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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alexander Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images

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

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

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

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

Photo: VLADIMIR RODIONOV/AFP/Getty Images

 

Combating alchohol abuse has always been something of a non-starter in Russian politics. This is, after all, a country whose former president was once found by the Secret Servce thoroughly sauced outside the White House, wearing nothing but his underwear trying to hail a cab so he could get a pizza.

But current President Dmitry Medvedev is trying to change things with a proposal to ban outdoor beer sales in his country, a first step in getting Muscovites to lay off alcohol. He also wants to limit the hours of the day alcohol can be sold.

This week, a bill was submitted to lawmakers that would triple the tax on beer from 3 rubles per liter to 10 rubles per liter by 2012. Wine and spirits would also see a sharp increase.

State prosecutors are also moving to ban liquor sales in airports. Under Russian law, no beverage with alcohol content above 15 percent can be sold in crowded or dangerous places, and prosecutors say this means airports.

Russians drink five gallons of pure ethanol a year, double what is considered dangerous by the WHO. And on average, 30,000 people a year die from alcohol poisoning in the country. Over half of the deaths of the 15 to 54-year-old demographic between 1990 and 2001 are attributed to alcohol.

"I have been astonished to find out that we now drink more than we did in the 1990s, although those were very tough times," Medvedev said.

He is a fan of Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev's anti-alcohol reforms in the 1980s aimed at curbing consumption, even though he acknowledges that the plan had major flaws. Gorbachev destroyed the majority of vineyards and wineries in Georgia, probably the birthplace of wine (This didn't help the growing anti-Russia sentiment in the Southern Caucasus at the time). He also shut down distilleries and breweries. Most notably, the Soviet Union suffered tremendous sugar shortages, because people turned to moon shining. (The Russian word for ‘shine is Samogon) Stores also ran out of window cleaner and aftershave. It is estimated that 13,000-25,000 people died from drinking ill-made moonshine.

Medvedev's plan is much more cautious but many Russians are still wary.

"It's impossible. He doesn't stand a chance," a Russian construction worker told The Los Angeles Times."The Russian man will always be drinking. Russians don't surrender."

ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images 

The E.U. Fact-Finding Mission's recently released report on the conlifct in Georgia poses a bit of a challenge. The Associated Press went with "EU report: Georgian attack started war with Russia," the New York Times was more evenhanded with "E.U. Report to Place Blame on Both Sides in Georgia War", the Wall Street Journal split the difference with "Tbilisi Started '08 War, but Moscow Also at Fault, EU Finds."

 

Having read the report's conclusions, these are all basically correct. The authors do state explicitly that "Operations started with a massive Georgian artillery attack" on the night of Aug. 7 and that this attack was not justifiable under international law. They also say that Georgian claims of a Russian military incursion prior to this attack are not "sufficiently substantiated." Point for the Kremlin, but from that point on the Russians don't look very good.

The report rejects Russian claims of genocide by Georgia against Russian civilians, accuses the Russian military of allowing human rights abuses, including widespread rape, by South Ossetian forces against Georgian civilians, states that Russian troops "continued their advances for some days after the August ceasefire was declared," and finds that while their initial military reponse was justified, they went "far beyond the reasonable limits of defence" by moving into Georigan territory. In an interesting passage, the authors write:

In a matter of a very few days, the pattern of legitimate and illegitimate military action had thus turned around betweeen the two main actors Georgia and Russia.

The report also describes provocative Russian acts in the lead-up to the war, including "the formalising of links with the breakaway territories, the granting of Russian passports to their populations, and declarations about using the Kosovo precedent as a basis for the recognition fo South Ossetia and Abkhazia".

Another important passage:

"This Report shows that any explanation of the origins of the conflict cannot focus soleley on the artillery attack on Tskhinvaliin the night of 7/8 August and on what then developed into the questionable Georgian offensive in South Ossetia and the Russian military action. ...It must also take into account years of provocations, mutual accusations, military and political threats and acts of violence both inside and outside the conflict zone. It has to conside, too, the impact of a great power's coercive politics and diplomacy against a small and insubordinate neighbour, together with the small neighbour's penchant for overplaying its had and acting in the heat of the moment without careful consideration fo the final outcome, not to mention its fear that it might permanently lose important parts of its territory through creeping annexation."

