Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
Photo: Lev Shlosberg in the office of the Ekho Moskvi in Pskov radio station / Photo by the Press Service of the Pskov branch of Yabloko
According to the Russian Federal Statistical Service (Rosstat), in 2020 the poverty level in Russia symbolically decreased from 12.3% to 12.1%. At the same time, the Pskov region remains the poorest region of the North-West of the country and one of the poorest in Russia. Lev Shlosberg spoke in the Echo of Moscow in Pskov radio station whether the well-being of people was really growing, and why the region had been remaining a long-term outsider in terms of living standards.
Statement by the Bureau of the regional branch of Yabloko, 5.11.2021
Photo by the Press Service of the Saratov branch of Yabloko
The Saratov regional branch of the Yabloko party is concerned about the revealed facts of human rights violations and torture in Saratov correctional facilities, the reaction of the region’s top officials and the inaction of the Human Rights Ombudsperson.
The conveyor system of torture in the Federal Penitentiary Service demonstrates the qualitative degeneration of the law enforcement system. The Soviet punitive justice system was fundamentally different from the modern Russian system of total corporate concealment of the inhuman crimes of the employees of the penitentiary service, while the current government only fuels repressive sentiments, which are so widespread in Russian society.
Photo by the Press Service of the Kemerovo branch of Yabloko
Members of the Kemerovo branch of the Yabloko party Vitaly Ilyin, Alexander Kalashnik, Svetlana Bondar and Vitaly Bakharev honoured the memory of the victims of the political repressions of 1937 –1938 by laying flowers at the place of execution and mass graves of the repressed in the Yagunovsky residential area of Kemerovo.
During the Great Terror of the 1930s of the 20th century, those sentenced to death in Kuzbass were brought to Kemerovo. From October 1937 to May 1938, the half-constructed Yagunovskaya mine (now the Yagunovskiy residential area of the city of Kemerovo, Bakh street 13) became a “shooting camp”. There were temporary wooden barracks in the area surrounded by a high fence; convicts from the Kemerovo-Sortirovochnaya railway station, as well as prisoners from the Kemerovo prison of the NKVD were convoyed here.
Photo: Andrei Avtoneyev / Photo by Ivanovskiye Novosti
The Frunzensky District Court found Andrei Avtoneyev, Chairman of the Ivanovo branch of Yabloko, guilty of organising a rally in memory of the victims of political repression. Avtoneyev was fined 21,000 roubles, but he will appeal this decision.
Photo: Lev Shlosberg and Artur Gaiduk / Photo by the Press Service of the Pskov branch of Yabloko
Deputies of the Pskov Regional Assembly by a majority vote rejected the Yabloko bill, which envisaged relieve candidates for the post of the head of the region, nominated by parliamentary parties, from the need to collect signatures of municipal deputies and heads of municipalities in support of their nomination. Four parliamentarians voted for the initiative, 16 against, and three abstained.
Photo: Anna Tyomkina / official website of the European University at St. Petersburg
On Thursday, 11 November, a Zoom-lecture “What is gender” will be held by famous sociologist Anna Tyomkina at the Yabloko Party University and the Gender School of the Party. The lecture will begin at 18:00.
Congratulations from Grigory Yavlinsky, 30.10.2021
Photo: Dmitry Muratov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
Dmitry Muratov, Editor-in-Chief of Novaya Gazeta, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and a member of the Yabloko party, turns 60 on 30 October. Grigory Yavlinsky, Chairman of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee, congratulates Dmitry Muratov on the anniversary:
Photo: Andrei Avtoneyev / Photo by Ivanovskiye Novosti
The memorial event in memory of the victims of political repression in Russia organised by the Ivanovo branch of Yabloko took place in the park near the Ivanovo circus on 30 October. The participants of the action paid tribute to the memory of the victims of political repression and demanded the release of all the political prisoners who are currently in prison.
Photo: Solovetsky Stone monument to the victims of political repressions in Lyubyanskaya Square, Moscow, October 2021
Pyotr Gerasimovich Kunatsky, 37, worker at the construction site of the department of public education. Shot on 4 December, 1937.
Sergei Vasilievich Mokshanov, 55, head of the sports department of the Posyltorg of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade of the RSFSR. Shot on 22 March, 1938.
Pyotr Ivanovich Grushevsky, 32, a clerk at the Main Military-Industrial Directorate of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR. Shot on 28 June, 1930.
***
Yuri Alekseyevich Dmitriev, 65, historian, Chairman of the Karelian branch of the Memorial human rights society, investigated the burial places of victims of Stalinist repressions. On 29 September, 2020, sentenced to 13 years in a maximum security colony.
Ivan Ivanovich Safronov, 31, journalist. Has been under arrest since July 13, 2020, and faces up to 20 years of imprisonment.
Azat Fanisovich Miftakhov, 28, graduate student of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Moscow State University. On January 18, 2021, sentenced to six years of imprisonment.
