From Russia with Questions
… [Our NASA Earth Observatory] team noticed a … message with a peculiar and beautiful image from Russia near 66 degrees north latitude. It turned into a scientific detective story and an unresolved case […]
» Read more… [Our NASA Earth Observatory] team noticed a … message with a peculiar and beautiful image from Russia near 66 degrees north latitude. It turned into a scientific detective story and an unresolved case […]
» Read more“… Russia’s government says 1.5m vaccines have been distributed … [with] hundreds of thousands more … ready … [but] doctors and officials … [indicate] a far bleaker reality of limited supplies and delayed shipments. … Moscow’s clinics have been busy vaccinating … [but] regions outside of the capital have struggled to secure adequate supplies, calling into question … [governmental] ability […]
» Read moreRussia … failed to invest enough in its regions, whose health-care systems are now overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic, adding to citizens’ frustration with the government […]
» Read more… Russia’s two largest cities experienced the warmest autumn temperatures of their recorded histories in 2020 …. And it’s only the beginning, experts say […]
» Read more“The Kolyma Highway in the Russian Far East once delivered tens of thousands of prisoners to the work camps of Stalin’s gulag. The ruins of that cruel era are still visible today.” “… [P]risoners, hacking … through insect-infested summer swamps and winter ice fields, brought the road … [which] then brought yet more prisoners … a torrent of slave labor […]
» Read more(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Felix Light – IVANOVO, Nov. 20, 2020) In this hardscrabble city in central Russia, the morgues are full and well-paid jobs are scarce. Though many of Russia’s outlying regions are struggling with the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Ivanovo — a working-class city of 400,000 located 300 kilometers northeast of Moscow — is coping […]
» Read more… St. Petersburg conducted controversial gubernatorial and local legislative elections. Observers … reported unjustified delays in the vote count, voter intimidation, suspicious recounts, and other alleged violations. … Nonetheless … [o]pposition and independent deputies nearly doubled their representation […]
» Read moreMedics in hospitals across Russia voiced frustration that authorities failed to use the summer respite to prepare for a second coronavirus wave. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Pjotr Sauer – Oct. 27, 2020) In a video widely shared across Russian social media last week, dozens of bodies wrapped in black plastic bags line the walls of a decrepit basement in […]
» Read moreAcross the world, a growing ‘pandemic fatigue’ appears to be exacerbating the spread of the coronavirus …. Many governments have brought back restrictions they had lifted …. But while many European countries have imposed stringent measures again … Russia has in many ways carried on as normal […]
» Read more(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, Oct. 13, 2020) As was the case at the beginning of the pandemic, so now too again Russian officials are complaining that the unwillingness of Russians to assume personal responsibility may force the government to take repressive actions that will harm everyone, Karina Pipiya says. But the Levada Center sociologist says that […]
» Read moreSubject: What Do Siberian Millennial and the Perestroika Generation Professionals Have in Common? Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2020 From: Sarah Lindemann-Komarova <echosiberia@gmail.com> What Do Siberian Millennial and the Perestroika Generation Professionals Have in Common? By Sarah Lindemann-Komarova [Sarah Lindemann-Komarova has been a community development activist in Siberia since 1992] With photos: medium.com/@ECHOSiberia/what-do-siberian-millennial-and-perestroika-generation-professionals-have-in-common-ff4a74fc7658 After a six hour drive, the designer cocktail […]
» Read more(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, September 27, 2020) Coronavirus infections are rising rapidly in Moscow and other major Russian cities, with the number of cases in the capital jumping from 1050 three days ago to more than 2,000 today, the result, experts say, of the start of flu season and declining caution among Russians (svpressa.ru/economy/article/276981/, kp.ru/daily/217187.5/4293934/, regnum.ru/news/3074643.html, […]
» Read more“Moscow is experiencing a sharp increase in new coronavirus cases[,] [a]s of Friday, September 25, …record[ing] 1,560 new cases in the last day – 510 more than the day before … nearly twice as many as last week. … the highest daily increase … since June 12. … Also on September 25, Russia recorded more than 7,000 new coronavirus cases […]
» Read more… The Russian state has made 220 million hectares of land available under its program, double the total amount allotted under the Homestead Act. But only around 80,000 Russians have taken advantage. […]
» Read more“Accumulating evidence points at prospects of growing destabilization at the regional level in Russia. In 2019, five consecutive years of economic stagnation ignited a wave of protests across the country. In 2020, as Russia’s economic situation worsened dramatically due to a pandemic-driven halt to economic activity combined with a fall in oil prices, support for Kremlin appointees might start crumbling […]
» Read more“With his most prominent critic hit by a near-fatal poisoning that opponents and the West blame on the Kremlin … Putin faces a key test of support in regional elections ahead of a national vote next year. About a third of the electorate is eligible to vote … over three days … to choose representatives at different levels … in […]
