RBTH for The Telegraph in October

Tuesday 27 October 2015

Sport

Politics & Society

Tale of two cities

Beggar thy neighbour

Kazan and Kaliningrad express their hopes and fears for the 2018 football World Cup

Russia-Ukraine relations hit new low over debt repayment and air-traffic shutdown

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Strike force: a Russian pilot checks the ordnance ahead of a sortie from Hemeimeem air base in Syria

© DMITRY VINOGRADOV / RIA NOVOSTI

TALK TOGETHER,FIGHT SEPARATELY?

T

he Saudi Arabian and Turkish foreign ministers joined their Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry after their initial one-to-one, private meeting. There was no common press conference after the talks but Mr Lavrov made clear that no agreement had been reached on the resignation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the aim is to expand the four-party format to continue negotiations. Russia is seeking Iranian and Egyptian participation, with the future involvement of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and other key players in the region.

Mr Lavrov had already separately met Jordan’s foreign minister, which resulted in an agreement to coordinate military operations in Amman. This underlined the Kremlin’s position that full-scale negotiations between President Assad and the “full spectrum” of the opposition,“both domestic and external, and with the active support of outside players”,is a key component of ending the war in Syria.

And as the facts show, Russia’s wish to give the opposition a seat at the negotiating table is not as unrealistic as some sceptics believe. Last week the Free Syrian Army (FSA) reported that it was ready to have a dialogue with Moscow. Representatives of FSA have sent Russia a proposal to discuss the Syrian crisis in Cairo, and Russia has accepted this proposal.

Some Russian experts see the very fact that the talks involved several players as showing substantial progress has been made. According to Elena Suponina, head of the Centre for Asia and Middle East at the Russian Strategic Studies Institute,“it was clear that

In Vienna, the first steps towards the formation of a broad anti-Isil coalition were taken but Russia and the West are still acting unilaterally in Syria solutions will not be found during one meeting, but the differences are so great that even the fact of the meeting is a step forward. International players are indeed testing the ground for a prototype of a possible international coalition.’’

Halting Isil The meeting in Vienna took place as Russia’s air force was continuing to bomb targets in Syria. Since the beginning of the operation, Russian planes have made 934 sorties, dropping bombs on 819 targets Russia’s Defence Ministry maintains are Isil-related. Russia does not deny its support for President Assad but says that striking all anti-government groups is part of its strategy for stopping the momentum of the Islamic State.“Russia’s goal is to reduce the threat of Isil by supporting the war effort of the legitimate government of Syria,” Nikita Mendkovich, an expert at the Russian Council on International Affairs, told RBTH.

No proxy war Speaking on CNN on 1 October, Republican senator John McCain called the actions in Syria a“proxy war” between the United States and Russia, with

Syria is a fourdimensional civil war that we all are losing – except for Isil

the sides in the conflict fighting with weapons provided by foreign partners, as was the case during the Cold War. Russian experts say that there are Russian-made weapons being used by Syrian government forces, but this should come as no surprise considering that Syria has long been a major client of Russian arms manufacturers.

“The Russian technology there is mostly the legacy of the Soviet era,” said Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy director of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis in Moscow. “This is what the Syrian army has had for many years.”

And it’s no secret that American military technology is being used by the opposition in Syria. “The Americans supply light weapons to the so-called moderate opposition. The problem is that in the end, some of it gets in the hands of Isil,” said Dmitry Kornev, editor-in-chief of the web portal Military Russia.

Sergei Karaganov, chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, said that calling the conflict a proxy war based on what weapons were being used was “nonsense” considering there were myriad groups fighting with a variety of weapons.“There are plenty of different weapons in Syria,” he said.

Common aim Russia and the US should focus on their common goals in Syria and not their differences over how these goals should be fulfilled, according to experts.

“In the Syrian conflict, there are a lot of players. But we [Moscow and Washington] have one common aim – to destroy Islamist militarism,”said Mr Karaganov.

Political leaders, however, seem content to continue posturing. At the investment forum Russia Calling! held on 13 October, Russian President Vladimir Putin said:“At the military level, we asked them [the US] to give us the information regarding the targets that they believe are 100pc belonging to terrorists, and what we received as an answer was that they weren’t going to do that. The first thing we hear right now is that they’re not ready to co-operate with us and that we’re attacking the wrong targets.”

Three days later, at a press conference announcing a communication agreement between the US and Russian militaries to avoid running into each other in Syria, President Barack Obama said: “We’ve arrived at an understanding and some channels for communication. Where we will continue to differ is in the basic set of principles and strategies we’re pursuing inside of Syria.”

However, how these differences in principles and strategies will affect the power of Isil remains to be seen. For the moment, according to Robert Legvold, professor emeritus of political science at Columbia University:“Syria is a four-dimensional civil war that we all are losing – except for Isil.”

Read on RBTH.CO.UK: Russia’s air defence systems: keeping aerial foes in check since 1955 rbth.co.uk/49843

Tackling the problem of stray animals rbth.co.uk/49573

Urals region might hold the key to Europe’s ancient origins rbth.co.uk/533317

ILYA KROL, EKATERINA SINELSCHIKOVA, RBTH

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Progress stalls over debt repayment and flight bans

Read, watch and listen to RBTH’s weekly analytical programme, featuring three of the most high-profile recent developments in international affairs

Russia-Ukraine relations Moscow’s demand for repayment of Ukrainian debt has caused discord on the ground. Now, following the imposition of tit-for-tat airspace closures, the dispute has escalated to the skies GETTY IMAGES

ALEXEI LOSSAN RBTH

The Ukrainian authorities have agreed a debtrestructuring plan with private creditors. Prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on 15 October that the private creditors of Ukraine had decided to write off $3bn (£1.96bn) and reconstruct another $8.5bn. According to Mr Yatsenyuk, the Ukrainian authorities offered the same pattern to Russia: the cancellation of 20pc of the debt, the extension of payments toward the principal of the loan, and the establishment of the coupon rate at 7.75pc per annum instead of 5pc. However, the Russian president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on 15 October that the existing debt of $3bn must be repaid, otherwise it would mean a sovereign default. The Russian authorities will demand the return of the money in the London Court of International Arbitration.

Look to the skies: air travel betweeen Russia and Ukraine has been suspended

Defining the debt

IMF involvement According to credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P), the Ukrainian authorities have two ways to repay the Russian government.

First, Ukraine could repay the debt at the expense of its foreign exchange reserves, amounting currently to about $12bn. In practice, however, it cannot take this step, because at the request of the IMF, its gold and currency reserves not only should not be reduced, but should reach $17bn by the end of 2015.

Second, the country could default on these bonds. In this case, according to S&P, the necessary funds can be provided to Ukraine by the IMF. Since the beginning of 2015, Ukraine has already received $9.7bn from international organisations and, as Ukrainian finance minister Natalie Jaresko announced on 16 October, the country plans to receive another $4bn from international partners until the end of 2015. However, in this situation, the IMF loan would effectively go to the payment of Ukraine’s debt to Russia, a scenario unattractive to the western creditors.

“The IMF is unlikely to go for the provision of a loan to Ukraine to repay its debt to Russia,” says Andrei Margolin, vice-rector of the

Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. According to Mr Margolin, politics dominates economics in this issue, and Ukraine’s debt to Russia falls into the category of sovereign debt.

“In accordance with the rules of the IMF, the programme of financial support for Ukraine would be suspended until the settlement of the public debt,” Mr Margolin explains.

A similar position is shared by Verum Option analyst Alexander Krasnov, who maintains that the IMF’s statute prohibits lending to countries that do not repay their public debt.

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The Ukrainian authorities understand that the sovereign nature of the debt is a problem and try to challenge it, explaining that it had been issued to the previous regime. In late 2013, Moscow decided to support the Ukrainian economy, and agreed with then-president Viktor Yanukovych a loan of $15bn.

At the expense of Russia’s National Wealth Fund (it consists of the revenues from the sale of hydrocarbons abroad), it was supposed to redeem the Ukrainian bond loan. The repayment of the bonds was scheduled for 20 December 2015, and the coupon rate was 5pc. At the same time, one of the conditions of the loan was the obligation to return the funds early if the total Ukrainian debt exceeded 60pc of gross domestic product.

The Russian government only had time to transfer the first tranche of $3bn to Mr Yanukovych before Ukraine was hit by a political crisis, which led to the ousting of the president and a regime change.

Despite the loud rhetoric, however, Kiev seems to have an understanding that to deny the sovereign nature of the debt will be difficult in practice. Adam Derrick of the American Enterprise Institute sees a possible solution to the problem in offering Moscow a renegotiation on the terms of the loan, offsetting a preferential rate (5pc compared with the market 12pc) and at the same time placing it into the com-

mercial category. However, judging by the current rhetoric in Moscow, it is unlikely to agree.

Air travel ban The restructuring of Ukrainian bonds is not the only stumbling block for economic relations between the two countries. On 25 October 2015, direct flights between Russia and Ukraine were halted.“We have received an official notification that all Russian companies will be prohibited from the use of Ukraine’s airspace,” Russian transport minister Maxim Sokolov told RBTH. According to Oleg Panteleyev, head of analytical services at the Aviaport agency,“the decision to ban flights of Russian airlines to destinations in the territory of Ukraine is connected with Kiev’s objections against flights to Crimea conducted by these airlines”.

