A New Catherdral in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk

[This blog was written in May 2015]

I slept badly.  It wasn't for the lack of practice but rather the jet lag.  Last time I was so far East, it was easier because the journey had been broken up: a couple of unexpected nights in Singapore and two more in Australia before hitting the well sites in deepest outback of Moomba.

This time though I was in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk ahead of another adventure - at least that's how I like to think about work when this far from home.  It's an nine-hour time difference and I travelled here in twenty five hours.  My body is out of sync.  The day-long safety induction (all in Russian) was nearly the death of me.  I'm not smart - I understood that tea, coffee and sandwiches would be on offer for the half-hour break for lunch.  The important stuff.  The rest went over my head: or would have if the slides had not been mostly straight interpretations from many in English I had already seen.  The guys who needed to see me the following day however, took mercy and decided a day of adjustment was in order.  Further meetings have been put back until the weekend.

So what does one do in a strange city on a day off?  The answer is obvious to any Brit: go for a walk.  On the way to the rather nice resort hotel on the edge of town where the safety meeting was held, I noticed a church, or rather a cathedral, under construction.  This is not an everyday event in the UK: after replacing and repairing several from bomb-damage in the 20th Century, our own church-building programme has hit a rather fallow patch.  So remembering the rough directions, I set off.

The first thing that struck me about Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is how Russian it is.  This may be a counterintuitive thing to state but think on it.  It is 6600km (4100 miles) from St. Petersburg but still in the same country.  If that is not amazing enough for you, the distance between New York and Los Angeles is a mere 3900km.  This is not even the end of Russia here: it goes further through another four time zones to the Bering Straits, where even Americans like Sarah Palin has heard of it.

For me to state therefore how Russian the place is is, to my mind is remarkable.  The faces on the street are a mix of Caucasian, Asiatic and Turkic, but the majority are white Russians.  Only a few times did I see faces that could hint at Japanese or Korean heritage.

The city itself feels like it is on the up.  In Spring, all Russian (and former Soviet Union) cities I have been to are dusty and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is no exception.  Plumes where sent up into my face when a large four-by-four pulled in to park.  As one would expect, most of the vehicles are Japanese brands.  It stuck me one evening that in most of the cars approaching, the drivers were close to me as I walked along.  Then it struck me: not only are the cars made in Japan, most of them are actually with the steering wheel on the right, and made for the Japanese market!  I can only imagine that it works out cheaper to buy a second-hand Japanese import than one made for the majority of the world's markets for driving on the right.
On the whole, the main street are clean, the pavements reasonable and the apartment blocks well maintained, even the Soviet-era buildings.  Poor roads and frost-damaged pavements seemed reserved for the residential zones.

This city is not so far from major geological subduction zones and earthquakes as strong as an eight on the Richter scale have been know.  Unlike Yerevan, which still showed the scars of major quakes when I visited in the late 1990s, I didn't see any such signs here.  Instead there are new blocks and still more going up.  All good, so I was keen to see the new cathedral.

At first it was as I remembered from yesterday.  It is not every day one sees the typical Russian onion dome cupolas sitting on the ground waiting to be lifted into place.

Then next door I noticed the field guns.  What?  Artillery? This was not going to be as straightforward as I though.

 As it transpired, the cathedral is only part of the story.  The whole complex is forming a brand new religious / memorial centre dedicated, as far as I can tell, to the seventieth anniversary to the end of what the Russians call The Great Patriotic War.  World War Two to the rest of us.

The suffering and sacrifice of the Soviet people are constantly glossed over in the West.  As far as British and American public are mainly concerned, the liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany started on the Sixth on June, 1944.  No so.  By that time the Russians had undergo three years of invasion and constant warfare on their own soil, had won the battle of Stalingrad and in the previous summer to D-Day had held the last great German offensive at Kursk.  After that the Germans had been thrown into retreat, ceding ground as in push after push and, in a story untold in the West, the Germans were steadily ground back towards their starting positions in Poland, Hungary and Romania.

