Patriarch Kirill (left) was spotted wearing the expensive watch late last month in a photograph flagged by a Kremlin-critical news site.
Russian Patriarch's Flashy Watch Draws Scrutiny -- Again
Eight years ago, it was a $39,000 watch -- and a doctored photograph -- that got the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in trouble.
This time, it's a $16,000 watch that Patriarch Kirill was spotted wearing in a photograph flagged by a Kremlin-critical news site.
Kirill's taste for wrist bling is not a major scandal for the church -- yet anyway.
But it's the latest in series of semi-embarrassing headlines that have highlighted the wealthy tastes of powerful Russian political figures, religious or otherwise.
The watch on Kirill's wrist was spotted by Open Media, a Russian-language news organization financed by the exiled former oil tycoon, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Since being pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin and fleeing Russia, the businessman has become an increasingly open and strident critic of Putin.
In a photograph published in January 2018, Kirill is shown attending an event at the Russian upper house of parliament, timed apparently for the Orthodox Christmas holiday. Kirill is shown seated alongside the head of the Federation Council, Valentina Matviyenko.
As Kirill removes his eyeglasses, a watch can be seen on his left wrist.
In its fresh report issued on February 5, Open Media identified the watch as a Ulysse Nardin Dual Time 42 mm model that the outlet valued at approximately $16,000.
As of February 6, church officials had not commented publicly on the report. An e-mail sent by RFE/RL to the Moscow press office for the Russian church was not immediately returned.
The patriarch's taste in wrist-wear was the subject of scrutiny in 2009, when an earlier photograph was published on the church's official website, showing Kirill seated at a polished wooden table with what appeared to be another expensive watch on his left wrist.
It was identified by sharp-eyed bloggers as being a Swiss-made Breguet watch, valued at around $39,000. Church officials at the time explained that the watch, whose case was reportedly made from white gold and whose band was made of crocodile leather, was a gift from a wealthy parishioner.
Kirill said he never wore the timepiece.
Three years later, the same photograph appeared on the church's website, and the watch was airbrushed out of photograph. However, bloggers noticed that the reflection of the watch was still visible in the polished table.
A church employee was forced to apologize, calling the attempt to hide the watch a "foolish mistake."
Elite Timepieces
The costly chronometers of Russia's elite were in the news as recently as five years ago, when anticorruption crusader Aleksei Navalny published an investigation into a watch seen on the wrist of the Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
Navalny's investigators determined the watch was a rare Richard Mille RM 52-01, rumored to cost as much as $620,000,
Then there was the Russian mafia boss who boasted that he had been gifted a presidential wristwatch by none other than President Vladimir Putin himself.
The crime boss, Sergei Mikhailov, posted on his website photographs of the watch, which is embossed with Russia's double-headed eagle and Putin's signature, with an accompanying certificate purportedly signed by Putin.
Peskov denied Mikhailov's account.
A photograph of the watch in question -- with Putin's signature visible -- is still viewable on Mikhailov's website, along with the accompanying certificate.
And then there's Putin's own watches that have been in the news. Back in 2009, when he was serving as prime minister, Putin visited a factory in the industrial town of Tula and struck up a chat with the factory workers.
One worker approached Putin and asked for something to remember him by.
None of Azerbaijan's presidential or parliamentary elections held during the rule of President Ilham Aliyev have been deemed free and fair by Western observers.
Azerbaijan's 'Equal Coverage' Law Stifles Media Reports On Elections
Imagine a national election where most TV and radio broadcasters don't report on the candidates, campaigns, or political issues.
A place where campaign events are only allowed at a limited number of preapproved venues that, in practice, require permission from ruling-party apparatchiks.
It's a scenario that favors incumbents and ruling-party candidates because it makes it more difficult for newly emerging politicians or opposition blocs to get their messages to voters.
This is the situation in Azerbaijan as it prepares for early parliamentary elections on February 9 -- a vote contested by a surge of new independent and opposition candidates, according to the Election Observation Mission (ODIHR EOM) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Ironically, OSCE observers say media reports about the election in Azerbaijan are being stifled by a law that is supposed to ensure voters have access to information about all parties, policy platforms, and candidates.
Azerbaijan's Election Code requires broadcasters to provide "equal coverage" of all election campaigns.
On the surface, the law appears similar to the "equal time" rule created by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to ensure U.S. broadcasters don't manipulate election outcomes by presenting one candidate's point of view and excluding others.
But in the United States, the "equal time" rule does not apply to talk shows, news events, scheduled newscasts, or documentaries.
OSCE observers noted on January 29 in their preelection Interim Report that Azerbaijan's "equal coverage" rule contains a stiflingly broad definition of political "campaigning."
"The Election Code defines campaigning in the media as speeches, interviews, press conferences, open discussions, debates, roundtable discussions, and political advertising, and TV and radio programs," the report says.
"Due to such a broad definition, most media outlets refrain from covering the campaigns of candidates in order to avoid accusations of unequal coverage," it adds.
Instead, OSCE observers say most media outlets in Azerbaijan have been focusing on the activities of the Central Election Commission (CEC) rather than candidates, campaigns, or contentious issues.
