victory in World War Two, but who was also responsible for the deaths of millions in labor camps.

'There has been a lot of talk about a monument to Stalin in the run-up to the 65th anniversary of victory in World War II," Yury Zabolyev announced after the meeting. "In January, Communist Party members held a rally and accused me of spitting on the history of the Soviet Union."

"But I believe that the erection of a Stalin statue would be, at the very least, an insult and a disrespect to the memory of the fallen heroes of the war. There will be no monument in Irkutsk while I am mayor," he added.

He suggested instead the creation of a monument to the mothers of those soldiers who perished during the war.

"This would be a unifying monument for all World War Two veterans, showing respect to the mothers who gave birth to patriots," he said.

The outbreak of the war saw Stalin reportedly taken by surprise and enter a period of depression and shock, and little was initially heard of the dictator as German forces swept across the Soviet Union. However, he soon recovered and was undoubtedly the figurehead of the Soviet war effort, even if many analysts have questioned the wisdom of his military tactics.

"Not a step back," was the Soviet forces' slogan, and it was often literally enforced, with troops in some cases ordered to shoot to kill retreating soldiers. After the war, many Red Army men who had fallen into the hands of the enemy were sent to Gulags, the system of prison camps set up in the harsher areas of the world's first socialist state.

Stalin's role during World War Two has been the subject of intense debate in Russia.

Communist Party members and veteran organizations insist that it was Stalin's leadership that pulled the Soviet Union through its darkest hour and freed Europe from the tyranny of Nazism. However, rights organizations and analysts, among others, say that Stalin's mass purges of the army in the years before the war left the country exposed to an attack by Germany.

"All our countries achievements, including victory in World War Two, were in spite of Stalin, not thanks to him," Leonid Gozman, leader of the Right Cause party, said in February.

In February, Moscow authorities announced that billboards bearing Stalin's image would be put up around the capital to mark May 9 Victory Day celebrations. The move has been condemned by human rights groups, who have pledged to distribute their own information on Stalin's crimes.

Defending the decision, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov said while he was not a Stalin apologist, the billboards reflected "objective history."

A poll last year by the All-Russian Public Opinion Center to coincide with the 130th anniversary of Stalin's birth found that 37% of Russians were "positive" about Stalin and 24% "negative".

IRKUTSK, March 4 (RIA Novosti)

March 3, 2010
Russia Profile: The Day of a Woman

http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=Culture+%26+Living&articleid=a1267642761


By Svetlana Kononova
Special to Russia Profile

Although Russian Women Still Prefer to Assume a Traditional Female Role, Feminist Ideas Are Becoming Ever More Popular in Big Cities

March 8 is a very special day for every female in Russia. Men on the streets and on the metro carry bouquets of yellow mimosas and colorful tulips, congratulating their mothers, wives and female colleagues. Restaurants, bars and strip clubs are crammed with inebriated women celebrating their holiday. Dating Web sites experience an influx of female visitors, and flower, perfume and makeup retailers make extraordinary profits. But in Russia, International Women’s Day is more than just a holiday – for many, it is also an occasion to reflect on the place of women in present-day society.

Women's Day really is an international holiday – it is a day off in some 30 countries, including China, Cuba, Nepal and Poland. However, it is especially popular in Russia and in the former Soviet republics. The holiday originally had socialist political connotations as a celebration of women’s economic, political and social achievements, but it has now become an intrinsic part of Russian culture. Few can remember the events that led to the establishment of International Women’s Day: the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, the declaration by the Socialist Party of America and Clara Zetkin’s manifesto no longer matter, since the holiday no longer has any political context. Now it is a day when men must show their love and appreciation for women.

The obligatory nature of this holiday is a controversial subject, and some critics suggest doing away with it. But would Russian women agree to forego their favorite holiday? “We are lucky because we do celebrate International Women's Day, and many countries don’t,” said Ekaterina, a single 32-year-old programmer. “I expect presents, lots of fun and a good mood.” Elena, a 28-year-old housewife, is much less optimistic: “What does March 8 entail for the average Russian woman who has a husband and children? This is the one time per year when you can legally ask your husband to do the dishes. Your children might say a few nice words. Maybe your husband will give you a flower – one flower per year. This day is supposed to remind you that you’re a woman, not a work horse.”

Despite feminist ideas gaining steam over the past few decades, many Russian women still feel undervalued and discriminated against. The average Russian woman has a college degree but still earns less than a man. Data from the Federal State Statistics Service shows that a man’s average salary in Russia is 19,000 rubles per month ($630), while a woman in the same job earns 11,000 rubles ($360). This discrepancy in salaries may amount to anything from 13 to 50 percent depending on the industry.   

The average Russian woman marries by the age of 25, but two thirds of marriages in Russia end in divorce, and this is not surprising. Findings by women’s rights organizations show that every third woman endures physical violence on behalf of her spouse or domestic partner, and more than 70 percent face verbal or economic abuse. More than 10,000 women are killed by their domestic partners in Russia annually. About 40 percent of felonies committed in the country are domestic crimes.

