La Russophobe's in-house translator offers a short article from Nikolai Svanidze (pictured, left), whom LR reported on back in June when he announced that Russians were "tired of pluralism" and wanted the state to step in and make their choices for them. Svanidize is the host of a TV talk show known as "The Mirror" on state-owned RTR television, and a bigshot in the network's power structure. He's also written a series of newspaper articles for the Yezehedvny Zhurnal newspaper, including the one translated below. In a February 2000 public opinion poll, only one-quarter of respondents said they watched his show and found it trustworthy. In a November 2002 survey, he was ranked dead last in combined score for interest, agreement and credibility in a group of 12 other TV presenters. In November of last year, he said this to a group of government students in Tatarstan: "On the one hand, Vladimir Putin is popular - it is a guarantee of stability. In my view, however, we should not make exceptions and depart from the Constitution based on the president's rating. George Washington was very popular in his time in the USA. He was reelected for the third term but he died. Now, the United States make no exceptions at elections." Apparently, he was thinking of Franklin Roosevelt. George Washington, of course, could have been elected to a third term but declined to accept it, fearing the impact on democracy in the United States if he did. For his part, Roosevelt was elected not merely to a third but to a fourth term, and gave up power only when, like Stalin, he perished in office, violating Washington's sage advice. Then the Constitution was changed to make Washington's view the law.

So Fouled Up, It’s Kind of Fun!
Nikolai Svanidze
Yezhedneviy Zhurnal
January 17, 2007

A friend of mine recently returned from a political mob-event in Germany, a “round table” on Russian-European affairs. The discussion with his foreign colleagues did not bring him any great satisfaction. One could say that no discussion developed at all. My friend returned in the sort of mood that was well-described in 1916 by S.L. Markov, the future White Russian general and legendary hero of the Volunteer Army. At the time, Markov found himself surrounded by far superior German forces, and relayed to his commander, A.I. Denikin, “It’s so fouled up, it’s kind of fun!”

There are, it is true, a few differences. No one is attacking us now, we are not surrounded, and no one thirsts for our blood. We don’t need to cling to the frozen earth like a lover, under withering enemy fire. We don’t need to tear ourselves from that earth and, with an “ooh-rah” and an indistinct curse whispered from our fear-dried gullet, stand up for a bayonet charge. Nothing of that sort at all. We have no enemies at all. With the exception of our former friends, but they are not dangerous, inasmuch as they are small and fear us more than fire. We have a different problem. Like Panikovskiy*, no one likes us. The only thing they want is to get as far away from us as they can, as one might view a drunk on the street. It is tough to realize this, and tougher still to come to terms with it. We could, of course, grab them by the lapels and directly, impartially ask them: “Don’t you like me?” Or we could work ourselves up into a patriotic trance and chant that Russia is just getting up from its knees and no one is ready to forgive us for it. We could do this, and we already are. But then, being monsters, they shun us even more. They shun us, like crazy people; you can’t knock sense into their heads. It’s clear they’re genuinely sick.

Of course, all this did not begin this morning. For some years now any discussion of Russia and its problems in western universities and research centers has invited at best a yawn, at worst – irritation. And academic programs devoted to the study of us – from history and economics to arts and literature – are closing. Students don’t want to study Russian, they want to study Chinese. In other words we have already been for some time pushed to the periphery of western intellectual interests. But that was actually a victory. Now it’s much worse. The final straw was the polonium incident. On top of that lay, as if on someone’s order, as if naturally, the incident with Belarus. Time to cash out.

With a complete lack of interest, utterly coldly, they watch as our discussion of the polonium incident is turned upside down. They could care less whether Litvinenko was killed by rogue or non-rogue KGB agents, working for or against Putin. It’s all the same even if they were working for Berezovskiy, or Nevzlin, or the horned devil. It’s all the same. For them, we’re like Chinese, we all look the same. The main thing is -- they’re all Russians. Look at these stupid Russians, in trouble because of their adolescent complexes and stolen billions, now not only have they had a public brawl in the heart of Old Europe, they’ve brought on an investigation using the tables of their own stupid Mendeleyev!** And they think that exactly in this way they are getting up off their stupid knees! Let them stand up, dance around, maul each other with chemicals, and beat their chests all they want, only please, as far away from Europe as they can.

We have made history, in the eyes of the world, with the first instance of nuclear terrorism. And now we are being congratulated by a grateful world. The world is now interested not in our plans for reform or anti-reform, not in our plans for economic or political freedom. All this “sputtering” is seen as categorically unreal, everyone knows it. No one even bothers asking dumb questions about freedom of speech anymore. Even the anti-aircraft missile systems we sold to Iran get only a wave of the hand. Only one small slice of us is interesting – the slice with the oil and gas pipelines. That is because their sick imagination suggests to them that such temperamental, at best unpredictable children, who spit polonium at each other as easily and unnecessarily as school children shoot spit wads, are capable of much more. They’ve gotten up off their knees before, too. For example, to turn off the pipeline. It’s good that we already had occasion to fear them.

And now, Belarus. Right for the groin, so to speak. With that, regarding what is and isn’t Belarus, all our European friends are united. Today it is, tomorrow it isn’t. And suddenly they appreciate the Little Father [TN: the President of Belarus, Lukashenko]. So the issue, of course, is not Belarus and not Lukashenko, but yet another instance of what they consider not playing by the rules. We ask them, of course, in all seriousness, “Who thought up these idiotic rules? We didn’t. We have our own rules. We keep our candy in our sweaty palm and don’t give it out for just a ‘thank you’.” To this, of course, they have nothing to say. They just sit quietly, squint their eyes, and don’t want to hear anything. They don’t trust us. At all.

It just means they have to speed up their transition to alternative sources of energy. And that means that prices will fall to their traditional levels. Wreaking our bright dreams of “Russia – The Energy Superpower.” And this is just the ideological part. In the economic part, serious problems await us, and not way off on the horizon.

LR: Literally, the title of the article ("Так хреново, что даже весело!") means "So full of horseradish, it's even merry!"

*Panikovskiy: a swindler, from the classic novel “The Golden Calf” by Ilf and Petrov. Most famous for pretending to be blind, then picking the pockets of those who came to his assistance.

**Dmitri Mendeleyev: Russian scientist, creator of the first periodic table of the elements.

LR's Translator offers the following observations about the photograph that leads the article (LR has nothing to do with this photograph, it was selected by the Russian paper, but LR added the caption):

The utter idiocy of a guy holding a live electric wire in his hand, trying to figure out how to change the lightbulb at the end of it, while his daft mother or grandmother or wife or whatever looks on, is just too precious to let go. (Maybe a sort of allegory -- all of Russia looking on while their "gebetsi" try to turn Russia into an "energy superpower"?) It's actually the main reason I translated the article, so no one would accuse us of just putting up pictures of stupid Russians to make them all look bad. The article itself seemed a little cobbled together and inverted, with the less significant issue (the spat with Belarus) tacked on at the end and seemingly elevated above the significance of the Litvinenko murder -- I honestly couldn't understand what point Svanidze was trying to make in the first half of the next to last paragraph, even after I read it aloud to myself several times. So I just gave him a very literal translation and moved on. But I also liked his image of people in the west looking at Russians the way you might a drunk on the sidewalk. Conversationally, and in most ways professionally, I'll definitely cross the street to avoid having to deal with Russians. As for Svanidze, I put him in the same category with Vladimir Pozner -- both Soviet-educated True Believers, who quaintly came to believe their own propaganda about the basic goodness of Russians/Soviets, and manage to be genuinely surprised when they show themselves, time after time, to be the exact opposite.

