Those of you missing the interviews of Russia bloggers that I’ve done intermittently on Siberian Light over the years will be pleased to know that Anatoly Karlin of Sublime Oblivion has now taken up the torch.

Starting today, he’ll be interviewing Russia bloggers in a new series called Watching the Russia Watchers.

First up is an interview with A Good Treaty (not his real name), a foreign policy researcher currently working in Washington and blogging about Russian politics, US-Russia relations, and other stuff Russia.

Check out the A Good Treaty blog here.

Russia Blogger Interviews move to Sublime Oblivion is a post from: Siberian Light

I’ve got a pretty robust spam filter here on Siberian Light that usually keep the junk comments from making it onto the site.  Sometimes I steel myself and take a quick look through the spam comments to see if a real comment has accidentally been caught by the filter.

There’s a trend for spam comments to be written by humans, to try and get around the spam filters, but usually they’re still little more than semi-literate nonsense.  And then I received the following comment this morning:

HELP! I’m currently being held prisoner by the Russian mafia [SPAM LINK HERE]  and being forced to post spam comments on blogs and forum! If you don’t approve this they will kill me. [SPAM LINK HERE] They’re coming back now. [SPAM LINK HERE] Please send help! nitip [SPAM LINK HERE]

So, what do you think?  Is Nitip an inspired and slightly bored spammer?  Or is he really being held prisoner by the Russian Mafia?

Russian Mafia forcing prisoners to write Spam comments? is a post from: Siberian Light

Russian Prime Minister showed off his manliness to an adoring press yet again this weekend by roaring into Sevastapol, Ukraine on a Harley Davidson motorcycle.  Although, at least this time Putin kept his clothes on.

Putin was in Ukraine to meet with President Viktor Yanukovich, but took some time out to visit an international bikers convention.  There he defied type by telling his adoring crowd that he, like them, was a true democrat:

“Bike is the most democratic transport vehicle. Bike is the most daring, challenging as it gives its owner the tempting feeling of freedom, that is why one can say without any exaggeration, bike is a symbol of freedom

“You came here, because you are free people, and you can go wherever you want.”

And then displayed his understanding of modern machinery:

“There are such tricked out vehicles, such tricked out pieces of iron, like the one that I ride today,” Putin said.

RIA Novosti, the august Russian news agency, were so impressed that they briefly turned into drooling fashionistas:

The image of the premier was [like] totally matching the biker’s one. He was wearing black jeans, black shirt, sunglasses and biker gloves. [OMG!!]

OK – I may have tweaked that quote slightly.

Am I the only one who has noticed that, in order to prevent him from falling off, Putin was actually propped up on a tricycle?

Anyways.  That’s our boy Putin.  It’s just how he rolls.

Putin Harley Davidson Pictures is a post from: Siberian Light

Before I start this week’s roundup, thanks to everyone who suggested some new blogs that I should be reading (see the comments of last week’s roundup).  There were so many great blogs on the list that I’m going to write a separate post later this week to highlight them all.  In the meantime, if there are any more blogs out there that you think I’ve missed, please let me know in the comments.

This week’s been a quiet one for Russia blog posts – here are the best of them (according to me!).

• If you’re looking for a more ‘newsy’ roundup of the Russia week, check out Patrick Armstrong’s Russian Federation Weekly Sitrep.
• Sean gives us permission to Pray for the President, and a copy of the prayer, so we don’t have to make it up.
• Russians get paid to blog too. sometimes they’re paid to write about products; sometimes they’re paid to write about politics.  Global Voices has the full details.
• Winner of the award for best title of the week is Anatoly, who explains why Russia is cemented to the other BRICs.
• The Russian government wants to give every Russian citizen a cyrillic email account. Oh the stupidity, the waste, and the potential for snooping on people too stupid to get another email account.
• Russia has apparently been engaging in some “nimble” multipolar diplomacy, says Vadim Nikitin.
• Ensign Pavel Chekov – hero of the Soviet Union!
• Strict Passport control?  At Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk? Tim tells us the truth…
• James at Robert Amsterdam asks – is Russia’s “inept and corrupt imitation” of a military industrial complex actually doing the country a favour?
• Also at RA, Grigory Pasko wonders if Lake Baikal has been forgotten.

Finally, moving out of country slightly, remember to check out Registan.net for the latest updates on events in Kyrgyzstan.

Russia Blog Roundup – 15 June 2010 is a post from: Siberian Light

As I’m getting back into the swing of monitoring the Russia blogs for these weekly reviews it occurs to me that it’s actually been quite a while since I’ve updated my Google Reader subscription lists.  So, before you read through the great links below, I’d like to ask a quick favour – please tell me about any top Russia blogs out there that I really should be reading!

And now, back to this week’s links.