» Read more“With … regional elections … start[ing] … September 13 …. 31% … say they are willing to vote for the ruling United Russia Party, according to independent pollster the Levada Center. If elections to the State Duma took place this coming Sunday, 31% of Russians would vote for United Russia. … 11% … are now ready to vote for the […]
» Read more“… [On Sunday,] residents of 18 regions … elect governors, another 11 regions … vote for local parliamentary deputies, and 22 regional capitals … hold city council elections. In several regions … results may not be in favor of … [ruling powers] in spite of … three-day voting rules, which can create increased opportunities for manipulating … election results. … […]
» Read more(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Sept. 11, 2020) Russians are heading to the polls through Sunday to elect new regional and city leadership. In a year that has seen a global pandemic, weeks of anti-Kremlin protests in the Far East and historically low approval ratings for President Vladimir Putin, the vote is set to be a key test for the […]
» Read moreMelting permafrost, oil spills, collapsing infrastructure, abandoned towns: Russia’s far north is heading for social, economic and ecological disaster. (opendemocracy.net – Sofia Gavrilova – August 27, 2020) Sofia Gavrilova is a geographer and works in the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, Leipzig. [Text with photos opendemocracy.net/en/odr/russia-arctic-monotowns/] “The asbestos factory closed last year. The crushed stone plant is closing this year. […]
» Read more(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, August 19, 2020) In Soviet times, schools devoted a great deal of attention to geography and especially to how much larger the USSR was than any other country and where its natural wealth was located. But since 1991, such instruction appears to have taken a back seat to other subjects at least […]
» Read moreA survey of 5,000 Russians … finds the level of pessimism about the future is greater in Moscow and other major cities than elsewhere … [T]hese cities were hit harder by the pandemic than anywhere else […]
» Read moreAnalysis of excess fatalities show regions may be underreporting deaths from Covid-19 […]
» Read more(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, August 3, 2020) Russian nationalists have always been more divided than most analysts have suggested, with some committed imperialists, others devoted to a small Russia, and still others believing that their best course forward is in the elaboration of a civic national identity that would allow them to retain the loyalty of […]
» Read more“In … Novosibirsk[,] … not one but two opposition groups are building … a serious challenge to the ruling party. … [T]he Communist Party (KPRF) … part of … the systemic opposition … recognized by the Russian government and permitted to hold elected seats across the country. … currently controls Novosibirsk City Hall[;] Communist Mayor Anatoly Lokot … push[ing] for […]
» Read more“Moscow’s Watcom shopping index has regained almost all the ground lost from a lockdown on the capital earlier this year” “[The] Watcom shopping index [tracking foot traffic at Moscow’s leading malls] has recovered almost all … ground lost during the [spring] lockdown …. [Moscow’s] infection rate … has fallen …. [T]he epidemic is far from over in Russia …. A […]
» Read more(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, Aug. 2 , 2020) Despite the travails of his first days in office, Mikhail Degtyarov, Moscow’s appointee as new head of Khabarovsk Kray, represents the harbinger of a new generation of regional leaders, one very different than their predecessors and likely to have unexpected consequences for both Moscow and the regions, Andrey […]
» Read more(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Samantha Berkhead – July 29, 2020) In a forest outside Yekaterinburg, pilgrims chant and wave banners in their annual midnight procession in honor of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia and a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church. But this year’s pilgrimage to the spot where the emperor and his family were executed by […]
» Read moreNearly half of Russians say they approve of … anti-Kremlin protests in the Far East … [breaking] out … after the arrest of the Khabarovsk region’s popular governor … and his replacement with a Putin-appointed lawmaker …. People have taken to the streets of Khabarovsk near the Chinese border … 18 days in a row … an unprecedented show of opposition to the Kremlin in the region […]
» Read more“As the protests swell in the city of Khabarovsk, 4,000 miles from Moscow, residents who had never before found a public outlet for anger are becoming activists.” “… [P]rotests in Khabarovsk reached well into the tens of thousands … establishing this distant city – some 4,000 miles from Moscow – as the site of the biggest popular challenge to … […]
» Read more(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Evan Gershkovich – Khabarovsk, July 27, 2020) As they have for nearly three weeks, the first protesters started to gather at Lenin Square in the city of Khabarovsk in Russia’s Far East at 7 pm on a recent weekday evening. They were soon joined by independent Russian journalists and a small army of YouTube bloggers, […]
» Read more“… [T]here’s a convoluted story of cutthroat competition for a steelworks. … Sergey Furgal, until recently … duly elected governor of Khabarovsk, is now suspected of involvement in four murders committed in 2004 and 2005. While many observers have assumed openly that the allegations are plausible, given the rough and tumble of the Far East’s business world at the time, […]
» Read more“… Putin and … Medvedev (… [as] president) have dismissed … 11 governors prior to Furgal. Article 19 of the federal law ‘On the general principles of organization of legislative (representative) and executive bodies of state power’ gives the head of state this right. … in particular situations … [for] inadequate performance of duties and loss of confidence. While the […]
