Alexey Sidorenko

Born in Moscow. Graduated from the Moscow State University and defended Ph.D thesis there. Currently finishing MA thesis in the Warsaw University, Poland. Worked in Carnegie Moscow Center from 2005 till 2008 in the “Society and Regions” programm. More events at my blog

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Latest posts by Alexey Sidorenko

Russia: Bloggers Discuss Crying Putin

At pro-Putin rally, Vladimir Putin cried (photo, video) when heard that he apparently won in the first round of elections. This fact immediately became a hot topic among commenters. “He began to stream myrrh,” and “Moscow does not believe in tears,” a reference to the popular Soviet movie, are among the...

Russia: Election Violations Recorded in the North Caucasus

YouTube-user iFegor had recorded a video transmission from North Ossetia republic where two women are putting numerous ballots into the ballot boxes. In Dagestan, another user had recorded an unidentified man also stuffing ballots. Both republics are known for their unusually high (more than 90 percent) support of candidates and...

Russia: Government Election Webcams

“Although not much can be seen, Muscovites have finally seen Russia,” write bloggers describing election webcams [ru] installed by Rostelecom company following the Dec. 2011 election. Although video capturing had not been possible initially, users developed an application [ru] to record broadcasts. Users of imageboard 2ch.so self-organized to hunt for funny videos, but instead...

Russia: Absentee Voters and Election Carousels Alarm Twitterers

Russian Twitterers report numerous ‘election carousels’ (form of vote rigging when people vote several times at different voting stations). Bolshoy Gorod shares a picture [ru] of buses that allegedly are transporting ‘carousel voters.’ Echo Moskvy reports [ru] 6000 voters illegally added to Strogino voting station. Users share their carousel observations...

Russia: DDoS Attack Puts Down Several Political Websites As Cyberwar Escalates

RuNet Echo  9 February 2012

On February 9, 2012, following the widely-discussed leaks of pro-Kremlin mailboxes, LiveJournal, where the leaks were published, became temporarily unavailable, Lenta.ru reported [ru]. Russian representative of Anonymous group @OP_Russia, suggested [ru] that it was a DDoS attack to hide the evidence of massive wrongdoings (including corruption, thievery, political provocations, and cybercrime) [ru] by...

Russia: New .Ru Domain Registration Rules Allow Easy Domain Seizure

RuNet Echo  8 February 2012

Andrey Rylkov Foundation writes about the first case of enforcement of the domain seizure rules in the “.ru” and “.рф” domain zones. The rules [ru] (Article 5, point 5.5) , updated on November 11, 2011 allow any law enforcement agency (like police, Federal Security Service, Prosecutor's office or Federal Drug Control Services (FDCS)) to request...

Russia: The Anonymous Hacks and Publishes E-mails of Pro-Kremlin Youth Group

RuNet Echo  8 February 2012

Read The Guardian's take on the so-called “Potupchik-gate,” a series of scandals surfaced as a result of hacking and publishing of private inbox of Kristina Potupchik [ru], press-secretary of Nashi, notorious pro-Kremlin youth group. All hacks were published by twitter-user @OP_Russia who uses Anonymous symbolics. Representatives of Anonymous, previously never seen involved...

Russia: Day of Protests Divides Citizens

RuNet Echo  5 February 2012

Despite temperatures of -20 degrees, thousands of Russians went out to the streets to participate in election manifestations. Some, organised online, were protesting against the elections and possible re-election of prime minister Vladimir Putin. Others, partly organised by pressure and bribes as well as fear of possible revolutions manifested that Putin should stay.

Russia: Prices of Popular Bloggers’ Posts Leaked

RuNet Echo  2 February 2012

Anonymous hackers had allegedly hacked an inbox of pro-Kremlin activist Kristina Potupchik and publicised [ru] a ‘price-list’ of posts of the most popular Russian bloggers. Government-sponsored Nashi were caught several times on organizing paid campaigns aimed to influence blogosphere's opinion. The prices vary from 130 to 1000 US dollars per post.

Russia: “For Fair Elections” Protest Coordination Portal Launches

RuNet Echo  1 February 2012

RosMiting.ru (Russian meeting), a community portal of protest actions, had launched. The portal accumulates information about protest events in various cities of Russia. It was created by the same team which started other interactive portals such as RosYama, RosPil, RosAgit, and RosVybory, politically-engaged crowdsourced communities and interactive portals developed in...

Russia: Ulyanovsk Blogger Wins Libel Case Against Governor

RuNet Echo  1 February 2012

Ulyanovsk-based blogger Oleg Sofyin (LJ-user lis73) won a court case against Ulyanovsk governor Svetlana Openysheva, lenta.ru reports [ru]. Openysheva tried to sue Sofyin for publishing a post where he described a phone call during which someone named Azat threatened him if he will continue to post critical articles about Openysheva. Despite winning the...

Russia: Vladimir Putin Ignites a Pre-Election Debate on Nationalism

RuNet Echo  1 February 2012

Following Vladimir Putin's article [ru] on ‘nationality question,’ Dmitry Rogozin, vice-premier and former leader of semi-nationalist party “Rodina,” had published [ru] an op-ed in which he calls nationalists who participate in post-election protests to join pro-government ranks. Oleg Kashin, Kommersant reporter, analyses [ru] it as a scary perspective for non-Russians who considered Putin a some sort...

Russia: Community of Election Observers Launched

RuNet Echo  24 January 2012

Creators of popular citizen crowdsourcing projects RosYama and RosPil Alexey Navalny and Georgiy Alburov launch a new project RosVybory [ru], a community of election observers. Users submit their data to the website, then project moderators apply for the necessary observer documents and send registered users to the nearby voting ballots.

“Russia Without Fools,” a Crowdsourced Feedback Portal Launched

RuNet Echo  23 January 2012

A committee of supporters of president Dmitry Medvedev had launched a crowdsourcing citizens-to-government feedback portal “Russia Without Fools” [ru] that allows to submit cases of officials’ stupidity or abuse. So far, the cases can be submitted freely and censorship hasn't been reported. Dmitry Ternovskiy, popular photoblogger, however, notes [ru] that...

Russia: Line to a Drug Dealer in Novosibirsk

RuNet Echo  19 January 2012

YouTube user Pepsick80 publishes a video [ru] of a drug dealer's selling point in Novosibirsk (city in Siberia). Several tens of cars and drug users standing in the line to buy drugs can be seen on the video. The voice behind the camera is utterly surprised and angry that there's...

Russia: Choosing Blogger of the Year

RuNet Echo  16 January 2012

LiveJournal started online voting [ru] in several nominations trying to identify the most important events in the Russian blogosphere. Voting, however, couldn't avoid controversy, as “Blogger of the Year” nomination [ru] didn't include many activists, Alexey Navalny among others. Sergey Muhammedov decided to start alternative voting [ru] that included much...