The Real Russia. Today. Episode three of HBO's ‘Chernobyl’ miniseries, Vinokurova explains her turn to ‘Russia Today,’ and another suspected Putin mansion turns up

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

This day in history: 47 years ago, on May 22, 1972, Richard Nixon traveled to the USSR to sign multiple arms control agreements, becoming the first U.S. president to visit Moscow.

‘Chernobyl’: Episode 3 ☢️

On May 21, the American premium cable network HBO aired the third episode of “Chernobyl,” a new miniseries about the catastrophic nuclear accident in April 1986 that rocked the Soviet Union. After two episodes, with the initial fire extinguished and early panic beginning to subside, the focus shifts to questions about why the reactor exploded and who was responsible for the disaster. Meduza shares its thoughts about the show’s latest installment, “Open Wide, O Earth,” and looks at some of the showrunners’ editing decisions.

Read Meduza's review: “He’s not a man anymore, but a reactor”

Interview: ‘I try to live as though there are no walls’ 📰

The independent media journalist and protest organizer Ekaterina Vinokurova began working for the state media channel RT (formerly called Russia Today) in the spring of 2019. She now leads a project “The Regions,” which aims to increase RT’s influence among Russian viewers. In an interview with Meduza special correspondent Ilya Zhegulev, Vinokurova explained why she joined a state-run channel and how opposition politician Alexey Navalny affected that choice. This interview was recorded while Vinokurova was in Russia’s Ural region covering protests in Yekaterinburg.

Read Meduza's interview: “Former protest organizer and independent journalist Ekaterina Vinokurova explains why she took a job at Russia Today”

Children, beware! 🎵

On May 21, Moscow’s Labor and Social Welfare Department sent a memo to various district governments and social welfare agencies recommending that they warn adoptive parents and guardians about the dangers of listening to the teen pop duo Friendzone. The memo followed Moscow ombudswoman Tatiana Potyaeva’s decision to take her concerns about the group to prosecutors and police. Potyaeva told Meduza that she only asked for an expert evaluation of the group’s music. Russia’s communications regulation agency, Roskomnadzor, already investigated Friendzone’s lyrics this year and found no potentially harmful material. Despite its charming high school vibe, Friendzone has faced resistance since November, when complaints from parents’ groups and local authorities shut down two of the group’s concerts.

Read Meduza's story: “The Moscow government sent out warnings that a popular teen band might be dangerous for kids. Even the censors say otherwise.”

Another suspected Putin mansion 💰

Companies tied to two close friends of Vladimir Putin — Mikhail Kovalchuk and Gennady Timchenko — own a large plot of land in a prestigious residential area in Moscow’s western suburbs that’s guarded by the Federal Protective Service (FSO), according to a new investigative report by the website Proekt.

Read Meduza's summary: “Russian investigative journalists find a $36-million mansion outside Moscow that’s guarded by Putin’s secret service and owned by firms tied to his rich friends”

Opinion: Russia's regional protesters feel humiliated ✊

In an article for the Carnegie Moscow Center, journalist Andrey Pertsev says recent protests in Yekaterinburg, Arkhangelsk, and Ingushetia represent a trend in Russia where public perceptions of humiliation mobilize mass discontent for unpermitted rallies. In other words, Pertsev challenges the idea that apolitical, immediate concerns are what drive these demonstrations.

Yes, in Yekaterinburg people defended a public park, yes in Arkhangelsk locals protested a landfill, and yes in Ingushetia people opposed revisions to the republic’s boundaries, but Pertsev says the real nature of these problems is too “ill-defined and unobvious” to justify the public reactions, unless these grievances are understood as “symbolic things.” For example, Arkhangelsk’s controversial landfill is actually more than 60 miles from the city's center, meaning that locals won’t be choking on pollution like the people living outside Moscow in Yadrovo. In Yekaterinburg, Pertsev acknowledges that there are few public spaces, but he says October Square Park (the cathedral’s would-be construction site) was apparently mostly empty, until demonstrators decided to defend it. And the problem in Ingushetia, Pertsev argues, approaches “pure symbolism,” insofar as nobody lives in the redrawn territory.

Pertsev thinks perceived humiliation is the proximate cause in these three protest movements (for example, the important thing about the landfill outside Arkhangelsk is that it was being built for garbage from Moscow). He says this awakens dormant grievances about regional communities’ lack of influence on national decision-makers in matters that are overtly political, whether it’s raising the retirement age or fighting inflation. Pertsev thinks symbolic issues act as a tipping point, uniting different social groups, professional classes, and generations that are otherwise divided by their own unique grievances.

Demonstrators have tried to remain ostensibly apolitical, Pertsev says, but their demands are inherently political, the ultimate causes for their mobilization are political, and many of the slogans and signs at their rallies have also become openly political, particularly when it comes to demanding the resignations of regional officials (who are increasingly seen as outsiders sent by the capital to drain their resources). The Kremlin is clearly worried, Pertsev argues, which is why Putin has regularly intervened, often throwing his local envoys under the bus. But the federal authorities are only addressing the formal reasons for these protests, ignoring the underlying reasons for the unrest. This could spell trouble, Pertsev says.

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