Twenty Percent of Russian Schoolteachers Contemplate Quitting

Twenty Percent of Russian Schoolteachers Contemplate Quitting
Salaries Lower than Official Rates, While Workload Is Extremely Heavy
Yelena Mukhametshina
Vedomosti
June 27, 2018

russian teacher salariies

“How Much Schoolteachers Are Paid.” Orange = average monthly salary according to ONF survey, in rubles; blue = average monthly salary according to Rosstat (Russian State Statistics Service), in rubles. From top to bottom, the two sets of figures are provided for Moscow, Arkhangelsk Region, St. Petersburg, Moscow Region, Leningrad Region, Murmansk Region, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Orenburg Region, Volgograd Region, Vladimir Region, Voronezh Region, Pskov Region, Kostroma Region, and Rostov Region. The figures given are for the period January–March 2018. Courtesy of Vedomosti

A third of Russian schoolteachers do not know how their salaries are calculated or whether incentive payments and reimbursements are added to their paychecks. This was one finding of a survey carried out by the Russian People’s Front (ONF) in May 2018, during which researchers interviewed more than 3,000 teachers in 82 regions.

“Wage growth remains insignificant, making it impossible to attain the wage levels claimed by Rosstat,” the ONF concluded.

In Murmansk Region, for example, the survey showed teachers earned an average of ₽36,382 a month [approx. €495 a month], while official statistics showed they earned ₽50,560 a month [approx. €688 a month].

But even the salary the teachers earn comes at the price of an extremely heavy workload, the researchers stressed. The workload was heaviest in Kemerovo, Kostroma, and Samara Regions, where teachers averaged over thirty classes a week.

A quarter of schoolteachers have second jobs or hold additional positions at the same school, while twenty percent think of quitting the profession due to the heavy workload. Seven percent of the teachers surveyed spoke of not having been paid at all or paid in full at times. Twenty-three percent said their paychecks had been miscalculated, while fifty-seven percent had not been paid for overtime or additional duties.

Lyubov Dukhanina, deputy chair of the State Duma’s education committee and a member of the ONF’s central staff, argues the current nontransparent system of calculating salaries, which divides salaries into basic pay and incentive pay, should be abandoned. Instead, teachers should receive a guaranteed salary for their work. She also notes that, according to many teachers, incentive payments are unfair and opaque, and the amount of these payments can vary wildly from month to month.

Igor Remorenko, rector of Moscow State Pedagogical University and former deputy education minister, said all systems of compensation include guaranteed basic pay.

“In organizations undergoing reform, the lower the guaranteed basic pay, the better, because it enables you to rotate employees. In stable organizations, the constant part of the paycheck is more important, because it motivates employees. We need to move in the direction of having teachers sign annual contracts and feel confident in the future, while accepting the possibility of being paid different amounts depending on differing workloads from month to month,” said Remorenko.

The ONF’s survey actually embellished the real picture, noted Vsevolod Lukhovitsky, co-chair of the Teacher Trade Union.

“There are legal means of turning tiny salaries into big salaries on paper. For example, in Moscow, until 2018, the statistics included only full-time employees who had open-ended contracts, while the part-timers, who earned less money, were not included in the stats,” said Lukhovitsky.

According to Lukhovitsky, a law bill would be tabled in the State Duma this autumn that would establish a guaranteed minimum salary, equal to at least two minimum wages, for eighteen academic hours.

“It’s nice a large organization like the ONF has supported our conclusions four years after we started talking about going back to a fixed salary,” said Lukhovitsky.

Naturally, teachers are dissatisfied with their salaries. They are thus fertile ground for the ONF, argues political scientist Konstantin Kalachev. Teachers play a key role in elections and the entire political system.

[The ONF is a pro-Putin, astroturfed “populist” front organization. Teachers are critical to the Putin regime because many of them serve as polling station workers during elections, due to the fact that polling stations are commonly set up in schools. Teachers are thus often involved in the systematic vote rigging and electoral fraud that have helped keep Putin and his allies in power for twenty years—TRR.]

“The current system of governance sometimes needs to let off steam. There is nothing frightening about the fact the stats are fudged, and the president’s May decrees are not fully implemented. The president sets tasks, and if they are not solved that is the problem of the people trying to solve them,” said Kalachev.

It is pensioners, teachers, and physicians who have the most impact on approval ratings, “so it makes sense the powers that be are focused on worrying about teachers,” he concluded.

