From the MT:
“Russian Cities Scrap New Year
Festivities as War Encroaches on Everyday Life”
Dozens of Russian cities have
canceled or scaled back planned New Year’s Eve celebrations as the war strains
local budgets and calls grow for money to be diverted to mobilized Russian
soldiers lacking basic equipment and supplies. “After Feb. 24, most people
believed it [the war] would not affect them personally. But now it will knock
on every door with each draft notice,” St. Petersburg opposition lawmaker Boris
Vishnevsky said. “It’s not a time for celebrations,” he told The Moscow Times.
President Vladimir Putin’s
announcement of a “partial” mobilization last month brought the reality of the
Ukraine war home to many Russians for the first time. And the scaling-down of
celebrations for New Year — a major Russian holiday — will be a stark reminder
of the ongoing fighting and the losses Russia has suffered at the hands of the
Ukrainian military.
The southern region of Rostov on
Tuesday became the latest region to announce it would be staging more modest
New Year celebrations, with Governor Vasily Golubyov writing on Telegram that
towns and cities in the area would make do with old decorations. Rostov joins a list of dozens of Russian
cities and regions, including the Kurgan region, Belgorod on the Ukrainian
border, Russia’s second-largest city St. Petersburg and the Siberian city of
Tobolsk, which have canceled events including concerts, firework displays and
ice rinks.
The capital, Moscow, has not yet
announced any changes to its traditionally lavish New Year festivities. Faced with a slew of reports about mobilized
men lacking military equipment, warm clothes and medical supplies — as well as
soldiers who have not received financial bonuses — there appears to be support
for redirecting cities’ holiday budgets to the Armed Forces. “The
authorities allocate huge amounts of money to decorate the city during the New
Year holidays,” Voronezh resident Natalya Seroukhova wrote last month in an
online petition with over 700,000 signatures calling for the festivities in her
hometown to be canceled. Olga Lobanova,
a resident of Nizhny Tagil, an industrial city near the Ural mountains, urged
the local authorities last week to take a similar step. “Money
freed up should be transferred to buy additional equipment for the soldiers in
our army, mobilized men and all types of volunteer fighters,” she wrote in a
VKontakte post. “Let's support our guys!” While the idea to cancel New Year celebrations
appears to chime with changing attitudes toward the war among ordinary
Russians, it is also likely to be an “unwritten order” from the Kremlin,
according to political analyst Ivan Preobrazhensky. Russian Culture Minister
Olga Lyubimova said Wednesday that she was talking to regional governors about
a “change of tone” when it comes to public events, Interfax reported.
Different regions have pledged
the saved money will go to different causes. In Nizhny Novgorod, officials promised the
money would go to provide support to the families of those mobilized —
including payments for kindergartens, school meals and extra lessons. In the
city of Kaluga south of Moscow, Mayor Dmitry Denisov said last week on Telegram
that the funds saved by scaling back New Year celebrations would be spent on
“our guys who should be better equipped than under the standard provisions.” While
there has been little evidence of unhappiness toward the prospect of a
slimmed-down New Year, analysts warned that the loss of celebrations could end
up causing dissatisfaction. “Events such as New Year celebrations have a
big impact on how the effectiveness of the authorities is measured at a
household level,” Preobrazhensky told The Moscow Times. And there have been
some signs of political nervousness over the decision, with an unidentified source
in the Kremlin telling state-run news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti on Friday
that the canceling of New Year plans was “premature” and “inaccurate.”
At the same time, some Russian
regions may have no choice but to cut spending as the Kremlin seeks to devolve
unpopular wartime expenditures. In
particular, local budgets appear to be strained by one-off payments to
mobilized men — usually around 100,000 rubles ($1,550) — that have been pledged
by dozens of regions. The head of the Omsk region, Alexander Burkov, said last
week that these one-off payments “would take some time,” adding that “the
budget deficit is more than 13 billion rubles.” Such an attempt to delegate the responsibility
for the Kremlin’s unpopular mobilization to regional governments, according to
observers, resembles its approach during the coronavirus pandemic, when it
devolved decisions about lockdown to governors. The regions are being “forced to run an
evidently unpopular mobilization campaign while Moscow tries to delegate all
possible costs,” said Preobrazhensky. “Some of the regions are already bankrupt.” However,
a growing realization of the costs of the Ukraine war will not necessarily mean
any changes in the Kremlin’s approach, according to St. Petersburg lawmaker
Vishnevsky. “All this only contributes to escalation, it does not bring us
closer to peace,” he said.
^ Scraping New Year's
celebrations may not seem that big of a deal, but for Russians it is more like
Christmas (the Communists made it illegal to celebrate Catholic Christmas on
December 25th or Russian Orthodox Christmas on January 7th, but they allowed trees
and presents on New Year's.)
I have been in Russia for 5 New
Years and have seen the fireworks, the odd Variety Shows on TV, the long tables
filled with food, Friends and Vodka, given out presents, Putin's New Year's
Speech and the Kremlin Bells ring.
Not having New Years will affect
every single Russian Man, Woman and Child more than the 60,000 dead Russian
Soldiers returning home in body bags or the 30,000 wounded Russian Soldiers
limping their way back home.
Not having New Years will affect
every single Russian Man, Woman and Child more than all the War Crimes
committed by the Russians on innocent Ukrainian Men, Women and Children.
Not having New Years is a great
thing for the rest of the World because it will force every single Russian Man,
Woman and Child to experience the War they support and will hopefully make them
end their Genocide. ^
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