The Real Russia. Today. Another woman joins Russia's presidential race; a schoolteacher gives her students an important constitutional lesson; and another independent journalist flees for her life

Monday, October 30, 2017

• Another woman joins Russia's presidential race
• Ksenia Sobchak's chief political expert explains why Putin isn't the real problem
• A schoolteacher tells her students to stop protesting rising transit costs
• A young Russian girl dies while modeling in Shanghai
• Russia considers another Syrian withdrawal
• A mayor in the Kaliningrad Oblast resigns in embarrassment
• A controversial film fails to top Russia's weekend box office
• Thousands line up in Moscow to remember USSR terror victims
• Forbes Russia might have a new buyer
• A journalist fails to save Telegram with a lawsuit
• Another independent reporter flees Russia for her life

Story of the day: Ksenia Sobchak ain't the only woman running for president 🙋

A couple of weeks after television host Ksenia Sobchak declared her intention to run for president next year, another journalist has announced her plans to seek Russia’s highest office. A reporter, a public figure, and a singer-songwriter, Ekaterina Gordon said in a video posted on her website gordonzabab.ru (“Gordon For Gals”) that she “will probably be the only candidate who disagrees with the Presidential Administration.”

• Gordon says she’s worked as a journalist for the past decade, and founded an organization that has defended the rights of women and children for the past five years. She says she plans to make the protection of women and children the center of her presidential campaign. “I want to become the voice of women, whose rights are trampled,” Gordon says in her video.
• On October 18, Ksenia Sobchak launched her presidential campaign. The newspaper Vedomosti first wrote about her likely candidacy in September, saying that the Kremlin facilitated Sobchak’s presidential run in order to create a “sparring partner” for Vladimir Putin, who still hasn’t formally announced that he will seek another term in office.

Meanwhile, Sobchak's campaign says Russia's problem is Russians, not Putin 😐

Stanislav Belkovsky, the chief political expert for Ksenia Sobchak’s presidential campaign, said in a recent interview that his candidate won’t purposefully criticize Russia’s acting head of state, Vladimir Putin. In Belkovsky’s opinion, this strategy will “de-Putinize” the minds of voters and raise the “moral quality” of Sobchak’s candidacy. Sobchak herself has stated previously that she is running for office, first and foremost, as a candidate “against all.”

Another schoolteacher tries to steer her rebellious teens from revolutionary road ✊

A high school teacher in a town outside Nizhny Novgorod has been caught on video telling her 11th graders to leave a Vkontakte group dedicated to protesting rising public transportation costs, and abandon the movement altogether. In a video published on YouTube, the teacher warns her student that they’re “subscribing to revolutionary actions,” explaining that the community is being monitored by federal agents. When the students say they are only exercising their constitutional rights, the teacher answers, “Yeah well there’s a lot written in the Constitution.”

• Members of the Vkontakte community “Dzerzhinsk Against Rising Costs on Transit” say they’re facing pressure from school administrators, including sudden parent-teacher conferences. Students say they’re being threatened with misdemeanor offenses for reposting information about protests planned by the group, and ordered to unsubscribe.
• Transit fees in Dzerzhinsk recently rose by almost 40 percent (reaching 25 rubles, $0.43, for a single ticket). The cost of riding the city bus is expected to rise, beginning on November 1.

A teenage death in Shanghai 🇷🇺🇨🇳

A 14-year-old Russian model from Perm has died in Shanghai from multiple organ failure caused by sepsis and an infection of her central nervous system, according to the news agency RIA Novosti. The girl was reportedly subjected to inhumane working conditions at Shanghai fashion shows. Representatives of the Chinese modeling agency Esee told Russian reporters that the girl had no medical insurance, arguing a Russian agency should have provided her with a policy. Esee says it paid the girl’s $800 medical bill, after she was hospitalized. The director of a Perm modeling agency that worked with the victim says the girl’s death is believed to be the result of meningitis.

• Russian investigators have opened a preliminary review of the death.

Russia considers drawing down in Syria, again 🇷🇺🇸🇾

Two military and diplomatic sources told the newspaper Kommersant that Russia is considering the possibility of reducing its armed contingent and weapons supply in Syria. According to the rumored plan, Russia would withdraw some of its hardware from the Khmeimim airbase, leaving in place sufficient forces to defend Russian military installations at Khmeimim and in Tartus. Russian defense officials say the Syrian government now controls roughly 95 percent of the country and argue that the Assad regime no longer needs such large-scale Russian military support.

