TOMSK: ANN ARBOR ON THE STEPPE - BUT CYNICISM

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 002559 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM KDEM RS SUBJECT: TOMSK: ANN ARBOR ON THE STEPPE - BUT CYNICISM REIGNS REF: MOSCOW 775 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: As a university town and a former SPS bastion, Tomsk has a small but stable liberal electorate, and shows greater press freedom and tolerance for foreigners than many other regions in Russia. This press freedom has had little influence on local politics; most articles exposing local corruption are ignored, widespread cynicism holds sway among Tomsk's youth, and United Russia maintains its thorough if tenuous grip on power. Conversations with liberal oppositionists and government officials in Tomsk revealed an undercurrent of elite support for Medvedev's expressed ideas on top-down reform and increased democratization, which may lead people in this city to discard their cynicism and follow him if he can turn his soaring rhetoric into a concrete program of systemic change. End Summary. A liberal oasis? -------------- ¶2. (SBU) As the home to Tomsk State University, Tomsk swells annually with an additional student population of 25,000. Its "university town" atmosphere, along with a history of innovation and the legacy of dissidents and their children who lived in Siberia, provide liberal underpinnings to the city. Aleksandr Krasnoperov, who writes for the state-owned daily Tomskiye Novosti, told us during an October 1-2 visit that Tomsk was formerly a bastion of the liberal party Union of Right Forces (SPS),who won 9 percent and received two deputies in the last Duma elections here. Many former SPS members work there, including Right Cause deputy and local Executive Committee chief Nikolay Salangin, who told us that he still carried the liberal torch to the extent possible (though Krasnoperov called Right Cause's work "useless"). Salangin estimated that Tomsk has a "very stable" liberal electorate of 10-15 percent, or slightly higher. "In Communist times, it was more free than Moscow," Salangin said. "People form liberal ideas out here." He admonished us to "forget the stereotype" of liberal big cities versus conservative provinces. ¶3. (SBU) Offering some examples, Salangin said there is less "telephone justice" in Tomsk than in other parts of the country, as the Judicial faculty in the university exerts a positive influence on local judges. Salangin has a close friend who is a prosecutor, who he said is sincerely trying to do his job. Tomsk Deputy Mayor for Information Policy Aleksey Sevostyanov noted that although 20 countries are represented among students in Tomsk, there have been no attacks of any kind on foreigners. A large number of government officials with whom we met in Tomsk -- of varying political views -- had previously visited the U.S. as part of exchange programs. (Note: They also consistently declared that they were not United Russia members, although this included the Vice Chair of the Tomsk Election Commission, Yelena Obukhova, who delivered a pro-GOR broadside that would have made Kremlin insider Vladislav Surkov proud. End note.) ¶4. (SBU) Perhaps because of this liberal influence, Tomsk allows its independent journalists to operate relatively openly. The independent daily Tomskaya Nedelya (the other main daily besides Tomskiye Novosti) airs its views generally free of harassment -- Sevostyanov complained that they "nightmarishly harangue" the government with impunity -- as do the independent Radio Siberia and the local television channel TV-2, which was cited as a shining example of media freedom by oppositionists and government apologists alike during our visit. Sevostyanov claimed that journalists make a point of coming to Tomsk to work because of the increased freedom. In contrast to journalists uncovering corruption in numerous regions of the country, no muckraking journalists have been beaten or attacked. According to Sevostyanov, the Glasnost Defense Fund rated Tomsk among the top five regions of the country for press freedom. Igor Yakovyenko, who in February was ousted from the Russian Union of Journalists because of his adversarial relationship with the government, has been collaborating with the Tomsk city administration to create a television station focusing on social issues. ¶5. (SBU) The picture is not completely bright; according to Yabloko Duma Deputy and Regional organization leader Vasiliy Eremin, independent journalists have received other forms of bureaucratic harassment such as tax or fire inspections. Aleksandr Deyev, an independent candidate who lost the March mayoral election to United Russia incumbent Nikolay Nikolaychuk in an contest marked by standard "use of administrative resources" to ensure the "proper" result (reftel),also complained to us that Tomskaya Nedelya, who supported him in the election, had received pressure to withdraw their support. MOSCOW 00002559 002 OF 003 Free Press, But No One Cares -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Nonetheless, the greatest source of frustration for oppositionists such as Eremin or Deyev was simply that no one cared what they did. Krasnoperov told us that he had written two pieces uncovering local corruption before the March elections, but his reports were simply ignored. Noting a recent case -- "only the tip of the iceberg" -- in which the Deputy head of the Oktyabrskiy Rayon took bribes for showing preference to certain budget programs, Krasnoperov expressed exasperation at the lack of outrage it inspired. He pointed to a blas attitude among Tomsk's younger population, saying that young people pay no attention to political issues; don't want to sacrifice