Big deal in Kaliningrad
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 6:16PM I did some reading on the Kaliningrad protests...
The other day I ventured over to Robert Amsterdam's blog and found him linking to this article (read it before you read this article) by James Kimer over at Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center. The article makes a number of claims, about the demonstration in Kaliningrad of 30 January, lets look at them...
#1) Already in the title he names the demonstrations 'civil unrest' and says it is about more than just economy.
#2) In the first paragraph he cannot properly state the number of demonstrators. His estimate is somewhere within the range of 7000-12000. He adds that the authorities were caught by surprise. This was apparently one of the largest protests in the area for more than a decade. The protest was six times larger than 2008 protests in Vladivostok.
#3) He immediately links that with a protest happening at the time in Moscow which was considerably smaller compared to the one in Kaliningrad numbering about one 100. Authorities dispersed the protest presumably out of fear that it might spread to other areas of Russia.
#4) At the protest people demanded the resignation of governor Boos and Prime Minister Putin. They declared in a memo that they wish Putin lowered the taxes and that gubernatorial elections were restored, they specifically targeted the governor Boos for dismissal.
#5) Kimer is clear that the the Vladivostok, Moscow and Kaliningrad protest all had different agendas. People in Kaliningrad are angry about 10.5 % unemployment, $17 million owed in wages for workers. In Moscow the protest was led by Nemtsov, Limonov, Ponomarev and others and was themed as a protest demanding that article 31 of the Constitution guaranteeing the freedom of assembly be upheld. Back in 2008 the people in Vladivostok were angered by a trade law restricting car imports.
#6) Nemtsov sees a trend here.
I particularly chose this article not because it was the first I found but because it contains a particular narrative put to the story. It basically puts the Solidarity bunch as spearheading the protest in Kaliningrad. A similar story was reproduced here in the Moscow Times and in other media outlets. There is one more point found in the Moscow Times.
#7) According to Dmitri Oreshkin the people of Kaliningrad live surrounded by the EU and can compare. A similar line was reitrated by Nemtsov at the demonstration.
The liberast faces and voices are of course very desirable to people in the Western Media, which includes the two I linked above. Also desirable is the prospect of Russia suddenly erupting into a nation-wide rebellion against Putin. Things are not that simple as the fertile imaginations of some might suggest however. Let me answer the 7 points above...
#1) 'Civil unrest' implies rebellion, while the people in Kaliningrad engaged in an orderly protest allowed by the authorities. The protest was primarily about the economy but could also be about scoring pre-election points especially when it comes to the politically irrelevant liberasts. Organiser of the Kalingrad protest Mikhail Kostyaev is not happy about the participation of Solidarity, he said that the orangists 'made a dumb PR campaign on the grief of Kalinigradians'. He said so commenting on the enrollment of Ilya Yashin, the young liberast from Yabloko youth. [source]
#2) The number of protesters is not clear, the police puts the number at 6000, the liberasts say it is twice as many. What is important is the next line about how the authorities were caught by surprise. Hardly, these were authorised protests. Besides there already was one such protest a month ago numbering 5000-7000 so the authorities had a little warm up in advance. However this previous protest did not include Solidarity heavyweights so it means it did not happen. [source] Governor Boos does not seem shaken by the protest. On contrary he seems encouraged by it to do a better job, hardly anything that could be expected from someone taken by surprise. [source] Putin is calm as well. [source]
#3) It is a strange thing that opposition can mobilise only 100 (according to other sources 300) in the capital of more than 10 million but in an enclave of less than a million and a city of less than 500 000 they are able to gather 6000 to 12, 000 strong crowd. You might of course counter that with saying the demonstration in Moscow was illegal. According to some information I found the demonstrators in Moscow were offered a substitute place but they refused and proceeded with the protest anyway blocking the roads. They blatantly broke the rules of the game and got busted. [source] What, where and how is this a problem? The OMON gorillas only carried the clowns away so they do not pose an obstacle to the already strained Moscow traffic. If the powers that be were really scared of these people the security services would reshape the demonstrators beyond recognition and there would be no pictures of it available to post on the internet. Did that happen? Obviously not!
