Month: December 2009

December 23, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Dec 23, 2009

TODAY: Supreme Court annuls Lebedev arrest; Butyrka prisoner talks about his experiences; business as usual in Moscow despite harsh weather; mono-city of Revda to be closed down; START treaty speculation; Stalin, Gaidar. The presidium of Russia...
December 22, 2009

The Silver Lining of Unemployment

From a WSJ piece on Russia’s steep increases in unemployment as the year comes to end: Growth in joblessness could actually be the result of an improving economy, said Vladimir Tikhomirov, chief economist at Moscow-based investment bank Ural...
December 22, 2009

More U.S. Students Are Studying Russian

Looks like enrollment of Russia language majors is surging in the United States … perhaps the best thing for our friends in the field is that Russia remain adversarial toward the U.S. in order to keep up interest from students.  From In...
December 22, 2009

Turning Back Time

The Financial Times has cool article about the challenges of changing time zones, including some info on Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal, which seeks to improve business and logistics of the far East. The economic advantages of convenient tempora...
December 22, 2009

2009: Year of Russian Corruption

Vladimir Ryzhkov’s column in the Moscow Times points to a very bad year in terms of human rights and corruption in Russia.  It’s really quite a staggering list. Throughout the year, Medvedev was incapable of managing the country&#...
December 22, 2009

Grigory Pasko as the Japanese Spy

Grigory Pasko is the Russia correspondent for this blog, and a one-time political prisoner following an article published in the Japanese press about the Russian Navy illegally dumping nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan in 1993.  Several years...
December 22, 2009

Energy Blast – Dec 22, 2009

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appealed for world powers to secure a legally binding climate deal next year following the failure of the Copenhagen summit. Gennady Timchenko, an acquaintance of Vladimir Putin, has received government permission ...
December 22, 2009

Today in Russian Business – Dec 22, 2009

S&P has revised its negative outlook on Russia: ‘It’s a good sign, a Christmas present.‘  Russia and Egypt could be on the verge of signing a long-term wheat import agreement.  Russia’s London ambassador, Yury...
December 22, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Dec 22, 2009

TODAY: Communist Party asks Russia to hold the criticism on Stalin’s birthday, 30% of Russians would like a similar leader today, says VTsIOM; Moscow Mayor takes on the snow; Russia to revise its stance on Protocol 14? UN wants more Russian ...
December 21, 2009

Grigory Pasko: Russia Loves its Rules

The Public Chamber of Tomsk Oblast is proposing for broad discussion a project under the name of «Code of the Tomich» [A “Tomich” is an inhabitant of Tomsk in Russian–Trans.] You can acquaint yourself with the text of the code on...