Free and Fair, or, The All-Russian University of Justice

Tests on Protest Rallies and Compulsory Voting in Workplaces: What Is Happening in Petersburg’s Public Sector Institutions as the Election Nears
Vladislav Chirin and Sofia Volyanova
Bumaga
March 7, 2018

In early March, a test about the law on protest rallies was distributed to lecturers in Petersburg’s tertiary educational institutions. Pupils at Petersburg schools have been forced to take the same test, while employees of schools and hospitals report they have been forced to apply for absentee ballots and vote at different polling stations under threat of punishment.

Bumaga has been monitoring the goings-on in Petersburg’s public sector institutions in the run-up to the March 18 presidential ballot. In the following article, we discuss what violations have already surfaced.

Schoolchildren Required to Pass Test about Law on Protest Rallies
Pupils at a school in the Vyborg District told Bumaga that on March 6 all groups had been excused from classes in order to take a test on protest rallies. In particular, the pupils were quizzed on whether participants of public events had the right to bear arms and under what circumstances demonstrations could be held on Palace Square and Nevsky Prospect.

test “Tests like this have been handed out in Petersburg schools. This is only the second page of the test, featuring questions about the Field of Mars, invitations to protest rallies via the internet from persons unknown, etc.” Post courtesy of Telegram channel Somebody Else

According to senior pupils at the school, teachers removed them from their second period classes and made them stay during the break to familiarize them with the test. In the event, the teachers explained to the pupils what the right answers were.

When the pupils asked whether the test was connected with protest rallies organized by opposition politican Alexei Navalny, the teahers replied the test was being administered since a pupil at the school had been detained at one such rally and fined.

Central District School Headmaster and Vocational School Employee Talk about Compulsory Test
Svetlana Lebedeva, headmaster of Gymnasium No. 168 in Petersburg, also talked about the test. According to her, the prosecutor’s office had sent them the test, demanding it be administered to upperclassmen.

“It was by order of the district prosecutor’s office. The order was sent to Nelly Simakova, head of the Central District education department. They sent it to us. All the schools did it. The test was on Saturday, and today the pupils who were absent on Saturday took the test,” Ms. Lebedeva told MR7.ru.

On March 6, the same test was administered to students at all the city’s vocational schools, an employee at one of them told Bumaga.

MR7.ru also published a screenshot of the letter sent to educational institutions. The letter makes it clear the testing had been administered at the behest of the city’s education committee after an urgent request from the Petersburg prosecutor’s office.

A pupil at Lyceum No. 126 has also told Bumaga that, during an event for war veterans on March 6, one of the guests took to the stage and urged attendees to vote for Vladimir Putin.

The prosecutor’s office and the education committee did not return our telephone calls.

Council of Rectors Sent Test on Protest Rallies to Lecturers at Tertiary Educational Institutions
Lecturers at Petersburg’s tertiary educational institutions allegedly received the same test about the law on protest rallies, only electronically.

Echo of Moscow reporter and Higher School of Economics graduate student Valery Nechay published a letter allegedly sent to Petersburg’s tertiary educational institutions. The letter asks university employees to take the test online “at the request of the Council of Rectors.”

letter “Dear colleagues! At the request of the Council of Rectors, staff at all educational organizations in St. Petersburg, including the Higher School of Economics, are being tested in order to determine the level of their knowledge of the laws on rules for holding and attending large-scale public events and the penalties for violating them. We strongly encourage to take ten minutes from your busy schedules and answer the questions before March 12, 2018. The correct answers will be provided immediately after you complete the test. To take the test, follow this link.” Post courtesy of Telegram channel Unexpected Joy.

The test, a link to which Nechay has published, features questions about the rights of people attending protest rallies and punishment for extremism. Some of the questions describe particular circumstances, for example, “You have been invited on the internet to attend a protest rally on the Field of Mars. The rally in question has not been authorized by the relevant executive authorities for the exact time or day listed. You are curious, however, and so you go to the rally. Have you violated the law?”

