Boing Boing » russia

Top UK government officials tamper with inquest into Brit assassinated by Russian spies in London, suppress evidence

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:36:08 +0000

Marina Litvinenko, widow of Alexander Litvinenko (a British citizen who was assassinated in London by two former KGB agents who poisoned him with radioactive polonium) has accused the British government, Secretary of State William Hague, and PM David Cameron of sabotaging the coroner's inquest into her husband's death. Hague and Cameron intervened in the coroner's hearing to seal key evidence that implicated the Russian government in Litvinenko's killing.

Sir Robert Owen, who is leading the inquest and who has seen the material, characterised it as "documents that examined whether UK officials could have done more to prevent his murder." 's widow says that this is part of "a secret political deal with the Kremlin." This comes against a charm offensive by the UK government to increase Russian investment in Britain.

The former Labour government severed all contacts with Russia's FSB spy agency in 2007 after concluding it had played a leading role in Litvinenko's assassination. Putin is the agency's former chief.
Mrs Litvinenko added: "This is a very sad day, a tragedy for British justice which has until now been respected around the world, and a frightening precedent for all of those who have been trying so hard to expose the crimes committed by a conspiracy of organised criminals who operate inside the Kremlin."
In his ruling (pdf), Owen said the inquest scheduled to take place later this year might now result in an "incomplete, misleading and unfair" verdict.
The coroner said he would consider inviting Theresa May, the home secretary, to hold a public inquiry instead. The inquiry could hear the sensitive evidence buried by Hague in secret sessions.

Alexander Litvinenko widow accuses William Hague of sabotaging inquest

Putin: US and Russia security services should "combine efforts" in wake of Boston bombing

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:21:44 +0000

In a move absolutely no one expected because things like this never happen after high-profile incidents of mass violence, Russian President Vladimir Putin today "urged closer cooperation between other countries' security services after the Boston Marathon bombings," reports CNN, Said Putin, "If we combine our efforts, we will not suffer blows like that." [CNN.com]

What exploded over Russia? Space researchers explore, with infrasound sensors

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:34:55 +0000

The bizarre explosion in the skies over in Russia on Feb. 15, 2013 left scientists dumfounded. The asteroid 2012 DA14 was expected to pass some 17K miles over Indonesia, but the Russian impactor wasn't foreseen: it flew from the direction of the sun where telescopes couldn't see it, and surprised everyone hours before the more-publicized asteroid's flyby.

A NASA news item today explains how scientists are piecing together what happened, using infrasound sensors operated by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

Their purpose is to monitor nuclear explosions. Infrasound is a type of very low-frequency sound wave that only elephants and a few other animals can hear. It turns out that meteors entering Earth's atmosphere cause ripples of infrasound to spread through the air of our planet. By analyzing infrasound records, it is possible to learn how long a meteor was in the air, which direction it traveled, and how much energy it unleashed. The Russian meteor's infrasound signal was was the strongest ever detected by the CTBTO network. The furthest station to record the sub-audible sound was 15,000km away in Antarctica.

Video above: Listen to the infrasound recording, sped up 135x into the range of human hearing. The video comes from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization's YouTube channel.

Peter Brown, University of Western Ontario Professor of Physics, analyzed the data and determined that the asteroid was about 17 meters in diameter and weighed approximately 10,000 metric tons.

"It struck Earth's atmosphere at 40,000 mph and broke apart about 12 to 15 miles above Earth's surface. The energy of the resulting explosion exceeded 470 kilotons of TNT." For comparison, the first atomic bombs produced only 15 to 20 kilotons.
Based on the trajectory of the fireball, analysts have also plotted its orbit. "It came from the asteroid belt, about 2.5 times farther from the sun than Earth."

More: What Exploded over Russia? [NASA Science].

Meteor explodes over Russia

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:01:21 +0000

A meteor has exploded over Chelyabinsk , a remote part of Russia 150km north of Kazahstan. The meteor's descent was captured by many video cameras (largely the ubiquitous Russian dashboard cams, it seems). There are no reports of deaths, but apparently there are now 400 reported injuries. At least one large building, a zinc factory, had its roof demolished by the explosion.

