· December, 2012

Stories about Russia from December, 2012

This December, Russia's Kids Aren't Alright

RuNet Echo

As billions of people across the world awoke today to open gifts and be with their families, three of Russian Duma Deputy Sergei Zhelezniak's four daughters rolled out of bed to find that intimate photographs from their social network accounts had been published in a muckraking attack on their father. Navalny's decision to target Zhelezniak's children has split the RuNet into camps of supporters and critics.

25 December 2012

Who Supports Russia's Ban on American Adoptions?

RuNet Echo

A slight majority of Russian internet users support the ban on adoptions by Americans. 50% do not understand the motivation for international adoptions, and 60% think that such adoptions endanger children. Who are these people, and what are they saying?

24 December 2012

Tempers Flare As Court Frees Dagestani Boxer Who Killed Russian Teenager

RuNet Echo

Rasul Mirzaev, a 26-year-old mixed martial arts world champion from Dagestan, is a convicted killer. His victim was a 19-year-old Russian man, Ivan Agafonov, whom he murdered in a scuffle outside a nightclub in August 2011. On November 27, 2012, a Moscow court let him walk free, after a little more than a year in custody. The RuNet has responded with often vehement emotion.

20 December 2012

On Putin's Address to the Federal Assembly

RuNet Echo

RuNet Echo contributor Donna Welles compiles [en] netizen reactions to President Putin's Address to the Federal Assembly (ru, en), highlighting which passages best resonated with bloggers and how they interpreted and...

15 December 2012

Russian Documentary Filmmakers Abandon YouTube After Police Investigation

RuNet Echo

On December 12, filmmakers halted the online publication of one of Russia's most curious documentary efforts: "Srok" ("The Term"), a video project hosted on YouTube and LiveJournal, chronicling and capturing the events of the opposition movement. The project's suspension came after federal investigators searched the home of one of its directors.

15 December 2012

Russian eDemocracy: There and Back Again

RuNet Echo

Just like last winter, Russia's opposition leaders are involved in negotiations with Moscow city authorities to determine where an upcoming rally will take place. This time, however, they are asking their online electorate to pitch in.

10 December 2012

Remembering the Night the Russian Opposition Would Prefer to Forget

RuNet Echo

Yesterday, The New Times published a retrospective on last winter's mass protests, highlighting how the Internet played a vital role in mobilizing thousands of people in a city that, until then, could only produce a few hundred demonstrators at a time. The middle class, the youth, and the technophiles of Moscow had awakened and the possibilities seemed endless. Then came the schism.

4 December 2012