Translated by the Russian Reader

45 Days

word-image-49 This map, published by Amnesty International, shows the geography of Oleg Sentsov’s ordeal, from his arrest in occupied Crimea, in May 2014, to his arrival at the Labytnangi Correctional Colony, north of the Arctic Circle, in October 2017. Courtesy of Let My People Go!

#SaveSentsov
#FreeOlegSentsov

Ukrainian film director and political prisoner Oleg Sentsov is in the midst of his forty-fifth day on hunger strike in the maximum security penal colony, north of the Arctic Circle, where the Putin regime sentenced him to twenty years for the thought crime of not approving its illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014.

Sentsov’s only demand is that the Putin regime release the several dozen other Ukrainian political prisoners it has imprisoned.

It should also release Mr. Sentsov, made to suffer for a crime he did not commit. (He was convicted on terrorism charges). It would be a gesture of peace and reconciliation appreciated round the world, especially during the World Cup, which Russia is currently hosting.

But I am not holding my breath. Russia has been misruled for the last twenty years by a clique of KGB officers who morphed into some of the most reckless and impudent gangsters the world has ever seen once the Soviet Union collapsed. Yet this utterly destructive regime gets oodles of aid and comfort from the international far left and far right, as well as corrupt entities like FIFA and the London City, who want to partake in Russia’s embezzled riches.

A wiseguy like Putin knows this and, I am afraid, has calculated that the fallout from Sentsov’s death in prison is an acceptable risk. Releasing Sentsov, on the other hand, would show that Putin is susceptible to pressure from the outside world. Unless I am misreading him, he is loath to do this, at least in an obvious way. // TRR

Where Did You Go? (Day 44)

44th day “The forty-fourth day of Sentsov’s hunger strike.” Post on filmmaker Askold Kurov’s Facebook page

Ukrainian political prisoner and filmmaker Oleg Sentsov has completed the forty-third day of his hunger strike. His only demand is that Russian authorities release the other Russian political prisoners they have imprisoned during their illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Unfortunately, I have the growing sense that even the most progressive Russians, whatever that means, are so impressed by the nonstop international football party that has been unleashed on the streets of their major cities that they are less and less able to focus on what matters in the near term (the government’s plan to raise the retirement age, the pending retrial of Yuri Dmitriev, the mind-bending Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case, Sentsov’s hunger strike, six more years of pitch-black Putinist reaction). They behave and talk like people who have richly earned a celebration.

In the grand scheme of things, none of us deserve a celebration. We are sinners in the hands of an angry God, and we deserve to be crushed.

Viewing our fallen world more realistically, however, we probably do need to give ourselves a break, no matter how dire the circumstances, every once in a while, but only after we have done our work, especially the collective grassroots work that keeps our societies from slipping over the edge into the abyss of lawlessness, reaction, and fascism.

With few exceptions, Russia’s hyper-educated populace, however, checked out of hands-on politics long ago. They are literally the most holiday-prone bunch I have ever encountered in the world. Nearly everyone I know is endlessly on vacation, on the road, not at home, checked out, off the radar in internal exile, you name it.

This was my roundabout way of saying the truly heroic Mr. Sentsov’s chances do not look good. // TRR

* * * * * * * * * *

Many of my western leftist friends have been having a field day with the White Pride House’s disgusting treatment of immigrant families and children from Latin America, as they should be.

But when it comes to the Kremlin’s disgusting treatment of nearly everyone under its own black hole sun, from Oleg Sentsov and the alleged Penza-Petersburg “terrorists” to Yuri Dmitriev and Oyub Titiev, mum has been word among western leftists.

This is not to mention the Kremlin’s escapades in Syria and Ukraine, the wretched treatment of migrant workers from Central Asia in Russia itself, or the fact Russia is basically off limits to the refugees and asylum seekers whom, in some cases, it has helped to generate, as in Syria.

Meanwhile, Russia has been witness a slow but noticeable exodus of its own asylum seekers and more quiet exiles, including dozens if not hundreds of political activists, and thousands of LGBT people, now that the country has been officially and virulently homophobic for several years.

None of this gets even so much as a look-in from most of my western leftist friends, who, at best, are happy to have me rattle on about these things ad nauseam, but probably think I have been lying or exaggerating these past ten years.

