title: Divorce in Islam

text: Women often entered marriage with substantial capital in the form of "mahr" and the trousseau provided by their family, which they were not obliged to spend on family expenses, and they frequently loaned money to their husbands. Because of this, and the financial obligations incurred, talaq could be a very costly and in many cases financially ruinous enterprise for the husband. Many repudiated women used the divorce payment to buy their ex-husband's share in the family house. In the historical record talaq appears to have been less common than khul'.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: Available evidence from Mamluk Egypt indicates that talaq was not the principal means of divorce. Talaq was considered to be disastrous for the woman because it deprived her of long-term protection and financial support, preventing her from remarrying, since this would cause her to lose child custody. This led to repudiation without good reason being considered socially improper. Studies of the Ottoman Levant showed that women could invalidate a declaration of talaq by stating that the husband had shown signs of "diminished rationality" when he made it, while others used a husband's unrevoked declaration of talaq to obtain divorce at a later date if they could prove that he made it.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: Talaq types can be classified into "talaq al-sunnah", which is thought to be in accordance with Muhammad's teachings, and "talaq al-bid'ah", which are viewed as a bid'ah (innovation) deviations from it. "Talaq al-sunnah" is further subdivided into "talaq al-ahsan", which is the least disapproved form of talaq, and "talaq al-hasan". The "ahsan" talaq involves a single revocable pronouncement of divorce and sexual abstinence during the waiting period. The "hasan" divorce involves three pronouncements made during the wife's state of ritual purity with menstrual periods intervening between them, and no intercourse having taken place during that time.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: In contrast to "talaq al-sunnah", "talaq al-bid'ah" does not observe the waiting period and irrevocably terminates the marriage. It may involve a "triple talaq", i.e., the declaration of talaq repeated three times, or a different formula such as "you are "haram" for me". Some legal schools held that a triple talaq performed in a single meeting constituted a "major" divorce, while others classified it as a "minor" divorce. "Talaq al-bid'ah" reflects pre-Islamic divorce customs rather than Quranic principles, and it is considered to be a particularly disapproved, though legally valid form of divorce in traditional Sunni jurisprudence. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad denounced the practice of triple talaq, and the second caliph Umar punished husbands who made use of it.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: The husband can delegate the right of repudiation to his wife. This delegation can be made at the time of drawing up the marriage contract (nikah) or during the marriage, with or without conditions. Many women included such terms in their marriage contracts. Commonly, the contract gave the wife the right to "repudiate herself" if the husband married a second wife. Delegated repudiation is called "ṭalāq al-tafawud" or "tafwid".


title: Divorce in Islam

text: Khulʿ is a contractual type of divorce that is initiated by the wife. It is justified on the authority of verse 2:228:


title: Divorce in Islam

text: It is further based on a hadith in which Muhammad instructs a man to agree to his wife's wish of divorce if she gives back a garden received from him as part of her "mahr". A khul' is concluded when the couple agrees to a divorce in exchange for a monetary compensation paid by the wife, which cannot exceed the value of the "mahr" she had received, and is generally a smaller sum or involves forfeiting the still unpaid portion. Hanafis and Malikis do not require a compensation paid by the wife. The divorce is final and irrevocable, effective when the contract is concluded. The couple cannot reconcile during the waiting period, defined as in the case of talaq, but the husband is required to pay maintenance during its term, unless the requirement is waived by the contract. As in the case of "talaq", remarriage is possible until a khul' is concluded for a third time. If the husband pressures his wife to agree to khul' instead of pronouncing talaq, which would let him avoid attendant financial responsibilities, the divorce is considered to be invalid. Like talaq, khulʿ takes place out of court.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: Relative frequency of khul' has been noted in studies of Istanbul, Anatolia, Syria, Muslim Cyprus, Egypt and Palestine.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: In studies of Mamluk Egypt and the Balkans under Ottoman rule, khul' was shown to have been the principal means of divorce. Women employed a number of strategies to force a settlement from their husbands. Some neglected their marital and household duties, making family life impossible for the husband. Others demanded immediate payment of the deferred mahr, knowing that the husband had no means to comply and would be jailed if he failed to do so.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: In some cases the khul' contract involved no compensation from the wife, while in other cases women would waive all of their husband's financial obligations. According to studies of the Ottoman Levant, various court procedures were put in place to ensure that a khul' was not actually a talaq.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: Nikah halala (also known as tahleel marriage) is a practice in which a woman, after being divorced by triple talaq, marries another man, consummates the marriage, and gets divorced again in order to be able to remarry her former husband. However such marriages are forbidden in Islam, according to a Sahih graded Hadith which states that Muhammed cursed those who did such marriages.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: A marriage can also be dissolved by means of judicial divorce. Either spouse can petition a qadi court to obtain judicial divorce, but they must have compelling grounds for dissolving the marriage. The court starts the process by appointing an arbitrator from each of their families in order to seek a mediated reconciliation. If this effort fails, the court adjudicates the dispute by apportioning fault for the breakdown of the marriage with the associated financial consequences. Examples of fault are cruelty; husband's failure to provide maintenance or pay the immediate installment of "mahr"; infidelity; desertion; moral or social incompatibility; certain ailments; and imprisonment harmful to the marriage. Judicial divorce can also be sought over violations of terms stipulated in the marriage contract. Different legal schools recognized different subsets of these grounds for divorce. The Maliki school, which recognized the widest range of grounds for divorce, also recognises wife's hatred for husband as a valid ground for divorce and stipulates a category of "harm" (ḍarar), which gave the judge significant discretion of interpretation.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: In some areas under Ottoman rule it was hardly possible for women to obtain divorce except through khul' due to the restriction imposed by the prevailing Hanafi school, though some exceptions have been found. The most serious problem was abandonment, which was not recognized as grounds for judicial divorce. To address this, in some cases a man setting out for travel would leave his wife a letter authorizing talaq if he did not return within a specified period of time. In other cases, Hanafi judges invited a Maliki or Hanbali colleague to pronounce divorce, or the woman herself took the initiative to seek out a judge from one of these schools. The same approach was used to effect a divorce in cases of failure to provide maintenance. In the Ottoman Balkans a woman could file for divorce on the grounds that her husband was "not a good Muslim".


title: Divorce in Islam

text: Since marriages between non-Muslim men and Muslim women are forbidden under Islamic law, when a married woman converted to Islam but her husband did not, the marriage would be considered void by Muslim authorities and the woman obtained custody of the children. Seventeenth-century sources indicate that non-Muslim women throughout the Ottoman Empire used this method to obtain a divorce.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: The husband can end marriage through three types of oaths: the oath of continence ("īlāʿ" and "iẓhar"), the denial of paternity ("liʿan"), and conditional ṭalāq. The first two types were pre-Islamic practices confirmed by the Quran (2:226–227 for "ila", and 58:2–4 for "izhar"), which also makes clear that "izhar" is reprehensible despite being legally valid.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: "Ila" is an oath whereby the husband vows to refrain from sexual relations with his wife for at least four months. If he fulfils his oath, the marriage is dissolved; if he breaks it, the marriage continues. In the "izhar" (or "ẓihār") oath a man declares that his wife is as sexually prohibited to him as his mother. The husband is able to break the oath and resume the marriage. Breaking either oath requires expiation by means of feeding the poor or fasting.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: In the "li'an" oath, the husband denies paternity of his wife's child. The wife is given an opportunity to take an oath denying infidelity, and if she does so and the husband persists in his accusation, the marriage is dissolved by a judge and the couple can never remarry.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: In the oath of conditional ṭalāq, the husband declares that he will divorce his wife if he or she performs a certain act. This oath can serve as a protection for the wife or as a threat by the husband, depending on the specified act.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: Studies of practices under Mamluk and Ottoman rule found no instances of the oaths of li'an or abstinence being used, while conditional talaq seems to have played a prominent role. It was used to issue various threats to the wife as well as to make promises. In Ottoman Egypt marriage contracts commonly included stipulations of conditional talaq which were not otherwise recognized by the prevailing Hanafi school as grounds for judicial divorce, such as non-payment of maintenance or marrying a second wife.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: Islamic law does not recognize the concept of communal property, and division of property is based on its attribution to either spouse. The wife obtains custody of the children until their majority (whose definition varies according to legal school), while the father retains guardianship.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: Child custody practices under Ottoman rule appear to have followed the rules of Hanafi jurisprudence, although in Ottoman Egypt children generally stayed with their divorced mother beyond the prescribed age. A divorced woman could keep custody of the children unless she remarried and her husband claimed custody, in which case it generally passed to one of her female relatives. Under the Mamluks, women could waive the right to child support in order to obtain extended custody.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: "Mahr" is a nuptial gift made by groom to the bride at the time of marriage. Upon receipt, it becomes her sole property with complete freedom of use and disposal. The marriage contract is not valid without the mahr. The amount of the mahr generally depended on the socio-economic status of the bride. The payment of a portion of the mahr was commonly deferred and served as a deterrent to the exercise of the right of unilateral divorce by the husband, although classical jurists disagreed about the permissibility and manner of deferring payment of the mahr.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: Islamic jurisprudence has clear guidance on handling of mahr in the case of divorce, depending on who asks for the divorce and whether or not the intercourse occurred. If the husband asks for a divorce and intercourse has occurred or he had been alone with her, he pays full "mahr"; if the husband asks for a divorce and the intercourse has not occurred, the husband pays half the dower; if the wife asks for a divorce and intercourse has occurred, the husband pays half the "mahr"; and if the wife asks for a divorce and intercourse has not occurred, then no "mahr" is required to be paid by the husband.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: In the modern era, sharia-based laws were widely replaced by statutes based on European models, and its classical rules were largely retained only in personal status (family) laws. Different explanations have been proposed for this phenomenon. Several scholars have argued that because these laws are more extensively specified in the Quran and hadith than others, it has been difficult for believers to accept deviating from these rules. In contrast, Wael Hallaq sees it as a legacy of colonialism: changing family laws would have provided no benefit in colonial administration, and colonial powers promoted the theory that these laws were sacred to the population, advertising their preservation as a mark of respect, which in turn led to them being taken up as a point of reference in modern Muslim identity politics.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: Important changes in family laws took place in the modern era. The laws underwent codification by legislative bodies and were also displaced from their original context into modern legal systems, which generally followed Western practices in court procedure and legal education. This severed them both from the classical interpretative tradition and from the institutional foundations of the pre-modern legal system into which they were embedded. In particular, control over the norms of divorce shifted from traditional jurists to the state, though they generally remained "within the orbit of Islamic law".


