Author: kesling.8

The Russian Federation: Final Information Network

Traditional Periodicals

  1. National Geographic Russia is a long-standing magazine in Russia that is authored and run by National Geographic but centered mainly on Russia. Articles from this magazine can also be found online and translated into English. Articles contain content about different geographical and natural phenomenons in the geographical vastness that is considered Russia. It can be accessed through a subscription or by visiting the website, http://www.nat-geo.ru/. It is possible to read this website through using the Google Translate option provided when using the link for the Russian page. The periodical gets updated weekly with new articles and has monthly showcased news just like National Geographic in the United States. On an iPhone you can set it up where you receive updates from a certain news source, including National Geographic Russia. The articles from this magazine are ones that will contribute well to an information network because they provide insight on what Russians are reading about pertaining to their country naturally. It shows what places people are interested in, the wildlife that is native there or endangered, and offers a view that is not overly marred by any biases.
  2. The Moscow Times is a popular newspaper in Moscow that covers everything from op-eds to politics to business and the economy, much like the New York Times in the United States. It provides the reader access to news in just Moscow as well as world news. Moscow is the economic center of the Russian Federation and many key events take place there. It is updated daily and is online for internet users to have easy access as well at https://themoscowtimes.com/. This can be considered the central hub of news if someone wanted to get a wide range of topics to read about in Russia. They have an entire tab for the upcoming 2018 World Cup that Russia is hosting. When using a computer to access this newspaper online, a tab pops up where you can sign up to get updates on different categories if you want. I will mainly be using this site for the politically and World Cup news that I am interested in as well. This traditional news source has a variety of information that is updated daily on it. It provides a user-friendly site to search for specific topics and news.
  3. Chaspik Newspaper is a newspaper whose headquarters are in St. Petersburg, also known as Russia’s cultural capital. St. Petersburg is an important city to keep track of news on for many different reasons, including social events and popular culture. They specifically have a section of their newspaper devoted to crime stories, which allows you to see what Russian crime and of international incidents those are, especially with St. Petersburg being one of the biggest tourist destinations in Russia. Different news stories are updated on their website daily, which is http://www.chaspik.spb.ru/. Even though this news source is not an independent news source from the state, the stories do offer a view of St. Petersburg that is organic compared to a news source that is located outside of the actual city and reporting in. You will be able to compare news stories from other sources to how Chaspik reports on the same events to see the similarities and contrasts of stances taken and words used. This is a similar approach to what you should do with news stories that are from the United States from sources like CNN compared to MSNBC or Fox News. The website version of this newspaper allows notifications of updates to be sent to an email when there is something that you have flagged as a topic of interest, namely politics and economics of St. Petersburg.
  4. Russian News Agency TASS is the biggest news source in the Russian Federation and is owned and run by the government. This news source has been around since the early 1900s and now is available online and through their Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages as well. The website is directly translated into English without the user needing to do anything. TASS covers all topics that could be talked about in Russia, making sure to have everything covered from the government’s biases. This includes categories like world news, Russian politics, military and defense, space and science and culture and society. With news from TASS, you must remember the goals of the Russian government and how they want to portray themselves to the world and how they want their citizens to view them as well. This affects the amount of coverage certain stories will get or if they get reported on at all. TASS gets updated daily as news stories happen, and is easily found online through this link, http://tass.com/. 

