Full access to the website is now €30 ($38) per year, and access to their Russian email list is €40 ($50) per year.

BNE set up a few years ago, and describe themselves as:

“the only magazine covering business, economics, finance and politics in the dynamic new markets of central, eastern and southeast Europe.”

From what I’ve seen BNE’s reporting and analysis is high quality - certainly, their articles regularly appear in Johnson’s Russia List. If you’re interested in business in Russia or Eastern Europe, this could be bargain.

If you’re curious, BNE are offering a month’s free trial to new users. I had a free trial a year or so back, and found it really useful but, at the time, couldn’t justify the price. I’m tempted to reconsider.

(PS - before you ask - I am absolutely not being paid to write nice things about BNE!!)

Related posts:

1. Ukraine gas prices set to increase
2. Russia’s big business / small business paradox
3. Zhirinovksy tells IKEA how to do business

The report said that in attacking Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, on Aug. 7 and 8, Georgia fired Grad missiles that seemed to miss their targets and hit civilian areas. It also criticized Russia for bombarding Georgian territory later and for allowing South Ossetian forces to loot ethnic Georgian villages for weeks.

Both sides, the report concludes, used cluster bombs.

Hooray for Amnesty International. Boo for war.

About time.

Related posts:

1. Georgia to send 2,000 soldiers to Iraq
2. Russian helicoptors raid Georgia
3. Has Kosovo set a precedent?

I really like the new look. If nothing else it’s inspired a huge boost in productivity - a stunning 18 posts appeared yesterday! I’m very curious about the new category headings across the top of the page though - does this mean that Robert Amsterdam will be writing less about Russia in the future? I hope not!

Related posts:

1. Vote Amsterdam!
2. One thousand posts
3. New Year, New Look

Now, on to this week’s roundup:

• Why do the British hate the Russians so? Mat Rodina thinks it’s because post-imperial Britain is now a second rate European power, and because it’s descending into a Orwellian police state.  Speaking as a British subject who has managed to briefly hide away from the CCTV cameras, I think it’s because Russia’s just so damn cool.  We’ve moved on from the French who are, frankly, a bit dull.  Seriously - can you imagine James Bond taking on the French?
• By the way - everyone’s interested in the new James Bond film this week.  The President of Russia wants you to know that Daniel Craig is a wimp, and that a Russian stuntman did all the hard work.  Eagle and Bear is really grumpy about the translated title - Quantum of Mercy.  Russia Blog profiles Olga Kuriyenko, the first Russian (well, Ukrainian) actress to play a Bond Girl.  I merely want to point you in the direction of my post which conclusively demonstrates that Russian Bond Girls are the sexiest.  Even if they’re not played by Russian actresses.
• Ever wanted to read Russian language blog posts, but don’t speak enough Russian?  Google has the answer - automatic translation of blog feeds.  Timothy Post explains how Google helps you to read Russian without having to speak Russian.
• Plenty of blogs have been covering this week’s fatal submarine accident.  As you’d expect, Russian Navy Blog has the best coverage and analysis - here, here and here.
• This week saw the 20th Anniversary of Russia’s Buran Space Shuttle.  Windows to Russia has put together a brief photo tribute to the Buran, and the Russian Navy Blog reports on how the Buran saved the world from war in space.  The last surviving Buran is sadly tucked away in a German museum - earlier this year, I posted some sad pictures of the Buran’s final trip down the Rhine.
• Congratulations to Russian Blog, which is celebrating its first birthday.
• пиндосы (pindosy).  It’s a rude word used by Russians to describe Americans.  Eternal Remont has the background.
• A Russian anarchist group called War project a green laser skull and crossbones on the Russian White House.
• Lex Libertas has dug out some old school pictures of Soviet adverts.  My favourite’s the pig and the fish cuddling a jar of mayonnaise.
• Finally - for your walking pleasure - Soviet Carpets with pictures of Lenin for you to stomp on.

Well that’s it for this week.  If you can’t wait for next week’s installment, be sure to check out the Russia Blogs page over at my new website Russian News Online.

Related posts:

1. Russia Blog Roundup - 10 November
2. Russia Blog Roundup - 1 November
3. Russia Blog Roundup - October

The 25th anniversary issue looks ahead to the next 25 years and, in Russia’s Rotting Empire, Nina L Khrushcheva (yes - before you ask - she’s Nikita Kruschev’s great-granddaughter) has penned a look at Russia’s next quarter century.

