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THE HEADLINES

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Wednesday, November 13, 2013

P 3

Russian bikie gang go along for the ride with President Vladimir Putin

Night Wolves

P 8-9

Winter Games venue has already set a record

Sochi Olympics

TRADITIONAL RUSSIAN DESIGNS ARE INFLUENCING HIGH FASHION

PAGE 11

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For each grumpy russian waiter, For each bottle of vodka, For each of you,

there is a smiling babushka serving pelmeni there is a glass of kvas there is a Russia of your choiceRBTH for iPad

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Olympic torch arrives at the North Polerbth.ru/31317

News in pictures

RUSSIAN TEAM GOING TO BRAZIL

METEOR PUT ON DISPLAY RUSSIA FEELS THE HEAT

After it drew 1-1 with Azerbaijan, the Russian national soccer team qualified for next year’s World Cup in Brazil (for the first time since the World Championship in Japan in 2002). Fabio Capello’s side sealed top spot in Group F, ahead of Portugal. Russia went into the match with an impressive four-match winning streak. This is a chance for the most successful generation of Russian soccer players (bronze medal winners from Euro 2008), especially given that the team is managed by one of the world’s most decorated coaches, 67-year-old Capello. In just one year, the Italian has changed the way Russians view the idea of a foreign coach.

Russian national team qualifies for 2014 World Cup

The biggest fragment of the Chelyabinsk meteor which hit Russia in February this year was lifted from the bottom of the Chebarkul Lake and is now on display in a museum in Chelyabinsk.

According to Russia's Hydrometeorological Centre, this autumn was one of the top 10 warmest in the northern hemisphere in 123 years. Moscow also had its hottest November day in 100 years.

While the Olympic torch relay courses through Russia by way of the North Pole, above, ahead of the 2014 Sochi Winter Games in February, this month, a veteran international crew from Rus-sia, the US and Japan launched an unlit torch replica into space for a ceremonial orbital handover.

SOCHI OLYMPICS OLYMPIC TORCH LAUNCHED INTO SPACE

FACTES AND NUMBERS

is the number of days the Olympic torch relay will take. It finishes on February 7, by which time it will have travelled more than 65,000 kilometres.

thousand people will have the opportunity to run with the lit Olympic torch in cities across Russia, and more than 30,000 volunteers will be in-volved in the event.

123 14

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Nine little-known facts linking Harry Potter and Russia

Rybnik – the fish dish with northern flavour

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Virtual museum of presidential gifts to go onlinerbth.ru/29279 Feature

YAROSLAVA KIRYUKHINARBTH

Russia's Night Wolves are

very different to bikie

gangs in Australia and the

US. Once perceived as

subversive, the club now

promotes traditional values.

Night Wolves ride alongside Putin Russia's largest bikie club has abandoned anti-establishment rhetoric in favour of patriotic and pro-Putin sentiments

Founded in May 1989, Rus-sia’s motorbike club the Night Wolves sprouted from the an-ti-Soviet rock culture of the 1980s — a time when the club regarded itself as standing for freedom and against the establishment.

For years, this group of bearded, beer-bellied men in black leather and blue jeans was Russia’s only bikie gang. Now, while one of many, it is still the country’s largest mo-torbike club, with more than 5000 members.

The Night Wolves’ manifes-to rejects all laws and speaks of the power of the Brother-hood. It has not, however, tar-nished its reputation, as the American branch of the club has, with criminal activities. With a few exceptions it gen-erally has a clean reputation.

The Russian branch was modelled on the American Hells Angels club and was initially labelled an MG (“motorgang”), not MC (“mo-torbike club”).

But the Night Wolves is very different to bikie clubs and gangs elsewhere.

Ideologically, the club has moved close to the Russian authorities and it has con-nections to President Vladimir Putin. The club’s leaders are increasingly becoming known for their espousal of traditional values, national-ist rhetoric and conservative views.

Putin fi rst visited the Night Wolves at their Sexton bike club in western Moscow in 2009 – something that scep-tics viewed as just another one of the president’s colour-ful media stunts.

Images of Putin on a larg-er-than-life bike, surrounded by burly Night Wolves mem-bers, did the media rounds during his premiership and later presidency.

Then, in July, Putin even kept Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovich waiting for four hours when he was having a meeting with Alexander Zal-dostanov, the tattooed head of the Night Wolves — also known as “The Surgeon”.

Putin has embraced and supported Russian patriot-ism and the strength of the Russian nation since he fi rst became president in 2000, and so have the Night Wolves.

“I want us to remain a pa-triotic club,” says Zaldostanov, "to be an example for the young, to do something for our Fatherland – which we basically lost by buying jeans and chewing gum and sell-ing out for McDonald’s.

" Guys and girls, you're great. Not only are you having fun riding your

bikes, but you're combining it with patriotic deeds. It's cool that you haven't forgotten our war heroes."

" We have a closed brotherhood, which has its own rules, with col-

lective responsibility and pri-vacy being the most important among them. Members know that whatever happens to them, whether it be at a police station or in court, that the club will always support him, even if he did something wrong and acted immorally."

" It’s no use associating us with politics while we are still in opposition to

the authorities. It’s no good to mix patriotism or spirituality with politics. I’m interested in Putin’s personality, and perhaps he and I could have become closer friends if he wasn’t the president."

QUOTES

Vladimir Putin

Felix – a club member

Club leader Zaldostanov

DURING A FESTIVAL HELD TO MARK THE CITY

OF NOVOROSSIYSK’S LIBERATION IN WWII

DURING AN INTERVIEW AT THE NIGHT

WOLVES' SEXTON BIKE CENTRE IN MOSCOW

DURING AN INTERVIEW WITH THE

RADIO STATION SVOBODA

Headquartered in Moscow but with more than 5000 members nationwide, the Night Wolves is Russia's biggest motorbike club.

President Vladimir Putin rides with the Night Wolves in a publicity stunt which the club enthusiastically welcomed.

Their conservatism runs deep: the Night Wolves are openly homophobic and dis-criminatory and have said they do not allow gay men to join the club.

The Night Wolves’ new pro-government and pro-estab-lishment stances have cer-tainly raised some eyebrows among Russian bikies, par-ticularly middle-class riders who may not share their con-servative views. There are still, however, middle-class bikies who bought their Harley-Da-vidsons and BMWs during Russia’s oil boom of the noughties who are keen to join the club.

In 2013 Putin awarded Zal-

dostanov the prestigious Order of Honour for his “ac-tive work in patriotic up-bringing of the young” and for helping search for the re-mains of dead World War Two soldiers.

Moreover, Zaldostanov’s club does not seem to have attracted bad media cover-age after an incident in which a member was killed in a shoot-out with a rival gang last year, allegedly because the latter refused to endorse the Night Wolves’ support of the Kremlin.

Yevgeny Vorobyev, the lead-er of the Three Roads, a gang involved in the shoot-out, later said that his gang had angered the Night Wolves by ending an alliance with them and establishing ties with the US motorcycle club, the Ban-didos, a club which recently edged onto the Russian soil but keeps a low profi le.

“We just didn’t like the public activity of the Wolves – all that official stuff,” Vorobyev said. “Our ideals are music, bikes, free time and girls.”

“The Night Wolves are a phenomenon – bigger than a motorbike club, something that makes presidents come to us and the [Orthodox] Pa-triarch give us his blessing.”

Zaldostanov makes no se-cret of his warm relations with Putin and praises the president for his patriotic at-tempts to return Russia to its former greatness.

Zaldostanov organised a patriotic motorbike club fes-tival this year in Stalingrad, as part of a wider ceremony commemorating the Nazi bombing of the city on Au-gust 23, 1942.

He is also increasingly be-coming famous for his harsh

anti-American rhetoric and criticisms of what he sees as Western values.

The Night Wolves expressed outrage at the controversial punk prayer performed by Russian feminist group Pussy Riot in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Febru-ary, 2012, and in doing so, showed their support for the Russian Orthodox Church.

They have taken a very dif-ferent path from the ideals held at the club’s inception. Following the Pussy Riot con-troversy, the club later prom-ised to help guard Orthodox cathedrals from any further “hooliganism”, as they de-scribed it.

3 1 Aspiring members – only (straight)

men need apply – should be adventure-seekers, without work or family commitments which might prevent them from spending time with the club.

2 You need your own bike, for

starters (and they don't always come cheap). Putin's three-wheel Harley, that he rode to a bike show in Sevas-topol, for instance, cost more than $US20,000.

3 Would-be Wolves need to demon-

strate their loyalty and commitment to the club by waiting five years before they be-come members and can put club emblems on their leather jackets.

HOW TO

BECOME A

NIGHT WOLF

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Doing business in Russia is now easier than in Chinarbth.ru/31355Business

ANNA KUCHMARBTH BUSINESS EDITOR

Misleading stereotypes of

Russian business people and

negative perceptions about

doing business in Russia have

abounded since the '90s.

Stereotypes of how Russians do business have little to do with contemporary realities

Common images of Russian business people have been, at worst, of hardened criminals, or, at best, of compromised entrepreneurs, working in an environment where any at-tempts at running a legiti-mate business fail because of impenetrable walls of bu-reaucracy and corruption.

While there are elements of truth to these stereotypes, things have changed in Rus-sia since the ’90s, and many foreign entrepreneurs who have gone to Russia to do business have been in no hurry to leave.

“It’s not at all like the ste-reotypes portrayed in West-ern media,” says Simon Fentham-Fletcher, a British expat in Moscow who works as a portfolio manager at Re-naissance Asset Managers.

“I originally thought I’d be here for two years,” he said, “and it’s now been

A different way to get the deal done

Brezhev and Honecker's iconic 1979 kiss has come to symbolise the tendency of Russians towards strong emotional expression.

Want to do business in Russia?

The pros:1. Russians are known for being hard workers.

2. Once trust is established, Russians make loyal business partners.

3. The new 13 per cent tax rate is attractive for investors.

seven. Working in Russia has made me a better business-man and problem solver. I’ve upped my game to match what’s here.”