New Media

  1. Europe Free radio is always updated daily and offers a wide variety of views through the different bloggers and articles posted on the site. The views are not censored or dictated by the Russian government like a Russian news source would be. There is more freedom of expression and opinions other than that of the acting administration and can be easily accessed through having an internet connection and using the link https://www.rferl.org/p/5547.html. The website is useful because it offers news on more than just the Russian Federation, so it is possible to compare the reports from one country compared to Russia on the same event or story. There are many different ways to stay updated with this source, including getting updated through an e-mail subscription because that option was one that could be given in English, which most of the website is. Often, the articles and blogs are authored by people who are not Russian themselves but report on areas in the Russian Federation or surrounding countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union, or those who are using the platform as their only freedom of expression option who do live in Russia, which offers a different perspective than typical news sources.
  2. навальный (“bulk” in English) is a political blog written by a man named Alexey Navalny, who is the chairman of the Progress Party in Russia as well as the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation. This is a blog that is mainly against the Putin administration. Navalny blogs regularly but not everyday, and the blogs consist mostly of content about the political atmosphere in Russia at the current time, especially with how the current administration has been in power for almost 20 years and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. There are live broadcasts as well as his written blogs on his website, https://navalny.com/. You also can follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and several other social media platforms. This is an important information source because it shows the thoughts and views of Russians who do not always support the current administration in Russia. This has significance because often in mainstream media and news in Russia, pro-Putin is almost required.
  3. Colta

Social Media

  1. A great social media resource is to follow the Twitter account of a senior analyst of Russia and blogger, Brian Whitmore. Whitmore does a daily blog about Russian politics called the Daily Vertical. Whitmore currently lives in Prague and had posted his blog on Radio Free Europe, which is where I found this resource, and now will start posting it through The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). He posts all his blogs and videos on his account and also posts his own thoughts in a shorter form with his tweets and provides links for other articles and people relating to topics he reports on. His perspective is that of a non-native to Russia, a more westernized view. His Twitter handle is @PowertVertical (https://twitter.com/PowerVertical. It will be easy to keep updated with this source just by checking Twitter daily (which most do anyways) or listening to the videos posted. Whitmore has his blog once a day but also will tweet other things, so this source is always updated at least once daily.
  2. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation’s Twitter account is a primary social media source for the current administration in power in the Russian Federation. This account is verified as the official account of Russia’s Ministry of Defense. Their tweets can either be translated into English or are already published that way by them. It is possible to follow them on Twitter and see their updates, which usually is every hour with an update on a news story or military maneuver @mod_russia. This information source shows what the Russian Ministry of Defense is considering to be newsworthy in their tweets. It also allows an insight into what they report on about other countries, like in Syria. Several tweets on the account were actually in Arabic. The pictures posted are also a valuable insight to what the Russian military may look like. The content tweeted from this account shows clearly what the Ministry of Defense deems a priority for people to know and shows the information that they choose to be transparent about.

Audio/Video

  1. TV Rain is the only independent news channel in the Russian Federation at the moment. They provide news coverage on everything in Russia from politics to editorials, and are on all social media platforms and have a YouTube channel that can be watched with English subtitles. The views and opinions expressed on TV Rain are important because it comes from an independent news source, so the bias is not towards supporting the acting governmental administration, especially with the recent elections and Putin becoming president for another 6 years. The link to their website that has all audio and video links for articles is listed as https://tvrain.ru/. They have a YouTube channel that is accessible to watch whenever, and their updates happen daily depending on what section of news you would want to watch or listen to.
  2. RT (formerly Russia Today) is a television and internet network that is funded by the Russian government and based out of Moscow, Russia, but includes international partners and news, namely the United States in Washington D.C. This information network, like a newspaper or magazine, gets updated regularly. Some areas get updated daily, while others are on a weekly basis if it is a talk show or different interviews. RT is used for the purpose of reaching viewers through satellite channels who are outside of Russia to hear about Russia. The website can be directly translated into English and Spanish and offers world news as well as that in Russia. The material from this source does not favor the United States in certain areas and provides a different point of view than what is normally seen in news in America about similar topics as well as shows how Russians dispute over their own politics. The website for RT is easily accessible through https://www.rt.com/and can also be found on most popular social media platforms or through the downloadable app.
  3. Echo of Moscow is an independent radio station that is based out of Moscow and broadcasts nationwide, namely about social and political events of both domestic and international issues. This station makes a point of showing different vies and tries not to have biases in their reporting unless it is an op-ed of some kind. Echo of Moscow also has a website with access to all their social media and YouTube videos, which can be translated from Russian into English and found by this link, https://echo.msk.ru/. This radio station is unique in the fact that 34% of it is owned by its employees, including Alexey Navalny, who is a prominent figure in the political world as a blogger and activist against the current administration. The statistics given through this source are widely used by many other news sources and is updated daily. Echo of Moscow is not entirely free of scrutiny or even physicall attacks on their office, but they are able to provide news on important issues for Russians without an over-the-top Putin bias. This news source is great to get a middle line perspective on events happening in read time Russia.

