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Business Special Report

Russia, U.S. Pursue Asian Trade Ties

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Cheap Ruble, Troubled Image

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R

Thursday, June 18, 2015

NEWS IN BRIEF

The annual St. Petersburg International Econo-mic Forum is opening today in Russia’s northern capital. This year’s event has more sessions focu-sed on Asia, as part of Russia’s drive to increase its economic presence in the region.

The move also refl ects geopolitical realities. Few Western businesspeople attended the 2014 forum, as the confl ict in Ukraine escalated, and they have not returned this year. The event runs through June 20.

As part of its drive to rehabilitate its image in Russia as well as fi ght fl agging global sales, fast-food giant McDonald’s has announced plans to open a branch of its Hamburger University in Moscow. The president of McDonald’s Russia, Kha-mzat Khasbulatov, made the announcement June 9. The purpose of the university will be to train regional managers in food sales and preparation. At the moment, McDonald’s Russia managers take classes at local training centers, and then attend the company’s university in Munich.

McDonald’s became a target for Russia’s health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, last year and its fl ag-ship restaurant on Moscow’s Pushkin Square was closed for three months. Since then, the restau-rant has run ads that emphasize its connection to Russia and its long history in the country. The fi rst McDonald’s in Moscow opened 25 years ago.

Economic Forum Opens

Today in St. Petersburg

McDonald’s Announces Plan

for a University in Moscow

Russian ballet stars Natalia Osipova and Ivan Va-siliev will bring their production “Solo for Two” to New York for performances Aug. 7 and 8. Both are alumni of the Bolshoi ballet and St. Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Ballet, but this performance highlights their talents as solo artists. The work, which debuted last year in Los Angeles, features dances by three contemporary choreographers set to a mix of live and recorded music. It has recei-ved positive reviews in both the U.S. and the U.K. These performances will be the fi rst in New York.

Russian Ballet in New York

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Lessons of Perestroika for the U.S. and RussiaRBTH.COM/46439

Sports Despite probes, Russian observers say 2018 World Cup tournament will go ahead as planned

Terrorism More and more reports are appearing of young Russians who want to join the Islamic State

In the days since Sepp Blatter

resigned his post, Russian

commentators have continued to

express confidence that the

country will host the World Cup.

The case of a Moscow student

who left her family to join ISIS

has focused the attention of

Russian society on the threat

posed by the group.

The shock resignation announce-ment made on June 2 by FIFA President Joseph “Sepp” Blatter, just four days after being re-elect-ed, surprised and disappointed Russian authorities and sports of-fi cials, who had continually ex-pressed support for Blatter even as the U.S.-led investigation into FIFA, its leadership and the World Cup bidding process unfolded.

Commenting on the resigna-tion, Russian Sports Minister Vi-taly Mutko told the R-Sport news agency that the FIFA president had “made a courageous decision, with love for FIFA.”

Despite Blatter’s exit, Russian sports officials and commenta-tors are convinced that Russia will host the 2018 World Cup.

After Blatter announced his res-ignation, Greg Dyke, chairman of England’s football association, said that the issue of where the 2018 and 2022 World Cups will be held could be reviewed. But speaking about the World Cup in Russia in an interview with the state-run TV channel Rossiya 24, Mutko was defi ant, saying that “the decision was not made by one person, but by the executive committee. There are no threats (to the champion-ship being held in Russia).”

Vyacheslav Koloskov, honorary president of the Russian Football Association and former FIFA and UEFA executive committee mem-ber, shares Mutko’s opinion. In an interview with the Sport Ex-press newspaper, he stated that “even now (after Blatter’s deci-sion) there are no grounds for moving the 2018 World Cup to

At the end of May, Varvara Karaulova, a 19-year-old Mos-cow State University philosophy student, left Moscow with a one-way ticket to Istanbul. Accord-ing to her family, Karaulova planned to cross the Turkish bor-der into Syria and join the Is-

FIFA Scandal Hits Home

Russians Feel Pull of Radical Islam

ALEXEY TIMOFEYCHEV RBTH

OLEG YEGOROVSPECIAL TO RBTH

another country, for taking it away from Russia.”

However, there are reasons for concern. Shortly after the arrests of seven top FIFA officials in Zu-rich on May 27, Swiss police opened a parallel criminal inqui-ry into the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively. Allega-tions of vote-buying have circu-lated in global media ever since the announcement of the two hosts in December 2010, with the award of the event to Qatar pro-voking widespread ridicule.

Then, late on June 3, Reuters reported that the F.B.I. will also look into the 2018 and 2022 bids

as part of an extensive probe into corruption in FIFA.

Alexander Domrin, a profes-sor at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, said that there are plenty of grounds for the inves-tigation, but that it should not turn into a witch hunt.

“If some FIFA officials laun-dered their money through U.S. banks, there are grounds to launch such an investigation. But as a lawyer I am against turn-ing a legal case into a political one,” Domrin said. “We can ex-pect anything from politicians, but nobody would dispute the basic principle: Anyone is inno-cent unless proven guilty.”

Dmitry Navosh, general direc-tor of the sport.ru website said that it was only natural that Rus-sia’s bid be included in the in-vestigation. “Pandora’s box has been opened,” Navosh said, al-though he stressed that even ev-idence of corruption among Rus-sian FIFA officials would not mean that the decision for Rus-sia to host the 2018 tournament would automatically be revoked.

Former head of FIFA’s Mos-cow bureau Valery Chukhry told RBTH that even if FIFA decid-ed to take the championship away from Russia, it would have very little time to organize it else-where.

An image of a

soccer player

holding the of-

ficial emblem

of the 2018

World Cup is

projected on

Moscow’s Bol-

shoi Theater.

Russia contin-

ues to plan for

the event, even

as investiga-

tions continue.

Varvara Karaulova was extradited from Turkey to

Russia on June 11.CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

lamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The story made headlines in Russia, partially because Karau-lova is ethnically Russian and grew up in a nominally Russian Orthodox family. Her father said until recently, she always wore a cross around her neck. Fluent in English and French, Karau-lova was a student of Middle Eastern culture and Arabic.

None of Karaulova’s family of friends can say exactly when her behavior started to change, but over the past few months, she

began wearing a hijab to her class-es and reading books on radical Islam. On May 27, she left the apart-ment she shared with her parents in the afternoon and disappeared.

While Karaulova’s story has some unusual elements, she is far from the only Russian national who has joined or tried to join radical Islamic groups. Accord-ing to the Federal Security Ser-vice (FSB), in the year more than 1,700 Russians have joined reli-gious extremist organizations.

RICHARD PORTWOOD

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rbth.com/46789Politics & Society

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RBTH’s new weekly analytical podcast program,

featuring a look at three of the week’s most high-

profile developments in international affairs.

INTERVIEW LYUDMILA ALEXEYEVA

RUSSIA’S GRAND DAME OF HUMAN RIGHTS HAS RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT

SERVICE TO TAKE ON THE NOTORIOUS 2012 LAW ON THE STATUS OF NGOS

Taking on the Law on Foreign Agents

Lyudmila Alexeyeva with photos from the Bolotnaya Square protests.

One of Russia’s best-known human rights activists, Lyudmi-la Alexeyeva, the director of the Moscow Helsinki Group, recent-ly made the decision to return to Russia’s Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights. She left the group in 2012 and had been asked to return previously, but had al-ways refused. RBTH spoke with Alexeyeva about why now is the right time for her to make this move.

What will you do in the council? I

know that you are very concerned

about the 2012 law on foreign

agents …

Yes, that is precisely what I will be occupied with. This law is com-plete foolishness.

Why is it meaningless?

Because any organization that re-ceives foreign money becomes a candidate for being an “agent.” No matter how much we clarify this defi nition, in the end, if you real-ly want to you, can apply it to just about anything.

Then what are you proposing?

If we want to solve this problem, we need to look at the internal source of fi nancing. The govern-ment cannot fi nance all the non-governmental organizations. This is not right, since we are not gov-ernmental but social, and there are thousands of us. Something else must be done. Vladimir Putin needs to appeal to businesses on our behalf. We have many wealthy

people who would be happy to fi -nance us. But they are afraid to endanger their businesses.

In 2016, elections will be held to the

State Duma and the opposition has

announced that it will be participat-

ing. In fact, the opposition has unit-

ed into a coalition precisely for this

purpose. You know many of these

people. How would you evaluate

their potential?

The attempt to unite is a great breakthrough. This has never hap-pened before. Moreover, everyone would say: “They can’t do any-thing, it’s just a battle of vanities.” It’s not exactly like that. It’s not a matter of vanity, it’s just that our society does not have a political culture. And it’s obvious why. For

a long time the country did not have a chance to engage in a po-litical battle.

What, according to you, is politi-

cal culture?

One of its most important elements is the ability to agree, fi nd com-promises with people who don’t share your views. But here it is all or nothing.

Is the lack of political culture the op-

position’s main problem?

No, the main problem is that the opposition is given conditions within which it just can’t operate. Its leaders are not shown on tele-vision. And in our modern life if a person is not on television, then it is as if he doesn’t exist at all. Also, the government is thinking of moving up the date of the 2016 Duma elections, from December to September. The election cam-paign will then be held in the sum-mer when no one is around and turnout will be low.

The opposition is frequently blamed

for not having a leader who the peo-

ple would follow. Alexei Navalny has

two conditional sentences, [political

activist] Sergei Udaltsov has recent-

ly been moved to a penal colony

(where he is serving a term partic-

ipating in a 2012 demonstration).

Boris Nemtsov has been killed. Who

do you see who could be a leader?

I am not a politician and do not belong to the opposition. It’s dif-fi cult for me to judge. But there are people who could be leaders. [There is former State Duma Dep-uty] Vladimir Ryzhkov. Or [former Prime Minister] Mikhail Kasya-nov. [Former finance minister] Alexei Kudrin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

There is the stereotypical opinion

that rights organizations in Russia

are just formal structures and are

actually incapable of seriously influ-

encing decisions made in the State

Duma, for example. Do you agree

with this?

Unfortunately, the government does not really heed rights activ-ists. Rights activism in Russia was born in the middle of the 1960s and existed for 25 years during the Soviet era. We have experi-

ence; there are many profession-als among us and I am one of them. If I have been doing this for 50 out of my 87 years, I would have to be an idiot not to have learned how to do it! Therefore I wouldn’t say that we don’t have any infl u-ence. In the end we are taken into consideration.

You are listened to by politicians

not only in Russia but also abroad.

In May you met U.S. Deputy Secre-

tary of State Victoria Nuland. Some

people perceive such meetings as

betraying the government. Please

define your position regarding this

issue.

