RBTH Australia issue (March 2014)

A special supplement produced and published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russia), which takes sole responsibility for the contents.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

rbth.com

P 3

Including an exclusive interview with Andrew Robb, Minister for Trade

Russia-Oz trade special

P 12-13

The country’s wildest tourist attractions

Extreme travel

P 2-3

Celebrating March 8 in modern-day society

Women’s Day

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ON MARCH 1, THE RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT AUTHORISED PUTIN TO DEPLOY RUSSIAN TROOPS IN THE CRIMEA

IF NECESSARY – AN ACTION THAT HAS PROVOKED INTERNATIONAL OUTCRY AND CENSURE P 10

ALL EYES ON UKRAINE

AFP/EASTNEWS

ALL INFORMATION CORRECT AT THE TIME OF GOING TO PRESS. READ MORE ABOUT THE SITUATION IN UKRAINE AT RBTH.COM

Distributed with

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Russia’s most famous young women over the centuryrbth.com/33755Feature

YAROSLAVA KIRYUKHINASPECIAL TO RBTH

On March 8, men can be seen

on the streets of Russia,

laden with bunches of

flowers such as bright tulips

and yellow mimosas, with

boxes of chocolates in hand.

THE MEANING OF WOMEN’S DAY IN RUSSIA TODAY

WOMEN'S DAY CELEBRATIONS IN

RUSSIA SHOW HOW MUCH THE DAY

HAS CHANGED SINCE ITS INCEPTION

MARCH 8'S IRONY OF FATE

These gifts are for the women in their lives: wives, girl-friends, mothers, daughters and colleagues. And the Rus-sian authorities support the day and the idea that wom-en’s importance is worth cel-ebrating, so the entire coun-try has the day off. But what does this holiday represent? How do Russian women feel about it? And how did it end up being celebrated this way?

The history of Women’s Day in RussiaAfter 1913, International Women’s Day (IWD) started being observed in Russia, in-spired by European and American socialists who had been agitating for women’s suffrage. Taking to the streets, in parades and demonstra-tions, Russian women de-manded the right to vote and advocated for equal pay and state support for mothers.

After the October Revolu-tion, Lenin made IWD an of-

fi cial Soviet holiday, encour-aging women to stand side by side with men, waving the hammer and sickle symbols of the new society (as can be seen in Vera Mukhina’s mon-ument, The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman in Moscow).

Also on March 8, the So-viet Government would re-port on the implementation of any policies relating spe-cifi cally to women.

However, soon after World War II, Soviet popular

culture started portraying women less as strong and hard-working comrades and equals and more as house-wives and mothers. A push for a return to pre-Revolu-tion gender roles seemed under way, and women’s child-bearing capacities be-came an object of focus – un-doubtedly because of the huge loss of life Russia suf-fered in World War II.

In 1944, the Supreme So-viet of the USSR issued an order boosting state support

for pregnant women, single mothers and mothers of many children. It even introduced the title “mother-heroine” (a woman who had many chil-dren). Also on this day, moth-ers who had lost sons in the Great War were presented by children with sweets in tea-cups – perhaps something like Mother’s Day.

In the early ’60s, men start-ed buying fl owers on March 8 for their loved ones, and the day started to resemble its contemporary incarnation.

In 1966, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev declared the day a public holiday – a sym-bolic gesture refl ecting more concerted efforts by authori-ties to stamp out any linger-ing political meaning that might be left over from the day’s ideological origins.

The 1977 Soviet Constitu-tion (which amended the Constitution of 1936) defi ned women’s role in society as “toiler, mother and citizen”. It stipulated that men and women had equal rights, and

that women had equal access to education, employment, promotions, remuneration and participation in social, cultural, and political activ-ity. It also introduced special measures to help women bal-ance work and motherhood.

In the ’70 and ’80s, maga-zines played off Soviet women against their “immoral” West-ern counterparts; broadly speaking, the Soviet house-wife and inexhaustible toiler was glorifi ed, while the West-ern feminist was demonised.

GLEB FEDOROVRBTH

The political and historical

associations that

International Women’s Day

(IWD) usually conjures faded

in Russia long ago.

The gift-giving tradition of Russian Women’s Day is so entrenched and considered so important that the Levada Centre (one of Russia’s big-gest and most reliable inde-pendent pollsters) has been conducting surveys on March 8 gift-giving trends and pref-erences since 1997.

The conclusion is that on IWD, Russian women want to be given gifts, and nearly half prefer to receive fl owers.

Some 54 per cent of the men who took part in a 2012

They faded to such a degree, in fact, that for more than half a century, March 8 in Russia has been a day when women are given fl owers and other gifts by the men in their life – not unlike Valentine’s Day.

survey said they would give the women in their lives fl ow-ers on March 8, and 45 per cent of the women polled said they would be “very happy” to receive them.

Little has changed since the late ’90s, it seems, when the same fi gures stood at 41 and 37 per cent respectively. The second most-popular gift-category today is cosmetics and perfume, followed by chocolates, jewellery and being taken out to a restau-rant or the theatre.

Gift-giving supersedes the pursuit of equal rights

ÉMIGRÉ ENTERPRISE: HOW RUSSIAN ARISTOCRATS

BECAME FASHION PIONEERS

ÉMIGRÉ ENTERPRISE: HOW RUSSIAN ARISTOCRATS

BECAME FASHION PIONEERSBRBTH.COM/34345

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Women in business: Stuck on the career ladderrbth.com/32131 Feature

Contemporary attitudesSome Russian women are cynical about the way Wom-en’s Day is celebrated today and say they would like to be shown gratitude year-round, not just on one day of the year.

Others complain that, de-spite the fact that the day was once associated with for-warding women’s rights, today it does nothing to help them be treated as equals, in the business world or in government.

Thirty-year-old business-woman Maria says getting a deluge of greeting cards and SMS texts one day a year does not make her life any easier.

“During negotiations with male colleagues, I’m not per-ceived as an equal, but as a woman, with all the weak spots that are attributed to the fairer sex,” she com-plained.

(Some of these are, appar-ently, being emotionally un-balanced, being a victim of PMT, and generally being prone to acts of folly.)

Women in Russia do have particularly low representa-tion in government, and are also under-represented in corporate management roles in medium to large companies.)

German Marxist theorist Clara

Zetkin's involvement in the

USSR led to her making an

indelible impact in Russia.

IWD founder Clara Zetkin a presence right up to present

There are streets, colleges and hospitals across the former Soviet Union that bear the name of Clara Zetkin, the women’s-rights activist and socialist politician who or-ganised the fi rst Internation-al Women’s Day in 1911.

Zetkin’s fi rst link to Rus-sia was her husband, a Rus-sian émigré revolutionary named Osip Zetkin. In 1881, socialist parties were out-lawed in Germany, forcing Clara and Osip to fl ee. The ban was lifted in 1890, just a year after Osip had died of tuberculosis. Zetkin returned to Germany, where, in 1919, she was a founder of the Ger-man Communist Party.

Zetkin first visited the USSR in 1920, when she met Lenin and his wife. But in Germany she was extremely active as a member of par-liament and as an editor of several socialist and women’s rights publications.

When Hitler’s party be-came the largest in the Re-ichstag in 1932, Zetkin opened the fi rst parliamen-tary session by making an im-passioned speech about the dangers of Nazism. Shortly after, all leftist parties were banned and Zetkin fl ed to the USSR. She died there soon after, in 1933, age 75, in Arkhangelskoye – a country estate outside of Moscow.

More than 600,000 attend-ed her funeral, and her ashes rest within the Kremlin Wall in Red Square. Russians know Zetkin for her role in establishing IWD – a day which has largely lost any po-litical signifi cance it once had in Russia.

GLEB FEDOROVRBTH

Clara Zetkin (left) with Rosa

Luxemburg (right).

Maria added that, in her view, Russian Women’s Day helps only certain industries, namely those that sell fl ow-ers, perfume and chocolate.

Her view is backed up by statistics. Last year, the Mos-cow Trade Department re-ported that wholesale prices for fl owers increased by 50 to 60 per cent ahead of the holiday, whereas the MAR Consult Company last year forecast that Moscow men collectively would spend half a billion US dollars on gifts for the women in their lives on March 8.

But seven of every 10 Rus-sian women say they really enjoy this holiday because, for them, it marks the begin-ning of spring and encour-ages their signifi cant others to express their love and ad-miration towards them.

“I’m used to doing the chores around the house and working like crazy, so I real-ly look forward to a day when I can relax and have the housework done by my boy-friend,” says 22-year-old Na-talya, who works long hours to pay for her education.

Meanwhile, the Russian Or-thodox Church, which is al-most always in line with the Kremlin, does not accept this

holiday, considering it to be a Western legacy. It has not tried to eradicate it, however, as it actively has with Valen-tine’s Day and Halloween.

“I do not need fl owers or other gifts for being a woman,” says Svetlana, a mother of three, the wife of a deacon, and a fierce opponent of Women’s Day.

“God Almighty has made me look the way I do. Why should I receive presents for this and have a high opinion of myself?

“It’s a feminist holiday that has nothing in common with Russian traditions of women being domestic goddesses, caring mothers and loving wives, not career-driven self-ish females.”

Reinforcing gender conformityBut there are those who pre-fer to hide their dissatisfac-tion with the way March 8 is celebrated, especially after the adoption of the national law banning propaganda pro-moting non-traditional sex-ual relations to minors.

Irina, a transsexual who publicly lives as a woman but identifies as a man and dreams of gender reassign-ment surgery, gets annoyed ahead of March 8 at the pros-pect of being bombarded with chocolates and compliments from male colleagues at the bank where she works.

“It’s unbearable, but I know that I can’t show them how I really feel about this so-called holiday – which I per-sonally fi nd discriminatory – because I might be fired. I don’t want to be pampered by males. But, if I’m honest, I myself give my girlfriend fl owers on Women’s Day, so it seems that I also follow these unwritten rules.”

Irina loathes March 8 be-cause she believes it reinforc-es strict traditional gender roles and makes a scapegoat of anyone who sits outside them.

Men’s Day (Defender of the Fatherland Day) Just two weeks before Wom-en’s Day, on February 23, Rus-sian males, from baby boys to retirees, receive a chorus of congratulations on the oc-casion of the so-called De-fender of the Fatherland Day. Officially, as the name sug-gests, this day should cele-brate those (male or female) who serve, or have served, in Russia’s Armed Forces, but unofficially, it is Men’s Day – a holiday when Russian women shower the men in their lives with gifts and at-tention. Ironically, until 1918, IWD was celebrated in Russia on this date (February 23), due to the Julian Calendar still being in use.

