The cold snap that has frozen most of Europe solid has created some tensions over Russia’s role as supplier of natural gas to its neighbors. On Friday, a Gazprom official claimed that Ukraine was taking more than its share from the pipeline that runs through its territory. For those who remember the unpleasantness between Moscow and Kiev in 2006 and 2009 over natgas prices, this came as an awkward reminder that when demand soars, it’s still every nation for itself.

CFO of Gazprom, Andrei Kruglov, admitted yesterday that the fault lay not with Ukraine but rather with his company’s export capacity. “Gazprom at the moment cannot supply the extra volumes our West European partners are asking for,” he told President Putin according to Reuters. Moreover, the cold in Russia has increased demand there. So, for a few days, Russia reduced the amount of gas it was putting into the pipeline in the first place.

The good news here is that many of Gazprom’s customers have increased with stockpiles, and so the 10% decrease many experienced did not cause any enduring hardship. With gas from the pipeline selling at record prices (more than US$400 per 1,000 cubic meters), alternatives are coming on line, which will help diversify supply, including liquefied natural gas. And Russia is not the only source of natgas. For example, Norway is maintaining its reputation as a reliable supplier to the UK. Because of the cold, UK demand was just shy of 378 million cubic metres (mcm) on Saturday, about 63.5 mcm higher that usual. Still, flows from Norway continued at 380 mcm.

Russia sees that it must improve its ability to service customers, Reuters has reported, “Gazprom increased its gas supplies to Europe to 150 billion cubic metres (bcm) from around 138.6 bcm in 2010. It is aiming to ramp up those volumes to around 164 bcm this year thanks partly to the underwater Nord Stream pipeline commissioned last November. Nord Stream’s initial capacity stands at 27.5 billion cubic metres a year, which may be doubled by the fourth quarter. Russia is also pushing for a South Stream pipeline to rival the EU-backed Nabucco and other supply lines. Moscow plans to ship over 60 bcm of gas to Europe via South Stream starting from 2015.”

However, you have to wonder if this is going to be sufficient given that some countries in Western Europe (e.g., Germany) have decided to end their nuclear power generation. While the ideal replacements are renewables, it’s so very easy to buy gas from Russia and elsewhere that the additional capacity envisioned may not be good enough.

With sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran gaining greater momentum and the impact of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran looming large in the global economy, a key question remains whether or not the Islamic Republic will ink a deal to extricate itself from increasingly biting sanctions and ensure its survival, or will it inch toward an inevitable military confrontation with the West? 

Houshang Hassan-Yari sat down with Reza Akhlaghi, senior writer at Foreign Policy Association, to answer the above questions and discuss what’s in store for the greater Middle East.
Dr. Houchang Hassan-Yari is Professor of international relations and strategic military studies at Royal Military College of Canada.

In the current geopolitical climate involving Iran and the West marked by loud and reciprocal threats, intensifying sanctions, non-dollar trade paradigms, and an apparent shadow war, what do you think is in store for the region as it pertains to Iranian-Western rivalries?

Hassan-Yari: I think the current situation cannot continue for too long. If there is no peaceful solution in the nuclear issue of Iran, the cul-de-sac will be opened in another way. The war will be the most plausible. Iran is very much isolated in the region.
The United States and Israel have been successful in creating an association between the Iranian nuclear program and nuclear weapons. They were also able to join the vast majority of Arab countries to their perception of the danger that Iran poses to stability in these countries. The sum of U.S. efforts and concerns of the militarily weak Arab regimes have resulted in the necessity to contain a dangerous Iran. If there is a rivalry between Iran and West in the Middle East, it is clearly favourable to the West.

Iran has recently conducted a number of naval and air drills in the Persian Gulf in the course of which it has put on display new surface-to-sea and surface-to-surface missile capabilities. It has also threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz. How do you assess Iran’s military capabilities in countering U.S. Navy presence in the Persian Gulf and in closing the Strait of Hormuz? What do you think would galvanize the U.S. and its allies into concrete military action against Iran?

Hassan-Yari: In this climate of distrust and suspicion which prevails in the Persian Gulf, a miscalculation by the parties involved could lead to a war that nobody wants. The threat of Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, a threat that is taken lightly by the Iranian authorities, will lead to war.
Any aggression aiming international navigation in the Strait may trigger hostilities. It seems to me that the majority of the Persian Gulf Arab countries want to settle once and for all the “Iranian issue”. The problem is that they are unable to do so themselves. This is where the utility of American military power comes in. In other words, Arabs are pushing Americans to a war they want but cannot perform. Israelis also are in a similar situation.

Since taking office, and in particular during his second term, the policies of President Ahmadinejad and his administration have been synonymous with the rise of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iranian politics and economy. Given the prominence of the IRGC in the socio-political and economic management of the country, has it been an effective and capable force in formulating various policies and in executing those policies?

Hassan-Yari: President Ahmadinejad is only one factor that facilitated the rise in the status of the IRGC. The indispensable actor that greatly opened the door to the predominance of the IRGC in all aspects of Iranian life is the leader himself. The latter could not do so under Mohammad Khatami because of the popularity and the resistance of the reformist president. We should not forget that Ahmadinejad is one of them and owes his presidency largely to the intervention of the IRGC in the electoral process of 2005.
The multifaceted IRGC is not a homogenous force. Nor is it a force formed to formulate and implement policies for the common good. The main concern of the Force is to protect the leader and the revolution as it intends to do. Everything it does in the field of security, political, economic and social serves this purpose. In other words, its allegiance is first and foremost the Leader.
Dependency of political power to the military force of the IRGC has forced the former to give exclusive mega contracts to latter in all economic sectors. But as the Guardians do not have expertise in all these areas, they often fail to deliver a good quality product. However, the poor quality of their work was never an obstacle to prevent the IRGC to receive new contracts worth billions of dollars.
Their imprint is deeply engraved in all aspects of life from sport to aviation to missile technology to nuclear programme of Iran.

Recent statements made by former high-ranking officials and parliamentarians (Hossein Alaei of IRGC and Emad Afrough of Majles) appear to be part of a new paradigm in directly challenging the clerical establishment. Do you think these statements signify a new rupture in Iran’s power structure? If that is the case, how could this new rupture play itself out in the upcoming Majlis elections?

Hassan-Yari: What Alaei, Afrough and other rightwing moderates (Principalists /Ossoulgarayaan) pose as a question today are after-shocks of the popular protests of 2009 and the tremors of the recent Arab awakening. These individuals are also very sensitive to preserve intact the legacy of Ayatollah Khomeini which is fast eroding since the coming to power of Ahmadinejad and the unconditional support he received from the Leader. They attempt to salvage the Islamic Republic by returning to the values of the 1979 Revolution. They directly challenge the entourage of the Leader and indirectly the Leader himself who has created a propitious environment for the growth of political immorality and toadyism.
This new phenomena is certainly a break with the established order since coming to power of Ayatollah Khamenei in 1989. It is expected to expand gradually as the gap in the conservative camp is widening, a situation that Khamenei is incapable of controling effectively.
A number of scenarios for the outcome of Majles election could be envisaged. If the elections are carried by the camp of Ahmadinejad, the status of the leader will be further weakened and the consequences could be fatal to the Republic as we know it today. A possible victory by the leader’s entourage should not be interpreted as the return to normality.
I think that a return to the former situation when the leader was not objectionable is impossible without resorting to brutal force. Even then, the lull is only temporary. The sanctity of the Leader is broken and with it the unchallenged position of the clergy close to the government. It is quite possible that we witness a return of the clergy in its religious schools leaving power to the ‘civilian’. In Iran, people break the personality before breaking the person.

