It seems as though blogs all over the world are using the last few days of 2007 to do a recap of the year.  And who am I to go against the trend? 

It’s certainly been a fun year - the sheer amount of interest in Russia inspired me back in December 2006 to resurrect this blog from its year long slumber. 

Since December 2006, I’ve published hundreds of new posts, received probably a thousand or more comments on Siberian Light, more than 125,000 people visitors to Siberian Light and, best of all, rekindled many friendships and made many more new ones.

So, here are a few of my favourite posts from the past year, starting way back in January 2007…

January

The first full month since relaunching was spent getting Siberian Light back on its feet.  Lots of small posts were the order of the month, interspersed with the odd longer piece, including this photo-report of the London Russian Winter Festival. 

January was overshadowed, however, by sad news of Aussiegirl’s untimely death.

February

Things really kicked off in February with the launch of the Siberian Light interview series.  First up was my interview of La Russophobe - an interview that proved so controversial that I had to write a follow up post three days later to explain myself!

More people visited Siberian Light in February 2007 than ever before (or since) thanks to this simple map showing Russia surrounded by US military bases.  The post hit the front page of Digg, a social networking site, causing a massive influx of visitors - more than 20,000 in just one day alone.  At one stage SL was receiving more than 3,500 visitors every hour…

March

A month of consolidation.  The interviews series continued, and we heard the views of Mike Averko, Copydude, Sean Guillory and Nathan Hamm.

Perhaps the biggest feature of this period was the level of discussion in the comments sections of individual posts - this discussion about rival protests in Kiev is just one example of many.

April

In fact, discussion in the comments became so heated, I had to write a comments policy…

And when we got bored of fighting, we tried to discover what was under the blurry bits on Goggle maps of Siberia.

May

Siberian Light was nominated in the Best CIS weblog category of the 3rd annual European Weblog awards.  Fifth place was about right for a blog that had just returned from a year long break - Central Asian blog New Eurasia was the contest’s deserved winner.

Meanwhile, in honour of Russia’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest, I published an article collecting every Russian Eurovision video ever released.

June

The wit and wisdom of Vladimir Putin captured my attention in June, as I compiled a list of Vladimir Putin quotes to live your life by.

Also in June, Siberian Light mourned the death of Mosnews and peered into the crystal ball to ponder just how Russia might self-destruct.

July

Henry Kissinger visited the Kremlin for secret talks with Putin - and almost nobody in the West noticed.  Siberian Light did.

We also noticed the high heeled sprint in St Petersburg.

And that Baltika beer was for sale in England.

August

The 1,000th post was published on Siberian Light, completely overshadowing the publication of pictures of Vladimir Putin fishing.

September

I moved house and my internet connection broke.  Nuff said.

October

As well as warning you of new Russian visa regulations, Siberian Light considered whether pictures of kissing policemen would bring shame on Russia. 

Oh, and Russia beat England at football.  No cheating required.

November

Siberian Light was one of the first English language news outlets (blogs or mainstream media) to cover the Gravikol 21 story - Russian bloggers, incensed by a pharmaceutical scam targetting pensioners, hit back in style, bringing the offending company to its knees with 21 million (!) telephone calls.

Mike Averko popped in to review The New Cold War - Mark MacKinnon’s new book.

And we introduced you to Russia’s answer to Borat - Peter Natlitch’s Guitar video.

December

Election and succession fever hit in December.  United Russia comfortably won the elections, and all became clear about who would be Russia’s next President (Medvedev) and who would be Russia’s next Prime Minister (Putin, of course).

Oh, and incidentally, in the space of a few days, Putin became Time Magazine Person of the Year AND the world’s fourth richest person.

What now for 2008?

Watch this space…

I thought I’d share some of my favourite blog posts about Russia from the last few weeks.

Easily my favourite post of the month has to be Tim’s account of his trip to Moscow - mainly because of this gem:

McDonalds is so highly thought of in Sakhalin that a few people we know there asked us to bring back a few McDonalds meals for them. At first I thought they were joking, but it turned out they genuinely wanted us to stick a load of McDonalds in the overhead locker for nine hours so they could reheat it and eat it on arrival. Madness.