" The iconic Soviet female, portrayed with a sickle in one hand and a spoon in

the other was minimalistic and productive but not glamorous. With the fall of the USSR, Russian women welcomed a return to more traditional gender roles and felt the urge to overcompensate for years of subjugated femininity.

" After the 1917 Revolu-tion, women were given the vote and encouraged

to join the workforce, but they were still expected to do all the traditional domestic and child-rearing duties as well – an over-whelming load, which is well expressed by the Russian idiom, ‘I’m both a horse and a bull, I’m both a woman and a man’. It echoes the complaints I heard from my mother and her friends when they used to wearily grumble.

QUOTE

Diana BrukNEW YORK-BASED JOURNALIST WITH

RUSSIAN ROOTS

WRITERS AND THEIR WIVES: TOGETHER IN LOVE, WORK AND LEGACY

WRITERS AND THEIR WIVES: TOGETHER IN LOVE, WORK AND LEGACYRBTH.COM/33367

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Russian rouble reaches five-year lowrbth.com/34329Business

NEWSIN BRIEF

Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel, one of the largest global manufactur-ers of non-ferrous metals, is selling the two gold mines in Western Australia that it bought in 2011.

The company plans to sell its North Eastern Goldfi elds Operations (NEGO) to Sar-acen Mineral Holdings Ltd for $US35.2 million.

The contract, which is ex-pected to be fi nalised in the first half of 2014, will re-quire Saracen to undertake environmental restoration of the lands.

Saracen is planning to re-sume gold production with-in 18 months of the closure of the deal.

The Russian-Australian inter-governmental com-mission was due to convene on March 12. At the time of printing, no announcements had been made that the ses-sion would be cancelled. However, uncertainty sur-rounds the meeting, since the Minister for Trade, An-drew Robb, has announced he will not be going to Rus-sia because of the contro-versy around the Crimea.

The Russian agricultural watchdog, Rosselkhoznad-zor, has restricted Austral-ian offal imports over the use of the steroid trenbolo-ne in animal breeding.

Australian ambassador Paul Myler and Rosselk-hoznadzor representatives also discussed a possible ban on beef imports, but no decision has been taken.

Under Customs Union rules, steroids may not be used in meat intended for export to member nations.

Norilsk Nickel

sells Australian

gold mines

Russia-Australia

talks may be

cancelled

Off al imports

restricted by

food watchdog

GLEB FEDOROVRBTH

RBTH takes an in-depth look

at Russian-Oz trade, and

interviews Australia’s Minister

for Trade, prior to him

cancelling his visit to Russia

because of events in Ukraine.

Oz trade with Russia drops Trade Business between the two countries fell overall last year, but there are areas for potential growth

Andrew Robb on trade with Russia

Questions & Answers

Did you see any positive trends

in trade between Australia and

Russia in 2013?

The World Bank expects the Russian economy to grow by 3.1 per cent in 2014. Accord-ing to Business Monitor In-ternational, Russian per cap-ita consumer spending is also predicted to increase. This, of course, presents opportuni-ties for Australian firms in Russia. There is now $AUD4.5 billion worth of Russian in-vestment in Australia and I hope that will grow when Russian companies consider the strength of the Australia economy: our strong regula-tory environment and the commercial opportunities available.

How do you plan to deal with the

ban Russia has imposed on Aus-

tralian beef?

Russia is an important and growing market for Austral-ian beef, and one of the larg-est beef importers in the world. Meat & Livestock Aus-tralia (MLA), in partnership with the Australian industry, has a range of marketing ac-tivities in Russia to help con-sumers differentiate Austral-

ian products from our competitors’ and position Australia as a “clean and green” high-quality red meat supplier. MLA operates a trade representative office, based in Moscow, to co-ordi-nate our marketing efforts. In addition, seminars have been held to educate the Russian food-service industry and se-lected retail segments about the quality of Australian red meat and our food safety sys-tems.

In your opinion, is it safe to do

business in Russia these days?

A range of Australian com-panies are successfully oper-ating in Russia, in the min-ing and resources sector, as well as in services, like agri-business, education and food and consumer goods – which is a good sign. We’re keen to enhance the trade and invest-ment relationship [between Australia and Russia] and raising awareness about pro-spective opportunities in our respective markets is critical.The Australian Trade Com-mission has had long-stand-ing representation in the Rus-sian Federation, with offices

in both Moscow and Vlad-ivostok. Austrade works closely with our col-leagues in the Depart-ment of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as well as with other government agencies and industry bodies, to assist Australian companies enter and build their businesses in Russia.

Russia-Australia trade is very

limited. What obstacles, apart

from distance, do you think ac-

count for this?

Total trade, including servic-es, between Australia and Russia for 2012-13 was ap-proximately $AUD1.8 billion which, given the size of our economies, can certainly be expanded. There is, howev-er, significant scope for growth. Australia, like Russia, has a strong min-ing and resources sector. Both countries also have sig-nifi cant agribusiness sectors. It’s important that we look to build on our respective strengths and identify areas of co-operation, where we can share expertise and technol-ogies and where there is de-mand from our respective markets. Strengthening the links between fi nancial and professional service-provid-ers in Australia and Russia will not only expand busi-ness in these sectors, but will also underpin commercial ac-tivity in other sectors.

Export trade to Australia down in 2013

Official fi gures revealed that overall trade between Russia and Australia shrank by 13.3 per cent last year compared with 2012, and Russian ex-ports to Australia fell by 31 per cent and Australian im-ports to Russia declined by 11.2 per cent.

According to Russia’s Fed-eral Customs Service, exports to Australia are worth $US68.3 million, less than a tenth of the $US737.5 million Australian imports are val-ued at.

The exports themselves, however, remained largely unchanged, with some excep-tions. Fertiliser remained Russia’s biggest export in 2013 ($US28.8 million), fol-lowed by copper sulphate ($US14.6 million) and wood panels ($U3.8 million).

Petrochemicals were the fourth category in 2012 ($US12.5 million, or 13 per cent of total exports) but in 2013 shrank to 1 per cent, while tea exports rose to $US3.5 million in value.

Australia’s top exports to Russia included: aluminium oxide and uranium ore ($US259.3 million), beef products ($US160.7 million), pedigree cattle stock ($US78.7 million) and mining machin-ery ($US75.5 million).

Don`t miss the chance to meet them at

rbth.ru/30under30

TELLING YOU THEIR SUCCESS STORIES

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Stolichnaya pledges donation to Russian LGBT communityrbth.com/34125 Society

NEWSIN BRIEF

Simplifi ed regulations about the employment of foreign students in Russia came into effect on January 1, 2014.

In accordance with amendments to the bill On the Status of Foreign Citi-zens in the Russian Federa-tion, foreigners with stu-dent visas can now obtain work permits without fi ll-ing out special forms. How-ever, they cannot work out-side the region that issued their permit.

Starting this year, the Uni-fi ed State Exam, which is taken by all Russian high school students upon grad-uation, will be different for each of Russia’s eight time zones.

Different versions of the test will be developed in order to prevent students in Vladivostok from relaying information about the test to students in Moscow.

New work-visa

regulations

Exam schedule

now in unison

The 10th-grade high school student who shot dead his geography teacher and a policeman at school No 263, Moscow, last month has been charged with homi-cide, attempted murder and hostage-taking.

The accused will undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he is fi t to stand trial. Preliminary fi ndings suggest he had an emotional breakdown.

Such shootings are rare in Russia perhaps because of strict restrictions on weapon ownership. The ac-cused had allegedly used his father’s registered hunting rifles. The father helped police arrest his son, enter-ing the classroom where the shootings took place to talk to him.

Pupil charged

after shooting

double fatality

DARYA LYUBINSKAYASPECIAL TO RBTH

Students will now need to

complete a program

comprising Russian language

and literature, as well as

mathematics, before taking

university entrance exams.

Foreign students facing new language rulesEducation Overseas candidates must study Russian before they can take university entrance exams

comprise three mandatory and one specialist subject. In addition, foreign applicants will need to study general-knowledge subjects, such as Russian, mathematics or com-puter science. The list of sub-jects set will depend on the discipline the applicant will be specialising in. At the end of the foundation program, applicants will have to pass exams in their mandatory subjects and achieve a pass in optional ones.

The Russian language course comprises basic knowledge of phonetics, syn-tax and punctuation. At the end of it, an applicant must have a vocabulary of at least 2,300 words, adequate aural comprehension (a speed of 200–240 words per minute) and be able to read at a speed of 80–100 words per minute. Furthermore, they will have to be able to write an essay or produce a summary of a

topic in their specialist fi eld. “At the moment, there are no clear requirements with re-gard to knowledge of Russian and, as a result, very basic ones are applied,” vice-chan-cellor of the Plekhanov Rus-sian University of Econom-ics Viktor Grishin explained.

At the end of the Russian

literature course (which forms part of the Russian-language course), an applicant will have to demonstrate knowl-edge of the Russian literature of the 18 and 19th centuries, as well as of the biographies of Russian writers: Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and

Chekhov. They will have to be able to describe the liter-ary styles of various authors and be able to speak about their works and characters (two to three works by each author). In mathematics, for-eign applicants will not only have to learn how to make simple calculations but be able to prove various theo-rems in Russian and work out basic formulae, as well as to study the basics of mathe-matical analysis.

There are about 250,000 foreign students from some 150 countries studying in Russia today. More than 40,000 of them receive high-er education free of charge, with tuition fees paid by the Russian Government. The largest number of foreign stu-dents come from countries of the Commonwealth of Inde-pendent States, Europe, Af-rica, Asia and Latin Ameri-ca.

In Russia, 2.5 per cent of tertiary students are foreign.

By the end of 2014, the Rus-sian Education and Science Ministry is due to adopt a new list of requirements for for-eigners who want to get a higher education in Russia. Now international applicants will have to spend a year learning Russian, mathemat-ics and the key subjects in their chosen fi elds in order to qualify to sit entrance exams for the universities of their choice.

Foreign applicants will be divided into groups: the hu-manities, the natural scienc-es, medicine and biology, en-gineering and economics. Each of these groups will

ANASTASIYA MALTSEVASPECIAL TO RBTH

According to opinion polls,

family is what matters most

to Russians. They are

optimistic about the future

and they value good friends

and honesty.

Polls reveal a country taking an optimistic outlook on life

Public opinion Russians started the new year in optimistic mood as most expect good things of 2014

On the fl ip side, Russians be-lieve they must be vigilant and cautious in relations with others. They are also con-vinced that no-one can pro-tect them from acts of ter-ro r i s m a n d t h e y a re increasingly wary about the US and Europe.