A witness in Chelyabinsk reported hearing a huge blast early in the morning and feeling a shockwave in a 19-storey building in the town centre.
The sounds of car alarms and breaking windows could be heard in the area, the witness said, and mobile phones were working intermittently. "Preliminary indications are that it was a meteorite rain," an emergency official told RIA-Novosti. "We have information about a blast at 10,000-metre altitude. It is being verified."
"I was driving to work, it was quite dark, but it suddenly became as bright as if it was day," said Viktor Prokofiev, a 36-year-old resident of Yekaterinburg in the Urals mountains.
"I felt like I was blinded by headlights," he told Reuters.

Meteorite explosion over Russia injures hundreds [The Guardian]

Steampunky concept motorcyle

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:37:44 +0000

This is the creation of Mikhail Smolyanov, whose concept bike designs are, to a one, wonderful to behold. Funnily nostalgic, gloriously impractical, and beautifully rendered.

Solifague Design (via Kadrey)

Tentacle plunger

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 02:36:12 +0000

From Art Lebedev studios, the "octopus" plunger, which creates the amusing illusion of a tentacled poop-monster's questing appendage reaching up out of the pan.

Вантуз «Октопус» (via JWZ)

Improvised "Chechen" firearms

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 17:12:44 +0000

From English Russia, original source unknown, "These are the Chechen homemade guns. There is a risk that the war will never end if they use such weapons..." No way to tell how accurate that description is -- Chechens are such bogeymen in the Russian press-pantheon that I always take anything ascribed to them with a grain of salt.

Assorted Russia, Part 65 (some NSFW stuff on this page) (via Kadrey)

Airplane collides with car

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 04:09:26 +0000

2012 was a terrifying year for Russian dashcam videos, but the badness reaches its peak on Dec 29, with this footage of a plane disintegrating crosswise to busy highway traffic.

Where does Assad's online army come from?

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 23:32:28 +0000

Syria's brutal Assad regime has damned few allies left in the world, but one of them, Russia, is governed by a dirty-tricking ruling elite who've made a science out of manipulating Internet opinion. This may explain the weird, stilted pro-Assad astroturf army who appear in any discussion of the regime's atrocities to explain that it's all a Jewish conspiracy.

And on like that. SyriaTribune maintains a YouTube channel stocked with clips from — surprise — Vladimir Putin’s Russia Today portraying Assad as the victim of a bloody-minded western conspiracy. A self-described French intellectual named Thierry Meyssan — author of 9/11 The Big Lie — reveals that TV images purporting to show Assad’s massacres of civilians were prepared by the CIA, along with White House deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes, and “aims at demoralizing the Syrians in order to pave the way for a coup d’etat.” The #FakeRevolution hashtag on Instagram provides pictorial, meme-filled boosterism for Bashar, like a screengrab from Time’ app kindly telling user mybubb1e to stop voting for Assad for Person of the Year or Hillary Clinton with flames shooting out of her eyes and ear, courtesy of Bashar4Ever.

Meet the Assadosphere, the Online Defenders of Syria’s Butcher [Spencer Ackerman/Wired]

Spam kingpin chatter

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 14:00:10 +0000

Security researcher Brian Krebs picks out some choice exchanges out of a dump from an elite Russian spammer message-board, and suggests that this contains clues to the identities of the world's most prolific spammers.

“Everything is all right with John. We drank with him recently in Europe. He is getting married soon. He is no longer spamming stocks. He got squeezed [arrested/questioned] once very badly some time ago. Now he is all clean. His friend – SP – screwed him and also is not working with stocks now. Rin is in total shit. He is going to be in jail (or he is going to be hiding) for a long time. He calls me pretty often, so he is alive so far. I am helping his wife with money from time to time.”
The two exchange recommendations about their favorite nightclubs in St. Petersburg, Russia. Tarelka inquires how Severa is doing, which elicits the following reply:
“I am okay. Damn, where to find sponsors? I am sure I can spin off stocks even in the current market. Are there any more contacts? Maybe I will ask Apple. Maybe he can give me some referrals. Who could think two years ago that this “theme” would die, huh? Give my regards to Igor [possibly Igor Gusev, the co-curator of SpamIt]. I wish you luck and patience.”
Tarelka says he tried to convince John/Apple that there was still money to be made in stock spam, but that John insisted the market was dead, and that no one was coming forward to pay spammers to send pump-and-dump spam anymore.

