The real interest in this film, though, lies in who is behind it: Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the RT network, one of the pillars of the Kremlin’s international propaganda machine, who is now trying her hand at movie-making.

Four years since her ultimate boss, President Vladimir Putin, annexed Crimea from Ukraine, she has used the construction of the real-life, 11 mile-long road link connecting the peninsula to Russia as the backdrop for her first romantic comedy.

She wrote the screenplay. Her husband, Tigran Keosayan, directed it, and according to the BBC’s Russian website, they received at least 100 million rubles ($1.5 million) in funding from the Culture Ministry’s cinema foundation, without having to worry about any competition.

“Light, summery, kind, touching.” Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, on “Crimean Bridge. Made with Love”

When “Crimean Bridge” had its premiere earlier this month in the glitzy new Zaryadye park next to the Kremlin, it was the event of the night for Russia’s ruling elite — with Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov and Maria Zakharova, his high-profile counterpart at the Foreign Ministry, among the guests.

Talking to state media afterwards, they heaped praise on the film. “It’s very cool,” said Peskov. “Everyone should go and see it.” Zakharova called it: “Light, summery, kind, touching.” Beyond this elite audience, though, the reaction has not been so positive.

Any hopes the wife-and-husband team may have had of a box office hit were dashed by the first weekend takings, which came in at a disappointing 6th place in the rankings. And the film has been panned on review sites. “Boring,” “talent-free,” “propaganda,” “trash,” and “platitudes” were just some of the comments.

The plot for “Crimean Bridge”? There isn’t one really. The film consists of several boy-meets-girl plot lines, connected by one thing — they all take place in Crimea, near the bridge construction site.

But as you might expect from filmmakers with this profile, it depicts the kind of idealized Russia that the Kremlin has been trying to conjure up in recent years through its various information campaigns. You can catch snippets of this Russia on news broadcasts, documentaries about Putin and other programs on state-run TV. “Crimean Bridge” collects them in one place.

This and a stream of racist and sexist jokes are apparently aimed at Western political correctness, a target favored by Putin and his supporters just as much as Trump.

It is a mix that includes images of modern high-tech strength (represented here by the bridge) blended with nationalist-traditional values, a constant emphasis on the World War II victory, known in Russia as the “Great Patriotic War,” along with regular doses of anti-Western rhetoric and rewritten history. There are plenty of darker episodes in Crimea’s past under communist rule, but here they are carefully edited and glossed over.

For instance, the Crimean Tatars — who suffered mass deportations under Stalin and discriminatory crackdowns more recently since the Russian annexation — are portrayed in the film as being quite happy with life. As Damir Nadyrovich, an older Tatar character, listens to a political program on a state-run TV channel, he nods in agreement as the host argues that “Western democracy can’t possibly work for every country.”

We learn that his childhood sweetheart Raya, along with her whole family, were “taken away” by Stalin — so the Soviet dictator does get a mention. But Damir Nadyrovich apparently holds no grudge, and certainly doesn’t blame Stalin and his secret police. “They sent [them] away,” he says, “because, apparently, there was a reason.”

The opposition does get a part, as a slightly ridiculous Moscow hipster who calls his mom every two minutes and spends the rest of his time filming with his smartphone. He is apparently in Crimea to do a story on the reality of life under Russian control. When the hipster says that the peninsula was annexed in the middle of a market, he is chased and beaten up.

Significantly, it is a Ukrainian speaker who leads the pursuit — a signal that in Simonyan’s world, even Ukrainians consider Crimea to be a lawful part of Russia and that any attempt to contest that is a serious offense.

All the young women in “Crimean Bridge” are slender and beautiful — except for one overweight American. They’re also smart, pushy and prepared to “give birth to the next president of the Russian Federation” (the reality is that most young Russians just say “Russia”) if they are accidentally impregnated during a one-night stand.

This and a stream of borderline racist and sexist jokes are apparently aimed at Western political correctness, a favorite target for Putin and his supporters just as much as for Trump. In addition to the lying American journalists, the film takes other subtle digs at the US. A young man changes his mind about moving to Hollywood to chase his dreams after he realises how lucky he is be living in Crimea.

Such unabashed manipulation has left many Russians disillusioned. “After watching it, I became so unbearably ashamed for my once great country that I’d prefer to erase it from memory for good,” one viewer wrote on the Afisha culture site.

“It’s plain propaganda,” wrote another. “The Culture Ministry should instead think about making a documentary — because what do we really know about how the bridge was built?” There have been widespread reports of extensive fraud during the construction process.

