Stories about Russia from December, 2008
Russia: Police Raid on St. Pete's Memorial
Sean's Russia Blog wrote on the police raid of the human rights organization “Memorial” in St. Petersburg earlier this month – here and here. At OpenDemocracy.net, Tatiana Kosinova “itemises the material” confiscated during the raid.
Russia: December History Highlights
Some of the Russian/Soviet history December highlights at De Rebus Antiquis Et Novis: Birobidzhan demographics; Cherubina de Gabriak and the duel between Maximilian Voloshin and Nikolay Gumilyov; Vladimir Gilyarovsky; the Soviet war in Afghanistan; and a cookbook by Elena Molokhovets.
Russia, China: Slang Dictionary
IZO links to LJ user du-jingli (RUS), who has scanned four pages from the 916-page Russian-Chinese Slang Dictionary and has so far received nearly 500 comments. (Warning: the post contains obscenities, in Russian and in Chinese.)
Russia: Nikolay Ozerov
De Rebus Antiquis Et Novis writes about Nikolay Ozerov, a legendary Soviet sportscaster and tennis champion.
Russia: Kandinsky Prize Winner
IZO writes about Alexei Belyaev-Gintovt, the winner of the Kandinsky Prize.
Russia: Profile of a Chechen Human Rights Lawyer
At OpenDemocracy.net, Anastasia Valeeva writes about a Chechen human rights lawyer who heads the “Memorial” office in Urus-Martan.
Russia: Aleksiy II
Updates on the media and Russian blogosphere reports on the death of Aleksiy II, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia – at IZO. Stella Rock of OpenDemocracy.net writes about the late Patriarch's legacy. Window on Eurasia writes on Aleksiy II's legacy, too, and discusses the patriarch's potential successors.
Eritrea: Russian literary ties
Semantic Eritrea reports that the government of the Russian Federation has decided to cement the connections between Eritrea and Russia by erecting a monument of bronze to famed poet Alexander Pushkin, as well as a Pushkin Centre in the Eritrean capital of Asmara. Pushkin's Eritrean connection comes from his great...
Video:What image opened your eyes to human rights?
The sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is on December 10th, and Witness' The Hub team has put together a video that responds to the question: What images have opened your eyes to Human Rights? The video is online right now and with it they are asking all of us to participate by showing and telling the world about the power images have had in making us care about Human Rights.
Russia: Photos from Politkovskaya's Murder Trial
Photos from Anna Politkovskaya's murder trial – by LJ user vorobieva-irina (RUS).
Russia: Blogging the Crisis
IZO links to “a crisis blog tracking lay-offs (Sokratili, in Russian)” and translates a quote from it: “in some departments of Mayak [radio station] 40% have been laid off immediately, at gazeta.ru [online paper] 50%, at rbk [business paper] nearly 2/3 have been sacked.”
Russia: “Renat+Ainara=Love”
Russian bloggers discuss Moscow's changing ethnic composition.
Russia: An Icon of Stalin
Window on Eurasia writes about a controversy involving an Orthodox priest in a town near St. Petersburg who put up “an icon showing the figure of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, with some believers and Communists viewing this as simple justice and others as an indication that many Russians have lost...
Russia: A Church in Saudi Arabia?
Window on Eurasia reports: “The king of Saudi Arabia has announced that he is ready to support the construction of a mosque and Islamic cultural center in Moscow, a city with only four mosques for its more than two million Muslims. In response and probably to block this, Orthodox Christians...
Former Soviet Union: Lines and Civil Society
Window on Eurasia writes that the Soviet citizens’ “experience with Soviet lines blocks rise of civil society today.”
Russia: Nord Stream
White Sun of the Desert writes about the “Russian threat to scrap the controversial Nord Stream pipeline project, which would supply Russian gas to Germany via the Baltic Sea, bypassing the Baltic states.”
Russia: “Autopsy of an Opposition Party”
At Robert Amsterdam's blog, Oleg Kozlovsky writes about the deal between leaders of “one of the two remaining democratic parties in Russia” and the Kremlin.
Russia: Beslan Terrorists Were Federal Agents?
A Step At A Time translates an item on the allegations that “Beslan terrorists were Russian federal agents.”
Russia: A “Dying Country” or a World Leader?
Streetwise Professor is wondering about Russia's future: “First, how is it objectively possible for a country with a rapidly shrinking population to assume world leadership […]? Second, subjectively, how can large numbers of people believe that a dying country can achieve such status?”
Russia: Koporye
Eagle and the Bear writes about a trip to the fortress of Koporye.
Russia: “Political Mathematics”
De Rebus Antiquis Et Novis writes about the math factor of this year's constitutional changes in Russia and the politicians’ “most stupid explanations for their controversial decisions”: “Is it that me and Grigori Perelman are the only Russians who understand that the only way to ‘ensure a difference in time...