title: Divorce in Islam

text: In her article 'An unequal partnership', Sulema Jahangir insists that, Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women and other international standards expect that non-financial contributions of women to a marriage ought to be recognized to enable an equal standing between spouses. Many Muslim countries are finding ways and means to account for non-financial contributions of women to a marriage and improve divorce compensations. Some Muslim nations such as Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Libya and Tunisia, are effecting rules legislationes to pay additional compensation called 'mata’a' as part of Islamic kindness to departing spouses in addition to dower and maintenance. Many Muslim countries are adding conditions called 'haq meher' (right of financial maintenance and capital awards) in marriage contracts called "nikahnama".


title: Divorce in Islam

text: Changing social conditions have led to increasing dissatisfaction with traditional Islamic law of divorce since the early 20th century. Various reforms have been undertaken in an attempt to restrict the husband's right of unilateral repudiation and give women greater ability to initiate divorce. These reforms have utilized a number of methods, of which the most important are:


title: Divorce in Islam

text: According to Sulema Jahangir in Turkey, the revised Civil Code expects equal division of property and assets acquired during the marriage as the default property regime. In Indonesia and Singapore, the courts have the discretionary powers; in Indonesia courts can split the matrimonial property upon divorce to recognise women's non-financial contributions to the marriage where as in Singapore wife's contribution to family is taken into account, and even in absence of financial contribution 35% assets have to be shared with wife as contributing in caring for home and children, where as in Malaysia depending on length of marriage and each spouse's contribution a divorcing spouse can get up to one third share in assets.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board issued a code of conduct in April 2017 regarding talaq in response to the controversy over the practice of triple talaq in India. It also warned that those who resort to triple talaq, or divorce recklessly, without justification or for reasons not prescribed under Shariat will be socially boycotted.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: In India, The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019 was passed in July, 2019 which made instant triple talaq (talaq-e-biddah) in any form — spoken, written, or by electronic means illegal, void, and punishable by up to three years imprisonment. Under the new law, an aggrieved woman is entitled to demand maintenance for her dependent children. India is among 23 countries that have banned triple talaq.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: According to Yossef Rapoport, in the 15th century, the rate of divorce was higher than it is today in the modern Middle East, which has generally low rates of divorce. In 15th century Egypt, Al-Sakhawi recorded the marital history of 500 women, the largest sample on marriage in the Middle Ages, and found that at least a third of all women in the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria married more than once, with many marrying three or more times. According to Al-Sakhawi, as many as three out of ten marriages in 15th century Cairo ended in divorce.


title: Divorce in Islam

text: In the early 20th century, some villages in western Java and the Malay peninsula had divorce rates as high as 70%.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: On the Beach is an apocalyptic novel published in 1957, written by British author Nevil Shute after he emigrated to Australia. The novel details the experiences of a mixed group of people in Melbourne as they await the arrival of deadly radiation spreading towards them from the Northern Hemisphere, following a nuclear war the previous year. As the radiation approaches, each person deals with impending death differently.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: Shute's initial story was published as a four-part series, "The Last Days on Earth", in the London weekly periodical "Sunday Graphic", in April 1957. For the novel, Shute expanded the storyline. The story has been adapted twice as a film (in 1959 and 2000) and once as a BBC radio broadcast in 2008.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: The phrase "on the beach" is a Royal Navy term that means "retired from the Service." The title also refers to T. S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men," which includes the lines:


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: Printings of the novel, including the first 1957 edition by William Morrow and Company, New York, contain extracts from Eliot's poem on the title page, under Shute's name, including the above quotation and the concluding lines:


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: The 2000 film ends with a quote from Walt Whitman's poem "On the Beach at Night", describing how a father comforts his small daughter who is frightened as an approaching cloud bank blots out the evening stars one by one. Although Whitman's poem resembles the plot of Shute's novel, the book does not reference it, as it does Eliot's poem.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: The story is set primarily in and around Melbourne, Australia, in 1963. World War III has devastated most of the populated world, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout, and killing all human and animal life in the Northern Hemisphere. The war began with a nuclear attack by Albania on Italy, and then escalated with the bombing of the United States and the United Kingdom by Egypt. Because the aircraft used in these attacks were obtained from the Soviet Union, the Soviets were mistakenly blamed, triggering a retaliatory strike on the Soviet Union by NATO.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: There is also an attack by the Soviets on the People's Republic of China, which may have been a response to a Chinese attack aimed at occupying Soviet industrial areas near the Chinese border. Most, if not all, of the bombs included cobalt to enhance their radioactive properties.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: Global air currents are slowly carrying the lethal nuclear fallout across the Intertropical Convergence Zone to the Southern Hemisphere. The only parts of the planet still habitable are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the southern parts of South America, although they are slowly succumbing to radiation poisoning as well. Life in Melbourne continues reasonably normally, although the near-complete lack of motor fuels makes traveling difficult.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: People in Australia detect a mysterious and incomprehensible Morse code radio signal originating from the American city of Seattle, Washington. With hope that someone has survived in the contaminated regions, one of the last American nuclear submarines, USS "Scorpion", placed by its captain, Commander Dwight Towers, under Australian naval command, is ordered to sail north from its port of refuge in Melbourne (Australia's southernmost major mainland city) to contact whoever is sending the signal. In preparation for this journey, the submarine makes a shorter trip to port cities in northern Australia, including Cairns, Queensland, and Darwin, Northern Territory; no survivors are found. Two Australians sail with the American crew: Lieutenant Peter Holmes, naval liaison officer to the Americans, and a scientist, Professor John Osborne.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: Commander Towers has become attached to a young Australian woman distantly related to Osborne, named Moira Davidson, who tries to cope with the impending end of human life through heavy drinking. Despite his attraction to Davidson, Towers remains loyal to his wife and children in the United States. He buys his children gifts and imagines them growing older. At one point, however, he makes it clear to Moira that he knows his family is almost certainly dead, and he asks her if she thinks he is insane for acting as if they were still alive. She replies that she does not think he is crazy.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: The Australian government provides citizens with free suicide pills and injections so they can avoid prolonged suffering from radiation poisoning. Periodic reports show the steady southward progression of the deadly radiation. As communications are lost with a city, it is referred to as being "out."


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: One of the novel's poignant dilemmas is that of Peter Holmes, who has a baby daughter and a naive wife, Mary, who is in denial about the impending disaster. Because he has been assigned to travel north with the Americans, Peter tries to explain, to Mary's fury and disbelief, how to kill their baby and herself, by taking the suicide pill should he not return from his mission in time to help. The bachelor Osborne spends much of his time restoring and subsequently racing a Ferrari racing car that he had purchased (along with a fuel supply) for a nominal amount following the war's outbreak.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: The submarine travels to the Gulf of Alaska in the northern Pacific Ocean, where the crew determines that radiation levels are not decreasing. This finding discredits the "Jorgensen Effect", a scientific theory positing that radiation levels will decrease at a much greater rate than previously thought, aided by the weather effects, and potentially allow for human life to continue in southern Australia or at least Antarctica.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: The submarine approaches San Francisco, observing through the periscope that the city had been devastated and the Golden Gate Bridge has fallen. In contrast, the Puget Sound area, from which the strange radio signals are emanating, is found to have avoided destruction because of missile defences. One crew member, who is from Edmonds, Washington, which the expedition visits, jumps ship to spend his last days in his home town.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: The expedition members then sail to an abandoned navy communications school south of Seattle. A crewman sent ashore with oxygen tanks and protective gear discovers that although the city's residents have long since perished, some of the region's hydroelectric power is still working due to primitive automation technology. He finds that the mysterious radio signal is the result of a broken window sash swinging in the breeze and occasionally hitting a telegraph key. After a brief stop at Pearl Harbor, the remaining submariners return to Australia to live out what little time they have left.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: Osborne takes his suicide pill while sitting in his beloved racing car. When Mary Holmes becomes very ill, Peter administers a lethal injection to their daughter. Even though he still feels relatively well, he and Mary take their pills simultaneously so they can die as a family. Towers and his remaining crew choose to scuttle the "Scorpion" in the open ocean, fulfilling a naval duty to not leave the unmanned vessel "floating about in a foreign port", after her crew succumbs to suicide or radiation poisoning. Moira watches the submarine's departure in her car, parked atop an adjacent hilltop, as she takes her suicide pill, imagining herself together with Towers as she dies.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: The characters make their best efforts to enjoy what time remains to them, speaking of small pleasures and continuing their customary activities. The Holmeses plant a garden that they will never see; Moira initially acts as a socialite – drinking and partying excessively – but upon meeting Towers takes classes in typing and shorthand; Osborne and others organize a dangerous motor race that results in the violent deaths of several participants; elderly members of a "gentlemen's club" drink up the wine in the club's cellar, debate over whether to move the fishing season up, and fret about whether agriculturally destructive rabbits will survive human beings. Towers goes on a fishing trip with Davidson, but they do not become sexually involved, as he wants to remain loyal to his dead wife, a decision Moira accepts.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: Government services and the economy gradually grind to a halt. In the end, Towers chooses not to remain and die with Moira, but rather to lead his crew on a final mission to scuttle the submarine outside of Australian territorial waters. He refuses to allow his imminent demise to turn him aside from his duty to the US Navy, and he acts as a pillar of strength to his crew.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: Typically for a Shute novel, the characters avoid expressing intense emotions and do not indulge in self-pity. The Australians do not, for the most part, flee southward as refugees but rather accept their fate once the lethal radiation levels reach the latitudes at which they live; most of them opt for the government-promoted alternative of suicide when the symptoms of radiation sickness appear. In any case, as is made clear within the text, radiation poisoning is also starting to appear as far south as Christchurch, New Zealand, so any such flight would have been pointless.


