April 10, 2009 — Contents

FRIDAY APRIL 10 CONTENTS

(1)  Another Original LR Translation:  Turning over the Russian Rock

(2)  EDITORIAL:  The Medvedev Family Fortune

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Kirill Pankratov, Shameless Neo-Soviet Liar

(4)  The Kremlin’s Shameful Yamadayev Coverup

(5)  Annals of the Holy Russian Empire

Another Original LR Translation: Turning over the Russian Rock

A note from the Translator:  The dirty little rag we all love to hate, which is also the highest circulation newspaper in Russia – Order of Lenin, Order of the October Revolution, Order of the Great Patriotic War, Order of the Red Banner of Labour (and bar) Komsomolskaya Pravda, organ of the Central Committee of the All-Union Lenin Communist Union of Youth, to give it its full and absurd title – has published an amusing piece of rubbish which I think LR readers will enjoy. I fear I have recently been paying too much attention to the lone voices of good sense and intelligence that still survive in Russia, ignoring the great mass of rubbish (not my first choice of word, but we are respectable here) that is shovelled into the brains of the greater Russian public.

EDITORIAL: The Medvedev Family Fortune

EDITORIAL

The Medvedev Family Fortune

If you know, as being a well-informed and faithful LR reader you are likely to do, that Russian “president” Dima Medvdev’s wife was “once photographed wearing a Breguet Reine de Naples watch that sells for more than $20,000” and if you also know that Medvedev himself was once the boss of Gazprom, one of the world’s largest energy conglomerates, then it will probably surprise you to learn that, according to the Moscow Times, the combined bank accounts Medvedev and his wife are worth . . . wait for it . . . . less than $88,500 (all but $4,000 of it in hubby’s accounts) — and Medvedev’s total income last year was less than $124,000.  The MT observes:  “The presidency does not appear to have been too profitable for Medvedev, who has managed to add just 78,774 rubles ($2,357) to his savings since last year.”

But it will probably not surprise you to learn that Russian “prime minister” Vladimir Putin, when asked how much he had in his savings accounts . . . refused to say, even though it was Medvedev’s own decree that ordered these disclosures.  Putin did admit that he earned $14,000 more as prime minister than Medvedev did as president.

Now, would we be stepping beyond the bounds of reason and fair play, dear reader, if we were to suggest that both Medvedev and Putin are lying through their fangs?

EDITORIAL: Kirill Pankratov, Shameless Neo-Soviet Liar

EDITORIAL

Kirill Pankratov, Shameless Neo-Soviet Liar

 The loathesome Kremlin shill Kirill Pankratov is well known to us here at La Russophobe.  The much-admired David McDuff of A Step at a Time nailed Pankratov’s skeevy hide to the wall some time ago, and one need only glace at Pankratov’s reptilian attack on Anna Politkokvskaya to appreciate what sort of maggot this really is.

So it was rather disappointing to see a column by Pankratov appear on the pages of the Moscow Times earlier this week, claiming that we have nothing to fear where Russia’s Internet is concerned, because it’s free and fair and indestructible — just what Vladimir Putin has been insisting all along.

Needless to say, Pankratov’s column was chock full of the most ridiculous lies that can be imagined.

The Kremlin’s Shameful Yamadayev Coverup

The Moscow Times reports:

When defector Alexander Litvinenko, a former security services officer who heaped invective on the Kremlin from exile in Britain, died of polonium poisoning in London in 2006, Russian prosecutors quickly opened a criminal probe into his death and sent investigators to London.

In the 10 days since the March 28 assassination in Dubai of Chechen strongman Sulim Yamadayev, a decorated Russian war hero who helped Russia crush the Georgian military last year, Russian authorities have barely acknowledged his death.  An Investigative Committee spokesman said Tuesday that a criminal probe had not been opened in connection with Yamadayev’s murder and would not say whether such a case would be opened in the future.

Annals of the Holy Russian Empire

The Chatanooga Times Free Press reports:

The glittering Christ the Savior Cathedral, a pale-white marble structure decorated with bronze statuary and swaths of gold leaf, is more than just Moscow’s grandest and most opulent place of worship. Built in the 1990s as a replica of a church dynamited by Communists in 1931, the cathedral symbolizes the Moscow Patriarchate’s rising political influence — which may be greater today than at any time since the 17th century. It also serves as global headquarters of vast and expanding business operations that experts say are worth several billion dollars.

To tens of millions of Russian believers, the Orthodox Church is first of all a sacred institution, a pillar of the country’s 1,000-year-old identity and culture.