Recent comments by Valery Zorkin, head of Russia’s Constitutional Court, would chill the blood of freedom-loving people.
In a speech in St. Petersburg on April 7, the chairman of Russia’s Constitutional Court argued that due to the economic crisis, Russia could descend into anarchy and then turn to totalitarianism. To prevent this, he said, the Kremlin [...]

Just the place to take the family for a Sunday afternoon picnic.
Canada should push for the creation of an international park that would protect the area around the North Pole, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Monday.
[…]
“One of the proposals I’ve read about recently which I strongly support is that I think Canada could be part [...]

Historian J. Wesley Bush, who blogs at Russian Policy Daily, translates portions of an interview with the head of Russia’s Family and Childhood Foundation.  Note the bit on forced abortions (emphasis added).
Chastnyi Korrespondent has an interview with Sveta Rudneva, head of the “Family and Childhood” foundation of Russia. Like many Russians, she’s worried about the [...]

A head honcho at bread producer Chally-Bread is running for Tatarstan’s parliament, and half-price bread suddenly appears on store shelves. It’s just a coincidence, insists candidate Rafael Yunysov.
Stores in the city of Chally, in the Republic of Tatarstan, are offering discount “anti-crisis bread” in a move that looks suspiciously like an effort to boost one [...]

Vladimir Putin may be president of Russia no longer but, in the eyes of many Russians, he is still a righteous dude.   In fact, he is being worshipped by a group of pseudo-Orthodox ascetics who believe that he is the reincarnation of St Paul.
Grigory Pasko has the story at Robert Amsterdam’s blog.
I recently stumbled upon [...]

In honour of the 85th anniversary of Lenin’s death, people planned to dress as mummies and gather at his mausoleum in Red Square to suggest that the ruthless tyrant should finally be buried in the ground. The timely gesture was thwarted, unfortunately, as Moscow police put the kibosh on festivities before they began.
Moscow police [...]

After Russia announced increased import tariffs on cars last month to support the faltering domestic automobile industry, Russians demonstrated in the streets of Vladivostok.  Despite being trounced by riot police, protests spread to other cities.
Now Russian car enthusiasts are organising and making broader political demands.  Some are calling for a general strike on 31 January [...]

The economic downturn has sparked increased crime and public unrest in Russia, and the government is responding by encouraging citizens to join the militia or form neighbourhood vigilante groups.
In the last year, Russia has seen an 10-15 percent increase in street crime. This includes 1.7 million acts of minor hooliganism, 2 million incidences of [...]

Christmas is celebrated on 7 January by Eastern Rite and Orthodox Christians who follow the Julian calendar.
“Sleep Lord Jesus, sleep,” Aleksei Dozenko sings, picking up the melody of a Christmas carol that had floated in the consciousness of Orthodox Russia long before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 drove the church underground.
The seven-and-a-half-year-old Dozenko is one [...]

Russian authorities don’t like publicity about public dissatisfaction arising from the economic recession.  On 29 December, agents from the department in charge of fighting terrorism and extremism  arrested opposition politician Alexandr Bragin for reporting the news.
His offense: publishing an article about the effects of the country’s sharp economic downturn on Ulyanovsk, a Volga city some [...]

Another indication that Russian officialdom is sanitising Stalin’s legacy: Police raided the St Petersburg office of the human rights group Memorial and confiscated computer hard drives containing thousands of files with evidence of state-sponsored terror during the Stalin years.
Irina Flige, director of Memorial’s office, says the police raid was not an accident or a case [...]

Earlier this week, it was reported that Russia is expanding the legal definition of treason potentially to outlaw any criticism of the government. Another troubling indication of Russia’s trend toward authoritarianism is the official campaign to rehabilitate Josef Stalin.
Stalin, the brutal Soviet dictator responsible for the deaths of millions of his citizens, has been [...]

The Russian Duma (parliament) appears set to expand the legal definitions of treason and espionage. Political experts and activists are concerned that the changes could be interpreted as outlawing any criticism of the government.
In the Russian Criminal Code, treason currently is defined as taking action aimed at damaging the country’s external security. Espionage is [...]

EU member states are in disarray over energy policy as the financial and political costs of cutting carbon emissions become evident.
JUST 18 months ago the European Union promised to save the world from climate change. A final plan to deliver on those promises must be finished soon. But it is in deep trouble.
The conclusions of [...]