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...
AndyVladimir ‘Boom-Boom’ Putin
President Putin has been playing at being a fly-boy: President Vladimir Putin, sitting in the pilot’s seat, broke the sound barrier Tuesday as he flew in a long-range bomber to a Northern Fleet outpost to attend a...
Russian – Chinese Wargames
A joint Chinese-Russian military exercise is underway in the Russian Far East, the first between the two countries. 10,000 personnel are involved in an operation that is said to be one of humanitarian assistance:...
Cyrillic vs Latin: Battle of the Alphabets
Via Laurence Jarvik I found this article by Sam Vaknin. He wants Russia to abandon the cyrillic alphabet and switch to a latin one because, he argues, holding on to an archaic and over-complicated alphabet is...
Transcript of Basayev’s ABC interview
Chechenpress has just published a copy of the transcript of ABC’s interview with Shamil Basayev (note: site no longer exists, so link removed). It makes hideous reading, particularly Basayev’s delusional...
More on Khodorkovsky “will he won’t he?”
Lyndon has been writing more about Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and the speculation over whether he will – indeed, whether he can – run for a seat on the State Duma. Lyndon’s opinion is that he...
Khodorkovsky to stand for election?
Jailed Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky has announced that he is considering standing for election to the State Duma in an upcoming by-election. "I am absolutely confident that they will not allow me to run...
RIA Novosti’s Iraq office raided after interviewing Iraqi opposition
Hmmm, so after all the stink that the Russian government kicked up over the ABC decision to air their Shamil Basayev interview it certainly is… interesting… to note that RIA Novosti had no qualms about...
Russian submariners rescued
As I mentioned at the tail-end of yesterday’s post (here), the Russian Priz mini submarine stranded on the floor of the Pacific Ocean has been rescued. All seven crewmembers are reported to be in good...
Russian sub still trapped – rescue underway
A Russian mini-submarine with a full complement of seven sailors remains trapped on the floor of the Pacific ocean for a second day. The Russian Navy has reportedly begun its rescue mission, attaching cables to...