Eastern Radar #2
It’s a particularly shallow area of the Nakhodka bay, one where you can walk a hundred meters towards the Sea of Japan with water only up to your knees. In early September, that’s where the North Korean fishing vessel “Kal Ma 2” ended, stranded after the typhoon Maysak pushed it into this Russian bit of shoreline some 200 kilometers East of the North Korean border. It stayed there for two months, its crew stuck inside, attracting the attention of curious locals until, on November 13, Russian border guards finally towed it to a nearby port. What has happened since isn’t fully clear, though, from Korean and local Russian news reports, it seems the captain was charged with “illegal extraction of aquatic biological resources” while the rest of the 12-men crew has remained on board the entire time, only receiving food and water from the local North Korean consulate.
It is far from the only case of tensions between Russia and North Korean fishermen, which have been illegally fishing in Russian waters for some time now — check out this impressive investigation on the topic TV channel France 24 released in May. At that time, at least seven North Korean ships were anchored in the Nakhodka bay, their crew detained on board.
Hello and welcome to what I’d call the first real issue of Eastern Radar, since it’s the first one to be sent to inboxes (other than mine). Thank you so much to every single one of you who subscribed! I hope you enjoy this issue and if you do, feel free to share it, it really does help. But enough chit-chat, let’s get started:
“The FSO [Vladimir Putin’s bodyguards] has been sitting there for a week.” The city of Tobolsk in the Tyumen region has been rife with rumors of a potential visit by the Russian president for the past few days (Putin’s upcoming visit was finally confirmed on Sunday)
The Russian cargo carrier group Volga-Dnepr grounded its entire, 12-planes fleet of AN-124s following a recent incident in Novosibirsk, when one made an emergency landing after an engine failure.
A 67-years old pensioner is facing trial in Belarus after allegedly stabbing to death a man near the KGB building of Soligorsk, an industrial city in the country’s south, in August. The man didn’t know the victim, 50 years old Guennady Kisel, but reportedly clashed with him because he did not support Lukashenko.
On November 25, a Ukrainian NGO noticed that sensors in the Chernobyl exclusion zone were reporting radiation levels a hundred times above the norm in some areas. It turns out that the spike was due to the voluntary exposition of the sensors to radiation as part of a routine check-up.
A transport reform in the Russian city of Novokuznetsk triggered long queues, traffic jams, confusion and mass criticism after local authorities removed 42 of the city’s 80 bus and marshrutka routes.
France has a ‘Musketeers’ Society’ and the Russian elite really, really likes it.
Under the Radar
The Last Deryban* [UKR]
Sofia Lazurkevich, Kateryna Rodak | Zaxid | November 28
““Everything was done very quickly. In September, the city council allocated land plots for farming, free of charge. Then, during the October 11 session, these people were allowed to change the purpose of the land, turning it into land for trade and road infrastructure. They directly bypassed the auction. Can you imagine how much the community could get if these lands were sold?” Said Olga Kulbabchuk, a local resident.”
*Deryban: “the process of distributing public or state-owned resources among a narrow circle of the elite, serving their private interests at the expense of the public interest.”
Evgenia Sibirtseva, Ekaterina Vulikh, Nadezhda Shurkhovetskaya, Evgueny Malyshev | 7x7 | November 20
“On November 19, the arbitration court of the Ryazan region reviewed a claim of the local diocese against the city administration. The Russian Orthodox Church demands to be handed over the building housing the city’s school n°6 because, it argues, it housed the dormitories for a theological seminary before the revolution. It’s not the first time that parishes in Russian regions have tried to seize buildings of educational institutions, and they have often succeeded.”
The Scramble to Rescue China’s Stranded Babies
Ni Dandan, Zhang Shiyu | Sixth Tone | November 20
“Wen Xiaoqi, a 32-year-old from southern China, is currently preparing to fly to Ukraine. Her daughter was born in Kyiv in late October. [...] Liu Xian, who is from the northern Shanxi province, is also awaiting clearance to travel abroad. Her baby was born in Moscow in June. [...] “In our chat group of nearly 400 people (with surrogate babies overseas), at least 30 of the members said their babies remained in Russia,” Liu told Sixth Tone. “Some are waiting for the visa, and others for flight tickets.” [...] The Ukrainian surrogacy consultant said the agency had worked with just over 20 Chinese couples in 2020, whereas it typically has around 300 clients per year.”
Research & General Nerdistry
‘The Market is Far Away’. Global Connections and Economic Remoteness in Rural Ukraine 🔒
Deema Kaneff | Europe-Asia Studies | November 25
“This article examines the role of the ‘global market’ in the exacerbation of economic remoteness in rural Ukraine. Based on a case study of a UK-sponsored project that set up a sewing centre in a rural community in Odesa province, I explore how unequal access to the global economy is determined by the type of market sought and the type of product designated for production.”
Lev Shestov and Ivan Bunin: existential insight into Russian literature 🔒
Evgeny R. Ponomarev | Studies in East European Thought | November 13
“This paper analyzes the creative interaction between Ivan Bunin and Lev Shestov. After providing constructive feedback on observations and reflections from the preceding scholarly literature on the subject the author argues that the main point of convergence between the writer and the philosopher is their works on Leo Tolstoy.”
Jon Blackwood | October 4
“...It was in this context that El Lissitzky created his now very familiar poster Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge. Whilst the image can be read literally, as the Communist Reds attacking and forcing back the reactionary forces of the White armies, there is also a geometric ambiguity about the piece; no one new whether the attempt at making a new society of equals would last or be crushed, at this period. The work functions easily as visual propaganda for an audience that was largely illiterate before 1917; yet, in spite of the immediate and urgent revolutionary context in which it was made, the piece also leans heavily on Russian and Jewish antecedents.”
Did the Warsaw Pact use the color red as “friendly forces” and blue for “OPFOR”?
r/AskHistorians | November 26
“According to the old Technical Manual 30-430, “Soviet usage is not always consistent, even in official manuals. Different arms and services frequently use signs which vary from those used by other arms and services. This is particularly applicable to the signs for fortifications used by the engineers and by the infantry. Tactical symbols representing friendly troops are red. Those for enemy troops are blue, the converse of United States usage. On black and white maps or charts, friendly troops are represented by solid heavy lines and enemy troops are indicated by lighter, double lines.””