Exclusive opinions from Russian students studying in and outside the Russian Federation, on Russian politics, economics, and judicial system. 

Is Russia Likely to Become the 6th Biggest Economy?

In August 2019 it has been 20 years since Vladimir Putin became president for the first time, however Russian economy still struggles to find its path to become the 6th biggest economy in the world by 2050, having economic stagnation at the growth rate of 0.8-1.2 % in 2019.

Generally speaking, there is a potential for the short-term boost in economic growth in 2020. There is a stable trend in heavy oil and gas production as well as the military due to the further escalating military conflict in Syria, which keeps world oil prices high. Moreover, a larger currency turnover would lead to higher disposable income, adding to that an increase in social benefits that have gained public appreciation would lead to stronger purchasing power, thus having a positive impact on economic growth in 2020 Russia

On the contrary of that belief, government changes that happened in January make it hard to believe in a country's economic development. Lack of significant changes in the decision-making process in creating a comfortable investment environment suggests that business confidence will remain unchanged, leaving Russia considered to be risky for investments and business activities, which is reflected in the situation at the Russian stock market.

Key obstacles to the growth forecast include a weaker global economic activity, trade wars and tensions and most importantly high possibility of additional economic sanctions, which may further decrease domestic and foreign investments.

Public protests in Moscow, July and August 2019

The controversy around the elections of the Moscow state Mayor in 2019 was a hot debate topic in August, which caused a bad impression on the reputation of the Russian Government.

Elections were not fair - the votes were fabricated and a list of oppositionist candidates was not allowed to participate in elections. Such poor coordination of the Moscow state elections has created a public outrage, which led to legal protests in the middle of July.

However, during the protests, police have broken the law about individual freedom by arresting election candidates and over a thousand citizens. To specify: no extremist activity has been taken by protestants, thus the arrests were not justified. The situation has not been tackled fairly: people were imprisoned and physically harassed, including influential politicians and candidates;

On one of the protests on July 27th, 2019, a record-breaking amount of 1373 people were arrested as a result of an unauthorised public rally. As a result, the internet campaign was raised to identify individuals who used unnecessary force. A blogger, Vladimir Sinitsyn, who has created the campaign, has been sentenced 5 years in jail. The following mitigation process has been dismissed by city administration and has not resulted in any compromised action.

It all started around the unfair elections but ended with a wide-spread controversy around the relationship between the government and the Russian citizens.

Red Scare: The Elections Are Back

In the eve of major political elections, the Red Scare is coming back. The reformation of Russian political system has happened at the end of the term - some Presidential powers are cut to make the place for a new Parliament. It is unclear if it is going to help a new Russia to arise.

Some preceding events have resulted in such a change in government - for example, big strikes in Russia occurred in 2018 by a generation which only knew the Putin rules (19 years) - ironic for the president to say leaders should not have a lifelong term. This creation of counterpower is useful in order to showcase a change in the government but the practice still needs to show.

By amending the President seat with specific rules like the 2-term only presidency; he managed to rule out any successor of his political model and stating (himself and his followers) the key-changing factors in Russian politics. Speculations come from this proposal as the amendment of the State Council's purpose is made so Putin could keep his power after 2024 (as he cannot enter the presidential race until 2030). As a younger generation arises, the wind of changes is blowing over Russia. As history is a perpetual redo (Thucydides), the intellectual movement in Russia is divided between Putin's stability and a need for a new leader to arise... What would happen at Putin's death? Memories of the Stalinization under the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev tried the destalinization process but ultimately failed and with the Cold War, fall of the USSR on the 26th of December 1991. Putin is seen as the leader who put back Russia on its tracks and made it rise again.

The Complexity of the Russian Judicial System

As a law student, I am familiar with the Russian judicial system, so that is why I have a bad attitude to its work.

Myriad courts all over Russia sometimes have different legal positions over almost identical cases or life circumstances. Some judicial decisions are based on wrong legal norms. This may cause non-legal consequences for a person, for instance, lose a civil case for no reason.

As a result of the increased workload, judges use template decisions, substituting new names and circumstances in them, which is proved by comparing the texts of court decisions. I read a lot of judicial decisions and I can assure you, 18 out of 20 decisions will be just the same, except maybe names. Judges are often isolated from society because they have to work late, and they are not interested in modern tendencies. In addition, professional work requires both the study of literature and participation in specialized events. Due to working with a lot of documents, judges pay less attention to the details and individual characteristics of each case, as well as to the rights of each participant in the process.

