Author: Vadim Isakov

A historic wooden house in Moscow suburbs known as “Muromtsev Dacha” has been torn down by the authorities amid numerous protests from the residents. The photos of the demolition have been posted by different bloggers and gathered at LJ community photo-polygon.

The Russian Internet grew 37 percent in 2009 and now consists of more than two and a half million domain names, said Andrey Kolesnikov, director of the National Domain Coordination Center.

The Russian blogosphere became a place of public outcry against the lack of adequate punishment for corrupt government officials and their relatives violating the law. A simple blog search reveals numerous posts criticizing Russian police, senators and governors who disregard any notion of the law and easily avoid any consequences for taking bribes, pursuing illegal business deals or even killing people.

But the public frustration online doesn't always lead to real-life changes. The recent story of a car crash in one of the Siberian cities and online reaction to the incident illustrate how an improvised online campaign attempts to affect gloomy reality.

On the surface, the story of Anna Shavenkova who ran over two women while driving her Toyota on December 2, 2009 in Irkutsk is nothing new in Russia. Thousands of people are killed in road accidents every month. But the story took a slightly different spin when people found out that Anna is a daughter of Lyudmila Shavenkova, a chairwoman of the election committee in Irkutsk region, who apparently has a lot of influence on the way things are done in that part of the country.

The disturbing video of the crash has been shown by some media outlets and, at first, did not originally cause any significant discussion online. Some bloggers pointed out the indifference of people who continued walking as if nothing happened. Some were upset that Anna, the driver, got out of the car and started immediately calling someone (not the ambulance) instead of checking the condition of the victims (one of them died in a hospital several days later).

What really led to the outrage on the blogs is a result of a formal investigation of the crash by the road police in Irkutsk. Anna is allegedly being treated as a witness of the crash although she was the one who drove the car into the sidewalk and hit the by-passers.

The well-known blogger and member of “The Other Russia” oppositional coalition [EN] Marina Litvinovich (aka LJ user abstract2001) commented on it in her blog post [RUS] that quickly attracted thousands of visitors and hundreds of comments:

Многие, наверное, помнят ролик из Иркутска, где камера видеонаблюдения зафиксировала ДТП. Его виновница, Анна Шавенкова, на полной скорости сбившая двух девушек в самом центре Иркутска, вдруг оказалась не виновницей происшествия, а его свидетельницей. Кто является виновником ДТП, суд пока не установил. Вполне вероятно, что виновником окажется автомобиль. А Анна Шавенкова просто так, случайно, оказалась на водительском сидении. Чисто как свидетель.

Litvinovich urged other bloggers to re-post this information online hoping  that it would eventually catch the attention of media. Following the advice from a fellow blogger, she even created a “re-post” button at the end of the post making it easier for everyone to spread the information.

Many bloggers responded to this by enthusiastically linking to Litvinovich's blog (the most popular reply to the post was “I re-posted”) and expressing their deepest concerns with how the local authorities handled the incident.

A good portion of online readers admitted the impotence of law in Russia against people with power and called for concrete actions. Blogger tvn1, for example, wrote [RUS] that one cannot blame a mother who tried to shield her daughter from the punishment. Instead, the blogger drew attention to the people who made it possible for a person to be above the law:

А вот судью и ментов надо мочить жёстко и показательно. Из-за них, взяточников, и стал возможным мажорский беспредел.
Нужно уже брать пример с той-же Греции, Франции т.п. Так за такие дела люди выходят на улицы и пускают в ход силу ломов, коктейлей молотова и прочих подручных средств, этим самым напоминая, что власть – слуга народа а не народ на службе у власти.

Proposals to “whack” authorities and “take it to the streets” were not uncommon among the bloggers.

Some suggested that the “lawlessness” is the fault of people who elected those authorities. LJ user toytronic wrote [RUS]:

В этой стране власть всегда имела граждан, почитайте историю! Радуйтесь, что в ЖЖ вам пока любезно позволяют чувствовать себя свободными! Вы сами проголосовали за вертикаль власти и парламентское большинство, а получили тотальную коррупцию, полное разложение МВД, цензуру СМИ и парламент состоящий из коррупционных чиновников, на все это мерзко смотреть! У вас была возможность избрать демократическое гражданское общество в конце 90х! Если народ не поумнеет, его ждет новый 37 год!

Another blogger called for active participation in local and regional elections to prevent corrupt politicians from taking power.

