Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says the world faces a growing “cult of violence,” and Moscow must not let events like those in Libya and Syria be repeated in Russia. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.

But this week, the spotlight’s on Sochi, the Russian city that will host the next winter Olympics in two years.

Wednesday was the first time athletes were allowed to train on the Olympic downhill skiing course in Sochi.

Reporter Julia Barton says many Russians are hoping the 2014 Winter Games will make Sochi a must-see international destination.

Just a few days ago, Russia blocked a UN Security Council resolution that would have put more pressure on Syrian Presiednt bashar al-Assad.

Marco Werman talks with Moscow-based journalist Masha Gessen about Russia’s relationship with Syria, and tries to understand the view from Moscow when it comes to Syria.

Masha Gessen is the author of “The Man Without A Face,” a new biography of Vladimir Putin which is out in March.

Cartoon: Riber Hansson

He’s also in the middle of protests against him. So he’s staging his own support rally in response.

And Putin is also in the middle of the international outrage over the violence in Syria.

Russia sells lots of weapons to Syria and Putin (along with his representatives at the UN) are neutering any real efforts to end the government-sponsored violence in Syria.

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Alexander Yellin (Photo: Julia Barton)

Putin’s supporters and detractors both have pop songs to sing about him. But oddly, Russia’s best-known pro-Putin and anti-Putin songs were written by the very same songwriter.

Alexander Yellin sits in an expensive café in downtown Moscow. The 53-year-old lyricist is partly bald – what’s left of his graying hair is tied back in a pony-tail.

Yellin writes songs that others sing. Ten years ago, he bet a friend $200 that he could create a hit song in Russia on the cheap.

Yellin won the bet. His pop song “A Man Like Putin” became so huge that it’s been translated into English.

When “A Man Like Putin” came out, Putin had been president for two years. Yellin said his song reflected the country’s admiration for the man.

“At that moment, there was such euphoria that there was this new, young leader who’d move the country forward,” Yellin said. “The song was a bit ironic. It wasn’t opposed to Putin—it was written in a way to depict Putin as the ideal man, even the ideal husband for women.”

Yellin may have written “A Man Like Putin” as light satire, but it wasn’t taken that way. Vladimir Putin made it his anthem and even played it at rallies. Yellin, who’d been a dissident rocker in Soviet days, seemed a bit uncomfortable with the embrace.

But even just a few years ago, he told foreign journalists there was no point writing anti-Putin songs—no one would listen to them.

All that changed last September, when now-Prime Minister Putin announced he was running for president — again. A political opposition leader asked Alexander Yellin if he’d write a different kind of song now, one that reflected the country’s disgruntled mood.

Yellin came up with “Our Madhouse Votes for Putin”, which is from the viewpoint of a patient in a psychiatric ward. “Why is there a hole in my head, and in the budget?” he asks his doctor. “Why instead of tomorrow today is yesterday?

“It’s all so complicated!” the patient concludes. “It’s just too messed up. Our madhouse will vote for Putin, and with Putin we’ll be happy.”

Alexander Yellin said mental illness provides an obvious metaphor for the way Russians view their leaders.

“Schizophrenia seems to me inherent in Russians,” he said. “On the one hand, Russians don’t love those in power, but on the other, they just go along with everything that’s done in the political arena.”

Yellin and his group Rabfak—a Soviet acronym for “Workers’ College”—released the song in October and the video went viral.

Rabfak performed at protest rallies here in Moscow last December. A group of Russian linguists named “Our Madhouse Votes for Putin” the Russian phrase of the year. The last time Yellin won that honor was in 2002—for the phrase “A Man Like Putin.”

All told, Yellin said he made about $8,000 off “A Man Like Putin,” plus the $200 bet. He doesn’t regret writing the song; he even hopes it might get recorded again.

“This time,” he said, “its satirical nature might come through.”

Steve Rosenberg’s video report

The book is a sort of wartime Caucasus scrapbook. It draws on Sheets’ reportage from the region, beginning with his days in Leningrad as a student of Russian in the late 80s, to the summers he spent as an interpreter before working for Reuters as a full-time staff correspondent (1992-2000) and as NPR’s Moscow Bureau Chief (2001-2005).

Sheets witnesses strife – usually too close for comfort – in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, and Chechnya, and offers intimate portraits of everyday citizens caught up in conflict. It’s a constant game of Russian roulette for Sheets, and just about everyone he encounters.