Students at Petersburg University Say They Have Been Forced to Monitor Elections
First-year students at the Petersburg campus of the All-Russian State University of Justice have been assigned “compulsory on-the-job training” on March 18: they must attend the presidental election as grassroots monitors. They told the organization Petersburg Observers about their plight.

The correspondence published by Petersburg Observers makes it clear that if the students fail to report for duty they have been threatened with administrative punishments and bad marks in their permanent record. But if they show up for duty, they allegedly will have a day off on Monday, March 19, and be sent official thank-you letters.

observerss “Where do the fake election observers come from? On March 4, 2012 [the date of the previous presidential election] grassroots oversight was usually portrayed by pensioners and state employees. Over the past six years, however, the fake election observers movement has mastered the streams of financing, gone large scale, and become much younger. For example, first-year students at the Petersburg campus of the All-Russian University of Justice received this message from their class leader: ‘March 18 is a school day, compulsory on-the-job training, meaning that everyone will be a grassroots election observer at the polls. Sponsored by the Association of Lawyers, our university is officially taking part in the Observers Corps for Clean Elections event, so if you do not show up you face administrative penalties and a bad mark in your permanent record.’ In addition to free food and transportation on voting day, letters of gratitude and a day off from classes on March 19 have been promised to the students. Basically, this is how correct public opinion is forged: in return for a day off, free grub, and a certificate of [political] trustworthiness.” Screenshot of a post on the VK community page of Petersburg Observers for Fair Elections

A student at the Petersburg campus of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) has told Bumaga that out-of-town students at the academy are going to be forced to vote in the presidential election. However, he was unaware of whether the students would be encouraged for turning out or punished for failing to vote.

ranepa “Very Important Information! In the next 30 minutes ALL out-of-two students need to shoot back the following information: what resources you will use to vote in the March 18 Russian presidential election; where you will vote (at what polling station); how you will register to vote. Send it to https://vk.com/%5Bdeleted]. […] Basically, we have been asked by [illegible] to register as many people living in each section as possible to vote. Meaning that each manager is responsible for his section and, subsequently, for sending everyone off to vote. The section in which the most people vote will get the Prize Sector [a reference to the “prize” section on the spinning wheel in the Russian version of Wheel of Fortune]. Ideally, you could assemble your entire section and all go together to the district voting commission. This is a mandatory request that concerns everyone. I think it is in our interest to give our vote . . .” Screenshoots of correspondence among RANEPA students. Courtesy of Bumaga

Schoolteachers and State Employees in Petersburg Say They Are Being Forced to Apply for Absentee Ballots and Vote Somewhere Other than Their Own Polling Stations
A teacher at a school in the Central District has told Bumaga that the school’s headmaster has obliged the entire teaching staff to report to the polling station in School No. 183 [an English-language magnet school on Kirochnaya Street in downtown Petersburg] on voting day. According to her, the teachers in all Central District schools have been given the same orders.

According to the teacher, if staff fail to vote as instructed, they will be given extra work during the spring holidays, from March 26 to April 1. When the voting is over, the headmasters of the Central District’s schools will receive lists of teachers who reported to the polling station in School No. 183, the teacher said. Her headmaster added, however, the orders were “not his whim,” but that all school headmeasters had received the same orders from the “top brass.”

Instances in which the heads of state-sector institutions have tried to force staff and students to apply for absentee ballots and vote at other polling stations have been reported by Petersburgers claiming to be employed at the Center for the Social Rehabilitation of Disabled People and Disabled Children in the Krasnoye Selo District, the Center for Social Assistance to Families and Children in the Central District, the Alexander Hospital, Children’s Health Clinic No. 68, Children’s Health Clinic No. 71, the Leningrad Regional School for Culture and Art, School No. 684 [a kindergarten and grammar school in the Kirov District in the city’s south], and the Municipal Monitoring Center.

