Discerning what is going on within the opacity of the Kremlin has always involved some rather shaky guesswork. In Soviet times, Western observers attempted to divine the Politburo’s order of succession based on who stood where at military parades or which official was quoted most in the newspaper Pravda. There were several points in time—such as Chernenko’s gerontocratic period—when the West had almost no idea who was actually running the USSR.
Since the fall of communism, the methods available to Kremlinologists have increased dramatically. Yet technology did not allow the experts to correctly predict Putin as Yeltsin’s successor or Medvedev as Putin’s. Even those with good connections to the Russian establishment were baffled by the coronation of these two relative unknowns.
The latest omen circulating Kremlinologist circles is website domain names. Specifically, people have been discussing the fact that someone in the government reserved the site names www.putin2012.rf and www.putin-2012.rf. Whether or not this means that V.V.P. will be hitting the campaign trail again is as speculative as any Pravda quote or Victory Day line-up. But it is certainly interesting that www.medvedev-2012.rf and www.medevedev2012.rf are still available.
Since the fall of communism, the methods available to Kremlinologists have increased dramatically. Yet technology did not allow the experts to correctly predict Putin as Yeltsin’s successor or Medvedev as Putin’s. Even those with good connections to the Russian establishment were baffled by the coronation of these two relative unknowns.
The latest omen circulating Kremlinologist circles is website domain names. Specifically, people have been discussing the fact that someone in the government reserved the site names www.putin2012.rf and www.putin-2012.rf. Whether or not this means that V.V.P. will be hitting the campaign trail again is as speculative as any Pravda quote or Victory Day line-up. But it is certainly interesting that www.medvedev-2012.rf and www.medevedev2012.rf are still available.
