Article on Russia in The New Yorker

[Sergey Glebov]

Dear Alina,

May be there are seccessionist aspirations in Yakutia but it's really not
something that is high on the agenda. Much of it has recently been propped
up by Kremlin in an attempt to secure control of the diamonds industry in
Sakha (regum played a role). If a demonstration of 15 people can qualify as
a sign of separatism, than the author is right.  Separatism in Mari El
strikes me as utterly exotic...  
The author of the article believes that Siberia and Yakutia are different
and comparable regions, whereas the second is part of the first (as long as
an ethnoteritorial unit can be part of a vague geographical category).
Besides, "Siberia" apart from Yakutia has no diamonds whatsoever, whereas
hardly any oil is extracted in Yakutia (as yet). 
But there are more dubious or unsubstantiated statements in that article. In
the case of Kozlov's murder, for example, arrests have been made. 
I feel uncomfortable defending Putin's junta but this is really bad
journalism, bombastic and manipulative. It's so easy to catch it on a
half-truth..  

Sergey
 

(On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:14:18 -0500, Alina Israeli <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU> wrote:

>On Jan 31, 2007, at 4:53 PM, Sergey Glebov wrote:
>
>> Wouldn't that sentence suffice as evidence of the author's expertise:
>>
>> "Leaders of several Russian regions, including Siberia and Yakutia- 
>> both with
>> vast reserves of diamonds, oil, and gold beneath their frozen  
>> ground-began
>> to speak openly of seceding..."
>
>Mari El's secession aspirations: http://www.regnum.ru/news/620277.html
>
>Tatarstan's aspirations: http://pfo.metod.ru/data/territories/ 
>tatarstan/issues/politic-1-elect-elect/viewpub
>
>Yakutija: 61% населения хотел бы для Якутии  
>особого статуса в составе Российской  
>Федерации, что фактически означает,  
>что республика находится в шаге от  
>объявлении о референдуме. http:// 
>www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2006/68/12.html
>
>Siberia: http://72.14.209.104/search? 
>q=cache:vb3VwksIPBEJ:www.sapa.sib.ru/kafedra/Polit/st1_may.doc 
>+Сибирь+%22отделение+от+России% 
>22&hl=ru&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4
>
>The latter is not strong, but they do toy with the idea.  I  
>personally think that Kalinigradskaya oblast' and Xabarovskij kraj  
>are closer to secession.
>
>
====

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------