Litvinovich's post is currently among the most popular ones on the Russian blogosphere leading in every rating of the top online entries. It seems that the author achieved the goal to attract attention of many netizens to the issue.

But it is still unclear if the improvised virtual campaign will amount to any results in real life. Litvinovich seems to be convinced that it will change things for the better. Replying to a comment doubting the effectiveness of re-posting, Litvinovich optimistically noted:

Опыт показывает, что простым привлечением внимания моно много добиться – например того, что следствие и суд к проблеме отнесутся по-другому, а не так как сейчас. Если не помоет, будем думать, что еще можно сделать.

Russian Internet TV daily audience grew 45 percent since last year and now consists of 1.39 million people watching TV programs online, “RUmetrika” reported.

Blogger sergeydolya posted a series of pictures showing what happens to a suitcase after it's been checked in at Domodedovo airport in Russia.

Google and Russian Railways launched a site allowing everyone to visually experience [ENG] a ride on the Trans-Siberian Railway going from Moscow to Vladivostok, the larges Russian city on the Pacific Ocean.

At least 7,000 protesters gathered on the streets of Kaliningrad [ENG], the country's westernmost city, on January 30 to demand, among other things, the resignation of the regional governor Georgy Boos [ENG] and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. But don't count on the leading Russian media outlets to tell you about it.

The biggest and most popular TV channels keep their silence. Mainstream newspapers and radio stations ignore the rally and go about their business like nothing happened. But it only takes a quick glance at the most popular blog posts on RuNet (Russian Internet) to realize that the protest in Kaliningrad is the hottest topic of the day. Famous political leaders, journalists and regular netizens flooded the blogosphere with their takes on the protest.

Boris Nemtsov (a.k.a. LJ user b-nemtsov), a former Russian Deputy Prime Minister, wrote an inspiring post “Kaliningrad is the hope of free Russia” where he stressed the uniqueness of the protest in Kaliningrad [RUS]:

Такого грандиозного митинга я не видел лет так 10. На митинге четко и ясно были выдвинуты политические требования: отставка Путина и губернатора Бооса.
Исключительной особенностью калининградского феномена стало участие всех оппозиционных сил области в протестной акции.

Blogger olegmakarov added [RUS] that, unlike in the past, the police forces in the city did not even try to prevent people from protesting. Nemtsov later talked about the unusual friendliness of the Kaliningrad police in a short video [RUS] shot during his detention in Moscow on January 31. Ilja Yashin (a.k.a. LJ user yashin), a political activist and columnist for an oppositional Russian newspaper “Novaya Gazeta,” explained [RUS] the friendly attitude of the police:

Совершенно спокойно вела себя милиция. Никакой агрессии, четкое соблюдение законов, ОМОН мирно дремал в автозаках, припаркованных в стороне. Причина очевидна: когда на площади собирается больше десяти тысяч человек – милиция с народом. Потому что разогнать сто человек легко. А 12 тысяч сами кого хочешь разгонят, если понадобится.

Many hundreds of comments to those blogs cover a wide range of feelings. Many people seem to believe that the protest will change the situation in the country for the better. The vast majority of bloggers agree with the claim that something like this was unimaginable several years ago when the approval rating of Vladimir Putin was through the roof. Many people see the protest as a sign of big changes in political landscape of the country.

But not everyone on the bogosphere shares the optimism. Nikolay Troitsky (a.k.a. LJ user _kutuzov), a political analyst for the Russian Information Agency, is not that exited [RUS] about the rally's results:

Много народу вышло протестовать в Калининграде, немало недвольных выходили во Владивостоке, может выйти на улицы хоть весь Тамбов, Липецк, Петропавловск-Камчатский – всё это неважно.
Ничего не сдвинется и не изменится, пока на массовые акции протеста не начнут выходить в Москве. И не 9-12 тысяч, это чепуха, это мало, а хотя бы тысяч 50 для начала. Как это было в 1989-91 годах

LJ user clen_lj replied [RUS] to Troitsky:

Большое начинается с малого. Пару лет тому назад трудно было представить выход десятка тысяч человек различных политических взглядов в том числе и под лозунгом отставки Путина.

But Troitsky is still not convinced:

Так еще лет 10-15 будет начинаться с малого.

The posts on the lack of media coverage of the protest also occasionally emerge in the blogosphere. Blogger kt-withlove wrote [RUS]:

Почему митинг с 10 000 человек освещен только в Lenta.ru ?
rian молчит vesti.ru молчит… Чувствуется цензурка то)))

But it looks like the mainstream media censorship is no match for an open information access online where Russians can easily practice free speech.  But as the Russian blogosphere is gradually becoming mainstream, the question is how long does it take for the government to start treating it the way it treats the mainstream media.

