SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2010
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The World A13
Finding a path toward change in Russia Effort to protest a highway through historic Khimki Forest shows new potential for civil society
BY KATHY LALLY IN MOSCOW
P
rotesters here endure ar- rests andbeatingsbut rarely seechange.Sothefewmove-
ments that have taken on the authorities and forced them to back down have raised intriguing possibilities about a different kind ofRussia. Today’s battle rages overKhim-
ki Forest just outside Moscow, where 200-year-old oaks stand so thick and silent that traffic from the nearby highway sounds like thehumof a lazymosquito, leaves fall to the groundwith a veritable clatter and iPhones warble in the air.
The phones belong to Yevgenia
Chirikova and Yaroslav Nikiten- ko, who are trying to prevent construction of a Moscow-to-St. Petersburg highway through the 2,500-acreforest.AsawarmOcto- ber sun dapples the trees with light, they guide two television crews and a newspaper reporter among the oaks, while sending e-mails, giving interviews and ar- ranging news conferences on their phones. TheirDefendersofKhimkiFor-
est movement has persuaded President Dmitry Medvedev to temporarily halt tree-felling and reassess the project, which has had powerful proponents, includ- ingYuriLuzhkov,whowas firedas Moscow’s mayor after publicly criticizingMedvedev’s decision. Khimki, where the czars once
hunted, has all the drama, sweep andconflictofaRussianopera. Its cast of folk heroes includes Chirikova, who lives in a 1960s apartment block close to the for- est and started the campaign a few years ago after she noticed strangemarkings on trees. The editor of the local newspa-
per,Mikhail Beketov, took up the cause andwas so viciously beaten in November 2008 that he has been hospitalized ever since, un- able to talk, half paralyzed. His attorney, Stanislav Markelov, a human rights activist, was shot and killed on a Moscow street in January 2009. Over the summer, two young men in a crowd that brokewindowsandspray-painted slogans on the Khimki City Hall were jailedandface sevenyears in prison. The highway has been under-
taken by Russia’s Transportation Ministry, run by Igor Levitin,who is on the board of the nearby Sheremetyevo Airport as well as Aeroflot, the national airline based there. The construction in- dustry, built on corruption,wants the work. Regional officials want development opportunities. “Here you see the dreamof the
Russian bureaucrat,” said Chirik- ova, gesturing at the forest. “It’s a Klondike for them.” How the story ends may leave
Russia on the path toward devel- oping a civil society—or not.
Building amovement Chirikova, a 33-year-old who
radiates energy with every smile, started writing letters four years
KATHY LALLY/THE WASHINGTON POST
Yaroslav Nikitenko, a leader of the protest group, which has persuadedRussia’s president to temporarily halt tree-felling and reassess the highway project.
ago. That campaign evolved into ordinary people camping in the forest, blocking bulldozers with their bodies and being arrested at rallies. Themovement eventually won support from Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and the RussianFederationofCarOwners and in August filled Moscow’s Pushkin Square with a few thou- sand demonstrators, along with rock stars and prominent opposi-
“Russians are watching, and they are learning how to stand up for their interests.” —Dmitri V. Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center
tion leaders. “That was our main victory,”
said Nikitenko, a 22-year-old physics graduate student from Moscow. “There hadn’t been such a demonstration for years.” Asimilar stylemovement arose
in 2005, when pensioners took to the streets, compelling the au- thorities to back off changes in their meager benefits. The next year outraged drivers helped free a motorist in Siberia who was sentenced to four years in jail because he failed to get out of the way of the speeding governor, who hit a tree and died. Earlier this year, Muscovites fended off the destruction of their homes, targeted for a park project. “I think it is an important ex-
periment for this country,” said Dmitri V. Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. “Rus- sians are watching, and they are learning howto stand up for their interests.” Trenincalls thepolitical system
“authoritarianwiththeconsentof the governed.” “Political freedom doesn’t de- pend on the Kremlin,” he said. “It
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depends on the attitude of the people.” Most have been busy fashioning comfortable nests af- ter years of Soviet deprivation. “They tend to limit their activities totheprivatedomain.Everyone is for himself in this country.” Soviet rule imparted a sense of