Given this, I don't blame the Russian peoples for continuing to mark the anniversary of defeating the Nazis.  What I do find disturbing however, is the juxtaposition of war and church in such an obvious manner.  The cathedral is just the centrepiece of a complex where the state's victory is firmly anchored to Orthodox religion.  The irony of course is that although the church was briefly resurrected during the Great Patriotic War, it was on the whole subjected to the most horrible persecution under Communist rule.  Not any more.

Here is how the complex is expected to look:

The cathedral is to be the centre, with the war memorial on its right hand (left as we look at the picture) to have its own onion dome as a echo.  Now, I do not claim expertise but I have never seen this particular architectural feature on any Soviet war memorial.  It seems to express that while the victory was that of the people, it occurred under the sanction of God.  I wonder what the Soviet war veterans would have to say about that?

So, the question is, what does all this mean?  I have blogged previously on the rise of the Orthodox Church in Putin's Russia and it seems that the process is continuing. Putin is determined to recreate the rule of the Tsars.  Not in hereditary terms (at least as far as I am aware) but perhaps more on the model of the ruling elite, united with the full trapping of a state religion.  The model of state is not so far from that of the ancient Persians: one where regional governors (satraps) are appointed and can be replaced upon whim of the centre.  Or maybe it is not so fancy: just the nationalism of the Soviet Union, stripped of its affection of socialism, and sanctioned by God.

To me though, the thought of God glorifying any warfare, no matter how just the cause, is truly obscene.  This complex represents nothing less than Christ in the service of Caesar.

That is a part of the New Testament that I must have missed.


 


 

Boris Nemtsov Memorial, Moscow.

On our first night in Moscow we decided to have a walk and ended up, perhaps inevitably, on Red Square.  It is my first time in the city so it is always a great surprise and pleasure to find oneself in at one of the great landmarks of the world.  Make no mistake: just as with Tokyo, Paris, London and New York, Moscow is one of the world's great cities.

On the way back, I suggested that we vary the route a little, which ended up with us walking along the other side of the bridge across the Moskva River.  It is there that we came across the memorial to the murdered politician, Boris Nemtsov, a liberal who was critical of the Putin regime.  He was murdered here on 15th of February, 2015.  I was surprised on several levels: the first being how big the memorial was.  It must have stretched for a good ten-fifteen metres along the pavement, maybe more, and it consisted of many bunches of flowers, posters (all in Russian), numerous portraits and a single large Russian flag, all illuminated by small tea candles in red glass holders.  The site was obviously well-tended.

As the time I was tired, it was nearly midnight and I was suffering from a seven-hour jet lag.  Besides, I didn't have any camera with me.  "Not to worry," I thought.  "I'll get a picture tomorrow."

Tomorrow came but here is the picture.

As you can see: small in size.  No portraits.  Just a few flowers.  What had happened?

My second reaction was just how close to the centre of power the assassination took place.  That is the Kremlin the the background.  It was as if a senior British politician had been murdered on Westminster Bridge, just opposite the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.  I hesitate to draw the direct comparison any further because, frankly, in British politics one has to be nowhere near as brave as Nemtsov obviously was.

The answer to the question came in this small poster, obviously hastily drawn up.

The memorial had been attacked at three o'clock in the morning and had been removed by force.  While I was in Red Square about eleven o'clock, four hours earlier, there were still many tourists around since the night was so warm.  Doubtless our numbers would have been very low by three, and it was still before dawn.

When I passed by for the third time in the afternoon, this is the sight:

Still small, but regrowing after the night's work by the unknown assailants.

This time there was a poster in English.

One could write many moralising statements about the state of Russian politics and society.  I think the lessons are obvious and I do not need to belabour them here.

I will say though that in order to take part in politics in Britain, one doesn't have to risk one's life.  The threats to our fundamental freedoms are, in their own way, just as potent.

The murderers of Boris Nemtsov are at this time still at liberty.

The Ruble vs. The Euro: What Putin Didn't See.

