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Tsar Putin's Khodynka Field?

In the eight-year history of The Moscow Times, there has been nothing comparable to the tragedy of the Kursk submarine for provoking letters from readers. The letters are about equally mixed between foreigners and Russians, between outrage and sorrow. (See Mailbox.) But few have a kind word for Vladimir Putin, who is seen to have contributed to the tragedy by not seeking international help until four days after the accident and tactlessly remained in the vacation resort of Sochi throughout.

It took the Norwegians just 48 hours to get into the sub (which really isn?€™t all that deep in the water: a little over 100 meters). They have determined that it is flooded and there are no survivors. But it is not clear how long the sub has been flooded ?€” supposedly as late as Wednesday someone inside was tapping out SOS in Morse code. So here is a question for parliament, engineers and military prosecutors to ponder: If the Norwegian deep-sea divers had been called in immediately, and had entered the submarine by Tuesday, could anyone have been saved? (In other words: Did official reluctance to accept international help kill anybody?)

The Kursk clearly has the potential to be for Putin what the Khodynka Field was for Tsar Nicholas II. On Nicholas?€™ coronation day in 1896, thousands were invited to celebrate at Khodynka Field outside Moscow with free beer and gifts. The crowd got out of control and panicky, and the resulting stampede left 1,400 people trampled to death or suffocated. Nicholas and Alexandra wanted to cancel the coronation ball, but at the advice of advisers they did not; and even though the imperial couple toured the field later and did much to help and comfort the families of the dead, Khodynka came to symbolize the arrogant tsar, who danced at balls while the people died.

Unlike the freakish incident at Khodynka, however, an accident like that suffered on the Kursk was entirely predictable. As Novaya Gazeta noted last week, the price tag of the Kursk submarine was $1 billion; the salary of the captain ?€” $250 a month. Much the same horrifying ratios exist in the nation?€™s creaky nuclear power plants, law enforcement structures and so on. And equally horrifying is the lack of investment in capital and infrastructure.

One bold response to the Kursk tragedy, then, would be a dramatic increase in spending on selected budhzetniki ?€” people who work for and draw salary from the state ?€” and on public infrastructure. Pay a submarine captain 30 times what he earns now; find the money to make being a teacher worthwhile again; find the money to build an entirely modern military machine (even if it has to be dramatically smaller than it is now).

Russia considers itself poor, but much of this is simply a question of spending priorities ?€” of no longer tolerating a corrupt Central Bank, a corrupt banking system, a useless genocidal war in the Caucasus, a tax regime tailor-made to please Big Oil and so much other wasteful ugliness. Shifting those priorities would mean challenging powerful interests. But Putin, if he really is a patriot, now has at least 118 new good reasons to try.

… we have a small favor to ask.

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