At first the ban did not extend to the airline UTair, which does not carry out flights to the peninsula, but later it was also included in the list. As a result, the sanctions will take effect against all Russian carriers. In response to these measures, the Russian authorities closed Russian airspace to Ukrainian aircraft. According to Mr Sokolov, the passenger traffic between Russia and Ukraine – despite its continued decline since the end of 2013 – amounted to 100,000 people per month in the first eight months of 2015.

“Given that Russian airlines made several times more flights between the countries than Ukrainian carriers, it is clear that their nominal losses from the closing of regular flights will be higher,” says Boris Rybak, a civil aviation expert with Infomost. “However, the loss of Ukrainian direction for Russian airlines is a loss of maybe half a per cent of the total passenger traffic. Of course, in real economic terms, any loss is bad, since air carriage teeters on the brink of profitability, and the situation is not healthy. But if Russian carriers are able to survive the closing of the Ukrainian direction, it is not a fact that the Ukrainian companies will survive the loss of the Russian route.”

Unbalanced trade: the figures Russia has long been Ukraine’s main trade partner. According to its state statistics service, in 2012 Russia accounted for £33.5bn of Ukraine’s total foreign trade market of £113.2bn. Last year Russia’s share dropped from £25.8bn to £18.2bn, according to Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development.

The ministry believes that it could drop as low as £6.5bn by next year.

ENGAGING THE WEST GLOBALLY SPEAKING GOING EASTWARD

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NEWS IN BRIEF FROM RBTH.CO.UK British Arctic Convoy veterans visit naval base in Crimea as part of Russian tour

Holograms fight misuse of disabled parking spaces

Spaceburgers? the food that’s out of this world

Russian drivers who try to park in spaces reserved for disabled people could be in for a shock if a new system installed at several Moscow shopping centres catches on.

The system, launched in May 2015 by Dislife, a Russian website dedicated to people with disabilities, with assistance from the Y&R advertising agency, works using a special camera that monitors the disabled parking space to check whether cars attempting to park there have a disabled parking badge. If a car without a badge tries to enter the space, a hologram of a man in a wheelchair appears in the air, shouting: “Stop! I am not an empty space.” The hologram is projected through tiny drops of water diffused in the air.

The main goal of the initiative is to raise awareness of the misuse of disabled parking. Since its launch, the video about the campaign has been viewed more than three million times.

Paid parking first appeared in Russia in 2012 and so far has been operational only in Moscow and several districts of St Petersburg. The problem of illegal parking in disabled parking spaces is still a very acute problem in the country.

Burger King wants to supply the International Space Station (ISS) with its cheeseburgers, but space agency doctors are not convinced that the burgers should be part of the cosmonauts’ diet.

The fast-food company has already prepared 100 “spaceburgers”. The ingredients are familiar: “grilled beef patty topped with a slice of melted cheese, crunchy cucumber, yellow mustard and ketchup on a toasted sesame-seed bun.” For the cheeseburger to fit into a feeding tube, it was chopped up and mixed with natural components to preserve its taste.

Dmitry Medovoi, head of Burger King in Russia, believes the burger is “an element of earthly life” that will be a special treat for the cosmonauts.

Russian doctors, however, say the burger and its recipe should first be studied.

“I am personally against burgers,” said Alexander Agureev, director of the ISS crew’s nutrition department. “This is not the first proposal to include such food items in the cosmonauts’ rations; we get such proposals often because producers see it as exceptional advertising.”

Roscosmos spokesman Igor Burenkov said the proposal would be studied but added: “Fast food is unhealthy for ordinary people, not to speak of cosmonauts.” The food ration for space travellers was specially tailored to their needs.

If the burger company gets its way, however, it will start producing burgers according to space standards in 2016. Burger King said it would also make the same proposal to Nasa. It is not the first time cheeseburgers in space have been in the news this year. In February, Nasa tweeted a photograph of an unappetising meal US astronaut Terry Virts was trying out on the ISS. The image of a piece of grilled flat bread floating in zero gravity with blobs of ketchup, mustard and brown beef patty was, apparently, the US space agency’s answer to fast food in orbit. “Astronaut Terry Virts getting ready to eat his ‘space cheeseburger’ floating in microgravity in the ISS. Looks good,” Nasa tweeted.

Capability Brown’s lost drawings to go on show PRESS PHOTO

SEVASTOPOL.GOV.RU

Three British Arctic Convoy veterans visited Russia this month in an event held to mark the 70th anniversay of Victory Day. Their trip included a tour of the naval base at Sevastopol, Crimea.

The Sevastopol visit was inspired by the fact that the base was founded and built by Russian Admiral Fyodor Ushakov, who gave his name to Russia’s highest naval award; the convoy veterans have recently received the Ushakov Medal.

Ernest Davies and Seymour Taylor from London and William Bannerman of Glasgow were part of a delegation of six veterans invited to visit Russia by Eugene Kasevin, a UK-based Russian who runs Victory Day London, a project dedicated to commemorating the heroism and sacrifice of sailors who took part in the wartime convoys.

Crimean-born Mr Kasevin criticised a British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) statement advising against all travel to Crimea, saying it could have derailed the group’s travel

plans. “To postpone such a historic trip due to current political quarrels would have risked the veterans missing out on this historic chance for them to complete the circle of remembrance of the fallen during the most tragic war of all times,” Mr Kasevin said.

The veterans arrived in Moscow on 4 October, and visited the Kremlin, the History Museum and the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War. The next day, arriving in Simferopol, the British delegation was joined by friends from St Petersburg, members of the Polar Convoy Club, together with the former Commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Vladimir Komoedov.

On 6 October, the group moved to Sevastopol and visited historic monuments, including ancient remains and memorials to the Crimean and Second World wars. Russian veterans of the Arctic Convoys living in Sevastopol also met their British comrades at a reception hosted by the Sevastopol Governor Sergey Menyailo.

PRESS PHOTO

Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of St Petersburg’s State Hermitage Museum, will present a lost series of drawings by British landscape architect Lancelot “Capability” Brown in London next year.

Mr Piotrovsky says he is seeking to strengthen ties with British museums and continue a cultural dialogue between the two nations.

The drawings, which were discovered in the Hermitage’s collections, will be exhibited at Hampton Court in April 2016, according to RIA Novosti.

The announcement comes amid a flurry of recent cultural collaborations between the Hermitage and British museums. Mr Piotrovsky was in London recently to promote the English translation of his book My Hermitage. The volume, which is being released as a joint venture between American and Russian publishers, was presented on 6 October at the Russian embassy in conjunction with the Hermitage Foundation UK. As a further token of his hopes for sustained cultural dialogue, the Hermitage director spoke warmly about the recent appointments of Hartwig Fischer and Gabriele Finaldi as the new heads of the British Museum and the National Gallery, respectively. “Relations will be fostered. Both new directors are our friends and my friends, whom I know well. Mr Finaldi is a member of the International Consultation Council for the Hermitage.

Our relationship will progress well, I am certain,” Mr Piotrovsky said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

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Saudi squeeze on Russian oil Energy wars Cut-price supplies could push Moscow out of European market ANNA KUCHMA RBTH

European refineries are busy buying crude oil from Saudi Arabia, Russian online publication Gazeta.ru reports, citing a source in the petroleum industry. According to Reuters, in recent months, several oil majors have stepped up purchases of Saudi

crude oil for their refineries in Western Europe and the Mediterranean, including Exxon, Shell, Total, and Eni. On 13 October, the head of the Russian state-controlled oil giant Rosneft, Igor Sechin, said Saudi Arabia had started selling oil in Poland at below-market prices.

Experts have been cautious in their assessments of this trend. “Oil from Saudi Arabia was present on the European market before. In 2010, Europe accounted for 10pc of Saudi oil exports, about 30 million tons,” says Alexander Pasechnik, head of research at the National Energy Security Fund.

“There may be conditions for a rise in cooperation here and, as a consequence, certain risks for Russia,” Mr Pasechnik adds.

Experts polled by RBTH say European exports are a logical step for Saudi Arabia, as Opec is not trying to cut production. “In order not to oversaturate the existing market

it is far easier to expand its boundaries,” says Yuri Prokudin, an analyst with Fx Bazooka.

Another probable reason is Iran’s imminent arrival on the oil market. “As soon as sanctions against Tehran are lifted legally, Iranian oil will start to make its way to the European market,” says Mr Pasechnik.

Cheaper than Urals equivalent “The exact terms of supplies are not known, but one can deduce from the market that a barrel of Saudi Arabian oil will cost European consumers $48-$49, ie, $4-$5 cheaper than a barrel from the Urals,” says Mr Prokudin.

Saudi Arabia could offer an additional discount of between 50 cents and a dollar.

Russia meets about 25pc of Europe’s requirement in oil. This year, supplies have grown by more than 5.5pc, to 97.6 million tons. Mr Prokudin says Russia may lose up to a third of this in the coming year. He

Russia meets about 25pc of Europe’s requirements.

This year, supplies have grown by more than 5.5pc to 97.6 million tons

believes a rise in Saudi oil supplies is more of an alarming signal than a real threat for Russia. “For European refineries to switch to Saudi oil, investment is needed and a change to logistic chains, which means additional costs. Even the lower price for this oil cannot offset the necessary investment,” he says.