Iran and Israel seem locked in a strategic rivalry that has gone through different stages, each stage with its own narrative. What are the key aspects of this strategic rivalry that have made the U.S. an indispensable player in it? Do you envision a point at which security establishments from the U.S., Iran, and Israel would decide to negotiate (most likely secret negotiations) as a way out of the current atmosphere of brinkmanship to avert a potentially large-scale regional conflict and save the global economy from spiralling down a path of sever instability?

Hassan-Yari: First, on Iran-Israel rivalry. From the perspective of the Iranian political elite in power, this rivalry has a clear ideological pronouncement. It goes back to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s epoch and the pre-1979 revolutionary romanticism when Iranian islamists received their military training in Lebanon and sympathized with the Palestinian cause. For them, Israel is a colonial creation, artificial and usurper. It is an illegitimate entity, so to disappear. For Israel, Iran was an opportunity to lessen the Arab pressure.
Since the advent of the Islamic Republic in Iran, this rivalry has taken on new dimensions. Israel remains not only as an ideological enemy, but also a military obstacle that challenges Tehran’s supremacist claim on the regional leadership. In addition, since the Israeli danger to Iran’s nuclear program has become more pressing, Tehran uses its Lebanese and Palestinian allies to keep Israel concerned about its own safety and away from the Iranian border.
On the other hand, Iran is the only country in the Middle East that poses a challenge to the qualitative predominance of Israel’s powerful military machine in the region. In the final analysis, if Israel can live with a non-militant Iran, Tehran cannot co-exist with a ubiquitous ‘Zionist danger’ in the region. This is where the United States enters into the equation as a moderating force. While Washington would prefer a more cooperative Iran, it seeks to remain the final arbiter of the regional game. It seems that neither Iran nor Israel want their regional importance overshadowed by the American omnipotence.
In regard to a possible “ménage à trios”, Iran-Israel-U.S., in the field of regional security, this hypothesis seems very unrealistic under current conditions. If the United States and Israel can provide manageable compromise to Iran over its security considerations without losing face, the latter, on the contrary, has everything to lose by entering into this game that goes against its identity as “defender” of the dispossessed. The only situation, in which the Islamic Republic will make painful compromise, is if it concludes that its own survival is at risk by persisting in its belligerent posture in regional and international security issues.

Russian officials have repeatedly made it clear that they are fiercely opposed to any military confrontation between the West and Iran. From geo-political and geo-energy perspectives, what are at stake for Russia? Do you think a political tilt by Iran toward the West would change the geo-political equation in Eurasia/Middle East?

Hassan-Yari: Russian resistance to any military intervention in Iran is not a matter of principle, nor is it aimed at preventing another catastrophic war in the region. The Russian calculation is based on geopolitical considerations. Russia is still looking for the lost place of the Soviet Union on the world stage. Any U.S. military intervention in the region further isolates Russia. It is also in this context that we must understand the resistance from Moscow to any foreign military intervention in Syria. For Russia, this is a zero sum game. In addition, an isolated Iran strengthens the position of Russia as an intermediary between this country and the West. Iran’s isolation and demonization has helped Russia develop advanced military and commercial relations with Iran. The same is true for China, with more emphasis on the economic relations with Iran.
A dominant U.S. presence in Iran could compromise Russian’s not too comfortable authority in the Caspian Sea basin. One of the reasons for creating the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was to counterbalance the U. S. presence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The fall of the Islamic Republic could revive the spectrum of Soviet containment through a new security belt connecting Europe to Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan.

This year Russia and Iran started doing trade in their respective national currencies, replacing the U.S. dollar and Euro. Similarly, trade has been taking place between Iran and China in Chinese Renminbi and between Iran and Japan in Japanese Yen including for the sale of Iranian oil. Do you think the exclusion of U.S. dollar and Euro from trade by these trade partners could hold geopolitical implications? If so, in what ways?

Hassan-Yari: Since the day after the revolution Iran has tried to to break free from the yoke of the dollar, without much success. The currencies of Russia and China are not convertible, which reinforces the dependency of Iran on Russians and Chinese. It’s an ironic situation because Iran claims to want to break from the grip of the U. S. dollar and to free itself of turbulence of American imperialism by creating more dependency on secondary powers like Russia and China. In its business dealings with Moscow and Beijing, Iran is forced to buy Sino-Russian merchandise. However, the quality of those goods does not meet consumer expectations in Iran. The continuation of this trade policy increasingly limits Iran to two or three unreliable suppliers who put their own national interests ahead of Iranian welfare in any dispute with Americans. Russia in particular has demonstrated that it is not a feasible partner. There is no other country in the world that has hurt Iranian interests as much as Russia since the 19th century.
The recent currency crisis that deeply hit the value of Iran’s Rial showcased the significance of dollar as a safe currency for ordinary Iranians. During the crisis, no one was looking for Russian or Chinese currency. It is also ironic that some ministers in Iran use the dollar as reference when they talk about their non-petroleum exports, the value of the national economy or foreign investment. The language that the average Iranian better understands is that of Dollar, not the Rouble, or the Yuan. In addition, the Central Bank of Iran often manipulates the value of dollar to regulate the amount of liquidity in circulation.
The exclusion of U.S. dollar and Euro from trade by Iran and its trade partners could hold geopolitical implications if Euro Zone dismantles itself and if China decided to dispose its massive dollar reserve. Among some other possibilities one can invoke the unlikely scenario of the Arab oil producers to join the Russia-China-Iran trio in replacing dollar by other currencies. Iran’s economy is too small to have a geopolitical impact on the dollar.

How stable is the regime of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria? How Iran could be impacted by Assad’s fall?

Hassan-Yari: Assad’s regime is extremely weak. It has reached a point of no return and condemned to disappear. Its fall will have major implications for the safety and security of the Islamic Republic as well as the rest of the Middle East. The survival of the Syrian regime is so crucial to the Iranian theocratic system that it forced Tehran to denounce the Syrians protesting against Damascus as agents of Zionism and imperialism while praising Arabs in other countries as Islamist followers of Iran’s Islamic revolution. This position has highlighted the contradiction in the official discourse of the Iranian leadership by substantially weakening its claim to the universality of the Islamic revolution.
Syria is the only strategic ally of Iran in the Arab world. It also acts as a bridge between Iran and Lebanon. It gives Iran direct access to Israeli territory through the Hazbollah and some Palestinian groups. The fall of the Assad regime will also weaken the position of Shiite militants in the region. A regime change in Damascus further limits Iran’s ability to intervene on the regional scene. It will deprive Islamic Iran of a vital window to breathe. Finally, it will make Iran even more vulnerable in facing a possible foreign military attack. Within Iran itself, it will strengthen the resolve of opponents of the Islamic regime.

The Saudi government has made significant military hardware purchases from the United States. The Saudi diplomacy has been also active in countries impacted by the Arab Spring. How do you assess the future of the strategic relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and in light of Arab Spring, what are the chances of having a more representative leadership in Saudi Arabia?

