Reuters reports (hat tip: TakeYourCross):

Carrying bags of stolen groceries, Oleg Vorotnikov takes out the batteries of his mobile phone before entering the secret headquarters of his underground art collective on the outskirts of Moscow.

"This is to prevent the cops from listening in," said Vorotnikov, a 29-year-old art graduate, who with other politically conscious artists co-founded the Voina, or War, collective in 2007. "Once a drunk artist introduced us to bystanders as 'Russia's main radical group' -- that's when I understood that we have to do something together," Vorotnikov said.

In a country where traditional opposition to the government has been dulled by public apathy and a diet of pro-Kremlin television news, these artists take a different approach: they poke fun at the establishment, and the more absurd the better. They hunch over laptops in their headquarters -- a garage -- editing video of their latest piece of guerrilla street theater: an impromptu tea party in a police station. For the lack of chairs they sit on chests of drawers and a TV set. Cameras, camcorders and books of poetry are scattered over the floor.

"We always do things that violate rules. We combine art and politics to achieve something new," said Kotyonok, a slightly built young woman who teaches physics at a Moscow university and who only gave her nickname, which means kitten. "People watch us and are simply shocked."

Voina became a household name in the Russian blogger scene with a stunt intended as a wry commentary on the handover of power -- decried by opponents as undemocratic -- from former President Vladimir Putin to his successor, Dmitry Medvedev. A day before the presidential election that Medvedev won by a landslide, five couples, including one heavily pregnant woman who gave birth four days later, secretly undressed in Moscow's Biological Museum. With video cameras rolling, they had sex in front of a banner calling for copulation in support of "the bear cub-successor" - a pun on Medvedev's family name, which is derived from the Russian word for bear.

EVICTED

Blogs carrying photos and videos of the event shot to number one in Russian Internet rankings within 24 hours. Some users called the participants "freaks," "sh--eaters" or "animals." One blogger suggested they should be shot. When the mother of the pregnant woman saw her having sex on television, she threw her out of home. Voina said they had to leave their old headquarters under pressure from the authorities but few members have yet to face the full weight of the law for their activities.

The group is most vulnerable to the catch-all "hooliganism" charge that could lead to a short prison term, but only one member is currently facing prosecution for throwing cats during one performance. Voina's actionist art draws on Moscow Conceptualism, a movement that started in the 1970 with performances subverting socialist ideology. Given the repressive nature of the Soviet state, these happenings had to take place secretly.

Only when state control over the arts receded during Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika reforms in the 1980s could artists take their events into the public sphere. In April 1991 members of a group around Anatoly Osmolovsky, a Russian artist, art theorist and curator, lay down on Red Square forming the word "khui," Russian for cock, with their naked bodies. Voina members describe the happening as inspiring but add that it would be impossible today in an "authoritarian Russia" where, nevertheless, they have earned the respect of some in the mainstream art scene.

"In the '90s art fell under the influence of a society that was becoming more and more bourgeois: artists happily turned into conformists," said Andrei Yerofeyev, who until last month was head of modern art procurement at the state-run Tretyakov Gallery. "Only in the last year a strain of protest art reappeared, one that takes a critical line, reflects, takes a step back and sometimes cynically, sometimes comically, describes what is going on in our society."

Back in the Voina headquarters the activists scramble around a laptop computer trying to improve the sound of their latest video to make it fit for Internet publication. Shaky images, filmed with a hidden camera the day before Medvedev's inauguration, show the artists dishing out cream cakes and tea in a police station. Watched by a stunned officer, they pin Medvedev's portrait to a wall. "We invite you to celebrate with us the inauguration of the new president," one activist can be heard saying. Attempting to remove the intruders, the officer resorts to verbal abuse. "We have to fix the sound, you can't hear anything," said Kotyonok, twitching the dials on the video- editing software.

UNDERGROUND WAKE

In another piece of performance art, the group rigged up a table in a metro carriage, brought out food and vodka and held a wake for absurdist poet Dmitry Prigov. They also marked international workers' day by going in to a McDonald's restaurant and throwing live cats at the counter staff. The idea, they said, was to help snap the workers out of the dull routine of menial labor. Behind the bizarre stunts, the artists who make up Voina have a serious political agenda. "If the authorities say 'we are building a strong state,' an artist should show that this is not the case. If they say 'we are improving the lives of the people,' an artist should show that this is a lie," said Vorotnikov over dinner, tearing off a hunk of the chicken he earlier stole from a supermarket. But they say their work is also a journey of self-discovery, to see how far they can push their own boundaries as artists and radicals. "We hate cops but if we just attacked them like that, they would jail us immediately. So we hide our hatred behind art so they can't get us and we achieve our aim quicker," said Kotyonok.

The authorities have dealt harshly with overtly political opposition but to date there has been no sign of a crackdown on Voina. Acting under the aegis of art protects them to a large extent, she said. "We've had sex in public and are no longer scared of it. We've invaded a police station and are no longer scared of it. What else is there to scare us?," asked Kotyonok. "Death we will deal with in the future. Soon we will be completely fearless."

The Other Russia reports:

Some of Russia’s most prominent human rights activists have written an open letter urging President Dmitri Medvedev to free political prisoners. The letter was presented at a May 22nd press-conference in Moscow, and was hand delivered to the Executive Office of the president.

Attached to the letter is a paper providing more detail (RUS) on the names mentioned in the letter. The open letter is currently gathering signatures online (RUS).

A complete translation follows.

An open appeal of human rights activists to Dmitri Medvedev

Mr. President!

During the presidential election campaign you repeatedly stressed how important the principles of rule of law were for Russia. We could not help but take notice of your words, which also correspond to what we view as a priority.

In our earnest conviction, politically motivated criminal prosecutions and politically motivated court sentences are in violent contrast with the the principle of rule of law.

This is precisely why we are calling on you to pardon those people, who became, in our opinion, the victims of politically motivated persecution, and to do all that is in your power to ensure that they are granted liberty.

As a first step, we call on you to pardon the following citizens of the Russian Federation:

Danilov, Valentin Vladimirovich. CC RF [Criminal Code of the Russian Federation] Article 275, sentenced to 13 years standard confinement regime. [Wikipedia entry on Danilov’s case]

Sutyagin, Igor Vyacheslavovich, CC RF Article 275, sentenced to 15 years standard confinement regime. [Wikipedia entry on Sutyagin’s case]

Reshetin, Igor Andreevich , academic of the Space Technology Academy, general director of the TsNIIMash-Export closed joint-stock company (sentenced to 11.5 years maximum security regime), his deputy chief of security Alexander Rozhkin, chief economist Sergei Vizir, and Mikhail Ivanov, the head of one of the departments of the TsNIIMAsh Federal State Unitary Enterprise – sentenced from 5 to 11 years incarceration. [Read more about the TsNIIMash case and its victims from the Novaya Gazeta (ENG)]

Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Borisovich, sentenced to 8 years incarceration in standard confinement.

Lebedev, Platon Leonidovich, sentenced to 8 years incarceration in standard confinement.

Pichugin, Aleksei Vladimirovich, sentenced to life imprisonment.

Aleksanyan, Vasily Georgievich, Executive Vice-President of YUKOS with presidential powers. On 04.06.2006 Moscow’s Simonov district court discerned material evidence of an offense in Vasily Aleksanyan’s actions, and gave consent to the Prosecutor-General’s Office to start a criminal prosecution of the Executive Vice-President. Later that same day, Vasily Aleksanyan was detained, and the Russian Federation’s Prosecutor-General’s Office charged him on two articles of the Criminal Code: legalization [or] money laundering (part 4 article 174.1) and appropriation or embezzlement, that is, stealing another’s property (article 160). On 04.07.2006 the Basmanny regional court sanctioned the arrest of Vasily Aleksanyan. He is currently hospitalized under guard.

