THE SILENT REGIONS: CHUVASHIA SKETCHES

An Extract from the Glasnost Defense Foundation Report on the Freedom of Press in Chuvashia

This report was published in 1999. But the situation with the freedom of speech in Chuvashia today is worse than it was 8 years ago. That is why we republish the report on our website.

By Vladimir Kiselyov
translated by Jean MacKenzie

(Vladimir Kiselyov is a graduate of the Moscow Energy Institute and of Moscow State University’s department of journalism. He has worked in the defense industry, in administrative jobs, in advertising and as an instructor. In 1990 he completed a course in scientific journalism sponsored by the journal Khimiya i zhizn (Chemistry and Life) and went to work for that publication. The major topics he covered for Khimiya i Zhizn include marketing, advertising, and social problems. He has worked with the Glasnost Defence Fund since 1998.)

The Glasnost Defence Fund’s monitoring of media-related conflicts registered two cases in Chuvashia in 1997.

The Face of the City: First Impressions

7:00 AM. At the hotel. The radio is broadcasting a session of the Republic’s Council of Ministers. A businesslike discussion about raising the prices for various services, including public transportation. This is glasnost.

Clean streets. Under the windows, well-tended city buses and trolleys bustle about. The people are calm and friendly. Smiling, giggling young people hurry about their business.

Newspapers and magazines are being sold in the trolleybus. There is not much advertising on the streets, and what there is is of very poor quality. Ads for a cafe and a drugstore coexist peacefully on a green and white sign. So you go to the cafe, have a bite, then immediately run for the drugstore. Or perhaps the other way around. Pretty good service!

Another picture: Advertisements in the trolleybuses - in German.

There are a lot of police around. In the evenings, two policeman in full battle gear are on duty in a cafe that only seats 24. At nearly every second bus or trolley stop there is a police post. I am reminded of how once the Greater London Municipality, in the interests of economy, ordered that the number of portable toilets at city transport stops be reduced - instead of one at every third stop, they would only be available only at every fourth. This provoked serious popular unrest. Everyone has his own problems to solve.

Service is on the level of Moscow hotels. For almost the entire week a local lady of the evening calls my room, in the naive but vain hope of earning her 250 rubles.

There is much less crime here than in Mordova. They say that the mafia and criminals do exist, (see the article “Chicagosary” in the newspaper Cheboksary MK), but the bandits are “our guys,” local boys. The big-city guys don’t bother with Chuvashia, since there is very little really profitable industry in the republic. Nothing with a high return and a quick turnover. At least, not yet. So far crime in Chuvashia is mostly the run-of-the-mill domestic kind.

In short, it’s like everywhere else. People just living their lives.

A Portrait of the People

The people here are kind, cheerful. They like to talk. The Chuvash are Orthodox, but the rites of Christianity have managed to incorporate some elements of ancient paganism. A Chuvash is quite likely to go from a church service straight into the woods to pray to a tree, to his ancient gods. The Chuvash are a poetic nation. About themselves, they say: Chuvashia is a land of a hundred thousand songs. This is an exaggeration, but not by much. Wherever hard work is the key to success, the Chuvash is king. But our faults, they say, are an extension of our virtues. Instead of inventing a steam shovel, a Chuvash will set to work with a simple spade. Roughly 80 percent of Russia’s hops come from Chuvashia. They say that the cultivation of this plant - which even figures in the republic’s official seal - is quite a labor-intensive process.

What does the typical Chuvash look like? What is he like? I don’t know what to say. I was once by chance part of a very large, purely Chuvash crowd. I was struck by the sheer variety of characters and faces. They were all wonderful, and all different.

A Surrealist Portrait of Nikolai Fyodorov

Nikolai Fyodorov was born in 1958 in the village of Chedino, Chuvashia, in a large peasant family. He is Chuvash. He graduated from Kazan State University law school and went on to graduate studies at the Law Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He has a doctorate in law.

He taught in Chuvashia State University and in 1989 was elected a people’s deputy of the USSR. In the Supreme Soviet, he became chair of the Committee on Law, Legislation and Order. From 1990 to 1993, he was the Justice Minister of Russia. He was a member of the Security Council of Russia. In December 1993, he was elected president of the Republic of Chuvashia. He is a member of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament. There he is deputy chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee. He is also Russia’s representative to the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly. He is an official of the justice ministry of the Russian Federation. On December 28, 1997, he was reelected president of Chuvashia.

And what are his accomplishments as president? He has clamped down on a wave of nationalism; has ensured that wages and pensions are paid on time; he has brought gas to the villages; he has built roads and schools; and has put a stop to the panicked flight of Russians out of the republic. He put Chuvashia on the map. With the rise of Nikolai Fyodorov, news agencies showed a new interest in Chuvashia and in its president as a national political figure. It used to be that only ITAR-TASS covered the republic.

Now Interfax, RIA-Novosti and Postfactum are there too. Fyodorov himself was one of the creators of the local law on the media. He has a profound understanding of how the press works. He is intelligent and as ambitious as any other politician. His personnel policy is simple: It is not one’s nationality that it important, it is the man himself (for example, the head of the Chuvash national radio and television company is a Russian woman, which greatly irritates local nationalists). Fyodorov tries to separate the wheat from the chaff.

An Information Salad

On the city’s public transportation system (among other places), I heard somewhat different, often contradictory, characterizations of the president. I wasn’t able to get an appointment with Fyodorov himself and to form my own opinions. Therefore, the best I can do is reproduce here a small portion of the spectrum of opinions and myths I came across.