In any case, nothing the Kremlin ever does figures in either their political activism or political thinking (except in complaints about “anti-Russian hysteria” in their local mass media). They are loath to show solidarity with grassroots Russian activists, even Russians in serious trouble like the young antifascists implicated in the total frame-up known as The Network Case.

No, the wroth of western leftists is always and only reserved for the Great Satan, the cause of all evil in the world, the country that invented imperialism, racism, capitalism, nepotism, and daltonism, the United States of America.

Why they should be so implicitly sympathetic to the hyper-reactionary, neo-imperialist, homophobic, anti-working class, rampantly state capitalist, kleptocratic, illiberal, anti-intellectual, wildly corrupt nationalist and racist regime in Russia is beyond my powers to comprehend.

But their silence speaks louder than their words, as does their pointed failure, when it comes to people I know personally, to engage meaningfully with all the things I have written and translated over the last ten years.

This is especially palpable now the World Cup is underway. Even politically engaged liberals among my acquaintances have obviously given the Russian regime a free pass for the month.

Actually, they have been giving it a free pass since 1999, but I won’t mention discuss this long, ugly story now.

What I meant to say was that Ukrainian filmmaker and political prisoner Oleg Sentsov is dying, and the western left pointedly has nothing to say about why he is in “jail” (as the Moscow Times quaintly puts it, although he is actually incarcerated in a maximum security penal colony north of the Arctic Circle) and why he was sent there for twenty years.

It is pathetic. It is also part of the reason why “the masses” generally trust the western left about as far as they can throw it. Because just like Donald Trump and Theresa May, there are species of despotism, tyranny, and even genocide the western left really quite fancies or, at least, can countenance in the name of “anti-imperialism.”

To put it bluntly, I am afraid the western left would rather Oleg Sentsov and his ilk just crawled under a rock and died. They only muddy what should be a crystal-clear view of “geopolitics.” // TRR

The Bill for the 2018 World Cup

Russia and Brazil World Cup’s Leading Spenders over Last Twenty Years
Delovoi Peterburg
June 18, 2018

Photo by Sergei Konkov

Russia and Brazil took first place in terms of the cost of readying their countries to host the FIFA World Cup since 1998. A report by JLL, a consultancy company, shows each country spent $11.6 billion on organizing the event.

The report’s authors note that, according to the latest data available, Russia has spent ₽683 billion [approx. €9.3 billion] to host the World Cup. Thirty-nine percent of this money, or ₽265 billion, has been spent on building and repairing sports facilities.

The report’s authors also note that Russia has been the only recent host of the World Cup to build or renovate all twelve venues.

They write that Russia has set the per stadium record, spending an average of $380 million on each venue.

By way of comparison, South Korea and Japan spent $8.1 million on the 2002 World Cup; Germany, $7.7 billion on the 2006 World Cup; and South Africa, $5.2 billion on the 2010 World Cup. The most modest preparations were made by France for the 1998 World Cup. France spent only $2 billion on organizing the event.

infrastructure vs. venues

Russia spent the most money on infrastructure while preparing for the World Cup. The country invested $7.1 billion in infrastructure, including $3.9 billion on transportation infrastructure. Meanwhile, it spent $4.5 billion on stadiums.

Russia yields only to South Korea and Japan in expenditures on stadiums. They spent a total of $4.6 billion.

world cup 2018 costs

Overall, Russia spent ₽18.9 billion [approx. €256 million] more on getting ready for the World Cup than was planned in 2013.

According to the 2018 FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee’s preliminary estimate, as cited in JJL’s report, the summary economic impact of the 2018 World Cup on Russia during the period 2013–2018 will be ₽867 billion [approx. €11.8 billion] or roughly one percent of annual GDP. The primary effect will be achieved through investments and operating expenses. It is expected to reach ₽746 billion.

impact

The 2018 FIFA World Cup takes place in twelve stadiums in eleven Russian cities from June 14 to July 15, 2018.

Diagrams excerpted from “Investing into [sic] Football Passion: The Effect of the World Cup in Russia.” Article translated by the Russian Reader

Plato Re-Elaborated

rus yachts.jpg

That city would not lack a yacht club, would not lack

a soccer club. Noting the absence of smoke from the brick

factory chimneys, I’d know it was Sunday,

and would lurch in a bus across town, clutching a couple of bucks.