It’s an interesting article overall, but there were two things I found particularly interesting.

First - Khrushcheva’s view that political change in Russia is cyclical:

“…periods of ‘remission’ (a retreat from total dictatorship) or reforms, and periods of ‘oppression’ or stability have alternated consistently in the last century…”

I do agree, but wonder - if we accept that Russia is in the early stages of a period of “oppression”, how deep will it go, and how long will it be before the next about turn that leads towards reform. Are we in for many more years of sliding towards authoritarianism and a strong Russian state, or will the more frantic pace of globalisation speed up the Russian political cycle?

The second point, which I found intriguing given the disdain with which many Russians view Ukraine (and the fact that Khrushchev was a Ukrainian), was Khrushcheva’s argument that Ukraine could hold the key to Russia’s future.

“Russians know that Ukrainians are the same as them, a people similar in their culture and mentality. If they have made their choice, why can’t we do the same? Thus, if Ukraine succeeds over the next 25 years, it may herald the political death of Putinism.

[…]The best way to help Russia today is to help Ukraine over the coming decades support its claim that it belongs within the European fold, among European institutions.”

Ukraine is at a bit of a cross roads at the moment, and seems like it could go either way. It is clearly an ideal target for both European / US and Russian foreign policy, and I’d imagine it’s going to be a hell of a cultural and political battleground in the coming years. But I have no idea what direction Ukraine will take.

What do you think? Who will come out on top in Ukraine? Will the next couple of years in Kiev set the tone for the next couple of decades in Moscow?

Related posts:

1. Ukraine: long term implications
2. Ukraine gas prices set to increase
3. PORA - past and future

Imagine: in October 1918, Lloyd George’s Cabinet is planning for a prolonged struggle in 1919. Haig’s solution promises to avoid a confrontation even bloodier than the Somme or Passchendaele. The Government agrees. Germany’s main condition is to keep the vast swath of Russia that her troops have occupied since the Bolshevik revolution and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March.

With peace made with Germany on Haig’s terms by mid-October, the British troops already in Russia have a German ally to help them to crush what Churchill calls “the foul baboonery of Bolshevism”.

Gilbert goes on to observe that Germany would probably still start a second war at some stage - probably with France, because there would be no Polish and Czechosolvak states for Germany to expand into. And, rather hopefully, he suggests that a newly restored Imperial Russia would repay its war debts to Britain, allowing Britain to build a postwar build a postwar cuontry “fit for heroes”.

But nothing about how a restored Romanov dynasty would survive in the new-old Russia.

So, I thought I’d throw a few thoughts - questions really - of my own out there.

Let’s imagine that an Immperial Romanov Dynasty has retained control of the Kremlin with the help of a motley alliance of Russian Whites, and British and German troops. How widely would they be accepted by the Russian public, two years after a pair of revolutions, and at the end of a brief civil war?

On the plus side, they’d presumably have physical control of the apparatus of state, and be backed by foreign money and troops if necessary in the short term. If they could bring some measure of stability, they would presumably be able to count of some gratitude from the public at large.

But, on the down side, they’d be trying to re-establish the divine right of the Romanovs to rule over a people that had experienced (albiet not very succesfully) self rule. The Bolsheviks might have been vanquished, but left-leaning opposition groups would presumably still exist and have at least some measure of support among the people. And how many of the middle classes would have been inspired by the prospect of Kerensky’s failed provisional government?

Also - how would the Americans influence the new-old Russia? If the United States had been able to play a significant role, wouldn’t they have insisted on some pretty significant democratic reforms in Russia? Or would they have been marginalised by an Anglo-German axis?

Being so reliant on British and German support would also post real problems for the Russian government. Britain especially would want Russia to repay its debts, which would be a strain on the public finances - not entirely desirable in a country shattered by years of brutal warfare. If political favours are also asked of Russia, would this reduce the government to a puppet in the eyes of its people?

Lots of questions, I know. Anyone want to take a stab at answering some of them in the comments below?

Related posts:

1. Some advice for the Russian government
2. Britain’s other diplomatic spat
3. Row brewing over Russian art exhibition in London

Medvedev speaks Russian!