“After watching it, I became so unbearably ashamed for my once great country that I’d prefer to erase it from my memory for good.”

Afisha website review

Simonyan has not reacted publicly to this drubbing for her first foray into movie-making. If her statements in defense of RT are any guide, she’s likely to portray it as part of a continuing anti-Russian conspiracy.

Komsomolskaya Pravda, a pro-Kremlin tabloid, gave some insight into official thinking with its own review, headlined “Made with love. Met with hatred.” It was not being criticized for any shortcomings, the newspaper said, but because it was created by people “directly associated with the authorities.”

In the film of course, everything has a happy ending. The project is completed on time with no corruption. Every couple lives happily ever after — and even Damir Nadyrovich reunites with his long-lost love Raya, in the middle of the bridge.

Subscribe to our coda currents newsletter

Insights from the Coda newsroom on the global forces that shape local crises.

Subscribe

Try again

The post A bridge too far for Russia’s propagandists appeared first on Coda Story.

But it’s the deeper message of the film “Temporary Difficulties,” which premiered earlier this month in Russia, that has sparked such an outcry. Because even in a country where the disabled are routinely treated in ways that would shock many Americans, the film is being seen as a call for a return to an even darker past, when people with any kind of handicap were largely airbrushed from day-to-day life.

Movie critics have condemned the film, which was partly funded by the Russian Culture Ministry, as insensitive, inflammatory and down right harmful. But viewers have been more positive, with some describing it as “motivating.”

It tells the story of an average Soviet-era family, whose son is born with cerebral palsy — based on a true story, according to the filmmakers.

The mom, Rita, a beautiful woman with a kind smile, accepts the boy the way he is and does everything you would expect a caring mother to do. She takes him to doctors, holds his hand through painful physiotherapy, finds him a comfortable wheelchair and generally tries her best to make his life as easy as possible.

Ivan, the father, does not. Played by the famous Russian priest-turned-actor Ivan Okhlobystin, he refuses to acknowledge his son is sick and calls his condition “temporary difficulties.”

“What, are you saying he can’t be just like everybody else, like all ‘normal’ people?” he shouts at a colleague who has the temerity to suggest that Sasha, the boy, probably wouldn’t become an astronaut or a professional boxer.

Ivan decides to push his disabled son into becoming stronger, more self-sufficient and more “normal” — in a way that most people would regard as abuse.

Ivan decides to push his disabled son into becoming stronger, more self-sufficient and more “normal” — in a way that most people would consider as abuse

He throws away the boy’s wheelchair, forcing him to struggle with crutches. He refuses to take him to a special school for disabled kids. (When he finds out that his wife has tried to do so behind his back, it’s Sasha who stops him from hitting her — by raising his one of his crutches) He enrolls him instead in an ordinary school where his classmates mock and bully him. He forces Sasha to do chores around the house, and when the boy forgets to take out the trash, empties the bin into his bed.

When Sasha struggles — with heavy doors, steep stairways, or just eating — his father never helps him. Instead, he yells. When Sasha does well at school — so well in fact that he is the only one in class who wins a trip to a prestigious Soviet summer camp — Ivan doesn’t even smile, let alone praise him. He just stands there, silently, looking smug and angry.

Anger has been his main look ever since doctors in the maternity ward tell him there is something wrong with his baby. Without even looking at his crying wife, Ivan snaps at the doctor “Who’s at fault for this?” and storms off.

By the time 16-year-old Sasha is dropped off in the forest and told to crawl home, he is almost entirely paralyzed. But then comes the twist.

After crawling through the woods for two days and almost getting eaten by a bear, Sasha not only survives, but, in the film’s portrayal, gets on the path to becoming “normal.”

He leaves his hometown for Moscow, becomes a successful business consultant famous around the world and, just to complete this stereotypically perfect picture, gets engaged to an attractive young woman. His symptoms go away almost completely. And in the end, he concludes that it was all thanks to his father’s toughness. Sasha even apologizes for not speaking to him for 15 years.

The film, by aspiring young director Mikhail Raskhodnikov, carries several messages: weakness of any kind should not be tolerated. Being disabled, or just different, is shameful, and that one should always strive to be “normal.” If it is carried out with good intentions, being abusive can be justified, and a “tough love” approach to those who require special care works.

In some ways, these notions hardly break new ground in Russia. The disabled are already receiving plenty of “tough love.”

People with physical and mental disabilities are routinely kicked out of Russian cafes and movie theaters, on the grounds they make other customers feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. Reports of people objecting to the installation of wheelchair ramps and other aids in apartment blocks are common — often because parents don’t want their children to see disabled people.

