FALLS VILLAGE — Russian president Vladimir Putin may have “astounded everybody with his audacity” in recent weeks, but Thomas Graham thinks Putin’s overall strategy is problematic.Graham, a veteran of the State Department, the Foreign Service, the National Security Council and Kissinger Associates, where he is managing director, spoke on Russia’s Strategic Challenges at the Salisbury Forum at Housatonic Valley Regional High School Friday, March 21.Graham said that in Putin’s world, “Russia is destined to be a country of consequence.”And it was, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.Since the 1700s, Russia played a major role in Europe and was considered one of the Great Powers, along with Great Britain, France and Germany.Twice Russian troops drove deep into the heart of Europe — once to vanquish Napoleon, and again to destroy Hitler.Even after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and the collapse of the old Russian empire, Russia maintained a world-wide influence, promoting and supporting revolutionary movements.Graham said the decade between 1991 and 2001 was a bad one for Russia.“Putin believes it is time to put an end to this period of national humiliation.”Graham said that Putin is insistent that Russia matters again.“Is he right?”Graham was skeptical. He said that Russia is respected and feared, but some observers see the recent aggressive behavior as a blip in a long-term decline.Graham pointed out that a key Russian asset — its nuclear arsenal — is not as powerful a deterrent in the age of cyberwarfare.The shale gas revolution is having a negative effect on Russia’s oil and gas exports; the Russian language is fading as a lingua franca in the territory of the former USSR; hard science education is in decline, as is the Russian population in general.“So Russia faces an uncertain future.”Graham said the strategic challenges for Russia are:• Reasserting Russian primacy in the former USSR• Striking a balance between Europe and Asia• Dealing with unrest in the Muslim south• Dealing with the United States, which Putin still regards as Russia’s greatest adversary.Graham said that Putin is from the realist or Great Power school of foreign policy. “Hard power remains the coin of the realm.”Only Great Powers can have a truly independent foreign policy, and Putin has spent 14 years in office seeking to restore Russia’s power.Putin must have an economy that can compete internationally — and the Russian economy needs to modernize, make better use of technology and revamp public health and education.Graham said that Putin and the Russian leadership “understand this, but have not been able to decide on a specific course.”“To modernize, Russia needs to open up the political system,” he said. But thus far Putin has been unable or unwilling to take on the oligarchs who benefit from the current system and provide much of his support.“I suggest that authoritarian turn is not the road to success,” Graham said.Graham said Putin needs the liberal professional class — the Western-oriented, tech savvy, well-educated crowd. The trick will be how to give them a stake in the system.Putin needs to deal with socio-economic unrest in the provinces, which are stagnating economically. Graham said the current policy, of buying off discontent to maintain an apathetic population, “is not a good long-term strategy.”Threats from all sidesAnd Putin needs to deal with ethnic and nationalistic trends. “I find it surprising to see Putin take on this bold Russian nationalism,” said Graham. “He’s playing with fire.”In the territory of the old USSR, China is threatening, with increased commercial activity in central Asia that bypasses the Russians. And radical Islamic movements in the Caucasus and central Asia add an element of instability to an already fragile political system.“So it isn’t surprising that Putin is reasserting Russia’s role.”Putin’s proposed Eurasian Union — to include all the former Soviet republics, is clearly meant to be dominated by Russia, Graham said.But key players Ukraine and Uzbekistan are not playing along. “Without them a Eurasian Union makes no sense. Ukraine is Russia’s gateway to Europe; Uzbekistan is the biggest country in central Asia. And neither wants to be part of a Russian-dominated economic entity.”The successful annexation of Crimea may be a short-term, tactical victory for Putin, but in the long run Putin could well lose the rest of Ukraine, Graham said.Meanwhile,the Uzbeks are playing Russia, China and the U.S. against each other.Graham said that to Russia at the moment, Europe is more important than Asia. “Ever since Peter the Great, Russia has measured itself by European standards.”But Russia can’t afford to ignore Asia, he continued. And Russia can’t afford to allow markets east of Lake Baikal to become dominated by China. So they need to develop the Russian Far East and Siberia — in cooperation with Japan, South Korea and the U.S.Graham said that Russia and China serve as a counterweight to the U.S. in the United Nations, and Russia needs a counterweight to China, in the form of a unified Europe —but Putin doesn’t see it that way.“Russia still feels more comfortable dealing with individual states, not with entities like the European Union.”To that end, Putin has sought closer relations with Germany; has tried to drive wedges in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; and has been aggressive in Georgia and now Ukraine.