Firstly, President Medvedev is finally going to start talking to the Russian press.  Apparently he’s only really been talking to the foreign press so far:

In late November, as Nezavisimaya Gazeta has found out, Russian head of state Dmitriy Medvedev will conduct his first meeting with Russian journalists since his election. Thus far, the president has only given extended interviews to Western press representatives. In March, for example, Medvedev talked with journalists of The Financial Times newspaper.

In August, the president answered questions by journalists of France’s TF-1, the BBC of Great Britain, and the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera, and in September the Russian leader gave an interview to a Euronews correspondent.

{…} For the first time in recent years, voters may ultimately not have an opportunity in 2008 to ask questions to the new head of state.

(The above extract came from Nezavisimaya Gazeta’s 7 November 2008 edition, via Johnson’s Russia List #205)

Not particularly good for building the kind of reputation that normally gets Presidents re-elected.  Or for quashing conspiracy theories that you’re only in the job to (a) get Putin out of a constitutional hole and (b) present a friendlier, more liberal, face to the West.

New Political Party with daftest idea ever.

Boris Nemtsov and Garry Kasparov are to set up a new political party, called Solidarity has been set up.  According to RIA Novosti:

[Solidarity] has defined its main goal as defending the invariability of the Russian constitution”.

(From the same edition of JRL - New opposition democratic movement being set up in Russia - RIA-Novosti)

Talk about anti-democratic. Constitutions are living documents, and must have a mechanism somewhere to allow them to be amended to reflect new political realities.  Yes, constitutions should be hard to change, but they must have some mechanism for change.  Otherwise, we live in the past.

Update: Rather depressingly, it looks like this was a typo.  Really, RIA Novosti meant to say “inviolability”.  I prefered the earlier version - it gave me a much better opportunity to rant.  ”Inviolability” is just boring.  Everyone would agree that the constitution is invoilable - even Putin. 

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1. Merkel doesn’t say goodbye to Putin
2. Monday news stories
3. Yushchenko in Washington to discuss Pope’s death

Russian News Online pulls together all of the top headlines from all of the top Russia news sources onto one simple page - from the Moscow Times to the New York Times. And, as a special bonus, page 2 of the site collates all of the headlines from all of the top Russia blogs.

I hope you find Russian News Online useful. If you do - then please tell others.  If you don’t - then please tell me, as I’d really appreciate the feedback!

Blog Roundup

Now, on with the blog posts:

• First up, the President of Russia has the English translation of a new Russian film about the war in Georgia - “War 08.08.08 or the art of treachery”.  I’m still working my way through the film but, as you’d expect, it’s packed with more propaganda that an old Soviet poster.  There are a few interesting bits, too, though - well worth a watch.  (If you speak Russian, you can see the original version of Война 08.08.08 on Russia.ru).
• Dmitry Medvedev’s video blogs continue apace  - he’s onto his third now.  If you are one of those who think he is just a puppet of Putin, think again - Medvedev has sold his soul to Apple Computers.
• Putin, by the way, is catching up with his more techno-literate President.  He’s just launched the 100% Unofficial Blog of the Prime Minister of Russia.  Welcome to the fold, VVP!
• Two picture posts of Russian Halloween celebrations from Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears and Two Zero’s Diary.
• The Russian Navy Blog brings you (possibly) the last word on the Battle of the Black Sea.
• Hare Krishna’s in the former capital of Bolshevism.  The Eagle and the Bear visits a Moscow temple for a spot of singing and some coconut baked goods. Alec has posted video proof of the singing but, sadly, no proof of the baked goods.
• Scraps of Moscow covers the latest Russian protest march: “It’s the type of thing that could make a the last Russian liberal’s head explode. Nazi-saluting morons getting beaten by cops while marching on the Arbat. Cops stomping on the Russian flag.”
• Blabrmouth considers oligarch bailouts, and just what can be done in a Moscow minute.
• Russia has the first cyrillic top level domain - .РФ. Wonder if Siberianlight.РФ is still available?
• Two perspectives on Medvevev’s first state of the nation speech from Mmd Russia Blog:  Fist the domestic view, then the foreign policy view.
• Did you know Lenin dotted all his i’s - even the capitals?
• This week’s Word of the week is -Барак Обама.
• Sean Paul at the Agonist thinks we’re in the middle of Russia’s Dead Cat Bounce.

Well, that’s about it for this week.  Oh, just one thing before I go - did you know there’s a Reindeer Husbandry blog?  Visit for all the lastest Russian reindeer husbandry news!