Just last month, “Russki Reporter,” ran a column headlined “Love the invalid, scum!” in which the author attacked the idea of giving disabled people rights and special help. He reminisced nostalgically about Soviet times, when the disabled were largely kept out of sight.

“I wish that musicians were not always without hands, but with hands, too, sometimes; that artists could see at least with one eye, and a plumber didn’t have cerebral palsy — maybe just gout,” wrote Igor Naydyonov. “Before, it was shameful [to be disabled], now it’s honorable.”

“Before, it was shameful [to be disabled], now it’s honorable.” Writer Igor Naydyonov

In a sign that attitudes have indeed shifted from Soviet times, the piece provoked a backlash on social media — prompting Russki Reporter to remove the article from its website, and an apology from the editor.

But now “Temporary Difficulties” has, so to speak, picked up the baton.

Critics have panned it, among them the prominent movie writer Anton Dolin, who called it “the worst film of the year.” And even though “Temporary Difficulties” received government money, the state-news agency TASS ran a column describing it as “a crime of a film.”

“The worst film of the year.” Movie critic Anton Dolin

Disabled rights groups have also condemned the film for the attitudes it was encouraging. “We are at risk of creating a phenomenon of cerebral palsy denialism, just like HIV denialism,” wrote Yekaterina Klochkova, founder of the Physical Rehabilitation Center for People with Motor Impairment, in a column for the Miloserdie.ru charity news site.

“Parents who don’t have access to specialized support will use Okhlobystin’s character as an example. Other people would blame parents who failed to ‘cure’ their kid’s cerebral palsy for not doing enough and spoiling their children [with kindness].”

Russian movie-goers are still making their minds up, it seems. But some are clearly supportive. After its first weekend, the movie ranked fourth in Russian film website Kinopoisk’s ratings, behind two Hollywood blockbusters and a Russian wedding comedy.

It is being screened at some 600 movie theaters all across Russia — about half the number showing the number one ranking film, “The Predator,” but still indicating significant interest from distributors.

On Russia’s flagship entertainment and culture platform, “Afisha,” 29 out of 32 viewer reviews were positive at the time of writing. Similarly, on Kinopoisk, most of the comments gave the film the thumbs up.

Viewers called the film “powerful” and “motivating,” praising it for showing that “what seems impossible is, actually, possible.” Another said that “everything is temporary difficulties while you’re still alive.”

“Yes, the methods that the father used [to deal with his son’s condition] are controversial,” one viewer wrote on the Afisha site. “But they helped, didn’t they?”

If the reaction to “Temporary Difficulties” has proved one thing, it’s that in the battle for values in modern Russia, there’s still plenty of support for a return to the past.

Subscribe to our coda currents newsletter

Insights from the Coda newsroom on the global forces that shape local crises.

Subscribe

Try again

The post Russia’s disability ‘denialism’ appeared first on Coda Story.

Within a day of being posted on August 13, a slickly-filmed video of the clash had already received more than eight million views on YouTube, with even state-run outlets like the RIA Novosti news agency giving it headline treatment.

So it was a shock for all the sites that had carried the video to be told by Russia’s media and communications watchdog just a week later that they had broken the law, and were being rapped in another way — with heavy fines.

Officials from Roskomnadzor, as the agency is known, said the video contained obscene language — officially outlawed in Russian media.

Critics say, it is the latest example of the watchdog showing its censoring bite. A court still has to decide the size of the fines, but “the Leviathan is in motion,” says Maxim Kashulinsky, publisher of Republic news, one of the websites affected.

“STIFLING FREE SPEECH”

Roskomnadzor or RKN — which translates as the “Federal Service for Supervising Communications, IT and Mass Media” — is equivalent in many ways to America’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC). RKN has become the “master of the internet” for Russians, says Damir Gainutdinov, a lawyer with the human rights NGO Agora.

Yet instead of acting simply as a regulator, its opponents say RKN has become the main engine of Kremlin efforts to stifle free speech. As well as harassing media outlets, it has banned thousands of websites and threatened international social networks, increasingly emulating China’s draconian model of cyberspace control.

RKN has become the “master of the internet” for Russians, says Damir Gainutdinov, a lawyer specializing in freedom of speech cases with the human rights NGO Agora.

Not surprisingly, the agency staunchly defends its actions. The internet is a much safer place as a result, according to Roskomnadzor’s boss, especially for children. “As a parent, I care which pages my kids visit,” Alexander Zharov told Vedomosti newspaper in a 2014 interview, “and the state definitely has power to limit access.”