A Closer Look at Two Bigtime Botmasters

Ad for freelance Russian bank-robbers

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:42:38 +0000

Brian Krebs has published an ad from "Foreign Agents," a notorious Russian crime service. They're advertising the availability of foot soldiers in the USA who can help cash out hacked bank accounts and credit cards. Unlike traditional bank-fraud mules, who don't know that they're part of a scam, these "associates" are "неразводные" ("nerazvodni" or "not deceived").

The proprietors of this service say it will take 40-45 percent of the value of the theft, depending on the amount stolen. In a follow Q&A with potential buyers, the vendors behind this service say it regularly moves $30,000 – $100,000 per day for clients. Specifically, it specializes in cashing out high-dollar bank accounts belonging to hacked businesses, hence the mention high up in the ad of fraudulent wire transfers and automated clearinghouse or ACH payments (ACH is typically how companies execute direct deposit of payroll for their employees).
According to the advertisement, customers of this service get their very own login to a remote panel, where they can interact with the cashout service and monitor the progress of their thievery operations. The service also can be hired to drain bank accounts using counterfeit debit cards obtained through ATM skimmers or hacked point-of-sale devices. The complicit mules will even help cash out refunds from phony state and federal income tax filings — a lucrative form of fraud that, according to the Internal Revenue Service, cost taxpayers $5.2 billion last year.

Say what you will about their criminal tendencies, those bank robbers have excellent art direction.

Online Service Offers Bank Robbers for Hire

Meet Sveta, Pussy Riot’s perky, pro-Putin antithesis

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 04:18:48 +0000

In the NYT, a piece by Sophia Kishkovsky on Svetlana Kuritsyna, "the very antithesis" of the imprisoned protest-art group Pussy Riot. Sveta is described as "a disarmingly direct, red-cheeked, 20-year-old Putin supporter from an impoverished rural region" who stands out "for her very normality and has become an accidental celebrity after an innocent, and somewhat inarticulate, video interview in which she glowingly praised Mr. Putin." The clip became a meme, with more than 2 million YouTube views, she now has her own reality show.

Russian man reads longest word in English language

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 22:03:20 +0000

Here's Dmitry Golubovskiy, CEO of Esquire Russia, reading the longest word in Englis. It's the chemical name for titin, and it runs to 189,819 letters. It takes him 3:33 to read the whole thing. Here's a bit of it:

Methionylalanylthreonylserylarginylglycylalanylserylarginylcysteinylprolylarginylaspartylisoleucylalanylasparaginylvalylmethionylglutaminylarginylleucylglutaminylaspartylglutamylglutaminylglutamylisoleucylvalylglutaminyllysylarginylthreonylphenylalanylthreonyllysyltryptophylisoleucylasparaginylserylhistidylleucylalanyllysylarginyllysylprolylprolylmethionylvalylvalylaspartylaspartylleucylphenylalanylglutamylaspartylmethionyllysylaspartylglycylvalyllysylleucylleucylalanylleucylleucylglutamylvalylleucylserylglycylglutaminyllysylleucylprolylcysteinylglutamylglutaminylglycylarginylarginylmethionyllysylarginylisoleucylhistidylalanylvalylalanylasparaginylisoleucylglycylthreonylalanylleucyllysylphenylalanylleucylglutamylglycylarginyllysylisoleucyllysylleucylvalylasparaginylisoleucylasparaginylserylthreonylaspartylisoleucylalanylaspartylglycylarginylprolylserylisoleucylvalylleucylglycylleucylmethionyltryptophylthreonylisoleucylisoleucylleucyltyrosylphenylalanylglutaminylisoleucylglutamylglutamylleucylthreonylserylasparaginylleucylprolylglutaminylleucylglutaminylserylleucylserylserylserylalanylserylserylvalylaspartylserylisoleucylvalylserylserylglutamylthreonylprolylserylprolylprolylseryllysylarginyllysylvalylthreonylthreonyllysylisoleucylglutaminylglycylasparaginylalanyllysyllysylalanylleucylleucyllysyltryptophylvalylglutaminyltyrosylthreonylalanylglycyllysylglutaminylthreonylglycylisoleucylglutamylvalyllysylaspartylphenylalanylglycyllysylseryltryptophylarginylserylglycylvalylalanylphenylalanylhistidylserylvalylisole...

