Global Voices Online

War correspondent Vadim Rechkalov (LJ user voinodel) has posted an Aug. 9 interview with a Russian soldier (RUS) who said they had fired at least 20 Grad “packages” (each “package” has 40 rockets, which makes it around 800 rockets) at Tskhinvali on Aug. 8 - because they “had to seize the city.” (Overnight, Rechkalov's post has become #4 most popular item in the Russian blogosphere, according to Yandex Blogs portal - and then it rose to #2; in the first 24 hours it has generated nearly 1,000 comments.) [Update, Jan. 15: the post has since been deleted; Google's cache is here.)

Recent Links also in Eastern & Central Europe

The Russian president's mansion became a topic of discussions on the Internet when people found a bidding offers invitation for services at the government Web site [RUS] dealing with different types of tenders. Giving the coordinates identical with the ones of the most important residency in the country, the government was seeking a company capable of providing services for a mansion with a church, golf and mini-golf courses, four swimming pools, three fountains, two saunas, a VIP-restaurant and stables.

Hundreds of young anti-fascists gathered in the center of Moscow. They mourned the murder of Ivan Khutorskoy, an activist of “Antifa,” Russian anti-fascist movement. A blogger chtodelat claims [ENG] it's the sixth “Antifa” murder in Russia during the last few years. The photos of the gathering made by lj-user ottenki_serogo can be found here [RUS].

English Russia writes about the phenomenon of “social network graffiti” [ENG] that became very popular among the users of the leading Russian social network Vkontakte.ru.