Violations Reported by Members of Several Petersburg Election Commissions
Member of Precinct Election Commission No. 1164, located in City Hospital No. 15, have reported that Irina Nikolich, the polling station’s deputy chair, had drawn up absentee ballot declarations, based on photocopies of four voters’ internal passports, although the voters themselves were not present at the polling station, and Nikolich came to the polling station when it was not her shift.

The polling station was visited by police officers, who interviewed witnesses and submitted the evidence to the Investigative Committee.

Members of Territorial Election Commissions No. 1 and No. 14 have reported to Bumaga that in their electoral districts, precinct commissions had in several instances approved four ballot boxes for at-home voting, although only three ballot boxes are legally required. The extra ballot boxes could lead to vote rigging and ballot box stuffing.

UPDATE
On the evening of March 7, Territorial Election Commission No. 1 reduced the number of mobile ballot boxes in its district to three.

Students at St. Petersburg State University of Film and Television Complain They Have Been Forced to Vote (Updated March 10, 2018)
A student at the University of Film and Television told Bumaga he and his classmates in the Screen Arts Department had received a message from the student leader of second-year students.

The message made it clear that the master of the filmmaking course had informed the student leader that students who did not vote would be threatened with explusion, said the source. The dean’s office had allegedly issued the orders, and all students were required to register to vote at the same polling station.

Another student at the university told Bumaga she and her classmates had received messages containing a list of five polling stations at which they had to register to vote. Information about whether a student had registered to vote or not would allegedly be reported to their department. The students were promised they would be given postcards at the polling stations that could be used to get into a private screening of the film Dovlatov, the young woman told us.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Getting Out the Vote in Arkhangelsk

Archangel Life Photo published March 10, 2018, on the Archangelsk Life community page on the VK social network. “Photo of the Day. ‘We’re Going to Vote.’ *The common law wife of regional MP Alexander Dyatlov, chair of the regional committee of United Russia Party supporters, is in the middle.”

Darya Goloschapova
Facebook
March 11, 2018

A good illustration. Society has left women without pants and, apparently, taken the shirts off their backs. It has reduced them to sexualized objects whose sexual function is emphaized even in the civic act of voting, as remote from the bedrom as could be. But it’s cool: they are going to vote. Why are they naked? Are they going straight from the shower to vote? Then where did those ridiculous high heels come from? Did they just come down from the pole in a strip club? Why is this generally routine and uninteresting act decked out in Russia like a wedding in an archaic society? Men show off their power (see the campaign ads of “rich and successful” men supporting Putin), while women show off their naked bodies, sexual desire, submissiveness, and vulnerability.

Thanks to Bella Rappoport for the heads up. Translated by the Russian Reader

Elena Zaharova: “Russia Out of Syria Now!”

“Syria. What are we killing them for?”

“Russian citizens! Your children will pay for your wars!”

“No to the bombing of Syria! No to the siege of Eastern Ghouta! No to the murders of children!”

“The Russian national idea is Cargo 200 for itself and others. Georgia, Chechnya, Ukraine, Syria: who’s next?”

These pictures were posted yesterday on the Facebook page of Olgizza Vishenetskaya. The woman holding the placards is Elena Zaharova, who on her own Facebook page identifies herself as a former ballet accompanist at the Opera and Ballet Theater in Bishkek, now resident in Moscow.

The photos were taken yesterday. The setting is near the entrance to the Historical Museum in Moscow, which is located between Red Square and Manege Square.

If I am not mistaken, Ms. Zaharova and two or three other brave women held a similar picket against Russia’s disastrous intervention in Syria a year or two ago in the same place.

As far as I know, these lonely solo pickets have been the only public protests in Russia against that reckless and cruel military adventure since the Kremlin joined the conflict on the side of hereditary dictator and war criminal Bashar Assad in September 2015.

