“Muscovites go about their daily lives with little major disruption. But the war’s effects are evident — in the stores, at the movies and in the increasingly repressive environment.” “… Muscovites are experiencing dual realities: The war has faded into background noise … yet … remains ever-present in … daily lives. … Advertisements to join the military are … on […]
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(Moscow Times – Pyotr Kozlov – Sept. 9, 2023) Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin is expected to win re-election by an overwhelming margin in this weekend’s mayoral elections following the elimination of virtually all other opposition and independent candidates. Sobyanin has led Russia’s capital, a city of 12 million people, through waves of mass protests, the Covid-19 pandemic and, today, regular […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, June 14, 2023) Many émigré politicians, Russian and non-Russian, talk about the looming collapse of Russia, a position that is understandable but fundamentally defective because it is a classic example of wishful thinking, of believing that what one wants to happen is what will, Tatyana Vintsevskaya says. The Siberian activist, who herself […]
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“… The buzzword for the future of Russia is ‘decolonisation.’ For many people this means a challenge to the current state’s imperialistic mindset, in respect of both its neighbours and the minority nations inside its borders. For others, the term has come to mean dismemberment. … The current Federation has some 190 or so ethnic groups, and most are not […]
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(Moscow Times – April 18, 2022) Around 200,000 employees of foreign companies in Moscow could lose their jobs due to sanctions over Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, the city’s mayor said on Monday. “According to our estimates, about 200,000 people are at risk of losing their jobs,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a blog post. He said authorities had […]
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Pukhayev and other local Stalin critics are left casting around for explanations …. “Stalinism is our national Stockholm syndrome,” he said, referring to a psychological condition in which hostages develop an emotional bond with their captors […]
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Street fairs, ice skating, curling, and lots and lots of Christmas trees. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Dec. 13, 2021) Despite concerns about coronavirus, the Moscow city government decided to celebrate Christmas and the New Year with its annual festival. Called “The Journey to Christmas,” the festival began this past weekend and will go until Jan. 9. Russia celebrates Christmas […]
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On Tuesday Moscow opened ten new metro stations on the Big Circle Line (BCL) — the ring of stations that surrounds the original Circle Line in the city center […]
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From big gas projects to closer military cooperation and improved bilateral trade that reached a record of more than $110 billion in 2019, the China-Russia relationship has reached new heights [. ..]
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Russia held controversial parliamentary elections last weekend that were marred by claims of mass fraud […]
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Nationwide statisticians have estimated that half of the official votes received by United Russia in the election could have been falsified [. ..]
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Independent data scientists and analysts said that half of all the votes attributed to United Russia in the official results were probably fake — a level of falsification previously unseen in Russian parliamentary elections [. ..]
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Despite nerves and head winds, Natalia Pinus’s biggest challenge is defeating her and all change supporters biggest opponent: low voter turnout from an apathetic, cynical, and distracted population […]
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Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s Smart Voting system has added a new dimension to an old problem. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Felix Light, Jake Cordell – Sept. 13, 2021) If there’s one district Russia’s beleaguered opposition should be able to win in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, it’s Moscow’s 197th, Kuntsevsky. Named for the suburb where Josef Stalin had his dacha, […]
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Saransk’s entrepreneurs are divided over whether the government is on their side, but discontent is unlikely to be reflected in the upcoming Duma vote. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jake Cordell – SARANSK, MORDOVIA – Sept. 7, 2021 For barbershop owner Oleg Kechin, the first 18 months of the coronavirus pandemic were a breeze. After shutting for just four weeks […]
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On Sept. 19, Russians will vote in important elections to the country’s State Duma national parliament, the first major test of public opinion since a major crackdown […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Aug. 31, 2021) Because so many Russians have left villages to move to the cities, it is often overlooked that many Russians choose to remain in villages and many who have moved into urban areas nonetheless view village life as preferrable in a variety of ways to the one they find themselves […]
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Putin … said the scale of natural disasters that have hit Russia this year is “absolutely unprecedented” as local officials ask for Moscow’s help to tackle fires and floods […]
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“… United Russia … is defending their super majority … but faces increasing challenges due to its own unpopularity and mounting grievances. … [with] a large majority .. key … to ensuring its own cohesion and shoring up legitimacy of the Putin government. … [An] effort to secure the vote results from the government’s need for credibility in … a […]
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Russia can expect to see intensifying wildfires, floods and other extreme weather events in the coming decades as the global climate crisis deepens a decade sooner than projected […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, July 1, 2021) In the course of his Direct Line television show, Vladimir Putin said he was against moving the capital of the Russian Federation from Moscow but does favor having Russian companies which operate there have their headquarters in Siberian cities and pay taxes there rather than as now in Moscow. […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, June 25, 2021) Russia’s autocratic government is modern not just because it has reversed the democratization wave of three decades ago but because it is willing to make use of modern techniques in some spheres of life under its control for its direct benefit, according to Gulnaz Sharaftudinova. The Kremlin uses various […]