Bakhmina, Svetlana Petrovna, a deputy chief of the Yukos legal department, arrested 12.07.2004. Sentenced to 8 years standard confinement regime.

Murtazalieva, Zara, born 1983, insurance broker, 3rd year student of the Linguistics University of Pyatigorsk, a native of the Naursky region of the Chechen Republic, was arrested March 4th 2004 in Moscow. Convicted of intending to commit a terrorist act, and sentenced to 8.5 years. [Read More about Murtazalieva’s case from the Memorial Human Rights group]

Talkhigov, Zaurbek Yunusovich, born 1977, native of the village of Shali, in the Shali region of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Was sentenced to 8.5 years incarceration for attempting to aid in the release of hostages from the Theater Center at Dubrovka in October 2002. [Read more about Talkhigov’s case from the Caucasian Knot / Memorial]

By Russian law, the President of the RF may pardon a prisoner without requiring him to admit his own guilt.

We are familiar with the prosecuting circumstances of every one of the listed prisoners, and have solid grounds to assert that political considerations determined their prosecutions.

We have brought forth a far from complete list of Russian political prisoners, selecting those that have the longest [prison] terms and whose prosecution received the greatest public attention. It is clear that other prisoners, who we consider to be political, did not make the list. In particular – members of the Other Russia coalition (at the present moment – 14 people), a series of businessmen, and others.

We hope that the procedure of pardon extends to them as well.

Mr. President, by starting your presidential term with the pardoning of political prisoners, you will open a new page in Russian history, restoring the hope of an independent judiciary, which is so lacking in Russia.

L.M. Alekseeva, Moscow Helsinki Group
S.A. Gannushkina, “Civil Assistance” Committee
S.A. Kovalev, A. Sakharov Foundation
L.A. Ponomarev, “For Human Rights” Movement
Yu.A. Ryzhkov, academic of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Yu.B. Samodurov, A. Sakharov Museum and Civic Center
A.K. Simonov, Glasnost Defense Foundation
E.I. Cherniy, Public Committee for the Protection of Scientists
G.P. Yakunin, Public Committee for the Protection of Freedom of Conscience

The Other Russia reports:

The National Assembly, a gathering of political forces put together by the Russian opposition, has released a draft declaration on the state of Russian politics (below). The Assembly will met in Moscow on May 17th and 18th, bringing together delegates from 85 organizations and 66 Russian regions. Political groups include the United Civil Front, the Union of Right Forces, Yabloko, and the Communist Party.

A list of the nearly 700 delegates is available here (RUS). The delegates were chosen at three separate conferences previously held in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Even before the conference started, reports were coming in that delegates were being pressured not to attend. In the southern city of Barnaul, a man claiming to be a major and calling from a number registered with the militsiya threatened Dmitri Kolesnikov and journalist Yevgenia Berseneva, and told them not to leave the city. Roman Mishurov, another delegate, was pulled off a train from Samara to Moscow and detained under an alleged suspicion that he was carrying counterfeit money. In another southern city, Orenburg, Konstantina Korsakova and Yevgenia Kasaurova reported being constantly followed and threatened over the phone.

UPDATE: The declaration has been adopted by delegates on May 17, 2008.

—

Political Declaration of the National Assembly of the Russian Federation

We, the deputies of the National Assembly, representing Russian civil society, and the widest spectrum of parties and movements of the non-parliamentary opposition,

on the basis of principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

following the provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation,

acting for the sake of the interests of Russia’s people and their future,

do declare:

The ruling political regime in Russia is illegitimate. The political, administrative, [and] judicial authority of Russia has been usurped by the henchmen of oligarchic clans and members of a group of secret services, who have occupied key posts in the political machinery of the country. Major national resources have been put in the service of the regime – environmental, financial, informational. On a vast scale, the ruling regime appropriates government property, budgetary resources, national assets and property of the citizens.

The Constitution of the Russian Federation proclaims: “Man, his rights and freedoms are the supreme value. The recognition, observance and protection of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen shall be the obligation of the State,” [and] “the only source of power in the Russian Federation shall be its multinational people.” However, the ruling regime has deprived the Russian people of their fundamental civil and political rights – to personal immunity [(translation note: or protection against unreasonable search and seizure)], to freedom of conscience and free expression of one’s convictions, to freedom of movement and travel on the territory of one’s own country, to the freedom of peaceful assemblies and associations, to an independent and impartial judicial defense, to the right of participation in governing the country, to government by the people. Free political competition, the democratic electoral process, representative bodies, an independent judicial system, and independent mass media have been destroyed. The institutions of federalism and local self government have been diluted. The democratic procedures have been reduced to fiction.

The elections of deputies to the State Duma on December 2nd 2007 and of the president on March 2nd 2008 were neither free, nor competitive, nor fair. The citizens of Russia were subjected to unprecedented bribery, arm-twisting and intimidation. The results of the voting were widely and glaringly falsified. Unlawfully usurping the powers of government, the ruling regime accomplished a take-over of political authority that belongs to the Russian people. The organs of state power, formed as result of such a special operation, as well as any decisions adopted, and all appointments made by these bodies, contradict the Russian Constitution in the rudest way and are therefore unlawful.

Having destroyed the imperfect, but none the less functioning legal order in the country, the regime has made complete lawlessness the norm. A caste of corrupt bureaucrats has been created, [and is] protected by the full powers of the repressive state apparatus.

At the same time, the nation’s military system is crumbling, which leads to the degradation of Russia’s armed forces, the weakening of the country’s defense capabilities, and loss of its real sovereignty.

In the present-day world, the regime’s social and economic policies secure the role of a backwards raw-materials exporter for our country. The authority of favoritism is incapable of modernizing the economy, society, [or] the state. The monopoly of privileges, the plundering of public funds, national assets, [and] environmental resources has made members of the highest ranks of power billionaires, at the same time as uncontrollable inflation decimates the incomes and savings of millions of Russian citizens. The pension system is on the verge of bankruptcy. The collapse of the residential, social, and transport infrastructure forces a substantial part of our fellow citizens to struggle for survival. Citizens of Russia ended up deprived of the capability to receive necessary medical service and public education.

The result of policies of discrimination and segregation of citizens became the aggravation of social, multi-ethnic and interfaith conflicts. Many Russian citizens have turned into social outcasts in their own country over social, ethnic and interfaith reasons.

The ruling regime suppresses attempts by citizens to defend their rights and freedoms with the help of propaganda, bribery, arm-twisting, threats, crude police and judicial arbitrariness, violence, terror, [as well as] taking away freedom, property, health and life itself from Russian citizens.

We, the deputies of the National Assembly, call on the citizens of Russia to strive with us for:

• The emancipation of all political prisoners.

• The dissolution of all the illegitimately formed bodies of power, including the State Duma.

• The implementation of universal free and competitive elections with the participation of all existing political parties and organizations.

• The formation of bodies for representing the people and an Executive Branch [that are] responsible before the Russian people and that carry out the will of Russia’s subjects.

• The equitable distribution of national wealth, produced by free people.

• The transformation of Russia into a legal, democratic, secular federal republic.

Oborona opposition leader Oleg Kozlovsky, writing in the Washington Post:

Vladimir Putin hails stability among his greatest achievements as president of Russia. But stability in Russia exists in appearance only, supported by enormous oil revenue and massive propaganda from the government-controlled mass media. Behind the facade lies an unprecedented increase in corruption, a population largely mired in poverty, and a bureaucracy and domestic intelligence apparatus whose power is unchecked.