Polls by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM) reveal that the greatest desire of 93 per cent of those polled was to create a happy “social unit”, while 91 per cent wanted good friends and 90 per cent wanted “to be honest”.

Sixty-fi ve per cent of those polled celebrated the new year in an optimistic mood and 56 per cent were hope-ful that everything would work out well for the coun-try in 2014. Only a third of respondents expected to face problems this year. Year after year, the number of optimists in Russia seems to exceed the number of pessimists.

While optimistic, accord-ing to fi gures from the Pub-lic Opinion Foundation (FOM), Russians are also fair-ly distrusting. Only one-fi fth say they trust most people.

Three-quarters are con-vinced of the “need to be cau-tious in relationships with others”, while 60 per cent are prepared to trust only those close to them. The remainder think they must always be

Russians value famiy and honesty, but are increasingly mistrusting of the US and Europe.

vigilant among their ac-quaintances.

Russians are also not for-giving of those with criminal records: 61 per cent are op-posed to allowing people who have been in prison stand for

public office (and women and the elderly are more categor-ical about this: at 65 per cent and 68 per cent respectively).

Russians also do not feel all that safe, with 63 per cent doubting that their authori-

ties can protect them from acts of terrorism (and of that fi gure, 44 per cent are con-vinced there is no way to es-cape terrorism).

Residents in Moscow and St Petersburg, however, feel safer than in other parts of Russia.

When it comes to foreign policy, the Levada Centre found Russians have become more negative about the US and the European Union. Those who perceive the US as “bad” rose from 23 per cent in 2011 to 37 per cent last year. And the figure went from 14 per cent to 29 per cent in regard to the Euro-pean Union.

Closer neighbours, howev-er, are viewed more positive-ly, and 64 per cent of those polled would like Russia to restore diplomatic relations with Georgia.

The Dean of Sociology at Russia’s National Research University Higher School of Economics, Aleksandr Chepurenko, noted that a stark “values gap” can be seen between Russians born after the collapse of the USSR and the older generation.

“Young people have grown up in a values vacuum when there has been no political ideology of the kind to which the state is now returning,” he said. “The young, unlike the older generation, are not nostalgic for the old Soviet machinery of the state.

“Young people are not in-terested in what was good or bad about it. They live in the present and have a good grasp of information technologies.”

The three above-mentioned poll centres are independent non-government organisa-tions, founded between the late ’80s early ’90s.

3 1 Pre-Olypmics, only 62 per cent of

Russians said they planned to watch the Games, with 30 per cent interested in the figure-skating, 25 per cent the biathlon and 23 per cent ice hockey.

2 Surveys show only 17 per cent of

Russians polled were interested in their pension funds (these were primarily afflu-ent people, aged 35-44, living in medium to large towns).

3 Russian society has been said to

comprise four seg-ments: the Moscow and St Petersburg seg-ment, large industrial cities, rural Russia and the Caucasus – a clan-based culture.

FACTS ABOUT

INTERESTS

AND VALUES

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06 RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINESRUSSIAIA BEYOND THE HE06 HEADLINESES

Behind the scenes at the closing ceremonyrbth.com/34501Sochi 2014

OLEG BOYKORUSSIA DIRECT

Russia will host its first

Paralympic Winter games to

date, from March 7 to 16. The

event is due to attract 1,350

athletes and teams from

47 countries.

72 sets of medals in five sporting categories will be

awarded; para-snowboarding will make its debut.

64 athletes will be on the Russian team, which will

make it Russia's biggest Paralympic team to date.

2014 PARALYMPICS

47 countries are due to participate in the Sochi Para-

lympic Games, gathering to-gether 1,350 athletes.

13 million is the number of people in Russia known to

have a disability (or 9 per cent of the population).

WWW.RBTH.COM

Russian

Paralympians

gave their best

performance to date

at the 2012

London

Paralympics

MARCH 7 Opening

Ceremony

MARCH 16Closing

Ceremony

Over the past decade, Rus-sia’s Paralympic teams have made strong progress, gain-ing top positions in team events since 2006. Russia’s Paralympic success story is only a recent phenomenon, however. The Paralympic movement is relatively new to Russia, beginning only 18 y e a r s a g o , w i t h t h e creation of the Russian Par-alympic Committee. (In con-trast, in Western countries, efforts have been made to in-volve people with disabili-ties in sport since the ’50s.)

Paralympic sport in Russia was in its infancy in the ’90s, at which time it lacked infrastructure and fi -nancial support.

Programs had to be set up quickly to prepare coaches and experts in adaptive phys-ical culture; training bases for a range of disciplines needed to be established and new equipment purchased.

These efforts helped Rus-sian Paralympians break through into the internation-al arena in a short space of time, and soon the world began to talk about the “phe-nomenon” of the success of Russian Paralympians.

From roots to recordsRussian athletes first took part in the Paralympics in 1988, riding on the wave of

port of government and busi-ness. The Chinese Paralym-pic team, the undisputed leader in the summer Games, is financed by the Chinese government, while their US counterparts, for example, are private-sector funded.

In Russia, the corporate world plays an important role in promoting Paralympic sport. Businesses particular-ly support promoting events to honour Paralympians, rais-ing public awareness about their sporting prowess and nurturing a sense of recogni-tion and respect in Russian society at large.

The Parasport foundation, together with the Paralym-pic Committee, holds the Re-turn to Life annual national awards ceremony to celebrate the contributions of athletes,

coaches and doctors who have been involved in the devel-opment of Paralympic sport in Russia.

The Paralympic effectHistory has shown that host-ing the Paralympic Games has led to improved percep-tions about people with dis-abilities in the host country. Among the best examples is China, where in the fi ve years after the 2008 Paralympics, Beijing made considerable new efforts to integrate peo-ple with disabilities into the community.

It is hoped that Russia’s hosting of the 2014 Paralym-pic Winter Games will help change stereotypical attitudes toward people with disabili-ties in Russia. According to statistics from Russia’s Min-

board to a fuller life and better recognition in wider society.

Development of disability sport in Russia has also been driven by a co-operative team effort by the Ministry of Sport and Russia’s nation-al Paralympic Committee, whose tasks extend beyond developing and supporting Paralympic sport in Russia. The committee is also in-volved in organising assis-tance for kids with disabil-ities, promoting the ideals of the international Paralym-pic movement, training sports professionals to work with people with disabili-ties and creating jobs in this sector.

The success of the Russian Paralympic movement is also underpinned by the joint sup-

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Sochi's Paralympic Winter Program will set Games records. Over nine days of com-petition, 72 sets of medals will be awarded across five sport-ing categories (compared with the 64 medals up for grabs at the Vancouver Games in 2010). And para-snowboarding will make its debut as a Paralympic discipline. Russia's main rivals are expected to be Germany, Canada and the US. The Paralympic movement in Russia is relatively young com-pared with most Western coun-tries; nevertheless, Russian Paralympians are expected to be up there with the best.

HOSTING THE WINTER GAMES

MAY CHANGE RUSSIAN ATTITUDES

ABOUT PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

FOR THE BETTER

the USSR’s perestroika. At that time, only visually im-paired athletes were compet-ing. These athletes won gold medals in track and fi eld and the Soviet team fi nished 12th overall.

More recently, Russia has consistently won medals in winter team events. But at the London Paralympic Games, in 2012, Russian Paralympians had their best performance in summer sport to date, both in terms of the number of medals won and the team’s table position.

The team won 102 medals (36 gold, 38 silver and 28 bronze) in individual and team sports; 14 world records were set, in swimming and athletics.

The number of Russian Paralympics has also risen sharply in recent years. The summer team in London had 182 members, compared with the 60 who represented Russia in Atlanta in 1996. In terms of winter sports, only 26 Russian athletes compet-ed in the Paralympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, while the country’s sporting delegation in Sochi will be 162-strong, including 64 athletes. And for the first time, the Russian team will participate in all events.

People powerThese impressive results and the rapid expansion of para-sports in Russia have come about fi rst because of the mo-tivation of the athletes them-selves. For Russian athletes with disabilities, participa-tion, and victory, in the Par-alympics are seen as a spring-

HOST NATION

ANTICIPATES

A LEGACY

OF SUCCESS

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07RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES

MOST READ

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Sochi 2014Russia’s journey from ‘no invalids’ to Paralympic championsrbth.com/31729

Nikolai Dolgopolov,

Rossiyskaya Gazeta

Sir Philip Craven, President of the International Paralym-pic Committee, talks about the impact of the Games on people with disabilities in general.

Are you planning on incorporat-

ing new disciplines into the Win-

ter Paralympic Games?

In the coming years, we must increase the scale of these games through the inclusion of new sports. It’s for this rea-son that, for the fi rst time, ski-ing competitions on para-snowboards will take place in Sochi. Today, the Paralym-pic Summer Games include 22 sporting disciplines, in which 4,300 athletes take part. In comparison, the Win-ter Games have five sports and 750 athletes. We want to reduce this gap. Already, in 2018, in Pyeongchang, para-snowboarding will become an independent sport, so the number of sports will in-crease to six.

The Olympics attracts more in-

terest than the Paralympics.

What can be done to promote

interest in the Paralympics?

First of all, we should not for-get that the first Paralym-pic Games were held in 1960 and the fi rst Winter Paralym-pic Games 16 years later. The Vancouver games were very successful, but we need to make the Games in Sochi even better. The Paralympic Games in London were the best in history, but in Rio we must make them even better. It’s important to keep the in-terest of fans between games.

What about the coverage of the

Paralympic Winter Games in

Sochi?

It’s expected that the Sochi Games will be broadcast more than the previous Games. More than 1.6 billion

viewers watched the Para-lympic Games in Vancouver 2010. As for Sochi, we have a deal with local broadcast-ers to increase the number of hours of broadcasts. A major breakthrough occurred in the US, where NBC and NBC Sports will provide more than 66 hours of coverage – much more than ever before.

Have you been satisfied with the

preparations for Sochi’s Para-

lympic Games?

If we talk about the prepar-e d n e s s o f t h e s p o rt s facilities and infrastructure in Sochi, I believe that the organisers are to be congrat-ulated for the work that’s been done to create a barri-er-free environment in the city. However, this work should not be restricted to where the competitions are to be carried out.

There also needs to be focus on ticket sales for Paralym-pic competitions.

Russians should not miss this event. They simply shouldn’t miss the opportu-nity to cheer on visually im-paired skiers, for example, coming down the mountain at up to 100km per hour.

What, in your opinion, will be the

most important aspect for the

legacy of the Paralympic Games

in Sochi 2014?

