Global Voices Online

Scraps of Moscow comments on local media coverage of Russian president Vladimir Putin's flight in a strategic bomber aircraft during military exercises, saying they can no longer tell the difference between a PR exercise and hard news.

Recent Links also in Eastern & Central Europe

A few last month's updates at IZO: artist and writer Vagrich Bakhchanyan dies in NYC; Ukrainian artist Aleksandr Gnilitsky dies in Kyiv; a Ukrainian Euro-2012 icon.

Profy cites a report by the Russian division of Microsoft, which claims that the company has lost $1 billion to Russian pirates, but has earned the same amount from legal sales.

Evgeny Morozov writes about “social media and social memory” - and a Facebook project involving a 22-year-old Lublin resident posing as a 7-year-old Jewish boy who was killed by the Nazis during WWII. Vaviblog (ENG) is a similar project, which “gives voice” to Russian scientist Nikolai Vavilov: “…if Vavilov were alive today, he’d be popping into the nearest internet café at every opportunity to share his discoveries with the world.” Another similar project is a pseudo-blog of Hava Volovich (RUS), who was born in 1916 in Ukraine, spent nearly 20 years in the Soviet labor camps and exile, and died in 2000.