To Russian journalists, to foreign correspondents, to the presiden-tial administration, to Nuland, I say one and the same thing: what-ever I think. Rights activism has no borders. Honestly, I don’t know why she [Nuland] came. “This law about foreign agents is rather dis-appointing, isn’t it,” she says. “Of course, it is disappointing,” I respond.“What do you think, should I speak about it or will I only harm these organizations?” “It’s better not to. You’ll only harm them.” I just answered her ques-tions. And not so that she would protect us. We’ll manage to deal with our authorities by ourselves.”

You lived in the United States for 16

years and are an American citizen.

Why did you return to Russia?

When in Russia my son and hus-band, who weren’t rights activ-ists, were threatened with arrest, I was forced to leave and I went to America. I returned in the mid-1990s when many were allowed to return, while I wasn’t — I was still on the KGB blacklist. I don’t hide the fact that I have Ameri-can citizenship. Some say that I should renounce it. I will never go to America, but the country was very good to me in my time. I lived a normal life there in a time when here I would have been in prison. I returned because Russia is my country. And I want to live in my country.

Interview prepared by Yekaterina Sinelschikova

NATIONALITY: RUSSIAN

AGE: 87

STUDIED: HISTORY

Lyudmila Alexeyeva was born in 1927 in Yevpatoria, Crimea, U.S.S.R. Her debut as a human rights activist came in 1966, when she spoke out against the trials of political prison-ers. After this, she was banned from membership in the Communist Par-ty and had difficulty finding work. In 1976 she co-founded the Mos-cow Helsinki Group, but in 1977, she left the Soviet Union for the United States. She returned to Russia only in 1993.Lyudmila Alexeyeva is the author of more than 100 articles on human rights; a book, “The History of Dis-sent in the USSR”; and a memoir, “The Thaw Generation.” She has re-ceived numerous awards, including the French Legion of Honor and the Andrei Sakharov Prize.

HER STORY

The charm of the extremistsRussian scholars are quick to point out that the problem of young people traveling to join terrorist groups is not unique to Russia.

“In the last month, 1,733 peo-ple went to join ISIS from France alone, and statistically, one-fi fth of them did not come fromMuslim families but were recruit-ed,” said Georgy Mirsky, ascholar of Arabic culture at the Russian Academy of Sciences, adding that that the percentage of non-Muslim women who joined the ISIS was even higher, at 30 percent. According to Russian psy-chologist Pavel Ponomarev, the phenomenon of young people who grew up in secular Western

families joining terrorist groups is rooted in the existential cri-ses of youth. “If we are to speak about Karaulova, we will see that she tried to commit social suicide; that is, she attempted to completely cancel herself from

the society in which she lived and fi nd a new identity in a dif-ferent world. Students and other young people are going through a crisis: society is not giving them a chance to express them-selves, imposing harsh restric-tions. The intention to free one-self from this society and obtain

everything, and immediately, in a different system is so great that people are practically ready to give their life for it.”

Mirsky says that the attrac-tion of Islamic extremism today is no different from that of other radical movements of earlier eras, such as fascism and com-munism: “There are neither any fascists nor any real communists today, but against the back-ground of the dullness of every-day life, there is a big new move-ment — radical Islam.”

In Mirsky’s opinion, the real revelation of Karaulova’s case is that Russians have under-estimated the threat radical Islam poses. “The most amazing thing is that everyone — her family, her friends — was indif-ferent. No one noticed anything until she disappeared. This is complete disorder.”

simply because of the way they look. “When people are perse-cuted not because they violate a law but because they wear long beards or attend ‘the wrong’ mosque, the result is usually rad-icalization even of the moder-ate Muslims,” Pakhomenko said.

An ongoing problemVarvara Karaulova’s cell phone was tracked to a town near the Turkish-Syrian border, and she was apprehended there in early June with a group of 13 other Russians. She returned to Mos-cow on June 11. It is unclear if she will face charges. A source in law enforcement told state-run news agency RIA Novosti that Karaulova could work out a deal with the authorities if she was willing to provide informa-tion about terrorist groups or recruiting organizations oper-ating in Russia.

The day before Karaulovareturned, St. Petersburg local news portal Fontanka.ru report-ed that another young woman, Fatima Dzhamalova, a student of pediatrics at the First Medical University of St. Petersburg, had also left home to join ISIS, but had appeared to have changed her mind. After arriving in Tur-key, she sent text messages home saying she regretted the move and asked for help.

Appeal of Radical Islam Reflects Disconnection

Young people traveling to join terrorist groups is not unique to Russia.

The Islamic issueDespite the press being given to Karaulova, she is an anomaly among Russians fi ghting for ISIS. In May, the Meduza newswebsite published an interview with an ISIS preacher who said that “no fewer than 1,500 peo-ple — half of them Dagestani, and half Chechens — from the North Caucasus are fi ghting with the Islamic State.” Both of these regions are majority Muslim.

Varvara Pakhomenko, a spe-cialist on the Caucasus and a consultant with the Internation-al Crisis Group, believes that there are several reasons for the appeal of radicalism among

Russia’s Muslims. The first isdisillusionment with the govern-ment.

“If there is unhappiness with the corruption, the stratifi cation of society and people understand that it is very difficult or even impossible to improve the situa-tion, many Muslims begin to think that justice can be obtained only if secular government is replaced by the Caliphate, which functions according to the Sharia Law,” Pakhomenko said.

This dissatisfaction with the authorities is reinforced by the authorities themselves, who often harass Muslims not for any crimes they have committed, but

Read the full interview at

rbth.com/46441

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

According to the Federal Security Service, in 2014 about 1,700 Russians have joined religious extremist organizations.

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Russian Retail Market Still Attractive to Foreign Investors,

Experts Say

rbth.com/46567 Business

When Russia celebrated the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe on May 9, Pres-ident Vladimir Putin presided over a military parade in the heart of Moscow, and China’s leader, Xi Jianping, sat in the place of honor at Putin’s right hand side, watching Chinese forces join the parade for the fi rst time.

Western leaders boycotted the blowout event, but the Kremlin sent them a clear message: Rus-sia can forge a new alliance with its rising neighbor to the east — China.

Indeed, both the United States and Russia are pushing hard to shore up trade ties with Asian nations at a time when the cen-ter of the world’s economic weight continues to shift toward the Eastern hemisphere.

Yet for both Washington and Moscow, the reality of their “pivot to Asia” is falling short of the rhetoric.

U.S. President Barack Obama is running into pushback from his own Democratic Party as he attempts to bring the U.S. into the Trans-Pacifi c Trade Partner-ship, a treaty between 12 coun-

Economy Will the ‘pivot to Asia’ pay off for Moscow or Washington?

The U.S. and Russia are pushing

to forge trade alliances in Asia as

the region’s economic power

rises, yet the reality is falling

short of the rhetoric.

Both Russia and the U.S. Turn Toward the East

DAVID MILLERSPECIAL TO RBTH

tries including Japan and Viet-nam.

Protestors and labor unions have taken to the streets of Wash-ington D.C. to demonstrate against the pact, which critics argue will send U.S. jobs overseas.

The initiative, which does not include involvement from China, is seen by some as an attempt by the U.S. to preserve its own dom-inance in the sphere of global trade in the face of China’s ris-ing power.

“If we don’t write rules for trade around the world, guess what?,” Obama said recently, “China will.”

Russia, meanwhile, has long been seeking access to Chinese markets for its exports of oil and natural gas.

The outbreak of war in Ukraine, and the subsequent political fall-out with Europe and the U.S. over Russia’s role in the dispute, fi nal-ly pushed Moscow to make con-cessions to Beijing in negotiations over natural gas pricing.

Russia’s big breakthrough in trade talks with China came in May 2014, when the two sides signed a deal worth $400 billion at the time for Russia to supply China with natural gas for 30 years, following a decade of dead-locked talks.

During a trip to Beijing in No-vember, Putin expanded that agreement with a new memoran-dum that foresaw Russia ship-ping an additional 30 billion cubic

meters of gas to China a year.Yet skeptics are quick to point

out that the gas deals are still non-binding, and that years of difficult negotiations in the past suggest that future haggling over the fi nal terms will likely cause more delays.

Disagreements between the two sides have indeed continued to spill over into public view, includ-ing over the exact route the pipe-lines will take and interest pay-ments for a proposed $25 billion Chinese loan to help Russia build the links.

Russian crude oil major Ros-neft has also invited the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to take a stake in the mammoth Siberian oil deposit,

Vankor, just as Western majors, such as ExxonMobil and Shell, were being forced to abandon oil projects they’d been developing in Russia due to U.S. and Euro-pean sanctions.

But at Vankor, too, problems have arisen in the negotiations. The decline in oil prices over the past year, from more than $100 to roughly $60-$65 per barrel, has raised thorny new questions over the price the CNPC will pay to join the project.

Critics say the two sides remain suspicious of each other as Rus-sia watches China’s economic ex-pansion warily and Chinese ne-gotiators push for tough terms in energy deals with Russia.

“The West does not need to fret too much about driving Russia and China into each other’s arms,” wrote The Financial Times in a recent editorial opinion.

“Russia is clearly the junior partner and the differences be-tween the two are as great as the forces that unite them.”

As Russia’s economy continues to slide into recession as a result of the effect of Western sanctions and volatile oil prices, figures published by Russia’s state sta-tistics bureau, Rosstat, show that 16 million people, or 11 percent of the population, are now living below the poverty line.

Russians are considered offi-cially poor when their incomes fall below the minimum amount required to subsist in the coun-try, which Rosstat calculates at 8,000 rubles ($150) a month per person.

Yelena Kiselyova, a senior re-searcher at the Institute for Com-plex Strategic Studies notes that this is the fi rst time since 2000 that the number of poor in Rus-sia has gone up.

“Until recently, the number of poor in the country had been steadily declining. Even during the last crisis [in 2008] there was no significant increase in the number of poor,” Kiselyova said.

One of the major problems fac-ing Russians is that wages remain stagnant as the cost of living rises.

“The salary level of many peo-ple is close to the subsistence level or slightly above,” said Kiselyo-va. According to official statis-tics, this is the case for 13 per-cent of Russian workers.

Sociologist Leontiy Byzov also said that incomes are not keep-ing up with the amount of money required to live in the country today at the same standards peo-ple were living a year or two ago.

“It has become impossible to live on a small pension or salary,” Byzov said. “This is a very im-portant factor, which we have been trying to leave behind for 15 years after the default of ‘98, and now we have returned to it.”

Many Russians who do not fall below the official poverty line consider themselves poor. Accord-ing to a recent survey by the poll-ing agency Public Opinion Foun-dation, 47 percent of the population think of themselves as “the working poor.”

“It’s hard to give up what you used to have, so people feel they have become much poorer, even if this is not quite the case,” Byzov said.

