Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
It seems to me that quite a few Russian speakers have appreciated the comic quality of the latest address by the Russian president-for-life. It fits nicely with the latest surge in grotesque Russian news – including cocaine smuggling by presidential airplane –…
Wednesday’s predictable but nevertheless bizarre re-conviction of Navalny and Ofitserov makes one wonder how the court managed the seemingly insurmountable barriers such as the absence of the corpus delicti and the ECHR’s ruling. It’s especially puzzling if, as Navalny has observed,…
It seems to me that the Moscow mayoral election last Sunday ended in slightly less than 50% of the vote to the incumbent, Sergey Sobyanin, but the Kremlin is not in the mood for a recount while the opposition isn’t…
This blog will have to get more political. There’s no avoiding it any more: Russia’s been sliding unfailingly hellward since the Dec. 12 elections, blatantly fraudulent even for this country. The Kremlin has viciously attacked the opposition, free thought and…
It’s a complete disgrace, this so-called Duma election today. No one to vote for, anyway. The day began with massive DDOS attacks on LiveJournal.com, newtimes.ru, bg.ru and a few other sites, including one documenting electoral irregularities. Back when I started…
No doubt, tomorrow’s parliamentary election is not going to be fair or free. But the interesting thing about it that United Russia, the “party of power,” is seriously afraid it may not get the majority it wants. (I’m not sure…
Putin’s decision to appoint governors may raise but a ripple in ethnically Russian regions (which is not to say they don’t deserve self-government), but how about “ethnic” republics like Tatarstan, Yakutia or any patch on the North Caucasian quilt? Should…
More from Gabriel Syme’s great post — this time, a quote: It is a sad day for liberalism. The liberals in Russia are finished in the short term. Igor Mintusov a political campaign consultant at Nikkolo M. It should be…
Nothing new on the Eastern front, writes Gabriel Syme at Samizdata (see also his previous entry). What I prize the most about Gabriel’s opinions is his historical-cultural approach, as opposed to a-historical or even anti-historical approaches. However, I don’t agree…
Not that Russians, skeptics as a rule, expect their Duma deputies to take care of their constituents’ interests, but voters hope that their representatives will serve them by staying true to the party line as it existed on election day.…
What’s wrong with the messenger? There are two well-known “liberal”, “democratic” parties in Russia: the URF and Yabloko. Judging by its official program, the URF is both politically and economically neo-liberal, and socially/culturally liberal. Yabloko pays more attention to safety…
Putin Revels in Election; Others See Flaws, reports the New York Times. I, too, saw flaws of great proportions, but I didn’t notice Putin reveling; on the contrary, he did not even look happy at the government meeting after the…