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The Moscow Times Moscow Guide – Winter 2008

Since the middle of autumn one of the most important topics of discussion, could only be … no, not the financial crisis… New Year! The winter issue of The Moscow Times Moscow Guide is entirely devoted to New Years celebrations. Seven great ideas for celebrating the “Night of Nights” will help readers finalise their plans and choose how and where to party, give fresh ideas and lots of practical advice.

And don’t forget – problems will come by themselves, but happiness and luck need an invitation. That why the more cheerful and light-hearted your celebration of the coming holiday is, the happier and more successful 2009 will be for you.

The Crisis: Signs of a Kremlin Fearful Of Unrest
Sociologist Yevgeny Gontmakher has painted a disturbing picture of what might emerge from the financial crisis, forecasting continued unemployment, huge protests and spreading violence.

Market Matters: Huge Grain Harvest No Boon for Farmers
This year Russia is enjoying the biggest grain harvest it has ever seen -- and farmers couldn't be more worried.



Tuesday, January 06, 2009 Updated at 31 December 2008 22:36 Moscow Time.

The Moscow Times » Issue 4003 » News

Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters

A Kazakh officer showing a big map with a plan of a Kazakh-Russian military exercise at the Otar military range on Friday, two days before a visit by Rice.

Rice Denies Trying to Undermine Moscow

06 October 2008ASTANA, Kazakhstan — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday rejected any suggestion that U.S. efforts to build closer ties to Kazakhstan are meant to undermine Russian influence in Central Asia.

"This is not a zero-sum game," she told reporters flying with her to the Kazakh capital. U.S. gains need not mean Russian losses, she said.

"First of all, Kazakhstan is an independent country. It can have friendships with whomever it wishes," she said. "That's perfectly acceptable in the 21st century, so we don't see and don't accept any notion of a special sphere of influence" for Russia in the region.

Later at a joint news conference with Kazakh Foreign Minister Marat Tazhin, Rice said no one should question Kazakhstan's desire to have good relations with all countries.

"This is not some kind of contest for the affection of Kazakhstan," Rice said.

Tazhin described his country's relations with the United States as "stable" and Kazakh relations with Russia as "excellent" and "politically correct." Asked by a reporter whether he considered his country to be in a Russian "sphere of influence," Tazhin said no, adding that he believed such a question was of interest mainly to academics and journalists.

Rice also met President Nursultan Nazarbayev during her five-hour stopover.

During the talks, Rice was expected to seek closer energy ties with Kazakhstan, where U.S. companies have invested billions of dollars in oil money. But no concrete deals were expected to be reached.

Another issue was human rights. Kazakhstan's democracy credentials are being closely watched in the West ahead of the country's chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2010.

Reuters Nursultan Nazarbayev meeting with Condoleezza Rice in Astana on Sunday.

"They are set commitments, and I expect Kazakhstan to live up to them. And they are commitments that they've taken and they say they want to live up to," Rice said en route to Kazakhstan.

She added that the United States had raised some individual cases of human rights with the Kazakhs but gave no details.

With some of the world's biggest oil reserves, Kazakhstan has played a careful balancing act by keeping smooth ties with Russia while looking to the West to diversify oil exports. To highlight his neutrality, Nazarbayev held large-scale military exercises with both NATO and Russia in the two weeks preceding Rice's visit.

Rice also met with Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov, who assured her that his country planned to follow a policy of different transit routes for its energy exports, Interfax reported Sunday evening.

"The prime minister confirmed that Kazakhstan still supports a multidirectional policy for transporting energy, including through Azerbaijan and Georgia," the Kazakh governmental press service said in a statement released after the meeting, the news agency reported.

Astana "understands the role and place of Kazakhstan in the region and its responsibility for ensuring stability in the whole of Central Asia in the areas of both food and energy security," Masimov said.

But the balancing act has been in doubt since Russia's invasion of Georgia in August, which threatened to close off the corridor for pipelines around Russia.

Since Russian forces pushed close to Georgia's capital before pulling back, the U.S. government has tried to signal its commitment to countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Last month, Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan, another important energy exporter in the region.

The administration does not want to be seen as the one "that lost Eurasia and the Caspian region," said Ariel Cohen, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.

(AP, Reuters, MT)