| March 25, 6:00 PM Forget Switzerland. Sochi, Anyone? |
As the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a ski suit stands on a mountaintop, he stares thoughtfully into the distance. He is surrounded by beaming compatriots and the natural beauty of Krasnaya Polyana – the view of the Caucasus mountain tops swelling from the Black Sea resort of Sochi. |
March 6, 6:00 AM Rigor Mortis Sets In Around Politkovskaya Murder Case |
One month ago we told you about a key piece of evidence in the murder case of Kremlin critic and human rights journalist Anna Politkovskaya: a video presentation allegedly containing footage of Politkovskaya’s assassin. The trouble then was that the video "went missing" and the trial was put on hold while somebody looked around for a copy. According to British newspaper The Guardian, however, the video itself is as baffling as the fact that it had been “misplaced.” For one thing, it shows a confident assassin entering Politkovskaya’s secured apartment building wearing one cap, and exiting in another. And that’s just a taste of the sloppy and bewildering trial proceedings, which famously ended February 19 with the unanimous acquittal of the three men accused of aiding in the assassination. Reportedly, even Politkovskaya’s children felt that given the “fiasco” of the court procedures, a guilty verdict was inconceivable. |
March 6, 12:00 AM 03/05/09: Accidental Kleptomania and Other Silly Things |
The Russian blogosphere conveniently, if bafflingly, revolves around LJ. Each week, RUSSIA! scans the chatter and brings you the top five topics. |
March 4, 12:00 AM There She Is, Miss Nuclear Propagandist |
Every year, millions of girls are forced to make the awful choice between being a physicist or being a beauty queen. Thankfully, in Russia, where nuclear energy sector employees can compete in their own web-based beauty pageant, it’s possible to be both. Each year since 2004, industry women of the former Soviet Union ages 18 to 35 are urged to submit their photos and fill out a questionnaire describing their interests (i.e. “fitness, neutron monitors and teasing my bangs”) in hopes of becoming the next Miss Atom. An IQ test isn’t necessary to enter as, according to official contest guidelines, “It’s quite obvious what [kind of] IQ a nuclear-employed person must have.” Yes, but who are the brains behind this operation? |
March 4, 5:00 PM Con Man Predicts America’s Breakup, Is Available For Parties |
More than a decade ago, Igor Panarin, current Dean of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Moscow’s Diplomatic Academy, launched what would become a series of increasingly entertaining predictions about the imminent dissolution of the United States. It wasn’t until the current financial crisis, however, that Panarin’s conjectures gained a touch more relevance and, therefore, more airtime. Unsurprisingly, Russian state media are all over the guy, but Panarin’s name has also garnered celebrity in the West thanks to the likes of Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, who apparently get a kick out of fueling those cold, cold flames. And who can blame them? So this Tuesday, apparently operating on the no-publicity-is-bad-publicity principle, the Russians invited the Associated Press and other foreign media outlets to feast on Panarin’s latest thoughts. |
March 4, 12:00 AM Video Of The Week: Spam Nation |
Last month, we celebrated the news that Russia is the world’s leading producer of spam e-mail. This week, The Onion riffs on that same idea with a video report about the fictional spam-producing nation of Koy4goff, capital Affordable Paradise. |
March 4, 12:00 AM The Audacity Of Spring Fashion ’09 |
Mustachioed darling of the Moscow fashion world Denis Simachev is famous for juxtaposing Russian folklore with couture flippancy. Hence his trademark “Putin’s face framed by a stitched garland” t-shirt. But for his Spring/Summer ’09 fashion line, Simachev is laying off the khohloma floral prints he's relied on for years, and tapping into another Russian tradition — substance abuse. |
March 4, 12:00 AM Book Review: Murderers In Mausoleums |
An otherwise intriguing account of a train trip through Central Asia is marred by careless, overwrought prose. |
March 4, 12:00 AM Did Medvedev Give Khodorkovsky A Lift To His Trial? |
The meeting sounds like a screenwriter’s dream: incarcerated ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, flying across Siberia to the former’s trial in Moscow — on the latter’s presidential plane. Strange as it seems, eyewitnesses who saw the plane before takeoff believe it really happened. |
March 3, 12:00 AM The Medvedevs: Best In Show, Best In General |
Russian first lady Svetlana Medvedeva has been named the most successful businesswoman in Russia, according to a poll conducted by a shadowy organization called the Institute of Politics and Business. And if that weren't eyebrow-raising enough, now we find out that the "first dogs" — two English setters named Joly and Daniel — just claimed first-place titles at the Eurasia-2009 dog show in Moscow. Meanwhile, Aldu, the Medvedevs' golden retriever, won a silver. Only silver? Aldu, you've let us all down. |
March 3, 12:00 AM “We Don’t Wanna Put In” Won’t Go Away |
When Georgia made a thinly-veiled anti-Putin disco act its official Eurovision candidate last month, we knew there was a cat fight coming. We weren't disappointed. Celebrities and ordinary Russians alike are expressing their outrage over the song "We Don't Wanna Put In," and there's surely more scratching to come. |
March 2, 12:00 AM New Film To Combine "Sex And The City," Gross Russian Guys |
Russia already has its share of Sex and the City corollaries. First there was the dubbed U.S. original (translated as "Sex in the Big City"). Then came The Balzac Age [Бальзаковский Возраст], a show about four women who dissect each other's love lives at Moscow's banyas and cafes. And now they're bending the genre with Love in the Big City [Любовь в большом городе], a film about a trio of horny Russian guys living in New York. The trailer kicks off with doppelgängers of Carrie Bradshaw and Co. strolling through Central Park as the three protagonists jog by in silly windbreakers. Cue the pervy voice-over. |
March 2, 12:00 AM The Great Kommunalka Extinction |
The fabled communal apartment, or kommunalka, is seeing its dying days in Moscow. Last year alone brought the liquidation of 3,000 communal apartments, with dwellers dispatched to private apartments by government initiative. By 2014, in the midst of the financial crisis, the Russian government promises to fund an additional two-stage breakup of communal apartments in the city center. For comparison, 1997 data showed 151,000 functioning kommunalkas in Moscow; this year that number is 58,000. |
February 28, 12:00 AM Death By Umbrella |
In 1978, Bulgarian dissident and playwright Georgi Markov was leaving the BBC London office where he worked and heading home. Waiting at a crowded bus stop, Markov felt a sudden sharp pain in his thigh and turned to see a large man bending down to pick up a black umbrella. The man apologized in a thick foreign accent and hopped into a taxi. Markov found a growing red pimple where he had felt the sting, and came down with a fever that night. Four days later, he was dead, the victim of one of the most diabolical assassinations in modern history — the Umbrella Incident. |
February 27, 12:00 AM 02/26/09: Russian Hentai From 1906 And Other Distractions |
The Russian blogosphere conveniently, if bafflingly, revolves around LJ. Each week, RUSSIA! scans the chatter and brings you the top five topics. |