• Moscow’s special military operation in Syria began in September 2015. Officially, the intervention is to assist the government in its fight against ISIS terrorists. Western politicians and observers, however, say Russia is in fact helping the Assad regime against all opponents, including the so-called “moderate opposition.”
• Vladimir Putin has already announced Russian troop reductions and military hardware withdrawals in Syria twice before: first in March 2016, and then again in December 2016.
• According to official data, 38 Russian soldiers have died fighting in Syria. Reuters reports that more than 130 Russian citizens have perished in the conflict. These men were reportedly mercenaries fighting for private military companies.

National Lampoon's Svetlogorsk Mayor 🍻

Kaliningrad Governor Anton Alikhanov announced on Sunday that Svetlogorsk Mayor Alexander Kovalsky is stepping down from his post, after claiming that someone shot him in the stomach. Kovalsky strangely declined to file a police report, and local reporters say he actually injured himself at home while drunk. The local branch of Vesti published a photograph allegedly showing Kovalsky’s injury, which is clearly not a gunshot wound.

Christian terrorism wasn't enough hype to beat Disney at the box office 🎬

Despite all the controversy surrounding its release, the historical drama film “Matilda” failed to top the box office on its opening weekend, coming in second to the Disney-produced fantasy motion picture “The Last Warrior” (Poslednii Bogatyr). Alexey Uchitel’s movie about future Tsar Nicholas II and ballerina Matilda Kschessinska has earned an estimated 201.4 million rubles ($3.5 million) since premiering. The Disney film, meanwhile, brought in 416.8 million rubles ($7.2 million).

• In the months leading up to the release of “Matilda,” conservative Russian Orthodox Christian groups protested the film (sometimes with violent threats), arguing that it constitutes sacrilege against the memory of Nicholas II, whom the Moscow Patriarchate canonized in August 2000.

Thousands line up in Moscow to remember the USSR's Terror victims ⚱️

At this Sunday’s annual “Return of Names” demonstration in Moscow, more than 5,000 people came to hear others recite the names of victims killed in the Soviet Terror. The 12-hour event has occurred every year since 2007. Of the total crowd, only about 1,200 people managed to reach the microphone, where they could read the names of up to three loved ones.

New interest in buying Forbes Russia 🗞

The businessman Sergey Rodionov and a former top manager at his publishing house, Vladimir Pomukchinsky, have reportedly approached Alexander Fedotov with a proposal to buy his media holding company, ACMG, which includes the Russian version of Forbes magazine. Rodionov, who currently lives in Luxembourg, says he would allocate his shares to business partners living in Russia, if the Forbes deal goes through, in order to comply with a Russian law enacted in 2014 that limits foreign ownership of mass media enterprises to 20 percent.

A Russian judge says, yeah, the FSB can ask for Telegram's encryption keys ⚖️

A Moscow court has rejected a lawsuit by journalist Alexander Plushev, who challenged the legality of demands by the Russian Federal Security Service and Roskomnadzor that instant messengers surrender encryption keys used in private correspondence. The judge reportedly found that the government’s demands do not infringe on Plushev’s civil rights.

• On October 25, Russian journalists Oleg Kashin and Alexander Plushev filed a lawsuit against the Federal Security Service’s demands that instant messengers surrender to the government the encryption keys for users’ private correspondence, arguing that it violates their right to confidential communications with sources.
• Surrendering encryption keys is part of controversial “anti-terrorist” laws passed last year. According to the legislation, which was signed by Vladimir Putin, all Internet and data service providers will be required to store archives of user correspondence for six months, beginning in 2018.

Another Russian journalist flees the country for her life 🛫

Last Friday, Ekho Moskvy chief editor Alexey Venediktov announced that one of the radio station’s anchors, Ksenia Larina, will leave Russia for at least six months, because of security concerns. Venediktov revealed the news on Dozhd television, explaining that Larina will continue some of her broadcasts remotely.

• Venediktov said Ekho needs to “evacuate” Larina because of comments made by pro-Kremlin pundit Vladimir Solovyov on Vesti FM, a day after a nearly fatal assault on journalist Tatyana Felgenhauer. Venediktov warns that “the next blow from a knife to someone’s throat could come after Solovyov’s show, and he would be the instigator.”
• On October 23, an apparently mentally ill man forced his way into the Ekho Moskvy radio station in Moscow and stabbed deputy chief editor Tatyana Felgenhauer in the neck. Several days before the attack, the state television network Rossiya-24 aired two segments accusing Ekho Moskvy and Felgenhauer specifically of “working for the West.”