The most important legacy is likely to be a change in atti-tudes of Russian society to-wards people with disabilities.

It’s important that people with disabilities can partici-pate in public life. Previous Games have shown that sports achievements of Par-alympic athletes have helped with these things [in the host-ing countries].

18 years ago the Para-lympic movement began in Russia

with the creation of the Russian Paralympic Committee.

12 was the position on the final medal table of the Soviet

Paralympic team at its first Games, in 1988.

istry of Labour and Social Protection, Russia has 13 million citizens with disabil-ities, which is equivalent to 9 per cent of the population.

The US has 56.7 million people with disabilities (equiv-alent to 19 per cent of the total population) and Great Brit-ain eight million (18 per cent); China’s official data reports it has 83 million disabled peo-ple (or 6.3 per cent).

In 2012, Russia ratifi ed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and is implementing a program called the Accessible Envi-ronment program.

Russia is facing consider-able challenges in the reha-bilitation of people with dis-a b i l i t i e s b e c a u s e o f inadequate social infrastruc-ture and the lack of a unifi ed

approach and unifi ed stand-ards for access. This affects people with disabilities’ ca-pacity to access employment, for example, and only 20 per cent of Russians with disa-bilities are employed, accord-ing to the Ministry of Labour.

Employment challengesThe employment of people with disabilities is a social problem faced by many countries. In 2012, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, only 17.8 per cent of people with disabilities were employed, compared with 63.9 per cent of people without a disability. In the UK, according to the Pap-worth Trust charity, in March 2013 the employment rate among people with disabili-ties in the UK was 49 per cent,

compared with 81.8 per cent for people without.

In Russia, there are un-doubtedly sociocultural bar-riers between people with dis-abilities and broader society. People with disabilities face objective barriers to access, participation and integration in many areas of society. It is hoped that the 2014 Paralym-pic Winter Games in Sochi will nudge Russia further towards improving opportunities for people with disabilities.

Oleg Boyko is president of the Finstar Financial Group. In 1996, he suffered a spinal in-jury and today also heads the Commission for Develop-ment of the Paralympic Movement in Russia under the Russian Paralympic Committee.

How competition for all can help to change attitudes

INTERVIEW SIR PHILIP CRAVEN

Anna Milenina Irek Zaripov

PARALYMPIC GOLD

MEDALS: THREE AGE: 27

PARALYMPIC GOLD

MEDALS: FOUR AGE: 30

Nerve damage at birth caused the partial paralysis of one of Anna Milenina's arms. With this kind of injury, her doctors told her not to play any sport. But Milenina was from an athlet-ic family, and she was keen to take up sport from as young as six. At 14, she was selected for the national Paralympic team, and at 19 took part in her first Games, in Turin. Milenina, who competes in cross-country skiing and biathlon, is also a triple silver medallist.

Irek Zaripov was the leading in-dividual Russian athlete at the 2010 Paralympics in Vancouver, winning four gold medals and one silver in skiing and the bi-athlon. Zaripov will defend his titles in Sochi before retiring from competitive sport. “I hope my farewell will be positive," he said. "I plan to start a politi-cal career. But now, of course, all my thoughts are on my per-formance at the Paralympics.” Zaripov is confident, successful and strong.

Hosting the Paralympic

Games is likely to lead to

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ALPINE SKIINGMarch

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BIATHLONMarch 8,11,14

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING

March 10,11,12,15,16

ICE SLEDGE HOCKEYMarch 15

WHEELCHAIR CURLINGMarch 15

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Paralympic

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08 RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINESRUSSIAIA BEYOND THE HE08 HEADLINESES

Golden finale to the Olympicssochi2014.rbth.com/sochi_finalSochi 2014

JAMES ELLINGWORTHSPECIAL TO RBTH

Amid the lavish arenas and

bombastic ceremonies of the

Sochi Olympics, it was always

going to take something

special for Russia’s athletes

to grab the spotlight.

GAMES RESULTS

The hosting of the Games was a resounding success, defy-ing earlier predictions that the Sochi Olympics could dis-solve into a fi asco.

“We all have enjoyed ex-ceptional conditions in these Olympic Winter Games,” IOC president Thomas Bach said at closing ceremony.

“Our Russian hosts had promised excellent sports venues, outstanding Olympic villages and an impeccable organisation. Tonight we can say Russia delivered all what it had promised.”

Four years ago in Vancou-ver, Russian sport seemed broken. The Soviet-style pro-duction line of champions, for decades so reliable, had ground to a halt and the country fi nished a lowly 11th in the medal table, a place behind the largely snow-free Netherlands. All that changed in Sochi. Russia stormed to

the top of the medal table, leaving traditional winter sports titans such as Norway and Canada in its wake.

There was a new genera-tion of champions, led by fi g-ure skating’s ice princesses Julia Lipnitskaia, 15, and Adelina Sotnikova, 17. There were new Russians, with nat-uralised South Korean speed-skater Viktor Ahn winning

three medals and US-born snowboarder Vic Wild taking two back to his apartment in Moscow. There were also, touchingly, veteran Russian athletes such as bobsled gold medallist Alexander Zubkov, 39, who leapt from also-rans to champions, their potential finally unlocked by extra funding and support.

Success didn’t come easily for Russia, which at the half-way point of the Games looked to be headed for fail-ure, with just two gold med-

the few events where the Rus-sian presence was negligible, but that took nothing away from the passion of the crowd at Rosa Khutor. They were re-warded with a unique event in Olympic history as two athletes – Slovenia’s Tina Maze and Dominique Gisin of Switzerland – were award-ed gold in the same event after clocking exactly the same time in the women’s downhill.

The men’s ice hockey gold medal game is the most hyped event of any Winter Olympics, especially so in Russia. With that in mind, Russia’s meek quarter-fi nal exit to Finland was something of a scandal,

Five gold medals were won by Russian-born athletes who had moved to other countries.

sparking angry commentary in the Russian media. How-ever, the crowd at the Bolshoy Ice Dome remained passion-ate, roaring Canada on to re-tain its title with a 3-0 win in the fi nal against Sweden. That followed a Canada-US semi-fi nal that was low-scor-ing at 1-0 but one of the most technically brilliant games in history, played at a furiously fast pace for the full 60 min-utes, with the crowd right be-hind the Canadians.

So, after Sochi, what does the future hold for Russian sport? If Sochi is any guide, things could get even better at the next Winter Olympics, in Pyeongchang, South Korea,

in 2018. One little-remarked-upon feature of the Sochi Olympics was the fi ve gold medals won by Russian-born athletes who had switched allegiances to other countries. They were athletes who had left in the chaotic days before Sochi won the right to host the Games, when funding and support for athletes was patchy.

Fast-forward four years and that generation of ath-letes will have largely moved on, replaced by youngsters who have grown up with the support of the past few years, a trend that can boost Rus-sia’s performances on the snow and ice of Pyeongchang.

Final standings in the medal table

DESPITE CONCERNS THAT THE

FACILITIES WOULD NOT BE READY,

PLUS FEARS OVER SECURITY, THE

WINTER OLYMPICS WERE STAGED

FAR MORE SUCCESSFULLY THAN

MANY DOUBTERS HAD EXPECTED

OLYMPICS' HOST SETS THE GOLD STANDARD ON AND OFF THE PISTE

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Keep your finger on the Sochi pulse even after the Closing Ceremony with our special section!

WWW.RBTH.COM

als, while the Olympics them-selves were flooded with mocking #sochiproblems tweets.

Then the jeering subsided and gold medals began to pour in, meaning the host na-tion fi nished with 13 – six of them in sports where Russia had never won gold before. The total of 33 medals of all colours outscored every Rus-sian and Soviet Winter Olym-pic team in history.

Meanwhile, the expensive-ly built sports facilities in the Olympic Park and up in the Caucasus mountains saw plenty of action, not just from the Russian athletes. Britain matched its best-ever Winter Olympics performance from 90 years before with one gold medal for Lizzy Yarnold in the skeleton, plus one silver and two bronze medals, in-cluding the fi rst British medal in a snow sport, won by snow-board slopestyler Jenny Jones. Norwegian biathlon star Ole Einar Bjoerndalen became the most decorated athlete in Winter Olympics history as his gold medals in the sprint and mixed relay took him to a career medal tally of 13.

Alpine skiing was one of

MOST READ


09

MOST READ

09RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES

Sochi 2014

Heath

SpenceBOBSLEIGH

Britteny

Cox MOGULS

Sochi was amazing. I was there a year ago and can’t believe h o w m u c h h a s

changed. The mountains are unlike anything we have in Australia, and I would look out my balcony window every day and have to pinch myself. It was amazing; the facilities and warm-up areas there are so spectacular.

There’s nothing like it in the world. I had my own space and plenty of room that was quiet so I could study the track notes and sleep. There were great Aus-sie staff and Russian volun-teers everywhere, to help and provide answers.

As for security, I was scanned in and out more times than I can remember. It meant when leaving for the venues, I had to add a little extra time. But it be-came the norm to go through the security checkpoints. And I definitely felt safe. Russian people are friendly. But being confi ned to the village and competition ven-ues didn’t give me much of a chance to really get a feel for Russian culture.

I was staying in the Moun-tain Cluster, so I didn't get to spend much time down in the city of Sochi

itself. But my family stayed there, and they said that the waterfront was beautiful and that people were very welcoming (although they did fi nd the taxi system dif-fi cult to manage.)

The mountains near Sochi are absolutely breathtaking. I get to see a lot of moun-tains and mountain ranges as a winter sport athlete, and these are undoubtedly the most spectacular that I have ever seen. They are huge and they looked amaz-ing at sunset as the sky turned a rich purple – which also happened to be a theme colour for the Games. The Village was also really cool.

It was very different from Vancouver because it was a more alpine-style village. Some of its highlights in-cluded a post office where we could get our faces print-ed on stamps and posted di-rectly home.

FIRST-HAND

Australian impressions

KATHERINE TERSRBTH

Back in the day when police

fines equalled the amount of

cash on your person and

drinking Nescafe was about

as cosmopolitan as it got in

Russia, I went to Sochi.

Waiting to emerge from hibernation

Retrospective A flashback to the host city in the late ’90s

It was 1999: a year after Russia’s worst post-Soviet economic crisis, when whole industry sectors collapsed and inflation catapulted, robbing people of their life-savings and leaving many without jobs.

Sochi’s sanatoriums, built early last century, when this rural town was being devel-oped as a health resort, had a Mediterranean feel to them. I remember Sochi’s wide boulevards, its grand Stalin-era buildings, and its being dotted with palm trees and block-like Krushchevite

curled alongside vertigo-inducing drops, kept me with eyes fi rmly down, alternate-ly praying and saying “om”. (Incidentally, this road was redeveloped for the Olympics, and a railway added, at the controversial price-tag of about $US9 billion.)

