In the days following Monday’s deadly suicide attacks on the Moscow metro, Russian television has come under mounting criticism for largely ignoring the incidents during the first critical hours after they occurred. As opposed to radio and print media, which are overall less subject to censorship, state-controlled television remains the primary source of news for most Russians.

While Russian television has been routinely criticized for refusing to air prominent oppositionists, anti-government protests, reports containing scenes of graphic violence, and other events that could cast the government in an unfavorable light, the public response to its failure to cover Moscow’s worst terrorist attacks in six years has been uncharacteristically harsh.

In a column for the online newspaper Gazeta.ru, Natalia Gevorkyan argues that today’s Russian television has gone beyond the breaking point and become an alternative reality that only its producers seem to believe in.

A Crooked Broadcast
By Natalia Gevorkyan
March 31, 2010
Gazeta.ru

Russian television has definitely ceased to be a form of news media. Its design of a virtual form of reality has reached the peak of perfection. TV has its own reality – with little jokes, idiotic talk shows that take one week to write, and programming that is in no way affected by reality. But in this country there is grief, the dead, the wounded, and shattered metro cars in the center of the capital. The result: on the day of the terrorist attacks, it was only the published news media that lay out the real reality, and not all at once. The remaining programs left the impression of a broadcast from Mars. They did not concern this life, or these deaths. (I’m not talking here about Russia Today. The television broadcasts for foreigners turned out to be more adequately realistic. This channel is in a different competitive milieu, the western one – normal, sensible, professional. They have to correspond.)

I was abroad when the events in Beslan began. Except for the breaks for headline news, which also began with Beslan, CNN showed only Beslan. RTR-Planeta at the time was telling me about prostitution. Now I’m in Moscow. The explosions occurred a kilometer away from my home. Or the explosions in Kizlyar, where another twelve of my fellow citizens were killed. Today. I turn on the television. Literally right now, Wednesday mid-day. Movie, movie, movie, drama, drama, drama, talk show about photography, talk show about court, something about Pasternak, songs, laughter. And only in the news breaks do you understand that people still haven’t been buried, people are still carrying flowers, still lighting candles, people are still crying, the prime minister is reanimating ten-year-old jargon, the Federation Council is apparently planning to institute the death penalty.

When cell phones stopped working on Monday, when cars with sirens sped off down Komsomolsky Prospekt and crowds of people moved towards them – if my arm had reached for the television switch, it would only have been as a last resort. The computer. The internet works. Everything is there. That’s all understood.

Then the radio. A more democratically accessible form of media. A separate thank you to radio hosts for their work on this black Monday. They did what television should have done. Right on time, the radio broadcast experts, opinions, and conversations, which are always better than silence and uncertainty. Even if they’re just empty responses to the primary questions: who, how, why? But the analysts, comparisons with analogous terrorist attacks, broadcasting information as it became available, interviews with news people – all of this is absolutely normal journalistic work. The radio flexibly reworked itself during the tragic events. It worked in person, live, broadcasting directly. A few radio stations even cut out their commercials.

The television managers couldn’t decide to do a live broadcast even in a situation that, in my view, obliged them to do so. They have betrayed their profession. They betrayed it long ago, when they allowed Putin’s TV watchdogs to erase live television from our lives, from the lives of citizens. They then began to design a country that was pleasant for the leadership to look at. This country, ideally, either cracks up at moronic jokes, or empathizes with the heroes of dramas, or is terrified at dissected corpses, or gets divorced together with a wealthy couple, or shares a child together with a famous singer, or is moved by its leaders, who crop up in the news clips so periodically that Brezhnev would have been jealous, or in a united fit of emotion even votes for them. This television, which the new president has not abolished either, looks like a meaningless, imitation Chinese vase, decorating the empty corner of a room.

Everything that radio did should have been done by television. Live broadcast, open studios where they could have questioned specialists, intelligence officers, doctors, witnesses of the events. Live. Effective editors, conversations, attempts to come together to understand, to overcome, to grieve, to calm, to unite. And the live programming, the latest information, the reaction of the government, the reaction of the world, the reactions of people in Moscow and Vladivostok, in Grozny and Irkutsk, and so on, that this television was already capable of doing ten years ago.