Frankly, everyone now can identify the main problems of the Russian judicial system:

repressiveness (high percentage of charges) of the judicial system, mainly in criminal cases, excessive influence of court presidents and the dependence of judges on the organizations in which they work and the government, and uncertainty of grounds for disciplinary responsibility of judges. According to experts, this allows everyone to influence the decision of judges.

Therefore, there is certainly room for improvement in the way legal entities work in Russia.

Modern Russia is Quite a Rollercoaster

From oligarchs and spoiled, corrupt officials to dark web drug "treasurers," observing whatever happens there is sort of akin to a zoo. If whatever happens there doesn't affect you much, you're fine; but if it does, you'll just have to survive.

Many consider Russia a government in ruin, and I honestly see their point; truthfully, I think capitalism just doesn't work out well for Russia. As the middle class grows thinner and thinner, the contrast between the rich and the poor comes to light stunningly. Due to the country's vast area, controlling it without a central government is extremely difficult. Although Putin has resolved it somehow through dividing the country in districts, it still looms there.

I believe that Russia doesn't really have to westernize itself completely. It just needs to cease ignoring oncoming issues, and maybe - just maybe - restore some past socialistic details, to ensure the decrease of corruption/bribery and to restore other financial problems.

Russian External Politics and Its Impact on Economics

President Putin's third term as the head of the Russian government is considered significantly different from his preceding years in the office. Prior to 2014, the president's policies generally involved political and economic rhetoric. On 18 March 2014, Putin directed an emotionally-charged presidential address heavy with ideological and nationalistic rhetoric, rather unusual compared to his previous speeches. Since the controversial and widely condemned 'annexation' of Crimea to Russia in 2014, countless political and economic commentators have offered their perspectives and theories regarding the progression of the Ukrainian conflict. Now the majority of the commentators are focusing on current events and, when assessing the Ukrainian situation, do not generally look further than Khrushchev's passing over of the peninsula to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954. Few acknowledge that Russia annexed Crimea in 1783 under the leadership of Catherine the Great. What concerns me is not the speculation and controversy regarding the invasion, annexation, or the internal and external conflict surrounding the events of 2014. As a historian, I am interested in the way the ideological concept of Crimea was maintained in the Russian imagination throughout history and how it affects the Federation's policy today.

It will not come as a surprise that in 1783 the situation was entirely different. The territories that are now known as Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Lebanon, Israel and others all constituted part of the Ottoman Empire. The Russian Empire had been involved in the Russo-Turkish War between 1768-1774. Catherine envisioned a grand project: the territories gained by Russia during the war - Greece and the surrounding Danubian counties - would become a new Grecian empire. This land, freed from the Ottomans, would represent the rebirth of the Byzantium Empire. Catherine's grandson, Konstantin Pavlovich, would become the leader of the new nation. Religion and history were the major catalysts for the project's orchestrators - Catherine, Potemkin, and Orlov. As the Byzantine Empire introduced Russia to Christianity, so the Russian Empire would now free the Byzantium from the Ottoman 'crescent'. The project, however, was not realised, as Orlov complained about the contemporary Greeks being unlike their ancient ancestors, lazy and unwilling to change.

A compromise was found, however. Following the agreement between the Ottomans and the Russians, the Crimean peninsula was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1783. An active project of Crimea's redevelopment followed, led by Count Potemkin, the empress' favourite and lover. In accordance with Catherine's vision of a new Grecian territory, the previously Ottoman settlements were renamed and given Hellenic names - Khersones, for instance, became Sevastopol, Ak-Mechet became Simferopol, and Crimea itself became Taurida. While leading the project, Potemkin emphasised the cultural importance of Taurida to the Russian Empire. The marriage of Vladimir the Great to Anna of Byzantine took place on the peninsula in 988, marking the introduction of Kievan Rus to Christianity. The peninsula was to become a 'Garden of Eden', a promised land of the South. This image survived into the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries.

What we see today has little to do with the geopolitical climate of the late eighteenth-century. There is no Ottoman Empire, no Russian Empire. We have all things post-Soviet, post-Cold War, we have the golden age of content and the rule of media, propaganda, and fake news. In 1783, Crimea was annexed without any military intervention. Interestingly, both the case of 1783 and 2014 resulted in what can essentially be called 'puppet regimes'. What is evidently consistent, however, is the view of Crimea in the Russian imagination as a kind of a 'Garden of Eden' - a land of economic and natural abundance uniting the different peoples under Russia's patronage. With the Soviet resorts, sanatoriums, and pioneer camps in Crimea, the peninsula remained associated with the idealistic image of natural idyll and prosperity. Culture, if not religion, remains significant: just as Potemkin did in 1783, Putin emphasised the importance of Crimea as the source of Russian Christianity, referring to Vladimir the Great. There seems to be a contradiction, however. The Russian government claimed that one of the main reasons for the annexation of Crimea is the majority of ethnic Russians inhabiting Crimea. One article argues that 'the Crimean crisis is the first occasion on which Putin has chosen to use ethnic Russians to represent the Russian people'. He condemned the Ukrainian government for removing the Russian language from education and culture. In his 2014 address, however, he stated that the Russians and Ukrainians are factually the same peoples: 'The ancient Rus is our common origin, we cannot survive without each other'. Putin thus claims that Russians and Ukrainians are essentially equal but alludes that Crimea must be under the sovereignty of Russia, and the Ukrainian inhabitants of Crimea are therefore 'othered' from the ethnic Russians.