In a section on the war in Georgia, he finds a dynamic that he says is still at play in much of Russia, and and the former republics:

The empire is dead and the pent up emotions of hundreds of years under foreign tutelage boil over in a paroxysm of nationalist fervor. The result is a ruinous, pointless, internecine bloodletting pitting Georgians against Ossetians and now Georgians against Abkhazians and finally Georgians against Georgians, during which most of the original objectives (such as independence) get lost in the mayhem

Sheets says the collapse of the empire isn’t over. He tells host Marco Werman that the further fragmentation of Russia has already begun, and you can see it in the street demonstrations in Moscow.

“The opposition demonstrations are very notable for their … nationalists. And when I say nationalists I mean people who would even like to see places like Chechnya and other predominantly Muslim republics in the Russian federation, stop being part of the Russian federation. In other words, these people resent all the subsidies which are going to many of these regional governments that are headed by local chieftains, who run these places like fiefdoms. There’s a good bit of racism involved in that and there’s a good bit of pragmatism because people see billions of dollars being corruptly poured down the drain.”

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Marco Werman: A longing for law and order in Russia and in the former Soviet Republics is a recurring theme in Lawrence Sheets’ new memoir. It’s called “8 Pieces of Empire: A 20-Year Journey through the Soviet Collapse”. One of the characters Sheets describes in the wartime travel log is Leningrad resident, Nina Nikolaevna. She was a teenager during the 900-day Nazi blockade of Leningrad.

Lawrence Sheets; Nina Nikolaevna had stayed in the basement of one of Leningrad’s most revered cathedrals during the war, sitting out the Nazi bombings by dint of the fact that her mother was a caretaker, cultural caretaker, and was entrusted with gathering things like Imperial heirlooms, the dress that had belong to Catherine the Great, for example, icons from around palaces from around the city. And the city was of course, at the time surrounded by Nazi troops. She came close to dying as many people did; close to starving to death. Came to the point where she could no longer walk, rations were down to sawdust, bread and water. And by chance of fate she was saved by the fact that a family friend knew zookeepers from the Leningrad Zoo, and at the Leningrad Zoo there’d been two seals. And Nina Nikolaevna ended up being given a rich hunk of seal blubber and she escaped.

Werman: It is an extraordinary story, Nina’s story. In 2006 you went back and found Nina. She’s 81, her home, Leningrad has become St. Petersburg, again. She supports Vladimir Putin. She says “our people need a bit of the iron hand.” Can you tell us what she means and is her view representative of many Russians today?

Sheets: Nina Nikolaevna despite having a daughter who’d been exiled, and living through all sorts of privations, believed that the Soviet empire was not about to implode back in 1989. Her life had improved, I would say, rather dramatically. Food was no longer a problem. There was ready medical care, and there was a sense of order in the country: which for people who had lived through such tumultuous times, meant something.

Werman: So you were in Leningrad during the Soviet collapse. You had people as you say, of all walks of life, from all over Russia outside your door, some fighting, hence the title of the chapter “A Civil War Outside My Door”, but a real civil war awaited you in Chechnya as a reporter, in 1999. You point out the Russians went into Grozny, it seemed that failure for them was not an option and they were pretty brutal in the prosecution of the war there in ’99. This war coincided with the arrival of Vladimir Putin to power. What does that moment represent for Vladimir Putin?

Sheets: It is indeed how Vladimir Putin defined himself. This was a fundamentally different war than the first war. When the Russians went in the second time they just left absolutely no doubt that they were going to methodically retake the place, block by block if necessary, and that’s exactly what they did- by pummeling it into the ground. And that quote “victory” helped define Mr. Putin as a man who could establish order and reverse what had been I would say 10-15 years of Russian humiliation. If they had not been well off economically under Soviet rule, they were at least respected as a country that had nuclear weapons and was listened to in the world. They saw themselves being reduced to the position of receiving humanitarian aid from the United States and Europe; food aid, which would befit a Third World country. Defeat at the hands of a tiny rag tag bunch of Chechen fighters who had little more than light weapons at their disposal. And Vladimir Putin reversed that, to many Russians.

Werman: You know, Lawrence, if we go back to Nina, your elderly host back in St. Petersburg, she said that Vladimir Putin instilled a sense of order with his heavy-handed ways, I’m wondering what she made of Putin’s prosecution of the war in Chechnya or the horrific shootout after the hostage crisis at the school in Beslan?

