Thursday, February 21, 2008

I've just finished a GV translation of the Russophone reactions to Kosovo - here.

An earlier roundup of the English-language reactions (along with 20 or so comments) - here.

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AP's Mike Eckel has done a piece on the Russian blogosphere (a somewhat truncated copy - here), and below is my very sketchy supplement to it (all links are, obviously, in Russian):

- There are plenty of LJ blogs that are more or less like RTR - run by hateful propagandists of a variety of ideologies. Some of them support Putin's regime in one way or another (Rumol/Nashi activists, Gleb Pavlovsky's folks like mrparker/Maxim Kononenko - he seems a bit more subtle now, though, than he was a year or so ago), while others, like all those DPNI and neo-Nazi folks, happen to oppose it - which makes it even more depressing. I try to stay away from these bloggers as much as I can, but since they are always present in the comments to some of the blogs I read, it's hard to avoid them altogether.

- I actually prefer intuitive approach to LJ-monitoring. I regularly check the top-ranking entries at Yandex Blogs - tons of trash, but there's always something relevant there, too.

The beauty of LJ is that you always seem to stumble upon some truly relevant stuff, you keep discovering lively discussion at some pretty obscure blogs. One example of such unsystematic but lucky browsing is here. But this is also something that's really depressing about LJ - there's so much stuff there, you need a few dozen of clones to follow it all.

- Pictures of the recently vandalized walls of a few of United Russia's offices in Moscow, re-posted from the NBP site - at the blog of varfolomeev66, an Ekho Moskvy guy.

- A virtual rally launched by tanya-ogf (OGF is, I guess, United Civil Front) - here, here and here - a bunch of slogans, from Freedom to political prisoners! to Russia without Putin! to an unlikely one from Murmansk, in Ukrainian: Out with "democracy"! Long live Freedom! :)))

- LJ user drugoi is a good resource because even though his entries are often neutral and laconic, everyone seems to consider it his/her duty to leave a comment, to express his/her view on the issues he chooses to bring forward, and the result is often like impromptu opinion polls, very telling. He blogs a lot and on everything from the Russian politics to the Russian orphanages to the U.S. elections to the Norwegian royal family - so it's good to stop by at his place a few times a week to check for the most heated discussions. Lots of idiots leaving comments, but lots of decent people as well.

- Of the weird stuff, candidate Andrei Bogdanov isn't just a freemason, he's also a blogger: LJ user bonych...

- TsIK has an LJ community, too - http://community.livejournal.com/izbircom/. In one of the recent posts, geeks are arguing on when exactly the "www.medvedev2008.ru" domain was registered, in 2005 or more recently... :)

- A collection of spoiled ballots from the parliamentary election. Warning: many of them carry nazi symbols or other nasty stuff - http://soberminded.livejournal.com/242696.html

- Marina Litvinovich (abstract2001) - Kasparov's aide

- Valeria Novodvorskaya - http://vnovodvorskaia.livejournal.com/

- Boris Nemtsov - http://b-nemtsov.livejournal.com/

His first post, back in October, drew over 350 comments, and part of his reaction, in his second post, was: "Have read through the comments. Turns out there are so many mentally ill people in LJ. Well, but I'm not going to ban anyone - SPS is for freedom of speech, for everyone including the mentally ill. Also, insanity of some is being lavishly sponsored from the state budget."

- Dmitry Galkovsky on the parliamentary election - http://galkovsky.livejournal.com/115802.html

- Pyotr Favorov is trying to figure out why "the bloody regime" needs Alexanyan scandal - http://favorov.livejournal.com/316208.html

- Young Russian politicians/bloggers who were thought of as Russia's Pora back in 2005 (Oleg Kashin's old piece about them in Bolshoi Gorod is here):

Ilya Yashin, Yabloko's youth wing - http://yashin.livejournal.com/

Irina Vorobyova, fired from Russkoe Radio, now with Ekho Moskvy - http://vorobieva-irina.livejournal.com/

Nastya Karimova - http://karimova.livejournal.com/
she's running for local government now - http://karimova.livejournal.com/677216.html

Masha Gaidar - http://m-gaidar.livejournal.com/

Oleg Kozlovsky, the one who got drafted illegally - http://welgar.livejournal.com/

- Who is Who in LJ, by Ilya Peresedov - lots of valuable links - http://peresedov.livejournal.com/601178.html

2 comments:

  1. Thank you, Veronica! Great piece of work!

    Novodvorskaya's gallery is really something:)

    ReplyDelete