Guys, you already can’t do it, you’ve lost your instincts, you’ve killed them off within political labyrinths. Now you ponder what to let on the air and whether to let it on the air at all, but people are already dead, and your viewers already hear the emergency sirens; they already know what happened, they’re already pulling out the wounded and tying tourniquets. One day later, with you, the Caucasus don’t blow up; the screen shows some kind of different, glamorous life – while it’s already blown up into a multitude of dangerous splinters that get to us everywhere, including in the capital. Television has erased real life from its programming. It has wiped society off of its screen – living, reflective, disagreeable society that is unable to afford the new housing and utilities tariffs, is unemployed and hard-working, has not become spoiled, and has not ceased to think. It has wiped out everyone from its programming who was capable of asserting our right to monitor the authorities and control over the intelligence agencies. You didn’t notice when the country stopped trusting the state, the cops, the intelligence agencies, the prosecutors, the investigators, the courts. And you. You didn’t notice because you already have come to believe that the country consists of what television shows, prepares, dresses in Prada, writes on the prompter and sends out onto the air.

How many more tragedies have to happen, and what kind, so that those who answer for and create today’s television to trembled and shook, so that the viewer became more important than the government, so that they would decide to say in a stern voice: “We’re going live.” And so that instead of Karpov, as previously scheduled, Pozner‘s guest today was a girl saved at Lubyanka Station.

Translation by theOtherRussia.org.

Georgian Coast Guard Intercepts Trade Vessels between Turkey and Abkhazia

The Georgian Coast Guard recently intercepted an Abkhazian cargo ship filled with scrap metal bound for Turkey and a Turkish cargo ship filled with fuel as part of Georgia’s economic blockade of the breakaway region. The incident raised already high anti-Georgian sentiment in Abkhazia, a de facto independent region backed by Russia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia remain in a strange state of international and legal quagmire one year on from Russia’s land war with Georgia.

Read more from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Russia Arrests Eight for Hijacking Ship with Dubious Cargo

Russia has charged eight men from Estonia, Latvia, and Russia with hijacking a Russian ship named the Arctic Sea last month. Media reports have said that the ship may have been carrying arms or nuclear material to the Middle East.

Read more from Reuters and the Canadian CBC News.

Kyrgyz Teenager Assaulted in Petersburg: Despite Evidence Contrary, Investigators Claim Violence Was Not Ethnic Hatred

Kyrgyz ninth-grader Tagir Kerimov and a friend were assaulted in Petersburg in February by a group of 25-30 who shouted, “Beat the khuch” and “Russia for Russians” along with other racist and nationalistic slogans. On Friday investigators said that the assault was not incited by ethnicity or nationalistic intent, stunning human rights activists.

Read more from the Moscow Times.

Putin Vows to Settle Debt from Soviet Era

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian Ministry of Finance to repay the remaining debt from the USSR. Before the end of the year, Putin plans to close the $34 million debt owed to the London Club of Creditors.

Read more from Pravda.ru.

Russian TV Documentary Caught in False Reporting Scandal

A dispute ensued over the past week between media photographer Arkady Babchenko and the state-run Channel One. The channel aired a documentary accusing the West of manipulating the media, even as it misrepresented a photograph of a wounded soldier.

Read more from The Other Russia and the St. Petersburg Times.

The article first ran in the liberal Novaya Gazeta newspaper.

“The End of Television: The Propaganda Machine Created by the Kremlin Turned Out To Be Useless When it Attempted to Persuade People That They Had Not Taken to the Streets. Now OMON Will Explain the Authorities’ Position.”
Novaya Gazeta
December 23, 2008

In recent years the Russian population has, on the whole, demonstrated very high levels of trust in the central television channels and very high levels of complaisance in embracing the world view offered by these channels.

In general terms, this view has consisted of three main elements. In one part appeared marginalized liberals, American imperialists, British spies, Georgian militarists, Islamic terrorists and other vermin hostile to the average Russian’s prosperity. Shown in another part were signs of the steady improvement in this very same Russian’s prosperity and the universal indications of Russia’s rebirth as a whole. The third part was devoted to portraying the life and toils of Vladimir Putin, who was protecting those who belonged to the second part from the persons of the first, who were threatening their peace and future well-being.