When asked about the mea-sures being taken by the govern-

Poverty Wages stagnant as expenses go up

Number of Russia’s Poor is on the Rise More and more Russians are

slipping below the poverty line as

the country’s economic recession

begins to bite, and the situation

is likely to get worse.

YEKATERINA SINELSCHIKOVA RBTH

ment, the press service of Rus-sia’s Ministry of Labor and Social Protection said that insurance pensions have been indexed by 11.4 percent (averaging 13,000 rubles, or $241 monthly), welfare payments by 10.3 percent, and benefi ts for families with children and monthly payments for cer-tain categories of citizens by 5.5 percent.

Additionally, on May 23 Rus-sian President Vladimir Putin au-thorized the use of the “mother’s capital,” a one-time lump sum payment for the birth of a sec-ond child, to be used for mort-gage payments. Previously the use of this money was restricted to pay for a child’s future education or the initial purchase of a home.

Sergei Smirnov, an economist at the Higher School of Econom-ics in Moscow, is unimpressed by the steps the government is tak-ing to tackle the problem. “Pen-sions are being indexed without considering the crisis. In Febru-ary they were indexed at a per-centage below the Rosstat rate of infl ation [16.7 percent],” he said, calling the permission to invest maternity capital in mortgage payments “a hopeless decision.”

According to Smirnov, these moves are stopgap measures taken by the Ministry of Finance to avoid indexing pensions to the rate of infl ation: “The State Duma has come up with an initiative not to pay pensions to working pensioners whose annual income is above one million rubles [$18,500],” he said.

is the U.S. equivalent of the offi-cial Russian poverty line. Those who earn less than this amount per year are considered poor — about 11 per-cent of the population.

is the year-on-year inflation rate in 2015, according to data published on June 10. Experts note that prices for consumer goods have increased by 20 percent on average this year.

$1,760

15.7%

IN FIGURES

Soft drinks The company hopes to increase sales in Russia by offering other diet brands

The Coca-Cola Company debuted Coke Zero in Russia this month, with a launch party attended by company executives and celebri-ties, in the hopes of increasing sales in the market and tapping into a newfound interest among Russians for healthy living.

As part of the change, the com-pany will be dropping its Coca-Cola Light brand in Russia.

Two major Russian supermar-ket chains, Dixy and Metro Cash & Carry, noted that sales of Co-ca-Cola Light in their stores are negligible.

“Consumption of low-calorie foods is not yet so widespread in Russia,” Metro spokeswoman Oxana Tokareva said.

Coca-Cola pointed out, how-ever, that the situation is chang-ing, referring to a study by the global information and measure-ment company Nielsen: In the third quarter of 2014, 82 percent of Russian consumers said that the amount of calories contained in foods was important to them. It also follows from the study that the consumption of low-fat milk has grown by 10 percent since 2012, the cottage cheese-like product, tvorog, by 31 percent, and cheese by 72 percent.

Coca-Cola has decided to replace

its Coca-Cola Light brand in

Russia with Coke Zero in an

attempt to increase sales of low-

calorie sodas in the market.

Coke Playing a Zero-Sum Game

ANNA AFANASYEVA, OLEG TRUTNEV KOMMERSANT

Coke executives hope that the taste of Coke Zero will appeal to Russians as it is closer to the taste of regular Coca-Cola than Coca-Cola Light was.

“The difference is in taste: Zero is as close as possible to the orig-inal Coca-Cola,” said Coca-Cola spokesman Vladimir Kravtsov.

“In 2014, the share of Light in total Russian sales was 2 percent,” said Kravtsov. “By 2018, we ex-pect that the share of Zero will increase to 10 percent.”

However, this still represents a very low share of the market for low-calorie products compared with that seen in large Western markets. For example, in the U.K., the share of low-calorie cola in the total sales of the brand, is 43 percent. In the United States, ac-cording to a report by Coca-Co-la Enterprises Inc., sales of stan-dard Coca-Cola decreased by 1 percent in the past year, while Coke Zero showed an increase of 11 percent.

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola’s main competitor, PepsiCo, has two low-calorie drinks in its Russian port-folio — Pepsi Light and Pepsi Max.

“According to our estimates, the majority of consumers prefer the classic taste of [our] cola; Pepsi Light and Pepsi Max occupy less than 10 percent in sales volume of the brand Pepsi in Russia,” the Russian office of PepsiCo said.

According to market research by Canadean, sales of drinks under the Coca-Cola brand in Russia have increased four times

over in the past 15 years — from 211.8 million liters (222.3 million quarts) in 2000 to 859.1 million liters in 2014 (the market share of carbonated soft drinks has in-creased accordingly from 9 per-cent to 18.5 percent in the same period).

Meanwhile, in 2014, Russian sales of the drink effectively failed to increase for the fi rst time since 2010 — growth was only 1.1 per-cent. In comparison, the increase was 19.6 percent in 2012 and 10.3 percent in 2013. A report pub-lished by The Coca-Cola Com-pany for the fi rst quarter of 2015 said that its overall sales in Rus-sia decreased by 7-8 percent in real terms during this period.

Coke Zero will be present in

all the company’s promotional campaigns, along with the main brand, said Coca-Cola. Specifi c numbers concerning investments in promotion were not disclosed, but the company noted that the advertising budget of the entire Coca-Cola brand is always tied to the revenue that its sales gen-erate in a particular region.

According to AdIndex, the total budget of the advertising campaign in Russia amounted to 2.9 billion rubles ($52.7 mil-lion) in 2014, of which 2.7 bil-lion rubles was spent on televi-sion advertising.

Read the full story at

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During the APEC summit in Beijing in November 2014, Russia and China signed nearly two dozen agreements, primarily in the energy sector.

Russia’s big break in trade talks with China came in May 2014, when the two sides signed a deal worth $400 billion.

$400 billionwas the amount of the May 2014 deal that will bring Russian gas to China, via the Power of Siberia pipeline through Russia’s Far East.

$5.9 billionis how much China will invest in the construc-tion of a high-speed rail line linking Moscow with the city of Kazan, 600 miles to the east.

$28 billionis the total GDP of all countries expected to be part of the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partner-ship, 40 percent of total global GDP.

IN FIGURES

RUSSIA DIRECT IS A FORUM FOR EXPERTS AND SENIOR RUSSIAN AND INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKERS TO DISCUSS, DEBATE AND UNDERSTAND ISSUES IN GEOPOLITICAL RELATIONS AT A SOPHISTICATED LEVEL.

This April, Russia Direct released its

comprehensive ranking of Russian and

post-Soviet Studies programs in U.S.

universities, together with an analysis of

the current state of Russian Studies programs

in the U.S. Bringing together top experts in the

field, including Harvard’s Alexandra Vacroux,

Georgetown’s Angela Stent and Rhode Island

University’s Nicolai Petro,, the report

addresses the major challenges facing Russian

Studies programs in the U.S. and ways of

tackling them.

In June, Russia Direct released a new brief

examining the topic of Russian hi-tech and

science cities. New efforts to modernize the

Russian economy have taken on even greater

significance with the introduction of Western

sanctions and recent volatility in global energy

markets. This report highlights the early

successes and challenges of Russia’s

modernization drive, with an emphasis on the

role of the state in supporting innovation

efforts at the local level, primarily through the

creation of new technoparks.

BEST RUSSIAN STUDIES PROGRAMS 2015

HI-TECH AND SCIENCE CITIES

April Report

June Report

REGISTER TODAY AND GET A 30% DISCOUNT AT:WWW.RUSSIA-DIRECT.ORG/SUBSCRIBE

Coca-Cola has launched Coke Zero in Russia.

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MOST READ04



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St. Petersburg’s Church of the Savior on Spilled

Blood Ranked Among the World’s Best Sites

rbth.com/46691Special Report

Prepared byJoe Crescente

UNESCOSITES

10 MUST-SEE WORLD

HERITAGE SITES TO

CHECK OUT ON YOUR

TRIP TO RUSSIA

Currently, Russia is home to 26 Unesco World Heritage Sites. The first sites in Russia to be added to the list were St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, the historic center of St. Petersburg and Kizhi Pogost in the northern Republic of Karelia. They received the designation in 1990. Today, World Heritage sites can be found across Russia, from the North to the Far East, and include natural sites and architectural marvels.

KIZHI POGOST

(1990)REPUBLIC OF KARELIA

This site is located on Kizhi Is-land in Lake Onega in the Re-public of Karelia. A “pogost” can mean many things, but in Kizhi’s case it is simply a gated church and cemetery. The island contains two large churches, both original examples of wooden Orthodox architecture. The Transfi guration Church was built in 1714 as a summer church and features 22 domes. The nine-domed Church of the Intercession was under con-struction for almost a century be-fore being completed in 1764. A 98-foot-tall 19th century wooden bell tower is another famous land-mark on the island.

ENSEMBLE OF THE SOLOVETSKY

ISLANDS

(1992)ARKHANGELSK REGION

An archipelago comprising six islands, this area has been inhab-ited for 2,500 years and a monas-tic site since the 1400s. Chosen for being an outstanding exam-ple of a northern European mo-nastic settlement, it is also noted for its well-preserved stone lab-yrinths. The Russian Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery complex on the site was fi rst built in the 15th century. The islands became infamous during the Soviet era as the site of the fi rst gulag labor camp. Established in 1921, it was closed at the beginning of World War II and designated a museum in 1974.

COMPLEX OF THE KAZAN

KREMLIN

(2000)THE REPUBLIC OF TATARSTAN

Built by Ivan the Terrible to com-memorate his victory over the Ta-tars in 1552, the Kazan Kremlin was constructed on the ruins of his vanquished enemy’s castle. It features numerous 16th century buildings including the Russian Orthodox Annunciation Cathe-dral (1554–62). Another prominent structure in the skyline here is leaning Söy-embikä Tower, otherwise known as the Khan’s mosque. The Qol-särif Mosque was rumored to be Europe’s largest mosque outside of Istanbul when construction was completed in 2005. It can ac-commodate 6,000 worshippers.

CURONIAN SPIT (KURSHSKAYA

KOSA)

(2000)KALININGRAD REGION

Kurshskaya kosa is a 60-mile-long, thin, curved sand dune spit that separates the Curonian La-goon from the Baltic Sea coast. Its southern portion lies within Russia’s exclave Kaliningrad, and its northern part in southwest-ern Lithuania. The Curonian Spit was formed around the Third Mil-lennium B.C. by the movement of glaciers. Winds and sea cur-rents later contributed enough sand to raise and keep the for-mation above sea level. The Curonian Spit is home to the highest moving sand dunes in Eu-rope. It’s an easy day trip from the historic city of Kaliningrad.

