Normally, you don't see the aurora borealis below the Arctic Circle. But yesterday afternoon (Chicago time), we got a strong solar flare that resulted in the Northern Lights showing up in a whole bunch of places where it's not usually seen - including St. Petersburg, Moscow and other Russian cities.

Gazeta.ru has put together a gallery of photos ( Read more... )

Before he was killed, Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was helping to organize Vesna (Spring) rally in Moscow. But with his death, the rally turned into a memorial march, which took place this afternoon (early morning US Central time).

( Moscow )

After my last post, it was kind of fitting to see this come across my friend feed.

Over at ru_railway, e_strannik (yes, another Strannik :) ) wrote about a holiday train on Moscow's suburban commuter train linesFor those who aren't familiar with Russian culture, a bit of background. In Motherland, Christmas is firmly a religious holiday that's celebrated on January 7 ( Read more... )

It's not really clear what happened to "Andrei R," a Digger who had sex with his girlfriend in the service tunnel of the Moscow subway, took pictures and posted them online. His social media accounts have been silent for the past few days, and I can't find any reference to his fate on the news. And there's nothing about his still-anonymous ( Read more... )

I found out about this bit of news over at Gazeta.ru, and soon, I wound up falling down the rabbit hole of Russian-language sources ( Read more... )

It seemed like a no-brainer. Supporters of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics wanted to hold a rally to drum up support for the ongoing conflict. It was supposed to take place in Moscow on this Sunday, September 28. There has been a similar rally as recently as August 2. It seemed like the sort of thing United Russia apparatus ( Read more... )

Earlier today (or yesterday if you go by Moscow time), opposition groups organized a rally against "Russia's aggressive policies toward Ukraine." They were officially permitted rallies (as opposed to some unsanctioned stuff we've seen earlier), similar to the ones that took place in the early March - though, this time, there didn't seem to be any ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

A few hours ago, a suicide bomber blew him or herself up* in the Domodedovo International Airport, Moscow's main airport and the largest, most important airport in the Russian Federation. As of this writing, at least 30 people are confirmed dead and more than 100 of them are injured.

( And it gets worse )