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: The Teza River near the city of Shuya / Photo by Wikimedia Commons
More than 5,500 people have already signed a petition against the construction of a landfill near city of Shuya and the village of Kitovo. Now the process of coordination and approval of the project “Complex facility, including processing, recycling and disposal of waste” is underway at the address: Ivanovo region, Shuisky district, near the village of Kitovo. The construction of a landfill near densely populated areas is a gross violation of human rights, environmental and living standards.
The rally will take place in Veliky Novgorod at the memorial sign to victims of terror on Monday, the Day of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repression, 30 October, from 14:30 to 17:30.
Participants will remember the names of the victims of Stalin’s terror – residents of the Novgorod region, executed in the 1930-1940s, and will read out excerpts from letters from today’s political prisoners Yury Dmitriyev, Liliya Chanysheva, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Maria Ponomarenko, Mikhail Afanasyev, Olga Smirnova, Vasily Neustroyev, Natalia Filonova, Andrei Pivovarov and others.
Photo: Boris Vishnevsky and Alexander Shishlov / Photo by the Yaboko Press Service
The Yabloko faction in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly criticised the bill on the return of Soviet and Russian monuments from abroad. The initiative bill was examined in the first reading at the meeting of the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, 25 October.
A charity warehouse for the needy with clothes, shoes, household goods, medicines for those in need (fire victims, large families, people with disabilities) and animals has opened in the office of the Bashkirian branch Yabloko in Ufa. Yabloko supporters, party members and all caring citizens bring their no longer needed items, and volunteers sort them into categories. Then activists from charitable foundations take away things for the needy. Once a week, the Yabloko party volunteers deliver the remaining items by cars to small foundations that are open only on certain days.
Members and supporters of the Yabloko party from more than 50 regions of the country will take part in the marathon reading out the names of the victims of Joseph Stalin’s repressions: people shot in the cities of our country during the years of state terror of 1930-1950s. The viewers of the marathon will not only learn about the fates of those repressed, but also about the history of memorial sites in the regions of Russia. The project got its name from the inscription on the stone installed at the entrance to the Sandarmokh memorial complex, the place of mass executions in Karelia. The author of the inscription is historian Yuri Dmitriyev imprisoned for 15 years.
On 25 October – 6 November Yabloko will hold actions of writing letters to political prisoners. Some actions in the regions will be timed to coincide with the Day of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repression, 30 October. From 25 October until 6 November Yabloko will conduct actions of writing letters to political prisoners will be held in Velikiye Luki, Veliky Novgorod, Krasnoyarsk, Pskov and St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vladivostok, Tver, Arkhangelsk, Yoshkar-Ola, Kazan, Kostroma, Orenburg, Stavropol, Astrakhan, Yekaterinburg, Kemerovo, Omsk, Saratov, Ulyanovsk, Tomsk and Kirov.
Photo: MP Gurulyov, a screenshot of the programme “Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov”
Boris Vishnevsky, Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko party and deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, sent an appeal to Igor Krasnov, Public Prosecutor General of Russia, asking to organise a check of the statement by State Duma deputy Andrei Gurulyov about extermination of 20% of Russian citizens who disagree with the policies of President Putin. Speaking on a television programme Gurulyov called these citizens “rot”, which “should be, if not isolated, then at least somehow destroyed”.
On 22 October, the Sverdlovsk Region branch of Yabloko held a picket against the deratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. The action was attended by members of the regional branch, Youth Yabloko activists and residents of Yekaterinburg.
Photo: Maxim Kruglov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
The questions for the electronic voting [in Moscow] have been increasing, but there are virtually no answers. I have written recently about how the administrative resource force people to electronic voting, now I will tell you about citizens who, due to technical failures of the e-voting system, were unable to vote at all. I still receive messages about e-voting malfunctions. It is simply impossible to vote in person at a polling station using a paper ballot [in case of malfunction] after registering in the e-voting! As a result, citizens were virtually deprived of their right to vote.
Yabloko representatives in the regional legislative assemblies and city and municipal councils, discussed during the three-day forum the specifics of work of an opposition deputy, shared their experiences and analysed the most popular cases encountered in the practices of Yabloko deputies. The forum was organised by the Centre for Work with Local Self-Government Deputies of the Yabloko Party. The discussion was moderated by the head of the Centre, Irina Kopkina, and the deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, Boris Vishnevsky. The speakers of the forum were Sergei Mitrokhin, Maxim Kruglov and Yevgeniy Bunimovich (the Moscow City Duma); Emilia Slabunova (the Legislative Assembly of Karelia); Anna Cherepanova (the City Duma of Veliky Novgorod); Tatyana Pasman (the Pskov City Duma); Dmitry Rybakov (the Petrozavodsk City Council); Yevgeny Kaverzin and Vasily Eryomin (the Tomsk City Duma), as well as deputies from different municipalities.