There are, of course, tricks of the trade that entrepre-neurs looking to set up shop in Russia should know.

1. The importance of trustFentham-Fletcher says Rus-sians are typically wary at the beginning of business ne-gotiations, and that trust is a critical factor, which once earned with Russians will last a lifetime.

2. Russian emotional stylesOnce trust has been estab-lished, Russians are not afraid to show emotion dur-ing business negotiations. It is not uncommon for them to be physically animated, to pat their business part-ners on the back or to have fewer boundaries with re-gard to personal space in general.

Bonding Russian style often involves drinking vodka shots – something non-Russians are usually in-experienced with.

Russians also do not smile as much as Western business people in negotiations.

Russian-born Polina La-gutina, from PwC Mel-bourne, says on this subject: “Of course, it depends on the person, but [Russian] tradi-tions dictate that you not re-veal happiness or pride, in case someone gets jealous and takes the reason for your happiness and pride away.”

3. Getting straight down to businessThe more Russians trust their business partner, the less in-clined they are to waste time on formalities and exchang-es of pleasantries. They get straight to the point – and only then do they resort to small talk. And, as Fentham-Fletcher has learned, busi-ness matters are often dis-cussed outside the office.

“Business dinners are the norm, the business day starts slightly later but runs late into the night. Restaurants can be full of business peo-ple doing deals at all times of the day, whereas in Lon-

don or New York the deals are more likely to get done during the day and in the office,” he says.

Fentham-Fletcher believes the more Russians trust their business partners, the more likely discussions will take place in more personal and relaxed environments.

4. Assertiveness, creativity and driveThese qualities are some of the most distinct traits that stand out in Russians, Fentham-Fletcher says. He says that because there are so many opportunities in Russia, Russians are always on the look out for them, and are often very creative in fi nding ways to build new businesses. He points out that because of the country's legacy of bureaucratic bar-riers, Russians are often in-novative and lateral-think-ing problem solvers.

That said, he emphasises that the age of a Russian business person is important.

“Those over 50 usually have a Soviet style of doing business. This means they are likely risk averse and tend to gloat over their past achievements. Those in their forties set targets, it’s just that the targets get increased with each new deal. I love their insatiability. The desire to keep pushing for more is something that holds Euro-peans back. Not in Russia, where there is never enough.”

5. Giving advice In Russian, the word soviet means “council” or “advice”. Soviet-era Russians have an infuriating tendency to-wards giving advice, even if what they are advising on is well outside their fi eld of ex-pertise.

Lagutina says this tenden-cy can drive foreign business people mad. But, she ex-plains, it should be under-stood as a way of express-ing care and a sign of friendship.

Soviet-era Russians can have an infuriating tendency towards advice-giving

4. As a large country, Russia has an army of well educated and driven young people.

5. Russians have an anything-is-possible mentality.

6. A legacy of the Soviet expe-rience – many Russians are innovative problem-solvers.

The cons:1. Winters are brutally cold.

2. Immigration, visas and work permits are difficult to get.

3. Red tape is harrowing in general.

4. The traffic jams in Moscow are so bad that Russia’s presi-dent and prime minister go to work by helicopter.

Don`t miss the chance to meet them at rbth.ru/30under30

telling you their success stories

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Russian opposition abandons street protestsrbth.ru/31295 Politics

per cent of the vote was garnered by

opposition leader Alex-ey Navalny in Moscow

27

ALEKSANDR KOLESNICHENKOSPECIAL TO RBTH

A couple of notable

opposition figures made an

unexpected impact in the

September round of elections

in Russia – the largest in the

country's post-Soviet history.

Opposition leaders defy the odds to spring poll surprise

Russia's opposition politicians have long had trouble challenging the dominance of the incumbent party United Russia

In September, municipal au-thorities were elected in 80 of Russia's 83 regions, with 16 regions also electing local parliaments and 10 (includ-ing Moscow and the Moscow region) electing heads of gov-ernment.

According to data released by Russia’s Central Electoral Commission, 109,900 candi-dates ran for a total of 44,661 seats nationwide.

The elections also saw the success of two opposition pol-iticians: Alexey Navalny in Moscow and Yevgeny Roiz-man in Yekaterinburg

While the 37-year-old an-ti-corruption blogger Naval-ny did not win Moscow’s mayoral election, he got 27 per cent of the vote (proba-bly not something incumbent mayor Sergei Sobyanin – who got 51 per cent of the vote – expected when he supported Navalny’s candidacy).

Roizman, however, did win the mayoral post in Yekater-inburg, gaining 33 per cent of the vote, narrowly beating United Russia’s candidate Yakov Silin, who got 30 per cent. Running on a tough-love anti-drug platform, Roizman is now the highest-placed op-position fi gure in Russia.

Despite the success of these two fi gures at the local level, opposition politicians in Rus-sia have a hard time getting anywhere because of the dominance of the incumbent ruling party United Russia. And even Roizman is not like-ly to fi nd it easy working with a United Russia-dominated city council.

The internal versus external oppositionAfter President Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999, Russia’s opposition parties gradually became sidelined. Since 1999, a number of reg-ulations have been introduced which have made it difficult for small parties to survive. One, for example, introduced in 2004, required that the minimum membership for a political party be 50,000 peo-

Further barriers ahead for

opposition leaders A handful of opposition politicians made an impact in Russia's recent September elections (Alexei Navalny, Yevgeny Roizman, Boris Nemts-ov and Galina Shirshina). However, just a month after the elections, the State Duma approved a law that will lower the minimum number of rep-resentatives in regional and municipal legisla-tures that must be selected by party lists from 50 per cent to 25 per cent. This means that 75 per cent of deputies will be able to be elect-ed in the winner-takes-all elections, which are more likely to be won by politicians from the ruling party United Russia. As well, a group of senators introduced a bill that would reintro-duce the “against all” option to ballots in Duma elections – a move which is likely to take votes away from opposition parties.

per cent of the vote went to Yevgeny

Roizman in Yekaterinburg elections

33

per cent of the vote was won by reformist Galina Shirshina

in the city of Petrozavodsk

41.9

ple and that party branches have at least 500 people in at least half of Russia’s re-gions. Not surprisingly, as a result, the number of parties in Russia dropped from more than 60 in the early nough-ties to seven by the time of the State Duma elections in 2011.

In March, 2012, that regu-lation was amended. A po-litical party can now be reg-istered if it has a minimum of 500 members, and only fi ve members for each regional party branch.

Since 2003, United Russia has had a majority in the State Duma, which has allowed it to pass laws at its discretion (and pass laws it has).

Also, by 2003, Russia’s op-position movement was being described as being either in-side or outside “the system”.

The internal opposition consists of parties that have managed to retain their of-fi cial registration and run in elections, while the external opposition includes unregis-tered parties and political movements that hold meet-ings and stage protests with-out permission from the au-thorities. However, political analysts describe the inter-nal opposition in Russia’s State Duma as merely a “no-tional” opposition – politi-cians without actual infl u-ence or power.

This notional opposition consists of the Communist Party of the Russian Federa-tion (CPRF), with its leader of 20 years Gennady Zyu-ganov, who continues to play on elderly Russians’ nostal-gia for Soviet times (when their wages were higher than their current pensions and the USSR was a great power).

The two other parties are A Just Russia, created by spin doctors in 2006 as a spoiler party to lure voters away from the CPRF, and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. The LDPR is headed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is infamous for his outrageous, nonsensical and at times ag-gressively nationalist rheto-ric. Zhirinovsky once prom-ised that if elected he would fi nd a husband for every single Russian woman. It is bamboozling that a man who gets into fi st fi ghts in the Duma and gives away cash at politi-

cal rallies gets about 10 per cent of the vote in Russia.

All against Putin Some opposition leaders have no intention of getting their parties registered because they think that they would not be able to win elections anyway. One example is Ed-uard Limonov, a writer and leader of The Other Russia, previously known as the Na-tional-Bolshevik Party, which was banned for being extrem-ist in 2007.

Limonov has been convict-ed and imprisoned on mul-

tiple occasions and spent two years in jail for illegally pur-chasing weapons in 2003.

He advocates seizing power through mass insurrections. “When there are 5000 or 8000 of us taking to the streets, we’re outside the law,” he fa-mously said, “but if there are 500,000 of us, we become the law.” Limonov still laments that in December 2011, dur-ing the large-scale protests against alleged electoral fraud which were thought to include at least 100,000 par-ticipants, that the government was not overthrown.

Limonov’s support base, however, is limited. He has several dozen participants in his Strategy-31 campaign, named after Article 31 of the Russian Constitution (1993), guaranteeing freedom of as-sembly.

For several years now, on the 31st of each month that has 31 days, Limonov and ac-tivists from The Other Rus-sia party gather in Moscow's Triumfalnaya Square, where they are routinely arrested and fi ned for taking part in unsanctioned protests and for disobeying the police.

1

2

3

Top: Yevgeny Roizman after his mayoral victory; middle: opposition activist Ed-

uard Limonov; bottom: Alexey Navalny, Moscow's contentious opposition leader.

However, political analysts describe the internal opposition in Russia's State Duma as merely a 'notional' opposition – politicians without actual influence or power.

rbth.asia/48957

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Russia goes green using new natural reservesrbth.ru/30531Society

first published by RIA Novosti

Forest fires in Russia last year

burned 10.5 million hectares

and caused eight deaths. It is

estimated it will take 80 to

90 years to recover from the

environmental damage.

2012 blazes spark new control effortsForest fires are a common problem in Russia in summer – but last year the country saw its worst fire season in a decade

Alexey Yaroshenkohead of the forest department

at Greenpeace Russia

Russia’s 2013 fire season proved less destructive than 2012 with preliminary esti-mates suggesting that about 1.5 million hectares of forest were burned.

One outcome of the 2012 fi re season was that the au-thorities disclosed to the community just how serious the scale of fi re destruction was – while in previous years they were less than forthcom-ing.

