Stories about Russia from November, 2007
Russia: “Rashn for Dummies”
Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears translates “a double plus good lexicon of newspeak in Moscow’s dangerously jaded fashion community,” originally published in the Bolshoi Gorod.
Russia: Books and Periodicals
Russian Blog recommends books and periodicals to read while in Russia.
Russia: Non-Vegetable Voters and Other Election News
Two weeks remain before the Russian Duma election, and the presidential vote isn't too far, either. Below is the first quick review of the blogosphere's election coverage.
Russia: Bloggers Expose a Pharmaceutical Scam
Thousands of Russian bloggers have united to combat a pharmaceutical scam that tried to persuade Russian pensioners to spend around half of their annual pension on a course of 'anti-arthritis' drugs that were actually little more than vitamin pills. In the course of their campaign, bloggers have not only publicised the scam nationwide, they've forced the notoriously unresponsive Russian government to act.
Russia: North Caucasus Situation
A Russian general with “a reputation for brutality in Moscow’s Chechen campaigns” warns that “the security situation across the Northern Caucasus is deteriorating rapidly,” Window on Eurasia reports.
Russia: Moscow Car Crashes
Two-Zero posts a video of car crashes in Moscow.
Russia: Khodorkovsky on the Election
Sean's Russia Blog posts a translation of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's letter to a Russian blogger, in which he explains why it is necessary to vote in the upcoming parliamentary election.
Russia: Politkovskaya Diary
Sean's Russia Blog reviews Anna Politkovskaya posthumous diary: “The misery in the book is so thick that it is difficult to isolate what Anna Politkovskaya stands for.”
Russia, Ukraine: Oil and Oil Spill
Sean's Russia Blog writes about the recent disaster in the Kerch Strait and the “ecological costs” of Russia's “dependency on oil exports.”
Russia: Ulan-Ude
Russian Blog writes about “dostoprimechatelnosti” of Ulan-Ude, one of which is the biggest Lenin head in the world.
Russia: Zenit – Champion!
Megan Case mentions the long-awaited victory of St. Petersburg's football team in the national league championship: “After the game, the city went wild – it felt a bit like New...
Russia: Parachute Inventor
De Rebus Antiquis Et Novis writes about Gleb Kotelnikov, the man who patented the first knapsack parachute in 1911.
Russia: Moscow City and Its ‘Gastarbeiter’ (Photos)
Charles Ganske of Russia Blog goes up to the 35th floor of the Federation Tower and takes pictures of the Moscow City, “the largest construction project in Europe.” LJ user...
Russia: Photos of a 1902 Building in St. Pete
LJ user an-drevv takes photos inside the 1902 residential building on the corner of Zagorodny Prospekt and Zvenigorodskaya Ulitsa in St. Petersburg. The building's condition could have been worse, the...
Russia: “How Fascists and Racists ‘Get’ Web2.0″
Evgeny Morozov writes about “the ugly face of cyberactivism in Russia,” using one of the top-ranking posts in the Russian blogosphere “to highlight how much user-generated racism is out there.”
Ukraine, Russia: Ecological Disaster in Kerch Strait
Ukrainiana writes about the ecological disaster in Kerch Strait.
Russia: Books on “The New Cold War”
The Economist‘s Edward Lucas seeks help in promoting his new book, due to be published in February 2008 – The New Cold War: How the Kremlin Menaces Russia and the...
Russia: Chewing Gum in the Soviet Union
Like a million other things, chewing gum wasn't freely available in the Soviet Union. In the post translated below, a Russian blogger recalls a childhood experience involving chewing gum - zhvachka - that appears comical now, but must have been rather traumatic 30 years ago.
Russia: Aleksei Pichugin's Trial Blogger Nominated for the BOBs
For the second year in a row, LJ user sivilia-1 (Russian journalist Vera Vasilieva) is taking part in Deutsche Welle's Best of the Blogs Awards (the BOBs). Her blog is devoted to coverage of the case of Aleksei Pichugin, former security chief of former oil giant Yukos, sentenced to life in prison for involvement in at least three murders; his arrest in 2003 marked the beginning of the Kremlin's attack against Mikhail Khodorkovsky. In the post translated below, sivilia-1 explains to her critics the choice of her blogging subject matter.
Georgia: A True Democrat?
La Russophobe says that the decision by Mikhail Saakashili to hold an early presidential election is sign that the Georgian president is a “true democrat.” The blog argues that the...
Poland: Schengen and Migrant Workers
“Thousands of Ukrainians work as nannies in Poland – you are a social leper in some circles of Warsaw if you haven’t got your very own shiny, low maintenance, Ukrainian...