Hassan-Yari: The Islamic Republic is not the only country embarrassed by the Arab awakening. The United States and Saudi Arabia have also taken contradictory positions to events in Syria, Bahrain and elsewhere.
The future of the strategic relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia depends largely on the Kingdom’s internal dynamics. A democratic Saudi Arabia will be more independent in its foreign policy. It will also have much less appetite for accommodating dictatorships in surrounding countries.
But since we are not there yet, I cannot envisage any strategic change in the U.S.-Saudi bilateral relationship, even if there is a few sporadic surmountable bumps.
As for democratic changes in Saudi Arabia, they will be introduced very gradually in the absence of a popular revolution. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can not remain immune to the political and military changes that inflame its neighbourhood. The question is the degree and level of change that the descendants of Al-Saud are forced to introduce.

This is first part of a series of posts on Iran based on travel experiences in the country in 2011.

“Sir, can I ask why Iran?” asked the travel agent whom I called to book the flight for Tehran.

 “I have an interest in the culture, people and language”, I respond.

“Hmmm but people would normally go to Dubai for that… anyway”, he conveys his lack of cultural knowledge.

Just like a lot of people confuse us Pakistanis as Arabs, the Iranians have to face the same misery.

The country is so diverse in terms of culture, lifestyle and landscape that planning the trip to Iran was itself an exciting experience – from LonelyPlanet to Iranian travel agents, books and travel documentaries; I explored everything to ensure my time in Iran is well spent and I return with a better understanding of the country and its people.  With the variety it has got, its unfortunate Iran isn’t a hot tourist destination.

Getting a Visa

Iran Visa

Despite the bad press, the travel agency business seems booming in Iran. There are hundreds of them in the capital and tens in other bigger cities. They can help planning the trip, arranging accommodation, travel, guides and more. Most importantly, you may need them to get a visa. Although nationals of some countries can get a visa-on-arrival but the recommended option is to get in touch with a travel agency, email relevant documents (passport copy, itinerary etc), make the visa handling payment (30-50 Euro) and wait for them to get you a Visa Ref Number which you take to your local Iranian Embassy and get a visa stamped on the passport on-spot. I received my Visa Ref number in a week and didn’t even had to go to the Iranian Embassy. You can post your Passport, Visa Ref Number and payment details to the Embassy and they return passport with the visa fairly quick. The visa fee depends on your nationality.

I would highly recommend Shiraz based Pars Tourist Agency and specifically Marjan Owji in their Visa Department. She can help you in literally everything on your trip to Iran and she does that not from a customer-friendly-business perspective, its Persian hospitality at its best. She took only three working days to get back to me and the Embassy took another three days. The visa process was fairly straightforward. Everyone, except citizens of Israel can get an Iranian visa. The citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovenia and Turkey can stay for up to 3 months without a visa.  The maximum duration of tourist visa is 30 days while for the visa-on-arrival its 15 days. Once in Iran, extension is possible fairly easy.

Visa fee for every country is available here and here. We had to pay something around £20 on a Pakistani passport and £120 on a British passport. More information can be obtained by calling the local Iranian Embassy or browsing the MFA Iran website.

As a notable exception, the 90sq-km beach resort of Kish Island, south of Iran, easily accessible from Dubai, does not require advance visas for visits of up to 14 days, including Americans. This is Iran’s response to the Emirates and the state is promoting trade (by making it free-trade-zone) and tourism on the island. The island has facilities for scuba diving, jet-skiing, sailing, fishing, parasailing, reef walking, coral viewing, boating and water-skiing and offers gorgeous white sandy beaches for relaxing walks and plenty of huge malls if you fancy a retail therapy.

Air-lines

Most of the major carriers have flights to Iran but the favourite for travelling to Iran are Iran’s national carrier Iran Air, Azerbaijan airlines with stopover in Baku, Aeroflot (Russian airlines) with stopover in Moscow, Air France and other Middle East based carriers.  Other low-cost international carriers include Pegasus airlines (Istanbul-Tehran), Air Asia (Far East-Tehran), Air Arabia and Jazeera Airways both connecting through the middle East.

Launched in the mid of 20^th century, Iran Air started with domestic flights between Tehran and Mashhad. By 1970s, Iran Air was ranked amongst the safest airlines in the world (second only to Qantas; being accident free for decades). However, things changed suddenly after the revolution. Because of the US imposed sanctions, the airline could not buy new planes and even had to cancel deals setup earlier. The sanctions meant the airline had to rely on older planes, risking the security of the passengers and the staff onboard. At present, majority of the fleet is decades old with average age nearing 25 years. The Fajr Aviation and Composites Industry in Tehran is responsible for overhauling existing fleet and designing new airplanes. Recently, there have been conflicts over refuelling Iran Air planes as well when UK CAA and the Abu Dhabi Airports Company refused to refuel Iran Air planes. The EU has also recently banned Iran Air’s fleet of Boeing and Airbus because of safety concerns.

I choose to fly with Aeroflot – cheaper, good connections and short stopovers. The flight originated from London Heathrow, serving nicely done Salmon and landing three hours later in Tehran’s primary IKA airport (30KM from city). The two-hour stopover at Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport was an interesting experience – this was by far the best airport I have seen so far. It’s so huge it could take hours walking from one terminal to the other with duty free shops spread everywhere and the airport giving a fine, shiny, glossy clean look and feel. Plenty of Iranians on the airport – some praying, some gossiping or buying stuff; looks like this the favorite route from EU to get back home for them. It took another three hours for the flight from Moscow to Tehran with an amazing Omelet served for breakfast as we approached Iran.

Note that if not staying in Tehran and planning to get to any city other than Tehran upon your arrival, you would have to change airports, from Imam Khomeini to Mehrabad, 40 km away, to get to your domestic flight.

Accommodation in Iran

Courtyard of a traditional hotel in Iran

You do not necessarily need travel agents to book accommodation for you, although that’s the easiest way. Popular travel/hotel-booking websites like booking.com, venere.com, laterooms.com do not support Iranian hotels; again because of the economic sanctions. However, there are lots of websites voluntarily setup by Iranians who like to see more people visiting their country and these provide lots of information on hotels, pictures, locations, costs etc. You can use these websites, in addition to travel agent websites to choose hotels and then book by directly calling/emailing the hotel, many of which have their own websites as well.

There is no presence of international-chain-hotels like Marriot or Holiday Inn in Iran – if you have read this far, you should know why. The hotels in Iran come in three varieties:

(i)                  Cheap bed-n-breakfasts with private or shared accommodation – These can be found in pretty much every city and are  generally located in city centre with good transport links. Tehran is scattered with hundreds of them.

(ii)                Traditional hotels – These are Iranian version of premium-posh hotels. They are generally converted Inns, older mansions/houses, travellers and traders resting spots – called Sofrekhane Sonati in Farsi. Ponds, trees and fountains in the central lawn, tinted glass windows and beautifully lit at night, these are your best bet to experience Iranian culture.

(iii)               Mid-range to top-notch modern hotels – Larger urban capitals and tourist destinations like Kish Islands have a few modern hotels to compete with multi-star international hotels. Generally, they are not located in city centre and price range vary on a large scale, so one needs to be cautious to check prices from several sources.