In retrospect Russia's excessive use of force during the conflict seems not just brutal but politically stupid. Through years of pressure, the Kremlin had goaded Saakashvili into an ill-advised attack that provided the Russian miltiary with cover to consolidate control over the breakaway regions. If they had stopped there, Russia could have (somewhat credibly) painted Georgia as the aggressor and (much less credibly) justified their incursion as a humanitarian intervention.

Thanks to their attacks on non-disputed Georgian territory, their complicity in human rights abuses by South Ossetian forces, and their violations of the ceasefire, it's hard to see Russia as anything but a bullying aggressor. And with Saakashvili still in power and the underlying political dynamics basically unchanged, it's hard to see what they gained from it.

DMITRY KOSTYUKOV/AFP/Getty Images

 Mikhail Prokhorov is the chairman of Russia's largest gold producer, and now he will team up with hip-hop's largest gold-record producer.

Prokhorov, Russia's richest man (even after a $7 billion loss last year), bought the New Jersey Nets yesterday for $200 million, making him the first Russian owner of a U.S. sports team.  This also makes him business partners with Jay-Z. (Who seems to be getting a lot of play in foreign policy circles these days)

The first order of business will be to move the Nets to Jay-Z's native Brooklyn, and begin building the new stadium.  The deal seems to be as much about business as it is about pleasure for the 6ft. 7in. Prokhorov, who said in a statement, "I have a long-standing passion for basketball and pursuing interests that forward the development of the sport in Russia."

He also claims he will be, "the only NBA owner who can dunk."

The stadium will be fewer than 10 miles from Brighton Beach, an area of Brooklyn rich with Russian influence, Bloomberg reports.

The move to Brooklyn has been a goal of Jay-Z's (basketball discussion starts at 5:30); however it remains unclear if Jay-Z will get what he really wants. (Hint: he made a controversial song about him)

Although the deal still needs to be approved by the NBA board of governors, it is a break from the emerging trend of Russians buying London soccer teams.

Al Bello/Getty Images

Russian liberals are outraged by the recent decision to restore a Moscow's Kurskaya Metro Station (Shown above) to its original 1950s appearance, including a quote praising Joseph Stalin:

A fragment of the Stalin-era Soviet national anthem, it reads: "Stalin reared us on loyalty to the people. He inspired us to labour and heroism."

It will be seen by millions of Muscovites. The metro, which is state-owned, estimates 7-9 million people use it every day, making it the busiest underground transport system in the world.

Giant sword-shaped commemorative plaques dedicated to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War in the same station have also been altered with the name of the modern-day Russian city of Volgograd changed back to its wartime name of Stalingrad.

"For the Motherland! For Stalin!," reads another newly restored slogan.

"This is the fruit of creeping re-Stalinization," said Arseny Roginsky, Chairman of human rights group Memorial. "They (the authorities) want to use his name as a symbol of a powerful authoritarian state which the whole world is afraid of."

A lot of the original Soviet artwork is still up in Moscow's stations, especially the larger ones on the city's ring line. Ideology aside, these stations are absolutely gorgeous and are one relic of this very dark period that Russians can justifiably be proud of. It would be a shame for them to be completely redone.

On the other hand, it certainly seems like it wouldn't that hard to maintain the stations' original aesthetics while eliminating mass murder-glorifying rhetoric that went out of style during the Krushchev era.

While I would take any new reports about the hijacking of the Arctic Sea with a heaping barrelful of salt, some of the latest theories are at least interesting.  In an interview with Time this week, the European Union's rapporteur on piracy said Israeli intelligence likely intercepted the ship, which was carrying a secret shipment weapons to the Middle East:

[H]e says only a shipment of missiles could account for Russia's bizarre behavior throughout the monthlong saga. "There is the idea that there were missiles aboard, and one can't explain this situation in any other way," he says. "As a sailor with years of experience, I can tell you that the official versions are not realistic."