In the good old days of the Soviet Union, the leadership of the Kremlin did not really have to care much about neither public opinion nor world markets.  During the 1980s, the citizens of the Soviet Europe did not even know there was a war on in Afghanistan until the dead and wounded started to return and mothers started to take to the streets to prevent their sons from being drafted.

Things have changed a great deal since then.  Take a moment to consider this:

This graph (courtesy of XE http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=EUR&view=1M) shows the fall of the Russian Ruble against the Euro since mid January. 

Here are some “highlights” of events in neighbouring Ukraine.

A.  22 January: Street protests in Kiev spread beyond the capital to other cities. 

B. 12 February: in the Russian weekly Zavtra, the Izborsk Club publish an article titled Save Ukraine! In it, the authors appeal for Russian intervention to prevent the Ukraine’s, as they put it, fascist and Nazi creeping coup”.   According to the Centre of Research on Globalization, the Izbork Club is a think tank that has gained prominence under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.  http://www.globalresearch.ca/russias-save-ukraine-memorandum-prevent-the-ukraine-from-going-fascist/5368608

C.  18 February: Night of violent riots in Kiev with deaths, as police surround Independence Square.  There are reports of police using plastic and live rounds, as well as fragmentation grenades against protesters.  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26248021

D.  21 February: EU intervention leads to a compromise agreement being reached between President Yanukovych and  demonstration leaders agreeing to early elections and the return to the 2004 constitution.  The Ukrainian Parliament passes a bill approving the release of former president Yulia Timoshenko.  

E.  22 Febuary: President Yanukovych flees the capital after being impeached by parliament.   25 Febuary sees Pro-Russian Aleksey Chaly appointed mayor of Sevastopol as pro-Russian rallies in Crimea gain strength.  Russian troops mobilise outside their barracks.

F.  2 March:  The day after the Russian Parliament approves the use of troops in the Ukraine, Russian forces take over the Crimea.

G.  5 March: US Secretary John Kerry has face-to-face talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and Ukrainian foreign minister Andriy Deshchytsia.  Talks fail as Lavrov refuses to talk with Deshchytsia.

H.     6 March onwards.  US imposes visa sanctions on selected Russian and Ukrainian officials and Russian annexation of the Crimea continues.

In the past, the Soviets controlled very effectively what their people were aware of, both in their empire and in the world beyond.  That is no longer possible.  Nor was the Ruble  a transferable currency.  It is now.

During the past week, I was listening to City Radio, Moscow.  There was a phone-in during which business people and small traders had made the link between the Ukrainian crisis and the fall of the Ruble against the Euro.  Now the drop in value may not seem much: around about ten percent.  But, as one restaurateur pointed out, he has to import seventy five percent of his ingredients.  The fall in the value of the Ruble is causing real hardship for business, some are starting to fail, and they are vocal in their complaints.   

The unwritten deal with Putin and the Russian people is that in exchange for power, he will provide economic stability.  The longer this crisis continues, one very much laid at his feet by the business owners phoning in, the more he will fail.

One also has to wonder what the reaction of the people of the Crimea will be when they convert to the Ruble (currently scheduled for April), only to find themselves instantly more poor.

Other sources:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/03/timeline-ukraine-political-crisis-201431143722854652.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_revolution

The Russian Orthodox Church - Then and Now

For the entire week, the little boy had been telling his classmates that on one evening, he was going to the taken by his family to the circus.  Come the day, he was almost beside himself with expectation of the happiness he would feel.  As the family left the house neighbours noticed that they were unusually well-dressed for the evening’s treat.  It was as if they going to the theatre and not headed for the more informal atmosphere which circus-goers usually enjoyed.

Next day his friends gathered around him.  “How was the circus?” they asked, expecting to be thrilled by the descriptions soon to come.

“I didn’t go to the circus,” mumbled the little boy in embarrassment.  “I was baptised instead.”