But numerous requests by Coda Story to interview Zharov went unanswered.

“SPECIAL SERVICE”

The “master” used to be a relative poodle among the panoply of security agencies and government bodies the Kremlin uses to exert its will — overseeing areas like radio frequency distribution, broadcasting licenses and data protection.

But all that changed after mass protests between 2011 and 2012 against election rigging and Vladimir Putin’s resumption of the presidency. Having previously adopted a lighter touch towards the internet, the Kremlin began to clamp down, using RKN as its main tool.

It was given the job of enforcing a website “blacklist law.” The purported focus of the list — to combat child pornography and drug use — may have sounded laudable, but it marked the agency’s transformation into a “special service” akin to the FSB security services, says Gainutdinov. RKN reveled in its new powers, he adds, “proudly reporting every day on how many websites they had added to the black list.”

The ultra-conservative lawmaker Yelena Mizulina, known for her traditional family values crusade, was a key player in implementing the law. It was necessary to protect children from “harmful content”, she said — before later becoming famous for her campaign to allow men more legal leeway to beat their wives and children.

“82,000 BANNED WEBSITES”

And the blacklist’s parameters have steadily expanded to include so-called extremist materials and calls for demonstrations — with more than 82,000 websites now listed. “It gets to you,” says Mikhail Fishman, a former editor in chief of The Moscow Times. “It creates this impression that you’re constantly being watched.”

RKN’s powers have grown further as it has set its sights on foreign IT giants like Apple, Google and Facebook — demanding that they place Russian users’ data on local servers. Several messaging services including Blackberry Messenger, have been blocked after refusing to comply with its demands for user information.

Opposition sites have been caught up in the agency’s cyber-dragnet too, with a smothering effect on free expression, says Mikhail Fishman, a former editor in chief of The Moscow Times. “It gets to you,” he says. “It creates this impression that you’re constantly being watched.”

MAKING THE INTERNET SAFE AGAIN

RKN has plenty of defenders, who say it has helped curb criminal activity online. Child pornographers and drugs dealers have been forced underground into the “dark web,” says Denis Davydov, director of the Safe Internet League, an NGO close to the agency, “where normal people don’t go.”

But as it tightens its grip, campaigners say it is hobbling Russian cyberspace as a whole. Companies that happen to have the same IP address as a blacklisted website can find themselves put out of business.

At least three million “innocent websites” currently suffer this kind of collateral damage, according to Artyom Kozlyuk from the NGO Roskomsvoboda (Russian Communications Freedom). And at least seven million websites have been affected since 2012. But RKN usually stonewalls any complaints, leaving the companies no choice but to find new IP addresses.

NOT CHINA YET

It is still a far cry from the days of Soviet censorship — when censors dissected everything from newspapers to theater handbills. RKN’s actions are “mosquito bites” by comparison, says novelist Sergei Litvinov, who was a journalist in Soviet times.

And while it is clear the Kremlin wants full control, “it is also clear that it can’t get it” says Gainutdinov of the NGO Agora. It doesn’t have Chinese-levels of resources for one thing. Russia’s sophisticated internet users have also become adept at working around RKN blocks.

The agency has also struggled to replicate China’s success in controlling foreign IT giants. Facebook and Apple have withstood pressure to move all their Russian user data onto locally-based servers.

Among major Western names, only LinkedIn has been forced off-line for non-compliance. And the popular messaging service Telegram — founded by two Russian brothers — has also managed to survive RKN’s pressure so far. The agency still doesn’t understand that the internet is “not something you can fully control,” says Gainutdinov.

But that doesn’t mean it is going to stop trying. A new surveillance law is about to come into force, says Artyom Kozlyuk. And that means the RKN behemoth “will have even more duties.”

Subscribe to our coda currents newsletter

Insights from the Coda newsroom on the global forces that shape local crises.

Subscribe

Try again

The post The Kremlin’s internet master bears down appeared first on Coda Story.

But as next month’s international release date approaches, the movie’s backers are facing an increasingly virulent campaign for it to be banned.

Orthodox Christian activists have led nationwide protests calling the film “blasphemous” and “a slap in the face to Russian nation”. The director’s studio has been firebombed and Russia’s largest cinema chain now says it won’t show the film because of security fears.

The film — which tells the true story of Nicholas II’s love affair with a teenage Polish ballet dancer – has poked a central nerve among the standard-bearers of Russia’s Orthodox and traditionalist post-Soviet identity. It is a vision that President Vladimir Putin has himself encouraged, and many of those advocating the ban are his natural supporters. Yet for the moment, the Kremlin is staying above the fray - biding its time, some speculate, in the hope of using this clash of narratives for its own ends.