Travelling between cities

Transportation between cities in Iran is comfortable, safe, timely, reliable, well managed and cheap as chips. Cities and towns are connected through buses, rail network and domestic flights while port-cities and towns both in North and South also enjoy ferry connections. Depending on the distance, time available to travel and cost considerations, one can make use of flights, trains, buses or even hire comparatively cheaper private taxis.

Buses: Iran enjoys a pretty extensive and competitive bus network from most of its major cities. Major cities have bus terminals a few miles outside the city, planned on the model of airports with separate terminals and connected to city through local transport links. Buses can take you from anywhere to anywhere in Iran – pretty much anytime of the day (or night), normally without long stop-overs and running on time. Police checkpoints on the highways ensure safety. Tickets can be booked either in advance by calling the bus station or on-spot if you reach sometime before expected time of bus departure.

Iran Buses

The buses generally come in two classes: lux/Mercedes/2nd class and super/Volvo/1st class. First class buses are air-conditioned and you will be provided with a small snack during your trip, while second class services are more frequent. There is little financial incentive to opt for the second class tickets.  Among the many bus operators, Royal Safar Iranian is the best, in terms of comfort and reliability, with a fleet of modern comfortable buses. They also run sleeper buses between major cities with reclining chairs, serving Iranian meals and sweets and movies on play – e.g. Shiraz to Isfahan all for $11; while regular buses cost $6. Apparently, you can book tickets online at http://www.royall.ir/ , if you can read their Farsi website or by calling the available phone numbers. Other bus operators are named Seir-o-Safar and Taavoni. Saipa Diesel, Iran’s leading manufacturer of trucks, trailer and mini-buses provides many of the buses you see on roads in Iran. The company also imported several hundred larger buses from China to serve on longer routes.

Trains: The train network is limited but comfortable, speedy and affordable. It has been expanding at 500KM every year for few years and major cities have been connected through contracts with Chinese companies. The under construction Chabahar-Zahedan-Mashhad railway line extending from northeast to southeast will enable Pakistan pilgrims to travel by train to Mashhad instead of the long bus journey from the border. Other international links include trains to Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Afghanistan and Central Asia. It is possible to travel from London to Tehran, by train!

Tehran Railway Station

The passenger rail system is called Raja Passenger Trains. The Sleeper berths in trains allow good night’s sleep specially on longer journeys like Tehran-Mashhad; will cost almost double the bus ticket but are worth it on longer journeys. The best of the trains are called 4 pax Ghazal or Plur train. The added benefit of travelling by train in Iran, like anywhere else, is that you get to see a lot of places on the way, sample food, see tourists and unlike many places, get a chance to meet, talk with and befriend locals. This is your best option to make a few good friends in Iran.

For Train timings, ticket prices and booking information, Google is your friend. If nothing helps, travel agencies can do it for you.

Domestic Flights: A leading oil producer can of course afford to have cheap domestic flights, sometimes dramatically cheap in comparison to international market. Planes are aging, and maintenance and safety procedures are sometimes well below western standards, but it still remains the safest way to get around Iran, given the huge death toll on the roads and longer distances between cities. The average price is in the range of $50 – $80.

Iran Air

Iran’s major domestic carriers Mahan Air, Iran Air, Kish Air and Aseman Air, all have websites and online booking system but you cannot make use of online ticket booking unless you have an Iranian bank account or a debit/credit card. The reason obviously is economic sanctions imposed on Iran means no international banking relationship with Iranian companies. The best way to book domestic flight tickets in Iran before landing in Iran is (i) find local office of above stated Iranian airlines in your city/country and they can do it for you or (ii) use an Iranian travel agent to book tickets for you, they will give you eticket and you pay them into their bank account normally setup somewhere in the EU.

Off Days in Iran

Thursday is generally half-day and Friday is the weekend break. Saturday and Sunday are normal working days. The biggest and most celebrated of all events in Iran is Nowrooz – the start of new year on Persian calendar which is marked with a week off. Other holidays are linked to the revolution and religious days (Muharram/Ramzan) as well as Eid festival.

Comparison Charts

Based on all the information I gathered from websites, Lonely Planet and talking to travel agents, I composed a comparative chart with compares price offers by four different travel agencies for hotel accomodation and travelling between cities (cab/train/flight). This helped me figure out which agency works best for me. The chart can be downloaded in image format here and more detailed Excel format here.

In the next posts, we’ll explore Iran from inside…. with pictures, videos and lots of interesting stories and interpersonal observations.

Some of the travel Agencies I spoke to….

• Setareh, Lotus Travel Agency
• Iran Paradise
• Tehran based Dornagasht
• Marjan Owji, Shiraz based Pars Tourist Agency
• Sara, Iran Tour Package/Lovely Iran
•  Zohreh Souki, Tehran based Sarvineh Tours, Welcome2Iran

Some of the websites I used for hotel search…

• http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotels-g293998-Iran-Hotels.html#T_CAT_HOTEL_MOTEL
• http://www.audleytravel.com/Destinations/North-Africa-and-The-Middle-East/Iran/Accommodation.aspx
• http://www.persiatravelmart.com/
• http://www.asemangasht.com/?blog=22
• http://www.iranbudgettour.com/iran-hotels
• http://www.irantour.org/hotel.html
• http://www.southtravels.com/middleeast/iran/index.html
• http://www.hoteltravel.com/iran
• http://www.bestirantravel.com/hotel/hotels.html
• http://www.irpedia.com/iran-hotels/

In the final installment of her fascinating radio series looking at Russia 20 years on from the Soviet collapse, veteran journalist, critical Russophile (and long-suffering friend of the FPA Russia blog!) Brigid McCarthy looks at a thorny issue: that Russia has still not yet figured out its identity.

Brigid talks to Russian TV host Felix Razumovsky, who leads a popular show called “Who Are We?”. Razumovsky believes that the Russian, and Soviet, Idea has been underpinned by a kind of Orthodox mysticism.

“Psychologically, Razumovsky said, Russians remain profoundly shaped by their Orthodox Christian heritage, and the idea of “Holy Russia.” That heritage can be summed up in a single Biblical verse:

“‘Don’t gather your treasures on earth, but store up your treasures in heaven.’

This very simple phrase is basically what characterizes the Russian soul or spirit,” Razumovksy said.

“Everyone in Russia is still pretty much this way, even if they try to hide it.”

Razumovsky thinks one reason Communist ideology got a foothold in Russia was it offered a modern, secular version of Holy Russia. Soviets were ready to lay down their lives for the sake of a future, workers’ paradise.

“So that’s why Russia took up the call. Excuse me, but no one else in Europe screwed around like this,” he said, with a laugh.”

As a result, Russian people remain attracted to large meta-narratives.

“If you’re a person who needs that bigger force or idea in your life, then it’s easier for you to switch from the Bolshevik/Communist future paradise to the Orthodox Christian future paradise.”

Russians are thus trapped by this idea, unable to lead ‘normal’ democratic lives.

Razumovsky’s idea of the Russian people as self-flagellating religious utopians is a rather Slavophilic concept that seems pretty closely related to Russian messianism.

