On December 25, 2017, the Central Electoral Commission refused to register the nomination of Navalny as a candidate for the President of Russia. But, in fact, Navalny does challenge Vladimir Putin: “Putin is horribly afraid — he sees a threat in competing with me,” Alexei Navalny said in a video. The meeting with the Commission was broadcast on… Read More »
In December 1985, Professor Vladimir Efroimson, a prominent geneticist, gave a short and extremely emotional speech at Moscow Polytechnic Museum after the screening of a documentary about another famous geneticist, Academician Nikolai Vavilov (1887-1943), arrested in 1940 and sentenced to death as a “spy.” The death sentence was commuted to a 20-year imprisonment, and in August 1943 Vavilov… Read More »
On December 22, 2017, President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov called “libel” the statement by the Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK) (created by Alexei Navalny, the charismatic leader of the Russian opposition Progress Party) that Peskov bought his former wife Ekaterina Solotsinskaya an apartment for 1.77 million euros. “It is claimed that I bought an apartment in Paris, which… Read More »
On November 14, 2017, Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky unveiled in the city of Kaluga (about 200 km from Moscow) a new monument, a statue of Grand Duke Ivan III (1440–1505), the grandfather of Ivan the Terrible. The statue is in the same style as the infamous statue of St. Vladimir in Moscow. The Grand Duke’s figure… Read More »
On October 30, 2017, the Memorial Day for the Victims of Political Repressions, in Moscow, solemnly, with the participation of President Vladimir Putin and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill, a huge bronze monument to the victims of political repressions of the Soviet period, called “Wall of Sorrow”, was unveiled. The inscription on the granite block,… Read More »
On October 20, 2017, the Presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission (VAK) recommended not to deprive Vladimir Medinsky, Russian Minister of Culture, of the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences. The Expert Council of VAK on History had previously voted for the deprivation of the academic degree, stating that Medinsky lacked the basic skills and knowledge necessary for a… Read More »
On October 2, 2017, the Expert Council on History of the Higher Attestation Commission (VAK) voted to deprive of Vladimir Medinsky, Russian Minister of Culture, of the Doctor of Historical Sciences degree. A very detailed official review of the VAK experts says that Medinsky did not present anything new in his work. The experts wrote: “The fact that… Read More »
On September 19, 2017, a gigantic monument was unveiled in the central part of Moscow, ordered by the Russian Military-Historical Society (RVIO) founded in 2012 by President Vladimir Putin’s decree. It was a 5-meter-high statue of Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the infamous machine gun in 1949, on a 4-meter-high pedestal. The gigantic figure of Kalashnikov holds a… Read More »