THE NEWSLETTER / MAY 2006       Site map

01.05.2006 Welcome from SRAS! Happy May Day from SRAS!  The holiday has been celebrated with hundreds of events across the country, many of which are politically charged for the day that used to be officially "International Workers' Day."  Communists demonstrated as did several youth groups and United Russia.  This month, SRAS focuses on politics.  Vestnik, The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies will publish its next issue at the end of this month.  Watch for it! Summer programs are now closed for admission.  Now is the time to start thinking about semester programs beginning in September!  News: Russia, Energy, and Politics This month's top news story is the recent feuding between Russia and Europe over energy security and Gazprom's expansion.  Other stories this month include the coming into force of the new NGO law, continuing souring of relations with Georgia, xenophobia, and renewed efforts at improving Russia's public relations and business efforts abroad.  Special Features:  Proposed Changes to the Law on Mass Media; The New National Security Policy (and Russian Reaction); Recent Economic Stats; The Debate to Bury Lenin. Politics Feature: Alienable Rights  The Tenth Annual World Council of Russian People, sponsored by the Orthodox Church and with the endorsement of several high-ranking political officials, recently passed a controversial statement of "The Declaration of Human Rights and Dignity."  This short philosophical treatise asserts that rights must differ according the historical conditions of their geographic location, that rights can and must be stripped from those who abuse them, and that Russia must maintain a "traditional" and conservative moral grounding.  SRAS provides the document with background information and side-by-side translation in this new article. Featured Program: Politics in Russia A European Joke:  What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual.  What do you call someone who speaks multiple languages? Polyglot.  What do you call someone who speaks one language? American.  Unfortunately, the joke is based in fact.  America, if compared with other industrial nations, has a far lower percentage of citizens able to converse in two languages.  As the Bush administration has pointed out on multiple occasions, this fact is hindering not only America's ability to understand foreign cultures, but its ability to conduct effective foreign policy.  With this in mind, SRAS has developed programs which focus on politics, international studies, and language.  Find out more about them here.  Full degree programs are also available; contact an SRAS representative for details. Business: Sergei Gregoriev on America, Russia, and China Sergei Aleksandrovich Grigoriev was the Assistant Head of Mikhail Gorbachev's Press Service when the Soviet Union fell.  He's also been a lecturer at Harvard University, worked on government projects to improve Russia's trade with China, and is now the Vice President of the growing Russia-US Business Council.  He recently answered a few questions for us about business, politics, and his views on the perceptions Russians and Americans have about each other.  Read his interview.  The Library Presents: Politics in Russia The Library is meant to give students studying Russia or Russian broad perspectives on specific subjects.  This month, we focus on politics in Russia, focusing on citizen involvement and federal structures and policies. Links are provided to those agencies who research and report public opinion in Russia.  Information on political parties and youth politics is given as well as on a handful of NGOs and research groups (both American and Russian) who study, advise on, and/or work to influence the structure and basic political ideology of the Russian government.  Let us know if you would like to contribute additional information. Culture: Kyrgyz Culture Shock in America Mirajidin Arynov is a Kyrgyz student currently studying at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida.  This short piece, framed in the context of Kyrgyz sayings and proverbs, was contributed by "Miraj," as his friends call him, to give insight into traditional Kyrgyz family life.  All sayings are provided first in original Kyrgyz (which uses the Cyrillic alphabet) and then transliterated to English, with stress and syllabic breaks indicated.     Travel: Bishkek SRAS has seen substantial growth in interest from students about Central Asia, and specifically about the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.  For the students that will be attending courses there this summer, SRAS has written the following travel guide with information about health and safety, dining, and things to do around town.  We've paid special attention to bringing out important facts from the city's cultural and military history - so that our students can seem like the smartest kids on the block from the moment they arrive. Image of the Month: How Interested is the Internet? Most of our past installments of the Image of the Month have focused on strictly language-oriented issues.  This instalment departs from that and brings statistics on socio-political uses of the Internet: How well do popular uses of the Internet create and search out information on Russian politics?  The information was generated by BlogPulse.com and Alexa.com, two services providing free insight into how the Internet is being used.  Download this month's image in pdf here. Language: Блат - "Back-scratching" "Блат" is a Russian word referring to systematic profiting by connections (e.g. Я получил подпись директора по блату).  This does not mean bribery. "Bribe" generally refers to material gain – "блат" is immaterial, referring only to favors (such as the actions of signing or stamping which were much more valuable in the USSR – and to an extent in Russia today).  "Graft" in English can refer to a system of bribery or favoritism or the bribe or favor itself but is still lacking in translation because "блат" is so specific and much less negatively connotated.  Many even consider it a natural part of their governmental system.  "Back-scratching" is also lacking, but it was the only variant that we and our Russian coworkers could roughly agree on.  Some other more unsavory political words and terms include:   взятка (or подкуп) -  bribe (according to a recent poll, half of all Muscovites admitted that they have paid a bribe of some sort during their lives; the amount of bribes paid by businesses are increasing.)  cамоцензура – self-censorship (many analysts now consider this a bigger problem in the Russian media than direct censorship) cфальсифицированные выборы – Falsified (rigged) elections (such as what happened in Belarus recently – most agree that Russia’s elections are now largely fair.  However, with television media dependent on the state or state-owned companies for management and finances, self-censorship and other factors give the party of power obvious advantages.) заказуха – a "little order" more specifically means a "hit" (and ordered murder) – it has also been used (esoterically) to mean any demand by a politically powerful person, including demanding that a media outlet print or air a favorable story.  джинсы – many younger Russians do not recall the days when blue jeans were a symbol that you were well-connected and wealthy enough to stay at the height of fashion.  Apparently "зиппери" was once used in the same way, as zippers were at times in short supply in the Soviet Union.      « back to newsletters archive print this page email this page