#4) The protest was against rise in tariffs, lowering of living standards, government policies and for dismissal of the regional parliament, resignation of the representatives of United Russia, regional government and governor Boos. [source] The Solidarists did demand Putin to resign but that apparently did not meet with a massive appeal from the audience. [source] The videos available on youtube [see also here] prove that it certainly was not one thousand people joining Solidarity's slogans. Vladimir Abramov on the other hand says that if people didn't demand Putin's resignation nobody in Russia would care. He adds that what concerns Nemtsov, he is a political corpse and people didn't come to the demonstration to see him. [source] I don't want to say that Nemtsov and Yashin broke the story, although they certainly did for the Western audience. Still it is not clear.
#5) Now we are talking real issues here, yes the problems in Kaliningrad, Pikalyovo and Vladivostok are a big deal. How are they connected with a bunch of clowns in Moscow is another question and the answer is not much. Other than they are a protest and that the usual suspects from Moscow paid a visit to Kaliningrad there are no commonalities.
#6) Everyone who keeps an eye on what is happening in the world would have expected some economic discontents in Russian regions once the World financial crisis hit Russian shores. Some structural problems were exposed, such as the Pikalyovo monogorod (a town depending on one factory) which was working on Deripaska who himself was and most probably is in bit of trouble. Two of my relatives worked for Rusal, one got laid off and the other one left after there were no prospects in the company and they are both white collar workers in Moscow, of course blue collar workers in a provincial monogorod like Pikalyovo were hit much harder. We see a trend of economic weak points being exposed, this was expectable. We can also observe another trend emerging. That of Gucci clad political corpses trying to feast on people's misfortune.
#7) They can also compare the unrest in Latvia with the orderly demonstration in Kaliningrad or perhaps look into Gdansk if there is any shipyard industry left. If these people compare themselves with Sweden or Finland then they should wake up soon. This comment almost implies secession. I bet the Kaliningradians are all ready to secede from RF and march straight into the warm, hairy embrace of the German dominated EU. Check out what Johann from USA wrote in the comment section under this RFE/RL piece.
As a fact. Kalingrad was a part of Germany but was occipied by Poland and Russia and the German population was expelled, but this are things that Poland and Russia doesn't want to talk about.
I am wondering why NPD and other right wing parties in Germany don't demand liberation of Kalingrad. But NPD members are fat beerdrinkers, that ore to lazy to go to the gym and only fight while drunk at socker games.
So my thought is that nothing will happen. Anyhow EU doesn't want any trouble because they worry about Bosnia and Moldova and want to keep things calm in Europe, troubles in Afganistan are anyhow enough for EU and NATO to worry about.
Isn't that cute?
Let me make a little digression here and make a little exercise in whataboutism. Kaliningrad is an enclave cut off from Russian mainland and experiences problems typical for such entities. Roughly a year ago, riots, not peaceful demonstrations erupted in the French Antillean enclave Guadeloupe, surprisingly over high living costs. In a fist world country, member of the EU, G7 and permanent member of the UN security council? How is that possible? I bet the rioters had a lot of interesting things to say about Sarko and the powers that be, in this case represented by the 'evil' White man.
Sarko being afraid that this might spread to the metropole ordered billions to paid in aid, tax cuts and payments to unemployed according to The Guardian article linked above. Moscow also acted in response to these protests. Boos said he will look at the demonstration's resolution and analyse it but cannot guarantee its full implementation. He also said that no supportive counter-demonstration is on the agenda. Such initiative did exist but was quickly dismissed. [source] Heads began to fall in the administration of president Medvedev. The curator for Kaliningrad region Oleg Matveichev, who in fact warned the administration about the protests had to leave, presumably as a sacrifice for government's impotence. Boos said that he will meet with the leaders of Justice, the non-partisan group that organised the protest. [source] Leaders of the Kaliningrad opposition from the Communist Party, Patriots of Russia and Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democrats were invited to give their testimonies on situation in Kaliningrad to president's administration. [source] I don't see Solidarity on the list do you? I guess the powers that be do not consider someone not involved in local politics as a relevant partner.
