Jaded hope: Russia 10 years later

On Aug. 21, under the headline "The Hour of Destiny," Obshaya Gazeta became the first local news organ to print Yeltsin's key address to the nation. News-hungry readers mobbed press vendors to get one of 300,000 copies.

"Publishing Yeltsin's words told people that there was a political force opposed to the coup leaders," Mr. Solomonov says. "It gave other editors a sense of courage, and everyone started publishing critical things after the third day. Only two issues were needed for the democrats to win."

While the newspaper was then defunct for three years, its initial boldness fostered a lively new era of Russian journalism that replaced mind-numbing propaganda of the Soviet past.

"We reached a new stage of freedom of speech," Solomonov says. "We learned so much about society, and we listened, and gained influence and respect."

The heady feeling of creating a new society, with a freeflowing marketplace of ideas and a government responsible to the people soon faded, however.

"It was the misfortune of the winners," says Yegor Yakovlev, chief editor of the paper and one of its founders, who has a portrait above his desk of the celebrated Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov. "They stopped taking into account society's opinion. So the hopes for reform did not materialize."

Solomonov says the failure was "connected with the refusal of Yeltsin to use his power to see through the ideals he put forward on the tank."

Over time, corruption in journalism has grown along with corruption in business and public life, as papers were bought or sponsored by oligarchs or political parties, and battled each other for advertising revenues. Some publications barely get by from election to election, when money is lavished by politicians for favorable coverage.

"Certainly, it has been a betrayal," Solomonov says. "But how to get out of it, nobody knows."

On top of that, Putin has largely muzzled what was considered to be the free press in Russia, critics say, through methods that include indirect means of calling in financial debts or shuffling of shares to oust critical journalists. The most dramatic example was the silencing of the independent television station NTV earlier this year.

"I don't subscribe to the view that freedom of speech is fully exterminated, and our conversation is proof that it is not true," says Mr. Yakovlev. "But the collapse of the journalistic community has been happening for years.

"It was not difficult for me to get together 11 chief editors" during the coup, he says. Then, editors were vying to see who could be more brave in their criticism.

But today, Yakovlev says, "I don't think I would be able to summon them up now, if something similar took place."

Population: 146.2 million. Russia's population has been declining by about 1 million a year since 1992.

Life expectancy at birth: 66.

Infant mortality rate: 16 per 1,000 live births.

GDP: $184.6 billion in 1999, down 45 percent since 1991.

GNP per capita (1999): $2,250.

Poverty line: In 1999, about 40 percent lived below the poverty line of $51 a month.

Inflation rate (consumer prices) 86 percent (1999 est.).

Unemployment rate: 11.5 percent (1998 est.).

Capital flight stands at $20 billion (583 billion rubles) a year.

Defense spending: has declined by an estimated 80 to 85 percent from 1991 to 1999 ($56 billion).

Alcohol consumption: Russians drink some 16 quarts of pure alcohol per person per year, the highest in the world.

Sources: CIA World Factbook 2000, World Bank report (Aug. 2000), Wall Street Journal (June 2001) and Center for Defense Information.

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