The European Union and the Eastern dimension – by Giuseppe D’Amato

Winter 2005. Russian gas is locked in a border dispute between the former Soviet republics. Half of the Old Continent remains dry with repercussions on the daily lives of citizens. The astonished Europeans think they are watching a film made by a director with a rich imagination.

 The Orange revolution in Ukraine was an unexpected accelerator, which laid bare the reality of the EU enlargement to the East after May 2004 and also showed how the First Europe, the Europe of the Fifteen, was unprepared to deal with such unimaginable situations. Old enmities and rivalries have re-emerged from the limbo of history; energy has suddenly become an instrument of geopolitical pressure.

 To be or not to be part of the Euro-Dream means nourishing the hope of creating a humanly sustainable society and economy in a transnational free, democratic and rights-based entity. Those who remained outside or on the margins of the EU are now pushing to join this project.

 After the first post-Soviet troubled decade the Russian Federation has re-emerged as a regional power, thanks to an incredible economic revival. Moscow no longer sends military personnel in uniform around the world. The white collar workers of the monopolist Gazprom are enough. The continuation of the Old Continent’s role as a player in the globalized world depends largely on the not always easy relationship between the two poles of Europe.

  The purpose of this work is to report on the life of these countries – some of which are in whirling change -, the historical paths followed, the social and economic changes. In a period of bitter conflict between elite, public opinion is in danger of becoming a victim of falsification, exploitation and extreme generalizations.

Book in Italian. ISBN 978-88-7980-456-1

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Belarus: In search of an identity

A piece of the USSR which has not yet set

 Minsk or Mensk or Miensk?

The Elder Russian Brothers

The Belarus nation

Using the referendum

The man of stability: Aleksandr Lukashenko

 Muzzled media

“The right to be informed”

Relaxed atmosphere or paranoia?

On the periphery of the world of dreams

The world of the youth

The spiritual awakening

The distant Europe

The pride of an entire country: Nadezhda Ostapciuk

The tragedy of Chernobyl 

The new leader of the opposition: Aleksandr Milinkevich

Presidential election 2006: The mockery

The failed revolution

The gas war with Moscow. The end of an Era

En route to Brest

The secrets of the Soviet Viskulì

Brest: The former door to the USSR

The end of smuggling

Beyond the River

Ukraine: The country of the two souls

Lviv: The missing population

Cursed zarabatka

Symbol of persecution and spirituality

The Roman-Greek Church: The struggle to survive

The Religious war

The “Piedmont” of Ukraine

Nationalism and misunderstandings

Unleashed regionalism

Crimea: The peninsula “given away”

The return of the Tartars

The Fleet of discord

Odessa: The window on the Black Sea

Dnipropetrovsk: The city of the mighty

Donbass: Blood and coal

Chernobyl: The atomic wound

Kiev: The mother of all “Russias”

Disputed Lands

The eternal transition of the nineties

The season of scandals

The Orange Revolution

The Maidan

Confrontation

“Orange” power

Elections, craziness and disappointment

The mini-restoration

The indomitable Julija

The gas war

Hello Moscow!

Euro 2012

Moldova: The boundary between two worlds

Towards a troubled consumerism

The Latin island in the Slavic sea

Moldavian, Romanian or a simple regional dialect

Transition: Light and dark shades

The war of Bacchus

Chisinau: The heart of Moldova

Transnistria: The phantom republic

The causes of the “question of the Dniester”

Transnistria: Criminal economy?

The umpteenth crisis: “Blokada!”

Ghosts

Sealed Borders

EUBAM: The EU in the forefront

Emigrant  adventures

The Italian of Tiraspol ‘

An incredible wine-makers cooperative cellar

Cold peace

The NGO Battle

The hydrocarbons War

EU: Energy security

EU-Russia and the Baltic factor

Fight without limits

The massacre of Katyn

Andrzej Wajda: Lies vs. the truth

Estonia: Riots for a monument

Kaliningrad: Between Hong Kong and Las Vegas in the Baltic

The shield of discord

 Russia: The resurgent power

An Energy Empire with a weak foundation

Beware of depopulation

Bloody streets  

Racism emergency

Delicate balance in the East

The difficult post-Soviet transition

The conclusion of an ill-fated century

The “new man”: Vladimir Putin

 The Caucasus tinderbox

A decade of tragedies

An eye for an eye

Beslan: Children as cannon fodder

Irrepressible despair

Chechnya: The triumph of the “Russian Pax”

Kadyrov’s Era – by Stefan Scholl

A vigorous president

The brawling oligarchs

Yukos

Gazprom: The Monster of gas

The ‘black gold’ of the Kremlin

Russia and the others

Lights and shadows of Putin’s administration

The new social question

Censorship

The transition of power, December 2007

The young dolphin: Dmitry Medvedev

The weight of history: Russia as “nation building”

A significant milestone: the Sixtieth

No revisionism: Sigurd Schmidt

Memorial: The horror of Stalinism

Historical research does not stop

The return to the international spiritual community

Testimonies:

The twentieth century, thankfully, is over! Dmitry Likhaciov

Muslims of Russia: Mufti Gainutdin

Chechen memories of an Omon – Year 2000

Semi-organized confusion – January 2002: by Valery Batuev

A discordant voice: Anna Politkovskaya

Chinese: Good integration or problems: Vilya Gelbras

The Russian economy after Putin: Rose Gottemoeller. Carnagie Moscow Carnegie Centre

 The EU’s eastward enlargement

The political instability in Central Europe

Poland: The age of the twins (2005-2007)

Skeletons in the memory

The Church in trouble

Transparency at all costs

Bishops: “It will not be easy and will take time ‘

After Pope John Paul II

The footsteps of the archive of the Warsaw Pact

The coveted job

EU, new love?

Natolin: The future lives here

The defeat of Kaczynski

Sofia: The difficult membership

Conclusion: Agreement or risk of decline

Final data

The Energy puzzle