Weekly Round-Up: Syria, Petersburg, Evtushenko, ФБК

A full-fledged new post will come in a few days, but for now I thought I’d post links to some notable reports I saw during my weekend perusal of the Russian TV news. Time being finite, I generally look at two sources, Первый канал (Channel One) and Телеканал Дождь (TV Rain), to get the “official” and the “opposition” perspectives. I’ve been posting some of these links on the site’s Facebook page and thought it would be good to also include some of this content in the blog itself. There are many more interesting videos out there than I can possibly write up with an entire introduction, transcript and translation, but that doesn’t stop me from at least pointing some of them out in between the more comprehensive blog posts!

 

1. Russia’s response to the US attack on the Syrian airbase

Link: По прямому приказу президента США десятки ракет выпущены по территории Сирии. Погибли военные и мирные жители

Here’s how Первый канал / Channel One is spinning the Syria attack: The airbase that was attacked was being used by the Syrian government to fight “terrorists” and ISIS (Russian media consistently presents all enemies of Assad as “terrorists”); civilians, including children, perished in the attack; most of the American missiles didn’t even hit their targets due to incompetence or malfunction; last week’s chemical attack on Syrian civilians was probably caused by an explosion at a chemical weapons warehouse controlled by the “terrorists”; Trump’s action has no legal basis and he refuses to answer any questions on this topic; Russia is concerned about last week’s chemical attacks and would like to investigate them.

 

2. Citizens respond to the St. Petersburg Metro bomb

Link (Первый канал): В Санкт-Петербурге в память о жертвах теракта в небо выпустили 13 белых голубей

Link (Дождь): Уроки человечности от Петербурга: как люди помогали друг другу после теракта (TV Rain)

Первый канал has some interviews with people who attended anti-terror rallies in support of Petersburg. And TV Rain has a great feature (behind their paywall, I think) on all the wonderful ways people came together to help each other. Near the site of the blast, cafes gave out free food, local residents took in those who couldn’t make it home after the metro was closed, cell phone companies reimbursed charges for calls from the area. Also, apparently there’s an online game called “Ingress” that involves driving around the city to virtually “capture” territory — well, participants in this game came together to give people free rides home. Petersburgers are rightfully proud of their civic spirit!

 

3. Remembering the poet Evgeny Evtushenko

Link: Во всем мире люди вспоминают Евгения Евтушенко, который был больше, чем поэтом

Первый канал has a nice feature on Evgeny Evtushenko, the poet who passed away about a week ago.  You can hear his declamatory style, and see what he looked like when he was younger, reading to packed stadiums of poetry fans, and when he was older, and still wearing his trademark colorful jackets.

 

4. People arrested in the anti-corruption protests are released from jail

Link: «Отоспался, чувствую себя бодрым»: как сотрудники ФБК провели время в СИЗО

Телеканал Дождь / TV Rain put together a nice selection of comments from people who were just released from detention. I believe most of them are employees of Navalny’s ФВК (Anti-Corruption Foundation). They say they were treated reasonably well! The food was OK, prison officials followed the proper procedures, they could take showers, reading material was passed through to them, they got along OK with the other prisoners. As they note, they were in a temporary detention center, not an actual prison. (This video is probably also behind the paywall.)

 

5. Changing views of Trump in Russia

Link: От любви до ненависти: что говорили о Трампе в России до и после ударов по Сирии

Mikhail Fishman reports that the “honeymoon” period in Russia’s relationship to Trump is over. The opening parts of this video are a bit less interesting — it shows Duma members and United Russia officials criticizing the attack on Syria — but in the end Fishman offers a good compilation of excited, pro-Trump statements from just after the election. (This video is probably also behind the paywall.)