Also known as Kaluzhskii, Kaluzhskiy, Kaluschski and Калужский. Novosibirsk ➞ Moscow ➞ Tel-Aviv ➞ Berlin.
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Articles by Mikhail Kaluzhsky
Wie vor 100 Jahren? Die russischsprachige Literatur- und Kulturszene im Exil
Die Installation Bücherturm in der Stadtbibliothek Prag diente als Inspiration für die russischsprachige Buchmesse Prashskaja knishnaja baschnja (dt. Prager Bücherturm) / Foto © IMAGO / imagebroker Mikhail Kaluzhsky ist als Theaterschaffender, Prosaautor und Podcaster zentraler Teil des russischsprachigen kulturellen Berlin.
Ruslands krig mod russisk kultur: Undvigende censur og det nye eksil
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Russian Playwright Arrested for First Time Since Soviet Era
The writer and director of an award-winning Russian play that’s been performed in Moscow for the past two years have been arrested and accused of terrorism. It’s the first time criminal charges have been filed over a theatre production in post-Soviet Russia.
Arseny Roginsky: Giving Russia its history back
“For me, the archive (and I mean, of course, only literary and historical archives) is the natural continuation of the library. And unpublished archival documents are in no way different from published documents, you can treat them as accidentally unpublished or as-yet-unpublished.
Reading other people’s diaries in Russia
Historian Mikhail Melnichenko runs a digital archive of personal diaries from Russia's 20th century. The result is both an alternative to tightly guarded government archives and an important artistic resource. RU This article is the fourth in our series "Practically about memory". Here you can read about the project.
What can and can’t be said about the Russian revolution
In the Soviet period, the October Revolution played the role of foundation myth, but the Russian authorities today prefer to talk about it less: the commemoration of these century-old events is a reminder that no empire lasts forever. oDR spoke to Maria Lipman, a political analyst and editor-in-chief of the Washington-based journal Counterpoint, about whether Russia can achieve unity without confronting the truth about 1917.
Sacrificial roosters and offended feelings
What do a film about a Tsar’s mistress, Pussy Riot, the opera Tannhäuser, voodoo magic, and bloggers from Bryansk have in common? They’ve all “offended the feelings of believers”… RU One day, Denis Murashov decided to hold his own form of protest. On 4 September, this 39-year rammed a jeep filled with gas cylinders straight into Yekaterinburg’s Kosmos cinema. The building burst into flames, but didn’t burn down completely.
Inside Tomsk’s political machine
Tomsk’s recent gubernatorial election had a little bit of everything: the incumbent governor as the frontrunner, spoiler candidates on the ballot, the ruling party’s haughty and occasionally rude attitude, a low-grade campaign with an attempt at some fake intrigue at the end, some modest self-enrichment by talentless spin doctors, a low turnout and a lot of indifference from the voters, a few irregularities at the polls… In a word, everything as it should be.
Oops! How Moscow’s municipal election turned into a headache for city hall
The Russian opposition enjoyed an unexpectedly decent showing at the municipal council elections in Moscow last week. The Yabloko political party, having broken with its own traditions by participating under the umbrella of Dmitry Gudkov’s United Democrats coalition, secured 176 seats, while a further 108 were won by independents, the majority of which have been working together with Gudkov.
Russia’s gubernatorial elections marred by political pressure
Seventeen Russian regions went to the polls this week. Activists and politicians have, however, met with significant pressure and restrictions at polling stations. We continue our partnership with OVD-Info, an NGO that monitors politically-motivated arrests in Russia. Every Friday, we bring you the latest information on freedom of assembly.
Russia’s elections that weren’t
Gubernatorial elections in a number of Russian regions could easily have been quite competitive. But with a presidential campaign approaching, the Kremlin can’t even muster the courage for a fair race. RU On 10 September, Russia faces another election. In some places, the vote is for municipal councils, in others for regional ones; two regions are holding by-elections for the State Duma (some single-seat district representatives have resigned for various reasons).
Quiz: what kind of Kremlinologist are you?
They come in all shapes and sizes. Do you want to get paid for pontificating on Putin? Kremlinology might be for you! While it is usually described as the study of Russian politics and policy, Kremlinology has most recently made a comeback as a means of commenting on the Russian president, not to mention the conspiracies he may or may not be involved in. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? But before you jump into the fray, it's important to develop your own, distinct Kremlinologist style.
