Emails give insight into Kremlin youth group’s priorities, means and concerns | World news | The Guardian

Hacked emails that are believed to show correspondence between Nashi’s first leader, Vasily Yakemenko, its spokesperson Kristina Potupchik and other activists and bloggers, appear to reveal the notorious Kremlin youth group’s goals, priorities, means and concerns.

Many of the emails concern how to boost positive coverage on the internet. One includes payments, noting that 200 pro-Putin online comments left on 60 articles cost 600,000 roubles (£12,555). It also details paid-for coverage.

Two posts about Nashi’s annual summer camps that appeared on one of Russia’s most popular blogs, run by photographer Ilya Varlamov, received 300,000 hits and cost R400,000, according to the email said. Contacted by the Guardian, Varlamov denied being paid by Nashi to cover pro-Putin events. Another email showed that Nashi doled out more than R10m (£210,000) to buy a series of articles about the Seliger summer camp in the popular Russian tabloids Moskovsky Komsomolets, Komsomolskaya Pravda and Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta denied that its journalists took money for articles.

Nashi has long targeted people it considers “enemies”, such as Russian journalists and foreign ambassadors. In an email to Potupchik on 27 October one Nashi activist attached a list of 168 well-known human rights activists, writers, journalists, bloggers, film directors, poets and others. “These are the most vile enemies,” the activist writes. “Because they have personally gone after us or V.” It is unclear to whom the V refers: Putin, Yakemenko or Vladislav Surkov, the recently deposed ideologue who dreamed up Nashi.

One of the group’s top concerns is the opposition leader Alexei Navalny. In an email sent on 11 November, another Nashi activist writes to Yakemenko with a plan for “a series of 40- to 50-second cartoons of a day in the life of the fascist Navalny”, comparing him to Hitler, showing him making uncontrollable Nazi salutes and forming swastikas. “Let’s do it, make it funny,” Yakemenko replies, with a smiling emoticon. A similar video went viral in December.

Several other activists write to Yakemenko with ideas on discrediting Navalny: from having “10 to 15 people change their first and last names to Alexei Navalny and start doing lots of things, joining every party and movement, talking at protests and in the press, so in this mess people stop reacting to news about him”, to a suggestion to dress people up like him to beg for money outside the US embassy. Most of those suggestions are declined.

via Emails give insight into Kremlin youth group’s priorities, means and concerns | World news | The Guardian.

 

BBC News – Profile: Russian blogger Alexei Navalny

Anti-corruption campaigner and top blogger Alexei Navalny is one of the pivotal figures leading protests and activism to challenge the results of Russia’s 4 December parliamentary elections.

He is also arguably the only major opposition figure to emerge in Russia in the past five years. And he owes his political prominence almost exclusively to his activity as blogger.

Mr Navalny’s rise as a force in Russian politics began in 2008 when he started blogging about allegations of malpractice and corruption at some of Russia’s big state-controlled corporations, such as energy giants Gazprom, Rosneft and Transneft, and VTB bank.

Previously, he had been a relatively minor figure involved in various opposition groups. He was also involved in nationalist politics and has taken part in a number of the annual nationalist shows of strength, known as the Russian Marches.

via BBC News – Profile: Russian blogger Alexei Navalny.

 

Holodomor (Голодомор) -Killing by Hunger- (Морити голодом)

1) Gareth Jones – A Manchukuo Incident

In celebration of his life, Gareth’s niece, Dr. Margaret Siriol Colley and his great nephew, Nigel Linsan Colley have written & published a critically acclaimed bookGareth Jones – A Manchukuo Incident  –  which investigates the political intrigue surrounding Gareth’s murder by Chinese bandits in 1935.

