Something rotten in Russia

There is something rotten in the state of Russia.

To waste trillions of rubles and then demonstratively shave expenses on the inauguration ceremony by nine billion -- this is no heroic deed, it is not even a move -- this looks like a caricature of a move.

Chechnya today is a microcosm of Russian rot. The developments in Grozny over the last three days have proved this once again. When Russia looks into a mirror, it sees Chechnya. It is impossible to break this mirror or to throw it away.

Revolutions usually bring the sharpest personalities to the surface: those who are not so much clever as unprincipled. Stagnation is bad, but revolution is no better, especially for common people who live through it.

Revolutions are inevitable, but if they last for years, there is only one victor in them -- criminals. Unfortunately, Russia's revolution continues, and a civil war in Chechnya as well. This is an open war, and there is a hidden one in Russia as a whole -- the war over property. This war has been lasted five years. It must be stopped, but how? To be the president and not to know the answer is a nasty situation. We have yet to hear Yeltsin's answer.

President of Russia! You have taken up the heavy burden of power in a country which has no borders, no policy, no currency of its own, with impoverished people, with elites eating each other, with a greedy administration stronger than you and stronger than the voters.

A month has passed with no word from you, the president, from the prime minister, from the foreign minister or from the head of our security council. Chechens know what to say to the nation, Communists know what to say, but you do not know what to say. You have nothing to say.

-- Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow