Your Career English Coach in Moscow

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By MATTHEW KAMINSKI

Barack Obama wants to make friends with Russia, «press the reset button» as his Veep proposed the other day.

Sounds familiar. Bill Clinton bear hugged Boris Yeltsin and George W. Bush peered into successor Vladimir Putin's soul. Yet relations haven't been this bad since Konstantin Chernenko's days at the Kremlin.

So what? America is on a roll in Eurasia. Democracy, open markets and stability spread across the region in the Clinton and Bush eras. From Estonia to Georgia to Macedonia, free people want to join the West.

At every step of the way, Russia sought to undermine this great post-Cold War project. Grant that the Kremlin acts in defense of its perceived interests but so should the U.S., and continue down this same path.

Here Foggy Bottom's finest chime in: Yes, but imagine a world with a friendly Russia, able to help us, say, stop Iran's atomic bomb program. So let's not push so hard to deploy anti-Iran missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia hates — use, if necessary, the excuse that costs and feasibility require further study. Back off on closer NATO ties for Ukraine and Georgia. Make Russia feel important and consulted. Joe Biden sketched out this sort of bargain at last weekend's Munich security conference.

The conceit is we can win the Kremlin over by modifying our behavior. Before Mr. Obama tries, he should be aware of recent history. On missile defense, American diplomats spent as much time negotiating with Russia as with the Central Europeans, offering Moscow the chance to join in. Nothing came of it. On Kosovo independence and Iran sanctions, Russia blocked the West at the U.N.

Last spring, NATO snubbed Georgia and Ukraine in a signal of good will to Mr. Putin. The day after, Mr. Putin privately told Mr. Bush that Ukraine wasn't «a real country» and belonged in the Russian fold. Five months later, Russia invaded Georgia and de facto annexed its breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Mr. Obama may be tempted to think Russia can be won over. After all, they would seem to need America (short for the West) far more than America needs Russia. We're not the enemy. Russia's real strategic challenges are in the East: China looks ravenously at the vast, mineral-rich, lightly populated Siberian steppe cut off from Moscow (to this day, you can't drive across Russia). And to the South: The arc of Islamic extremism, starting with a possibly nuclear Iran, a competitor for Caspian energy and influence.

And as Mr. Putin discovers each day his economy sinks further, Russia failed to take advantage of sky-high oil prices to diversify away from energy. It sells nothing of value to the world aside from gas, oil and second-rate weapons. Its infrastructure is decaying and its population in decline.

A Kremlin leader with a long-term view would see these grave threats to Russia's future and rush to build a close partnership with the West. But the interests of Mr. Putin and his small, thuggish, authoritarian clique don't necessarily coincide with that of Russia.

The Obama magic dust doesn't seem to work on a regime defined and legitimized by its deep dislike for America. Dmitry Medvedev, the Putin underling in the president's office, moved the state of the nation address to the day after the American election to spin the outcome for the domestic audience. The U. S., he said into the winds of pro-American sentiment sweeping across the world in the wake of the Obama win, was «selfish . . . mistaken, egotistical and sometime simply dangerous.»

The Kremlin then welcomed Mr. Obama into the White House with the administration's first serious foreign policy headache. Taking $2 billion from its fast-depleting reserves, Russia bullied and bribed Kyrgyzstan to close a U.S. military airfield, the main transport hub for supplies going into Afghanistan. Russia's desire for a «sphere of influence» trumps the threat of resurgent extreme Islamism in its southern underbelly.

The thinking here is Cold War porridge. But the Russians were never offered a new narrative. Mikhail Gorbachev's idea of a «European family» and Yeltsin's reforms foundered. Mr. Putin went back to a familiar recipe: Russia, empire-builder and scourge of the West.

A Cold War mentality lingers in America, too. A foreign policy caste rich in Sovietologists by habit overstates Russia's importance. The embassy in Moscow is huge; bilateral meetings inevitably become «summits,» like in the old days.

Mr. Obama's fresh start is a good time for a reality check. The U. S. can work with Russia, seen in its proper place. To even suggest that the Russians have a special say over the fate of a Ukraine or our alliance with the Czechs lets Mr. Putin nurture the illusion of supposed greatness, and helps him hang on to power.