2) Gareth Jones’ Published Articles

As a prolific writer, Gareth left a legacy of articles published in many British newspapers including The Western Mail, The Times and the Manchester Guardian, in Germany in the Berliner Tageblatt and in American newspapers through the International News Service.  These articles are a graphic and historic portrayal of the critical events of the early thirties and are worthy of an in-depth study in themselves

From below, links can be discovered to some of Gareth’s historically most noteworthy articles::

  1. Exposé of  1933 Soviet Ukrainian starvation.

  2. The Rise of Hitler’s Germany.

  3. Impressions & Interviews in the Far East in 1935.

  4. America, War Reparations & Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’.

  5. ‘Enigma of Ireland’, 1933.

  6. In Search of News – Retrospective of  The Western Mail articles.

  7. Mussolini Has Spoken.

  8. Rural Wales in the Summer of 1933.

  9. Unemployment in the 1930s.

  10. Prophesy of World Politics Through the Thirties, 31 Dec 1930.

  11. Confidential Interview in 1933 with the Soviet Foreign Minister, Litvinoff (Litvinov), regarding Soviet Foreign Policy which Correctly  Predicted All the Major Events which Led to the Second World War.

  12. Finally a Series of Three ‘Lost’ 1935 & Most Vitriolic Anti-Stalinist Articles, Personally Commissioned by Randolph Hearst, where Gareth First Coined the Term “Man-Made Famine” to describe the Holodomor (to be found in the second article).

  • CLICK HERE to view Nigel Colley’s 2.30 minute extended Interview on BBC News
  • CLICK HERE for the edited broadcast of BBC Look East on Friday 13th November.
  • CLICK HERE for The Guardian’s account by Mark Brown entitled; ‘1930s journalist Gareth Jones to have story retold.’
  • CLICK HERE for The Times Online account by Jack Malvern entitled; ” True extent of Ukraine famine revealed in British journalist’s diaries ‘.
  • CLICK HERE for the Daily Telegraph
  • CLICK HERE for Tomos Livingstone’s article entitled; ‘Trail-blazing journalist was the history man’.
  • CLICK HERE for the widely syndicated article by Associated Press’ Raphael G. Satter as published in the Moscow Times.. Or CLICK HERE for the same article in The Washington Post.
  • CLICK HERE for Ihor Siundiukov’s article in The Day, published in Kyiv & entitled; ‘ The Confessions of a Truth-Seeker’.
  • For ALL 179 (and counting) articles from Google News CLICK HERE
  • CLICK HERE for Alex Donahue’s 3-page extended feature in The Big Issue (Welsh edition)
  • CLICK HERE for Barry & District’s call for the diaries to come ‘home to Wales’.
  • CLICK HERE for an interview with Rory Finnin of Cambridge University Ukrainian Sudies Dept. in The Day entitled; ‘Peturbing Truth in Cambridge’. .
  • For political comment by James Marson of the Guardian entitled; ‘Ukraine’s Forgotten Famine’ on 18th November, then please CLICK HERE
  • CLICK HERE for the original full page article in the Ukrainian-Community weekly-newpaper, Nasze Slowo on 6/12/09 by Anna Korzeniowska-Bihun entitled (in English) ‘Gareth Jones – the Conscience of the World’.
  • And Finally CLICK HERE to see Nigel Colley’s speech delivered at the opening of a United Nations’ Holodomor exhibition in New York on 23rd November 2009 entitled; ‘ Are You Listening, New York Times?’
 
Holodomor (English) The Original Holocaust *Ukraine 1932 - 1933

The Making of 1989:

Few people remember Günter Schabowski. Schabowski, the spokesman for the East German Communist Party Politburo, played a vital role in the toppling of the East German Communist government in the fall of 1989. During a press conference on November 9, 1989, a reporter asked him about new travel regulations issued by the government that seemed to indicate the possibility of easier travel into West Berlin through the Berlin Wall. Schabowski had only recently received a copy of the new regulations and had not yet read them carefully. The reporter asked when, exactly, East German citizens could begin to take advantage of these new travel rules. Schabowski shrugged and responded, “from now.” See video clip Here

That evening Reuters reported (incorrectly) that East German citizens could cross into West Germany by any border crossing and West German television news programs reported that the Berlin Wall was opening. Within minutes, thousands, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands of Berliners, both East and West, began converging on the Berlin Wall. Without orders for how to handle the surging crowds, the East German border guards simply opened the gates. Crowds poured through in both directions and within minutes began tearing down the wall that had for so long symbolized the division of Europe into a Communist East and a non-Communist West.

