Ditching the traditional blog layout of one post after another, newest at the top, I’ve decided to go with a magazine style design which, I hope will make Siberian Light much easier on the eye and much easier to navigate.

The magazine style format lends itself to featuring some articles more prominently than others. I plan to start writing a few more in depth articles over the coming weeks and months, interspersed with more traditional, shorter, blog posts, so I felt I needed a way to highlight those posts that would be of interest to readers for longer than the current day’s hot news story.

As far as I can see, most everything is working properly. However, I haven’t had chance to check the site in a few web-browsers, so if you spot any glitches, please do let me know.

Anyway, here’s a quick guide to the new features.

Featured Articles

The focus of the new Siberian Light homepage is the latest featured post. A big picture right in the middle of the page means you shouldn’t be able to miss it. And, just underneath the latest featured article, you’ll find a series of smaller pictures – click on these, and details of earlier featured articles will be brought to the fore.

Click on the title of any of these featured articles, or the ‘continue reading’ link, and you’ll be taken the article itself.

A few of Siberian Light’s older posts are already featured – keep an eye out for the next one in a few days.

Regular Blog Posts

Just because there will be more features at Siberian Light doesn’t mean there will be less regular blog posts. Right underneath the featured articles, you’ll find links to the 10 latest blog posts, with a brief introduction to each post.

The Sidebar

The sidebar on the right has been completely revamped. The big grey box you see is to help you navigate around the site. It contains details of the most popular recent posts (ranked by a behind the scenes formula), the posts with the most comments, a list of featured articles, and a tag cloud which you can use to navigate the site by topic.

Below the navigation box, you’ll find a more traditional sidebar, with links to other blogs about Russia, as well as links to the Siberian Light archives. These are sorted by both category and month – click on the title to reveal the links below.

Oh, and there are a few colourful ads rotating around the sidebar help to pay the hosting costs for Siberian Light.

Subscribe!

Did you know that you can subscribe to Siberian Light? You can either choose to receive a daily email digest of posts, straight to your inbox, or you can have every post delivered almost instantaneously to your RSS feed reader of choice. Subscription options are at the top right of the page, next to the big orange RSS button.

New Year, New Look is a post from: Siberian Light

So, I thought I’d post a quick explanation of why I chose to run the interview, and give you some more details of the series of interviews that is to follow.

Thursday’s interview with La Russophobe was the first in a series of weekly interviews of Russia bloggers.

I plan to ask the same basic set of questions to each blogger, plus add in a few extra questions that are directly aimed at individual bloggers, their experiences, and their expertise. The goal is to inform, entertain and to hopefully allow people to compare and contrast the beliefs and styles of different bloggers.

When sending out questions to bloggers, I have been careful to note that I will publish whatever answers they provide, regardless of what they say, and without editing. Essentially, I provide each blogger with a platform – it’s up to them to use their own words to either convince you of their wisdom, or lack thereof…

When I read the answers to the questions I’ve set, I know I make a judgement – about the value of the argument presented, and sometimes about the individual blogger. It might be positive, it might be negative, but it is inevitable that I will make that internal judgement. And I expect that others who read those interviews will make judgements of their own.

That’s why I’ve provided an un-moderated comments forum.

If you think what you are reading makes sense, then congratulate yourself on having found a like-minded soul and, if you want, you could post a comment expanding on some point in the interview.

If, on the other hand, you find someone whose words you read are utter rubbish, then you have the opportunity to tell them, and the world, exactly why you think they are wrong.

A note on why I interviewed La Russophobe is a post from: Siberian Light

A prolific, witty and insightful blogger, she wrote about almost everything under the sun, but always somehow seemed to return to writing about Ukraine, her parents homeland.  I will particularly remember her for her always kind words in our email conversations. 

She will be sorely missed. 

Rest in Peace is a post from: Siberian Light

Over the two years of blogging that followed I’ve made some great friends, engaged in some great debates, and learnt more than I ever thought possible. Under Putin, I’ve watched Russia slouch slowly back towards its authoritarian past, at the same time as other parts of the former Soviet Union have taken tentative steps towards their democratic futures. I’ve also been thrilled to watch the Russian and post-Soviet blogosphere grow in leaps and bounds to become a thriving and outspoken community.

Today, though, I’ve got a real job and, with all the other things I have to do in life, evenings and weekends just aren’t long enough any more. Certainly not long enough to keep blogging regularly at a standard high enough to give me satisfaction. I really don’t want to write substandard, tired posts just for the sake of keeping this blog updated day after day, and I’m even more certain that you don’t want to read them. So, I’ve very reluctantly decided that the time has come for siberianlight.net to take take a bow.

