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Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP - Getty Images
Anti-Kremlin blogger Alexei Navalny speaks during a rally against the December 4 parliament elections in Moscow, on Dec. 24, 2011. Tens of thousands of people filled an avenue in Moscow to protest against the alleged rigging of parliamentary polls in a new challenge to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin's authority.
LONDON – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and those who work for him, seem determined to turn a relatively unknown, 30-something protester into a larger-than-life political rival.
It all began on a cold, December 4 afternoon, when Alexei Navalny stood up among a small crowd in Moscow and blasted Putin's United Russia party as one of “crooks and thieves” who had just stolen the parliamentary elections. The Kremlin put him in jail for two weeks. The tactic was obvious: keeping Navalny locked up would hinder his ability to organize a massive anti-Putin demonstration on December 24.
Instead, the move backfired and ended up boosting Navalny's profile – and street cred – at a time when the splintered opposition was hungry for a new leader.
By Dec. 24 he was out of prison and had become the face of the opposition. His rant in the bitter cold that day inspired more than 100,000 people in the street to “take back the election – by force if necessary” from those who had stolen it.
But catapulting Navalny into instant celebrity wasn't good enough for the over-anxious Kremlinites. Now they've made him the face of their own absurdity as well.
Open up last Saturday's edition of Arguments & Facts, a popular national daily, and you'll find a photo of a beaming Navalny standing next to Putin's arch enemy, the oligarch-in-exile Boris Berezovsky, himself sporting a Cheshire cat smile.
theguardian.com
A screen grab from the Guardian shows the original photo of Alexei Navalny with Prokhorov on the top left, the doctored one with Berezovsky and some other fakes that have been circulated online.
The caption reads: “Navalny has never hidden that Boris Berezovsky gives him money for the struggle with Putin.”
Well, it took Navalny and his corral of fellow bloggers a few nano-seconds to work out that the photo had been doctored.
In the actual photo, Navalny is standing next to another, Putin-friendly oligarch, Mikhail Prokhorov, the owner of the New Jersey Nets and a candidate for Russia's presidency.
But standing next to Prokhorov is seen as benign because he's neither considered an agitator nor a serious threat to the Kremlin.
Instead of just pointing out the fakery, Navalny’s supporters took things to the next level – by beaming photos across the blogosphere of him standing next to the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, a space alien, Putin and other action men.
Rich history of air-brushing
The air-brushing of photos for propaganda reasons is an old Soviet art. Joseph Stalin routinely had friends and allies erased from photos taken with him when they became his enemies (often after he’d had them killed, as in the famous case of Nikolai Yezhov, the leader of the NKVD, precursor of the KGB, in the 1920s.)
My personal faking favorite is the iconic shot of several Soviet soldiers holding up the hammer-sickle-flag above the German Reichstag building, marking the effective end of the war in Europe in 1945. If you look closely you'll see that the soldier supporting the flag-bearer is wearing a watch on his left arm. In the original, however, he has watches on both arms – suggesting that he might have looted them. The Russian magazine Ogonok removed the second watch just before publication.
Of course, the practice is not restricted to Russia. Ever since photographs became a means by which world leaders defined themselves to their public, photos of Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Tse-tung, and going back in time, Grant, Sherman and, yes, even Abraham Lincoln, were doctored in order to enhance their image. .
But seldom has a manipulated photo backfired with the same concussive effect that Navalny's has.
Staff / Reuters
Activists of the pro-Kremlin youth group "Nashi" gather to protest against the activity of Russian blogger, political and social activist Alexei Navalny with a fake placard of him in central Moscow Dec. 26, 2011.
One can even imagine the taciturn Putin, an ex-KGB agent, letting out an unforced guffaw as he scans Navalny's blog and finds the latest “photo-toad” (an English translation of the Russian slang for a doctored photo) of Navalny standing next to Bender, the robot from the comic strip Futurama.
Putin's camp had no doubt hoped to turn Navalny into an enemy of Russia's people. Instead, the Kremlin itself has become a lightning rod for Russians' scorn and mockery, and Navalny has seen himself launched into the stratosphere of a Marvel Comics hero, without even having to lift a megaphone.
In the lead-up to the March presidential election, Putin – still considered a shoo-in to win it all – may yet turn out to be his own worst propagandist.
Jim Maceda is an NBC news correspondent based in London who has covered Russia and the Soviet Union since the 1980s.
Leave a Comment:
A perfect example of their being no end to stupidity.
Ironic.
as you confirm by saying "their"
Dumb as$es! They should have called Playboy to do the photo.
;)
It's "THERE being no end to stupidity", stupid !
Comic strip? I thought it was a TV show.
Now let's all turn back to THE HYPNO-TOAD!
It's, "It's[,] 'THERE being no end to stupidity[,]'[,] stupid[!] [!]"
If you're going to be the grammar police, do it correctly, or look foolish yourself.
Where as your stupidity has very well-defined limits.
Idiot.
Putin = Scum
Good job on the grammar mix ups. I've given up. Currently working in H.R. and my new boss is a trip. I've watched as he throws away prob 20 resume's a day because of simple word usage. Admitted I do still lack with my punctuation I do remember correct word use. One of the most common that I even see daily on here is "your" and "you're." These are things we learned in grammar school, but I guess most people these days were playing video games during that time.
