Centralization is the major weakness of a system that Putin established. He curtailed the regions' autonomy, and built a pyramid of power, in which responsibility was always delegated upwards. The measure by which the governors and regional leaders were to be judged was not efficiency, but loyalty. Those who displayed enough loyalty were given the freedom to pursue their own private business affairs and did not have to fear an opposition or a critical press, because their freedoms had been increasingly curtailed by Putin.
People's social wellbeing depends on the quality of their everyday life and their lifestyle. All people want to live well: they need decent housing, cared for residential grounds and clean streets; to relax and exercise in well-maintained parks and public gardens; to drive on quality roads, which has always been a great headache in Russia, they need roads that do not have so many problems, holes and bumps; to breathe fresh air and to drink clean water. We must frankly admit that the reality in Russia today is very far from this ideal.
Eurokleptocrats and Russokleptocrats are in cahoots with Orthodox mafias and Orthodox oligarchs. The three main Orthodox mafias are the Tambov gang from St. Petersburg and Izmaylovskaya gang and Solntsevskaya Brotherhood from Moscow. Their activities focus on political corruption, church corruption, protection money, blackmail, drugs trade, shipping, commodity trade, and natural resources. Orthodoxy's circle of tycoons, such as aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska, banking magnate Vitaly Malkin, and shipping magnates, have been investigated by Europol for involvement in crimes of Eurokleptocrats. Venitis points out Russokleptocrats use the Orthodox Church to control Russians and influence Orthodox Christians all over the world.
It is important to encourage people to seek information and to communicate with the authorities electronically. We can introduce all sorts of different technologies, modern and smart, but if our citizens do not use them, if there is no widespread acceptance of these technologies, then we'll be just marking time. After all, only those countries have a successful e-government where the people have experienced for themselves the need to move into e-governance. Of course, a great deal in this respect depends also on municipal leadership.
In 2004, the Housing Code was adopted, defining new forms of residential block management with the involvement of management organisations or through the creation of homeowners' cooperatives. They were created in order to properly manage housing and resolve any problems that may arise, providing quality and, I stress, inexpensive, reasonably priced services. Unfortunately, we must admit that the expectations have not been fulfilled. Signs have been changed – we used to have Repairs and Maintenance Departments, Local Building Administrations and other offices, and now they have new and better-sounding names, they are called management companies, but the style of their work has often remained the same, and cases of fraud involving public utilities payments are not uncommon.
The operation of many such companies is non-transparent, they are often associated with local officials, and there is no feedback from consumers. And the decisions that are taken, including on the most sensitive issue, the tariffs, are often not clear, no explanation for them is provided, and people do not understand the motivation behind these decisions. And that is what I see everywhere I go, especially in smaller towns where the income level tends to be low.
Recently I visited the Kursk Region. The main issue raised by the people I spoke with was utility tariffs. The situation is different in larger cities, but there is also lower unemployment and better opportunities to earn a living. In any case, this state of affairs cannot be tolerated, the rights and responsibilities of managing organisations must be clearly defined, and their liability for noncompliance with legislation must be increased, including for violation of standards for disclosing information about their work.
Twenty years after the collapse of the Communist utopia, Russia is still suffering from a hangover after the brutal, giddy but doomed attempt by Marxist dictators and their massive party and repressive apparatus to create a Soviet Union based on a socialist system in which the market and private property were to be abolished and the state would create and equitably distribute all wealth.
The most efficient political system is venitism, where everything is private, there are no taxes at all, there is no parliament, and a powerless infinitesimal government is chosen and supported not by hoi polloi, but by the most generous benefactors.
Old habits die hard. Ex-communist spies who are running Russia expropriated and destroyed YUKOS, the most transparent and successful energy company there. Its owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and his staff are facing a second trial for crimes most observers agree he never committed nor physically could have committed. Even Vladimir Putin's own former and current ministers testified as much.
People should be encouraged to get more actively involved in enhancing residential grounds and streets through homeowners' cooperatives, local territorial public administration bodies and the socially oriented non-governmental organisations. That is an obvious solution; after all residents are responsible for municipal improvement in many parts of the world, or at least they become active and interested parties in this process.
In the course of my trips around the country, I have become convinced that despite the difficulties of the transitional period, which is not over in Russia yet, and the great complexity of the problem given the large size of Russia, local self-government is making great strides forward. At present, municipal bodies employ many highly competent, honest and serious people, who are dedicated to their work and who serve the public.
Russia is too big and too centralized. The only way out is to transform Russia from a federation to a confederation. Basil Venitis notes that downsizing a country makes a lot of sense. Small is beautiful and efficient. The best size of State is the city-state. A city-state is an independent country whose territory consists of a city. The city-states of ancient Greece, such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth, have shown that the smaller the state, the better it is.
The Principality of Monaco is an independent city-state. Monaco-Ville, the ancient fortified city and Monaco's well-known area Monte Carlo are districts of a continuous urban zone, not distinct cities. Singapore is an island city-state in Southeast Asia. About 5 million people live and work within 700 square kilometres, 270 sq miles. Vatican City is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome.
Now, Catalan wants independence from Spain; California, Texas, and New York City want independence from USA; Europeans want independence from Fourth Reich(EU); England, Scotland, and Wales want independence from UK; Athenians want independence from Graecokleptocrats!
Basil Venitis, twitter.com/Venitis, muses my bear seems now to be a very different animal. The snarling statist bear with a statist head has been replaced by a lovable venitist bear, and while it may not be ready now to roll over and have its belly tickled, Russia will not take a bite out of its rivals. Uncle Sam(US) and Uncle Ken(UK) now like to pet this bear!
In order to modernize Russia's economy and industry, Russia needs cooperation partners from abroad, and those modernization partners are to be found mostly in USA and Fourth Reich(EU). That's the logic that lies beneath Russia's new softer foreign policy towards the West. It shows that external policy is seen as an instrument for internal development and modernization.
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