Where in the World Is Alexander Podrabinek? Hopefully, Putin Doesn’t Know
The Kremlin critic is in fear for his life, hiding from Putin's stooges who have targeted him.
Where in the world is Alexander Podrabinek? I hope Vladimir Putin never finds out.
Mr. Podrabinek is one of a literally dying breed: Russian journalists who are not afraid to tell the truth even if it gets them murdered. Reuters reports: “New York-based press watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Russia the world’s third most dangerous country for journalists, with 17 killed since 2000 including Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya in 2006.”
Over at my blog La Russophobe, we’ve translated Podrabinek’s column on the valiant Russian website Yezhedevny Zhurnal many times. He’s written about official corruption, state propaganda, human rights atrocities in the Chechnya region, persecuted dissidents and opposition leaders, and the essential lack of an original Russian idea.
But now it seems, Podrabinek has gone one step too far.
A few days ago, a new restaurant in Moscow was forced to change its name. Podrabinek wrote a column about the incident, and the reaction was so virulent among the Russian nationalist set, the death threats so clear and credible, that the author has been forced into hiding.
The incident couldn’t have been more Soviet in character. The restaurant called itself “Anti-Sovietskaya” — but not because it was opposed to the Sovietization of Russia under proud KGB spy Putin or even to Russia’s horrific legacy of Soviet mass murder. It called itself that simply because it was located opposite the infamous Sovietskaya Hotel.
But that didn’t matter to Russia’s fire-breathing nationalists, and especially not to the Hitler-youth knockoff called “Nashi” (“Us Slavic Russians”). They descended on the little restaurant as if it was praising the Nazis who destroyed Russia in World War II (rather than criticizing the likes of Josef Stalin, who wiped out at least as many Russians as the Nazis), and soon it was forced to change the name to simply “Sovietskaya.”
That didn’t sit well with Podrabinek, and he wrote about it on Yezhedevny Zhurnal’s virtual pages (translation here). As Reuters reports, he “recalled the prison camps and crimes of Stalinism, and accused the current Russian authorities of trying to burnish the image of the Soviet Union.”
He’s not just blowing smoke. Podrabinek saw the worst of the Soviet system up close and personal. The International Press Institute notes: “He was sentenced in 1978 to five years in Siberia for criticizing the Soviet system, and in 1980 was sentenced to three and a half years at a labor camp for distributing banned literature.”
Page 1 of 2 Next ->
Kim Zigfeld is a New York City-based writer who publishes her own Russia specialty blog, La Russophobe. She also writes about Russia for the American Thinker and for Russia! magazine and is researching a book on the rise of dictatorship in Putin’s Russia.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
5 Comments
1. David W. Lincoln:Well, is more proof needed for Kasparov, Nemtsov, Bonner, Bukovsky, and the rest of the stalwart souls to be given aid
to rid Russia of the blight attributable to Medvedyev aka Zayets, Putyin and crowd?
A preparatory regime for the continent of Asia for those countries which do not measure up to the standard set by Sharansky and those like him, needs to be in place to help the stalwart folks of Solidarity, and they would be part of
the preparatory regime council.
Just take a look at the pages attributable to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in “Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam” by Chester L. Cooper to see the preliminary drafts, for what FDR was musing about for Vietnam, can be used continentally for Asia, South America and Africa, for those countries that do not measure up to the standard of human rights set by Sharansky, and those who agree with him.
Oct 3, 2009 - 10:47 am 2. bubblehead:The west seems to have very little stomach for standing up to evil these days! Our liberal elites can’t even accept the idea that such a thing as “evil” exists, never mind develop any strategy to oppose it!
Western enlightenment never really reached Russia. The attitudes and values of he people (from the leadership to the impoverished) are more in line with those of the Islamists than they are with the Europeans.
Russia is a lost cause.
Oct 5, 2009 - 9:37 am 3. kabud:Bukovsky: Putin and his entourage definitely are not governing.
I would imagine that governing is done by the top senior officers of the KGB, mostly generals I suppose. There are some rumors about an organization named SYSTEMA, which is run by former and active KGB generals, GRU generals, and some members of the military. It possibly looks like an arrangement for governing because Putin and his entourage definitely are not governing. That’s for sure.
Oct 5, 2009 - 8:07 pm 4. Irena Lasota:On October 3rd several organizations and friends of freedom of speech and of Alexander Podrabinek himself started a collection of signatures under the appeal “FREEDOM TO WRITE, FREEDOM TO LIVE FOR SASHA PODRABINEK.” You can see the appeal and the signatures on http://www.idee.org/podrabinek%20appeal.html
Oct 6, 2009 - 9:54 pm 5. Dan:You may sign and/or distribute the appeal…..
Campaign money must be raised within Russia.
Oct 9, 2009 - 5:46 amIf the US would start financing Kasparovs or others organizations,this would be the perfect motive for our state to ban all foreign NGOs,and all extremist organizations affiliated with it.
Russia is a democracy,but a robust one,it will not tolerate American fifth columnists and extremists.