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: Historian David McCullough, writing for "The New York Times", called "On the Beach" "the most haunting evocation we have of a world dying of radiation after an atomic war." The "San Francisco Chronicle" called it "the most shocking fiction I have read in years. What is shocking about it is both the idea and the sheer imaginative brilliance with which Mr. Shute brings it off." "Daily Telegraph" called it "Shute's most considerable achievement", and "The Times" stated that it is "the most evocative novel on the aftermath of a nuclear war." "The Guardian" commented that "fictions such as "On the Beach" played an important role in raising awareness about the threat of nuclear war. We stared into the abyss and then stepped back from the brink." The "Los Angeles Times" described the novel as "timely and ironic... an indelibly sad ending that leaves you tearful and disturbed", and "The Economist" called it "still incredibly moving after nearly half a century."


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: Floyd C. Gale of "Galaxy Science Fiction" called the book "an emotional wallop. It should be made mandatory reading for all professional diplomats and politicians." Isaac Asimov said, "Surely to the science fiction fan—as opposed to the general public—this must seem very milk-and-watery. So there's a nuclear war to start the story with—and what else is new?"


title: On the Beach (novel)

text: The novel does not realistically describe the effects of a global nuclear war, which were poorly understood at the time. Notably, the novel does not portray any form of nuclear winter. In the survival manual "Nuclear War Survival Skills", Cresson Kearney describes the novel as "pseudoscientific" and "demoralising", arguing that it and similar works perpetuate the myth that any large-scale nuclear war would inevitably wipe out all human life. This myth, argues Kearney, is dangerous as it discourages people from taking precautionary measures that could save lives in the event of a nuclear attack, in the mistaken belief that any precaution is futile.


The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama was founded by Elsie Fogerty in 1906, as The Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students. It became a constituent college of the University of London in 2005 and is a member of Conservatoires UK and the Federation of Drama Schools.


title: Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

text: The school offers undergraduate, postgraduate, research degrees and short courses in acting, actor training, applied theatre, theatre crafts and making, design, drama therapy, movement, musical theatre, performance, producing, research, scenography, stage management, teacher training, technical arts, voice and writing.


text: On 29 November 2012, the 'Royal' title was bestowed on the school by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of its reputation as a "world-class institution for exceptional professional training in theatre and performance studies". It is entitled to use it in official documentation, although it continues to be colloquially referred to as "Central". The school's Patron, Princess Alexandra of Kent, played a role in recommending the institution for the title.


text: The school is located at Swiss Cottage in North London, an area which is being redeveloped as a "civic and cultural quarter" which includes a new extension building for the school, replacing 1960s accommodation. The school's theatre is located inside the new building which was awarded a BREEAM rating of "very good".


text: Past presidents of the school include Laurence Olivier and Judi Dench. In October 2008 Harold Pinter, who attended the school in 1950–51, became its president, succeeding Peter Mandelson. He was to receive an honorary fellowship in December 2008, but had to receive it "in absentia" because of ill health; he died two weeks later. Michael Grandage became president in 2010.


text: In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise the majority of Central's submission was judged "world leading" or "internationally excellent". The school has been ranked highly by The Guardian, placing it sixth in its league table of specialist institutions and ninth for Drama and Dance.