Krasnaya Polyana – the town that hosted the Olym-pics’ Alpine and Nordic events – was nice, although I struggled to fi nd a live per-son. I did notice a ski resort, a deserted Radisson and a heap of empty B&Bs, and fi g-ured this wasn’t a summer destination, so pressed on. A short distance down the road, along the unpronounceable Mzymta River, I hit the end of the road and the tiny vil-lage of Estosadok – which was little more than a few food stalls and a rickety chairlift. With an izbushka camp offering traditional wooden huts for $US1 a night, I decided to linger a while in this quiet gateway to the profoundly beautiful Caucasus Mountains.

hotels. But in mid-summer, many were half-empty. A ho-telier told me the town was dying, and that Russians with money preferred Bulgaria or Croatia for seaside holidays. But Sochi was alive at night, with packed Georgian res-taurants and dancing on its beachside corso, where badly recorded Russian pop blared from portable radios.

Having been electrocuted one too many times by dodgy light-fi ttings at my home-stay accommodation, I headed to Adler – a town 30 kilometres south, near the border with Georgia. From Adler, with US dollars in my shoe linings, I boarded a bus to Krasnaya Polyana (a three-hour trip in-land). En route I didn’t much care for the alpine scenery. The high speed at which we were taking this unsealed, single-lane road, which

The expensively built sports facilities saw plenty of action, not just from the Russian athletes

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Russian military experts say

rumours of a possible

large-scale invasion are

highly exaggerated.

‘Nobody is going to occupy Ukraine’

Military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer says that if Rus-sia sends troops to Ukraine it will result in serious losses for Russia.

“Compared to the situation in Ukraine, the Chechen war would look like a picnic,” he said. He is convinced that in the event of a military cam-paign, the West will introduce economic sanctions against Russia.

The head of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, Ruslan Pukhov, believes that Ukrainian troops are unable to put up armed resistance to the Rus-sian army and are unlikely to do so.

Editor in chief of the Na-tional Defense magazine Igor Korotchenko believes that the Ukrainian army and law-enforcement agencies do not have to follow the orders of the new Ukrainian authori-ties to engage in clashes with Russian troops.

He said the Federation Council’s decision to author-ise the use of troops does not mean a military invasion of Ukraine. He said: “Nobody is going to occupy Ukraine. Clearly, in this case we are talking about a peacekeep-ing operation in order to pre-vent a full-blown civil war.”

Korotchenko called for caution when dealing with media reports of Russian mil-itary units, other than those belonging to the Black Sea Fleet, which is reportedly al-ready present in Ukraine.

“An information war is being waged against Russia and all reports like these should be treated with cau-tion. The fact remains that Putin has been granted a law-ful right to send troops to Ukraine. Let’s wait for some official steps from the De-fence Ministry. As regards a possible military operation, I think it will be only in Crimea, although I do not rule out broader involvement, either.”

KONSTANTIN NOVIKOV, ANATOLY KARAVAYEVGAZETA.RU

IGOR ROZINRBTH

Last Saturday, the Russian

Parliament voted to allow the

use of Russian forces in the

Crimea until the socio-

political situation in Ukraine

returns to normal.

Parliament supports Russian intervention

Crimea Senators vote to authorise deployment of troops – if necessary – until the situation improves

The Russian Parliament considers the recently elected government in Kiev to be illegitimate.

At the time of going to press, however, no troops had been sent. The Parliament’s deci-sion does not mean that troops necessarily will be used, Interfax reported on March 1, citing a Russian For-eign Ministry statement.

Deputy Foreign Minister

Grigory Karasin explained: “[The] decision to grant Rus-sian President Vladimir Pu-tin’s request for the use of Russian armed forces until the socio-political situation in Ukraine normalises means that the President now has a free hand in the event that

the situation deteriorates.” Federation Council speaker Valentina Matviyenko said that Russians’ lives in Crimea were under threat, and that is why Russia cannot remain indifferent.

During a discussion that preceded the voting in the Federation Council, deputy speaker Yury Vorobyev said that US President Barack Obama’s statement that Mos-cow “would pay dearly for its policy” in relation to Ukraine “had crossed the red line and insulted the Russian people”.

Senators also instructed the Federation Council’s in-ternational committee to pre-pare an appeal for recalling the Russian ambassador from the US.

Earlier on Saturday, the lower house of the Russian parliament (the State Duma) appealed to Putin, urging him to take measures to stabilise the situation in the Crimea and to use all available capabilities to protect the Crimean population from lawlessness and violence.

According to the head of the State Duma Committee on Commonwealth of Inde-pendent States Affairs, Eur-asian integration and rela-tions with compatriots, Leonid Slutsky, Russia may deploy a limited contingent of its troops in the Crimea to ensure the safety of its Black Sea Fleet bases and the Rus-

sian population in the region, in order to counter possible acts of provocation on behalf of the “unconstitutional re-gime in Kiev”.

Earlier, Crimean Prime Minister Serhy Aksyonov ap-pealed to Putin “to assist in ensuring peace and tranquil-lity on the territory of the Au-tonomous Republic of Crimea”.

In an interview with RBTH, chairman of the presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, Fyodor Luky-anov, said the decision of the Upper House of Russian par-liament (the Federation Council) was necessary.

“Russia considers the au-thorities in Kiev to be ille-gitimate and proceeds from the premise that they have no right to dictate anything to it or to the population of Crimea,” he said.

Lukyanov stressed that the Federation Council’s decision was in effect a reply to Oba-ma’s warning. “Because dur-ing the discussion, the par-liamentarians mentioned Obama’s warning, it meant that the confl ict automatical-ly moved to an international level,” he said.

Lukyanov went on to add that Russia would now face, in the very least, strong con-demnation from the interna-tional community and accu-sations of pursuing an aggressive policy and that its image would suffer.

The reasons behind Russia's decision

STATEMENT

It is obvious that the new authorities are controlled by the ultra-nationalists, and that they are disregarding constitutional processes and therefore pose a real threat to the future, not only of our Russian compatriots in Ukraine, but to many Ukrain-ians who don’t support their aggressive political agenda.

Of grave concern are the following measures taken by the government in Kiev: (1) the cancellation of the Law on the Foundations of the State Language Policy, which

The so-called govern-ment in Kiev consists of right-wing extrem-ists and was estab-

lished in violation of the Agreement of February 21 between the Ukrainian Pres-ident Viktor Yanukovych and the Opposition. This agree-ment was aimed at the peace-ful settlement of the Ukrain-i a n c r i s i s t h r o u g h democratic elections, follow-ing due constitutional pro-cess, and was certifi ed by the ministers of foreign affairs of Germany, France and Poland.

will likely lead to discrimi-nation against Russian-speakers in Ukraine; (2) re-cent restrictions on the freedom of mass-media; (3) bans on the activities of a number of political parties; and (4) attempts to pass leg-islation which aims to crim-inalise Russian citizenship for those who already have Ukrainian citizenship.

In this situation, Russia re-tains its right to protect the interests of the Russian-speaking population and other Ukrainians who may become hostage to the pro-vocative and criminal actions of a relatively small group of Ukrainian radicals, who are

aspiring to represent the Ukrainian population as a whole, without any moral or legal justifi cation to do so.

The Russian government, and Russians in general, are very worried about the developments in Ukraine, so our President appealed to the Federation Council of the Russian Federation to author-ise the use of Russian troops in the Ukraine.

But the consent of the Fed-eration Council does not au-tomatically mean the use of force. The aim is to consoli-date all available means to stabilise the situation.

Furthermore, this decision was taken upon the request

of the local Crimean author-ities requesting assistance to restore normal life and en-sure stability in the penin-sula – something that has been dramatically deterio-rating under the new govern-ment in Kiev.

The city of Sevastopol has been host to Russia’s Black Sea Naval base since an Agreement was signed in Kharkov, on April 21, 2010. It can’t be denied that Rus-sians constitute the majority of the Crimean population; they also share Russian his-tory, values and political per-spectives.

The Crimeans cannot be deprived of the right to de-termine their own destiny in the face of the clear and pre-sent threat to their lives caused by the irresponsible actions of the acting Ukrain-ian government.

Vladimir Morozov RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO AUSTRALIA, THE

REPUBLICS OF FIJI, VANUATU AND NAURU

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Mars or bust: Two ordinary Russians prepare for the ultimate triprbth.com/33769 Tech

11

NEWSIN BRIEF

In late January this year, 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Al Gore nominat-ed the designers of the In-ternational Space Station (the ISS) for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.

The ISS is a co-operative project involving 15 coun-tries: Belgium, Brazil, Ger-many, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Canada, The Netherlands, Norway, the US, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Japan and Russia.

Yuri Trutnev, presidential envoy to the Far East Fed-eral District, suggested set-ting up a “Russian Silicon Valley” on Russky Island, in Vladivostok.

According to Trutnev, this should be a centre where “talented minds congregate” and “cutting-edge scientifi c methods are used to create high-tech products”. A new campus of the Far Eastern Federal University, the larg-est in Russia’s Far East, was built on the island for the 2012 APEC summit.

Nobel hope for

space station

New 'Russian

Silicon Valley'

Internet company Yandex, also known as “the Russian Google”, has announced its own fi rmware called Yan-dex.Kit for the Android op-erating system.

The fi rmware completely replaces all Google servic-es, including Google Play, which is replaced with Yan-dex.Store. The new Android version will be available in Russia in the summer of 2014 for the Huawei Honor 3 Yandex and Explay Flame smartphones.

Internet giant Yandex is the leader in the Russian online advertising market with a 61.7 per cent share of the market.

Yandex boasts 55.5 mil-lion visitors each month.

Yandex releases

fi rmware to

rival Google

YEKATERINA TURYSHEVARBTH

RBTH's Tech & Science Editor

spent a week using the newly

released Russian-designed

dual-screen smartphone. And

here is her mixed, but

optimistic, assessment.

Putting YotaPhone to the testConnected RBTH reviews Russia’s first smartphone and finds potential that may soon be realised

Barely three weeks after the official launch of the Yota-Phone, Yota Devices had sold more than 10,000 phones on-line and had stopped taking online orders from Europe because it couldn’t keep up with demand. The phone was released in Russia for sale in shops in the last week of 2013.

But is YotaPhone worth queuing for? It has certainly received international atten-tion and had positive reviews in the tech media, but after a week of use, I concluded that while the phone embod-ies some great ideas, it hasn’t realised its full potential (yet). But, with Yota Devices reveal-ing details of its second-gen-eration YotaPhone at last month’s Mobile World Con-gress 2014 in Barcelona, that potential may be realised sooner than expected.

The YotaPhone is the fi rst smartphone designed totally in Russia. Before that, there were only Russian brands lo-calising cheap Chinese smart-phones.

The stand-out feature of this phone is its two screens: the main screen is on the front, and looks much like a normal smartphone; the sec-ond screen on the back is an always-on, e-ink display, which doesn’t drain the bat-tery life.

The e-paper screen is used for some specifi c apps, par-ticularly e-readers, while the main screen is for the major-ity of smartphone apps.

In terms of its screen reso-lution, processor, memory and battery, YotaPhone just about keeps up with the competi-tion in its price range, which is 400 to 500 euros. But spec-ifi cations aside, let’s not for-get that the main function of any smartphone is to make voice calls and send texts. In that sense, YotaPhone per-forms well: it doesn’t lose its signal and its speaker is loud and clear. All missed calls and text messages are displayed on the “electronic paper” e-ink display on the back of the phone.

Keeping a YotaPhone in your pocket is not really an option with dimensions of 134mm by 67mm by 10mm, it’s simply too large for that.

When I fi rst used the Yota-Phone camera, I couldn't work out why the camera lens was at the bottom of the phone. This position makes for awkward snapping, and I took a fair few snaps of my own fi ngers before I adjust-ed to it.

Even the most graphic in-

tensive applications move fast on the YotaPhone, with no no-ticeable lags.

Playing games on the de-vice’s 4.3 inch LCD display feels comfortable, and the dis-play itself is very responsive. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about the touch-sensitive strips on either side of the phone. The strips are meant to replace buttons, but getting used to them wasn't easy for me.

I had an amusing time get-ting my colleagues to guess where the SIM card goes, but the designers’ decision to put the SIM slot under the power button doesn’t seem like such a good idea. The power/SIM slot assembly feels fl imsy, and the user risks damaging the device if they’re not careful around these input slots. The main display can’t be woken up without the power button, and without the main display, the secondary one is effec-tively useless.

The YotaPhone has no other removable parts: the battery can’t be removed and there isn't a microSD card slot. Still, it has 32GB of memory, which should be plenty for most users.

The battery itself is quite large (1800 mAh), but the

phone doesn’t seem to last long, even with just moder-ate use.

I didn't rate reading on the YotaPhone. The 4.3-inch e-ink screen is too small, even compared with the cheapest and smallest dedicated reading devices. PDF fi les and other documents designed for the A4 format are simply unreadable.

The back screen does show maps clearly and the missed call and text notifi cations are also clearly displayed.

The always-on e-ink dis-play can also serve as a great back-up in low-battery emer-gencies. On the whole, the YotaPhone has a way to go.

Some people will fi nd it too bulky or not fast enough; oth-ers will want a longer-lasting battery, or see no real use for the second screen. And it’s certainly true that for 499 euros, it’s possible to fi nd a higher-specced device.

The fi rst YotaPhone is proof that the dual-screen handset concept can work. And while the fi rst generation may have some design limitations, many of these have already been improved in the second gen-eration. While YotaPhone is currently a small player, in time, it may prove to be a pop-ular addition, or even a seri-ous competitor, to other smartphone options.

The second screen on the back is always on, but it's an e-ink display, so it doesn't drain the battery.

I didn't rate reading on the YotaPhone. The 4.3-inch e-ink screen is simply too small.

Screen success

for new model

In theory, any information shown on the main LCD display can be moved to the secondary e-ink display, simply by sliding two fingers down the screen. The problem is, you can’t do anything with the resulting static image. In that sense, this battery-saving feature doesn’t add much when you need to switch to the LCD display so of-ten. However, both displays on the second-generation YotaPhone will be fully touch-screen, improving control and adding functionality.

6KEY

YOTAPHONE

SPECS

1 The YotaPhone runs Android Jelly Bean OS and a powered dual core

1.7 GHz Krait CPU.

2 The main display is a capacitive touchscreen, It's a 4.3-inch 720x1280

LCD with 16.7M colours.

3 The back display is a 4.3-inch 360x640 EPD, 16 greyscale, with a ca-

pacitive touch-zone below the electronic paper display.

4 The radio supports LTE 800/1800/2600 MHz, UMTS 900/1800/2100

MHz, GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz networks.

5 It has two cameras: the main one is on the rear and is a 13-megapixel

auto-focus, with an LED flash. On the front, there is an addi-tional 1-megapixel camera for Skype and video calls.

6 Currently, the back screen allows for the use of: an e-reader,

maps, an accelerometer, a com-pass, a gyroscope, a proximity sensor, an ambient light sensor, FM radio, micro-SIM and Put-2Back apps.

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MOST READ


The top seven places to enjoy a real Russian Wintertravel.rbth.ru/destination/baikal Travel

12

LEVI BRIDGESSPECIAL TO RBTH

Eight time-zones from

Moscow, Magadan is on the

northern coast of the Sea of

Okhotsk. Despite its

remoteness and infamy, it

has much to offer tourists.

THE CITY AT THE END OF 'THE ROAD OF BONES'

BURDENED BY THE GULAG ASSOCIATIONS OF ITS PAST, MAGADAN IS

REFERRED TO IN FOLK SONGS AS A SOMETHING AKIN TO THE END OF THE

EARTH – BUT FOR THE INTREPID TOURIST, IT'S WORTH THE JOURNEY

EMERGING FROM A DARK HISTORY

Magadan is a bustling city with museums and hotels near a dramatic coast of rocky bluffs interspersed with beaches. Bear, moose and Siberian bighorn sheep live in the pristine mountains and wilderness just beyond the city. Visitors can fi sh, hike and ski in the wild expanses out-side of Magadan. But despite the surrounding tranquillity, this distant city still suffers an image problem because of its history.

During the purges of the Stalin era, Magadan was the entry to the Kolyma – a geographical area rich with gold and mineral deposits, which became the centre of the Gulag, or labour camp, system.

Prisoners were often shipped across Russia by train to Vladivostok, on the Sea of Japan, then crammed into ships that travelled north up the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk to the gold mines outside Magadan. Many didn’t even survive the jour-ney to Kolyma.

But those who made it endured long winters, malnourishment and hard labour – primarily in mines.

At the peak of their pro-duction, the Kolyma mines are estimated to have pro-duced nearly half the world’s gold each year – and more than a million people are estimated to have died in labour camps in the Kolyma area alone.

The on ly road in to Magadan is the M56 Federal Highway, also known as “the Road of Bones” for the thou-sands of prisoners who died during its construction.

The nearest city of any rel-ative size is Yakutsk, one of the world’s coldest cities, located 2200 kilometres north-west and inland from Magadan.

Today Magadan is a peace-ful port town, with much to offer tourists willing to trav-el the distance to get there. It’s a worthwhile destination for adventure-seekers and Russophiles interested in Russia’s farthest-fl ung cities.

Worth seeing fi rst and fore-most is the city’s Mask of Sor-row monument. Constructed in memory of those who died in the Kolyma area, it’s an impressive concrete face that rises from a hilltop above the city, almost reminiscent of an Aztec ruin.

For eco-tourists, Magadan sits on crescent-shaped Nagaev Bay, at the base of a peninsula that has many op-portunities for exploring and fishing, and even the city’s beach has some undeveloped stretches.

The Magadan Regional History Museum has exhib-its about the region’s fl ora and fauna, indigenous peoples and fi ne art. And the Magadan State Music and Drama The-atre, which began as a Sovi-et project during the Gulag era, is today a popular per-formance venue.

Magadan’s new cathedral shows off an impressive col-lection of onion domes that are perhaps the most beau-tiful in all of Russia’s Far East.

Tourists typically come to Magadan to fi sh, see Gulag history, or for R&R at the end of an overland trip on the Road of Bones.

Fishing is one of the prin-cipal industries in Magadan and it’s easy to organise a tour to cast a rod in the ocean, or

fl y-fi sh for salmon and char in the Yama or Ola Rivers. Ex-cellent fi shing also awaits in the numerous mountain lakes of the northern Far East. Fish-ing tours vary from short day-trips to camping expeditions by rivers that may last a week or longer.

Several bird species, including tufted and horned puffins, are also found around Magadan, especially on the coast. Many bird-watching and nature tours start and end in Magadan, and in win-ter, several companies run ski-trips to the local moun-tains and tundra areas inland.

For those interested in see-ing the former Gulags, the Dneprovsky camp is over a half-day’s trip from the city, along the Road of Bones.

Prisoners worked in a tin mine at Dneprovsky, and vis-itors can still see watchtow-ers and some of the camp’s original buildings there. An-other former camp that can be visited is the Butugychag Gulag – a former uranium mine.

Each year a handful of mo-torcyclists doing round-the-world trips arrive in Magadan from the Road of Bones.

Winter is the best time to attempt the road; in summer, the permafrost melts and the dirt road becomes a danger-ous quagmire.

Getting there

Aeroflot and S7 have flights connecting Magadan to most

Russian cities. Round trips from Moscow and Vladivostok cost from $US400 to $US700. From Beijing or Seoul, tickets range from $US900 to $US1200.

Where to stay

The modern VM Cen-tralnaya Hotel (www.hotelvm.ru) has a pool,

restaurant and rooms cost-ing between 4000 and 8000 roubles ($US130 to $US260). DVS-Tour specialises in organising trips to Magadan and the Kolyma region.

Magadan's residential areas

and port, which is open

year-round, are surrounded by

stunning wilderness areas.

A fisherman by the Sea of Okhotsk, where flounder, herring and cod are commercially fished.

Housing in an older residential area of Magadan – a city with a population of almost 100,000.

Magadan kids wrap up warm in a city where winter lasts around seven months of the year.

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MOST READ


Ten places you would never believe were in Russiatravel.rbth.ru/destination/fareast Travel

13

LEVI BRIDGESSPECIAL TO RBTH

There’s more to Russia than

borscht and ballet, and here

are some of the off-the-

beaten-track destinations

available to those looking to

sample the great outdoors.

Extreme travel options for adventure-minded travellers to Russia

1. Cycle over Baikal Siberia’s Lake Baikal is the world’s largest, deepest, and oldest lake. Baikal is a nice spot to sit on a beach in sum-mer, but true adventurers visit in wintertime. In 2010, an American-Venezuelan team completed the fi rst win-ter circumnavigation of Bai-kal on bicycles, riding around the lake in 36 days.

