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‘Foundations of Orthodoxy’ Taught in Many Russian Schools, Muslim Leader Complains Vienna, July 31, 2006 – In violation of the Constitution and despite debates in Moscow over how religious issues should be handled in public schools, education officials in numerous Russian oblasts already have introduced a “Foundations of Orthodoxy” course, and in some cases, Russian Orthodox priests are serving as instructors. more story...
Russian Army Now Beyond Reform, Must Be Replaced, Expert Says Vienna, July 31, 2006 – The Russian military suffers from such inbred systemic problems that it cannot be reformed but must be replaced if it is to fulfill its missions of defending the country’s security and of
serving as a school of civic nationalism for Russia’s diverse population, according to one of Moscow’s leading military analysts. more story...
Some Russian Officials Want to End Jury Trials in Hate Crime Cases Vienna, July 31, 2006 – A recent spate of high profile trials in which Russian juries have refused to convict individuals charged with hate crimes against ethnic and religious minorities has prompted the Social Chamber’s Commission on Tolerance and Freedom of Conscience to call
for an end to jury trials in such cases. more story...
Is Kazan Playing the Religious Card Back Against Moscow? Vienna, July 28, 2006 – Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaimiyev says his government will provide funds for the reconstruction of an Old Believer Church in Kazan, a step many Tatars and Russians are certain to view as Kazan’s response to increasing Russian Orthodox efforts to play up
distinctions between the Kryashens and Muslim Tatars. more story...
Has the Moscow Patriarchate’s Chaplin Finally Gone Too Far? Vienna, July 28, 2006 – Over the last several months, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the deputy chief of the Moscow Patriarchate’s External Relations Department, has departed from his normal diplomatic style and lashed out at Muslims, journalists writing about religious issues, and others he considers to be “enemies of the Church.” more story...
Russian Far East Would like to Be Known as ‘Russia on the Pacific’ Vienna, July 28, 2006 – The central government in Moscow might pay more attention to the Russian Far East if it were known as “Russia on the Pacific,” scholars in that distant area say, because the adjective “far” has connotations of “distant, unachievable, and even
unnecessary.” more story...
Russia’s Latest Oxymoron – ‘Civil Society in a Corporate State’ Vienna, July 27, 2006 – Russians often have had to live with slogans that at bottom are contradictions in terms. In Soviet times, Communist ideologists routinely talked about “socialist democracy,” a concept in which the problematic adjective drained the noble noun of any real meaning. more story...
Crisis ‘Worse than Chechnya’ Ahead in Caucasus, Moscow Scholar Says Vienna, July 27, 2006 – The Caucasus, north and south, suffers from the same problems Russia does – including kleptocracy, corruption, clan rule, and so on -- and consequently, for the next decade or so “no one will be able to do anything to change” this, according to Moscow’s leading academic specialist on the Caucasus region. more story...
Russia’s Muslim Leadership Greet End to Deferments for Religious Vienna, July 27, 2006 – In a move reflecting the longstanding position of the Union of Muftis of Russia (SMR) but also one calculated to please the Kremlin, a senior SMR official has welcomed the end of draft deferments for those studying in religious schools and those already
serving as religious leaders. more story...
St. Petersburg Focuses on Ethnic, Not Religious Intolerance Vienna, July 26, 2006 – Officials in St. Petersburg have announced the first ever city-level program in the Russian Federation to combat xenophobia and intolerance, but the program, slated to run until 2010, devotes almost all its attention to relations among ethnic and national groups rather than to those among the city’s religious communities. more story...
For Want of Investors, Russia’s Largest Prison Will Remain Just That Vienna, July 26, 2006 – Officials in St. Petersburg would like to close the notorious Kresty Prison but only if they can find a private investor willing to build a new detention facility on the outskirts of Russia’s northern capital in exchange for ownership of the current penitentiary’s prime location on the Arsenal Embankment. more story...
Buddhists Defeat Buryat Government in Court Vienna, July 26, 2006 – For the first time anyone can remember, the Buddhist community of Buryatia has won a case in court against the authorities
there, a measure of the growing confidence of that religious group in its power and its increasing willingness to rely on the Russian Federation’s legal system. more story...