LR: It's not at all uncommon to encounter purely incomprehensible gibberish in the Russian press, even from a high-ranking figure like Svanidze. In fact, perhaps most common, since the culture of cowardice in Russia usually prevents anyone from mentioning the flaws, as in the Emperor's New Clothes. Hence, the poor Emperor ultimately perishes from frostbite.

Here's an article (with LR's running commentary) by an abject moron named Justin Raimondo (pictured, left) from the Ethernet blog which tries to help the Kremlin avoid blame for the Litvinenko killing. Raimondo is the wacko publisher of "Antiwar.com" and here he is "anti-war" in the same way that good old Neville Chamberlain was. Notice how he only mentions Litvinenko and Yushchenko as indications of Kremlin malevolence. Not a word about Anna Politkovskaya, no mention of Yuri Shchekochikhin or any of the other Kremlin-critical journalists murdered since Putin took power, no mention of the attack on Yegor Gaidar. No mention of the Khodorkovksy sham trial, no reference to the Kremlin's recent conviction for torture in Chechnya. What's more, no mention in the article (dated February 7th) of the report by ABC News on January 26th that a highly placed official in the British government had confirmed their investigation showed it was a Kremlin hit. Notice, too, how he won't say one single word about what he'd be prepared to do if it turns out the Kremlin is guilty. Just a blindly partisan screed even as he attacks others for allegedly telling only one side of the story. It's a Maalox moment:

It isn't very often that we come across news of a radioactive poisoning, let alone a state-sponsored one, but in the past few months we've had no less than two – and, more significantly, two completely different reactions from the "mainstream" media and Western governments (or do I repeat myself?). The first such alleged poisoning was the death of Alexander Litvinenko, whose supposed status as a prominent Russian "dissident" set him up as the perfect candidate for a KGB-style "hit." Or so the public relations campaign unleashed by Russian oligarch-gangster Boris Berezovsky would have us believe. There are several problems with this scenario, however, not the least of which is the question: instead of poisoning him with $10 million worth of polonium, a rare radioactive substance – after traipsing all over London and half of Europe, spilling it and leaving a radioactive trail in hotel rooms, private homes, offices, and airliners – why didn't they just put a bullet in the back of his head?

LR: The author appears unaware of recent reports that the Polonium used cost thousands, not millions, of dollars. But let's say he's right, and it did cost millions. So, he's saying it's credible that Boris Berezovsky (or some other unnamed Kremlin foe) would not only spend $10 million to buy this "rare radioactive substance" from illicit sources in Russia, thereby exposing himself to worldwide criminal liability in the massive investigation that would inevitably follow, but would use it to kill someone who is an ally in attacking the Kremlin. On the other hand, he saying it's totally incredible that the Kremlin would use such a substance, which it can get for free, and use it to kill one of its most vocal dissidents? And it's irrelevant that Scotland Yard, which is investigating the matter, has not said one single word about Berezovsky being involved, while they've been reported to have blamed the Kremlin. And it's irrelevant that not one but two high-ranking KGB defectors (Gordievsky and Kalugin) have confirmed that Litvinenko was killed by the Kremlin. Right?

The alternative is that Alexander Litvinenko, who this guy says is an absolute nobody that the Kremlin couldn't care less about, got his hands on $10 million worth of Russian polonium and then spilled it, killing himself, and blamed it on the Kremlin, which for some unknown reason failed to tell the world that its polonium had been pilfered. This all makes perfect sense. Right? And it's all balanced and fair, unlike the coverage this orangutan is attacking. Right?

Why not shoot him? Well, because that wouldn't cause him to suffer so long and publicly, and hence it wouldn't be a warning to others. It's not really that complicated, except to an abject moron like this one here. Also, it wouldn't be a really good test of a powerful new weapon the KGB had invented. In other words, it wouldn't kill two birds with one stone. Is this guy really qualified to lecture us on how the KGB thinks? Is it possible he imagines he is?

The other killing this little reptile is making reference to involves an Arab, and he thinks Israel could have been responsible. He's shocked an offended that the idea of Israel killing a suspected Arab terrorist isn't just as offensive to us as the idea of the Kremlin killing a dissident. He seems to genuinely feel that the governments of Israel and Russia are equally threatening to the West. In other words, he's a lunatic. He doesn't seem to be aware that Israel is a tiny little country with no control over a gigantic supply of oil and no huge nuclear arsenal aimed at the US, no proud KGB spy as "president" and no legacy of seeking to "bury" the West. Perhaps, somebody should clue him in.

Even if they had resorted to such mundane measures, however, another question arises: why bother? The truth of the matter is that hardly anyone in Russia ever heard of Litvinenko – and if they had it is unlikely that either his political views or his activities on behalf of Berezovsky would have put him in good stead with the Russian people.

LR: Too bad this ape (sorry, apes!) doesn't read the papers (or simply this blog) a bit more. If he did, he'd know about the big scandal in which Litvinenko's photograph was used for target practice by the KGB with a high-ranking Kremlin official in attendance. He'd also know about the BBC interview in which a former director of the KGB called Litvinenko a traitor who deserved killing. Nobody ever said the Kremlin killed Litvinenko because the Russian public wanted him dead. Anybody who thinks the Kremlin is concerned about what the Russian people want can only be a world-class idiot. Incidentally: Does this maniac really think he has a pipeline to the inner thought processes of the KGB, so he knows what motivates them and how they would respond to a given situation?

In spite of the tremendous puff-job being done on him – apparently no less than two Hollywood studios are competing to come out with the first movie about the Litvinenko affair, one of which stars Johnny Depp – Litvinenko was hardly a "dissident" on the level of, say, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. His kooky ideas – that the KGB is really behind al-Qaeda, and plotted the 9/11 terrorist attacks – compromising allegiances (aside from being a paid employee of Berezovsky's, he regularly palled around with Chechen terrorists), and dubious moral character (shortly before his death, he announced to an interviewer that he was planning to blackmail several prominent Russian business figures and politicians) belie the posthumous portrait of him as a saintly martyr to the cause of freedom and democracy in Russia.

LR: That's true, Litvinenko and Solzhenitsyn were dissimilar in many ways. For instance, Litvinenko didn't return to Russia after his exile and publicly support the Putin dictatorship, or try to host a bizarre TV talk show, the way Solzhenitsyn did. KGB support for terrorist organizations is documented on the world wide web ad nauseam, from the highest-level sources in both Western and Soviet intelligence. Notice how the author doesn't mention the "interviewer" (Julia Svelitchnaya) by name, or mention the questions that have been raised about her possible Kremlin connections, or explain why Litvinenko would announce to someone he didn't know that he intended to engage in blackmail (much less quote any actual language of Litvinenko to that effect)?

