| February 9, 4:00 PM What To Wear To The New Cold War |
Officers in Russia's Far East played fashion critics to a haute-couture designer this week when their unit tested out his new military uniforms. The Defense Ministry scored some much-needed cool points by commissioning Moscow's premier fashion designer, Valentin Yudashkin, to update their look. The theme of the new collection is "comfort," which we assume won out just narrowly to "Hollywood glamour of the '30s and '40s." |
February 11, 11:00 AM Sochi Beats Bong News, Hands Down |
If you think Michael Phelps ripping the bong is an Olympic scandal, you are in for a treat. We couldn’t care less about Vancouver 2010, or London 2012, we’re talking Sochi 2014, baby. Russia’s Black Sea resort town has seen major upheaval — in every sense of the word — since its induction into the Olympic Hosts Club in 2007. But, even after a series of explosions left one person maimed, and a group of Greenpeace advocates and environmentalists went off about the environmental cost of hosting the Olympics there, not to mention that whole proximity-to-Georgia thing, Sochi 2014 is still a go. Let's take a look at some of the measures being implemented to ensure it will remain that way over the next five years. |
February 11, 12:00 AM Rolling R Update: Cate Killin' It |
There are only a few days left to vote (via comments right here, on YouTube, or, if you’re a big shot, on the password-protected Snob website) in our Rolling R poll, which will bestow the coveted award “For General Excellence in Acting Russian” on one of the five Hollywood performances of 2008. Let’s see which way the public opinion is leaning in the meantime. |
February 11, 12:00 AM Book Review: The Great Gamble |
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February 9, 12:00 AM We Stole Your Money, But Wasn’t It Fun? Remembering MMM |
In light of the pending Bernie Madoff indictment, we thought we’d revisit one of our favorite Ponzi schemes: MMM. The Mavrodi brothers, Sergei and Vyacheslav, along with third “M” Marina Muravieva, scammed their countrymen out of roughly $1.5 billion in the mid-’90s by promising investors a ridiculous 1,000% return on what would now be called "micro" investments. They were so good at promotion that by 1994, Boris Yeltsin had to issue a decree forbidding companies to advertise based on projected earnings. But while Madoff’s securities fraudulence leaves us with only sorrow, anger and debt, MMM left behind a rich cultural legacy in addition to those things. We’re talking, of course, about their TV commercials. |
February 9, 4:00 PM Guinea Pig Saga Highlights Flaws In Bureaucracy, Everything |
This shouldn’t even be news, but, lo, it’s a Russian media spectacle. Naturally, we have to feed the shit-storm, too. Right around the holiday season, small-town girl and Internet aficionado Nastya Ivliyeva, 13, felt a case of the wants coming on. Specifically, Nastya wanted a new guinea pig to serve as companion to her existing rodent. With gift-giving season just around the corner, the girl could think of no person more able to make her wishes come true than Russia’s president. So little Nastya shot Uncle Dmitry an e-mail via his interactive website asking for a new pet. Really, you’d think the Kremlin would have a spam filter by now, considering. Instead, a series of downright Chekhovian developments followed. |
February 8, 4:00 PM Russians Wooed By Financial Clairvoyants, Con Artists. As Usual. |
Have Russians learned nothing from Grigory Rasputin? Psychic friends are not real friends! But with financial ruin looming for many, fortune-telling has become a respectable profession again, with clients shelling out as much as $137 per reading in hopes of a heads up on exchange rates or catastrophic blunders to come. Any tent in a storm, we guess. |
February 8, 4:00 PM Russia In Survival Mode: You Scratch My Back, I Sell Yours |
Let's face it: Russians are hardwired to endure the economic crisis better than Westerners. In fact, if you survived the Soviet Union and the turbulent years following its collapse, you are so used to a dysfunctional economy that the prosperous '00s were what felt jarring. So this weekend, when The New York Times reported that “barter is back,” we can’t say we were surprised. But we were certainly intrigued by some of the new ways in which Russians are going about their daily swapping. |
February 6, 4:00 PM 02/06/09: Teetotalers, Homophobes and Feminists Blogging Together |
