Kommersant reports that Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov made a trip to Camp Nashi. Apparently Kadyrov was so impressed that he invited Nashi to set up shop in Chechnya.

Kadyrov took a tour of the camp, beginning with the central alley called Sovereign Democracy Avenue. Then he saw an imitation of Eternal Fire monument, […]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Yesterday, the Kremlin’s newspaper Rossiisskaia gazeta released a list of seventeen organizations (and English version is here) that the FSB considers terrorist. The list includes:

Shura of the United Forces of the Mujahedeen of the Caucasus
People’s Congress of Ichkeria and Dagestan
al-Qaeda
Asbat al-Ansar
Al-Jihad
Islamic Group (Al -Jamaa al -Islami)
Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Ikhvan al-Muslimun)
The Party of Islamic Liberation (Hizb […]

Popularity: 5% [?]

If this week’s news is any indication, it appears that Nashi’s efforts to solve dedovshchina by flooding the Russian military with its activists will prove difficult. First, all the prosecution’s five witnesses in the Sychyov Case have recanted their testimony or pulled out completely. For those who aren’t familiar, last New Year’s Private […]

Popularity: 5% [?]

A New Look

July 26, 2006 | 3 Comments

If you’ve been here before, you’ll notice that I changed the look of the blog. If this is your first visit, this won’t matter to you much. I got tired of all the green and the open space on the left and right sides of the template. So thanks to Blogger Templates, […]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Camp Nashi

July 24, 2006 | 8 Comments

The Nashi summer camp at Lake Seliger opened itself up to media on Saturday, giving reporters a chance to get a glimpse of how members train to become tomorrows “Our Army”. As I wrote last week, Nashi has adopted a platform that encourages its youth to join the Russian military. According to Kommersant […]

Popularity: 5% [?]

There are plenty of evaluations coming out about Russia and the G8. What did Putin gain? What did he lose? Does it matter? Let’s put the successes and failures of the state aside and think about the opposition. There were two “counter-conferences” held in St. Petersburg last week: the Other […]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Hitting 10,000

July 19, 2006 | 5 Comments

Sean’s Russia Blog received its 10,000th hit this morning at 4:53:02 am PST. I placed Site Meter at the bottom on the page about a year ago. The hits are calculated from web searches and people who come to the site. From the site stats I estimate that 1/3 of those hits […]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Basayev Nyet?

July 19, 2006 | 1 Comment

As Shamil Basayev’s death moves off the news radar, Kommersant continues to give updates to the story. According to ? correspondent Nikolai Sergeev,
The process of identifying the remains of Basaev has come to a standstill. Visual identification is impossible. Pathologists were able to take the fingerprints of the five fingers that survived the blast […]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Youth political activism in Russia is a tale of two youths. One stands in front of a line of police in riot gear in St. Petersburg, a black or red handkerchief over his nose and mouth to disguise his face. He is probably a member of Red Youth Vanguard (AKM), the National Bolshevik […]

Popularity: 8% [?]

Question: What prevented the United States and Russia coming to an agreement to allow the latter into the WTO?
Answer: Pork.
Yes, that is right, pork. The sweetest meat, the succulent hog, the flesh that is tasty whether barbecued, baked, smoked or fried. According to an article in Kommersant, the two powers failure to come […]

Popularity: 5% [?]

keep looking »