The Longest Word in English (Pronounced) (via Geekologie)

BB Readers' DIY Costumes: We are all Pussy Riot

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 22:00:29 +0000

In our Epic Halloween DIY Costume thread, Boing Boing reader Becca Tarvin shares this photo of a gang of revelers dressed as Russian art-provocateur-heroes Pussy Riot.

Pioneers at the ready, Leningrad

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 19:51:55 +0000

On Retronaut, Viktor Bulla's "Pioneers defense drill, Leningrad." It dates from 1937, four years before the Siege of Leningrad, and that makes the weirdness vivid and poignant. So many of the children here would have died in the Siege, or lived through it in the civil defense force, eating wallpaper paste and digging trenches. How brave and ready they must have felt in 1937, though.

Pioneers defense drill, Leningrad

Pussy Riot activists sent to secret harsh labor camps

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 04:12:24 +0000

Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova have been sent to regions known for hosting Russia's harshest hard-labor camps, places that once served as Soviet gulags. The 24 and 22 year old mothers -- who performed a song protesting the Russian Orthodox Church's connection to the Putin regime in a cathedral -- have been sentenced to two years of hard labor. Though the regions to which they've been dispatched is known, no one -- not even their families -- has been allowed to know exactly which prison-camps they are incarcerated in. The Guardian's Miriam Elder reports from Moscow:

"These are the harshest camps of all the possible choices," the band said via its Twitter account on Monday.
...Confusion reigned on Monday as relatives and lawyers tried to assess exactly where the women were sent. Both Perm and Mordovia host several prison camps, some of which comprised the Soviet-era gulag system. Prison authorities declined to comment on the women's whereabouts.
Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova had petitioned to serve their sentences in Moscow, arguing that they wanted to be close to their children. Alyokhina has a five-year-old son named Filipp, while Tolokonnikova has a four-year-old daughter named Gera.

Pussy Riot band members sent to remote prison camps

(Image: Free Pussy Riot Posters & Designs 07, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from centralasian's photostream)

The most polluted place in the world

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 19:54:57 +0000

At Grist, Jess Zimmerman has an interesting piece about a lake near a notoriously leaky former Soviet nuclear research site, where the radiation level is so high that an hour on the beach can be enough to kill you.

You can’t really blame Lake Karachay for acting up — it comes from a really rough area. The lake is located within the Mayak Production Association, one of the largest — and leakiest — nuclear facilities in Russia. The Russian government kept Mayak entirely secret until 1990, and it spent that period of invisibility mainly having nuclear meltdowns and dumping waste into the river. By the time Mayak’s existence was officially acknowledged, there had been a 21 percent increase in cancer incidence, a 25 percent increase in birth defects, and a 41 percent increase in leukemia in the surrounding region of Chelyabinsk. The Techa river, which provided water to nearby villages, was so contaminated that up to 65 percent of locals fell ill with radiation sickness — which the doctors termed “special disease,” because as long as the facility was secret, they weren’t allowed to mention radiation in their diagnoses.

Read the rest at Grist

Tear-off cardboard USB flash-drives

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 16:07:13 +0000

Here's a cute concept-design for tear-off, disposable flash-drives from Art Lebedev, who predicts, "Stick will become even simpler vehicle than once floppy" (mangled Russian-English interpretation courtesy of Google Translate). I wonder if NFC/ultra-wideband wireless transfer will make low-capacity flash drives obsolete before they get cheap enough to make into cardboard disposables, though.

Концепт флеш-накопителя «Флешкус» (Thanks, Dave!)

Pussy Riot's lawyers address NYU law

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 04:41:51 +0000

Here's a video of Pussy Riot's lawyers lecturing at NYU Law.

Joly sez, "September 21 2012: Having in the morning received the John Lennon Peace prize from Yoko Ono on behalf of the band, Petya Verzilov, husband of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and the group's Russian attorneys speak at NYU School of Law."

Pussy Riot's Russian Attorneys at NYU Law School - Sep 21 2012 (Thanks, Joly!)

