By Slava Tsukerman This month the Central Bank of Russia published information showing that the earnings from Russian businesses and of the richest citizens continue to flow abroad through the purchase of stakes in companies and the issuance of loans. Last year 2.5 trillion rubles, $42 billion, flowed from Russia into offshore markets. This is […]

By Slava Tsukerman Residents of Volokolamsk, a town 129 kilometers (80 miles) northwest of Moscow, have long complained about the stench coming from the nearby Yadrovo landfill where hundreds of garbage trucks from Moscow and the surrounding areas dump their loads every day. On March 21, 2018, dozens of school children in the area fell […]

by Slava Tsukerman The Fourth inauguration of Vladimir Putin as the President of Russia took place on Monday, May 7, 2018. The comment of the New York Times on the event was entitled: “For Putin’s 4th Term, More a Coronation Than an Inauguration‎.”   Russian opposition to Putin was reported upon by the New York Times. On May 5, two days prior […]

By Slava Tuskerman After a likely chemical attack on April 7 in the Syrian city of Douma that served as a reason for the later U. S. targeted attacks on Syrian military targets, Russian television produced a number of stories stating that the videos depicting the attacks were fakes staged by anti-Bashar Assad activists. On […]

By Slava Tsukerman This week local Siberian press reported that a rusting Sherman tank dating from WW2 was airlifted all the way across Russia for use in a major military parade. Around 4,000 of such tanks were brought to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program, to boost Stalin’s firepower to defeat the Germans. A […]

  By Slava Tsukerman In 2018, the number of foreign citizens who entered the territory of Russia for obtaining permanent residence already reached six million. People from countries, where the economic situation is worse today than in Russia, are going to Russia in order to find jobs. Mostly they are coming from the former Soviet […]

By Slava Tsukerman In the former Soviet Union, every citizen had an internal passport. Among the entries in this passport, under the number 5, was an entry called “nationality”, which meant, not the citizenship, but the ethnic identity, such as “Russian”, “Ukrainian”, “Georgian”, and “Jewish”. Using the Soviet slang, this information was commonly called “fifth […]

By Slava Tsukerman One of the top Moscow restaurateurs refused police demands for bribe. That looks like a seemingly minor event. But in the contemporary Russia it became one of the biggest sensations of January, 2018. Sergei Mironov is the owner of restaurant chain “Meat & Fish”and the head of the restaurant business consultant agency […]

By Slava Tsukerman Right after my article about the poor condition of Russian roads, one of the most popular Russian bloggers, Ilia Varlamov, published an article suggesting that city streets in Russia are as dangerous as the roads. Varlamov opens his article with the latest Russian car accidents statistics: On January 17, 32 people were […]

By Slava Tsukerman All Russians know that quality of roads is a problem of their country. Among the most popular quotes of Russian classics there is this observation by Karamzin, the first Russian popular writer of 19th century: “There are two troubles In this country: fools and roads.” Napoleon wrote: “In Russia there are no […]

By Slava Tsukerman A heated, somewhat scandalous debate has been going on for several weeks in Russian media. Almost all well known politicians, members of the Russian parliament, and even president Putin himself are participating in the debate. The subject is a two-and-a-half minute speech of a 16-year-old boy from a small city of Novy […]

by Slava Tsukerman On November 27 a conference dedicated to “new expertise and evidence” on the last Russian tsar’s Nicholas II murder took place in the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow. Patriarch Kirill led a delegation from the Russian Orthodox Church at the conference. At the conference Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov, widely seen as Putin’s personal confessor, […]

By Slava Tsukerman The opening of Wall of Sorrow memorial was the event that concluded the session of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights.  During the session the idea was voiced that some people, with the help of surveillance systems, are collecting images of Russian people. Answering this assumption, Putin spoke of even more mysterious fact, saying: “Images, it’s okay. But […]