Taking Aim

Russia needs more political parties, says Vladislav Surkov, the magnificently, if not entirely correctly named deputy head of the Kremlin administration in charge of parties.

Surkov started criticizing Russia’s party system, which he helped form, in spring. “The biggest drawback of our political system is that it is leader-based and hence depends on one party,” he told a meeting with the regional activists of the Russian Party of Life on March 24 (the transcript of the meeting was published yesterday). “There is no major alternative party, which makes the system unstable.”

He seems to want the Party of Life, whoever they are, to be the main opposition to the Kremlin backed United Russia.

I’ve seen a couple of articles on this today (Guardian, Publius Pundit), both of whom have been rightly mocking.

But, to me, one thing seems conspicuous by it’s absence in both articles – neither mention that Russia already has a couple of well organised opposition parties, both complete with party machines.

Who? Well, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for one. Or the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia for another. Both of these parties have been knocking around for a decade or more, and been relatively consistent performers in parliamentary elections – between them in the last Duma election they cornered about a quarter of the popular vote.

No, neither of these parties can win power in Russia today. The only real challenge to Putin will come from someone with decent democratic credentials, who captures the imagination of the people, or someone who can capture the hearts of businessmen, and con the people that he is a democrat.

But both the Communists and Liberal Democrats are potential kingmakers. Anyone that wants to seriously challenge the current status-quo in the Kremlin absolutely must come to some kind of arrangement with one or the other. Because otherwise they’ll split the anti-Putin vote.

For my money, I’d much rather it was the Communists than the Liberal Democrats.

Doesn’t sound terribly exciting, does it?  But the recently reported 20% birth rate increase could be the difference between life and death for the Russian state.

From 8.7 births per 1,000 people in 2000, it has gone to 10.4 in 2004, state statistics show.

Such figures compare favourably with other countries, notes leading Russian obstetrician Vladimir Serov: Germany recorded a rate of 8.3 births per thousand last year, while for Japan it was 9.5 and, in the UK, 10.8.

Since the tail end of the Soviet Union, the Russian population has plummeted at a rate of 5% (or around 750,000 people) per year, leading to predictions from the UN that, by 2050, Russia could have lost a staggering one in three of its population.

Russia still has to address some pretty fundamental problems – alcoholism and AIDS to name but two at the beginning of the alphabet – which contribute to a high death rate and an alarmingly low life expectancy for men.

But I wonder if this news could mark a turning point in Russia’s fortunes?

The Seven Sisters are a group of seven (oddly) Stalinist scyscrapers, that dominate the skylines of Moscow.

Digenis begins his series of articles about the sisters with a look at the Palace of the Soviets, the big sister that never was.

Yes, that’s a statue of Lenin on top. A gigantic statue of Lenin, to be more specific.

So ambitious were the plans, that the statue alone would have dwarfed the Statue of Liberty.

Russian pilots are to test their skills to the limit by flying through a cave in China:

Russian air force jets, including advanced Sukhoi Su-30s and Su-27s, would fly through the famed Tianmen Cave in central Hunan province on March 17-18.

The cave, which resembles a rock archway, is only 57 meters (188 feet) wide at its widest point and 28 meters wide at its narrowest, it said.

The cave is about 280 meters long and 130 meters high, and according to the China Daily, “is the highest water-eroded cave in the world”.

Now that’s what I call precision flying.

Owen, a student in St Petersburg, has been experiencing a few problems renewing his Russian visa:

In order to extend, you need: An HIV test, several passport pictures, proof of medical insurance, proof that you’ve paid the semester’s tuition, two applications, your name on a sheet of paper from the room down the hall (let’s be nice, pretend they have good organization, and call this the “Registrar’s Office), a receipt for payment of the application fee (400 rubles ~ $15), and one small pink monkey (to act as your intermediary should any conflict arise with the passport thief).

These various steps have to be done in a certain order, and that often entails a lot of walking back and forth to the same places multiple times. To start with, the Foreign Office is open to students only between the hours of 3 and 5 pm. Since there are thousands of foreign students at the university, this means that if you want to get in, you often have to come hours in advance. It also means that if you want to go to several rooms in the same building, it might take several days, because each one has its own line. Oh, and they’re closed on Wednesdays, because eight hours a week is enough to take care of thousands of students.

There’s more to Owen’s story.  Far, far more… a tale of bureaucratic woe that could only ever be the product of the warped Russian mind.

I count myself truly fortunate that I studied at a Russian university that was progressive enough to take my passport and lots of money out of my sticky little mitts, and do all the work for me.