Lyndon reports on Putin as Russia’s Chief Teddy Bear:

Speechlessness - or a brief, shocked (resigned?) obscenity - has been the response of many Russians and Russia-watchers to the latest brick in the pro-Kremlin wall.

The good news? “Restless Bears Have Found a Job for Putin,” reports Moskovsky Komsomolets. The bad - or at least profoundly questionable - news? Those “bears” are children aged 8 to 15, who will now have the chance to be involved in a nationwide movement called “Teddy Bears” (”Mishki”). The new organization has been rolled out in the midst of a circus-like frenzy of pro-Putin demonstrations in Moscow.

Mark MacKinnon uses a tale of two Prime Ministers to compare and contrast democracy in Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine comes out on top:

It’s fitting that Yulia Tymoshenko should finally become prime minister of Ukraine one day after Vladimir Putin declared he would be Russia’s prime minister under a President Dmitry Medvedev.

For all Ukraine’s instability, Tymoshenko’s dramatic return to power - establishing herself as a third power centre beyond both President Yushchenko and his rival Viktor Yanukovich - shows how vibrant and pluralistic Ukraine’s political scene now is. Yes, all of the main parties are tinged with corruption and are too close to big business, but Tymoshenko’s election victory two months ago stands as proof that no politician can rule Ukraine without the consent of the people.

None of the above can be said about Russia.

Mike Averko talks Russian ice-hockey:

At present, the Russian Super League (RSL) is considered by many to be the second best ice hockey league after the NHL. The improved Russian economy has allowed RSL teams to acquire NHL caliber players. Non-Russians are among the stars in the RSL. Russia’s second best ice hockey league is known as the High League (it has also been referred to as the Premier League). It includes teams from Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

Finally, head over to the Accidental Russophile, where you too can learn how to make a paper cut out Putin figure, to adorn your desk…

Bonus - the link I found just after I published this post: Head over to MMD blog, for the MMD consultancy’s Russia in 2007, Outlook for 2008 - “a 360-degree overview of Russia as it closes the end of year 2007 and is about to enter year 2008.” It’s a hundred pages long, so bound to keep you busy over the Christmas period.

Another last minute bonus: Sean traces the history of Putinism.

What can be made of this journey of Putinism from a mantra for a strong Russian, anti-corruption state, to a inherent contradiction of the free flow of capital, to a symbol of an anti-democratic, nationalist, and imperialistic system run by a cabal of chekisty, to finally end up nothing more than a postmodernized Stalinism?

Interestingly, the only time the word ‘Putinism’ appears on Siberian Light is during an interview with Sean…

If you believe the rumours, Vladimir Putin has accumulated a personal fortune worth $40 billion dollars during his seven and a half years as President of Russia.

That would comfortably make Putin Russia’s richest man. And Europe’s richest man. In fact, if Putin really is worth $40 billion, he would be the fourth richest man in the world.

The allegations of Putin’s vast wealth come from Stanislav Belkovsky, described as a Russian political analyst by the Guardian. In an interview with them he claimed that Putin was worth:

“At least $40bn. Maximum we cannot know. I suspect there are some businesses I know nothing about…. It may be more. It may be much more.

Putin’s name doesn’t appear on any shareholders’ register, of course. There is a non-transparent scheme of successive ownership of offshore companies and funds. The final point is in Zug [in Switzerland] and Liechtenstein. Vladimir Putin should be the beneficiary owner.”

Belkovsky goes into more detail in the Telegraph, who report that:

According to Mr Belkovsky, Mr Putin controls a 37 per cent stake in Surgutneftegaz, an oil exploration company, as well as 4.5 per cent of Gazprom, the state energy giant, and at least 50 per cent of Gunvor, a Swiss-based oil trading company that has won a series of state contracts.

Not bad for seven years work.

Only one minor detail - Belkovsky doesn’t appear to have given any evidence whatsoever to back up his claims. Which makes it all the more surprising that, since they first surfaced in a book he published last year, his claims have been picked up by Die Welt, the Washington Post and the Guardian - and now are whizzing around the global media as semi-fact.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin hadn’t provided generously for his retirement and had a few hundred million, perhaps even a billion or two tucked away somewhere for a rainy day.

But $40 billion??

Come on. How on earth does the leader of Europe’s biggest country, in one of the most high profile presidencies in the world, manage to become the world’s fourth richest man with absolutely nobody noticing? Not even Forbes…

Yabloko and SPS performed so poorly in the recent Duma elections that both are in danger of extinction.