He is painfully proud, some maintain. Stubborn. His is respected by only a fraction of the population and by his own bureaucrats. He has put his own people in almost all the republic’s key positions. He is building a small feudal state with a Byzantine slant in his own image. He is trying to replace the members of the State Council with people dependent on him. He is close to implementing a “Law on Consensus.” There is not so much authoritarianism as in Tatarstan, where the president personally appoints everyone, but the situation is probably worse than in Moscow.

The president does not read opposition newspapers. He easily overcame the opposition press since he holds all the local levers of power. The media are supposed to be the president’s “nightingales.” It’s that or nothing. The media should provide a measured dose of information about the power structures. Fyodorov knows that the media can indirectly influence investment in Chuvashia’s economy - something that the republic needs badly. He knows that the Russian press discovered him as a politician and that they can bury him as well.

The general population is irritated by his weakness for pomp. He rides everywhere with red lights flashing. He is encircled by masses of bodyguards, and there are police behind every tree. Fyodorov wears a thin veneer of “the capital” that appeals to a certain segment of the voting public. He is a politician on the national scale. He was once in conflict with President Boris Yeltsin: He is well-known for having his own views on the situation in Chechnya. The myth (or is it a rumor?) that Fyodorov will be called to Moscow any day now is widely circulated. In this small republic, much depends on good (or bad) personal relations.

One could no doubt learn a lot about Fyodorov by digging around for information on his many lawsuits against the press and individual citizens in defense of his honor, dignity and business reputation. To be fair, one should also examine the press for stories on his many real accomplishments for the good of his citizens.

Town and Village

The population of the republic is 1,362,000 of which the ethnic Chuvash make up 68 percent. The rest are Russian (27 percent), Tatar (2.7 percent), Mordvinian (1.4 percent), Mari (0.3 percent), Jewish, German and Latvian. The population of Cheboksary, the capital of Chuvashia, is 432,000. The second largest city, Novocheboksarsk, has about 125,000. The Chuvash diaspora outside the republic is more than 1 million. Chuvash are the fourth largest ethnic group in Russia (after Russians, Tatars, and Ukrainians).

Chuvashia, which was historically almost entirely rural, was fairly quickly urbanized. Now, according to official statistics, 61 percent of the population are city dwellers. But this transformation had its costs - the peasant was plucked out of his habitual environment. He was taught how to operate his machine in the factory, and that was it. He was not taught anything else. Now industry is almost at a standstill. The Chuvash are not businessmen by nature, but they no longer want to go back to their crops and the dirt of their villages. What is the peasant supposed to do now?

In Cheboksary, the main language is Russian. A large portion of urban Chuvash have completely forgotten their native language and now speak only Russian.

The worldviews of the city dweller and the village dweller differ a great deal. These are two completely different audiences. City dwellers watch television - NTV, ORT and TV-6 entertainment programs. As a rule, the village does not watch television. Partly this is for technical reasons: the signal is just too weak. However, when the local television channel broadcasts programs in Chuvash, the village streets fall silent. Rural folk here can happily listen to the same folk song every day from morning to night. Maybe it can be said that this love of programs with folk (or pseudo-folk) singing and dancing is a sign of some process of national self-awareness. This process can at times produce surprising results. Suddenly you learn from the Chuvash media that Jesus Christ was not a Jew, but an ethnic Chuvash! Or that Russians got their language from the Chuvash. Or that the Russian and Chuvash national hero from the 1920s, Vasily Chapayev, did not die, but was recently spotted in a village somewhere.

In Chuvashia, nothing is done suddenly. The rural television viewer is more interested in what’s going on with his neighbor Marya Ivanovna and couldn’t care less about Chubais. Among village residents, stereotypes change gradually if at all. It is banal, but true that the archetypes for villagers and city dwellers are different. This must be taken into account in the presentation of information, something that became very clear during the 1997 presidential election campaign.

The Benefit to the State of Celibacy Among Judges

The republic retains elements of the Byzantine political system. The screws have been tightened to such an extent - and everyone is so afraid of everything - that even judges will say to the condemned after a court case: “We have wives and children ourselves. We can do nothing since we want to be elected for another term.” They then advise the convicted party to appeal to Russian superior courts. It is not surprising that the majority of respondents say that it is useless to appeal to the courts – there is no justice in Chuvashia.

Flags over the Chuvash Government Center

Every day for an entire week, I rode past or walked around the building that houses the offices of the executive branch of the Chuvash Republican government. Each time, I watched with pleasure as the large red and yellow flag of Chuvashia, with it’s stylized image of the tree of peace in the center, fluttered in the breeze. It seemed to me to be the symbol of a sovereign state. Next to it sagged a small red, white and blue rag of a Russian flag, wrapped tightly around the flagpole, probably by the hurricane that swept through the republic during the presidential elections. But fortune smiled on the flag of Chuvashia. Seemingly untouched by the gale winds, it now waves in glorious victory.

A Subjective View of the Political Situation in Chuvashia: A Political Lull

There are almost no democrats left in Chuvashia. There is a strong, hard-core party of power, and a network of communist organizations that fulfill, from their own point of view general democratic functions in the republic.

The nationalists hark back to their Turkish roots and make gestures in the direction of Islam. They held a few demonstrations and then fell silent. There is almost no run-of-the-mill nationalism in Chuvashia. Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s right-wing Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and Grigory Yavlinsky’s reformist bloc Yabloko each have a certain following.

Chuvashia’s voting patterns form a paradox: In the national elections in 1996, the republic voted against Yeltsin and for the communist, Gennady Zyuganov. In local elections in 1997, they voted against the communist candidate and elected Fyodorov.

