The rally “For Fair Elections” was held on Sakharov Avenue in Moscow. The participants protested against ballot rigging in the elections to the State Duma on December 4.

The officials of Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that the meeting was attended by about 30 thousand people. According to the organizers of the rally about 120 thousand people came to protest. The symbols of protest were white chrysanthemums and white ribbons. Photos by Ilya Varlamov.

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Tags: elections · Moscow city · protest · rally · Sakharov Avenue

Kuban Cossacks (Kuban Cossack Army) is a part of Russian Cossacks of the North Caucasus, living on the territory of present Krasnodar krai, Stavropol krai, as well as the Republic of Adygeya and Karachay-Cherkessia. The military headquarters is located in Krasnodar (former Ekaterinodar).

Historically Kuban Cossacks were free militarized agricultural population. At the head of the Kuban Cossack Army was the chieftain (ataman), who was the military chief of the division and also the governor.

Cossack communities carried out various duties: military service, maintaining of postal stations, escorting prisoners, guard duty, etc. On the eve of 1914 Kuban Cossack Army numbered about 1.3 million of the Cossacks.

Tags: Cossacks · Krasnodar city

Vasya Lozhkin is Russian artist living in a small town of Solnechnogorsk located in Moskovskaya oblast. In his paintings he portrays parallel world – the world of psychosis, madness, extreme forms of mental states, visions and hallucinations.

If sometimes there are intersections with reality they are very little. This is not a reflection of our lives in a distorting mirror but a frightening fantasy world and the lives of the ghosts. He also likes to paint cats and bunnies.

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Tags: cats · Moskovskaya oblast · paintings · Vasya Lozhkin

The following nice picture brilliantly illustrates the rule known in Russia as “Potemkin’s village”. It is about how local authorities doing their best to impress or at least not upset the important visitor.

Tags: Potemkin's village

LiveJournal (LJ) is a popular in Russia blog platform. In recent years the community has become actively involved in social and political life of the country strengthening growing Russian civil society. LJ is the regular object of various attacks.

Another attack by hackers began on April 4 about 14 pm Moscow time. Main objects of attack were top bloggers and communities. Thus, it can be said that the attack was aimed directly at the service itself. And the reason for the attack in this situation is more than obvious – someone wants very much to decrease the growing power of LJ society. It is believed that a DDoS-attack on LJ is coming from the structures related to Russian government.

According to public opinion polls, television controlled by the government remains the main source of information for the overwhelming majority of people and the Internet has become an outlet for those looking for independent evaluations and uncensored information.

Tags: LiveJournal

Truthful animation video about the difficulties that may face foreign businessman in Russia.

Tags: animation · difficulties · investments

These photos were taken by a student living in typical Russian dorm.

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Tags: Russian dorm

Priiskoviy is the village of Ordzhonikidze district of Khakassia Republic located in the spur of the Kuznetsk Alatau mountains (1,5-1,6 km altitude). The village is located to the south-west of the district administrative center – the village Kop’evo, near the border with Kemerovo oblast.

Priiskoviy settlement arose in the discovery of gold deposits in 1834. In the Soviet period the village had the highest development. In 1996 the mine was closed and a lot of people left the village. The population of Priiskoviy was 665 as of 01.01.2008. Very depressive place. The photos were captured by Dmitry Yurlagin.

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Tags: Abandoned · Khakassia republic · Russian village

From March 1, 2011 the law on the police has come into force in Russia.

Picture from http://www.dragoart.com

Tags: Russian police

Russian penitentiary system is far from being perfect and here is one example. The following colony for criminals located somewhere on the territory of Perm krai was abandoned recently, in 2005, but as you can see the conditions of living there are rather extreme. The pictures were taken by Alexander Belenkiy (all the photos are clickable).

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Tags: Abandoned · colony · Perm krai