Finacial meltdown

Yabloko garnered just 1.59% of the popular vote in December’s Duma elections and the Union of Right Forces (SPS) received a mere 0.94%, which effectively renders both parties as non-entities on the national political scene. Not only did they both fail to gain the 7% of votes needed to secure a place in the Duma, they failed to even reach the 3% required to qualify for free airtime in the run-up to the election. As a result, they’ll have to pay for the airtime they used - approximately $8 million apiece.

As a result, both parties are heavily in debt. No-one in Yabloko HQ will reveal the exact figures, but senior Yabloko member Alexei Melnikov has indicated that the party’s debt currently stands at 5 times its current annual budget of $1.8 million. SPS meanwhile are reported to be more than $8 million in debt.

Of the two, perhaps SPS is in the stronger position to come out fighting - their links to Russian business will be a great help when it comes to fund-raising - but the future looks bleak for both parties, and I wonder how they can possibly survive another electoral beating of this magnitude.

Internal party politics

Both parties are clearly agonising over their defeats, but it is far from clear that anything much will actually change.

Nikita Belykh had the good grace to resign as leader of the Union of Right Forces (SPS). He cited the party’s poor performance at the polls - SPS gained just 0.94% of the vote - and his own strategic blunder of not taking a tough stance against the Kremlin until it was too late.

Unfortunately, perhaps, for the concept of personal accountability, he was re-elected at the SPS Party Congress yesterday.

The Party Congress also decided to nominate the party’s co-founder Boris Nemtsov as their candidate for the upcoming Presidential election, demonstrating pretty conclusively that not much is actually going to change at the top for the next few months at least.

At Yabloko, meanwhile, things look more interesting - even if not particularly sensible. Rumours are circulating that Grigory Yavlinsky their long-time leader, may be facing a challenge.

Underlining this was the party’s decision to back Vladimir Bukovsky as their Presidential candidate. Although perhaps positive in that it shows some diversity, I can’t help but think that a party that chooses a man who lives in London as its Presidential candidate is on the fast track to political self destruction.

Unification - the only option left?

There has been plenty of talk in the past few years about a merger between Yabloko and SPS, to shore up their decaying futures. But, for the most part, such talk has been of the hopeful pie in the sky variety.

There are some proud personalities involved in Russia’s liberal politics, and everyone fears that they would lose their own identity in a merger. Even today, Boris Nemtsov of SPS is completely opposed to the idea of a merger with Yabloko:

“Unification on the basis of Yabloko is no unification at all,” Nemtsov said, dismissing the prospect of joining up with the party as “complete nonsense.”

If he, and Yabloko, want to carry on along their current path, well, that’s fine I suppose. But they should walk in the full knowledge that the path they are on heads straight to the nearest cemetery.

If Russia’s liberals want to have an impact on national politics, they absolutely have to muster enough votes to get into the Duma. Neither SPS nor Yabloko, as has been demonstrated clearly this December, have a cat in hell’s chance of doing it alone.

Leonty Byzov, head of the analytical section of state polling agency VTsIOM, along with other analysts, estimates that around 10-12% of Russia’s voters are ‘liberal,’ so there’s a pretty sizeable chunk of the electorate out there up for grabs - certainly enough to get a liberal party into the Duma.

If Yabloko and SPS, and the other smaller liberal parties can’t find it within themselves to gather up their courage and merge into one united liberal party, they will never pull in enough votes to cover their operating costs, let alone become nationally significant.

For Yabloko or SPS, it really is time to unify or die.

Time Magazine has selected Russian President Vladimir Putin as its person of the year.

Putin is going to be a controversial choice but, on reflection, I think they may well have gone for the right man. Love him or hate him, he’s had a massive impact on the world, and perhaps done more to shape the democracy debate (albiet negatively) than any man this year.

Lets be clear - Putin doesn’t stand for democracy. Instead, he stands for stability. If he can achieve stability through democractic means, then so much the better. But if Putin thinks that democracy stands in the way of Russia’s stability, then he would crush it in the blink of an eye.

