Monetochka, “Burn Burn Burn”

The stats don’t lie, alas
Surveys and forms
Bad numbers, a hard year
But I sing in vain

I replace fabric with foil
Paste a bandage on my webcam
You can’t swing a cat without hitting
The wall-to-wall government

It’s gray and dressed in designer jeans
An absurdity, a caricature
It’s funny: culture has ended
In a multicultural country

The lights are out, the coffin’s made
And I’m cloud sad
In the land of Yesenin’s poems
Art is finished

(Refrain)
Now there’s only ash on the ground
Dig and search where you like, not a soul around
Burn, my country, burn
Don’t put it out, oh, don’t put it out, don’t put it out

The piano in the city park
Is really quite upset
Someone terrible bangs on it
A blue note blacker than night

A boondocks Banksy roams there
In a black hoodie
The lines he spray-paints on the corners
Are the words to this song

The rap of Moscow parties
And northern suburbs blackens
While in my black robe I pray
And my God hears: amen

God sees the shining cross
But I know it won’t help
For there are few too white spots
On my black skin

(Refrain 2x)
Now there’s only ash on the ground
Dig and search where you like: not a soul around
Burn, my country, burn
Don’t put it, oh, don’t put it out, don’t put it out

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Monetochka
VK
August 9, 2019

PREMIERE!

💿💿💿

Monetochka, “Burn Burn Burn”

News about the forest fires in Russia appears in our news feeds less and less frequently, but the problem has not gone away. Today, August 9, the peak of the forest fires was recorded, and yet firefighters are battling the blazes in only seven percent of the affected areas. We have to deal with his problem not only by taking emergency measures but also by engaging in year-round prevention. Volunteer forest fighters tell children and adults about the fires and help extinguish outbreaks at the early stages. But they lack money for training and doing their jobs.

All the money raised when people listen to this track on streaming services will go to purchase backpack pumps, spray guns, and navigators. It will also cover other vital expenditures in Greenpeace Russia’s campaign to combat fires in natural areas, including amending school textbooks, some of which have been found to give erroneous advice on extinguishing and preventing fires.

From August 16, the new track will be available on all other venues. As soon as we get the first stats on the number of listens, we will start helping out financially. Reports will be posted here and on other social networks.

Let’s make the world better together. 💚

For more details, go to https://pomo.sh/monetochka

On August 9, Valentin Tarabrin commented, “These fires are a cover-up for illegal deforestation. Millions of hectares are being cut down. Open Google Map and you will see nothing is left of Siberia. These fires are deliberate arson.”

Image courtesy of Monetochka’s VK wall. Translated by the Russian Reader

Krasnodar Environmentalist Diana Smirnova Detained by Police in Act of Revenge by Relatives of Kremlin Insider and Russian Latifundist Alexander Tkachov

Diana Smirnova, Defender of the Woodlands in the Lenin’s Farm District of Krasnodar, Detained: Police Crackdown Continues
Ecological Watch on the North Caucasus
August 25, 2018

Diana-Smirnova-2 Diana Smirnova

Last night, in the Lenin’s Farm district of Krasnodar, police raided the home of yet another defender of the district’s forest belt, clear-cut in July of this year at the behest of the Coastal Noncommercial Dacha Association, owned by Nikolai Tkachov and Anastasia Krattli, relatives of former Krasnodar Territory Governor and former Russian Federal Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachov.

Mastyaeva.preview Anzhelika Mastyayeva, after she allegedly “assaulted” a logger in July 2018.

The police had previously filed trumped-up charges against environmentalist Anzhelika Mastyayeva, claiming she had assaulted a logger. Prior to this, they had detained Mastyayeva without any legal grounds and held her for six hours in the lock-up at a police station.

This time, the police targeted Diana Smirnova, who had also vigorously defended the forest belt from the Tkachov family’s loggers and had testified at Mastyayeva’s court hearing.

At seven in the evening yesterday, two policemen arrived at Smirnova’s home. One of the officers was beat cop Alexander Sergiyenko, who had cooked up the case against Mastyayeva. The policemen asked Smirnova to come to the station with them for questioning regarding an allegedly unpaid fine. They assured here they would bring her back home in short order. However, Smirnova had no idea about any outstanding fines, since she had not been convicted of any administrative offenses.

Smirnova’s three-year-old daughter cried when her mother was driven away, but this did not stop the policemen.

However, instead of questioning Smirnova about the nonexistent unpaid fine, they took her from the Lenin’s Farm district to Karasunsky District Police Precinct at 205 Stavropol Street in Krasnodar and arrested. Smirnova was jailed overnight in the precinct’s detention facility. She was told she would be jailed until her court hearing.

An EWNC activist was able to phone the front desk of the Karasunsky District Police Precinct at +7 (861) 231-7071. He received confirmation Smirnova had been detained and charged with violating Article 20.25 of the Russian Federal Administrative Offenses Code (“Evasion of an Administrative Punishment”), although a search of the database of enforcement proceedings showed Smirnova had no outstanding fines.