It didn’t happen early enough, however. Fires start-ed in the far east in June but it wasn’t until late July and early August that some re-gional administrations – Ya-kutia for example – made public statements about the gravity and extent of the fi res.

A second outcome of the 2012 fire season was that, after being lax for several years, the authorities realised they needed to take meas-ures to crack down on wide-spread uncontrolled spring burning of dry grass.

There is a tradition in Rus-sia of burning grass because of a belief that it increases soil fertility. This practice has been responsible for starting many forest fi res. Sadly, the necessary legislative steps to support a crackdown were

73 million dollars were spent in 2012 by the Russian authorities in forest-fire prevention – more than 10 times less than the US spends.

1.5 millionhectares of forest were burned in 2013 – seven times less than in 2012 when average tempera-tures in Siberia reached 34C.

IN NUMBERS

not taken in time for the start of the fi re season.

Despite this, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Fed-eral Forestry Agency, the Ag-riculture Ministry, the Emer-gencies Ministry and the administrations of many Rus-sian regions tightened their control over organisations that oversee fi re-prevention strat-egies at local levels. And this may explain why there were fewer fi res this year.

In the spring of 2013, the FIRMS satellite-based fire-monitoring system registered a 53 per cent drop in the num-ber of fi res in natural wood-

less areas, compared to the av-erage annual fi gure observed over the previous 10 years.

Nikolay Shmatkovforest policy projects

coordinator, WWF Russia

There were no catastrophic forest fires in Russia's most populated regions in 2013.

Most of the fi res were in the republics of Yakutia and Ka-relia, in the Komi, Yamal-Nen-ets and Khanty-Mansi auton-omous areas, in the Irkutsk and Amur regions, in Krasno-

are effective – however, Rus-sia doesn’t have its own fi re-detection satellites in orbit, and the information-process-ing times of current systems are slow, as is the reaction speed of Russia's fi refi ghters.

Slow reaction times are due to shortages in personnel and resources. Forest inspectors are often responsible for thou-sands of hectares of woodlands and they don’t have adequate equipment to manage such ex-tensive areas.

A lack of funding, includ-ing in the fi eld of forest fi re protection, remains a key problem. According to esti-mates, Russia spends three times less than needed on its forestry sector. It invests 140 times less per hectare of wood-land than the US, and 19 times less than Finland.

Canada spends at least $US1 billion a year on pre-venting forest fi res and the fi g-ure for the US is $US2-2.5 bil-lion. But Russia in 2010 spent just 2.2 billion roubles ($US73 million). While funding levels have increased, they still re-main inadequate.

One positive initiative is Russia’s new Forest Fire Re-sponse Project. The project aims to enhance federal for-est management, improve for-est fi re prevention and sup-pression, and more generally, to promote favourable condi-tions for responsible and sus-tainable use of the nation’s for-ested areas. The project will be implemented between 2013 and 2018.

To accomplish its goals, it will bolster the legal and reg-ulatory framework for forest-ry management and invest di-rectly in efforts to regenerate and restore forestry that has been affected by industry or fire. In July 2013 the World Bank gave Russia a $US40 million loan to support the project. However, the threat of massive forest fi res in Eu-ropean Russia continues to grow. The problem of drained peat bogs has been partially solved only in the Moscow re-gion, by keeping them damp, while in neighbouring re-gions, thousands of hectares of unmanaged peat bogs pose a serious risk of fi re. Peat-bog fi res burn underground and can even continue to burn through winter.

Another factor which has increased fi re risk is the fact that an insect pandemic has destroyed vast areas of spruce forests in the Moscow, Vladimir, Kaluga and Tula regions, leav-ing behind forests of dry dead wood. In the Moscow region alone, the pandemic is esti-mated to have destroyed 45,000 hectares of forest.

With each of these factors combined, the fi re risk in Rus-sia next summer is likely to be signifi cant.

In July this year, the World Bank gave Russia a $US40 million

loan to support a project aimed at forest fire prevention.

Smoke from forest-fires near Moscow blanketed the city for a week in August 2010, dramatically affecting air quality.

yarsk and Baikal territories and in the Republic of Bury-atia. European Russia was largely spared, primarily thanks to the abundance of snow last winter and rain last summer.

The local authorities had also learned lessons from the destructive forest and peat bog fi res that affected the area in 2012.

A number of bureaucratic barriers which used to impede the effective use of fi refi ght-ing resources have been dis-mantled, and regional admin-istrations have received new fi re-fi ghting equipment.

Russia does not practice back-burning for fi re preven-tion, and it still remains large-ly unprepared for fi ghting for-est fi res effectively.

Some believe the authori-ties are underestimating human involvement in Rus-sia’s fires. According to the Federal Forestry Agency, only 38 per cent of 2013’s fi res were started by people, with the re-maining 62 per cent being caused by natural phenomena such as lightning.

To manage forest fi res bet-ter, it’s vital that fi res are de-tected early. Modern satellite-based fi re detection systems

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Russia will not abandon market reformsrbth.ru/31127 Society

Migrants in Russia are fre-quently subject to racism, harassment and scapegoat-ing. They are blamed for stealing jobs from ethnic Rus-sians, doing second-rate work, harassing Russian women and perpetrating vi-olent crimes.

The bulk of Russia’s mi-grants come from two re-gions: the ethno-republics in the south of Russia (includ-ing Chechnya and Dagh-estan), which are actually within the borders of the Rus-sian Federation, and Central Asian countries, which are part of a loose economic union with Russia called the Commonwealth of Independ-ent States (CIS).

A survey by the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM) in August reported that two-thirds of Russians thought that mi-grants increased crime rates, and 40 per cent of those polled said migrants weren’t good for the economy. Rus-sians often criticise migrants for not assimilating, not so-cialising with locals and not learning to speak Russian properly.

Migrants in Russia are fre-quently harassed by the coun-try’s corrupt police force, and they make easy targets in an atmosphere of impunity and rising nationalism. On the pretext of “checking registra-tion papers” police often ex-tract bribes from migrants.

Law enforcement agencies in Moscow have also scape-goated migrants, blaming them for more crimes than statistics would suggest they commit. RIA Novosti report-ed earlier this year that Mos-cow's Public Prosecutor’s of-fi ce declared that migrants were responsible for almost half the city’s crimes, when official statistics put the fi g-ure closer to 20 per cent.

Among Moscow’s popula-tion of 11.5 million, 1 million are migrants, one third of them illegal migrants. A large proportion of this group have low incomes and do jobs that most Moscovites would turn their noses up at: street-sweeping, garbage collection, cleaning, roadworks and con-struction.

President Vladimir Putin himself has made comments criticising migrants for caus-ing problems, and in all like-lihood he is responding to popular sentiments. The slo-gan “Russia for Russians” is appearing more frequently, and nationalists want mi-grants from other countries (and from other parts of Rus-sia) to be sent back to where they came from (something which is not possible, unless Russia reintroduces restric-tions on internal movement which were in force during Soviet times).

The “rights” organisation the Moscow Shield says it aims to root out unregistered (illegal) migrant workers. On September 27, its activists, armed with baseball bats, raided a building that housed migrant workers, chasing out those whose registration doc-uments weren’t legitimate. Several groups are targeting illegal migrants, according to

the Sova Centre, a Moscow-based NGO which conducts research into racism.

Recruited largely from for-mer Soviet republics in Cen-tral Asia for construction pro-

jects in the economic boom, Russia's new migrants ac-count for 11 million people.

Russia has the second-larg-est migrant population in the world, behind the US, which has 45.8 million, and ahead of Germany, which has 9.8 million. But migrants account for just 7.7 per cent of the

total population, which pro-portionately is much less than in Germany and the US.

Not surprisingly, migrants fl ock to large centres such as Moscow. Despite this, Rus-sia’s capital has little infra-structure and few services to cater to them. The city has just one “migrant-friendly” hostel, which is on the out-skirts of the city and costs just $US5 a night.

“They (the police) can stop us several times in one day,”says one of the hostel's residents, 20-year-old Maxim from Daghestan. “So we try to keep a low profi le.” Maxim works as a cashier in a su-permarket and says he earns $US1500 a month (in Rus-sia's peripheral regions, peo-ple would be lucky to earn a tenth of that).

He says the police extort more money from those who have legal registration docu-ments (more than $US30 each time), while those who don’t have documents only have to pay a $US3 fi ne. For this rea-son, many migrants leave their documents at home.

Apart from the fortunate few who stay at the hostel, many migrants live where they work, which could be on the actual construction site they’re building. Or they may be crammed into a tiny fl at, with a dozen odd compatri-ots per room.

The head of the Federal Mi-gration Service (FMS), Kon-stantin Romodanovsky, re-cently admitted that Russia had failed in terms of its im-migration policies. He pro-posed setting up 81 special

centres for illegal migrant workers, but did not say whether the centres would help migrants fi nd work and residency permits or they would be deported.

Someone who stands for the liberalisation of immigra-tion legislation is Boris Titov, Presidential Ombudsman for Entrepreneurs’ Rights. He has proposed an amnesty for all illegal migrants.

“If we suddenly deport all the migrant workers, the economy will crumble,” Titov told RBTH. “Today Russia desperately needs workers. Migrants do one in every 15 jobs. Taking into account the demographic pit into which Russia has fallen, the need for workers will only increase. And who will fi ll this need?”

Russia has an ageing pop-ulation – by 2030 the num-ber of working-age Russians is predicted to fall from 87.5 million to 77.4 million.

According to Titov, about 75 per cent of illegal migrants come from CIS countries, which have visa-free agree-ments with Russia. But only a fi fth of these migrants ac-tually want to settle in Rus-sia and obtain citizenship. Titov also emphasises that the dire state of Russia’s policies towards migrants doesn’t protect them from official corruption and lawlessness.

According to Sergey Markedonov, a researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, any attempts to impose visa barriers on mi-grants from the Caucasus and Central Asia would put an end to the Eurasian Union and integration projects, and would fan anti-Russian sen-timent in these countries.