So why don’t these women leave their abusive partners? A widespread belief is that there are many more women in the country than men, and a woman should be as tolerant as possible in order to “preserve the relationship” and not end up alone. However, demographic data paints a very different picture. There are fewer women in the 20 to 29 age range than men, and an equal number of men and women aged 30 to 39. The enormous gap in the number of men and women stems from the fact that average life expectancies for men and women are very different: an average man in Russia lives to be 60 years old, while an average woman lives to be 73. Therefore there are three times as many women as men in their 60s and 70s.

The average Russian woman has one child. Despite the different contraception methods available, she has two abortions in her lifetime - the number of abortions in Russia is one of the highest in the world. She lives in a one-bedroom flat with her child and retired mother in a midsize town, works full-time and does not have extra income besides her salary. Despite having endured an unhappy marriage or gone through divorce, she believes that relationships are more important than careers. She is not interested in politics and doesn’t pretend to have any power. She spends her free time reading books, watching television and trying to lose weight.

This picture may look terribly depressing, but the good news is that everything is bound to change. “Russian girls in their 20s and 30s are quite different from theirs mothers,” said Dmitry Zotov, a psychologist at Pro Bono Alliance. “They grew up in a totally different country, not in the Soviet Union. They have different values and different opportunities. They travel and communicate with people from different countries and backgrounds. They have access to every kind of information via the Internet.”

Zotov also said that modern Russian girls have become more independent and emancipated. They often prefer a domestic partnership to an official marriage, and pay much more attention to their careers. These trends are especially prevalent in big cities. At the same time, Russian women continue to play a traditional female role, giving birth and raising children. “It is quite possible that these changes are superficial though. Deep down inside, Russian women still need somebody to care for them,” Zotov added.

But their contemporaries, such as the 27-year-old manager Alexey Sazonov, believe that women have many benefits in modern Russia. “They use today’s opportunities to be successful, to express themselves, to spend time on hobbies, to care for themselves. It makes them very attractive,” he said.

Georgian Daily: Regions Seek Revival of Consultative Council of Federal Subject Representatives in Moscow

http://georgiandaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17473&Itemid=72
March 03, 2010

Paul Goble

Officials in several federal subjects are seeking the revival of the consultative Council of Representatives of the Russian Federation, a body that included the permanent representatives of the various districts resident in the Russian capital and that Vladimir Putin disbanded in 2004 in the course of creating his “power vertical.

On the one hand, such calls reflect both the desire of the governments of the federal subjects to have more direct representation in Moscow than many of them feel now and the growth of the number of such representatives not only in the capital but also in the various regions and republics of the Russian Federation.

But on the other, and perhaps more importantly, these appeals represent yet another effort to chip away at Putin’s system and to ensure that officials in the federal subjects have their own representatives in the Russian capital as well as in other parts of the country where particular regions have special interests.

In the first years after the 1917 revolution, regions, republics and even individual cities set up what came to be known as “permanent representations” in Moscow and other key Russian cities, offices that initially ensured the reliability of communications and still later supported visitors from their home areas or functioned as lobbyists for those governments.

By the end of the Soviet period, the number of these institutions had declined, with few besides the union republics maintaining those. Those institutions not only served as focal points for the nationality concerned but also served as the basis for the creation of embassies after the disintegration of the USSR.

Over the last two decades, various regions and republics within the Russian Federation have set up their own permanent representatives, typically in Moscow but also in areas with which their home regions have or hope to have closer relations or in which representatives of their nationality live.

Most of the time, these institutions operate below the media radar screen, but occasionally, they do attract coverage as for example at the end of last year when the Ingushetia government announced plans to create permanent representations in the federal subjects of the Urals region to which it planned to send unemployed Ingush.

Now, as a result of a meeting between the permanent representatives of North Ossetia and of Ingushetia in Moscow at the end of last year concerning the possibility of establishing “a common information space” in the North Caucasus Federal District, more information about these institutions and what their backers hope for them has surfaced.

Visingirey Gagiyev, the permanent representative of the Republic of Ingushetia attached to the office of the President of the Russian Federation, said that offices like his were extremely important for sharing information and also for maintaining ties with their co-ethnic communities in the Russian capital (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/165984/).

The Ingush representative pointed out that Ingushetia alone already has such offices not only in Moscow but in 33 federal subjects and “in the near future” will open representations in 25 more. If these plans are realized, then Ingushetia alone will have missions in a majority of the federal subjects of the country.

(While Ingushetia almost certainly has more such offices than any other federal subject at the present time, most other federal subjects maintain an office in Moscow, and many have them not only in other federal subjects with which they are connected economically or by the presence of co-ethnic diasporas but also in the capitals of the various Federal Districts.)

Gagiyev laid particular stress on the idea that “in the shortest possible time,” the activity of the Council of Representatives of the Subjects of the Russian Federation, “an advisory organ which functioned in the Russian capital between 1997 and 2004,” should be “renewed” in order to represent regional interests and share information.

Were that to happen, it would not constitute a revolution in Russian political life, but it would create yet another venue for cooperation among the regions and provide another opportunity for them to lobby either individually or collectively, possibilities that others in the Federal Assembly and the Russian powers that be would have to take into consideration.

But even if the Council is not reestablished – and the likelihood of that is probably low anytime soon -- the very fact that some in the regions are talking about the desirability of doing so highlights that Russian politics are again in flux and that some of the decisions and arrangements Putin made are being questioned if not yet openly challenged.