The shortfall for Russia could be compensated by supplying China, as purchases there are forecast to rise by 3.2pc a year. But there is a risk that in the long-term Russia will face a shortage of investment in the oil sector and a cut in oil production. It is one of the scenarios being considered by the Russian Energy Ministry.

A drop in production would threaten the guarantee of meeting Asian demand. “So far, our Asian partners are technically not ready to consume Russian oil in large quantities, says Mr Pasechnik. “So the European market is still very important for Russia.”

Agriculture Europe’s farmers grow increasingly angry over the political decisions driving them towards financial ruin

EU tastes bitter fruit of sanctions war icy.“The only sector taking the hit arising from the foreign policy and decision by Russia has been agriculture,”he told the press. He added that it was a “very difficult situation” because Russia was“the recipient of 10pc of the world’s dairy products”, and “Europe was their first port of call”.

It goes much deeper than that for Europe.

In 2013, before the geopolitical tussle, a third of EU fresh fruit and vegetable exports went to Russia and a quarter of exported EU beef.

Around 75pc of EU cabbage, 63pc of tomatoes and 52pc of all EU apples sold abroad went to the alliance’s giant eastern neighbour. EURussian trade grew from €90bn in 2003 to €325bn in 2013. As a result, many European companies became heavily reliant on Russia.

This increased in the crisis years earlier this decade, when Russia partially compensated for decreased intra-European demand.

Last year, however, the value of EU agricultural goods sold in Russia fell by 24pc, from €11.8bn to €9.1bn. Preliminary figures for 2015 predict an even greater drop.

While Russia is discovering new import markets – 60pc of all Brazilian meat exports now go there – the Kremlin’s measures have led to an oversupply of food in Europe. This has inevitably caused a breakdown in prices. For instance, farm-gate milk prices in the UK fell 25pc to €0.31 per litre in the year to June.

BRYAN MACDONALD SPECIAL TO RBTH

Sanctions bite The reason for their anger is simple. Food prices, especially milk, but also meat and vegetables, have collapsed this year. The cause of the crisis is also clear: the sanctions war between Russia and the West. After events in Ukraine in 2014, Europe and the US first attempted to punish Russia with punitive travel bans and asset freezes. Amid heightened tension in eastern Ukraine, those measures were extended to embargoes on Russian banks’ access to international markets. In conjunction with weak resource prices, the policy worked. Russia is hurting; its economy is in deep recession.

A change of tack?

GETTY IMAGES

Irish farmer John Ryan is angry. The Ukraine crisis has become a live issue for European farmers, he claims. The Russia-EU sanctions war has led to an over-supply of food and depressed prices. Meanwhile, the proposed integration of Ukraine with the EU could present new competition.“Farmers don’t want Ukraine in the EU,” says Mr Ryan. “In the first place, they have too much cheap wheat… the EU meddling there destroyed the agricultural sector because they had no foresight.

“If the euro drops any more and interest rates rise, the whole sector will crash,” he warns.

In recent months, producers’ frustrations have spilled over. On 3 September, thousands of farmers, accompanied by 1,500 tractors, blocked the major arteries into Paris. They were protesting against rising taxes and increasingly strict environmental standards, which, allied to plummeting food prices, have destroyed farm incomes.

Hell hath no fury like angry French farmers. Thus, after the disruption, President François Hollande caved in, promising help.

It’s not only in France. Over the Spanish border, in Santiago De Compostela, a similar demonstration erupted a week later. In between, Irish farmers pulled milk off supermarket shelves to express their anger at price drops.

Inspired by the reaction in Paris, hundreds of farmers descended on Brussels – from as far away as Finland – a few days later, demanding EU intervention. Soon, €500m was found for “support measures” for agronomists.

However, Albert Jan Maat of Copa-Cogeca, the umbrella organisation for EU farmers and agri-co-operatives, remains unhappy.“EU producers have lost their main export market to Russia, worth €5.5bn (£4bn) annually, and a €500m aid package will not be enough to compensate for this,” he says.

Russia retaliates THE NUMBERS

1,500

500

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tractors took to the streets of Paris in September as French farmers staged a huge protest against falling agricultural prices.

million euros, the amount found by Brussels to support EU agriculture. Milk production has seen the most serious price collapse.

billion pounds, the estimate of EU annual losses from the closure of the Russian food market to European products.

Let it be: property abroad must pay its way in hard times GETTY IMAGES

Buying overseas Appeal of real estate for investment grows as cheaper Greece becomes favourite country for holiday homes ANNA KUCHMA RBTH

Spending by Russians on the purchase of foreign property dropped by half to $229m (£149m) in the second quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2014, according to the Central Bank of Russia.

The largest property agencies have confirmed the reduction in demand. According to Knight Frank, demand for foreign property fell overall by about 30pc in 2015 compared to last year. Kalinka Group said Russians were buying less property in the low price segment (falling by 30-60pc, depending on the destination).

Demand for expensive real estate had not fallen more than 15pc.

Parking lots and hotels The economic crisis has forced Russians to be more careful about buying property abroad. They are now more likely to look for the property as an investment, including parking spaces, hotel rooms, apartments for rent, student apartments and space for stores. Such purchases are limited to Europe, where property prices have stopped growing.

“We started getting a lot more requests for the centres of European capitals – London, Madrid, Paris, Berlin, Vienna. Now about 70pc of the requests are for property for capital preservation and generating income,” says Marina Kuzmina, Knight Frank’s foreign property director.

“It is mainly stable markets with a strong economy that attract the attention of investors,” says Yulia Ovchinnikova, director

Brussels’ lawmakers probably didn’t countenance blowback as they united, together with their US allies, in opposition to Russia’s interference in Ukraine. When Russia struck back with its own counter-sanctions on EU agricultural goods, many analysts initially reacted with bemusement. However, the Kremlin’s move has proved remarkably effective.

In late August, EU agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan admitted that European farmers are paying the price for the EU’s foreign pol-

seventh largest group of foreign buyers in Spain, according to statistics compiled by the Spanish registration service.

Demand for real estate in Greece and in Cyprus has grown by about 50pc, says Ms Kuzmina. Agents say that the demand for luxury apartments in Greece has increased recently as prices have fallen because of the euro crisis there. Since the crisis began in 2009, the prices of elite real estate has fallen by an average of 50pc and less expensive property by 20-30pc.

“A villa in Greece that used to cost approximately €20m now costs only €12m,” says Ms Kuzmina. At the same time, cheaper real estate has become less popular among Russians with rouble revenues, since it is becoming harder and more expensive to maintain because of the devaluation.

Bulgaria’s sparkle fades

US cities lose their attraction Demand for property in the United States fell by half from the third quarter of 2014 to the same period this year, according to figures from Tranio. Apartments and villas in Los Angeles Miami and New York have remained popular.

In Bulgaria, the number of requests has fallen by almost four times.

Apartments in Sunny Beach (Slanchev Bryag), Burgas, Varna and the surrounding areas were most in demand.

Sun factor: Russians still buy holiday homes, but the appeal of rental income is growing

of international business development at IntermarkSavills. Buyers are also interested in renovation or new construction projects.

All market players interviewed by RBTH say Germany is the leading country for investment purchases. Apartment houses and flats for rent are particularly popular.

“Depending on the status and location of the facility, the profitability may reach 5-12pc per annum,” says Yekaterina Rumyantseva, chair of Kalinka’s board of directors.

This year, Greece became the most popular country for Russians who wanted to buy property for holidays, knocking coastal Spain off the top spot. At the end of the second quarter of 2015, Russians were the

Many destinations that enjoyed rapid growth in previous years have lost their attraction. According to the agency Tranio, the number of requests for the purchase of real estate in Bulgaria has fallen by four times over the past year. In Croatia, the decline has been half that. There were no requests for property in Serbia.

Exotic destinations have also failed to sustain demand. “Thailand or Vietnam, where the Russians liked to rest and buy housing so much, cannot boast an abundance of Russian owners today,” says Igor Indriksons, the real estate investment manager at the agency Indriksons.

He added: “Low profitability and economic problems, that have already made it to China, do not allow the Asian assets to compete with Europe.”

The number of people willing to buy property for investment in the United States has fallen by half. This is due to several factors, including the distance and high taxes, according to real estate firms. In the United Arab Emirates, the number of requests has fallen, but the market for that region has always been small compared to other countries, according to the Tranio spokesman.

Food for thought: French farmers take their grievances – and their tractors – to the streets of Paris

As the Ukraine crisis seems to be fizzling out, there are now signs of an EU U-turn.The French agriculture minister, Stéphane Le Foll, visited Moscow this month and pleaded with his counterpart, Alexander Tkachev, to repeal the counter-sanctions. The Kremlin demurred, indicating such a move would be contingent on the EU first cancelling restrictions on Russia. The following day, European Commission chief JeanClaude Juncker unexpectedly announced:“We (Europe) can’t allow our relationship with Russia to be dictated by Washington.”This was an apparent strike against American insistence that Europe toes the line on sanctions. Mr Junker added that the West must “treat Russia properly” and address it as an equal.

Meanwhile, Mr Ryan has an ominous warning for Eurocrats. He worries that, if the Brussels-Moscow impasse is not resolved, “there will be queues for food in Europe redolent of the USSR’s final days. The EU farmers are producing and selling goods for below the cost of production and the banks and the governments can’t subsidise this. So out of business they will have to go. Unless they back off over Ukraine and tell the US to get lost,” he says.

