Kommersant
Moscow authorities’ surprise offer splits opposition
Once, protests in the city center would inevitably end in mass detentions and arrests. Now the Moscow authorities seem to be taking a more liberal stance – and the diverse opposition that united to ‘fight the power’ is split on how to respond.
Moscow City Hall has raised the number of protestors allowed at this month’s Strategy 31 gathering from 200 to 800.
These protests in defense of the right to free assembly have become something of a tradition for Russia’s opposition movement. Their Triumfalnaya Square rallies on the last day of each 31-day month have in the past often ended in mass arrests.
City Hall’s surprise move has split the opposition. Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, accepted the proposal and called for other opposition activists to do likewise.
Eduard Limonov, leader of The Other Russia movement, and Left Front activist Konstantin Kosyakin today demanded that city hall sanction a protest of up to 1,500 people.
The square has been fenced off since August, officially for the construction of an underground car park, although the opposition dismissed that explanation as a cover for preventing further rallies.
In their letter to new Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Limonov and Kosyakin said that 1,500 protesters attended the August protest and they expected the same number to turn out on October 31.
“We cannot afford to discriminate against 700 people,” reads the letter, due to be delivered on Tuesday.
“The Moscow government still has several days to accept our proposal, we hope they will come to their senses,” Limonov told the paper.
Both Limonov and Alexeyeva disagreed with City Hall’s initial limit of 200 people.
Those behind Strategy-31 demanded that authorities remove the fence on Triumfalnaya Square and allow all protesters to gather there.
City Hall refused, warning protest organizers that they would be responsible for any measures the authorities might take to disperse the activists.
On Monday, human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov and Left Front activists Sergei Udaltsov and Konstantin Kosyakin published an open letter to Sobyanin, demanding approval be given for the upcoming Day of Wrath protest, slated for November 12.
Similar protests are held on the 12th of each month, calling for the reinstatement of direct mayoral elections and stronger local government.
Under former mayor Yury Luzhkov, Moscow authorities five times banned Day of Wrath protests, and the police detained participants en masse.
On each occasion, City Hall insisted they were motivated by the concern that the protesters might damage a monument to Moscow’s founder Prince Yury Dolgoruky, which is of great historical and cultural significance.
The activists’ open letter noted that neither Moscow’s Tverskaya Square nor the monument are listed under city legislation, and called on the city authorities to prove their willingness to let these protests go ahead without calling in the cops to break up a lawful, peaceful protest.
Ponomaryov told the paper that the opposition was not looking for conflict, and that it was quite loyal.
Vedomosti
Russia’s nanotech deadline
What is a nano product? That’s a question Russia still has to answer. Not so in Tatarstan: They’re miles ahead with their nano-coated highway.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has given his ministries until December to find ways of promoting domestic nanotech demand. He set them this challenge after a September meeting in RusNano, say officials familiar with the documents.
Small tech: Big profits
Russia’s nano market is today worth 81 billion rubles, and should grow to 900 billion rubles by 2016. Russia’s nanotech corporation (RusNano) the federal program for nanotech infrastructure development and the presidential program for nano-industry development to 2015 are currently working on reaching that target.
But the lack of internal demand remains a problem, the Ministry of Education and Science says in a progress report on the presidential program.
Large projects, from pharmaceuticals to road construction, will stimulate demand, says a Ministry of Industry and Trade spokesman.
Their two-pronged effort is aimed at large companies, including state-owned corporations, on the one hand, but also has a real regional focus, explains Alexander Morozov, who leads RusNano’s incentive program department.
RusNano is working with the former to integrate nanotechnology across their operations. So, the switchover to light diodes to provide station and platform lighting will enable Russian Railways to save up to 90% in electricity costs, Morozov says.
As for the regions, RusNano is working to boost demand and provide technical solutions and regulations, but it is up to local authorities to ensure the necessary legislation is in place.
Programs that are in place are already bearing fruit. In Tatarstan, for example, nano-modified asphalt has been shown to extend the service life of a highway 4 or 5 times over, while also halving paving and maintenance costs, Morozov says. He is not short of examples: “Protective linings in pipelines, tanks and petrochemical vessels increase their throughput 40%,” he says.
RusNano hopes the incentives program will be ready by December, and approved by the government.
But officials in the Ministry of Education and Science believe that before demand can be boosted, the country needs clear definitions of what is, and what is not a nano-product. While that ministry drafted the criteria and even agreed them with other ministries, the draft government resolution is still awaiting consideration.
Off Target?
Others in government do not see the need for set definitions, pointing to innovative advances made by other countries where the nano-world remains largely undefined.
RusNano maintains that existing government legislation is sufficient, insisting that ramping up demand is key.
Leading Russian innovation expert Leonid Gokhberg believes that once produced, these nano-products will easily generate cross sectoral demand: from healthcare to the armed forces. He is not alone, economist Sergei Guriev agrees, suggesting that rather than focusing on demand generation, the government’s role is in standardizing production across the sector.
Gazeta.Ru
Friends or foes: what price for loyalty?
Young activists get video cameras for leading anti-fascist march in Moscow
Gazeta.ru has learned that Russia’s Federal Agency on Youth Affairs is using underhand tricks to boost numbers in their planned 30,000-strong anti-fascist rally in Moscow, due to be part of the November 4 Unity Day celebrations. Participants are found through the VKontakte social networking site, and wooed with free video cameras. The authorities deny using spam and bribery to lure in willing volunteers.
As Gazeta.Ru has discovered, potential participants in “the All Friends government organized anti-fascist demonstration” are being rallied through VKontakte, Russia’s most popular social networking site. One VKontakte user forwarded to the newspaper a message received from a “public representative of the Federal Youth Agency” promising valuable prizes such as video cameras to people who prove to be the most active youth leaders.
Everyone has their price
“Anyone bringing 30 people along will get a video camera. We will provide transport for groups over 50. We want to see young active Russians participating in the march,” writes Ilya Fadeyev, a 2008 graduate of Latvia’s Turiba Business Administration School.
His page also contains his photos as a DJ at various parties and emblems of the Latvian social network one.lv. Fadeyev has not responded to any messages. Neither does he have any proven connection with any pro-Kremlin youth group or the government agency.
The announcement on the federal agency’s website urges active young people to join the march “to demonstrate unity between different youth associations, social and religious groups in addressing social problems and checking violations of the law.”
Agency denies bribery claim
The federal agency says it expects 30,000 young people from 20 regions to participate, alongside others from small and obscure youth groups.
Alexander Pavlov, a federal agency official, said he had never heard of Ilya Fadeyev or of any VKontakte campaign. “We do not use such methods,” he said. However, he failed to provide any details of the planned march, while the colleague he suggested we talk to for further information was unavailable for comment.
Although he promised to comment on the record, at time of going to print, Pavlov had not returned our calls.
Last year’s Russian March was organized by the pro-Kremlin movement Nashi (which means “ours” or “one of us”). About 20,000 young people attended a concert by popular vocalist Zhanna Aguzarova and the Ranetki group. Between sets they were told about the lives of Joseph Brodsky and Bulat Okudzhava, poets who were referred to as “Russian in spirit if not by blood.”
One Nashi spokesperson said they were planning a similar event in the same location this year and that the official announcement would follow within two days; she denied any link to the government agency.
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MOSCOW, October 26 (RIA Novosti)
