Stories about Russian from November, 2010
Russia: Leading Activist Blogger on How Internet Changes Politics
Marina Litvinovich, is one of the most influential activist bloggers in Russia. In an interview with Gregory Asmolov, she shares her vision of the future role of the Internet in Russian politics.
Caucasus: Revelations & Confusion over Cablegate
As the media worldwide reveals revelation after revelation with the gradual release of over 251,000 leaked U.S. Embassy cables over the coming weeks, there were also some items of specific interest in the South Caucasus.
Russia: Competing Models of Internet Politics
RuNet becomes an arena of the competition of at least two concepts of the usage of the cyberspace: "United Russia"'s formula "Internet instead of democracy" and independent, grass-roots formula "Internet as a free environment for civil society initiatives." Alexey Sidorenko analyzed the recent trends of the role of the Internet in contemporary Russian politics.
Central & Eastern Europe: Initial Reactions to WikiLeaks’ Cablegate
While other regions feature a lot more prominently in the collection of U.S. embassy cables published by WikiLeaks thus far, a few countries of the CEE region do appear in the kickoff edition of Cablegate. Below is a small selection of initial reactions from the region's bloggers.
Russia: Online Cartoon Against Corruption in Road Construction
Antimult studio published [RUS] an informative and entertaining cartoon on corruption in road construction in Russia. Together with usage of the old technologies, corruption causes 4 times higher price of roads than in Europe. Bad roads cost Russians 6-8 percent of GDP and 20 thousand deaths in car accidents every...
Russia: Phenomenal Growth of Facebook and Twitter in 2010
Facebook and Twitter audience in Russia grew 3-4 times since the beginning of the year, Vedomosti cites [RUS] comScore data. By the end of 2010, almost 6 mln of Russian netizens use Facebook, while 2,5 million use Twitter.
Russia: 25% of Registered Cyrillic Domains Suspended
Coordination Center for .rf (.рф) domain (ccTLD) has temporarily suspended [RUS] all domains registered by Ru-Center registrar following the scandals with the closed auctions for the most lucrative Cyrillic domains. So far Ru-Center had registered almost every fourth .rf domain. The domains will be suspended until sides will reach an...
Armenia-Azerbaijan: Does culture unite or divide?
With a recent survey indicating that the majority of Armenians and Azerbaijanis are against mutual friendship, hopes for peace between the two neighboring countries appear very bleak indeed. Recent developments, including in the sphere of culture, appear to support that notion, but is there any hope?
Ukraine: Entrepreneurs Renew Mass Protests
@Matteush reads tweets marked with the #kat_ua hashtag, concludes (UKR) that “the whole country has risen to protest bandit tax code”: rallies and strikes by entrepreneurs are taking place in (UKR, RUS) Chernivtsi, Rivne, Odessa, Lutsk, Kharkiv, Lviv. In Kyiv, some 30,000 are said to have gathered at Maidan, and...
Russia: Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Facebook Account Banned and Un-Banned
On November 20, 2010 Facebook has suspended Mikhail Khodorkovsky‘s private account allegedly due to usage violations. It took four days to convince the social network to un-ban it. Anton Nossik once again noticed [RUS] how anonymous reporting and suspension of the opposition accounts becomes a new censorship technique, even more...
Russia: Bashkortostan President Meets Loyal Bloggers
JournalUfa comments [RUS] on the recent meeting of Rustem Khamitov, the new president (governor) of Bashkortostan republic, with the bloggers. Only loyal bloggers were allowed to come, plus several controversial moments were cut from local TV-coverage, blogger petroffvalerij claims [RUS]. In general, Bashkortostan-based community expressed confusion [RUS] about this attempt...
Russia: LiveJournal Suspends Another Independent Blogger
LiveJournal abuse team has suspended account of Stanislav Sadalsky, an actor and a popular independent blogger. Sadalsky claims he can access his account but can't post new posts at stanis-sadal [RUS]. So far the blogger launched a new account at sadalskij.livejournal.com. It is the third LiveJournal suspension of the political blogger...
Russia: New Portal Launches WebCam Discussion On Police Reform
“Talking heads,” a new socio-political portal, presents a debate on police reform in an unusual format: expert webcam chat. The idea of the website is to make a cultured, person-to-person debate available for others to watch and contribute.
Ukraine: “Revolution 2.0″
Andriy Kachor (@Ka4or) reports (UKR; #kat_ua) that Khreshchatyk, Kyiv's central street, has been “blocked” by the protesters and that “the number of cops is growing proportionally to the number of the people.” Dan Matteush (@Matteush) calls it (UKR) “Revolution 2.0″, alluding to the protests known as the Orange Revolution six...
Ukraine: Protests Against New Tax Code in Kyiv
Thousands of representatives of the Ukrainian small and medium business community are protesting against the new tax code in Kyiv. Live Ustream broadcast is here (over 5,000 viewers); Twitter tag is #kat_ua (UKR, RUS).
Russia: Oleg Kashin is Back Online
Oleg Kashin, recently recovered from artificially inducted coma, published the first post [RUS] entitled: “I have nothing to say now but I will thank everyone later.” A post with just a YouTube video for the song played by Russian rock-band Aquarium gathered almost 450 wishes of faster recovery.
Russia: Cartoons and Public Diplomacy
Global Chaos writes about the potential impact that the Soviet and Russian cartoons in public diplomacy: “They can even help overcome long-held preconceptions and stereotypes about the other, thus creating the space for further openness to meaningful communication and information processing.”
Russia: Controversy as Cyrillic Domains Hit the Open Market
This post is part of our special coverage Languages and the Internet. On November 11, 2010, registration for Internet domains in Cyrillic script, the writing system used by Russian and other Eastern European and Asian languages, went on the open market. Prior to this, Cyrillic domains could be registered only...
Kazakhstan: Livejournal Unblocked After 2 Years of Filtering
Livejournal, the most popular blogging platform in the Russian-language segment of the world wide web, was blocked by the national operator – and subsequently by other Internet service providers in Kazakhstan – in fall 2008. No explanations were provided by the authorities or the ISPs, except for the highly controversial...
Russia-France: Antifascists Rally for Khimki Forest in Louvre
French antifascists shot a video [FR/EN] of a protest action in Louvre, France. Activists demanded cancellation of the highway that would cross Khimki forest park as well as stopping prosecution against Alexey Gaskarov and Maxim Solopov, two activists who are incriminated in assaulting Khimki City administration.
Russia: Members of the Anarchist Art Group “Voina” Arrested
2 members of the notorious anarchist art group “Voina” (“War”) have been arrested in Moscow due to accusations of organization of a hooligan group, fontanka.ru reported [RUS]. Turning over a police car during the latest art action could be the reason of the prosecution (photo and video reports from “Voina”‘s...