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Despite the steepest drop in incomes since 1998, Russians remain highly optimistic, and President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings have skyrocketed.

As the “fat 2000s” have given way to the current economic downturn, Russian society has somehow swung from protest to civic apathy. Can this all be explained by domestic propaganda and the authorities’ grip on public debate? If not, then what?

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VLADIMIR KOZLOV SPECIAL TO RBTH

Painful issue

Most migrants arriving in Russia come from the former Soviet republics, lured by employment opportunities and higher wages than they could expect at home. They normally find lowskilled jobs in the fields of construction, maintenance and retail.

According to Nikolay Kurdyumov, head of the NGO International Alliance Labour Migration, 80pc of all migrants in Russia are citizens of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which includes 11 countries of the former Soviet Union but not the Baltic states and Georgia.

CIS citizens do not need visas to enter Russia and can legally stay for up to 90 days after entry. But many choose to stay longer, working in the economy’s grey sector.

“The fact that the vast majority of migrants have no legal status in Russia is the most painful issue,”Muhammad Amin Madzhumder, president of the Federation of Migrants of Russia, told RBTH. Of the 10 million migrants in Russia, only 1.5 million are in the country legally, he adds.

A key challenge to achieving legal status is that the slightest administrative offence – overstaying the 90-day limit, for example – blacklists a migrant, preventing them applying for work permits.

More than two million migrants in Russia are on the blacklist, forcing those that stay to live under the radar, illegally. As many as another 800,000 have been deported, closing down any way to legitimise their status.

And even if some migrants from Central Asia have left, their absence has been more than made up for by the arrival of refugees from war-torn Ukraine – up to two million people, Mr Kravtsov says.

Anti-migrant sentiment

THE NUMBERS

10

million migrants live in Russia, out of a total population of around 146 million. Russia is second only to the US for migrant flows.

1.5

million migrants are legally resident in Russia; more than two million live in the country without legitimate papers.

80

pc of all migrants in Russia are from former Soviet republics who now hold a passport of one of the CIS countries.

For years, there has been anti-migrant sentiment in Russian society, based on fears they steal jobs from Russians and commit crimes.

The facts contradict this view.

“It’s wrong to think that migrant workers are taking jobs from Russians,”said Mr Kurdyumov. He added: “Mostly, they work in lowqualification, low-wage jobs that Russians are not interested in.”

Similarly, reports about high numbers of crimes committed by migrants are not supported by the evidence.

Between January and July 2015 just 2pc of all crimes registered in Russia were committed by foreign citizens, according to data published on the interior ministry website.

Curbing the problem

As the migrant issue remains acute, Russian authorities are taking steps aimed at improving the situation.

One major change came into effect from 2015, allowing migrants from the CIS to buy “patents”– a kind of green card – instead of applying for work permits. Unlike work permits, patents allow the holder to switch from one employer to another, and the procedure for obtaining one is simpler. But the new system also has disadvantages.

In Moscow, a migrant is expected to pay between 60,000 and 70,000 roubles (£617-720) a year, which is beyond the pockets of most.

As a result, there is room for forgery and corruption. “It’s no secret that many medical insurances and language-proficiency certificates, needed to get the patents, are just bought from

dubious companies that are eager to cash in on the situation,”said Mr Kravtsov.“And many migrants have continued to work illegally”.

They just bribe local police officers.

Leaving the grey economy

Other experts have expressed cautious optimism about the prospects of the patent system. “If at least some migrants will move out of the grey economy thanks to the new system, that will be good,” said Mr Kurdyumov.

In a speech last April, analysing the first results of the new migration policy, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that from the beginning of the year, income from the sale of patents was four times more than in the same period last year. But he did not mention what, if any, difference increased income from the sale of patents might have on tackling other issues associated with illegal immigration, such as the legal twilight zone in which those who have been blacklisted find themselves.

COMMENT

Just the people our country needs Bakhrom Ismailov

Poor living conditions

Predictably, migrants’ illegal status hampers their integration and leads to poor living conditions. Without a legal work permit they have little incentive to learn Russian. Many live on the margins, finding shelter in basements, warehouses and other unsuitable places.

“Of course, those who are employed in the grey economy will never stay in dormitories,”said Mr Kurdyumov.“They’re hiding. They are often surrounded by criminals, sometimes their passports are taken away from them.”

As Russia slipped into recession in late 2014 and the value of the rouble collapsed against major foreign currencies, reports about migrants leaving Russia in large numbers began to appear. However, experts say that it is too early to talk about a mass exodus of migrants.

“Most have stayed,”Vasily Kravtsov, head of the charity Migration XXI Century, told RBTH. He added: “There is one telling indicator: the amount of money they send to their families back home. In roubles, this figure hasn’t declined, it has even gone up.”

Immigrants in Russia (thousands)

GAIA RUSSO

Rashid came to Moscow from Tajikistan last year. He is 20, has no qualifications and speaks broken Russian. He is staying in a rented two-room flat in the city’s northern suburbs with his elder brother’s family and several more people.

He was stopped by police a few months ago and fined for overstaying the 90-day period that a foreign visitor can stay in Russia without permission. Now he is blacklisted and cannot apply for any legal status.

Rashid works odd jobs, mostly as a loader in an open-air market. “I make about 20,000 roubles a month, sometimes less,”he said. This sum is almost three times lower than the average Moscow salary, but it’s more than the nothing he got staying at home.

“I have family here, so they won’t let me down,” he insists.

YURI KOZYREV / NOOR

Migration Many people from the former Soviet republics come to Russia in search of a better life but most end up working illegally

YURI KOZYREV / NOOR

Millions of migrants trapped in the grey economy

MIGRANT LAWYER

MULTIMEDIA

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The demographic problem in Russia has come to the fore at various times of the country’s history but rarely has it been so critical as it is now.

In the Nineties, when Russia was going through political, social and economic crises simultaneously, the death rate was one-and-a-half times higher than the birth rate, according to the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat). Until 2009, Russia’s population declined annually by hundreds of thousands of people.

However, by the late 2000s, the economic support programme for young families that the government launched with the goal of stimulating the birth rate with lump-sum payments began to pay off and, in 2009, the birth rate was the highest in 18 years.

But during the current economic crisis,

None of the main events in the history of modern Russia would have been possible without labour resources from the republics of Central Asia

the birth rate is stagnating, which makes another source of future labour – migration – ever more important.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, migrants from former Soviet republics began flooding into Russia in search of work. This trend continues today. According to Rosstat, between 2010 and 2014, Russia’s population increased mostly because of the rise in migration – 93pc of the overall population growth came from migrants.

Russia is not the only country that has experienced this phenomenon, however.

According to recent research, one out of every 10 people in Germany is a migrant and in Sweden the figure is one in six. In Russia, however, only one out of every 30 people is currently considered to be a migrant.

There are practically no scientific studies in Russia on the influence that working migrants have on the country’s GDP. One reliable source can be the information on the number of permits obtained by foreign citizens allowing them to work in the country. Between 2010 and 2014, the Russian budget received approximately 45

billion roubles (£464m) from the fees paid for the more than 6.5 million work permits issued. And, of course, migrants also pay rent and buy food, contributing to the overall Russian economy.

It is obvious that the economy and demography of modern Russia are dependent on foreign citizens working and studying here. Without the foreign labour force, the situation in Russia would be much different.

It is also important to understand that migrant flows were spurred by the country’s intense economic growth between 2002 and 2013, when one of the most important engines in the economy was civil and industrial construction. None of the main events in the history of modern Russia, whether the Winter Olympics in Sochi or the Apec Summit in the Far East, would have been possible without labour resources from the republics of Central Asia.

Today, working migrants are an integral part of the economic, political and social-demographic model of the Russian Federation, and the country’s future will largely depend on how it uses this human resource.

Bakhrom Ismailov is one of the founders of the Country without Racism Movement.

Special Report

© KIRILL KALLINIKOV / RIA NOVOSTI

© VALERY MELNIKOV / RIA NOVOSTI

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Q&A Leading social campaigner calls for constructive approach to integration

Why we must learn to live with mass migration Russian society has yet to accept that mass migration is a fact, which makes it harder for those moving to the country to integrate into society, according to Alexander Verkhovsky, head of the Sova Centre for Information and Analysis. The centre examines nationalism and ethnic and religious xenophobia. RBTH spoke to Mr Verkhovsky about the attitudes of Russians toward migrants, multiculturalism and the idea of “assimilation”.

The migrant in modern Russia — who is he or she?

In Russia, the word “migrant” is used in a way that is far from literal: a “migrant” is not an “immigrant,” temporary or permanent, but any person who moves from one place to another if his ethnicity is clearly different from that of the host community. Technically, Russia’s first postSoviet generation of immigrants are the millions who have moved from the former Soviet republics to Russia. Ethnically, many are Russian, but few would call them “migrants,” although they also had trouble adapting to the new location.

The term “migrants” is now primarily used for immigrants and temporary workers from Central Asia and the South Caucasus. The term is also used for those who have moved from the North Caucasus to other regions of Russia, if these people are not Slavs.

One of the key indicators of attitudes toward migrants is the level of xenophobia. What is the situation in Russia?

The first wave of xenophobia was in the early Nineties and was triggered by the shock of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Then everything calmed down but there was a new surge in 1999-2000 as a result of the second Chechen war. The Chechens were singled out then, but hostility extended to other “non-Slavs”. Between 2000 and 2012, its level was high; about 55pc believed that the ethnic majority should have privileges: “Russia is for the Russians.”