The image of the light side of the moon convinced those citizens whose affairs went well during this period that their personal successes were not accidental or transient, but part of the common future outlined by the man at the helm. The image of the dark side of the moon convinced those whose affairs were not going so well that the world is even worse and more dangerous than the dark, dreary corners and eternal smoke of their native Uryupinsk’s heating plants, a backwater from which there was no escape.

However, this whole construction, ostensibly so harmonious and stable, quickly begins to creak and wobble as soon as Maritime Krai’s [also known as Primorsky Krai, home to Vladivostok] excited inhabitants discover that they and their protests have no place in it. It transpires that they were not hooked on their daily serving of propaganda, that they did not love it more than all other dishes on Earth, but simply swallowed it down before dinner by force of habit, while there was dinner. It turns out that, unlike, for example, the Soviet philistines of the mid-1980s, they still consider themselves to be inhabitants of a more or less democratic country, where the authorities do not have the right to disconnect them from the world grid at the television censor’s discretion.

The attempt to correct this state of affairs by showing an alternative view of the world from the television screen — showing protests in support of increasing tariffs — turned out to be sufficiently absurd and short-sighted. Firstly, this doubly offended the opponents of increasing tariffs: Their protests “against” were not shown, and attempts were made to block them, but protests “in support” were organized and shown with relish. Secondly, in seeking to present the tariff problem as a clash of just two public lobby groups, the producers evidently forgot how many Russians drive second-hand foreign cars, and that the effective curtailment of credit closes off the option of purchasing a new foreign car, even for those who could afford this earlier.

However, the problem facing the authorities with regard to the motorists’ protests is much more complicated and broader than the issue of foreign brands. The problem is that if protests — the number of which will only grow — are not shown on television, then this, in crisis conditions, will lead to a pretty rapid loss of faith in the broadcast image per se; but if they are shown, this could destroy the clearly constructed world view that this image has helped to create.

As the experience of recent months demonstrates, the efficiency of the information machine built by the Kremlin dwindles rapidly as soon as peoples’ real interests become involved. And it transpires that the very same people, who only yesterday apparently swallowed so willingly the story of the rock that representatives of a non-profit organization allegedly used to communicate with MI6 through the fence of the British embassy, are not so easily conned on issues that relate to them personally. Thus, having heard in October the premier’s explanation (whom they all, to a man, believe) that the crisis was raging in America but not here, people set off in an organized manner to withdraw their deposits from the banks and purchase dollars.

In essence, the authorities are now facing a tough choice: They need to either put politics back on television or take it off the streets. The political construction of soft oil authoritarianism is not capable of shouldering the coming crisis, and there is clearly not sufficient money (as seemed possible as late as October) to plug all the holes that have appeared. Mobilization or liberalization? For the time being the authorities are preparing for both scenarios. Such a measure as the abolition of jury trials for participants in riots is a small step in the direction of the first scenario, and such a gesture as appointing Mr Belykh as Kirov governor is a hint at the possibility of the second. However, supporters of the first route are currently clearly stronger, more organized and, most importantly, more decisive than supporters of the second. And the chances of a decision to that effect can probably be estimated as two to one. However, a final choice has most probably been postponed for the New Year holidays.

Pressure to report positive news comes from many sources.

Yevgeny Gontmakher is a sociologist who wrote a newspaper article theorizing that the global financial crisis could bring about social unrest. After the column appeared, the national media regulatory body approached the paper and suggested they not print extremist materials.

“This is censorship,” said Gontmakher, who heads the Academy of Science’s Social Policy Center. “The situation in the country is changing; you can no longer utter the word ‘crisis’.”

Journalists allege that the Kremlin is using its controlling role in the media to hide the truth of the economic situation from ordinary Russians.

One reporter told Die Welt that editors at a major Russian newspaper advised writers to remain cautious when reporting on the impacts of the crisis.

“It comes from the top, via the meetings the top editors have with the government and the Kremlin,” said the reporter, who asked not to be named for fear of losing his job.

“The reasoning is to prevent panic from spreading inside Russia. We can still report on the crisis but we have to be very careful of how we term things, so it is a way of reporting rather than an outright ban.”

