May 20, 2009 — Contents

WEDNESDAY MAY 20 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Putin’s Sochi Charade

(2)  EDITORIAL:  The Horror of Eurovision

(3)  OP-ED:  Kaliningrad’s Mayor is Rewriting City’s History

(4)  Latynina on the Attempted Coup in Georgia

(5)  Russia in the Toilet

(6)  A Publisher at Large:  Kim vs. Harvard

NOTE: We are pleased to publish an op-ed article today from reader Paul Cordy regarding Kaliningrad.  We encourage readers to submit op-ed pieces for publication consideration (we are happy to provide editorial and translation services as needed).

NOTE: Last week was the best for traffic in our history.  We were visited 23,466 times, a new record!  Perhaps as a result, another record fell, namely most comments on a single post.  We never thought the record, well in excess of 300, previously held by our post “Why is LR a Russophobe? Why aren’t YOU?” would fall, but last week it did when our editorial “Putin’s Abkhazia Quagmire” edged past it. Our comments, we are proud to say, have become their own rich source of information about Russia, and the comments are now independently searchable because of recent WordPress system improvements.

EDITORIAL: Putin’s Sochi Charade

EDITORIAL

Putin’s Sochi Charade

With the Russian economy in freefall, it’s looking more and more every day like Russia’s effort to host the 2014 Olympics will bankrupt the nation, leading either to total Russian humiliation before the world or to draconian, Soviet-like privation and suffering for the sake of a Potemkin sham.

EDITORIAL: The Horror of Eurovision

EDITORIAL

The Horror of Eurovision

No politics at Eurovision?

Last weekend the “Eurovision” song contest wound up in Moscow. The world could only stand slack-jawed gaping at the unbounded horror of it all.

Eurovision has a rule that says “no politics allowed” during the contest.

But that didn’t stop host Russia from decorating the stage with an inflatable fighter jet and an inflatable tank and having the Russian army choir perform the keynote song.

No politics allowed?

OP-ED: Kaliningrad’s Mayor Re-writes his City’s History

Kaliningrad’s Mayor Re-writes his City’s History

by Paul Cordy

(original to La Russophobe)

Paul Goble’s recent blog post in the Moscow Times quoted the mayor of Kaliningrad on the history of his city.  It offers an excellent proof of how deluded some Russians are about historical truth (click LR’s “history” category in the sidebar to read more on this topic), and especially about how creative they are with their own history.

Latynina on the Attempted Coup in Georgia

We stand in awe of her courage and selfless devotion to her country.  Hero journalist Yulia Latynina, her pen dripping with poison and virtually begging the Kremlin to arrest her, writing in the Moscow Times:

Georgian authorities quelled a planned coup last week, and the purported ringleaders — Giya Gvaladze, Koba Kobaladze and Giya Karkarashvili — have been arrested.

Gvaladze is the former head of Georgia’s Delta special forces unit and a protege of Igor Giorgadze. Giorgadze, the former chief of the Georgian KGB, carried out a failed assassination attempt against then-President Eduard Shevardnadze and then fled to Moscow. Giorgadze has been Moscow’s main trump card for years and the main source of the priceless information that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s regime is collapsing.

Russia in the Toilet

Siberian Light tips Russia-watchers to the following item from  the fanatical nationalist Russian blogger Stanislav Mishin at Mat Rodina (if he admits things are this bad, do you dare imagine how bad they really are?):

Travelling Russia extensively, it is always a with great trepidation that I enter public bathrooms in many areas, such as at train stations, parks and other areas. But this is not limited only to the public. Working with heavy industry the same is true for most of the older, heavy manufacturing facilities.

A Publisher at Large: Kim vs. Harvard

LR founder and publisher Kim Zigfeld discovered a nastly little appeasement freak lurking in the ivy-covered halls of Harvard University.  She outs her in a recent letter to the editor of the Harvard Crimson:

To the Editor:

In discussing NATO’s efforts to protect Georgia from further Russian aggression (“Exercising Power in Georgia,” Opinion, May 13), Ellen C. Bryson offers readers much information that is incomplete and misleading.