In Cheboksary, the support for Fyodorov was by no means overwhelming. The communist Shurchanov lost by a narrow margin. It was really the rural vote, the village people, who brought Fyodorov to power.

In the archives of the Chuvash Election Commission, there is a “white book” listing violations uncovered during the presidential election campaign. Everyone I spoke to had their own take on events.

The election was characterized as a confrontation among a number of different political poles:

Executive (presidential) power: N.V. Fyodorov
Legislative power: V.A. Shurchanov
Prosecutor General: S.V. Rusakov
Municipal government of Cheboksary: A.A. Igumnov
Trade Unions

There were probably still others that played a role but didn’t come up in the conversations I held.

The function of the media was simple enough: to express the interests of one or another of these groups.

What Are They Reading in Cheboksary?

In the newspaper and magazine markets, the yellow press and pornography - all brought in from Moscow - dominate. There is no business-oriented or analytical press at all. This selection is determined solely by customers’ tastes and interests. There are some local publications in Russian interspersed among the others and, rarely, a few in Chuvash.

The local press is dying out. Most publications are living on solely because of subsidies from the government.

The Mass Media in Chuvashia

According to documents prepared by the Chuvash Ministry of Press and Information, which –by the way – was downgraded to a “committee” after the presidential elections, there are 112 newspapers, 21 magazines, 18 television companies, 36 radio companies and 8 news agencies in Chuvashia. Including both state-controlled and private media.

However, Chuvashia is a republic of subsidies. There is a special local law governing the financing of newspapers and magazines from the republican budget and the Press and Information Committee maintains a register of a few dozen publications that qualify for financing. However, it is an axiom that all newspapers and magazines that exist in Chuvashia are financed by the authorities in one way or another. Publications that are distributed throughout the republic are especially dependent on subsidies. There are a few advertising-only publications that make up the exception to the rule.

According to another local law, all publications produced in the republic are supposed to send sample copies to Moscow. However, a check of the shelves of the State Library in the capital turns up only empty shelves.

The local media market is developing and there are two opposing processes at work. On one hand, newly created newspapers, magazines, and broadcast companies are much less dependent on the government. On the other hand, there is a tendency to extend state control over the media. The authorities undertake constant efforts to steer relatively independent editorial voices into one or another of the local political camps. In this manner, all the media gradually become organs of the authorities.

Magazines and Newspapers

The majority of the periodical press is financed directly out of the republican budget. One reads these publications for the sole purpose of finding out what the official administration position is.

Other publications receive their subsidies from non-budgetary sources. These mechanisms are more subtle. Sovietskaya Chuvashia gets its support in the form of advertising contracts and subsidized printing services. They have organized their own distribution service, through which they distribute other publications as well. Through some agreement or other, they are able to charge lower prices for their services than the post office, so they make a decent profit on this work. Sovietskaya Chuvashia does not directly receive budgetary funds. However, it shares a single bank account with the newspaper Molodezhny Kurier, which does receive government support.

There are a few publications in Chuvashia that manage to break even. Among these are Cheboksary MK (a local publication owned by the Moscow newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets), Shkolniki, Pochtovy Ekspress, Poedinok-2 and a couple of others. There are some advertising-informational publications that are distributed free to every mailbox such as Vestnik Nedeli. These publications face their own problems, not the least of which is that an estimated one-half of the population of Cheboksary doesn’t have mailboxes.

Television

The Chuvash Television and Radio Company is 35 years old and is financed out of the federal and republican budgets. Since 1996, the company has been receiving only enough money to pay its utilities. The rest of their funding comes from the sale of advertising. Officially, the company is an organ of the republican administration. Seventy-five percent of its broadcasts are in Chuvash, the remainder in Russian. Ninety percent of the company’s employees are Chuvash. The company is obliged by law to represent the viewpoint of the government, to create Chuvash television programming, with an emphasis on cultural and educational programming that isn’t going to draw a kopeck of advertising or commercial sponsorship.

Channel 5 Plus is a private company that survives on advertising revenues. At one point, the deputies of the city council caused a sensation by suggesting that budgetary subsidies go to Channel 5 Plus instead of the state Cheboksary TV. The newspaper Sovietskaya Chuvashia printed some scandalous articles about how taxpayer money was being funneled into a private company, forcing the council to rethink their plans. Channel 5 Plus is popular. It is well-known for its up-to-the-minute news programming. According to both station employees and competitors, it is highly professional. In its early days, Channel 5 Plus broadcast on cable for several years without a license. Now it owns its own powerful transmitter. Paradoxically, this private channel is supported by the communists who, in their day, put an end to all private enterprise.

The municipal channel, Cheboksary TV (part of the State Television and Radio Company) broadcasts on UHF wavelengths. Because the city is crisscrossed with ravines, its signal does not penetrate everywhere. It is estimated that 25 percent of city residents cannot receive the signal. The only solution is for the company to create a cable network.

The republic television broadcasting tower relays the signal for ORT (Channel One), RTR (Russian State Television), TV-Center (Moscow), Kultura (Moscow) and the private central channels TV-6 and NTV. People I spoke with prefer all of these channels to Chuvash Television or Channel 5 Plus. Nonetheless, there is a fierce struggle going on between Chuvash Television and Channel 5 Plus, especially over control of local cable television.

Radio

The main national FM stations to be found in Chuvashia are Nostalgie and Evropa Plus. Ekho Moskvy and Russkoye Radio are expected shortly.