ANCIENT CITY AND FORTRESS

BUILDINGS OF DERBENT

(2003)

THE REPUBLIC OF DAGESTAN

Located where the Caucasus Mountains meet the Caspian Sea, Derbent has been an important north-south corridor since the fi rst century B.C. Some claim that the city was founded as far back as the eighth century B.C. and several surviving structures here are thought to be over 5,000 years old. Occupied by Armenians, Mongols and Turks, among oth-ers, Derbent only became a per-manent part of the Russian Em-pire in 1813. Today the main sites to visit are the ancient walls, baths, watchtowers, cisterns, mosques and the well-preserved citadel.

In a January article on CNN.com, travel reporter Laura Powell asked, “Is now the time to visit Russia?” At the time, the ques-tion seemed absurd. Relations be-tween Russia and most of the West, including the United States, are at post–Cold War lows and fighting was raging in eastern Ukraine. Over the past few months, however, the idea of Rus-sia as a tourist destination has gained more traction — partial-ly because of the decline in the value of the ruble against west-ern currencies.

Data from Russia’s Federal Agency for Tourism (Rostourism), confi rmed that there was an in-crease in the number of tourists visiting Russia in December, just after the value of the ruble fell sharply. However, that was not enough to improve the overall numbers for the year. Overall in 2014, the number of tourists to Russia declined by 3 percent. Nev-ertheless, the trend that began in December 2014 has continued this year. Since the beginning of 2015, tourism into Russia has in-creased by between 3 and 5 per-cent, according to a recent inter-view Rostourism deputy chairman Nikolai Korolev gave to news agency Tass.

It isn’t Western tourists who are gradually making their way back to Russia, however. In the first quarter of 2015, tourism from China increased by 10 percent. While most tourists come to Mos-cow, the number of Chinese vis-itors to Siberia has also increased, according to Anatoly Kazakev-ich, the director of the travel agency Baikalov, which focuses on trips to famous Lake Baikal.

“This is due to the currency ex-change rate and the strengthen-ing of international relations with Asia,” Kazakevich said.

Over the past year, Russia’s eco-nomic and political strategies have focused on the “pivot to Asia,” with major deals being signed between Gazprom and China’s national energy firm CNPC. Russian President Vladi-mir Putin also made a state visit to China last year.

Traditionally, Germany led the ranking of countries sending tourists to Russia. In 2013, about 380,000 Germans made the trip. But in 2014, only 350,000 Ger-mans came to Russia, while the number of Chinese increased to 410,000 — up from 372,000 in 2013.

The number of American tour-ists also declined in 2014 to 162,000, down from 197,000 the year before, according to statis-tics from Rostourism.

The value of a weak rubleVladimir Kantorovich, a member of the presidium of the Associa-tion of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR), said that right now the weak ruble is the only trump card in Russian tourism, and that ad-vantage is offset by the overall negative attitude of the Europe-

Travel A cheap currency combined with rich cultural attractions should make Russia an ideal destination for visitors

Russia’s Image Problem Puts a Damper on International TourismThe fall of the ruble at the end of

2014 made travel to Russia

cheaper than ever, but not many

Western tourists are willing to

make the trip.

ALEXANDER BRATERSKYSPECIAL TO RBTH

Tourism to Russia,

2013-2014

The total number of foreign tourists in 2014 decreased by 5 percent, to 2.1 million people. In 2013, most tourists came from Germany, followed by China and the United States. In 2014, China took first place.

tourists from China

tourists from Germany

350,000

410,000

an Union and the United States toward Russia.

“Clearly, it is not directly re-lated to tourism, but tourists want to travel to those countries that have good relations with theirs,” Kantorovich said.

Tour operators agree with this statement: “Unfortunately, the depreciation of the ruble coin-cided with the deterioration of the image of Russia in the for-eign market; therefore, the coun-try failed to become more attrac-

itself better as a tourist destina-tion. This year, Rostourism opened its fi rst offices abroad, beginning with an office in Dubai in May. By September, the agency plans to have outlets in Finland, Ger-many, China and Italy.

Other government agencies are also working to improve Russia’s attractiveness for tourists. Eng-lish signs and maps were intro-duced in the Moscow Metro last year, and in July 2014, Russia’s Interior Ministry created a divi-sion of police to help tourists.

However, ATOR’s Kantorovich noted that tourists still complain that Metro workers and other mu-nicipal staff don’t speak English. And the tourist police have had a hard time recruiting qualifi ed personnel.

Nevertheless, the initiatives may be paying off. In early May, Russia rose by 18 points from 63th to 45th place in the prestigious international Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report rankings, prepared by the World Econom-ic Forum and Strategy Partners Group.

Russia received high marks for cultural attractions, but low scores for the difficulty of obtain-ing visas. Getting a Russian visa is associated with a high degree of bureaucracy, says the ATOR’s Kantorovich, who believes that Russia could make concessions there: “No one prevents us from taking this step unilaterally and abolish visas,” Kantorovich said, citing the example of mutualabolition of visas with Israel. After the move, the fl ow of Israe-li tourists to Russia increased by 50 percent.

tive to many foreign tourists,” said Alexander Lanskaya, executive director of Patriarshy Dom Tours, a travel agency special-izing in sightseeing tours of Moscow, St. Petersburg and

other Russian cities for foreign tourists.

Signs of improvement?The recent downturn in tourism has only reinforced the recogni-tion that despite its rich cultural heritage, Russia needs to promote

In June, the Church of the Savior on Spilled

Blood in St. Petersburg was named one of

TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice landmarks.

The Russians aren’t coming after all.

Or at least, they’re not coming to Europe or the U.S. for their vacations.

International airlines are can-celing or downsizing service to and from Moscow as the coun-try’s slowing economy causes mil-lions of Russians to rethink trav-el plans and fewer foreign tourists and business travelers to visit the country from abroad.

Overall demand for fl ights to and from Russia fell as much as 40 percent in late 2014 and early 2015 compared to a year earlier, according to Martin Riecken, Luf-thansa’s director of corporate communications for Europe. Routes to Western Europe and across the Atlantic were hit es-pecially hard, he added.

Travel Air carriers from the West have cut back their Russia routes, with some leaving the market altogether

Airlines are reducing flights to

and from Moscow as Russia’s

economic downturn keeps

Russian vacationers and foreign

business travelers grounded.

Airlines Reduce Flights as Demand Falls

KIRA EGOROVARBTH

Russian tourism to Europe fell by 30 percent in the fi rst quarter of 2015, according to a report by the European Travel Commission.

The decline comes after Mos-cow’s three major airports spent hundreds of millions of dollars on massive upgrades, including shiny new terminals, and after express trains have been built to the city center.

Delta Air Lines, the only U.S. carrier currently offering fl ights directly to Russia, plans to halt its New York–Moscow service in December, the company said. EasyJet, which was the fi rst major budget airline to launch service between Moscow and western Eu-rope in 2012, said this spring it will drop service between Man-chester and Moscow in October.

Niki, AirBerlin’s subsidiary that operated fl ights from Moscow to Vienna, has also announced its exit from the Russian market, along with France’s Aigle Azur, which offered fl ights from Paris.

“On some fl ights, large airlin-ers were replaced by aircraft of lesser capacity,” Lufthansa’s

Riecken said. “On high-frequen-cy routes … [the] number of fl ights has been reduced on days with low demand,” he said, including the Frankfurt-Moscow route.

Many observers called the ruble one of the main culprits behind falling demand among Russians. The Russian currency went into a meltdown in late 2014, losing about half its value in a matter of months and making foreign trips much pricier for Russians.

Although the ruble has recov-ered some lost territory in 2015, it is still down by about a third against the dollar and the euro compared to a year ago.

Room for Optimism? Some observers, however, said the ruble’s recent upward trend may help Russian travel spending re-cover.

Interest is indeed beginning to revive among Russians for some European destinations, said Al-exander Burtin, commercial di-rector of tour operator Tez Tour.

“Tourists are beginning to look toward Europe,” Burtin said, es-

pecially “Greece, Cyprus and Italy. Spain is so far a bit weaker.”

Lufthansa’s Riecken agreed that interest has recently been ticking back up.

“We have noted an increase in demand for popular dates, such as the May holidays,” he said. “But the volume of purchased tickets did not reach last year’s level.”

A stronger currency should eventually help coax some air-lines back into renewing their service to Moscow, said Oleg Pan-teleyev, head of analytical servic-es of the agency Aviaport, by translating into reduced ticket prices for Russians.

Indeed, by late April this year, ticket prices for fl ights to Europe and Asia were already back to roughly the same level as in Sep-tember 2014, according to Janis Dzenis, PR director of JetRadar travel search service. Routes to the U.S. and London remain about 10 percent higher than be-fore in ruble terms, Dzenis said.

is how much demand for flights to Russia fell between the beginning of 2014 and the beginning of 2015, according to Lufthansa.

airlines currently offer direct flights from the U.S. to Russia — Aeroflot, Delta, Transaero and Singapore.

was the cheapest round-trip flight available from Moscow to New York last month, according to web portal Skyscanner.

40%

4

$522

IN FIGURES


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tourists from the United States

162,000

Discover more routes

in Russia.

Go Beyond Your

Imagination!

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05MOST READ



www.rbth.com Special ReportHostel Owners Hope to Benefit From Rise in Domestic

Tourism

rbth.com/44541

LAKE BAIKAL

(1996)

IRKUTSK REGION AND THE REPUBLIC OF

BURYATIA

The largest and deepest freshwa-ter lake in the world, with a depth of 5,387 feet, Baikal is also among the world’s clearest and oldest bodies of water. Some estimates put Baikal’s age at 25 million years. Located in a rift valley, Bai-kal is still actively growing at the rate of about an inch per year. By surface area it is the seventh larg-est lake in the world, containing more water than the fi ve Great Lakes combined. Among the most famous endemic inhabitants are the Baikal seal, the nerpa; the omul, a whitefi sh that is smoked and is associated with the lake; and the Baikal sturgeon.

VOLCANOES OF KAMCHATKA

(1996)

KAMCHATKA TERRITORY

When landing on Kamchatka, vis-itors often feel they are arriving on a different planet, such is the diversity of shapes protruding from the mist. Kamchatka fea-tures a wide assortment of vol-cano types — there are approxi-mately 300 total volcanoes on the peninsula. Kamchatka has 29active volcanoes. Featuring agorgeous mix of volcanoes and glaciers, a unique location along the Pacifi c Ocean, and an abun-dance of diverse species thatincludes black bears, sea otters and Steller’s sea eagles, Kamchat-ka is incomparable to anywhere else on Earth.

GOLDEN MOUNTAINS OF ALTAI

(1998)REPUBLIC OF ALTAI

The Altai Mountains connect Central Asia to the Arctic Ocean via the Ob River, which begins its journey north here. Many land-scapes can be found here includ-ing the mountainous taiga, steppe, lake basins, valleys and moun-tain meadows. This area became part of the Russian Empire in the mid-18th century, yet it has been home to man for one million years. Paleolithic settlements can be seen near Gorno-Altaysk, the main city in the area. The terri-tory remains sparsely populated by Russians and the native Altai people, who maintain their tra-ditional way of life.

