Problems of Translation

John Walter in his blog “Tennessee Rants” wonders if Putin is taking too much vodka with his tea?

In February, he demonstrated a breath-taking ignorance of how things are done in America when he criticized President Bush for firing Dan Rather.
Yesterday, he effectively undermined any good-will gains he intended to achieve through sending food to Africa by criticizing that continent's supposed history of cannibalism.

Now, the interesting thing is that Putin did not criticize Bush for firing Dan Rather. I already wrote about in one of my post. I also don’t believe that the wrong translation of Putin’s words was unintentional. Everyone who knows just a bit of Russian knows this linguistic peculiarity of using the word ‘vy’ (you). The illiterate translator at least could apologize later for his blunder and “unbiased” networks and newspapers who ridiculed Putin on his ignorance could also apologize.
Now talking about Putin criticizing Africa’s supposed history of cannibalism. ‘The Sun” published their own version of what Putin actually said and it seems like an intentional clogging of facts. What really happened? At the above-mentioned conference, one of the journalists asked a question about Putin’s intentions to crush opposition parties in Russia. Putin answered that in some African country not very long ago there was practice to eat political opponents but Russia is not that country. He definitely meant General Bokassa of Central African Republic (or Central African Empire in his times). In 1987, Bokassa was arrested and charged with torture, murder, and cannibalism. Convicted of murdering several political opponents, he was sentenced to death, but that was later commuted to life in prison. What kind of racism did Sun find about this fact? Mentioning the fact that Stalin sent thousands of his political opponents to Siberia doesn’t sound Russophobic to me.
I was often told not to take too emotionally Russia bashing in American media because (supposedly) smart people in the US don’t trust their media. I like John Walter’s blog and I’m sure he is a smart person but... Just any information about Russia in American media (esp. in Washington Post and Wall Street Journal) should always be checked for objectivity. They love to juggle with facts when it comes to Russia.
As for Putin’s weird sense of humor – Russians in general like it. I personally hate it (esp. his joke about getting terrorists in an outhouse) although my respect for Putin as a person and a president is very high. Putin is a Russian president and Russians elected him. I don’t find it strange that Putin tries to please his people. On the other hand, people like Bush or Blair would have no chances to be elected in Russia. Their speeches and the manner they speak would remind Russians too much about Brezhnev and years of communist demagogy.

From thugs to princes

Khodorkovsky trial in Russia showed the real power of money and how incredibly powerful Khodorkovsky was and still is. It would be wrong to represent this trial as unconditional victory of Putin over the poor oligarch. That was a fierce battle of two very strong opponents and Putin is as much covered with wounds as Khodorkovsky. Although the word ‘oligarch’ is often used ironically if Russia had a weak president we could see and feel what oligarchy really means. A very small group of super rich people could decide what laws to be passed, who should be a president, or how much taxes they would highly allow the state to be taken from their pockets. One could argue if Putin is good or bad but there is one undoubtedly positive thing about him – he an elected politician. Nobody elected Khodorkovsky to be above the president, above the government and above the parliament only because he managed to steal Yukos and became one of the richest people in the world.
With the money stolen from the state Khodorkovsky bought himself reputation as a Western-style “civilized” businessperson. He bought himself the parliament: the whole factions as Yabloko and SPS, or dozens of individual MPs. He was able to do unimaginable things. Like, 80% of Yukos oil was traded through dummy traders – one-day disposable companies whose “CEOs” didn’t even know about their high rank – but Khodorkovsky could buy Yukos the status of a 100% transparent company endorsed by the most respected auditors.
It turned out that a miracle of turning a ruthless thug into a nice and sympathetic businessperson is not such a difficult task. First, make sure that almost all journalists from all respectable Russian and Western networks, newspapers and magazines are many times dined and wined. Make a lot of very expensive and excessive press trips, breakfasts and happenings. Second, don’t spare money on major international PR companies, especially those who have US senators and congressmen among stakeholders. Third, make sure to have major contracts with important lobbyists. And forth, extremely important, make your appearance look civilized: shave those idiotic horseshoe moustache, buy yourself decent glasses and dress more casually. Hire an image maker, for god’s sake! I’m sure if Mr. Khodorkovsky looked on the dock today as he looked in 1997, he wouldn’t win so much sympathy.
Money can buy international amnesia. Before Khodorkovsky didn’t care about journalists they did write about his shadowy deeds or about very strange karma of people who dared to cross Mr. Khodorkovsky’s way. The moment Yukos spent just two hundred million dollars on international PR firms - oh magic coincidence! - all those unfortunate incidents were forgotten.
What a poor state of Russian justice! Judges and prosecutors are so unprofessional! They make so many mistakes! The problem is that a Russian judge makes a month less money than an lawyer of Khodorkovky and hour and Yukos hired dozens of them from all over the world and from the most successful law companies. Is it possible that such a poor and weak Office of Public Prosecutor can win a battle with such a rich individual? Just two years ago Mr. Khodorkovsky was sure: “No way!” Today he’s probably in doubt. The pressure his money put on Putin was immense but Khodorkovsky couldn’t bend him to his will. Many Russians viewed this battle as a fight between David (Putin) and Goliath (global oil corporations).
Russian prosecutors did a huge job. They had to gather almost every little piece of information about Yukos criminal activities. When you are not so brilliant or educated or excessively financed as Yukos, you have to amass your opponent. To my mind, from all the facts prosecutors gathered about Khodorkovky being a thug, just one is enough. Petty entrepreneurs in Russia can be registered as PBOYuL – a private entrepreneur without establishing a legal entity. This status meant to help such people who sell vegetables at an open market and renovate apartments. They pay almost no taxes and do almost no paperwork. So Mr. Khodorkovsky became a PBOYuL himself and was paid by Yukos about 200 million dollars as a private consultant. How ironic! One of the richest persons in the world uses taxation benefits meant for the most poor. And he was among the few who actually made them that poor.

