Global Voices Online

Looks like political shoe-throwing is becoming mainstream not only in Iraq. The world has seen the sixth case recently, when, during a press conference, Vitaly Papilkin (aka LJ user papilkin [RUS]) threw his shoe at Samara mayor Viktor Tarhov, elected to his post in one of Russia's largest cities (pop. 1.13 million) in 2007. Two YouTube videos [RUS] of the incident are available - Video 1 and Video 2.

Poemless writes about Vladislav Surkov and Western media coverage of Russia.

“In Russia Snow Walks…” - notes on the Russian language and the Russian winter, at Russian Blog.

LJ user drugoi re-posts a photo story (RUS) by REUTERS/Gleb Garanich on the fall 2009 draft into Ukrainian army, which has now been suspended due to flu outbreak.

LJ user drugoi writes about (RUS) and posts photos from an opposition rally that took place in Moscow on Saturday. Some 50 people were detained by the police during the rally, and, according to LJ user nl (RUS), among them was a U.S. embassy employee whose last name, when transliterated into Russian, is Bond.

Jost A Mon translates the intro and excerpts from Polina Zherebtsova’s 1999 Chechen Diary that were published in Bolshoi Gorod (RUS) in Sept. 2009.

LJ user ssmirnoff posts a selection of photos and video (RUS) from the funeral of Russian mafia boss Vyacheslav Ivankov (aka Yaponchik), which took place on Oct. 13 in Moscow.

LJ user avmalgin posts footage from and writes this (RUS) about the rally against voter fraud in Moscow, following the governing party's victory in local election: “On Pushkin Sq., it turns out, someone was going to protest against something. Naive people. It's like coming out of the theater and holding a protest rally against Othello's evil deeds.” LJ user unruler interprets avmalgin's “laconic” post: “[…] It's absurd to protest against the election farce (the regime does know perfectly well that everyone KNOWS), but it's better to stay calm and look for rational ways of getting out of this theater of political absurd.”

LJ user mozgovaya posts photos (RUS) from the gay right march that took place in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 11. LJ user bagira commented (RUS): “These guys do have a sense of humor - lots of very funny slogans. But Obama will disappoint them, I'm afraid.”