PUTORANA PLATEAU

(2010)

KRASNOYARSK TERRITORY

Located 60 miles north of the Arc-tic Circle at the northwestern edge of the Central Siberian Plateau in Krasnoyarsk Territory, thePutorana Plateau area is a clas-sic pristine northern landscape including taiga, tundra and Arc-tic desert. It features arctic andsubarctic ecosystems within the relative isolation of a mountain range. The surrounding areacontains 25,000 lakes (Russia’s second largest supply of fresh-water after Baikal), deep canyons, cold-water rivers, thousands of waterfalls and fjord-like natural constructions formed in the land-scape.

LENA PILLARS

(2012)REPUBLIC OF SAKHA (YAKUTIA)

Lena Pillars Nature Park area vi-sual demonstration of the dra-matic climate changes in the Sakha Republic. Created by shift-ing temperatures that range from highs of 104 Fahrenheit in the summer to lows of -76 Fahren-heit in the winter, these spectac-ular natural rock formations shoot up from 100–300 meters (up to 1,000 feet) towards the sky along the banks of the Lena River. The pillars consist of various lay-ers of limestone, marlstone, do-lomite and slate, with fossils dis-covered here from the Cambrian age, which scientists agree ended nearly 500 million years ago.

Maya

LomidzeSPECIAL TO RBTH

Dmitry

DavydenkoSPECIAL TO RBTH

The best phrase that char-acterizes Russia as a tour-ist destination is “big po-tential.“ This phrase can be

applied to practically all the coun-try’s regions and cities — with the exceptions perhaps of Mos-cow, St. Petersburg and Sochi — and it means that there are op-portunities for development. In most of Russia, there are inter-esting things to see, and cultural experiences that might attract tourists, both Russian and foreign, but these opportunities have not been realized.

Perhaps because of the geo-political situation, the past year has been a watershed in the Rus-sian tourism industry. For the fi rst time, Russia is actually making an effort to realize some of this potential and attract tourists. In 2014, for the fi rst time, Russia’s state tourism agencies began the process of establishing tourism offices abroad. This year, Visit Russia offices have already opened in the United Arab Emirates and Germany, and of-fi ces are planned for China, Fin-land and Italy. The external po-litical situation and the serious cooling between Russia and the West have had a signifi cant im-pact on the positioning of Rus-sia as a tourist market, and con-sequently on the demand from Western tourists. According to Russian tour operators, in 2014 sales volumes in this market de-creased by 30–40 percent.

The devaluation of the ruble, however, had a notable effect. When tours became cheaper, pol-itics practically moved to the background. Political situations change, crises come and go, but people always travel, no matter what is happening. The main question is whether Russia is a real tourist destination or it just has the potential to become one.

Maya Lomidze is the executive director of the Russian Associa-tion of Tour Operators.

If I was a tourist from, let’s say, France, I would defi nite-ly go to Russia. Why? To see new cities and a new coun-

try, to try the Russian cuisine and to drink some Russian vodka as the Russians drink it — from fro-zen shot glasses, accompanied by mushrooms or herring. To visit the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, to take a walk on Red Square in Moscow, to buy some souvenirs on the Arbat and then brag to my friends and neighbors back home about my trip to “author-itarian and aggressive” Russia.

Possibly some of my friends would suspect that I support Putin’s regime. Then I would tell them that Russians are really worried about the situation in southeastern Ukraine, where many have friends and relatives. I would tell them about the man-made miracle of Sochi, the home of the 2014 Olympics, the fi rst-rate all-year-round ski and beach resort built in an incred-ibly short period of time. The Olympic villages are still deco-rated with the fl ags of almost all the national teams that par-ticipated in the Sochi Olympics, reminding everyone that, be-sides political interests, there are more important events that unite the people of the world.

But most importantly, I would tell them that before making con-clusions about a country and its people, one should go there and see it with his or her own eyes. One should dive into its thou-sand-year history and culture, speak to the people and then compare it to what is being shown on TV and printed in newspapers. One should free him or herself of all stereotypes, of politics and everything related to it, and then fully enjoy the new impressions of a great country.

Dmitry Davydenko is Chair-man of the Organizational Committee of the All-Russian Tourist Association.

VIEWPOINTS

Russia’s Unrealized Potential

Come and See Russia for Yourself

While the geopolitical situation and sanctions banning fi rms in a number of industries from doing business in Russia have caused a precipitous drop in the num-ber of business travelers, the dis-mal economic situation has ac-tually helped fi ll hotel rooms on both the high and low ends of the market.

Traditionally, Russian hotels have fi lled most of their rooms with business travelers rather than tourists. Today, however, this market segment has almost com-pletely disappeared. Businesspeo-ple are being replaced with lei-sure travelers — primarily from Asia — who are taking advan-tage of the cheap ruble to visit Russia and domestic tourists for whom the value of the local cur-rency has made a vacation abroad prohibitively expensive.

“Due to the decline in foreign business trips to Russia, Moscow hotels are turning today to tour-ist groups from China, Korea and India,” said David Jenkins, head of the hospitality department of the consulting company Jones Lang LaSalle.

Carlson Rezidor, Russia’s larg-est international hotel operator, which manages 31 hotels under the brands Radisson Blu and Park Inn by Radisson, confirms the shift of tourist fl ows to Asia, par-ticularly China. “There is also a considerable interest on the part of tourists from Turkey and India. At the same time, some of our hotels maintain a sufficiently high proportion of tourists from Ger-many,” Carlson Rezidor P.R. and Communications regional man-ager Irina Zakharova said.

According to the Department of Tourism of the Primorsky Ter-ritory in Russia’s Far East, the number of tourists from China arriving in the regional capital Vladivostok increased by 140 per-cent in the fi rst three months of 2015 compared to the same pe-riod last year.

The change in clientele is being felt in the luxury hotel segment as well as in hostels.

The P.R. department of the The Ritz-Carlton, Moscow, said: “We are seeing a slight drop in [the number of tourists from] West-ern Europe, the U.S. market de-clined more strongly, but there is the infl ux of visitors from China, India, the Middle East and Latin America.”

Anna Borovikova, the owner of two Moscow hostels, the 3 Pen-guins and Chocolate, estimates that the number of Chinese guests at her hostels has doubled in the past year while the number of

Hotels How does the industry cope with economy crisis?

Hotels See Demand Increase Despite Drop in Business TravelAlthough traditionally business

travelers made up most of the

clientele in Russian hotels, today

luxury chains and hostels alike

are seeing a new kind of client.

MARIA KARNAUKH SPECIAL TO RBTH

Germans has dropped by almost 20 percent and the number of nights booked by French and American visitors fell by 25 and 30 percent, respectively.

Higher-end hotels in Russia are seeing their occupancy rates in-crease as visitors realize that their local currency goes farther in Rus-sia. “Guests can now stop not at the Holiday Inn, but at Intercon-tinental, not at the Courtyard, but at Marriott, and so forth,” Jenkins said. International real estate con-sulting fi rm Cushman & Wake-fi eld marked an increase in the return per room in luxury seg-ment hotels in Russia of 10 per-cent in the fi rst quarter of 2015.

The press service of the Ritz-Carlton confi rmed the growth in demand, noting that the first quarter of 2015 was the best in the history of its Moscow prop-erty in terms of revenue. The press service attributed the success to the increase in occupancy, al-though the Ritz-Carlton declined to provide exact numbers.

Representatives of foreign hotel operators prefer not to comment on how the political and econom-ic situation in Russia affects their plans for business development. Hilton Worldwide said it was act-ing with caution.

But Marina Smirnova, a part-ner with Cushman & Wakefi eld, said that hoteliers are moving ahead with plans to open prop-erties in Russia’s regions. For ex-ample, a Hampton by Hilton hotel and a Hilton Garden Inn have both recently opened in the Urals city of Ufa. Smirnova attributed these projects to the increase in domestic tourism: “Foreign de-mand is relevant only for fi lling Moscow, St. Petersburg and Vlad-ivostok, while the remaining 92–95 percent are supported by domestic tourism.”

Domestic tourists are also key to the growth of hostels in Rus-sia, which charge as little as 500 rubles ($9) a night, even in the center of Moscow. “If two or three years ago about half of the guests were foreigners, today they make up no more than 10 percent,” said Andrei, the manager of the Co-lumb Hostel in Moscow.

Tourism Russians offer hospitality to guests from across the globe

Couchsurfing Offers a New Look at Russia

Even as hoteliers in Russia worry about the downturn in demand, the number of people couchsurf-ing in the country is on the rise.

Alexei Korykin, who lives in the town of Blagoveschensk in the Amur Region of Russia’s Far East, has not been abroad for a long time. But he has hosted guests from Australia, Brazil, Germany, Moldova, South Korea and China, among others.

“In our Far East such guests are rarities,” Korykin said. “My relatives from the village always invite me to bring my foreign friends so that they can see how people live in the village.” For-eigners who manage to travel to Blagoveschensk can expect sig-nifi cantly different experiences in Russia from those who only visit Moscow and St. Petersburg.

“My guests fi nd many unex-pected things in Russia. For ex-ample, Germans Tim and Domi-nic saw a movie about the Great Patriotic War for the fi rst time and even befriended a veteran. And a Canadian by the name of Felix would never forget his visit to the banya,” Korykin said, add-ing that the most difficult thing for foreign visitor to his home-town to cope with were the ticks.

The map of Russian couchsurf-ing hosts has some interesting dy-namics. For example, there are few users in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, but there are many

Usually foreign guests are

surprised by the small Russian

apartments and the tradition of

removing footwear at the

entrance.

ELENA DOLZHENKO SPECIAL TO RBTH

“I’ve found many good friends on the Couchsurfi ng site,” said William McGuinness, an Amer-ican from Yonkers, N.Y., who lives in Moscow, although he noted that he has never actually stayed in a couchsurfing situation. “[Couchsurfers] are open, merry and unmaterialistic people. My friend Dima always plays gui-tar in every train trip and we sing. We often travel together. With them I’ve been to Nizhny Novgorod, Kostroma, Vologda, Izhevsk, Volgograd, Samara, Ekaterinburg, Arkhangelsk.”

Kat Hodgson, a Colorado na-tive who has often traveled to the Urals city of Ufa for work, said that while her employer pays for her to stay in a hotel, she used Couchsurfi ng to fi nd a tour guide. Aliya Salimova “drove us around Ufa and pointed out landmarks, then took us to a Bashkir res-taurant so we could try the local food. On our last night in Ufa, we didn’t have a hotel room, so Aliya hosted us,” Hodgson said, adding that she recommended Aliya to another American friend visiting Ufa to attend a hockey match two years later.

