Stories about Russia from July, 2011
Poland: Smolensk Report Blames Both Polish and Russian Sides
On July 29, Poland presented its final report on the 2010 Smolensk plane crash, in which 96 people died, including the then president of Poland Lech Kaczynski. While putting the major blame on the Polish pilot's error, the report also pointed at the fault of the defective lighting at Smolensk airport and Russian air controllers.
Russia: US Support of Opposition?
LJ user grad46 (Maxim Petrovich) claims [ru] that several Russian opposition groups are funded by US-interests. Until recently an opposition activist himself, Petrovich publishes corroborating documentation, accuses several leading opposition...
Russia: News as Rap
Edmund Downie at Foreign Policy Passport reports that Russian president Dmitri Medvedev is much impressed by news agency's RIA-Novosti introduction of news in the form of musical rap info [ru].
Russia-USA: Pest and Cholera of Russia Policies
Vadim Nikitin at Foreign Policy Association blog finds US Russia-policies of both the Democrats and the Republicans negative, after Russian ambassador Sergei Rogozin recently met with two US senators.
Russia: Science Fiction Vocabulary
Yelena of Russian Blog addresses a few of the new Russian words adopted with the increasing popularity of science fiction in the 1990s.
Poland-Russia: Passing Out Blame for Kaczynski Plane Crash
Streetwise Professor comments on the Polish report about last year's plane crash that killed the country's president, and goes on to argue that, whereas Polish pilots where mostly to blame,...
Russia-USA: 20 Years Since START I
Hans Kristensen at FAS Strategic Security Blog commemorates the 20th anniversary of START 1, the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty beween the Soviet Union and the USA curtailing the number...
Bulgaria-Russia: Refinery Shutdown Causes Oil Crisis
John Helmer of Dances With Bears reports that a Bulgarian government-imposed shutdown of the Lukoil-owned Burgas refinery threatens to create an oil crisis in the country, and goes on to...
Russia: Summer Brings Death
Vadim Nikitin at Foreign Policy Association observes that death tolls in Russia seem to rise during the summer, from terrorism, accidents, disasters and other reasons.
Russia: Political Campaigning Degenerates
Edmund Downie at Foreign Policy Passport satirizes ongoing political campaigning in Russia for Putin and Medvedev, which play on sex and power.
Russia: Policeman that Promised to “Rob and Kill” Dismissed
A policeman that was caught on camera saying that if he would be dismissed he would “go to the streets to rip, rob, and kill” (video [ru]) was dismissed, lenta.ru...
Russia: While LiveJournal Experiences DDoS Attack (Again), Users to Twitter and Facebook
LJ-user igrick (head of LiveJournal development team) publishes [ru] (the link might be temporary unavailable) evidence of another serious DDoS attack against the platform. Roem.ru, on the other hand, brings up...
Russia: Megafon/Yandex Text Message Leak
Svetlana Gladkova of Profy writes that “one of the largest Russian mobile carriers [Megafon] and the leading Russian search engine [Yandex] need to explain quite a lot of things to...
Russia: Bloggers Find Street Shooter
Bloggers across the Russian Internet were quick to respond with posts and information after well-known photo-blogger Dmitry Ternovsky was shot at recently on a highway in the southeast of Moscow. Ashley Cleek details the story.
Belarus: East and West and Nothing in Between?
"East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." This chronically misused Kipling phrase seems to catch the realities for an increasing number of Belarusians, who, waking to a wild and hostile world, are asking: "Who cares about Belarus?"
Russia: Upsides to Tandemocracy
Edward Lozansky at Russia Blog argues that so called Tandemocracy – power sharing – between Russia's President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, on the whole has had positive effects for...
Russia: Questioning Emigration
Anatoly Karlin of Sublime Oblivion questions whether there is a second wave of Russian emigration, instead seeing this as a Russophobic myth and continues this theme by posting a translation...
Russia: Medvedev's Judicial Reform
Gordon M. Hahn of Russia: Other Points of View argues that, despite the Khodorkovsky case, the Russian legal system is improving as a result of President Medvedev's judicial reform work.
Russia: “Double-Entry Bookkeeping” in Moscow State University
Blogger Vladimir Varfolomeev writes [ru] about strange occurrences during the entry exams to the prestigious Journalism Department of the Moscow State University. Varfolomeev brings up a story of the entrant...
Russia: Envisioning the “Cloud Democracy” Utopia
'Cloud Democracy' is the title of the new book written by Leonid Volkov and Fyodor Krasheninnikov, two political bloggers from the Urals region of Russia. The book displays the authors' vision on how a system of 'future' democratic governance can be built with the help of online tools.
Russia: Beer Considered Alcohol
Kyle Keeton of Windows to Russia turns attention to a new Russian law that finally defines beer as alcohol in the country.