And for the record, nobody has said Litvinenko was a saint. What they've said is that he was a harsh critic of the Kremlin who was silenced in an outrageous act of international murder, right after the Russian Duma passed a law allowing this to occur. That this ape dares to claim alliances, as he does, with the libertarian cause while rationalizing such action by the neo-Soviet state clearly establishes just how demented he really is. Apparently, this so-called "libertarian" believes it's OK for a government to kill somebody, as long as it's a nasty somebody. So much for his principles!

In short, Litvinenko opposed Putin but hardly represented a credible threat to the Russian president. There was simply no reason for the Russians to assassinate him, and too many reasons – aside from his relative unimportance – not to. After all, Litvinenko was a British citizen who died on British soil: for the Russians to have offed him, in this context, would amount to an open declaration of war.

LR: Is this wacko really saying what he seems to be? Is he saying that Russians never do anything that doesn't make sense? Can he "explain" their behavior in the Kursk submarine sinking? Can he "explain" why the USSR devoted 25% of its GDP to military spending in a futile arms race with the USA, then disappeared? Can he "explain" the rationality of voting for a proud KGB spy to be the country's president, and favoring him with 75% approval ratings when the average wage is $300 per month and the population loses 1 million every year, and after the KGB murdered millions of innocent Russians during the Soviet era?

And again, does he really believe he has a pipeline to the secret corridors of the Kremlin and knows what they thought about Litvinenko? Is he that mental? In addition to silencing a vocal critic who was starting to investigate the Politkovskaya killing, in addition to sending a powerful message to all other Kremlin critics of what will happen if they dare to challenge The Power, in addition to sending a message to Britain about what Russia is prepared to do to punish it for protecting Boris Berezovsky, the killing also provides the Kremlin with a perfect basis to leverage Berezovsky's extradition, using the blackmail tactic of withholding cooperation on the Litvinenko killing (and even trying to blame it on Berezovsky himself, as this 8-ball author is oh-so-helpfully doing).

Declaration of war? This guy belongs in the loony bin. Does he really believe that if Britain conclusively proves it was the Kremlin that ordered the hit, it will declare war on Russia? Talk about credibility problems! Britain is in no position even to to do Russia serious economic harm, much less to launch a military assault. It burned its bridges with Russia during the G-8 Summit when both Tony Blair and his wife went after Putin on human rights. After that, the Kremlin knew it could no longer manipulate the British, so it had nothing at all to lose by killing Litvinenko there. In fact, it sent a message of how dirty it was willing to play if Britain got uppity. Now to be sure, killing a dissident on AMERICAN soil might be dangerous. But that didn't happen, now did it?

It makes no sense to assume that Putin or anyone in a position of authority in Russia pulled off this messy alleged assassination, yet the Western media rushed – nay, stampeded – to validate this improbable scenario. The British tabloids were awash in breathless accounts of past KGB hits, from the assassination of Leon Trotsky (the neocons never got over that one) to the elaborate poisonings carried out by the Russian secret service in the past. The American media followed suit. Invariably, the very different case of Viktor Yushchenko was raised, which has never been solved to this day – and which the Ukrainian authorities seem to have mysteriously dropped from their list of active investigations. On the Litvinenko and Yushchenko incidents, I have expressed my doubts about the semi-official narratives, which point to alleged Russian perfidy. This crude attempt to characterize the Russian government as run by serial poisoners evokes the old familiar Cold War imagery that portrayed the Russians as invariably sinister: it also depends on the reputation of the Stalin-era KGB, which has little if anything to do with the present-day FSB. So I won't go too deeply into these questions here, except to note that there is much more evidence regarding another incident of possible state-sponsored assassination, by means of radioactive poisoning, of a prominent person on his native soil.

LR: Let's ask the author a simple question. How many enemies of the Kremlin would have to be brutally killed before he would accept the possibility of Kremlin involvement? 100? 1,000? 10,000? What sort of person is willing to gamble with people's lives in this way? Not the kind you'd want to turn your back on, that's for sure.

The Litvinenko "assassination" – which could just as easily have been a case of a failed smuggling operation – was covered, and is still being covered, with wall-to-wall articles, and even two movies-in-the-making.

LR: So let's see if we understand. There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support the author's claim, but he believes it's reasonable that Alexander Litvinenko, a "nobody" and a defector from Russia, could get his hands on $10 million worth of Russian polonium in order to sell it to somebody. He can speculate about such things and it's perfectly reasonable, but if anyone speculates about the Kremlin being involved they are paranoid nuts, Right? But, wouldn't being able to get so much Russian polonium make Litvinenko a "somebody," and somebody that the Kremlin would really like to kill? And if he did so, wouldn't the Kremlin come forward and say "hey, this guy just stole our polonium!" Would it be logical that the Kremlin would report such a dangerous theft as soon as it occurred? After all, the author is sure the Kremlin never does irrational things, isn't he? The level of intellectual cowardice, dishonesty and ideological frenzy necessary to support this kind of gibberish is hard to imagine.

The Litvinenko affair, according to the version peddled in the Western media, dramatizes a narrative that both journalists and Western government officials have a whole lot invested in: they've largely swallowed the neocon-Cheney line that Russia is backsliding into authoritarianism, and that Putin – characterized as a neo-Soviet reincarnation of Stalin – represents a threat to the West. That's why the media is so willing to overlook the logical inconsistencies in the "Putin did it" theory, and, fueled by plenty of press releases from the Berezovsky organization, continues to point an accusing finger at Moscow without a single iota of solid evidence.

Interestingly, the author states that he believes the Israeli special forces were involved in a recent killing of an Arab using radioactive poison, yet he doesn't point to a "single iota of evidence" to support his claim. That's classic Russophile hypocrisy. Does this wacko somehow imagine he is an unbiased truth-seeker while using terms like "neocon"? Does he think that the abolition of all local elections, the nationalization of all television news and the usurpation of the entire energy industry does not constitute "democratic backsliding"? If not, what would? Would Putin have to start building gulags?

Doesn't the author find it at all strange to demand "solid evidence" of the involvement of Russia's secret police in a clandestine killing of a dissident? Wouldn't it be their business not to leave such indications after them? Isn't that what they spend their whole lives training to do?

Let LR ask you this, dear reader: If the KGB did kill Litvinenko, and if it decided to write an article in the Western press seeking to deflect blame, how would such an article be different from the one you see above in black and white?

Can anybody tell her?

When you can manage to piss of the Canadians, you know that you are just about as extreme as you can get. Leave it to Russia! From the Financial Post of Canada:

Stop Tolerating Russian Tyranny

Billionaire "oligarch" Roman Abramovich was once asked what advice he would give to young people who wanted to make money in Russia. "Do not imagine," he said, "that you will never go to jail."

Mr. Abramovich is one of the lucky ones. He took the money and ran, and is now most famous for his ruble revitalization of British soccer club Chelsea. However, his warning about the link between business and incarceration has been brought back under the interrogation lamp by the Kremlin's continuing vendetta against Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Like other oligarchs, Mr. Khodorkovsky took advantage in the 1990s of rushed privatizations and the weakness of president Boris Yeltsin to seize control of old Soviet facilities. The rationale for rapid privatization was that assets had to be got out of the hands of the Communists as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the inevitable unfairness of the process has been used as an excuse to reinstall not communism but its totalitarian cousin, fascism, under the iron fist of a former KGB supergoon, President Vladimir Putin.