While authorities have taken some action to combat the crisis, including measures costing more than $200 billion, they have painted a rosy picture for the public, and have not allowed public discussion on the airwaves.

The trend is most noticeable on the three state-run television channels, where the financial crisis is discussed mostly as a foreign and US problem. The majority of Russians watch television as their primary news source.

Garry Kasparov, a leader of the United Civil Front opposition party, explained what he saw:

“It’s amazing. You don’t hear anything about the crisis,” Kasparov told Reuters. “It is a total virtual reality. There is a crisis in America, the United Kingdom, (but) Russia?”

A De-Facto Confession

Vitaly Portnikov
Grani.Ru
11/21/08

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became yet another high-ranking Russian civil servant to admit that an economic crisis exists in the country. He did this loudly and solemnly at a congress of the party of power. And having promised that there would not be a repeat of the 1998 collapse, he took personal responsibility for the social impact of the crisis, which even such a mighty national leader doesn’t have the power to prevent.

Unlike President Dmitri Medvedev’s statement, which confessed that 2009 would be a hard year for Russians, or the interview with Minister of Economic Development Elvira Nabiullina, which acknowledged the breakdown of the Russian economic model from Putin’s time [in office], Putin’s performance was liberally replayed on national television. Russians will remember precisely two of his excerpts, that a crisis exists, and that there won’t be any social impact. They will be remembered when the numbers at currency exchanges start to traitorously turn to favor the bourgeois and vanishing dollar. They will astonish yet another laid-off employee, when he cannot find a new job, and discovers that the government which promised to help him can do nothing for its citizen. Precisely these words will be quoted, when yet another strategic enterprise, or more importantly, a city’s major employer ceases operations, sending its workers overboard…

One can list such possibilities to remember Vladimir Putin’s words endlessly. Something else is more important: from the simple, popular point of view, these were the most important words of his political career. The public remembers well that Boris Yeltsin promised to lie down across the rails if prices grew, and then didn’t lie down. He promised that there would be no default, and then there was a default. But before these unkept promises, Yeltsin had a large and turbulent political biography under his belt: the anticipation of changes, that amazing air of freedom which today is already difficult to feel in Russia’s twilight (incidentally, the air becomes so thin during crisis years, that it sometimes seems fresh). And for Putin -years of assurances of stability, ending in admitting a crisis. That is why the Russian national memory won’t put President Putin together with stability, the fight with America and a glamorized Rublevka. There will only be Prime Minister Putin, who didn’t protect the country and her residents from a fiasco.

But could he have kept silent about all this? Probably, since no one was making him or his speech-writers speak up. In general, that’s how a public official differs from a televised underling. He tells the people the truth, which is sometimes bitter. Especially since Vladimir Putin doesn’t need to be elected anywhere, anytime soon. Or am I mistaken? But having been created by television, these people only believe their receivers. They believe that if you say that there’s no crisis, it won’t happen. They believe that if you say a crisis exists, but there won’t be an impact, then there won’t be.

Today’s elite, which had its hand held as it was brought into power, which never had to fight with anyone for it, which confused the government with a corporation and is incapable of a simple analysis of the situation six months ahead, much less of making strategic decisions, believes in an a remarkable manner in the power of the word, not of the action. Of the televised word. Appearing before a carefully arranged audience, that’s precisely why Vladimir Putin delivered what may end up being the most important and sole remembered speech of his future biography.

translation by theotherrussia.org

Pavel Tarakanov, a deputy who serves as chairman of the Committee for Youth Affairs in Russia’s lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, later retracted his statements.

Earlier, Tarakanov said that “if the 2×2 channel’s broadcast license is not renewed, we have a new youth project, which could lay claim to this [broadcast] frequency.” He noted that such a project was practically completed, and would reflect “the state position in the sphere of youth policy.” Tarakanov clarified that the new channel “is not trying to claim the 2×2 channel’s frequency.” “This project is being prepared, and we expect to launch it by next year—the year of youth. It makes no difference on what frequency it will appear.”

“It is essential to formulate the young generation of 21st century Russians, who want to live in a civilized country and be proud of it. That’s why we need our own media mouthpiece that is accessible to a maximum audience.”

2×2’s press-service meanwhile declined to officially comment on Tarakanov’s statements, according to the Sobkor®ru news agency. “It’s nice to hear that he retracted his own words,” a representative said.