Russia reveals large deposit of "extra-hard" diamonds in asteroid crater

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:18:44 +0000

The Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reports that the government has declassified a large deposit of diamonds, located in a meteorite crater formed 35 million years ago. The unique composition of these "extraterrestrial gemstones" could make them uniquely valuable for the technology industry:

According to Academician Pokhilenko, "the value of impact diamonds is added by their unusual abrasive features and large grain size." "This expands significantly the scope of their industrial use and makes them more valuable for industrial purposes / in metalworking, in production of efficient semiconductors, etc./," he said. In addition, as yet, impact diamonds with similar specifications have not been discovered anywhere else in the world. Thus, experts speak about their extraterrestrial origin and claim that Russia becomes a monopoly owner of unlimited supplies of this unique raw material, which is of highly demand in advanced technologies. Scientists forecast, this raw material reserves "would be enough for the entire world for 3.000 years." Use of these minerals in the manufacturing industry is capable of a technical revolution.

The diamonds are described as "extra-hard." #thatswhatshesaid

Pussy Riot solidarity protests: Topless lady with chainsaw cuts down massive crucifix in Kiev

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 18:10:21 +0000

More photos here, some NSFW.

(Via Steven Leckart.)

HOWTO be the number one SF writer in Russia

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 22:01:13 +0000

Practically everyone at the SF Assembly in St Petersburg, Russia was clutching a copy of this humorous board-game from Silvercon.su, which is a kind of Candyland-style game lampooning the dreams of "hot young writers" who yearn to make it big. Some of my hosts were good enough to translate the gameplay for me:

1. You've decided to become a SF writer.
2. You're writing a short story. Miss a move
3. Your mother likes your story very much!
4. You've received a comment "Drink a cup of poison!" on a fan fiction site
5. You've registered a LiveJournal account. Start the game from the beginning.
6. You've written a novel. Five moves forward.
7. You've started saving your small change in order to participate in some con.
8. Your first publication in Orkneys Pixies and Zombies Magazine.
9. Your novel is accepted by the publisher.
10. Your short story is accepted in Asimov's. Make the second move.
11. You're writing a short story for the relatively obscure Internet contest. Miss a move.
12. You must read the 70 short stories of the relatively obscure Internet contest. Miss a move.
13. SF Con. You've chosen the right con and the right hotel and the right room next to George R.R. Martin.
14. Your favourite publishing house has gone bankrupt.
15. The relatively obscure but very demanding Internet critic praised your novel. Make the second move.
16. You've received the proposition to become the ghost writer. Miss a move.
17. Your novel's sales were a disaster. Miss a move.
18. You're writing a new novel. Miss a move.
19. Your novel is published in Russia! And Japan.
20. You're in the middle of the existential crisis. You drink. And drink. And drink.
21. The movie based on your book was made by Uwe Boll.
22. You are the best author of the EuroCon.
23. You're the star of the talk shows and con panels. 20 steps back.
24. You are the SF writer number one in Russia.

Free Pussy Riot [Jasmina Tesanovic]

Jasmina Tesanovic — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 20:04:52 +0000

I used to say, "This will not be my war anyway" to my daughter, to my young colleagues, and friends feminists or not: to girls.

We fought in the seventies eighties nineties for freedom of choice, for divorce, for contraception, for women's human rights, against domestic violence, for peace in the world. We fought incessantly, ruthlessly, risking our careers, our private lives, our security and normality. And we accomplished a lot, all over the world; in Italy, in Serbia, in USA, name it.

The second wave of feminism was standing on the shoulders on the suffragettes from the beginning of the 19th century, who often gave their lives for women's rights. Then I got tired, and not me only. The world took a bad turn, not only in Serbia during the nineties, but everywhere after September 11!

The Globalization of Balkanization put at stake all the conquests of women and not only of women: terrorism, and raging war on terrorism, brought us police right-wing technocrat dystopian states where human rights became just another word for nothing left to lose. I told my young girls then: you must fight it now, this is your world, the one we inadvertedly left you. Learn how much you have inherited from your grandmothers, don't take it for granted because you are may well lose it, step by step, bit by bit. To the church, to the state, to the financiers.

Proof of this new world we are living in is the conviction of the punk Russian band Pussy Riot, convicted of blasphemy against Russian church and state, sentenced to two years of prison because of an art performance in a church. Of course, if women dared to protest in a Moslem mosque, a harsh repression would be “normal,” but since this event happened in a Russian Orthodox church, there are still voices all over the world who link this new repression to past violations of civil rights. Easy to link Putin to Stalin, but what about many long centuries of Christian culture-war and land-war, burning heretics and witches, torturing their dissidents and scientists, and Catholic-Protestant land-wars convulsing Europe for a century? And for that matter, what would happen to American punk artists invading a Mormon Tabernacle to insult Mitt Romney? Would they escape unscathed?