Eighteen months ago, Mr. Khodorkovsky's oil company, Yukos, was stolen from under him after a show trial. Mr. K was in fact the model of what Russia needed to flourish. A talented businessman, he built Yukos into an outstanding example of both transparency and profitability. But he also promoted democracy and a more open society on the basis that these developments could do nothing but good for the Russian people. That was his biggest mistake.

Mr. Putin had a quite different vision of Russia: he wanted it to be feared again, and has succeeded, by reversing energy privatizations and threatening Russia's European natural gas customers, not to mention by arming some of the world' most dangerous whackos.

One key issue is whether anybody can expect a fair trial in Russia, since the justice system is so closely allied with the Kremlin. Mr. Khodorkovsky's lawyers point out that the persecution of their client is closely related to Mr. Putin's strategy of concentrating power in the hands of his cronies, and using the legal system to seize energy assets.

Mr. Khodorkovsky's first trial was a travesty. He is currently serving his time in a heavily contaminated area of Siberia, where he has been subjected to solitary confinement for offences such as: possessing unauthorized printing material (a copy of the prison regulations); drinking tea in an unauthorized location, and the possession of two lemons, which had been given to him by his wife. On another occasion, he was shoved into solitary "for his own protection" after another inmate tried to gouge his eye out with a knife.

The U.S. State Department has professed profound concern about the implications of the Khodorkovsky case for the rule of law in Russia. Among others who have protested Mr. Khodorkovsky's treatment are German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, former Czech president Vaclev Havel, former Irish president Mary Robinson, former Polish president Lech Walesa and Amnesty International. Where are Canada's protests?

Anybody who imagined that Mr. Khodorkovsky's case didn't send out a wider warning for business has been disabused by the Kremlin's recent pressure on international oil giants Exxon Mobil, Shell and BP over their Russian holdings.

Perhaps the most terrifying indication of the lawlessness of Mr. Putin's Russia is the number of murders, both inside and outside the country, that appear to be politically related. The most spectacular was the poisoning last year of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with polonium 210. Other cases include the executions of investigative journalist Anna Politskaya and crusading Bank of Russia official Andrei Kozlov. It would be easier to believe in the Kremlin's innocence if it expressed more interest in solving these cases. Instead, in the Litvinenko affair for example, the Kremlin is being obstructive. One of the reasons for failing to co-operate with British authorities may be that Britain has offered refuge to other former executives of Yukos.

Why should we care about Mr. Khodorkovsky? Because his persecution is a straw in a very dangerous wind. As Mr. Khodorkovsy's defence team point out, "The weak responses to Russia's backsliding have been a shocking surrender to sinister forces within the Russian leadership, and an overt signal to them that their belligerent authoritarianism will be tolerated -- in exchange for preferential treatment in energy relations."

Mr. Putin said before Mr. Khodorkovsky's trial and imprisonment that Russia would not allow businessmen to influence political life. He suggested that anybody who disagreed should look to the example of others who had tried and failed. "Some are gone forever," he said, "and others are far away." Perhaps the wonder is that Mr. Khodorkovsky is still only "far away" rather than "gone forever." All civilized people should press for his release.

LR is delighted to report the following amusing evidence of more hysterical lies in print from the eXile, and kindly thanks eXile for its running free commercials for this blog (though the latter isn't worth that much given their puny circulation, all free publicity is always welcome).

In a recent post about the eXile's first story about us, we wrote this:

La Russophobe is proudly awaiting the day, several weeks hence, when she records the 100,000th page view at this blog (we're now at 90,000). A "page view" is not the same as a visit, one visit can generate more than one page view depending on the interest level of the visitor, so it's a more general indication of how the blog is being received by its audience. But it's still a really big number for a little specialist blog like this, and it's going to come before we're even one year old. Readers should be just as pleased as LR, since they are responsible for the number as much as LR is. When this day arrives, it'll be the biggest milestone in the history of this blog to date, so naturally we are on pins and needles. Perhaps it's because any hopeful sign where Russia is concerned, in the midst of so very much darkness, is so valuable.

Without even trying to check the facts, the eXile then published a second story about us and therein reported this claim from an anonymous Russophile maniac "reader" in a pathetic attempt to spew more childish venom at this blog:

. . . but I did notice this: "La Russophobe is proudly awaiting the day, several weeks hence, when she records the 100,000th page view at this blog (we're now at 90,000)." They claim to have close to 90,000 views...but this print screen taken today (Jan. 30th, 2007) clearly shows a substantially less amount. Are they really this stupid?" [LR had to insert the quotes properly around our words, the stupid "reader" couldn't even remember to put them in, or else the eXile improperly deleted them]

They even go to the trouble of posting a screen shot of this blog, but they don't go as far as to read their own screenshot. The screen shot they post clearly shows the blog's counter, which shows VISITS not PAGE VIEWS. In the post the eXile "reader" was referring to, LR was talking about PAGE VIEWS, not the VISITS displayed on the public counter. La Russophobe has never claimed to have more VISITS than are shown on her counter, but to the contrary regularly updates readers on the accurate figure, and neither the anonymous letter-writer nor the eXile have any evidence to the contrary. In La Russophobe's post about the eXile, she clearly explained the difference between page views and visits. The eXile and it's reader simply ignored this information and told a ridiculous, propagandistic lie about LR. To repeat: A "page view" counts the number of times a web page created by this blog has been viewed by a reader. A "visit" counts the number of times a readers accesses the blog. One "visit" can therefore result in more than one "page view" just like picking up a book can result in reading more than one page. More than one post (in fact, usually 10-20 of the most recent) can be read on the main web page of this blog, but to read prior posts one must open those web pages.

Here's a screenshot of their post:


Here's a screenshot of LR's tracking data screen taken on Sunday Feburary 11, 2007, at 9 am, which shows the difference between "page views" and "visits" -- maybe pictures are easier for certain of the eXile's ape-like readers and staff to understand than words:

As of this date/time, LR had 96,228 PAGE VIEWS and 46,467 VISITS. This is far more published daily traffic than any other blog of its kind in the world -- another fact the eXile and its "reader" choose to ignore. As any ape can see, our average of 877 page views per day means we will reach 100,000 page views over the course of the next few days, just as we said we would. We're also glad to have this excuse to mention that our average visits per day has risen above 400 for the first time this week, while our average length of visitation is an impressively long 5 minutes 24 seconds. In the next few days we will reach the milestone of 50,000 visits.

To quote the eXile: "Are they really this stupid?"

Will they apologize and correct their error? Don't they see it as even a little bit embarrassing to rely on an anonymous reader whilst criticizing this blog for using anonymity? It seems unlikely.

This is what Russia has to rely on for its champions. Sad, isn't it?