A recent survey by the Levada Centre showed xenophobia in Russian society had fallen. Why? It fell as early as in 2014. By some measures, even below the level of 2012. One reason is Ukraine. The theme of migration as a threat has been replaced by the theme of the crisis of relations with the West and the protection of Russian-speakers in Ukraine. It became clear that problems related to migration are not so great as they are easily forced out of public consciousness by other issues.

Is this a long-term trend or temporary?

It inspires cautious optimism that people have started to answer questions such as, “what to do with migrants” in a more rational way. Mass migration is always a

PROFILE

Alexander Verkhovsky

A native of Moscow, Mr Verkhovsky graduated from the Moscow Institute of the Oil and Gas Industry with a degree in applied mathematics, but soon found himself drawn to questions of nationalism and xenophobia. He has been director of the Sova Centre since 2002, and a member of Russia’s Council on the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights since 2012.

great social problem, and it is unlikely that it can be resolved smoothly, but if the majority of citizens will switch, finally, from pure alarmism to the discussion of constructive solutions, these solutions will be possible.

Religion, race, different culture – which is the most frequent trigger of ethnic conflict in Russia?

As a rule, it is not economic concerns or security issues – terrorism and so-called ethnic crime – that dominate, but rather “negative perception of cultural distance”.

The “others” do everything “in the other way”.

Appearance is a marker of cultural distance.

Everything else, including religion, is less significant. The attitude does not necessarily translate into aggression; it can be latent.

It is believed that xenophobia was practically non-existent in the Soviet Union – the same Uzbeks, Tajiks or Azerbaijanis who are now coming to Russia as migrants lived with each other and with Russians without any conflicts as Soviet citizens. Is this true?

Polls on such topics did not exist in the Soviet Union. But I was born in 1962, so I remember xenophobia. For example, the word “Georgian” was frequently used as a pejorative, while people from Central Asia were called the same names as now.

There were also conflicts on the periphery of the Soviet Union. The other thing is that there could not be an organised nationalist movement of any kind, unlike now. The only consolation is that organisations of nationalists do not enjoy mass support.

The US is often cited as an example of a country that has defeated xenophobia, where migrants are really assimilated with the pre-existing population. What is the situation in Russia?

The term “assimilation” is now considered not very politically correct, as it implies the rejection of original ethnic and cultural identity. The preferred term is “integration,” which involves the combination of two identities – the ethnic and cultural one in some aspects of life and the general civil one in others. This combination applies not only to migrants but also to the host population.

So far, integration proceeds with difficulty in Russia, because society is not ready to recognise mass immigration as an accomplished fact. In Russia, migrant workers are even called gastarbeiter (German for guest workers); in the Fifties, the Germans thought workers from Turkey were temporary, too.

But mass migration is here to stay, and so long as society is not ready to accept it, it is not ready to make efforts to integrate migrants. However, more enterprising migrants overcome all the difficulties, learn Russian, and have mixed families.

Prepared by Ilya Krol, RBTH

Job shortage and high living costs stem the flow Employment The financial squeeze means Moscow is losing its appeal to foreign workers ALEXANDER BRATERSKY SPECIAL TO RBTH

Emomali, 37, from Tajikistan, has lived in Moscow since the mid-Nineties. He rents an apartment with three other migrant workers, and his expenses, including rent and work permit, are about 15,000 roubles per month.

Emomali considers this a reasonable price to pay, so long as he can work. However, as Russia’s economic crisis deepens, there isn’t always a job to be had – particularly in construction, the source of most work for low-skilled migrants.

“I used to send home $1,000 (£648).

Now it is only around $500 (£324),” says Emomali, whose earnings support a large family in Tajikistan.

“Younger people might go to the US or Turkey, but Russian is the only language I speak, so I have no other choice.”

Some migrants have decided the expense of living in Russia just isn’t worth it.

Bureaucratic process and associated costs have cut the number of migrants living in the country illegally

“Some are returning because there are no jobs in Russia now,” said Behrouz bin Qader, who lives in the capital of Tajikistan, Dushanbe.

According to Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS), there are now just under one million migrant workers from Tajikistan living in Russia – 16pc fewer than a year ago.

While economic conditions have played a major part in reducing the number of migrants, the authorities also said changes in legislation, which make it more difficult to get individual work permits, was also a contributory factor.

Officials at the FMS are aware of the problems. During a recent roundtable at the Russian State Duma, FMS head Konstantin Ramadanovsky acknowledged that the high cost of obtaining a work permit is a deterrent for workers, calling it “the most important factor”.

But other officials say that the bureaucratic process and associated costs have helped to cut the number of migrants living in the country illegally. During a meeting of migration officials from the Brics countries in Sochi, deputy FMS head Vadim Yakovenko said that the number of legally employed migrants had increased significantly.

“People became more accurate,” Mr Yakovenko said, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

Many migrants may have no choice but to return to Russia, however. According to Mr bin Qader, the job options at home are often much worse and inflation is increasing as Russia’s crisis spills over to the former Soviet states.

COMMENT

‘I felt at home after years of separation’ Galiya Ibragimova JOURNALIST

In July 2014, I decided to move from Uzbekistan, where I was born and raised, to Russia, the country my relatives left in the Thirties, fleeing hunger and Stalinist repression. This decision was influenced by reports that Moscow was encouraging Russians living abroad to return – and making it easier for those who wanted to do so, particularly those who spoke Russian and identified with Russian culture.

I fit that description. I’m ethnically a Kazan Tatar but know Russian better than Tatar and consider it my native tongue.

As a student in a Russian-language school in the provincial town of Termez in southern Uzbekistan, I grew up reading the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. After

weighing the pros and cons of such a move, I decided to take part in the Russian state programme to assist the voluntary resettlement of compatriots living abroad.

This allows participants to get Russian citizenship within three months. I got my Russian passport in a month.

It did not take me long to make myself at home. Russia has a lot I can relate to; there are people here who speak the same language as me. I had no problems finding a job. The Russians treated me as their own. Many did not even suspect that I had arrived in the country recently.

When they found out, they were not surprised, knowing that there were many Russian-speaking compatriots leaving the former Soviet republics after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Sometimes I was asked questions such as, “You came from Uzbekistan, but why don’t you wear a burka?” Or, “Is there coffee in Uzbekistan? And do they sell alcohol there?”

It did not offend me. I replied that Uzbekistan is a secular state where people drink both coffee and vodka, and even the most devout women do not wear a burka.

For me, the main thing was that I felt really at home in Russia, and that I was able to return to my native land after many years of separation.

Analysis P6_Tuesday 27 October 2015_www.rbth.ru_THIS SUPPLEMENT IS SPONSORED BY ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA

ART OF DIPLOMACY

THE RISKS AND REWARDS OF RUSSIA’S ACTION IN SYRIA

We must face down the Isil threat in Syria together

Fyodor Lukyanov INTERNATIONAL ANALYST

Alexander Yakovenko AMBASSADOR

I

DORMIDONT VISKAREV

October 2015 will be remembered as yet another landmark in Russian political history.

For the first time in more than a quarter of a century, the country is officially carrying out a large-scale military operation outside the former Soviet space. And this is not a “politically correct” peacekeeping mission, but rather an operation with strategic objectives.

Moscow is calling for an international coalition against terrorism in general and Isil in particular, but at the same time, the Kremlin is letting the world know that it is ready to act independently.

The reasons that caused the Kremlin to take up such a military campaign far from its national borders are clear. Isil is clearly an enemy that causes much concern in Russia. However, Vladimir Putin’s political intuition also played a role. He seized the opportunity to shake up the situation in the Middle East, forcing other potential players to react to his initiative — and not the other way around.

Demonstrating Russia’s significantly expanded military potential is not the aim of the intervention, but it is a factor. So is the formation of a circle of important partners in the region, from Tehran to Beirut.

The risks are no less obvious. Moscow is practically involved in a brutal civil war, having sided with one party – President Bashar Assad.

It is also involved in a religious war, sympathising with the Shia minority of the Muslim world against the Sunni majority. This position requires attentive political manoeuvring, since, in the event of failure, the scale of possible harm, including that within Russia itself, with its large Muslim population, could be enormous.

Meanwhile, relations with the West are only becoming more complicated. Practically the entire world is interested in doing serious damage to Islamic terrorists, but since Russia’s possible success is linked to strengthening not only its own influence but also the Assad regime, the negative response of the United States and its allies is guaranteed.

It is still difficult to predict if this disapproval will result in a direct confrontation. Hopefully, lessons will have been learnt from previous experiences, but be that as it may, a

Moscow is not trying to change the current government, but, on the contrary, strengthen it

bitter information war was inevitable — and it has already begun.

The main dilemma in the wars that large countries are now waging is that these wars do not carry the idea of“victory”.Military campaigns are being conducted almost exclusively with the aim of regime change, and the campaigns have certainly been successful – in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

The victors, however, were embarrassed to describe them as victories or admit that their goals had been achieved. The military success forced the victors to either start“nation-building” (as in the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq), which was costly and fruitless, or immediately retreat (Libya), leaving behind a failed state.

Success in these cases was defined by having an exit strategy.