The night that the Berlin Wall collapsed was certainly one of the most dramatic moments in the cascading events of 1989, events that brought the era of Communist rule in Eastern Europe to a close. Textbooks often describe the events of that year as the inevitable collapse of a repressive system in favor of a freer democratic form of government. But the reality is much more complex. Many forces, both internal and external, conspired to bring down the Communist regimes, and not every government that replaced them could be described as fully democratic.

The Stop-Motion Handbook

The Stop-Motion Handbook Links as they exist here (http://www.stopmotionanimation.com/handbook/)
An Introduction… Newbies Please Start Here. written by Mike Brent

Making a Digital Stopmotion Film: The Process in a Nutshell written by Mike Brent
Choosing a Camera for Stop-Motion • written by Mike Brent & Eric Scott
Stop Motion Software (Framegrabbers) • written by Lionel Ivan Orozco

 

 

 

 

 

PUPPETMAKING

Overview of Puppetmaking Techniques  written by Mike Brent

Sculpting and Moldmaking Overview and Links • written by Mike Brent

Properties of Different Clays  written by Mike Brent

Building a Wire Armature for Your Puppet • written by Marc Spess

Building a Wire Armature with Tie-Downs  written by Anthony Scott

Making a Low Cost, Low Tech Stop-motion Puppet • written by Mary Murphy

Using Wax and Silicone Putty  submitted by Mike Brent

Press Molds for Puppet Heads • written by Mike Brent & Jason Spyda Adams

Building up a Classic Stop-Motion Monster  written by Richard Svensson

 

 

 

 

SET BUILDING

Building Sets  written by Mike Brent

 

 

ANIMATION

The 12 Principles of Animation  annotated for stop-motion by Mike Brent

Claymation or Stop-Motion: What’s the Difference? • written by Mike Brent

The Animator’s Toolkit  written by Anthony Scott

The Importance of Using Gages  written by Anthony Scott

Special Effects: water, fire, flying, jumping, throwing • written by Mike Brent

A Simple Flying Rig  written by Anthony Scott

Lip Sync Tutorial • written by Don Carlson

POST PRODUCTION

Megamotion Motion Blur Technique  written by Peter Montgomery

Wladyslaw Starewicz, The Bug Trainer, Stop Motion, and the bugs eating your brain.

Wladyslaw Starewicz‘ childhood passion for entomology led his career: he began producing short documentaries in Moscow around 1909-1910, beginning with a documentary about insects in Lithuania. In his spare time, he experimented with stop-action films using beetles, which he articulated by wiring the legs to the thorax with sealing wax! This, of course, led to his big breakthrough, released by the Van Kanjonkov Studio of Moscow: “The Battle of the Stag Beetles”, the first puppet-animated film.

Continue reading Wladyslaw Starewicz, The Bug Trainer, Stop Motion, and the bugs eating your brain.

Who is Mr. Navalny?

By now, Russia’s reputation for corruption is a cliché, but it is impossible to overstate how it defines public life at every level, all the way to the Kremlin. Russia is one of the few countries in the world to slip steadily in Transparency International’s annual rankings. Out of a hundred and seventy-eight countries surveyed in 2010, Russia ranks a hundred and fifty-fourth, a spot it shares with Cambodia, Guinea-Bissau, and the Central African Republic. Corruption has reached such extremes that businesses involved in preparing the Black Sea resort of Sochi for the Winter Olympics of 2014 report having to pay kickbacks of more than fifty per cent. The Russian edition of Esquire recently calculated that one road in Sochi cost so much that it could just as well have been paved with, say, nine inches of foie gras or three and a half inches of Louis Vuitton handbags. In
October, President Dmitry Medvedev announced that a trillion rubles—thirty-three billion dollars—disappears annually on government contracts. This is three per cent of the country’s G.D.P.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/04/110404fa_fact_ioffe#ixzz1M9u0B3Ou