The State Television and Radio Company transmits a program throughout the republic via cable radio. Its local FM program, Vashe Radio, can be heard in Cheboksary and within an 80-kilometer radius. Vashe Radio is the leader for local news. Most radio listeners couldn’t care less who is being criticized on the Moscow stations. Local ratings claim that Vashe Radio has a 33 percent market share in the morning and 45 percent in the evening within Cheboksary.

There are a few other small stations and the problem of music piracy is the same in Chuvashia as it is everywhere in Russia.The Internet

As of March 1998, the administration plans to create a program to exchange digests of all local and republic-wide newspaper with one another via the internet. National newspapers such as Rossiiskaya Gazeta and Komsmolskaya Pravda that are printed in Cheboksary continue to transmit their pages by phototelegraph. However, some republican papers are slowly moving over to new technology. For example, the local paper in Shumerle sends its copy by electronic mail to the Sovietskaya Chuvashia printing house in Cheboksary where it is printed.

Equipment

All newspapers, even the smallest local ones, have computers for composing and page layout. About 70 percent of Chuvash papers are printed on offset presses. By contrast, in the Tartar Republic, even the biggest papers are printed on letterpresses. A staff member at the Press Committee told me that regional newspapers communicate with his office by electronic mail on a daily basis. However, the republic’s newspapers have few fax machines or fax modems. I also don’t recall seeing a single photocopier while I was there. They must have them, but I don’t know where….

The Rules of the Game

How the Administration Looks at the Problem:

The opposition press is made up of people who do not know what is really important. Sure, they can nitpick and find fault over every little thing, but when it comes to major problems, there’s not a peep out of them. There is a very sharp division within local society. There are the rich, the poor and the very poor. This division creates a lot of tension, particularly among journalists. Unfortunately there are no intellectuals among them, capable of adequately assessing the situation or of influencing public opinion to change things for the better.

In 1994, the president issued a decree according to which the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Chuvashia is the founding organ of all of the republic-wide newspapers, and the local district administration are the founding organ of all district papers. In short, the entire press – with the exception of a just a few publications, has been given over into the hands of the executive branch, which corresponds to the requirements of democracy.

Recently an unsubsidized, state unitary enterprise, Sovietskaya Chuvashia, was created, and it has become the founder of several media outlets.

A Look at the Problem from the Media’s Perspective

Not a single media organ dared to call itself completely independent. Almost everyone I spoke to declared that there is no - or almost no - independent press in Chuvashia. Everyone is dependent to a greater or lesser extent.

Here are a few opinions I came across:

“There is no Chuvash opposition press.”

“A newspaper that is attached to the government cannot become independent. It will be closed immediately.”

“This is a subsidized region. Newspapers here cannot break even. They need financial support. Therefore, they are dependent. The size of the subsidy is in direct proportion to the degree of loyalty exhibited by the press.”

“Young people read Cheboksary MK and Molodezhny Kurier. The older generation reads Sovietskaya Chuvashia or the opposition press, for example, Respublika. The newspaper Shkolniki has a circulation of 60,000. School children write for it, but they are not the only ones who read it. The newspaper does not pay honoraria.”

The Voice of the People and a Few Disinterested Opinions

“Journalism, as the ‘second oldest profession,’ has always been dependent. This is true of Russia and of Chuvashia.”

“We seem to have developed a unique new breed of journalist. A modest, sensitive breed that doesn’t ask questions.”

“Only the advertising-informational publications can be considered independent. They pay their own way and they are free within the confines of their own format since they do not get involved in politics.”

Lawsuits against Journalists and the Media

How the Administration Looks at the Problem:

“There is no problem and there have been no cases. Everything is fine. Everything is simply marvelous.”

“There have been some cases, but we aren’t going to bother with just any newspaper. It’s too great an honor for them and we don’t want to increase their popularity. As the saying goes, ‘the dog barks and the caravan proceeds.’”

“We have a saying: ‘Beat your own and others will fear you.’ There have been some cases involving with Sovietskaya Chuvashia because of the publication of satirical articles and the like.”

“Why go to court? We can take care of them without that.”

“Why go to court? We have press departments that prepare materials on various conflict situations and distribute them to the media. Anyone who wants to can print them; if they don’t, they don’t. This habit of settling scores through the media, with court cases settled for one or two rubles, just upsets the public. These cases don’t look like a ‘defense of one’s honor and dignity.’ They are more like self-promotion or just an ordinary squabble in communal kitchen.”

“Court cases are a normal feature of any society where the rule of law operates. But if there are too many cases, when are we going to get any work done?”

A Look at the Problem from the Media’s Perspective

The media is under attack by the administration and that attack is coming through the courts. It goes like this: They send tax inspectors who find out exactly to the kopeck how much money we have in our account. Then we get slapped with a lawsuit for that exact amount. Naturally, they win the case since most publications do not have qualified legal departments. Then the newspaper quietly dies – ‘for purely financial reasons,’ as the epitaph usually reads.”

“There are court cases. The newspaper Sovietskaya Chuvashia (with 42 cases) even has a special center for legal aid. Otherwise the newspaper wouldn’t be able to function. On some days, they have three court cases going. However, these cases are often mutually beneficial. They help the paper combat its obsequious reputation while, at the same time, the president and his bureaucrats can demonstrate that the rule of law is alive and well here.”

The newspaper Molodezhny Kurier is no stranger to erotica (the same is true of Cheboksary MK), but some of the articles it has published have provoked sharp protests among teachers. These protests in turn have prompted the chair of the Chuvsh State Council Budget Committee to object to giving taxpayer subsidies to Molodezhny Kurier. He argues that the newspaper is corrupting the republic’s youth. He argues further that other yellow tabloids make money, so why should the taxpayer subsidize this one? As a result, in 1997, the paper’s subsidy was cut from about $60,000 per year to about $50,000. Later, the paper’s editor sued the official for $10,000 over the remarks he made about the paper during this closed session of the budget committee. The courts found the official liable but reduced the amount of the award to just $50 plus court costs.

The newspaper Khypar has had seven suits filed against it and all have been settled out of court.

The newspaper Respublika is forced to print outside the republic.

There was a conflict between the mayor of Cheboksary and the newspaper Cheboksary Novosti.

There was a conflict between Chuvash President Fyodorov and Rossiiskaya Gazeta. This conflict resulted in two cases - one in Moscow and one in Chuvashia.

Fyodorov also filed a suit against the newspaper Tovarishch.

There have been several suits against the newspaper Grani (in Novocheboksarsk).

There have been “honor and dignity” suits against the newspaper Khreschen sassi. In one case, the paper was sued over an article that was critical of a certain collective farm chairman. In another, they were sued by a professor. The paper has the distinction of having lost every case it was involved in.

The Voice of the People, and a Few Disinterested Opinions

“Judges are appointed by the State Council, but it seems as if they answer not only to the council. Judging by all appearances, the president also influences their deliberations.”

“No one has changed the old methods of party control over the press. Any critical information can be removed.”

“If you try not to offend anyone or find fault with anyone or dig up facts or investigate anything, if you just smile and giggle, you’ll be all right.”

Summary

Newspapers are very rarely judged objectively. Almost everyone I spoke to, regardless of their political persuasion, remarked on the dependence, the opportunism and the unprincipled nature of the Chuvash courts. They commented on their low level of professionalism and general incompetence.

Accreditation: How Big is the Problem in Chuvashia?

How the Administration Looks at the Problem:

“There is no problem.”

Almost all government structures and police organs have press services. But there is no law or regulation governing the accreditation of journalists in Chuvashia. None.

A Look at the Problem from the Media’s Perspective

“There is no problem with accreditation for the president’s newspapers.”

Some of the power structures (for example, the Interior Ministry) issue journalists with special cards that give them the right to be present at events. But there are no regulations on accreditation. In the presidential administration, they said that they used to have some regulation through the press office. But they couldn’t show me the old regulation, and the new one is not ready yet. The local press is divided into “desirable” and “undesirable,” and only those who are “desirable” are invited.

Shortly after New Year’s, a request was sent personally to the chief of staff for the presidential administration for accreditation for journalists from Channel 5 Plus. After a month, the station called and was told that the letter was “being studied.” I heard the same story at the newspaper Respublika as well.

There was a press conference recently at the administration on the construction of a new Lukoil gas station. At least four media representatives who called about this briefing were told by the press secrtary that they would not be invited because “there is not enough room in the hall.”

No reporter from Cheboksary MK was invited to the inauguration of the president of Chuvashia.

Specific journalists have been refused permission to attend various events. Nikolai Vasilyev, from the newspaper Sovietskaya Chuvashia, was refused accreditation to the State Council. The Sports Ministry at one time attempted to limit the access of certain journalists whom it accused of mistakes in the spelling of names and in the reporting of sports scores. Almost all banks and many private enterprises, however, work well with the press.

The Voice of the People and a Few Disinterested Opinions

“How good can a government be when no one knows what it is doing?”

The old communist party habit of creating and maintaining an information vacuum is a feature of the Byzantine method of governing. Unfortunately, that vacuum gradually fills up with noise, rumors, myths and just plain garbage.

“The people are not stupid. They understand perfectly well what a flood of articles based on three elements, “Glory! Hurrah! Great Job!” means. The media are perfectly capable of avenging themselves for lack of accreditation or whatever. Cheboksary MK is especially adept at this. Many are afraid of getting on the wrong end of its sharp tongue.

Access to Information: What Is the Situation in the Republic?

How the Administration Looks at the Problem
“There is no problem.”

“Government directives must be observed; people have to know what to do. Press coverage is the simplest and most logical way to keep the public informed.”

“If a deputy wants to look at the order of the instructions of the Cabinet of Ministers in a file at the Records Department of the Cabinet of Ministers, all he has to do is write a request directed to the chief of staff of the Presidential Administration seeking permission to examine instructions number such and such. It’s that simple.”

“There is an official schedule of when officials of various levels will meet with members of the press. Unfortunately, not many officials are very interested in showing up. Sometimes, they have to be forced to meet with the press. But the public has a right to get an undistorted view of the activity of government offices and officials.”

“We give the media a lot of analytical information, but they don’t print it.”

“The matter of access to information for journalists is a political question. Any information vacuum is going to fill up sooner or later. If we don’t do it, others will.”

A Look at the Problem from the Media’s Perspective
Many editors spoke about the elusiveness of the president’s press secretary, Aleksandr Smolin. His modus operandi goes like this: At first, he will joyfully announce that he is ready to meet with journalists. Then, after a short period of time, he will complain that he is too busy or give some other reason (or no reasons at all) for canceling the meeting. This press secretary who avoids the press seems like a curious phenomenon, but it is probably symptomatic.

Other high-ranking officials conduct themselves in a similar fashion. After giving preliminary agreement to an interview, barely concealing their reluctance, they use every means at their disposal to avoid a meeting. While I was in Cheboksary, I personally had to use considerable pressure to get a 10-minute interview with a certain official. During that interview, I was forbidden to record anything and the official spent most of his time asking questions of me. When I did manage to sneak in a question, the bureaucrat’s answers were evasive and uninformative.

This kind of “bureaucratic football” is the rule here. A journalist must be persistent, professional and patient to get the information he or she seeks. But it can be done.

