I’m off travelling.  Back on Thursday 1st March, with the next installment in the interview series…

Apologies for the downtime last night. 

The post about Russia being surrounded by US missiles hit the Digg frontpage and, at one stage, Siberian Light was receiving more than 3,500 unique visitors per hour.  (To put that into context - the in the whole of last month we received only 2,500 unique visitors.

Unsurprisingly, the server curled up its toes and died at about 1:30am GMT, and it stayed that way until I woke up at 7am. 

My host have fixed the server problems, so normal service has - hopefully - been resumed.   

Since posting an interview with La Russophobe on Thursday, I’ve come in for some criticism, both in web comments, and via email. One reader was “absolutely baffled as to why you would actually have anything to do with La Russophobe” and another told me that he had “no idea why you are wasting your time on La Russophobe.”

So, I thought I’d post a quick explanation of why I chose to run the interview, and give you some more details of the series of interviews that is to follow.

Thursday’s interview with La Russophobe was the first in a series of weekly interviews of Russia bloggers.

I plan to ask the same basic set of questions to each blogger, plus add in a few extra questions that are directly aimed at individual bloggers, their experiences, and their expertise. The goal is to inform, entertain and to hopefully allow people to compare and contrast the beliefs and styles of different bloggers.

When sending out questions to bloggers, I have been careful to note that I will publish whatever answers they provide, regardless of what they say, and without editing. Essentially, I provide each blogger with a platform - it’s up to them to use their own words to either convince you of their wisdom, or lack thereof…

When I read the answers to the questions I’ve set, I know I make a judgement - about the value of the argument presented, and sometimes about the individual blogger. It might be positive, it might be negative, but it is inevitable that I will make that internal judgement. And I expect that others who read those interviews will make judgements of their own.

That’s why I’ve provided an un-moderated comments forum.

If you think what you are reading makes sense, then congratulate yourself on having found a like-minded soul and, if you want, you could post a comment expanding on some point in the interview.

If, on the other hand, you find someone whose words you read are utter rubbish, then you have the opportunity to tell them, and the world, exactly why you think they are wrong.

Aussiegirl, author of the blog Ultima Thule, died at the weekend of cancer at the age of 59. 

A prolific, witty and insightful blogger, she wrote about almost everything under the sun, but always somehow seemed to return to writing about Ukraine, her parents homeland.  I will particularly remember her for her always kind words in our email conversations. 

She will be sorely missed. 

Nominations have just opened over at A Fistful of Euros for your pick of the best weblogs covering the Commonwealth of Independent States. 

Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year to everyone!

I’m off to visit family and friends over the holiday period - back in the New Year.

Siberian Light was down for approximately six hours today, due to a botched server update by my host, which took out this site’s MySQL database.

I’m assured that everything is now back to normal, so fingers crossed, and apologies to anyone who couldn’t access the site earlier.

Today marks one year since I closed siberianlight.net.

Clearly there was only one possible way I could celebrate this anniversary - to start blogging again.

Back in January last year (oh, it seems so long ago) I was a masters student, with time on my hands, and no responsibility other than to study and learn. And, I thought, what better way to keep track of my thoughts and ideas than to start a blog?

Over the two years of blogging that followed I’ve made some great friends, engaged in some great debates, and learnt more than I ever thought possible. Under Putin, I’ve watched Russia slouch slowly back towards its authoritarian past, at the same time as other parts of the former Soviet Union have taken tentative steps towards their democratic futures. I’ve also been thrilled to watch the Russian and post-Soviet blogosphere grow in leaps and bounds to become a thriving and outspoken community.

Today, though, I’ve got a real job and, with all the other things I have to do in life, evenings and weekends just aren’t long enough any more. Certainly not long enough to keep blogging regularly at a standard high enough to give me satisfaction. I really don’t want to write substandard, tired posts just for the sake of keeping this blog updated day after day, and I’m even more certain that you don’t want to read them. So, I’ve very reluctantly decided that the time has come for siberianlight.net to take take a bow.

The site will stay up for a fair while yet - I don’t want to lose my email address, for one thing - and you’ll no doubt catch me around the blogosphere from time to time, reading, commenting, and even - if they’ll have me - writing the occasional guest post on other blogs. If regular blog commentary on Russia is what you are looking for though, I can’t recommend highly enough the many quality blogs listed on the sidebar.

Finally, before I go, I have to say thank you so much to everyone who read siberianlight.net over the past two years, and especially to everyone who commented on the site, and pushed me to justify - and often revise - my opinions. You’ve been wonderful, and I’ve had a blast.

Спасибо и Удачи и хорошего настроения!

Weak willed, that’s what I am - I couldn’t even survive a month without succumbing to the urge to write about Russia.

Good to be back.

Things have been pretty hectic the last few weeks, mainly because I’ve just started a new job, and I’ve found that I really don’t have the time or energy at the moment to blog. Even worse, I feel that what I’m writing is becoming a bit stale.

So, it’s time to take a short break from the blogging, and recharge the batteries. For ther rest of this month, unless we see another Russian revolution, I won’t be updating siberianlight.net.

Hopefully, I’ll be back in December. Until then, there are plenty of great Russian blogs listed on the sidebar.

Andy

PS - if you’re interested in a spot of guest-blogging while I’m away - send me an email.

Apologies for the lack of posting over the last week or two. I started a new job a few weeks back, and time for blogging has become somewhat scarce. I’m hoping to get back in the groove this week, and post a little more regularly.

The first thing I needed to do was catch up on what’s been happening in Russia this last seven days - and where better to start than Sean’s weekly roundup of Russia news? This week he’s got some interesting thoughts on who will choose Putin’s replacement (I’ll give you a hint - it’s not the general public), and on whether an increase in state control will actually damage the Russian economy.

After month upon month of dithering, I’ve finally taken the plunge into the murky depths known as Wordpress. And, after several days of toiling over the unfamiliar Wordpress engine (not to mention some pretty colourful language) here we are, on a whole new server, with a whole new design (based on a template by Beccary).

The design is still a little rough-and-ready, and will probably evolve over the next few weeks. In particular, the current grey/green colour scheme should give way to the familiar old light blue scheme sometime soon (as soon as I can figure out how to do it right). The old RSS feeds don’t work at the moment, and implementing them is a pretty high priority, too. Any comments on the design, bug reports, etc, are extremely welcome, as are any suggestions of what you’d like to see on the site in the future.

Talking of the future, the next couple of months should be an exciting time for siberianlight.net, as a number of new authors begin to make their debuts. Tim Newman has already taken his bow, and keep your eyes peeled for others bringing a much needed expertise and insight into subjects as wide-ranging as Ukraine, Russian regions, and the role of NGOs in Russia today.

And now, back to our normal programming…

My holiday has, sadly, come to an end.  No more sitting on sunny Cretan beaches for Andy…

But, looking on the bright side, this means more posting on siberianlight.net.  I’m currently running around trying to get up to speed with what’s been happening while I’ve been away, so the frequency of posts should pick up gradually over the next few days.

I’m now sitting on a beach in a very sunny place, so no more updates to siberianlight.net for the next 10 days or so.  There are plenty of links on the blogroll to the right, if you get bored, though…