Ultimately it's up to the Russians to decide to be friends. One day, someone in the Kremlin will have to confront a hard choice: Does an isolated and dysfunctional Russia want to modernize and join up with the West, look toward China, or continue its slow decline? Until then, Mr. Obama better stock up on aspirin and dampen his and our expectations about Russia.

Mr. Kaminski is a member of the Journal's editorial board.

Metamorphosis / Prevrashcheniye (2002)
========================================
Director: Valeri Fokin
Writers: Valeri Fokin (writer) | Franz Kafka (novel)
Genre: Drama | Arthouse
Awards: 1 nomination
========================================
Runtime: 85 min
Country: Russia
Language: Russian
Color: Color
========================================
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328279
========================================
Synopsis: Acclaimed Russian theater director Valeri
Fokin offers a unique take on one of Kakfa's greatest
short stories. Yevgeni Mironov stars as Gregor Samsa,
the mild-mannered clerk who awakens to find himself
transformed into a giant insect. Without the aid of special
effects or outlandish makeup and costuming, Fokin
succeeds in constructing a compelling and plausible
transformation thanks in large part to a strong performance
from Mironov. Fokin's sensitivity to the story's exploration
of class tensions in early 1900s Prague is just as telling
in the post-Soviet Russian era.
========================================
Audio: Russian
Subtitles: English / Portuguese / Czech / Hungarian / Serbian / Spanish

========================================

download avi in russian with english subtitles

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MOSCOW — Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia has become so controlling that political and economic liberalization may be an essential part of engineering an economic recovery here, a close aide to President Dmitri A. Medvedev said Monday.

In one of the baldest admissions to date of Russia’s deepening economic woes, Igor Y. Yurgens, the director of the Institute of Contemporary Development and a close aide to Mr. Medvedev, said Russia could no longer blame Western bank failures for the economic crisis here, as authorities had done last fall.

Instead, he said the unspoken bargain of recent Russian politics — economic stability at the price of a rollback in political freedoms — might be unwinding.

“The social contract consisted of limiting of civil rights in exchange for economic well-being,” Mr. Yurgens said Monday as he presented a report on Russia’s response to the global economic downturn. “At the current moment, economic well-being is shrinking. Correspondingly, civil rights should expand. It’s just simple logic.”

Last week, Fitch Ratings downgraded Russia’s sovereign rating to just two notches above junk status, citing low commodity prices, capital flight and the quick depletion of reserves.

Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s prime minister, apparently in response to the Fitch decision, told a cabinet meeting Monday that rating agencies working in Russia should be required to obtain a license.

He lamented “a total dependence by Russian businesses on international rating agencies” and said Russia should create its own such agencies “better equipped to study the specifics of the Russian markets.”

It was unclear whether Mr. Yurgens’s comments reflected the thinking of Mr. Putin or Mr. Medvedev, or a divergence between the two. By his position, Mr. Medvedev ostensibly has more power, but he and Mr. Putin are seen as ruling the country together, and it is not clear who has more power.

Mr. Yurgens is known as an economic liberal.

Mr. Yurgens’s sobering report about Russia’s outlook said it would be compelled to grant greater private property rights, decrease its reliance on natural resource exports and overhaul its ailing banking system.

The surprising remarks demonstrated how much Russia’s deteriorating economic situation — including its dwindling reserves — has forced a re-examination of the current leadership’s policies.

Russia’s economy has been marked by ever-tighter government controls, particularly in the energy sector, as profits soared during the boom years of oil and natural gas. But the global downturn and the burden of the government’s response on its resources appear to have compelled at least some policy makers to reconsider.

This is because Russia must largely help itself. With an abrasive foreign policy and checkered credit history, Russia has little chance of borrowing the money it would need from foreign banks to run a budget deficit to coast through the downturn. That deprives it of money for classic pump-priming activities like infrastructure development, or helping corporations roll over debt. It could simply print more, but that would drive the ruble even lower and spur inflation. So it must rely on its reserves, which are already one-third depleted.

Export revenue is expected to fall by nearly half compared to last year, the stock market has tumbled nearly 80 percent from its peak and unemployment has risen 3 percent since last summer. The ruble has fallen to 36,1 to the dollar, from 23,4 last summer. It is at its trading barrier and the central bank is holding it there.

The government’s twin policies of trying to support the ruble as well as Russia’s embattled private companies may have fed a vicious cycle that actually drove the currency lower.