• Social Networking in Russia – some great articles and graphics at Scraps of Moscow.
• Kvas.  You can never get enough Kvas.  Now learn how to talk about Kvas, courtesy of Yelena.
• Talking about food and drink – check out this Russian Tea Cookies recipe from Windows to Russia.  I’m hungry!
• An intriguing article from Paul Goble about how farmers from China are renting huge swathes of Siberian farmland.
• More on the Siberia – China population imbalance and its security implications here.
• Another fascinating fact from Paul Goble – Protestants now outnumber Russian Orthodox in Russia’s Borderlands.
• Global Voices report on the increasing prominence of bloggers from Russia’s regions – the dominance of the Moscow / St Petersburg bloggers is waning slightly, it seems
• Slightly out of area, but What does it take to be a female leader in Central Asia?, asks Erica Marat at the Jamestown Foundation blog.
• Stalin’s Summer Snowstorms, from Vilhelm Konnander.
• Joel from Far Outliers makes a welcome return to Russia with his post on American Travelers in the USSR, 1927.
• A geotagged map of Moscow photography, via Russia! magazine’s blog.
• Steve Levine’s Oil and Glory blog will be moving next week to become a part of the Foreign Policy magazine stable of blogs.

And, finally, if that’s not enough of a roundup for you, check out Poemless’ June spring cleaning edition of Odds and Ends.

And, finally, finally, just before you go, check out these amazing pictures of a toy soldier parade in Red Square.

Russia Blog Roundup is a post from: Siberian Light

Now that Eurovision mania is all over and done with (Russia’s Peter Nalitch didn’t win, but did markedly better than my own country’s dismal last place!), it’s time for another roundup of posts from the Russia blogs.

• Two great interviews of two great True / Slant bloggers – Julia Ioffe is interviewed by the New Yorker and Mark Adamantis is interviewed by La Russophobe.
• Fareed Zakaria spends an hour talking about Russia, including interviews with William Browder, Mikheil Saakashvili, Bret Stephens, and Stephen Cohen (via Robert Amsterdam)
• Dmitry Medvedev does standup comedy.
• Poemless asks – Why is Misha Khodorkovsky a dissident?
• Ed Lucas of the Economist has been promoted.  And got a new blog, called Eastern Approaches.
• Grigory Pasko on the Pollution of Lake Baikal
• Russian Literature is Better than Sex, says Josefina.  Good news, because I’ve got a long list of books to get through…
• Nick Wilsdon has been exploring the new Yandex Index.
• Is Russia going to reconstitute its rail mobile ICBM force? Probably not, says Russian Navy blog.
• The story of a soldier who served in the American and Soviet armies during the second world war, from Windows to Russia.
• Why is there so much hatred in the Russia blogosphere? Probably the same reason as in the global blogosphere – stupid idiots given access to anonymity.
• Pavel Klushantsev – Russian Godfather of Star Wars

And finally, moving slightly outside of the Russia blogs, a great intro from Blogging Pro on How to Blog in a Hostile Country.

Russia Blog Weekly Roundup is a post from: Siberian Light

In a massive boost to Russian rugby, Russia have been awarded the right to host the 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament. The tournament will be held in Moscow, and will cover both the men’s and women’s sevens tournament.

The tournament will give the Russian rugby federation the chance to boost it’s finances but, more importantly, the arrival of tens of thousands of rugby fans in Moscow will hopefully boost interest in the game itself among the Russian public. RRF Vice President Howard Thomas (great Russian name!) said:

“In order to help rugby grow in stature and make progress in Russia one needs to convince first the Government and then the public. We have the Government support and the second step will be to expand the concept to the public.

We felt that Sevens was ideally suited to help us attract the public and generate interest. It is much simpler than 15-a-side rugby, easy to educate, easier to explain and has been accepted into the Olympics, which is immensely significant in countries like Russia.”

By the way – if you’re interested in watching the Russian rugby sevens team in action, they’re playing in the London Sevens this weekend, and in the Edinburgh Sevens tournament a week later.

Russia Host Rugby Sevens World Cup 2013 is a post from: Siberian Light

Following a reminder from Anatoly Karlin of Sublime Oblivion, I thought it was about time I resurrected my once weekly series rounding up the best posts from around the Russia blogs. So, without any further preamble, here are my picks for best Russia blog posts of the past week (and a bit).

Did the Russian Navy ‘execute’ Somali pirates?

The most commented on story in the Russian blogosphere this week has been Russia’s rescue of a tanker under attack by Somali pirates. Initial reports were that the Russian Navy had killed one pirate in the mission, and arrested 11 others, but later reports indicated that the 11 arrested pirates were dead – the Russian Navy contend that they were released and didn’t make it back to shore, while conspiracy theorists argue that they were either just executed, or were released 300 miles from shore in a boat that lacked navigational equipment.