Putin's stability is the stability of the gulag, where wardens ensure that all the prisoners have their allotted rations, reward the most obedient and punish potential troublemakers to preempt disorder. The difference between Russia today and the Soviet gulag is that most Russians have never known another type of government, so they do not realize that they are confined.

As you read this, I am in prison in Russia. I am a leader of the youth movement Oborona ("Defense"), which advocates nonviolent resistance to oppression by the authorities. Before my arrest this month -- I was picked up while walking on the street and charged with civil disobedience -- my last encounter with the government had occurred in December, when officers of the FSB (as the Federal Security Service, a successor organization to the KGB, is known) forcibly placed me in the army under Russia's draft.

My activities with Oborona have long caused me problems with the government. At age 23, I have been arrested more than a dozen times, have twice served short terms in prison and have been fired from a job at the FSB's request. The government could never find a reason to imprison me for the long term, so it has yet to get rid of me completely.

Late last year, the intelligence services took a different tack. On Dec. 20, I was once again arrested. Despite health problems and the fact that I am a student, both of which should have exempted me from conscription, I was sent to the army to serve as an enlisted soldier. FSB officers escorted me to a military unit in a forest about 150 miles from Moscow and told me that I was expected to serve for one year.

My trip into the army took only a few hours, but getting out took 2 1/2 months. I was finally freed on March 4, two days after Russia's presidential "election" was held. Military authorities have acknowledged that I was inducted into the army illegally, but no one has apologized to me. Shortly after my release, the Moscow headquarters of Oborona was raided by the police. I and 10 others were arrested and threatened; some of us were beaten by the police, who confiscated our leaflets, papers and a computer.

I am just one of the many political activists in Russia who face repression. Others include Maxim Reznik, the prominent leader of the Yabloko political party in St. Petersburg. He was arrested after being falsely accused of beating up three police officers and was held without trial. He is still alive, though. In December, a member of the Other Russia coalition, Yuri Chervochkin, was beaten to death; it is thought that his killers were employees of a special police unit.

Over the past two years, the scale of repression in Russia has reached a level similar to that in the worst years of the Cold War. The regime's clampdown and strategic mistakes made by previous opposition leaders have brought us to the point where traditional political parties have lost any influence in this country. Old illusions about how democracy advocates might achieve power through the vote were smashed with the results of December's parliamentary "elections." Old parties are unlikely to return to Russia.

The recently inaugurated president, Dmitry Medvedev, is an old friend of Putin's and is part of the system. Hopes that Medvedev will ensure a more open future are misplaced. Far from having interest in liberalizing Russia, Medvedev well understands that any such attempt would lead only to a loss of control, which would present a fatal threat to the corrupt heights of power in Russia.

The only real possibility for changing the political regime in Russia today is through grass-roots pressure. Nonviolent resistance on the model of Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is the last option available in the arsenal of pro-democracy advocates. This has already become clear to some of the most open-minded politicians, such as those in the Other Russia coalition.

To be successful we must first analyze our mistakes, learn to work together more effectively and rouse society from its apathetic state. For this we need groups such as Oborona, a union of sincere young people striving not for power but for change in their country. The mission of those planning an uprising in the modern Russian gulag is to not become the next wardens.

IN THE REPORT WE TRUST

Posted on the Website of Oborona 15 May 2008

On May 14 the Basman Court of Moscow levied a fine of 1000 rubles against the Oborona activist Ivan Simochkin for walking along Chistoprudniy Boulevard on May 6.

The court reached its verdict despite the testimony of six eyewitnesses for the defense, who testified that unknown individuals dressed in civilian clothes and showing no identification detained Mr. Simochkin without warning. The ruling of the court indicated that the testimony of the witnesses was not taken into account, because “the witnesses were called only to mitigate the punishment of the accused.”

Following is the speech which Ivan Simochkin read in court.

Your Honor,

I have absolutely nothing to request forgiveness for. Neither I, nor my associates, nor the passers-by who happened to be on Chistoprudniy Boulevard on May 6 did anything wrong, and we do not deserve even a reproach, let alone long terms in jail.

Moreover, I wish to inform the court about a series of criminal actions that we endured at the hands of identified and unidentified individuals, that should be examined under the laws of the Russian Federation. The individuals who perpetrated these acts should be punished under the administrative and criminal codes of the Russian Federation.

Firstly: On May 6, at 6:00 p.m., a group of citizens, myself included, were peacefully and quietly walking along Chistoprudniy Boulevard when we were subject to a violent assault by unidentified individuals dressed in civilian clothes. The attackers, pursuing whatever objective they had, did not identify themselves, made no requests of us, and in general said nothing, but flung themselves on my associate Oleg Kozlovskiy and tried to drag him away by force to an unknown location.

My natural reaction was to try and prevent the criminals from kidnapping my associate. I will tell you further, regardless of what sentence the honorable Basman Court may impose on me, if I ever again see unidentified, criminal-looking individuals attack a pedestrian on the street, I will not fail to do exactly the same thing - come to his aid.

No sooner had I done this, than the individuals in civilian clothes turned their attention to me, and I myself became the target of their attack. I loudly demanded that the attackers identify themselves and state the reason for their actions, but got not a word in reply. I loudly called for the police to come to my aid and stop these illegal actions of unidentified civilians, but the policemen stayed at a distance and passively watched what was happening.

Other passers-by also tried to stand up for those who were being attacked. Anna Chernobylskaya, the mother of a young child, tried to intervene on my behalf as I was being dragged down the boulevard. She yelled for the police to help and called on passers-by to witness what was happening, as a result of which the unidentified individuals then came after her. Anna Chernobylskaya was called as a witness on my behalf. And the episode I just described was captured on a videotape made by Dmitriy Borko, who was also called as witness.

Following the attack, the unidentified individuals forcibly dragged and threw us into a police van. And let no one be led astray by the fact that the attackers, as it later turned out, were acting in concert with the authorities. On the contrary, it would have been much simpler if this criminal attack had been carried out by some kind of unknown criminal group. In that case, we - as citizens of Russia - would have had the ability to call on the law enforcement agencies for help, and had a chance of being defended.

When crimes are committed with the criminal consent of law enforcement officials, or the police themselves, or at the direct order of those under their command (as is obvious to me was the case in the current situation), the citizen is left completely defenseless and without rights. And the state that commits such acts is a lawless police dictatorship.

Further: Unfortunately, the illegal actions committed against me and other citizens did not end here.

We were illegally and absolutely without grounds placed in the Krasnoselskiy precinct holding cell, where officers of the Anti-Organized Crime Directorate (UBOP) and riot police (OMON) openly fabricated their reports with absolutely false, fraudulent accusations against these illegally detained citizens.

All of the reports were written as if in carbon copy. Like the rest of those detained, I was accused of supposedly “participating in a protest, failing to respond to repeated requests by members of the OMON under Sergeant V.A. Gasheka to cease and desist, and continuing to commit illegal acts.”

Your honor, and honorable ladies and gentlemen, a multitude of testimonies by unbiased witnesses, as well as a multitude of photographic and video evidence from the site of the events under consideration, unambiguously show that these accusations are lies, from beginning to end, and you can be certain of it.

1) I and the others accused, now unjustly convicted, did not participate in any sort of protest, if only because in the area where the events took place no one was planning any sort of protest.

