Stories from RuNet Echo from April, 2011
Russia: Photoblogger Defends His Constitutional Rights
Popular photoblogger Ilya Varlamov continues to fight the common and unconstitutional ban on taking pictures in supermarkets. He posted a photo essay on his misadventures in Evropeysky, a large supermarket in Moscow, where he was prevented from taking photos.
Russia: Drug Agency to Monitor Blogosphere
Russian Federal Service for Drug Control plans to monitor the blogosphere to analyze the situation with drugs in the country, Lenta.ru reported.
Russia: New round in the TNK-BP row
Streetwise Professor points to the parallel buyout of a partner in TNK-BP oil company by the Russian state oil company Rosneft and British Petroleum, with the abolition of a tax release, possibly resulting in decreased company value for the upcoming sale.
Ukraine: Memories and Photos of Chernobyl in August 1986
Aleksandr Strannik (LJ user av-strannik) arrived at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in mid-August of 1986, some four months after the April 26 blast at Reactor #4, to assist in the clean-up effort. Twenty-five years later, he is sharing some of his memories and photos from that time.
Russia: Communist Party Leads Social Networks Activity Rating
Nikolay Podosokorskiy analyzes [ru] activity of Russian political parties in the social networks. According to his brief research, ruling party “United Russia” is one of the closest and inactive parties online, while the most active is the Communist Party of Russia with more than 73,000 members at Vkontakte groups and...
Russia: Bloggers Discuss Best Practices of Crowd Funding
Anton Nossik publishes [ru] 5 rules of successful crowd funding: 1.it should have an aim, 2. it should be transparent, 3. it should be tested before launch, 4. it should also facilitate non-financial help, 5. initiators should disclose their own efforts of improving the project they collect money for. Oleg Kozlovsky...
Russia: Eco-bloggers and Journalists Learn to Solve Environmental Problems
The first international forum of eco-bloggers and journalists took place in Moscow on April 18-19. The forum aimed to create an international community of people writing about environmental issues and deploy the power of new media to help overcome the challenges in the field.
Russia: Two Bloggers Sentenced for Extremism
The Ufa city court in Bashkortostan sentenced bloggers Robert Zagreev and Ayrat Dilmikhametov to three and six years in prison for extremist activities “with the use of media,” Russian news agency Interfax reported. The bloggers pleaded not guilty.
Russia: Blogger Found Guilty in Harsh Criticizm of Bashkir Authorities
Alexander Izmailov was found gulty in posting 649 comments online criticizing the authorities and not shying away from curse words, Ufimskij Zhurnal reported. Izmailov also frequently produced photo collages making fun of the President of Bashkortostan Murtaza Rakhimov who is notorious for limiting Internet freedom in the republic. Izmailov will...
Russia: Regions Reduce Digital Divide
More than 90 percent of new users are not from Moscow or Saint-Petersburg, Yandex regional Internet development report says [ru]. Authors note a significant increase in Internet use nation-wide, 30-60 percent decrease in broadband prices, 10 percent raise of everyday user share. The report, quite optimistically forecasts that country's Internet...
Russia: Grigoriy Golosov, Political Analyst and a Blogger, Assaulted
Grigoriy Golosov, professor at the European University at Saint-Petersburg and a political blogger at Slon.ru [ru], had been assaulted at the street. According to his blogpost [ru], on April 23, 2011 two persons followed him to his home, called his name, and after receiving a positive reply one of them hit...
Russia: “Navalny's Nationalism”
A Good Treaty went through the archives of Alexey Navalny's blog and other RuNet sources and wrote about this prominent Russian anti-corruption activist's nationalism.
Russia: Photos of Moscow, Circa 1931
LJ-user nikolas11 shares [ru] rare photos of 1931′ Moscow made by Branson DeCou, XX century traveler and photographer. Hand-colored photos depict Russian capital 2 years after the “Great Turn” and before many Moscow churches had been destroyed by the Bolsheviks.
Russia: “Power of the Families,” Wikipedia of Nepotism
Marina Litvinovich, Global Voices contributing editor and profound investigative journalist, launches “Power of the Families,” [ru] a Wikipedia-like report on corruption and nepotism among the top-ranking Russian officials.
Russia: Medvedev Unhappy With Websites on Drug Preparation
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for shutting down the websites containing the information on preparation of drugs. He said that web hosting providers should be responsible for closing those sites, Russian information agency “RIA Novosty” reported.
Russia: Discarding marriage
Yelena of Russian Blog discusses the double meaning of the Russian word “brak” namely marriage and discards.
Russia: Penza Prosecutor's Office Investigates Anti-Semitic Comments
The prosecutor's office of Penza region started to check anti-Semitic comments and pictures that had appeared on Penza information portal pnz.ru. After the evaluation of the material, the prosecutor's office will decide on the possibility of a criminal case.
Russia: Reactions to Putin annual speech
Democratist shares some reactions on Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin's, speech to the Russian parliament on Wednesday April 20, and reflects upon it from the perspective of the 2012 presidential elections.
Russia: Social Networking Via a “Prison” Game, Female Users’ Photos
Katya Trubilova of Social Media Lessons From Russia and the UK writes this, among other things, about Russia's largest social network VKontakte: “The most popular app on Vkontakte is a game called Тюряга (Prison) with 6 134 947 installations. The goal of the game is to make tattoos to become...
Russia: A Video of President Medvedev Dancing
Siberian Light, Global Chaos and Russia! are among those who comment on a YouTube video of President Dmitry Medvedev dancing to the Russian pop song “American Boy” at a college reunion party a year ago. On Twitter, Medvedev (@MedvedevRussia) comments (RUS) on the video himself, in reply to Zaporozhye-based fashion...
Russia: Reactions to Freedom House Internet report
LJ user dolboeb discusses [RU] how Russia is portrayed in the recent Freedom House report on Freedom on the Net 2011.