Russian couchsurfers agree that foreigners are often sur-prised by the small size of typ-ical Russian apartments and their tiny kitchens as well as by the custom of taking off shoes upon entering a house. They are also often surprised by the amount of vodka Russians don’t drink.

“They are convinced that we drink vodka the whole day and are therefore surprised when they see we don’t,” said Maria, a couchsurfer from Kazan.

in Grozny, the capital of Chech-nya. Yusup Yerazov from Grozny has been using Couchsurfi ng.com for only a year, but he has doz-ens of comments on his page from Russian, European and Chinese tourists.

Another North Caucasus couchsurfer, Bagdat Tumalaev from Makhachkala in Dagestan, says that most of his guests are from Europe: Italy, Spain, Serbia, Switzerland, Germany and Cy-prus.

“My guests often compare Makhachkala to Istanbul. Euro-peans like the local fruits and veg-etables.” Tumalaev says that one problem his European guests have is that they are often vegetarians, and Caucasian cuisine is famous for grilled meats.

“Guests coming to the Cauca-sus have always been treated spe-cially. Tourists are fascinated by the local traditions, customs and cuisine. I try showing my guests the traditional Chechnya. There are many myths about Grozny, but I try to show them the real-city,” Yerazov said.

The map of Russian couchsurfing has few users in Sochi, but many in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.

“There are many myths about Grozny, but I try to show the real city,” said couchsurfer Yusup Yerazov.

Hostels and high-end hotels alike are benefiting from the decline in the ruble, as Russians stay home and tourists from Asia move west.

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Obama’s Legacy and Russia: What the Future

Holds for U.S.-Russia Relations

rbth.com/46281Opinion

LETTERS FROM READERS, GUEST COLUMNS AND CARTOONS LABELED “COMMENTS” OR “VIEWPOINT,” OR APPEARING ON THE “OPINION” PAGE OF THIS SUPPLEMENT, ARE SELECTED TO REPRESENT A BROAD RANGE OF VIEWS AND

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C O N V E R T I N G M O N O L O G U E S I N T O D I A L O G U E

CAN ISIS BE THE KEY TO U.S.-RUSSIA COOPERATION?

TAKING STOCK OF KADYROV’S CHECHNYA

The rapid advance of radical Islamic terrorist groups is one of the major concerns in global politics today.

These groups represent a threat to both the United States and Rus-sia, and as such could be one place — perhaps the only one — where the countries currently share a common interest and common goals.

In the Middle East generally, like in the rest of the worl, Mos-cow and Washington are pursu-ing mostly assymetrical policies. The U.S. still remains a major buyer of Middle Eastern oil and a number of states in the region are strategic partners with bilat-eral security and defense treaties that include the hosting of Amer-ican military bases.

Russia, for its part, has rela-tionships with countries in the region that are hostile to the Unit-ed States, like Iran, and U.S. al-lies, like Turkey. But Russia does not have strategic ties in the re-gion, as the U.S. does.

On the whole, Moscow argu-ably does not have any vital in-terests in the Middle East, which should give little reason for the U.S. and Russia to disagree about overall policy there, even if there are disagreements over certain regimes. It follows, then, that there could be an opportunity for cooperation in the one place where the countries have a com-mon interest — the fi ght against international terrorism and Is-lamic extremism.

Russia and the United States both want stability in the Mid-dle East. Even if we take the view of Russian officialdom at face value and accept that Washing-ton has actually been seeking to promote regime change in the re-gion, it could still cooperate with

If sociologists compiled a rank-ing of the most active media fi gures in Russia, one of the top three would almost certainly

be the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Not a day goes by with-out his name topping news feeds and headlines.

Early June was no exception. YouTube blocked a fi lm about the Chechen leader made by oligarch-in-exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia organization. De-spite the block, anyone who wants to can watch this film without too much difficulty, but those looking for shocking exposés are likely to be disappointed.

The Open Russia project does not lay bare any new facts; rath-er it systemizes and arranges ev-erything that has already been done countless times in the media and via social networks (thanks in part to the efforts of the fi lm’s protagonist).

It is not the informational im-pact of the fi lm that matters, but the fact that it was blocked, which demonstrates once again the con-siderable resources and infl uence that Kadyrov wields. The man-agement style of “Chechnya’s CEO” is to take a hands-off ap-proach — not only in the repub-lic itself, but far beyond its bor-ders. Also important is making friends and enlisting support, which can come in useful at any level of business administration.

Moscow to fi ght the Islamic State.There are also possibilities for

the U.S. and Russia to cooperate on bringing stability to countries like Libya, which at the moment is controlled by no one. It is no coincidence that realist Ameri-can politicians, like Henry Kiss-inger, to name one, have criticized their country’s reckless interven-tion in the affairs of the countries in the region. Working together, however, perhaps Moscow and Washington could bring peace to such failed states.

Barriers to collaborationHowever, U.S.-Russia coopera-tion is affected by a number of constraints. The main one is the deplorable state of bilateral re-lations and the resulting deep mistrust between the two gov-ernments due to the confl ict in Ukraine. The damage to the bi-lateral relationship is so severe that, even once the Ukrainian cri-sis is settled, relations will take time to heal.

More to the point, however, the United States and Russia have

differing views on which Islam-ic groups operating in the region — particularly in Syria — to sup-port. On one hand, the United States supports several Islamist groups it considers moderate; Russia, however, believes these groups are almost as dangerous as the al-Nusra Front, the al-Qa-eda branch operating in Syria and Lebanon. And, Washington, for its part, refuses to cooperate with the Syrian government, which is regarded by Moscow as an important partner in the fi ght against terrorism.

Even if we assume there could be counter-terrorism cooperation between the two countries, and it could be advanced to a level corresponding to the threat, Rus-sia would also never agree to join any coalition led by the United States, and the U.S. will never refuse to be the leader.

Russia, which has learned some valuable lessons from America’s (and its own) experience in the region, would likely refrain from conducting military operations in Arab countries, or even con-ducting airstrikes there, but in-stead would focus on making its infl uence felt in the U.N. Secu-rity Council.

Low profile?Nevertheless, Russia is willing to cooperate both with the West and with regional states in the fi ght against terrorism, noting its pref-erence for working with legiti-mate governments. Moscow is es-pecially concerned about the growing number of jihadists from Russia and Central Asia fi ghting for ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), a problem that has become more acute this spring.

I think the need to stand to-gether against a common threat will eventually prompt Washing-ton and Moscow to make amends. But considering all the above-mentioned constraints, the coop-eration will likely be low-profi le. At best, the parties will coordi-nate their efforts and share rel-evant information, while acting on their own. That said, even this kind of trust will be helpful for mending the rift between the countries.

Vitaly Naumkin directs the Insti-tute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Originally published in Kommersant

Moscow is especially concerned about the growing numbers of jihadists from Russia fighting for ISIS.

U.S.–Russia cooperation, even in the areas of common interests, is affected by a number of constraints.

Ideologically, the Chechen leader is fond of appealing to the traditions and history of his people. In actual fact, the political system of Ramzan Kadyrov is a product of more modern times.

Ideologically the Chechen lead-er is fond of appealing to the tra-ditions and history of his people. And surprisingly even his fi erc-est critics and opponents swal-low the bait, reeling off statements about the “new stone age” in Chechnya.

In actual fact, the political sys-tem of Ramzan Kadyrov is a prod-uct of more modern times. In con-trast to other North Caucasus republics, where complex mod-els exist to coordinate the inter-ests of different spheres of infl u-ence, the Chechen system is de facto autocratic.

In Chechnya, “Kadyrov” is not just the name of the leader. It rep-resents the linchpin of the entire system. For centuries, Chechens have barely tolerated being a vas-sal state inside a feudal system. For them, Kadyrov is the supreme leader, regardless of his age. Such a radical turn of events did not just happen by itself. Some fun-damental premises lay behind it.

The fi rst is the headlong deg-radation of the institutions of kin-ship, which began not yesterday but years ago. The process was rapidly accelerated by the col-lapse of the Soviet Union and the two military campaigns of the 1990s. Today the concept of teip (clan) is nothing more than a jour-nalistic stereotype.

That is not the only important premise. Whatever is written about “Chechnya’s special status,” it is worth bearing in mind the republic’s relationship with “Greater Russia” and what would

have happened if the Kremlin had not staked all on the policy of “Chechenization,” which meant counting not only on local cad-res, but also on the personifi ca-tion of power.

Chechnya in the 2000s became a symbol that Russia had put the years of disintegration following the collapse of the Soviet system behind it. Nowhere else in the former Soviet Union had a sep-aratist territory come back under central control.

However, the price of this sym-bolism was unprecedented po-litical independence for the Chechen leadership. Whereas pre-viously Chechnya existed under

a kind of “one country, two sys-tems” concept (as in the case of China and Hong Kong), Kadyrov thinks in different categories. If you need a symbol of stability so much, then let me take part in shaping your agenda, he seems to say.

At the moment, however, Mos-cow has little room to maneuver in negotiating with Kadyrov. Until a settlement is reached on Ukraine, the logic of avoiding confrontation in the Caucasus will persist. But the indulgence of such a confrontational leader — in unison with the Russia’s growing reactionary ideological mood — is tipping the country into the archaic past, while mar-ginalizing it internationally, not only in the West, but also in the East. In China, which claims to be a strategic partner of Russia, experts are extremely skeptical about Chechen home rule, seeing it more as a sign of weakness than strength.

Sergei Markedonov is an associ-ate professor of foreign regional studies and foreign policy at the Russian State University for the Humanities.

Vitaly

Naumkin KOMMERSANT

Sergei

Markedonov SPECIAL TO RUSSIA DIRECT

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Russia’s First Alexander Solzhenitsyn Museum Opens in

Southern Town of Kislovodsk

rbth.com/46521 The Arts

Alexey

MikheevSPECIAL TO RBTH

Phoebe

TaplinSPECIAL TO RBTH

religious allusions, perhaps Dos-toevsky is drawing attention to Raskolnikov’s dual nature, a mur-derer who is confl icted about his crime.

Anton Chekhov’s surname dates back to the ancient Russian name Chekh, or Chokh, which in turn relates to the verb “chikhat” — to sneeze. You might get this nick-name if you suffered from chron-ic head colds or sneezed a lot. We don’t know how the patients of Chekhov, who was a doctor as well as a writer, reacted to the name, but it might have raised a few smiles to be treated by Dr. Sneezer.

