The Russia Blog
Saturday saw Muscovites take to the streets in a duelling pair of rallies expressing both support and opposition for Vladimir Putin and his campaign to return to the Russian Presidency.
The rallies attracted between 75,000 and 200,000 people in total, but no-one really knows for sure how many attended. With all the different claims and… Read the rest
The latest available Russian population data is from the 2010 Russian census, which tells us that the total population of Russia in 2010 was 142,946,800 people.
The results came as a bit of a surprise because they were slightly higher than the predictions of the state’s information agency, Rosstat, which had believed that the… Read the rest
Protests took place in Moscow on Monday as people unhappy at United Russia’s manipulation of Sunday’s Russian Duma election took to the streets.
Numbers are difficult to judge, but it appears that around 5-6,000 people protested earlier in the day, breaking off into a smaller group of around 1,000 that then went on to… Read the rest
British troops to march through Red Square for the first time. Or are they?
1987. Billy Joel becomes the first US rock megastar to tour the Soviet Union.
If you’re in Russia and looking for an unusual night out, you might want to check out British band the Tiger Lillies (here’s the Russian Tiger Lillies site), who are playing at the Cisterna Hall, Moscow on 3rd April and at the Glav Club, St Petersburg on 4 April.
This is one of… Read the rest
Alexander Pichushkin – the Russian Chessboard killer – has been found guilty of murdering 48 people in Moscow. Officially he ended up 16 short of his goal of a body for each square on the chessboard, although he claims to have murdered 63.
One of Russia’s most prolific serial killers, he faces life in prison,… Read the rest
If you’re an expatriate worker, the most expensive city in the world to live in is… Moscow.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at the numbers:
This weekend marked yet another not particularly glorious episode in Russo-British relations, as one diplomat and two (well known) British gay rights activists were attacked in separate incidents.
First in line for a battering was Nigel Gould-Davies, first secretary at the British embassy in Moscow. He was attacked at 1am on Saturday morning, as… Read the rest
British police have submitted a request to the Russian Prosecutor General to return to Moscow and interview more people in relation to the death of Alexander Litvinenko. The request comes (not at all co-incidentally, I’m sure!) just one day after Russian police submitted a request to the Home Office to visit London and interview more than… Read the rest
This weekend saw three major demonstrations in Moscow.
Yet another massive fire in Russia, and yet again dozens of people are killed because of the Russian fascination for restricting entry and exit to buildings.
The latest victims: 45 women in a drug rehabilition hospital.
The fire was caused by arson, but the deaths were largely due to the fact that there was… Read the rest
The Moscow Times reports that Rodina, the nationalist (but not quite as ‘nationalist’ as Zhirinovsky’s mob) party have been barred from participating in the upcoming Moscow Duma election, amid claims that they are gaining ground on United Russia, the pro-Putin, pro-Kremlin, and pro-Moscow City Hall party.
The Moscow City Court ruled on Saturday that a
Sometimes it seems as if terrorism in Russia is a phenomenon of the North Caucasus. But Moscow has been hit almost as hard over the last five years:
Moscow�s police chief Col. Gen. Vladimir Pronin has said that 354 people died in terrorist attacks in Moscow over the past five years, the Interfax news agency
A couple of bloggers write about their negative experiences – mostly with scams – in Moscow:
Aaron, at 110 Lines of Longitude encountered the "wad of bills" scam first hand:
Then the really bad thing happened. After taking the subway into central Moscow and wandering around Red Square and the surrounding
