(opendemocracy.net – Elena Vlasenko – January 2, 2014) Elena Vlasenko is a Russian correspondent writing for Sovershenno Sekretno and Index on Censorship. When Yevgeny Urlashov became the democratically elected mayor of Yaroslavl, the tourist city on the Volga, he described it as the ‘birthplace of the Russian spring.’ A year later, Urlashov is in jail… Russia’s protest movement was at […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Ekaterina Mishina – December 30, 2013) In December, the Constitutional Court of Russia issued a ruling in the Markin case that was supposed to settle the question of Russia’s obligation to implement decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on its territory. IMR Advisor Ekaterina Mishina, a prominent legal scholar, notes that […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Zoya Miloslavskaya, special to RBTH – January 2, 2014) The Moscow metro is relatively safe, but pickpockets, thieves and drunken travellers can darken an unwary passenger’s mood. However, you can avoid incidents like these by following some simple rules. According to statistics from the Directorate of Internal Affairs, 290 robberies took place on […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 2 (Interfax) – The law enforcement authorities are investigating the terror attacks perpetrated in Volgograd on December 29 and 30, the National Antiterrorism Committee said. The efforts have already yielded some results, it noted. The explosions at the Volgograd railroad station on December 29 and on a trolley bus on December 30 killed 34 people and injured dozens. […]
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MOSCOW, January 2 (RIA Novosti) A Chinese helicopter successfully flew to safety all 52 passengers from a stranded Russian cruise ship stuck in Antarctic pack ice Thursday in a long delayed rescue mission, the authority coordinating the rescue said. The ship, the Akademik Shokalskiy, has been stuck in the ice 100 nautical miles east of the French base Dumont […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – January 2, 2014) Besides hangovers and eerily quiet streets, the first day of the New Year also brings with it a score of new measures that were signed into law the year before. From a ban on Norwegian fish imports to protection against ATM fraud, here are a few picks from the […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Stephen Bierman – January 2, 2014) As Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin argue over human rights in Russia and the fate of fugitive U.S. intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, the countries’ biggest oil companies are preparing to drill for giant discoveries together in the Arctic Ocean. Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM:US) and OAO Rosneft (ROSN) are set to […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 2, 2013) Official identification of one of the terrorist bombers in Volgograd as an ethnic Russian from Mari El who converted to Islam and fought on the side of the militants in Daghestan has attracted attention to a trend that most Russians have been reluctant to discuss: the growing number of […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Stephen Bierman – January 2, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin called for increased security across the world’s largest country after a pair of suicide bombings killed more than 30 people before the Sochi Winter Olympic Games in February. Authorities have detained more than 700 people as officers, including teams with search dogs, investigate the attacks on […]
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(Interfax – January 2, 2014) It is possible to make progress on Russia-U.S. relations in 2014 only if there is a will of both leaderships, a Russian policy expert said. “For now I do not see any serious prerequisites for improving the relations in the upcoming year. On the other hand, everything depends on the presidents; if Barack Obama and/or […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Khrennikov – November 29, 2013) Sergey Galitskiy took less than two decades to build OAO Magnit (MGNT) from scratch into Russia’s retail leader. With the wealth that’s brought him, the billionaire is training local kids to challenge the country’s soccer elite. Galitskiy, 46, created FC Krasnodar in 2008 and since then has spent more than […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – James Ellingworth, special to RBTH – December 26, 2013) For Russian sports fans, 2013 was all about looking ahead to next year – and the future’s bright If you struggled to wait for Santa Claus, spare a thought for Russian sports fans – their whole 2013 has been like an extended Christmas Eve, […]
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(Pravda.ru – Nadezhda Alexeeva – December 17, 2013) Previously, Russian village life used to be associated with rosy village women, fresh air and clean snow. Nowadays, village life in the minds of many Russians brings up such associations as rickety black huts, deserted villages, bad roads, or their absence. What crippled the Russian village? Russia was traditionally considered an agrarian […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 1, 2013) President Vladimir Putin’s “conservatism” is a combination of the ideas of the Russian radical right of the early 20th century and Stalin’s notions of “traditional values” which the dictator used to cover repression and fool the west, according to a Moscow commentator. In short, Pavel Protsenko argues in “Yezhednevny […]
