What Is The Motive Behind Yeltsin’s Daughter’s Blogs?
In an interview with RFE/RL’s Andrei Shary, prominent sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya speculates on the recent online activism of Tatiana Yumasheva, Boris Yeltsin’s daughter, and whether her plans might include establishing a new liberal political party. “I think that the political strategists close to Tatiana—and she herself is a person who well understands the mechanisms of politics—are preparing serious political action,” Kryshtanovskaya says.
But acting chairman of the Boris Yeltsin Fund Aleksandr Drozdova claims that Yumasheva’s aim is simply to defend her father’s reputation. “Tatiana Yumasheva authorized me to announce that the party about which Olga Kryshtanovskaya is speaking is not being formed,” he says.
United Russia’s Dead End In Kaliningrad
Political parties, except ruling party United Russia, staged a protest in Kaliningrad over the weekend against a rise in transportation tax and other initiatives by the local administration.
Solomon Ginsberg, one of the protest’s organizers and a deputy in the region’s duma, says that more than 10,000 people attended the rally and adopted a resolution setting forth political and economic demands. “United Russia with their party representative Georgi Boos [the governor of the Kaliningrad Region] are stirring up anti-Moscow and pro-separatist sentiment in Kaliningrad,” Ginsberg tells RFE/RL.
[read in Russian / read in English]
A Fight For Nizhny Novgorod
Criminal charges have been brought against Vladimir Kolchin, the vice mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, for allegedly deceiving local entrepreneurs by asking them to contribute funds for public works that he instead channeled into the local football team.
But many local observers claim these charges are politically motivated and are the consequence of a regional power struggle between Nizhny Novgorod Mayor Vadim Bulavinov and Valery Shantsev, governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. The latter’s mandate expires in August, and there is speculation that Bulavinov wants the governor’s post.