Stories about Russian from July, 2010
Georgia: Frozen conflicts, frozen happiness
With a little over a week to go before the second anniversary of the short war fought between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway territory of South Ossetia, Evolutsia turns its attention to another one of the country's two frozen conflicts, Abkhazia.
Russia: The First Case of YouTube Ban
Alexey Sidorenko writes about the Russian authorities' first attempt to ban YouTube.
Russia Tops Aggressive Internet Traffic Rating
Habrahabr users discuss [RUS] the latest Akamai‘s “State of the Internet” report. According to the research, 12 percent of all the Internet-attacks in the first quarter of 2010 were carried...
Russia: Prosecutor That Banned Youtube Gives Interview
Marker.ru publishes an interview with Vladimir Pakhomov, city prosecutor that obliged the local Internet provider to block Youtube, Web.archive.org and other websites [EN]. Pakhomov expressed Chinese-government-style philosophy on Internet-filtering: “Provider...
Russia: Online Cartoon Character – Mr. Freeman – Deconstructs Reality, Mocks Netizens
Gregory Asmolov writes about Mr. Freeman, a sarcastic, gloomy and enigmatic online cartoon character, who has made millions of young Russians think about the way they live their lives.
Russia: LiveJournal Under Fire Of Criticism for “Innovations”
LiveJournal, Russia's still most popular blog platform, recently fell under severe criticism for several “innovations”: purging suspended and “inactive” accounts [EN] and closing OpenID registration [RUS] (allowed LJ-users to comment in other...
Russia: Forest Park Defenders Attack Khimki City Administration
User berillii posts [RUS] a footage of the storming of the Khimki city administration [EN] by anarchists and antifascists that took side of the Khimki forest park defenders. LJ-user mmet...
Russia: Reginal Court Blocks YouTube for Extremist Content
Komsomolosk-on-Amur [ENG] city court, at the Russian Far East, ordered local Internet provider “Rosnet” to block access to Youtube and four other websites (including web.archive.org), Cnews reported [RUS]. The decision...
Russia: Blackout of the Social Network Triggers Twitter Panic
The word “vkontakte“, standing for the name of the Russian social network, found itself among top Twitter trends. It happened after millions of Russian users were not able to access...
Russia: Privatization revisited
The Pipeline discusses the announcement of Russia's biggest privatization drive since the 1990s, departing from an article [RUS] in Vedomosti.
Russia: Ask a Search Engine About the Weather
“When the heat will pass away?” is this week's most popular search enquiry in the Russian Google. Another most popular search requests include: “How to survive heat wave?”, “How to...
Russia: First Cyrillic Word Tops Twitter Trends
Russian heatwave makes history not only in the streets of Moscow but also in the virtual space. The Russian word “дождь” (rain) turned to be the first Cyrillic word in...
Russia: Unknown People in Masks and Police Attack Environmentalists
From 20 to 40 young people in white masks attacked the camp of the defenders of the Khimki forest park [RUS], Igor Podgorny [RUS] and Novaya Gazeta [RUS] reported. The...
Russia: Anti-Religious Online Group Closed
“Antireligion” group in the social network “Vkontakte“, with more than 8000 members, had been closed and its content deleted, ru_antireligion reports [RUS]. Prosecutor's office, that was checking the group for...
Russia: “Why Did They Kill Yuri Volkov?”
The murder of a TV journalist and football fan Yuri Volkov in the centre of Moscow on July 10, 2010, became a widely discussed event in the Russian blogosphere. A complicated topic, dealing with hostile ethnic stereotypes, crime, police corruption and Russian subcultures, has generated nearly 7,000 comments, tweets and blog posts.
Russia: ‘Orthodoxy or Death’ to Degenerate Art?
"Orthodoxy or death!" is the war cry sounded in recent weeks as forces of religious reaction have entered into fierce battle with liberal arts, in an apparent Russian parallel to the Muhammad cartoon case. The cause of conflict is the trial and conviction of two art curators for a 2007 Moscow exhibition of contemporary art.
Russia-Belarus: Minsk publishes Nemtsov report
LJ user yury_zagrebnoy reports [RUS] that the Belarusian government newspaper Respublika has published excerpts [RUS] from a recent Kremlin-critical report by former Russian vice Premier Boris Nemtsov, apparently as another...
Russia: Putting a foreigner on Russia's throne
LJ user kanalya78 proposes [RUS] that, judging from historical experience, one should try to import a foreigner to rule Russia, as they arguably have done better for the country than...
Russia: Roadtrip to Caucasus
Popular bloggers tema [RUS], nl [RUS] and others [RUS] (9 bloggers in 3 cars) post pictures and short notes from the roadtrip to Caucasus, that started on July 15th, 2010. So far, they travelled...
Russia: Pictures of the Khimki Forest Defense
Photographer Igor Podgorny publishes [RUS] pictures from the camp of the defenders of the Khimki forest park [EN] situated in the Moscow's outskirts. After authorities started to cut the trees...
Russia-Belarus: Authoritarian antagonism?
Ilya Yashin discusses [RUS] the ongoing conflict between Russia and Belarus and argues that it is a case of authoritarian antagonism.
