A Month after the Election

Looking back at my last blog post, I realized once again that I am still more American than Russian - you'd be hard pressed to find a Russian with such a naive sense of optimism...rather, it is possible to find such people, but they tend to be pitied, rather than taken seriously.

Source: polittech.org

At any rate, the results of the presidential elections corresponded to what the polls had predicted - Vladimir Putin gained victory in the first round. Also as many had predicted, there were signs of a degree of election fraud. To be fair, though, it was clear that the voting process itself (if not the campaign period) was a significant improvement over previous years; it is also obvious that Mr. Putin would have won in the first round even if all the allegations of wrong-doing at the polls were confirmed.


What does this mean for the country? Russia is not a terribly predictable, so it is a bit hard to say. It is generally acknowledged that Mr. Putin's reputation has taken a hit in the last year, and many Russians have begun to show and be active in political processes. Although I may again be showing my naivete, I believe that this means that the government is likely to be more responsive to calls for reform; the government's steps in the direction of more direct democracy (easing of rules for registering political parts and especially re-establishing the election of state governors) give me reason to hope. 

Two Days Before the Election

Limited internet access these days has been part of what has been slowing down the pace of my blogging. But I'm compelled by the upcoming presidential election (March 4) to share a few thoughts as the day approaches when the country will choose its leader for the next 6 years.

Media reports and anecdotal evidence seem to point to one, inevitable conclusion - Vladimir Putin will be elected president. Putting aside questions about the election's fairness (the government has taken a number of positive steps to secure a more transparent process than in the Duma elections in December), the majority of Russians feel like he Mr. Putin is the best choice. Many are also quite afraid of a revolution; they point to their own history in the 20th century and their neighbors' more recent history to show that revolutions tend to change the people in the leadership, but do little to get rid of authoritarian structures. The graffiti image below illustrates what most people are hoping and expecting from Mr. Putin's leadership. Yet, I thought that it might be appropriate to include here not just the graffiti itself, but the area surrounding it. The picture says a lot about modern Russia: Mr. Putin is in the foreground, while in the background there are signs both of society's economic development and of defensiveness and stagnation.

As regards to my own thoughts, I would say that, given the current situation, I also hope that Mr. Putin wins...but in the second round. In order for any candidate to win outright, they need to gain more than 50% of the vote. I feel like it would be really good for Russian society if the opposition candidates (4 of them) together where able to get more than half of the vote. Three of these candidates are political old-timers who have not been able to reach out and gain many new supporters; the fourth is Mikhail Prokhorov. He is certainly the most interesting candidate in the election, but his business-friendly approach, his enormous wealth, and his lack of political experience hinder him. When faced with a choice between any of those four  and Mr. Putin, the country will clearly choose their former leader....but if they have to vote a second time, it will feel like they really had a choice, and that ordinary citizens really can impact political practices. If people gain this confidence, this would be an important step to minimizing the corruption that so seriously affects society.

One piece of evidence that society has already benefited through the protests that have occurred - people are (more frequently, though not always) actually able to exercise the freedom of assembly that is promised to them in the Russian constitution. In years past city governments would go to extremes to be sure that protesters felt threatened and intimidated; in the February protest (pictured below) I saw that the police were few in number and did not bother the protesters at all.

There will be protests, too, after the presidential election. Those who go out in to the streets will be right to want to voice their opinion and to continue to criticize the electoral system. I deeply hope that these concerns are heard and heeded by the government. At the same time, I share the hope of the people of my congregation that the country can avoid a revolution. 

The Last of the Siberians

Since arriving in Novosibirsk, I've been interested in trying to learn a bit about the native inhabitants of this place. After all, Novosibirsk is just over one hundred years old, and it wasn't much earlier than that the Russians began moving to the area in large numbers. Who lived here before and where did they go?

I still have much to learn in this area, but I thought that I'd share with you what I found out so far. One of the surprising things I've found out is that there is little evidence that west-central part of Siberia was ever densely inhabited. In fact, when it was inhabited at all, it appears that no one group dominated for long. It is very hard, then, to determine who the “native peoples” are. As the historian Vladimir Usupov put it, “the majority of the peoples of Siberia are just as much new-comers [to the area] as Russians are.” “Now that there are fewer and fewer [Slavs] here, it is possible that new peoples will come in their place,” continues Usupov.

While the histories of the peoples of neighboring Altay and Krasnoyarsky Krai are relatively well known and point to well-developed civilizations with a degree of continuity and stability, the Novosibirsk area was, apparently, less attractive for long-term settlement.

 

There are still arguments about who first settled the territory of the Novosibirsk oblast (state). It is known that the mysterious Pumpokol people lived here at one time, but that they assimilated into other groups by the 18th century. Three groups are currently considered native peoples in the area - teleuts (known by early Russian settlers as the “white kalmykians,” they were the upper crust of society and shared many customs similar to Europeans), and two tatar groups - Orskiy Chaty и Baraba tatars.

In the last census (2010) 14 people in the Novosibirsk oblast identified themselves as teleuts; linguists say that there are about 8000 baraba tatars and 100 orskiy chaty in the region, though no one identified themselves that way in the last census. Some members of these groups were able to maintain their traditional ways of life (gathering and fishing), but most are apparently merging with a larger ethnic group, their relatives, the Kazan Tatars.

The importance of these peoples is felt in everyday life here through geographic names, e.g., the river “Inya,” which means “mother;" the river Chik - “edge; Yurt-Akbalyk - “house of the white fish.” The origin of the name of Novosibirsk's main river, the Ob, is still a mystery – it means either “snow drift” in Samoyedic (a language from the Urals) or “water” in Farsi (Iran's language).

This last example shows the large degree of moment among people in Siberia throughout the centuries...and this makes a lot of sense, given the fact that western Siberia was right along the path of the Mongols as they swept through northern Asia and into eastern Europe.  

(material in part from the Novosibirsk news site ngs.ru. “The Last Siberians”)