Enough digressions, let me now sum up this rather long article. The protests in Kaliningrad were about worsening local economy primarily, the demands to dismiss the representatives of United Russia and the Moscow appointed governor were linked to that. Putin is the least threatened in this case. Solidarity's biggest achievement was to bring this event to the awareness of Western media in a highly distorted form. Otherwise their role in the protest was marginal and even deemed comical or undesirable by some. The real opposition are the Communists, Patriots of Russia and Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democracts and they are not sexy enough for the Western press. The myth of Solidarity being the front line together with other myths seems now to have established itself in Western understanding of the event.
Note:
Here is a video of the resolution being read, no calls for Putins resignation are heard...
Reader Comments (4)
I couldn't agree more with your analysis. Thanks for peeling apart the rhetoric.
Thank you.
The fact that Solidarity (which I think through the Polish and Ukrainian minority in Belarus are also involved in civil unrest and trying to overthrow Lukashenko) and Polish/British Solidarity and pro-independence EU forces are supported are financed by the National Endowment for Democracy based in Poland and the Baltic states.
Baltic International Development Agency (BIDA)
$26,680
To continue a program to strengthen nongovernmental organizations in Kaliningrad region. BIDA will continue to provide technical assistance through its NGO Information and Consulting Center, which was established in 2002 with NED support, and organize training workshops for a total of 140 NGO activists.
I am sure before they redesigned there site there was also a labour group that works with Solidarity which received NED funding.
Not to mention the fact that I posted before that British/Polish Solidarity leader who took an interest in Chechnya in 97 and became a citizen of the Republic which was illegal as it a recognised part of Russia to set up a $3 billion investment fund in the Chechen oil industry.
"It was at this moment that in the surroundings of the Chechen leadership appeared an English businessman of Polish descent Mansour Yahimchik, who had in due time been one of the leaders of the Polish «Solidarity» in Krakow. He suddenly showed unexpected interest in the Sufi version of Islam in Chechnya, was naturalized as a citizen of «Ichkeria», became the Chechen presidential adviser on foreign economic issues. At his suggestion the Chechen leaders got in contact with the British financial elite, he was arranging meetings of the Chechen leaders with the English Lords, with Margaret Thatcher, with heads of major companies.
With the direct participation of this Pole-Englishman in April 1997 was established a Caucasian investment fund, in Washington was registered the Caucasus-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Lord McAlpine - Representative of the Financial Group at Goldsmiths’ - promised to invest 3 billion dollars in the Chechen oil industry, but given that he gets the right of general tenancy of the entire Chechen oil industry. In fact, already at that time the matter concerned purchase of the Chechen oil industry, which later was tried to be performed by Khodorkovsky."
http://evrazia.org/article/1128
In regards to the NPD I think they are more concerned about the increase in native Turkish population birth rate and decreasing German birth rate
"As a fact. Kalingrad was a part of Germany but was occipied by Poland and Russia and the German population was expelled, but this are things that Poland and Russia doesn't want to talk about.
I am wondering why NPD and other right wing parties in Germany don't demand liberation of Kalingrad. But NPD members are fat beerdrinkers, that ore to lazy to go to the gym and only fight while drunk at socker games."
Probably because Germans are a minority in the region
And I think Germany is more concerned the situation in Germany itself with its growing native Turkish population and declining ethnic German population.
Funny how the same logic does not apply to the Serbs in Kosovo or Palestinians in Israel who still have there land right papers or ceding the Crimea back to Russia given to Ukraine by native Ukrainian Khrushchev illegally even by Soviet standards during the 50’s (or early 60’s I can’t remember).
A few comments on point #7.
Kaliningraders were able to compare themselves to their EU neighbors more easily until the "Schengen wall" went up a couple of years ago. Now, those trips to Poland and Lithuania are a lot harder to make, and the gradual "Europeanization" of the region is slowing way down.
As for secession, there is not much sentiment in favor of it. There is a sort of local non-political separatist thinking which has cultural and economic aspects, but that is not the same thing.
The idea of K-grad somehow re-connecting with Germany is not realistic either. There are hardly any Germans left, and Germany doesn't want it. It is a post-Soviet region to the core.