For Russians, Force without Ideology Increasingly Illegitimate Vienna, July 25, 2006 – The naked use of force by Russian officials and businessmen represents not the decay from the law and order of Soviet times as many think but rather an advance on those times because Russians increasingly view the use of force without an ideological cover as illegitimate, according to a leading Moscow philosopher. more story...
River Diversion Debate Helped Change Course of Russia Vienna, July 25, 2006 – Debates within and among Soviet elites in the early 1980s about the possibility of diverting Siberian river water to
Central Asia in the end did not change the flow of these rivers but did change the direction of the country, by opening the way for glasnost’, the more public discussion of issues under Mikhail Gorbachev. more story...
Russians Remain Divided on Who Their ‘Compatriots’ Are Vienna, July 25, 2006 – Despite President Vladimir Putin’s plan to promote the return of “compatriots” to the Russian Federation to help solve that country’s demographic problems, Russian citizens are far from united in defining just who is included in this category and just what their government should be doing for or about them. more story...
Where Beria Still Walks the Halls in Moscow… Vienna, July 24, 2006 – Every city has its legends and traditions, often believed in by one or another group in the population regardless of their plausibility or even possibility. And thus it should be no surprise that the city of Moscow, given its complicated history, has more than its share of such beliefs. more story...
Russian Officials, Muslim Leaders to Boost Ties in North Caucasus Vienna, July 24, 2006 – The Coordinating Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus – the only Muslim body in the Russian Federation explicitly created to fight extremism – has announced plans to expand the level and intensity of its cooperation with Russian officials in the Southern Federal District. more story...
Chinese Migration to Russian Far East Said Vastly Exaggerated Vienna, July 24, 2006 – Given declines in the population of the Russian Far East – officials there suggest that the number of residents will have declined by almost 50 percent between 1991 and 2020 – and China’s burgeoning population next door, many Russians fear their country is about to be swamped by waves of Chinese immigrants. more story...
Moscow’s “Double Standards” on Terrorism Could Backfire Among Russians Vienna, July 21, 2006 – Moscow regularly insists that it has the right to destroy terrorists working against the Russian Federation but now says that Israel does not have the right to do the same thing, a double
standard that is increasingly on view in the Russian media and one likely to entail problems for Moscow in the future. more story...
Officials Mistreat St. Petersburg’s One Million Muslims, Leader Says Vienna, July 21, 2006 – Dzhamaleddin Makhmutov, the deputy head of St. Petersburg’sAl-Fatkh Muslim Organization, said this week that police and other officials in Russia’s northern capital now practice “systematic discrimination” against the one million Muslims living there. more story...
Can Moscow Learn to Deal with Its “New Enemies” – Its Neighbors? Vienna, July 21, 2006 – Public opinion polls in the Russian Federation routinely show that large percentages of Russians identify Latvia, Georgia, Moldova, Poland and Ukraine as among the country’s “enemies.” But three commentators say these are not Russia’s “main” enemies and that tensions with them are often blown out of proportion. more story...
Internet Forums Represent Underside of Russian Politics Vienna, July 20, 2006 – Because of their increasingly nationalistic and extremist content, Russian Internet forums have attracted attention and concern both in Moscow and abroad. But because of the specific nature of these forums, two Moscow experts say, no one should view them as accurate and reliable barometers of public opinion. more story...
A New ‘Cult of No Personality’ Said Emerging in Russia Vienna, July 20, 2006 – After Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s cult of personality at the 20th Communist Party Congress in 1956, various members of the Soviet intelligentsia acidly observed that under Stalin there had been a cult but that under him there had also been a personality. more story...
Putin Policies Behind Rise in North Caucasus Tensions, Analyst Says Vienna, July 20, 2006 – President Vladimir Putin bears primary responsibility for an increase in inter-ethnic tensions in the North Caucasus. That is a striking change from the situation Boris Yeltsin faced 15 years when conflicts there were the product not of his policies but those of his Soviet predecessors, according to a leading Moscow specialist. more story...
Moscow’s ‘Sovereign Democracy’ Becoming Ever Less So, Analyst Says Vienna, July 19, 2006 – The central element of the Kremlin’s current ideological campaign –its insistence that Russia is “a sovereign democracy” -- is intended to distract attention both domestically and internationally from “the gradual liquidation” of the country’s sovereignty and democracy, according to a controversial Moscow analyst. more story...