Friends and Enemies of Russia

Levada Centre published the result of the poll conducted in May among 1600 Russians. The results give an interesting picture of what countries Russians consider its friends and what countries its enemies.
So, people think that the following countries are friends of Russia:
1. Byelorussia 46%
2. Germany 23%
3. Kazakhstan 20%
4. Ukraine 17%
5. India 16%
6. France 13%
7. China 12%
8. USA 11%
9. Bulgaria 11%
10. Armenia 10%
And the list of enemies of Russia:
1. Latvia 49%
2. Lithuania 48%
3. Georgia 38%
4. Estonia 32%
5. USA 23%
6. Ukraine 13%
7. Afghanistan 12%
8. Iraq 10%
9. Japan 6%
10. Iran 6%
Ukraine and the USA are in both lists. That tells a lot.

And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out)

Kirill Pankratov and his new article "Collapse" is devoted to the economic crisis in Argentina 2001 compared with Russian crisis 1998. I agree with Pankratov on almost every of his theses and conclusions.
"Russia in 1999 seemed "finished" for good. It just "didn't get" the global economy -- that was the wisdom of the time. There was incredible amount of gloating, masked with crocodile tears of
sympathy. The remains of Russian economy were compared in size to Iceland or even Namibia. All this was heard from the same mob of annals that today squeal hysterically about a suddenly resurgent, menacing, evil Russia, back from the dead.
By late 2000 all our eyes were on Argentina, which was just entering a trap. Right after the Russian default, in September 1998, Boris Fyodorov, one of the "young reformers," invited the Argentinean wonder boy Cavallo to advise Russia on "sound economic policy" and particularly in setting up a currency board. How things changed since then... Already at that time, in the fall of 1998, they began to unfold contrary to expectations of the global plutocracy, and largely unnoticed by it. As thousands of expats rushed out of Moscow in the wake of the financial crisis, the real economy began to show signs of life.
It had nothing to do with oil -- the prices stayed very low at least until late 1999. In fact the rebound had more to do with the very fact that the bums were out -- all these consultants and advisors, bloated with condescension and self-importance, sure that only they could drag backward reluctant Russia into the modern world."
In that issue of "Exile" there's also another Pankratov's article "Baltic Countries". It's rude, excessive, not very consistent but still interesting from the ethnographic point of view - what smart Russian intellectuals think about what happens in the Baltic states.

Rich and Poor

When Western journalists want to stress how poor Russians are they write about old people who have to survive on $200. Does it mean that if the Russian Central Bank decides to stop supporting the ruble and the dollar fall to its “natural” rate of about 16 rubles (from 28 rubles today), all poor Russians will become twice richer? This trick also solves the great Putin’s challenge to double GDP not in 10 years but in one day. The CIA Factbook uses its own methodology to calculate purchasing power parity. This way one gets a much better impression on how rich or poor different countries are. Here’s a list of GDP per capita purchasing power parity of the former Soviet republics. In brackets I put other countries to compare with.
Estonia $14,300 (Uruguay $14,500)
Lithuania $12,500 (Argentina $12,400)
Latvia $11,500
Russia $9,800 (Mexico $9,600)
Kazakhstan $7,800
Ukraine $6,300 (Colombia $6,600)
Armenia $4,600
Azerbaijan $3,800
Georgia $3,100 (India $3,100)
Moldova $1,900 (Sudan $1,900)
Uzbekistan $1,800
Kyrgyzstan $1,700
Tajikistan $1,100 (Afghanistan $800)
Also in the list:
Luxembourg $58,900
United States $40,100
Germany $28,700
United Kingdom $29,600
World $8,800
China $5,600

