Time for another roundup of the best blog posts about Russia. But, before I start, first a warning, then some shameless self promotion.

Warning - has your blog been hacked?

At the beginning of March, someone hacked into Siberian Light.

A not very nice person (from Russia, as it happens) changed one of the pages on SL to redirect visitors to that page on to various pornographic sites. At the same time, thousands of other sites were hacked, and links added to this particular page on SL. At one point, SL had such a boost in the Google rankings that around 10-20,000 one handed surfers were visiting SL every day.

Want to see how many websites linked to me? Take a look at my technorati page. According to them, Siberian Light is now one of the most popular blogs in the world (and by far and away the most popular Russia Blog)…!

Once Google noticed, my search engine rankings dropped like a stone - at one point, I didn’t even rank for the search “Siberian Light”. Visitors from Google went from several hundred per day to less than 30.

Happily, I fixed the damage pretty quickly, but SL has taken an absolute hammering in the search engines and is only now beginning to slowly recover its rankings.

Similar hacks affected lots of other blogs - including some about Russia. So, if you are running wordpress make sure you check your blog and upgrade to version 2.5 if necessary.

More details here.

Do you twitter?

I’ve been playing around with the micro-blogging service twitter recently, to see if it’s any good.

Because each post is limited to a maximum of 140 characters (yes, that’s characters, not words) it encourages short, snappy posts.

At the moment I’m using it to post thoughts that are too brief to merit a full post here on Siberian Light.

You can check out my feed and follow me at: http://twitter.com/siberianlight

Neeka is also twittering, as Smetanka. Is anyone else?

Blog roundup

OK, enough warnings and twitterings, onto the blogs. And, be warned, there’s a bumper list of links below. I recommend settling down with a nice cup of coffee and working your way through them, one by one.

Sean takes the top spot this month. Or, to be more precise, the readers and commenters of Sean’s Russia Blog take the award for ‘most interesting discussion in absolutely ages’.

Take a look at Putin’s Historic Achievement and Avoiding This Heap of Memes for two of the most wide-ranging and knowledgeable discusions I’ve seen about Russia for quite some time.

And it took at least a hundred comments before the inevitable row broke out…

Everyone else has had a hard act to follow this month, but here’s my pick of the best posts:

• Russian War Tubas!
• Wintrhop 360 beats Da Russophile to the punch and posts her top 10 Russophile predictions. My favourite? Russia to become the new Scandinavia.
• Da Russophile fans will need to content themselves with the Top 10 Russophobe Myths for the time-being.
• Tim Newman deconstructs A Russian’s View of Britain and then goes on to ask if Russia’s mega-projects are realistic.
• The Turkish Invasion of Russia has stalled, so he’s moved on to an easier target - Ukraine: The Bridebasket of Europe.
• Da Russophile examines Putin’s Presidency in Polls. Lots of pretty graphs.
• Vladimir Gushchin reminisces about his childhood in Libya, where has parents worked at the Soviet embassy.
• Gushchin also laments the Russian aerospace industry being late to market, yet again.
• The Moscow Blog’s guide to getting around by Metro.
• Soviet May Day Postcards from Russian Kafe.
• And some Soviet Propaganda posters from Russophile.
• Two-Zero asks: Is Moscow becoming the New New York?
• All you need to know about the Русская Душа.
• Eternal Remont is now troll friendly.
• Mark MacKinnon explains why the Kremlin is pulling for Hillary.
• Otto talks about German and Jewish emigration movements in the USSR.
• Patrols of Russian strategic bombers may be on the rise, but nuclear submarine patrols are decreasing.
• Soviet Russia remembers Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.
• Mikhail Zadornov - Russia’s top satirist?

So, what do you think?  Did I miss anything?  If so, let me know by commenting below.

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At 10:40am on 30 April 1945 Mikhail Petrovich Minin scrambled to the top of the ruined Reichstag, and raised the Soviet flag. Unfortunately for him, though, the flag came off the next day during a desperate German counter attack.

So, ever mindful of the benefits of a nice bit of propaganda, two days later on 2 May the Soviets sent two different soldiers and a photographer up to the roof to do it properly.

The two men in the picture above are Meliton Kantaria (holding the red flag) and Mikhail Yegorov (less glamorously holding up Kantaria). Both were chosen for political reasons - Kantaria because he, like Stalin, was a Georgian, and Yegorov because he was a Russian, and represented the glorious motherland.