A Renewed Gagauz Challenge to Moldova, Moscow and the West Vienna, July 19, 2006 – The Gagauz, a 100,000-strong Christian Turkic nation in southeastern Moldova, is preparing to challenge not only the Moldovan Republic in which they live but also to call into question the policies both Moscow and the West have adopted to deal with ethnic issues across the post-Soviet region. more story...
Not by Oil Alone – How Moscow Misreads Ethnic Conflicts Vienna, July 19, 2006 – Moscow analysts and policy makers up to and including President Vladimir Putin, just like their Soviet-era
predecessors, assume that ethnic conflicts are the product of and can be resolved by economics alone, according to a leading Moscow commentator. more story...
Fight over Rehabilitating Anti-Bolshevik White Movement Heats Up Vienna, July 18, 2006 – More than 80 years after the Reds defeated the Whites in the Russian Civil War and more than 15 years after Moscow agreed to rehabilitate the victims of communist oppression, Russian politicians continue to argue over whether to grant blanket rehabilitation to the anti-Bolshevik White Movement. more story...
Provincial Cities Said to Hold the Key to Russia’s Spiritual Future Vienna, July 18, 2006 – Sixty percent of the residents of the Russian Federation now live in its provincial cities, more than twice as many as those who reside in rural areas and more than four times the number who live in the the megalopolises of Moscow and St. Petersburg. more story...
“The West” as an Idea is Anti-European and Anti-Russian, Kremlin Advisor Says Vienna, July 18, 2006 – The idea of the West as a group of countries with common cultural roots and a common approach to international affairs ceased to be relevant with the end of the Cold War, and any use of the term now is inherently anti-European and anti-Russian as well, according to a senior Kremlin advisor. more story...
Orthodox Better Off under Islamic Rule Rather than Catholic, Muslim Says Vienna, July 17, 2006 – However counterintuitive it may seem, Orthodox Christians have often been treated better and had their faith protected when they have lived under Muslim rule than when their community has been part of a state dominated by Catholicism, according to a Muslim commentator from Tatarstan. more story...
Russia, CIS States Said Undergoing ‘Latin Americanization’ Vienna, July 17, 2006 – Russia and the CIS countries increasingly resemble countries on “world periphery” like Latin America not only because of their reliance on the export of raw materials but also because of the specific pseudo-democratic nature of their respective regimes, according to a Moscow analyst. more story...
Moscow Fails to Define Who is a Compatriot – and Who is Not Vienna, July 17, 2006 – Even as Moscow very publicly appeals to what it calls its “compatriots” abroad to move to the Russian Federation, neither the Duma-passed legislation that serves as the basis of this program nor President Vladimir Putin’s decree implementing it provides a legally precise definition of the term. more story...
Krasnodar Kray Shows Russian National Communism in Action Vienna, July 14, 2006 – Anyone who wonders what Russian national communism might look like in the country as a whole need only examine the situation in Krasnodar kray where two governors have exploited a combnation of communism, Cossack traditions, and Orthodox Christianity to institutionalize a highly authoritarian state within a state. more story...
Western Support for Russian Opposition Said Just Enough to Discredit It, Weaken Moscow Vienna, July 14, 2006 – As has often been the case in the past, the level of support Western governments currently offer the opponents of the incumbent Russian government is having the effect of discrediting them in the eyes of many Russians but is not sufficient to allow them to win through, according to a Moscow analyst. more story...
Not All Fallout from Basayev’s Death Works to Moscow's Advantage Vienna, July 14, 2006 – The death of Shamil Basayev has boosted President Vladimir Putin’s standing with Russians pleased to see the last of a Chechen militant long identified as Russia’s “number one terrorist” and set the stage for him to present himself and his country at the G-8 meetings this weekend as full partners in the war on terrorism. more story...
Russia’s Muslims Urge Legalizing Waqf System to Support Islamic Activities Vienna, July 13, 2006 – Muslims in the Russian Federation are pressing for new laws that will allow for the extensive development in their country of “waqfs,” the Arabic term for properties Muslims turn over to their parishes to support mosques, religious education and other community needs. more story...
Russians Complain Western Terms Distort West’s Image of Russia Vienna, July 13, 2006 – The application of Western social science terminology to Russian phenomena assumed to be equivalent often has made it more difficult for Westerners to understand Russia, complicated Russia’s post-Soviet transformation, and even exacerbated East-West tensions, according to a group of Moscow commentators. more story...