“With open court sessions there is no problem.”

“Many official agencies and power structures have improved their information policy, but there is still a long way to go.”

“Many government agencies have a tendency to block information, to conduct every activity in secrecy.”

“It has become very difficult to get access to official information and to documents of government agencies and departments. The problem is even worse with private businesses and organizations. They always demand a long application procedure. In the end, you can only get the documents through the courts.”

The Voice of the People and a Few Disinterested Opinions
Some sources claim that there is an official order within the republican government forbidding the Ministry of Health from releasing any information on drug addiction in Chuvashia. In short, they close their eyes and the problem goes away. Hurrah!

Many people remember the case of 48 women infected with the HIV virus who were brought to a Chuvash prison from the Baltic states. Since they arrived, there has been no information whatsoever. They brought them in and they took them away. No one knows anything.

“It is obvious that many directors are just afraid that their incompetence will be exposed.”

“In the past, Chuvashia lived under a strict regime of secrecy. Then there were a few years of glasnost games and so-called democracy. Enough now! As they say, ‘The less you know, the better you sleep.’”

Have Any Newspapers Been Closed? Why?

How the Administration Looks at the Problem
“Everything’s fine. No newspapers have been closed. There are no problems.”

In Russia generally, there are 25-30 percent more media organs registered than there are actually operating. It has become a common practice to register publications formally “just in case.” If no issues are printed for a year, the registration is annulled. Political movements and parties register and print publications in connection with specific events. In Chuvashia, one such example is the newspaper Atalana, which publishes a couple of issues each year for the Chuvash National Congress and then falls silent. Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party of Russia also has some registered publications that appear whenever the party hosts an event.

The election season in Russia is just around the corner, so the number of registered publications is already beginning to increase. There will be many newspapers and magazines that will be actively financed before the elections but, probably, after the elections the money will dry up. Those publications that have managed to get on their feet may survive; the others will die out.

It is also difficult to keep track of publications because they keep changing their names for various reasons. In Cheboksary, the employees of the newspaper Klipp transferred en masse to the newspaper Vechernyaya Gazeta and later to Respublika. From the outside, it would look as if the republic had lost two newspapers.

There is occasionally the problem of duplication. The government shut down its Pravitelstvenny Vestnik, when it decided to publish official information in Chuvash en.

Many small newsletters and bulletins published by government agencies and factories are closing down. At present, only 8 remain in the republic out of a peak number of 33. Generally, the editor retires or moves on to something else and the publication ceases to exist. Sometimes, a publication becomes a victim of its own success. As soon as a little money starts coming, the publishers and staff begin fighting over how to divide the spoils. The in-fighting often kills the publication.

Often papers die out of incompetence. People are fooled by how easy it is to register a publication and lured by the relatively high price of advertising. They put up some money, but they don’t know how to create a newspaper and they have no idea how to work with advertisers. By some miracle, they put out a couple of issues and then it all comes crashing down.

“It cannot be said that there are usually political motives when a newspaper shuts down. As a rule, the reasons are financial. The money runs out and the paper dies.”

A Look at the Problem from the Media’s Perspective
“Yes, there are problems.”

The newspaper Delovaya Chuvashia began to publish in June 1997 (when it published three issues) and continued into September-October, under the auspices of the Ministry for Support of Entrepreneurship. The paper printed an article by Alexander Zyulyaev claiming that investment in Chuvashia could not be profitable. The newspaper was closed down and the head of the Ministry of Entrepreneurship resigned.”

Some newspapers are begun in the hopes of earning a lot of money. There is some money to be made, but not all that much. There are no real, professional journalists in this small republic. Advertising is hard to come by and demands a lot of work. People publish a couple of issues, realize this, and then stop.

The newspaper Klipp (a local edition owned by a paper in Yekaterinburg) is gone. The journalists themselves discredited the paper. They tarnished the paper’s good image, and it will be impossible to restore it in Chuvashia.

Vechernyaya Gazeta came out for two years. There were rumors that it was in debt to the Chuvashia publishing house, although one of the publishers insisted to me that there were no debts. The employees transferred smoothly to Respublika, under the wing of the State Council. The newspaper Respublika is printed outside the republic because of tension between the State Council and the presidential administration.

The non-traditional Chuvash youth newspaper Avani (which means “hello”) is published privately by Boris Chindykov, a publicist and playwright. The newspaper came out for two years and was closed down for financial reasons. Shindykov now lives in Moscow.

The newspaper Molodoi Kommunist was closed down after the attempted putsch of August 1991. In its place, the authorities created Molodezhny Kurier.

The Voice of the People and a Few Disinterested Opinions
“The birth, development, flourishing and death of the media is a natural process, but there is still a political underpinning to it.”
“After 1995 financial support from Moscow was cut off, which led to the closing of some of the media.”

Which Forms of Pressure on the Media and Journalists Are the Most Common?

How the Administration Looks at the Problem
“There is no problem.”

A Look at the Problem from the Media’s Perspective
There are various forms of pressure on the media being used. One of the most common is a change in a newspaper’s founding organ, which usually entails a change of editors. Often the change of editors is justified by charges of financial abuse, but these cases are never brought to trial and the conflicts are never fully aired or resolved. This was what happened to the editor of Khreschen Sassi.

Another common tactic is provoking a conflict between a newspaper’s founders and its editor. As a result, the editor often steps down in order to save the paper, but the change in the publication’s direction and tone is obvious.

Sometimes founders just refuse to extend expired contracts. On February 28, 1997, the Ministry of Entrepreneurship wiped out the editorial staff of the paper Biznes Sreda. Within 24 hours, the paper was gone, its offices were empty. The incident was widely publicized in the press.