2) I and the other victims of this criminal attack did not have the chance to “obey” or “disobey” any sort of request, since no request was ever made of us by any of those individuals who illegally deprived us of our freedom.

3) I and the other citizens who were illegally deprived of their freedom could not have “resisted” or “not resisted” “police personnel”, since we were attacked by individuals dressed in civilian clothes, who categorically refused to either identify themselves or explain the objective or meaning of their actions, and I saw the police only at a distance, from which they had no contact with me.

Nonetheless, I can absolutely assure you that neither I nor any of those who joined in my misfortune offered any kind of resistance.

The records of arrest and administrative infraction were compiled under a mass of flagrant violations of procedure. Despite my request, I was not given a copy of the record of arrest. The time of arrest was improperly recorded - we were arrested at 6:00 p.m., but the records of arrest showed it occurring at 6:45 p.m. In the report of administrative infraction there is no signature by the so-called witness, OMON officer Fomin, to the effect that he had been informed of his rights and responsibilities.

I can imagine the reason why the so-called witness Fomin’s signature is not on the report. I would not be surprised if this so-called witness Fomin not only never held the report in is hands, but was not even present at the events described in it.

At the Krasnoselskiy precinct detention cell, my rights as a detained person were repeatedly and grossly violated. In the course of the two days I spent there, the people detained were never offered any food. The space where over 20 people were held was not equipped with any place to sleep, and we were given no blankets. We had to sleep on tables and the floor, often taking turns.

Conditions were worsened by the fact that during the two days we were in the cell the air temperature remained extremely low, to the point that I was extremely incapacitated due to low body temperature.

And finally, third: The illegal treatment of me and the other citizens was not limited to an attack by unidentified assailants on Chistoprudniy Boulevard, illegal detention in the Krasnoselskiy precinct holding cell, falsification of accusations and multiple violations of our rights as detainees.

The culmination of this flagrant abuse of power occurred right here, within these very walls. Fourteen times the honorable judge Skuridina heard the testimony of witnesses and agreed or refused to consider photographic and video evidence proving the innocence of the accused. Repeatedly, within these very walls, supposed witnesses for the prosecution - the authors of the police reports - appeared and every time were unambiguously exposed as being fraudulent, having irreconcilable contradictions in their testimonies, etc.

In spite of this, all 14 cases ended in guilty verdicts, and absolutely unfounded and unjust sentences and fines, handed down by the honorable judge Skuridina. Justice deserted us in these four walls; in its place came lawlessness and abuse of power.

From the Basman Court, Judge I.A. Skuridina presiding:

1. Oleg Kozlovskiy - 13 days (hunger strike announced)

2. Karen Makmuryan - 7 days

3. Aleksandr Vaynshteyn - 6 days

4. Maksim Polyakov - 5 days

5. Ivan Afonin - 6 days (hunger strike announced)

6. Vladimir Akimenkov - 6 days

7. Nikolay Novokhatskiy - 6 days

8. Vyacelslav Yeliseev - 5 days

9. Kirill Ananev - 4 days

10. Vladimir Michurin - 4 days

11. Vyaceslav Mertsalov - 3 days

12. Dmitriy Potapov - 2 days

13. Andrey Malitskiy - fine of 1,000 rubles

14. Anna Chernobylskaya - fine of 1,000 rubles.

I am absolutely innocent, and deserve only complete exoneration. But I have no objective reason to expect that consideration of my case will result in anything but anoter addition to the endless list of unjust sentences handed down within these walls. It is not in vain that the term “Basman Court” has become synonymous with injustice and abuse of power.

The ones who are really guilty in this abuse of power - to the last one - sooner or later will stand before a real court and answer for their crimes to the full severity of the Law.

Thank you for your attention.

NOTE: Our Original Translator also discovered the following short video related to the piece on the Grani.ru website. It's about the same farce of a trial, showing the names and sentences handed down to the Oborona activists, against a black background, while Medvedev drones on with a patriotic speech in a cathedral.

Other Russia translates and publishes the condemnation by Russia's evolving shadow parliament group, which is operating under the encouraging new name "Congress of Democratic Forces." Also noteworthy is the fact that the National Bolsheviks have been excluded from the Declaration, and that it minces no words. Maybe these folks are finally starting to get a clue.

A competitive political system has been completely destroyed in Russia. Only those political figures and organizations that have passed a review for loyalty to the Kremlin have access to the political space. Those, that raise even the slightest doubt of loyalty in the ideological bureaucracy are blocked off from the political process. They are either completely shut out from elections, or are prevented from reaching a satisfactory outcome with the help of administrative resources, subordinate mass media, and if the need arises, with direct interference in the electoral process. There are no longer any electorally significant independent media in Russia – all the federal television channels are under direct ideological conformity to the presidential administration. This means that any unconstrained electoral campaigning is impossible. Russia’s judicial system no longer stand guard over electoral legislation. While making the appearance of serving the Law, it in practice serves as an obedient tool in the hands of the executive branch.

It was exactly under such circumstances that the March 2nd 2008 presidential elections in Russia were carried out.

Consequently, these elections can in no circumstance be recognized as free.

The March 2nd elections passed with a vast number of violations and falsifications, which were established by numerous observers from both Russian, as well as international civic organizations. Direct ballot stuffing, [ballot] forgery, [and] restricted access for observers at polling stations became the country-wide practice.

Consequently, these elections can in no circumstance be recognized as fair.

All the aforementioned allows one to conclude that a basic democratic principle was violated in the course of the presidential elections in Russia – the principle of the citizen’s free expression of will.

The development of a crisis in Russia, unavoidable under the continuation of the current monopolistic [and] parasitic course of the ruling faction, will force Russians to remember the problems of the authority’s legitimacy. The sole method to avoid the disastrous events of a future crisis in our country – is to restore the citizen’s downtrodden rights and freedoms, to abolish censorship, to reconstruct a competitive political space, [and] to conduct free and fair elections. We call on the authorities to undertake concrete steps in this direction. If this is not done, the responsibility of the ensuing developments of crisis in our country will wholly fall on the Kremlin and the White House [The Russian "White House" houses the offices of the Prime Minister and Government].

Signed

N. Belykh, chairman of board of the Union of Right Forces party
D. Bilunov, executive director of the United Civil Front party
G. Kasparov, chairman of the United Civil Front party
O. Kurnosova, chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of the United Civil Front party
V. Milov, president of the Institute for Energy Policy
B. Nemtsov, politician, public figure
L. Ponomarev, executive director of the “For Human Rights” movement
M. Reznik, chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko party
A. Ryklin, journalist
Y. Samodurov, director of the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Community Center

The Moscow Times reports:

The tiny apartment looks like a safe house except for the crib in the middle of the room. No carpets on the floors. No magnets on the fridge. No pictures on the walls. No books in the bookcase.Just a desk with a computer, a large mattress propped against one wall, and a fold-out couch along another. The crib stands in the middle.

Olga Kudrina (pictured, left) has been living in this one-room apartment in Vinnitsa, a city in central Ukraine, since she fled Moscow two years ago to escape what she calls a politically motivated prison sentence. A Ukrainian court sided with Kudrina last month, granting her asylum, and she now shares her apartment with her 6-month-old daughter, Lena, and two fellow National Bolshevik activists who are seeking asylum.

Their days are filled with endless hours of typing ICQ instant messages, reading LiveJournal blogs and listening to Ekho Moskvy radio. Kudrina is studying Ukrainian in hope of entering university to continue her education in computer programming. Every so often, the other two sit down with local authorities for interviews about their applications to be declared political refugees.

