The Real Russia. Today. Explaining the Hague's Yukos decision and enduring Stuttgart

12:49 am, February 19, 2020

Source: Meduza

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

This day in history: 40 years ago, on February 18, 1980, singer, songwriter, and pianist Regina Spektor was born in Moscow to a musical Russian Jewish family. They left the USSR in 1989, when Regina was nine and a half, and moved to New York City, where she became a popular musician.

Is Russia actually going to pay $50 billion to Yukos shareholders? Is Khodorkovsky getting any money out of this?
When you put Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich together with a classic opera about medieval Russia, what do you get? We went to Germany to find out.
Russian Facebook and Instagram users keep seeing their beloved celebrities and trusted journalists in fake ads that try to steal their money
Moscow officials reject allegations by cemetery workers of extortion and corruption against municipal funeral enterprise
News briefs: hydrocarbons addiction, unwellbutrin, canceled fines, Surkov out, and banned China

The Hague’s reinstated Yukos decision, explained ⚖️

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled in July of 2014 that the Russian government essentially expropriated the oil company Yukos. That decision has just been reinstated. The ruling addresses an exchange that took place in 2004, when the government sold most of the company at auction for artificially low prices after allegedly facilitating the accumulation of tax debts. The court decided that the government’s actions merited more than $50 billion in compensation to Yukos shareholders. In 2016, that payment order was overturned by the Hague District Court, but it has now been reinstated at the appellate level.

Which shareholders is Russia supposed to pay? Khodorkovsky?
Why did the court overturn the earlier decision in Russia’s favor?
Why is the case being heard in the Hague?
Does Russia even have $50 billion?
So is Russia going to pay up?
If Russia loses and refuses to pay, will the Yukos shareholders be left empty-handed?

Modern meets medieval 🎭

Mattias Baus / Staatsoper Stuttgart

The Staatsoper Stuttgart (Stuttgart State Opera) recently premiered one of this season’s most unexpected works. It’s a hybrid called Boris in which characters from the 19th-century operatic classic Boris Godunov declaim monologues from Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich’s post-Soviet oral history Secondhand Time. Underneath their voices, Modest Mussorgsky’s original Pushkin-inspired score clashes with contemporary chords by Sergej Newski. We asked opera critic Alexey Munipov to watch this chimera and describe what he saw and heard in Stuttgart.

Drowning in scams 💸

Russian Facebook and Instagram users recently started seeing scam advertisements that were made to look like they came from journalist and popular YouTuber Yuri Dud. For example, some video ads from an account called “Yuriy Dud” promoted a contest to win 2 million rubles ($31,480). The content was created by splicing together footage from Dud’s official YouTube channel to create the impression that he was organizing the competition himself.

No complaining! ⚰️

More than 30 staff at Moscow’s Nikolo-Arkhangelskoye Cemetery say they’ve faced extortion, intolerable working conditions, and illegal money schemes by their employer, according to a new report by Open Media. The workers stated these allegations in two appeals last December to Artyom Ekimov, the director of the municipal funeral enterprise “Ritual,” and Alexey Nemeryuk, the head of Moscow’s Trade and Services Department.

In their complaints, the cemetery employees cited abuses by the head of Ritual’s branch in Moscow’s Eastern District, Roman Molotkov (who was named in Ivan Golunov’s investigative report “Bad Company: How Businessmen From Southern Russia Seized Control of Moscow’s Funeral Industry, and Who Helped Them Do It”). Workers say the management in the Eastern District branch needs to be replaced.

News briefs

Yours, Meduza

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