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(Pravda.ru – Nadezhda Alexeeva – December 25, 2013) Do the Russians know the laws? Are they able to defend their rights in court? Are they aware of their constitutional rights? It seems that the level of legal culture in Russia is not particularly high, and even the officials do not read the Constitution. What is behind this legal nihilism, and […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Dmitriy Romendik, RBTH – January 1, 2014) During the holidays, a morning hangover can ruin your day. There are many remedies in the world for a hangover, but Russians swear by theirs. A folk wisdom says “What is good for a Russian in the evening, is bad for him in the morning.” This […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – January 1, 2014) Russians are traditionally viewed as being harsh and unconcerned about their bodies, but it turns out that this is far from reality. Russians reacted vehemently when the artist Pyotr Pavlensky nailed his genitals to a cobblestone in Moscow’s Red Square in an act of protest last […]
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(PONARS. Eurasia – ponarseurasia.org – Polina Sinovets, Associate Professor. Odessa I.I. Mechnikov National University – December 20, 2013) [Footnotes here http://www.ponarseurasia.org/memo/why-russia-undermines-norm-nuclear-disarmament] Russia is one of the founding fathers of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and continues to play a major role in its framework today. Together with the United States, Moscow plays an important role in keeping the regime intact, […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 31 (Interfax) – Russia is looking to study oil and gas prospects as it prepares to extend its Arctic shelf borders. Subsurface resources agency Rosnedra has already announced – on the state procurement portal – a tender for the selection of an outfit to evaluate the prospects of oil and gas fields on Russia’s continental shelf beyond the […]
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KYIV. Dec 31 (Interfax) – Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Rybak have congratulated fellow citizens with the New Year and Christmas. The prime minister recalled the main socioeconomic and political events of the outgoing year and said that the year was complicated but certain achievements were still made. “We averted devaluation of the national currency […]
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(RIA Novosti – December 31, 2013) Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov has said that the scenario of NATO’s Steadfast Jazz 2013 military exercise which took place on 2-9 November has “surprised” Moscow. He made the statement in an interview with Russian state news agency RIA Novosti published on 31 December. In the same interview he also spoke about the […]
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(Kremlin.ru – January 1, 2014) PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Dear Friends, This year, on June 4-5, 2014, Russia is hosting the 40th G8 Summit in Sochi. Russia plans to present our partners with an ample agenda for frank and substantive discussion so as to most importantly arrive at concrete decisions. We see that the world has not […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 31. (Interfax) – Russia had 6.5% inflation in 2013, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said, quoting preliminary figures. December inflation decelerated to 0.5%, from 0.6% in November. Inflation for the year was below the 6.6% seen in 2012. Russia had 6.1% inflation in 2011 and 8.8% in 2010 and 2009. December inflation was in line with the […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 31 (Interfax) – Russian Popular Front Central Council member, head of the inter-faction group for interaction between civil society, police and security services Mikhail Starshinov (United Russia) has proposed a number of operative measures regarding the Volgograd terror attacks. “I am confident that we need to increase the number of investigators, especially in the North Caucasus, and to […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Robert Coalson – January 1, 2014) At a press conference back in September, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made a seemingly throwaway remark that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could avoid outside military intervention by giving up all his chemical weapons. The same day, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin seized the diplomatic initiative by calling on his […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Mikhail Loginov – December 31, 2013) Mikhail Loginov is a journalist and novelist based in St Petersburg. He is the author of the recently published bestselling political thriller “Battle for Kremlin”. New Year is by far Russia’s most important and lavishly celebrated public holiday. But as Russians prepare to celebrate it, Putin is trying to impose austerity on […]
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(Interfax – January 1, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin has been named the person of the year again, Putin is first in popularity ratings since 1999, sociologists of the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) told Interfax citing a poll held. The survey was held on December 7-8 in 43 Russian regions in 100 cities, towns and villages and involved 1,500 respondents. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – January 1, 2014) Many Russians love to honor the animal that symbolizes the coming year, based on the Chinese astrological calendar, believing half-jokingly but many would insist that it brings them luck for the next 12 months. “Whose year is the next one?” Russians ask each other around December. The […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2014-#1 :: 1 January 2013 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support […]
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