Kouts says an Israeli interception of the cargo is the most likely explanation. But this theory, which some Russian analysts put forward in the days after the Arctic Sea was rescued and which Kouts agreed with in his interview with TIME, has been vehemently denied by Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, who says Kouts should stop "running his mouth." 

The theory is supported by the fact that Israeli President Shimon Peres made a surpsie visit to Moscow the day after the ship was rescued. 

Not so fast say repoters from Israel's YNet, who find the admiral's theory implausable. According to their anonymous sources, the Arctic Sea made a stop in Kaliningrad -- a Russian military outpost popular with arms dealers -- before picking up its stated cargo of timber in Finland: 

Sources say the Arctic Sea docked in Kaliningrad in June to undergo various repairs. The same sources say a deal was previously struck between Russian and Middle Eastern businessmen, agreeing on the sale of some of the S-300 missiles located at the port.

Some sources claim the Russian military's weapons industry was implicated in the deal and transferred a number of new missiles, including the X-500, to the port to be included in the sale. However the Kremlin was uninvolved, and apparently the deal was carried out in secret between businessmen from the private sector. 

After the deal was executed, an intelligence agency whose identity so far remains unexposed learned of the ship's departure with the weapons in tow towards Algeria, a country located on a regularly used route for the transfer of weapons to Iran and Syria. The intelligence agency then transferred an anonymous tip to the Russian authorities, according to the investigation. 

According to Russian sources the "hijackers", who in actuality were Russian intelligence officers, remained on the ship and reported to their superiors that they had found the missiles on board. On August 12 Russia announced it had sent naval officers to rescue the vessel and its crew.

The sources say the period of time between the hijacking and the Russian rescue mission was due to the Kremlin's desire to capture the ship away from the eyes of the media, in order to avoid an embarrassing incident that may have harmed its relations with Iran and Algeria. 

Again, I'm not endorsing any of these theories, but the story just gets more fascinating.

Ricky LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images

 

In a move towards great transparency and accountability, the Kremlin yesterday released figures detailing a recent order of new furniture. It sounds simple enough but, as is usually the case with Russian politics, it quickly became the stuff of legends -- or at least, Aesop's fables. The total value of the interior ministry's furniture tender, it appeared, was $755,900 (24.4 million roubles) and included a cherry wood bed with head and footboards coated in a thin layer of 24 carat gold. Though other items will be delivered to an address in the exclusive dacha district on the outskirts of Moscow where many senior officials live in state-owned homes, the gilded bed will be sent to the ministry headquarters.

Unsurprisingly, the news has received much criticism in a country where the economy shrank 10.9 percent in the last quarter. I think the question praying on all our minds is: who's going to be sleeping in the gold bed?

jimg944/Flickr

Visiting Abkhazia, Vladimir Putin says more and more people in the West are coming around to Russia's point of view on last summer's war with Georgia:

Mr. Putin said world opinion has turned in Russia’s favor since last year, and that “practically all of international society” has acknowledged that Georgia was the aggressor in the conflict.

“In the West, what is called the West, we have plenty of supporters,” he said, in remarks to Abkhaz journalists. “They are all under a certain pressure from NATO’s leading country, the United States. And, to put it bluntly, many of them don’t publicly state their positions, because they would then diverge from the U.S. position.”

The E.U.'s report on the war's origins comes out in September. 

Whatever you say about Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, the guy is comfortable making big promises:

Every year the economy suffers losses but also sees gains and no one knows what's going to happen tomorrow. The only thing I can say is that we'll fully rebuild Chechnya and solve every social problem. Chechnya will be the most successful region in Russia and the world.

Has no interest in feigning sympathy for his recently deceased enemies:

[Recently murdered human rights activist Natalia Estemirova] never had any honor or sense of shame. And still I appointed her head of a [civil society advisory] commission with the mayor of Grozny as her deputy. I wanted to be objective about addressing the issue. But she didn’t like it. She would say stupid things. I told her, "You're a woman, and we're trying to do something for the people. But if it doesn't work, don’t blame us."

