Russia is building again. Building an empire again. And just as before, it is uncomfortable to live in. Looking from the outside, it might even seem dangerous, yet Russians have somehow grown accustomed to it, listening to news about the daily horrors of their own lives with indifference (“you can't pity everyone”). Paying excessive attention to such characteristics of Russian reality as endless armed clashes in the North Caucasus and almost routine settling of scores with non-ethnic Russians – Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Armenians – is openly considered hypocrisy by the country's leaders. The drowsy indifference of Russian society can only be dispelled from time to time, perhaps, by high-profile murders or acts of terror unparalleled in their cruelty. Lately, Russia has been experiencing, if one can put it that way, a recurrence of an epidemic of contract killings. Something similar happened in the early 1990s, when capitalism rushed to save the bankrupt communist system.

At that time, many people became victims of professional killers in the struggle for the redistribution of power and property. This year, in the month since mid-September, in Moscow alone, the deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia, Andrei Kozlov, Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya, one of the directors of the Foreign Trade Bank offices, Alexander Plokhin, and the manager of ITAR-TASS, Anatoly Voronin, have been killed. There are many different versions regarding these murders, but two are the most popular. According to the first version, Vladimir Putin's opponents, who are trying to compromise his entire team and thereby disrupt the transfer of power to the president's successor, are interested in the murders. Proponents of the second version believe that the murders are part of a conspiracy by the secret services, the goal of which is the destabilisation of the situation across the country, the introduction of a state of emergency, and Putin remaining in the office of President of Russia. Be that as it may, this background information is enough to understand that the vertical of power and stability in Russia are merely empty conceits of Kremlin political technologists, which can exist only as long as restrictions on freedom of speech prevail in the country. Of course, the reason for the president's habitual silence and consistently delayed, strange reaction to any tragedy that has occurred in the country is not to be found in restrictions on freedom of speech, personal cowardice, or a sense of discomfort over a crumbling vertical of power, but in a law formulated with cynical directness in the offices of the Kremlin administration. According to this law, “to look successful, a president must not be seen with corpses”. This is an old law. One only needs to remember Vladimir Putin's reaction when the submarine Kursk sank, when Nord-Ost hostages were gassed en masse, or children were burned in Beslan. So now, having used the opportunity to remain silent in his own country, the Russian president was forced to comment during a visit to Germany, and his reaction to Anna Politkovskaya's murder in Moscow sparked a sense of discomfort and indignation not only in Anna's colleagues but in every somewhat civilised person. Putin's attempt to justify his silence with Anna Politkovskaya's alleged professional insignificance and to deflect suspicion of state structures' involvement in the murder was so eloquent that there was no need to even slip up.

From Putin's statement that “…her influence was minimal. Her murder has brought much more harm to Russia and the existing Russian government than her articles”, it follows that the president's team has been carefully monitoring Politkovskaya's ability to influence (even if the assessment was mistaken); that the Russian president does not consider it necessary to pay attention to political murders in his country; that the Russian president denies the involvement of state structures in the crime, and the justification for this denial is merely that the murder has brought more harm to the country than her articles. In other words, Vladimir Putin publicly admitted that he considered Anna Politkovskaya's work harmful to the state, but not so harmful that it was worth killing for. However, as is now evident, the Russian president's associates had not duly assessed the influence of journalism. Many in Moscow perceive the murder of Anna Politkovskaya as a turning point, after which the process of separation between the state and society can be considered complete. Only a personally very interested person can still retain any illusions about President Putin and his Kremlin team. The authorities are convinced they have defeated society. They have established control over all major mass media. They have stripped public and political organisations of independent sources of funding – now the presidential administration determines which party should exist and how much money should be allocated. It is the same with elections. In the presidential administration, they create lists of how many votes each party should receive and in which elections. Voters are no longer needed by the state. And the voters, especially in the regions, reciprocate – either they do not go to the polls at all, or they vote against everyone. Or rather, they voted. According to the recent amendments to the election law, proposed by the “United Russia” party, there is no longer a “against all” box on ballots. True, as stated by the chairman of the Central Election Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov, it was observed in the regional elections held in October that after the elimination of the “against all” box, the number of spoiled ballots had doubled. In reality, the country is split between the Kremlin's constituency and the rest of Russia. The two Russias live quite autonomously, without love or any particular need for one another. The president lacks the words to express regret and sympathy to the relatives and readers of the murdered journalist, and those who gathered in Pushkin Square to express their attitude towards the murderers no longer consider the president one of their own and do not believe him.

The Yuri Levada Analytical Centre has conducted an interesting sociological survey, and from its results, one can gather the approximate relationship between the two Russias. It is a survey on how Russian residents evaluate the so-called “priority national projects” – Health, Science, Affordable Housing, and the Development of Agrarian Policy – which, just like in Soviet times, the authorities promise to implement by raising the people's welfare. And just as in Soviet times, both the president with his successors and the ruling party consider the PROMISES to implement nationally significant projects as their main achievements. Unlike them, 77% of the Levada Centre survey participants are convinced that the funds allocated for national projects will either be looted or used inefficiently. It seems that this figure also designates the true relationship between the Kremlin and the rest of Russia. 13 percent consist of officials, politicians, secret services, and their families, while 77% are those whom the Russian “elite” have become accustomed to calling быдло [1. Cattle, slave, ignoramus (Russian)] and marginals. In an effort to protect themselves from citizen discontent, the authorities seek allies among revanchists who long for the lost empire, get involved with nationalists, and stage racist campaigns, urging Georgians to be driven out of Russia. All this is in accordance with the Kremlin's concept of the revival of imperial consciousness and Great Russian pride. Ineptitude and unwillingness to solve concrete state problems have forced the current Russian leaders to take an example from the Bolsheviks and look for both external and internal enemies. To maintain an atmosphere of a “besieged fortress” in society, and to provoke interstate and interethnic conflicts. The Russian president's speeches increasingly resemble the scandalous statements of leaders of nationalist organisations. Yet, the authorities, by addressing the darkest instincts of the people, seem to have begun to fear their own actions themselves.

The scale on which the far-sighted electorate of the Kremlin's constituency has rushed to seek residences in the West resembles rats fleeing a sinking ship. London has become the most attractive destination for wealthy Russians. The seriousness and long-term nature of the intentions of the new emigrants are evidenced by the purchase of real estate in the most expensive areas of the British capital, unprecedented in both scale and expenditure. This is no longer just about the oligarchs who fled Vladimir Putin, but also about those whom one can still meet in the corridors of the Kremlin or spot among the guests at expensive Moscow and St. Petersburg parties. Some time ago, the BBC, citing the newspaper The Times, reported that Russian magnates are buying the most expensive houses in those areas of London and South East England where English aristocracy has always lived. By analogy with oil sheikhs, the English call the Russian parvenus “the new Arabs”, while Russians have nicknamed the British capital “Moscow on the Thames”. They continue to move capital, wives, children, and mistresses out of Russia and further from harm's way, thereby protecting themselves against potential troubles that might befall the country due to their own “selfless” rule.
Article first published in the November 2006 issue of the magazine "Rīgas Laiks"