Run-of-the-mill lawlessness

Grigory Pasko, journalist

Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда.There probably isn't any statistical data out there about what quantity of Chechens has been convicted by Russian courts over the past, say, ten years. Even back when I was still in the strict-regime camp, I had run into situations that bore witness to obviously falsified criminal cases in relation to persons only because they had been Chechens. I likewise studied the materials of cases where it was obviously visible: the degree of the guilt of the convicted Chechens in a series of situations was much lower than the degree of punishment. No doubt in these cases too the ...

Yevgeny Zhovtis - the political prisoner of Kazakhstan

Grigory Pasko, journalist

During the time of my brief sojourn in Almaty, I met with many people - journalists, jurists, human rights advocates - and asked of them: what do they think of the Yevgeny Zhovtis case? One thing became clear and distinct from all our talks: this human rights activist is now widely considered as a new political prisoner of modern-day Kazakhstan - a state which although masquerades its commitment to democratic principles, regularly violates the rights of her people and flouts its own laws through its deeds.

Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда.Read parts one, two and ...

As Grigory Pasko recently reported on this blog, President Dmitry Medvedev will sure have his hands full in his latest campaign to tackle the problem of Russian alcoholism.  This piece from Megan K. Stack in the Los Angeles Times reiterates the depth of the problem: "We're not drinking," said a construction worker named Vasily Pik who stood gulping down cans of beer with a couple of buddies at noon on a weekday. "We're just killing our hangovers." Asked about Medvedev's anti-alcohol campaign, Pik burst into raw gasps of laughter. "It's impossible. He doesn't stand a chance," he said. "The Russian man will always be drinking. Russians don't surrender."

Turkey. Holiday. All Inclusive...

Grigory Pasko, journalist

Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда.In Antalya (Turkey), the International Congress of Journalists has ended. As a rank-and-file participant in this congress ( I represented the freelancer class, and, in part, the blog www.robertamsterdam.com), I could not help but notice that just about the main participants in the event were top-level representatives of the tour-business of Turkey. By the way, this is understandable: with this participation they were killing, at a minimum, two birds with one stone: they sponsored the congress and were counting on Russian journalists one way or another writing something about Turkey and holidaying in it.

They guessed right:

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Good late morning, afternoon from Washington DC.  Before I make my way out to the airport to fly back home to London, I thought I would catch up on some of the weekend's news.Speaking of travel, over the years our correspondent in Russia, Grigory Pasko, has done an inordinate amount of reporting on this blog about the unfortunate conditions of the roads in so many parts of the regions.  Though perhaps peculiar to an outsider, anyone who has traveled to Russia and bothered to get outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, would understand our fixation on this routine minutae of transportation infrastructure. By comparison, I recall driving along ...

Nobody to keep him under surveillance?

Grigory Pasko, journalist

Boris Nemtsov doesn't have any guesses as to who attached a mobile telephone with a tracking function underneath his car. And I don't either. Nor do you, I'll warrant. Or Putin, for that matter. An enigmatic country, enigmatic inhabitants with enigmatic souls... It's hard to get concrete about something like this. Boris and I met on Thursday: I was listening to his answers to my questions and thinking: he's young, he's smart, he's experienced, obviously not suitable to be a slick lackey of the powers or dictators. This is the kind of people who should be running the country. And then I thought:

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A very modest «Alenka» (on the profanation of the idea of energy conservation)

Grigory Pasko, journalist

I recently attended a seminar for radio journalists in Irkutsk, which had an interesting article published in the official programme about the implementation of "energy conservation projects in the Shelekhov municipal district."

Will you look at that, I thought to myself, there are actually ahead-of-the-curve people in off-the-beaten-track Shelekhov district, thinking progressively and implementing energy-conservation technologies! The only thing that perplexed me was why there weren't any such examples of energy conservation in the oblast center itself - in Irkutsk. Well, be that as it may, I together with a group of radio journalists set off for Shelekhov to check it out.

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I just saw this big cover splash currently holding down the World section at the Huffington Post.  The article is an AP piece about the new law enabling the FSB to open all mail, which as Grigory Pasko pointed out here a few days ago, has been happening for years.  I don't think the Estemirova murder got such a big headline, maybe today is a slower news day (at least it is here at RA.com).

Andrei Illarionov: "Interest in Venezuela - this is part of the big strategy"

Grigory Pasko, journalist

President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev recently carried out visits to the countries of Africa. Before this we observed his voyage to the countries of Latin America. What is this intense interest of the Russian president in such faraway countries brought about by? Why not seek friends and partners in business closer to Russia? Medvedev himself said it this way: "...We did not devote that much attention to sufficiently faraway continents, ones such as Africa, Latin America, but now we are simply duty-bound to do this. This is our close-in-spirit neighbors, this is countries that we really have helped and which, on the

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Remember this number

Grigory Pasko, journalist

Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда.I recently had the pleasure of participating in a screening of my short documentary film on the Nord Stream pipeline project in the cinema hall of the Berlin historical museum.  Our modest event was graced with some impressive attendees: Nord Stream AG Jens Müller (who heads up their public relations), Neel Strøbæk of Rambol (the group which carried out the environment assessment report in accordance with the ESPOO Convention); Tobias Münchmeyer of Greenpeace, Bundestag Deputy Rainder Steenblock and around 70 audience members. A discussion took place after the showing of the film.

I can't help but notice a pattern of multiplicity taking

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