text: The school has over 20 doctoral candidates and the first graduate of the programme, Broderick Chow, was awarded his PhD at the December 2010 graduation ceremony.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: ATR (French: Avions de transport régional; Italian: Aerei da Trasporto Regionale; or "Regional Transport Airplanes" in English) is a Franco-Italian aircraft manufacturer headquartered in Blagnac, France, a suburb of Toulouse.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: It was formed during 1981 as a joint venture between Aérospatiale of France (now Airbus) and Aeritalia (now Leonardo) of Italy. The company's principal products are the ATR 42 and ATR 72 aircraft, of which it has developed multiple variants of both types. ATR has sold more than 1,600 aircraft and has over 200 operators in more than 100 countries.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: Leonardo's manufacturing facilities in Pomigliano d'Arco, near Naples, Italy, produce the aircraft's fuselage and tail sections. Aircraft wings are assembled at Sogerma in Bordeaux in western France by Airbus France. Final assembly, flight-testing, certification and deliveries are the responsibility of ATR in Toulouse, France.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: During the 1960s and 1970s, European aircraft manufacturers had, for the most part, undergone considerable corporate restructuring, including mergers and consolidations, as well as moved towards collaborative multi-national programmes, such as the newly launched Airbus A300. In line with this trend towards intra-European cooperation, French aerospace company Aérospatiale and Italian aviation conglomerate Aeritalia commenced discussions on the topic of working together to develop an all-new regional airliner. Prior to this, both companies had been independently conducting studies for their own aircraft concepts, the "AS 35" design in the case of Aerospatiale and the "AIT 230" for Aeritalia, to conform with demand within this sector of the market as early as 1978.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: On 4 November 1981, a formal Cooperation Agreement was signed by Aeritalia chairman Renato Bonifacio and Aérospatiale chairman Jacques Mitterrand in Paris, France. This agreement signaled not only the merger of their efforts but of their separate concept designs together into a single complete aircraft design for the purpose of pursuing its development and manufacture as a collaborative joint venture. The consortium targeted a similar unit cost but a fuel consumption over a sector, nearly half the required by its 40-50 seat competitors, the British Aerospace HS.748 and Fokker F.27, and planned a 58-seat ATR XX stretch.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: This agreement served not only as the basis and origins of the ATR company, but also as the effective launch point of what would become the fledgling firm's first aircraft, which was designated as the "ATR 42". By 1983, ATR's customer services division has been set up, readying infrastructure worldwide to provide support for ATR's upcoming aircraft to any customer regardless of location.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: On 16 August 1984, the first model of the type, known as the "ATR 42–200", conducted its maiden flight from Toulouse Airport, France. During September 1985, both the French Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Italian Italian Civil Aviation Authority awarded type certification for the type, clearing it to commence operational service. On 3 December 1985, the first production aircraft, designated as the "ATR 42-300", was delivered to French launch customer Air Littoral; the first revenue service was performed later that same month. During January 1986, already confident of the ATR 42's success and of the demand for an enlarged version of the aircraft, ATR announced that the launch of a programme to develop such an aircraft, which was designated as the ATR 72 to reflect its increased passenger capacity.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: During 1988, the 200th ATR was delivered to Thai Airways. During September 1989, it was announced that ATR had achieved its original target of 400 sales of the ATR. That same year, deliveries of the enlarged ATR 72 commenced; shortly thereafter, it became common for both types to be ordered together. Since the smaller ATR 42 is assembled on the same production line as the ATR 72, along with sharing the majority of subsystems, components, and manufacturing techniques, the two types support each other to remain in production. This factor may have been crucial as, by 2015, the ATR 42 was the only 50-seat regional aircraft that was still being manufactured.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: In order to maintain a technological edge on the highly competitive market for regional airliners during the 1990s, several modifications and improved versions of the ATR 42 were progressively introduced. The initial ATR 42-300 model remained in production until 1996, while the first upgraded (and broadly similar) model, designated as the "ATR 42-320", was also produced until 1996. The -320 variant principally differed in that it was powered by a pair of the more-powerful PW121 engines, giving it improved performance over the 300. Another variant, the "ATR 42-300QC", was a dedicated 'quick-change' (convertible) freight/passenger version of the standard −300 series.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: The next major production version was the "ATR 42−500" series, the development of which having been originally announced on 14 June 1993. Performing its maiden flight on 16 September 1994, and awarded certification by the British Civil Aviation Authority and France's (DGCA) during July 1995; the -500 model was an upgraded aircraft, equipped with new PW127 engines, new six-bladed propellers, improved hot and high performance, increased weight capacity and an improved passenger cabin. On 31 October 1995, the first ATR 42-500 was delivered to Italian operator Air Dolomiti; on 19 January 1996, the first revenue service to be performed by the type was conducted. In addition to new aircraft models, various organisational changes were also implemented. On 10 July 1998, ATR launched its new Asset Management Department.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: The 700th aircraft, an ATR 72-500, was delivered to Indian airline Simplify Deccan, on 8 September 2006.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: In June 2001, EADS and Alenia Aeronautica, ATR's parent companies, decided to reinforce their partnership, regrouping all industrial activities related to regional airliners underneath the ATR consortium. On 3 October 2003, ATR became one of the first aircraft manufacturers to be certified under ISO 9001-2000 and EN/AS/JISQ 9100, the worldwide quality standard for the aeronautics industry. During July 2004, ATR and Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer announced a cooperation agreement on the AEROChain Portal for the purpose of delivering improved customer service. During April 2009, ATR announces the launch of its 'Door-2-Door' service as a new option in its comprehensive customer services range.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: On 2 October 2007, ATR CEO Stéphane Mayer announced the launch of the −600 series aircraft; the ATR 42–600 and ATR 72–600 featured various improvements to increase efficiency, dispatch reliability, lower fuel burn and operating costs. While broadly similar to the earlier -500 model; differences include the adoption of improved PW127M engines, a new glass cockpit, and a variety of other minor improvements. Using the test registration "F-WWLY", the prototype ATR 42–600 first flew on 4 March 2010.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: The 900th aircraft, an ATR 72-500, was delivered to Brazilian airline TRIP Linhas Aéreas on 10 September 2010. During 2011, Royal Air Maroc took delivery of the first ATR 72-600. The 1,000th aircraft was delivered to Spain's Air Nostrum on May 3, 2012. On 15 June 2015, Japan Air Commuter signed a contract for ATR's 1,500th aircraft.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: On 1 February 2016, ATR signed a major agreement with Iran Air for 40 ATR 72-600s. The 1,300th ATR, an ATR 72-600, was delivered to NAC for operation by Irish airline Stobart Air on 14 June 2016; that same year, ATR delivered the first ever ATR 72-600 High Capacity aircraft (78 seats) to Cebu Pacific. In October 2016, Christian Scherer was appointed CEO.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: In 2017, ATR celebrated its 35th anniversary. On 1 February, ATR and Sweden's BRA performed the first ATR biofuel flight. During August 2017, US regional carrier Silver Airways signed a letter of intent for up to 50 ATR 42, a return in the continental US market since 1997 when American Airlines converted 12 ATR 72 options, due to the rise of regional jets and the American Eagle Flight 4184 crash in 1994. ATR lowered its output to 80 deliveries a year from 2017 and boasts a nearly three-year backlog after FedEx Express' November 2017 order. In 2017, ATR booked 113 firm orders and 40 options, and delivered 80 aircraft: 70 new ATR 72-600s, 8 new ATR 42-600s and 2 second hand ATRs.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: By April 2018, the fleet was flying more than 5,000 times per day and had operated 30 million flight hours. By the end of June 2018, Leonardo S.p.A. had shipped the 1,500th ATR fuselage while nearly 1,700 airliners had been ordered; ATR reportedly led the turboprop regional airliner market since 2010 with a 75% share. The company's aircraft were being operated in nearly 100 countries by 200 airlines and 30 million flights has been completed; it was also claimed that an ATR airliner takes off or lands every 8 seconds.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: On 13 September, Scherer left its CEO role to replace Eric Schulz as Airbus' Chief Commercial Officer.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: ATR replaced Scherer as its chief executive with Stefano Bortoli, president of ATR's board and Leonardo aircraft's senior vice-president for strategy and marketing.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: At the end of October, the 1,500th ATR was delivered, an ATR 72-600 to Japan Air Commuter, after nearly 500 ATR 42s and more than 1,000 ATR 72s deliveries to over 200 operators in 100 countries. During 2018, ATR delivered 76 aircraft; the rate of production has held at a stable rate. The company opted to pursue a low-risk strategy, avoiding disruptive measures while opting to integrate relatively straightforward enhancements onto its aircraft, such as the Elbit Systems ClearVision wearable enhanced vision system.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: In May 2022, ATR started studying an "Evo" hybrid-electric variant, aiming for a 2023 launch and service entry before 2030.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: An optimized turboprop running on SAF would be supplemented by a mild hybridation during the take-off and climb phases for a 20% lower fuel burn.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: Other improvements could include an eight-bladed propeller, thermal de-icing to replace the current pneumatic boots, a single lever FADEC for both engine and propeller and an aerodynamic clean-up of the secondary structures like the nacelle-wing junction.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: On September 17, 2022, Stefano Bortoli was succeeded as CEO of ATR by Nathalie Tarnaud Laude, former president of NHIndustries and Senior Vice President Head of the NH90 Programme for Airbus Helicopters.On 21 June 2022, ATR completed its first flight 100% SAF-powered regional aircraft.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: As of 2017, development of a 90-seater for an expected demand of 2,000–2,500 units over 20 years was expected to cost more than $5bn. Fuel burn would need to be reduced by at least 30%, and the unit price would need to stay in the low-to-mid-$20m range, below small jets.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: Leonardo S.p.A. preferred a clean-sheet 90-100 seater with new turboprops, wings and cockpit available soon but Airbus favoured a medium-term introduction with disruptive hybrid electric engines, structural advanced materials and automation.


title: ATR (aircraft manufacturer)

text: In January 2018, Leonardo abandoned the 100-seater prospect, favouring existing ATR 42 and 72 models which dominate the turboprop market with a 75% share.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: The MGM Grand Garden Arena (originally known as the MGM Grand Garden Special Events Center) is a 17,000-seat multi-purpose arena located within the MGM Grand Las Vegas on the Las Vegas Strip.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: From its opening on December 18, 1993, until the opening of the MGM co-owned T-Mobile Arena in 2016, MGM Grand Garden Arena along with the Thomas & Mack Center and Mandalay Bay Events Center were the main sports arenas in the Las Vegas area.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: From 1996 to 2000, it hosted World Championship Wrestling's Halloween Havoc events. The UWF television event Blackjack Brawl was held at the venue in 1994.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: On May 25, 2019, it hosted All Elite Wrestling's inaugural event, Double or Nothing (2019). Tickets for the event sold out in four minutes. It was originally scheduled to host Double or Nothing (2020) on May 23, 2020, and the May 27 episode of "AEW Dynamite", but was moved due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: It hosted Money in the Bank on July 2, 2022, which was originally scheduled to be held at the larger Allegiant Stadium. This marked the first WWE pay-per-view to have taken place at the arena.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: The arena is well known for numerous professional boxing superfights, such as Evander Holyfield vs. Mike Tyson II, Oscar De La Hoya vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr., Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Canelo Álvarez, Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao, and Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury II.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: On September 7, 1996, the Bruce Seldon vs. Mike Tyson bout was held here; later that night, rapper Tupac Shakur (who attended the fight) was shot in a drive-by attack. He succumbed to his injuries six days later.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: The arena held 42 Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts events, starting with UFC 34 in 2001 and ending with in 2016. UFC currently uses the T-Mobile Arena for major events.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: On May 2, 2015, Floyd Mayweather Jr. defended his world title in a highly anticipated match against fellow superstar Manny Pacquiao. The fight continued to the 12th round and Mayweather retained his title. Within the crowd, celebrities such as hip-hop artist Jay-Z, UFC fighter Ronda Rousey and former NBA superstar Michael Jordan were present.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: In 1994, the Las Vegas Dustdevils, an indoor soccer team in the Continental Indoor Soccer League played one season at the arena. It also previously served through 2015 as the pre-season home for select Los Angeles Kings games against the Colorado Avalanche, Phoenix Coyotes and San Jose Sharks, known as Frozen Fury. Two more games occurred at the new T-Mobile Arena before the launch of the NHL's newest team, the Vegas Golden Knights, who went on to play in the NHL's Stanley Cup Playoffs within their first season.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: On October 24, 2014, it held an NBA preseason game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: On March 13, 2012, it was announced that the Pac-12 men's basketball tournament would take place at the arena from at least 2013 through 2016 and then to T-Mobile Arena in 2017 until 2020.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: From 2014 to 2017, the MGM Grand Garden Arena hosted The Roman Main Event, then called The MGM Resorts Main Event, an 8-team college basketball tournament held during Monday and Wednesday of Thanksgiving week of NCAA Division I men's basketball season.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: The Professional Bull Riders (PBR) held its annual World Finals event at the MGM Arena from 1994 to 1998 before moving to the Thomas & Mack Center in 1999 and then to T-Mobile Arena in 2016. The PBR later returned on June 11 and 12, 2021 for an Unleash the Beast Series event in its first visit to the MGM Arena since 1998.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: The MGM Grand Garden Arena has hosted the Latin Grammy Awards six times. The arena hosted the Latin Grammy Awards in 2014, 2015, and from 2017 to 2019. It was most recently held at the arena in 2021.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: The arena hosted the 64th Annual Grammy Awards on April 3, 2022, marking the first time the Grammy Awards were held in Las Vegas.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: The venue was a consistent site for the Academy of Country Music Awards and has served as host twelve times since 2006, including 2018's event which was the first following the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, which occurred roughly 1 mile away. The ceremony moved to Allegiant Stadium in 2022.