That is a disadvantage for the flood of new candidates running as independents or that have joined forces under a new political bloc called Movement.
'Genuine Candidates'
Akif Gurbanli, head of the independent Institute for Democratic Initiatives and a former member of Azerbaijan's CEC, told RFE/RL that their efforts to reach voters have not been covered by public broadcasters or online media.
That is critical in a vote that, according to Istanbul-based Azerbaijani political analyst Arzu Geybullayeva, differs from past elections because of "the visibility of genuine candidates" who are "rights defenders, human rights lawyers, election observers, bloggers, feminists, youth activists, and politicians."
The OSCE report also says the cost of buying airtime for political advertising is prohibitive for many of the independent candidates and opposition parties trying to win seats in Azerbaijan's 125-seat unicameral parliament, the Milli Majilis.
Azerbaijan's Election Code does provide for free airtime to be allocated by public broadcasters and state-funded national newspapers during the January 17-February 8 election campaign period.
But the law stipulates that free airtime is only allocated to parties with candidates that are registered in more than 60 of the 125 election constituencies.
Only President Ilham Aliyev's ruling New Azerbaijan Party (YAP) has qualified for free airtime, with 123 registered candidates.
On January 17, the YAP announced it would not use the free advertising -- claiming that it was trying to create equal conditions for all candidates.
But in practice, the YAP's move has meant even less information is being broadcast to voters about the elections.
'Relentless War' Against Critics
Since Azerbaijan declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, its elections have repeatedly been deemed by OSCE observers as falling short of democratic standards.
That includes the first presidential election won by Aliyev in October 2003, as well as his reelection in 2008, 2013, and 2018 in votes the OSCE says were conducted "within a restrictive political environment and under laws that curtail fundamental rights and freedoms."
In fact, none of the presidential or parliamentary elections held during Aliyev's rule have been deemed free and fair by a Western election-observation organization.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (file photo)
Meanwhile, the Paris-based, press rights group Reporters Without Borders says Aliyev has also waged "a relentless war" against his media critics.
It says independent media have been either stifled economically or closed by force, including RFE/RL's Baku bureau, while independent journalists and bloggers have been "jailed on absurd grounds if they do not first yield to harassment, beatings, blackmail, or bribes."
Some opposition parties in Azerbaijan have decided to boycott the February 9 vote to protest unfair limitations on access to media and freedom of assembly.
Among those boycotting the polls is the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party (PFPA) and its allies in the National Council of Democratic Forces.
PFPA Deputy Chairman Seymur Hazi told RFE/RL that the criticism in the OSCE report is harsh but reflects reality for opponents of the ruling YAP, which holds a majority of 65 seats in the outgoing parliament.
Data Discrepancy
Hazi said Azerbaijani voters have, for many years, been denied the opportunity to see the political platforms of different candidates and parties debated on television.
"We cannot speak about transparency and results coming from the competition in the elections," Hazi said.
But Hazi says an even bigger problem noted in the OSCE report is a discrepancy of 2 million voters between the CEC's data and district election commissions.
"The country has a population of 10 million and there are more than 5 million voters on the [official] voter list," Hazi said. "But how real is this figure? We don't know because we do not know the actual statistics. There is a difference of 2 million people between the Central Election Commission and the district election commissions."
Arif Hajili, the chairman of the opposition Musavat Party, says he also thinks the OSCE's interim report objectively reflects real difficulties that are being faced by opposition parties and candidates.
Hajili also says the most disturbing aspect of the February 9 vote is the discrepancy between the official voter list and the number of eligible Azerbaijani voters announced by the state statistics office.
Musavat is not boycotting the election. But the lack of television coverage means its candidates and activists must campaign door-to-door or turn to social media in order to reach voters.
Election "Contradiction'
OSCE observers say that, even though television is the most accessible media across Azerbaijan, "many interlocutors opined to the ODIHR EOM that it is mostly a source of entertainment, while social-media platforms are used for seeking alternative political information."
The opposition Republican Alternative Civic Movement (REAL) has decided to compete in the February 9 vote despite the refusal of election officials to register party leader Natiq Jafarli as a candidate.
It made no difference to election officials that prosecutors in 2017 dropped the criminal charges against Jafarli or that the European Court of Human Rights ruled in November 2019 that that the charges against him were politically motivated.
In December, Jafarli told a forum of leading opposition parties that there was no alternative to participation.
"A boycott is unlikely to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the elections," Jafarli told the gathering at Musavat's Baku headquarters.
"The authorities don't want people to go to the polls so that they can comfortably falsify the results," Jafarli alleged. "Therefore, we need to massively attract people to the elections."
The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, an online platform launched by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and the United Nations' Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), says such situations are a "contradiction."
"The media are essential to democracy, and a democratic election is impossible without media," ACE says.
"A free and fair election is not only about the freedom to vote and the knowledge of how to cast a vote," ACE says. It is "also about a participatory process" in which "voters engage in public debate and have adequate information about parties, policies, candidates, and the election process itself in order to make informed choices."
"A democratic election with no media freedom, or stifled media freedom, would be a contradiction," it says.
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