It is worth remembering that many Russians still live in CIS countries: Kazakhstan has more than 3 million Rus-sians, Uzbekistan 1 million and Azerbaijan about 120,000.

YAROSLAVA KIRYUKHINARBTH

While Moscow residents are a

diverse mix of nationalities,

not all Russians in the

country’s capital are happy

about the city's levels of

immigration.

Anti-migrant sentiment grows

Attitudes towards migrants in Russia are overwhelmingly negative in a broader climate of increasing nationalism

Racial riots show growing tension

Tensions between Russians and migrants in Moscow reached crisis point last month, when an incident in Moscow’s low-in-come outer suburb of Biryulevo led to rioting. The riots were

in response to the death of a man whose murder local resi-dents blamed on an Azeri mi-grant, Orkhan Zeynalov. Zeynal-ov was arrested soon after the incident, although some com-

Nationalist activists, armed with baseball bats, raided a building that housed migrant workers

Construction work is lucrative,

although migrant workers are

often expected to sleep at the

sites they work on.

mentators say he was a scape-goat and the arrest was to calm angry crowds. Emil Pain, direc-tor of the Russian Centre for Ethnopolitical Studies in Mos-cow, says this was the fourth major ethnic conflict in Russia this year between ethnic Rus-sians and migrants, with simi-lar incidents having occurred in Saratov, Yekaterinburg and Ta-tarstan. Following the Biryulevo riot, police stepped up patrols throughout Moscow in an at-tempt to prevent a repeat of the 2010 riots on Manezhnaya Square, when thousands of na-tionalists protested over the murder of a Russian during a fight between football fans and migrants from the North Cau-casus. Azerbaijan has criticised Russian police for describing Zeynalov as a “killer” rather than a suspect.

PHOTOSHOT/VOSTOCK-PHOTO

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The Zippo Incidentrbth.ru/30693Special

JEFF VAUGHANSPECIAL TO RBTH

From Sochi’s Olympic

Stadium, you can see the

Black Sea in one direction

and the snow-capped

Caucasus mountains

in the other.

SOCHI SETS A GAMES RECORD AT$46�BILLION

SOCHI'S LIMITED INFRASTRUCTURE

AND WARM CLIMATE HAVE

CONTRIBUTED TO THE HIGH COSTS

WINTER OLYMPICS

If hosting London’s 2012 Games on a former industri-al waste site seemed challeng-ing, try holding the Winter Olympics in a sub-tropical region. Palm trees adorn Sochi’s Olympic Park, while inland 450,000 cubic metres of snow sit in storage, in case the sun melts what’s on the slopes come February 7, when the Games begin. Sochi had almost no sport-ing facilities when Russian President Vladimir Putin charmed the International Olympic Committee’s dele-gates in 2007, winning the Olympics for Russia.

Its location, in a relatively undeveloped part of south-ern Russia where the climate is similar to the south of France, in part explains why the Sochi Games are fast be-coming the most expensive Olympics in history.

Putin promised to spend $US12 billion to get Sochi ready, but the budget has come in at $US46 billion, mostly funded by the govern-ment or state-run companies. This is more than the $US44 billion estimated to have been spent on Beijing 2008, and dwarfs the $US14 million price-tag of London’s Games.

Sochi had considerable en-gineering challenges, which have been overcome at con-siderable expense. Sochi’s Olympic Park, for example, used to be a swamp. Roads and railways were built to re-mote locations before con-struction of the sporting fa-cilities could even begin.

A new railway provides a 30-minute link between the two competition zones, the Coastal Cluster and the Mountain Cluster, and organ-isers say Sochi will be the most compact Winter Games yet staged.

All the arenas in the Coast-al Cluster are within walk-ing distance of each other, while athletes will stay just five minutes away in the Olympic Village. A separate Olympic Village in the Moun-tain Cluster, which will host ski, snowboard and bobsleigh events, is 15 minutes from competition venues.

If the world’s biggest coun-try has the dubious distinc-tion of hosting the world’s most expensive Olympics, then another number gives a nostalgic tinge to the occa-sion for Russians. The Sochi Games is the 22nd Winter Ol-ympiad, which mirrors the 1980 Olympics in Moscow being the 22nd Summer Ol-ympiad.

But the return of the Olym-pic flame is to a different country, one that sees Sochi as a chance to present to the world Russia’s modern face.

However, Russia’s chronic problems with corruption have led to speculation over the amount of construction funds that seem to have been diverted into offshore bank accounts.

There has also been con-troversy over what to do with the 11 competition venues once the Games are over. The biggest arena, the 40,000-seat Fisht Olympic Stadium, will not stage any sporting events, but only the opening and closing ceremonies and medal presentations. Post-Olympics, this $US63 million stadium, named after Mount Fisht which is visible through the arena’s transparent roof, will be the training and match venue for Russia’s national football team.

It will also host matches of the 2018 World Cup.

One plan to scatter some O l y m p i c stardust around Russia was to disman-tle three of Sochi’s a r e n a s a f t e r t h e

Games and relocate them to other cities. But this plan appears to be foundering, with officials disagreeing on where they should go. It’s

likely they will stay in Sochi, and may become

part of an elite winter sports academy for children.Whatever decisions are made about the future of the facilities, the Olympics is providing

Sochi with a rare opportu-nity to improve its infra-structure and transform its Soviet-era tourist facilities.

Sochi has a long history as both a summer and win-ter holiday destination.

However, in recent years it has lost out to Medi-terranean beach and ski resorts. Now the Olympics are a chance for Sochi to attract new tourist markets

and to rebrand itself. Sochi and London share

an interesting parallel. A Levada poll last month found 65 per cent of Russians thought Sochi was a waste of money, while 64 per cent of Britons surveyed told the BBC be-fore London 2012

that the Olympics were too expensive. But just four

months after the Olym-pics, four-fi fths of Brit-

ons considered it to have been money well spent – an

achievement which Russia may be hard pressed to match, con-sidering Sochi's rock-eting costs.

Sochi's Fisht Olympic Stadium

seats 40,000 and will host the

opening and closing ceremo-

nies. It cost $US63 million.

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Insider's guide: the best day trips in and around Sochitravel.rbth.ru/1313 Special

Sochi, a favourite getaway for Stalin, was the Soviet leader's main wartime residence

SVETLANA SINEPOSTOLOVICHSPECIAL TO RBTH

The history of Sochi, a city in

southern Russia on the Black

Sea and host to the 2014

Winter Olympics, is

intricately linked to the

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

Stalin's relaxing bath led to growth of a tourist hot spot

Stalin saw the tourism po-tential of the Black Sea coast after visiting Sochi’s Matses-ta sulphur baths. A long-standing sufferer of rheuma-tism, he felt immediate relief from the baths and therefore decided to make Sochi his holiday destination.

In 1934, Stalin allocated more than 1 billion roubles to improve Sochi’s infrastruc-ture. Health resorts and parks sprang up around the city with special attention being paid to Matsesta, Stalin’s pet project.

During his fi rst visits, Sta-lin stayed at the Mikhaylovs-koye estate, situated on the hill between the Matsesta rift and the Agurskiy waterfall. In time, he built a dacha (or country house) which was named Zelenaya Rosha (green grove).

The dacha, which today is open to visitors as a museum and small hotel, was designed by a young Soviet architect, Miron Merzhanov, who care-fully catered to Stalin’s every whim, down to small details such as creating keyholes which couldn’t be peered through.

The furniture of the dacha was also fi lled with horsehair, which apparently made it close to bullet-proof.

The facade of the building was painted emerald green, so that it would blend into the surroundings, and even now it is hard to see the dacha through the trees.

But Stalin usually stayed in a separate building with-in the dacha complex, in part because he liked peace and couldn’t stand the smell of food and the clattering of dishes.

By the 1930s, Sochi had be-come the Soviet Union's most popular holiday resort. Sta-

lin spent a lot of time and conducted a lot of his work from there. During WWII, his family lived there.

After the war, Stalin or-dered eucalyptus trees to be planted across Sochi, believ-ing they would stave off ma-laria.

Sochi’s sanatoria, used as hospitals during the war, re-turned to their primary role of coveted holiday resorts.

The buildings, constructed on Stalin’s orders and still functional, are impressive. They were intended to remind people of grand palaces with pillars and ornate ceilings.

Stalin thought that every Soviet person should be given the opportunity to experience luxury on their holidays, so they would work harder when they returned to work.

Post-war, Stalin continued to work from Sochi, summon-ing political advisers from Moscow to visit him there.

Stalin usually kept a low profi le but once, on Septem-ber 18, 1947, he made a sur-prise appearance at the Kavkazskaya Riviera resort, in the centre of Sochi. He asked the holidaymakers how they liked Sochi and gave out lollies to children.

In 1948, Sochi became an independent administrative centre, which, in line with Stalin's increasing madness, imposed certain rules and regulations.

Sochi’s main avenue, Pros-pekt Stalina, was washed three times a day, for exam-ple, and cars with dirty tyres were not allowed to drive on it. As well, all Sochi residents and visitors had to abide by a dress code and look “smart”.

Merzhanov also designed a sanatorium in Matsesta, where Stalin liked to take sul-phur baths.

Today, the renovated build-ing has similar clientele to its Soviet days: Russian leaders, foreign dignitaries and well-known artists and musicians.

Stalin is also credited with putting Akhun mountain on the map. He ordered the con-struction of an 11-kilometre road leading up to the peak near Sochi.

The road was built by pris-oners to whom Stalin had promised early release if they finished their work in 100 days.

One version of history says that all the prisoners ended up being freed, and another says they were all killed for not being able to fi nish the road on time.

SVETLANA SINEPOSTOLOVICH SPECIAL TO RBTH

Russian authorities have

gone to some effort to

ensure that Sochi 2014 is set

up with accessible multi-

lingual translation services.

24-hour language help

If you get lost in Sochi and passers-by don’t speak your language, you will be able to call the city's 24-hour infor-mation centre (8-800-550-86-42), which will have Russian, English, French, German, Chinese, Japanese and Kore-an speakers on hand.