Likely it means nothing to the eXile that it prints boldfaced lies, since neither the eXile nor it's "readers" are interested in annoying things like ethics or reputation or facts. They're just a bunch of monkeys having fun scratching themselves and watching each other urinate. Even so, it's really quite amazing that having had its website up for so many years, the eXile editors could still be oblivious of the difference between a "page view" and a "visit." Incidentally, La Russophobe, which has existed for just 11 months, has roughly the same number of links from blogs as does the eXile website according to Technorati even though eXile's website has been up for many, many years.

Amusing, too, that they still haven't got the guts to link to our posts about them. They must be really scared of them, apparently. On the other hand, if they had linked to them then their "readers" could have seen for themselves what an amazingly silly lie they were reporting, so perhaps they were being smart not to post a link.

Net result: eXile goes the way of all things in Russia.

Two other bizarre claims in the eXile require brief comment:

First, the eXile also stated of LR's publisher: ". . . she foolishly admitted, in her trademark mix of middlebrow thickness and moral righteousness, that yes, Kim Zigfield is a pseudonym, but after all, 'Did 'Huckelberry Finn' lack credibility because the author used a pen name?' You read that, and you start to feel so bad you think maybe you should just leave her alone." That's a simply a lie. "Kim Zigfield" is not even the proper spelling of the name of the publisher of this blog, and she has never "admitted" in any forum that the proper spelling "Kim Zigfeld" is a pseudonym (note that the eXile makes no attempt to cite a source). We've merely said that we allow many people who write for this blog to be anonymous, and that there's nothing wrong with anonymity, lots of people do it, including famous writers like Joe Klein in Primary Colors and Sam Clemens in Huckleberry Finn. That's to say nothing of every single newspaper in Russia. Dozens of people submit content to this blog which is published anonymously, and we don't think there's a thing wrong with that. The most important reason for anonymity is that we don't try to hold our credentials above anyone else's. We simply report the facts and analyze them, and let the strength of our analysis alone support us. The eXile obviously agrees, otherwise it wouldn't write about us in an article with no byline relying on anonymous sources as it has done now not once but twice. We must say, it's really weird that the eXile thinks it would somehow be "bad" for the name of a contributor to become known. Nothing bad happened to Joe Klein when his identity was revealed, nor to anyone else in a similar position that we've ever heard of. Apparently, this is the only thing the pathetic little scribblers at the eXile can think of to use to attack us, just like tiny children. In other words, they can't lay a glove on the substance of our content -- which would be high praise, if they weren't such morons.

Second, the eXile ignorantly accused LR of engaging in "ethnic hatred." Russian isn't an ethnicity or a race, it's just a nationality. Lot's of difference races and ethnicities can be Russian (at least according to Russian law). When one is anti-American, as the eXile is, that isn't ethnic hatred or racism. It's just hatred of a nationality. And sometimes (though it's obviously impossible for apes like those at the eXile to understand) that hatred is born of love, the desire to see a people not destroy themselves. eXile types wouldn't understand that, because almost everything they do helps speed the day when Russia will go the way of the dodo (including helpling Westerners find mail-order brides in Russia). The eXile's hatred of America is born of a desire to destroy the country that spurned its staff. LR's hatred of Russia is born of a desire to save it from destruction.

Being so delighted with all this free publicity, LR is inclined to try to reciprocate with a little favor. The eXile expresses a desire to know what the "Real Russia Project" is, since it got a letter about LR from Yuri Mamchur, its "director" (LR must doff her hat to the eXile's mocking of Director Mamchur's decorating his e-mail with lots of smiley faces and saying it's never heard of his project; LR must also admit that eXile did, on the second try, manage to post a picture of a fat ass -- nice job, boys, knew you could do it eventually). LR can help shed light on eXile's question, as her readers know. Mr. Mamchur, as LR has previously reported, works for an organization called the "Discovery Institute" whose purpose is to ban the teaching of evolution in American schools in favor of teaching "intelligent design." It is the sponsor of the "Real Russia Project," which by attempting to flatter the Russians with plenty of Russophelia is attempting to ingratiate itself with them so as to seek the abolution of evolution teaching, in favor of "intelligent design," in Russian schools as well. The organization is mired in all kinds of ethical problems, as LR has previously reported.

LR is sure that eXile will be pleased to know that's who constitutes its readership.

The doctors on M*A*S*H used to crack jokes while up to their elbows in blood, so perhaps from time to time La Russophobe shall try to do the same. Hence:

Source: Ellustrator.

More and more these days, La Russophobe begins to understand what Martin Luther King meant when he wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail that "white moderates" were more dangerous to the cause of racial justice for blacks than members of the KKK. The same can be said for the cause of political and social justice in Russia. Writing Professor Michael Scammell of Columbia University is a classic example. He's published a review of Martin Amis' brilliant new book about the gulags, namely House of Meetings, in the Moscow Times.

Suppose you came across the following paragraph in a book review in your local newspaper:

Not long ago, the London-based Nazi novelist Zeger Zink speculated in the quarterly journal Kriticheskindumf Masshof on Western writers' fascination with "wicked Naziism," concluding that it rested ultimately on envy: "For holding the wrong views in Nazi Germany you could be exiled to a concentration camp or executed, but the poet's status as a superior being who conversed with tsars (and accordingly possessed real political power) was never in question." In other words, the writer in Germany seems to count for something, whereas Western writers feel superfluous and marginalized.

If you read that in a newspaper today, you'd probably be put off, wouldn't you? Maybe even offended? If you were someone who'd been brutalized by the Nazis, you might even consider doing vomiting, might you not? Well, that did actually appear as the lead paragraph to Scammell's review of Amis (with Russian references instead of German ones), and seems to imply that Amis may have an overly negative view of the Gulags, which murdered more Russians than Hitler, because he's jealous of Russian writers having it so good. The suggestions that (a) Western writers are fascinated with Russia (b) because they are jealous of it are totally false.

The vast majority of Western writers, and in fact Western people, couldn't care less about Russia and haven't got the vaguest clue what Russian writers are writing about or why. This, you can be sure, is the cause of very considerable bitterness on the part of folks like Professor Scammell who've made the mistake of giving their lives over to trying to convince people how great Russian writers are. Like the man sang: "The glitter rubs right off and you're nowhere."

And the idea that Russia, as presently constituted, isn't in fact evil, that it is all just a giant misconception in the tiny little ape-like minds of those not clever enough to be anointed by Professor Scammell is such blatant B.S. that it cries out for screaming. What we see in Russia today is a country embracing not only the horrific disparity of wealth that brought the Tsarist regime to its knees, but simultaneously the horrific legacy of totalitarian oppression that brought the USSR to its knees. We see Russians blithely turning their backs on the abolition of local elections, the destruction of television media, and the murder of dissidents like Anna Politkovskaya, to say nothing of the hoarding of vast quantities of wealth by a clan of elites while the nation loses 1 million people every year to disease and pestilence of every description. In other words, we see the face of evil.

And we hear Russophile propagandists rationalizing that evil by saying it doesn't exist, but rather is a figment of the jealous imagination of Westerners who just wish they could be as cool as Russia is. Propagandists who just might be enabled by this writing professor we have right here before us, even though he's not actually one of them. Remember about the "white moderates"?