The Russian blogosphere conveniently, if bafflingly, revolves around LJ. Each week, RUSSIA! scans the chatter and brings you the top five topics. |
February 6, 4:00 PM Constipated, Hunchbacked, and Big-Eared: The Zaporozhets |
You may recall a short scene from the 1995 film GoldenEye, starring Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, in which 007 travels to Russia to meet up with a bumbling CIA agent played by Joe Don Baker. While the agents talk, Baker bangs at a squat little blue vehicle with a sledgehammer to start the engine. “Nice car,” Bond sniffs. The American replies, “She’s an ugly little bitch, but she gets you there.” Little did Western viewers know that this “ugly little bitch” was one of the Soviet Union's most recognizable, loved, and ridiculed cars: the Zaporozhets. |
February 6, 9:00 AM You've Got a Mail! How To Know If Your Spammer Is Russian |
Have you noticed your junk folder filling up faster lately? A recent study by the Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab reveals what we've long suspected: Russia is the world’s number one spam distributor and the leading innovator in virus technology. While China still made more viruses in 2008, Russia’s were more complex. But there was no contest when it came to spam: Russia produces 22 percent of the world’s junk-mail messages to the United States’ 16 percent. You may wonder how a country with so few computers and a non-Latin alphabet can manage to distribute so much spam. Well, a lot of Russian spam is written in English. In fact, there may be some sitting in your spam inbox right now! Read on to learn the telltale signs. |
February 6, 12:00 AM Putin Lays All His Love, Hate On ABBA Tribute Band (Update: Not Really) |
It was an insider operation never intended for public eyes, or ears for that matter. On January 22, 2009, Vladimir Putin’s people flew in ABBA tribute band Björn Again from London, drove the bewildered musicians 200 miles north of Moscow, and detained them in military barracks until further notice. Only as the band took stage the next evening did reality sink in: Sitting on a sofa shrouded by lace curtain was none other than Russia’s Prime Minister and a lady companion (possibly his wife). What followed was a 15-song set of ABBA’s hits punctuated by Putin’s shouts of “Bravo!” Let the record show, this blogger would have killed (or spied for Nashi, or whatever) to be there. |
February 5, 4:00 PM Russia's Young Narks Not What They Used To Be |
Pro-Kremlin youth group, Nashi (“Ours” or “Our Kind” if translated) has made headlines for everything from suspected fascism to confirmed synchronized breeding. Now, a disgruntled Nashi member admits to infiltrating an opposition group. In a tell-all with the Moscow Times, the disillusioned activist says she coordinated 30 young informers to join and subsequently rat out banned opposition organizations and their members. Yabloko had a feeling those new interns were too good to be true! |
February 4, 4:00 PM Putin Treats Big Shots To Big Apartments, On The House |
It’s official! Bureaucrats are getting unwarranted perks from Vladimir Putin in broad daylight now, economic meltdown be damned. And not mere kickbacks, but pimped-out apartments — financed with taxpayer rubles, of course. All an official needs to be eligible is one year of government service under his belt. To clarify, “official,” can mean anything from a minister in the federal branch to a clerk who just hangs around the office kissing ass and drinking buttermilk. And yes, all of this comes courtesy of the Russian taxpayer. |
February 4, 12:00 AM Aeroflot Discovers Some New Symptoms Of Stroke |
Aeroflot has issued an apology about December's drunken pilot fiasco. And in typical Aeroflot fashion, it's pretty half-assed. How can they say they’re apologizing but still not admit that the pilot was drunk? A spokesperson told the Moscow Times, “We accept that his physical condition was not good,” once again implying that he’d suffered a stroke. Slurred speech and impaired walking, granted, are symptoms of both intoxication and stroke. But considering he celebrated his birthday the night before, which do you think it was? Add to that the fact that, when accused of being drunk, he turned sheepish and promised not to touch anything. It seems Aeroflot finds the prospect of being written off as drunk Russians so terrifying, they would rather have us believe that they’re letting stroke victims fly their planes. |