Data Bank

  1. The World Bank is a great data source for any country including the Russian Federation. There is a multitude of information that can be found on their website. The data can range from education to internet access to an array of socioeconomic contributions to the functionality of Russia as a whole (GDP, exports, imports, agriculture etc.). All of this data is updated in yearly reports and data can be shown over 20 years into the past. There are visualization tools as well to show a clearly picture of information that you are looking for. To specifically reach the data bank, the link is https://data.worldbank.org/country/russian-federation. This is accessible online and is published originally in English. There is also an app that is the World Bank’s EdStats Data Finder. Statistics can be used to skew information or sometimes can be read wrong, but the data provided by the World Bank does not have an obvious political motivator for providing the information. The World Bank is a mostly western institution but also covers countries globally that they are currently helping.  The World Bank has been and still is influential globally with Russia along with other countries that are their allies.
  2. Europa World Plus is a fantastic data base to use on information concerning the Russian Federation and the surrounding countries. It is updated and published by the Routledge Taylor and Francis Group. This database provides many different caches of information regarding Russia. It depicts historical events, geographical locations and their significance, the current and past political administrations, as well as finance and the population of Russia and the surrounding territories in the federation. It can be accessed through the OSU library database search engine, and the link for the website is http://www.europaworld.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/entry?id=ru&go_country=GO. The information found on there can be useful if you need background information on something or factual evidence to support an opinion that you read in a blog or have formed yourself about an issue concerning Russia and its involvement globally. It also provides easy access to information about Russia’s neighboring countries. The website as of now has financial and geographical information from 2016, but does update, just not as often as a newspaper would. Since Ohio State provides its students with off-campus access to its libraries, you can use this database anywhere that you have an internet connection.

UN U.S Ambassador Says No to Friendship with Russia

The article I read was published in the Moscow Times on Friday, April 6th, and was an informative short article on the UN ambassador for the United States, Nikki Haley, and her opinion on future relations between the U.S. and Russia. Haley stated to students at  that the United States would never be “friends” with Russia during a Q&A session with students at Duke University. The article said that this was the second time she hadn’t stated something along these lines and emphasized how the Kremlin needs to act better in international deals to have more countries be willing to work with them and that the current U.S. administration would continue its current treatment of Russia. The article also ,enticing hiw the United States was planning in imposing sanctions on certain Russian oligarchs that had ties to the Kremlin.

This article gives a lot of key information about how the two government systems have been acting tiawrds each other in the current years and shows that it most likely will not be changing under the Trump administration and with the re-election of Putin without showing a strong bias in favor of Russia despite being a Russian newspaper.

Wikicommons. “Nikki Haley.” Moscow Times, 6 Apr. 2018, themoscowtimes.com/news/russia-will-never-be-our-friend-us-ambassador-says-61075.

Post-Election Plea

The article I read was from a Russian blogger and political activist Alexei Navalny, who was bared from running in the 2018 Russian presidential elections. The election day for the next president of the Russian Federation was held on March 18th, and his blog post was published 3/19, the day after Putin was reelected as the president. Navalny encouraged the people of Russia to not panic or be discouraged, that their protests and voting strikes on election day did make a difference. The goal was to have as many people as possible to not vote, so that when Putin was reelected it would be obvious that the Kremlin had to falsify voting information to make it legitimate and make it seem like more people in Russia had voted for Putin than who actually did. The article shows a poll of the candidates that people said they were going to vote for once from in February compared to another poll in March closer to election day. This is important, Navalny says in his blog, because these types of elections are part of the struggle that the Russian people are facing with their government right now and shows how corrupt it is.