Dozens of Russians have sought asylum in Ukraine after complaining of political pressure at home, raising the specter of new tensions between the two countries. Russian authorities have been particularly tough on activists with the banned National Bolshevik Party, jailing dozens in recent years for their theatrical, anti-Kremlin protests.

But the Russian Foreign Ministry -- which has sharply criticized Britain and the United States for granting asylum to Russians facing prison terms at home -- seems unfazed that Ukrainian courts are offering asylum to Russians.

Kudrina, 24, was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for a May 2005 stunt in which she and another National Bolshevik member hung a banner from the now-demolished Rossiya Hotel reading "Putin, Quit Your Job" and for participating in a 2004 break-in at the Health and Social Development Ministry [see photograph at right]. She failed to show up for her sentencing in May 2006, instead fleeing to Ukraine.

"I had to leave fast. I didn't even have time to go home. I just brought my purse, my documents and some money," Kudrina said. She said she would only return if President Vladimir Putin and President-elect Dmitry Medvedev drastically changed Russia's course and a court annulled her prison sentence. "I hope it will change," she said, a sentiment echoed by her roommates, Mikhail Gangan, 24, and Anna Ploskonosova, 19. "They are all waiting. This is what makes them real refugees," said Dmitry Groisman, head of the Vinnitsa Human Rights Group. A doctor by training, Groisman helped Kudrina win asylum and is now assisting Gangan and Ploskonosova.

To get to the apartment, Groisman, 35, took a tram three stops from the main bus station, down a busy, potholed road, and entered a dimly lit apartment building with green-painted halls. At the door of the apartment, he knocked and, after hearing a noise behind the leather-covered wooden door, he called out, jokingly, "It's the police, open up!"

The three Russians squeezed into the closet-sized entryway of the apartment to meet him. Kudrina, wearing silver-trimmed, cat eye glasses and black clothes, held her baby on her hip. Gangan, a former leader of the National Bolshevik's Samara branch, is tall and lanky with dirty blond hair. Ploskonosova is the most recent arrival, arriving last month to avoid what she calls trumped-up charges of assaulting a police officer. Ploskonosova wore a black scarf around her neck and greeted Groisman timidly. "They're always thinking about going home," Groisman said. "They are planning their life in this country only because they can't go home."

Planning may be too strong a word. The three seem to be biding their time. "Life would be different for me here, but now I'm taking care of this one here," Kudrina said, looking down as Lena bubbled and cooed on her lap, "and studying Ukrainian and programming." Gangan should know by June or July whether he will receive asylum, Groisman said. Last Wednesday, Ploskonosova went for her second interview with Vinnitsa's migration service. "The hearing went well, I think," Ploskonosova said. She will have two or three more interviews before a court decides whether to declare her a political refugee, Groisman said. "Anna must be granted refugee status. She fits the textbook definition of a refugee," Groisman said.

In addition to the assault charges, Ploskonosova saw her boyfriend, National Bolshevik member Yury Chervochkin, die of injuries sustained in a beating in the Moscow region in November. National Bolshevik activists say Chervochkin was being followed by police officers and accused them of attacking him. Police deny the allegation. Under a 2001 Ukrainian law, a foreigner is eligible for refugee status if he has "reasonable apprehensions" of becoming a victim of persecution in his native country because of his race, faith, nationality, citizenship, social status or political views. In 2002, Ukraine joined the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention, becoming its 143rd member.

While Ukraine's law is in line with that of Western countries, Groisman said he feared that the decision about Ploskonosova's status would be politically tinged. "If the price of Russian gas would be cut by just 10 cents per 1,000 cubic meters if Ukraine sent back these refugees, they would be sent back like that," he said, snapping his fingers. Relations have been strained over Russia's insistence on raising the price of the gas it supplies to Ukraine as well as Kiev's aspirations to join NATO and the Orange Revolution election of President Viktor Yushchenko in 2004. Asked whether offering asylum to Russians wanted on criminal charges might affect relations, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said, "For now, the issue is not being discussed during bilateral political contacts."

"Issues of this type are considered within the court and law enforcement bodies of the two countries," he added. A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman also pointed to asylum as a judicial issue. "Granting asylum is not within the Foreign Ministry's jurisdiction," she said by telephone from Kiev. Last year, 93 Russians applied for refugee status, while four were denied it, six were stripped of it and a single applicant from a previous year was granted it, Ukraine's State Committee for the Affairs of Nationalities and Religion said in an e-mailed statement.

In 2007, Russia placed fourth on a list of 11 countries whose nationals had applied for refugee status in Ukraine. The top country was Afghanistan, with 1,171 appeals, followed by Armenia with 205 appeals and Azerbaijan with 184 appeals. Russia was followed by Congo with 85 appeals, Georgia with 79 appeals and Sudan with 61 appeals. The only Russian who received asylum last year was Alexander Kosvintsev, a 54-year-old journalist who fled the Siberian city of Kemerovo in late 2006, citing threats from local authorities. He and other Russian asylum seekers said they picked Ukraine because of its proximity, a visa-free regime for Russians, and the absence of language and cultural barriers. But it is no home, said Kosvintsev, who lives in Kiev with his wife and 7-year-old daughter. "If the circumstances changed, of course I would come back. I love Russia," he said by telephone.

Vinnitsa, a city of 350,000 people located 260 kilometers southwest of Kiev, has considerable experience with asylum seekers. In 1992, during fighting in Moldova's breakaway region of Transdnestr, more than 50,000 refugees flooded Ukraine, and about 20,000 settled in Vinnitsa. With this history, Vinnitsa has become a magnet for refugees, taking everyone from Somalis fleeing Mogadishu to Uzbeks caught in the Andijan massacre. The city looks like a standard Soviet provincial town, with low-rise office buildings, dilapidated Khrushchev-era apartment blocks, muddy parks and uneven tram lines. It is surrounded by rolling farmland, now coated in a thin film of springtime green. "I moved from city to city around Ukraine for about three months, working, until I heard about Dmitry [Groisman] and came to Vinnitsa," Kudrina said. "And it's cheaper here." The Russians seem to be making friends. Kudrina has met people at the three local universities, and Gangan has made friends with students at one university's journalism department. Though all three have similar interests and beliefs, "it is a few too many people for an apartment of this size," Kudrina said.

She and her roommates are not interested in leaving Ukraine for Europe or the United States. "Of course it's boring here, [but] it's better than being in prison," Gangan said. "We are living, and we are waiting."

Former opposition Duma deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov, writing in the Moscow Times:

No matter what new party we create, in the end, it always turns out to be the Communist Party of the Soviet Union!"

This was Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's famous phrase that he coined in the mid-1990s to describe the hordes of bootlickers and careerists who rushed to join the Our Home is Russia party. Chernomyrdin, in his trademark style, hit the nail right on the head. It is difficult to shake off a feeling of deja vu after seeing how delegates to United Russia's ninth annual congress on Monday and Tuesday obediently applauded and stood at attention to the music of the perennial Soviet-cum-Russian national anthem.

Russia's all-powerful bureaucracy has been following this rich political tradition ever since Peter the Great -- that is, creating a ruling caste or dominant party that quashes out all opposition to gain complete and unchallenged control over the country's enormously valuable resource wealth.

At United Russia's congress, the only things that differed from Soviet times were the venue, which was clearly designed to copy that of a U.S. political party convention, and the person on the tribune -- President Vladimir Putin in place of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

The parallels between Putin and Brezhnev are not only a matter of style. The basic characteristics of their respective regimes are similar as well. Both now and then, the much-vaunted "stability" depends completely on high oil and gas prices. In addition, both leaders built a power vertical that was ruled by a bloated bureaucracy and omnipresent security infrastructure. In both cases, political competition was suppressed and censorship was pervasive throughout the major media.

