11 Jul 2012
Everyone enjoys reading about himself. This wretched egomania fuels the celebrity phenomenon that is the lifeblood of modern society, and why not! So you can imagine my delight to awake this morning to Catherine Fitzpatrick’s latest four-thousand-word-long masterpiece — an attack on me, my sinister Kremlin sympathies, and the outfit (Global Voices) where I recently signed on as [...]
22 Feb 2012
Yesterday, the town of Lermontov (located in Russia’s North Caucasus) experienced what some are calling “a small revolution.” As the state municipal building was preparing to close for the evening, a collection of townsfolk and former members of the city council gathered and eventually forced their way into the main lobby. Once inside, reporters accompanying [...]
2 Nov 2011
Last week, a slew of Aleksei Navalny’s personal emails leaked onto the Web. The emails were originally available at http://navalnymail.kz/ but that site is now dead. For those of you with moral qualms about reading over this man’s private correspondence, it’s worth noting that Navalny himself has invited the public to have a look: To read or [...]
18 Oct 2011
Last month, someone writing under the pseudonym Gleb Vlasov created a LiveJournal account and posted a single article with several revelations and accusations against FSB General Oleg Feoktistov. Feoktistov, First Deputy Head of the FSB’s 9th Division, the Internal Security Directorate (or ‘USB’), earned his current position (according to Vlasov) by leading the 2007-2008 investigation of Aleksandr Bul’bov, [...]
14 Jul 2011
Last September, the rock group Leningrad released a controversial song about the much debated Khimki Forest. The music video featured a violent medley of famous cartoon characters fighting a grand battle royale. The recent skirmish in the town of Sagra was far more serious and deadly than Leningrad’s comic parody, but it too has inspired [...]
25 Jun 2011
On June 22, 2011, Russia’s Justice Ministry rejected the opposition’s latest attempt to register an official political party. The People’s Freedom Party “For Russia without Lawlessness and Corruption,” otherwise known as PARNAS, was officially turned away for a small handful of reasons. The most discussed issue has been the presence of “dead souls” on PARNAS’ [...]
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