· April, 2006

Stories about Russia from April, 2006

Belarus & Russia: Traffic Police Stories

  18 April 2006

Due to certain unprofessionalism and corruption in their ranks, traffic police feature prominently in jokes and contemporary urban folklore of the former Soviet states. Below are three actual stories and reactions to them, posted in LiveJournal this month (translated from Russian). *** Minsk, Belarus (April 6, 2006) – This story...

Russia: Funding to Hamas

  17 April 2006

Tim Newman of White Sun of the Desert reports that Russia is planning to provide financial aid to Hamas: “For the last few years, much of Russia’s foreign policy has been a two step process: 1) See what the US is doing. 2) Do the opposite.”

Russia: Komsomol

  17 April 2006

Sean Guillory writes about Komsomol and its influence on today's political youth movements in Russia.

Russia: LJ/ZheZhe

  17 April 2006

Sergey Belyakov of Travel Russia! (formerly known as RUBLog) posts a note on the Russian LiveJournal world: ZheZhe, as it is known in Russian, is currently 274,763 users strong.

Russia: Chechen Children's Mysterious Illness

  14 April 2006

Bob Granico of Publius Pundit is calling to international health organizations to examine the Chechen children affected by a mysterious illness and investigate its causes: “Given that the children are not recovering, and that there is so much distrust on both sides of the issue, outside medical help is drastically...

Russia: Cell-Phone Protest in Chechnya

  13 April 2006

David McDuff A Step At A Time posts his translation of an article by Umalt Chadayev on a rally that took place in Grozny to protest against poor quality of local mobile network.

Russia: British Explorer Detained

  13 April 2006

Tim Newman of White Sun of the Desert writes about an obstacle on the route of Karl Bushby, a British explorer in his eighth year of walking around the world: he has been detained in Russia for entering the country without an entry visa.

Tajikistan: Working in Russia

  12 April 2006

“Tajik Boy” writes about racist attacks on foreigners in Russia, a situation that worries the many Tajiks who work in Russia or have a relative who does. He says that neither the Russian nor the Tajik governments pay enough attention to the situation.

Russia: VDNKh

  12 April 2006

Snowsquare.com posts pictures and text from the All-Russian Exhibition Center in Moscow, formerly known as VDNKh.

Russia: Comedian Mikhail Zadornov

  12 April 2006

W. Shedd of The Accidental Russophile posts a bio of Russian comedian Mikhail Zadornov and supplies a translation of two of his pieces: a Soviet-time “Conversation of a Rest Home Deputy Director with Guests on the Day of Their Arrival” and a more recent one, “Russian business, or the Eighth...

Russia: Grigoriy Oster

  11 April 2006

Raffi Aftandelian of maaskva: nashimi glazami translates a few poems by the Russian children's poet Grigoriy Oster, author of the Harmful Advice: A Book for Naughty Children and Their Parents.

Russia: Gorbachev's Intentions

  10 April 2006

Bob Granico of Publius Pundit points out how the Western media misinterpret Mikhail Gorbachev's intentions: “Gorbachev, in reality, worked hard during his time in power to preserve the Soviet Union, and he never intended for the captive republics to gain independence.”

Russia: Cheap’n’early DVDs

  6 April 2006

Konstantin Dlutskiy of Russian Marketing Blog reports on the long-awaited alternative to pirated DVDs: “Cheap’n’early DVDs from Universal Pictures cost 150-200 rubles per disc (~$5,5 – $7,2). They are of lower quality and are released only four weeks after the first night.”