For the elite to be able to appropriate the country's profits from natural resources exports, it was necessary to stifle the opposition and create a one-party system. Any discussion of corruption and abuse of power had to be limited to only a few radio stations and small-circulation newspapers. Moreover, the authorities needed to manipulate elections so that incumbent leaders received the maximum possible voter support -- and thus legitimacy -- in the eyes of the people.

This same goal is behind the drive to make United Russia the dominant political party. Its recent announcement that party membership had hit the 2 million mark served two purposes. First, it creates the illusion of popular support for the ruling regime. Second, it provides a means of controlling that segment of the population, which consists primarily of state employees and workers at small and medium-sized businesses who were pressured into joining the party.

In countries that are both dependent on oil and gas exports and have weak democratic traditions and institutions, a rise in global energy prices inevitably leads to increased authoritarianism. This clearly is the case with Russia.

Before our eyes, Putin is trying to concentrate the maximum possible authority and resources in his hands. When he steps down as president on May 8 and becomes prime minister, he will have full political control over both the State Duma and Federation Council as a result of United Russia's constitutional majority in both chambers. He will also have control over regional governors, the overwhelming majority of whom are United Russia members.

In addition, Putin, as prime minister, will make every attempt to preserve control over state-owned television stations, law enforcement structures and the Central Elections Commission. And Putin's close associates will most likely remain as the heads of major state-controlled companies such as Gazprom, Rosneft, Russian Railways, Russian Technologies, Sberbank and so on. Despite the enormous authority formally granted to Medvedev by the Constitution, the president-elect will have relatively little political leverage and few people on whom he can solidly rely.

It is a mistake to compare Medvedev to Putin at the outset of his presidency. At the end of 1999, President Boris Yeltsin was so weak and ill that he had only strength enough to hand authority over to Putin before fading into obscurity. By contrast, a robust and energetic Putin is now taking over the reins of government, openly declaring his desire to take an active role in domestic politics and foreign policy, while at the same time concentrating vast authority and resources in his own hands and in those of his friends. Putin will remain a permanent member of the Security Council, and the control he will exercise over the Duma and Federation Council through his new role as United Russia's party chairman will provide him with a mechanism for introducing changes to any existing laws and to play a role in the appointment of judges and prosecutors. In theory, he could also initiate impeachment proceedings against Medvedev, if necessary.

Putin's early return to the Kremlin cannot be ruled out either. His right-hand man in United Russia, Boris Gryzlov, has suggested that Putin consider pushing presidential and Duma elections forward by two years. The Federation Council has the constitutional authority to call for early elections.

Starting May 8, the Russian political system will undergo a significant transformation. It will remain just as authoritarian as before, but now Putin and Medvedev will work in tandem as the country's leaders. Formally, President Medvedev will have higher status, but Prime Minister Putin will hold far more power and authority.

After being named as the chairman of United Russia, everything is firmly in place for Putin's transfer of power to himself as prime minister. Now, he can sit back, relax and visit his good friend and fellow prime minister to be Silvio Berlusconi at his luxurious villa in Sardinia as scheduled on Thursday and Friday.

The International Herald Tribune reports:

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president-elect, has preached freedom and the rule of law, and raised hopes for an end to government pressure on opposition leaders, rights advocates and businesses whose assets the Kremlin wants to control.But events of past weeks are adding to mounting suspicions that Medvedev's presidency may not be all that different from that of his steely-eyed predecessor — Vladimir Putin. [LR: In other words, Medvedev is clearly a mendacious liar]

Since Medvedev's election on March 2, authorities have continued to crack down on human rights activists and political critics. Nor did the election halt the targeting of foreign firms that control major Russian assets, like the British-Russian joint venture TNK-BP.

What is not clear is to what extent the events reflect the continuing influence of Putin and his allies or Medvedev's silent support for Putin's policies.

"Medvedev today is Putin yesterday. There is no change in the regime whatsoever," veteran human rights campaigner Lev Ponomaryev said.

Authorities in the central city of Nizhny Novgorod on Thursday seized computer servers of a longtime campaigner against rights abuses in Chechnya. Stanislav Dmitriyevsky, who has been repeatedly targeted for arrest, said the seizure coincided with searches at apartments of several activists from the Other Russia coalition.

In Russia's second largest city, St. Petersburg, a leader of the liberal political party Yabloko was jailed for nearly three weeks for allegedly interfering with police in a case supporters said was tied to his work organizing an opposition conference. A court on Friday ordered Maxim Reznik's release pending trial.

Officials also have searched the party's St. Petersburg headquarters looking for materials that allegedly could be considered extremist — a broad legal term that activists say is used for politically motivated prosecutions.

Other groups report similar pressure. Oleg Kozlovsky, who says he was drafted into the army because of his work with the activist group Oborona, told Ekho Moskvy radio that authorities were trying to evict him from his Moscow apartment, in retaliation for his activities.

Investigators continue to press their case against Mikhail Kasyanov, the former prime minister who was denied a spot on the presidential ballot. Officials accuse him of falsifying signatures on nominating petitions, and his supporters say authorities plans to file criminal charges in an effort to discredit him.

"We've seen in this last two months what the freedom (Medvedev) talks about really means," Andrei Illarionov, a former economic adviser to Putin and now a prominent critic, told reporters Thursday. "Are there any examples of real actions, not just words, that someone can use as proof that Medvedev is a liberal person, economically, politically or over civil rights?"

Medvedev has been credited with supporting more liberal economic and business policies. He reportedly supported, for example, easing restrictions in a bill to limit foreign ownership of Russian publishing companies and Internet providers.

But Medvedev also heads the gas giant OAO Gazprom, the state-controlled monopoly that has continued to play hardball tactics in negotiations over contracts to supply Ukraine with natural gas. Europe, which gets most of its Russian gas via Ukrainian pipeline, has accused Russia of using its energy assets as a political tool.

On Thursday, Russia's top security agency announced that two brothers with dual Russian-U.S. citizenship had been charged with industrial espionage involving Russian oil and gas fields. One of the brothers works for TNK-BP, the British-Russian joint venture whose Siberian fields are coveted by Kremlin-allied business interests.

In recent years, the government has used regulatory and criminal investigations to pressure major energy companies into ceding assets to state-controlled companies.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Krivtsov tried to tamp speculation that the arrest of the TNK-BP worker was linked to troubled ties between Moscow and London. "There's no sense in searching for links between events that are in no way connected to each other," he was quoted by RIA-Novosti as saying.

Many, particularly in the West, pointed to Medvedev's background — lawyer, university professor, business executive — hoping that the Kremlin's hard-line domestic and foreign policies might soften with his election.

In a pre-election speech, Medvedev promised to champion media freedom, strengthen the judicial system and reform criminal legislation. He returned to those themes Wednesday in an address before the Public Chamber, an advisory body created by the Kremlin.

"A mature civil society is a vital necessity, a foundation, a guarantee of stable development of our nation," he said. "And our task is to create a system when civil society groups participate in setting the government course and assessing its efficiency."

Some observers wonder if Medvedev is just paying lip service to liberal ideals. Putin himself has warned that the West should not expect Medvedev to be a more compliant partner.

Medvedev won't formally take the reins of power until after his May 7 inauguration, and any change in Kremlin policies and practices — if they come — may come only gradually, and only after Medvedev installs his own team in positions of power.