Since nearly all her compatriots have remained resolutely and eerily silent on the subject, it is hard to overestimate Ms. Zaharova’s bravery and determination. TRR

Vicky Cristina Petersburg

Barcelona should be compared with St. Petersburg rather than with Moscow. The city really resembles Russia’s cultural capital. It has its own language (the press is sold in two languages: Spanish and Catalan), its own traditions, its own attitude to bullfighting (bluntly negative), its own modernist architectural masterpieces, its own neverending construction project (the Sagrada Família), and many other things of its own, something most of the locals do not hesitate to declare openly by hanging the Catalan flag on every balcony, thus demonstrating their own importance and independence.
—Salfetki, July 23, 2017

What is this inveterate world traveler on about?

Do Petersburgers have a bluntly negative attitude to bullfighting? Is there bullfighting in Petersburg? (No.)

Do they hang the offical Petersburg or Ingrian flags on their balconies? Do they even hang the Russian flag on their balconies? Do they feel independent from the rest of Russia? (For the most part, no.)

What neverending construction project does Salfetki have in mind?

On the other hand, Petersburg does have modernist architectural masterpieces, but almost without exception they are either ignored altogether or roundly abused.

Maybe there was something to the Soviet policy of keeping the vast majority of its extraordinarily happy socialist subjects locked up inside the country’s endless expanses, because now that Russians (with money) are free to travel the world, especially Europe, all they can see and want to see is either social collapse and rampant Islamization (the first of which they signally fail to notice at home, as they also fail to notice Russia’s rather large NATIVE Muslim population) or a different version of the Motherland, as in this woebegone travelogue.

Salfetki’s sexy girlfriend on the streets of Barcelona (or is it Petersburg?)—sporting a Fjällräven knapsack, of course.

It is true there are two languages in Petersburg (and the rest of urbanized Russia, as far as I know), although the second language does not have its own press per se. It is more of a patois, like the one spoken by Alex and his pals in A Clockwork Orange. You encounter truckloads of it on social media and trendy websites like The Village (whose blatantly English moniker is hardly accidental).

You also see a lot of it on the streets, as I did yesterday.

In Petersburg patois, the sign reads, “Novy Chiken Gurme Ekzotik.” This translates into English as “New Chicken Gourmet Exotic.” TRR

Photos by Salfetki and the Russian Reader

Never Think of It, Never Speak of It

DSCN4763 “Enigma.” Photo by the Russian Reader

“In the last two weeks, one thousand and forty-two people, including about a hundred and fifty-six children, have been killed in eastern Ghouta, in what human-rights groups fear is a final, all-out offensive to retake one of the few remaining rebel-held enclaves in the country. Bombings by Syrian and Russian planes have been indiscriminate, killing civilians, levelling homes, and destroying medical facilities. Bashar al-Assad’s regime—with the full support of Vladimir Putin and the Russian military—have flouted calls for a complete ceasefire.”
—Rozina Ali, ‘It’s Raining Rockets’: Deadly New Syrian-Russian Assault Kills Hundreds in Eastern Ghouta, New Yorker, March 8, 2018

What I really don’t understand is why there isn’t an enterprising Russian or group of Russians who would set up a WordPress blog or a special page on Facebook or VK where they could post translations of foreign press articles about the war in Syria like the article quoted, above. If the Russian media either wants to ignore what is happening there or constantly lie about it, that does not mean the war should be of no interest to Russians opposed to dropping Russian bombs on non-Russia men, women, children, residential buildings, and hospitals that have never done any harm to any Russian men, women, children, residential buildings, and hospitals, and that never thought of doing them any harm.

At this point, I really just don’t get it. The collective silence in Russia when it comes to the Kremlin’s and the Russian military’s crimes in Syria is on the verge of the pathological.

There is not much to be said for the efficacy and vociferousness of antiwar movements in the US, UK, Australia, and the other countries that sent soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan, but it certainly cannot be said that there have not been a relatively large number of people in those same countries engaged either in some kind of peacemaking or awareness raising about what trouble their leaders and armies have caused there and the enormities they have committed.

It’s practically a cottage industry, for what it’s worth.

In Russia, on the contrary, it is as if Syria exists literally in a parallel universe with no connection whatsoever to Russians and their daily lives.