or volunteer for anything; and "are all careerists." He added that people generally close their eyes to authorities' corruption, and that the government appears to have "teflon" despite the economic crisis. Lamenting that the best people avoid politics, Salangin quoted Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity." (As for his own forays into politics, Salangin said, "I'm Don Quixote.") He said that the younger generation is not ready to take over, and are "allergic" to political activity; "they'll say they're unhappy, but they won't do anything.") ¶7. (SBU) Agreeing with Salangin's assessment, Deyev told us that the greatest "academic liberal" influence in Tomsk comes from the university's professors, while he found cynicism and apathy (what he called "po fig-ism," or "to heck with it-ism") to be rampant among Tomsk's young students. Sevostyanov acknowledged that students' priorities lie with finding jobs rather than politics, although he noted that when they do apply themselves to politics, they do so with greater passion. Just Russia regional organization leader Galina Nemtseva agreed, saying that although young people are "inert," their leaders are "real leaders," who understand that politics "is not a game." Deyev noted that "students in any country are a strong social force, and the vlast (power) fears this"; but he lamented that students are not organized. Still, he said, United Russia is not popular among young people in polls, and they did support his candidacy in greater numbers. He added that young people's use of the Internet and travel helps foster cosmopolitan views as well. Dima, Forward! -------------- ¶8. (SBU) With the exception of Krasnoperov, who expressed his admiration for free-market pioneer Yegor Gaidar while scorning Medvedev, both liberals and conservatives alike stated their admiration for Medvedev's ideas as expressed in his recent "Russia, Forward" article. Top-down reform, in the minds of most people with whom we met, would be vastly preferable to no reform at all, if it improved the climate for rule of law and allowed small and medium businesses a fighting chance against entrenched corrupt interests. Doom and gloom were undeniably rampant among the liberals; Krasnoperov complained that "all we did in 1989 was monetize the Soviet system," while Salangin said, "Twenty years ago during perestroika, we couldn't have imagined how far south it would have gone by now." Deyev deemed a "Medvedev bunt" (rebellion) in opposition to powerful siloviki unlikely. However, Eremin stated his hope that Medvedev is "tired of being a puppet," and that he is quietly installing liberal allies at various levels of government in the hope of challenging the ossified system of cronyism that, in Eremin's view, is holding Russia back from developing. Given the slim likelihood of grassroots-inspired change in the near future, Eremin said, "Our best hope" for increased democratization "is that more elites will gradually change their minds" about the status quo, as happened historically in countries such as England and Sweden. As Salangin said, "Politically, as a country we're still young - we are only in our twenties." ¶9. (SBU) Certainly, according to Deyev, the intelligentsia are placing their hopes in Medvedev. United Russia regional organization leader and Deputy Speaker of the Tomsk Oblast Duma Aleksandr Kupriyanets called "Russia, Forward" a "trial balloon," with elites and intellectuals as the intended audience. According to Kupriyanets, the idea is to replace Surkov's "sovereign democracy" with the concept of "competitive democracy," which they attributed to INSOR head and Medvedev advisor Igor Yurgens. Noting that the Decembrists, several of whom lived in the Tomsk area, were themselves members of the elite, Kupriyanets suggested that top-down reform might be just what Russia needs. On the other hand, he said that by bringing their intra-governmental debates on this issue into the open, the Kremlin co-opts any MOSCOW 00002559 003 OF 003 debate that might take place among the public. He mused on the difficult task of building a bridge of understanding between liberal members of the elite, and the average Siberian "muzhik" farmer, who feels pride of ownership of his possessions in the post-Soviet context, but still may not connect that to the increased freedoms that accompanied perestroika years ago. ¶10. (SBU) Pointing to what he considered Medvedev's reformist instincts and mild temperament, Kupriyanets compared Medvedev to Tsar Aleksandr II, who freed the serfs in 1861. He said that the government regularly carries out surveys, and pays close attention to polls from organizations like Levada and VTsIOM. The conclusion they draw from this research, said Kupriyanets, is that societal attitudes are shifting at their own pace, and that although "there is no panacea, no golden key," people are gradually "taking more ownership" and responsibility, and recognizing that they had a stake in the development of the country, which he said was Medvedev's ultimate goal. Comment -------------- ¶11. (SBU) The attempt to fathom Medvedev's ultimate intentions continues, no less in Tomsk than in Moscow. However, conversations in Tomsk support the conclusion that Medvedev would find ample support among local elites for a reformist program, were he to choose to implement his soaring rhetoric in a meaningful and concrete fashion. As we saw in reftel, in March United Russia already had to struggle to maintain its iron grip on power in Tomsk. If Medvedev decides to take the country in a new direction, students and professors alike in Tomsk will be ready to follow him -- although young people will first need to shake off their cynical and apathetic malaise. Beyrle