Hilarious…

“They can’t be spies” one neighbor said, ” look at what they did with the hyrdangeas.”  Read more about this silly spy case here.

In Russia, the new point-counterpoint for journalists

“…’Last spring, I called for the resignation of the city’s leadership,’ Mr. Beketov said in one of his final editorials. ‘A few days later, my automobile was blown up’…Not long after, he was savagely beaten outside his home and left to bleed in the snow. His fingers were bashed, and three later had to be amputated, as if his assailants had sought to make sure that he would never write another word. He lost a leg. Now 52, he is in a wheelchair, his brain so damaged that he cannot utter a simple sentence. ” Here.

Different people

Different People. Don’t forget my favorite–Slow Moscow.

The bear’s dilemma

If you doubt that democracy can evolve and sustain itself in Russia, especially under Tasr  Vladimir Putin,  then you obviously know something of Russia’s past. You have history on your side. An article in the London Telegraph sums it up nicely: “Though communism was a ghastly delusion, and the rule of Stalin inflicted unspeakable pain, Russia’s historic experience goes far to explain how her people could accept such subjection. To this day, it is not uncommon to travel in a Moscow taxi whose driver keeps a picture of Stalin above the dash…”Russian history, even before Stalin and the Russian revolution, is one of authoritarian and religious oppression, even under the so-called enlightened Peter the Great.