Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov sent an appeal to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Chairman of the Accounts Chamber Alexei Kudrin demanding to reconsider the allocation of budget funds for provision of financial aid to Syria.
On Wednesday, 11 November, it became known that Russia allocated more than USD 1 billion for the restoration of power grids, the industrial complex of Syria and other purposes.
Deputies called on the Human Rights Commissioner of Russia to withdraw the approval of the current candidacy for the Karelian Ombudsperson
Press Release, 11.11.2020
Deputies of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of Karelia Emilia Slabunova and Ivan Gusev introduced amendments to the second reading of the bill “On the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Republic of Karelia”.
Yabloko’s MPs emphasise that their amendments are targeted at strengthening of the institution of the Human Rights Commissioner. In particular, they propose that when nominating the Ombudsman consultations on his/her candidacy should be held with human rights organisations, there should be a mandatory requirement for the regional Ombudsman to permanently reside in the Republic of Karelia, the Ombudsman should also have opportunity to take part with an advisory vote in the meetings of the regional legislative and executive authorities on the issues connected with protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens, and in the event of their mass-scale violations, the Ombudsman should immediately make a report at the meeting of the regional parliament.
Maxim Kruglov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, has launched a platform – an aggregator of amendments to the Moscow city budget from municipal deputies of the city. The aggregator enables the municipal deputies of Moscow to make amendments to the draft City Budget for 2021 and the planning period 2022-2023.
Every municipal deputy will have the opportunity to submit an amendment to the city budget via the platform, further his/her amendment can be submitted by the Yabloko faction to the Moscow City Duma for consideration.
Statement by the Yekaterinburg branch of Yabloko, 10.11.2020
(On introduction of amendments to the Rules for Land Use and Development of the Urban District – Municipality the City of Yekaterinburg” (Decision No. 29/42 of the Yekaterinburg City Duma of October 27, 2020)
The erroneous perception and interpretation by the municipal authorities of Yekaterinburg of the task of “city development” became obvious after the decision adopted by the deputies of the Yekaterinburg City Duma in late October to amend the rules of land use and development. The majority of deputies and administration officials regarded the increase in housing construction as the main indicator of progress. How else can one explain a thorough media campaign and the rash voting.
On 12 November, an online discussion “On admission of new members to the party and protection from manipulation” will be held. The discussion is organised by the Social Democratic and the Gender Faction of the Yabloko party and start at 19:00.
Photo: Boris Vishnevsky, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg
Boris Vishnevsky, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, sent an appeal to the city Governor Alexander Beglov from municipal deputies who strongly oppose the municipal “budget reform” proposed by the Governor: 121 deputies from 41 municipal councils of St. Petersburg put their signatures under the appeal. The essence of the reform is to sharply reduce the municipalities’ own revenues and replace them with subsidies from the city budget.
Photo: Maxim Kruglov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, detained during a single picket in support of arrested journalist Ilya Azar, 1 June 2020.
The Bureau of the Yabloko Party sent appeals to Public Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov and Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev demanding to protect participants in single pickets.
In Moscow alone, since the beginning of the pandemic, several hundred participants in single pickets have been detained. Dozens of people were detained during the same period in St. Petersburg. Lawyers were not allowed to see some of the detained picket participants in the police stations.
Nominees of Yabloko participate in by-elections to the Assembly of Deputies of the Pechora region, in the repeat elections of deputies to the Assembly of the urban settlement Pechora and in the postponed elections to the Assembly of the rural settlement Sebezhskoye.
On 6 December, 2020, by-elections, as well as repeat and postponed elections will be held in the Pskov region: a deputy of the Assembly of Deputies of the Pechora region in district No. 1 is elected due to the early resignation of the current deputy; a deputy of the Assembly of deputies of the urban settlement Pechora in district No. 6 has to be elected because there was only one candidate in the September 13 elections and, according to the law, there a vote against a candidate was introduced, and the number of votes against the candidate turned out to be higher than the number of votes for the candidate.