They will also be able to advise about the location of hotels and public transport timetables, as well as call taxis or contact emergency services, if required.

Information about hospi-

tals, pharmacies, banks, 24-hour ATMs, museums and tour operators will all be on their database.

Special telephones with two handsets will be another tool to help visitors commu-nicate with Russians. If two people who speak different languages want to commu-nicate, they can pick up the phones and call the Sochi centre and the conversation will be translated by a third party.

These telephones will be at Sochi bus station and Sochi, Adler and Krasnaya Polyana railway stations and at the international airport.

The phones are also in-stalled at police and fi rst-aid stations to assist visitors in times of difficulty.

Stalin's dacha (country house) near Sochi is commonly called Zelenaya Rosha (green grove).

Stalin (left) conducted a lot of his decision-making in Sochi,

summoning advisers there such as Lavrentiy Beriya (right).

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SOCHI. LET'S GET ACQUAINTED WITH OLYMPIC HOST CITY

Find out what to eat, where to go and what to bring as a gifttravel.rbth.ru/destination/sochi


RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES

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Comment

10

still very high. This is why at the start of its G20 presiden-cy, Russia set the task of pro-moting growth and creating new jobs, primarily by en-couraging investment, enact-ing effective regulations and increasing market confi dence. These priorities have allowed

us to ensure continuity in the G20’s activities and to make serious progress in all key areas. The results achieved during Russia’s presidency have been recorded in the St Petersburg G20 Leaders’ Dec-laration.

We were able to fi nd prac-

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AUSTRALIA IN THE DRIVING SEAT TO ADVANCE G20'S ACTION PLAN

This year Russia passes the baton of the G20 presidency to Austral-ia. What are the

achievements with which we are approaching this after the G20 Summit that took place September 5 to 6 this year in St Petersburg?

Judging by our G20 part-ners’ reactions and the re-sponses of commentators and the media, we can confi dent-ly say the St Petersburg sum-mit was a success. In the fi ve years of its existence the G20 has really become an effec-tive mechanism for elaborat-ing and coordinating com-mon approaches to the global economy and fi -nance among the world’s leading countries.

We have managed to achieve stabilisation after the peak of the economic cri-sis in 2008 and 2009 and con-solidate our efforts to ensure balanced and sustainable de-velopment of the global econ-omy. It is doing better than it was fi ve years ago.

Although economic growth is picking up, the risks are

Australia will take over from Russia as chair of the G20 on Decem-ber 1, 2013 for a pe-

riod of 12 months, culminat-ing in the annual G20 leaders’ meeting in Brisbane in No-vember 2014. The Action Plan agreed at the St Petersburg G20 meeting in September re-quires members to work close-ly together if its goals are to be achieved.

Australia's role as host in 2014 should not be viewed as simply a chance to showcase the country to other G20 lead-ers. Based on its membership,

the G20 is well placed to pro-mote and encourage interna-tional trade and economic de-velopment.

Australia has a unique op-portunity to take ownership of the St Petersburg Action Plan and drive important new outcomes on a range of issues, such as trade. Priorities that Australia as chair should focus on include:

Alignment around the global growth agenda The St Petersburg Action Plan lists a number of commitments aimed at supporting growth and mitigating risk in each country. However, more needs to be done at a group level. This could, for example, in-

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MORE DETAILS AT RBTH.RU/ABOUT

tical solutions for both the international community and the Russian economy, and to propose an action plan for fi nding and encouraging new sources of growth in practi-cally every sphere. Thus, we have reached consensus on the need to combine a policy of maintaining the necessary economic growth rates with medium-term standards and country-specifi c standards for the fi scal consolidation strat-egy.

The G20 has adopted the St Petersburg Action Plan, a pro-gram which sets medium-term goals for reducing budget def-icits and conducting compre-hensive structural reforms for each country. These include urgent measures to regulate the labour market and taxa-tion, develop human capital, upgrade infrastructure and regulate commodity markets.

These measures should strengthen fi nancial markets’ trust in our plans and at the same time encourage inves-tors to co-fi nance the real sec-tor of the economy and de-velopment. We see this as a guarantee for the lasting sta-bilisation of the global and national economies.Major progress has been made in

stimulating employment. G20 leaders have approved deci-sions taken at the meetings of labour and employment ministers, and during their joint meeting with finance ministers – the first such meeting in G20 history.

We have formulated the task of creating quality jobs with a focus on stimulating employment of vulnerable groups – for example, young people, women, people with special needs.

For the fi rst time, we have proposed an integrated ap-proach to formulating labour-market policy, in particular, by tying the creation of qual-ity jobs to economic devel-opment goals, taking into ac-count macroeconomic, financial and social condi-tions, as well as the connec-tion between the labour mar-ket and investments, the budget and the fi scal policy.

This approach will enable us to balance supply and de-mand in the labour market and to create better condi-tions for the development of business and investment.

Peter

GerendasiSPECIAL TO RBTH

Vladimir

MorozovSPECIAL TO RBTH

RUSSIA PASSES ON THE G20 BATON

clude measures aimed at mak-ing the interface between G20 leaders and the B20 (Business 20) more transparent. The Aus-tralian B20 group includes some of the country's most re-spected business leaders who need to be given clear terms of reference and goals for the upcoming 12 months. This group needs to be tasked with generating specifi c recommen-dations for growth and jobs creation based on what came out of the St Petersburg plan.

Dealing with international tax evasion Due to the increased interna-tionalisation of business, as well as the change in business itself to more electronic glob-

al trade, the tax systems of many countries have not kept pace with the changes in busi-ness. There is a strong need for the G20 to deal with this

issue on a collective basis as well as individually. The St Pe-tersburg meeting agreed on a number of important initia-tives to combat tax evasion and tax minimisation that re-quire Australia as the new

chair to quickly table more specific proposals and ulti-mately legislation that can be adopted in member countries and more widely. This will not be easy, as tax reform often gets sidelined due to political considerations. Australia needs to show by example that reform is possible.

Trade liberalisation G20 leaders agree that trade liberalisation is a critical issue for the world in terms of stim-ulating growth and employ-ment at an individual country level but the G20 has so far not been able to resolve criti-cal stumbling blocks that stand in the way of this goal.

The inability to complete the Doha trade talks is a case in point. Australia as chair has an important role to move trade further up the agenda of the G20 and to address those issues that have so far remained on the table with-out common agreement.

Finally, the passing of the role of chair of the G20 from Russia to Australia should also be used by both coun-tries to foster a better under-standing of business and other links between them in areas such as sports, arts and culture.

The presence of Australian government officials and business people in St Peters-burg was a good sign and a large Russian delegation to Australia in 2014 is also to be expected. There is a strong need to foster better ties be-tween Australia and Russia and the G20 forum is an ex-cellent basis for this.

It is hoped that President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Tony Abbott also find some common ground via the G20 as respective leaders of their two nations.

It is hoped that Vladimir Putin and Tony Abbott also find some common ground via the G20

We were able to find practical solutions for both the international community and the Russian economy...

rbth.asia/48955

His Excellency Mr Vladimir Morozov is Russia's Ambas-sador to Australia.

Peter Gerendasi is a partner at PwC and head of the fi rm's Australia-Russia desk.



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Soviet fashion in the '20srbth.ru/30833 Fashion

11

INNA FEDOROVARBTH

In Vanity Fair's most

recent edition, fashion

brand Blackglama took

out a four-page spread,

featuring a striking Julie

Christie lookalike.

Once again, the fashion world looks to style a la Russe

Russian-inspired prints, collars, sleeves and colour schemes are appearing in both high-end and popular fashion worldwide

The set — an ice-dusted in-terior of a Russian mansion — appears like a Doctor Zhivago dreamscape, com-plete with its own Lara. In-terest in Russian culture and fashion in the West has his-torically gone up and down, but it seems that a few times a decade, designers turn to-wards Russia, or at least to a Western idea of it, for inspiration.

In the ’90s, Valentin Yu-dashkin had an internation-al impact with his Faberge egg dresses, then in the noughties Denis Simachev brought out a line of frocks inspired by blue-and-white Gzhel porcelain and Russian-style fur hats.

The current international interest in Russian style may be driven, in part, by the vis-ibility of Russian women on the international scene who are known for their sense of style. Examples include Dasha Zhukova, a patron of

the arts and partner of bil-lionaire Roman Abramovich, Elena Perminova, partner of billionaire Alexander Lebe-dev, and Miroslava Duma, fashion consultant and for-mer editor of the Russian edi-tion of Harper’s Bazaar.

“From Dasha Zukhova and Miroslava Duma to Ulyana Sergeenko, Russian fashion-istas have become favourite subjects of style chroniclers from New York to Milan and

Paris,” said Vanessa Friedman, international style guru and long-standing fashion editor at the Financial Times. “Their willingness to take risks with their clothes and embrace the high-end is sure to fi lter down through not only the design-ers’ imagination but to the consumer one as well.”

And there have been other pop-culture infl uences. Last year’s film Anna Karenina may not have been a big box-office hit, but its intense and sumptuous style had a fash-

ion impact on both couture and mass-market designers, such as the Banana Repub-lic’s “Anna Karenina” collec-tion. American Friedman says that “Russian street style” and designer Ulyana Sergeenko are the biggest Russian infl u-ences on fashion today.

Suzy Menkes in the New York Times’ T magazine has also commented on the Rus-sian style phenomenon: “When fashion mavens like Elena Perminova, Miroslava Duma or Dasha Zhukova get dressed for the evening, the whole world is watching.”

At the 2013 Toronto Inter-national Film Festival, fash-ion observers were surprised when actress Julia Roberts, known for her love of the col-our black, appeared at the premiere of August: Osage County in a red Dolce & Gab-bana dress with lace, dolman sleeves and a short hemline. Coupled with Roberts’ vin-tage hairstyle, the look re-called the fi lm Gorky Park (1983). Last year, Lady Gaga appeared in outfi ts by Ser-geenko that offered a contem-porary mix of Anna Kareni-na and Eugene Onegin’s Tatyana.