Boris Pasternak’s surname is the Russian word for “turnip.” In contrast to the author’s humble, unassuming name, the protago-nist of his famous novel “Doctor Zhivago” clearly comes from good stock. The ending “ago” is one that is only found in noble names, while the “zhiv” part alludes to the Russian word for “living.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s fam-ily name comes from the term for the profession of malt process-ing. Traditionally, Solzhenitsy would have been malters. In Sol-zhenitsyn’s most famous work, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Den-isovich,” the hero’s surname, Shukhov, seems to be a variation of Sashukha — the most affec-tionate Russian nickname for the name Alexander.

Vladimir Nabokov’s surname comes from the word “nabokii” – which means “lopsided,” or “fall-ing to one side.” The émigré began to write in English during the lat-ter part of his life, and when he achieved success in America with the publication of “Lolita,” Nabo-kov observed that his surname proved exceptionally difficult for Americans to pronounce: they al-ways called him Nabakov or Na-bukov.

Then there are Poole’s some-times prophetic observations, like the dangers of the U.S. trying to “impose its so-called American way of life on the world,” or the fact that in Russia “power out-side the Kremlin cannot be tol-erated.” In some ways, these are the most fascinating parts of the book. Poole’s philosophical asides include sadness that “the deter-mined and courageous are killed while the cautious and timorous survive,” and the realization that “organized life has a tremendous momentum,” even amid rifl e fi re and shelling.

Trains provide a recurring motif in Poole’s narrative, from the sealed train that brings Lenin home from Swiss exile to the legendary trans-Siberian. Rail workers’ unions play a crucial role and thousands of miles of railway take Poole south “across the Steppes” to Rostov or north to safety.

Poole’s account strives for ob-jectivity, although his view is un-avoidably partial. His account pro-vides a nice contrast with famous memoirs such as John Reed’s “Ten Days that Shook the World.” Whereas Reed, a journalist with communist sympathies, is rooting for the rioting Bolsheviks, Poole was an establishment fi gure whose main concerns were evacuating American citizens and charting possible futures for diplomacy.

Whereas Reed sees an unstop-pable tide, “sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses,” Poole is struck by many Russians’ indifference to events that were “reshaping their lives.” Poole’s rem-iniscences may lack the vigor of Nigely Farson’s autobiography as he reports from Red Square, but historians will be perusing these documents for decades to come.

When you read a name in a language you don’t understand, you just see its ex-

otic qualities. For example, be-ginning students of Russian are often surprised to fi nd out that the Bolshoi Theater just means the Big Theater. When it comes to surnames, there are often hid-den layers of allusion — and sometimes irony — waiting to surprise the foreign reader.

If we’re talking about famous Russian writers, then Leo Tol-stoy is definitely the prose heavyweight in more ways than one. His name comes from the Russian word “tolstiy,” which means “plump” or “thick.” It is likely that the fi rst member of Tolstoy’s ancient noble family was a rather large individual who got a nickname to suit his appearance. Although English-speaking readers know him as Leo, Tolstoy’s fi rst name is Lev in Russian. This makes his choice of the surname Levin for a character in his famous novel “Anna Karenina” quite an in-teresting one. Perhaps Tolstoy is hinting at Levin’s role as an alter ego of the author himself.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s surname has geographical origins: Dos-toevsky’s ancestors came from Dostoev, a Belarusian town. More interesting, perhaps, is the surname he gives to the main character in his famous novel “Crime and Punishment.” The name Raskolnikov is derived from the word “raskolnik,” which refers to a person who opposed the reforms of the Rus-sian Orthodox Church in the 17th century.

More broadly it means a dis-senter and also contains the idea of “splitting apart” — as the church did ultimately split at that time. As well as the clear

In August 1917, DeWitt Clinton Poole, a young American dip-lomat, arrived in Vladivostok and caught the last regular

trans-Siberian train to Moscow. Upon arrival in the Russian cap-ital, he soon found himself at the center of the Russian revolution. Many years later, just months be-fore he died, Poole recorded his experiences, which had a direct impact on U.S.- Soviet relations.

More than 60 years after his death, two historians haveedited these reminiscences to produce the first publishededition of Poole’s extraordinary story. Their conscientious foot-notes, sometimes longer than the original text, supply extra in-formation, like the backstories of characters glimpsed in pass-ing, historical references or cor-rections to Poole’s lapses of memory.

The resulting book is interest-ing on a number of levels: it is a firsthand record of historical events, including Allied and American interventions in Arkhangelsk. Poole recalls the assassination of the German am-bassador and the brutality of the “Red Terror.” He worked to res-cue European diplomats and fre-quently visited the notorious Lubyanka prison before fl eeing via Finland in 1919.

BEHIND THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

BIBLIOPHILE

The Hidden Meanings in the Names of Russian Writers

A Young American in the Midst of a Revolution

Learn more about other

Russian writers at

rbth.com/39513

Read our updated literature section!

rbth.com/literature

LITERATURE

TITLE: AN AMERICAN DIPLOMAT IN BOLSHEVIK RUSSIA AUTHOR: DEWITT CLINTON POOLE PUBLISHER: UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS

Earlier this year, Russia’s artistic community was shaken when the director of an opera company in the Siberian town of Novosibirsk was taken to court by a Russian Orthodox priest.

Timofei Kulyabin, whose stag-ing of Wagner’s opera “Tannhäus-er” was in production at the No-vosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater, was accused by the re-gional head of the Russian Or-thodox Church of “improper use of religious symbols” and offend-ing the rights of believers.

Kulyabin had adapted the plot of the opera to the modern era, making the knight Tannhäuser a fi lm director shooting a fi lm about Christ in Venus’s grotto. The court acquitted Kulyabin, but Russia’s Ministry of Culture nevertheless decided to dismiss theater head Boris Mezdrich, despite protests from prominent Russian cultur-al fi gures.

The “Tannhäuser” case is a wor-rying example of the increasing degree to which the state and the religious community are now in-terfering in the cultural sphere in Russia, often using legislation passed in the wake of the 2012 Pussy Riot scandal.

After that incident, in which band members performed an anti government song in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a law was passed making it a crim-inal offense to publicly insult the feelings of religious believers.

In the days of the Soviet Union, government censors made it clear what kind of artistic expression was permissible. Productions of

Theater Artistic expression under threat as conservative tide grows in Russia

Modern Theater in Russia: to Be or Not to Be?

A series of recent bans on dramas

and plays and instances of state

interference indicates the country

may be slipping into another era

of artistic censorship.

MARINA SHIMADINASPECIAL TO RBTH

A reimagining of the opera “Tannhäuser” in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk ignited debate about freedom of artistic expression in Russia.

ordered a series of inspections.The authorities have also been

paying attention to the Gogol Center, headed by well-known di-rector Kirill Serebrennikov. Law enforcement agencies examined his production of Zakhar Prile-pin’s “Otmorozki,” a work about young revolutionary groups, for elements of extremism. Later the government prohibited the screening of a British documen-tary fi lm on Pussy Riot to be held at Gogol Center.

Watch out, religion!In the atheist Soviet Union, books, films and plays on religious themes were banned. Andrei Tar-kovsky’s fi lm Andrei Rublev re-mained “on the shelf” for over 20 years. In contemporary Russia, the situation is completely re-versed: For “offending religious sentiment” an artist can now even be punished with a jail sentence.

“Russia’s status as a secular country is determined by the con-stitution,” said Andrei Zvyagint-sev, director of the Oscar nomi-nated fi lm “Leviathan.” “In Russia the church is separated from the state and cannot interfere in af-fairs that are not related to its immediate responsibility before the people.”

The state’s active backing of re-ligious believers has proven dif-ferently, however. Since the Tannhäuser case, protests by be-lievers against artistic produc-tions have grown. In Izhevsk, a clergyman was outraged by the grotesque characterization of a pope in the production of Push-kin’s “Blizzard” and fi led a com-plaint with local authorities. In Moscow, Orthodox activists at-tacked Konstantin Bogomolov’s production of “The Ideal Hus-band” at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater by leaving a pig’s head at the door of the theater.

Soviet dramas and Russian clas-sics were welcome, and the only “correct” approach was the Stan-islavsky method.

Even during the Khrushchev “thaw,” productions from the fa-mous Taganka Theater were banned and director Yuri Lyubi-mov was labeled as “anti-Soviet” and deprived of his citizenship.

During the perestroika era, a wave of freedom fl ooded Russia: Foreign theaters embarked on tours of the country, while Rus-sian directors began staging West-ern literature and contemporary dramas, modernizing the theat-rical language.

Recently, however, it seems that conservative political trends have been trying to return the coun-try to the times of stagnation.

No backing downA vivid example of the political pressure is the ongoing harass-ment of Moscow’s independent Teatr.doc, founded in 2002. The theater has staged a number of provocative plays on contempo-rary themes, including one on lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after exposing a huge fraud case involving Russian officials, and a satirical work by Dario Fo, “Ber-lusPutin,” comparing Russian President Vladimir Putin to Ita-ly’s Silvio Berlusconi.

At the end of last year, thetheater was evicted from its tiny basement home. Letters ofsupport, including one fromBritish playwright Tom Stoppard, did not help. But the theater did not give up: It found newpremises and last month present-ed the play “The BolotnayaAffair,” about the arrest of dem-onstrators at public protests in Moscow in 2012. The premiere again attracted the attention of the police and the authorities

" In the 27 years I have lived in Russia I have never seen any-thing like what we are seeing

today. The attacks on culture, art and artists seem to grow daily. Cen-sorship has returned and the state seems quite proud of it. The state is increasingly trying to control art, to force artists to say what the state wants to hear, and to stop them from saying what it doesn’t want to hear. We have entered a mini-Dark Ages.”

" Russia’s status as a secular country is determined by the constitution. In Russia the

church is separated from the state and cannot interfere in affairs that are not related to its immediate re-sponsibility before the people.”

" I am glad that I did not give in to pressure and give up on the opera (Ed. note

Tannhauser). Unfortunately, it was not possible to stand firm to the end victoriously. But I am thankful to all who supported us.”

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

JohnFreedman

Andrei Zvyagintsev

Boris Mezdrich

MOSCOW-BASED THEATER CRITIC, EDITOR OF AN

ANTHOLOGY OF NEW RUSSIAN DRAMA

FILM DIRECTOR OF RUSSIAN OSCAR NOMINEE

LEVIATHAN

FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE NOVOSIBIRSK OPERA

AND BALLET THEATER

Great Russian Writing Probes the Questions of Life

INTERVIEW GARY SAUL MORSON

Gary Saul Morson, a professor of Slavic literature at Northwest-ern University and one of the foremost authorities on Russian literature in the United States, spoke to RBTH about his love for Tolstoy, the ongoing popular-ity of the Russian classics and what, if anything, politicans can gain from studying literature.

The courses you teach are de-

voted to single novels, including

“Anna Karenina,” “The Brothers

Karamazov,” “War and Peace” and

“The Idiot.” Why have you cho-

sen these?