Two of the Pussy Riot activists sentenced to prison are mothers of small babies. World stars like Madonna, Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney have written open letters and petitions for their liberation. Even Putin, the old new Russian leader the main target of their protest performances, expressed his hope that they wouldn't get the maximum sentence of three years. So, they got two years.

They have already even in the slammer for six months; but they have achieved the world fame for their act and their bravery. One wonders if they will be forced into exile, in the style of Taslima Nasreen in the 1990s, or the Russian dissident political artists and scientists of the 1970s. Does this evergreen usual method of uprooting the rioters, so as make them inoffensive in another country, in another language, still work in today's globalized world? Nowadays being forced into exile can make a domestic discontent even more incendiary.

Thanks to the Internet, to the globalization of the activism, music, culture and politics, there is hope for the Pussy Riot girls, if not for their country, Russia, and their fussy sultan, Putin. Putin is one of the best friends of Berlusconi, and the third member of the gang was Ghadaffi, now dead and gone with all his harem. Only a couple of years ago, these three notably macho world leaders would meet in their fancy villas to congenially plot another world order, along with their accompanying harems of Italian showgirls, Libyan female bodyguards, Russian siloviki astronaut spygirls, and so on. Their women were chattel, though often in uniform instead of burqas. The Pussy Riots girls wear red balaclavas when they perform as punks, as rioters -- as those who just won't have any of those new-old fashioned ways of “women and children” first: meaning women as the first sent to the slammers.

Their name is not vulgar, it is provocative; the red of their masks is not Communist, it's the color of blood; their personal story is not private, it is political; and by now they do not stand only for Russia but for a a generation of young women, visible or invisible, wrapped in chains of this new age which wants to destroy “bad girls”.

Whatever they do, they are doing it in my name too!

(Image: @tom_watson)

In post-Soviet Russia, Siberian banana just looks at you

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 00:49:41 +0000

I'm presently at the SF Assembly in St Petersburg, Russia, where I'm one of the writer guests. Last night I was helping prepare for the sashlik barbecue, slicing up cucumbers, when a con-goer looked over my shoulder and said, "Ah, banana Siberski!" -- that is, "Siberian bananas!"

Just look at it.

Pussy Riot, sentenced to two years in a penal colony, release new anti-Putin single

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 04:49:35 +0000

Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist punk trio who've been on trial for singing an anti-Putin song in an Orthodox cathedral, have been sentenced to two years' hard labor in a penal colony. The band released a new single to coincide with the verdict, for which the Guardian has created an accompanying video, above. Below, an excerpt from Miriam Elder's coverage:

Pussy Riot's supporters and opposition activists accused Putin of personally orchestrating the case against them. "They are in jail because it is Putin's personal revenge," said Alexey Navalny, the opposition's de facto leader. "The verdict was written by Vladimir Putin."
The three women were arrested in March after performing an anti-Putin "punk prayer" inside Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The case against them is seen as serving two functions: a warning to other dissidents, and an appeal to Putin's conservative base. Russia's growing campaign against gay rights is seen as a part of that effort, and on Friday Moscow's main court upheld a 100-year ban on gay pride rallies.

Pussy Riot sentenced to two years in prison colony over anti-Putin protest

100 years of gay shame

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 22:41:40 +0000

The highest court in Moscow has upheld a 100 year ban on gay pride parades.

Kalashnikov sales to America boom

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 03:25:19 +0000

Izhevsk, the town in Russia where the Kalashnikov rifle is made, is booming. The town is exporting Kalashnikovs by the boatload to the USA, where gun collectors are snapping them up. It's likely the case that more Americans will by killed by other Americans wielding Kalashnikov than were ever killed by Russians with the Soviet-era gun. Andrew E. Kramer has more in the NYT:

“I bought a Saiga because it was made in Russia, right beside its big brothers, the AKs,” Josh Laura, a garage door installer and former Marine in Maryville, Tenn., said in a telephone interview. “No rifle in the world has been as reliable as this one.”
Selling rifles to Americans and other civilians is fundamental to the efforts to save Izhmash, which has made Kalashnikovs since soon after their invention in 1947 but is now struggling.
Demand for new military guns in the Kalashnikov family has evaporated. Simple, durable and relatively cheap to manufacture, about 100 million have been produced over the decades, or about one for every 70 people on earth. Inventories are overflowing, used AK weapons have flooded the market, and cheap Chinese knockoffs are stealing many of the customers that remain.