title: MGM Grand Garden Arena

text: Improvisational jam band Phish has hosted several significant halloween concerts at the venue. On October 31, 2014, they performed "Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House" with original instrumental music to accompany the album as their "musical costume" for the second set of their Halloween night show at the venue. Following that performance, the band has made their interpretation of "Martian Monster" a regular part of their concert repertoire and have performed it at over 25 subsequent concerts. On October 31, 2016, the band covered David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" in its entirety as their musical costume for the evening. On October 31, 2018, the band performed a set of all-new original material that they promoted as a "cover" of "í rokk" by "Kasvot Växt", a fictional 1980s Scandinavian progressive rock band they had created. On October 31, 2021, they performed the album "Get More Down" by another fictional band of their creation, "Sci-Fi Soldier."


title: Duma

text: The term "boyar duma" is used to refer to advisory councils in Russia from the 10th to 17th centuries. Starting in the 18th century, city dumas were formed across Russia.


title: Duma

text: The first formally constituted state duma was the Imperial State Duma introduced to the Russian Empire by Emperor Nicholas II in 1905. The Emperor retained an absolute veto and could dismiss the State Duma at any time for a suitable reason. Nicholas dismissed the First State Duma (1906) within 75 days; elections for a second Duma took place the following year. The Russian Provisional Government dissolved the last Imperial State Duma (the fourth Duma) in 1917 during the Russian Revolution.


title: Duma

text: Since 1993, the State Duma () has functioned as the lower legislative house of the Russian Federation.


title: Duma

text: The Russian word is inherited from the Proto-Slavic word "*duma" which is thought to be derived from Proto-Germanic "*dōmaz". The word is also related to the Russian verb "dumat′" (думать) meaning "to think".


title: Duma

text: The term "boyar duma" is used to refer to the councils of boyars and junior boyars (boyar scions) which advised the prince on state matters during the times of Kievan Rus' and the Tsardom of Russia (then tsar). In 1711 Peter the Great transferred its functions to the Governing Senate. Contemporary sources always refer simply to "the boyars" or to "the duma", but never to the "boyar duma". Originally there were ten to twelve boyars and five or six "okolnichies". By 1613 the duma had increased to twenty boyars and eight "okolnichies". Lesser nobles, "duma gentlemen" ("dumnye dvoriane") and secretaries, were added to the duma and the number of "okol'nichii" rose in the latter half of the 17th century. In 1676 the number of boyars increased to 50 – by then they constituted only a third of the duma.


title: Duma

text: Under the reign of Catherine II, reforms to local government led to city dumas being established in Russian cities.


title: Duma

text: Under the reign of Alexander II, several reforms were enacted during the 1860s and 1870s. These included the creation of local political bodies known as zemstvoes. All owners of houses, tax-paying merchants and workmen are enrolled on lists in a descending order according to their assessed wealth. The total valuation is then divided into three equal parts, representing three groups of electors very unequal in number, each of which elects an equal number of delegates to the municipal duma. The executive is in the hands of an elective mayor and an "uprava", which consists of several members elected by the duma. Under Alexander III, however, by laws promulgated in 1892 and 1894, the municipal dumas were subordinated to the governors in the same way as the zemstvos. In 1894 municipal institutions, with still more restricted powers, were granted to several towns in Siberia, and in 1895 to some in Caucasia.


title: Duma

text: Under the pressure of the Russian Revolution of 1905, on 6 August 1905, Sergei Witte issued a manifesto about the convocation of the Duma, initially thought to be an advisory organ. In the subsequent October Manifesto, Nicholas II pledged to introduce basic civil liberties, provide for broad participation in the State Duma, and endow the Duma with legislative and oversight powers.


title: Duma

text: However, Nicholas II was determined to retain his autocratic power. Just before the creation of the Duma in May 1906, the Tsar issued the Fundamental Laws. It stated in part that the Tsar's ministers could not be appointed by, and were not responsible to, the Duma, thus denying responsible government at the executive level. Furthermore, the Tsar had the power to dismiss the Duma and announce new elections whenever he wished. At this first meeting of the Duma members proposed that political prisoners should be released, trade unions given rights and land reform be introduced. Nicholas II rejected these suggestions and dissolved the assembly in July, 1906.


title: Duma

text: The State Duma (Russian: Государственная дума, "Gosudarstvennaya Duma", common abbreviation: Госдума, "Gosduma") in Russia is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia (parliament), the upper house being the Federation Council of Russia. Under Russia's 1993 constitution, there are 450 deputies of the State Duma (Article 95), each elected to a term of four years (Article 96); this was changed to a five-year term in late 2008. In previous elections of 1993, 1995, 1999 and 2003 one half of the deputies were elected by a system of proportional representation and one half were elected by plurality in single member districts. However, the 2007 Duma elections were carried out in a new format: all 450 deputies were elected by a system of proportional representation. Russian citizens at least 21 years old are eligible to run for the Duma (Article 97).


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The modern history of Russia began with the Russian Republic of the Soviet Union gaining more political and economical autonomy amidst the imminent dissolution of the USSR during 1990–1991, proclaiming its sovereignty inside the Union in June 1990, and electing its first President Boris Yeltsin a year later. The Russian SFSR was the largest republic within the Soviet Union, but it had no significant independence before, being the only Soviet republic to not have its own branch of the Communist Party.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The RSFSR was the largest of the fifteen republics that made up the USSR, accounting for over 60% of the GDP and over 50% of the Soviet population. Russians also dominated the Soviet military and the Communist Party. As such, the Russian Federation was widely accepted as the USSR's successor state in diplomatic affairs and it assumed the USSR's permanent membership and veto in the UN Security Council (see Russia and the United Nations).