Strong winds keep Baikal free of snow, creating ideal conditions for winter cycling on bikes with studded tyres.

Irkutsk-based Baikal Ad-venture leads four-day win-ter bike trips up Baikal’s western coast, with camping stops along the way. Cyclists can also rent bikes from Jack Sheremetoff, owner of the Baikaler hostel in Irkutsk. Jack embarks on a winter cycling tour on Baikal every March and invites travellers to join him for free, provided they bring their own equipment.

For more details email [email protected].

2. Trek in Altai Sandwiched between Mon-golia, China and Kazakhstan, the Altai Republic is a region where snow-capped peaks

give way to canyons, deep river valleys and pristine blue lakes.

The republic is an incred-ibly beautiful and unspoilt area, and an excellent place to trek in summer (and a pos-sible side-trip if you’re doing the Trans-Siberian Railroad).

The region around Mount Belukha, Siberia’s tallest mountain at 4506 metres high, is famous for its remote waterfalls and glaciers. Mount Belukha is surround-ed by wilderness and its trails are poorly marked, so it’s ad-visable to trek with a guide. Astravel Ecotours offers a 12-day tour ($US1700) up the mountain and through the surrounding countryside.

3. Visit the North Pole Moscow and St Petersburg might be cold, but they have nothing on Franz Josef Land – a distant Russian archipel-ago in the Arctic Ocean. Franz Josef Land was once the em-barkation point for North Pole explorers and where many of those brave souls met their end. Today, it’s a stopo-ver point for Russian ships travelling to the North Pole.

Most ships bound for the North Pole leave from Mur-mansk – the world’s largest Arctic city and one of the best places in Russia to view the Northern Lights. Quark Ex-peditions leads a 14-day tour ($US25000) on an icebreak-er from Murmansk to the North Pole. Along the way, it’s possible see polar bears

and Arctic birds, go hiking on Franz Josef Land and ride in a hot-air balloon above the North Pole. Tours need to be booked well in advance.

4. Stay with indigenous reindeer herdersThe Yamal Peninsula juts into the Arctic Ocean, where the Ob River meets the sea. Each summer the native Nenets – nomadic reindeer herders – travel with groups of up to 10,000 reindeer to grazing grounds in the north of the Yamal Peninsula. During this migration, Nenets live in chums – funnel-shaped tents made from reindeer hide that resemble the teepees of Native Americans.

Briton-turned-Muscovite Edward Adrian-Vallance leads tours on the Yamal Pen-insula and has long-standing relationships with Nenets people there.

He brings travellers to live with Nenets families, giving them the chance to see how they move their camps and reindeer.

Tours average $US5000 and include travel to the Yamal Peninsula by train from Moscow. Go to www.yamalpeninsulatravel.com for more information.

5. Tackle the M56 Often included in the world’s top 10 most dangerous roads, Russia’s “Road of Bones” got its name because of the Gulag prisoners who died in its con-struction.

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It begins in Yakutsk, in Rus-sia’s Far East, and meanders for 2200 kilometres through taiga forest to the city of Magadan. Actors Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman failed to conquer the road in their 2004 round-the-world motorbike expedition because of rush-ing rivers blocking their path. Truck-drivers use the road in winter, when the permafrost solidifi es and the rivers freeze. DVS-Tour in Magadan can organise trips for tourists and can help ship vehicles or mo-torbikes. In Yakutsk, Nord Stream runs a tour on the M56 for $US3500 to $US4000.

6. Climb Mount ElbrusSouthern Russia’s Mount Elbrus (at 5642 metres) is Europe’s tallest peak and is a prized destination for climbers. The mountain is a couple of hundred kilometres east of Sochi and the Black Sea, in the ethno-republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, just north of Russia’s border with Georgia. A week before the 2014 Win-ter Games began, footage was released (from last October, when the weather allowed the ascent) of the Olympic torch being carried to the moun-tain’s summit. LenAlpTours offers a nine-day tour ($US1000) that in-cludes acclimatising ascents on nearby peaks, and which culminate with a climb to Elbrus’ summit.

and even more

travel destinations with

travel.rbth.com


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RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES

Russia's top eight drinking songsrbth.com/33035

WWW.RBTH.COM

Culture

14

INTERVIEW RUSSIAN ROCK GROUP BI-2

How Australia helped make duo a hitONE OF RUSSIA’S MOST FAMOUS ROCK BANDS SPENT THEIR FORMATIVE YEARS IN MELBOURNE,

WHERE THEY RECORDED THEIR FIRST ALBUM. THE DUO TALKED TO RBTH ABOUT THE EARLY YEARS

A little-known fact about Bi-2 – one of Russia’s most famous rock bands – is that its mem-bers, Shura and Leva, spent years living in Australia be-fore they hit the music charts on home territory in Russia’s chaotic late ’90s.

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the then-young musicians moved from Bela-rus to Israel. Then, in 1993, Shura moved to Melbourne, and Leva followed, although not until 1998.

Over 1998 and 1999, the two recorded an album called And The Ship Sails On. It wasn’t released in Russia in full, but a few tracks made their way back home and were played on Russia’s top rock stations, including Nashe Radio and Radio Maximum; and it was the popularity of these tracks which drew them back to Russia.

In 1999, the two went to Moscow, planning to stay no more than two months – but it was two years before they next returned to Melbourne.

After their single No One Writes to the Colonel made the soundtrack of the block-buster cult fi lm Brat 2, they were suddenly famous.

Since then, the pair have won 12 music awards, includ-ing the World Music Award in 2001, for higher sales than any other music group in Rus-sia. Their tracks went on to

Shura Bi-2

Leva Bi-2

NAME: ALEXANDER UMAN

AGE: 44

MARITAL STATUS: MARRIED

NAME: IGOR BORTNIK

AGE: 41

MARITAL STATUS: MARRIED

Shura was born in 1970 in the city of Babruysk, Belarus. Even though Shura's real name is Alexander Uman, even his passport reads “Shura Bi-2”. He has two children.

Leva was born in 1972, in Minsk, Belarus, where he met Leva in 1985. There they formed the band Brothers in Arms, which they renamed The Shore of Truth, which later became Bi-2. They moved to Israel together in 1991, where Leva stayed until 1998.

CURRICULUM VITAE

appear in 20 more fi lms and t h e y r e c o r d e d e i g h t albums.

The duo say that Australia had an important infl uence in helping them make com-

mercially successful music. In the late ’90s they were strik-ingly better in quality terms than other bands already on the Russian market.

This was due to Australian sound-recording quality and the fact Western influences helped this group to be at the forefront of a new genre in Russia, which was somewhere between rock and pop.

The following excerpt is part of an interview by RBTH’s cultural editor Yan Shenkman (fi rst published in Medved magazine):

Leva: There’s nothing rosy about emigration. We were leaving for a desert [Austral-ia] not knowing what await-ed us.

Shura: I was 21 at the time.Leva: And I was 19. We were

very young. But grown-up [emigrés], who had worked as doctors, musicians and engi-neers back in Russia, had it even harder than us.

Did you really work washing

dishes when you first arrived in

Australia?

Shura: How else do you think we earned the money to re-cord? I washed dishes and worked as a kitchen hand; Leva painted walls. This is how we saved up for our fi rst album And The Ship Sails On [which was released by Sony in 2000].

We have no regrets, though. For example, it was in Aus-tralia that we really learned what sound recording was about. I arrived there ahead of Leva, and played with a succession of different cover bands and a Gothic band called Chiron. Then, just two weeks after Leva arrived from Israel, I took him to our stu-dio. This was his fi rst time in a professional studio, and he was immediately asked to do a guitar solo. Of course, he was overwhelmed.

Is recording in Australia really so

different from Russia?

Shura: It’s somewhat similar to how they do it now, but it had nothing in common with how it was done [in Russia] in the ’90s. Back then, there wasn’t a single Russian stu-dio that would have come close to the standards of Aus-tralian sound recording.

We’ve now got a large and pretty decent studio in Mos-cow and we record everything there. But we still do our mix-ing in Australia or the UK.

We have an Australian sound engineer (Adam) who does a lot of mixing.

Following Western conven-tions, vocals are usually set at the same level as instru-mentals – like, at the same level of the bass drum.

I keep asking Adam to make our vocals louder, but he reckons they’re already too loud.

But it’s important for Rus-sian audiences to hear the lyr-ics. So we squabble our way through each new album.

I speak better English than Leva, so Adam’s not afraid of me; he is afraid of Leva. Leva will say something to me in Russian, and Adam will ask me to in terpre t , and I’ll go: “He’s not happy with your work because we can’t hear the vocals. If you don’t bring them up, he’ll bring some friends round to your place and have a man-to-man chat …” Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Adam told us we were one of the most successful bands he’d ever worked with.

Shura (left) and Leva (right) returned to Russia in 1999, after

spending a decade in Israel and Australia. Despite their

absence, they became one of Russia's biggest rock bands.

You’ve lived in Russia for 13

years now. Do you ever miss

Australia?

Leva: We go there regularly because it’s where our music is mixed. We usually fl y over in early January, right after New Year’s and stay a couple of months, while Russia’s hav-ing its hardest winter months. Australia is warm and com-fortable, and we have a lot of friends there. It’s also a real-ly safe place, with virtually zero crime.

You didn’t have any success

breaking through in Australia?

Shura: It was just impossible to do. Nobody wanted us in Australia, certainly not with Russian lyrics. In around 1996, I launched a project there: Shura Bi-2 and Co. We took a collection of Russian Silver Age poetry by the writ-ers [Innokenty] Annensky, [Anna] Akhmatova, [Osip] Mandelshtam etc, and wrote a couple of blues tunes to their poems. We spent two years gigging in Melbourne clubs ... usually on Wednes-day nights. Our posters would read: “A band from the USSR, Shura Bi-2 blah-blah. $5.” Pa-trons would say: “OK, I’ll pay fi ve bucks to listen to a So-viet band. They seem to be playing Western music, and are doing it well, but I can’t understand what they’re singing about.”

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MOST READ


Play the game: The roots of Russia’s love of sportrbth.com/34453 History

15

What can be said about a country whose leader is a master in judo. Russian Pres-ident Vladimir Putin’s public image is one of a strong and competitive individual, and his sport of choice comple-ments this image.

But for Russian tsars, pub-lic image was far less impor-tant, since they were so sel-

dom seen by the public. The tsars and empresses did, how-ever, have a real passion for competition, fi tness and joy in the various games and sports of their choice.

