I picked up some incoming traffic from Matthew Yglesias’ blog today. Wondering what was going on, I wondered over to his site, to find the following story about the Russian decision to shut down the flow of oil...
Category - Blog
Russia’s 2006 report card
La Russophobe has compiled a report card for Russia, based on its ranking in various surveys over the past year. Her choices are, of course, subjective, but they don’t make good reading, and should cause some of...
Belarus reaches last minute deal with Russia over gas price
Just minutes before Gazprom implemented their threat to cut of gas supplies to Belarus, a deal was reached to secure gas deliveries until 2011. Under the terms of the deal, Belarus will pay $100 per thousand cubic...
Turkmenistan President dies
The breaking news this morning is that Turkmenistan’s oddball dictator / President Saparmurat Niyazov died of a heart attack late last night. The news was announced on state television, over the image of a Turkmen...
Google struggles in Russian internet market
Despite being founded by a Russian, Google is only the eighth largets search engine in Russia: Leading the pack was Yandex, a privately held Russian search engine that was visited by 64 percent of Internet users; Mail...
Demonstrations in Moscow
This weekend saw three major demonstrations in Moscow. An anti-Putin dissenters march, which drew about 2,000 demonstrators, including Garry Kasparov. The were outnumbered four to one by 8,000 police, who earned their...
Belarus-Russia relations sour over gas deal
It looks as if relations between Belarus and Russia are becoming increasingly strained, as reports come through that no agreement has been reached on the future of gas prices. Although there has been no official...
Don’t Mess with Russia
The best cover I’ve seen from the Economist since their depiction of Kim Jong-Il as the Rocket Man. Given the lack of hard evidence available to Russia watchers, their conclusion couldn’t be more accurate:...
Two post-Soviet elections
It’s been a busy weekend for post-Soviet election watchers with not one, but two elections taking place – a referendum on a new constitution in Nagorno-Karabakh, and a Presidential election in Transdniester...