At the root of the controversy is a deepening personality cult around Russia’s last emperor – whose reign was brought to an end by the Bolshevik revolution 100 years ago.

DIVINE SACRIFICE

The campaign against the film has been underway for nearly a year, led by Natalia Poklonskaya, a lawmaker from Putin’s own United Russia party. According to Russian media reports, she is close to Archimandrite Sergiy Romanov, a controversial Orthodox priest from Yekaterinburg – where Nicholas II and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. He believes the last tsar is a deity who was sacrificed to redeem Russia’s sins. Protesters condemned what they called this “evil attack” on “royal passion bearers” — a reference to Nicholas II’s past canonization as a believer “who had faced death in a Christ-like manner”

The fact the film focuses on Nicholas II’s affair with the ballet dancer Mathilde Khessinska has sharpened the outrage. Poklonskaya has called for the director to be prosecuted for “intrusion into one’s private life” among a host of other alleged violations, citing complaints from offended Orthodox believers. And an online petition calling for a ban has attracted 24,000 signatures.

Yet so far the Russian authorities have remained unmoved – saying they could find no legal violations in the film. In July, Putin himself gave a brief show of support to Matilda’s director, Alexei Uchitel, saying that he respected him as “patriotic” and talented. And last month the Culture Ministry gave the go ahead for Matilda to be screened in all Russian regions.

But that decision has provoked growing street protests. Orthodox activists recently organized demonstrations in cities across Russia, including Moscow and St. Petersburg – and as far away as Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Far East. Sorok Sorokov, an ultra-conservative Orthodox movement previously known for backing pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine, played a key role in coordinating the gatherings, according to Russian media.

Some protests were turned into public prayer sessions where activists condemned what they called this “evil attack” on “royal passion bearers” – a reference to Nicholas II’s past canonization as a believer “who had faced death in a Christ-like manner.”

The leaders of Russia’s Muslim republics have joined in the dispute as well, taking sides with Poklonskaya to demand that the Culture Ministry exclude their regions from the film’s distribution certificate.

FIREBOMB ATTACKS

There has been violence too. In late August, unidentified assailants firebombed the Lendok film studio in St. Petersburg where Uchitel works. Then a preview screening in Moscow was cancelled after cars parked outside the law firm that represents the director were set alight. “Burn for Matilda,” read a note left nearby. Poklonskaya is supporting a “terrorist organization”, said Alexei Uchitel, director of Matilda. Her campaign “has nothing do with Russian traditions, nor with Orthodoxy.”

Just days earlier, a Yekaterinburg movie theater was partly destroyed after a suspected Orthodox activist drove a truck full of gas canisters into the building and set it on fire. And earlier this week, the Cinema Park and Formula Kino chain had decided not to show the film in its theaters.

“They are only interested in destabilizing society,” said Uchitel in a statement denouncing the attacks, accusing Poklonskaya of supporting a “terrorist organization.” Her campaign, he said, “has nothing do with Russian traditions, nor with Orthodoxy.”

CULTURE WAR

The Orthodox Church has belatedly condemned the violence, though with the caveat that “true believers” could not have been involved. Alarmed by the movie theater chain’s decision to drop the film, the Russian culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky, has weighed in too, denouncing what he called “shameless ‘activists’ pressuring the state and cinema business... through socially dangerous means.”

In a statement, he also criticized Poklonskaya for initiating the “uproar,” adding that he “didn’t see anything [in the film] offending Nicholas II’s historical memory.”

Yet some observers believe this new culture war over Russia’s identity suits the Kremlin just fine.

“If the presidential administration wanted to, it could have been stopped this in three minutes,” says Yuri Saprykin, former chief editor of Afisha, previously Russia’s flagship culture magazine. “It means they need this for some reason.”

KREMLIN ADVANTAGE

You can detect the Kremlin’s ‘wait-and-see’ approach in the state media, says Andrei Akhrangelsky, culture editor of Ogoniok magazine, emphasizing the “different opinions” about the film without coming down on any side.

One theory is that the Kremlin is using the dispute to divert attention from this year’s anniversary of the 1917 October revolution - while preparing to use next year’s anniversary of the regicide of Nicholas II and the Romanov family to its advantage. “Some members of the royal family are still unburied,” points out Saprykin, “so next year they can bury them with great fanfare, turning it into a huge event.”

What’s more, he says, with presidential elections also due next year, the dispute could be politically useful too. “The more you have these relatively small, local conflicts here and there, the more people will want to vote for Putin,” says Saprykin, “as the one and only arbiter who can end this.”