Its less charitable mirror image is the idea of Russians as hostage to a denial of their history, specifically the crimes of Communism. This seems to be the jist of the latest book by conservative journalist David Satter, the long-time FT correspondent in Moscow,

I’m still in the process of reading Satter’s provocative and compellingly written book, so I’ll reserve hasty judgement, but, according to Owen Matthews, who reviewed the book for the Daily Beast,

“what bothers Satter most is that Putin has returned to the megalomaniacal Soviet assumption that the people exist to serve the state rather than the other way around. “Maintaining the governance of a vast territory … calls for vast sacrifices and privations on the part of our people,” Putin said in 2008. “That has been Russia’s thousand-year history.”

Satter’s message is that Russia cannot hope to reverse its current decline without first coming to terms with the crimes of the Soviet past”.

At the core of both of these stories is a kind of romantic megalomania that supposedly underpins the Russian psyche. For many conservatives in the West, from Richard Pipes to Anne Applebaum to David Satter, it’s a source of fear and frustration. Whereas for some Russians themselves, many of whom also subscribe to this idea, it’s a source of pride – feeling special, tragic, Bigger than other countries. Russia’s failures can thus be explained as resulting from unrealistically, impossibly high aspirations. Russia as Icarus.

I won’t lie: addicted to meta-narratives, I’ve been guilty of flirting with such exceptionalism, but it’s not helpful.

For a start, all countries’ histories and political traditions are cumulative, resulting from layering one thing over another, in ostensibly contradictory ways. If Christmas Day in many European countries used to be a pagan holiday in pre-christian times, and if sauna entrepreneur Peter Kizenko used to be Russia’s top Goldman trader, what’s so strange about Soviet Communism having Russian Orthodox roots?

And, as for historical denialism, Russians are often accused, as Satter seems to have done, of ignoring/whitewashing/denying the crimes of Communism. This is seen as a kind of Freudian foundation for some kind of current psychic pathology. If only we faced up once and for all to the Gulag, then we could finally become a “normal” country! But the truth, unfortunately, seems much more prosaic than that.

Most countries were built on serious slaughter, sometimes outright genocide, and ordinary Russians have the same kind of relationship to Stalinism as ordinary Americans have to slavery or the British have to imperialism – they know about it, they know it was bad, but they want to get on with their lives without being made by some random foreigners to feel constantly guilty or apologetic. It’s that simple.

And, funnily enough, the same crowd of right wing Western writers and analysts who condemn Russians for Soviet amnesia would generally be the last people to call for a similar recognition of the original sins of their own countries.

Catch Brigid’s other thought provoking, wry and engaging episodes on the PRI site.

UNITED NATIONS – On the final day of a three month deadline set by the Quartet – Brussels, Washington, Moscow and the UN – for Israelis and Palestinians to resume bilateral peace talks, Israeli attorney Daniel Seidemann convened an exclusive briefing with the UN Correspondents Association to unveil a grim message he will deliver to President Obama at the beginning of next week: the two-state solution is dead and you are to blame.

Mr. Seidemann, a legal expert on Palestinian-Israeli relations in Jerusalem, has spent the past twenty years lobbying senior-level officials in Washington, Paris, London, Moscow, Cairo and both halves of Jerusalem to broker a two-state compromise which would, if not cure the cancerous conflict eating away at Middle East relations, at least put it into remission.

Cause of Death

“A surge of settlement activity the likes of which we have not witnessed since the early 1970s,” Mr. Seidemann explained, has enabled me “to project with a fair degree of authority what the map of Jerusalem will look like in two years time.”

From that projection two “unprecedented” conclusions can be drawn, he said. First, “the map of Jerusalem will be so Balkanized geographically and demographically that a political division of the city will no longer be possible.”

Second, the White House is for the first time in history completely beholden to Israeli leadership. “During the last six months, my Prime Minister Netanyahu has said in word and in deed, ‘President Obama you have no leverage over me on this issue. I know and you know you will not engage me publicly and probably not privately on these issues until probably after the November elections. I am at liberty to act with impunity.”

The United States’ February 18, 2011 veto of “its own language” on a Security Council resolution condemning settlement activity, together with the defunding of UNESCO a day after Palestine achieved full statehood membership there, reflect Washington’s “colossal trend of self-marginalization” in the peace talks, he said.

Next week, Mr. Seidemann plans to tell President Obama in person that if he chooses to cow to Israeli pressure and ignore the settlements issue until after the November elections, “by the time you get back there may not be anything left to talk about.”

But “short of catastrophe,” he added, “there is not going to be any engagement from Washington until after the elections. And maybe then none.”

A War of Rebirth?

“What I have described here is a state of acute disequilibrium in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Mr. Seidemann said while calling attention to the brewing war next door in Syria. “Having two states of disequilibrium simultaneously creates pressure along the tectonic plates. These things correct themselves in one of two ways: either a new robust political paradigm – which is not in the cards over the next several months – or an armed conflict. I have a feeling that there is a war waiting to break out there to realign things. It just hasn’t decided where it will break out and over what.”

Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Ammar Awad (A general view of a Jewish settlement known to Israelis as Har Homa and to Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim is seen near Jerusalem November 16, 2011. Israel said on Tuesday it will invite bids soon for constructing 814 homes in occupied land it considers part of Jerusalem, pursuing a decision to speed up building in settlements after Palestinians won full membership in the U.N. cultural agency).

“Political opposition forces are using new technologies to carry out public events” lamented an exasperated Russian police chief yesterday.

What are these insidious technologies? Twitter? Talking spy rocks (wait, those are British!)? Putin’s beloved nano-particles?

Wait, he was getting to that. The protesters are “using toys with placards at mini-protests”, he concluded.
That’s right: toys.

Protesters in Siberia have circumvented the ban on demonstrations by assembling a series of dolls, teddy bears and action figures in the snow, complete with miniature anti-government placards.

“They tried to tell us our event was illegal – they even said that to put toys in the snow, we had to rent it from the city authorities,” one protester told the Guardian.

Sure, the authorities’ overreaction to such a diminutive problem appears at first sight little exaggerated. However, it’s worth remembering that the Kremlin has always been most vulnerable against miniature threats.

Throughout the Cold War, Soviet air defense, guided by the mantra “if in doubt, shoot it down”, managed to successfully repel hundreds of flying Western intruders, no matter how big or sophisticated from U2 spy planes to entire civilian airliners. Yet all of the Air Force’s myriad defences proved utterly prostrate in the face of a small Cessna that landed right in Red Square in 1989.

But the fear of the Miniature Threat goes even further back. Which post-War Soviet schoolboy could have avoided learning the song “Little Button” about how an ordinary Russian boy who finds a tiny, lost button lying in the street, notices its unfamiliar, foreign design, and uses it to track down an enemy spy.

In its playful ingenuity, the Toy Protest is in close competition with the Belarussian Applause and Silent Protests, in which protesters turned applause and then silence against the Lukashenko government.

But the toys also carry an alternative, unwitting allegory – that the anti-government protests themselves remain a tiny affair in the national scheme of things, a plaything of the Westernised Moscow and St Petersburg based middle classes.

It is the world’s largest Muslim country but remains for the most part secular. It is home to the eighteenth largest economy on the globe but more than sixteen percent of the population lives on less than $2 per day. Indonesia has long been considered the linchpin for Southeast Asia and, indeed, serves as a fascinating case study for which myriad domestic phenomena can be explored:  macroeconomic policy, the role of religion, and the nexus between political control and the military. In the seventh episode of the 2012 Great Decision series, produced by the Foreign Policy Association, Indonesia’s role in the region and the world, as well as its relationship with the United States, is examined in such frameworks. FPA readers can purchase a copy of the eight episode DVD and briefing book at the Great Decisions TV webpage.

