Latest posts by Alexey Sidorenko from November, 2010
Russia: Competing Models of Internet Politics
RuNet becomes an arena of the competition of at least two concepts of the usage of the cyberspace: "United Russia"'s formula "Internet instead of democracy" and independent, grass-roots formula "Internet as a free environment for civil society initiatives." Alexey Sidorenko analyzed the recent trends of the role of the Internet in contemporary Russian politics.
Russia: Online Cartoon Against Corruption in Road Construction
Antimult studio published [RUS] an informative and entertaining cartoon on corruption in road construction in Russia. Together with usage of the old technologies, corruption causes 4 times higher price of roads than in Europe. Bad roads cost Russians 6-8 percent of GDP and 20 thousand deaths in car accidents every...
Russia: Phenomenal Growth of Facebook and Twitter in 2010
Facebook and Twitter audience in Russia grew 3-4 times since the beginning of the year, Vedomosti cites [RUS] comScore data. By the end of 2010, almost 6 mln of Russian netizens use Facebook, while 2,5 million use Twitter.
Russia: 25% of Registered Cyrillic Domains Suspended
Coordination Center for .rf (.рф) domain (ccTLD) has temporarily suspended [RUS] all domains registered by Ru-Center registrar following the scandals with the closed auctions for the most lucrative Cyrillic domains. So far Ru-Center had registered almost every fourth .rf domain. The domains will be suspended until sides will reach an...
Russia: Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Facebook Account Banned and Un-Banned
On November 20, 2010 Facebook has suspended Mikhail Khodorkovsky‘s private account allegedly due to usage violations. It took four days to convince the social network to un-ban it. Anton Nossik once again noticed [RUS] how anonymous reporting and suspension of the opposition accounts becomes a new censorship technique, even more...
Russia: Bashkortostan President Meets Loyal Bloggers
JournalUfa comments [RUS] on the recent meeting of Rustem Khamitov, the new president (governor) of Bashkortostan republic, with the bloggers. Only loyal bloggers were allowed to come, plus several controversial moments were cut from local TV-coverage, blogger petroffvalerij claims [RUS]. In general, Bashkortostan-based community expressed confusion [RUS] about this attempt...
Russia: LiveJournal Suspends Another Independent Blogger
LiveJournal abuse team has suspended account of Stanislav Sadalsky, an actor and a popular independent blogger. Sadalsky claims he can access his account but can't post new posts at stanis-sadal [RUS]. So far the blogger launched a new account at sadalskij.livejournal.com. It is the third LiveJournal suspension of the political blogger...
Russia: New Portal Launches WebCam Discussion On Police Reform
“Talking heads,” a new socio-political portal, presents a debate on police reform in an unusual format: expert webcam chat. The idea of the website is to make a cultured, person-to-person debate available for others to watch and contribute.
Russia: Oleg Kashin is Back Online
Oleg Kashin, recently recovered from artificially inducted coma, published the first post [RUS] entitled: “I have nothing to say now but I will thank everyone later.” A post with just a YouTube video for the song played by Russian rock-band Aquarium gathered almost 450 wishes of faster recovery.
Russia: Controversy as Cyrillic Domains Hit the Open Market
This post is part of our special coverage Languages and the Internet. On November 11, 2010, registration for Internet domains in Cyrillic script, the writing system used by Russian and other Eastern European and Asian languages, went on the open market. Prior to this, Cyrillic domains could be registered only...
Russia-France: Antifascists Rally for Khimki Forest in Louvre
French antifascists shot a video [FR/EN] of a protest action in Louvre, France. Activists demanded cancellation of the highway that would cross Khimki forest park as well as stopping prosecution against Alexey Gaskarov and Maxim Solopov, two activists who are incriminated in assaulting Khimki City administration.
Russia: Members of the Anarchist Art Group “Voina” Arrested
2 members of the notorious anarchist art group “Voina” (“War”) have been arrested in Moscow due to accusations of organization of a hooligan group, fontanka.ru reported [RUS]. Turning over a police car during the latest art action could be the reason of the prosecution (photo and video reports from “Voina”‘s...
Russia: Pro-Kremlin Youth Movement's Programm Resembles Nazi
Bloggers compare the programme of pro-Kremlin youth movement “Stal” (Steel) with Goebbels‘ “Ten National-Socialist Commandments.” The programme of the local branch of the movement includes such slogans as “Russia's enemies are your enemies” and “Have faith in the future” and looks like a carbon copy of the Nazi document. More...
Russia: Vkontakte Social Network Recognized by RIAA as a Pirate Website
Torrentfreak writes about the recent inclusion of Vkontakte, Russia's most popular social network, to RIAA's “Notorious Markets Review.” Site's “functionality is specifically designed to enable members to upload music and video files,” the review says. Recently, Vkontakte won a court case [RUS] against VGTRK, Russian TV-company. The court ruled out the...
Russia: Pictures of Eid al-Adha Holiday in Moscow
Bloggers Drugoi [RUS] and Ottenki_serogo [RUS] share photos from the Qurban Bayram (Eid al-Adha) religious holiday. After Moscow accepted tens of thousands of guest workers from Central Asia, Muslim holidays are gathering more and more people. Aleshru contributes an interesting example [RUS] of “mixture of religions.”
Russia: Anti-Corruption Blogger Claims Officials Stole 4 Billion Dollars
Alexey Navalny‘s website navalny.ru is down after publishing materials on Transneft, Russian oil pipeline operator. The compromising materials claiming that top officials were involved in stealing over 4 billion dollars from the government budget, however, are available at his LiveJournal account [RUS] and several mirror websites (here and here).
Russia: Soccer Hooligans Might Be Involved in Assault on Oleg Kashin
Investigative blogger Anticompromat re-posts [RUS] a new version of attack on Oleg Kashin. He quotes LJ-user cleric_r saying that the assault might be connected with soccer fan groups. Kashin knew way too much about the relations between soccer fan groups, pro-Kremlin youth movements, and President's Staff. LJ-user semen_f19 adds [RUS]...
Kazakhstan: LiveJournal Suspends Oppositioner's Account
LiveJournal has suspended account of Rakhat Aliev, Kazakh opposition politician and a former president Nazarbaev‘s son-in-law, LJ-user Dolboeb reports. Previously Kazakhstan blocked entire LiveJournal in order to silence Aliev. At the same time, it is the second suspicious suspension in LiveJournal – on November 3, 2010 Russian opposition blogger pilgrim_67...
Russia: More Assaults on Journalists
Igor Podgorny reports on the attack on Sergey Mikhailov, Saratov journalist, that took place on November 5th, 2010. Kommersant writes about another attack on Anatoliy Adamchuk, journalist from Zhukovskiy city (Moscow region). Adamchuk was assaulted on November 7th, 2010.
Russia: Bloggers Discuss Attack on Journalist Oleg Kashin
The brutal attack on Oleg Kashin, a prominent Russian blogger and journalist, became topic #1 in RuNet several hours after it had occurred. Kashin is still in a medically induced coma; his legs, jaws and fingers are broken, one of the fingers on his hand has been amputated. The main questions that the bloggers are asking now are, "Who did this?" and "Will the attackers and their patrons be punished?" While there are at least three possible answers to the first question, there's no answer for the second one.
Russia: Mapping North-Caucasian Blogosphere
LJ-user timag82 together with a_sult_h and pcnariman analyzed [RUS] North Caucasian blogs. Thorough research of 528 blogs is divided into regional blogospheres. Discussion of the research is here [RUS]. Daghestani bloggers lead the North-Caucasian blogosphere, notes Paul Goble, which can be explained by the higher level of freedom in the republic compared...