Photo: Ruslan Zinatullin / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 19 October, the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan adopted in the first reading the bill “On the Patriotic Education of Citizens in the Republic of Tatarstan,” which was developed so that to determine a “unified approach” to patriotic education by the order of Farid Mukhametshin, the Speaker of the parliament of Tatarstan. Ruslan Zinatullin, the leader of the regional branch of the Yabloko party, warned deputies from the rostrum of the State Council that “teaching violence and its normalisation increases violence in society”.
Photo: A leaflet of the picket / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 22 October, the Sverdlovsk region branch of the Yabloko party will hold a picket in Yekaterinburg against the Russian Federation’s withdrawal of ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).
On 5 October, Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s possible withdrawal of ratification of the CTBT; on 12 October, it was reported that the relevant State Duma committee had prepared a bill to revoke the ratification. On 18 October, the bill was adopted by the State Duma in three readings.
The Yabloko Party’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre indicated that six deputies and senators may have vested interests in the adoption of the law
Press Release, 18.10.2023
Photo by unsplash.com
Chairman of the Yabloko party Nikolai Rybakov demanded that the State Duma and the Federation Council conduct a conflict of interest check on the co-authors of the bill on clear cut of forests in the Lake Baikal area (No. 387575-8) and take liability measures, including depriving them of their mandates. We are talking about senators Sergei Brilka and Andrei Chernyshov, as well as State Duma deputies Alexander Yakubovsky, Sergei Tena, Anton Krasnoshtanov and Viktor Pinsky. Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre also developed the concept of a law on lobbying and proposes to label deputies and senators involved in promoting the interests of individuals or corporations as “lobbying agents”.
Photo: The Legislative Assembly of St.Petersburg / Photo by the Press Service of the Legislative Assembly of St.Petersburg
The bills included in the agenda of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg by a faction must be considered at a plenary meeting. It is necessary to prohibit their exclusion from the agenda without the consent of the faction. Such changes to the rules of the city parliament were proposed by Yabloko deputies Alexander Shishlov and Boris Vishnevsky.
Photo: Grigory Yavlinsky / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
Commentary by Grigory Yavlinsky’s Press Secretary, Igor Yakovlev, on the participation of a Yabloko candidate in the 2024 presidential elections:
— The position of Grigory Yavlinsky is well known. He is categorically against the special military operation and for an immediate ceasefire. Yavlinsky believes that the main thing is human life, freedom, real democracy and an effective modern economy. It was with these programme goals that Yavlinsky participated in the presidential elections three times and came third in the presidential elections in 2000.
Photo: A still from Alexander Sokurov’s film “The Fairy Tale”
Alexander Shishlov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, sent an appeal to the Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova with a request to reconsider the Ministry of Culture’s decision refusing to issue a distribution certificate for Alexander Sokurov’s new film “The Fairy Tale.” The new film by the outstanding Russian director Alexander Sokurov, “The Fairy Tale,” tells how Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Churchill meet in the afterlife. When creating the film, Alexander Sokurov used footage from documentary chronicles and texts from real speeches of the historical characters. The film premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in August 2022.
Artyom Sakharov, an 18-year-old civil activist and a candidate member of Yabloko, was fined 75,000 roubles for reading poetry which was regarded by the authorities as a “repeated violation of the established procedure for organising or holding a public event” (Article 20.2 Part 8 of the Code of Administrative Offences). The decision was made by a judge of the Central District Court of Barnaul.
On 17-19 October, Yabloko will conduct the Forum of Yabloko Deputies on the party’s online platform, 209 deputies from 23 regions of the country were invited to the event to exchange experiences and work on common cases. The speakers of the forum include current parliamentarians of regional legislative assemblies Boris Vishnevsky (the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg), Emilia Slabunova (the Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Karelia), Maxim Kruglov, Sergei Mitrokhin and Yevgeny Bunimovich (the Moscow City Duma), city and municipal deputies, as well as the leaders of the party and former deputies Nikolai Rybakov and Grigory Yavlinsky.
Grigory Yavlinsky’s web-site and Zhivoi Gvozd Youtube channel, 16.10.2023
Grigory Yavlinsky on the Hamas attack on Israel, repression in Russia and the future world order
Everything on which the world order was based after the end of World War II is losing significance before our eyes. After the extreme horrors of war and colossal sacrifices, the preservation of human life, human freedom and rights was proclaimed the main value of the united nations. The European Union was created on these principles.