Style "a la Russe" Style a la Russe refers to a revival of Russian folk art, designs and materials (main-ly silk and fur) and applying them to everything from hats to skirts. Russian style basics include feminine silhouettes, lush long skirts, emphasised waistlines, fur hats (Doctor Zhivago style), scarves, fl oral prints, lace and embroidery. Elements are also taken from Russian folk art. Popular

sources of inspiration include Pavlovsky Posad scarves, which are large with bright floral patterns and fringes, and Khokhloma designs — the red-and-gold painting of fl owers and vegetables com-mon on Russian lacquer ware.

Historically, Russian cul-ture becomes popular inter-nationally whenever there are upheavals in Russia, wheth-er it is a change of ruler, war, revolution or perestroika.

In the 18th century, Peter the Great stirred the imagi-nations of Europeans and brought European infl uence into Russian culture, bring-

ing the two closer together. Interest in Russian style re-

turned in 1909, with the ar-rival of Sergey Diaghilev’s self-exiled Ballets Russes in Paris. Two years later, French fashion designer Paul Poiret introduced Ukrainian em-broidery and Cossack boots into Parisian fashion, after a trip to Russia. Then, after 1917, immigration from the former Russian Empire to France, Germany, the US and the UK generated an inter-est in all things Russian.

From this time, the Boyar-sky collar, the northern koko-shnik (a traditional Russian

headdress) and shawls with tassels became firmly en-trenched in European fash-ion. In the later 20th century, interest in Russian fashions was revived by Yves Saint Laurent, who created a Rus-sian collection that included fur hats, boots, layered skirts and embroidered blouses.

Russian style again became popular in the mid-nough-ties, when Russian-inspired collections were launched, in-cluding Roberto Cavalli, “Par-is-Moscow” by Karl Lager-feld for Chanel and “The Russian Line” by Marras for Kenzo.

Traditional Russian designs

Khokhloma This hand-paint-ed style dates from the 17th century and is one of the best-known expressions of Russian folk art; it is known for its vivid flower patterns in red and gold on a black background.

Pavlovsky

Posad These colourful woollen shawls from the Pav-lovo Posad fac-tory are known for their flower and vegetable-themed designs, which are of such high artistic quality that they appear three-dimensional.

Gzhel This blue-and-white porcelain takes its name from the village of Gzhel, not far from Moscow, where it has been produced since 1802. Gzhel designs come on vases, small animal sculptures, tableware and tea sets.

Russian style basics include feminine silhouettes, lush long skirts, emphasised waistlines...

Julia Roberts at this September's Toronto International Film Festival, in a

Dolce & Gabbana frock that tips its hat to traditional Russian styles.

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Russia pioneers floating nuclear power plantsrbth.ru/30063Tech

12

ALEXANDER YEMELYANENKOVRBTH

The process begun in the

1990s of reducing the Cold

War's stockpile of nuclear

arms has had many benefits

– one of them providing fuel

for US power plants.

$17bn warheads to watts program nears its end

Recycled uranium from Soviet missiles and bombs fuels US nuclear energy

The Megatons to Megawatts program, launched in 1993 to recycle Soviet nuclear stock-piles to sell as low-grade ura-nium to the US as fuel for its nuclear power plants, is ap-proaching its end.

The last batch of low-en-riched uranium extracted from Soviet warheads will be shipped to the US from St Petersburg in the middle of this month.

The 20-year Megatons to Megawatts program was an initiative which grew from the Strategic Arms Reduc-tion Treaty (START) between the US and the USSR, signed in July 1991.

It provided for the irrevers-ible conversion of 500 tonnes of Russian weapons-grade uranium extracted from about 20,000 bombs, artillery shells and nuclear warheads. The US undertook to buy the urani-um and use it as fuel in its nuclear power plants (NPPs).

The fi rst shipment to the US under the program, op-erated by the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) and Russia’s TENEX, took place in May 1995.

Overall, the program is es-timated to have been worth $17 billion to Russia.

Soviet-era nuclear warheads were decommissioned and dis-

mantled under the START and START II treaties. The uranium

is used to generate 10 per cent of US electricity.

Low-enriched

uranium is

loaded on a

Russian ship for

export to the US

In a recent speech at the UN General Assembly First Committee, which deals with disarmament and interna-tional security, Rose Gotte-moeller, the US Department of State assistant secretary for arms control, verifi cation and compliance, said that low-enriched uranium from Russian nuclear weapons has been used as fuel in Ameri-ca’s NPPs for 15 years.

According to Gottemoeller, the fuel has provided 10 per cent of all power generated in the US and nearly 50 per cent of the power generated by the country’s 104 NPPs.

In other words, nearly every second US nuclear power plant runs on fuel made from components of Soviet munitions which were decommissioned and dis-mantled under the START treaty and START II, which replaced it in 2010.

In absolute figures, this amount of fuel translates to more than 7 trillion kilowatt hours of energy, Sergey Kiri-yenko, head of Russia’s Ro-satom State Nuclear Corpo-ration, said during a recent meeting with US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.

Dr Thomas Neff, a re-

searcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is widely regarded as the father of the project.

Neff first proposed what would later become known as the Megatons to Megawatts program in a September 1991 opinion article in The New York Times.

In layman’s terms, weap-ons-grade uranium, or ura-nium-235, is enriched to 90 per cent or more, while nu-clear reactor fuel is normal-ly enriched to between 3.5 and 4 per cent. The high cost of uranium enrichment explains the substantial dif-ference in price of these materials.

The process opposite to en-richment is called depletion. It involves very complex tech-nological procedures, noth-ing like as simple as diluting syrup with tap water.

The author interviewed Viktor Mikhaylov, Russia’s minister of atomic energy, in 1992-98. Many of the ques-tions asked concerned the or-ganisation and supervision of the Megatons to Megawatts process, since it was suspect-ed that Russia might try to sell something other than de-commissioned warhead ma-terials to the US.

“The Americans control the process,” Mikhaylov replied, “Their observers visit our fa-cilities, such as [Russia’s nu-clear centre in] Seversk, and make sure that the facilities receive high-grade uranium for processing.”

Asked whether it was pos-sible for the US observers to determine the provenance of the uranium being processed, Mikhaylov said: “We cannot let the Americans in on the development phase and show

them the entire process from start to fi nish, but we do show them how high-grade urani-um is turned into metallic shavings at the Mayak [pro-duction association in the town of Ozersk, Chelyabinsk Region].

“We then turn these shav-ings into uranium hexafl uor-ide and mix it at [the Ural Electromechanical Integrat-ed Plant in] Novouralsk.

“This is where the Ameri-cans have a constant presence and make sure that what is coming in is 90 per cent ura-nium and what is coming out is 1.5 per cent uranium.

“They are happy with the process.”

Mikhaylov, who did a lot to make the Megatons to Megawatts program work, is no longer around to counter the arguments of those who are now trying to tarnish the program as being unprofi t-able and even detrimental to Russia.

Without going into much detail of this long-standing

debate, let us put it this way: the 1993 agreement certain-ly was a breakthrough in the relations between Moscow and Washington.

Previously, Russian and So-viet uranium had not been allowed onto the US market.

“In a sense, this was a po-litical gesture on the part of the Americans,” Mikhaylov told the author in an inter-view. “The Russian side, for its part, was given a carte blanche from [then Russian President Boris] Yeltsin.

“He understood the prob-lem and agreed that in that situation, uranium exports would be the Atomic Energy Ministry’s only chance to compensate for its budget shortages.”

Diplomats and independ-ent experts familiar with the Russia-US arms reduction talks mention another impor-tant factor.

The Megatons to Mega-watts agreement provided Moscow with signifi cant eco-nomic incentives for with-drawing nuclear arms from Ukraine, Belarus and Ka-zakhstan and moving them to safe storage areas on Rus-sian territory.

By 1996, Russia had taken possession of the entire So-viet nuclear arsenal, in ob-servance of the nuclear non-proliferation principle.

According to RBTH sourc-es, the last batch of Megatons to Megawatts low-grade ura-nium will reach Baltimore in mid-December.

How bombs became nuclear power

Depletion of high-grade ura-nium under the Megatons to Megawatts program involved a multiple-stage process at sev-eral Rosatom facilities.

First, uranium components ex-tracted from munitions were delivered to the Mayak Produc-tion Association in Chelyabinsk Region to be turned into metal-lic shavings, which were then burned in an oxidiser. The uranium oxide was then purified and shipped to other Rosatom facilities for fluorida-tion and depletion. The first group of US observ-ers visited Mayak in April 1998. During each visit, the observ-ers would spend several days at Mayak verifying a variety of parameters.

Nearly every second US nuclear power plant runs on fuel made from Soviet munitions.

The agreement was a breakthrough in relations between Moscow and Washington.

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Russian technology helps NASA look for life on Marsrbth.ru/31335 Tech

13

ILYA DASHKOVSKYRBTH

In October, the international

venture capital firm I2BF

Global Ventures invested

$US20 million into Dauria

Aerospace – Russia's first

private space company.

First private aerospace company is aiming high

Dauria seeks to replace imported systems with local manufacturing

The big investment in Rus-sia’s aerospace industry prac-tically went unnoticed by the international media – which is surprising considering the attention given to the launch of SpaceX and Virgin Galac-tic in the early noughties.

In many ways, Dauria is a pioneer because it is devel-oping a sector in Russia which government agencies have long neglected.

Aleksey Volostnov, business development director for Frost & Sullivan in Russia, says: “Traditionally Roscos-mos [Russia’s federal space agency] focuses on low-mar-gin services, launching, ser-vicing and putting satellites into space, while completely neglecting the high-margin services market, which is what private companies are aiming for.”

Dauria director Mikhail Kokorich, former owner of Russia’s largest retail net-works, Tekhnosila and Uyu-terra, stepped up to fi ll the gap. (The market is estimat-ed to be worth up to $US103 billion a year.)