But personality cults have a habit of getting out of control. And with passions flaring, the man who has been called Russia’s new tsar will have to be careful how he handles the legacy of the last.

For earlier Coda coverage of this story, read: Kremlin, Nationalists Face Off Over Romanov Romance ‘Mathilda’

Subscribe to our coda currents newsletter

Insights from the Coda newsroom on the global forces that shape local crises.

Subscribe

Try again

The post Why the Kremlin is waltzing over ‘Matilda’ appeared first on Coda Story.

While much of the world’s media has been obsessing over North Korea’s autocratic leader and his nuclear arsenal, the country itself has been enjoying a “fashion boom,” enthused one recent report on Channel One, putting Pyongyang “on a par with Milan or Paris.”

The Kremlin-controlled channel’s fashion scoop was just one of a series of upbeat pieces about North Korea that have been appearing in the Russian media this year - coinciding with a noticeable uptick in Moscow’s interest in the Korean peninsula’s hair-trigger standoff.

Traditionally, this has been a proxy battleground for the US and China - the key allies respectively of the two neighbors. But as in the Middle East, President Vladimir Putin is asserting a Russian role as well. “It’s a chance for Moscow to become an intermediary,” says Kommersant columnist Maxim Yusin, “to strengthen its position in the region and the world.”

North Korea has been enjoying a “fashion boom,” enthused one recent report on Russia’s Channel One, putting Pyongyang “on a par with Milan or Paris.”

EAT GRASS

Even though the Russian foreign ministry condemned Kim Jong-un’s test of a suspected hydrogen bomb earlier this month, it was quickly followed up by soothing words from Putin himself, saying the North Koreans would rather “eat grass than give up their nuclear weapons.”

Clearly aiming at Washington, the Russian president said “ramping up military hysteria” would only lead to “planetary catastrophe.”

Though Russia has been flexing its military muscle in the region too, alongside its media offensive. It dispatched a sortie of nuclear-capable bombers and fighter jets sent along the peninsular last month, just as South Korea and the US were carrying out joint military exercises.

North Korea was only too happy to see the Russian warplanes. It has been trying to boost ties for some time, concerned about becoming too dependent on its long-time ally China. “They don’t have this fear about Russia,” says Vasily Kashin, senior fellow at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies in the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Pyongyang’s diplomats in Moscow had already been running their own charm offensive, encouraging Russians to come and visit - even highlighting their nuclear arsenal as protection. North Korea is “one of the safest countries in the world...for law-abiding tourists,” said Kim Sen Khun, an embassy official, as he announced a new North Korea tourism agency in Russia.

Nuclear weapons, he added, “fully guarantee safety and peace on the Korean peninsula.”

PYONGYANG - CITY OF A THOUSAND RESTAURANTS

The new tourism agency was announced just as Channel One was airing its reports from Pyongyang, with its reporter being given unusually good access to North Korean people. North Korea is “one of the safest countries in the world...for law-abiding tourists,” said Kim Sen Khun, an embassy official, as he announced a new North Korea tourism agency in Russia.

She made the most of her opportunity, getting herself filmed dancing in the street and trying on North Korean clothes as she redressed the country’s image.

Implicitly challenging persistent reports of North Koreans going hungry, the reporter called Pyongyang “a city of a thousand restaurants,” with ordinary Koreans regularly eating up to 15 courses in one meal.

PUTIN’S GAMBLE

Channel One did not respond to requests for comment on the timing of the series and what role the North Korean authorities had played in putting it together.

But there seems to be a clear pattern. Earlier this year, the Siberian and Far Eastern regional editions of the pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda carried a series of articles praising Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s first leader, Kim Jong-un’s grandfather. Russia’s short border with North Korea is in Siberia, near Vladivostok. The paper’s editor-in-chief, Vladimir Sungorkin, admitted the pieces were what he called “native advertising,” paid for by a North Korean organization, but he refused to give its name.

Similar articles have appeared in several newspapers in the southern Krasnodar region too.

Some remain skeptical though over how much leverage this new strategy will really give the Kremlin. North Korea’s real goal is still “to negotiate directly with the US,” says analyst Vasily Kashin of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies. “It isn’t really interested in intermediaries.”

Yet just like in the Middle East, President Putin seems to be taking another of his foreign policy bets. The payout may not be clear, or even guaranteed, but he thinks it is worth the gamble.

Subscribe to our coda currents newsletter

Insights from the Coda newsroom on the global forces that shape local crises.