Moldova’s civil society braces for another attack
Alongside Georgia and Ukraine, Moldova has one of the most liberal and vibrant civil societies in the post-Soviet space. Just remember the so-called “Twitter Revolution” in April 2009. The revolution, which spelt the beginning of the end for Vladimir Voronin’s Communist Party, indicated the strength and capacity for mobilisation of Moldova’s civil society groups. But almost a decade later, the country’s non-governmental sector finds itself under increasing pressure from the government.
Dissent in Russia: a festival of disobedience?
What kind of freedom do the latest wave of protesters want? Has a new kind of Russian emerged since the collapse of the USSR? The conclusion of our interview with one of Russia’s leading sociologists, Lev Gudkov. For the last 28 years, The Levada Center has been one of Russia’s most important surveyors of public opinion, but in 2016 the Putin government, having no use for independent sociology, added it to its list of “foreign agents”.
Stop GOK: how residents of Chelyabinsk are resisting plans for a new copper plant
Twelve kilometres from the city of Chelyabinsk, the Russian Copper Company (RMK) is planning to build a new ore mining and enrichment plant. This Urals city, where local residents claim there’s already nothing to breathe, is protesting how it can. But so far, they haven’t been successful in stopping RMK’s advances.
Just passing by the Kremlin
This week, we start a joint project with OVD-Info and RombTV on people detained during Russia’s new protest wave. For the last five years it’s not just political activists who are detained by Russian police at protest rallies — passers-by are also picked up, charged with administrative offences and forced to pay fines. Here is the story of Antonii Pavlov, 20, from the Black Sea resort of Tuapse, who came to Moscow to look at the Kremlin — and wound up behind bars.
“The Putinist majority could fast become anti-Putinist”
This interview originally appeared in Russian at Yuga.ru. An English translation by Adam Leeds was then published by LeftEast. We are grateful to the latter for their permission to republish it in full. How would you describe the ideology of the ruling regime in contemporary Russia? On what values rests that which some call “Putinism”? What is behind the facade of all this speech about “spiritual bonds” and “our glorious past”?
#FreeMalobrodsky | openDemocracy
I’ve figured out why Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate is so popular among young tourists. Your friend crouches down in front and then you jump in the air — your silhouette then appears with the four bronze horses driven by Eirene, the goddess of peace, immortalised on your Instagram or Facebook. I know this because two days ago I spent three hours in front of the gate.
Alexei Navalny's campaign: effective management or grassroots movement?
Today, when dozens of Russian citizens are still being held at police stations, the Investigative Committee is falsifying new criminal cases against protesters, and protest leader Alexei Navalny is preparing to spend 30 days in prison, it seems awkward to criticise him. But this awkwardness isn’t just about morality.
A visa-free for dirty money: transborder corruption, Russia and the West
Western investors are turning to Russia in the hope of fast bucks and savings on social and environmental costs. Russian officials and business owners transfer their assets to tax havens and Swiss banks. Who benefits from transborder corruption – and who pays for it? oDR has been talking to members of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum’s “Fighting Transborder Corruption” working group.
A visa-free for dirty money: transborder corruption, Russia and the west
Western investors are turning to Russia in the hope of fast bucks and savings on social and environmental costs. Russian officials and business owners transfer their assets to tax havens and Swiss banks. Who benefits from transborder corruption – and who pays for it? oDR has been talking to members of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum’s “Fighting Transborder Corruption” working group.
My first death threat: the life and times of a Russian ecological activist
On 12 April, Yaroslav Nikitenko woke up to a frightening sight by the entrance of his apartment: graffiti reading “Shut the hell up or…”, the phrase accompanied by a drawing of a gravestone bearing Nikitenko's name. It was encircled by black crosses. Nikitenko, a 29-year old physicist working at the Institute for Nuclear Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences, had spent the last months campaigning against the building of a luxury residential complex at 21 Zhivopisnaya street.
Russia’s eco-activists: not out of the woods yet
It’s Russia’s Year of Ecology. But as these activists tell us, campaigning on environmental and urban issues is far from a walk in the park. Across Russia, from Kaliningrad to Makhachkala, people have been taking to the streets to save parks, historic buildings and reservoirs. Residents of high-rise developments take the initiative to clean up their buildings. Mothers plant flowers in children’s playgrounds and fight for the right to bring their children’s pushchairs into cafes.