Never think of it, never speak of it. TRR

All in a Day’s Work

sdy_bxm7qd8 Denis Mikhailov. Photo courtesy of the Navalny team’s VK page and OVD Info

Well-known Moscow activist Mark Galperin has been sentenced to two years probation for two videos. The videos, in which Galperin discusses a possible revolution, were deemed calls to extremism. The court forbade the activist frominvolvement in grassroots organizations for three years.

In Crimea, left-wing activist Alexei Shestakovich was transported after a police search with a plastic bag over his head. During the search, he lay on the floor in his underwear and handcuffs. Ultimately, Shestakovich was jailed for ten days.

At the same time, Crimean trade union activist Ivan Markov was detained and then jailed for ten days, but he was released ahead of schedule, as the appellate court overturned the decision to remand him in custody.

Denis Mikhailov was arrested twice for the same “crime.” The coordinator of Alexei Navalny’s presidential election boycott headquarters in Petersburg had just left the special detention center where he had spent thirty days for the January 28 Voters Strike protest rally, when he was detained, taken to court, and jailed for another twenty-five days, once again for the January 28 Voters Strike protest rally. Only in the first case, Mikhailov was tried as an organizer, while the second time he was tried as a participant.

An activist in Yekaterinburg was jailed for fifteen days after he was detained carrying a placard criticizing Putin. The placard was emblazoned with the slogan, “If you want another six years of lies and stealing, vote for Putin.” Sergei Tiunov was accused of a repeat violation of the rules for public events. He has gone on a dry hunger strike.

Source: OVD Info. The Week That Was, No. 45 (email newsletter). Translated by the Russian Reader

No Tulips and No Fear: International Women’s Day in Petersburg

hDs70j4DMl4

“March 8. I Choose Feminism.” Banner courtesy of the VK event page for the International Women’s Day rally in Petersburg

Russian Socialist Movement
Facebook
May 9, 2018

No Tulips and No Fear: March 8 in Petersburg
International Women’s Day in Petersburg. Unlike last year, this year’s rally was cleared with the authorities. It attracted several hundred women and men, and touched on all aspects of gender inequality, from discrimination in paying women’s labor, harassment, and domestic violence to attempts criminalize abortion. Female socialists from the Russian Socialist Movement (RSD) in Petersburg and other leftist organizations played an important role in organizing the event, assembling a coalition of women from various women’s pressure groups. Despite the fact that Russian women today are not in the mood for fun, those who attended the rally sang (the songs included the first performance of RSD activist Kirill Medvedev’s Russian translation of “L’hymne des femmes”), laughed, and chanted slogans. A samba band played, and there were many striking, creative slogans. After the rally, around two hundred people took part in an improvised stroll down Nevsky Prospect. The marchers sang protest ditties accompanied by an accordion, and unfurled scarves and plaid throws emblazoned with anti-sexist slogans.

Photos courtesy of Moi Rayon, LeftFem, and Marx Was Right.

#marcheighth #feminism #leftists

“Putin is no friend to women.”

28958936_189873331619560_3156760705831534592_n “Bread and Roses”

28796136_189874098286150_6047749999322726400_n

“A woman has two choices: either she’s a feminist or a masochist. — Gloria Steinem”

28870464_189875584952668_571633668624220160_n Marching down Nevsky Prospect

_________________

Hymne du MLF (“L’hymne des femmes”)
sur l’air du Chant des marais

Nous, qui sommes sans passé, les femmes,
Nous qui n’avons pas d’histoire,
Depuis la nuit des temps, les femmes,
Nous sommes le continent noir.

Refrain:
Debout femmes esclaves
Et brisons nos entraves
Debout! debout!

Asservies, humiliées, les femmes,
Achetées, vendues, violées,
Dans toutes les maisons, les femmes,
Hors du monde reléguées.

Refrain

Seule dans notre malheur, les femmes,
L’une de l’autre ignorée,
Ils nous ont divisées, les femmes,
Et de nos sœurs séparées.