Subscribe

Try again

The post Welcome to North Korea: The world’s safest fashion hotspot appeared first on Coda Story.

An entire floor of a residential building with four life-sized apartments (a one-room, a three-room and a couple of two-room apartments), furnished, with water running from bathroom taps, was on display at the All-Russia Exhibition Center in Moscow between July 6 and 12.

These were apartments — “comfort class,” information stands insisted — Muscovites would get under a program seeking to demolish some 4,000 Soviet-era apartment blocks and relocate around 1 million people.

Announced by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin in February this year and endorsed by President Vladimir Putin, the program elicited unprecedented outrage among Muscovites.

At first, the idea to replace pre-fab khrushchevki, standard Khrushchev-era five-story apartment blocks erected as temporary housing, seemed reasonable. But then the bill outlining the program was introduced in the State Duma, Russia’s lower chamber of parliament, and it became clear that city authorities have targeted not just outdated buildings, but those in good condition, too.

After several months of small protests here and there, thousands of people took to the streets in May, unhappy about the prospect of moving from their furbished homes to empty new apartments that Moscow City Hall would choose for them.

To cope with boiling discontent ahead of both presidential and mayoral elections, city authorities launched a large-scale propaganda campaign aimed to convince Muscovites that they would benefit from the program. Judging by the life-sized apartments presented at the forum, Moscow City Hall clearly took the task of persuading people very seriously.

“It was a very powerful campaign,” admits Yuliya Galyamina, one of the activists at the helm of the protest against the program.

Promises, Promises

The propaganda wheels began turning in late April and early May, not long after municipal representatives from all the districts of the city invited residents to meetings to explain what the program entailed. In dozens of districts, hundreds of angry homeowners turned up, anxious about the future of their homes and worried by the lack of answers on the authorities’ part.

“I have never seen so much rage,” recounts Levon Smirnov, an activist who was present at one of these meetings. “It must have been after those meetings when authorities realized they needed to do something about it.”

On May 2, City Hall released a preliminary list of some 4,500 buildings slated for demolition. Residents of those buildings, authorities said, would be invited to vote between June 15 and July 15 on whether they want their building to participate in the program or not.

Days after the list was put out, a dozen newspapers owned by the Moscow government — including Vechernyaya Moskva, a free newspaper with an overall circulation of 1.5 million, and numerous district newspapers — ran special issues devoted exclusively to the demolition program.

At least seven of those special issues featured a statement from Sobyanin, the Moscow mayor, entitled “Renovation is a unique chance to build a comfortable city,” the full preliminary demolition list, interviews with district prefects explaining why the program is a good thing, and testimonies from residents who desperately want to move to new apartments.

At the same time, Mayor Sobyanin upped his media presence. In May and June, he gave eight interviews, according to his official website mos.ru, — compared to one to two interviews during the month before Muscovites had started to protest against the program. These interviews were mostly devoted to the renovation plans and were mostly given to state-funded TV channels, which remain an important source of information for most Russians and a significant number of Muscovites.

The message was simple — the program is designed for the homeowners’ own good. Most of the khrushchevki are dilapidated, Sobyanin explained, and are dangerous to live in. Apartments in those buildings are small and stuffy, he told state TV channel host Sergei Brilyov while showing him an apartment in one of the new buildings.

Those new apartments, he explained in another interview, will be much more spacious simply because current construction standards stipulate bigger bathrooms, kitchens, and corridors. High-quality materials will be used in construction, and interior fittings will be “comfort class” as opposed to cheap default ones often used in construction.

Because of all those factors, the new apartments will have a 20-to-30 percent higher market value than the old ones, Sobyanin insisted. But most importantly, the new apartments will be within walking distance of people’s current homes.

Sobyanin’s promises were reiterated by other top-ranking City Hall officials in a further couple of dozen of interviews. A nicely designed section about the program was added to the City Hall’s website, with pictures of new attractive buildings, cozy courtyards, and spacious apartments.

According to Galyamina, the civic activist, the advertising was effective in persuading people in her neighborhood in northern Moscow. “Some people believed this rosy picture and stood by it, repeating that they trust the mayor and everything he promised,” she says.

Valeria Vazhnova, a young resident of a five-story building in southeastern Moscow, echoed her sentiment. “It was painful to see the majority of my neighbors believing these promises and not even bothering to read the actual bill,” she says. “They imagined this fairytale in which they would be given apartments across the street and refused to listen to reason.”

But many homeowners still remained wary. In mid-May, their distrust spilled out on the streets. Three major rallies over two weekends gathered some 26,000 people, which is comparable to the 2011-12 Bolotnaya protests against rigged parliament elections and President Vladimir Putin.