I’d twine my voice into the common animal hoot-

ing on that field where what the head begins is finished by the foot.

Of the myriad laws laid down by Hammurabi

the most important deal with corner kicks, and penalty kicks to boot.

—Joseph Brodsky, “Plato Elaborated,” trans. George L. Kline, New Yorker, March 12, 1979, p. 40

***********************

It would be nice, wouldn’t it, to be a regular guy, to immerse oneself in enjoying life, in a pleasant job, and forget that a dictatorship for life has taken root in our country? It would be nice, wouldn’t it, to forget the dictatorship wages war against neighboring countries? It would be nice, wouldn’t it, to forget it has destroyed all constitutional rights, the freedom of speech, secularism, the right to a pension, the right to one’s native language, and the right to forget things and be happy?

—Sergey Abashin, Facebook, June 24, 2018

Photo and translation by the Russian Reader

Yegor Lopatin: Oleg Sentsov’s Forty Days

safe_image

Oleg Sentsov’s Forty Days
Yegor Lopatin
Za-Za
June 22, 2018

We are witnessing a tragedy generated by incredible cynicism. Oleg Sentsov has been on hunger strike for forty days.

Have you tried not eating for four days? For ten days? I once performed an experiment on myself and did not eat for eight days. What mattered to me was whether I could do it or not. I passed the test fairly easily.

As far as I can remember, no one has been on hunger strike for forty days in a row.*

I would imagine Sentsov, who is 42 years old, has already irreparably damaged his health and can never be completely normal again. This is quite sad. What is even sadder, however, is that he apparently has decided to die, thus challenging the people who sent him to prison for 20 years, annexed Crimea, and unleashed a war in Donbass.

Sentsov has no other means of influencing these people, who are firmly convinced anyone can be broken with a good spanking. We are thus witnesses to a invisible duel between Sentsov and Putin, who bears direct responsibility for everything that happens in Russia.

No one will emerge from this duel a winner. There will only be losers. Sentsov will most likely die an agonizing death, and the damage to Putin’s reputation will be worse than from the sinking of the Kursk and the downing of Flight MH17, although people with their heads screwed on straight have long understood that Putin’s reputation is beyond saving.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will also bear blame for Sentsov’s death. He has been incredibly passive during the hunger strike and has done basically nothing to save Sentsov.

All of us, the people of Russia, are directly responsible for the lawlessness of our authorities, who have destroyed a young man on trumped-up charges. I do not believe Sentsov could have planned terrorist attacks in Crimea or even laid a finger on anyone.

Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years in prison because Putin illegally annexed Crimea, defying the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, signed on December 5, 1994.

This is a typical KGB move: doing something nasty and blaming the victim for it.

So, before you bask in the success of the Russian national football team, remember that an amazingly courageous man is dying a painful death right now for his beliefs.

His name is Oleg Sentsov.

This is not only his tragedy. It is our tragedy, too.

Yegor Lopatin is a Russian writer. Thanks to Elena Zaharova for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader. Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Times

* Provisional IRA militant Bobby Sands was on hunger strike in the Maze Prison for 66 days in 1981, while Soviet dissident and political prisoner Anatoly Marchenko struck for 117 days in 1986. Marchenko died in a prison hospital several days after ending his strike, while Sands died in the prison hospital while still on strike. // TRR

Valery Rashkin: The Return of the Oprichniki

1024px-0NevrevNV_Oprichniki_BISH Nikolai Nevrev, Oprichniki, 1870s. Oil on canvas, 102 cm x 152 cm. Courtesy of the Kyrgyz National Museum of Fine Arts. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Pillaging the Opposition
Valery Rashkin
Echo of Moscow
June 21, 2018

The Russian Supreme Court has ruled law enforcement and secret service officers can confiscate without a court order personal property used in the commission of terrorist and “extremist” crimes. The items that can be confiscated include computers, cell phones, and office equipment. This means personal property can be seized without payment of compensation and made the property of the state.

Can you believe it? The times of Ivan the Terrible have resurfaced. Courtesy of the state, Russia’s siloviki have been transformed into oprichniki and robbers. The ruling is completely unlawful, considering what passes for “extremist” crimes. Such criminal cases are usually frame-ups. They are so absurd they make you laugh and shudder at the same time.

