Oh Stanislav Belkovsky…

you seriously read way too much into things.  Not that I’m criticising.  I tend to do the same thing.  I am just not sure that I agree with you.

Stanislav Belkovsky, an independent analyst, said United Russia was aware that Medvedev had planned to halt the highway project and suggested that cracks were emerging in its once-steadfast alliance to Putin.

“The decision shows that the party is responding to orders from the top powers represented by Dmitry Medvedev and not to Vladimir Putin, the party leader,” he said.

And does anyone really believe that you are “independent”?  What does that even mean?  That you’re not paid by the Kremlin?  But surely someone is paying you.

And does this go along with Frolov’s latest piece of propaganda about how “green” DAM is?  Maybe Frolov talked DAM into this decision.

P.S. The photo of Bono is awesome.

Okhta Centre: The Saga Continues

Article at Radio Free Europe on Okhta Centre.

Writing on the gazeta.ru news site, political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky suggested it had long been clear “the corncob would most likely never get built,” adding that Gazprom’s total debt “has reached $60 billion — that is, 30 corncobs.”

The energy giant, he concluded, “would have a hard time finding an extra $2 billion to build a business center. One which, if you look at it carefully and think it through, no one needs.”

Eva Vasilevskaya

I am still trying to find more information on the President’s new speech writer, but it is hard to find.  One problem is that Gazprom has been pretty good about updating their website (better than the Kremlin) ever since changing the format.  The other problem is that there just is not a lot of information out there.  I did, however, find this.  According to an article (in Russian only, sorry) in “Агентство Политических Новостей Северо-Запад” or the “Northwest Polytechnic News Agency”: Eva Vasilevskaya’s father is a man named Igor Abramovich Shadkhan.  Shadkhan is a filmmaker with close ties to Putin.  He also supports Scientology, but claims that he is not a member.

If this is true, it only makes the whole switch of Dzhkhan Pollyeva to Eva that much weirder.

I am not sure the website where I found the information is entirely credible, so please keep researching yourselves.

EDIT: At the bottom of APN’s website there is a phrase “Project of the National Strategy Institute”.  The name seemed somewhat familiar, but I could not remember why.  I googled “National Strategy Institute”, and the first website that came up was “The Other Russia”.  No, NSI is not connected to “The Other Russia”, there was an article discussing a seminar that NIS held.  I tried again, “Russian National Strategy Institute”.  This still came up with “The Other Russia”, but it also came up with a couple of Highbeam sites that named Stanislav Belkovsky as President of The National Strategy Institute.  All that to say, check your sources!

Stanislav Belkovsky

is one of the people within the Russian political system who fascinate me.  I think that most of the time he just makes stuff up, and I don’t have a ton of respect for him. But he is considered an “expert” and an “insider”, so what he says does need to be taken into consideration.   Here is a recent interview with Stanislav on Medvedev’s Gazeta article, and the response it got from the blogosphere.  Specifically, Maxim Kalashnikov’s suggestions.  The translation is rather horrid, and I cannot find the interview in Russian, but I have picked out a few things that I thought were important (editing is my own).

[Then], the president is just trying to win the sympathy of the people?

I can recall that shortly after [his] election to the presidency, Vladimir Putin met with the chief editor of “Tomorrow” by Alexander Prokhanov and chief editor of the newspaper “Soviet Russia” Valentin Chikin in the Kremlin. Although these meetings were completely devoid of content, …that was enough to make for several years to nourish hopes on Putin. The same effect, only in miniature, and achieved through dialogue with Maxim Kalashnikov.

Apparently, there was some question of why Medvedev gave the letter to Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Sobyanin rather than his own Chief of Staff, Sergei Naryshkin.  According to Belkovsky,

…do not overestimate the seriousness of this request. All this is, to some extent, [a] postmodern game, which is inherent in the political elite. Formally, Medvedev could do so because: firstly, the proposal Kalashnikov is [the] competence of the Government, not the Presidential Administration, and secondly, …Sergei Sobyanin… is Deputy Chairman of the Council for the Modernization of the President. Therefore, Medvedev had all the formal and bureaucratic reasons to refer these proposals to him. And the competition with Putin or neglect [of] Naryshkin in this case simply does not [play into it].

The final question is, naturally, about what will happen in 2012.

…I think that is a bit early to make predictions, [and] the connection with the election campaign would be far-fetched. While it is clear that the president with a term of office of four years must live permanently in the mode of election campaign. While it is clear that the election results in 2012 will depend not on the success of communication Medvedev with bloggers, [but] on the success of the state automated system of election administration, which does not let you down.

Belkovsky’s answer is a bit of a cop-out, I think, but he does make a good point here (that I, of course, agree with).  Medvedev’s blogging will have little to no impact on the election.  Just look at the numbers.  If 2/3 of Russia’s population lives in rural areas, only 1/3 (approximately) have access to the internet (and that is a liberal estimate).  Of those 1/3, how many actually use the internet?  Maybe half?  And of that 1/2 of 1/3, how many are interested enough to take the time to watch the President’s blogs, and read what he writes on-line? Half of that?  Plus, people just do not believe that they have enough power to effect change.