The site will stay up for a fair while yet – I don’t want to lose my email address, for one thing – and you’ll no doubt catch me around the blogosphere from time to time, reading, commenting, and even – if they’ll have me – writing the occasional guest post on other blogs. If regular blog commentary on Russia is what you are looking for though, I can’t recommend highly enough the many quality blogs listed on the sidebar.

Finally, before I go, I have to say thank you so much to everyone who read siberianlight.net over the past two years, and especially to everyone who commented on the site, and pushed me to justify – and often revise – my opinions. You’ve been wonderful, and I’ve had a blast.

пока-в�е / Poka is a post from: Siberian Light

There have been a number of explosions here in London today – official sources so far are saying it was a power surge on the tube (metro), but lots of eyewitness reports (still unconfirmed rumours at this time, but I’d give them some credence) are saying that bombs have exploded on three buses – someone described a bus as being ripped apart by an explosion – as well as on the train lines.

Anyway, right now, I’m safe and in one piece, sitting tight in the centre of London.  More later, as and when I hear it.

Update 11:15am: Well, the bus explosions (or, at least, one of them) have been confirmed, and it clearly looks like there are a number of fatalities.  Accurate news is hard to come by; mostly we’re going by eye-witness reports from staff who have been straggling into the office all morning, and that old standy – BBC Radio 5.

I’m currently based in a central London office block next to Hoburn Circus, about a mile away from the explosions. Everything seems quiet, and we’re not particularly worried about our safety, although everyone is a bit edgy.  The main issue for us at the moment is the phone network.  Both mobile and landline connections are intermittent at best, with conversations being cut off mid-stream, even when we manage to make the connection in the first place.  Everyone is trying to get in touch with their loved ones – including me – and usually failing.

Oddly enough, though, our high-speed internet connection continues to work faultlessly.

Update 11:18am: The Met Police Commissioner has just reported 6 explosions across London in: Edgeware Red, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, Russel Square, Aldgate East & Moorgate.  They’ve also found traces of explosives at some locations.

Update 12:40pm: All calm here still.  The major tasks of the morning have been checking up on the locations of staff (thankfully everyone I work with is now accounted for) and trying to decide what to do tonight for staff who live outside London.  Do they try to head home late this afternoon and hope that transport links are back to some semblance of normality, or do they try to find a spot for tonight in London?  Hotels, as you would imagine, are now very hard to come by for tonight.  Almost all are booked up – certainly in the centre -  and many aren’t taking bookings at all.  Rooms are still available, however, on the outskirts of the capital (I managed to find some in Brent Cross if there is anyone out there still looking).

Update 13:40: I’ve just returned from my first sojourn out of the office today.  Despite the rain, the streets are eerily quiet.  No buses, very few cars and I didn’t see a single black cab.  London doesn’t look alive without their red and black forms jerkily bumbling up and down the streets.  Overground train services are partially running – the service from City Thameslink, which is the nearest station to my office, is managing to go north fairly regularly (every 15-20 minutes) but not south at all.  This seems a little odd to me as, to go north the trains have to go through Kings Cross, which is currently closed, whereas they shouldn’t pass through any affected areas on their route south.  Ah well, either way it means I’m stuck in the office for a while longer, as I live south of the river.

Update 14:50: Well, it seems as though things are beginning to pull back together in London. The underground and buses are still down, but the rail system is running a limited service and people are gradually beginning to drift away from my office on their long treks home.  Some of them have been shopping to pick up trainers and raincoats in anticipation of a long walk, but mostly we’ll all be carried home by rail, I think.

For those of you still stuck in London and looking for a way home – National Rail Enquiries have posted a website with updates of which train services are running, and where.

If you’re looking for comprehensive updates on what’s happening in London today, I’d suggest you drop by Europhobia, who guaged London’s reaction perfectly with this comment:

13:01 – God, us Brits are great. Hardly any panic – more just getting pissed off that it’s going to be a bugger getting home. I love this country sometimes.

And this (also from Europhobia) is just pure class…!

I tell you what, if this is an "Islamic" terrorist attack, they’re doing a piss-poor job. The pubs are all packed out, people sipping their pints happily, all a tad pissed off, but basically fine with it. Nice one, Al Quaeda – you profess to be from a teetotal religion, and you’ve given the pub trade a massive mid-week boost. Result.

Explosions in London – but I'm safe is a post from: Siberian Light