Sheets: She felt in general that Putin, if anything, was not heavy handed enough -and needed to be even firmer. And I think that her views at that time in 2006 echoed the views of many Russians who saw their economic fortunes increasing. Indeed, one of the ironies I think of Putin’s rule is that at this very time where we’re seeing for the first time major opposition demonstrations in years against Putin’s rule, it’s also a time when Russians enjoy a higher standard of living arguably than they have in their history. So it’s an interesting, I think, dichotomy where at the same time you have a tremendous amount of corruption, obviously, but relatively high living standards compared to what Russians had been used to over the last century. And yet, Vladimir Putin obviously facing incredible political problems.

Werman: So, how do you read what’s going on in the streets right now of Moscow, people up in arms against Vladimir Putin, how do you see that?

Sheets: If you look at the opposition demonstrations we tend to see freedom versus democracy, or Putin versus opponents. The opposition demonstrations are very notable for their diversity. Yes, there are people who I would label typical Western intelligentsia types, but those demonstrations are equally populated by nationalists. And when I saw nationalists I mean people who would even like to see places like Chechnya and other predominantly Muslim republics in the Russian Federation stop being part of the Russian Federation. In other words, these people resent all the subsidies, which are going to many of these regional governments and are headed by local chieftains who run these places like Chechnya is -fiefdoms. There’s a good bit of racism involved in that, and there’s also a good bit of pragmatism because people see billions of dollars being corruptly poured down the drain and being divvied up between people in Moscow and people in the regions. So I think it’s a very, very diverse crowd, and to try to label it as democracy versus freedom or anything more than an extremely complex set of circumstances, which I think is relatively typical for what is the gradual process of disintegration of an empire, which continues to this day, I think it would be a mistake. I think we have to see it for what it is, which is a very complex process. So the outcome of what is going on is going to be very unpredictable over the next few months and indeed few years.

Werman: Lawrence Sheets’ new book is called “8 Pieces of Empire: A 20-Year Journey through the Soviet Collapse”. Lawrence, good to speak with you, thanks a lot.

Sheets: It’s my pleasure.

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The deep freeze has caused 80 deaths, mostly in Ukraine and Poland.

It also has Russian gas giant Gazprom struggling to meet demand.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to reporter Julia Barton about the energy challenges Gazprom is facing.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. There’s cold and then there’s deadly cold. The deadly cold we want to tell you about right now, it continues to grip central and eastern Europe. The deep freeze has caused at least 80 deaths, mostly in Ukraine and Poland. It also has Russian gas giant, Gazprom, struggling to meet demand. Reporter Julia Barton is in Moscow. Julia, you’re just back from Ukraine where at least 40 cold related deaths have occurred, what was it like there and how are people dealing with this cold?

Julia Barton: Well, as you can imagine the air in Kiev was very frigid, I mean you walk outside and immediately the hairs inside your nose start to freeze over and the water in your eyes starts to turn to ice. So, that tells me at least that it’s well below zero Fahrenheit, but I didn’t see any sign that people were avoiding going outside. You would see women in these huge fur coats, wrapped up in those, and people with their fur chapkas, their hats. The sidewalks are very icy and dangerous. Again, that doesn’t seem to deter anyone. The did close schools in Kiev today, but children are out sledding with their parents and just enjoying a sunny day off.

Werman: And for those 40, at least 40 cold related deaths, how did those people die specifically?

Barton: Well, most of them were homeless and well, this partly might be an issue in terms of Ukraine, of the country starting to do better than some of its former Soviet neighbors in reporting deaths like this, but Ukraine also does not have a good social safety net when it comes to issues like homelessness. And all that becomes absolutely clear when you have a cold snap like this. The country’s prime minister, Mykola Azarov, had to ask people openly and say “We need to help each other. We need to stop being indifferent when we see someone who has nowhere else to go.” And he had to ask hospitals not to turn their indigent patients out onto the street when their treatment is through. The emergency ministry there has setup over 1,700 heated shelters around the country with food and tea, but obviously that’s just a short term answer to a much bigger problem. There’s no kind of well-knit social safety net that can help people with deeper issues, such as alcoholism and drug use, and so they just end up on the streets living in the storm sewer systems and that kind of thing, and there’s nowhere for them to go when the cold like this hits.

Werman: Now, Ukraine and many other of the affected countries rely on Russian gas for heat that comes from Gazprom, the gas monopoly in Russia. Has Gazprom been able to meet the demand?

Barton: Some European countries beyond Ukraine, such as Italy, complained earlier this week that their gas supplies dropped, and they blamed Gazprom for diverting that gas for domestic use. Gazprom says it did not do that. It admits that it has been strained a bit by just a slight amount and so they’ve increased their supplies from underground storage facilities and that gas is in the pipeline. It should be reaching Europe, but they say it just takes time.

Werman: What about Russia’s former satellite nations? I mean how dependent are they on Gazprom?

