· April, 2011

Stories about Russia from April, 2011

Poland: Remembering April 10, 2010

  11 April 2011

Politics, Economy, Society shares memories of April 10, 2010, the day the Polish President and nearly a hundred other people were killed in a plane crash near Smolensk, Russia.

Poland, Russia: Smolensk Plane Crash, One Year On

  10 April 2011

On OpenDemocracy.net, Adam Szostkiewicz shares thoughts on the Polish-Russian relations one year after the plane crash near Smolensk that killed Poland’s president and nearly a hundred other dignitaries.

Russia: FSB Representative Urges to Ban Skype, Gmail, and Hotmail

RuNet Echo  8 April 2011

Alexander Andreyechkin, head of Information and Special Communications Protection Center of Federal Security Service (FSB), said that uncontrollable use of Skype, Gmail, and Hotmail ‘can lead to a massive threat to Russia's security” and urged to ban these services, RIA Novosti reported [ru]. On the same day, anonymous Kremlin representative...

Russia: Distributed Denial of LiveJournal

RuNet Echo  8 April 2011

Russian online space is getting more violent. The last series of attacks on LiveJournal blogging platform has proved this once again. Whatever are the reasons, the attack on LiveJournal is the attack on online speech in Russia. The bloggers, however, share responsibility for the situation.

Russia: Communist campaign against tandemocracy

RuNet Echo  7 April 2011

Vadim Nikitin of Foreign Policy‘s Russia Blog discusses a campaign video [RU] for the 2012 presidential elections, allegedly first posted on the Communist Party website, which portrays the Putin-Medvedev tandemocracy as an apocalypse in the making.

Russia: RuNet Celebrates 17 Years Today

RuNet Echo  7 April 2011

Habrahabr-user kremlin reminds [ru] the world that on April 7, 1994 “.ru” domain had been included to IANA, root zone database. This means, today is the 17th birthday of the Russian Internet! Congratulations!

Russia: Compromising Photos of Saint-Petersburg Judge Leaked

RuNet Echo  7 April 2011

Blogger Yanvarlamov publishes private (and quite compromising) pictures [ru] of Alexey Kuznetsov, Saint-Petersburg judge famous for sentencing opposition activists. On the pictures, Kuznetsov is depicted as a heavy drinker and a person that can hardly be called a source of a reasonable judgement. Besides, on one of the pictures his colleague...

Russia: Majority of Russians Are Unaware of the Blogosphere

RuNet Echo  6 April 2011

Levada-center has published [ru] a survey poll results on how Russians use the Internet. 39 percent of users use it for entertainment, 27 percent use it to search information, 18 percent – to communicate. Answering the question which bloggers they trust most, respondents have pointed out president Medvedev… and prime-minister...

Russia: Anti-Government Slogans Published On a Hacked Soccer Club Website

RuNet Echo  6 April 2011

Blogger pilgrim67 publishes [ru] a screenshot of the “Zenit” soccer club website that has been hacked this morning (now restored). A hacker had defaced the website and posted pictures of Valentina Matvienko (mayor of Saint-Petersburg) and Vadim Tyulpanov (speaker of the city assembly), both members of “United Russia” party, and...

Russia: Tandem under the carpet

RuNet Echo  5 April 2011

Streetwise Professor discusses various scenarios on relations between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Premier Vladimir Putin against the backdrop of the most recent white paper [RU] of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov.

Russia: LiveJournal under attack

RuNet Echo  5 April 2011

Putin Watcher reports on how a cyberattack by DDOS and hacking against top blogs on LiveJournal, Russia's most popular blogging platform. This attack follows earlier incidents this year, aiming to knock out LiveJournal.

Russia: Online Fundraising Changes Transparency Standards in Politics

RuNet Echo  5 April 2011

Oleg Kozyrev, popular Russian blogger, writes [ru] about the effects of online fundraising (this year online opposition activists had fundraised nearly $230,000): 1. it improves transparency standards of opposition politicians, thus making them resistant to corruption allegations and criminal cases, 2. it brings activists closer to their supporters, 3. it makes...

Russia: Anti-Corruption iPad Application Beats “Angry Birds”

RuNet Echo  5 April 2011

iPad application for Rospil.info, Russian crowdsourcing anti-corruption service created by Alexey Navalny, has taken over [ru] “Angry Birds Rio HD Free” application in the Apple App market. The application has been created voluntarily (and free of charge) by Russian iPad app developers.