· December, 2007

Below are posts about citizen media in Russian. Don't miss Global Voices по-русски, where Global Voices posts are translated into Russian! Read about our Lingua project to learn more about how Global Voices content is being translated into other languages.

Stories about Russian from December, 2007

Kazakhstan: Debates over Latinization of Kazakh Language

  25 December 2007

Kazakhstan intends to switch the state language to the Latin script. It was announced that the transition will take 12-15 years. As adam_kesher writes, the plan stirred many disputes and arguments – in particular, Russia and a part of Kazakhstan’s Russian-speaking population considers switching to Latin is an adverse move...

Ukraine: Yulia Tymoshenko and Coal Miners

  25 December 2007

Yulia Tymoshenko returned as Ukraine's prime minister on Dec. 18. Five days later, she was in Donetsk region, visiting the site of Ukraine's worst coal mining accident, the troubled Zasyadko mine. While there, she declared: "We'll be working on it and will make it so that in our country both young people and children would want to become coal miners." Below is a discussion of Tymoshenko's promise that took place at Korrespondent.net, a Ukrainian news site.

Russia: Christmas Tree Decorations

  23 December 2007

Here is a holiday season story that's got very little of the traditional holiday spirit in it. Posted by LJ user souffrante and accompanied by Valeriy Leushev's photos, it's as much about Russian bloggers' childhood memories as it is about globalization, consumer nationalism, bad management, labor rights and the power of blogging.

Kazakhstan: Blogosphere’s Self-Reflection

  20 December 2007

Recently, the Kazakhstani blogosphere has suddenly become interested in what the blogs really are and what sort of impact they have. Bloggers produced series of posts on this topic approximately at the same time. It is difficult to say for sure what was the reason for such wave of self-reflection...

Russia: Lyudmila Ulitskaya

  20 December 2007

Russian Blog writes about Lyudmila Ulitskaya's latest – and, possibly, her last – novel, “Daniel Stein, translator”: “After being such a prolific writer for many years, and after the huge work she put into her last effort, she of course deserves a break. Anyone who has read this masterpiece would...

Russia: Voting in Grozny

  16 December 2007

According to dubious Central Election Commission's data, over 99 percent of Chechnya's 580,918 eligible voters showed up for the Dec. 2 parliamentary election - and 99.36 percent of them voted for Vladimir Putin's United Russia party. Journalist Timur Aliev - was both a voter and a candidate in this election. Read his somewhat surreal account of what it took to exercise his right to vote in Chechnya's capital Grozny.

Russia: “Nashi” in Moscow

  12 December 2007

The first post-election week in Moscow was marked by increased presence of out-of-town members of the pro-Putin youth movement Nashi ("Ours") - and by the first public appearance of members of Mishki ("Bear Cubs"), a new children's pro-Putin movement. Below are one blogger's impressions of a group of Nashi - as well as her thoughts on Russia's future.

Kazakhstan: Do Kazakh Politics Coincide with OSCE Standards?

  6 December 2007

The main issue on the local blogosphere’s agenda are politics again – Kazakhstan with its controversial, more and more Soviet-alike political system and continuously poor human rights record, has won the top post in the Europe’s leading democracy promoting institution, OSCE. There are many speculations concerning the so-called “autocrats’ club...

Russia: Duma Election Notes

  3 December 2007

According to the early official results, president Vladimir Putin's United Russia party has won a landslide victory in the Dec. 2 general elections. Below is a tiny fraction of the recent election posts by Russian bloggers, translated from Russian.

Kazakhstan: IT City Masterplan

  1 December 2007

Kamneed posts a set of pictures he has taken at the presentation of an architectural master-plan of the “Alatau IT City”, which is meant to become a special economic zone near Almaty, the financial capital of Kazakhstan [ru].

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