Stories from Quick Reads and RuNet Echo
Hating on Russia's Protester Chess Master
Dissidents have fled Russia for as long as there has been a Russia from which to flee. Earlier this week, April 7, 2013, activist Ilya Yashin startled many when he announced [ru] on Twitter that protest figure and former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov had abandoned his leadership position in the...
Russian Censors Partially Acquiesce to Wikipedia
Russian Internet censors at Roskomnadzor have reversed a decision to ban Wikipedia's entry for “cannabis smoking,” following a reexamination of the article after a new round of edits by Wikipedian volunteers. In a statement [ru] on its website today, April 10, 2013, Roskomnadzor announced the unbanning, though at least nine [ru] other...
The RuNet's Leaky War
As RuNet Echo previously reported [GV], Alexey Navalny has appealed to his readers to make up their own minds about his innocence or guilt in an upcoming embezzling trial by releasing for download the financial documents of the firms involved. Now, his opponents appear to have taken a page out of his book, creating...
Chechen Leader's Tone-deaf Instagram Post
On April 1, 2013, the 20 year anniversary of Novaya Gazeta, a Russian newspaper critical of the government and known for its investigative reporting, Head of the Chechen Republic (formerly President) Ramzan Kadyrov took to his Instagram [ru], as he often does these days, to publicly express respect for the...
Russian Photographer Unearths Ghost Slum
A photo-blogger based in the city of Voronezh, located in central Russia not far from the Ukranian border, has taken a series of striking photographs [ru] (including an animated panorama) of a small, forgotten “slum” hiding in the center of an otherwise modern and populous urban area. The “slum”, which turns...
Russian Anti-Corruption Blogger Appeals to Readers
Alexey Navalny, unofficial protest leader, took to his blog [ru] on March 27 to defend himself from what he says are unfair allegations of corruption. Navalny is currently a suspect in two different embezzlement investigations. One of these, the so-called KirovLes case, involves the supposed use of a shell company to...
Top Anti-Corruption Blogger Parties at Kremlin
Russia's best known anti-corruption blogger, Alexey Navalny, shocked [ru] many of his supporters when he attended a banquet at the Kremlin yesterday, March 18, 2013.
Blood on the Russian Tracks
Earlier today, the Russian Railways concluded its official investigation into the death of Elena Soboleva, who died on January 18 crossing the tracks at the Saltykovskaia train platform [ru], located just east of Moscow. The Railways (or RZhD, as it's known in Russian) determined [ru] that Ms. Soboleva was responsible for her...
Human Rights Group Maps Russian Internet Censorship
On February 1, the Russian human rights group Agora released a report [ru] on RuNet censorship in 2012, titled “Russia As a Global Threat to a Free Internet,” documenting various limitations on Internet usage in Russia, including violence, administrative pressure, and other forms of intimidation and punishment used against netizens by...
Prank Reveals the Depths of Anti-American Propaganda in the Russian Media
Anonymity affords ordinarily timid individuals the courage and opportunity to behave dishonestly. That, anyway, is the story we typically hear, especially in the context of the Internet. As Oleg Kashin recently pointed out in his column [ru] at openspace.ru, however, it takes two to make a successful prank (the prankster and the sucker)—a...
On Putin's Address to the Federal Assembly
RuNet Echo contributor Donna Welles compiles [en] netizen reactions to President Putin's Address to the Federal Assembly (ru, en), highlighting which passages best resonated with bloggers and how they interpreted and understood his latest initiatives.
Russian LiveJournal Announces Grant Program
LiveJournal, owned and managed by Russian company SUP Media, just announced [ru] a grant program that will target the development of “interesting, but less well known blogs.” The grant funds could be used by a starting blogger to promote their blog through various paid “promo” services run by the company.
Top Russian Journalist, Oleg Kashin, Fired from Print Newspaper, Moves to Online Journal
Earlier today, Kommersant newspaper announced that it has fired columnist Oleg Kashin, one of Russia's best known journalists. In comments to Lenta.ru, Kommersant's chief editor, Mikhail Mikhailin, explained [ru] that Kashin's output has slipped in previous months, becoming too little to sustain his employment. Other sources indicate that Kashin's decision to...
Russia: Attempted Hijacking of Regional News Website
When internet domains are hijacked, the theft is usually facilitated by hackers. A stolen email password, a virus, or compromised server can wreak havoc on the ability of owners to maintain control of a website. However, it now appears that technological savvy is unnecessary for such a hostile takeover.
YouTube Temporarily Lands on Russia's Internet Blacklist
Thanks to a temporary glitch [ru], the Russian federal government briefly banned the entirety of YouTube earlier today. This comes shortly after Google's IP address [ru] also temporarily appeared on the state's Internet blacklist. Russian bloggers were quick [ru] to sound the alarm in both instances, prompting officials to correct the mistakes within...
Is the Kremlin Trying to Stop Governors from Using Twitter?
In an article [ru] published earlier this week, Izvestia newspaper cited anonymous sources inside the Kremlin who claim that the federal government is now discouraging regional heads and governors from communicating publicly through Twitter.
Russia: Facebook Insults Lead to a Fight at the Bolshoi
Earlier this week, an online spat between the chief editors of Russian GQ and Russian Tatler magazines came to physical blows on the steps of the famous Bolshoi Theater. First, Tatler's Eduard Dorozhkin insulted GQ's Michael Idov in a Facebook post that had anti-Semitic overtones [ru]. Idov, a Jewish emigre whose parents fled...
Russia: DDoS Attacks Cripple Opposition's Online Vote
Eight hours after online voting for the Russian opposition's “Coordinating Council” began, unknown assailants launched a sustained Denial-of-Service attack against the Election Commission's website, disabling the primary voting portal.
Russia: Regional Governor Holds Twitter Q&A
Two days ago Alexander Tkachev, governor of the the southern Kradnodarskiy Krai (one of Russia's 87 federal regions), announced a “twitter-conference” [ru], soliciting questions from his followers. Today he spent a few hours answering several dozen of them. The new-media-savvy public relations move met with hundreds of “trolling” questions like “how...
Russia: Candidates Drop Out of Opposition Elections
On October 16 two high profile candidates in the opposition's Coordinating Council elections announced they are withdrawing from the campaign. Economist Irina Yasina and writer Liudmila Ulitskaya published a statement [ru] on Yasina's blog, explaining that there are other “younger” and more “active” “young people” involved in the process, and that...
Russia: Elections to Opposition Coordinating Council Fail to Attract Regional Voters
Leonid Volkov, the brains behind technical aspects of the coming independent opposition elections [ru], has posted an interesting bit of statistics [ru] on his blog. Out of the approximately 90,000 people currently registered to vote, 34.6% are from Moscow and Moscow Oblast, and 11.7% are from St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast....
