Open Russia will be forced to suspend all activities in August, though the situation in the regions remains unclear. ‘The Rostov organization’s website is still up and running. Good for them! It means they’ve found some money’, says Irina Savchenko, the head of Open Russia’s press-service, happily. The next moment, though, it becomes clear that the Volgograd partner-organization’s website has been taken off air for non-payment. As for Savchenko herself, her Internet connection still works but no inter-city telephone calls can be made from Open’s Russia’s Moscow office. Nor can the bills of the visiting-card printers be paid, even though visiting-cards are hardly necessary now, given that the Moscow office will be ceasing to operate in August. Of the 67 members of staff who were working here when the accounts were frozen, only 12 people remain. The rest have had to be let go without salaries or compensation. Even the chief executives have had to look for work elsewhere: Irina Yasina, deputy chairperson of the board, has started working with Egor Gaidar at the Institute of Economics for the Transitional Period; Alexander Osovtsov, director of educational and inspirational programmes, has been focussing on the organization of the Other Russia conference. The office has shrunk to a handful of rooms. The management sits in what were once the storeroom and the kitchen; everyone else works in the corridor. The rest of the floor-space is now occupied by other tenants. The only jobs the Moscow office has left now are on legal cases and regional reports. When work on the reports is done, they’ll be passed to the archives. And the archives have to be paid for as well. Another headache.

Open Russia projects. The Regional Journalism Club: Participation in the Club gives journalists from the regions a chance to communicate directly with leading Russian politicians, businessmen and economists, and to get from them in the shortest possible time exclusive information on the most important topics. . .
After August this organization will exist only on paper. It cannot go into formal liquidation, because then it would be impossible to go to law - and there’s a lot of litigation in the offing. At the present time five appeals and suits brought by Open Russia are being examined in various courts, and they’re set fair to arrive eventually in the nation’s courts of the last resort,: the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court. For the past three months Open Russia has struggled on with its assets frozen, and for its regional partner-organizations these three months have been a drawn-out moment of truth. Those which have found independent financing plan to survive. The remainder will face shutdown as soon as the money from Moscow runs out. So far none of the 47 regional non-profit organizations has closed its doors. But in Moscow a scenario in which 15-20 of them manage to stay afloat is thought optimistic. Fourteen of them were able to get financing for the second quarter before the assets were frozen, and their problems are only now beginning to emerge. Thirty-three have been trying to make it on their own for the past three months - by applying for grants, trying to attract money from the business sector and changing their premises for cheaper (and less convenient) ones.

Open Russia projects. The Advice Centre is a non-governmental non-profit social-aid organization which specializes in providing applicants with targeted social services, mostly through specially-trained volunteers. Individuals, public organizations and political parties can all apply for consultation and help in its centres if they have social problems or suspect official stonewalling on certain issues.
The Open Russia website has posted an account number for anyone who would like to help the beleaguered organization. At present this is its only functioning account. There’s little hope, however, pinned on it or on any other source of aid. ‘Around Moscow it’s impossible to fund-raise for Open Russia’, says Mikhail Yastrubitsky, the organization’s executive director. ‘However much money arrives into a structure chaired by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, it will be frozen or withdrawn one way or another’. There was in fact one occasion when the account received an incredibly large sum of money in a single transfer. But it later turned out that the donation had been made by a Novosibirsk firm, not to Open Russia, but to United Russia. The accountant had got muddled up and had sent the money to the wrong place. Now, of course, it’s reached its true destination.

Open Russia projects. The School of Public Politics is an educational project for active and responsible citizens prepared to assert democratic principles and promote civil-society institutions in Russia.
One of the possible lifelines for Open Russia’s regional partners may be a decision to come under United Russia’s wing. In Open Russia’s Moscow office, they try to look on the bright side. ‘Whether it’s an Open Russia project or a United Russia one, doesn’t really matter in the end’, says Mikhail Yastrubitsky. ‘Because there’ll be people in the region swho know something and can do something - and not just people sweating to get into the legislative assembly’.

Open Russia projects. The Public Verdict Fund. The main goal of this fund is to promote a national atmosphere of zero tolerance of human-rights violations by law-enforcement bodies and to help bring about civil control over their actions. The organization provides help to victims of the endless illegalities perpetrated by Russian law-enforcement bodies, informs society of concrete examples of human-rights violations, and assists in the activities of human-rights organizations.
In only 2005, Open Russia supported over 30 projects, some of them created and led by Open Russia itself, others simply financed by it. During the life of the organization, over 600,000 people have taken part in its initiatives; and many of them now want to help it. In one regional organization, a graduate of the School of Public Politics’ came to offer financial help. But he had one proviso: That the organization should be tied even more closely to Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s name - otherwise, he said, he wasn’t interested. He was promised that his condition would be honoured. As far as fundraising goes, this story had a happy ending. Time will tell how the other 46 stories end up. The Press Centre will a close eye on future developments involving Open Russia.