helplessness — only 14 percent think they can influence govern- mental decisions, according to Denis Volkov, director of develop- ment for the Levada Center, a polling andmarket research firm, and 62 percent say they avoid contact with the authorities. When asked about democracy, no one mentions freedom of speech or assembly. “The first thing they say is ahighstandardof living,”he said. So far, said James F. Collins, a
formerU.S.ambassador toRussia, successful activistshave seized on local issues thathaveaffectedpeo- ple personally and left them feel- ingthatgovernmenthasexceeded the bounds of decency. “Whatwe haven’t seen is one of
these groups turn into a perma- nent structurewithalife thatgoes beyond the issues,” said Collins,
Chinese protest over Japan claim to islands
BY CARA ANNA
beijing—Thousands ofChinese marched in the streets in some- times violent protests Saturday against Japan and its claim to disputed islands, a show of anger far larger than past protests over the competing territorial claims. Photos from the southwestern
city of Chengdu and the central city of Zhengzhou showed hun- dreds of people marching with banners and signs protesting Ja- pan’s claim on the island chain, called Diaoyu by China and Sen- kaku by Japan. Japanese retailers Ito-Yokado
and Isetan said protesters in Chengdu broke windows and showcases in their stores, the KyodoNews agency reported. China’s state-runXinhuaNews
Agency saidmorethan 2,000 peo- ple protested in Chengdu while thousands of college students gathered in the northern city of Xian. The report was in English only. The protests were not re- ported in Chinese-language state media, and many comments and photos were quickly removed from mainlandWeb sites. Protests in China are often
MISHA JAPARIDZE/ASSOCIATED PRESS Activists erect barricades to prevent loggers from felling trees inKhimki Forest nearMoscow, where authorities want to build a highway.
who directs the Russia and Eur- asia Program at the Carnegie En- dowment for International Peace inWashington. They can exist, but are limited
by lack of money and ways to share their hard-won experience. “They arenotNGOs,whichcanbe banned,” said Karine Clement, a French sociologist, referring to nongovernmental organizations. “It’s impossible to ban a move- ment. They are only people.”
Grass roots start to show SergeiV.Kanaev,whoheads the
Moscowoffice of theRussian Fed- eration of Car Owners, laments that protecting motorists abused by authorities comes down to writing letters. “We won’t seek foreignmoney,” he said. “Thenext thing you know I’ll be accused of working for the CIA.” Alexander Talyshkin, a 77-year-
old Khimki native, cherishes the woods and hopes the people will be heard. A ring road built in the 1960s destroyed much of the for- est he knew. “Nowtheywant to finish it off,”
said Talyshkin, who was among a steady stream of people fetching springwaterandgatheringmush- rooms on a recent day. “Here in Russia you either stay
at home and suffer,” said Chiriko- va, “or you pick up sticks and cut the boyar’s throat. There has been nothing in between.Nowwe have shown that society is not dead. The grass roots are appearing.”
lallyk@washpost.com
quickly shut down or heavily con- trolled. It was not clear whether the organizers had permission to demonstrate Saturday. The Chinese demonstrations appeared to be in response to online reports about a planned protest in Tokyo, where about 2,500 people carried flags and marched near the Chinese Em- bassy to protest China’s claim to the islands. Some also called for the release of Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Chi- nese dissident who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for sub- version. A spokesman for China’s For-
eignMinistry saidChina had con- tacted Japanese officials to “ex- press serious concern” over the Tokyo protest, according to a statement on the ministry’s Web site.
Spokesman Ma Zhaoxu made
no mention of the anti-Japan pro- tests inChina—in contrast to last month, when the ministry re- sponded to far smaller protests outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing and the Japanese Consul- ate in Shanghai with a call for calm. At the time, tensions were high
overacollisionbetweenaChinese fishing boat and two Japanese coast guard ships near the islands in the East China Sea. China re- peatedly demanded the return of the detained fishing boat captain. Japan eventually released the captain, but Beijing shocked To- kyo by demanding an apology. Earlier this month, the ten-
sions seemed to calm after the prime ministers of the two coun- tries held an impromptu after- dinner meeting in a corridor at the venue of anAsia-Europe sum- mit.
—Associated Press
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