Behind the Russian mirror
Read the latest in our ongoing Unlikely Media series. As part of this series, oDR profiles new independent (and independently-minded) publications from across the post-Soviet space, and we interview editors who are trying to make spaces for alternative journalism, political commentary and reporting. Here, Maxim Edwards talks to Alexander Zamyatin and Marina Runovich, who run Zerkalo.
Is the anti-corruption agenda all that it’s cracked up to be?
The fight against corruption is often sold as the pill to end all post-socialist ills. Activists and researchers in Poland, Russia and Ukraine give their views on why we need to challenge it. Recent years have seen a rise in anti-corruption protest movements across postsocialist states. These protest cycles in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Romania see citizens come together — whether on the square or in activist groups — to demand that public officials do not steal or abuse their positions.
Fighting back, in the back of beyond
Across Russia, active citizens are fighting for their neighbourhoods, livelihoods and against systemic corruption. The moment when these agendas meet will be an important one. Judging by the press, protests are back in Russia, and they are more diverse than ever before. "New people" have come out onto the street, or, at least, Russian society has recognised these unfamiliar protesters.
Russifying revolutionary art at the Royal Academy
The Royal Academy’s new blockbuster show “Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932” is a disorienting experience. Caught between bombastic propaganda — albeit made with irresistible avant-garde panache — and the works of great modernist painters like Chagall, Kandinsky or Malevich, one is never quite sure what the exhibition’s purpose is. Is it to showcase early Soviet art? Or to speak more broadly about modernist and avant-garde art in Russia in the years after the Revolution?
Putin's nation-building project offers reconciliation without truth
The Kremlin has resorted to obfuscating the past in the name of national reconciliation. Late last year when Russian president Vladimir Putin was about to deliver his State of the Nation address, commentators expected he would devote a large part of it to the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Yet Putin limited himself to just a few sentences.
Putin Country | openDemocracy
Unhappy the land that needs heroes, as Bertold Brecht’s doomed Galileo famously declared. He might have been describing Russia today. The experience of life in a systemically corrupt and unaccountable regime is such that heroes are needed to protect the vulnerable. And wherever you go in Russia, from arctic Magadan to Makhachkala in the south, you find them — extraordinary women and men who risk everything day after day to do just this.
Writers against Russia’s PEN-center
Russian writers are leaving the PEN-centre en masse — the international writers’ club has never before seen a conflict on this scale. ??????? On the eve of the new year holidays, the executive committee of Russia’s PEN-centre expelled the journalist Sergey Parkhomenko for life. Parkhomenko, the founder of the Last Address and Dissernet projects.
We’re all strangers here
We were off on a family visit to Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery. My sister had dropped out at the last minute, so I had a spare ticket. It was a student ticket, not an adult one, so I gave it to the first student I met. There were any number of families with young people looking like students, so I went up to one.
Dance me to the end of history
The phenomenal investigation of Denis Karagodin has become one of the hottest news stories of past weeks. The Tomsk resident established the names and ranks of the NKVD agents responsible for the execution of his great-grandfather Stepan Karagodin in January 1938. Moreover, Karagodin intends to hold to account all those responsible for and party to his ancestor’s murder. Karagodin achieved clear results — but his initiative was unique for another reason.
Oil & Money: tackling corruption and climate change
London can no longer be a welcome host to companies that plunder state and carbon budgets. This week, senior executives of the oil and gas industry will be meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel in London for an exclusive conference named Oil & Money.
Tajikistan’s imitation civil society
We repost this article with permission from Fergana News. Civic activism has been on the rise in Tajikistan in recent years. At first, groups of disgruntled women started breaking into opposition parties’ offices and western embassies, accusing the first of wanting to start a new war in the country, and the second of harbouring dissidents. Then the disgruntled women vanished, only to be replaced by student activists from pro-government youth organisations.
Mon 3 Oct FP | openDemocracy
As feminist thinkers and activists, we must tackle not only the systemic discrimination embedded in the world outside, but the often unconscious or invisible biases that we ourselves have internalized. Part 1.
Russia’s reluctant elections
The results may be predictable, but Russia’s parliamentary elections hint at the next stage of regime mobilisation. “Don’t vote” was the implied message, “but if you have to, vote for Putin” - the caveat. Yesterday, Russia went to the polls for legislative elections, which were, on the whole, some of the least “agitated” in 25 years of independence. The turnout was 47%, with big (and potentially rebellious) cities like Moscow, Ekaterinburg, Nizhny Novogorod and Novosibirsk hovering between 20-30%.