The state has mandated law enforcers to hark back to the old system of remuneration (kormlenie, literally, “feeding”): the more “extremism” charges you file, the more iPhones and computers you can get your hands on. It is tantamount to legalized enrichment at the opposition’s expense. Moreover, even if the person who was criminally prosecuted is pardoned, their property will not be returned.

Don’t write nasty things about the regime on the VK social network, my dears, or the regime will fleece the living daylights out of you. Given the importance and high cost of electronic communications devices in our day and age, that is what it amounts to. The top brass, apparently, has decided that if people aren’t afraid of going to jail, they will intimidate them with the threat of robbery. I wonder who hatched this humiliating plan.

The rationale of hitting people in their wallets, enacted several years ago when fines for involvement in “unauthorized” demonstrations were increased precipitously, has gone beyond legal boundaries. Nothing of the sort exists in European countries: after a criminal investigation is wrapped, the accused has their property restored to them, nor are people are tried as felons for writing posts on social networks.

Naturally, the new dispensation is useless when it comes to deterring terrorists. The risks undertaken by an individual who rigs an explosive device and plots a terrorist attack are completely incommensurable with the risks taken by someone who posts a link to a book banned by the Prosecutor General or a satirical picture. In the first case, the criminals knowingly risk their lives and could not care less what happens to their property, while in the second case people do not even realize they are breaking the law.

Considering the vagueness of the anti-“extremist” laws and the way they are liberally interpreted and employed by law enforcement, the confiscation of property belonging to so-called extremists will only exacerbate the confrontation between the security services and ordinary Russians.

The advantages of the new measure are questionable, while the harm it will cause is obvious.

Valery Rashkin is a Communist MP in the Russian State Duma. Thanks to Elena Zaharova for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader

Petersburg Court Bailiffs Attack Reporter at Network Case Hearing

Mediazona’s Petersburg Correspondent Accused of Disobeying Court Bailiffs
Mediazona
June 19, 2018

David Frenkel, a Mediazona correspondent, has informed us that bailiffs at Petersburg’s Dzerzhinsky District Court have cited him for violating Article 17.3 of the Administrative Code (“failure to comply with the orders of a judge or court bailiff”).

Frenkel attended the custody extension hearing of Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case suspect Viktor Filinkov. Journalists and the public were not admitted to the courtroom during the hearing and the judge’s ruling. When the hearing was over, and Filinkov was escorted from the courtroom, the public, around forty people, applauded him.

It was then that court clerk Yelena Krasotkina, outraged the public supported the prisoner, ordered the bailiffs to detain Frenkel, who at the time was standing in the corridor and not applauding.

Yekaterina Kosarevskya, a member of the Petersburg Public Monitoring Commission, said she heard Krasotkina say to the bailiffs, “Write somebody up for something.”

One of the bailiffs suggested detaining Frenkel. Ten minutes later, another bailiff threatened to detain Kosarevskaya.

When the bailiffs detained Frenkel, they broke his glasses. They claimed he screamed.

The bailiffs cited him Frenkel for violating Adminstrative Code Article 17.3 Part 2 (“Failure to obey the lawful request of a court bailiff for establishing order in the court and stopping actions violating court rules”).

Frenkel sent a photo of the citation to his Mediazona colleagues: he was unable to read it, since a bailiff, surnamed Vikulov, had broken his glasses. The citation claimed Frenkel “made noise, clapped, shouted, and urged the crowd to take illegal actions.”

Frenkel was then taken to the 78th Police Precinct. The policemen swore when they found out why Frenkel had been brought to the police station. He was released after approximately fifteen minutes.

Viktor Filinkov’s term in remand prison was extended four months, until October 22, 2018.

When Frenkel was escorted from the corridor, it transpired the bailiffs had run out of blank arrest sheets.

Around forty people had gathered before the hearing in the second-floor corridor of the courthouse. They included the parents of Yuli Boyarshinov, another suspect in the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case, whose remand to police custody was extended later in the day. No member of the public was able to attend the hearing. Before escorting Filinkov from the holding cell, the guards and bailiffs ordered the public to go down to the first floor. They claimed their request had to do with “safely escorting” their prisoner.

The members of the public were reluctant to leave the second floor. Court clerk Yelena Krasotkina emerged from the office of the Dzerzhinsky District Court’s presiding judge. Krasotkina announced the decision to hold both hearings in closed chambers had been made earlier and ordered the public to leave the courthouse.