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Prior to the dissolution of the USSR, Yeltsin had been elected President of the RSFSR in June 1991 in the first direct presidential election in Russian history. This ensured that he would be the political leader of the Russian successor state following dissolution. This situation resulted in political turmoil as the Soviet and Russian leadership wrestled for control, which culminated in the 1991 August coup, where the Soviet military attempted to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev. Although the coup was ultimately averted, this situation contributed to rising instability in the Soviet Union. As the USSR was on the verge of collapse by October 1991, Yeltsin announced that Russia would proceed with radical reforms, including market-oriented reform along the lines of Poland's "big bang", also known as "shock therapy". Following Yeltsin's resignation in 1999, Russia's politics have since been dominated by Vladimir Putin, serving as either President or Prime Minister. Although the Russian economy has improved significantly under Putin's leadership following relative economic chaos under Yeltsin, Putin has also been widely accused of corruption, authoritarian leadership, and widespread human rights abuses.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: For the most part, the Russian armed forces were in near complete disarray by 1992, one year after dissolution. This degraded military effectiveness would become all too clear during the 1994 Chechen War, but in the interim this posed some significant practical challenges for global security and arms control. Under Russian leadership, the Lisbon Protocol ensured that former Soviet republics would disarm themselves of nuclear weapons. This may have been particularly important for Kazakhstan which hosted a significant share of the world's nuclear weapons immediately following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. However, the former Soviet republics were able to maintain transnational cooperation in other military areas, like establishing shared responsibility for the rocket and space infrastructure such as the Baikonur Cosmodrome.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and CoMEcon and other treaties that served to bind its satellite states to the Soviet Union, the conversion of the world's largest state-controlled economy into a market-oriented economy would have been extraordinarily difficult regardless of the policies chosen. The policies chosen for this transition were (1) liberalization, (2) stabilization and (3) privatization. These policies were based on the Washington Consensus of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and Treasury Department.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: On January 2, 1992, Yeltsin—acting as his own prime minister—enacted the most comprehensive components of economic reform by decree, thereby circumventing the Supreme Soviet of Russia and Congress of People's Deputies of Russia, which had been elected in March 1990, before the dissolution of the USSR. While this spared Yeltsin from the prospects of bargaining and wrangling with Soviet deputies, it also eliminated any meaningful discussion of the right course of action for the country.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The programs of liberalization and stabilization were designed by Yeltsin's deputy prime minister Yegor Gaidar, a liberal economist inclined toward radical reform, and widely known as an advocate of "shock therapy". Shock therapy was originally used in Bolivia by notable economist Jeffery Sachs to combat inflation in the 1980s. Having achieved some major successes in Bolivia, shock therapy was then imported to the Polish context following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and Russia shortly after.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The partial results of liberalization (lifting price controls) included worsening already apparent hyperinflation, initially due to monetary overhang and exacerbated after the central bank, an organ under parliament, which was skeptical of Yeltsin's reforms, was short of revenue and printed money to finance its debt. This resulted in the near bankruptcy of much of Russian industry.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The process of liberalization would create winners and losers, depending on how particular industries, classes, age groups, ethnic groups, regions, and other sectors of Russian society were positioned. Some would benefit by the opening of competition; others would suffer. Among the winners were the new class of entrepreneurs and black marketeers that had emerged under Mikhail Gorbachev's "perestroika". But liberalizing prices meant that the elderly and others on fixed incomes would suffer a severe drop in living standards, and people would see a lifetime of savings wiped out.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: With inflation at double-digit rates per month as a result of printing, macroeconomic stabilization was enacted to curb this trend. Stabilization, also called structural adjustment, is a harsh austerity regime (tight monetary policy and fiscal policy) for the economy in which the government seeks to control inflation. Under the stabilization program, the government let most prices float, raised interest rates to record highs, raised heavy new taxes, sharply cut back on government subsidies to industry and construction, and made massive cuts in state welfare spending. These policies caused widespread hardship as many state enterprises found themselves without orders or financing. A deep credit crunch shut down many industries and brought about a protracted depression.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The rationale of the program was to squeeze the built-in inflationary pressure out of the economy so that producers would begin making sensible decisions about production, pricing and investment instead of chronically overusing resources—a problem that resulted in shortages of consumer goods in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. By letting the market rather than central planners determine prices, product mixes, output levels, and the like, the reformers intended to create an incentive structure in the economy where efficiency and risk would be rewarded and waste and carelessness were punished. Removing the causes of chronic inflation, the reform architects argued, was a precondition for all other reforms: Hyperinflation would wreck both democracy and economic progress, they argued; they also argued that only by stabilizing the state budget could the government proceed to dismantle the Soviet planned economy and create a new capitalist Russia.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Nonetheless, radical reform continued to face some critical political barriers. The Central Bank was still subordinate to the conservative Supreme Soviet who continued to support socialist policies in opposition to Yeltsin and the presidency. During the height of hyperinflation in 1992–1993, the Central Bank actually tried to derail reforms by actively printing even more money during this period of inflation. After all, the Russian government was short of revenue and was forced to print money to finance its debt. As a result, inflation exploded into hyperinflation, and the Russian economy continued into an evermore serious slump.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Upon the Soviet Union's collapse, the new Russian government was forced to manage the huge state enterprise sector inherited from the Soviet economy. Privatization was carried out by the State Committee for State Property Management of the Russian Federation under Anatoly Chubais with the primary goal being to transform the formerly state-owned enterprises into profit-seeking businesses, which would not be dependent on government subsidies for their survival. To distribute property quickly and to win over popular support, the reformers decided to rely mostly on the mechanism of free voucher privatization, which was earlier implemented in Czechoslovakia. The Russian government believed that the open sale of state-owned assets, as opposed to the voucher program, would have likely resulted in the further concentration of ownership among the Russian mafia and the nomenklatura, which they sought to avoid. Nevertheless, contrary to the government's expectations, insiders managed to acquire control over most of the assets, which remained largely dependent on government support for years to come. From 1992 to 1994, ownership of 15,000 firms was transferred from state control via the voucher program.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Privatization of the oil sector was regulated by presidential decree No.1403 approved on November 17, 1992. Vertically integrated companies were created by joining some oil-producing enterprises and refineries into open-stock companies. Starting in 1994 many former state oil companies were privatized. This privatization had been partial because the federal government had obtained ownership positions in several companies and had also retained full control over the transport of oil to lucrative world markets.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: In 1995, facing severe fiscal deficit and in desperate need of funds for the 1996 presidential elections, the government of Boris Yeltsin adopted a "loans-for-share" scheme proposed by banker Vladimir Potanin and endorsed by Anatoly Chubais, then a deputy prime minister, whereby some of the largest state industrial assets (including state-owned shares in Norilsk Nickel, Yukos, Lukoil, Sibneft, Surgutneftegas, Novolipetsk Steel, and Mechel) were leased through auctions for money lent by commercial banks to the government. The auctions were rigged and lacked competition, being largely controlled by favored insiders with political connections or used for the benefit of the commercial banks themselves. As neither the loans nor the leased enterprises were returned in time, this effectively became a form of selling, or privatizing, state assets at very low prices.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The privatization facilitated the transfer of significant wealth to a relatively small group of business oligarchs and New Russians, particularly natural gas and oil executives.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The former Soviet Union had to deal with a number of unique obstacles during the post-Soviet transition including political reform, economic restructuring and the redrawing of political boundaries. The discomfort associated with these changes was not felt the same in each former Soviet republic. As a general rule, states to Russia's west, such as Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, have fared slightly better than their eastern neighbors since the collapse of the Eastern bloc, while Russia itself and countries to Russia's east experienced greater difficulties and found themselves on worse footing immediately after dissolution. A major reason that Russia's transition has been so wrenching is that it is remaking both its Soviet-era political and economic institutions at once. In addition to institutional reforms designed to create a new political-economic system, Russia was also charged with remaking itself into a new national state following the disintegration of the Soviet Union.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The first major problem facing Russia was the legacy of the Soviet Union's enormous commitment to the Cold War. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union devoted a quarter of its gross economic output to the defense sector (at the time most Western analysts believed that this figure was 15 percent). At the time, the military-industrial complex employed at least one of every five adults in the Soviet Union. In some regions of Russia, at least half of the workforce was employed in defense plants (the comparable U.S. figures were roughly one-sixteenth of gross national product and about one of every sixteen in the workforce). These over-reliance on the military sector made Russian industry and human capital relatively noncompetitive upon entry into a market-oriented system. Furthermore, the end of the Cold War and the cutback in military spending affected industry quite dramatically making it difficult to quickly retool equipment, retrain workers, and find new markets. In the process of economic re-tooling, an enormous body of experience, qualified specialists and know-how was lost or misallocated, as the plants were sometimes switching from, for example, producing hi-tech military equipment to making kitchen utensils.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: A second obstacle, partly related to the sheer vastness and geographical diversity of the Russian landmass, was the sizable number of "mono-industrial" regional economies (regions dominated by a single industrial employer) that Russia inherited from the Soviet Union. The concentration of production in a relatively small number of big state enterprises meant that many local governments were entirely dependent on the economic health of a single employer; when the Soviet Union collapsed and the economic ties between Soviet republics and even regions were severed, the production in the whole country dropped by more than fifty percent. Roughly half of Russia's cities had only one large industrial enterprise, and three fourths had no more than four. Consequently, the decrease in production caused tremendous unemployment and underemployment.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Thirdly, post-Soviet Russia did not inherit a system of state social security and welfare from the USSR. Instead the companies, mainly large industrial firms, were traditionally responsible for a broad range of social welfare functions—building and maintaining housing for their work forces, and managing health, recreational, educational, and similar facilities. The towns in contrast possessed neither the apparatus nor the funds for the provision of basic social services. Industrial employees were left heavily dependent on their firms. Thus, economic transformation created severe problems in maintaining social welfare since local governments were unable to assume finance or operational responsibility for these functions.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Finally, there is a human capital dimension to the failure of post-Soviet reforms in Russia. The former Soviet population was not necessarily uneducated. Literacy was nearly universal, and the educational level of the Soviet population was among the highest in the world with respect to science, engineering, and some technical disciplines, although the Soviets devoted little to what would be described as "liberal arts" in the West. With the move to a post-Communist system, the Russian university system collapsed. Rampant credential inflation in the Russian university system made it difficult for employers to determine who was really skilled and the problems of the higher education system more generally made it difficult to remedy other issues of human capital that came from the transition to a market-oriented system, such as upskilling and re-skilling. For example, former state enterprise managers were highly skilled at coping with the demands on them under the Soviet system of planned production targets, but discouraged the risk-and-reward centered behavior of market capitalism. These managers were responsible for a broad array of social welfare functions for their employees, their families, and the population of the towns and regions where they were located. Profitability and efficiency, however, were generally not the most prominent priorities for Soviet enterprise managers. Thus, almost no Soviet employees or managers had firsthand experience with decision-making in the conditions of a market economy.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: After the initial turmoil and euphoria of early marketizations, Russia's economy sank into deep depression by the mid-1990s due to botched reform efforts and low commodity prices globally but not before George H. W. Bush helped Yeltsin with "an unparalleled opportunity to change the nuclear posture of both the United States and the Soviet Union" and to end the Cold War peacefully with the Nunn–Lugar cash-for-weapons scheme, in order to avoid the worst of the dissolution of the vast Soviet technological empire. Russia's economy was hit further by the financial crash of 1998 before experiencing a modest recovery in 1999–2000 as commodity prices began to rise again. According to Russian government statistics, the economic decline was far more severe than the Great Depression was in the United States in terms of gross domestic product.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: In 1995, a little over 3% of the work force was officially registered as unemployed, but, in addition to the technically jobless, 4.4% of the labour force were working only part time, while a further 3.9% had been sent on involuntary leave. Also millions of Russians turned up for work each day, but were not paid by the employers. If all these categories of jobless, semi-employed and unpaid workers were taken into account, the 18% Russian unemployment figure cited in June, 1995 by labour market expert Tatyana Maleva of the Institute of Economic Analysis seemed real. With unemployment benefits sufficient only to buy a small loaf of bread each day, trying to survive without some other income was not an option for those who lost jobs. They were toiling during the warmer months to grow food in family vegetable plots, selling newspapers or lottery tickets on the streets, busking, begging, turning to prostitution. Often they sank into the criminal underworld.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: In 1997, at least 98,400 companies were defaulting on payments to employees. It was estimated that one out of four Russian workers, or close on 20 million people, were not paid for months. Some were paid "in kind": for example, women workers were paid in brassieres and shoes that they resoled in the streets, workers of Moskvich, the auto plant in Moscow, were paid in spare parts, those of the Ivanovo textile plants were paid in bedsheets, and those of the Gus-Khrustalny porcelain factory were paid in crystal and ceramic vases.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: By way of a domestic comparison, the post-Soviet economic decline was about half as severe as the economic catastrophe borne out of the immediate consequence of World War I, the fall of Tsarism, and the Russian Civil War.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Following the economic collapse of the early 1990s, Russia suffered from a sharp increase in the rates of poverty and economic inequality. Estimates by the World Bank based on both macroeconomic data and surveys of household incomes and expenditures indicate that whereas 1.5% of the population was living in poverty (defined as income below the equivalent of $25 per month) in the late Soviet era, by mid-1993 between 39% and 49% of the population was living in poverty. Per capita incomes fell by another 15% by 1998, according to government figures.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Public health indicators show a dramatic corresponding decline. Although all post-Soviet countries experience an immediate decline in birth-rates due to economic turmoil this may have been particularly acute in Russia. In 1999, total population fell by about three-quarters of a million people. Meanwhile, life expectancy dropped for men from 64 years in 1990 to 57 years by 1994, while women's dropped from 74 to about 71. Both health factors and a sharp increase in deaths of the youth demographic from unnatural causes (such as murders, suicides, and accidents) have significantly contributed to this trend. Closely related to the declining life expectancy, alcohol-related deaths skyrocketed 60% in the 1990s and deaths from infectious and parasitic diseases shot up 100%, mainly because medicines were no longer affordable to the poor.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: While the opening of the Russian market to imports in the early 1990s meant the nation no longer suffered from the supply shortages of consumer goods that was often characteristic of the USSR ("see" Consumer goods in the Soviet Union), the relative impoverishment of the Russian people during this time meant only a limited number saw any significant benefit. Russians on fixed incomes (the vast majority of the workforce) saw their purchasing power drastically reduced, so while the stores might have been well stocked in the Yeltsin era, average people could now afford to buy little, if anything from these stores. By 2011, the average income has risen to more than $700 per month, emblematic of the mild recovery in recent years largely due to high oil prices. The growing revenue, however, has not been evenly distributed. Social inequality has risen sharply since the 1990s with the Gini coefficient, for example, reaching 42% by the end of 2010. Russia's income disparities are now nearly as large as Brazil (which has long been a world leader in the area) while regional disparities in the level of poverty continue to trend upwards.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Structural reform and a severe devaluation of the ruble lowered the standard of living for most segments of the Russian population. As a result, there was powerful political opposition to reform. Democratization opened the political channels for venting these frustrations, which translated into votes for anti-reform candidates, especially those of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and its allies in the Duma. Russian voters, able to vote for opposition parties in the 1990s, often rejected economic reforms and yearned for the stability and personal security of the Soviet era. These were the groups that had enjoyed the benefits of Soviet-era state-controlled wages and prices, high state spending to subsidize priority sectors of the economy, protection from competition with foreign industries, and welfare entitlement programs. During the Yeltsin years in the 1990s, these anti-reformist groups were well organized, voicing their opposition to reform through strong trade unions, associations of directors of state-owned firms, and political parties in the popularly elected parliament whose primary constituencies were among those vulnerable to reform. A constant theme of Russian history in the 1990s was the conflict between economic reformers and those hostile to the new capitalism.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: In the 1990s, former Soviet bureaucrats, factory directors, aggressive businessmen and criminal organizations used insider deals, bribery and simple brute force in order to grab lucrative assets, which were previously state-owned. Russia's new "capitalists" spent millions of dollars for protection. However, almost every business in Russia, from curbside vendors to huge oil and gas companies, made payments to the organized crime for protection ("krysha"). Businessmen said that they needed the "krysha" because the laws and the court system were not functioning properly in Russia. The only way for them to enforce a contract was to turn to a criminal "krysha". They also used it to intimidate competitors, collect debts or take over new markets. It was also increasingly common for businesses to turn to the "red krysha"-corrupt police who ran protection rackets. Within this system, a sharp rise in contract killings developed.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The struggle for the center of power in Soviet Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union and for the nature of the economic reforms culminated in a political crisis and bloodshed in the autumn of 1993. Yeltsin, who represented a course of radical privatization, was opposed by the Supreme Soviet. Confronted with opposition to the presidential power of decree and threatened with impeachment, he "dissolved" the parliament on September 21, in contravention of the existing constitution, and ordered new elections and a referendum on a new constitution. The parliament then declared Yeltsin deposed and appointed Aleksandr Rutskoy acting president on September 22. Tensions built quickly, and matters came to a head after street riots on October 2–October 3. On October 4, Yeltsin ordered Special Forces and elite army units to storm the parliament building, the "White House" as it is called. With tanks thrown against the small-arms fire of the parliamentary defenders, the outcome was not in doubt. Rutskoy, Ruslan Khasbulatov, and the other parliamentary supporters surrendered and were immediately arrested and jailed. The official count was 147 dead, 437 wounded (with several men killed and wounded on the presidential side).