Importing Russia’s Top Gun (via Beyond the Beyond)

(Image: AK 47 Kalashnikov Vector Image, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from vectorportal's photostream)

Pussy Riot's closing statement

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 17:59:21 +0000

Argument in the show-trial of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot -- who gave an unlicensed anti-Putin performance in a cathedral and now face harsh, Stalinist justice for daring to point out the spy-emperor's nudity -- has concluded. Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samutsevich has given a tremendous closing statement, which is a masterful summary of Russian oligarchy:

The fact that Christ the Savior Cathedral had become a significant symbol in the political strategy of our powers that be was already clear to many thinking people when Vladimir Putin’s former [KGB] colleague Kirill Gundyaev took over as head of the Russian Orthodox Church. After this happened, Christ the Savior Cathedral began to be used openly as a flashy setting for the politics of the security services, which are the main source of power [in Russia].
Why did Putin feel the need to exploit the Orthodox religion and its aesthetics? After all, he could have employed his own, far more secular tools of power—for example, national corporations, or his menacing police system, or his own obedient judiciary system. It may be that the tough, failed policies of Putin’s government, the incident with the submarine Kursk, the bombings of civilians in broad daylight, and other unpleasant moments in his political career forced him to ponder the fact that it was high time to resign; otherwise, the citizens of Russia would help him do this. Apparently, it was then that he felt the need for more convincing, transcendental guarantees of his long tenure at the helm. It was here that the need arose to make use of the aesthetics of the Orthodox religion, historically associated with the heyday of Imperial Russia, where power came not from earthly manifestations such as democratic elections and civil society, but from God Himself.
How did he succeed in doing this? After all, we still have a secular state, and shouldn’t any intersection of the religious and political spheres be dealt with severely by our vigilant and critically minded society? Here, apparently, the authorities took advantage of a certain deficit of Orthodox aesthetics in Soviet times, when the Orthodox religion had the aura of a lost history, of something crushed and damaged by the Soviet totalitarian regime, and was thus an opposition culture. The authorities decided to appropriate this historical effect of loss and present their new political project to restore Russia’s lost spiritual values, a project which has little to do with a genuine concern for preservation of Russian Orthodoxy’s history and culture.
It was also fairly logical that the Russian Orthodox Church, which has long had a mystical connection with power, emerged as this project’s principal executor in the media. Moreover, it was also agreed that the Russian Orthodox Church, unlike the Soviet era, when the church opposed, above all, the crudeness of the authorities towards history itself, should also confront all baleful manifestations of contemporary mass culture, with its concept of diversity and tolerance.

Olenska | Yekaterina Samutsevich closing statement at the Pussy Riot Trial

FCC: SOPA is terrible (when Russia does it)

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 16:14:03 +0000

FCC chief Julius Genachowski has slammed the Russian government for considering a law that will make it possible to ban websites in the country for violating nebulous, poorly policed "illegal content" rules. Which is basically what SOPA proposed: "The world’s experience with the Internet provides a clear lesson: a free and open Internet promotes economic growth and freedom; restricting the free flow of information is bad for consumers, businesses, and societies." Preach it, brother! (Thanks, Ben!)

Russian Wikipedia blacks out over censorship plan

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 05:41:09 +0000

People visiting the Russian-language Wikipedia today will find it blacked out, in protest of a proposed far-reaching Internet blacklist plan in Russia. Similar measures were used in the Italian Wikipedia to protest an Italian Internet censorship law, and in the English Wikipedia to protest SOPA/PIPA. The Russian proposal, Bill 89417-6, will establish a national censorwall that blocks "all websites containing pornography, drug ads and promoting suicide or extremist ideas." Here's a Google Translate translation of the Wikipedia message:

Today, July 10, the Duma hearings are going to amend the Act for information that could lead to the creation of extra-judicial censorship of the Internet in Russian, including the closure of access to Wikipedia in Russian.
Wikipedia community protests against censorship, dangerous to free knowledge, open to all mankind. We ask that you support in opposing this bill.

Russian Wikipedia Shutters In Protest of Internet Blacklist Plans