Latest posts by Alexey Sidorenko from November, 2010
Russia: Competing Models of Internet Politics

RuNet becomes an arena of the competition of at least two concepts of the usage of the cyberspace: "United Russia"'s formula "Internet instead of democracy" and independent, grass-roots formula "Internet as a free environment for civil society initiatives." Alexey Sidorenko analyzed the recent trends of the role of the Internet in contemporary Russian politics.
Russia: Online Cartoon Against Corruption in Road Construction

Antimult studio published [RUS] an informative and entertaining cartoon on corruption in road construction in Russia. Together with usage of the old technologies, corruption causes 4 times higher price of...
Russia: Phenomenal Growth of Facebook and Twitter in 2010

Facebook and Twitter audience in Russia grew 3-4 times since the beginning of the year, Vedomosti cites [RUS] comScore data. By the end of 2010, almost 6 mln of Russian netizens...
Russia: 25% of Registered Cyrillic Domains Suspended

Coordination Center for .rf (.рф) domain (ccTLD) has temporarily suspended [RUS] all domains registered by Ru-Center registrar following the scandals with the closed auctions for the most lucrative Cyrillic domains....
Russia: Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Facebook Account Banned and Un-Banned

On November 20, 2010 Facebook has suspended Mikhail Khodorkovsky‘s private account allegedly due to usage violations. It took four days to convince the social network to un-ban it. Anton Nossik...
Russia: Bashkortostan President Meets Loyal Bloggers

JournalUfa comments [RUS] on the recent meeting of Rustem Khamitov, the new president (governor) of Bashkortostan republic, with the bloggers. Only loyal bloggers were allowed to come, plus several controversial...
Russia: LiveJournal Suspends Another Independent Blogger

LiveJournal abuse team has suspended account of Stanislav Sadalsky, an actor and a popular independent blogger. Sadalsky claims he can access his account but can't post new posts at stanis-sadal...
Russia: New Portal Launches WebCam Discussion On Police Reform

“Talking heads,” a new socio-political portal, presents a debate on police reform in an unusual format: expert webcam chat. The idea of the website is to make a cultured, person-to-person...
Russia: Oleg Kashin is Back Online

Oleg Kashin, recently recovered from artificially inducted coma, published the first post [RUS] entitled: “I have nothing to say now but I will thank everyone later.” A post with just...
Russia: Controversy as Cyrillic Domains Hit the Open Market

This post is part of our special coverage Languages and the Internet. On November 11, 2010, registration for Internet domains in Cyrillic script, the writing system used by Russian and...
Russia-France: Antifascists Rally for Khimki Forest in Louvre

French antifascists shot a video [FR/EN] of a protest action in Louvre, France. Activists demanded cancellation of the highway that would cross Khimki forest park as well as stopping prosecution...
Russia: Members of the Anarchist Art Group “Voina” Arrested

2 members of the notorious anarchist art group “Voina” (“War”) have been arrested in Moscow due to accusations of organization of a hooligan group, fontanka.ru reported [RUS]. Turning over a...
Russia: Pro-Kremlin Youth Movement's Programm Resembles Nazi

Bloggers compare the programme of pro-Kremlin youth movement “Stal” (Steel) with Goebbels‘ “Ten National-Socialist Commandments.” The programme of the local branch of the movement includes such slogans as “Russia's enemies...
Russia: Vkontakte Social Network Recognized by RIAA as a Pirate Website

Torrentfreak writes about the recent inclusion of Vkontakte, Russia's most popular social network, to RIAA's “Notorious Markets Review.” Site's “functionality is specifically designed to enable members to upload music and video...
Russia: Pictures of Eid al-Adha Holiday in Moscow

Bloggers Drugoi [RUS] and Ottenki_serogo [RUS] share photos from the Qurban Bayram (Eid al-Adha) religious holiday. After Moscow accepted tens of thousands of guest workers from Central Asia, Muslim holidays...
Russia: Anti-Corruption Blogger Claims Officials Stole 4 Billion Dollars

Alexey Navalny‘s website navalny.ru is down after publishing materials on Transneft, Russian oil pipeline operator. The compromising materials claiming that top officials were involved in stealing over 4 billion dollars...
Russia: Soccer Hooligans Might Be Involved in Assault on Oleg Kashin

Investigative blogger Anticompromat re-posts [RUS] a new version of attack on Oleg Kashin. He quotes LJ-user cleric_r saying that the assault might be connected with soccer fan groups. Kashin knew...
Kazakhstan: LiveJournal Suspends Oppositioner's Account

LiveJournal has suspended account of Rakhat Aliev, Kazakh opposition politician and a former president Nazarbaev‘s son-in-law, LJ-user Dolboeb reports. Previously Kazakhstan blocked entire LiveJournal in order to silence Aliev. At...
Russia: More Assaults on Journalists

Igor Podgorny reports on the attack on Sergey Mikhailov, Saratov journalist, that took place on November 5th, 2010. Kommersant writes about another attack on Anatoliy Adamchuk, journalist from Zhukovskiy city (Moscow...
Russia: Bloggers Discuss Attack on Journalist Oleg Kashin

The brutal attack on Oleg Kashin, a prominent Russian blogger and journalist, became topic #1 in RuNet several hours after it had occurred. Kashin is still in a medically induced coma; his legs, jaws and fingers are broken, one of the fingers on his hand has been amputated. The main questions that the bloggers are asking now are, "Who did this?" and "Will the attackers and their patrons be punished?" While there are at least three possible answers to the first question, there's no answer for the second one.
Russia: Mapping North-Caucasian Blogosphere

LJ-user timag82 together with a_sult_h and pcnariman analyzed [RUS] North Caucasian blogs. Thorough research of 528 blogs is divided into regional blogospheres. Discussion of the research is here [RUS]. Daghestani bloggers lead...