The issue of 2×2’s license will be addressed on September 24th at a closed meeting of the Federal Competition Committee. The Interfax news agency reports that Rossvyazkomnadzor (the Federal Service on Supervision of Communications and the Mass Media), which oversees communications, will also have a role in renewing 2×2’s license.

In August, Moscow prosecutors issued a warning to 2×2, and sent a corresponding presentation to Russian media regulators, alleging that 12 animated series broadcast on the channel were harmful to children’s mental health. These allegations were based on an expert investigation, which also found that an episode of South Park screened on the channel bore signs of extremism.

The channel has petitioned the Moscow Appeals Court, and will try to contest the legality of the warning. Representatives of 2×2 said that it presents itself as a channel for adults, and that it airs notices stating this at the start of each show. 2×2’s leadership did not exclude the possibility that attacks on the channel were being carried out on behalf of a competing business interest, seeing how its broadcast license expires in mid-October. 2×2 has aired the cartoons in question for over a year.

Starting on September 22nd, the channel bowed to pressure and removed 12 animated series from its lineup. Banned cartoons deemed harmful include the Simpsons, Family Guy, Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl, and Angry Kid.

State prosecutors, following up on requests by Russian religious fundamentalist groups, had deemed materials broadcast on the channel to be harmful to children and extremist.

Roman Sarkisov, 2×2’s general director, announced that the channel would be appealing complaints against them through the courts. Sarkisov said that broadcasts of the programs in question will be cut as of September 22nd, and will not resume before a court decision is reached.

“Starting next week, we will remove 12 animated series that have grievances against them,” Sarkisov said Friday. “Instead of them, we will show other series that are already on the channel, and that no one has found anything wrong with yet.”

The move marked a change of tone for the channel, which had said last week that it had no plans to change any of its lineup.

On September 8th, the Prosecutor General’s Office released the result of an expert investigation, which found that 12 series shown by the channel broke a law meant to protect children. The cartoons in question include the Simpsons, Family Guy (translated into Russian as the Griffins), Metalocalypse, Drawn Together (translated into Russian as Multreality), Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl, Angry Kid, and others.

The cartoons “promote violence and cruelty, pornography, anti-social behavior, abound with scenes of mayhem, the infliction of physical and ethical suffering, and are aimed at invoking fear, panic and terror in children,” the Office said in a statement (Rus).

“Practically all the cartoons exploit the topic of suicide, and characters demonstrate readiness to risk their lives for the sake of deriving extreme sensations.”

The channel has responded to the charges by gathering signatures in support of its broadcasts. The management has also received official approval to hold several demonstrations(Rus), and will hold a free concert to raise awareness of the issue in St. Petersburg on September 22nd.

The screening follows a recent tradition of airing one-sided “documentaries” that voice conspiracy theories and put Russia at odds with the West. Films recently broadcast on Russian state television have asserted that the West was responsible for democratic “color revolutions” in former Soviet countries and that the West was behind Russia’s war in Chechnya.

The article below first ran on the Grani.ru independent online newspaper.

An Open Order
Boris Sokolov
Grani.ru
9/15/08

“Zero: an investigation into 9/11,” a film by Italian journalist Giulietta Chiesa and his French colleague Thierry Meyssan, went practically unnoticed in the world. Its authors openly complained about this as they spoke on Channel One, hinting at machinations by America’s intelligence agencies. In Russia, on the other hand, the film was shown on TV on Friday evening, during prime-time – on the “Private Screening” program, which gave it an audience of many millions. In and of itself, this proves that the Cold War is in full swing, at least on Russian television. Mr. Chiesa laments that “the level of democracy in the world is very low. And with every year, it becomes lower and lower.” And that’s why the Italian departed for Russia in search of genuine democracy.