The above account is a true story told to me by one of the then classmates of the little boy.  It was the 1970s and the Soviet Union did not encourage religion.  Orthodox priests were few and they usually practised in secret.  The baptism would have taken place in some Leningrad apartment, as would Sunday services.  In those days it took true faith and bravery to keep alive the traditions, after the murder of so many church members in the decades before.  The buildings of the Orthodox Church had been either demolished or turned into warehouses and museums.  In short, the Church was part of the underground.

Things are different now.  After the fall of Communism, the Orthodox Church started to rebuild.  This I saw with my own eyes in the 1990s.  The people coming to priests literally knew nothing of Christian morality.  To my ears the questions asked were often child-like but those asking them were in their forties and fifties.  It was all rather disorientating. 

The Church steadily grew.  The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was rebuilt in Moscow after the original had been dynamited on Stalin’s orders.   It was at this rebuilt cathedral, now the principle church of the Russian Orthodox community, that the female punk band Pussy Riot performed an illegal concert (as reported in the Guardian) two weeks before the Russian Presidential elections which saw Putin returned to the presidency.  A “Punk Prayer” was performed whose lyrics included the repeated chant of “Virgin Mary, Mother of God, drive Putin out!”  Soon afterwards the girls were arrested and the Patriarch of the Church, Pope Kirill called for maximum sentence of seven years to be brought against the offenders.

What disturbed my Russian friends more was the reaction of most people.  It was reported in a poll that over seventy percent of Russians backed Patriarch Kirill’s call for harsh treatment.  Although now the BBC says the Church is willing to be more merciful towards two of the women who are mothers, initially the calls were made for the children to be taken into state care. 

It is reported that Patriarch Kirill is bitter about the calls for clemency made by some; believe me when I report that is as nothing to the sense of bitterness and betrayal felt now by those who risked persecution as they kept the Orthodox Church alive during the dark days of Soviet rule.  As one such person said to me “These bastards who are calling for the girls to go to jail, where were they before?” 

Members of the group Pussy Riot go on trial on April 24^th and are remanded in custody until then

2008 - Bloody Awful

What a bloody awful year it's been for the world. It hasn't been the best for me either. At least I found out the reason why I have been feeling generally under the weather all year. Nursing a gut-full of African parasites since April 2007 would tend to take the edge off most people. But I'm clear now so am feeling better on that count.

My troubles are small when compared to the rest of the world however. These past few days have been atrocious. The continued Israeli attacks into Gaza is just creating more suffering. Isaac Hertzog was on the BBC today, asking what else could they do to stop Hamas’ missile attacks into Israel? Not provoking them earlier in the month would have been a good start, with the killing of Hamas personnel within the Gaza border. But that has always been the way. Attack and reprisal. Now Hamas has promised revenge. As if turning a café full of Israelis into an abattoir would solve anything. If it’s war both sides want, then things just have to continue in the same vein. The only country who has any sway over Israel is the USA. According the APF news agency, President Elect Obama is “is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza.” President Bush is speaking not to Israel nor to the Palestinians. Instead he has called the Saudis. Please excuse my cynicism, but I don’t doubt the purpose of the call was to make sure that things are business as usual. And I know about Mr. Obama’s policy of “one president at a time” but his silence on the matter amounts to consent for Israel’s actions.

Perhaps it is time for the USA to review it’s policy of arms trading with Israel? I doubt if you are reading this blog Mr Obama, but if you wanted to do something to gain the trust of the world when it comes to Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this would be a major step. I’m not advocating leaving Israel defenceless, just not in a position to be so damn aggressive. It looks like that Gaza is now in for the same treatment that Lebanon received in 2006. But with the population so tightly packed in such a small area, the slaughter will be intense.
Oh, and while you are at it, Mr. Obama, perhaps it is also time to review US policy on retaining the capacity on being able to fight two major wars simultaneously? I know there is an old saying about if one wants peace, one should prepare for war, but if one wants war, then it seems to me that the preparations are the same. And given the current economic strength of America, can the USA continue to afford such a policy. It was the arms race that broke the Soviet Union. Is America risking the same fate?

