They were shooting...Yesterday. In the forest. In Vladimir Oblast. A shot thundered practically right over my head. Luckily for me and for the duck flushed from the mirror-like marsh, the hunter missed.

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By the way, they were shooting for certain, not only yesterday and not only in Vladimir Oblast - the hunting season continues in Russia. The period of killing feathered creatures in the Moscow region began back on 25 July and will continue through 30 November. Then, in November, the season will open for beavers, moose, boars...hunting season continues, in essence, year round on the vast spaces of our motherland, which for now is still

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I was listening to our president and recalled Jerzy Lec:

"I am so full of optimism that I can't take any more of it."

What didn't Dmitry Medvedev promise us! "Intolerance toward corruption...improvement of housing conditions...nurturing of the personality already in school...normalisation of the situation in monocities..." And also about agriculture, modernisation of the economy, flights to other planets; reducing taxes; raising the quality of school education...

Of the new - a possible abolition of the switches from summer to winter and a reduction in the quantity of time zones. And - applause, applause, applause...in the spirit of the times of Brezhnev.

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Nikolai Zobin in today's Moscow Times laments that President Medvedev persistently highlights the level of corruption in Russia, whilst, by all accounts, the problem of graft has increased during his Presidency. (See yesterday's 'corruption blast' for the latest examples).  When the President is nominally one of the most powerful men in Russia, why is it that Medvedev seems incapable of transforming word into deed? Deeds, such as, quite simply, firing people:After all, Medvedev is not only the president of all Russians -- he is the leader of all bureaucrats, who act as his representatives at every level government. He is the only person in the country who has the power to remove anybody at any time. ...

From eight o'clock in the morning I was looking in the window: from it, like in the palm of your hand, you can see school № 1965, which on October 11th was transformed into a polling station. Right until evening I did not uncover a single burst of massness: the people went, but somehow limply, one by one... At 10:30 in the barbershop I asked: speak up, who has already voted. The 10 or so people, including the barbers, were silent. «Why didn't you go?» - I asked a man of middle years. «Fuck it», - said he simply and comprehensibly. 66% victorious unirussians [candidates from United Russia, the "party of power"--Trans.] ...

Yesterday we mentioned a New York Times piece about the lack of mass outrage regarding the falsification of election results on October 11.  All in all, there seems to be a general feeling that the outcry about vote-rigging has turned out to be a damp squib.  Nikolaus von Twickel in the Moscow Times suggests that the noise about democratic reforms, so resonant in the immediate aftermath of the event, has been all but silenced.  Two weeks after the unprecedented walkout of the State Duma's three opposition parties, little seems left of the whiff of democracy that surfaced so suddenly.President Dmitry Medvedev appeared to yield to their demands over the weekend, meeting with leaders of the Just Russia, Liberal Democrat and the Communist parties to discuss Oct. 11 regional elections that they say were blatantly falsified in ...

TODAY: Clinton turns attention to civil society and gives speech tackling human rights abuses; Walt Whitman statue unveiled; Putin advises against intimidating Iran; opposition politicians stage Duma walk out.  Memorial to appeal.  Putin turns pop svengali?'In an innovative society, people must be free to take unpopular positions, disagree with conventional wisdom, know they are safe to challenge abuses of authority': Hillary Clinton affirmed her support for dissidence and human rights protection in a speech at Moscow State University.  'That's why attacks on journalists and human rights activists are such a great concern, because it is a threat to progress', she is quoted as saying in the New York Times.  Click here for a video of Clinton ...

Writing in the Moscow Times, Vadim Klyuvgant, the lead trial lawyer in the Khodorkovsky case, points out that as long as there are cases of abuse like those of Antonio Valdez-Garcia and Vasily Aleksanyan, the plea bargain changes to Russia's criminal justice system won't get very far.

How should we interpret this new law on plea bargaining? Is it a step toward the strengthening of the rule of law and more humane legislation? Will it help law enforcement officers prosecute dangerous criminals -- in particular leaders of organized crime syndicates -- even if it means manipulating plea-bargaining agreements and tricking defendants into informing on other people? I concede that the State Duma deputies who voted for the law naively had these goals in mind. However, the new plea-bargaining law will inevitably be associated with disgraceful, corrupt and politically driven crimes, the desire to "expose" high-profile crimes at any price,

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TODAY: Iran uranium plan waiting to be concluded; Russia backs Serbia on Kosovo; Lavrov exit denied; Ingushetian cabinet out.  Ex-US Yukos unit to launch mammoth lawsuit; picketed journalist gets unlikely defender; UN says Russia should improve immigration policies; grave problem for MoscowThe Washington Post reports that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has announced that an agreement between Tehran and six world powers to allow Russia to help enrich uranium for an Iranian reactor awaits finalizing.  ITAR-TASS says that the Foreign Ministry has denied rumors that Lavrov may resign.  The Foreign Minister has rebuffed questions about who truly runs Russia, Putin or Medvedev, at a press conference, where he answered, 'you should not pit the Kremlin against ...

TODAY: Human rights activist and husband murdered; Medvedev has idea for military abroad; Georgia suggests the Kremlin seeking justification for incursion.  Ukraine-Russia ties on the rocks; reports to be submitted about bribery.    President Medvedev has submitted a bill to the State Duma that would allow for the deployment of Russian troops almost anywhere overseas.  A Georgian Foreign Ministry spokesman has said that the new law is an attempt 'to place the aggression perpetrated against Georgia last year within a legal framework'.  The Ministry also says that Russia has not honored the terms of the cease-fire agreement and called Medvedev's thanking of Sarkozy, who helped to broker the peace deal, 'a cynical move'.  The Washington Post reports ...

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty takes the time to pick apart the words of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov - the consistencies and contradictions reveal, well, a frightening and important reality.Many aspects of Kadyrov's interpretation of the events of the past 15-20 years in Chechnya are open to question. He has emphatically denied (in an April 2009 interview with "Rossiiskaya gazeta") ever having fought on the side of the resistance during the 1994-96 war. At the same time, he has admitted having as a boy regarded ChRI President Djokhar Dudayev as "a national hero." In a statement in December 2006 to mark the 12th anniversary of the Russian attack on Chechnya, Kadyrov blamed the onset of the war on "the shortsighted and irresponsible policies of the political leadership of both Russia and Chechnya at that time." But he now argues that both the 1994-96 war and ...