“It doesn’t make sense — because the world isn’t centered on European politics,” Graham said.Dangers of a radical IslamIn the Muslim south, radical movements could endanger stability of Russian provinces. If the “corrupt central government” of Afghanistan collapses and the Taliban take over, and if nothing is done about the drug trade, Russia will need to work with regional powers to contain the situation.“Radical Islam will become a more potent political force,” said Graham. “Russia will need cooperation from the other players.”Graham said that Putin’s belief that the U.S. wants a unipolar world and that American policy in the last 20 years has been designed to weaken Russia “no longer makes any sense. ““The U.S. is trying to deal with the vulnerabilities exposed by the financial crisis. The U.S. doesn’t have the sway it had 14 years ago, when Putin first came to power.“We are retrenching. The U.S. is no longer expanding into the power vacuum of the old USSR.“This should create a solid foundation for cooperation. From Moscow’s standpoint the U.S. is the only country that can help with these challenges.“The problem is that Putin is on a different path.”Russia vs. United StatesGraham said the next decade won’t be dull. “We will likely see the most consequential changes, see the emergence of a new global equilibrium. The success Russia has in meeting its strategic challenges will determine if Russia is in fact a Great Power and can challenge the U.S.”As for the challenge to American policymakers, Graham offered this:“After 20 years experience in the U.S. government, I can safely say that Russia is one of the most prickly powers.“The only thing I am confident of is it will not get any easier.”
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Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton\u2019s Main Street in 1985.
Provided
For Hermans, the award has prompted some reflection about why he has spent so much of his life involved in community projects.
“I was thinking about it this morning: Why do I do what I do?” he said. “And I think no matter what I’ve done, whether it’s been school board or rail trail, I’m trying to be useful to the communities I’m associated with.”
Hermans is perhaps best known as the longtime co-founder and steward of Oblong Books in Millerton, a business that began almost by accident. He and his former partner, Holly Nelson, were living in Millerton and looking for something to do during the winter. They had been painting houses, including the Grange Hall in Millerton, a job Hermans got through his aunt, who belonged to the Grange.
At the time, Hermans was also working in insurance for his father, doing collections.
“It was fine except I was doing collections, and it really kind of left me cold,” he said.
He and Nelson began thinking about what they might do together. Nelson was an avid reader, while Hermans had studied journalism and had worked in a record store. They noticed a chain of book and record stores operating elsewhere in the Hudson Valley and decided to follow that model.
And so Oblong was born.
Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton’s Main Street in 1985.Provided
“We really learned it by the seat of our pants,” Hermans said.
The business would eventually become a beloved and integral part of Millerton’s commercial life. But although Hermans may have learned the book business as he went, his affinity for retail — and for the connections that happen across a counter — had begun much earlier.
As a child, his second-grade teacher operated a little cardboard pencil shop in the classroom, and Hermans still remembers the satisfaction of selling a pencil for a nickel.
“I really liked selling somebody a pencil for a nickel,” he recalled. “I can remember that experience, and it was so pleasant.”
Later, while living in Arizona, he helped establish a food co-op and worked at the counter.
“I kind of knew that I liked doing that kind of thing,” he said. “It’s a nice way to be pleasant with people, but without making too much commitment to them.”
His relationship with Millerton also predates Oblong. His grandparents lived in the village, and he first came to Millerton as a baby. Over the years, he has watched the town change through several generations.
He remembers a Millerton with a much broader array of businesses, when stores such as Delson’s, the Main Street department store that stood for nearly 40 years in what is now Millerton’s Antiques Center, seemed to carry almost everything a resident might need.
“You could find everything from a set of dishes to a shotgun,” he recalled.
The rise of shopping malls changed that kind of downtown retail, he said, but Millerton has remained a lively commercial village.
“For us, it’s been a great place to have business,” Hermans said. “It’s a busy village.”
For Hermans, running a store was never simply about selling books and records. It was a way of being part of a place.
Music has remained another constant. Hermans continues to sell music at Oblong and hosts the radio program “New Harmony” on WKZE. The business of selling music has changed dramatically over the years, particularly with the rise of streaming, but Hermans has adapted.
He was initially reluctant to bring vinyl records back into the store because of their expense. But about four or five years ago, he began stocking LPs again, and they have become the main form of music the store sells.
He finds that many of the customers buying them are reconnecting with music they loved years ago.