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Thus the transitional period in post-Soviet Russian politics came to an end. A new constitution was approved by referendum in December 1993. Russia was given a strongly presidential system. Radical privatization went ahead. Although the old parliamentary leaders were released without trial on February 26, 1994, they would not play an open role in politics thereafter. Though its clashes with the executive would eventually resume, the remodeled Russian parliament had greatly circumscribed powers. ("For details on the constitution passed in 1993 see Constitution and government structure of Russia.")


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: In 1994, Yeltsin dispatched 40,000 troops to the southern region of Chechnya to prevent its secession from Russia. Living south of Moscow, the predominantly Muslim Chechens for centuries had gloried in defying Russia. Dzhokhar Dudayev, Chechnya's nationalist president, was driven to take his republic out of the Russian Federation, declaring independence in 1991. Gripped by the chaos of the Soviet Union's ongoing dissolution, Chechnya initially operated as a de facto independent nation-though this status was never recognized by Russia. In 1994, the Russian Armed Forces invaded and quickly became submerged in a military quagmire. In January 1995, the Russian army and air force commenced a siege of the Chechen capital of Grozny; about 25,000 Chechen civilians died under week-long air raids and artillery fire in the sealed-off city. Massive use of artillery and air-strikes remained the dominating strategy throughout the Russian campaign. Even so, Chechen forces seized thousands of Russian hostages, while inflicting humiliating losses on the demoralized and ill-equipped Russian troops.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The Russians finally managed to gain control of Grozny by February 1995 after heavy fighting. In August 1996, Yeltsin agreed to a ceasefire with Chechen leaders, and a peace treaty was formally signed in May 1997. However, the conflict resumed in 1999, this time the rebellion was crushed by Vladimir Putin.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The new capitalist opportunities presented by the opening of the Russian economy in the late 1980s and early 1990s affected many people's interests. As the Soviet system was being dismantled, well-placed bosses and technocrats in the Communist Party, KGB, and Komsomol (Soviet Youth League) were cashing in on their Soviet-era power and privileges. Some quietly liquidated the assets of their organization and secreted the proceeds in overseas accounts and investments. Others created banks and business in Russia, taking advantage of their insider positions to win exclusive government contracts and licenses and to acquire financial credits and supplies at artificially low, state-subsidized prices in order to transact business at high, market-value prices. Great fortunes were made almost overnight.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Between 1987 and 1992, trading of natural resources and foreign currencies, as well as imports of highly demanded consumer goods and then domestic production of their rudimentary substitutes, rapidly enabled these pioneering entrepreneurs to accumulate considerable wealth. In turn, the emerging cash-based, highly opaque markets provided a breeding ground for a large number of racket gangs.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: By the mid-1990s, the best-connected former nomenklatura leaders accumulated considerable financial resources, while on the other hand, the most successful entrepreneurs became acquainted with government officials and public politicians. The privatization of state enterprises was a unique opportunity because it gave many of those who had gained wealth in the early 1990s a chance to convert it into shares of privatized enterprises.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The Yeltsin government hoped to use privatization to spread ownership of shares in former state enterprises as widely as possible to create political support for his government and his reforms. The government used a system of free vouchers as a way to give mass privatization a jump-start. But it also allowed people to purchase shares of stock in privatized enterprises with cash. Even though initially each citizen received a voucher of equal face value, within months most of the vouchers converged in the hands of intermediaries who were ready to buy them for cash right away.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: As the government ended the voucher privatization phase and launched cash privatization, it devised a program that it thought would simultaneously speed up privatization and yield the government a much-needed infusion of cash for its operating needs. Under the scheme, which quickly became known in the West as "loans for shares," the Yeltsin regime auctioned off substantial packages of stock shares in some of its most desirable enterprises, such as energy, telecommunications, and metallurgical firms, as collateral for bank loans.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: In exchange for the loans, the state handed over assets worth many times as much. Under the terms of the deals, if the Yeltsin government did not repay the loans by September 1996, the lender acquired title to the stock and could then resell it or take an equity position in the enterprise. The first auctions were held in the fall of 1995. The auctions themselves were usually held in such a way so to limit the number of banks bidding for shares and thus to keep the auction prices extremely low. By summer 1996, major packages of shares in some of Russia's largest firms had been transferred to a small number of major banks, thus allowing a handful of powerful banks to acquire substantial ownership shares over major firms at shockingly low prices. These deals were effectively giveaways of valuable state assets to a few powerful, well-connected, and wealthy financial groups.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The concentration of immense financial and industrial power, which loans for shares had assisted, extended to the mass media. One of the most prominent of the financial barons Boris Berezovsky, who controlled major stakes in several banks and companies, exerted an extensive influence over state television programming for a while. Berezovsky and other ultra-wealthy, well-connected tycoons who controlled these great empires of finance, industry, energy, telecommunications, and media became known as the "Russian oligarchs". Along with Berezovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Roman Abramovich, Vladimir Potanin, Vladimir Bogdanov, Rem Viakhirev, Vagit Alekperov, Viktor Chernomyrdin, Viktor Vekselberg, and Mikhail Fridman emerged as Russia's most powerful and prominent oligarchs.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: A tiny clique who used their connections built up during the last days of the Soviet years to appropriate Russia's vast resources during the rampant privatizations of the Yeltsin years, the oligarchs emerged as the most hated men in the nation. The Western world generally advocated a quick dismantling of the Soviet planned economy to make way for "free-market reforms," but later expressed disappointment over the newfound power and corruption of the "oligarchs."