Various organs of the administration at various times make it known that they are collecting information on who is writing on which topics.

Sometimes a paper can be harassed or even closed down by something as simple as the founder refusing to grant it a telephone line.

Sometimes the authorities must resort to the direct sabotage of the production process. Immediately before the last republican presidential elections, the newspaper Kris had prepared several critical articles for print. The articles gave pretty harsh treatment to both the communists and the incumbent. After the issue had been sent to the state-controlled printing plant, the editor received a call saying that “production delays” would mean that the paper would only be ready after the elections.

Another example involves an issue of the regional version of Argumenty i fakty-Kazan. This paper planned to print an article by Alexander Akhmadiyev that reported critical findings about the Chuvash administration resulting from an official audit. There was a phone call from the administration of the president of Chuvashia to the administration of the president of Tatarstan, followed by a phone call from the administration of the president of Tatarstan to the paper’s publishers. To their credit, the publisher refused to withdraw the article from publication. The next day, the paper was visited by an inspection team from the Tax Inspectorate, which – not surprisingly – was able to come up with some grounds for fining the paper. Further articles on the subject were cancelled, although the Chuvash authorities did generously provide the newspaper with official statistics on the republic’s school lunch program.

The closure of the newspaper Delovaya sreda was preceded by a total information boycott on the part of the authorities.

The courts are also often the administration’s weapon of choice. Government officials use lawsuits to pressure publications and individual journalists. The fines levied against the media in such cases are often extremely punitive. A journalist for the newspaper Santek was fined 150 million rubles for his investigations of the Moscow business group Savva.

The administration can also reward and punish publications through its control of prices for printing and newsprint. Offering and withholding various forms of financial support is a powerful tool in the hands of the administration.

There have been cases of advertisers being targeted by the tax police as a way of cutting off financial support to certain publications.

The authorities have other ways of pressuring advertisers to work only with “favored” publications. They can send a commission to examine and verify every claim in every advertisement. They can talk to a company’s landlord. After a few such incidents, the advertiser learns where advertising is most “effective.”

Publications that fall out of favor often face inexplicable problems with transportation and distribution, even when the distribution companies are nominally “independent.”

Broadcast media also face problems concerning licensing. The matter of licensing is a fairly complicated question. There is a special council in Chuvashia that evaluates applications and decides which applications should be forward to the national licensing bureau and which ones should not.

Criminal structures occasionally also come into conflicts with the media. They have attempted to create their own media outlets or to gain control over existing outlets. Once a band of thugs broke into the studio of Radio Miks in order to say “hello” to one of their comrades. In another instance, thugs with cellular telephones visited the editorial offices of Cheboksary MK after a series of articles on local crime. They backed off after the newspaper convinced them that its security apparatus was formidable.

At least one journalist reported receiving phone calls threatening her life. Her complaint is being investigated by the Interior Ministry.
Finally, I was related several stories in which the obvious implication is that the media themselves are often the tools of the administration for bringing pressure to bear on their colleagues.

The Voice of the People, and a Few Disinterested Opinions
“There are two main ways of bringing pressure to bear on the media. One is through financial levers and the other is by manipulating other journalists. There are many ways of creating psychological pressure to change behavior. It can start with a “chat” between friends with some useful advice and end with more drastic measures including threats of physical violence. Such psychological methods are the most effective. Journalists are sensitive people with lively imaginations.”

Are Government and Law-Enforcement Organs Open to the Press?

How the Administration Looks at the Problem
“Yes, they are. The Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service, the prosecutor’s office, customs. They all hold press conferences.”

A Look at the Problem from the Media’s Perspective
“Yes, they are. The Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service, the prosecutor’s office, customs. They all hold press conferences.”

The Voice of the People and a Few Disinterested Opinions
“Why should they be? You can’t get justice from the courts here anyhow.”

Other Comments, Issues, Problems, Observations

How the Administration Looks at the Problem
“Yes, there are problems. Only hypocrites and corpses have no problems.”

A Look at the Problem from the Media’s Perspective
“There are problems, both in general and specifically.”

“There is fierce competition in the print market. It is very difficult to get the top rating. Recently a regional issue of the Moscow paper Moskovsky Komsomolets appeared (Cheboksary MK), which to a large extent crowded out the newspaper Molodezhny Kurier. The publications exchanged weighty, sharply worded pleasantries.”

“There is no marketing strategy in the media’s sales policy. Almost no one has researched the question ‘What does the Chuvash consumer actually want to read, watch and listen to?’”

The media has a lot of emotion, but not much analysis. It is very difficult to find specialists who are capable of discussing political, economic and other serious subjects in Chuvash.”

“The Chuvash language is a language of poetry, not the market. All business is conducted in Russian.”

“It is more difficult for non-Russian-language publications to survive, since most of the advertising goes to Russian-language publications. Small and medium-scale entrepreneurs live and work in the city, and advertising is oriented toward the city resident. In the villages, there is almost no market for advertising.”

“There is a strict segmentation of readers in Chuvashia. Russian-language newspapers are for the urban population. Newspapers in the Chuvash language are for village dwellers and for the Chuvash diaspora outside the republic (1.5 million). They have very few readers in urban areas.”

“Different media outlets have had different degrees of success in creating markets for themselves. One positive example is the newspaper Shkolniki, which is oriented toward children. This paper has found a niche for itself and as a result has a fairly large circulation and is self-financing. There are other positive examples as well. However, on the other side there is a definite problem with some of the Chuvash-language media which seem to think, ‘It doesn’t matter what we do, as long as we do it in Chuvash!’ Judging by the programs on Chuvash state television, everything boils down to a strict formula: ‘We dance and sing and have a merry life!’ Although, to be fair, I have to say that there are some very strong professionals in the Chuvash Television and Radio Company, people who know how to work.”