Chiesa and Meyssan’s basic thesis is that the September 11th terrorist attacks were organized by the Americans themselves, in order to justify limitations on democratic freedoms in America and the subsequent invasion of Iraq, and in order to stave off a crisis in the American economy. Almost all the participants in the discussion readily agreed with them. The debates only centered on who in particular among the Americans was behind the terrorist acts. Some insisted that it was the multi-national corporations and intelligence agencies, carrying out imperial designs, with the involvement of individuals within the administration, but not the highest ranks –not the President and not the Secretary of State. This resembled Soviet times, when all the problems in the world were blamed on American imperialists, presented as anonymous monopolies and equally anonymous senior officials in the CIA and the Pentagon. Presidents and Secretaries of State shouldn’t be directly offended, since negotiations have to be led with them. The second version consisted of the idea that President Bush was directly involved in the conspiracy behind September 11th. Well, I guess this shows the relative freedom of speech as compared with the communist era, and moreover, everyone knows that Bush is working his last months in the White House.

The film’s authors call on Dario Fo (presented in the credits as a Nobel laureate), as a leading expert of the explosions on September 11th. The overwhelming majority of Russian viewers will remain convinced that there is a distinguished scholar before them, who has knowledge about airplanes, explosions and fires. In actual fact, Dario Fo is an Italian playwright, who received a Nobel prize for literature in 1997 for “emulat[ing] the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden.” He appears before us as a descendant of jesters as well.

From a professional point of view, the film is made extremely primitively. It is based almost exclusively on “talking heads,” and presents only those witnesses and experts who criticize the official version, that the terrorist attacks were organized by Al-Qaeda, led by [Osama] bin Laden (several of them look to be mentally unbalanced). Along those same lines are the endless, mesmerizing repetitions of captions with the author’s theses. Testimony and evidence from adherents of the official version is not mentioned in any way in the film. This is roughly like taking only the testimonies showing the innocence of the defendants during the Nuremberg trial, and ignoring all the materials in the extensive file documenting their guilt.

It is interesting that both the film’s authors and the participants of the discussion [that followed], having spoken out against American globalism and defended the dignity of the downtrodden peoples, demonstrate a barefaced contempt to these same peoples. The theme of the discussion sounded like this: “How could these 19 arabs do something like this? They couldn’t even learn to operate a plane!” True, the main question then remains unanswered – who was at the helm of the planes that crashed into the twin-towers. Could it be true that CIA agents turned from through-and-through WASPs into fanatic-suicide bombers? Here, to Chiesa and Meyssan’s assistance came Geidar Dzhemal, a homegrown Islamist-conspiracy theorist, who proposes that the planes were controlled from the ground by expert hackers, who changed the autopilot program on the killing-planes. No one bothered to refute this delusion.

The films authors, and the organizers of the discussion sought to convince viewers that two realities are competing on equal terms in the world: the official and alternative versions of the events of September 11th. Proponents of both versions, they say, have their own arguments, and even in the hard science field, experts at times have directly opposite opinions. Therefore, they say, the choice between them is a matter of faith. The discussion moderator, Alexander Gordon, tried at the start to play to objectivity and the cooperative search for truth, but by the end, confessed frankly that he had long ago come to a firm conclusion that the American establishment was behind the September 11th tragedy, just like the other terrorist acts on US territory.

Proponents of the official version were chosen essentially from obedient sparring-partners, whose arguments amounted to saying that Chiesa and Meyssan’s version could not be truth simply because this would be intolerable from a ethical point of view: after all, if would imply that the US leadership would kill their own citizens for political gains. But here, director Vladimir Khotinenko, political analyst Vitaly Tretyakov, and other adherents of the American conspiracy theory immediately took the floor, assuring the viewers that for the American authorities to kill even thousands, even millions, was as easy as batting an eye.

Mr. Tretyakov put forth the thesis that the answer to the question of who profited from the September 11th terrorist attacks clearly pointed to the American government. The majority of the audience backed him enthusiastically. But no one did clarify what exactly the American advantage was. Maybe it was the need to hold a significant contingent of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan for years to come? Or high oil prices, affecting the American economy in far from the best manner? If they really had some desire to figure out the reasons for the tragedy from the “who profited” principle, it would have been more logical to note that for Russia, the growth in energy prices which started after September 11th turned into a golden rain of petrodollars and the opportunity to demonstrate its solidarity with the US in the fight with international terrorism. Which for many years created the illusion of Russian-American partnership in the world. But we didn’t hear this kind of discussion.