The only real photo is the one with the Alien. Fox Mulder told me so.
Good to see the Commies have changed since the fall of the Iron Curtain...
It true!! I seent it!! Alexei live down cross da way on da udda side-a da traila paaak. Da Kram-lin know dis. He be fixin ta take it ovuh. I knows dis cuz he telled me ovuh a few beahs watchin da nascaaas
Now, about that alien space cadet who is posing as the president of the US.....Ya wanna talk about doctoring the pictures?
Alas, lets turn a good story of opposing communist authority into your propaganda about our president. Get over it, seriously, they're all puppets!
Stupid is as stupid does.
I'm guessing that there's too many people working in the Kremlin who still think they are in the old Soviet Union where people will believe what ever they tell them.
You mean the citizens there aren't drinking the government koolaid? Now if only our own citizens could learn to follow the example....
If you believe that the Russians believed whatever the Kremlin told them, you believe way too much of what somebody has told you...
Shouldn't that be: "There, their Koolaid is Vodka?"
It works either way. (over) there, Koolaid is Vodka. (Or Vodka is Koolaid) Or. Their (Russians) Koolaid is vodka. Or vice versa. And it's true, any way you read it. Nzdarova!
FSB, hard at work. Your tax rubles...
Fox News would have added some palm trees.
The big question is how can you be so sure that parliamentary polls were rigged? I saw so many articles about this issue on different websites... but none of them give any clear evidence that polls were rigged. It makes me think that media is being biased here.
Of course, protesters oppose Putin - Medvedev regime. That's why they are protesters. It's simply a minority of Russian population that want their voices to be heard. But what's their proof or hard evidence of rigged election? I see nothing more than a crowd angry voices...
"If you look closely you'll see that the soldier supporting the flag-bearer is wearing a watch on his left arm. In the original, however, he has watches on both arms – suggesting that he might have looted them."
Actually, it is NOT a soldier, but an officer. A "second watch" is a compass. The only truth is that this photo was altered to improve its artistic quality.
Soldier and officer are not mutually exclusive terms, nitwit.
Yes, but for propaganda reasons it is better to say "soldier with two watches" than "officer with watch and compass", isn't it?
Hey Big Boy.......your mom just called and she said cartoons are on t.v......so, run along now.
Hey karma, you should clean the sh&t from your teeth before you smile! Why don't we just get into a nasty-ass pissin' contest, all us adults? Huh???
Stalin was the absolute worst--that murdering sob could obliterate anyone he wished. That includes any photo history of them.
Anyone who says Hitler was the worst tyrant and murderer of the 20th century ignores Stalin.
And anyone who ignores Chairman Mao's murders of three times Stalin, needs to review the 20th Century
Alexei Navalny, you've got some guts. Here's hoping you don't wind up drinking tea spiked with Polonium.
Stolen elections? Now that makes sense that Daley left the White House to work for Putin with that Chicago political background you know he can steal an election. Just think of all those dead Russians who can now vote with Daley's help.
Attempting to forge information in the information age? Makes you think they don't know what century it is.
In the info age, all one has to do is to delete potential sources of alternate info. before the info age, all printed references had to be expunged.
China and Iran is way better then Russia in photo-doctoring.
I love the irony of the pro-Kremlin youth's mockery of Navalny portrayed as a Gorbachev's type. I it wasn't for Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms..they wouldn't even be able to hold a open protest like that.
Direct from the "Nice Try" files.
What are the protesters calling themselves ? Either "Occupy Smirnoff " or '' The Long Island Ice Tea Party ". Either way there's got to be booze.
Putin = 'born again Stalin'.....evil in the flesh. One might say of this 'former' KGB and Soviet, 'a leopard can't change its spots.'
I feel impelled to respond to the people who criticized westchesterbob's use of "their being." In fact, that is perfectly grammatical. in the English language, the possessive form is used before the gerund, "being." Their being incorrect is bad enough, but their being so nasty about it is worse. If these superior beings were to examine the substance of westchesterbob's comment, it would be more productive
Hope for the Ruskies yet...after all, if Putin can self destruct, then maybe Russia can get back on track. As it is, the cronies they have running the country make ours look kind of like saints (not that ours are much better!).
To freedom!
The careful excise of all photographic depictions of Madame Obama's large shelf like derriere is critical to an educated and critical analysis of her nationwide campaign to have children eat certain foodstuffs.
So how much junk do you have in your trunk?
You are an ass.
This is what I've been waiting to see... revolting Russians!
A neat touch for a land of photo doctors. Does our blogger get new photo pals every few days? It does seem that the Russians would have nothing to fear from us with the friendly alien fleet on their side. Even the black belt prime minister is no match for Bender.
"Poots" is a little weasel and everyone, including his own, are aware. Thing these " jackwagons" today don't understand, or take into account is how quickly information spreads and how little they can do about it. 'Poot's" ass will be on the street, a given, just like Pres. @!$%#ad in Syria.
Emil
One of these days, that alien is going to demand payment for the (so far) unending use of its image, and then where will we all be?
Futurama's an animated television show, not a comic strip. Just an FYI~