Economist.com Cities Guide: Moscow Briefing - December 2005

News this month

No contest

The Moscow City Duma held elections for its 35-seat parliament on December 4th, in what was considered a test of parties’ popularity before the national elections in 2007. United Russia—the Kremlin-backed party locally led by Moscow’s popular mayor, Yuri Luzhkov—won with 28 of the seats, followed by the Communists with four, and a liberal coalition with three. But turnout was an apathetic 34%, and the election was overshadowed by accusations of corruption. Opposition parties claim that United Russia had unfairly used the “administrative machine” of the city to canvas, fly-post and badger voters. Moreover, critics claimed that a suspicious busload of voters cast their votes in more than one place.

United Russia’s victory was never in doubt. The election's most surprising outcome was the rise in support for the Communists, to 17%. They seem to have benefited from the last-minute ban on participation by the increasingly popular, nationalist Rodina party. Rodina was technically punished for running a campaign ad judged to have incited ethnic hatred, but pundits suggest that the ban was a calculated, Kremlin-inspired move to give United Russia a clean sweep. The struggle between these two parties is expected to be the main drama, such as it is, of the 2007 national parliamentary campaign.

Cold comfort

Anatoly Chubais, boss of Unified Energy Systems, Russia’s electricity monopoly, is not a popular man. A nationalistic ex-serviceman tried to assassinate him earlier this year, apparently because of Mr Chubais’s link with the market reforms of the 1990s. More recently, Mr Chubais riled Muscovites when he warned in late November that he might have to cut power this winter to conserve energy if a severe frost hits the city for more than three days.

Yuri Luzhkov, Moscow’s mayor who has sparred with Mr Chubais in the past, called this announcement “savagery” and complained to Vladimir Putin, Russia's president. Mr Chubais later clarified his comments, explaining that such cuts would not affect residents or social institutions, but be targeted at industrial enterprises. He warned that power outages, such as the one suffered by the city in May, remained a possibility until the ancient electricity grid and power-generating facilities are modernised, and Russia’s overdue energy reforms—which could cost as much as $50 billion—go forward.

News from Russia, with love

The Russia Today TV channel broadcast its first output from its Moscow studios on December 10th—then promptly went off-air two days later. With a mission to deliver news with a “Russian perspective” in English, the ambitious, state-funded venture is supposed to have programming round-the-clock. But on December 12th, a malfunctioning computer system, allegedly tampered with by hackers, forced Russia Today off the air.

The new channel is as an attempt by the Kremlin to counter an alleged misrepresentation of Russia by western media. “We will mainly have Russian news, but we will also show international events and express them from our point of view here”, Margarita Simonyan, Russia Today's editor-in-chief, told the Interfax news agency. Staff have been recruited to the channel from all over the world. Many are relatively young—Ms Simonyan is only 25 years old. The content promises to be eclectic, a diet of news augmented by feature stories on life in Russia and former Soviet countries. In its first weekend, one of the channel's features relayed how some former Soviet countries are re-vamping schoolchildren's history textbooks, post-independence.

A Stalinist hotel goes upscale

The long-awaited sale of the landmark Hotel Ukraine was finally completed at the end of November. Built in 1957 as one of seven modernist “wedding-cake” tower blocks intended to dominate the Moscow skyline, the 30-storey hotel was once the world’s tallest. The value of this communist icon was—in the spirit of capitalism—almost doubled at auction, from $151m to $273m.

The Hotel Ukraine has 1,627 beds, but its new owner, a company called Biskvit (headed by the humbly named God Nisanov), will probably need to spend up to $100m on renovations. In its new incarnation, this relic of Stalinism will join the ranks of Moscow’s other exclusive hotels, which do a profitable trade in their $400-plus rooms. But the hotel will not be completely transformed. Biskvit’s contract bars the company from changing the hotel’s exterior, so the renovation will spare the hammer and sickle and decorative sheaths of wheat (symbolising the Ukraine, the “breadbasket” of the Soviet Union) that still grace the building’s façade.

Rock the house

St Basil's Cathedral, the resplendently gaudy church that stands in Red Square, has withstood much in its long life: foreign invaders, triumphal Soviet parades of men and tanks, and a threat from Stalin to destroy it (apparently thwarted only by the hunger strike of a famous architect, who camped outside the cathedral until Stalin relented). But it is now apparently threatened by nothing more than noise. According to a recently published report by the Public Council of Moscow's Central Administrative District, vibrations emanating from the concerts and events that are increasingly common in and around Red Square are harming the structure of the 16th-century building. Similar concerns were raised in 2003; then, despite the completion of a three-year restoration project on the building’s exterior, a Russian government report warned that the building was slowly sinking and its foundations should be strengthened.

Catch if you can

December 2005

The Great Moscow State Circus and the Old Circus

Through the winter

Moscow’s winter circus season is in full swing. The Great Moscow State Circus, just outside the central ring road, boasts a “Circus-whirligig” show featuring a series of trapeze artists, some accompanied by trained bears. These high jinks can attract a huge crowd: the auditorium holds up to 3,400 people. Its rival, over 100 years old and known fondly as the Old Circus, is officially named after Russia’s most famous clown, Yury Nikulin. This season’s extravaganza boasts horses, dressage dogs, acrobats and fire-eating.

Great Moscow State Circus, 7 Prospekt Vernadskogo. Visit the circus's website for further details. Tel: +7 (095) 930-0272. Nikulin Moscow Circus, 13 Tsvetnoy Boulevar. Tel: +7 (095) 200-0668. Visit the circus's website for further details.

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