View image on Twitter David Frenkel (@merr1k): “I get the sense the brass has taken the Dzerzhinsky District Court to task, and so they are avoiding the use of force. They are swearing and getting mad, but they’re putting up with us. 11: 12 a.m., July 19, 2018.”

The bailiffs placed a bench at the entrance of the corridor to courtroom, forbidding members of the public from going around the bench. Krasotkina reprimanded the bailiffs, complaining , “They’re all still here,” meaning the members of the public. Armed guards in masks escorted Filinkov into the courtroom as this was happening.

Inside the Dzerzhinsky District Court, June 19, 2018. Photo by David Frenkel. Courtesy of Mediazona

Members of the public and the bailiffs argued with each other. A man who was possibly in charge of the armed guard joined them. He warned the public they would not be admitted to the courtroom to hear the judge’s ruling in the cases of Filinkov and Boyarshinov.

“How is that?” asked a member of the public.

“Well, if the judge permits it, the public gets in. If the judge doesn’t, they don’t,” replied the man.

“How do we find that out?” asked perplexed members of the public.

“When the hearing is over, they’ll come out and tell you,” he concluded.

Krasotkina periodically emerged from the presiding judge’s office, taking a photograph of the members of the public on one such occasion.

Filinkov’s defense counsel, Vitaly Cherkasov, a lawyer with the Agora International Human Rights Group, then emerged from the courtroom, telling the crowd the defense had asked the judge to transfer Filinkov to house arrest.

Finally, after the court had rendered its ruling, Frenkel was detained by the bailiffs.

Armed guards escort Viktor Filinkov at the Dzerzhinsky District Court. Photo by David Frenkel. Courtesy of Mediazona

This was not the first time a member of the press has been cited for violating Article 17.3 at the Dzerzhinsky District Court. On March 22, 2018, bailiff Ivan Lozovsky cited journalist Sasha Bogino for violating the administrative law. He ordered her to stop “live streaming,” although the Mediazona correspondent was sitting in the courtroom with her laptop open and not filming anything. In late May, a court ordered Bogino to pay a fine of 500 rubles.

Filinkov and Boyarshinov have been in police custody since January of this year. On June 18, 2018, the Dzherzhinsky District court extended the term in custody of the third Petersburg suspect in the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case, Igor Shishkin. Another six young men are in police custody in Penza as suspects in the same case.

According to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the members of the alleged “terrorist community” known as “The Network” had planned “to stir up the popular masses in order to destabilize the political circumstances” in Russia on the eve of March’s presidential election and the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which is currently underway. In addition, on June 15, 2018, it transpired that three new charges had been added to the case.

Three of the suspects, who have been charged with violating Article 205.4 of the Russian Criminal Code (“involvement in a terrorist community”), Viktor Filinkov, Ilya Shakursky, and Dmitry Pchelintsev, have claimed they were tortured into confessing after they were detained by FSB field officers. In addition, Alexei Poltavets, an acquaintance of the suspects, has claimed he was tortured into testifying against them.

The Russian Investigative Committee has so far refused to refuse to file abuse of authority charges against any FSB officers. In the case of Ilya Kapustin, who was tortured during his interrogation by the FSB as a witness, the Investigative Committee decided Kapustin’s taser burns were “consistent with injuries caused by skin diseases or insect bites.”

The suspects’ loved ones have formed a Parents Network. In April 2018, the group held a press conference in Moscow.

Translated by the Russian Reader

***************

What can you do to support the Penza and Petersburg antifascists and anarchists tortured and imprisoned by the FSB?