On Wednesday, 3 November, the launch of the book by Sergei Mitrokhin and Galina Mikhaleva “Along the Track of a Special Path” will take place. The event will take place via Zoom and will start at 18:00.
The authors of the book attempt to answer the question of why the peculiarities of Russian civilization impede modernisation, as well as consider the interaction of the government and society in a historical context.
Leaders, members and supporters of the Yabloko party took part in the action “Returning the Names” and read out the names of citizens shot during the Great Terror 1936-1938 and Stalinist repressions of 1930 – 1953. The action in memory of the victims of political repression has been annually organised by the Memorial human rights group since 2007. The action took place at the Solovetsky Stone monument in Moscow and gathered hundreds of people. The Solovetsky Stone in Moscow is one of the most significant monuments to the victims of political repression killed in Joseph Stalin’s period, 1930 – 1953. The stone was brought to Moscow from the territory of the former Solovetsky Camp, which became the symbol of the GULAG.
On 29 October, Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, Ivan Bolshakov, Yabloko Deputy Chairman, Galina Mikhaleva, Chair of the Gender faction and party activists and supporters laid flowers at the Solovetsky Stone monument in Moscow.
The Solovetsky Stone in Moscow is one of the most significant monuments to the victims of political repression killed in Joseph Stalin’s period, 1930 – 1953. The stone was brought to Moscow from the territory of the former Solovetsky Camp, which became the symbol of the GULAG.
The action took place on the eve of the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression. Every year on 29 October 29, for 13 years already, the Memorial human rights group (which was proclaimed a “foreign agent” by the authorities, the very label bearing strong connotations with repressions in the USSR) has been carrying out the action “Returning the Names” at the Solovetsky Stone, this year the action takes place online due to COVID restrictions: citizens read out the names of those shot during the Stalinist repressions.
Photo by the Press Service of the Pskov branch of Yabloko
The Pskov branch of Yabloko proposed to the Regional Assembly to send a request to the Constitutional Court about the violation of the electoral rights of the so-called “foreign agents” and persons associated with them. The MPs rejected this initiative by a majority of votes: three parliamentarians voted “for”, 14 “against”, and one abstained.
Deputies of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg have submitted to the St.Petersburg parliament a draft law, the adoption of which will completely eliminate the status of a “foreign agent” from Russian legislation. If the bill is supported by the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, it will be sent to the State Duma for consideration. The draft law was prepared by Lev Levinson, an expert of the Institute of Human Rights, at the request of the Yabloko faction deputies.
Photo: Environmental journalist Tatiana Artyomova, Nikolai Rybakov and the leader of the Separate Collection movement Tatiana Nagorskaya. / Photo by the Yabloko party Press Service
On 27 October, the Fifth Alexei Yablokov Readings were held in St. Petersburg. This is an annual event in memory of Alexei Vladimirovich Yablokov (1933 – 2017), an outstanding Russian scientist, ecologist and politician, leader of the Green Russia Faction of the Yabloko party.
Alexei Yablokov Readings join together environmental activists from all over the country and represent a platform for them to jointly find solutions to environmental problems and develop approaches to sustainable development and protection of nature.
(*Negative selection is a mechanism prioritising and ensuring selection of the worst. See, for example, here)
The State Duma elections ended exactly one month ago. We approached these elections in a situation when the system had been consolidated and had started moving definitely and consciously to an aggressive-repressive model of relations with society. After 1 July 2020, a new modification of Putin’s vertical already emerged, following in the tracks of the authoritarian version1. From the perspective of a value-based system and construction of the state, Russia’s post-Soviet modernisation ended in failure.
On 26 October, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko Ivan Bolshakov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma Maxim Kruglov, and ex-candidate of Yabloko in the elections Gleb Tumanov laid flowers at the memorial “In Memory of the Victims of Terrorism” by the “Theatre Centre in Dubrovka”, Moscow.
Photo: Vladimir Ryzhkov (centre) before handing the signatures in the Moscow Mayor’s Office
The increase in the “Moscow allowance” to pensioners in Moscow [a regional allowance which is decided by regional authorities] was a key point in the electoral programme of Vladimir Ryzhkov, a recently elected Moscow City Duma deputy from Yabloko.
Ryzhkov’s initiative to increase the “Moscow allowance” was supported by 5,700 Muscovites. In September, the signatures with a justification of the need to increase the “Moscow allowance” to pensioners were submitted to the Moscow Government. The appeal was considered by the city goevrment, and the corresponding changes were made to the draft budget for 2022.
In 2022, the minimum pension, together with the city allowance, will grow to 21,193 roubles – by almost a thousand roubles.
Despite the numerous promises of the authorities to achieve a revision of the project for the development of the territory by the Bars shopping centre in Yesenina street in Ryazan, the developer was issued a building permit, and preparatory works began. The project was not revised.