Russia’s involvement in Syria obviously differs from the United States’ and Nato’s actions in the Middle East since the beginning of the 2000s. The principal difference is that Moscow is not trying to change the current government, but, on the contrary, preserve and strengthen it. Regardless of what is being said about Assad having lost legitimacy and effective control over

most of the territory, Russia’s interaction with the regular army and the administrative apparatus, even though significantly weakened, guarantees more opportunities than helping the rebels.

But what is Russia’s exit strategy, especially if events do not turn out as planned? In the case of Syria, the Americans are conducting strikes against Isil from the Incirlik air base inside Turkey, where they will be able to remain should the operation turn against them and their allies. Russian pilots, however, are based in Syria itself.

Every war has its own logic, which at one point or another overpowers political expediency. And it is difficult not to get bogged down – the experience of almost all of the countries that have tried to play the “great game” in the Middle East is proof of this.

The history of the region teaches only one thing: things there never go as planned. And this fact cannot be forgotten.

Fyodor Lukyanov is the chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy of Russia.

WE SHOULDN’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER Anton Merkurov

While the instant messaging software market is still young, it already boasts some impressive figures, such as the 800 million users of WhatsApp, the 600 million users of the Chinese-developed QQ or the 250 million users of Viber. The messaging apps’ functionality is expanding – you can find gaming, media, magazines and even money-transfer services there.

Messaging apps are the new social networks.

Unsurprisingly, they have attracted attention from the security services, as well as from terrorists and revolutionaries.

When the United Kingdom was hit by riots motivated by racial and social tensions in 2011, a lot of observers claimed that BlackBerry Messenger – a built-in instant messaging system on the eponymous phones – played a key role in spreading the unrest.

Pavel Durov, founder of the popular Russian social networking site VK and Telegram Messenger, has recently had to face criticism following the actions of certain would-be terrorists in Australia and even those of the very real terrorists from Isil. Both groups have used Telegram to co-ordinate their actions.

British Prime Minister David Cameron went as far as to virtually demand that all messagi n g s e rv i c e s d i s a b l e e n c ry p t i o n i n the name of vaguely defined national security concerns – a request later echoed by the FBI director James Comey. However, these loud statements – criticised by Pavel Durov, among others – have not so far led to any action.

DMITRY DIVIN

INTERNET EXPERT

Developers are not to blame The right to communicate freely is not easy to take away from people. And in the case of instant messaging services, intelligence agencies – being unable to ensure mass surveillance – have to act more selectively. Those who criticise messengers love to shift the blame from short-sighted politicians and incompetent security services to the developers of communication tools. But it is extremely important to understand that messengers do not have any special functions that make it easier to commit a crime – it is not as if they offer

Controlling the way we communicate is unacceptable, and that’s all there is to say

their users an opportunity to “click here to get a revolution” after all. What those critics tend to overlook is the underlying causes that drive students to smash shop windows in London or compel Islamists to capture new victims.

Threat from foreign agents?

Some similar attempts to control communications in encrypted messengers are being made in Russia, too. Back in August, Nikolai Patrushev, the former head of the country’s security service, the FSB, and current secretary of the Security Council of Russia, said that Russian officials should not use popular instant messaging services to discuss government matters. And the reasons he put forward?

The threat from foreign intelligence agents.

As for the fact that officials using such services can also keep their dealings hidden from the public eye, this somehow wasn’t mentioned

by Mr Patrushev. Nevertheless, Russian officials have nothing to worry about at the mo-

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ment. First, they do not have any governmentapproved alternative communication methods anyway. Second, separating discussions of official matters and informal socialising in messengers is problematic. Even now, you can find Russian state ministers, presidential administration employees and numerous other officials among the users of Telegram.

Still, Mr Patrushev’s initiative is a concern for ordinary Russian users, since they fear it will be extended to them. Intimidated by the revelations of Edward Snowden, the ubiquitous surveillance and the omnipresent cyber threats, users simply want to communicate in a reliable and secure way. And since messengers provide this by technical, rather than political means, authorities everywhere have no chance of prevailing. Controlling the way we communicate is unacceptable, and that’s all there is to say about that.

Anton Merkurov is a representative of Open Garden (the developer behind FireChat).

EUGENE ABOV PUBLISHER, PAVEL GOLUB CHIEF EXECUTIVE EDITOR, VIACHESLAV CHARSKIY EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF WESTERN EUROPE, ILYA KROL EDITOR, UK EDITION, ALEXANDRA GUZEVA ASSISTANT EDITOR, NICK HOLDSWORTH GUEST EDITOR, OLGA DMITRIEVA ASSOCIATE EDITOR (UK), PAUL CARROLL SUBEDITOR, SEAN HUGGINS SUBEDITOR, ANDREY SHIMARSKY ART DIRECTOR, MILLA DOMOGATSKAYA HEAD OF PRE-PRINT DEPARTMENT, ANDREI ZAITSEV PHOTO EDITOR E-PAPER VERSION OF THIS SUPPLEMENT IS AVAILABLE AT WWW.RBTH.CO.UK TO ADVERTISE IN THIS SUPPLEMENT CONTACT SALES@RBTH.COM

sil has established a bridgehead in Syria and other countries of the Middle East.

The terrorists do not conceal their farreaching plans for further expansion, the destabilisation of more countries in the region and beyond and recruiting more people from all over the world, including Russia and our neighbours, to fight for their cause.

To pre-empt this threat to national security, as a measure of self-defence, Russia launched its military operation in Syria. It was carried out in response to a request from the Syrian government and therefore is fully in line with international law.

There is a way for everybody to carry out air strikes against Isil and other terrorists in Syria legitimately. It means a UN Security Council mandate. Besides establishing clear-cut objectives and the terms of such collective intervention, we could agree, in this resolution, the realistic and flexible modalities of a political settlement in Syria.

Political settlement was a key topic at recent talks between President Vladimir Putin and President Bashar al-Assad in Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met US Secretary of State John Kerry and their Saudi and Turkish counterparts in Vienna for the same reason. I am sure that all the conditions will be in place for us to have a common view of the situation and make joint efforts on that basis. It would drastically change the terrorists’ calculus while doing the same to our bilateral relationship with Britain.

We have asked our western partners to give us their intelligence on terrorist infrastructure in Syria, if they really think we are hitting the wrong targets. We have also requested contact numbers for the Free Syrian Army. The negative response shows the lack of clarity as to who’s who on the ground and who is sponsoring various groups opposing Damascus.

The preservation of secular statehood in Syria and Egypt is absolutely key, because of their centrality to regional stability. Partitioning Syria would be the worst development. Regional crises require regional solutions with all the players participating. It is true for Syria, as it is true for Afghanistan.

It means that regional security is indivisible.

Various regional players’ attempts to play games of their own will bring about an implosion of the entire Middle East, very much to the satisfaction of terrorists, who recognise no borders. Hopefully, now that many things in the situation are clear enough, we’ll see the last of the tactics of ensuring one’s own security at somebody else’s expense. Chickens do come home to roost.

Our partners didn’t want to relieve the Syrian army by degrading the terrorists’ capability. But now we know the outcome of this, to put it mildly, ambivalence. Politics and statecraft are always about making hard choices.

Trying to avoid it equals abdication of responsibility. Initial results of our strikes prove that the terrorists took their impunity for granted.

Things are changing now. The healthy competition between two coalitions is doing its bit.

Nobody wants to deploy ground forces in Syria. Then why not let the Syrian army play this role. If not them, then who? It is no time to engage in fantasies of regime change in Syria.

And, finally, Russia stepped into the line of fire. Those on the sidelines engage in ill-wishing, foretelling casualties and quagmire. It was not an easy decision for us to make but inaction was not an option. The broad public opinion seems to share this view.

Still, we are ready to discuss anything honestly and on the basis of facts with the capitals concerned. Neither“Great Games”nor Cold War geopolitics will help us deal with this threat to international security. It is a common threat and it must be addressed collectively. As President Putin emphasised, speaking at the recent Valdai meeting, we want to work together with everybody on Syria.

Keep in touch with the Russian Embassy in London on these social networks: www.twitter.com/Amb_Yakovenko www.twitter.com/RussianEmbassy www.twitter.com/RussianEmbassyR (Russian version) www.facebook.com/RussianEmbassy www.youtube.com/RussianEmbassy www.slideshare.net/rusemblon www.flickr.com/photos/rusembassylondon russianembassy.livejournal.com

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Culture www.rbth.co.uk_Tuesday 27 October 2015_P7

Another round of fundraising will be needed for post-production to complete the film ahead of its release late next year.

The Forest in Me approaches Agafia’s story with sensitivity to her intrinsic connection to the natural environment in which she lives.

Born in the Sayan Mountains in 1945 in a remote area of southern Siberia close to the Mongolian border, Agafia is the last member of a family of Old Believers (a Russian Orthodox sect that broke away from the main church 350 years ago).

After fleeing Stalinist religious persecution in 1936, the family made their way deep into the taiga – as the wild expanse of conifer and birch forest is known.

NICK HOLDSWORTH SPECIAL TO RBTH

Agafia Lykova emerges from the thick forest on the banks of the Abakan River like an image from Russian folklore. Dressed in ragged black sackcloth, with a tattered headscarf and a triangular prayer amulet hanging from her neck, she greets visitors arriving by helicopter from another world.