The two panelists – Walter Lohman, the Director of The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, and Sadanand Dhume, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal – start with an historical overview beginning in the Cold War era to properly contextualize Indonesia’s modern trajectory.

Fearful of a communist wave which threatened to sweep Southeast Asia into Moscow’s orbit, U.S. policymakers in the Richard Nixon administration were quick to align themselves with Suharto, a zealous anti-communist Major General who had helped to overthrow the country’s previous military ruler in 1967. As Lohman posits, Washington’s support for Suharto was the lesser of two evils.

Never one to shy away from befriending some of the world's worst dictators, President Richard Nixon hosts Suharto in the Oval Office in 1969. Photo: ETAN

Despite a lack of political and civil rights under Suharto, Dhume argues that the dictator showed a knack for organization and, as a result, Indonesia underwent a period of extraordinary economic growth (abetted by millions of dollars in aid from Washington) while also enjoying some measure of political stability. Dhume is quite cavalier, however, in his dismissal of Suharto’s human rights record, saying only that there were “abuses of course,” before moving on to another point.

After the overthrow of Sukarno, the country’s previous autocrat, Suharto went on a rampage against his political opponents, especially Communists, which resulted in a bloodbath that rivaled Stalin’s endeavors in terms of sheer brutality. In December 1975, Indonesia invaded and occupied East Timor, causing untold misery and close to 100,000 deaths over the course of the following quarter century. Moreover, the Suharto regime’s behavior in West Papua has been called genocide by the Yale Law School. Yes, there were abuses, of course.

Suharto’s downfall came against a backdrop of the Asian financial crisis in 1997. Indonesia’s population could tolerate Suharto’s corruption and nepotism as long as the economy continued to hum along. However, the financial collapse which hit the country was not only an economic calamity but also served as a social and political awakening as well.

Indonesians go to the polls in 1999, the culmination of a remarkably quick transition to democracy. Photo: China Daily

The elections held in 1999 were, by all accounts, free and fair. Such a reality was met with surprise by most observers who have noted the chaotic nature of quick democratic transitions. One need only look to Egypt today to find an appropriate juxtaposition. With a litany of actors – opposition figures, military personnel, and remnants from the old regime — all clamoring for a voice at the table, one should expect a rocky road. In Indonesia, there were a fair share of bumps in that road, especially between 1998 and 2002, but the end product can be held up as a model to follow for other countries undergoing the trials and tribulations of democratization.

Indonesia’s transition from autocratic rule to democracy is almost as unique as the country itself. Consisting of more than 17,000 islands, the Great Decisions panel brings up the question as to how Indonesia has maintained its territorial integrity through the years. With the exceptions of East Timor, which gained independence in 2002, and the continued struggle by separatists in West Papua, Indonesia has retained sovereignty over its whole.

Part of that was due to the iron fisted rule of Suharto, but another part is due to the nation’s religious freedom. While 88 percent of the country is Muslim, there are major areas that are home to religious minorities. Bali, for example, is largely Hindu, while Sumatra is Christian. These groups have never been persecuted for their beliefs and that has gone a long way preventing the type of schisms that have popped up in other areas of the world which have divaricating degrees of religious tension. A good contemporary example in the news lately is Nigeria, where sectarian fighting in the country’s north threatens to tear the nation apart.

In terms of democratization and minority rights, Dhume suggests that Indonesia can be an example for countries involved in the Arab Spring. This is so not just because of the mutual connection to Islam, but because Indonesia has proven that such transitions can be successfully implemented.

The United States, for its part, has maintained a very close partnership with Jakarta, even after he Suharto years. The two countries participate in various military exercises together, and have cooperated fully in the apprehension of several well-known members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant Islamic organization operating in Southeast Asia.  Washington values its relationship with countries like Indonesia because of the non-political role of Islam and because of its ability, in the 21^stcentury at least, to curtail the influence of the military in the political process.

President Barack Obama, seen here meeting with Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2010, spent part of his childhood in Indonesia. Photo: Corbis Images

President Barack Obama has a personal connection to Indonesia, having spent four years of his childhood living there. He has also made two state trips to the country as President in only his first term. Ties between the two countries appear to be very strong at the moment – a reality which Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has boasted of on numerous occasions – and with Indonesia’s GDP having increased sevenfold just over the last fifteen years, Jakarta is poised to be a regional powerbroker and a significant international player in the years to come.

SLt. Delisle: Spying on Canada's Arctic?

Royal Canadian Navy Intelligence Officer Jeffrey Delisle was arrested in Halifax last week for espionage. He is being charged under the Security of Information Act with “breach of trust and communicating safeguarded information to a foreign entity” between July 6, 2007 and January 13, 2012, the date on which he was arrested. This is the first time that someone is being prosecuted under Section 16 of the act, and Sub-Lieutenant Delisle faces life imprisonment.

Delisle has been working for the Canadian Forces as an officer for the Navy since 2008, and as a reservist since 1996. Most recently, beginning in August 2011, he started work at the HMCS Trinity in Halifax, a naval communications center. Supposedly, many of Canada’s naval secrets are kept here, as information from the country’s monitoring stations comes through the center. According to the Canadian Navy, Trinity operates two remote radio transmitter/receiver stations near Halifax, called Naval Radio Station Newport Corner and Naval Radio Station Mill Cove. It also houses the Canadian Forces Integrated Underseas Surveillance System Centre, which operates two remote SOSUS arrays for the Integrated Underseas Surveillance System, in which it participates with the United States. SOSUS was designed during the Cold War as an early warning system against Soviet ballistic missile submarines. Now that submarines have grown stealthier, SOSUS technology has become outdated, so information gathered from the arrays is not terribly critical anymore.

Still, Delisle could have been privy to sensitive information during his short time at Trinity. In her book, “Deeply Canadian,” Julie Ferguson writes, “Trinity is part of a global network of fixed and mobile acoustic sensors whose data is shared among western allies.” Much information about the paths of Canadian military and civilian ships up, down, and across the country’s three coastlines, along with information about allied ship movement, passes through Trinity. Both the information about Canadian ships and, perhaps more importantly, its NATO allies, could be quite valuable to other governments. Trinity also maintains Ferguson also writes that Canada’s Maritime Forces Atlantic, which are headquartered in Halifax, “can already produce a real-time surveillance picture that extends halfway across the north Atlantic – an area of 1.4 million sq. km” (p.80).

Canada has neither confirmed nor denied the identity of the foreign body, but many suspect that it is Russia. In fact, the Nova Scotia-based Chronicle Herald asserts that it “has confirmed [that the foreign body] is one or more Russian envoy.” When asked whether Russia was the recipient of sensitive information, Defense Minister Peter McKay stated, “I don’t think you can assume anything…I’m not denying or confirming anything.”

