Posted on December 12, 2007 - by Venik

The battle of the experts

Go to Google News and pick a few random articles about the latest events in Russia. Quickly look through each article and write down names of various Russian political analysts and experts quoted in the article. Also write down the names of the organizations these experts represent. You will end up with an interesting list of little-known people with dubious qualifications from obscure organizations with unclear purposes and questionable sources of income.

Here’s what I got from just a handful of news articles from the past two days:

1. Yevgeniy Volk, “U.S. research group the Heritage Foundation” [Russia Targets British Council, Fuels Spy Murder Spat, by Henry Meyer, Bloomberg, Dec-12-2007]
2. Pavel Felgenhauer, “military analyst” [Alarm as Russia abandons Cold War treaty, by Sebastian Smith, AFP, Dec-13-2007]
3. Andrei Piontkovsky, “a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute” [Keep Russia's Putin in charge, successor urges, by Megan Stack, LA Times, Dec-12-2007]
4. Yevgeny Minchenko, “director of the International Institute of Political Analysis” [Designated heir calls for Putin to be prime minister, by Luke Harding, The Guardian, Dec-12-2007]
5. Boris Makarenko, “the analyst” [Designated heir calls for Putin to be prime minister, by Luke Harding, The Guardian, Dec-12-2007]
6. Mikhail Delyagin, “a political analyst” [Medvedev endorses Putin for prime minister, by Shaun Walker, The Independent, Dec-12-2007]
7. Dmitry Badovsky, “an analyst with the Institute of Social Systems” [Medvedev Offers Putin a New Job, by Nabi Abdullayev, The Moscow Times, Dec-12-2007]
8. Tatyana Stanovaya, “an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies” [Medvedev Offers Putin a New Job, by Nabi Abdullayev, The Moscow Times, Dec-12-2007]
9. Olga Kryshtanovskaya, “director of the Institute of Applied Politics” [What the Russian papers say, RIA 'Novosti', Dec-12-2007]
10. Evgeny Michenko, “director of the International Institute of Political Expertise” [Russian press review: Dec. 12, IHT, Dec-12-2007]

Given a little time and patience, this list would expand to massive proportions. “Institute of Political Expertise”? “Institute of Political Analysis”? “Institute of Social Systems”? Give me a break! How about an “Institute of give-me-fifty- bucks-and-I-will- say-whatever-you-want”?

Back in the Soviet days there was a “research institute” for everything. In Soviet terminology it meant a research organization of sorts that operated within a larger structure, such as within the Academy of Sciences or the Ministry of Defense, for example. A huge number of these “institutes” were good at just one thing: siphoning money from the budgets of various national and regional development, production, education, and manufacturing programs.

In 1991 the era of free cheese came to a rather abrupt end and all sorts of “experts” and “analysts” in the fields few ever heard about ended up on the street. The more enterprising of them quickly regrouped: they realized that, as Russia was opening up to the West, soon there ought to be thousands of clueless foreigners wandering the streets of Moscow in desperate need of advice and reassurance.

New “institutes” sprang up like mushrooms after a warm April rain. On paper these organizations looked very impressive: an institute of this and a PhD of that. In reality,  most of these “institutes” shared the same address: the kitchen of some tiny Moscow apartment of its founding father – an out-of-job Doctor of bullshit sciences.

But the basic business model proved quite successful. As soon as the Iron Curtain collapsed on the heads of the unsuspecting Soviet citizens, foreign businessmen and journalists besieged Moscow like the Wehrmacht in 1941. Most of these adventurers shared two important traits: hunger for profit and inability to interpret Russian reality.

These people were surrounded by opportunities to make money. Privatization of giant enterprises for pennies on a dollar, vast natural resources available for plundering, highly qualified but poor and desperate workforce, inconsistent tax laws and corrupt law enforcement. It was an electrifying atmosphere that smelled of unimaginable riches and rapidly approaching fierce competition. Imagine the situation: you are all dressed up and ready to rock-’n-roll, but all around you people are walking on their heads, eating sand, farting fireballs and generally doing some really weird shit you can’t even begin to comprehend.

And suddenly, some Washington Post or NY Times journalist, desperately looking for an expert to explain why people are doing this weird shit, learns about an “Institute of Weird Shit” operating right there in downtown Moscow, just a quick cab ride away from their hotel. Immediately, the reporter calls and speaks with some “director of miscellaneous research” (Ph.D., Ed.D., D.P.A., M.D., and D.V.M., naturally; most of the wallpaper in the kitchen is actually diplomas and dissertations) and offers him unbelievable wealth (by Russian academic standards of the early 1990s), if he finds a few minutes for an interview. The “director” is ecstatic. Finding time is not a problem for an unemployed professor. Finding pants without holes and chasing the roaches out of “institute’s” kitchen headquarters proves far more challenging.

Upon seeing a fistful of crispy five-dollar bills, a few professors suffered heart attacks. But for those who survived, it was all clear sailing from then on. Eventually, their wives allowed them to move the corporate headquarters from the kitchens to the living rooms. Some lucky bastards could even afford to buy a decrepit apartment in some rundown neighborhood on the outskirts of Moscow, where most of these “institutes” are operating to this day.

Most of the cookie-cutter “expertise” produced by these organizations relies on overstating and generally beating to death certain peculiarities of the Russian culture. For example, a journalist asks: why do Russians wear these funny fur hats in the winter? And the twenty-dollar expert on everything Russian tells them: it’s because we are Russians and here in Russia we actually prefer wearing funny fur hats, because such are our Russian traditions. The journalist nods with understanding and relief: he almost wrote in his article that Russians wear fur hats because the winters are cold.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

Related posts:

1. Get Tougher with Russia?
2. Georgia’s Attack on South Ossetia: Washington’s Role
3. Russia’s Threat of Military Intervention in Kosovo
4. The Makings of a Successful Foreign Policy
5. World Russia Forum 2009 Summary and Assessment