What does this all mean for the Russian economic participation in Crimea in the following years? The centuries-old emphasis on Crimea as the garden of paradise resulted in tourism being the most developed industry of the peninsula. The Russian government has initiated a federal program targeted at the socio-economic development of Crimea until 2022. The budget assigned to the Crimean project rose from 18 milliard roubles in 2013 to 174,7 milliards roubles in 2018. The Crimean Bridge, an ambitious infrastructural project designed to fuel transportation, commerce, and tourism, cost Russia 3,5 milliards of euros. A new terminal was built in the Simferopol Airport, costing Russia 32 milliards of roubles. There are currently 700 hotels and sanatoriums in Crimea, with six more recreational clusters in development. The federal program aims at constructing more than 800 establishments in nine economical industries.

The current geopolitical climate is entirely different to what was happening under Catherine's reign. Putin does not envision establishing an independent partner-nation nor he is concerned with recreating the Byzantine Empire and its religious ties with Russia. He is certainly not interested in classical antiquity. What this analysis shows, however, is that some ideas such as the 'Greek project' of Catherine the Great can persist and survive through centuries of political, economic, and social change and turmoil. Of course, they can be reshaped and adjusted to fit the context and the ambitions of political leaders. Still, these ideas will inevitably influence and fuel the policies of those in power. That is why we can trace the origins and the development of such ideas and, looking into the future, think ahead.

Is There a Room for Improvement?

The Russian economy is highly affected by Russian politics as it influences Russia's relationship with other countries. Moreover, recent protests there have been treated as Red Scare and shown a huge violation of human rights. Looking at personal opinions of selected Russian speaking students around the world, we can say that there are fundamental problems with the judicial system, an unreachable gap between socioeconomic statuses and the system is far away from the efficient governmental system. The case of Crimea shows the motive behind the politician's actions and how they haven't progressed or improved for the past couple of years - there is no clear plan on how the area would prosper and to what extent the ethical background plays a role in this conflict.

Hope you have gained some thought-provoking insights about escalating Russian imbalance.

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Up to 08.02.2020

Aridici, Nurai. 'How Vladimir Putin has changed the meaning of 'Russian' in The Conversation (April 9, 2014). https://theconversation.com/how-vladimir-putin-has-changed-the-meaning-of-russian-24928

Address of the President of the Russian Federation (18 March, 2014). https://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603

'Crimea budget for 2018 adopted with a deficit of 2.5 billion rubles' in TASS: Russian News Agency (21 December 2017). https://tass.ru/ekonomika/4830769

Department of Analysis of Social and Economic Development . 'Results of socio-economic development of the Republic of Crimea for 2015'. https://minek.rk.gov.ru/file/File/minek/2016/analiz_soc_ek/macro/macro_2015_new.pdf

'Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of September 5, 2018 No. 1059 On Amending the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of August 11, 2014', No. 790. Directorate for managing the FTP.

Goryunova, Yevgenia. 'Crimea's Budget: a bottomless pit, or how much money the peninsula requires' in Pod Pricelom (9 November, 2015). https://podpricelom.com.ua/analyze/krymskyj-byudzhet-bezdonnaya-bochka-yly-skolko-deneg-nuzhno-krymu.html

Vinogradov, Aleksandr. ''The Russian economy is experiencing the side effects of the Crimean crisis' - Handelsblatt' (11 March, 2019). https://ru.krymr.com/a/mirovaya-pressa-o-kryme/29814576.html

Zorin, Andrei. 'The Grecian Project of Catherine the Great' in Arzamas. https://arzamas.academy/courses/2/1

Website sources:

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/11/01/what-next-russias-economy-a68015

https://www.oecd.org/economy/outlook/economic-forecast-summary-russia-oecd-economic-outlook.pdf

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/russia/publication/rer

Pictures:

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2019/12/27/2019-in-photos-meduza-s-picks

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