“I do best with classic albums that people may have had when they were young,” he said. “And now that they’re retired, they want to hear it again.”
Hermans still reviews between 700 and 1,200 new music releases each week through the store’s distributor, Alliance Entertainment, carefully deciding what belongs on Oblong’s shelves.
That same commitment to place has led Hermans into a wide range of community projects. His work with the Harlem Valley Rail Trail is among the efforts he mentions when reflecting on his years of civic involvement. He has also served on the school board and has been involved with the Millerton Business Alliance and the Irondale Schoolhouse. He is now involved with The New Pine Plains Herald, which he sees as complementary to the work of The Millerton News and The Lakeville Journal.
“I really think that the important thing about this award is that people understand what a newspaper does to connect them to their community,” he said. “And if that means anything to their lives, they gotta support it.”
Hermans knew Mary Lou and Robert Estabrook and remembers them as people who were deeply conscious of their responsibilities to the community.
“They were really nice folks,” he said. “They were very conscious of what their role in the community was.”
There is, in fact, still plenty on his plate. Hermans admits he needs to scale back because he has taken on more than his current abilities can comfortably accommodate.
“To be given this award is very special,” he added. “But I don’t feel like I’m done.”
This article has been changed to reflect that Hermans and Nelson were partners. A prior version states that they were married.
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Adamah Farm crew members planning out the day’s tasks on a late September day.
Janna Siller
Over my 15 years of growing vegetables in Falls Village, I’ve exerted my will over all kinds of conditions, from drought to humidity to crows with a taste for cantaloupe. That’s what farming is all about. You zip around the field, hopping on and off tractors, moving hoses and chasing weeds, all in an effort to arrange conditions in favor of your crops. It is the crops’ job to gulp up sunlight and move water through their stems, to transform solar energy into your next pesto or ratatouille or butternut squash soup. It is the job of the farmer to irrigate just enough but not too much, to slice dandelion leaves without damaging delicate cabbage roots, to pander and pamper and stay in tune with what plants need to thrive.
The easy part of farming is trusting plants’ resilience. I have seen bright green shoots barrel ahead out of a plant torn to shreds by hail. I’ve watched wilty, heat-stressed seedlings turn rigid overnight and greet the next morning with vigor. The hard part is letting go of what you can’t control. As our crops lapped up Friday’s gentle sunshine and I considered the weekend forecast, I imagined roots holding tight to wet earth and branches supporting each other in sideways, pelting rain. I made sure all of our storage crops were already harvested and tucked away. I battened down the sides of our greenhouses and wished the remaining field crops good luck.
The nor’easter didn’t materialize too dramatically in our corner of New England. A few broken branches and debris blown about, nothing like the July Fourth storm that sent half a tree crashing onto the deer fence and left crates of fresh veggies in coolers without power.
Fall storage crop harvests amid soil building cover crops at Adamah Farm in Falls Village. Janna Siller
Farming is an exercise in acceptance. To do it well and return year after year, you have to balance hubris and humility. The prize can often be a certain equanimity, a training in the art of moving into the next day even when the last one scrambled all your plans.
Epic change is not always about the unexpected. It also comes like clockwork on the seasonal calendar. As I type, the last of summer’s watermelons wait naively on the vine for a few hot days to finish ripening. Broccoli are holding their leaves wide as they did in June and July, only to find that the hours of sunlight decrease with each earlier sunset. Plants can’t pick up and go south or call the manager to order a bonus round of sunshine. Their growth slows and they get a resigned look to the hue of their leaves, so different from the frenzied growth of summer.
The release of fall is not tragic or gloomy. It is not an ending because so many fall tasks are about setting up for the new beginnings in spring.
We turn the vines that yielded thousands of pounds of fruit into the soil, where healthy microbes feast on their rotting stems. Then we plant cover crops — a mix of cereal grains like rye and oats and legumes like peas, vetch and clover. Cover crops hold the soil and its nutrients in place over winter, feeding the soil food web and adding organic matter that next season’s crops will need to grow.
We sort sprinklers and repair hoses. We inventory tarps. We take notes about which plants did well where and how we might try a new approach for this or that. We stack crates of cured garlic and onions and winter squash in a cool, dark room.
We save seeds from tomatoes and beans and lettuce, carefully labeling each variety for next season’s long, sunny days.
Janna Siller is the farm director at Adamah, a community farm in Falls Village offering CSA shares, educational programs and a food access program.
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