Russia disregards old communist holidays and institutes new ones

pravda.ru
11/04/2005 15:03
Translated by: Dmitry Sudakov

The communist coup of November 7 is forgotten; now Russians celebrate the National Unity Day

Russia celebrates the National Unity Day on November 4. Practically all Russian people have a three-day weekend now: November 4, 5, and 6. Making a speech at the official State Awards ceremony in the Kremlin last week, President Putin stated that the roots of the People's Unity Day go back to the glorious and heroic events of the year 1612. Red Square

"People of different religions, nationalities and classes united to save the Fatherland and defend the Russian state. It was the genuine national unity for the sake of our country's future," President Putin said.

Russian political parties and public movements will be holding various events in Russia nationwide today to celebrate the festive date. Patriarch of Moscow and All-Russia Alexey II will head the people's meeting in the city of Nizhni Novgorod. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church will consecrate the recreated temple in the city and take part in the divine service there.

Russian politicians differ in their attitudes to the new holiday. Some say that it is a far-fetched celebration, communists do not recognize the date at all, whereas the pro-Kremlin United Russia party call it "the symbol of independence and state organization."

"This date is the symbol of historical wisdom of the Russian nation, which managed to take the country out of chaos and war. It is the symbol of Russia's vitality and the colossal internal integrity of the country, which was subsequently proved with the country's further development," the vice-speaker of the State Duma, Vladimir Pekhtin said.

About 5,000 people are expected to participate in meetings and demonstrations to celebrate the National Unity Day in Moscow. Two thousand police officers and military men will guarantee law and order in the center of Moscow on November 4 during the celebrations.

Twenty-two percent of Russians approve the government's decision to celebrate the National Unity Day on November 4 and make the day of November 7 a common working day. November 7 used to be celebrated in the USSR and Russia as the Day of the Great October Revolution. In 1997 the day was renamed into the Day of Reconciliation and Consent, but it eventually lost the status of the official holiday in 2005. However, it still remains an important day for many Russians, although 47 percent of respondents disregard the old holiday, recent opinion polls said.

The New Year's Day and the Victory Day are the two official state holidays in Russia, which enjoy the greatest popularity with the majority of Russians. The official holidays of the new political era in Russia, Russia's Day and National Unity Day, are perceived as less important holidays, polls said. About 80.5 percent of the polled said that they were going to spend the day of November 4 as a common day off, whereas 14 percent said that they were going to participate in formal and informal undertakings devoted to the new holiday.

The director of the Institute of Political Research, Sergei Makarov, believes that the National Unity Day, like any other new holiday, is not likely to take roots in the Russian society. "The thing is that no one really knows what happened on November 4, 1612. On the other hand, there is nothing else to celebrate today, because people think that life is bad now," Makarov told Interfax. "The people do not want any new holidays from the Russian administration, which they still associate with Putin, Yeltsin and Gorbachev. However, it is easy to guess what the government wanted to do with this new holiday. They wanted to push aside the communist and revolutionary holidays of November 7, because it is already impossible to celebrate the communist coup. On the other hand, the government is searching for new symbols of the state organization in Russia," the scientist of politics said.

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pravda.ru
Former Soviet Union republics owe $2 trillion to Russia
11/07/2005 17:43

Where would all those countries be without the "Soviet occupation?" Obviously nowhere

Several republics of the former Soviet Union calculate the damage, which they suffered from the so-called "Soviet occupation." Deputies of the Russian Federation parliament asked specialists of the Auditing Chamber to give their financial estimations of to how much money Russia could claim from the members of the former USSR in return. Vladimir Putin

State Duma deputy, Viktor Alksnis, said that auditors could receive the information regarding the share of the three Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) in the foreign debt of the USSR - $3.06 billion. The property of the Soviet Army, which was left in those countries, is evaluated in the sum of 32.2 billion rubles (according to the price level of 1991). In addition, Russia had to spend five billion rubles more on the deployment of military units which had been withdrawn from the above-mentioned states. It is worthy of note that the cost of the Russian ruble was equal to the cost of the US dollar in 1991.

Russia used to be the object of rapacious and cynical exploitation during the Soviet era. Seventy-five percent of the USSR's budget was made of assignments from the Russian Federation. The money was used for the development of economic systems of the Caucasus, Asia and the Baltic region.

The Baltic countries always took top positions of the list of Soviet investments. The government of the USSR used to invest billions of rubles in their economies: their debt to Russia was thus evaluated at $220 billion. The Soviet Union wanted to organize unique, elite and high-tech productions on their territories. The nuclear power plant, which was built in Lithuania at the expense of the USSR, still guarantees 60 percent of this country's demand in electric power. The ferry-boat communication with the German Democratic Republic cost some $3 billion; the airbase, which currently stations NATO bomber planes, cost one billion dollars.

About 28.3 billion rubles were invested in the economy of Georgia from 1935 to 1975. The cash flow was not interrupted in the republic even during the wartime years. According to official statistics of that period, the Georgian tea industry was manufacturing 82,5 thousand tons of tea a year in 1975 (the tea was consumed all across the USSR).

The republic of Armenia, which currently experiences serious problems with electric power supplies, left Italy behind in 1975 on the electric power production per capita. No wonder that electricity vanished in Armenia afterwards: there are hardly any mineral resources in the country.

A mammoth earthquake leveled Tashkent, the capital of the Uzbekistan republic, in 1966. A beautiful city appeared on the ruins of a sadly-looking town several years later: Russia recreated 664.8 thousand square meters of its territory.

The city of Baku, the capital of the Azerbaijan republic, used to be a fortress until a Russian merchant launched the development of the oil industry in the country.

Where would all those countries be without the "Soviet occupation?" Where did the industrial system of the Caucasus go after the collapse of the Soviet Union? They successfully destroyed the infrastructure that they inherited from the erstwhile superpower. To crown it all, the citizens of those republics still prefer to leave their homes and travel to the Russian Federation where they can earn some money.

Furthermore, Russia still has special prices for the former Soviet republics to purchase electric power, oil and gas. On the other hand, as soon as the Baltic states became EU members, they told Russia to buy their goods at standard European prices, in which discounts were excluded. According to expert estimates, up to 40 percent of the Latvian budget is formed with the help of Russian freight transits.

The USSR used to be formed around Russia. Russia did not occupy the neighbouring republics. Russia today is a piece of the Soviet Union, like any other republic, which used to be connected with it in the past. One may say that Russia did not have its present before the collapse of the USSR: there was no Russian Academy of Sciences, no institutes of Russian traditions, history and language, etc. There were not enough teachers in small Russian towns, because there was a strong lack of teachers in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, etc.

If all democratic countries, which used to be included in the structure of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, were asked to pay their debts to Russia, if one could expand it with the debt amounts, which Russia pays for them now to foreign creditors, they would have to return more than two trillion dollars.

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