By dragging Russia kicking and screaming from the post-Soviet anarchy of the Yeltsin era, Putin has single handedly made ‘managed democracy’ a semi-respectable form of government. His success will encourage others to believe that, provided they secure stability and steady economic development for their people, they can rule indefinitely.

Whether this is a positive, or a negative development, I’ll leave you to decide. After all, you were last year’s Time Magazine Person of the Year…

Much as expected, Vladimir Putin has generously offered to serve as Dmitry Medvedev’s Prime Minister.

Assuming, of course, that Medvedev is elected as President… there’s the not so tricky matter of a Presidential election to negotiate first.

“If the citizens of Russia show trust in Dmitry Medvedev and elect him the new president, I would be ready to continue our joint work as prime minister, without changing the distribution of authority,” said Putin.

Medvedev, as is to be expected, followed Putin’s announcement with a bit of well timed sucking up to his future lackey:

“The full implementation of this strategy is possible only together with its author, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin… I don’t have the slightest doubt that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, in the future, will keep using his enormous political and professional resources, his influence both in our society and in the world, for the benefit of Russia and its citizens.”

Well, at least we can stop speculating - Putin will be Prime Minister, while Medvedev sits in the Kremlin as his puppet President.

Unless, of course, we’re wrong…

Kasparov, the former World Chess Champion, says he was forced into his decision because Other Russia were not able to find a venue to occupy 500 supporters in an initiative group meeting - a requirement of Russian electoral law.

Announcing his decision to withdraw from the race, Kasparov told reporters:

“In all Moscow we have not been able to find a hall where our supporters could meet. We pay and the people agree. There are no problems.

And then they call us to say they are refusing, can’t give us the hall anymore.”

Other Russia have had problems securing venues before, as hotels and conference centres would take their bookings then pull out at the last minute. The venues always seem to blame technical reasons, but it’s hard to credit that so many technical problems would affect every venue approached by Other Russia. Instead, venues clearly believe that hosting an Other Russia conference would not be good for their business in the long term. And who can blame them.

The real reason behind Kasparov’s decision to pull out of the race, I suspect, is that he had almost no chance of securing the 2 million signatures needed to endorse his candidacy - and failing in this effort would have been political suicide. Far better for Other Russia to hold their horses, continue sniping from the sidelines and, perhaps, have another stab at electoral politics in four years time. Perhaps by then, Putin’s power will be on the wane, and there will be a real opportunity for a non-establishment challenge.

Still, I’m a little disappointed that Kasparov used this as an excuse to withdraw. I would have expected a little creativity, to be honest. Perhaps Kasparov could have arranged a meeting of 500 activists during a demonstration. Sure, it may not have satisfied the electoral commission, but it would have made for some great tv footage, as Russian police broke up the meeting.

As it stands, Russia’s democratic hopes will once again be represented in a Presidential election by Gennady Zyuganov, a Communist…

Medvedev was nominated by United Russia and endorsed by Vladimir Putin - an endorsement so powerful that now all he has to do to win the Presidential election next March is stay alive.

Medvedev has no real power base in the Kremlin beyond Putin - a native of St Peteresburg, he has no strong ties to any Russian siloviki group, and no KGB background to fall back on. Putin’s chief of staff, and the architect of his 2000 election victory, Medvedev is a phenomenally competent adminstrator - combined with his largely liberal and less hawkish views towards the West, he seems the ideal candidate to become a puppet President to Putin’s Prime Minister, allowing Putin to get on with the job of ruling Russia, while Medvedev charms the West.

I’m beginning to wonder (and I don’t think I’m alone), though, whether Medvedev could actually be the real deal - that is, a President who actually leads Russia, as Putin slips gently into an early semi-retirement.

Medvedev’s loyalty to Putin means that he is unlikely to turn on his former boss. And, rather like Putin back in 2000, Medvedev is the man nobody can conceive of as being President - no power base, stuck in the middle of warring clans. The perfect man to hold everything together…

And, as Chrisus Maximus notes over at Sean’s, pretty much everyone thought Yeltsin’s retirement was a sham at first:

“But by all accounts, Putin may be leaving the Presidency, but there has never be any indication that he will leave Russian politics.”

Isn’t this what they said about Yeltsin?

Really, given the immense powers of the presidency, can the president be anyone’s puppet? They said VVP was BAB’s kukla.

