Russia

October 29, 2009

Tonight in Leipzig, Khodorkovsky Charity Concert

Tonight in Leipzig, Germany, Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica under conductor Roman Kofman will perform the German premiere of Arvo Pärt’s “4th Symphony” in dedication to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, as well as the “Silent P...
October 29, 2009

Admin Test For Academics

In the New York Times Ellen Barry writes about the outcry among academics St Peterbsurg University (alma mater of Putin and Medvedev) who are concerned about new legislation that may require their work to be submitted to the authorities before it ...
October 29, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Oct 29, 2009

TODAY: Markelov’s assassins to be arrested?  Stalin monument reports ‘baseless’; UK and Russia to try and mend relations; Russia not supplying Iran with missiles; abstinence-based AIDS strategy not working; nuclear spaceship...
October 28, 2009

An Unlikely PR Tool

There’s a very interesting article on euobserver.com about Russia’s attempts to re-brand itself as a benign global power in the eyes of Brussels.  The piece reports that news agency Ria-Novosti has apparently engaged the services ...
October 28, 2009

Snakes And Ladders

Tracing the policy movements of Presidential power-handler Vladislav Surkov is rather like witnessing a three-point turn in a dark alley – as a piece in the Power Vertical points out today.  Whilst transparency is the last thing once ca...
October 28, 2009

Kadyrov Ups Pressure On Oleg Orlov

It’s been less than a week since valiant Russian human rights groups Memorial won Europe’s llustrious human rights award, the Sakharov Prize, but it seems that Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov is determined to pull the plug on any cele...
October 28, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Oct 28, 2009

TODAY: Putin protest achieves results; Medvedev on election fraud; academic publishing rules to come into force; CIS in a mess; court case brought against human rights activist Orlov; AIDS epidemic, Stalin PR, and a bizarre gift for Arnold Schwarz...
October 27, 2009

Grigory Pasko: Ideology – pokhuyism?

From eight o’clock in the morning I was looking in the window: from it, like in the palm of your hand, you can see school № 1965, which on October 11th was transformed into a polling station. Right until evening I did not uncover a single bu...
October 27, 2009

Ballot-rigging Bathos

Yesterday we mentioned a New York Times piece about the lack of mass outrage regarding the falsification of election results on October 11.  All in all, there seems to be a general feeling that the outcry about vote-rigging has turned out to ...
October 27, 2009

Cash-nikov

Russia has many a renowned global export – but none has affirmed its presence quite so forcefully across the globe as the Kalashnikov, assault rifle par excellence.  The Independent ran a brief story on the weekend about Anatoly Isaikin...