Dauria’s calculations are based on the fact that it will make cheap satellites that will cost up to $US10 mil-lion to build and which can be manufactured in a year.

Spacecraft usually costs hundreds of millions of dol-lars and takes years to pro-duce. According to its found-er the company will therefore recoup its set-up costs almost immediately. It plans to launch four satellites over the next few years, two of them next year and another two between 2015 and 2017.

According to forecasts, the company’s annual turnover will be more than $US1 bil-lion a year by that time.

Kokorich suggests that now is a good time for a project like this: “Our services are unique from the point of view of gathering information and we have our own niche: ac-curate surveying, forestry, and asset management and mon-itoring from space,” he said.

Kokorich need not fear competition from state-owned companies, as Russia only has a small number of space vehicles. “We only have two civil satellites not count-ing weather satellites and they require a high resolu-tion,” he says. “Our systems cover the whole Earth, but

don’t require such a high res-olution, which means they provide the whole picture.”

Kokorich is convinced that “the state is not planning to produce these kind of service systems and will never man-ufacture them”.

Andrey Milovanov, head of the Satellite Transport Mon-itoring department within the Arkan group, admits that to some degree this is linked to the fact that for a long time, the Russian space industry was just trying to survive. Meanwhile, the rest of the world modernised its satel-lite production, developing low-budget, small-scale sys-tems.

In Milovanov's opinion, as Dauria is a pioneer in the pri-vate-satellite market in Rus-sia it has every chance of suc-cess, at least in the domestic market. “Today, Russian gov-ernment agencies use systems for satellite observations which are 95 per cent foreign manufactured. So, a local product would certainly be in demand in a growing Rus-sian market.

“It is more difficult to pre-dict the outcome of doing business on the global mar-ket. But the company’s inno-vative approach and its col-laboration with experienced partners, like the English company SSTL, makes the project competitive.”

American universities are also involved with Dauria and Roscosmos, the Lavochkin Research and Production As-sociation and many other or-ganisations across the world.

Dauria has a branch at Skolkovo Innovation Centre, in Moscow, making systems for the internal market, and the company’s headquarters, which house the key service division, are based in Munich.

There is also a division in

the US developing payload as well as satellite systems for the international market. Dauria’s founders are certain that only a transnational company can achieve success in this business.

However, there is another reason why the company’s headquarters are not based in Russia. Kokorich explains: “Unfortunately, due to the id-iosyncrasies of the Russian tax system and the complex-ities of importing and export-ing the necessary equipment, it is still difficult to work ef-fi ciently on the global mar-ket from inside Russia.”

Experts add that the state still strictly controls key in-frastructure, as well as the delivery vehicles. As Volost-nov suggests: “This could mean that this fi eld would be closed to private companies very rapidly if a decision like this is taken at the govern-mental level.

“That said, the market po-tential is relatively high, which means that private in-vestment in this fi eld can be taken seriously.

“Moreover it does not pre-vent us from being proud of the first private project in Russian cosmonautics, all the more so because there are only a handful of these com-panies in existence.”

per cent of Dauria Aerospace's revenue is generated by sat-ellite sales, with their biggest buyer being Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos.

million dollars is how much it will cost to launch Russia's first private satellite. The launch is scheduled for next year.

satellites will be launched by Dauria: two next year and the other two between 2015 and 2017.

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Russia's unprofitable Buran program was shut down in 1993.

Dauria plans to launch four satellites over the next few years, two of them next year

Dauria Aerospace is forecasting that its market could be worth up to $US103 billion a year.

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Scorpions' vocalist sings for Moscow Hospice patientrbth.ru/31117Culture

14

INTERVIEW ANDREW GOODWIN & DANIEL DE BORAH

Australian talents flourish in Russian cultureST PETERSBURG'S MUSICAL RICHES ARE A LASTING

INFLUENCE ON TWO AUSTRALIAN PERFORMERS

WHO GRADUATED FROM THE CITY'S CONSERVATORY

VITAE

Daniel�de�Borah &

Andrew Goodwin

Melbourne-based pianist Daniel de Borah is the 2012 Austral-ian National Piano Award win-ner and a major prizewinner at the Sydney International Pi-ano Competition. He has played with the Royal Philharmonic Or-chestra and the English Cham-ber Orchestra. Tenor Andrew Goodwin, who lives in Lon-don, regularly performs at the Bolshoi Theatre and has toured with the St Petersburg Philhar-monic. He has also appeared with the Sydney and Adelaide symphony orchestras. Both are graduates of Russia's oldest music academy: the St Petersburg State Conservatory – a school which offers training in performance, composition, conducting and musicology.

NATIONALITY: AUSTRALIAN

AGES: 32 AND 35

Pianist Daniel de Borah and tenor Andrew Goodwin met in 1999, when they were stu-dents at St Petersburg's Con-servatory. The pair, who have colourful memories of their time in Russia’s cultural cap-ital, paired up on home ter-ritory last month to perform at Melbourne’s Recital Cen-tre and Sydney’s Government House. They spoke to RBTH about how their time in Rus-sia inspired them and infl u-enced their careers and lives.

Why did you decide to study in

St Petersburg?

Daniel: Russia has an ex-traordinarily strong music culture. This is a country that has produced many of the world’s best-loved compos-ers, including Tchaikovsky, Prokofi ev and Shostakovich – all of whom were gradu-ates of the St Petersburg Con-servatory. It also has a 150-year-old tradition of vir-tuoso music performance. Add to that the vibrant mu-sical life of the city: excellent orchestras, a world-class opera and ballet company and beautiful concert halls – and you have an ideal place to study.

What was it like when you first

arrived in Russia?

Andrew: I arrived in 1999, when I was 20. Russia was like a parallel universe, 30 years behind the rest of the world. People were still ad-justing to life without the So-viet Union, the rouble had collapsed and Boris Yeltsin was showing up drunk to of-ficial visits. My professors were getting salaries of about $US100 a month, while I was paying tuition fees into a Finnish bank account, which was going straight to the Head of the Conservatory. Daniel: I fi rst went to Russia

KATHERINE TERSRBTH

The 'Barrel Room' has “one

of the greatest acoustics on

the planet,” says Richard

Tognetti, from the Australian

Chamber Orchestra.

Tribute to Russian music

The room, at the Huntington Estate, in Mudgee, New South Wales, is the main venue for the winery’s music festival, which has been held annually since 1989. This year, the event will run from Wednesday, November 20 to Sunday, November 24.

Surrounded by thousands of litres of wine in imposing wooden barrels, performers and listeners will have the chance to experience a di-verse chamber music pro-gram devised by the festival’s artistic director, Australian composer Carl Vine. On his vision for the festival’s pro-gram, Vine says: “Every as-pect of every performance

must contrast in every way with what precedes and fol-lows it, including genre, pe-riod, emotional level, instru-mentation and personnel.”

A highlight of the program will be the collaboration of tenor Andrew Goodwin and pianist Daniel de Borah, who will pay tribute to Russian composers Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Cesar Cui and Ser-gei Rachmaninov by perform-ing a selection of their songs.

This concert, on Friday, November 22, will be simul-cast live on ABC Classic FM from 7pm. The duo will also perform Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte Op.98 and a selection from Schumann’s Myrthen Op.25 on Novem-ber 20.

Further program details can be found at huntington-estate.com.au; and at the time of writing, tickets for mid-week concerts were still avail-able.

in 1998; I was 17 and fresh out of high school. I went there to audition at the Con-servatory and meet my new teacher. The undergraduate course there goes for five years, and foreign students are encouraged to take an extra preparatory year to get a grasp of the Russian lan-guage before starting. So I was there for nearly six years, graduating in 2004.

What was it like studying music

while learning a new language?

Daniel: I arrived with no Rus-sian whatsoever and launched straight into my studies, so it was a case of learning on the fl y. During the preparatory year the focus is on learning the language, with one-on-one Russian lessons several times a week. My piano teacher spoke no English, so for the fi rst four lessons one of her Russian students sat in and translated for me; then I was on my own. But music is a universal language so we were able to get by.

What were the pros of studying

in Russia?

Daniel: The depth and qual-ity of the education and the dedication, knowledge and boundless energy of my piano teacher, Nina Seryogina.Study aside, I loved wander-ing the city at night, soaking up the beauty of the archi-tecture and the unique light during white nights.

Does the school attract a lot of

international students?

Daniel: The Conservatory is a big school. There were around 1100 students, of whom about 150 were for-eign. Most were from Korea and China, others from Eu-rope, the US and South America. Oh and us: there were three Australians.

Do many Australian musicians

study abroad?

Daniel: Yes it’s quite common, usually after having already completed a degree in Aus-tralia. Apart from studying with some of the world’s greatest musicians at famous institutions ... it’s also an op-portunity for students to broaden their horizons by liv-ing in another culture.

Andrew, I understand you reg-

ularly perform at the Bolshoi.

Andrew: My chance to audi-tion for the Bolshoi came in 2006 ... I was told I should au-dition for a part in Eugene Onegin. When I heard I’d been chosen, I was so surprised be-cause Eugene Onegin had only ever been performed by Rus-sians in Russia. I’ve now sung more than 30 performances as Lensky with the Bolshoi, and I travel back there every year.

What do you l ike about

p e r f o r m i n g i n R u s s i a?

Andrew: I was in Russia for the most formative years of my life, so it’s close to my heart, and the Bolshoi has given me the opportunity to keep that chapter of my life open. After concerts, Russian audienc-es start applauding, then by some miracle, they start clap-ping in unison – and, for me, that’s always such a moving experience as a performer.

Would either of you consider living in Russia again? Daniel: I have very fond mem-ories of my years in Russia but it does feel like that chap-ter of my life is in the past. Andrew: My wife is from Rus-sia, so moving back there wouldn’t be a problem for us, although I think being based in Europe is probably the best position to be in as a musician.

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The Soviet voice that infuriated Hitlerrbth.ru/30677 History

15

Oct/Nov 1917 • Russian leftist revolutionaries, led by Bolshe-vik Party leader Vladimir Lenin, launched a near-bloodless coup against Alexander Kerensky's provisional government.