What type of information could Russia get out of Delisle? Some say that since he was a low-ranking officer, he probably did not have access to extremely high-level, need-to-know intelligence while at Trinity. However, other sources tell the Globe and Mail that he enjoyed top-level clearance. Regardless of his stature, Russia might still have been able to bribe Delisle, who has a murky financial past, having declaring bankruptcy in 1998, to share intelligence on Canadian activity in the Arctic. There, the two countries dispute the territoriality of the Lomonosov Ridge (see this overview from Wired Magazine for a good introduction to the disagreement). Russia could also be interested in Canada’s underwater tracking technology. Lenta, a Russian newspaper, also states that Moscow could be interested in gathering more data from the Canadians on the Arctic because of the its “desire to win a showdown with Ottawa over natural resources in the Arctic.” Though any showdown will likely take place in the sluggish UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf rather than out in the field, knowing what claims Canada plans to submit to the UN in advance of its 2013 deadline would be highly advantageous for Russia.

Lenta warns readers to expect the resolution of the issue to be “difficult,” claiming that Ottawa might be preparing a response in the “form of notes of protest or expulsion of diplomats.” They don’t state a source, so this could be nothing but a far-fetched rumor for now. It is in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s interests to keep relations with Russia on a good footing, especially since he’ll be traveling to Russky Island near Vladivostik for this year’s APEC summit in September. Of course, the UK was not afraid to expel four Russian diplomats after Moscow’s failure to extradite a man they accuse of murdering ex-KGB and ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, so perhaps Canada could do the same.

News Sources

“SpyFile: Everything we know about Halifax’s espionage case,” OpenFile

“Expert sees possible Arctic link in spy case,” Times Colonist

We extremely condemn the sheer act of vulgarity done by a Qadiani, Mansoor Ejaz’s clip of a video which is reported by various national Dailies today. In this video he is hosting a show of wrestling of naked girls. This was said by Maulana Mujahid Al Hussaini, a close aide of Ameer-e-Shariat Syed Ataullah Shah [...]

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PROFESSOR ALI SUKHANVER Throughout the world, Pope Benedict XVI is recognized as a symbol of kind heartedness, affection and love for humanity not only by his followers but also by a great number of Muslims. People rank him as a beacon of compassion and sympathy for the whole of humanity. In his traditional beginning-of-the-year address [...]

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Phobos-Grunt Re-entry Map

The first major space-related event of 2012 is upon us. The failed Russian Mars probe, Phobos-Grunt, crash landed today in the Pacific Ocean – or was it the Atlantic Ocean? After months of speculation, even the experts seem to disagree about the final resting place of the doomed satellite. The Russian Ministry of Defense, and according to some accounts, U.S. Strategic Command, are reporting the satellite fell into the Pacific Ocean to the west of Chile and Argentina.

“Phobos-Grunt’s fragments were to fall into the waters of the Pacific Oceans at 21:45 Moscow time. This is according to the calculations made in the Space Control Centre,” said Aleksey Zolotukhin, a representative from the Russian Defense Ministry’s space office.

Others, including Russian scientists and leaders in Russia’s aerospace industry, are claiming Phobos-Grunt actually landed in the Atlantic Ocean, northeast of Brazil.

“The probe’s fragment fell in an area in the Atlantic Ocean, with the coordinates of 310.7 degrees east longitude and 18.2 degrees south latitude in the vicinity of the Brazilian coast,” claimed an unnamed source.

Check out #PhobosGrunt on Twitter for even more conflicting information, or click here, here, and here, to follow the conversation.

Launched in November 2011, the satellite was on a mission to explore Phobos, one of two moons orbiting Mars, but stalled in low-Earth orbit gradually falling back toward the Earth’s surface. The mission, which was supposed to last three years, was an ambitious step forward for Russia’s space agency Roscosmos. If successful, Phobos-Grunt would have been the first ever spacecraft to return to Earth with soil samples from the moon of another planet. The Planetary Society, an NGO based in California which is expected to make headlines later this year for its efforts advancing commercial space exploration, also loaded Phobos-Grunt with a variety of bacteria to test whether or not life could ever “planet-hop.” All in all, Russia spent nearly $170 million on the failed Phobos-Grunt mission.

Regardless of the exact re-entry point, what exactly do we need to do (or not do) when a satellite comes crashing down? Here’s a “beginner’s guide” to surviving a space junk re-entry event. It’s worth a quick glance given the sudden increase in falling satellites. Interestingly, the legal implications highlighted in the guide (No. 7, “Be aware of the legal situation”) state that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and 1972 Space Liability Treaty require the launching state to pay compensation for any (physical) damage resulting from a crash. So in the event Phobos-Grunt, or future space junk crashes, cause damage here on Earth, it will be the responsibility of the launching state to pay for repairs. That said, there is not much of a chance for bodily injury, so there is no need to run out and get space insurance just yet. The chances of any one person being hit by a falling satellite are extremely rare.

More seriously, what caused this failure? After all, this was suppose to be Russia’s major Mars-related mission. With the failure of this Phobos-Grunt, NASA’s Curiosity rover, which is already well on its way to the Red Planet, will continue to give the United States the upper hand in terms of Mars exploration.

According to an interview this week, Vladimir Popovkin, head of Roscosmos, says (to the surprise of many) foul play cannot be ruled out as a factor. “We don’t want to accuse anybody, but there are very powerful devices that can influence spacecraft now,” Mr. Popovkin said. “The possibility they were used cannot be ruled out.” Slate.com provides us with another quote from the interview, which was given in Russian to the newspaper Izvestia and translated by various sources, “the frequent failure of our space launches, which occur at a time when they are flying over the part of Earth not visible from Russia, where we do not see the spacecraft and do not receive telemetric information, are not clear to us.”

Mr. Popovkin did not directly accuse the United States, or any other country, of foul play and was most likely blowing off steam after a series of failed launches this past year. In the same interview, Mr. Popovkin also acknowledged that the failure was more likely related to aging technology. “If we had not sent it to Mars in 2011, we would have had to throw it away.”

According to ABC News, “in the half century since the space age began, Russia has tried and failed 19 times to reach Mars.”

(Photo Source: Space.com)

Russia became the world’s second largest arms exporter in 2011 after the
United States, the head of the Moscow-based arms think tank Centre for
Analysis of World Arms Trade (CAWAT), Igor Korotchenko said on Friday.

The CAWAT ranking revealed that Russia occupied the second position for
world arms sales in 2011 with $11.29 billion in revenues, which accounts
for 16.1 percent of all international arms supplies, Korotchenko said.
“The forecast for 2012 is $11.3 billion or 17.3 percent of global arms
sales.”

The Unitied States, however, dominates world arms exports, with over 40 percent of trade globally, or $28.76 billion.

Korotchenko also said that Russia had scored high records on arms
exports despite the fact that it had lost the Iranian market because of
the arms embargos imposed on Tehran by Washington. Moscow also supported
arms sanctions against Libya, suspending all contracts for the supply
of military hardware to the country.

The top ten biggest arms suppliers include France, Germany, Britain,
Italy, Israel, Spain, Sweden and China, according to the CAWAT ranking.

READ MORE

Russia carried out a successful test of a short-range interceptor
missile on Tuesday as a part of its effort to develop a domestic missile
defense shield, the Defense Ministry said.

The missile was launched from the Sary-Shagan (Kazakhstan) shooting range, the Ministry’s spokesperson said.

The goal of the test was to confirm the technical characteristics of the missile used by the Defense Ministry’s Space Command.

Russia's Defense Ministry uploaded a video of the missile's launch on its web site.