Related posts:

1. Russia Blog Roundup - 16 November
2. Russia Blog Roundup - 1 November
3. Russia Blog Roundup - October

What I really need is one page that I can visit once every morning, while I’m drinking my coffee, where I can see at a glance what dozens of online newspapers are writing about Russia. Oh, and it’d be nice to have another page exactly the same where I can check out all the Russia blogs.

I couldn’t find a site that did what I wanted (Alltop:Russia is ok, but only has a few sites), so I decided to make my own…  Russian News Online.

Russian News Online is a really simple site.

There are only really two pages. The Russian News page displays the latest headlines from each of the top English language news sites covering Russia. The Russian Blogs page displays the latest post from each of the top English language blogs about Russia.

Once you see an article you like, you click on the headline, and you’re taken to the original article.

That’s pretty much it.

(OK, there’s a little bit more.  I’ve added pictures and video news too. If you click on a video, you can play it right there in the site, rather than having to go off to Youtube.)

The site is a bit rough around the edges at the moment - as you can see, design really isn’t my strong suit - and because it pulls news from so many different places, it can be a bit slow to load at times. But I’d really value any feedback about whether there are any news sources / blogs I’m missing, and whether anything doesn’t work properly.

If you find Russian News Online useful, please bookmark it, and tell others about it.

Related posts:

1. Online Russian translators - compared
2. New Russia Blog
3. English Russia creator interviewed

That Russia plans to deploy missiles close to the EU’s border to neutralise the US missile shield. Oh, and that Russia blames America for the war in Georgia.

I know plans for constitutional reform aren’t as sexy as phallic lumps of metal, but I’m baffled at how the world’s media can so spectacularly miss the importance of this. Especially on today, the day that US Presidential politics is reinvigorated by Obama’s election. Sureyly it doesn’t take much imagination for a journalist to draw some parallels between a US democracy that’s on the up, and a Russian democracy that’s on the way down.

How Medvedev’s plan to extend the Russian Presidency from a 4 to a 6 year term could be anything but bad news for Russian democracy is a mystery to me. Seriously - what actual benefits would a six year long Presidency bring over a four year long Presidency? None.

The only reason for doing this is to reduce the need for elections.

Oh, and possibly to ensure that Putin has the option to serve 12 more years as President, if he wants to.

Looking on the bright side though, Medvedev did also announce plans to reduce the threshold for entry into Russia’s parliament from the current 7%. I hope this will go some way towards re-energising Russian politics, but the cynic in me wonders if this is just a devious plan to give small parties like Yabloko an incentive to stay small and squabbling, rather than to see sense and merge.

Related posts:

1. Putin or Medvedev - who is the boss?
2. Dmitry Medvedev: Russia’s next President
3. Where Putin leads, the world follows

I never imagined, when I started Siberian Light on a whim in early 2004, that Siberian Light would turn out to be quite so popular.

It’s been fascinating experience writing at Siberian Light, and watching Russia slowly change (largely for the worse) over the course of five turbulent years.

The best part of blogging about Russia, though, has been the opportunity to get to know so many knowledgeable, interesting and thoughtful people, through the comments and through email. Without your contributions, Siberian Light wouldn’t be half the blog it is today.

Next target - a million by Christmas 2009…

Related posts:

1. More than half of all Wordpress spam comes from Russia
2. LiveJournal sold to Russian company for $30 million
3. Comments policy

Julia Pirie, who has died aged 90, spent two decades as an MI5 agent at the heart of the Communist Party of Great Britain, most of it as personal assistant to the party’s general secretary.

A small, dumpy woman with the appearance of a confirmed and rather matronly spinster, Julia Pirie was the most unlikely of spies.

Given her position as personal assistant to the general secretary, John Gollan, it seems highly likely that one of Julia Pirie’s earliest coups was to provide information that allowed MI5 to obtain the entire secret membership of the party. Selected members of the party were told to keep their membership secret so that they could be used by the KGB or Soviet military intelligence (the GRU) in operations in Britain.

The best bit?

Until her death on September 2 Julia Pirie continued to receive her pension from the Communist Party, paid monthly into her account from a bank in Italy.