1953-59 • The Cuban Revolu-tion was an armed revolt led by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement. It successfully over-threw the US-backed Cuban-dictator Fulgencio Batista.

1966-76 • China's Cultural Rev-olution aimed to enforce com-munist ideologies across the country by removing – some-times violently – traditional cultural and capitalist elements from Chinese society.

20TH CENTURY

Revolutionary

landmarks

CHRIS FLEMINGSPECIAL TO RBTH

Revolutionary rhetoric and

iconography are flames

that still ignite the passions

of radical thinkers and

artists of all stripes. But

how radical are they?

Romancing the revolutionaryOur complex relationship with revolutions reveals much about the contemporary world

For much of the 20th centu-ry Russians celebrated the October 1917 Revolution – the event which brought Lenin and his party to power. (Although the revolution began on October 25, the No-vember 7 celebration date re-lates to an historical quirk – the shift from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in-stigated by the Bolsheviks after they gained power.)

Russia no longer officially celebrates the revolution, with Russian President Vladimir Putin reinstating a holiday which had ceased being celebrated in 1917 – National Unity Day. But that celebrations of the revolution are no longer officially sanc-tioned does not, of course, mean that they don’t occur.

One of the signal features of the official histories prop-agated following the October Revolution was that they pro-duced two symmetrical dis-tortions: one concerning the dramatic violence of the Rev-olution and the other con-cerning the peace that fol-lowed it.

As we now know, the rev-olution itself was nowhere near as dramatic as later his-torical and theatrical recon-structions of it suggested. In-deed, much of the violence surrounding the so-called “storming of the Winter Pal-ace” resulted from general-ised confusion, looting (espe-cially of liquor stores) and the predictable results of com-bining alcohol, male bravado and loaded weapons.

But neither, as historians continue to count and recount the tens of millions of bod-ies that fell in the decades that followed, was the Sovi-et Union the kind of para-dise that its PR managers in-variably pretended that it was.

But as the banality of the revolution and the brutality of its aftermath fade from collective memory, our capac-ity to romanticise both be-comes ever more pronounced.

And this is not simply a Russian tendency. Trendy in-ner-city cafes throughout the west have become billboards for all species of revolution-

ary iconography. The kalei-doscope of images on offer – a red-star shoulder bag, a dashing Che Guevara T-shirt, a peaked cap with the ham-mer and sickle – suggests a meeting of local members of a now-realised Fifth Interna-tional. As it turns out, of course, it is no such thing. These are bankers, software developers and university stu-dents checking Facebook, fl ip-ping through newspapers and “networking.”

However one judges this odd revolutionary parade, it is in itself not terribly re-markable – simply one facet of a more general tendency in contemporary culture. Rev-olutionary iconography has become, like many of the cul-tural trinkets of the past, mere parades of signs that people use to make profits and construct their identities. Che Guevara was an Argen-tine Marxist, but he is also a cap, a T-shirt, a mug, a post-er, an ice-cream flavour (“Cherry Guevara”), and the basis of high-couture “mili-tary wear” – which the rele-vant website tells us is “the quintessential revolutionary fashion warfare statement.”

We might be inclined to see these kinds of gestures as cheap – even cynical – capi-talist exploitations of genu-ine political symbols and fi g-

ures, that to associate the hammer and sickle with a brand is a distortion of the worst kind. Or one might argue that communism trans-lates very well into branding because, in a sense, that’s all it ever really was: an adver-tisement of a utopia to come that never quite existed.

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with the kinds of emotional upswings occasioned by dressing in red and cheering the revolution-ary cliche – that exciting statement which demands our assent at the precise mo-ment we become unsure of what it is that we’re shout-ing. In the late ’60s, French leftists became experts at this species of declamation: “Be Realistic – Demand the Im-

possible!” or “The Dream is Reality!” were among the calls heard around Paris in May 1968; as examples, they fi t very well into the history of revolutionary rhetoric.

It is equally important, however, to note that they could also just as easily be titles for books by Dr Phil or slogans spruiking the newest Windows operating system. In many respects, revolution represents one of the most successful marketing cam-paigns of the past 200 years.

As such, revolution and the revolutionary are symbols to which artists, a certain kind of politician and even ordi-nary mortals are continually drawn. And there can indeed be much to celebrate about a revolution – but, in politi-

cal terms at least, this is more often for what a revolution deposes than what it brings in its stead.

The danger in this sort of enthusiasm is a muddying of the difference between these two facets of most radical po-litical change: a just deposi-tion of a tyranny on the one hand, and an incomprehen-sible nostalgia for the corrupt political system that followed, on the other.

Of course, not all countries are comfortable with the rev-olutionary fl avours of mod-ern cool, even in its ironic guises. Moscow may still be home to the Red October Chocolate Factory and Aero-flot uniforms continue to carry the hammer and sickle, but in other parts of Eastern

Some historians argue that more people died in reenactments of the October Revolution than in the revolution itself.

Even if Lenin is not a

revolutionary leader you would

want to live under, he is still

available for your coffee table.

Europe certain communist symbols are banned for their associations with a history of totalitarian horror.

This is, in the very least, un-derstandable. But for much of the world, the revolution has become simply a symbol of cool, of tattooed arms raised against imaginary foes for indiscernible reasons – arms then lowered and fi sts promptly unclenched once the foccacias have arrived.

Indeed, surveying trendy cafes, YouTube a la mode and the smattering of communist rallies does little to shake the feeling that – for most of the world – revolution has be-come so pure, so metaphysi-cal, that either it never ends – or, alternatively, hardly seems to take place at all.

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Soccer in the sandrbth.ru/31319 Sport

16

YAROSLAV KULEMINMOSCOW NEWS

Aussie Rules teams have

sprung up in Moscow and the

cities of Yaroslavl and

Novokuznetz, thanks to the

efforts of one passionate

Australian expat.

Footy starts to kick on in MoscowAussie expat introduces Australian football to Moscow, and interest in the sport is starting to spread

rupted by football lovers from Central Asia, with a more lib-eral view of the rules. “We want to run, to mess around,” says Sergey from the Space Pirates team, who also plays in an amateur rugby club, Forum.

“Compared to rugby, Aus-tralian football is more fun,” Sergey says. “We are given a bit more freedom here.”

The Russian footy league is in its inception. In addition to the

Pirates, there are t w o more adult teams and two youth teams. When recruiting new players, Scott looks for people for whom Australian football could be-come their main sporting in-terest: he thinks it is easier to teach somebody from scratch rather than retrain rugby players.

Scott says three training sessions are enough to build confidence on the playing fi eld. Newcomers go into the

“draft” and join one of the existing teams.

“We’re not look-ing for people with extraordi-nary physical features or a b i l i t i e s ,” Scott says. “Big, small, m e d i u m – there’s a place for everybody. We just want to train them in fi tness and improve their physical form. We have a 17-year-old guy playing with us and he is doing just fine: getting the ball, dodging opponents, and it’s hard to catch him.”

In Moscow, Yaroslavl and Novokuznetsk there are some 100 people playing football. It is not yet possible to unite them, although the idea is there. “I just don't have enough time and money to go to those other places, Rus-sia is too big,” Scott explains.

The main events, so far, are local tournaments, the key

ones being the Gagarin Cup and the Concrete and Steel Cup. They involve all fi ve Mos-cow-based teams. Be-tween competitions,

Space Pirates, Shooters and Thrashers hold dem-

onstration games.Two years ago, a Russian

national team, the Russian Tsars, was set up, mainly comprised of Moscow play-ers. The name was invented by Scott and the uniforms were ordered from Ireland. The project was sponsored by an English guy who paid for the team to go to the Euro-pean Championship.

After three months train-ing, the Tsars came 10th in the 18-team competition, but since then have not had any big games, since the sponsor has left Russia. They are still planning to take part in Euro 2014 and even hope to fi nish in the top fi ve.

Scott and his teammates use every opportunity to in-

volve as many people in the game as possible.

At a recent training session in Moscow's Sokolniki park there was a festival of Aus-tralian culture, with classes in boomerang throwing and country dancing as well as football lessons.

After an hour-long train-ing session culminating in a brief but energetic game, Roger Scott invited all those attending to leave their phone numbers.

“Do come to our training sessions,” he tells a guy wear-ing glasses.

“It's too far for me, I’m from Sergiyev Posad.”

“Are you? Well, why don’t you set up a league there then?”

At moments like these, Scott looks very much like a trailblazer. This is what Eng-lish travellers must have been like when more than 100 years ago they infected the whole world with the virus called football.

On a warm August afternoon this year, at a small stadium in Moscow’s Lefortovo park, a group of well-built guys ar-rive, carrying an oval ball. The group are led by Aus-tralian expat Roger Scott. who has been living in Rus-sia for eight years.

Scott has a double-headed eagle tattoo on his right shoulder. “It helps in difficult situations with the police, al-though I don't have to show it that often these days – Mos-cow has become more civi-lised,” he said, with a glint of nostalgia in his voice.

Scott, who works in com-mercial real estate, began learning Russian while still in Australia. On Sundays he teaches all those interested how to play Australian foot-ball – a game little known in Russia.

"When I was a kid, I didn’t play very well,” Scott says. “But in Russia, I began to miss Australian football. I or-dered a ball on the internet and had it sent over from Eu-rope. Then I began to look for people. It might have helped that the Eurosport TV channel in Russia started showing footy.

“One of the fi rst to come was Fyodor, who fell in love with the game at first sight. He’s now in charge of the Rus-sian Federation of Australian Foot-ball.”

Desp i te the game being asso-ciated with a high risk of inju-ry, the training sessions of the Muscovites who love this Australian sport are friendly and relaxed, al-though from time to time they are inter-

Roger Scott and his teammates use every opportunity to attract new players and encourage the formation of new teams in a country where AFL is little known.

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Rbth #11 for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald

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Transcript of Rbth #11 for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald