A daily miasma of frivolity by two wanna-be cultural critics. Or: just, like, some good links, dude.

Tag Archives: Russia

Dec 10 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Huge Traffic Jam Persists on Moscow-St. Pete Highway

Huge Traffic Jam Persists on Moscow-St. Pete Highway

News story from RIA Novosti last week that I only heard about now:

A gigantic traffic jam on the snowbound main highway linking Moscow and St. Petersburg that began on Friday was still 34 miles long early in the evening on Sunday, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry’s State Automobile Inspectorate said.

Highway M-10 was hit with three feet of snow late last week causing massive jams in both directions.

…

“Travel remains stop-and-go for a stretch of between 135 and 190 kilometers (84-118 miles) on M-10 in Tver Region. One lane in each direction is clear of snow. Trucks are moving at roughly 5-10 kilometers per hour (3-6 mph),” the spokesman said, implying that trucks face a travel time of at least 13.5 hours to pass through the jam.

Thirteen and a half hours. Simply absurd.

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Aug 03 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Meanwhile, in Russia

Meanwhile, in Russia

Good run-down from MoJo on the situation of jailed anti-Putin protest art collective Pussy Riot.

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Oct 07 2011
Mark Twain, probably

A Changed Russia Arches an Eyebrow at Putin’s Staged Antics

A Changed Russia Arches an Eyebrow at Putin’s Staged Antics

Ellen Barry, The New York Times:

It was just a typical summer outing for Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin: Clad in a wet suit and fitted with an oxygen tank, he dived to the bottom of a bay and retrieved two ceramic jugs that dated to the sixth century A.D.

The scene, captured by a camera crew and broadcast on the nightly news, cast Mr. Putin as a broad-chested Renaissance man, just the thing for his listless approval ratings. Scenes of Mr. Putin braving the elements — tranquilizing a tigress, tenderly feeding sugar to his horse or shooting a dart at a whale from a rubber dinghy — are a staple of political life in Russia.

There have long been suspicions that his exploits were not spontaneous. Still, it was remarkable to see Mr. Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri S. Peskov, surrounded by a panel of exceedingly skeptical journalists, trying to explain as delicately as possible that Mr. Putin’s much-hyped dive in August had been staged.

“Look,” Mr. Peskov said good-naturedly in the broadcast, which was released late Tuesday. “Putin did not find an amphora that had been lying on the bottom for many thousands of years. That is obvious.”

I mean, on the one hand, no shit. Did anyone really believe that?

But it is weird that someone on his press team is actually coming out with this.

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