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Early in the campaign it had been thought that Yeltsin, who was in uncertain health (after recuperating from a series of heart attacks) and whose behavior was sometimes erratic, had little chance for reelection. When campaigning opened at the beginning of 1996, Yeltsin's popularity was close to zero. Meanwhile, the opposition Communist Party of the Russian Federation had already gained ground in parliamentary voting on December 17, 1995, and its candidate, Gennady Zyuganov, had a strong grassroots organization, especially in the rural areas and small towns, and appealed effectively to memories of the old days of Soviet prestige on the international stage and the socialist domestic order.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Panic struck the Yeltsin team when opinion polls suggested that the ailing president could not win; members of his entourage urged him to cancel presidential elections and effectively rule as dictator from then on. Instead, Yeltsin changed his campaign team, assigning a key role to his daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, and appointing Anatoly Chubais campaign manager. Chubais, who was not just Yeltsin's campaign manager but also the architect of Russia's privatization program, set out to use his control of the privatization program as the key instrument of Yeltsin's reelection campaign.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The president's inner circle assumed that it had only a short time in which to act on privatization; it, therefore, needed to take steps that would have a large and immediate impact, making the reversal of reform prohibitively costly for their opponents. Chubais' solution was to co-opt potentially powerful interests, including enterprise directors and regional officials, in order to ensure Yeltsin's reelection.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The position of the enterprise directors to the program was essential to maintaining economic and social stability in the country. The managers represented one of the most powerful collective interests in the country; it was the enterprise managers who could ensure that labor did not erupt in a massive wave of strikes. The government, therefore, did not strenuously resist the tendency for voucher privatization to turn into "insider privatization," as it was termed, in which senior enterprise officials acquired the largest proportion of shares in privatized firms. Thus, Chubais allowed well-connected employees to acquire majority stakes in the enterprises. This proved to be the most widely used form of privatization in Russia. Three-quarters of privatized enterprises opted for this method, most often using vouchers. Real control thus wound up in the hands of the managers.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Support from the oligarchs was also crucial to Yeltsin's reelection campaign. The "loans for shares" giveaway took place in the run-up to the 1996 presidential election—at a point when it had appeared that Zyuganov might defeat Yeltsin. Yeltsin and his entourage gave the oligarchs an opportunity to scoop up some of Russia's most desirable assets in return for their help in his reelection effort. The oligarchs, in turn, reciprocated the favor.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: In the spring of 1996, with Yeltsin's popularity at a low ebb, Chubais and Yeltsin recruited a team of six leading Russian financiers and media barons (all oligarchs) who bankrolled the Yeltsin campaign with $3 million and guaranteed coverage on television and in leading newspapers directly serving the president's campaign strategy. The media painted a picture of a fateful choice for Russia, between Yeltsin and a "return to totalitarianism." The oligarchs even played up the threat of civil war if a Communist were elected president.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: In the outlying regions of the country, the Yeltsin campaign relied on its ties to other allies—the patron-client ties of the local governors, most of whom had been appointed by the president.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The Zyuganov campaign had a strong grass-roots organization, but it was simply no match for the financial resources and access to patronage that the Yeltsin campaign could marshal.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Yeltsin campaigned energetically, dispelling concerns about his health, exploiting all the advantages of incumbency to maintain a high media profile. To assuage voters' discontent, he made the claim that he would abandon some unpopular economic reforms and boost welfare spending, end the war in Chechnya, pay wage and pension arrears, and abolish military conscription (he did not live up to his promises after the election, except for ending the Chechen war, which was halted for 3 years). Yeltsin's campaign also got a boost from the announcement of a $10 billion loan to the Russian government from the International Monetary Fund.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Grigory Yavlinsky was the liberal alternative to Yeltsin and Zyuganov. He appealed to a well-educated middle class that saw Yeltsin as an incompetent alcoholic and Zyuganov as a Soviet-era throwback. Seeing Yavlinsky as a threat, Yeltsin's inner circle of supporters worked to bifurcate political discourse, thus excluding a middle ground—and convince voters that only Yeltsin could defeat the Communist "menace." The election became a two-man race, and Zyuganov, who lacked Yeltsin's resources and financial backing, watched helplessly as his strong initial lead was whittled away.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Voter turnout in the first round of the polling on June 16 was 69.8%. According to returns announced on June 17, Yeltsin won 35% of the vote; Zyuganov won 32%; Aleksandr Lebed, a populist ex-general, a surprisingly high 14.5%; liberal candidate Grigory Yavlinsky 7.4%; far-right nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky 5.8%; and former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev 0.5%. With no candidate securing an absolute majority, Yeltsin and Zyuganov went into a second round of voting. In the meantime, Yeltsin co-opted a large segment of the electorate by appointing Lebed to the posts of national security adviser and secretary of the Security Council.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: In the end, Yeltsin's election tactics paid off. In the run-off on July 3, with a turnout of 68.9%, Yeltsin won 53.8% of the vote and Zyuganov 40.3%, with the rest (5.9%) voting "against all". Moscow and Saint Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) together provided over half of the incumbent president's support, but he also did well in large cities in the Urals and in the north and northeast. Yeltsin lost to Zyuganov in Russia's southern industrial heartland. The southern stretch of the country became known as the "red belt", underscoring the resilience of the Communist Party in elections since the breakup of the Soviet Union.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Although Yeltsin promised that he would abandon his unpopular neoliberal austerity policies and increase public spending to help those suffering from the pain of capitalist reforms, within a month of his election, Yeltsin issued a decree canceling almost all of these promises.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Right after the election, Yeltsin's physical health and mental stability were increasingly precarious. Many of his executive functions thus devolved upon a group of advisers (most of whom had close links with the oligarchs).


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The global recession of 1998, which started with the Asian financial crisis in July 1997, exacerbated Russia's continuing economic crisis. Given the ensuing decline in world commodity prices, countries heavily dependent on the export of raw materials such as oil were among those most severely hit. Oil, natural gas, metals, and timber account for more than 80% of Russian exports, leaving the country vulnerable to swings in world prices. Oil is also a major source of government tax revenue which brought significant negative implications for Russia's fiscal situation, foreign exchange stores and ultimately, the value of the ruble.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The pressures on the ruble, reflecting the weakness of the economy, resulted in a disastrous fall in the value of the currency. Massive tax evasion continued and accelerated due to financial instability and decreasing government capacity. This further decreased government revenues and soon, the central government found itself unable to service the massive loans it had accumulated and ultimately was even unable to pay its employees. The government stopped making timely payment of wages, pensions, and debts to suppliers; and when workers were paid, it was often with bartered goods rather than rubles. Coal miners were especially hard hit, and for several weeks in the summer they blocked sections of the Trans-Siberian railroad with protests, effectively cutting the country in two. As time wore on, they added calls for the resignation of Yeltsin in addition to their demands for wages.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: A political crisis came to a head in March when Yeltsin suddenly dismissed Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and his entire cabinet on March 23. Yeltsin named a virtually unknown technocrat, Energy Minister Sergei Kiriyenko, aged 35, as acting prime minister. Russian observers expressed doubts about Kiriyenko's youth and inexperience. The Duma rejected his nomination twice. Only after a month-long standoff, during which Yeltsin threatened to dissolve the legislature, did the Duma confirm Kiriyenko on a third vote on April 24.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: Kiriyenko appointed a new cabinet strongly committed to stemming the fall in the value of Russia's currency. The oligarchs strongly supported Kiriyenko's efforts to maintain the exchange rate. A high exchange rate meant that they needed fewer rubles to buy imported goods, especially luxury items.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: In an effort to prop up the currency and stem the flight of capital, Kiriyenko hiked interest rates to 150% in order to attract buyers for government bonds. But concerns about the financial crisis in Asia and the slump in world oil prices were already prompting investors to withdraw from Russia. By mid-1998, it was clear Russia would need help from IMF to maintain its exchange rate.


title: History of Russia (1991–present)

text: The Russian crisis caused alarm in the West. Pouring more money into the Russian economy would not be a long-term solution, but the U.S. in particular feared that Yeltsin's government would not survive a looming financial crisis without IMF help. U.S. President Bill Clinton's treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, also feared that a Russian collapse could create a panic on world money markets (and it indeed did help bring down one major US hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management). The IMF approved a $22.6 billion emergency loan on July 13.