On 3 November, I received a strange call from the police. An interesting conversation took place, the content of which caused me, to put it mildly, bewilderment. Also I even had to give a written explanation to the policeman. The essence of all this, for me, strange act was the following: on 5 August this year, I published a post of my authorship on the Vkontakte social network, and later, on 10 August, 2020, it was edited (by me) and published in the Internet information channel Business Kurs (Business Course). The post was about emissions from the Omsktekhuglerod plant. I described my observations and memories of the emissions. I described the consequences of soot flying into houses, using the example how it damaged furniture. On the Vkontakte social network, this post was backed up by photographs of the very furniture that got soot, which was blown into the windows by the wind. Time passed and at the beginning of November I learned that Mr. Kaplunat, the well-known “soot king”, General Director of this enterprise, wrote a statement against me basing on the above criticism and my subjective opinion, where he accuses me of extremism and also of a “corruption component”. In a statement to the police, the author was trying to accuse me of wanting to organise a kind of a strike at the enterprise he managed, citing as an example “the mechanisms by which they operate” in Belarus and Khabarovsk. And he asked the police to deal with me, since, according to him, people like me were participating in the destabilisation of political regimes. I am very sorry that any private criticism of the Omsktekhuglerod plant evoked such a reaction from its management. Valery Nikolayevich Kaplunat was trying to make me liable under the article “extremism” because I dared to criticise his enterprise.
Statement by the Saratov branch of Yabloko, 6.11.2020
The by-elections of deputies of the Saratov Regional Duma were held in the Saratov region not so long ago, which the regional branch of the Yabloko party did not recognise for the first time since 2017. The elections were held with numerous violations: from direct fraud to the use of physical force against observers, however, the trump card of the falsifiers was the multi-day voting. But even in such conditions, the ruling party does not feel sufficiently protected from competitive elections, and it forces the ruling party to continuously change the rules [of the elections]. The initiatives of the newly elected deputies from the [pro-government’s] United Russia party were not long in coming: they propose to change the procedure for the formation of the Saratov City Duma and, at the next elections in 2021, switch from the mixed system to the majority system, canceling party lists as an institution.
The City Court of St. Petersburg confirmed the invalidity of the elections held by Electoral Commission No 1,280 in the Moskovskaya Zastava municipal district. Representatives of pro-government’s United Russia, the LDPR party and one self-nominated candidate will be replaced by deputies from Yabloko and another independent self-nominated candidate.
On 2 November, the Ivanovo region formed new territorial electoral commissions. However, none of the candidates proposed by the regional branch of the Yabloko party as electoral commissions members were approved.
Photo: Nikolay Rybakov by the Embassy of France in Russia
There have been quite a lot of mourning events lately, but this is the political reality in which we live.
Together with Yabloko members Ivan Bolshakov, Grigory Grishin and Gleb Tumanov I laid flowers at the Embassy of Austria and Embassy of France in Moscow in connection with the terrorist attacks on civilians that took place there. On behalf of all members of the Yabloko party, I express my deep condolences to the families and friends of the victims! The future is definitely incompatible with intolerance and violence, and we will fight for this future. Read more »
Will Mr.Putin remain President after 2024, they ask him at the Valdai Club meeting. My colleagues ask me about the same on a Yabloko party stream.
Vladimir Putin compares himself to Saint Francis and says that “this must certainly end some day”. However, in Belarus, for example, the people decided that the usurpation of power should end right now, and took to the streets.
On 30 October, the Yabloko Party University held an online lecture by Nikolai Petrov, a well-known political scientist and Professor at the Higher School of Economics: “Transformation of the Russian Regime and the Decision-Making Mechanism”.
The date 27 October 1962 has gone down in history as “Black Saturday”. It is believed that on this day the world was the closest it has ever come to a nuclear war. This was the height of the Cuban missile crisis.
Today, almost six decades later, the threat of the use of nuclear weapons is real again. Admittedly, the pandemic is playing havoc globally, the economy is on the wane, and there are elections in the United States. However, all these factors merely distract attention from the danger of war. Meanwhile, the nuclear threat has one specific feature: it can in an instant render all worries about any other issues irrelevant.
On 31 October, a memorial picket was held at the monument to the victims of political reprisals in Rostov-on-Don. The picket was timed to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Reprisals, one of the picket applicants was the Rostov-on-Don branch of Yabloko. Activists pay tribute not only to the victims of Stalin’s Great Terror of 1937-1938, but also to today’s political prisoners from Rosov-on-Don.
Ryazan branch of Yabloko demands from the Ryazan Regional Duma to abandon the increase of salaries to deputies’ aids. Yabloko proposes to allot the funds planned for the increase of personnel salaries in the regional parliament to social expenses of the region.
On the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Reprisals, the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko appealed to Alexei Teksler, Governor of the region, with the demand to ensure proper protection and maintenance, as well as to organise an additional study of the memorial complex Zolotaya Gora, the burial place of victims of Stalinist repressions in mines. According to official data, the complex can be considered one of the most massive burial places for victims of the Great Terror of 1937-1938 in Russia.
On November 10, the Yabloko Party University will host an online lecture “Territorial Inequality in Modern Russia” by Natalya Zubarevich, Professor of the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University. The lecture will be held via Zoom and will begin at 19:00.
