AndyWhatever happened over the past week in Russia has been overshadowed by the bombing of Moscow’s Domodedovo airport which killed 35 people from Russia and around the world.
Reaction from Russia bloggers was swift, with many posting the news before international news organisations had really got started. Global Voices, for example, had a post up summarising and translating Russian tweets about the bombing within hours. Other Russia bloggers were quick to provide comments, and I’ve rounded up a few below:
- Before events were properly clear, Wired’s Danger Room blog asked if the bombers had managed somehow to circumvent security checks.
- Streetwise Professor wonders how authorities managed to link the Domodedovo bombing to a failed bombing attempt from 31st December so quickly.
- Russia Blog plays up the religion angle in its choice of URL – http://www.russiablog.org/2011/01/muslims_strike_again_at_moscow.php
- Yelena picks some Russian words for the day to express grief and shock.
In a final word on the bombing, Natalia Antonova posts on her blog about her friend Anna Yablonskaya, a Russian playwright who was killed. Natalia has also written another article on the Guardian’s website. (On a happier note – Natalia got married this weekend – wonderful news!)
Other posts of note this week include:
- My favourite article of the week is a collaboration between Sublime Oblivion and A Good Treaty – they’ve developed a brilliant infographic to explain who’s who in the Kremlin Clans.
- It was a close run thing though. In recent weeks I’ve really been enjoying Yelena’s fun and interesting approach to learning Russian, and this week she’s posted articles about learning Russian through board games and through Russian horoscopes. Truly, something for everyone.
- Also really worth reading is this epic article at A Fistful of Euros about how Estonia is faring in the current economic crisis, and how favourably its recovery compares with Spain’s.
- Julia Ioffe has noticed that election season has begun in Russia – which of course “means lots of meaningless bullshit from all parties involved.”
- Some of the meaningless bullshit involves a survey about whether Lenin should finally be buried. Absolutely not, says Vadim Nitkin – it would be a folly to bury Lenin.
- De Rebus uncovers a blog by Grigory Grigorov’s grand-daughter, and writes about Grigorev’s memoirs.
- Timothy Post reports on how Russia’s innovative Qiwi payment system looks set to expand to the US.
- In another Russian business success – Yandex’s share in the Russian search engine market is still going up, bucking the global trend where Google is squashing smaller search engines. Revenues are up quite a bit too.
- Patrick Armstrong’s weekly Russian Sitrep is up.
- Russia Blog writes about the number of pedestrians being killed by Russian government cars, driving dangerously under the official blue light.
- A Good Treaty writes about the growing love affair between Channel 1 and Channel 5 (complete with cupid’s arrow graphic).
- Why is the Russian government so worried about its employees using Skype?, wonders Ashley Cleek.
Well, that’s it. But, before you go – have a quick listen to a Russian police choir singing Let My People Go.
I think the reasons the government doesn’t want people using Skype are pretty obvious.
1. If your computer network, or the one of the person you are talking to, is not secure, then a lot of information is vulnerable.
2. It would be the easiest way to bug a room, without even having to know anything about technology.
3. Most people are going to be using it for personal, not professional, commuications, taking up bandwidth and costing the government money.
It is very pity that so many innocent people died. As to the Anna Yablonskaya, she is Ukrainian playwright. She was born in Odessa, Ukraine; and arrived in Moscow on a flight from Odessa.