News from the Front

As my short vacation in Cyprus was drawing to end last week, a friend came from Moscow to join me. He showed up at my place when I was rereading the scene from Richard III when Lord Catesby visits Lord Hastings, and I could not resist the temptation to ask: "What news, what news in this our tott'ring state?" Unlike Catesby, my friend did not answer: "It is a reeling world indeed." He just shrugged and said: "No news. All quiet at home. Business as usual."

But four days later, as I descended into the Moscow subway for the first time in two weeks, I realized that a ride now cost seven rubles rather than the five it had before I left for Cyprus. My monthly phone bill had jumped some 30% while I was enjoying my vacation and utilities bills had gone up by roughly 20%. Meanwhile, Premier Mikhail Kasyanov happily told his people that Russia's GNP would grow almost half a percentage point higher than he had expected. Good news, of course, but not all that helpful, seeing as wages remain stagnant and costs have gone up.

I turned on my TV to get some news, and saw President Vladimir Putin telling Kasyanov that further tax cuts would not be beneficial to the economy. As I opened my mail box, I found a letter informing me that the land tax for my modest dacha had gone up by 100%. Sounds like the end of the much vaunted tax reform, long expected to make life easier and encourage the growth of small businesses.

One consolation for the Russian consumer over the last decade has been a chance to import a western-made car, however old and decrepit, at a relatively low price. Driving a seven-year-old BMW or a Mercedes sure beats driving a brand new Russian-made Fiat or a Volga sedan, which you've got to have overhauled anyway before you risk actually driving it. No such luck anymore: as of this week, new custom duties on seven-year-old foreign-made cars make their import quite prohibitive. In theory, this move is supposed to clear Russian highways of broken-down old vehicles and encourage national automotive production. In practice, the national industries will hike their prices and the consumer will now have to drive a broken-down new Russian car at the cost of an broken-down old imported one.

Should I seek the consolation for economic ills on the political front? Leafing through newspapers, I found that the Kremlin and the State Duma engineered a new piece of legislation effectively banning referendums. Before I left Moscow two weeks ago, the Ministry of Justice had denied registration to a new Liberal Russia Party, led by a group of motley fringe democrats and sponsored by mogul Boris Berezovsky, once Putin's staunch ally, now a bitter foe, self-exiled to London. However, within these same two weeks, the same ministry graciously agreed to register a new National Power Party of Russia, conspicuous by its slogan of "Not an inch of power to the Yids." Now, the Liberal Russia Party will not be able to enter candidates for the Duma. The National Power Party will.

For the last three years, the regime has been claiming that: A) there is no war in Chechnya since Federal Forces defeated the rebels long ago in what they insist was a counter-terrorist operation rather than a war; and B) the war will be over soon. Last week, a band of some 200 Chechen rebels infiltrated from Georgia through the allegedly tightly-sealed Russian border and engaged Russian forces in a pitched battle in Ingushetia, a Muslim republic bordering on Chechnya. Moscow, as usual, claimed yet another victory in the non-existent war. The rebels shot down a Russian chopper, and slipped through Russian lines once again to escape.

My friend was right: it's business as usual, indeed. Rising living costs, strangulation of political life, incessant war — what else is new in this our tott'ring state? All's quiet on the home front.