When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Russia

How A Billionaire Knows He's Pushed The Kremlin Too Far

When Super-Rich Russian opposition leader Mikhail Prokhorov called the country’s party system a "sham," he subsequently vanished from state TV after months of air time. The last oligarch to push too far was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now serv

Prokhorov getting air time on Channel 24 back in June
Prokhorov getting air time on Channel 24 back in June
Arina Borodina

MOSCOW - It seems that if you want to judge a political figure's favor with the Kremlin, you just have to tune in to Russian television. Just take a look at this past week, for example, when billionaire opposition leader Mikhail Prokhorov attacked the Kremlin and called the country's party system a ‘sham." Now the politician who appeared so often on TV, has suddenly disappeared from the screen.

The increasingly visible oligarch -- who has a net worth of $18 billion and owns the New York Nets basketball team -- entered politics in May, quickly becoming a regular fixture on state TV channels, appearing on the channel Russia 1.

Prokhorov's cosy relationship with Russian state TV was clear. In one high-profile interview on the show News on Saturday, Sergey Brilyev, the country's best-known broadcaster, referred to how they had been acquaintances for a long time.

Prokhorov also appeared on NTV, as well as on Channel One where on one talk show, he even drew out of a hat the names of audience members to ask him questions.

In June, he officially became leader of the pro-business party, Right Cause, seen by many as a Kremlin-sponsored project to give the illusion of a viable opposition, a claim Prokhorov always denied.

He was then on air almost every day, giving views on a wide range of subjects. He was on state TV more often than members of the ruling party, United Russia.

But as the Right Cause's congress unfolded this week, the TV agenda suddenly changed.

The Channel One story on its six o'clock bulletin about a split within the party was balanced, and quoted Prokhorov as saying there had been "a raid" on his party. But soon, the style and tone of output changed radically.

An hour earlier, Russia 1's report emphasized the scandal and confusion around Right Cause. Then the host of the programme ‘Times' started to refer to Prokhorov not as the leader of the party, but tersely as ‘a billionaire who had not turned up to the congress."

For two days on any of the three main state channels, not one word was said about how Prokhorov had condemned the president's administration for putting pressure on his party.

Memories of Mikhail

Prokhorov called for the ouster of the deputy head of the presidential administration, Vladimir Surkov, calling him a "puppet master" choreographing the upcoming December parliamentary elections which were an "elaborate scam." Surkov's name was not mentioned once on the airwaves.

The last oligarch to confront the authorities was Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003. An oil tycoon financing an opposition party, he is now serving a 13-year sentence for embezzlement.

On September 15, there was no mentioned on the midday news on the First Channel about the scandal enveloping the party. On NTV at 1pm, the Today program simply led with the news that at the congress, 75 party members had lost trust in their leader.

Its correspondent reported that the delegates were unhappy at Prokhorov's behavior, and said "no one had pressured him at all."

Then it was fellow Right Cause activist Evgeny Roizman's turn to be criticized. Channel Russia 24, like with Prokhorov, simply referred to him by his surname.

They said that Roizman had been tried on theft, fraud, and illegal possession of weapons, even though the convictions had been dropped a long time ago. Meanwhile Prokhorov's appearance in a five-minute long report was reduced to only a few seconds.

Each of the channels gave different versions of his speech to Congress, cutting it for their own ends.

NTV to its credit, reported his reference to the "falsification of the congress," and his declaration to party members that despite "the pressure on us, you have survived and I am proud that you are real people."

Russia 1 edited it down, while on Russia 24 cut the remarks to nothing more than: "Today, we are at a congress."


Read the original article in Russian

photo - Channel 24

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Society

Genoa Postcard: A Tale Of Modern Sailors, Echos Of The Ancient Mariner

Many seafarers are hired and fired every seven months. Some keep up this lifestyle for 40 years while sailing the world. Some of those who'd recently docked in the Italian port city of Genoa, share a taste of their travels that are connected to a long history of a seafaring life.

A sailor smokes a cigarette on the hydrofoil Procida

A sailor on the hydrofoil Procida in Italy

Daniele Frediani/Mondadori Portfolio via ZUMA Press
Paolo Griseri

GENOA — Cristina did it to escape after a tough breakup. Luigi because he dreamed of adventures and the South Seas. Marianna embarked just “before the refrigerator factory where I worked went out of business. I’m one of the few who got severance pay.”

To hear their stories, you have to go to the canteen on Via Albertazzi, in Italy's northern port city of Genoa, across from the ferry terminal. The place has excellent minestrone soup and is decorated with models of the ships that have made the port’s history.

There are 38,000 Italian professional sailors, many of whom work here in Genoa, a historic port of call that today is the country's second largest after Trieste on the east coast. Luciano Rotella of the trade union Italian Federation of Transport Workers says the official number of maritime workers is far lower than the reality, which contains a tangle of different laws, regulations, contracts and ethnicities — not to mention ancient remnants of harsh battles between shipowners and crews.

The result is that today it is not so easy to know how many people sail, nor their nationalities.

What is certain is that every six to seven months, the Italian mariner disembarks the ship and is dismissed: they take severance pay and after waits for the next call. Andrea has been sailing for more than 20 years: “When I started out, to those who told us we were earning good money, I replied that I had a precarious life: every landing was a dismissal.”

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch

The latest