The now iconic photograph was taken by Yevgeny Khaldei, a Ukrainian war photographer who had been planning the shot he saw as his ‘Iwo Jima’ throughout the German advance on Berlin. In fact, he was so determined to get the perfect shot that, unable to find a good enough Soviet flag, he used a red tablecloth instead. The hammer and sickle was painstakingly sewn on by Khaldei and his uncle, back in Moscow.

Khaldei continued to work as a photographer for many years - mainly for Soviet news agency TASS - until anti-semitism forced him into retirement.

Khaldei died in 1997, aged 80. Despite taking one of the most famous pictures in world history, he never saw a penny in royalties.

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Normally, faux cyrillic writing does nothing more than irritate me. But this advert, for Russian Bear vodka, made me smile.

If you look at the advert for the first time, it just looks like a jumble of cyrillic letters. But take a closer look in the mirror…

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There are so many high quality posts out there at the moment, that I think I might just manage to get through a whole roundup without mentioning the election…

• First up are the first two posts from new blog Soviet Russia. An excellent look at the Cold War rivalry betwen US and Russian pilots, and then a post called Stalins Golden Cage, remembering the residential complex that became a symbol of Stalinist repression. By the way - did you know that Stalin died 55 years ago this week?
• Also well worth a read, if you’re into doom and gloom, is Executed Today’s latest Russian executionee - Georgy Nikolayevich Kosenko. Dmitry Minaev (of De Rebus Antiqus Et Novis) writes “a history of life and death of a typical spy from the early Soviet years.”
• Moving on to multimedia, Seesaw has also posted a video of Lenin giving a speech over at Russia Past and Present - complete with translation.
• One last history post before I move on. Head over to Coming Anarchy and learn about how Russia’s borders have expanded and contracted over the past millenium. Complete with some rather snazzy maps.
• In sports news, Timothy Post takes a look at the rise of Russia’s Ice Hockey league and asks - is it time for the NHL to merge with the Russian Superliga?Russia these days is all about business. And, if you’re a businessman in Russia today, you’d do well to take heed of these sage pieces of advice:
  • Upgradeski - the art of Business Class travel in Russia
  • How to negotiate in Russia
  • Is Livejournal the wrong place to host a Russian corporate blog?
• The newly redesigned Nosemonkey’s EUtopia writes about the forced closure of St Petersburg’s European University.
• Neeka reviews an episode of Vesti Nedeli - “It’s a gorgeous show, a great example of how perverted journalism has become here.”
• Ever wondered what здравствуйте & спасибо actually mean? Find out at Russian Language and Culture.
• Lydon at Scraps of Moscow writes: “The New York Times appears to have established a Russian-language community on LiveJournal where they are going to post some of their coverage of Russia and solicit responses… part of me thinks it could just be a really interesting hoax.” Sadly for the conspiracy theorists, he’s proved wrong.
• Did you know that Vladimir Gushchin, the Director of Internal Communications at RIA Novosti has a blog? Here, he writes about why India will buy a beat up old Russian aircraft carrier rather than a beat up old American aircraft carrier.
• Sad to say, con-artists abound in Russia - like everywhere else. Svet tells how someone tried to con her uncle - and failed.
• Want to see a Russia blogger on the tv? Russia Blog’s Yuri Mamchur is fast becoming a regular pundit over at Russia Today.

Election? What election?

• Ok I couldn’t resist. This election post is from English Russia, though, so it’s not too heavy. A quick look at propoaganda posters from past Russian elections. Didn’t they all look young and innocent?

• And, seeing as I’ve failed, here’s one more elections post. Sean has just launched his very own Russian elections awards show - the Vybor awards.

Right, that’s enough for this roundup. Til next time.

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Every now and then I like to write a short article pointing out the latest new (or, at least, new to me) blogs about Russia. It’s been a while since the last article like this, so as you can imagine, there are quite a few cool new Russia blogs out there.

First up is Soviet Russia - perhaps a unique dual-language blog about Russia. Instead of a Russian-English blog, it’s a Spanish-English blog. Every post will go up first in Spanish, and then in English.

Award for the best-subtitle on a Russia blog has to go to A Russia of My Own. How could anyone resist the temptation to read “The [Swedish] Bombshell’s guide to Higer Education [in Russia]”?

Da Russophile has actually been running for a few months now. I’d imagine their view of Russia is going to wind up a few:

Russia is a normal country with a booming non-hydrocarbons economy underpinned by a well-educated and secular workforce. The Putin administration has affirmed democratic values, worked to improve human rights and pursued Russia’s national interests abroad.