Andrey Rudomakha, EWNC coordinator, had this to say about the incident.

“The people who run the Coastal Noncommercial Dacha Association are extremely vindictive. It was not enough they did not give a damn about the law, the wishes of local residents, and the deal they made with Krasnodar city hall, and cut down the forest belt. Now they have been harassing people who had the moxie to defend their own environment, since the forest belt that was cut down was the only green area near their homes.

2018-07-13_Lenina-Rubka_DSC03466.preview

“However, judging by the actions taken against Mastyayeva and Smirnova, who were charged with administrative offenses out of the blue by the beat cop Sergiyenko, the police are being used as a tool of revenge. The police used a special trick in their lawless raids on the homes of Mastyayeva and Smirnova. The former was arrested on a Saturday, while the latter was arrested on a Friday evening, times of the week when it is extremely hard to find defense lawyers. Why arrest a very young woman and mother of a small child late in the evening and jail her overnight in the pretrial holding tank, even if it were true she hadn’t paid a fine? The only point of all this is to intimidate the locals, to discourage them from wanting to defend their rights,” Rudomakha said.

Read more articles on ENWC’s website about the destruction of the woodlands in Lenin’s Farm (in Russian). For more information on the case of Diana Smirnova, call Anzhelika Mastyayeva, member of the Lenin’s Farm residents pressure group, at +7 (965) 470-8444, or Police Inspector Alexander Sergiyenko, who detained Diana Smirnova, at +7 (999) 437-3516.

Thanks to Andrey Rudomakha for the heads-up. Photos courtesy of EWNC. Translated by the Russian Reader

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This realtor’s video about the charms of Lenin’s Farm makes it clear why sharks like the Tkachov family have sunk their teeth into the neighborhood.

Being a Farmer in Karelia Is Not Easy

intro_235922527_17240 — Karelian Farmer Mikhail Zenzin. His placard reads, “For the government’s rotten work a rotten harvest from a grateful farmer.” Photo courtesy of Gleb Yarovoi/*7X7*

Farmer Brings Rotten Berries to Picket Outside Karelia’s Government House
Gleb Yarovoi
7X7
September 6, 2017

On September 6, Mikhail Zenzin, a farmer from Karelia’s Onega District, held a solo picket outside the Karelian government house in Petrozavodsk, the republic’s capital. The man arrived at the building carrying a box of rotten berries and a placard that read, “For the government’s rotten work a rotten harvest from a grateful farmer,” our correspondent reported from the site of the picket.

Several minutes later, a young woman emerged from government house to talk to Zenzin. She invited him to the reception room of the region’s head, where he was able to make an appointment to meet with the head in October 2017. Officials did not accept Zenzin’s gift of berries, and the farmer was forced to discard them.

According to Zenzin, being a farmer in Karelia is no easy task. He says he sees only interference from the state, but would like to receive help. Since spring 2017, he has tried on several occasions to obtain a permit to sell his produce in Petrozavodsk, but so far he has been unsuccessful.

“Karelia needs a farmer’s market. The one held in October is trivial. People grow a lot of produce, but we cannot sell it outside, since the issue of street trading has not been settled yet. There was a decree in April of this year that allocated three plots in Petrozavodsk for the sale of produce, but they had to be purchased through an auction. All over the world, farmers transport their produce to town and sell it freely. In May, I wrote to Arthur Parfenchikov, acting head of Karelia, and asked him how farmers were supposed to sell their produce, but I got no reply from him. Instead, I got the run-around from the Agriculture Ministry, who wrote to me that I should contact the retail chains and ask to sell my produce on their premises. I tried to meet with Parfenchikov during office hours. I called his reception office, where I was told the head received the general public once a quarter, and so I was turned down. If I had known he would refuse to debate the issue, I would have brought my berries to Petrozavodsk long ago and dumped them on the steps of government house,” said Zenzin.

This was not Zenzin’s first protest. For several years, he held similar pickets outside Karelian government house and the Karelian Nature Ministry. In the spring of 2013, he held a picket outside the Karelian Natural Resources and Environment Ministry because Ladva Forest Holding, Ltd., had begun clear-cutting a thirteen-acre land plot that had been transferred to the farmer in perpetuity.

In 2014, Zenzin held a solo picket outside government house and went on a hunger strike. As the farmer told the Forest Website, for several years he had been unable to farm and develop nature tourism in the vicinity of the village of Ladva-Vetka, because the tenant of the area’s forest reserves, Ladva Forest Holding, Ltd., had damaged the road by which Zenzin reached his own plot.

Zenzin doused himself with water in sub-zero temperatures outside the Karelian Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, thus symbolizing how the republic had put small business on ice. A month later, Zenzin, who lives in Ladva-Vetka, was once again outside government house, but this time he had a noose around his neck and a placard that read, “With a man like this running the republic, Karelian small business can only put its head in a noose.” In 2015, Zenzin stood in the way of logging equipment and prevented loggers from cutting down the forest.

According to Zenzin, the issue was resolved in 2016 after Oleg Telnov, ex-deputy head of Karelia, personally intervened.

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