Chiesa, Meyssan and their adherents propose the following circumstance as the main argument favoring their version of events. After September 11, 2001, there were no more terrorist attacks in the US. Which means that the American intelligence agencies were accessorial to the terrorist acts, while terrorists, Islamic or otherwise, do not have a real opportunity to perform such massive terrorist acts on American territory. But, following this absurd logic, one must come the following conclusions. Since there haven’t been any explosions of buildings in Moscow since September 1999, it means, that they were organized by the Russian intelligence agencies. Since after the “Nord-Ost” [theater siege] and Beslan [school takeover], there haven’t been any new seizures of hundreds of hostages, it means that those terrorist acts were also an inside job by the FSB.

At the end, the discussion smoothly turned to the present Russian-Georgian conflict. It was not in vain that President Medvedev recently said that for Russia, August 8th (the start of the war with Georgia) –was almost like September 11th for the US. Naturally, the assertions poured out, that the notion of Russian aggression against Georgia, spread through the Western world, was the results of the same kind of propaganda as the official version of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, the US, with Georgia’s help, in truth wants to engineer a new cold war, to solve its domestic and foreign problems. As result, the discussion closed with a hysterical call from one of the film’s authors, for Russia to defend the world from the American predators who are tearing the planet to pieces. A plea most insincere.

translation by theotherrussia.org

The debacle raises questions about freedom of speech on Russian television. Writing for Grani.ru, Oleg Kozyrev comments on the event, and the public fear associated with Putin’s name.

The series that played the bit, titled, “Phenomenon,” is hosted by magician and self-proclaimed mystic Uri Geller, and ran Friday, September 5th on the state-run “Rossiya” channel.

Russia rubbed Putin
Oleg Kozyrev
Grani.ru
09/09/2008

Millions of Russian television viewers were glued to their screens and couldn’t believe their eyes. In a live broadcast on a state-run TV channel, on a Friday evening, they were trying to erase Putin himself in front of the whole country! His surname, written in black, was rubbed with fingers, with some kind of rag, the host ran around the studio in a panic, but the president didn’t yield. Putin simply was. And wouldn’t be rubbed off. One word – a phenomenon.

The country was exhausted in its search for new wizards. [Magician and psychic Grigory] Grabovoy was sent on assignment to distant places. [Anatoly] Kashpirovsky was forgotten. [Allan] Chumak couldn’t find any new jars to charge [with healing powers]. And hardly anybody believed the politicians.

In this far-from-simple situation, the state-run “Rossiya” television channel acted patriotically: it ordered, from abroad, the local Ostap Bender – Uri Geller. A person, who bends spoons from a distance and who finds out for the oil companies where there isn’t any oil (that, at least, is how he was presented to viewers).

Uri Geller took the easy money, which fell into his lap at his ripe age, by the horns, and against the background of the astonished eyes of Russia’s good-night beauty, Oksana Fedorova, got into the habit of bending spoons in front of people, and showing other wonders, which during Soviet times would be demonstrated by visiting hypnotists in any run-down community center. He wasn’t David Copperfield, of course, but could be watched, when one was tormented by insomnia, heartburn, or politics.

Since Uri Geller didn’t have enough tricks on reserve for the whole broadcast, the [channel] started diluting the magician with Russian variants of seers and their descendants. Everything was great, yet the show’s organizers, evidently, wanted to earn some money on SMS-voting. For this, they needed a live broadcast. And one shouldn’t expect anything good from a live broadcast, especially if there are viewers, that is to say, a live audience, in the studio.

Disaster came about when Alexander Char decided to show off his abilities. (The show’s website says that his great-grandmother was a witness – no, not a Jehovah’s [witness], but of the Tunguska meteorite’s fall.) The starting point of the trick was good. The plot of a detective story is hanging in a safe. Through viewer’s mouths, the Russian magician would map out how to solve his story, and learn who the killer was. Char piercingly looked at the first viewer and asked her to name the first word in the riddle. “A knife!” the girl exclaimed. The second viewer, after some mental suggestion, named “Munich.” And here the live broadcast broke down. Since, naturally, after the word “Munich,” the third viewer named the first person who came to his mind – [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin. At this moment, [the channel’s General Director] Oleg Dobrodeyev, in all likelihood, tipped over in his chair.