Russian Language and Culture has also been around for quite a while - I’m not quite sure how I missed it before.

There are a couple of new Russian history blogs out there too. First up is Igor’s Russian History Blog - Igor is a History professor at a US college, and the content will be used for his history classes.

Meanwhile, Russian History Blog has been resurrected under its new author - Translatorus.

Hmmm, that’s about it for this roundup. I think I’ve picked out all the new blogs, but if you’ve spotted any that I’ve missed then drop me a line, or leave a comment below.

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I’m not quite sure what to make of this short video clip of various impressionists (to be charitable) of Russian and Soviet leaders.

Vladimir Putin looks quite chipper, I suppose, but V.I. Lenin looks terribly depressed to me.

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Every week I plan to provide a roundup of the best blog posts about Russia and its surrounds.

The big story of the past few days has, of course, been the spat between Russia and Britain over British Council offices in St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg (more from Siberian Light here and here).

I wondered whether Russia had ‘won’ this round of the ongoing Russo-British feud but, actually, I think Red Exile has absolutely nailed it with his summary of the outcome - a tie:

Seen from the perspective of us Brits living in Moscow, this looks like a classic UK New Labour spin doctor’s game: adopt a position certain to provoke a Russian reaction and then pretend to ‘take the moral high-ground’ and spin out how – while not conceding Moscow’s point – London has shut down the two complained of offices (as initially instructed) ‘in the interests of staff safety’. It is exactly how I would have played it. As chess moves go, there have been no missteps here, by either side. This game has played out in a way that each side can exploit to the full.

I was also amused by Robert Amsterdam’s wry observation of Russia’s approach to disuptes:

It’s difficult to think of any other government that actually threatens to “invent” new tax issues as a way to leverage their interests.

David McDuff has spotted what appears to be a concerted and perhaps pre-planned campaign by Russian activists:

An interesting feature of the present crisis, which was obviously prepared in advance by the Russian authorities, is the flooding of British media comments boards (the Mail and Telegraph are the two leading examples at present) with anti-UK and pro-Putin messages posted by Russians posing under English-sounding names.

It’s not all about the British Council though, so moving right along, Moscow Through Brown eyes considers migration and racism in Russia.

It’s hard to imagine that 2008 won’t give 2007 a run for its money as the bloodiest year for ethnically-motivated violence in Russia.

A blogger visits the Chernobyl exclusion zone. (Via MoldovAnn).

The last 12 months in Central Asia, viewed through the lens of NewEurasia.

The Streetwise Professor asks: “Stalin and Putin: Great Leaders of Great Blunderers?” He opts for the latter, but I was amused by this nice little put-down of Putin:

By comparison to Stalin and his stupendous mistakes, Putin is a piker in the blunder department.

Grigory Pasko wishes Russian prisoners a happy old new year.

And, finally, Svet writes about Russia’s Winnie the Pooh - Vinnih Puh. Don’t forget to watch the video she’s posted.

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To belatedly celebrate Russia’s Old New Year, Siberian Light has a new look.

Ditching the traditional blog layout of one post after another, newest at the top, I’ve decided to go with a magazine style design which, I hope will make Siberian Light much easier on the eye and much easier to navigate.

The magazine style format lends itself to featuring some articles more prominently than others. I plan to start writing a few more in depth articles over the coming weeks and months, interspersed with more traditional, shorter, blog posts, so I felt I needed a way to highlight those posts that would be of interest to readers for longer than the current day’s hot news story.

As far as I can see, most everything is working properly. However, I haven’t had chance to check the site in a few web-browsers, so if you spot any glitches, please do let me know.

Anyway, here’s a quick guide to the new features.

Featured Articles

The focus of the new Siberian Light homepage is the latest featured post. A big picture right in the middle of the page means you shouldn’t be able to miss it. And, just underneath the latest featured article, you’ll find a series of smaller pictures - click on these, and details of earlier featured articles will be brought to the fore.

Click on the title of any of these featured articles, or the ‘continue reading’ link, and you’ll be taken the article itself.

A few of Siberian Light’s older posts are already featured - keep an eye out for the next one in a few days.

Regular Blog Posts

Just because there will be more features at Siberian Light doesn’t mean there will be less regular blog posts. Right underneath the featured articles, you’ll find links to the 10 latest blog posts, with a brief introduction to each post.

