Russia continues to burn.  Air quality in Moscow hit a new low over the weekend as embassies evacuated staff.  The BBC has footage of Moscow’s smog-filled streets, and RIA Novosti reports that the situation is unlikely to improve this week.  Over the weekend, firefighters managed to put out flames that were threatening the Sarov nuclear research center, apparently by digging a ‘five-mile canal‘ around the site.  Reuters reports that medical staff at a major Moscow hospital ‘had been instructed by senior management to not link patients’ illnesses with the heatwave‘, as opposition leaders accuse the authorities of being in denial about the crisis. Despite all of this, a ‘top public doctor‘ appears in today’s Moscow Times urging foreigners not to avoid Russia, just to ‘stay indoors‘.  Tourists, he suggests, ‘visit first St. Petersburg, where everything is fine‘.  Masha Lipman in the Washington Post examines the growing dissatisfaction of the Russian public and the ‘overreaction‘ of the government in their attempts to quash the most recent Strategy 31 protests.