Refrain

Reconnaissons-nous, les femmes,
Parlons-nous, regardons-nous,
Ensemble on nous opprime, les femmes,
Ensemble révoltons-nous.

Refrain

Le temps de la colère, les femmes,
Notre temps est arrivé,
Connaissons notre force, les femmes,
Découvrons-nous des milliers.

Russian Translation by Kirill Medvedev

Нет у нас прошлого, женщины.
Нет у нас истории, нет.
В темное время, женщины,
Мы как черный континент

Рабыни, восставайте
И цепи разбивайте.
Вперед, вперед

Куплены, проданы женщины.
Загнаны, изнасилованы,
Заперты дома женщины,
Прочь из мира изгнаны.

Рабыни, восставайте
И цепи разбивайте.
Вперед

В чем наше горе, женщины?
Каждая сама по себе.
Нас разделяют, женщины.
Не поможет сестра сестре.

Подруги, восставайте
И цепи разбивайте

Встанем же рядом, женщины.
Будем всем видны и слышны.
Вместе страдаем, женщины.
Вместе мы восстать должны

Работницы, вставайте
И цепи разбивайте

Время для гнева, женщины
Наконец наступил наш час
Чувствуем силу, женщины,
Много нас, миллионы нас.

Рабыни, восставайте
И цепи разбивайте.

Leviathan

DSCN4214 “Precinct Election Commission for Polling Station No. 2218.” This is the innocent-looking sign the leviathan that has strangled democracy, including free elections, in Russia puts out to signal its presence. It achieves victory over earnest voters and honest election observers, some of whom valiantly serve on such commissions, by killing them with a hundred thousand cuts. Writ large, the flagrant tricks and shady practices used by neighborhood and local election officials add up to national elections that are rigged from top to bottom. Although this trickery has been well documented by independent observers, Russian reporters, and researchers, the sheer weight of it somehow has never made an impression on western journalists, who continue to write as if Putin’s popularity were a scientifically proven fact instead of carefully crafted mixture of massive coercion and hoodwinking. Photo by the Russian Reader

Central Election Commission Does Not Accredit 4,500 Presidential Election Observers Affiliated with Navalny
Mediazona
March 7, 2018

The Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) has refused to accredit 4,500 presidential election observers affiliated with the news website Leviathan, created by Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Navalny has written about the incident on his Telegram channel.

“We were suddenly told today that [Leviathan] had been shut down by the court, and the CEC would not accredit it. Earlier we have received accreditation for 4,500 observers affiliated with Leviathan. Now they are left without accreditation. Even [Vladimir] Churov [the previous CEC chair, replaced in 2016 by Ella Pamfilova] didn’t do such things,” wrote Navalny.

In addition, the CEC has refused accrediate observers affiliated with the online publication Molniya (“Lightning”), which sponsors election observers from the Golos Movement for the Defense of Voters’ Rights.

Golos co-chair Grigory Melkonyants confirmed to Mediazona there were problems with accrediting election observers registered by Molniya. He said that 850 people who had signed contracts with Molniya in October 2017 were at issue.

Molniya submitted accreditation applications to the CEC two weeks ago. The CEC informed them that it had sent them a written reply by post. Melkonyants said that in the the past the CEC would always simply invite Golos to come to its offices and pick up the accreditation papers. Now, on the contrary, the commission’s decision is unknown: they would have to wait for the letter to arrive. Melkonyants believes this testifies to the likelihood the Molniya observers will have their accreditation requests rejected.

However, he noted it was still possible to register as an observer affiliated with a particular candidate, and Golos was now working on this.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Comrade GMV for the heads-up

No Contest

DSCN4290 “March 18, 2018. Russian Presidential Election. Our Country, Our President, Our Choice! Russian Central Election Commission.” February 19, 2018, Ligovsky Prospect, Central Petersburg. Photo by the Russian Reader

Valery Dymshits
Facebook
March 4, 2018

I am somewhat surprised to see the ongoing discussion on whether to vote in the [Russian presidential] election or not. Some people write that if you don’t vote, your ballot will be used, and so on. Meaning it is assumed in advance the election commission is a band of brigands. If this is so, however, they can do whatever they want and, most important, at any level they can enter any figure they like in their official count. What difference does it make, then, if they use your ballot or not?