Donate money to the Anarchist Black Cross via PayPal (abc-msk@riseup.net). Make sure to specify that your donation is earmarked for “Rupression.”
Spread the word about The Network Case aka the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case. You can find more information about the case and in-depth articles translated into English on this website (see below), rupression.com, and openDemocracyRussia.
Organize solidarity events where you live to raise money and publicize the plight of the tortured Penza and Petersburg antifascists. Go to the website It’s Going Down to find downloadable, printable posters and flyers. You can also read more about the case there.
If you have the time and means to design, produce, and sell solidarity merchandize, please write to rupression@protonmail.com.
Write letters and postcards to the prisoners. Letters and postcards must be written in Russian or translated into Russian. You canfind the addresses of the prisoners here.
Design a solidarity postcard that can be printed out and used by others to send messages of support to the prisoners. Send your ideas to rupression@protonmail.com.
Write letters of support to the prisoners’ loved ones via rupression@protonmail.com.
Translate the articles and information at rupression.com and this website into languages other than Russian and English, and publish your translations on social media and your own websites and blogs.
If you know someone famous, ask them to record a solidarity video, write an op-ed piece for a mainstream newspaper or write letters to the prisoners.
If you know someone who is a print, internet, TV or radio journalist, encourage them to write an article or broadcast a report about the case. Write to rupression@protonmail.com or the email listed on this website, and we will be happy to arrange interviews and provide additional information.
It is extremely important this case break into the mainstream media both in Russia and abroad. Despite their apparent brashness, the FSB and their ilk do not like publicity. The more publicity the case receives, the safer our comrades will be in remand prison from violence at the hands of prison stooges and torture at the hands of the FSB, and the more likely the Russian authorities will be to drop the case altogether or release the defendants for time served if the case ever does go to trial.
Why? Because the case is a complete frame-up, based on testimony obtained under torture and mental duress. When the complaints filed by the accused reach the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and are reviewed, the Russian government will be forced to pay heavy fines for its cruel mockery of justice.

***************

If you have not been following the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case and other cases involving frame-ups, torture, and violent intimidation by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and other arms of the Russian police state, read and repost the recent articles the Russian Reader has translated and published on these subjects.

Anna Tereshkina: At the Court Hearing

tereshkina-11

Anna Tereshkina
Facebook
June 19, 2018

*This text is not an objective reflection of the “hearing.” Rather, I see its value as therapeutic in the light of what happened today.

This was my second time at a remand extension hearing for Viktor Filinkov.

There were more people, and their voices were louder. But I still left feeling as if I had been hit with a shovel, which was no surprise.

This time round, the court bailiffs immediately herded everyone down to the first floor, but they were unable to drive anyone completely out of the courthouse.

People stood near the stairway.

Our way down the long corridor was blocked by three beefy bailiffs, who were the centerpiece of a genuine commedia dell’arte.

At first, they used a bench to block the way into the corridor. Folks sat down on the bench. Then they decided to remove the bench. One young woman, however, refused to get up, and the three muscleheads threatened to drag her forcibly from the bench. They left the bench where it was, but turned it around. I managed to squeeze through and sit down on it.

Folks were pushing from one side, as during rush hour in the subway, while on the other side an amphitheater opened up. Knights in bulletproof vests outfitted with tons of pockets stood in this amphitheater. They were nearly motionless, like the best sitters during life drawing classes at the Academy of Arts.

I tried to make a stupid joke that snuggling up against young women like that, not letting them walk down the corridor, was the only joy in their dull jobs. A tall, thin bailiff (I had sketched him at the previous hearing) kept running back and forth, trying to cuddle up to T., pushing his more broad-shouldered colleague away from her.

The broad-shouldered bailiff, who bore a resemblance to Ramzan Kadyrov, smiled reservedly when I joked, while the other bailiff (I memorized his name: Anton) went so far as to say it was not their choice to wear the bulletproof vests, but they were under orders to wear them. He kept pulling at the neck of his t-shirt, as if he wanted to tear off his entie sweaty get-up.

But my jokes and attempts to see something human about them collapsed when all of them went after reporter David Frenkel, elbowing their way through the crowd. We tried to squeeze past them, but they had the right to employ violence. I sensed the tension in their elbows. But if someone like me had tensed their elbows like that, they would have been charged with “disobeying” officers of the law. It was scary.

Amid the stuffiness of the corridor, a ball consisting of the swearing gorillas and skinny David rolled down the stairway. (It transpired later the brave young men broke David’s glasses.)

The crowd seethed with despair and resentment.

“Look at yourselves! How you behave! You are violating the right of citizens to exercise their right to . . . ,” a female court clerk in a blue dress kept repeating at us.

tereshkina-1 “I have every grounds!”

The bits of bureaucratese clawed at each other. Words stumbled and snapped, turning into feckless curses.

“What grounds do you have for kicking us out?”

“I have every grounds!”

“Who the heck are you?”

“I’m the locum!”

“Whose locum? What’s your name?”

“I’ve already told you everything!”

This had all happened somewhere before, either in a story by Kafka or during my schooldays.