Scammell (pictured, right), though, is a Russian translator and biographer of Solzhenitsyn, so he obviously cannot be a crazed Russophile maniac, and indeed makes two important points in his review. First, he admits that the current body of literature on the Gulag is inaccessible to modern readers both because of its obscurity and its self-censorship, and that Amis is performing an important service by rectifying this problem. And he concludes his review by, to his credit, praising the accuracy of Amis' documentation of the crude barbarity of Gulag life, covered up by cowardly Russians for so long. Yet his last paragraph returns to his opening theme and reads:

The only place where I would fault Amis in this regard is in his blanket condemnation of Russia during and since the Soviet era. His inclusion of the Beslan school massacre purports to show that Vladimir Putin's Russia is barely better than its Soviet predecessor, while the narrator's nihilistic bloodlust and sexual sadism are made to appear those of a Russian everyman. It's as bleak a picture of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia as one is likely to find in print today. Yet fascination and imitation suggest admiration. Amis' is a frustrated love of Russia. His bitter arraignment of Russia's tragic past and chaotic present suggests not hopelessness, but a desire for an awakening of Russia's moral conscience, and a search for a way back to contrition and redemption.

So, to his credit, Scammell is able to recognize that Amis, like La Russophobe, is writing so much harsh stuff about Russia because he wants to induce it to change. But Scammell apparently feels (though he won't say it in so many words) that if there's any hope for Russia then we should speak some whispers of love into Russia's ear together with our criticism, which should be phrased in only the most gentle and respectful of verbiages, or else the poor helpless little Russian turtles will just pull themselves into their shell and destroy themselves. If so, LR dares to wonder: Is there anyone on Earth who has more pure patronizing contempt for Russians than Professor Scammell, and isn't it clear that it's Amis who is showing real respect for them (Amis and, of course, La Russophobe)?

Would Scammell adopt the same patronizing, flower-child-like attitude towards his students as he does towards Russia? If so, he must be quite popular with them: "Oh dear, did you feel depressed yesterday and couldn't take the midterm? What a pity. You know, you're a very valuable human being and I love you. Naturally you don't have to take the midterm, you just spend a few hours meditating about how terrible world hunger is, and you'll be sure to get at least a B+." It's the students of folks like this that end up on water towers holding rifles, and it's the politicians rationalized by folks like this who end up destroying nations. Of course, all poor little misunderstood Russia needs is some love and deep psychological understanding from enlightened fellows like Professor Scammell, and they'd be sure to walk the straight and narrow.

Scammell, the writing teacher and translator, doesn't reflect sufficiently on history. Gandhi had some success with a philosophy vaguely like this in India, but Scammell seems to overlook the fact that there isn't the slightest evidence of any such success in Russia. There's no evidence that anything, other than Amis-like unflinching confrontation, has ever moved Russians one iota off their path to self-destruction.

And Scammell overlooks the influence of psychology too -- his own. It's so much more pleasant and comforting to think that Russia just needs a little tweaking and things will be OK, that there's plenty of rosy hope just around the corner, rather than to think massive effort and unpleasant confrontation is needed. That's what Chamberlain thought about Hitler, hence Munich. It's what appeasers always think. It's the need of the brain to protect itself from shocks, to put it nicely. To put it truly, it's cowardice.

F.Y.I., Christopher Hitchens attempted a hatchet job on Amis' last book about Stalin, Koba the Dread, and was dismantled in Slate by Anne Applebaum. For another review of House of Meetings, check out Thomas Mallon in the Washington Post or John Banville in the New York Review of Books.

The Times of London reports that the Kremlin is using blackmail tactics on the Litvinenko investigation, refusing to cooperate further in the investigation of the crime until Britain extradites Berezovsky and Zakayev. It could very well be that one of the reasons the Kremlin attacked Litvinenko on British soil was to position itself to make this demand thereafter, yet another good reason to kill him. Can you imagine what the Russophile maniacs would say if Britain refused to extradite a Chechen terrorist who participated in Beslan or Dubrovka until Russia sent Mikhail Khodorkovsky to London?

The Kremlin has linked its co-operation in solving the murder of Alexander Litvinenko to British help in extraditing exiled critics of President Putin. Russian officials demanded that Boris Berezovsky, a billionaire businessman, and the Chechen separatist envoy Akhmed Zakayev should be sent back.

The issues were raised at a meeting in Moscow between Alistair Darling, the Trade and Industry Secretary, and Alexei Kudrin, the Russian Finance Minister, to discuss trade links. Mr Darling is the first Cabinet minister to visit Moscow since Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium210 in London in November.

“We did discuss the case and, in parallel, the Russian requests for their own extraditions. In relation to the Russian requests, I said very clearly that that was a matter for the British courts and ministers can’t intervene,” Mr Darling said. “In relation to the Litvinenko case, the Crown Prosecution Service are looking at that and will decide on the evidence what action is appropriate. “What Mr Kudrin and I did agree was very important was that both countries ought to cooperate with each other. Russia has asked Scotland Yard if they would cooperate with Russian authorities and John Reid [the Home Secretary] has indicated that would be the case.”

Three attempts have been made by Russia to extradite Mr Berezovsky, who has political asylum in Britain and is one of the most vocal critics of Mr Putin. British courts have rejected the application each time. Russian authorities appear determined to link the inquiry by Scotland Yard into two Russian businesmen who are suspected of involvement in Litvinenko’s death with British willingness to assist in handing over Mr Berezovsky, who is wanted for crimes in Moscow.

British detectives interviewed Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB officer, and his business partner Dmitri Kovtun in Moscow. They have sent a file to the Crown Prosecution Service, which is understood to have identified them as key suspects in Litvinenko’s killing. A decision to prosecute will require the extradition of both men, which Russia says is impossible. The Russian Constitution bars the extradition of citizens to face trial abroad. Yuri Chaika, the Prosecutor-General, has said that Scotland Yard will be allowed to return to Moscow only once his team of prosecutors has been allowed to question potential suspects in London.

The Foreign Ministry in Russia complained on Wednesday that Britain was obstructing its attempt to send prosecutors to London to interview more than 100 people, including Mr Berezovsky and Mr Zakayev. Mr Darling said that the British Government was willing to grant permission for the Russian team to visit. Litvinenko accused Mr Putin from his deathbed of ordering his assassination, a charge that is denied strongly by the Kremlin. It accuses Mr Berezovsky of carrying out the killing. Mr Darling was leading a delegation of chief executives from 20 British companies and Richard Lambert, the Director-General of the CBI, for talks on investment in Russia’s booming economy. Business relations between the two countries are strained amid concerns about Kremlin tactics in exerting pressure on Shell to concede a majority stake in the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project to Gazprom in December.

INTERNATIONAL

Google currently has well over 500 news articles from around the world documenting the outbreak of Cold War II, the one Russia can't possibly survive, as Russia undertakes massive new spending initiatives on its military and Vladimir Putin rails against the US just like Nikita Krushchev at the U.N. Have a gander. Have some Pepto Bismol handy. The Kremlin is not only crazed enough to provoke the U.S. again, but crazed enough to ignore, just like the USSR did, the innumerable chronic social problems it faces in favor of military largess. Fool me once . . .