Actually, there is no election. Why be involved in something that does not exist? I think it is important not only to avoid attending this strange event oneself but also to explain to everyone why they should not attend, either.

DSCN2984 On this “get out the vote” billboard, recently photographed somewhere in central Petersburg, a “vandal” has lightly crossed out the word “election.” Photo by the Russian Reader

Cities with populations over a million will have voter turnouts just over 50%, says a person close to the presidential administration.

All polling is a tool for actively shaping reality. Figures are used to try and suggest a particular interpretation of events, notes another source close to the administration. In his opinion, the downturn in Putin’s support rating can be explained by a lack of activity and mistakes during the campaign.

“In reality, the figure are much lower. The actual turnout is expected to be between 55% and 60%. Putin’s result will range, depending on the region, from 50% to 65%. It will be an accomplishment if the turnout in Moscow is over 50%.”

The difference between the turnout in major cities and the provinces could be as much as 20%. Usually, on the contrary, the turnout in the provinces is between 10% and 12% greater, says another person close to the presidential administration.

“What happens next depends on the whether the mechanism for penciling in votes gets turned on or not. If the election is staged with the full use of the administrative resource, something I do not rule out, it does not matter who gets what in reality. If the elections are staged fairly, Putin’s result in cities with populations over a million will be lower, while his opponents’ will be slightly higher.”

The turnout in cities with populations over a million will be between 45% and 55%, the source believes.

Source: Yelena Mukhametshina and Olga Churakova, “Putin’s Rating Has Dropped Abruptly in the Major Cities,” Vedomosti, March 7, 2018

Translated by the Russian Reader. The emphasis, above, is mine.

Russia Set to Fall Further Behind US in Terms of Living Standards

“Change Yourself for the Better.” If you read the following article, about the OECD’s forecast for economic growth in Russia, between the lines, you will discover a takeaway message that has been apparent to numerous observers for a long time. Until Russia does away with official kleptocracy, rampant corruption, outrageously bad governance, and the shock-and-awe policing of politics and business by the siloviki—i.e., unless it renounces Putinism and all its ways—there is little chance the living standards of ordinary Russians will improve much in the next forty years. Photo by the Russian Reader

Russia Set to Fall Further Behind US in Terms of Living Standards
OECD’s Experts Have Predicted the Futures of the World’s Major Economies
Tatyana Lomskaya
Vedomosti
March 7, 2018

Russia is one of the few member states and parters of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in which real per capita GDP will fall by 2060 relative to the benchmark, the United States, according to an OECD reported entitled “Long-Term Prospects: Scenarios for the World Economy, 2060.” Vedomosti has had access to the eport. A source at the OECD confirmed its authenticity while noting it was a preliminary draft.

In the absence of reforms, Russia’s per capita GDP will grow only 0.7% in the next twelve years, predict OECD economists. The stumbling block is low workforce productivity. In recent years, it has not increased at all, and it will accelerate to a mere 0.5% in the period 2018–2030. Another brake on economic growth is poor demography: the economically active and able-bodied segment of the populace has been declining. By way of comparison, due to its positive demographic circumstances, Turkey’s standard of living will increase considerably by 2060 to about three fourths of the figures for the US, write the report’s authors. In Russia, it will increase to 40% of the benchmark before decreasing slightly.

It is hard not concur with the diagnosis, notes Alexander Isakov, VTB Capital’s chief economist for Russia. Demography and workforce productivity are the biggest constraints on economic growth in Russia.

In his March 1, 2018, address to the Federal Assembly, President Putin promised to increase per capita GDP by 50% by 2025. He said = Russia must firmly gain a foothold among the world’s top five economies by then. Putin meant GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP), Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin explained on the TV program Pozner. According to the IMF, Russia is now in sixth place in terms of GDP (PPP), four percent points behind Germany. The goal is to “bypass Germany,” explained the minister.