Dear All,

I am excited and honored to start the new year with this introduction of a new project, RuNet Echo, which was launched by Global Voices at the end of 2009. For me, it all started with this exciting post and grew into a rewarding experience of studying and analyzing one of the most complex and often misinterpreted online communities in the world.

When we created this project, we took an ambitious and difficult role of examining and analyzing Russian Internet (also called RuNet).

The project is long overdue. The Russian Internet community exploded in the past few years and has become a platform where millions of people discuss current issues in Russian politics, economic and social life. Russians are the most active users of social networks in the world, according to some measures. There are more than 45 million people in the country with Internet access (a third of the whole population) and around 4 million blogs. There are also 42 million registered users of the most popular Russian social network, Vkontakte.ru.

Those numbers are constantly increasing, making RuNet one of the fastest growing Internet communities in the world.

Blogs seem to be the most popular online communication platform in Russia. A mix of a conventional online diary and complex social networks with friends, readers and different communities, blogs quickly became an interactive form of media where a regular citizens can talk to politicians (including the president of Russia himself), famous actors, prominent journalists, and controversial historians, as well as an array of online communities.

Being largely uncensored and ever-present, blogs in Russia, like in many countries of the world, have begun to compete with the heavily regulated mainstream media. There are some examples of RuNet serving as a platform for breaking news, and beating the conventional forms of media in immediacy and accuracy (a tragic night club fire, for example). Blogs and social networks quickly have grown into a sphere where Russians enjoy the most freedom and get the most information.

Our goal is to draw a large, comprehensive and live map of RuNet for global audiences. We will regularly monitor the most interesting developments in the Russian blogosphere, online media and social networking sites to create a comprehensive and constantly updated source on RuNet. Drawing upon our experience and understanding of Russian society, we hope to provide our readers with exclusive content and analysis of the most important events on RuNet. We plan to interview the most prominent Russian bloggers, along with less-known but nonetheless interesting people who actively contribute to the development of RuNet. The same goes for issues related to RuNet in general. We will certainly pay attention to topics everyone is taking about but we will also cover marginal subjects on the Russian Internet to present the full spectrum of Russian online communities for global audiences.

We are currently working on creating a list of resources on RuNet that will include notable academic works, books and online publications on the topic. Our own rating of the most popular Russian blog posts is also on the way.

Our stories are also translated into Russian by Lingua translators and posted on a Global Voices in Russian. We will soon produce RuNet Echo page on LiveJournal.com (the most popular blogging platform in Russia) and make our posts more readily available to Russian bloggers. We're also sharing them on our Tweeter feed. We hope that the wide availability of RuNet Echo stories in different languages and on different platforms will create a productive discussion allowing us to improve our work.

I am honored to work with a wonderful and professional team of editors. They have an enormous experience in reporting, research and analysis and they serve as a great assurance that the project will become a valuable tool in understanding Russian online communities.

Veronica Khokhlova is a GVO regional editor for Central and Eastern Europe. She is doing a tremendous job covering Russia and former Soviet republics and we are lucky to have her in our team of editors.

Alexey Sidorenko worked at the Carnegie Center in Moscow for several years. He is writing his PhD dissertation for Moscow State University and getting a separate Master's Degree at the Warsaw University in Poland.

Gregory Asmolov worked for several prestigious newspapers in Moscow such as “Kommersant” and “Novaya Gazeta.” He has also taught courses on new media and public diplomacy at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and the Open University of Israel.

RuNet Echo is designed as an interactive project. Our team is open to suggestions from our readers. Please feel free to let us know what stories and topics would you like to see on our pages and tell us how we can make our project better.

LJ user zyalt posted a selection of photographs from the latest anti-Kremlin protests in the center of Moscow on January 31.

Russian writer Evgeny Popov decided to create his new book using online input from readers of his blog. The author publishes every chapter of the book [RUS] online with several questions at the end. The readers' answers and feedback shape the next chapter. Popov plans to publish the book along with the most interesting comments from other bloggers.

A recent post on the blog [RUS] of a famous Russian oppositional newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” covers general practices of political trolling on the Russian Internet.

Ex-police officer Aleksey Dymovsky has been arrested on Jan. 23 on fraud charges. Dymovsky became a Russian Internet sensation when he released an online video address publicly accusing several high-ranked Russian police officers in corruption.