Ultimately, I really resent the fact I cannot draw Viktor or Yuli Boyarshinov or the lively crowd, constantly in motion, but am forced to draw the faces of the bailiffs, frozen in the stupid frenzy of their work. Violence is such a habitual part of their work they have ceased noticing it.

I would rather not have the opportunity to draw them. I would rather this hearing had not taken place. I would like to have magical powers and make it all go away. I would snap my fingers and, instead of a court bailiff, a marvelous violinist would be standing there or a waste recycling engineer who was a feminist and vegan to boot.

tereshkina-5

But, alas, the bailiffs pushed us back by another ten centimeters, and Ninja Turtles in balaclavas escorted Viktor into the courtroom. Our only magical powers were yelling and clapping as loudly as we could.

Like last time, I could not take it anymore. I left before the hearing was over. Where can I find the strength to endure this?

Drawings by Anna Tereshkina. I thank Ms. Tereshkina for her kind permission to reproduce them here as well as publish a translation of the accompanying text. All images © Anna Tereshkina, 2018. Translated by the Russian Reader.

***************

What can you do to support the Penza and Petersburg antifascists and anarchists tortured and imprisoned by the FSB?

Donate money to the Anarchist Black Cross via PayPal (abc-msk@riseup.net). Make sure to specify that your donation is earmarked for “Rupression.”
Spread the word about The Network Case aka the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case. You can find more information about the case and in-depth articles translated into English on this website (see below), rupression.com, and openDemocracyRussia.
Organize solidarity events where you live to raise money and publicize the plight of the tortured Penza and Petersburg antifascists. Go to the website It’s Going Down to find downloadable, printable posters and flyers. You can also read more about the case there.
If you have the time and means to design, produce, and sell solidarity merchandize, please write to rupression@protonmail.com.
Write letters and postcards to the prisoners. Letters and postcards must be written in Russian or translated into Russian. You canfind the addresses of the prisoners here.
Design a solidarity postcard that can be printed out and used by others to send messages of support to the prisoners. Send your ideas to rupression@protonmail.com.
Write letters of support to the prisoners’ loved ones via rupression@protonmail.com.
Translate the articles and information at rupression.com and this website into languages other than Russian and English, and publish your translations on social media and your own websites and blogs.
If you know someone famous, ask them to record a solidarity video, write an op-ed piece for a mainstream newspaper or write letters to the prisoners.
If you know someone who is a print, internet, TV or radio journalist, encourage them to write an article or broadcast a report about the case. Write to rupression@protonmail.com or the email listed on this website, and we will be happy to arrange interviews and provide additional information.
It is extremely important this case break into the mainstream media both in Russia and abroad. Despite their apparent brashness, the FSB and their ilk do not like publicity. The more publicity the case receives, the safer our comrades will be in remand prison from violence at the hands of prison stooges and torture at the hands of the FSB, and the more likely the Russian authorities will be to drop the case altogether or release the defendants for time served if the case ever does go to trial.
Why? Because the case is a complete frame-up, based on testimony obtained under torture and mental duress. When the complaints filed by the accused reach the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and are reviewed, the Russian government will be forced to pay heavy fines for its cruel mockery of justice.

***************

Sergey Abashin: Remittances by Central Asian Migrant Workers in Russia during the First Quarter of 2018

Central Asian migrant workers hard at work on a roof in central Petersburg on a Sunday in early May.

Sergey Abashin
Facebook
June 18, 2018

Finally I’m writing again about migrant workers, a subject that right at the moment interests very few people.

Data on remittances by private individuals from Russia to other countries for the first quarter of 2018 has been released by the Russian Central Bank after a great delay. Here is the picture they present.

Uzbekistan was the leader among the CIS countries. Its nationals remitted $726 million, which is 17% more than in the first quarter last year.

Tajikistan came in second place with $487 million, which is 15% more than the same time last year.

Kyrgyzstan took third place with $434 million, 9% up from the first quarter last year.

The figures thus show a significant increase in remittances, which testifies to an growth in the wages paid to migrant workers and an increase in the numbers of migrant workers themselves. Remittances to Kyrgyzstan have been growing more slowly, but in fact that means a large portion of the money earned by Kyrgyz nationals now stays in Russia to be spent on setting up their lives here.

P.S. By the way, the champion in terms of private remittances received from Russia is Switzerland—to the tune of $1.7 billion.

Photo and translation by the Russian Reader