After an enforced break (a doctor jabbed a very sharp needle into my thumb joint – long story) TWiRB is back to update you on what Russia bloggers have been talking about in the last week – which as it turns out was one of the most interesting weeks in Russia for ages.
As there’s so much to cover, I’m going to break this weeks review up into two themes – Protests and Prokhorov – before wrapping up with all the miscellaneous stuff from those authors who didn’t follow the rest of us sheep and who had the courage to write about something other than elections.
Protests
First up, blogger reaction to the biggest protests seen in Russia since Putin rose to power. While the mainstream Western media seemed to think only of the forthcoming and, in their opinion, inevitable revolution against Putin’s rule, commentary from the blogs was, thankfully, much more nuanced.
Moscow Protests picture reprinted with permission of ridus.ru.John Randolph at Russian History Blog notes that “the party of swindlers and thieves” – the anti United Russia slogan that has been inspiring protestors and was supposedly coined by blogger Alex Navalny – was actually first used in the pre-election TV debates by… yep, you guessed it, ultra-nationalist-nutjob Vladimir Zhirinovksy.
Anatoly Karlin publishes Truth and Falsifications in Russia, his first article on Al-Jazeera. He concludes that these elections may well have “laid the foundations for genuinely multi-party politics after the next legislative election in 2017.”
Mikhail Prokhorov’s entry into the race to become Russia’s next President has confused analysts – everyone who hates Putin (and doesn’t love one of the alternatives already on offer) wants to see him as a crusader for the liberal future they dream of seeing for Russia. But no-one entirely is convinced that he isn’t just a Putin stooge. Oh, what paranoid times we live in…
Let’s start our final section with a Happy Birthday!
Russian Defense Blog is two years old, and to celebrate has a little review of what’s been happening. Conclusion = the Russian military is improving and re-arming, but its progress could still be derailed.
Thanks for linking to my post! But a quick note: I didn’t want to say that Zhirinovsky was the *first* to use the phrase; I trust people who say that Naval’ny coined it. Rather, in my post, I just wanted to point out that the phrase had a huge currency in the debates before the elections, the irony being that while people talk about the importance of new media in spreading such memes and satirical phrases, actually the government sponsored debates on Rossiia Channel One gave them a pretty visible forum as well.
I know the feeling. Doctor accidentally jammed an anesthetic needle into my thumb bone while preparing to stitch up a gash. That was over 26 years ago, and I can still feel the spot.
Russian invasion of UkraineSiberian Light opposes the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Click here to donate to the Red Cross Ukraine appeal.I’m absolutely baffled by the story coming out of this week of a 20 million...
Russian invasion of UkraineSiberian Light opposes the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Click here to donate to the Red Cross Ukraine appeal. Around 10,000 people attended a rally on Moscow’s Novy Arbat Street on March...
Russian invasion of UkraineSiberian Light opposes the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Click here to donate to the Red Cross Ukraine appeal.After all the fuss, Putin actually won the Russian Presidential Election pretty...
Hi Andy,
Thanks for linking to my post! But a quick note: I didn’t want to say that Zhirinovsky was the *first* to use the phrase; I trust people who say that Naval’ny coined it. Rather, in my post, I just wanted to point out that the phrase had a huge currency in the debates before the elections, the irony being that while people talk about the importance of new media in spreading such memes and satirical phrases, actually the government sponsored debates on Rossiia Channel One gave them a pretty visible forum as well.
I know the feeling. Doctor accidentally jammed an anesthetic needle into my thumb bone while preparing to stitch up a gash. That was over 26 years ago, and I can still feel the spot.