But Putin is expected to become prime minister, and it remains to be seen whether Medvedev will try to alter his predecessor's course. To do so, he may have to dislodge the siloviki — veterans, like Putin, of the intelligence, police and military services — whom Putin has installed in positions of power.

Meanwhile, debate is growing among Russia's often fractious opposition groups as to how to continue their fight under Medvedev.

Ponomaryev predicted the Kremlin will seek to create a puppet opposition to create the appearance of a political counterbalance and quiet critics. That theory was bolstered earlier this month by a rare public meeting between Putin and Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the national Yabloko party who, like other opposition figures, has been shut out of politics.

Some opposition groups berated Yavlinsky, who defended himself by saying he raised Reznik's arrest with Putin.

"There is a crisis among the opposition," said Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion who has waged a determined, though largely ineffectual campaign against Putin. "A party that considers itself to be in opposition ought to behave in quite a different manner."

Oleg Kozlovsky, writing on Robert Amsterdam's blog, outlines the prospects for integrating and coordinating Russia's heretofore impotent opposition forces:

Early April marked a new wave of opposition coalition building. Three events took place in each of the three main political camps. Liberals gathered in St. Petersburg on 5 April, the leftists met in Moscow on 6 April and the nationalists had their convention on 12 April. The goal of each of these events was to unite the majority of political forces of the corresponding wings.

UTNE Blogs reports:

Civil society in Russia has withered since its post-perestroika heyday. Controls on nongovernmental organizations have tightened, independent media have disappeared, and bureaucratic corruption persists. These conditions, along with the Soviet legacy of an industry-first, environment-be-damned development approach, make Russian environmental protection and restoration daunting. Russian biologist Marina Rikhvanova is undeterred.

Rikhvanova was one of six winners of the prestigious 2008 Goldman Environmental Prize announced Monday, recognized for her grassroots activism protecting Siberia’s Lake Baikal. Baikal, the world’s oldest and deepest freshwater lake, is home to 1,700 unique plant and animal species. In Soviet times, a pulp mill damaged the lake's ecosystem by pumping pollution into its water. In 1996, UNESCO noted concern about the lake’s pollution when it declared Baikal a World Heritage Site.

Rikhvanova works with her organization, Baikal Environmental Wave, to protect the lake and its environs through letter-writing, marches, protests, and collaboration with international volunteers. Her most visible victory was the culmination of a four-year campaign against an oil pipeline that would have come within a half-mile of Lake Baikal. She and volunteers gathered more than 20,000 signatures to oppose the proposed pipeline route. In 2006, Rikhvanova led thousands of Russians into the streets of the city of Irkutsk to protest. Soon after, President Vladimir Putin ordered the pipeline to be rerouted. Rikhvanova’s recent efforts have focused on opposing nuclear enrichment and power plants that would threaten Baikal.

Utne.com talked with Rikhvanova about her work and winning the Goldman Prize.

How will the Goldman Prize help your work?

This award will help most importantly my office, my organization, and the environmental movement in the Baikal region to help protect the lake. But even more importantly, this award raises the visibility of our work, and people [in the government] will listen to us more now that I have won this award.

How do you think President-elect Dmitry Medvedev will treat environmental issues?

We’ll see what happens. But I can say that Medvedev in a recent speech did talk about environmental concerns and that they are worth addressing. Unfortunately, often words are not the same as actions.

You’ve talked about the need to improve the parks and preserves surrounding Lake Baikal. How can they be improved?

Unfortunately, the status of these protected areas is pretty weak today in Russia. There isn’t the legal system and the regulations needed to ensure their strength and longevity. Unfortunately, people who have their own self-interest and material gain in mind often achieve the post of directors of these protected areas and exploit the resources of these protected areas to their own gain rather than putting their first priority as protecting the land and the lake.

Who are your strongest supporters among the Russian public?

Everyone supports us from the smallest to the oldest. But if we’re talking about numbers, our greatest numbers of participants come from youth and the elderly because they have free time they can give to the work. The elderly are thinking already about the kind of world they’re leaving their descendants, their children, and grandchildren. And the youth are very active and very creative.

Control of nongovernmentnal organizations has tightened in Russia in recent years, and there’s suspicion of organizations with foreign ties. What is the role of international participants in your organization?

The suspicions are there and the attitude in the government is strange right now, but it doesn’t matter. International participation in our work is still very important.

We have amazing international volunteers. Sometimes our volunteers even come up with their own projects. For example, there’s a woman who’s working with us through the Tahoe-Baikal Institute and she came up with the idea of doing a summer school for children. The kids spent two summers at the school and had a great time. These were underprivileged kids who otherwise would not have had an opportunity to go to Lake Baikal. They were very happy.

Is tourism to the Baikal area helpful or harmful?

It helps and harms at the same time. On the one hand, tourism is a source of income for local residents. On the other hand, it’s sort of a wild, uncontrolled, unregulated development. And we need to be setting aside areas that are exempt from development.

Last year we started a competition to find the best places to develop tourism and to promote those places specifically to contain the tourism. One interesting result is that we’re seeing some people who used to work in some of the protected areas, the preserves and the reserves, as well as some former foresters, go into the tourism business. They’re able to practice different methods to, for example, attract wild birds to their territory and other species to make it a more attractive place for tourists.

I’ve been really pleasantly surprised by interest from business, and overall my impression is that the tourism industry and many people involved want to ensure sustainable tourism. Of course I can’t say that everyone is like that, but there are people like that.

What were the most effective forms of activism for your organization?

To be diverse in one’s actions. Because people get sick of the same format of action, and the mass media are not going to pay attention if we do the same kind of meetings and actions week after week. Therefore, we try to conduct lots of different kinds of events. Not long ago we organized a walk across Lake Baikal. We did a concert on April Fool’s Day.

What is the biggest environmental threat in Russia today?

The biggest problem in Russia today is the convergence of business and government. Business works hand in hand with the federal government to exploit natural resources. And they act without fear of punishment.

Another question has to do with pollution, essentially the remains of industrial development in Soviet times. Also, there’s just no economic incentive for businesses to promote energy efficiency and to promote greener practices and to minimize waste produced.

Another problem is there’s no independent legal system in Russia. We really need an independent court system. Then we could actually force people to answer for their actions that destroy the environment.

Blood on the Rizla reports first-hand observations of the Russian opposition:

Last week, Russia's fractious and divided political opposition gathered in Moscow and St Petersburg to try to set aside their differences and concentrate on building a united front to restore democracy and raise awareness of the deteriorating human rights situation in the country, but it may be too little too late.

The Russian opposition has been in a state of crisis due to its inability to effectively stand up to President Vladimir Putin's rollback of press and political freedom, let alone even challenge the transition to his hand-picked presidential successor, Dmitry Medvedev.

Today's opposition is the fractured remnants of what were either political forces in the 1990s, a strange collection of punk-fascist movements associated with youth culture and recent media-focused and vacuous civil rights organizations. It would seem that Russia has regressed from being a country where political disputes were part of everyday life in the 1990s, to a state were being interested in politics is like being interested in monarchy.

The democratic parties there were doubly hit during the build-up to the parliamentary and presidential elections by the regime's manipulation of the law in order to cut them out of the contest, massive fraud, unfair access to the national media and a country-wide mood that saw their popularity collapse.

Neither the Union of Rights Forces, a right-of-center liberal party, nor the left-leaning Yabloko managed to pass the threshold necessary to gain seats in the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.

The mainstream non-Kremlin-backed democratic candidates were all blocked from participating in the presidential elections. The result is that the parties are in financial meltdown, with serious leadership disputes between the generations building up in Yabloko.