Ivan the Terrible’s last chess gameBefore Peter the Great, hav-ing an athletic physique stat-ure wasn’t considered a vir-tue in Russia. In the 17th century, every nobleman, in-cluding the tsar, was ideally a little overweight – evidence of his material abundance and wealth. Probably the only contem-porary game that medieval Russian sovereigns played was chess, which was a fa-vourite of the fi rst Russian Tsar, Ivan the Terrible.

An English diplomat, Jerome Horsey, witnessed Ivan’s last chess game. On the evening of the last day of his life, Ivan sat in bed for a game of chess with one of his boyars. Before the game start-ed, the Tsar himself managed to set up all his pieces on the board, except for the king, which Ivan couldn’t place on the board, and needed help. Minutes later, Ivan fainted and died.

Chess was also popular among the fi rst Romanovs. Tsar Alexis, the father of Peter the Great, ordered numerous beautifully craft-

ed chess boards from abroad, so his son could learn the game in his youth. And later it was Peter who really intro-duced sport as a means of en-tertainment and exercise into the Russian royal family.

Peter's passion for pool Peter had been familiar with the European way of life since his youth, when he frequent-ed Moscow’s German Quar-ter. In German taverns, Peter learned to play the game of drucktafel – a hybrid of pool and bowling. Later, when he was in the Netherlands, he received a billiards table as a gift from the Dutch king. Peter installed the table in his waiting room to keep his guests busy – and, following the Tsar’s example, many no-blemen started playing bil-liards. In 1718, a Tsar’s decree established billiards as a compulsory game for the no-bility’s evening parties (mean-while, playing cards was banned).

Peter’s daughter, Elizabeth, who ruled Russia for 20 years, was very concerned about her appearance, so to stay young-looking, she practised row-ing and went horse-riding. The next empress, Catherine the Great, also engaged in horse-riding to some extent, but it was her grandson, Nicholas I, who grew up to be a true athlete.

The cycling tsarsEmperor Nicholas I, who was 6ft 2in tall and exceptional-ly strong, used to take part in chivalrous competitions modelled on medieval knight tournaments. During these, Nicholas wore armour so heavy that, on one occasion, his nose started bleeding be-cause of high blood pressure and the overall tension.

Nicholas understood the importance of sport for the young, so he organised gymnastics areas for his chil-dren on the seashore of his estate at Peterhof, near St Petersburg.

Nicholas’s elder son, the next emperor Alexander II, was the fi rst of the royals to take up cycling, and he got his first bicycle in Paris in 1867. For a 50-year-old tsar this was a mere toy, but his teenage sons, princes Sergey and Pavel, developed a real

1

2

3

Gorodki, Stalin's preferred pastime

Billiards, skittles and gorodki (a Russian version of bowling) were the games Joseph Stalin enjoyed, according to his daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva. Stalin’s country house even had its own gorodki court. As Eugene Katzman, an artist who visited him there, recalled: “Stalin was the best at gorodki. When he aimed, his face became particularly energet-ic and expressive, as if he was

arguing at a party congress, crushing not pins or skittles, but Trotskyites, Mensheviks ... and other enemies.” Stalin often played gorodki with guests, showing his skills and passion for the game. He was pleased when he won, but if he didn't, he would light his pipe and puff on it contemplatively.

passion for cycling. They even rode their bikes in winter … albeit in the halls of the Win-ter Palace. Their bikes had solid rubber tyres and made a lot of noise,but nobody could reproach them while they were having fun. By the end of the century, almost every member of the royal family owned a bicycle, and

long fi tness rides became a common royal pastime.

Emperor Alexander III owned a bike, too, but, be-cause of his giant stature and bulkiness, he preferred a more meditative, static kind of sport – fi shing.

Once, when he was fi shing at his country estate, Foreign Minister Girs approached him for a meeting on Euro-pean affairs, but Alexander

dismissed him, saying: “Eu-rope can wait while the Rus-sian tsar fi shes!”

Russia’s last emperor, Nicholas II, was the most avid sportsman of all the tsars. He took up cycling at an early age and had many bicycles. But Nicholas’s great passion was for tennis. He got his fi rst taste of it during his visits to England in the 1890s, and he soon began playing almost every day.

Five tennis courts were set up at different royal estates, and the tsar’s favourite game soon became widely popu-lar among the nobility. Dur-ing the last years of the Rus-sian Empire, Nicholas continued playing tennis and cycling – maybe it helped him put up with the enor-mous pressure of those times. His last bill to a bicycle re-pairer was written on May 10, 1917; and his last tennis game was during the same month – even after his res-ignation Nicholas, no longer an emperor, remained a keen sportsman.

Alexander II was the first of the royals to take up cycling, and he got his first bicycle in Paris in 1867.

GEORGY MANAEVRBTH

From chess and billiards to

cycling and tennis, the

Russian imperial family had a

genuine passion for sport

and games, going as far back

as Ivan the Terrible.

Royal family's sporting life gives glimpse of healthy competition

Games played by the Russian tsars

On the evening of the last day of his life, Ivan sat in bed for a game of chess with one of his boyars.

Billiards during the reign of Peter the Great (1); Nicholas II

cycling (2); and Ivan the Terrible's last chess game (3).How to play gorodki?

rbth.ru/26091

KROPOTKIN: FROM NOBILITY TO THE FATHER OF RUSSIAN ANARCHISM

RUSSIAN STORIES

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RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES WWW.RBTH.COM

No Hollywood ending for Russian Olympic Hockeyrbth.com/34355Sport

16

NEWSIN BRIEF

Italy’s Fabio Capello, who has been coaching the Rus-sian national football team since July 2012, has had his contract extended until 2018.

Capello (above) will be paid €9 million a year.

This year, under Capello's leadership, the Russian na-tional team qualifi ed for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil for the fi rst time since 2002, Russia will host the World Cup in 2018.

Capello to stay

longer in Russia

The Governor of St Peters-burg, Georgy Poltavchenko, has announced that the city is considering making a bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.

“The city has much of the infrastructure required for hosting the Games,” he said, “so expenditures wouldn’t be very high.”

Poltavchenko noted that it was in St Petersburg that the Russian Olympic Com-mittee was founded in 1911, and the city’s athletes had won 136 Olympic medals.

Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko has said that of all the sports facilities being built for the 2018 World Cup, the stadium in Samara will be completed fi rst.

The 2018 World Cup is due to take place in 12 ven-ues across 11 different cit-ies, including Sochi.

In September the 2018 World Cup will get its official logo.

St Petersburg a

Games chance

Samara gets set

for 2018 fi nals

ALEXANDER ERASTOVSPECIAL TO RBTH

The 16th Grand Prix in the

new Formula One

Championship

is due to be held in Russia’s

Olympic city of Sochi

from October 10 to 12.

Kvyat revs up for new F1 seasonGrand prix Motor sport fans are looking forward to the start of the 2014 formula one championship

The 16th Grand Prix in the new Formula One Champi-onship will be held in Rus-sia’s Olympic city of Sochi from October 10 to 12.

The track, designed by Ger-man architect Hermann Tilke, is near some of the Winter Olympics facilities on the Black Sea coast.

On March 16, at the fi rst F1 Grand Prix in Melbourne (running 13-16 March), the Russian driver Daniil Kvyat, 19, will replace Australian Daniel Ricciardo, 24, for the Toro Rosso team.

Ricciardo is moving to Red Bull, where his fellow driver will be Sebastian Vettel, who performed for Toro Rosso in the 2007-08 season. And Jean-Eric Vergne, 23, will stay with Toro Rosso.

Kvyat was born in 1994, in the Russian city of Ufa, in the southern Urals. Like many other professional rac-ers, Kvyat started out in cart racing: “When I fi rst came to this sport, I couldn’t drive but I taught myself. It’s difficult to describe the feeling I had

from the speed of it back then,” he said.

Kvyat had his first-ever race in the winter of 2005, in Sochi, and won. But his ca-reer in Russia was not pro-gressing in the way he wanted, so he and his family moved to Italy seven years ago.

“Our Red Bull youth team was based near Rome,” Kvyat explained. “Flying between Moscow and Rome all the time was inconvenient,” he said. “Besides, there’s no mo-

tor-racing base in Russia. Italy, in contrast, is home to cart racing and is a true mecca of motor sports. I knew if I really wanted to become a professional racer, I had to move to Italy.”

The move boosted Kvyat’s career. He had his fi rst full Formula Renault 2.0 season in 2011 and won several races. In 2012, he won the Formula Renault 2.0 ALPS season and was named the driver of the year by the Russian Automo-bile Federation.

Last year, Kvyat took part in six races in the Formula Three European Champion-ship, bagging one grand prix and making it to the podium fi ve times.

That Kvyat was going to replace Ricciardo was obvi-ous from last autumn. On January 31, he took part in the testing of Toro Rosso’s new cars in Jerez, driving nine laps and coming 10 out of 11.

Kvyat speaks English, Spanish, and Italian fl uently. Most of the Toro Rosso team

are Italian, so he’s not going to have any communication problems.

“The basic qualities from which he can progress are in place,” said Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost.

“Daniil can be sure that we will use all our training ex-perience to give him the best possible start to his formula one career.”

Tost continued: “At Toro Rosso we like the ‘adventures’ with young drivers! We’ve al-ready worked with Daniil a couple of times. It started with the young drivers test at Silverstone, where he man-aged good lap times, then we had an aero test in Vairano with him last week where he did 350 kilometres.

“Daniil is a very talented driver. This is evident both from his results in the junior series and from his carting performance.”

Oksana Kosachenko, who used to be the manager of former F1 driver Vitaly Petrov, believes Daniil Kvyat will soon start feeling at home in F1.

“Of course Kvyat will have some difficult times at fi rst,” Kosachenko says. “He is a young driver with limited F1 experience, and he will have to compete against real pros. More than half the F1 driv-ers have been at it for years. Besides, the team is chang-ing and migrating to new en-gines. But Daniil is unusu-ally talented and industrious. He's totally focused.”

Russia has had only one F1 driver so far. Vitaly Petrov spent three seasons in the championship, two with Lo-tus-Renault (2010-11 and 2011-12) and one with Cater-ham (2012-2013). His best re-sult was a third place in Aus-tralia in 2011.

The Marussia-Cosworth team, with Russian roots, made its F1 debut in 2012. One of the team’s managers is Nikolay Fomenko – a well-known singer and musician in Russia. Despite its massive Russian fan base, Marussia-Cosworth has been one of the worst performers, roughly on a par with Caterham-Re-nault. Its best result to date has been a 12th place.

A snapshot of Sochi’s track on the Black Sea coast

Ufa-born Daniil Kvyat (left)

will be Russia’s second

formula one driver ever.

Read daily on RBTH.COM

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/russiabeyond

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