Overwhelming Support

State and pro-Kremlin media kept the coverage of these protests to a bare minimum — some ignored them completely, others ran brief news stories without mentioning what the protests were about.

Rossiya 24, a state TV channel, aired a two-minute segment on the biggest protest that took place on May 14 but insisted that only “one in five” protesters lived in five-story buildings. The reporter added that “hundreds” of those protesters actually came to support the program.

The state-run Vecherniaya Moskva newspaper topped that. The day before the protest, it ran a news story about 35,000 people participating in small rallies all across town in support of the program. The story didn’t mention the source of this information, and these rallies were not reported elsewhere.

This was the message the City Hall sought to send: most Muscovites support the program.

State-run pollster VTsIOM released three polls documenting overwhelming support for the program — 80 percent of residents of the buildings on the demolition list. Daily updates about the vote in the buildings up for demolition rarely named a number lower than 90 percent of votes for entering the program.

The website of the Renovation Headquarters, created for the occasion, ran lists of buildings that were not up for demolition but participated in the vote nonetheless. Among those, according to the website, only seven buildings throughout the city voted against entering the program, and 292 voted for it.

These numbers were supposed to be updated as the votes came in, but they never were, even though several five-story buildings residents say they have submitted votes against the program on behalf of at least three other buildings. After the vote was over on July 15, these lists disappeared from the website.

What’s more, a Russian journalist, Alexei Kovalev, discovered groups and communities in social networks created in support of the program by supposedly ordinary Muscovites that are tired of living in awful, falling apart khrushchevkas but in reality were groups run and promoted by companies and people affiliated with Moscow City Hall. “Those who genuinely support the program — real residents of old, dilapidated building — are the elderly; they don’t use social networks,” Kovalev says.

Finally, Sobyanin himself gave a speech at the State Duma on June 6 declaring “overwhelming support” for the program — at the same time the parliament doors were picketed by a hundred angry Muscovites.

Russian political analyst Yekaterina Schulmann said the Moscow authorities had hit upon a particularly fruitful tactic by characterizing the opposing force as a minority. “When people are told that they are an insignificant minority, that they are against the majority, they start feeling uncomfortable,” she says.

However, the affected residents are not the only ones targeted by this tactic. The Kremlin initially saw the program as a smart pre-election move that would make people happy and grateful to the authorities, Schulmann says. It didn’t look so good for the Kremlin when the protests broke out, so it was important for Sobyanin to report a victory after all.

Pyrrhic Victory

And on paper, this is precisely what Sobyanin did. According the official results of the vote, 89.8 percent of the buildings up for demolition voted for the destruction of their homes and to enter the program. Protests died down. On July 1, President Putin signed the controversial bill into law. The program seems to be finally given a green light.

But was it its aggressive propaganda that brought victory to City Hall?

In some cases, it probably was. Vazhnova says her attempts to explain the reality of the program to her neighbors failed because her neighbors stood by “what Mayor Sobyanin said;” as a result, more than 60 percent voted for demolition, which is enough to include their building into the program.

But when it comes to the big picture, Moscow authorities may have won a Pyrrhic victory that has little do with propaganda. Muscovites are weary of the government’s heavy-handed, one-sided communication style, believes Denis Volkov, a sociologist from the independent pollster Levada Center. More efffective were the numerous concessions authorities had to offer, the sociologist says.

Fifty Moscow districts were not included in the program at all, even though initially Sobyanin had said all the five-story buildings in the city would be included. In some districts, the number of buildings up for demolition was drastically reduced from more than a hundred to just a handful.

Additionally, thebill outlining the program was significantly amended before passing. Authorities had to guarantee homeowners apartments in their same district, allowed them to contest the choice of their new apartment in court, and introduced an option for demanding a new apartment equal in market value or monetary compensation.

“That dealt with the acute phase of the unrest,” says Schulmann. “But it doesn’t mean there won’t be a second wave of protests and a considerable wave of court cases when actual demolitions kick off.”

In addition, confrontations as big as this one usually leave a long information trail. People will remember that their opponents conceded. “Those who were against the program will remember that their actions led to something. That they won something,” says Schulmann.

Subscribe to our coda currents newsletter

Insights from the Coda newsroom on the global forces that shape local crises.

Subscribe

Try again

Subscribe to our coda currents newsletter

Insights from the Coda newsroom on the global forces that shape local crises.

Subscribe

Try again

The post Campaigning to destroy: how Moscow authorities promoted mass housing emolition appeared first on Coda Story.