KNIFE MUNICH PUTIN was written in black marker on the board. Uri Geller’s co-host went gray (despite a total absence of hair to begin with) right in the shot. “No, I’m being told here, that this won’t work,” “erase it,” “live broadcast, things do happen.” One heard, in every word of the unfortunate co-host, “don’t shoot me, this is a live broadcast, please, don’t shoot me!” The show’s technicians openly reveled in the effect. Again and again, KNIFE MUNICH PUTIN appeared in the shot. Some kind of assistant ran in and started to rub Putin’s name. But Putin didn’t want to leave the live broadcast. The black marker inscribed Putin’s name permanently. What was written with the marker didn’t want, by any means, to be cut from the live broadcast.

The live transmission continued, and something had to be done. Underneath, they wrote “Vladimir,” but KNIFE MUNICH PUTIN towered like a boulder over this weak apology. It threatened resignations and dismissals. Lubyanka [prisons] and Siberia. Exile to Ekho Moskvy [radio].

Having hurriedly brought the subject to a close, the television program’s leadership fell to their knees and prayed to the heavens that the program had a zero rating, that no one of the viewers had seen this disgrace. But there was a rating. And in a couple days the accursed Internet had also raised the shame up for discussion.

Weren’t the television executives right, that live broadcasts were becoming a thing of the past? Weren’t they right in trying to show as few live people in the shot as possible? They had forgotten the instructions of their TV-ancestors. They had relaxed.

It’s an entertainment show, they thought. And here’s how it turned out –it became necessary to rub the prime-minister in front of the eyes of millions of their countrymen. Most certainly thinking to themselves – what did happen there, in Munich? And why were they rubbing Putin?

From this day forwards, I started to respect Uri Geller. Whatever you may say, but all of Russia saw, how these people caved in. From just one name. From just one name they caved in, in a way that aluminum spoons hadn’t dreamed of.

And it seems to me, that the atmosphere in the country has nothing to do with it. It’s just this kind of phenomenon.

translation by theotherrussia.org
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video (in two parts):

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As the Interfax news agency reports, Moscow city prosecutors have filed a motion with the Basmanny regional court after finding that an episode of the show broadcast in January “bore signs of extremist activity.” Simultaneously, the channel that broadcasts the award-winning American cartoon, 2×2, has been issued a warning for disseminating extremist materials.

An investigation conducted by prosecutors found fault with an episode titled “Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Special,” which went on air on January 9th. Experts found that the show “humiliates the honor and dignity of Christians and Muslims, offends the feeling of believers regardless of their denomination, and can provoke interethnic conflict, up to and including extremist acts.”

The report was instigated under a controversial 2006 law, which broadened the definition of extremism. Government critics have said the law allows the state to easily limit freedom of speech. Since its inception, it has been used to target non-profit organizations, online newspapers, bloggers, and even a hobbyist who rebuilds World War II era tanks.

South Park, which debuted in 1997, has continually been at the center of controversy in the US over its coverage of adult themes, including racism, religion, and celebrity culture. In Russia, a dubbed version of the show has ignited angry protest from religious groups. In March, the heads of protestant churches in Russia appealed to Yury Chaika, the country’s prosecutor-general, to repeal 2×2’s broadcast license.

The Prosecutor-General’s Office has now apparently heeded the call to reprimand 2×2, which broadcasts primarily animated content in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Office filed a presentation today to Rossvyazokhrankultura, the nation’s media regulating body, after concluding that 2×2 repeatedly broadcast material that broke a law meant to protect children.

A panel of experts examined the 12 animated series shown on the channel, including 118 films. Among them are the Simpsons, Family Guy (translated into Russian as the Griffins), Metalocalypse, Drawn Together (translated into Russian as Multreality), Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl, Angry Kid, and others.

The experts found that the cartoons do not correspond to the legal requirements for protecting children’s moral and mental development and protecting their health. The cartoons “promote violence and cruelty, pornography, anti-social behavior, abound with scenes of mayhem, the infliction of physical and ethical suffering, and are aimed at invoking fear, panic and terror in children,” the Office said in a statement (Rus).

“Practically all the cartoons exploit the topic of suicide, and characters demonstrate readiness to risk their lives for the sake of deriving extreme sensations.”

A representative of 2×2 could not be immediately reached for comment.