Related posts:

1. Backstage at the Bolshoi
2. Today even Communists wear orange
3. Britain’s other diplomatic spat

• This week saw Komsomol’s 90th anniversary and everyone’s been writing about it.  Sean’s Russia Blog has been covering the week’s celebrations here and here.  De Rebus tells of his lucky escape from the clutches of his local Komsomol.  Lyndon, who has just made a welcome return to blogging over at Scraps of Moscow, also links to an article about Nashi, today’s youth organisation.
• Talking of celebrations - it was Halloween yesterday.  Da Russophile has put together his own Halloween special editorial - Russia of the Dead, which is “possibly the most in-depth exploration of zombie infestation scenarios in that region and a comparative analysis with other countries.”
• Global Voices Online reports on the online petition to pardon Svetlana Bakhmina, “a former senior lawyer for Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s oil company Yukos, who was arrested in December 2004 and sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison for embezzlement and tax evasion in April 2006.” So far, the petition has gathered an impressive 76,787 signatures.
• By the way, Global Voice’s Online’s Rising Voices project has been nominated for Best Weblog at the Deutsche Welle BOB awards.  So has Metro Dream, by Russos.  You can cast your vote for best weblog here - don’t forget to scroll down the page to vote for the Best Russian Language Weblog, too.
• In a raw, emotional post, Peter Lavelle writes about his anger and frustration that it has taken so long for the BBC’s recent report about Georgian war crimes in South Ossetia to emerge. “The BBC report was painful for me to watch. I felt as if I was being told for the first time in my life that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west – and all to make me feel I was being exposed to secret knowledge.”
• The Streetwise Professor would like it to be known that he is not in league with La Russophobe in “a vast anti-Russian conspiracy. […] And, to my disappointment, there’ve been no PayPal alerts telling me that money has been sent to me from shadowy sources to compensate me for my work for the conspiracy. Guess I’ll have to try harder.”
• Stephen Lock at Mmd Russia Blog speculates as to why Dmitry Medvedev’s first annual address to the Federal Assembly is scheduled for 5 November, when the world media’s attention will surely be focused on the preceding day’s US Presidential election. Devaluation, anyone? In the same post, Stephen also reports on a meeting with the CEO of a major Russian bank, who made some fascinating predictions about how the Kremlin may use the economic crisis as an opportunity to rationalise Russia’s banking industry. “The Central Bank doesn’t want the 1,200 or so current licensed banks in Russia and would like that to fall fast to around 200-300 regulated institutions.”
• Admiral, a biopic of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, one of the White Russian leaders during the Civil War, has been a massive hit in movie theatres across Russia.  Alec, at The Eagle and the Bear reviews Admiral, and isn’t all that impressed. Admiral “butchers the complicated history of this era in order to churn out a nauseatingly sweet melodrama that puts Hollywood’s transgressions to shame.” Ouch.
• Alec also has the scoop on the secret to academic success in Russia: “He who says the least with the most words achieves success.” Or is that the secret to academic success everywhere?
• Robert Amsterdam warns against using Skype for sensitive conversations in Russia. The Chinese government have been spying on Skype calls, and he thinks the FSB probably are too.
  
• Mat Rodina despairs of Russian businessmen and their inability to win Western clients. He has plenty of sage advice, however.  For starters, “this is not the Soviet Union, customers will not come to you and beg you to do their business.”
• Finally, what’s wrong with this picture?

Well, that’s it for this week.  Just one last note before I go - keep an eye out on Siberian Light next week, as I’ll be announcing the launch of my new website.

Related posts:

1. Russia Blog Roundup - 10 November
2. Russia Blog Roundup - 16 November
3. Global Voices Blog Outreach Micro-grants

Russia is the only European country where Google doesn’t have a dominant position in the online advertising market - it’s been struggling to push its way past both Rambler’s Begun and Yandex Direct.  So the deal, which would have been worth around $140 million, would have massively boosted Google’s share of the online advertising industry in Russia.

Some are speculating as to whether this is a manifestation of government protection of Yandex who, of course, will be thrilled at Google’s defeat - they no longer face the immediate prospect of a super-competitor.

I think there is certainly an aspect of government protection of key Russian firms.  But I also think the move will genuinely improve competition - a three way battle for market share can’t help but lead to innovation.  If all goes well, Russia could become a testbed for all kinds of exciting innovations in contextual advertising, which will benefit Russia in the longer term.