The Sidebar

The sidebar on the right has been completely revamped. The big grey box you see is to help you navigate around the site. It contains details of the most popular recent posts (ranked by a behind the scenes formula), the posts with the most comments, a list of featured articles, and a tag cloud which you can use to navigate the site by topic.

Below the navigation box, you’ll find a more traditional sidebar, with links to other blogs about Russia, as well as links to the Siberian Light archives. These are sorted by both category and month - click on the title to reveal the links below.

Oh, and there are a few colourful ads rotating around the sidebar help to pay the hosting costs for Siberian Light.

Subscribe!

Did you know that you can subscribe to Siberian Light? You can either choose to receive a daily email digest of posts, straight to your inbox, or you can have every post delivered almost instantaneously to your RSS feed reader of choice. Subscription options are at the top right of the page, next to the big orange RSS button.

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This week’s roundup of the best blog posts about Russia.

On January 11 1929, famous Russian White General Yakov Alexandrovich Slashchov was murdered in Moscow. De Rebus Antiqus Et Novis tells us his story.

Continuing the theme of murderous anniversaries, Executed Today brings us the story of Cossack rebel Yemelyan Pugachev. He led a revolt against Catherine the Great and, when his revolt failed, Catherine ordered that he be chopped to death on January 10 1775. Nice.

(By the way, Executed Today has been nominated for a couple of awards, including one for ‘Freakiest Blogger’. Both nominations are well deserved - go vote.)

Marginalia reports on the latest shenanigans of Russia’s wealthy:

“Latvia is embroiled in a stunning scandal once again — the sale of perhaps a hundred passports to wealthy individuals, mostly Russian citizens seeking to take advantage of Latvia’s EU and Schengen membership.”

Langour Management has translated The Hyena, a nasty little children’s poem by Sasha Chernyi. Here’s a short excerpt:

The hyena is a vile creature:
With its impudent muzzle
and hide sticking out of its nape.

An anonymous guest author discusses belt tightening reforms in Russia’s pshychiatric services.

Some of the major developments in the Russian military during 2007 are covered over at Russian Forces blog.

Sean ponders the search for Putin’s soul.

Is Putin really rich? The Accidental Russophile investigates and concludes:

“No matter how you slice it, something doesn’t match up with Putin’s lifestyle and is declared wealth.”

Dinc, the mastermind behind the Turkish Invasion of Russia has admitted temporary defeat:

I am deeply sorry to announce on the 637th day, 14th hour and 8th minute of the Turkish Invasion of Russia that the Invasion is now officially over and Dinc will be kicked back to motherland on 15th January 2008…

And, finally, the latest addition to the Russophile clan:

My sister-in-law told us at dinner proudly that her two-year old daughter knows who the president of Russia is — She learned this while the television was tuned to the news. My sister-in-law turns to her daughter and asks (in Russian) “Who is our President?” My niece answers in a small voice, “Putia.” She can’t say the letter N very well, so it sounds like it might be an insult. It is not. You can see she is quite proud because she knows that she is answering the question correctly for all the adults. Everyone chuckles and she smiles.

More next week.

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Take a look at these Putin quotes - I think you’ll agree that his warmth, wit and wisdom shines through in every word he utters:

Putin on the importance of doing what you are told:

“You must obey the law, always, not only when they grab you by your special place.”

Putin on being a man:

“He raped 10 women. I never expected it from him. He surprised all of us. We envy him.”

Putin on how to stroke the tummies of little children:

“I tell you honestly, I just wanted to stroke him like a kitten and it came out in this gesture. There is nothing behind it.”

Putin on auditioning for the Wizard of Oz:

“Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.”

Putin on governance:

“We certainly would not want to have same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, quite honestly.”

Putin on international relations:

The Comrade Wolf knows who to eat, as the saying goes. It knows who to eat and is not about to listen to anyone, it seems.”

Putin on how to fight terrorism:

“We’ll follow terrorists everywhere. We will corner the bandits in the toilet and wipe them out.”

Putin on greasing the wheels of international diplomacy: ”

We discussed this very important issue yesterday over a beer.”

Putin on how to deal with awkward questions from French journalists:

“If you want to become an Islamic radical and have yourself circumcised, I invite you to come to Moscow. I would recommend that he who does the surgery does it so you’ll have nothing growing back, afterward.”

So, there you have it. Putin quotes to live your life by.

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