Barton: They are fairly dependent, although Ukraine has its own supply of gas and the government has said they also released their own domestic storage supplies to heat the country. So they’re saying they shouldn’t suffer any shortages from this cold snap.

Werman: Now, Julia, on Saturday there are antigovernment demonstrations planned in Moscow, and the cold, apparently, is going to continue through the weekend. Could the weather have an impact on the turnout?

Barton: The protest organizers you know, they are still going forward with their plans, but they are starting to talk about the possible impact, and their spin is starting to sound like well, if as many people or a respectable number of people still show up despite this Siberian level of cold, then that sends an even stronger signal to the government that people are fed up. And the cold didn’t stop a small group of protestors from climbing a seven story building today in Moscow, and putting up a huge anti Putin yellow banner across an entire billboard that was facing the Kremlin. The banner said “Putin Go Away” and had a picture of Putin with an X over his face, and it was visible all over central Moscow and got a lot of attention until the police took it down.

Werman: I’m sure those protestors were wearing gloves.

Barton: I would not be surprised.

Werman: Reporter Julia Barton is speaking with us from Moscow, thank you very much.

Barton: Thank you.

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Soviet and post Soviet reality in Kiev, Ukraine. (Photo: Brigid McCarthy)

The series is really about self-understanding, said Felix Razumovsky, the bearded, burly historian who hosts “Who Are We?” Normal countries don’t have to ask themselves this question, he added.

“But Russia is a peculiar country, with a very strange fate,” according to Razumovsky.

Our history is characterized by these dramatic ruptures, he said, or tears in the historical canvas. The Bolshevik Revolution and the end of historic Russia in l917 was one such tear.

“Of course, another tear in the historic canvas was 1991, and the end of the Soviet Union.”

Razumovsky said after all, the Soviet Union didn’t break apart 20 years ago, Russia did.

“Again, there was this attempt to recreate Russia from scratch, by denying everything that came before, everything Soviet.”

Razumovsky wants Russians to understand this impulse for revolution and radical reinvention, because the results are so often tragic.

“It’s like, if you get your hands dirty, instead of washing them, you just cut them off,” he said. “I’m a big believer in washing.”

He said political, economic and cultural factors help explain Russia’s extremist tendencies.

“But as someone who studies the history of this country, it’s the spiritual level or the inner workings of the nation that I find interesting.”

Psychologically, Razumovsky said, Russians remain profoundly shaped by their Orthodox Christian heritage, and the idea of “Holy Russia.” That heritage can be summed up in a single Biblical verse:

“‘Don’t gather your treasures on earth, but store up your treasures in heaven.’

This very simple phrase is basically what characterizes the Russian soul or spirit,” Razumovksy said.

“Everyone in Russia is still pretty much this way, even if they try to hide it.”

Razumovsky thinks one reason Communist ideology got a foothold in Russia was it offered a modern, secular version of Holy Russia. Soviets were ready to lay down their lives for the sake of a future, workers’ paradise.

“So that’s why Russia took up the call. Excuse me, but no one else in Europe screwed around like this,” he said, with a laugh.

When Communism collapsed 20 years ago, Russians not only lost their state religion, they lost their Soviet identity.

According to Razumovsky, this is the real crisis in Russia today: there’s no agreement among the population about the country’s post-Soviet identity.

But the Russian Orthodox Church has made a startling comeback over the past 20 years, a trend that’s been encouraged by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other political leaders. More than 80-percent of Russians consider themselves Orthodox Christians, even if they don’t attend church. Felix Razumovksy thinks this transition from militant atheism to Orthodoxy makes perfect sense.

“It’s the same type of world view. If you’re a person who needs that bigger force or idea in your life, then it’s easier for you to switch from the Bolshevik/Communist future paradise to the Orthodox Christian future paradise.”

But some view Russia’s religious revival with scepticism. Valery Khazin, a writer from Nizhniy Novgorod, said he has friends who used to be active members of the Communist Party.

“Now they’re carrying small crosses. At the same time, they toast the Soviet holidays, drink vodka, in the same way they did 20 to 25 years ago.”

Razumovsky said this kind of muddled thinking is typical. Just look at our national symbols. Our flag is from imperial Russia, he noted, while our national anthem is from the Soviet era, except that it now begins with “Russia our Holy Nation.”
We should neither romanticize, nor reject our past, Felix Razumovsky said.

We should learn from it.

“Russians have this unique experience of having lived through so many different kinds of rule, and forms of the nation state, and that’s a treasure that can be used.”

But for now, he said, history still has us by the throat.

His new TV show was announced this week on Russia’s state-run English-language TV news channel “RT.”

RT does not air on regular Russian TV. It is aimed at international audiences and can be seen on some cable systems here in the US.

But RT is also known for consistently taking an anti-American stance.

Anchor Lisa Mullins talks to Ann Cooper, professor at Columbia School of Journalism and veteran reporter on Russian affairs, to get more details.

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Lisa Mullins: A different brand of TV host is getting ready for his debut on a Russian TV channel. He is Julian Assange, the founder of anti-secrecy site Wiki Leaks. His new TV show is announced this week on Russia’s state run English language TV station RT.

TV announcer: Julian Assange’s exclusive series will premiere here in March, and the world’s media”¦

Mullins: Now RT doesn’t air on regular Russian television. It’s aimed at international audiences. It can be seen on some cable systems here in United States. But RT is also known for consistently taking an anti-American stance. Anne Cooper is a professor at Columbia Journalism School and a veteran reporter on Russian affairs. First off, Julian Assange, how is he going to fit in with what RT does already? In other words, what does he add to their values aside from a big name?

Ann Cooper: Well, he adds a big name and he will fit in very well. I believe RT was created by the Russian government in 2005 because of its long time complaint that western media relentlessly portray Russia in a bad light. And so their solution, one of their solutions was to create a state funded channel, try to get it out there internationally delivered by satellite feeds, that is relentlessly negative in its coverage of the west and in particular the US. So Julian Assange with his message that is often highly critical of the west and the US, I think he’s found a very comfortable home in RT.

Mullins: Is he going to be a journalist, a commentator, or what?

Cooper: He’ll be an interviewer. So, you know, in that sense he might be like Vlad Posner of Russian TV or Piers Morgan on CNN, but of course he’ll be Julian Asange, and he’ll bring his own special take to the interview process.

Mullins: Now, does that mean that he will push Julian Assange agenda, Russia today agenda, or do the two overlap?

Cooper: I think they certainly have some overlaps. Russia Today which shortened its name to just RT sometime ago, actually when you watch it, it looks very good. They have terrific looking sets. They’ve poured a lot of resources, millions of dollars into this production. And a lot of what you see on RT is professional, it’s journalistic. Last year they covered the Arab Spring pretty well. But as soon as you get on to the US or some other western versus eastern or western versus Russia issue then that’s when the propaganda guns come out.

Mullins: I wonder if you can listen along with us now to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton who told Congress just last year that the United States in her view is losing the information war to stations such as RT and others.

Hillary Clinton: Al Jazeera is winning. The Chinese have opened up, a global English language and multilanguage television network. The Russians have opened up, an English language network. I’ve seen it in a few countries and it’s quite instructive.

Mullins: To what extent does the US have some kind of risk by losing as at least Hillary Clinton says the information war? I mean is RT winning? Is Al Jazeera winning? And if so, what does that mean?

Cooper: That’s such a good question. And it was kind of surprising to hear Hillary make such a strong statement. She went on in that statement to say that these global networks are changing people’s minds and attitudes whether we like it or not. I’m not sure how much they’re changing people’s minds and attitudes. They certainly could be. They’re widely available. RT says that they’re available to 200 million viewers on five continents. We used to have three networks that we could watch here. And then we had CNN, and now there are more cable channels, and now you have a rival of all these satellite channels from different countries that are state funded. And they do some good things. Some of their coverage is very interesting and different from what we’re getting on say Network TV in the US. But, you know, it’s kind of a buyer beware market. You’ve got to watch for a while and figure out what am I getting here and what do I really want to see.

Mullins: Ann Cooper is broadcast director at the Columbia Journalism School. Very nice to talk to you. Thank you.

Cooper: Thank you.

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Operating in Tehran during World War II, he tracked German commandos who had arrived to attack a summit attended by Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill.

Realizing they were being followed, the Germans called off the attack.

Robert Service is British historian and the author of a forthcoming book Spies and Commissars.

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Marco Werman: I am Marco Werman. This is The World. Russians are remembering the Soviet era spy Gevork Vartanian. He passed away this week at the age of 87. President Dmitry Medvedev sent his condolences to Vartanian’s widow who collaborated with her husband on missions. The legendary spy couple famously helped to derail a Nazi plot in 1943. British historian Robert Service says the goal was to assassinate allied leaders Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill as they gathered for a conference.

Robert Service: The western allies were meeting in Tehran in Iran because Stalin just wouldn’t leave the vicinity of the USSR. So, Roosevelt and Churchill had to fly to Iran to work out what they were going to do to prosecute the war effort. The Soviet Intelligence Agency was interested in keeping all of the allied leaders alive – Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, and one of the principal agents of the Soviet cause in Iran was an Iranian of Armenian descent called Vartanian, who has just died. He was only 16 when he was recruited. He was one of the most brilliant of the lot.

Werman: What made him so brilliant? I mean, he sounds, at least in Iran and this particular plot, long jump, he sounds like the perfect insider.

Service: Well, he was someone who got wind of what the Germans were up to. The Germans sent over a mission to prepare the way for the redoubtable Otto Skorzeny to fly into Iranian airspace and either abduct or assassinate all three allied leaders. This would have been a disaster for the allies in the Second World War. What Vartanian did was get the mission team arrested.

Werman: The Nazi mission team…just got them arrested.

Service: The Nazi mission team that was going to be put down in Tehran and would set about abducting or assassinating the allied leaders. So, he was a very practical, on-the-ground, very, very young man. I mean, he was only in his teens!

Werman: After World War II, when the KGB took over from Russia’s Intelligence Service, it’s interesting Vartanian wasn’t alone in a lot of his espionage. His wife was also a spy along with him – the husband and wife spies.

Service: Yes, the Soviet Intelligence Agency often did this sort of thing. It was a way of keeping the moral of an agent high while he was abroad, and Vartanian was, with his wife, a really primary agent. The thing that changed in 1945, of course, was the cooperation between the British and the Americans and the Soviets completely vanished. During the Second World War, there was a lot of cooperation and there was even a British liaison officer in Moscow working with what became the KGB. It’s an extraordinary story of cooperation, not just among the armies but among the intelligence agencies. It’s not really yet been fully told.

Werman: The Vartanians worked together through the ’80s. Do you know of a very late case that they worked on together that was probably lesser known than “Operation Long Jump?”

Service: Well, until the turn of the millennium, the Russian authorities have kept quiet about the details of what Vartanian got up to even in the Second World War and they’ve kept stum almost entirely about what he did next. What we do know for certain is that he got every medal in the book. I mean, he was a very highly regarded spy.

Werman: I guess his medals indicate that, for many Russians, Vartanian was a hero. I’m just wondering, what do you think current members of the KGB in Russia, how will they be reflecting on the late Gevork Vartanian?

Service: The FSB as it is now is the successive organization of KGB and, of course, Prime Minister Putin – soon-to-be President Putin, again – he too worked for the KGB. So, what he did in sending condolences to the wife of Gevork Vartanian was give a message, I think, from his heart. He’s still a KGB man at heart, the man who rules Russia.

Werman: Historian Robert Service, author of the forthcoming book “Spies & Commissars”, thank you very much.

Service: Cheers!

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When the USSR broke apart 20 years ago, the biggest shock for Russians and other ex-Soviets was what came afterwards.

Communism was out, capitalism was in and with it, life based on the Almighty Ruble.

“Did they really want a market economy where prices and money determined things? I’m not so sure,” said James Collins, former US Ambassador to the Russia Federation.

“It was a terribly wrenching experience, because it essentially upended the entire system by which everybody had structured a life — everything from the fact that money counted, to the idea that an academic would make less than some fellow selling Snickers bars in a corner kiosk. I mean this was just incredible,” Collins said.

Many people simply couldn’t make the transition, according to Valery Solovei, a professor at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations.

“Very often I say to my friends, those who could survive the 90s and who are still mentally healthy and who are not hard drunkards, they could survive anything,” Solovei said.

Another university professor, Nikolay Nikolayev taught in Nizhniy Novgorod, a Russian city 250 miles east of Moscow. After the collapse of communism, he drove a taxi at night so his family wouldn’t go hungry.

“I remember meeting with my friends every New Year’s, and our first toast was, ‘Well, it can’t get any worse!’ And it kept getting worse,” Nikolayev said. “We just couldn’t believe how much things could fall apart, and how poor people were.”

Nikolayev said things are better now. He and several colleagues left the university in the mid 90s to form a small publishing firm, and their office is in a beautiful old building in downtown Nizhniy Novgorod.

Lena Konstantinova, who works there as a graphic designer, said, “People have learned to be like frogs, to beat the butter with their little legs to survive in these new conditions.”

“Look at us”, she added, “we’re obviously fine, we’re sitting here in this nice office. But the underlying chaos and uncertainty hasn’t really disappeared. We’ve just gotten used to it.”

Larisa Bukarina, Nikolay Nikolayev, and Elena Konstantinova (Photo courtesy of http://master-raduga.nnov.ru)

“It makes life much narrower, much poorer, and less interesting, because everything is measured by how much it costs, or whether you can afford it. It’s very sad actually.”

Konstantinova said one of the most positive aspects of the Soviet Union was that you almost never thought about money when you considered love, work, or anything else.

But at this point, Nikolayev interrupted: “You were just running with the wrong crowd back then. There was always a group of people who cared about money or whose car was better.”

Yes, said Konstantinova, but they were a minority. She also thinks because consumer goods were so scarce in Soviet times, people were satisfied with a lot less.

“If I managed, for instance, to buy this one really cool sweater and a pair of boots, I was really happy to wear them over and over, and I felt very fashionable.”

Larisa Bukarina, who sits next to Lena, said since there wasn’t much in the stores to tempt them, they spent their money on concerts or theater tickets, and it was all very cheap, though the shows sold out immediately.

“Now we have a lot more entertainment — foreign movies and performers — but many people can’t afford to go because it’s so much more expensive,” Bukarina said.

Same goes with travel. Lena and Nikolai say they’re grateful that Soviet-era travel restrictions have disappeared.

But the end of communism has also meant the end of cheap holidays and travel within the former Soviet Union.

“Back then, totalitarian though it may have been, we could afford to take a river cruise on the Volga. Anybody could. It was very cheap. Now I can’t afford it, even though I have a good job,” Konstantinova said.

Nikolay Nikolayev added that they also had a lot more time off back then to enjoy a holiday.

“I remember when we were young, even though we didn’t earn a lot, my wife and I could afford to spend a month in Crimea. Now, I can afford to go to Turkey, but the most I can take off is 10-12 days,” he said.

In fact, Nikolayev hasn’t had a vacation in more than five years. But he’s not complaining.

Everything is just different now, he said. Things are much more unpredictable – but in some ways, more interesting, too.

The two ships are Healy and Renda.

Renda is a Russian oil tanker loaded with fuel. It is trailing a US Coast Guard ice breaker named Healy.

This US-Russian expedition is bringing much needed fuel to Nome, Alaska, where diesel and gasoline supplies are running low.

This sea separates the Kamchatka peninsula from the Aleutian Islands and freezes up in places this time of year, making passage difficult.

The Bering Sea is the answer to the Geo Quiz.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Ben Matheson of KNOM Radio(Nome, Alaska) about the unusual cooperation to bring fuel to the Alaskan coastal community this Winter.

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A doctored photo appeared recently in a regional Russian newspaper, causing a stir.

It showed blogger and pro-democracy activist Alexei Navalny standing next to a disgraced oligarch.

After Navalny complained it was a fake, the original showed up on the web within a few days.

Stephen Cohen is a professor of Russian studies and history at New York University.

He says Navalny was targeted because of his opposition to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Doctoring photographs for political gain was a specialty of the government in the old Soviet Union. Well, seems like it still might be in modern Russia. A doctored photo appeared recently in a regional Russian newspaper. It caused a stir. It showed blogger and pro-democracy activist Alexei Navalny standing next to a disgraced oligarch. After Navalny complained that the photo was fake the original showed up on the web within a few days. Stephen Cohen is a professor of Russian studies and history at New York University. He says that Navalny was targeted because of opposition to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Stephen Cohen: Navalny has become a very popular and populous figure because he’s a blogger. He formulated an expression about Putin’s party. He calls it “the party of swindlers and crooks.” And this tag caught on. He has about a million followers of his blog, his website, and he’s credited for bringing a lot of people to the street protests following the December parliamentary elections. There was a real photograph of Navalny with Mikhail Prokhorov, the owner of the New York Nets, who’s also an oligarch and who says he’s gonna run for president. So he’s been at these talk shows in Russia and at street protests with Navalny, there were photographs of them together. Somebody got the notion to replace Prokhorov with Boris Berezovsky. Boris Berezovsky is probably inside Russia viewed as the most odious of the oligarchs, who through insider trading through the Kremlin in the 1990s seized billions and billions of dollars of former state property while the majority of Russians fell into poverty.

Mullins: But why is Berezovsky any worse to be seen with than Prokhorov?

Cohen: That’s a really interesting question. Public opinion polls in Russia over the last 10 or 15 years consistently show that about 75% of the Russian people hate them as a group. Prokhorov is slightly more popular for several reasons: first of all, he’s handsome, he’s 6’8″, a basketball player, he’s a bachelor. The point is that his reputation is not as odious as Berezovsky.