The goal can be brought within reach by applying active budgetary (e.g., tax cuts and increases in oil and gas costs) and monetary (e.g., lending) stimuli, says Kirill Tremasov, director of the analytics department at Locko Invest, but this is fraught with great risks.

Without reforms, Russian and the other BRICS countries will slow the growth of the world’s real GDP for forty years beginning in 2019, warn the report’s authors. To accelerate growth, they must increase workforce productivity by reforming governance, increasing the duration of schooling, and reducing trade tariffs.

If during the period 2020–2060, the BRICS countries develop the rule of law (which the World Bank evaluates on a scale from minus two to plus two), increase schooling to the median level of the OECD countries, and decrease trade tariffs to OECD median levels by 2030, the growth of per capita GDP will be 25% to 40% higher than in the baseline scenario. A key factor is governance reforms: combating corruption, improving law enforcement and the judiciary, increasing the efficiency of the civil service, and involving ordinary citizens more actively in politics.

The report notes this is especially important for Russia. Among the BRICS countries, Russia has the worst score for rule of law (-0.8) and the best score for average length of schooling (10.8 years). The Russian civil service has been adapted to the current political system, which assumes maximum centralization and the absence of political competition. Tremasov is skeptical: it is impossible and pointless to reform the civil service without democratizing the political system.

fullscreen-v2

“How Living Standards Will Change: The OECD’s Baseline Scenario. Real Per Capita GDP at Purchasing Power Parity in 2010 Prices (US=100).” The blue horizontal lines represent predicted outcomes for 2018; the red lines, predicted figures for 2060. The countries included in the survey, as listed from top to bottom, are Brazil, Russia, Turkey, Poland, Italy, France, Great Britain, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, and Ireland. Source: Preliminary Calculations from the OECD. Courtesy of Vedomosti

In his May 2012 decrees, Putin charged the government with increasing workforce productivity by one and a half times by 2018, but it had increased only by 3.8% as of 2016. Minister Oreshkin listed the obstacles: underinvestment, insufficiently developed infrastructure, and a lack of resources to upgrade productive assets.

Managers do not have a “culture of constantly improving efficiency and productivity,” he complained.

Workforce productivity is indeed the main obstacle to economic growth, but an increase of investments is needed in order to increase it, notes Natalya Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank. In 2017, about 50% of the increased investments in Russia were due to the extractive resources sector, although the bulk of GDP is generated in other sectors, says Orlova. Investments in agriculture grew by a mere 1.3%, fell in manufacturing and construction, and the commercial sector crashed altogther, falling 9.7%. Investment growth has been hindered by economic and geopolitical uncertainty, and the government has an ever harder time of reducing that uncertaintlywith sanctions in place, notes Orlova. Business, on the contrary, needs guarantees the rules of the game will not change for a long time.

Growth in productivity is impossible without increased competition, Tremasov points out. It is competition that compels companies to introduce new technology, reduce costs, and improve management. The more intense the competition in a sector, the higher the productivity, he notes, citing the retail trade and metallurgy as examples. Therefore, the main means of increasing economic efficiency is reducing the state’s share in the economy, argues Tremasov, as well as attracting foreign investors, reforming the judiciary, and reining in the security services [siloviki].

Measures to improve the country’s demographic circumstances will bear fruit in twenty-five years, when the corresponding generation enters the labor market, notes Isakov. The authorities should thus concentrate on increasing productivity. If the market functions smoothly, the difference in productivity between companies in the same industry decreases, he argues, because they borrow technology and methods from each other, while inefficient companies are forced out of the market. In Russia, on the contrary, differences in productivity within industries are some of the highest in the world, due in part to gray sector employment practices, Isakov concludes.

Economic growth could take off if reforms are implemented, argues Orlova. The Russian economy is currently so inefficient that the jumpstart supplied by reforms would be huge.

Translated by the Russian Reader