Moscow Stories: Aesop covers the crazy new politics

Vladimir Pribylovsky, a leading Moscow political scientist, wrote a hard-hitting newspaper column last week about the newly launched election campaign in a place called "Persia". Other journalists are suddenly peopling reportage with zoo animals who bear uncanny resemblances to certain politicians or penning Aesopian fables whose point might, or might not, apply to Russia's parliamentary polls on 7 December.

It all sounds a lot like the way journalists had to operate in the old Soviet Union, hiding their critical messages mezhdu strokami (between the lines) so they could slip past the censors but still be understood by their much cleverer readers.

Today's journalists are altering their own work in dread of a new law that bans any commentary, analysis or forecasting about the race for the State Duma. After two warnings from the Central Electoral Commission, which enforces the law, any newspaper, TV or radio station can be shut down.

Ostensibly the legislation is meant to eliminate the "black PR", or bought-and-paid news coverage, that has marred previous elections. The idea is that journalists should be forced to report only "facts", and to give equal space to all 44 parties. There will be no opportunities for corrupt scribblers to make a few roubles on the side. So, explains the law's author, Sergei Bolshakov of the CEC, suppose a candidate promises free apartments if he is elected. It is permitted to report that fact but not to discuss it, even if the same candidate had pledged free apartments in a previous election but failed to deliver.

Further, suppose three candidates hold campaign rallies. You cannot cover one and not the others - even if one meeting was held by the powerful Communist Party, which regularly polls 25 per cent of the popular vote, and another the Conceptual Party of Unification which, frankly, no one has ever heard of.

One group appears largely exempt from the regulations - the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party, whose key candidates are government officials and, as such, enjoy almost unlimited access to state-owned TV. Party leader, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov, was shown cheering last week as Russia's national football team trounced Switzerland in a qualifying match for the European Championship. Cameras then followed him into the locker room, where he chatted with the players,while an aide intoned: "A sporting Russia is a united Russia." No CEC warnings have so far been issued over that.

Is a Moscow landmark about to be torn down, and replaced with an exact replica, in order to correct the 70-year-old mistake of an absent-minded dictator? Wreckers have begun demolishing the Moskva Hotel, which towers over the entrance to Red Square. It's the first stage of a £95m project that will see it replaced by an (almost) identical new structure.

The Moskva is legendary for having two alternative designs on its façade - rooms on one side have large corniced windows, while on the other side they are small and bare of detail. That quirk has been featured, for decades, on the label of Russia's most popular export, Stolichnaya vodka.

The story is that Joseph Stalin was presented with two separate plans by master architect Alexei Schusev - and accidentally signed both. Too terrified to return for clarification, Schusev incorporated the conflicting designs into the one building.