Fractious arguments about whether the party should try and act as a lobbying influence on the government or a government in embryo have led to acrimony between the two major leaders, Grigory Yavlinsky and Ilya Yashin.

In forthcoming elections, short of a financial miracle, it seems unlikely that more than one democratic party will be able compete. Mergers are actively being discussed, but more probable is that one or more will simply fold.

A democratic front?

Garry Kasparov, the renowned chess player, cut a sorry figure standing in the lobby of the Hotel Anglia in St Petersburg. Crowds gathered on the historic St Isaac's Square outside, but not for him or anyone from the dissident conference. The electronics company Samsung was distributing free balloons to delighted masses of people, while the only group paying any attention to the opposition was a squadron of visibly bored and chain-smoking riot police.

Speaking to ISN Security Watch, Kasparov was defiant, both about the chances of rebuilding Russian democracy and about his own relevance. He insists it is not too late.

"I wouldn't be so pessimistic. The window of opportunity is open and though time is slowly running out, more and more people are coming round to our point of view.

"Advocating your ideas is not a one way street: It depends on the needs of society. The steady decline of living standards [...] is turning a lot of people against the state propaganda machine, when people begin to experience a rise in living standards they will see the necessity of our ideas," he said.

Kasparov recently entered the minefield of Russian politics. According to his press secretary Ludmilla Mamina, "He entered due to a sense of pressing moral urgency, hoping to apply his grasp of strategy to helping his country. The Other Russia coalition was founded in order to bring in all different kinds of groups under an effective banner.

"Though we have received criticism for bringing in groups such as the National Bolshevik Party [a punk-fascist party] we have strongly moderated their position. We do this because we need another Russia."

However, Other Russia has received much criticism for being sensationally hostile to the ever-popular Putin, and suffered a serious blow when it was abandoned by Mikhail Kasyanov, leader of the small People's Democratic Union. Kasparov's aloof and combative style, along with his ties to the West, have not endeared him to the Russian public. He is widely suspected of trying to further his own personal ambitions above all else.

The gatherings of democratic forces in Moscow and St Petersburg at a conference entitled "A New Agenda For Russian Liberal Forces" must be a turning point if the opposition is going to pose a serious challenge to the regime during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev.

Riven by personal disputes, theoretical wrangling about policy and financial meltdown, the urgency of establishing a unity coalition to defend human rights and restore free and fair elections is essential if the parties are going to survive the next few years in a meaningful shape.

Kasparov insists that "the mood is optimistic, we are making progress and I'm happy with what we've agreed on."

Denis Bilunov, director of the United Civil Front - the social movement lead by Kasparov - believes that the steps being taken represent a real turning point for Russia.

"The hope is that after these conferences we will be able to establish an alternative parliament for all the forces locked out of the political process. Our estimates are that roughly 15 million people support the opposition, with optimists going as high as 30 million," he told ISN Security Watch.

"An alternative parliament could convert in time into a real national institution and not a political party. I am actively looking forward to the disputes we will be having and all that they will do to build civil society in this country. More importantly, it represents a historic chance for the Russian left and right to make a bold declaration of faith in democratic principles."

Ekaterina Vinokurova , a 20-something journalist and press secretary of the Russian Democratic Party, has pessimistic views that reflect much of the attitude of young Russians who have positioned themselves against the regime.

"My position and that of my party is that we either have to liquidate or unite, we urgently need new leaders, new organic party structure and internal democracy within our movements. The simple question is who are these fratricidal leaders, where do they come from and who chose them? These are not the structures that create real democratic parties," she told ISN Security Watch.

"We have an opportunity that as the generational transition plays itself out, the last cohort of leaders trained in the USSR will be retiring when the new generation reaches the right age to be able to act politically. We are breeding a generation of apathetic, individualistic young people in Russia that feel turned off by the undemocratic structures of current opposition parties and dislike the old fashioned leadership," she continued.

"If we are to bring people into the fold we need to get involved with all kinds of aspects of the arts, social movements, internet culture as quickly as possible. This is how we can begin playing a long game."

The long game

Ordinary Russians feel even more disenchanted with the opposition, with frequent accusations that they are out of touch, self-interested intellectuals.

Dmitry Koryakin is a traveling salesman whose opinions capture a vast swathe of the Russian population.

"I want respect, I want it from the foreigners, I want it from the immigrants, I want it from the police. But more importantly I want clean water, cheap food and better services. The 'democratic parties' don't seem to be offering either of those things. Who are these intellectuals anyway who are having their own private argument with the government and claiming the people are behind them? If they want to help they should start coming up with plans for better hospitals then," he told ISN Security Watch.

Being unable to advertise their views on mainstream nationwide television channels or spread information that is potentially damaging to the government to a citizenry that was almost wholly born and bred in the USSR and in Russia's disastrous 1990s has left the opposition with only one option, according to Maxim Reznik, head of the St Petersburg branch of the left-leaning democratic party Yabloko.

"We are a political and social movement that concentrates on what we think are the most pressing problems facing us, those being the erosion of human rights and raising awareness of that fact. However, you have to realize that in Russia we have to start by convincing the elite before we can spread our ideas to the population. This is the beginning of a long process for us."

The assumptions guiding the unity conferences last week were that the regime's popularity has peaked along with oil prices and that inflation - especially rising food prices and the continued decline in infrastructure - would soon begin to rapidly undermine the Kremlin's grip on things.

Speaking to opposition activists the mood seemed to be one of confidence that an economic crisis was imminent and even joyfully so.

A source close to Kasparov expressed personal distaste at his insistence that "the worse it gets for the country, the better it gets for us."

There appears to be little idea of what to do when the awaited economic crisis arrives and none of what should be done if it does not. For now the opposition strategy is focused on building a new front where decisions can be taken in the long term, but at the present moment no common long-term strategy exists.

Seeds of change

Oleg Zykov, a senior lobbyist, president of the Moscow Medical Academy and member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, which monitors parliament and scrutinizes legislation, believes that working toward improving the lives of his fellow countrymen should be done by trying to achieve better governance and social standards aiming to build a civil society and not another political rupture.

In an interview with ISN Security Watch he said the problems lie deeper than the opposition would have us believe.

"Post-totalitarian society is deeply based on its members' paternalism, when people strongly believe that it is the authorities who should, and even must, solve their problems, which vastly extends functions and powers of government bureaucracy," he said.

"This is costly and ineffective. A simple change of personalities at the helm, whether they be loyal, pro-Kremlin figures or opposition leaders, will not alter society's mental pattern. The way to improve this situation is to promote social initiative, being a fundamental basis of civil society, which is now only being developed. Contemporary Russia is facing evolution in understanding the role of social initiative."

The average Russian tends to lean toward his position. The Other Russia's plan for an opposition alternative parliament has generated as much laughter as interest while many of the other groups are dismissed as games for rich kids and fantasists.

With support for the regime running so high and the average citizen so fearful of a return to the chaos and social collapse of the 1990s, it seems unlikely that this politically exhausted nation will throw itself into another adventure without serious reasons.

One of the most crucial threats to Russia's transition to a stable model is the estimated 70,000 neo-Nazi skinheads in the country (and their numbers continually rising) and the fact that all major Kremlin-backed political parties espouse varieties of soft nationalism, with political extremism fuelled by anti-immigration and declining living standards for the poor.

If the country's democratic potential is to be tapped, time, patience and the ability to compromise and build up real grass-roots support and responsive political party structures is essential. Given these circumstances, the Russian opposition needs to play a long game, at long odds - by making improved awareness, governance and civil society construction its priorities.