Streetwise Professor points out that the uncertainty over what actually happened is another example of Russia shooting itself in the foot when it comes to international perception. This is something I strongly agree with – there’s a reason why everyone is prepared to believe the worst of Russia. Robert Amsterdam reckons that Russia sent a message about its strength to the pirates (and, I suppose, by implication, a message to the rest of the world that Russia is now prepared to flex its muscles a bit more abroad). Steve Levine also wonders if Russia could become the world’s Pirate Police.

Blogging about Russia Blogging

This last couple of weeks have also been marked by quite a bit of Russia blog navel gazing.

La Russophobe kicked things off with her LR rates the Russia Blogs post, and Anatoly at Sublime Oblivion responded a day later with his own Short Guide to the Top 10 Russia Blogs. Both are well worth a read (although when you do read, bear in mind their differing perspectives), and both lists contain a lot of blogs that you really should be reading!

Moving on to Russian language blogs, you really shouldn’t miss Alexey Sidorenko’s excellent Global Voices review of the Russian Blogosphere in 2009-2010.

In other Russia meta-blogging news, Windows to Russia have moved across from blogger to wordpress.  It sounds like Google deleted their old site without warning.  This is something I’ve heard of happening more and more recently, and Google often seem to be acting without any particular reason.  So if you’re on blogger you might want to backup your blog posts, and consider a move elsewhere – wordpress.com are a good no hassle solution, and hosting your own site is actually pretty easy to do as well.

One final piece of meta-news – Global Voices have announced a partnership with Echo Moskvy radio station.

Other recommended posts

Other posts I recommend from the past week include:

• Sean spent May Day with the Russian Communists.
• News from Russian Film of the launch of an online Russian film theater / repository.
• Ed Lucas from the Economist asks – What does Apple have against Eastern Europe?
• Robert Amsterdam writes about Russian Perspectives on International Law.
• Jamestown Foundation ask if Lukashenka and Bakiyev are friends in need.
• The Russian Front introduce a historian’s dream come true – the Russian Ministry of Mass Communications have just released a major historical resource called 1941-1945 Chronicle of Victory.

Finally, to finish off with, two funnies:

• Soviet Posters Recreated with Barbie Dolls from English Russia.
• Belarus TV’s rip off of the Big Bang Theory comedy, complete with video from Anna Ershova.

Well, that’s it for this week.  If the stars are correctly aligned, I’ll be back next week.  Otherwise, keep an eye out for the next weekly report sometime in 2011…

Weekly Blog Roundup is a post from: Siberian Light

La Russophobe posted her list of the top 10 Russia Blogs on Friday in LR rates the Russia Blogs. The next day, Anatoly Karlin responded with his own picks in A Short Guide to the Top 10 Russia Blogs.

Some interesting picks from both writers. It’s interesting to see that there are a few commonalities between the two lists, which you wouldn’t necessarily expect when you consider that Anatoly’s blog used to be Da Russophile.

If you want to see how things have changed in the past couple of years, compare with my Top 5 Russia Blogs list from January 2008.

Top 10 Russia Blogs – Two Perspectives is a post from: Siberian Light

Eberhard Schneider, writing for the EU-Russia center, reports that the 12 pledges for electoral reform that Medvedev made in 2008 have now been implemented. And there are some in there which seem like pretty good news for Russian democracy, enabling some small shifts back in the direction of electoral diversity, and making it easier for smaller parties to get involved in elections. Here are a few of the achievements that Schneider quotes:

1. Putin’s seven percent hurdle that parties had to clear before being allowed to enter parliament has now been lowered. From the next election, any party gaining between five and seven percent of the vote can enter parliament or send two members.

2. Any party wishing to participate in the next Duma elections in 2011 will only need to gather 150 000 signatures instead of the previous 200 000 and this will be reduced to 120 000 signatures in the subsequent election.

3. The rule requiring political parties to pay a hefty deposit (60 million roubles or 1.5m euros) at the 2007 Duma election – in order to participate in an election has now been abolished.

In the list of 12 reforms though, there’s still one shocker of a negative reform – it might be easier to take part in election, but they’re going to be held less often than they used to be:

12. After the next election, the legislative period of the Duma will be extended by one year to five and the presidential period of office extended by two years to six.

I’ve written about the stupidity of running Russian Presidential elections every six years before, and it’s still just as bad of an idea. The Presidential election is the flagship election of any democracy and, particularly in a young democracy, a regular and fairly fought election is vital if the concept of democracy is to be truly entrenched in the public’s psyche. Six years is just too long a gap for people to form habit of democracy.

Some good news for Russian Democracy… and some bad news is a post from: Siberian Light