Russian rap video soldier sent to Siberia

A young soldier in Russia who made a rap video about poor conditions in his barracks has been sent to Siberia.

By Alastair Jamieson
Last Updated: 9:16AM BST 02 Oct 2008

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3120395/Russian-rap-video-soldier-sent-to-Siberia.html

Lieutenant Vitaly Efremov took the modern approach to complaining after becoming frustrated with the state of his accommodation near St Petersburg.

His video incurred the wrath of army leaders after it was posted on RuTube – the Russian version of YouTube – and he has now been posted to Ussuriysk, a windswept Siberian town best known for its production of vodka, mink fur skins, coal and soap.

Lieut Efremov made his video in the style of US rapper Eminem's letter to a frustrated fan, Stan.

His version is a letter to the Russian defence minister, Anatoly Serdyakov, in which he complains about everything from broken showers and dilapidated barrack rooms to faulty equipment and poor pay.

In between Lieut Efremov's list of woes, there are bursts of Dido's Thank You. The British singer appeared as Stan's long-suffering girlfriend in Eminem's video of the song.

Lieut Efremov's rap complains that no progress has been made on granting cheap credits to professional soldiers who want to buy their own home.

The Russian Army has shrunk from a Soviet-era level of 4 million to 1.2 million, with conscript service cut from 18 months to a year. It is increasingly dependent on professionals who sign up for fixed-term contracts, but they are more demanding, insisting on better conditions, wages and pensions.

The video has attracted comments deriding Efremov as a bit of a whiner, but the army has long been under-resourced and bullying is rife: every year there are hundreds of suicides and desertions.

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Well, I have to say the conditions of the housing looked rather like what gulags look like in my imagination (having never been in a gulag). The walls have cracked paint and the tap water's spigot moves around wildly, as if it'll pop out at any instant. No shower water in the middle of showering.

Assigning someone to Siberia is mildly better than assigning someone to Chechnya. Still, it's a rather barbaric answer to the problem that the lieutenant highlighted. He is a lieutenant who gets paid 9500 roubles per year, and he needs 600 roubles per month to eat. That's rather impressively little pay to live on, and he is a lieutenant. That means, the rank-and-file soldiers get paid even less.

I did notice that the "Urrah Urrah Urrah" at the parade sounded more demoralized than patriotic. Perhaps because the soldiers aren't quite treated like human beings? The US military, by the way, allow their soldiers to make videos and as far as I read, the troops opinions are listened to by the superiors. During the Iraq war, the troops noticed many defects with the existing equipment, and found alternatives that they could get from the Internet, and the officers immediately allowed the alternatives. The US military is better because it's doesn't treat people as mindless cannon fodder (CIA/FBI though, are totally different).

Perhaps less funds should be spent on parades and shiny parade uniforms (that have no other practical use) and more on actual living conditions, and troops pay adjusted for the living index (which means inflation, so 1 rouble many years ago isn't worth the same as 1 rouble now).