And little shame in sucking up to the boss:

By lowering his status [by stepping down as president], Putin again showed his strength and that he's a servant of the people. But that doesn’t change my attitude toward him. I'd still give my life for him.

RFE/RL: Would you like to see Putin become president again?

Kadyrov: Very much. I want Putin to be president of Russia for life. 

Check out the whole unbelievable interview with Radio Free Europe, especially Kadyrov's explanation of how human rights groups and violating his human rights by saying such nasty things about him. 

AFP/Getty Images

As we all know, photos are a key part of showing the public who a politician is and what he/she stands for. This weekend, ten years after becoming Boris Yeltsin's heir, Vladimir Putin posed for another set of mostly-shirtless vacation photographs (and a video here). I've been lucky enough to receive secret memos pairing these photos with the specific messages Putin's handlers wanted to send. 

"Can build his own fire...with the help of 8 people and two boats."

"Forces rivers to flow backwards with his mind"

"Remembers to remove his shirt when lost"

"Kind and sensitive to his trusty steed...and owns a killer pair of Foakleys"

"Is a freakin' sea monster"

More seriously, the Moscow Times points out the collapse of the Russian economy and oil prices have barely affected Putin's popularity among Russians (H/T to MW).

ALEXEY DRUZHININ/AFP/Getty Images

"Prime Minister Putin, you've shot a tiger, taught the world judo, exhibited your paintings, showed off your muscular physique, rescued workers from greedy factory owners, and even danced to Abba for charity? What are you going to do next?"

"Well, nameless blogger, I'm going to go a mile underwater."

Over the weekend, Vladimir Putin did just that (checking another box off what must be a very ambitious bucket list) by diving in a mini-submarine to the bottom of Lake Baikal. He joined a team "studying gas hydrates and natural seepage of crude oil on the bottom of" the lake.

At the end of the voyage, Putin assured reporters that his next adventure did not lie in space, saying "there's enough work on Earth." Perhaps he's referring to his failures in the world of finance. 

ALEXEY DRUZHININ/AFP/Getty Images

Joachim Crima -- a 37-year-old immigrant from Guinea-Bissau is trying to become Russia's first black elected official, running in district elections in the Volgograd region. Naturally, Crima, who has lived in Russia for 12 years, has been dubbed "Volgograd Obama," though as RIA-Novosti reports, his campaign rhetoric isn't exactly "Yes we can."

I want to make the lives of people who I consider my compatriots better. I am ready to work from morning until evening to resolve their problems. In other words, I am ready to toil like a negro," he said

I must admit, when I saw that quote in RIA-Novosti's story, and the fact that Crima apparently sells watermelons for a living, I wondered if the whole thing wasn't a very nasty hoax. But AFP's Anna Smolchenko called up Crima, who says he doesn't mind using racial stereotypes to his advantage:

If Russians are accustomed to calling dark-skinned people 'negroes' then so be it. I am not in the least bit offended because you have to be proud of who you are."

If he says so. Something still feels very off about this whole thing. Crima seems to not have a chance in hell at beating the local United Russia candidate, and despite the credulous media reports, it seems like no one is really taking him seriously:

There is an impression that he is laughing at himself, saying 'I am a Russian Obama'," Viktor Sapozhnikov, chief of the district election commission, said.

If he goes through with his plan to run for office, said Sapozhnikov, voters would cast ballots for him either "for the sake of a joke" or as an act of protest against Russia's moribund political life.

Sean's Russia blog also has a round-up of some of the uglier racist reactions from Russian Web commenters. Rather than being a sign of social progress, the fact that the very idea of a black man running for office is being treated as a joke seems like a sign of just how entrenched racist attitudes are.

None of the articles I've read so far have looked into who's backing Volgograd Obama's run, but I think it's fair to wonder if they really have his interests -- or those of Russia's black population -- in mind.