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Most parties … participating in the upcoming Duma and regional legislative assembly elections are now including environmentalists in their list of candidates […]
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The spike was announced 24 hours after the Kremlin denied … report[s] that Russia is in the midst of a Covid-19 third wave […]
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Latest figures continue to show the slow pace of Russia’s vaccination rollout. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 15, 2021) Around 820,000 Muscovites have received both doses of a coronavirus vaccine, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said yesterday, with the number who have received at least one dose of Russia’s three homemade jabs having surpassed 1 million in the capital. In a […]
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“The Yeliseyevsky Food Emporium … is due to close its doors on April 11 after 120 years […]
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… [Navalny’s supporters] have been systematically targeted with raids, criminal charges, and police beatings …. [H]is team … announced … 10 new regional offices to add to its Russia-wide network … [to] investigate local corruption, organize protests, and contest elections […]
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says demand for the Russian vaccine far exceeds supply in foreign countries …. But the same situation holds in many parts of Russia where there is now not enough vaccine to meet domestic demand […]
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“In its 874-year history, Moscow has grown from an obscure twelfth-century military outpost into a world-class capital city of over 20 million inhabitants. Along the way, the city has been reinvented over and over to suit the needs of its rulers. Ivan the Great made Moscow “The Third Rome” after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, raising stone cathedrals inside […]
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… Navalny’s team has announced plans to open offices in 10 cities where it believes the ruling United Russia party is most vulnerable […]
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… [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 […]
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Subject: Week Two in the Regions Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2021 From: Sarah Lindemann-Komarova <echosiberia@gmail.com> Protests in the Russian Regions: Take Two By Sarah Lindemann-Komarova Has lived in Siberia since 1992. Was a community development activist for 20 years. Currently, focuses on research and writing. With Photos: echosiberia.medium.com/protests-in-the-russian-regions-take-two-98aa9b451f09 What happened in the Russian regions week two of the “Navalny” protests? […]
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Subject: A Good Day for Russia: The Navalny Protests Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2021 From: Sarah Lindemann-Komarova <echosiberia@gmail.com> A Good Day for Russia: The Navalny Protests By Sarah Lindemann-Komarova Sarah Lindemann-Komarova has lived in Siberia since 1992. Was a community development activist for 20 years. (With photos: echosiberia.medium.com/a-good-day-for-russia-the-navalny-protests-e7e437b5cda2) To the great relief of anyone paying attention, there were no big […]
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“… 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 […]
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Russia … 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 […]
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… Russia’s two largest cities experienced the warmest autumn temperatures of their recorded histories in 2020 …. And it’s only the beginning, experts say […]
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“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 […]
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(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 […]
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“The virus is putting the healthcare system on its knees. A massive number of students are now sent out to aid.” “… According to the federal healthcare chief, several regions are now running out of available hospital bed[s]. … About 270,000 additional hospital beds are now being prepared for new patients. But medical staff is increasingly … [facing a] shortage. […]
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… 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 […]
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Medics 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 […]
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“… [Khabarovsk] protests … against the arrest of former local governor Sergei Furgal have … been ongoing for … 100 consecutive days … remarkable … [for] Putin era protests. … [On] October 10 … for the first time[] [there was] … a crackdown by riot troops and the arrest of about 30 …. [T]he numbers … have significantly dwindled … […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, Oct. 21, 2020) This month marks the tenth anniversary of Sergey Sobyanin’s time as mayor of the Russian capital; and over the past ten years, both his actions and broader changes have made Muscovites feel a greater attachment to and even love for their city than they had felt earlier. This change […]
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Across 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 […]
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(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 […]
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(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, […]
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“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 […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, September 19, 2020) The pandemic has introduced major changes in Russian government policy but perhaps not one greater than this: for the first time in a very long time, the Russian government has spent more on promoting the economy than on maintaining and developing its military (sobkorr.org/news/5F6610F248362.html). The number of new cases […]
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“… ‘Smart voting’ tactics promoted by anti-corruption blogger and opposition activist Alexei Navalny[,] [promoting candidates most likely to oust United Russia, regardless of political allegiances,] delivered a few successes in … regional elections …. Opposition leader Sergei Boyko won … in … Novosibirsk, despite an energetic campaign by … ruling United Russia Party. … [L]ocal elections have been a test […]
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“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 […]
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