Agafia, 70, lives just 100 miles south of Tashtagol – an industrial town of 23,000 inhabitants centred around an iron ore mine – but her world owes more to the remote past than the 21st century. The nearest human settlement is two weeks away by foot.

It is this very timelessness that paradoxically brings the modern world to her distant doorstep. A team of British female film-makers made the arduous journey in October, seeking to produce a deep and sensitive portrait of a woman who exemplifies the ancient connection of humankind to the planet.

PROFILE

Rebecca E Marshall

Forest figure When director Rebecca E Marshall, based in Hastings, East Sussex, first heard of Agafia she had an immediate fascination for her story.

“For two years I couldn’t stop thinking about Agafia surviving alone in the vast Siberian taiga,’ she says.

“Our film, The Forest in Me, is a meditation on the nature of individual human identity in this distant dreamscape, cut off from the world of mass communication.”

Marshall did not even allow the birth of her first child six months ago to derail her plans.

Together with director of photography, Bristol-based Sarah Cunningham and Ukrainianborn assistant director Elena Andreicheva, she raised more than £14,000 in a crowdfunding campaign to get the project off the ground.

BRITISH 39 DIRECTOR

Marshall is a London Film School graduate who has recorded aspects of her life since childhood in diaries and videos. The Forest in Me is her first feature documentary. Her film Glitter and Storm was released in 2012.

First contact The family lived in utter isolation for decades, scraping a living from the thin soil, until a group of Soviet geologists, flying over the area on a mineral prospecting mission, discovered them in 1978. Contact with people heralded an end to their way of life: by 1988 when her father Karp died, Agafia was left to live alone in the wilderness, sometimes having to fend off bears with burning torches of birch bark.

A small woman, with face and forearms as dark as the cedar pine cones she collects from the forest floor for their nutritious nuts, Agafia’s religion and daily liturgical practices don’t prevent her extending warmth and welcome to her visitors.

Entirely at ease with the British film crew, Agafia answered searching questions with typically pragmatic responses. Marshall had long wondered how a woman who lives alone in such a vast wilderness copes with our western urban affliction of loneliness. Agafia’s response is simple.“A Christian can never be lonely,”she says.“Every Christian has their guardian angel, as well as Christ and the Apostles.

“I have an icon that has been blessed. I am never lonely as I always have Christ with me.”

Asked whether life is better now or was better before contact with the outside world, Agafia remarks: “Back then, we had not salt.”

PRESS PHOTO (4)

Documentary UK film crew profiles a wilderness woman who has only ever known life in the raw embrace of nature

TASS

Solitary homage to Siberian taiga

Another world: Agafia, main picture, and from left, riverside log cabins at her homestead; a page from an ancient Bible in pre-revolutionary Cyrillic used by Agafia; the film crew

Surprising tale of the un-egg-spected Jewellery Missing Fabergé treasure unearthed in the Queen’s private art collection ANNA ROMANOVA

Researchers preparing a new catalogue for the Royal Collection have accidentally discovered the exquisite surprise originally contained within the Fabergé Diamond Trellis Egg, the eighth entry in the Tsar Imperial Easter Egg series. Considered lost for a long time, the surprise is a mechanical toy in the the form of a miniature elephant.

Caroline de Guitaut, senior curator of the royal family’s art collection, was the first to make the announcement during a scientific conference at the Fabergé Museum in St Petersburg on 13 October, 2015.

The Diamond Trellis Egg was commissioned by Tsar Alexander III as an Easter gift for Empress Maria Feodorovna in 1892. The egg’s shell was cut from a semi-transparent apple-green rock with

© IGOR RUSSAK / RIA NOVOSTI

ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA

Shelling out: the purchase prices of Imperial Easter Eggs run to several millions of pounds

encrusted diamonds in the body. Initially, the egg had a silver or golden base adorned with cherubs, believed to represent the imperial family’s three sons: Nikolai (later Tsar Nicholas II), Georgy and Mikhail.

It was also known that inside the egg there was a surprise in the form of a tiny, diamond-encrusted ivory and gold elephant with a winding mechanism, which was

described in Fabergé’s account books.

After the revolution, the egg was confiscated and several years later sold abroad, where it appeared in a series of private collections, ending up in the McFerrin family collection in the US. However, the surprise was missing.

Since the British researchers could not prove that the find was precisely the elephant in question, the restorers decided to disassemble the figure.

“A fragment of the elephant’s turret was lost,” said Ms Guitaut. “It seems to have fallen off due to the metal ageing. Yet as a result, it was possible to look into the figure.

“When we removed the top part of the turret, my heart nearly stopped beating: it contained the Fabergé hallmark.”

Meanwhile, it is still a mystery how the miniature elephant found its way into the Royal Collection. One version says that it was acquired by King George V in 1935.

Easter eggs made by Fabergé are a rarity on the auction market and have even fetched as much as £8.9m – the record sum Russian collector Alexander Ivanov paid for the Rothschild Egg at Christie’s in 2007.

Outside support A casual observer might dismiss this diminutive woman as a simple soul. But to spend time with Agafia, as the crew did during filming for The Forest in Me, is to discover certain depths and nuances that those who know her say are part of the reason she has attracted such strong support for continuing her unique way of life.

This support comes from the highest levels in Russia, including Kemerovo Region governor Aman Tuleyev, Orthodox Church leaders and President Vladimir Putin.

The outside world is not one she feels she can live in, but those who come to visit her from that place are welcome.

“The world is going to ruin; I feel it is my duty to share my faith with those who come here,” she says.

Agafia enjoys company and will talk happily for hours in her soft, sing-song voice that mixes modern Russian with words long fallen

The next chapter: after a record-breaking Anna Karenina, a new campaign for Tolstoy’s War and Peace Literature Applications are invited for participation in the latest online reading marathon OLEG KRASNOV RBTH

Anyone on the planet who speaks Russian will be able to read a chapter from Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel War and Peace directly online as part of a forthcoming event. War and Peace: Let’s Read the Novel will take place from 8-11 December 2015 as part of the Year of Literature in Russia.

The reading is scheduled to begin each day at 10am Moscow time (1pm GMT).

The event follows the great success of the previous Tolstoy online reading project in October 2014, when a mass reading of

out of use: “good”, is not khorosho but basko; “mushrooms” (gribi) are putiki.

While in splendid isolation, Agafia was always aware of another world not so far away.

She recalls seeing a satellite for the first time on a summer’s night when she was 17:“Looking up into the stars I noticed one that was moving, and thought how strange that was.”

Remote as the Sayan Mountains are, they lie under the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch path and the area is littered with space debris; a large piece of a Russian Proton rocket – an air inlet and fan – is wedged into the roots of a fallen tree on the banks of the river a few minutes walk upstream from her homestead.

That the outside world should eventually encroach on her life was inevitable. But she remains adamant that she wishes to remain living in the land of her birth. Like the fish that she says, “see everything in the forest”, Agafia is part of the taiga.

Anna Karenina, took place at the initiative of Google and the Yasnaya Polyana Leo Tolstoy Museum Estate.

Enjoyed by viewers from more than 106 countries, that literary extravaganza entered Guinness World Records under the category of “Largest audience for a live-streamed reading marathon”.

Fekla Tolstaya, one of the project’s organisers and the great, great granddaughter of the legendary Russian writer, says: “The readings will take place in various parts of Russia and abroad: on a nuclear icebreaker, at Lake Baikal, and in an orbital space station…”

War and Peace is one of Russia’s best known classic novels, and one that ranks among the most intimidating books, if for no other reason than it weighs in at a massive 1,300 pages of prose, densely packed with dozens of characters.

Epic in scale and execution, War and Peace has been adapted for the big screen and television many times, most famously in Sergei Bondarchuk’s Oscar-winning film of 1966. The latest BBC adaptation is due to be screened next year, 44 years after its first dramatisation in 1972.

Would-be readers need to register on voinaimir.com before 15 November 2015, providing a video sample. A jury will then select 1,300 readers to read to camera.

E N .T R AV E L 2 M O S C O W. C O M

Trinity Lavra of St Sergius, Sergiev Posad

The Kremlin and Red Square Russia’s most famous address does not disappoint, with its majestic gates, towering domes, ornate symbols and fabled clocktower. The centre of Russian power from the 13th century until the founding of St Petersburg in the early 1700s, the Kremlin was a major religious centre and the residence of Russia’s Grand

Princes. St Basil’s Cathedral is perhaps Russia’s most recognisable symbol, with its swirling onion domes reaching into the sky. Red Square is considered to be Moscow’s main square as all of the city’s old major roads originate here.

Located not far from Moscow, Sergiev Posad is famous for the Trinity monastery founded in the 14th century by the monk Sergius of Radonezh. Prince Dmitry of Don came to this monastery before the Battle of Kulikovo to seek God’s blessing.

In 1744, the monastery was elevated to the highest rank of “Lavra”. The icon painter Andrei Rublev created many unique works within the walls of the monastery.

welcome.mos

Church of the Ascension, Kolomenskoye

Ensemble of the Novodevichy Convent

This church was built on a Tsarist estate near Moscow in 1532 (within Moscow’s borders today) to commemorate the birth of the prince who would come to be known as Ivan the Terrible. This was the first tent-roofed ecclesiastical structure in stone built in Russia and it had an enormous impact on Orthodox architecture.