NATIONAL

The Jerusalem Post reports that five Russians have been convicted for dragging a Jew to a cemetery and stabbing him with a cross. Meanwhile, the Catholic World News reports that non-Orthodox churches are under assault all across Russia. If you don't belong to the "right" church in Russia, time to think about leaving . . . or converting . . . or getting yourself a bodyguard.

Racist violence continues unabated in Russia. Newsweek's correspondent Aidar Buribayev is the latest victim.

Reader Michel directs us to an analysis from the Canadian press on how the Kremlin controls Russia's media.

Radar Online has a magazine feature on the various Russian oligarchs entitled "Dude, where's my Tsar?" La Russophobe can provide the answer: He's in the Kremlin. His name is Vladimir.

FINANCIAL

Robert Amsterdam writes that reports of Russian stock allure are greatly exaggerated. Western investors are finally wising up, it seems.

SPORTS

Playfuls.com reports that dogfighting, banned in the civilized world, is wildly popular in barbaric Russia. The New York Times has a report with photo. LR dares to wonder how long it will be before they start using people instead of dogs, and building coliseums. Come to think of it, maybe they already have done so.

RIA Novosti reports that, unable to find a Russian competent (or foolhardy) enough to coach its pathetic side, Russia turned to a Dutch coach in an attempt to reverse its humiliation on the soccer pitch. And what happened? Russia was crushed 4-1 by . . . Netherlands. Now that's an ouchie!

More humiliation for Russian tennisistki. World #5 and tournament #3 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova was blown off the court in the quarter finals by an unseeded non-Russian at the Gaz de France tournament in Paris.

STYLES

Carpetblogger asks: Why do Russian and Ukrainian women feel the need to dress like whores? Good question. LR would also like to know.

ABC news reports that a highly-placed British official has told them the British authorities have concluded Alexander Litvinenko was killed in a " 'state-sponsored' assassination orchestrated by Russian security services." So much for the ridiculous lie propounded by the Russophile scum that there is no "evidence" of Kremlin involvement. Incidentally, did you ever notice that these Russophiles who scream about "evidence" never once say what action they would be prepared to take against the Kremlin if sufficient "evidence" were shown to them, or even what sort of "evidence" would satisfy them? That's so they can just shift position no matter what "evidence" is given and demand something else.

British officials say police have cracked the murder-by-poison case of former spy Alexander Litvinenko, including the discovery of a "hot" teapot at London's Millennium Hotel with an off-the-charts reading for Polonium-210, the radioactive material used in the killing.

A senior official tells ABC News the "hot" teapot remained in use at the hotel for several weeks after Litvinenko's death before being tested in the second week of December. The official said investigators were embarrassed at the oversight.

The official says investigators have concluded, based on forensic evidence and intelligence reports, that the murder was a "state-sponsored" assassination orchestrated by Russian security services. Officials say Russian FSB intelligence considered the murder to have been badly bungled because it took more than one attempt to administer the poison. The Russian officials did not expect the source of the poisoning to be discovered, according to intelligence reports.

Russian officials continue to deny any involvement in the murder and have said they would deny any extradition requests for suspects in the case.

Sources say police intend to seek charges against a former Russian spy, Andrei Lugovoi, who met with Litvinenko on Nov. 1, the day officials believe the lethal dose was administered in the Millennium Hotel teapot.

Lugovoi steadfastly denied any involvement in the murder at a Moscow news conference and at a session with Scotland Yard detectives. Russian security police were present when the British questioned Lugovoi, and British officials do not think they received honest answers from him.

British health officials say some 128 people were discovered to have had "probable contact" with Polonium-210, including at least eight hotel staff members and one guest.

None of these individuals has yet displayed symptoms of radiation poisoning, and only 13 individuals of the 128 tested at a level for which there is any known long-term health concern, officials said.

The Millennium Hotel has closed the Pine Bar and other areas where Litvinenko and Lugovoi met on Nov. 1, although the hotel says the remaining public areas "have been officially declared safe" and are open to the public.

Robert Amsterdam, one of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's attorneys, issued a press release today in which he announced the release of a 75-page white paper which acidly condemns the Putin regime's perversion of the Russian justice system and massive assault on civil liberties. Quite properly, he also condemns Western ineptness in meeting this new threat. Read the devastating details here. You can read Amsterdam's prior White Paper on constitutional violations during Khodorkovsky's trial here .

Check out LR's most recent installment on Publius Pundit, summarizing the use of Alexander Litvinenko's picture for target practice at a facility used by the KGB, and the participation of one of Russia's highest-ranking political figures in the sordid process. Feel free to leave your comments on this terrifying new twist in the Litvinenko murder case, which gives the lie to the idea that the Kremlin didn't care about Litvenenko and wouldn't exercise itself to kill him. This is bolstered by LR's reporting yesterday on the statements of a former KGB spymaster who called Litvinenko a "traitor" who would have been executed in Soviet times.

Look for a major facelift over at Publius Pundit over the next few days; the portal will be redesigned and reorganized, which should make for a new level of interest for readers.

Writing in the Moscow Times, columnist Georgy Bovt, editor of Profil magazine, explains how the Putin regime has murdered trust in Russia:

Many foreigners visiting Russian cities for the first time, and Moscow in particular, notice immediately that Russians are more likely to wear gloomy, weary or serious expressions than affable, smiling or open ones. It immediately gives the impression that Russians are rather severe.

I noticed this myself long ago: The first reaction to any stranger is usually a wary one. I have noticed, however, that a friendly "hello!" can often melt the ice.

This doesn't, however, signal the beginning of a social revolution, and you shouldn't expect the usually gloomy bank clerks or stressed-out ticket sellers in the metro to return the greeting.

All the same, if your "hello" is accompanied by a polite-but-restrained smile, it will likely have a disarming effect upon your interlocutor. (Note the importance of restraint here. If your smile is too big, you will be suspected of being either a flirt or a full-blown idiot). Your little greeting might even engender a sincere desire to help, rather than the common curt response, or worse, no response at all.

These observations have something to say about attitudes toward public space and deportment. The norms have already ceased to be Soviet in many aspects, but the social order forming out of the ruins of the past seems rather unattractive, and at times less humane.

Last week, the Public Chamber published a curious report on the theme of civil society. This was the first report of its type issued by that organization and, as you might expect, it is free of criticism of the government. As such, I found the section dealing with nongovernmental organizations less interesting than the included polling data relating to a number of different parameters.

The report's most striking conclusion was that people have an almost complete lack of trust in one another. Between 1991 and 2006, the number of respondents who said other people could be trusted dropped from 41 percent to 22 percent. The number who said they were "wary" of others was an alarming 74 percent. Asked "Where would you look for help in the event of a serious problem?" 83 percent answered "immediate relatives." Four percent said they would turn to an NGO, while only a slightly larger number said they would turn to a government agency.