Speaking of wars, Afghanistan and Iraqi have also been weeping sores. I link these two countries because of the military effort that has been required to launch concurrent invasions. As you doubtless remember, the invasion of Afghanistan occurred in 2001, following the 9/11 attacks upon the USA. Many things were promised as justification: the eradication of the Taliban and their regime based upon the culture of the refugee camps, the end to terrorist training camps and, most importantly, the rebuilding of the country after over twenty years of bloodshed. Well, thanks to the second Iraq War and the resources that were diverted into this illegal campaign, none of that happened. In fact the Taliban has regained support again and has spread, now posing a real threat to Pakistan. The radicalisation of Pakistani youth has now spread over to the sixty-year rivalry between Pakistan and it’s larger neighbour India. The terror attack on Mumbai this year is in all probability a direct result of the failure of the Afghanistan campaign.

So what has all this stuff got to do with us? The opinions I have been hearing and reading from friends and colleagues range from support for the Israeli action (“what else are we supposed to do?”), through to apathy (“both sides are just as bad as each other.”). One of my Indian friends has directly linked the Mumbai attacks to Kashmir, saying “Kick the Bastards Out.”

Fortunately there are others who share my horror at what is happening and are vocal in their protests. With the building threat to civil liberties in the West however, it remains to be seen for how long such voices are tolerated by governments. If we are lucky, it may be for another generation. But all the signs are there. It remains to be seen in American whether Barack Obama will continue with the expansion of the so-called Patriot Act. If he does, the only possible hope I see is that the left-wing of US politics will listen to the right-wing as they protest and say “Hey, that is what we were saying a couple of years back.” In Britain, the New Labour Government has already introduced the Identity Card (a misnomer – really it a super-database in which all available information about an individual is accessible in one place). In Australia, moves are afoot to censor the Internet – The Great Australian Firewall. A term chillingly reminiscent of the Great Chinese Firewall – their governments attempt to control access to the Web.

For shear nerve and audacity however, the prize for Scumbag Country of the Year 2008 must go to Russia and it’s attempt to rehabilitate Josef Stalin. The authorities are running a plebiscite for the Greatest Russian Ever, the mass murderer and psychopath old Uncle Joe is tipped to get the vote. I couldn’t finish Simon Sebag Montefiore’s book Stalin, the Court of the Red Tsar. Each page seems to have been written in the blood of thousands.
There are obvious political advantages for the rise of Stalin to official favour. It will signal the way for the return of the cult of personality, and with that the crimes that Stalin and his lieutenants committed will no longer be seen as such, but rather as strict and necessary measures with which Stalin guided the country to survival and through to prosperity. Measures, should the unfortunate need arise, the government, probably with Mr Putin again at it’s head, will not hesitate to enforce.
What I find personally disgusting is that even elements of the Orthodox Church has jumped aboard the bandwagon, with icons of Stalin now hanging in several churches, and even calls for canonisation. I never thought I would ever use this phrase, but the canonisation of Josef Stalin would be a blasphemy against God.



Nikita Khrushchev, one time henchman of Stalin and his successor was probably the only First Secretary to leave the Soviet Union in a better state than how it was when he came to power. The politicians of today would be wise to remember Khrushchev’s words that follow. When in his old age he was asked if there was anything he regretted, Khrushchev answered “Yes, the blood. So much blood.”


Selected Links

Gaza: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7801657.stm
US military policy: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2005/07/mil-050714-rferl01.htm
AFP reports: US reaction to Gaza
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hlg6gJoFxIIFzFiTaidIBHFQFafA
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i3eDBHAxraJgDP729NqRoCg00Imw
Australian Internet debate: http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/world/2008/12/26/7855261.html
Stalin: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7801773.stm
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KvwwAAAACAAJ&dq=stalin+the+court+of+the+red+tsar
Khrushchev:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Khrushchev-Man-His-William-Taubman/dp/product-description/0743231651

Picture credits

Gaza: Mohammed Abed, AFP
Stalin: BBC website