http://russian-untouchables.com/eng/

http://eurasia.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/04/26/the_limits_of_e_politics_why_alexey_navalny_won_t_win_a_real_election_anytime_soon

http://www.rumafia.com/person.php?id=166

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/04/110404fa_fact_ioffe

http://rospil.info/corruption-case/185

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Young-Lawyer-Leads-Fight-Against-Corruption-in-Russia-119251969.html

https://swilliamsjd.wordpress.com/tag/alexei-navalny/

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/789556–defending-the-minority-interest

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0FD964BCF4EB1483

http://www.rumafia.com/news.php?id=207

http://visualrian.com/images/item/858354?print=true

Who is Mr. Navalny?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7CZIk1PFdc&feature=related

Alexey Navalny– Трубоеды.mp4
http://vybetv.com/video_show/0baff2db243bc65245d8aa96543a57ba-947483

Press Center TV: The territory of Glasnost. Aleksey Navalny. Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPJfUljpyEU

Young Lawyer Leads Fight Against Corruption in Russia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IokxV91JATc

Divorce in haste, repent at leisure

Divorce in haste, repent at leisure

19 March 2011

Twenty years today the USSR held a referendum on whether to support the proposed New Union Treaty. The new setup would have given much more power to the republics; the word used to describe it then was “confederation”.

This infographic displays data on how people voted during this referendum (click for full size)

(This graphic could be misleading, as it takes numbers not from the whole population of potential voters but from those who actually did vote; in several areas not voting was voting “no”). The three Baltic SSRs, the Moldavian, Georgian and Armenian SSRs did not hold votes, on the grounds that they had not legally been incorporated into the USSR in the first place. But the Abkhaz ASSR voted by a small margin to stay in. The Chechen-Ingush ASSR voted to get out as did the Nakhichevan ASSR

Three quotations are instructive: “The recent dramatic events [ie the coup attempt] showed that our republic is absolutely unprotected… ” (Kravchuk 1991); “if Ukraine really will not be in the Union, I cannot imagine such a Union” (Yeltsin 1991); “I believed that Ukraine is so rich that it provided for the entire [Soviet] Union” (Kuchma 1993).

Divorce in haste, repent at leisure: a recent poll from Ukraine says half the population now regrets the breakup. (See article More than half of Ukrainians regret Soviet breakup [Ria Novosti])

(Via Business Special Report [BSR] Russia)

Baikal Airport to Become International Transportation Hub for Southeast Siberia

Baikal Airport to Become International Transportation Hub for Southeast Siberia

Russia will allocate around US$6.8 million in the federal budget for the continuing reconstruction of the Baikal International Airport OJSC in Ulan-Ude, Buryat Republic this year, the local press office announced on Monday.

Plans include building a second runway, enlarging the first runway, improving passenger facilities, and modernizing of the taxi lane.

The reconstruction of the airport is planned to be finished in 2012, when the last tranche of US$11.3 million will be invested.

The whole reconstruction project, implemented within the framework of a federal program of economic and social development of the Far East and Transbaikalia since 2008, is estimated to cost around US$30 million when completed.

After the reconstruction of the runway, the airport will be able to serve any type of aircraft without restrictions on take-off weight. New lighting equipment will also allow the airport to accept aircraft at night time on request of air companies and to operate 24 hours in the future.

(Via Russia Briefing News)

Russian Mafia/Prison Tattoos

Foreign Prisoner Support Service provides some background, and explanation of the importance of tattoos, particularly in the context of Russian Prisons, and Russian Mafia

Russian Mafia Tattoos (a blog that collects various pieces on this topic)

This page is a fascinating close-up look at several tattoos and goes into their meaning, purpose and explanation of details that are not obvious (click on body parts for closeups and more details).