How I learned to love Vlad

As it feels like a sin, then this must be a confession. I have been in Moscow for four and a half years, reporting on the presidency of Vladimir Putin - its slow erosion of democratic freedoms, its savage disregard for the individual, its petro-dollar arrogance. I've been reflexively critical, due to the obvious truth that the battered Russian people deserve something better. They have done for centuries. But now my time here has come to an end, I need to confess: I am becoming something of a Putin fan. I have witnessed many things that make this stance unsupportable: the morgue near Beslan that, on September 4 2004, smelled of 186 dead, burned and contorted schoolchildren after a bungled military siege; the hostages dragged unconscious on October 23 2002 from the Nord Ost theatre in Moscow after another siege, and dumped on their backs by emergency workers to choke on their tongues in the early-morning snowfall; Putin sitting alongside Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovich at a Soviet-style military parade on October 28 2004, days before Yanukovich tried to steal the presidential election; Lubov Tkach, the wife of a Russian miner who disappeared during an accident, sitting in November 2003 near a large pile of coal in her one-room flat, ill and unable to afford medicine but watching a huge colour TV that had been bought for her in compensation.

Commerce, not politics, will bring Russia round. Russians have fallen irreversibly in love with denghi - their ugly word for money - and the mobility and riches of the globalised world. Thanks to Putin, a strong enough state now exists to gradually compel them to pay taxes. The Kremlin, despite its Soviet-era idiocies, still cares hugely whether it is popular, and hence often uses these monies to the electorate's benefit. With increasing taxation comes an increasing demand for representation, and eventually the government will fear the people, rather than the other way around...

sounds almost miraculous...

After the demise of The Morning Star, which endured for decades only thanks to the 100% funding from the Kremlin coffers, The Guardian became the leading Ingsoc rag (to use Orwell's invention).

Just muse on the following examples of the Guardian's typical Lefty waffle:

But beneath these moments of brutality there has been a current of slow and steady change.

Changes are indeed numerous, but they remain superficial. The basic principle on which the country is ran is the same for the last several hundred years - human life is the cheapest commodity in Russia.

Moscow is today... a cluster of chain stores and family saloons.

And how many Russians can afford to be their customers? The journo cites a wealthy (?!) publisher who earns about $2,000 (£1,075) a month

Is he joking? Moscow is the most expensive city in the world, life is much cheaper, say, in New England. Would you regard yourself too well-off with 2 grand a month there?

only state corruption remains.

You need any comments?

First, Yeltsin appointed him (Putin) prime minister...

The majority of Russians tell pollsters that they want him to stay on. But to do so, he would have to change the constitution.

No, he wouldn't. All he would have to do now is to appoint himself prime minister again... or speaker of the parliament... or anything else that currently has no real weight. His new position would become all powerful from the next morning, and it wouldn't surprise anyone who remembers Russian history.

For instance, the so called Security Council, which used to be just a professional advisory board with no executive functions at all. But Putin's staffed it with his KGB cronies (including his current foreign minister) and hopla! it is now the land's mightiest department.

Bolsheviks practiced this mystery act from the very start: General Secretary of their party used to be simply a senior clerk... until Stalin took the office.

So the Guardian's jerk just shows what we all know from the start: totalitarianism appeals very much to Lefties. Soviets... pardon me, Russians provide Jihadists with all kinds of military technology (including the nuclear one), and the Western Left are their staunchest supporters, too. So in the end of his term in Russia, the guy (what's his name?) needs to show to his bosses that he still toes the party line.

And how many Russians can afford to be their customers? The journo cites a wealthy (?!) publisher who earns about $2,000 (£1,075) a month

Is he joking? Moscow is the most expensive city in the world, life is much cheaper, say, in New England. Would you regard yourself too well-off with 2 grand a month there?==

2 grands per month is the good salary. I have lesser:). But the prices here in Russia is lesser then in US. The studio rent costs about $700, but it is with the furniture. 1 littre of milk - $0.7. 10 eggs about 1 dollar. The littre of gas is about $0.7. And so on. Of cause it is long below America but better then 5 year ago.

Milk just went up again over here.....about $3.50/gallon (3.8 liters approx.), and gasoline is about $3.00-3.10/gallon. Milk was $2.50/gallon three years ago and began moving up about two years ago.

I don't know how big that studio apartment is, but small, older one-bedroom apartments in Houston run about $700/month. Those are units of about 70 square meters' living space (not including parking space, usu. included gratis).

Utilities used to be included in the rent in the "old days" but it's more variable in the last 20 years, many apartments have separate electrical meters and people pay their own electrical bills.

Is he joking? Moscow is the most expensive city in the world

An executive (a "relative" who is an in-law of an in-law) told me recently that prices were absurd in Moscow - that a "cheap" lunch there costs more than you would pay for an expensive dinner anywhere else. One is left to wonder where people get the kind of money it takes to live there - and what holds down the supply of food to sustain such prices. Absent crime or government restriction, anyone could make money hand over fist air-freighting high-quality food to Moscow from just about anywhere else. If that is true, what kind of business is MacDonald's doing there?

Please remove me from this and all further unsolicited ping lists - unsolicited pings are spam.

As for the substance of the article, I see absolutely nothing in the events it cites that would in any way condone, excuse, or even make remotely expedient, continued support for a notorious lying mass murderer as president of a supposedly civilized state.

Putin is helping Iran get advanced weapons and nuclear technology, so pretending he is a bulwark against terrorism is rather rich. He is in fact on the top five list of leading terrorists in the world.

The food court near our apartment is usually packed. Every McDonalds I’ve visited in Russia has had incredible lines. Amazing. As an ex-pat it is VERY expensive to live in Moscow. Foreigners are often charged more for admission for events and exhibits and in the outdoor markets they are charged more for goods.

Russians do not have the same expenses that we do in the States. For instance most do not own a car, so they do not have car payments, auto insurance, or pay for gas. They can get around the city for less than $50 per month. The utilities bills for their homes are typically $30-40 which includes phone, heat, water, trash pick up, etc. Those are just a few examples.

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