» Read more(PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo – Emily Ferrs – July 2020) Emily Ferris is a Research Fellow, Russia and Eurasia, at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), United Kingdom. [Full text: ponarseurasia.org/memo/corruption-no-confidence-poor-communication-how-governors-behaving-badly] Russia’s regional administrations tend to be overlooked as a toothless part of the system, lacking any real responsibility or power. While Moscow has certainly curbed governors’ autonomy under President […]
» Read moreProtesters told The Moscow Times they will continue rallying until their governor’s murder trial is held in Khabarovsk. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Evan Gershkovich – July 15, 2020) For as long as Valery Nechayev could remember, the ruling United Russia party had been in charge of his home region of Khabarovsk in Russia’s Far East. And, for a while, […]
» Read moreSubject: Comment re: Times (UK) article on Russian Healthcare (JRL 2020-126) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 From: Rudra Sil <rudysil@gmail.com> Yesterday’s JRL (2020-#126) included Mark Bennetts’ article, “Russia’s Health System is Dying on Its Feet,” originally published in The Times (UK) on February 6, 2020. I missed this article when it first came out, so I am very glad to […]
» Read more… What began as protests against the removal of their governor, Khabarovsk residents have transformed into something more and attracted the attention of others across the Russian Far East …. [B]y talking about a possible restoration of the Far Eastern Republic, they beyond doubt have attracted the attention or and possibly repressive actions by the Russian authorities in the capital […]
» Read more.. The rapid pace of warming has stunned climate scientists, despite years of gradually rising temperatures. […]
» Read moreDemonstrators have continued to peacefully protest in Russia’s Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, demanding the release of the region’s governor Sergei Furgal of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) […]
» Read moreMoscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced Thursday that wearing masks will no longer be required outdoors from July 13 […]
» Read more“The Russian Arctic set record temperatures in June that sparked abnormal tundra fires … Russia’s weather service [director] said … blaming climate change for … ‘fantastical’ anomalies. Russia’s northern territories, including parts of Yakutia region which borders the Arctic ocean, have faced a heat wave … with some districts declaring a state of emergency. … He noted one record in […]
» Read more“Doctors, equipment and basic supplies run short as cases climb; some facilities lack running water.” “… The episode at Karabanovo hospital offers a glimpse into the dysfunction and inefficiency that plagues Russia’s health-care system as the country fights the new coronavirus … the world’s third-highest caseload after the U.S. and Brazil. Many front-line medical workers in Russia say their safety […]
» Read moreThe majority of Russians have stopped working from home and almost immediately returned to offices and workplaces across the country following the relaxation of quarantine measures […]
» Read more… In almost every museum, visitors will only be able to buy electronic tickets, and everyone, including guests and exhibition staffers, are required to wear masks and practice social distancing. […]
» Read moreTheir WWII Parades Are Going Ahead. Meanwhile, 20 cities have canceled or delayed the June 24 parades because of the pandemic. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Pjotr Sauer, Evan Gershkovich – June 17, 2020) [photo caption in original post: After military cadets were infected with the coronavirus during parade training sessions in April, the Defense Ministry has enforced stricter measures.Defense […]
» Read more(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – June 16, 2020) Russia’s second-largest city St. Petersburg had the highest coronavirus mortality rate among all Russian cities in the month of April, according to a new analysis of official data. St. Petersburg recorded 200 deaths where Covid-19 was a direct cause or “had a significant impact” on the person’s death in April, state statistics […]
» Read more“Infections remain high as city authorities begin reopening and Putin prepares for parade, referendum” “… Moscow has been at the center of Russia’s novel coronavirus pandemic, with 40% of the country’s nearly half million infections. … Russia is recording about 9,000 new cases a day. On Tuesday, Moscow reported just over 1,500 new cases … [down] from … nearly 2,000 […]
» Read more“… [Its] mayor surprised [Moscow] … lifting the vast majority of coronavirus curbs …. even as the city registered more than 3,500 new cases and 110 deaths in the past 48 hours. … Since … suspected patient zero arrived in Moscow from Milan in February, the health ministry has recorded over 485,000 confirmed cases … third highest in the world […]
» Read more“Russia has been one of the countries hardest hit by … [Covid-19] coronavirus … behind only the United States and Brazil in … [T]he government’s response has received heavy criticism at home and abroad. Russian doctors have described critical shortages of equipment, which hospital administrators and local governments deny. Observers have questioned whether Russia is under-reporting mortality figures …. But […]
» Read moreMoscow officials announced plans to lift coronavirus restrictions starting Tuesday despite the Russian capital continuing to see about 2,000 new infections each day. […]
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