Small Russian publishers will also be rejoicing - apparently, Google is much slower at paying its publishers than its Russian counterparts.

Rambler will understandably be annoyed, though - they’ve lost out on a profit of $50 million, which they had planned to invest in future acquisitions themselves.  That in itself will have a bit of a knock on affect on smaller Russian companies, who may now find it more difficult to take their more innovative projects into the mainstream without the support that investment from a large company like Rambler could have provided.

Yandex’s new office in Silicon Valley

This week’s other Russian internet news of note is Yandex’s decision to open their first office in Silicon Valley. Here are some pretty pictures:

Not quite sure what Yandex plan to do in their shiny new US office. Anyone know?

Related posts:

1. Google struggles in Russian internet market
2. Google celebrates Russian Winter Olympics victory
3. Gazprom target mystery UK company for takeover

To commemorate Komsomol’s 90th anniversary, Sean’s Russia Blog will spend this week following “the history, reminiscence, and celebrations occurring throughout Russia.”

Related posts:

1. Ukraine, two years on
2. Russia Blog Roundup - 1 November
3. Baikonur - 50 years of spaceflight

So, to better highlight the best blog posts about Russia, I’m going to write a weekly roundup post from now on. Here’s the first set of links…

• Paul Goble considers whether ‘W’, Oliver Stone’s biopic about George W Bush, will actually have more impact in Russia than it does in the United States.
• Peter Lavelle is annoyed at journalists for taking the easy line when it comes to blaming the Kremlin. “Some dots were quickly and erroneously connected: ‘Kremlin critic - dead journalist - lawyer - poison - Kremlin.’”
• Moscow house prices have gone up by more than 300% since Putin became President in 2000, and gone up by 30% in the first half of 2008 alone. The Streetwise Professor thinks the Moscow housing bubble is about to burst.
• Did you hear the one about the lawyer and the Ukrainian?
• October 21st was a busy day in history for Andrey Nikolayevich Tupolev, the aircraft designer.
• China and Russia - two very different approaches to corruption
• In Moscow’s Shadows hopes that better quality guns will lead to less reliance on indiscriminate force and increased options for Moscow’s Police - “one of the first practical steps away from the paramilitary model of policing”.
• The arrival of the Pavlas Family has resulted in a 100% increase in the number of Sakhalin bloggers.
• If you’re looking for fun in St Petersburg, Copydude heartily recommends Lulu Unlimited.  “Lulu likes audience participation even if you don’t. It’s not a tourist haunt, so saying ‘me no speaky’ won’t spare you.”

Finally, before I go, I wanted to point out a couple of additions to Siberian Light that you might find useful.

At the bottom of the sidebar is a section called ‘Good Reads’.  If you can’t wait for the weekly roundup of Russia blog posts, take a look there instead - it updates every time I highlight and share an item in my RSS reader.

And, at the bottom of each post, I’ve added a small What’s Next section.  As well as letting you know about other related posts you might be interested in, it has a few social media buttons.  If you enjoy what you read at Siberian Light, and think it’s worth of sharing with others, I’d really appreciate the occasional vote on Digg or Stumble Upon.

Related posts:

1. Russia Blog Roundup - October
2. Russia Blog Roundup - 16 November
3. Russia Blog roundup

MOSCOW. Oct 20 (Interfax-AVN) - Half of the Russian peacekeeping commanders’ communication in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict were made the use of cell phone services, provided by a Georgian operator, said Vladimir Shamanov, the head of the armed forces’ combat training and service department.

“Nearly half of our commanders’ talks were conducted via mobile phones and all of them were connected to a Georgian cell operator,” Shamanov said in an interview with the Profil magazine, published on Monday.

(Sorry - no link for this, I got it via email - JRL 2008 #192)

The Georgian military manual is also being revised - with instructions on how to shut down their mobile phone network in case of future invasion.

Related posts:

1. Russian Bureaucracy, Part nine million and three
2. Low morale in the Russian military
3. Russian military uniforms to get makeover

If you’re hitting up Russia’s richest man for an illegal donation to your political party, why only ask for £50,000?? The man’s clearly loaded - why not ask for a million or two.

If George Osborne can only get up the nerve to ask for a piddling £50,000, it demonstrates a shocking lack of ambition on behalf of his party…

Anyway, George is quite rightly a bit embarrassed, and everyone in the House of Commons is taking the piss at his expense:

Dennis Skinner, one of the Labour Party’s slightly deranged old school members is great as ever, but Gordon Brown steals the show with his brilliantly timed deadpan reply.