The test comes a month after the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said
that if Moscow's participation in the European missile defense project
fails, Russia would deploy Iskander tactical missiles in the Kaliningrad
Region and halt its disarmament and arms control efforts, including
participation in the new strategic arms reduction treaty with the United
States.

READ MORE

FPA Russia Blog Studios presents……Russia’s top box office hits of 2011

GOODBYE BREZHNEV

As the traumatic events of the 90s send Mother Russia into a coma from which she takes a decade to recover, dutiful son Vova worries that any further shocks to her system might trigger a catastrophic relapse. Thus, he decides to dupe her into thinking she is still living in the Brezhnev era. Using an elaborate collection of props salvaged from the historical scrapheap, he and videographer friend Surkov recreate the late Soviet landscape by cracking down on free speech and assembly, and turning all television programmes into crude pre-recorded montages of vapid government pronouncements leavened with old Soviet movies. Yet as she goes about her illusory life oblivious to the changes outside, Vova and Surkov decide to steal her wallet and deposit her life savings into their Swiss bank accounts. Grateful for her son’s care but suspecting that she is being lied to and patronised, she eventually sneaks out of the apartment and into the streets, only to be quickly detained by riot police for her own safety.

Director’s (Censored) Cut Edition now available in diamond embossed DVD box set. Recommended retail price: $40 billion. Complimentary Swiss watch with each purchase.

UP IN THE AIR (THE STORY OF A MAN NOT READY TO LOSE AN ELECTION)

Vladimir Putin plays an ageing but suave and smartly (un)dressed strongman in his 50s, who is unable to slow down and give up his increasingly alienating job – one that involves firing (at) journalists and democracy activists. Blinkered by his ambition to achieve a life-long goal of four presidential terms, he finds himself no longer able to develop emotional ties with the people. Thus, even the announcement of his imminent appointment to 12 more years at the helm fills him with a vague and anticlimactic sense of emptiness. The otherwise poignant film (Putin delivers a powerful cross between Al Pacino in Scarface, Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris and Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler) is let down by a weak supporting cast: the novice Dmitry Medvedev forgettably plays his democratic understudy, while Mikhail Prokhorov is unconvincing as Putin’s potential liberal rival for the future presidency.

Director: Vladislav Surkov. Total potential running time: 24 years

THE DAMNED UNITED RUSSIA

Formerly undefeated United Russia have hit a brick wall. Despite all-star players and fearsome all-powerful coach, the team is torn apart by a crisis of confidence ahead of a decisive championship game. They’ve sat at the top of the table for too long and got too complacent with the fans, who are now defecting en masse. Rattled by narrow defeats at the hands of hardscrabble underdogs Khimky Forest and Rospil Rangers’ rising striker Alexei Navalny, United Russia’s coaches crack under pressure and decide to fix the decisive match. But they are still unprepared for the force of the opposition. Booed by their own supporters, United Russia achieve an ignominious draw despite imprisoning key opposing players, bribing the ref, hiring an army of football hooligans, stuffing the goals with extra balls and fielding 13 players instead of 11. As a result, United Russia get relegated. A haunting tale of hubris and megalomaniacal self-destruction.

In cinemas until early 2012 at the latest.

THE BRICFAST CLUB

This stereotype-busting drama follows five adolescent countries experiencing an unlikely bonding experience while in detention away from the “developed world economy”. At first glance, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa seem to have nothing in common. But over the course of several summits, they realize that in fact, they all share extraordinary levels of corruption and inequality.

As the heady coming of age story unfolds, former foes Brazil, India and China bond over their young educated population and breakneck economic dynamism. Feeling out of place due to their negligible productive and high tech sectors, Russia and South Africa instead develop a stirring romance based on their populism, single party statehood, rent-seeking and passion for using commodity profits to fund political clientalism. In a saccharine finale that stretches credulity, Russia celebrates entry into the WTO despite the fact that it will likely hurt its competitiveness even further.

OLIGARCH TWIST

“Please sir, can I have some more?” That old chestnut is given a new lease on life by Boris Berezovsky’s bravura performance as Oligarch Twist, an orphaned Russian bobber baron who, fallen on hard times in Dickensian Knightsbridge, hands a writ demanding billions more dollars from his former partner Roman Abramovich. From his London poorhouse (Dolce and Gabbana on Bond St.), little Twist spots the reclusive and monosyllabic Mr Roman marching into opulent Hermes next door. Slipping in through the legs of Roman’s private legion, Boris delivers the fateful line before slapping Mr Roman with a court appointment. The second half of the film veers away from feel good musical and becomes a tense courtroom drama as Twist, a thief with nothing left to lose, lifts the curtain on a decade long web of deceit, plunder and political corruption. As documents are revealed that could have the power to bring down Mr Roman and his cronies, what’s really on trial is no less than the entire history of 90s Russia and the inner circle of the ruling regime.

In broken English with Russian subtitles. Memorable quotes from Abramovich: “Da”.

GRUNT: LOST IN SPACE

15 years and $170 million in the making, this eagerly awaited big budget scifi thriller describes an audacious attempt to land a spaceship – presciently named Grunt, or Ground – on one of Mars’s moons. Yet what could have been another conventional spacefilm (or even porn-film, given the title) is redeemed by a decidedly Russian twist: with just hours to launch, the engineers discover an electrical wiring issue and, instead of postponing liftoff, decide to fix the wire and glue it all back together using a can opener and a tube of Elmer’s. But then the unthinkable happens: as the jerry-rigged seal sheared off by the heat of the launch, the turbo boosters fail to detach, the entire probe is sent into a collision with Earth, and the Americans end up getting to the red planet first.

Available on Glue-Ray DVD.

MARS 500: SPACE MODESTY

This low-budget arthouse sequel to Grunt: Lost in Space proves that Russia remains more than capable of first-class space exploration, as long as it doesn’t involve actually going into space. Inspired by Vladimir Putin’s hit reality show Big Brother, the entire film takes place inside a capsule where six men are constantly filmed sitting in close proximity, playing card games and eating out of toothpaste tubes. Shot in realtime at a disused warehouse outside Moscow using just a portacabin, some ikea furniture, and a couple of two way radios with voice delay, this meditative psychodrama marries the breakneck pacing of Antonioni with the cutting edge special effects of Thunderbirds and Team America: World Police.

Russian-EU co-production. Estimated sitting time: 12 months. Rated PG13 for non-explicit scenes of simulated space flight.

ROMAN HOLIDAY

(Russian title: LUNA PARK)

Roman Abramovich goes on holiday to Italy and ruins everyone else’s by parking Luna, his obscenely huge yacht, in the centre of town, thereby totally eclipsing the historic view.

Dishonourable Mention at Venice Binneale, 2011.

DEAD DESPOTS SOCIETY

“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can’t change the world!” With those rousing words, maverick Professor Vladimir Puting courageously stands up to the prevailing revolutionary winds sweeping the world, in favour of the geopolitical status quo. Advising his friends Gaddafi and Assad to carpe diem in dealing with the protesters while he stalls the international community’s efforts, the inspirational teacher inspires his friends through thick and thin. Yet for all his troubles, in the end, Puting remains all alone. Gaddafi and Kim Jong Il are feeding the daffodils. Kazakhstan teeters on the edge. Castro is on his last legs. Chavez is unwell. One day, Assad too will fall.

Viewers are advised to bring hankies (in case of tear gas).