The Cleveland debate question posed concerning Medvedev mentioned in my last blog seems to have had a little more mileage. I saw a similar question as the debate had being put to president Bush. He also seemed to have just a little bit of trouble with the pronounciation. I saw a quick background MSNBC piece on Medvedev. I flipped past another channel where the commentator was showing off his pronounciation of the word. Suddenly he's everywhere. Medvedev is the water-cooler chatter all over the country.

There seemed to be a time that the Russian election that is making Dmitrii Medvedev the new Russian president would be run somewhat fairly. No question at any time as to what the outcome would be. However, it was still possible the oppostion would be allowed to proceed unhindered with no chance whatsoever of winning. After Garry Kasparov, the opposition candidate for Other Russia (Другая Россия - Drugaya Rossiya - A political coalition) spent 5 days in jail in December, it was obvious that there was not even a pretense that the ruling regime cared if there was even an appearance of fairness. Garry Kasparov, who was the former Chess champion of the world. In Russia, the former and current Chess center of the universe. Doing time because he was on his way to a protest.

Garry Kasparov

Even Kasparov's Chess success might of been viewed as opposition.

"Back then the chess system wanted to maintain a cosy status quo, avoiding any candidate worthy of the name to fight Karpov," he has said. "The political situation in Russia today reminds me of that time."

Born of Armenian-Jewish parents in Baku, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, in 1963, Kasparov took up chess at the age of six.

He was USSR junior champion by the age of 13, before becoming the youngest world chess champion at the age of 22 in 1985, having beaten his compatriot Karpov. [1]

As a enthusiaist I am happy to note though that Chess is above the fray. Seriously, chess is popular enough in Russia that it can be.

Karpov was turned away just like everyone else who has attempted to visit Garry, who is scheduled to be released on Thursday. Members of the Russian parliament and of the "Public Chamber" (Karpov) are supposed to have the right to visit prisoners but both have been denied. A very kind gesture from Karpov, and an unexpected one I must say. The commentariat are checking his numbers and conclude he meant himself, Kramnik, Kasparov, and Smyslov. Spassky has been in France for a long time. Kramnik recently joined him, but he still represents Russia. A pity they turned him away. We're told Garry has a set with him and they could have played the strongest jailhouse chess game ever.[2]

Still, it was not being put in jail that caused Kasparov to withdraw from the campaign but the simple inability to find a hall to hold a required meeting...

Kasparov, the former World Chess Champion, says he was forced into his decision because Other Russia were not able to find a venue to occupy 500 supporters in an initiative group meeting - a requirement of Russian electoral law.

Announcing his decision to withdraw from the race, Kasparov told reporters:

Other Russia have had problems securing venues before, as hotels and conference centres would take their bookings then pull out at the last minute. The venues always seem to blame technical reasons, but it’s hard to credit that so many technical problems would affect every venue approached by Other Russia. Instead, venues clearly believe that hosting an Other Russia conference would not be good for their business in the long term. And who can blame them. [3]

So, this briefly was the story of the opposition candidacy of Garry Kasparov for Russian president.

But, wait, what about the Medvedev guy? Well, what she said.

CLINTON: Well, I can tell you that he's a hand-picked successor,that he is someone who is obviously being installed by Putin, who Putin can control, who has very little independence, the best we know.You know, there's a lot of information still to be acquired. That the so-called opposition was basically run out of the political opportunity to wage a campaign against Putin's hand-picked successor,and the so-called leading opposition figure spends most of his time praising Putin. So this is a clever but transparent way for Putin to hold on to power, and it raises serious issues about how we're going to deal with Russia going forward. I have been very critical of the Bush administration for what I believe to have been an incoherent policy toward Russia. And with the reassertion of Russia's role in Europe, with some of the mischief that they seem to be causing in supporting Iran's nuclear ambitions, for example, it's imperative that we begin to have a more realistic and effective strategy toward Russia. But I have no doubt, as president, even though technically the meetings may be with the man who is labeled as president, the decisions will be made by Putin.

RUSSERT: Who will it be? Do you know his name?

CLINTON: Medvedev -- whatever. [4]

Exactly. But to elaborate a bit.

Putin said Monday that he supported Medvedev, a longtime protege, to become Russia's next president - an endorsement almost certain to clinch an election victory for Medvedev. On Tuesday, Medvedev returned the favor, asking that Putin be his prime minister.

Becoming prime minister would allow Putin to retain a strong measure of power without violating or changing the constitution, which prohibits presidents from serving more than two consecutive terms. [5]

So pretty much it's cut and paste Putin for Medvedev. About all you really need to know isn't it? Whatever.

There is other oppostion in Russia, possibly too many opposing factions. Kasparov might not be politically savvy enough to unite the splintered opposing factions and make a serious run against the Kremlin regime. There really is probably no one that savvy considering there just isn't enough organized opposition, what there is is divided and the nature of the regime is to not even allow the opposition to get started. He did make an attempt at oppostion and might of had some success in letting the West know that there is more to Russia than Putin and Medvedev.

As far as talking to anybody and everybody as Obama has maintained. If it's just to have a talk I would probably want to talk to Kasparov and not Medvedev myself, but maybe thats just me.

Medved … Medvedeva … Whatever

redux

Actually, I know a little Russian and I'm still confused on how often this does seem to be Medvedeva in the Russian I'm looking at, just as Clinton said, instead of Medvedev as is usually shown?

For example (assuming this shows right on your browser),

невзначай напомнил представитель штаба Медведева

["accidentally reminded by the representative of Staff Medvedev" - is a literal Google translation, I won't try for more accurate and get embarassingly proved wrong]

The word at the end is Medvedeva.

Usually an 'a' is a feminine gender ending, similar to Spanish. In some grammatical cases, nominitive, dative, that sort of nonsense, a feminine type ending might be used for something else. I can't speak to that authoritatively as my Russian just isn't that good, my english grammar isn't that good. But it is a grammatical curiosity. Just possibly Hillary had seen something where the name had been translated in that way.

Chess

redux

As a last chess note. I would still consider Russia and the surrounding area the current chess center of the universe although the world champion is now Visanathan Anand, an Indian. Though, for the highest number of grandmasters per square mile, India is just not in the running. Still, congratulations to Anand.

In His Own Words

An interview with Kasparov. Quicktime, a Mac plus, you could probably find the Kasparov/Maher interview elsewhere. [6]