I chose these books because they are among the greatest works of world literature and the fi rst three are, by common consent, the greatest novels written anywhere. Saying this means I do not agree with the common view among American academics that there is no such thing as intrinsic or objective literary value — the idea that value is just what hegemon-ic powers of oppression want you to believe has value. On the con-trary, these great Russian novels tower over other great novels, in Russia and elsewhere. They probe the ultimate questions of human

life — what makes a life mean-ingful, what is honesty, what re-sponsibility we owe to others and similar timeless questions.

This year you participated in the

ceremony of the Read Russia lit-

erary prize, in which special jury

awards were given to new trans-

lations of “Anna Karenina.” Why

is this book still so popular that

new translations keep appearing —

even two new ones just this year?

In part, Tolstoy is the greatest ex-aminer of human consciousness who ever lived. The book also challenges prevailing views about love. People have accepted the same myth that Anna lives by, the myth of love as transcendent romance rather than everyday intimacy. That romantic myth is even more prevalent today than in Tolstoy’s time, and so his po-lemic against it strikes people as all the more relevant.

Why are there so few translations

of modern Russian literature in

English? Is it not as interesting for

publishers as the old classics?

Well, let us face it. There are no writers today, in Russia or any-where else I know, as great as the

HIS STORY

Gary Saul Morson studied Russian literature at Yale and Oxford, and is Frances Hooper Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Northwest-

ern University. The class he teach-es on “The Brothers Karamazov” and “Anna Karenina” is the best-enrolled class on Russian litera-ture in North America as well as the most popular one at Northwestern. He has written 10 books and edit-ed eight books, three of which are translations of Russian literature.

NATIONALITY: AMERICAN

AGE: 67

TEACHES: SLAVIC LANGUAGES

classic Russian authors. It is harder to get people interested.

Are there any modern Russian

writers you like and find worth

teaching in American universities?

Which modern books can you rec-

ommend to your students?

It depends on what you mean by modern. If Bulgakov and Sol-zhenitsyn are modern, then those are defi nitely worth teaching. I tend to think we do not know who will be a classic for at least 50 years, since people always overestimate the quality of cur-rent works. The reason is that all a writer has to do is endorse cur-rently fashionable beliefs and he will seem profound.

Do you think reading Russian liter-

ature could help American politi-

cians better understand their Rus-

sian colleagues?

Politicians are not great readers of literature. But if the education-al system that shapes them in-cludes great literature, they will develop the habit of seeing the world from perspectives other than their own. Americans have a ten-dency to think that everyone wants to be just like them, and so un-derstand Russians, and other peo-ple as well. Literature helps over-come that narrowness.

Interview prepared by Alexandra Guzeva and

Elena Bobrova

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MOST READ08



www.rbth.comFeatureCosmic Crab, Star Salmon and Space Sturgeon:

What’s on a Cosmonaut’s Menu?

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Learn Russian!Food - еда (yeh-dah)

Buckwheat Porridge - гречневая каша (greych-ne-vay-ah ka-shah)

Pelmeni – пельмени (pehl-mye-nee)

Tulsky Gingerbread – тульcкий пряник (tool-sky pryah-nik)

Vinaigrette – Винегрет (vi-nee-gryet)

Ossetian Pie – осетинский пирог (osseh-tin-skee pi-rohg)

Syrniki (cottage cheese pancakes) – сырники (syr-ni-kee)

Person of the MonthVladimir Mukhin is the chef at the White Rabbit restaurant in Moscow. He’s only 32, but his cooking is already famous. Last month, his restaurant — which is decorated with themes from the book “Alice in Wonderland” — was named one of the Top 25 restaurants in the world. It was the only Russian restaurant on the list. He began cooking in the restaurant where his father worked and later studied cooking in college. He says that his favorite food to cook is fi sh, but his favorite thing to eat is desserts and that he has loved chocolate since he was a kid.

Learn more about Russian food in theRussian Kitchen section on our website!

Get an easy recipe for a fruity

dessert called marmalade at

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Across

3. These dumplings are a favorite of Russian kids

5. This summer soup is served cold

8. Chak-Chak comes from this part of Russia

Down

1. Cottage cheese pancakes are eaten for this meal

2. Ossetian pies are filled with this

4. Tulsky gingerbread is filled with this

6. The main ingredient in vinaigrette

7. Chak-Chak is fried dough covered with this

9. These fish are popular in St. Petersburg

Word Search

Some popular Russian foods have

their origins in particular regions of

the country. The Tula Region in cen-

tral Russia is known for its jam-

filled gingerbread. Chak-

chak, a dessert of fried

dough covered in honey,

comes from the Repub-

lic of Tatarstan, and

Ossetian pies originat-

ed in the North Cauca-

sus region of Southern

Russia.

Soup is an essen-

tial part of lunch for

Russians, in summer as

well as in winter. One com-

mon summer soup is called okros-

hka. It is made up of chopped veg-

etables and meat.

Another popular summer dish is

vinaigrette, a salad of chopped

beets, carrots and potatoes.

Food The city on the Neva tries to create a unique culinary style to appeal to tourists attracted by its museums and palaces

Russia’s northern capital tries to

make a name for itself in the

culinary world by recreating the

favorite dishes of famous

residents.

Visitors to the St. PetersburgInternational Economic Forum June 18–20 will have the oppor-tunity to try Pushkin shchi, aspecial type of cabbage soup named in honor of Russia’s great-est poet and resident of St.Petersburg. The soup, crafted for the event, is part of an effort by the St. Petersburg city govern-ment to promote local cuisine.

While Russia’s northern capi-tal is renowned for its palaces, parks, museums and theaters, few visitors make any comments on popular travel websites about the city’s food. Now the city gov-ernment is taking steps to change that. More than a year ago, the city’s Committee on ExternalRelations began discussing the promotion of St. Petersburgcuisine as a way of marketing the city to tourists, and now theproject is coming to fruition.

Dmitri Melnikov, the general director of the Solo Sokos Hotel Vasilyevsky, said that St. Peters-burg cuisine should be something simple, not the kind of intricate, molecular cuisine that has been trendy in recent years.

“There are many places that offer simple and comprehensible dishes, those familiar to Russians since childhood,” said Melnikov. “People are now interested innational cuisine, which current-ly combines old recipes andSoviet classics. In our hotel we have foreign and domestic guests, which is why in our menu we’ve created a Russian section: borsch, pelmeni, chicken Kiev, beef stro-ganoff, vinaigrette and theStolichny salad (a form of chick-en salad).”

Melnikov named smelt as a par-ticular speciality of St. Peters-burg. The small fi sh is caught in

Getting a Taste of St. Petersburg

IRINA KRUZHILINASPECIAL TO RBTH

clear: in Petersburg, people drink coffee instead of tea, eat sandwiches instead of pies and obviously the Baltic smelt, the cloudberry, the cowberry and the cranberry.”

Outside influenceOne of the essential dishes in 19th century Petersburg restaurants was sterlet served in champagne. In her book on St. Petersburg res-taurants, historian Yulia Demiden-ko writes: “The unifi cation of the Volga sterlet and French sparkling wine demonstrated the complex mix of two completely different products, as well as the incredi-ble opulence that only the most

brilliant court of the time pos-sessed.”

Restaurant critic Dmitry Gro-zny compares St. Petersburg cui-sine of the 1800s to Moscow cui-sine in the 2000s.

“As in the 2000s, when an enor-mous number of Italian chefs fl ooded oil-rich Russia, 200 years ago French chefs fl ocked to the beautiful capital of a huge em-pire to make some money,” Gro-zny said. “What were the names of the fashionable restaurateurs of the time? Dominique, Dusseau, Borel, Donon, Legrand.”

Grozny believes that there is nothing wrong with borrowing foreign experience, but he stress-es that a real culinary brand can be created only with the use of local products.

“The dorado and the sea bass won’t help us,” Grozny said. “But we have the smelt, a fi sh that has its own cult, its own mythology. The problem is that the smelt is

a seasonal fish and the season does not last long. Its cucumber smell, the true sign of a freshly caught smelt, can be detected in Petersburg only in April–May.”

Ivan Berezutsky, who manages the kitchen in St. Petersburg’s PMI Bar and the Moscow restau-rant Twins, agrees with Grozny in part. “When people speak about Petersburg cuisine, they arebasically speaking about Peters-burg cuisine in the times ofImperial Russia, in the 19th cen-tury when it was in its golden age. But it is still too early to speak about contemporaryPetersburg cuisine because it is still not fully developed.”

PMI Bar features local prod-ucts in a special tasting menu of dishes of northwest Russia: smelt, White Sea mussels, kelp and wood sorrel.

Favorite dishesAs the Pushkin shchi indicates, the drive to develop a unique St. Petersburg cuisine has also in-volved recreating the favorite rec-ipes of the city’s famous residents.

Alexandra Smirnova-Rosset, a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court, wrote about a dinner at Pushkin’s house in her memoirs: “I loved supping at Pushkin’s. Supper consisted of shchi or green soup with boiled eggs… large chopped cutlets with spinach or sorrel and for dessert there was jam with white gooseberries.”

The Pushkin shchi recipe was developed from memoirs like this and others.

The St. Petersburg Internation-al Economic Forum is not the only place where it will be possible to taste the famous shchi. The res-taurants at the Ambassador and the Akyan Hotels have already put the soup on their permanent menus along with the blini of Arina Rodionova, Pushkin’s nanny, which have been immor-talized in Russian literature. These blini are known for their delicate rosy color, which is ob-tained by adding beet juice.

the spring from the waters of the Gulf of Finland, and every May a smelt festival is held on the city’s Vasilyevsky Island.

Lev Lurye, a historian andethnographer, says that there is no such thing as old Russian cui-sine, and what is considered old now is actually the cuisine of im-perial Russia. The kind of food that existed before Peter the Great — such as tyurya, a soup with turnips and bread, and giant pieces of boiled meat — have fall-en into oblivion.

“St. Petersburg cuisine, which is rather young, like the city it-self, which was founded in 1703, is a unique blend of Finnish and German cuisines and local prod-ucts,” said Lurye. “The residents of St. Petersburg adapted French recipes only in the 19th centu-ry. And if we were to look for the differences between Peters-burg and Moscow cuisines, we could say that they are rather

Akyan Hotel chef Denis Ustinov

researched old Russian recipes

and discovered that few recipes

for dishes made before Peter the

Great’s time remain in use.

Several restaurants in St. Petersburg, including the one at the Ambassador Hotel, are already including the soup Pushkin shchi on their menus.

“St. Petersburg cuisine is rather young, like the city itself, which was founded in 1703,” said historian Lev Lurye.

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RBTH Insert in the New York Times, June 18, 2015

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