Related posts:

1. British politicians caught soliciting funds from Russian billionaire
2. Krasnoyarsk custom house listed third best in Siberia

One of the politicians has been accused of soliciting political funding from Deripaska; the other has been accused of signing off a big (and very favourable) trade deal the Russian oligarch’s aluminium company.

George Osborne is the man accused of soliciting political funding from Deripaska. Naturally, it’s illegal for someone from outside of Britain to donate to a British political party. Let alone the Shadow Chancellor (Shadow Finance Minister) and second most powerful man in the Conservative Party. If proven, Osborne would be in a fair bit of trouble.

So, equally naturally, he’s denying it. Well, after a fashion. He’s denying that he asked for money, and he’s denying that he received money. He’s not gone so far as to deny that Deripaska offered the money. Or to deny that he and Deripaska tried to think of a way of transferring the money legally.

Peter Mandelson doesn’t seem to have done anything quite so blatant. All the same, journalists have been digging into the story. They’ve considered the fact that Peter Mandelson was until very recently the EU’s Trade Commissioner. And they’ve also considered the fact that, while Trade Minister, Mandelson signed off the deal that exempted Rusal, Deripaska’s aluminium company, from a 14.9% tariff. And they’ve also considered the fact that Mandelson has twice been forced to resign from the British Government and his name is synonymous with sleaze. And they’ve also considered the fact that Mandelson likes to holiday on the Russian oligarch’s yacht in the Mediterranean.

Or, to put it another way, the journalists have put two and two and two and two together, and think they’ve come up with eight.

Adding a bit more spice to the story (were it ever needed) is the involvement of Nataniel Rothschild. A member of one of Europe’s most moneyed families, Rothschild is a business advisor to Deripaska, and a supposedly close friend of Osborne and Mandelson. He read the story in this weekend’s Sunday Times about Mandelson holidaying on Deripaska’s yacht and - for some inexplicable reason - decided to write to the Times to tell that this his mate George was doing equally dodgy stuff and that the journalists should keep their noses out of it because it all happened at a private party.

The letter is too good (and too nuts) to just excerpt, so here’s the unedited letter, in all it’s unabashed eccentric glory:

Since your paper - along with your sister publication The Sunday Times - has made much out of what may or may not have happened at a private gathering of my friends this summer in Corfu, I thought I should make the following observations. I am surprised that you focus on the fact that one of my guests, Peter Mandelson, is a friend of another, Oleg Deripaska. Not once in the acres of coverage did you mention that George Osborne, who also accepted my hospitality, found the opportunity of meeting with Mr Deripaska so good that he invited the Conservatives’ fundraiser Andrew Feldman, who was staying nearby, to accompany him on to Mr Deripaska’s boat to solicit a donation. Since Mr Deripaska is not a British citizen, it was suggested by Mr Feldman, in a subsequent conversation at which Mr Deripaska was not present, that the donation was “channelled” through one of Mr Deripaska’s British companies. Mr Deripaska declined to make any donation. I mention this because it turns out that your obsession with Mr Mandelson is trivial in light of Mr Osborne’s actions. I also think it ill behoves all political parties to try and make capital at the expense of another in such circumstances. Perhaps in future it would be better if all involved accepted the age-old adage that private parties are just that.

I have to say, I’ve been watching both British and Russian politics for many years now, and it’s been years since I heard a nutter story than this.

The only thing that would make it even more perfect would be for everyone to be exonerated, and for the whole thing to be brushed under the carpet. This, undoubtedly, is what will now happen.

Related posts:

1. Why only £50,000?
2. British Council opens in defiance of Russian ban
3. EU threatens trade sanctions against Russia

Partly, I suppose because of the simple fact that Russians are in London in huge numbers, partly because us Brits are a little bit scared of Russia, and partly because Russians are oddly fascinated by Britain (even though they pretend to hate us).

Bigga than Ben, the latest of the Russian London films takes a slightly different approach to its predecessors. Instead of focusing on the glamour of London, or the glamour of Russians in London, it focuses on the, well, the ordinary(ish) Russians just trying to illegally graft a living in London.