Kremlinology: an intervention
Protests and strikes across Russia show that the country’s “silent majority” is becoming louder. But are pundits even listening? Writings on contemporary Russia are mostly variations on the same subject: Vladimir Putin; his rise to and iron grip on power. Western journalism and punditry on the state of the country is no different. Even when the subject isn’t explicitly Putin, Russia’s “first person” is inevitably the ultimate focus.
The green shoots of Russian grassroots activism (part 2)
Our story on Russia’s grassroots activism continues. From Moscow’s parks to federal highways, ordinary citizens learn the power of protest – and of solidarity. In this series of drawings, Russian artist Viktoria Lomasko continues her story of recent grassroots protest movements across Russia (read part one). We are very grateful for this opportunity to translate and reproduce her work here (click images to enlarge).
Who do I call if I want to speak to pro-Russian forces in Georgia?
In Georgia, whether you're in opposition or in power, you can always call your opponent an agent of the Kremlin. The August 2008 war, events in Ukraine and role in Syria have raised concerns in the west that Russia seeks to reshape the post-Cold War international system and regain once lost positions around the world. “Deterring” Russia has become a crucial issue for NATO and its allies.
Listening to for the “voices” in August 1991, or the media we need today
The events of August 1991 weren’t just an unexpected win for democracy. They were a reminder of the role of mass media for people who suddenly lost access to information. Русский The friends who spent the night at my apartment on 18 August, 1991 woke up in dribs and drabs the next day — lazily beating back the collective hangover with coffee. We were in our early 20s, most of us were about to graduate from Novosibirsk state university, and the world was changing all around us.
Confessions of a Kremlin conspiracy theorist
I joke. Kind of. I actually think I’m much less of a conspiracy theorist than many professional Russia-watchers, especially those focusing on security-related issues, for whom this is certainly a busy time. On 19 July, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) raided the Moscow division of the Investigative Committee and arrested three of its senior officers over suitcase-loads of bribe money.
Putin and Trump’s bad bromance
The recent leak of emails from inside the US Democratic Party have led to allegations that Trump is a Kremlin agent. This is clickbait conspiracy at its best. Put Russia and Vladimir Putin in a headline, especially if it’s about the KGB, propaganda or spy games, and you’ll increase the clickbait factor of an article tenfold. The coverage of the recent email leak from the Democratic National Committee, allegedly carried out by Russian hackers backed by Russian intelligence, is a case in point.
Historic mistakes
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What Brexit and the break-up of the USSR have (and do not have) in common. The feeling of overwhelming emptiness and despair I have experienced since the result of the UK’s vote to leave the European Union seems to be shared by pretty much all of my Facebook friends (especially the British ones) and, if the anti-Brexit media are anything to go by, a huge portion of those who supported staying in the EU.
By Thomas Rowley Verified, Natalia Antonova Verified, Mikhail Kaluzhsky, Maxim Edwards Verified, Stephen Hopgood
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openDemocracy
Verified
'A country suffering a nervous breakdown': openDemocracy readers respond to Brexit vote
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Shock. Rage. Analytic calm. A sense of loss. In the aftermath of the historic British vote to leave the EU, openDemocracy is asking for our readers' thoughts on Brexit and what needs to happen next. Here are some of your responses. However you voted, the results of the referendum took many of us by surprise.
By Fernando Sdrigotti, Anthony Barnett Verified, Thomas Rowley Verified, Natalia Antonova Verified, Mikhail Kaluzhsky
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openDemocracy
Verified
Brexit: the view from Eurasia
Whether you’re in Mariupol or Margate, politics has become an organic part of the tabloid press. Our media should change to tackle this. Over the weekend, Brexit revealed (or created, depending on your opinion) another crack in Europe’s fundament. Roughly speaking, the regional working and middle classes pushed back against alienation, of being written out of the conversation. In so doing, they aligned themselves with one strand of elite interests.
5 April 2016 | openDemocracy
It will be fatal for the British left if it follows Jeremy Corbyn and treats the Brexit referendum as a sideshow - what's to come on 'Blimey, it could be Brexit!'
From Panama, via London, with love
The Panama Papers implicate more than just a few select international leaders. They demonstrate how offshore finance and corrupt leaders in the post-Soviet space thrive off each other. This much is clear: the Panama Papers are going to shine a hard light on post-Soviet democracy.
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