Russian Allies

More and more often I hear, “Russia is loosing its allies among former Soviet now independent states”. Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova are gone. Only states with dictatorial regimes now stay with Russia but democratic countries want to be with America, EU and NATO. Really?
It was a surprise for Russians to discover that before multicolored revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine those countries were ‘pro-Russian’. Not even close to that. There is nothing new in Saakashvili’s rhetoric that wasn’t said by Shevarnadze before: Russian bases should be out quick, Russia should stop supporting Osetia and Abkhazia, Georgia wants to be in NATO and EU, American troops are welcomed. The main difference between him and Saakashvili is that Saakashvili is a hot head who loves to make pompous speeches before large crowds of people. Shavarnadze also tried a couple of times to take Osetia by military force but he didn’t make statements, “This is the war not with Osetia but with Russia” or “We will sink every ship with Russian tourists that will try to approach the coast of Abkhazia”. So the difference is simply in volume. Shavarnadze’s flattery towards the American president was also not so fulsome.
The same with Ukraine. If someone is interested in details of former Ukrainian president Kuchma “pro-Rusianness” should read his book “Ukraine Is Not Russia”. Yushchenko and Timoshenko seem to be more friendly towards Russia in comparison. Kuchma’s sudden and surprising “love” to Russia revealed itself only in 2004 when he realized that America and EU were playing against him.
The whole discussion on Russian allies sounds ludicrous. In its present poor state Russia simply cannot have allies in the geopolitical sense of this word. If one is given a choice between a Russian ruble and an American dollar one would choose rubles only when dollars are for some reasons unavailable. After the crush of the Soviet Union all it small former republics (with an exception of the Baltic republics, of course) plunged into such poverty that they instinctively clung to Russia. One today is worth two tomorrows. Fifteen years later most of them are doing much better. It’s quite natural for them today to think that two birds in the bush are better than one in the hand. Why is it so obligatory to be militant Russophobes in order to become allies to the US and NATO? That’s a different question.

Say you're sorry for the occupation

At a press conference devoted to the V-Day celebrations in Moscow a young Estionian journalist asked Putin, “Why is it so hard for you to say ‘Excuse us for the occupation of the Baltic republics’? Just a few words and after that relations between our countries will become friendly and warm.” Really, why not? Putin refused to do it. He has some sound reasons for that.
Accepting that the Baltic republics were occupied equals the recognition that Russian and Ukrainian speaking residents of these countries – ‘resident aliens’ to be exact – are colonists brought by the occupant. Thus according to the Geneva Convention they become something like illegal emigrants or like Jewish settlers at the West Bank meant to be deported back home – back to the USSR.
It also means that Russia is de facto a sole assignee of the Soviet Union. Thus it should solely be responsible for all sins of the Evil Empire. According to the Constitution of the USSR the country was a union of equal republics and the status of the Russian Federation within the Soviet Union was nothing different from Ukraine, Georgia or Latvia. Of course, it was unofficially accepted that Russia is special – the first among equals. The opening line of the Soviet anthem goes, “The unbreakable union of free republics was brought together by the great Russia”, but national anthem is not a legal document in international relations. All former Soviet republics (minus three Baltic republics, of course) should be held responsible for the occupation. The Soviet Army included soldiers and officers from Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, etc. Argument like, “Russia is responsible for the Baltic occupation because it represented the biggest chunk of the Soviet Union” is ludicrous. Russia started the Civil War in 1918 and forced all other republics into the Soviet Union? But then Siberia, the Urals, Krasnodar, Stavropol, the Russian Far East are also territories “occupied” by the Red Army. Thus, St. Petersburg – the cradle of the communist revolt – is responsible for all Soviet atrocities. Is it ok if the mayor of St. Petersburg apologizes for the occupation?
It's also worth mentioning that only in the 40s Stalin decided that there are such people as Russians or Georgians in the USSR. Before there was only one people – the Soviet people - and dividing it in ethnic group was a very dangerous thing to do. The words like, “I’m a Ukrainian” said in public were worth 10 years in Gulag.
But what if there will be no grave legal consequences for Russia after apologizing for the Soviet occupation? What if people in the Baltic republics need just moral satisfaction and nothing more? This way the act of apologizing becomes an act of good will. Good will assumes good relations but what we see and hear today from Latvian or Estonian politicians? Verbal abuses, threats, refusals to sign important agreements, pressure on the EU and American politicians to force Russia in apologizing. It looks like a schoolyard brawl to me – “Ok, I’m sorry. Just put your fingers off my throat” – “Now say – I’m a dirty russische Schwein”. – “Ok, ok. I’m a Schwein.” – “Good. Now get up from the ground and let’s be friends.” Is this the kind of moral satisfaction the Baltic republics need?