Mullins: It was pretty convincing back in the days of Sovietology when you tried to figure out whose face was erased even if the hate remained. So if you’re thinking about kind of Photoshopping in the old days and Photoshopping now I wonder if the Russian populous is as vulnerable to it because they know how easy it is to do on the net, so maybe they’re more hip to it, which leads to a big so what?

Cohen: It may nullify itself. That is to say Navalny figured it out. The internet may proliferate this kind of defamation, but it also exposes it very quickly, somebody else on the internet immediately corrects it or shows its falsification. But I would just make two points here. There’s no reason to tie that to Putin personally. These groups exist on both sides, born against the Kremlin all through Russia. There’s not much political control, almost none on the internet, so it’s a new aspect or a renewed aspect of Russian politics. It’s ugly, but we’re familiar with it in this country as well. The larger point is we in the West who are completely wired are probably exaggerating the importance of the internet in Russia today in Russian politics. The protests in the streets of Moscow in December were very large due in very large part to the internet. But it was almost exclusively an upper and middle class phenomenon, and an urban phenomenon. Remember, there are 150 million people in Russia. Overwhelmingly the people in the provinces are not on the internet. So what we’re seeing here at the moment, thought it may grow, is a phenomenon that is a result of a more affluent middle class, particularly in Russia’s four or five large cities, who, like my children, live on the internet every day. But whether it has a real electoral impact, that is could it turn the Russian people, for example, against Putin remains to be seen. I rather doubt it.

Mullins: Stephen Cohen’s latest book is called Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post Communist Russia. The book has just come out in paperback. Stephen, thank you.

Cohen: My pleasure.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Compare the photos here

There was a protest rally in the Russian capital.

Now that by itself would have been unusual, but Thursday’s demonstration went off without any arrests.

The demonstrators protested at Pushkin square against the detention of activist Sergei Udaltsov.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to The World’s Jessica Golloher to get more details.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: What happened today in Moscow would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago. There was a protest rally in the Russian capital. Now, that by itself would have been unusual, but today’s demonstration went off without any arrests. It’s been a heady few weeks in Russia. Here’s what it’s been like in Moscow since Russian parliamentary elections on December 4: There was a mass demonstration on the 10th; an even larger rally was held last Saturday; then today, hundreds of people protested the jailing of a Russian activist. Reporter Jessica Golloher is in Moscow. So, tell me about these protesters today in Pushkin Square. They turned out to demonstrate the arrest of a left-wing activist named Sergei Udaltsov. Who is he?

Jessica Golloher: He is basically a left-wing activist here in Moscow and he’s been jailed several times for protesting against the Kremlin. He was arrested back on December 4, after we held parliamentary elections here in Russia and given a jail sentence. And then, on Sunday that jail sentence was extended. Udaltsov has basically been on a hunger strike. He is not doing well and his supporters think it’s ridiculous that he’s actually being held on an extended jail sentence and they want him freed.

Werman: Now Jessica, a lot of reporters, including ourselves, have said a month ago that such protests like today’s would have been unthinkable and, as you say, that seemed to change on December 4 with these charges of fraud and parliamentary elections. Putin’s own United Russia party was charged with fraud in their victories. Was that really all it took to get Russians in the streets?

Golloher: Really, what happened is people are tired. They want their voice to be heard. Vladimir Putin has basically been ruling the country, even though President Dmitry Medvedev is obviously President for the past 12 years. There was, allegedly, as far as the protesters are concerned, widespread ballot stuffing and vote rigging here in Russia and they’ve had enough. It’s 12 years of enough as far as they are concerned.

Werman: So, there’s a big fed-up factor. I’m wondering too, what about the fear of demonstrating prior to December 4? Were people worried about going into the streets and what are the risks today for Russians going into the streets to protest?

Golloher: You know, as journalists we used to always laugh because on the 31st of every month the opposition would gather to basically demonstrate for the right to protest on the 31st of every month which is basically guaranteed by Russia’s constitution. The way that the authorities would get around that is they would not sanction those protests. You have to ask for permission to demonstrate. So you would see these opposition leaders, about a handful of them, standing around, waving signs or chanting and hundreds of riot police that would slam down on them very forcefully, beat them up and also attack journalists. So there was a lot of fear of demonstrations. I think after the first major rally, people started to think, “Hey, we could actually do this.” People really thought that there were going to be mass arrests and a lot of violence, but after the last demonstration last weekend, people feel comfortable. You know, I think that’s also because the Kremlin has allowed the sanction protest – the two big sanction protests of last week and the weekend before.

Werman: Reporter Jessica Golloher in Moscow.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.