When asked to identify the "human rights that are the most important for Russians," the overwhelming majority answered along more Soviet-era, paternalistic lines, with 76 percent citing the right to be cared for in illness and old age and 64 percent citing the right to free education. Only 20 percent chose freedom of access to information, 16 percent cited the right to elect those who will occupy positions of authority and just 28 percent chose freedom of speech. This clearly illustrates the struggle for individualistic against paternalistic values. Even though the number of respondents choosing freedom of speech has risen gradually in recent years, new values are still having difficulty gaining ground.

The general emotional backdrop against which this process is taking place does not offer reason for optimism, although 63 percent of Russians did say they were satisfied with their lives. But when asked which feeling was strongest among those around them at present, only 34 percent chose "hope," 16 percent answered "self-respect," and just 15 percent chose "confidence in the future." When allowed to choose multiple answers, respondents indicated such feelings as "shame at what is happening today" (18 percent), "shame for my people" (33 percent) and "weariness and indifference" (33 percent).

So, despite the bad news, there do seem to be some reasons for more people to start smiling. Now all we need to do is find a way to increase the general level of trust in society and, consequently, the number of smiling people we encounter on the street.

Writing in the Moscow Times, columnist Alexander Golts explains that no matter how much Russia decides to spend on its military, it won't acquire real military power:

There are three ways to deal with any problem: The right way, the wrong way and the bureaucratic way. Instead of searching for a workable solution, under the bureaucratic approach, create a new institution to deal with the problem. An impressive demonstration of this approach came in the form of the Kremlin's recent decision to create a federal agency to oversee the delivery of arms and military technologies and materials.

The problem is that Russia's leadership, however much it has tried, has for years been unable to increase the effectiveness of arms spending. Every year the Defense Ministry requests about one-third more funding for the purchase of weapons, with the total now at 300 billion rubles, or $11.3 billion. The return on this investment has not been very impressive. This year the army will take delivery of 15 strategic rockets and an unspecified number of aircraft, tanks and other armored vehicles. Senior officials with the Defense Ministry have talked about plans "to equip one long-range aircraft squadron, six aircraft and helicopter squadrons, seven tank and 13 motorized infantry battalions with new and modernized equipment." But nobody has provided specifics on the breakdown between new and simply modernized equipment. The reason is that the ministry isn't sure how many new weapons it can get its hands on. When the defense department announced a plan last year to buy 30 new tanks, the suggestion was met with laughter.

The Defense Ministry can't fathom why military orders are filled so slowly or why weapons manufacturing costs have risen so sharply. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov recently complained that prices in the military-industrial complex were "not entirely in order" and were often tentative. He seems to believe that the directors of military contractors are milking military contracts for all they can get. The new agency has been set up to deal with the problems with costs and meeting production deadlines. Ivanov also said the new agency, which will administer billions of rubles in budget funds, was guaranteed to be free of corruption. He said this was the case because it will be staffed by civilians and will not answer to the Defense Ministry. After six years in charge at the ministry, Ivanov clearly has no illusions about his subordinates.

This might all generate some confidence if it were not for the fact that Ivanov was himself made deputy prime minister and chairman of the military-industrial complex with the purpose of exercising more control over the sector. He was called on after a federal service created to monitor defense industry orders also apparently failed to deliver the expected results. That agency came into being to take over for the Federal Industry Agency. Deputy defense minister for armaments, General Alexei Moskovsky, and President Vladimir Putin's adviser on military-technical questions, Alexander Burutin, are also responsible for such oversight. Given that each of these organizations and positions was given full authority over the issue when created, it is hard to believe that the problem is the lack of coordination, management and control.

The origin of the problem is much more serious. It derives from the Defense Ministry's inability to adapt to a market economy. Throughout the 1990s, the ministry and firms working in the military-industrial complex perpetuated a lie. The ministry acted as if it were always just about to receive new funds for weapons, while defense firms, long having lost most of their suppliers and modern technologies, tried to give the impression that they could fully equip a modern army as soon as they received the money.

The whole myth of the military-industrial complex was exposed the moment the Defense Ministry actually came up with the cash. It became clear that there was no manufacturing base from which the component parts could be assembled. Parts left over from the Soviet era were sufficient to build only one prototype of each weapon. When talk turned to small production runs of each, it became evident that the industry was up to the task. Factories that had provided parts during Soviet times had long before switched to other products, so some of the parts had to be made practically by hand. This, in turn, created the problems with deadlines and rise in prices. As the Defense Ministry has been unable to determine which weapons it needs most urgently, it has tried to get its hands on all of them -- from pistols to strategic rockets -- at once. So even with the increases in the procurement budget, there never seems to be enough money.

The problem is that the creation of yet another oversight agency isn't going to increase the effectiveness of this spending. All this will do is introduce another bureaucratic layer between the manufacturer and the customer. A much more effective approach would be to create a single oversight structure, responsible to the State Duma. This structure would help prioritize orders and monitor both the ministry and the manufacturer in their fulfillment.

The problem with this approach, of course, would be convincing Ivanov that the parliament should have any say over how he does his job.

Today La Russophobe is pleased to offer readers a trio of features from the BBC, referred to us by a British reader. Following this post, a second deals with Russian abuse of infants, and following that a third addresses Russian abuse of dissidents. In addition, if you click here you can read the Beeb's interview with exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky and watch Beeb's recent interview with a close friend of Alexander Litvineko who has just broken his silence.

But first, to complete a British hat trick, here is the Beeb's report on Alexander Gusak, Litvinenko's former KGB boss, who calls him a "traitor" and says he should be killed. So much for the idea that he was "nobody" to the KGB (if you click through, you can listen to the interview live):

Alexander Gusak called him a "direct traitor" for betraying other Russian agents to British intelligence. Mr Litvinenko, 43, who was a vehement critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin, died on 23 November after being poisoned by radioactive polonium-210. His friends claim the Kremlin ordered his assassination - Moscow denies this.

Mr Gusak, a former head of the FSB, the successor to the KGB, has now retired and works as a lawyer. In an interview for BBC's Newsnight, he was asked if the spy deserved to die. He said: "I consider him a direct traitor because he betrayed what is most sacred for any operative - his operational sources. "For that - and I speak as a lawyer - what Litvinenko did comes under article 275 of the criminal code. It's called treason. And there are sanctions; prescribed punishments. Up to 20 years in prison. But that's in accordance with the law."

He said under the previous regime, Mr Litvinenko would have been executed. "I was brought up on Soviet law. That provides for the death penalty for treason - article 64. I think if in Soviet times he had come back to the USSR he would have been sentenced to death." Mr Gusak said one of the agents who believed he had been exposed by Mr Litvinenko offered to assassinate the former spy. He said: "I didn't advise any of them to go and kill Litvinenko, though one of them did say: 'Listen, he's done you so much wrong - shall I bring you his head?'"

The ex-spymaster also confirmed claims made by Mr Litvinenko of a plan to kill the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky in 1997. The plot was later exposed by Mr Litvinenko at a London press conference. Before his death Mr Litvinenko accused the Russian president Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder. Police sources have told the BBC that the "most likely poisoner" was Andrei Lugovoi, who met Mr Litvinenko in London on the day he fell ill.

Mr Lugovoi accused the British media of "lies" and said he should be regarded as a witness and not a suspect. Scotland Yard has handed a file on its investigation to the Crown Prosecution Service.