Based on Pavel Tetersky and Sergei Sakin’s award-winning diaries of their life in London, Bigga Than Ben was apparently a bit of a hit in Russia - it took $500,000 at the Russian Box Office. Starring Ben Barnes (Prince of Caspian), it’s - unsurprisingly - a dark comedy. It’d have to be really. But the producers for some reason, think it’s a “breezy, barbed satire”.

Bigga than Ben has had a pretty low key release in London. You can only see it at the Apollo West End, Genesis and Tricycle. Still, if you’re in London over the next couple of weeks, might be worth catching.

Related posts:

1. When Russians visit a London theatre
2. Russian London
3. More bombs in London

This month’s roundup of Russia blogs is likely to be the last epic monthly roundup.  It’s far too much hassle to compile all these links in one go, and probably quite a lot for you to read in one go. 

So, instead, I’m going to experiment with shorter, weekly roundups from now on.

Blog News

First up, some gloomy news - Rubashov may have posted his last at Darkness at Noon.  But, if you really must finish, you can’t go out on a higher note than dedicating your final post to Kvas: Magic in a Bottle.  Rubashov loves Kvas so much, he even writes poetry about it.

Квас, квас!
Как люблю Я Вас!

All I can say is: don’t leave us Rubashov - the world cannot survive without poetic talent like yours!

In other blog news.

• Dmitry Medvedev has a brand new blog - featuring possibly the most pimped Russian bike ever.
• In Moscow’s Shadows is the new blog from Dr Mark Galeotti, who has been researching Russian and Soviet security since the 80s.  As a former student of International Security, I think this is going to quickly become one of my favorite blogs…
• Russian Language & Culture has changed its name and moved home.  It’s now called Russian Blog: Language and Culture of the Russian-Speaking World.  Phew.  Long name, great blog.
• Owen from Lex Libertas has launched a new blog - Russian Photos.
• Mat Rodina has been going for just over a year now, but somehow I managed to miss it.  Sorry!
• And the Ivanov Report’s been around for quite a while, too!

Blog posts

Moving on to the real reason I write this post - to highlight the best blog posts about Russia that I’ve seen over the past month or so.

• What is Russia actually for? Nosemonkey wonders whether Russia is suffering a crisis of identity.
• So, what’s it actually like to spend three weeks on an oil platform in the Sea of Okhotsk? Tim knows.
• Uri Geller almost causes a diplomatic incident, by inciting the murder of Putin live on Russian TV.
• Da Russophile has finished his three part series on Russian demographics.  Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3.
• 100 years of global misery - and it’s all Russia’s fault.  Bad Russia!
• Will the implosion of the world’s financial system prompt Russia’s brightest and best to return home?
• The Top Ten Similarities between Bush and Putin from Robert Amsterdam.
• Has Putin won (in Chechnya)? A good question for the mastermind behind the Turkish Invasion to ask.
• Alec was almost gassed in St Petersburg.
• Russian Blog takes a closer look at Vogue
• How the financial crisis is hitting the domestic credit market from Russia Economy Market
• Is the Russian Gas Deficit real? Notes from Tunne Kelam’s speech over at A Step at a Time.
• De Rebus critiques Richard Pipes’ “The Russian Revolution”. He’s disappointed.
• Also from De Rebus, a great piece about how it was mandatory to register domestic radio receivers in the Soviet Union. (With some very cool pictures).
• Adventures in Russian marketing.
• Yar! Somali pirates seize Ukrainian ship - hilarity ensues.
• How one Russian woman got on visiting her new husband’s American church.
• Ummm… “How was strip dance, honey?” Good question.
• Life and Death in Londongrad: Russia Blog reviews Eastern Promise, David Cronenburg’s film about Russian gangsters.
• In the scoop of the century, Edward Lucas publishes the leaked memo of Russia’s plans for world domination.
• MMD Russia Blog wonders what the financial crisis will mean for their PR firm.
• The Battle of the Ice - a history lesson from Winthrop 360.
• Unwanted cake - this month’s saddest cartoon, over at Lex Libertas.
• Finally, check out Thomas Dworzak’s magnificent photo essay, A Georgian Diary. Whatever your views on the conflict, the essay itself is fascinating.

OK, that’s it for this month. Back soon with a weekly roundup.

Related posts:

1. Russia Blog Roundup - 24 October
2. Russia Blog Roundup - 10 November
3. Russia blog roundup - September