“We also have a problem with bilingual television and radio presenters. Audiences are often very irritated when a presenter does not have a good command of his or her second language. This problem often lowers the quality of the programs and creates an impression of artificiality.”

“The language problem influences, for the worse, the quality of the journalism. Journalists who write well in Chuvash produce nothing but mush in Russian. There are specifics of the language that simply cannot be ignored.”

The Journalism Department of Chuvash State University is a new program of the linguistics department, and there has not yet been a graduating class. There is a big difference between the psychology of a professional journalist and that of a professional linguist. This is a problem all over Russia. Graduates of journalism departments are not qualified to write about serious topics such as economics. They are fine on descriptive pieces (the kind that are about everything and nothing) but when analysis is called for, they cannot cope and their pieces are not interesting at all. Those with higher education in a technical or specialized field have done well in journalism, especially if they have worked in the area they write about.

The Chuvash State Television and Radio Company is trying to solve its personnel problems by training young people at Moscow universities (for example, the University of the Friendship of Nations) under the condition that students are obligated to return to the republic.

Local journalists often write for the Moscow press using pseudonyms. Local interest groups lobby their various points of view in the Moscow press.

“Often the methods that the authorities use to force relatively independent journalists to be more obedient lead to talented people leaving the profession altogether.”

Several people that I spoke to claim that journalists working for non-state publications get no recognition or awards from local professional organizations.

“Financing is a constant problem” Working with private investors is far from being a safe alternative. The rules of the game can change at any moment. Profits and super-profits are more important than anything. Salaries for employees come somewhere around tenth place. The Russian Law on Mass Media Support offers tax breaks for revenue generated by sales of papers, but not for sales of advertising. Since the income from sales is minimal, this type of ‘support’ is really a fiction.”

“The state policy on subsidies boils down to the fact that only those publications that cannot properly manage themselves get funding. The more efficiently a newspaper works, the less help it gets from the authorities. Newspapers that are financed by the state often lack the stimulus to achieve success. They will get their money whether they work well or poorly.”

“The people have no money to subscribe to newspapers.”

“Private distributors accept mostly Moscow publications (at dumping prices) and high-price glossy publications.”

“Most journalists think that advertising is some sort of shameful thing that has nothing to do with pure journalism.”

“Advertisers can’t reach their audiences. A newspaper with a circulation of less than 30,000 does not attract advertising at all. Those with circulations over 60,000 can’t attract enough to cover the extra printing expenses.”

“We have a problem with low-quality advertising and with the ethical responsibility of the media for distributing unscrupulous ads.”

A few Moscow advertising agencies are working to bring national ads to the Chuvash market. My sources mentioned the Komsomolskaya Pravda advertising department and the companies Euro-press and Ariadna.

“Advertisers do not always understand or welcome a creative approach to advertising.”

As I visited the editorial offices of various publications, it was always interesting to ask for their advertising price lists. Not every publication even had one. It was educational to compare the very professionally prepared price list of the newspaper Biznes-sreda with the lists of other local publications. Such a comparison is eloquent testimony to the low level of professionalism among newspaper advertising managers.

“We sometimes come across problems of translation. One recent court case included a discussion of a phrase which appeared in the local press which said in idiomatic Chuvash that a child’s ear ‘was twisted like a rope.’ We also have problems with the translation of laws and instructions from Russian into Chuvash. As the expression goes, “a translation is not the original.”

“It is extremely difficult for specialists who come here from other parts of Russia to learn any Chuvash.”

“The intellectual layer here is thin, and the number of talented people working in the media is quite small.”

“We have never had a system for the professional training of television journalists. Salaries have always been low and workers were not given apartments. So people didn’t stay. What’s more, a wave of nationalism swept over the television industry, and capable young specialists left the Chuvash State Television and Radio Company. Money from the local budget was earmarked exclusively for Chuvash programming.”

The broadcast media faces the problem of intellectual piracy.

“Journalists are plagued by complexes: ‘If I stand out, I’ll get persecuted’ or ‘If I speak out, I’ll get fired.’ It is hard to tell how many cases like this there are.”

“Journalists have an ‘internal editor’ - they edit themselves, even if no one else is editing them. This internal editor has not died for many journalists, even those just in their 40s. Most journalists still remember official censorship and are governed by those habits. Many are enslaved to an internal political editor that picks and chooses points of view. Journalists and media organs are ready to align themselves with various political clans or forces.”

“The labor market for journalists in the republic is very small, and the pay scale is very low. It is practically impossible to find another job. Only a very few publications pay a decent wage.”

The Voice of the People and a Few Disinterested Opinions
“Journalists are free only when they have knowledge and ability. They will always find a way, in any kind of media, to express any opinion in a fairly free manner. If his criticism is to-the-point and well-founded, the authorities will be cautious about going after him.”

“There have even been cases when the authorities, with their blind insistence on conformity, turn loyal journalists into oppositionists.”

A Note from the Author

The media is not a political organ: first and foremost, it is an information tool. The crux of the matter is not the dependence or independence of the media, but the possibility or impossibility of adequately reflecting the whole spectrum of positions and points of view in society.

Society and its problems, the economic and political interests of various groups, the financial world and how it is manipulated, the government and how it works to resolve issues – all of these things must be open and transparent within the bounds of the law. The basic mission of all media - including Chuvashia’s - is to ensure this transparency.

July 1999

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