Stories from RuNet Echo from July, 2010
Russia: The First Case of YouTube Ban
Alexey Sidorenko writes about the Russian authorities' first attempt to ban YouTube.
Russia Tops Aggressive Internet Traffic Rating
Habrahabr users discuss [RUS] the latest Akamai‘s “State of the Internet” report. According to the research, 12 percent of all the Internet-attacks in the first quarter of 2010 were carried out from the territory of Russia, while the U.S. hackers took the “second prize” for 10 percent of the world's...
Russia: Prosecutor That Banned Youtube Gives Interview
Marker.ru publishes an interview with Vladimir Pakhomov, city prosecutor that obliged the local Internet provider to block Youtube, Web.archive.org and other websites [EN]. Pakhomov expressed Chinese-government-style philosophy on Internet-filtering: “Provider is obliged to filter the information that goes through its channels to the Worldwide Web”, and didn't exclude probable filtering...
Russia: Interview With ‘A Good Treaty’ Russia Blogger
Sublime Oblivion interviews the author of A Good Treaty blog, continuing the Watching the Russia Watchers interview series that was launched by Andy Young of Siberian Light.
Russia: Merging SVR and FSB; “Another Sexy Spy”
RFE/RL's The Power Vertical reports on the alleged plans to merge Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service with the Federal Security Service. Scraps of Moscow writes about the newest “sexy Russian spy” scandal.
Russia: Online Cartoon Character – Mr. Freeman – Deconstructs Reality, Mocks Netizens
Gregory Asmolov writes about Mr. Freeman, a sarcastic, gloomy and enigmatic online cartoon character, who has made millions of young Russians think about the way they live their lives.
Russia: LiveJournal Under Fire Of Criticism for “Innovations”
LiveJournal, Russia's still most popular blog platform, recently fell under severe criticism for several “innovations”: purging suspended and “inactive” accounts [EN] and closing OpenID registration [RUS] (allowed LJ-users to comment in other blog-platforms). Blogger sviridenkov observes [RUS] more and more bloggers switching to stand-alone blogs, while Artur Welf says [RUS] disappointed users...
Russia: Forest Park Defenders Attack Khimki City Administration
User berillii posts [RUS] a footage of the storming of the Khimki city administration [EN] by anarchists and antifascists that took side of the Khimki forest park defenders. LJ-user mmet supplies photos of the event. A peaceful meeting grew to a chaotic demonstration, after authorities once again detained [RUS] the...
Russia: Reginal Court Blocks YouTube for Extremist Content
Komsomolosk-on-Amur [ENG] city court, at the Russian Far East, ordered local Internet provider “Rosnet” to block access to Youtube and four other websites (including web.archive.org), Cnews reported [RUS]. The decision was made due to a request by the city prosecutor's office. YouTube had been blocked because of the nationalist movie...
Russia: “Putin's Pee Joke”
At The Huffington Post, Simon Shuster explains Vladimir Putin's “manner of winning the public's support”: “Find an issue that annoys a lot of people, find somebody to blame for it, and lace into him, publicly and with some classic village wit. Show on state television how the problem gets fixed.”
Russia: “Putin-Jugend”
Simon Shuster writes for The Huffington Post about a summer camp for Russia's “group-think generation.”
Russia: Blackout of the Social Network Triggers Twitter Panic
The word “vkontakte“, standing for the name of the Russian social network, found itself among top Twitter trends. It happened after millions of Russian users were not able to access [RUS] the social network because of a failure [RUS] of a local power station. Some bloggers started the online panic...
Russia: Ask a Search Engine About the Weather
“When the heat will pass away?” is this week's most popular search enquiry in the Russian Google. Another most popular search requests include: “How to survive heat wave?”, “How to cool down the room without an air conditioner?” and “Where people swim in the Moscow region?”, RIA Novosti reports [RUS].
Russia: First Cyrillic Word Tops Twitter Trends
Russian heatwave makes history not only in the streets of Moscow but also in the virtual space. The Russian word “дождь” (rain) turned to be the first Cyrillic word in Twitter's worldwide trending topics, RIA Novosti [RUS] reports. It happened after Moscow bloggers witnessed a minor rain, that followed several weeks of unusually...
Russia: Unknown People in Masks and Police Attack Environmentalists
From 20 to 40 young people in white masks attacked the camp of the defenders of the Khimki forest park [RUS], Igor Podgorny [RUS] and Novaya Gazeta [RUS] reported. The police intervention didn't help – instead several environmentalists and journalists were detained.
Russia: Anti-Religious Online Group Closed
“Antireligion” group in the social network “Vkontakte“, with more than 8000 members, had been closed and its content deleted, ru_antireligion reports [RUS]. Prosecutor's office, that was checking the group for extremism [RUS], recognized photos of t-shirts with slogans “Orthodoxy or Death” [EN] as “extremist” and obliged administration of “Vkontakte” to...
Russia: “Why Did They Kill Yuri Volkov?”
The murder of a TV journalist and football fan Yuri Volkov in the centre of Moscow on July 10, 2010, became a widely discussed event in the Russian blogosphere. A complicated topic, dealing with hostile ethnic stereotypes, crime, police corruption and Russian subcultures, has generated nearly 7,000 comments, tweets and blog posts.
Russia: ‘Orthodoxy or Death’ to Degenerate Art?
"Orthodoxy or death!" is the war cry sounded in recent weeks as forces of religious reaction have entered into fierce battle with liberal arts, in an apparent Russian parallel to the Muhammad cartoon case. The cause of conflict is the trial and conviction of two art curators for a 2007 Moscow exhibition of contemporary art.
Russia: Roadtrip to Caucasus
Popular bloggers tema [RUS], nl [RUS] and others [RUS] (9 bloggers in 3 cars) post pictures and short notes from the roadtrip to Caucasus, that started on July 15th, 2010. So far, they travelled through the North Caucasus republics and are planning to go to Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.
Russia: Pictures of the Khimki Forest Defense
Photographer Igor Podgorny publishes [RUS] pictures from the camp of the defenders of the Khimki forest park [EN] situated in the Moscow's outskirts. After authorities started to cut the trees [RUS] (illegally) on July 15th, a group of environmentalists [RUS] erected barricades in order to stop the cuttings.
Russia: New Details About the National Search Engine
Russia is going develop the National Search Engine, Gazeta.ru writes [RUS]. Despite the recent denial [RUS] of such plans by minister Igor Schegolev, journalists published slides of a closed presentation of the project, defined as the “informational window of Russia” to the world. The search engine, that will cost more than...