Economists and policy makers say there is a growing awareness that Russian banks and businesses used much of last fall’s billions of dollars in government bailout money to speculate against the ruble — making the cost of the bailout even more expensive to the government. As a result, Russia’s reserves have been run down far faster than anyone expected.

Initially, as the financial crisis mounted last fall, Russian authorities responded with something like a shrug. After all, the country was awash in oil profits and it had the world’s third-largest gold and foreign currency reserves, behind Japan and China. Confident it had the resources to weather any downturn, the government pumped cash into a long list of businesses and banks and into a losing battle to prop up the ruble.

Russian authorities “were still of the mindset that they had more money than God,” Rory MacFarquhar, an economist with Goldman Sachsin Moscow, said in a telephone interview.

Now there are growing indications that the Kremlin understands it cannot afford to both bail out companies and support the ruble; and conflict inside the leadership seems to have emerged on the issue.

After supporting the ruble furiously, and losing more than a third of its $597,5 billion in reserves, the central bank backed away from a policy of controlled, gradual devaluation and said on Jan. 22 that it would allow the ruble to fall freely up to 10 percent. But the bank then pledged to defend it indefinitely at that level.

Last week the government’s point man on the economic crisis, the deputy prime minister Igor I. Shuvalov, seemed to underline that policy. He told an economic forum in Moscow that the government would withhold support from industry and cut the budget, allowing Russia to husband reserves to support the ruble.

But whether Mr. Putin’s government would really cut off loyal oligarchs and politically important but failing industries seemed uncertain.

For instance, on Thursday, just a day after Mr. Shuvalov spoke, a Kremlin aide, Arkady V. Dvorkovich, told the same conference that the budget would not be cut, and that the government would continue to play an “active role” in stimulating the economy.

On Monday, Mr. Yurgens again said the government would scale back the loans for oligarchs backed by shares in their companies that had initially characterized Russia’s response to the economic crisis.

“Ballooning state involvement in the economy, the propping up of ineffective businesses and the atrophy of market institutions,” he said, “present major risks both now and in the future.”

«Миллионер из трущоб» - фаворит «Оскара» добрался до России

Опубликовано : 2009—01-26 08:38:43

Джамал Малик, 18-летний сирота из трущоб в Мумбаи, всего в одном шаге от победы в телеигре «Кто хочет стать миллионером?» и выигрыша 20 миллионов рупий. Прервав игру, его арестовывает полиция по подозрению в мошенничестве…

«Миллионер из трущоб» - один из лучших фильмов года, если верить западной прессе. Четыре «Золотых глобуса» в четырех номинациях, 10 номинаций на «Оскар», весьма впечатляющие сборы в при скудном бюджете, восторги критиков – у режиссера Дэнни Бойла («На игле», «28 дней спустя») еще не было более удачной картины. Учитывая, что почти весь фильм снят в Индии и с индийскими актерами, это можно так считать успехом Болливуда планетарного масштаба.

И кстати, в России фильм прокатывает компания «Вольга». Для дистрибьютора это первый релиз и энтузиазм дебютанта налицо — за ведущего шоу «Кто хочет стать миллионером?» говорит Дмитрий Дибров, который ведет российскую версию этой программы.

О сюжете: Джамал Малик, 18-летний сирота из трущоб в Мумбаи, всего в одном шаге от победы в телеигре «Кто хочет стать миллионером?» и выигрыша 20 миллионов рупий. Прервав игру, его арестовывает полиция по подозрению в мошенничестве. Откуда юнец, выросший на улице, может знать так много?

На допросе в полиции Джамал рассказывает печальную историю своей жизни: о пережитых приключения вместе с братом, о стычках с местными бандами, о своей трагической любви. Каждая глава личной истории удивительным образом дала ему ответы на вопросы телевикторины.

Когда игру возобновят, инспектору полиции и шестидесяти миллионам зрителей захочется выяснить ответ только на один вопрос: зачем этот юноша, без явного стремления к богатству, решил принять участие в телепрограмме?

Режиссер: Дэнни Бойл
Сценарий: Саймон Бофой
В ролях: Дев Патель, Анил Капур, Саурабх Шукла
Фильм выходит: 12 февраля

Why Nurture Russia's Illusions?

Excessive deference only strengthens Putin's hand.

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By MATTHEW KAMINSKI

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«Миллионер из трущоб» - фаворит «Оскара» добрался до России