Sergei Chernyshov: "It Is Impossible to Run a Normal College in an Abnormal Country"

Novocollege, a private educational institution in Novosibirsk, will close, its founder Sergey Chernyshov announced in a video posted on YouTube on Saturday, 27 April. According to him, the college and its subsidiary projects—Novoschool and Inotext Foreign Language School—will close in July 2024, immediately after the academic year is over and all paperwork has been completed. Explaining the…

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Pobrecit:a:s

Impact of Discrimination on Integration of Emigrants From the Aggressor Country (with Ivetta Sergeeva) Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, up to one million Russians fled their homeland, marking the most significant brain drain since the Soviet Union’s collapse. While some host countries view the highly educated and politically active migrants as an asset, integrating nationals…

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Adios, America!

“Adios, America! Now it’s only this way (tacos). End of story.” This ultra-patriotic gem was just beamed to me by my fellow Petersburg psychogeographer V., who found it forlornly pasted up in the former “party zone” on Dumskaya and Lomonosov streets in downtown Petersburg, a quarter which was thoroughly purged last year by the local powers that be for no good reason. A quick scan of the QR code…

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The Putin Party

Randy Newman, “Putin” (2016) […] Dark Matter contained a re-recorded version of his Emmy award-winning song ‘It’s a Jungle Out There’, which was used as the theme song for the television series Monk. The album tells countless humorous tales. However, one of its most memorable cuts is the track ‘Putin’, which sees Newman sarcastically attack the Russian president.  The song pokes fun at Putin’s…

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A Shaman's Tale

The trailer to A Shaman’s Tale (Beata Bashkirova, 2024). Thanks to Pavel Sulyandziga for the heads-up A Shaman’s Tale A modern-day shaman sets out across Siberia to Moscow on a protest march and is gradually joined by others. How will the Russian authorities react? Alexander Gabyshev, a shaman from Yakutia in the Russian Far East, has a revelation: God has chosen him to be a crusader, whose…

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Volunteers

The St. Petersburg Natural Resources Management Committee has stopped signing up volunteers willing to carry gray toads across the road at the Sestroretsk Wetlands Wildlife Preserve. The committee was able to recruit the number of volunteers it needed in a single day. The committee itself reported the end of the volunteer enrollment, thanking all those who had responded to the call to help the…

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Muslims

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Traitor(s)

Traitor by Dennis Potter. Source: Internet Archive Traitor First broadcast in 1981, this Hidden Treasure play by Dennis Potter stars Denholm Elliott as Harris and Ian Ogilvy as James. It has not been heard for over 40 years. In a dingy flat in Moscow, he sits alone — a traitor to his family, his friends, his colleagues. Then the international press descend upon him and he gives his first…

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2 Russias Problem

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April Fools' Day

And more news: Finnish authorities consider possibility of deploying troops to Ukraine Proposal to produce “social welfare” vodka to combat illegal alcohol Petersburg courts order 400 foreigners expelled in span of week ROC obliges priests to include daily prayer for victory over Ukraine in liturgy State Duma MP proposes executing Crocus City Hall terrorists in Belarus Source: Moscow Times…

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Azat Miftakhov: "It's Like They're Telling Us, 'It's No Trouble for Us to Put Anyone Away'"

Azat Miftakhov in court. Photo: OVD Info Anarchist and mathematician Azat Miftakhov has been sentenced to four years in a maximum security facility on criminal charges of “condoning terrorism.” The young man will spend the first two and a half years of his sentence in a closed prison. Miftakhov was detained in September 2023 as he was leaving the penal colony from which he had been released…

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In Plain Sight

Accused terrorist Shamsidin Fariduni, with bruising on his face, inside a Moscow courtroom. Photo: Yulia Morozova/Reuters via the New York Times It seems that one of the consequences of this tragedy [i.e., the terrorist attack on the concert hall in suburban Moscow] has been the legalization, or legitimization, of torture. Torture existed before, but it was concealed and formally condemned. Now…

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Article of the Week

Article of the week Each Wednesday we tell you what material has been the most interesting for one of the residents [sic] of the Delovoi Peterburg Experts Club, a reader, or one of our employees. Today, Zurab Pliyev, first deputy director general of Northern Capital LLC, shared an article with us. “Putin’s final result in the presidential election was 87.28%” During the recent Russian…

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The War on Terror

This is not the first time the editors of our local newspaper have “platformed” the lies of the mendacious and violent fascist butcher Vladimir Putin. 1. US warns that Russia will invade Ukraine. General disbelief, daily Russian mockery. (December 3 2021-February 24 2022) 2.  Russia invades Ukraine, kills tens of thousands of people, kidnaps tens of thousands of children, commits other ongoing…

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On Her Knees

This security footage of apparent ballot stuffing at a polling station in Petersburg was released by the Petersburg [Elections] Observers movement on their Telegram channel on 20 March. The polling station was later identified as No. 5, housed in School No. 260 in the city’s Admiralty District. The women shown doing their patriotic duty to prolong Russia’s current fascist regime were identified…

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"Across the River They're Making Chocolate": Vsevolod Korolev's Closing Statement in Court

<Vsevolod Korolev During his closing statement in court today the documentary filmmaker Vsevolod Korolev read a poem by Grigori Dashevsky: 1. Across the river they’re making chocolate. Out there the river-ice is breaking up. And upriver we’re waiting, but for now no bus comes, only its vacant ghost, a desolate fleshless light flying ahead to the engine’s howl and the clatter of the ad-slates…

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This Russian Life: Alexandra Karaseva's Election Day Molotov Cocktail

Alexandra Karaseva. Photo from social media account via Bumaga During the three days of the [presidential] election in Russia, the Interior Ministry reports, twenty-one criminal cases were launched over attempts to set fires at polling stations or spoil ballots with brilliant green dye solution. Twenty-one-year-old student Alexandra Karaseva was remanded in custody to a pretrial detention centre…

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