‘Religious Rebirth’ Programs Seen Threatening Russia’s Unity, Modernization Vienna, July 13, 2006 – A turn to religious belief is playing a positive role in helping individual Russians recover from the Soviet period, but calls by the leaders of the country’s traditional faiths for the government to promote a national “religious rebirth” threaten Russia’s unity and modernization, according to a leading Moscow analyst. more story...
A Moscow on the Pacific? Vienna, July 12, 2006 – Many Russian commentators and even some politicians have proposed moving the Russian capital away from Moscow, but most of them have suggested that the country’s political center should be shifted either back to St. Petersburg or to a city closer to the geographic center of the Russian Federation. more story...
Moscow Fails to See Politics Behind Terrorism, Analyst Argues Vienna, July 12, 2006 -- Moscow’s reaction to the killings of Russian diplomats in Iraq and the death of Chechen militan Shamil Basayev highlights the failure of senior Russian officials to grasp the political nature of terrorism, a shortcoming that will limit the Russian government’s ability to combat it, according to a senior Moscow analyst. more story...
Some Russian PR Firms Funding Skinhead Attacks on Opponents Vienna, July 12, 2006 – Some Russian public relations firms are paying skinhead groups to attack the political or business opponents of their clients, a development that does not bode well for future but one that at least some Russian officials say is beyond their ability to do much about, according to a Moscow journalist. more story...
Editor Who Broke Soviet Anti-Religious Taboos Dead at 77 Vienna, July 11, 2006 – Vladimir Shevelyov, the Russian writer and editor who helped to open the pages of Moscow’s leading publications to honest discussions of religious life at the end of Soviet times, died last Friday and was eulogized by religious leaders yesterday as “the founder of Russian secular journalist on religion.” more story...
Russians Split on Whether Their Country is Equal G-8 Member Vienna, July 11, 2006 – In advance of this weekend’s G-8 summit in St. Petersburg that will be hosted by President Vladimir Putin, Russians are evenly split on whether their country is a fully equal member of the group of the world’s leading industrial democracies or only a “younger sister,” according to the results of a new poll. more story...
Putin Questioners Divided on Orthodoxy’s Role in Russian Life Vienna, July 11, 2006 – An analysis of the 1130 questions about religious affairs sent in to President Vladimir Putin for his Internet press conference on July 6th suggests that Russians are deeply divided over the role the Moscow Patriarchate should play in political and social life. more story...
Ethnic Neighborhoods Taking Shape in Moscow Vienna, July 10, 2006 – Post-Soviet Moscow is taking on another feature of cities around the world: the formation of ethnic enclaves. But both the
nature of these communities and the role of the formation of the state in their formation continue to set the Russian capital apart. more story...
Looking Back to the Russian Who Invented ‘The Party of Power’ Vienna, July 10, 2006 – Each number of the Russian journal “Kontinent” features extraordinarily detailed review essays about articles about politics, history, and philosophy that have appeared in Russia during of the previous three months, often in magazines whose contents are not readily available on the Internet. more story...
‘Americanization’ of South Caucasus Could Help Moscow, Analyst Says Vienna, July 10, 2006 – In its still-weakened state, the Russian Federation desperately needs stability along its southern flanks and consequently “it is not all that important” who supplies it – even if the provider turns out to be the United States, according to a leading Moscow specialist on ethnic conflicts and security in the Caucasus. more story...
Russian Political Culture Will Help Reintegrate Eurasia, Putin Aide Says Vienna, July 7, 2006 – The three component parts of Russian political culture – its etatism, its romanticism, and its inclination to cognitivism – will not only help the country recover from its recent upheavals but also contribute to the reintegration of Eurasia, according to one of President Vladimir Putin’s assistants. more story...
Orthodox Academic Details What Every Russian Must Know About Islam Vienna, July 7, 2006 – Russia’s Christians understand the country’s Muslims better than the latter understand the former, according to a leading Russian Orthodox specialist on Islam and other non-Christian faiths. But there are many aspects of Islam that Russian Christians must know more about if they are to deal with the challenges Muslims present. more story...