But, really, the only thing I know for sure is that Kremlin watchers aren’t going out of business any time soon. Which, as a Kremlin watcher, cheers me immensely.

I love this graphic from German magazine Spiegel Online, which perfectly sums up how the world saw Russia’s election.

No respect at all for United Russia as a legitimate party - all they are is the Putin party.

(Hat tip: Herr Shedd).

LiveJournal, the most popular blog platform in Russia has sold to a Russian company for $30 million.

Although LiveJournal is a global brand, almost 30% of its users are based in Russia, which made it a natural choice for SUP - particularly as Six Apart had already given SUP a licence to operate LiveJournal blogs in Russia anyway. And $30 million sounds like a steal to me.

Edward Shenderovich, Head of Strategic Development at SUP explained the logic behind SUP’s decision to buy out Six Apart.

We believe it’s a good business. In the world now dominated by social networks, the role of a “community platform” holds a very special place. We have some ideas about new functionality, new partnerships, and some interesting monetization opportunities. We are very excited about the progress we had made in Russia in the last 6 months and look forward to replicate some of our success worldwide.

Six Apart’s decision to license LiveJournal’s Russian operations to a Russian company led to predictable howls of outrage among a blogger community fearful that censorship would soon be imposed on Russia’s outspoken political bloggers. It’s interesting to see that similar sentiments are beginning to be expressed by US-based bloggers with LiveJournal accounts. (Criticism of the deal is in the comments, not the post itself).

Spotted in the Guardian this morning, possibly the most bonkers suggestion ever as to how Putin could stay at the top of the Russian power tree:

Another scenario involves a foreign policy crisis, such as a US airstrike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Under this scenario, Putin holds and wins an emergency referendum and keeps going.

Even 24 wouldn’t go with a plotline this absurd.

Much as everyone expected, Putin’s United Russia party won a massive victory in yesterdays’ Russian elections. As I write, 97.8 % of the votes have been counted, and 64.1% of these went to United Russia.

Other parties passing the seven percent threshold and guaranteeing themselves seats in the next Duma were the Communists (11.6%), Mad Vlad Zhirinovsky’s LDPR (8.2%) and Fair Russia (7.8%)

No real surprises, but a couple of quick points worth noting.

First, United Russia failed to reach the supermajority (66%) they would need to amend the constitution alone. True, Fair Russia and the LDPR are allies of United Russia, and almost certain to vote with Putin’s party and give him control of almost 90% of the Duma’s seats, but the near miss will surely rankle with the top brass in the Kremlin. Particlarly after so much effort was spent in ‘persuading’ people to vote for the right party.

(Update: It looks as though my maths was a little wonky and United Russia will actually have a super-majority. The red face here belongs to me, rather than anyone at UR).

Second, the pollsters who predicted that the next Duma would be made up of just two parties - United Russia and the Communists - were proved wrong. Instead, four parties will be represented in the Duma. Perhaps someone in the Kremlin really was worried that Putin would look too much like a dictator…

Image from Russia Today

Kermit the Frog, king of the free muppets, visits the Kremlin for some fruity negotiating with a Russian pig.

Browsing the web today I came upon this interview in the International Herald Tribune with ‘Tim’ the creator of the English Russia blog.

“Just imagine how many unknown stories and photos are hidden in Chinese Web sites and available only to a Chinese audience,” he wrote in an e-mail. “So we decided to start from the country we know, or, to be exact, Russia and the countries comprising the former Soviet Union.”

Tim refused to give his full name, saying by telephone that, as a serious Web designer, he did not want his name associated with the site.

There are some fascinating stats in the article. I’m green with envy at the level of traffic English Russia receives - approximately 200,000 visitors per day and, back in August this year, English Russia was the 155th most popular blog in the world, according to Technorati’s ranking. As I write this, the ranking has fallen slightly to a not at all unimpressive 242nd!

The common complaint about English Russia resurfaces - there’s nothing new on it:

“There’s nothing original,” said Mikhail Chekanov of Rambler Media, owner of the Russian search engine Rambler.ru. Chekanov said the site just picks up items from other Russian Web sites.

Interestingly, the article shied away from directly addressing copyright issues.

But the model seems to be working well enough for Tim - English Russia has earnt enough over the last year or so for him to hire his first full time employee, who spends most of his time scouring Russian websites for interesting things to post.