Founded in the 1520s by Grand Duke Vasily III, the interior of the convent is noted for its ornate frescoes, considered among the finest in the city. There are many churches here although the fivedomed Smolensky Cathedral, built in 1524-1525, is the most famous. Today, the cemetery is the final resting place for many notable figures from Russian history, including Anton Chekhov, Sergei Eisenstein and Boris Yeltsin.

Sport P8_Tuesday 27 October 2015_www.rbth.co.uk

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FACTS ABOUT RUGBY IN RUSSIA

With the Rugby World Cup final scheduled for Saturday 31 October at Twickenham, RBTH reviews the most interesting facts about the sport in Russia

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Russian Rocket

Russia is not a frequent presence at international tournaments. However, in 2011 they made it to the Rugby World Cup – staged in New Zealand – for the first time. One of the team’s outstanding performers was wing Vasily Artemyev. Dubbed the “Russian Rocket,” Artemyev impressed as a teen for Blackrock College, Dublin, before joining Leinster Academy and playing age-grade rugby for Ireland. Artemyev was also the first Russian to break through in England: in 2011, he signed a deal with leading English club Northampton Saints.

After two years, Artemyev returned to Russia. He now heads Siberian club Krasny Yar.

Thinking big: state-of-the-art stadiums are being built for the tournament

World Cup 2018: sporting bonanza or own goal?

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Pacific power

Russian rugby teams tend to rely on local players.

However, Krasny Yar is not afraid to experiment.

After the team changed its long-term mentor in 2013, the club management brought in backline coach Siua Taumalolo from Tonga. The former international star from the exotic Pacific island country, where rugby is the national sport, brought a whole group of compatriots with him to Russia.

The athletes from Oceania were neither afraid of the cold weather nor of receiving wages in the unstable Russian currency. Because of the falling rouble, the club had been forced to part with several players from New Zealand, who were paid in euros. So, in addition to strengthening the squad, the Tongans helped the club save money.

Football Two host cities have differing visions over benefits tournament will bring ANDY POTTS SPECIAL TO RBTH

It could be a marketing exec’s dream: hundreds of thousands of visiting football fans, a TV audience of billions, all focused on enjoying themselves against a Russian backdrop. But will that dream come true? Two cities, Kazan and Kaliningrad, sum up the differences in opinion about whether 2018 Fifa World Cup Russia will be a triumph or a disappointment.

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Siberian stranglehold

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million – estimated number of visitors.

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Russian cities will host the tournament.

The Barcelona approach

Krasnoyarsk is the main city of Russian rugby.

However, rugby cannot claim to be the number one sport anywhere else. Teams from different banks of the city’s Yenisey River regularly vie for ascendancy in the top competitions. Indeed, Krasny Yar and Yenisey-STM are two of only three teams to have claimed the title in the Superleague/Professional Rugby League era; the third is VVA-Podmoskovye Monino, based just outside Moscow.

Krasny Yar is Russia’s most successful rugby club; this year, the team is locked in battle at the top of the table with neighbours Yenisey-STM.

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Empty endeavour

In June 2013, Moscow hosted the Rugby World Cup Sevens. However, Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium – which will host the final of the football World Cup in 2018 – was virtually empty, even for the decisive games. Whereas stadiums across England and Wales hosting the current Rugby World Cup 2015 fixtures have been jam-packed, Russians (who are somewhat distanced from the international game) displayed not the slightest interest.

There was, however, much to digest. Although Russia were unable to move beyond their group, they did eventually defeat Japan in the Bowl final (a consolation prize for taking 17th place).

The Russian women also pleased fans in the group stage with their sparkling victory over England, which could be called, without exaggeration, historic.

Predictably, the final battle ended in victory for the favourites, with both New Zealand’s men and women confirming their class. To the surprise of the winners, perhaps, those victories were witnessed by only a couple of thousand people, lost in the giant 90,000-seat stadium.

In Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan and host for group-stage games and a quarter-final, big sporting events are helping to transform the city’s economy and its reputation in Russia and beyond. Encouraged by the success of the city’s ice hockey, football, volleyball and basketball teams, Kazan has enormous big-match experience – and is thirsting for more. Hosting Universiade in 2013 and last summer’s Fina World Aquatic Championships has transformed the city’s visitor infrastructure and sent out a message to the wider world that Kazan is open for business. Mayor Ilsur Metshin likes to compare the impact with the post-Olympic renaissance of Barcelona.

“In the last two years we’ve opened 88 new hotels,”the mayor said during the Fina Championships. “They have well-trained staff and they are running at 90-95pc capacity. The growth is like Barcelona’s: before the OlymMULTIMEDIA pics in 1992 there were about one million tourists a year, but now it’s 12 million.”

Kazan’s numbers aren’t quite so impressive, but the trend is encouraging. The city now has 156 hotels and Mr Metshin said that Kazan would welcome two million guests in 2015 – a big rise from 460,000 when he took office in 2006. Speculating on sport has brought financial rewards as well, with Mr Metshin adamant that this summer’s grand festival of water Scan here to read sports more than recouped its 3.5 billion roumore about Russia’s ble (£37m) budget. preparations for the Selling 350,000 tickets and attracting around Fifa World Cup in 2018 120,000 visitors to the city – including more than 3,000 members of international delegations – also got the thumbs-up from retailers, with cafés, bars and restaurants estimating a 30-40pc increase in business. Sergei Koshkin, manager of the Kofein coffee bar on Kazan’s FIND MORE rbth.co.uk/2018_world_cup busy Bauman Street, reckons that about 40pc

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© ALEXANDR VILF / RIA NOVOSTI

Rugby might have been as popular as football in Russia, were it not for Stalin. In 1949, at the height of the campaign against cosmopolitanism, the sport was labelled as being inconsistent with the moral foundations of the Soviet man. The National Championship was closed down at the stroke of a pen, even though football and rugby had developed in parallel in the Soviet Union since the Thirties. Indeed, grassroots sports clubs, including Dynamo and CSKA, had had their own rugby teams, and renowned rugby expert Jean Nau had been brought in from France to train local coaches.

Rugby was not restored until 1957 when, during the World Festival of Youth and Students, Moscow held a tournament for the masters of the oval ball.

However, the moment had passed and rugby failed to become a national sport in Russia.

© KONSTANTIN CHALABOV / RIA NOVOSTI

Forbidden fruit

Eyes on the prize: the 2018 Fifa World Cup logo

of his customers during the championships were foreigners – and he is hoping for a similar upswing in 2018 and during the 2017 Confederations Cup, which is a warm-up event for the World Cup itself.

Mr Metshin believes that sport is putting Kazan on the international map. “During the World Championships I had calls from Singapore, Australia, France, the USA, South Africa and Brazil to congratulate us on how well we hosted them,” he added. “It’s a great way of showing that Russia is more than just Moscow and St Petersburg. People can see that Kazan is our nation’s third capital.”

Baltic uncertainty Kaliningrad, Russia’s westernmost point, will play its part in welcoming the world to Russia in 2018 – but, unlike Kazan, has some way to go to convince everybody that the efforts are worthwhile. The city’s close historic ties to Germany and central Europe should make it a natural fit for a major international tournament.

Yet progress on building a World Cup arena is slow and local attitudes dominated by cautious scepticism. In a region where 90pc of visitors come from elsewhere in Russia, staff in local bars and hotels treat the prospect of a World Cup bonanza with a fatalistic shrug.

Plans for a new stadium have also run into difficulties. Last month, 500 people gathered

to protest against compulsory purchase orders affecting the site of the new stadium on Oktyabrsky (October) Island. In particular, local people are angry about the proposed future use of the city centre site, which is currently home to the Baltic-Expo complex.

Pyotr Gritsenko, the chief executive of the exhibition centre, told Radio Liberty that far from meeting the needs of staging the World Cup, much of the new building looks like sixstorey houses. He accuses the authorities of “lies and outright fraud”.

Work has barely started on Kaliningrad’s new stadium, with the first stones laid as recently as 17 September. Even then, there was still no formal contract in place to build the arena; at the start of October, Aras Agalarov’s Crocus Group was seeking guarantees that the project cost would not exceed 17.5 billion roubles (£184m). Plans have also been scaled back: the initial 40,000-seater venue will now house 35,000 for the World Cup, with 10,000 of those seats removed after the competition. Even so, the proposals are set to run over budget, according to Russia’s sports ministerVitaly Mutko, although he’s confident the venue will be ready in time for its November 2017 opening.

Mixed messages Regional governor Nikolai Tsukanov has spoken warmly of the benefits for contractors in Kaliningrad. At a ceremony to mark the start of building work, he praised the quality of the locally sourced concrete piles. Yet Mr Tsukanov has not always been eager to promote football in his city. In 2013, with the local Baltika team pushing for promotion to the Russian Premier League, he found himself embroiled in scandal. According to local Novosti Kaliningrada news portal, Mr Tsukanov said he had asked the team to avoid promotion from the second tier because“we don’t have enough money to support Premier League football”.

Baltika duly suffered a loss of form, failing to win in the closing games of the season and missing out on a play-off place.

Refurbished airport Kazan and Kaliningrad are not the only cities to get a new look as the World Cup approaches. St Petersburg has a modern, refurbished airport and work is under way on a new 60,000seat football stadium. Sochi’s Olympic regeneration continues, with the Black Sea restort establishing itself on the F1 Grand Prix circuit. The challenge now is to ensure sporting benefits are shared more widely among other cities in Russia.

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