Russian Internet Network ‘Weak and Expensive,’ Moscow Expert Says Vienna, July 7, 2006 – Russia’s domestic Internet network is currently too “weak and expensive” to promote the kind of progress in science, education and technology that the country desperately needs, according
to Russia’s leading specialist on information technology. more story...
Russian Orthodox Official Calls for Blacklisting Church’s Enemies Vienna, July 6, 2006 – Archpriest Dmitriy Smirnov, who heads the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for work with the Russian military, police and other force structures, has called for the compilation and publication of a list of “enemies” of the Russian Orthodox Church. more story...
Moscow’s Middle Class Now Said to Be a Suicide ‘Risk Group’ Vienna, July 6, 2006 – The overall number of suicides declined in both Moscow and the Russian Federation as a whole over the last year, but psychologists there now classify the capital’s middle class along with teenagers and older people as a group whose members are particularly at risk of taking their own lives. more story...
Eastern Europe Again in Play as Independent Force, Moscow Historian Says Vienna, July 6, 2006 – The group of countries between the European Union and the Russian Federation – sometimes called the New Europe – is becoming an actor in its own right, no longer dominated by Moscow as it was prior to 1989 but also no longer simply an extension of the West to which its members turned so dramatically after that time. more story...
Bombing of Mosque Near Moscow Denounced as ‘Provocation’ July 5, 2006 – Less than a day after President Vladimir Putin told a Moscow meeting of international religious leaders that “tolerance” forms “the basis of civil peace in contemporary Russia,” a person or persons unknown attempted to blow up a Muslim prayer hall in a city near the Russian capital. more story...
Kremlin Must Focus on Russia’s ‘Internal Geopolitics,’ Analyst Says Vienna, July 5, 2006 – In order to be in a position to respond to challenges from abroad, a leading Moscow analyst argues, the Russian government must focus on “the internal geopolitics” of the country, something its opponents routinely do but that many in the Russian political elite ignore. more story...
Kremlin Official Says ‘No Pro-Russian Forces’ Exist in Post-Soviet States Vienna, July 5, 2006 – Modest Kolerov, who serves as President Vladimir Putin’s senior advisor on cultural ties with foreign countries, says that “there are no pro-Russian forces” in post-Soviet states and that most Russians posing as experts on these countries are more interested in telling them what to do than in finding out what is going on in them. more story...
Moscow’s Actions in Chechnya, Islamic World Reflect ‘Double Standards,’ Analyst Says Vienna, July 4, 2006 -- Moscow often complains about what it calls the West’s “double standards” on Chechnya, but it is equally inconsistent in its approach to the Muslim world, simultaneously
seeking out friends among Islamic radicals abroad while cracking down against them in the northern Caucasus, a leading Russian analyst argues. more story...
Russians Increasingly Promote Individualistic Values in Children, Poll Finds Vienna, July 4, 2006 – Compared with six years ago, Russian parents appear significantly more interested now in preparing their children to compete and succeed as adults and somewhat less interested in inculcating good manners and the ability to live with others, according to a new poll. more story...
Russia Will Soon Disappear From the Map, German Filmmaker Says Vienna, July 4, 2006 – A German filmmaker has predicted that Russia will soon disappear from the map of the world, the victim of demographic change – declining ethnic Russian population and rising Muslim population -- and international competition for access to its natural resources. more story...
Russia Needs Family Dynasties Not Regional Clans, Russian Nationalist Says Vienna, July 3, 2006 – Since 1917, Russians have found it difficult to organize political successions because their country has had regionally based clans rather than family dynasties based on blood ties as was the
case in the tsarist period and is, a Russian nationalist insists, increasingly typical of capitalist countries in the West. more story...
Russia’s Muslims Remain Divided on Idea of Chaplaincy Corps Vienna, July 3, 2006 – Muslims in the Russian Federation remain deeply divided about the idea of creating a new chaplaincy corps in the country’s military, something that reflects both fears about the ways in which the Russian Orthodox Church might exploit that situation and the absence of a clergy as such within Islam. more story...
‘Iranians Love Russians with an Almost Irrational Love’ Vienna, July 3, 2006 – Iranians “love Russians almost irrationally,” according to a Moscow journalist who travelled to several cities there. But many of the residents of that country know little about their northern neighbor, and the images of it they now get on television are increasingly contradictory. more story...
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