“Graph of Poll of Presidential Votes for Candidates .” Навальный, Alexei Navalny, 19 Mar. 2018, navalny.com/.

 

The unrest that has been brewing in Russia the past several years due to the increasing unstable political climate is one that will continue as long as people feel like their voices aren’t being heard. Navalny is a voice that people can relate to, especially the next generation of voters who have grown up with the corruption being talked about in his blog. Moving forward, this younger generation will have the opportunity to change the political course of their country how they think is best.

Russian Presidential Candidates Fight with More than Words

The article I read was about a debate between two of the eight presidential candidates on the ballot for the Russian Federation’s elections in March. The article is from RT News and was published February 28th, 2018.

The article talks about the debate between presidential candidates Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the representative for the nationalist party, and Ksenia Sobchak, who does not align herself with a specific political party. The two were in a debate on Russia TV discussing Russia’s armed forces as well as other defense issues. The article goes on to describe how it descending into bickering and accusations from both sides, and then Sobchak threw the water from a glass nearby onto Zhirinovsky.

The article also comments on how Zhirinovsky has been in situations like this before and even cites an incident in 1995. It ends with some factual information on the presidential elections that are to be held in Russia on March 18th and lists several other candidates, including Vladimir Putin, but does not fully give the names and associated parties of all 8 candidates before closing.

RT News is a news source that is funded by the Russian Federation but reports on more than just events in Russia so their biases are not always evident nor do they typically have an end goal for their informative pieces. This article shows how fractured the political parties in Russia are that are not Putin. It contains hyperlinks in the article to go to other articles that list more incidents with presidential candidates like Sobchak. There is also something to be said about how all 8 candidates were not listed by name, but the ones they deemed important were, including Putin and the two making the headline. The article makes the two candidates in this debate seem childish and unfit to become the next leader of the Russian Federation to those who are reading it.

Slurs & water fly at Russian presidential debate as Lib Dem leader faces off with Sobchak

“Russian Presidential Candidates Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Ksenia Sobchak at the TV Debate Hosted by Rossya 1 Channel on February 28, 2018.” RT Russian Politics, 1 Mar. 2018, www.rt.com/politics/420078-presidential-debate-zhirinovsky-sobchak/.

Abnormal Frosts in Russia Cause for Concern

The article I read is from National Geographic Russia. It is titled Abnormal frosts in Russia: the forecast of the Ministry of Emergency Situations as translated into English. The article goes into detail about the upcoming temperatures in several different cities in Russia from February 23rd-28th, including Moscow and St. Petersburg. It stated that the temperatures for the last week of winter in Russia were predicted to be 7-13 degrees Celsius lower than average. The Ministry of Emergency Measures started doing broadcasts and sending out texts to warn people about how to best handle the upcoming frosts, including how to properly treat frostbite and warm up after being outside.

Vom_but. “National Geographic Russia.” National Geographic Russia, National Geographic, Moscow, 21 Feb. 2018, www.nat-geo.ru/planet/1183339-anomalnye-morozy-v-rossii-prognoz-mchs/.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The article had highlighted words that were links to other articles and newscasts that backed up the statement that the author was making. For example, when stated that citizens had been warned about the upcoming dangers of the dropping temperatures, you could click on the hyperlink and be taken to the website of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry where they make all their announcements and warnings. At the very end of the article there is also a hyperlink to see how these types of record-low temperatures do not contradict current popular global warming views. This shows the stance on this issue of the author. Overall, the article was more informative and a way into other issues that viewers could continue to read about. The information shared about the instructions and warnings about the upcoming frosts can be used by people anywhere that deal with cold weather and not just in Russia.

 

Russia’s Youth Protest Upcoming Presidential Elections

On January 28th, thousands of protesters had flooded the streets across Russia to go against the upcoming presidential elections in March. The majority were younger people, people who had only known Putin as the man in Power in their government. The article talks about how protests have been happening more frequently and voter strikes are becoming a much-talked about issue among Russia’s younger generations. They want a change in power because they believe that Putin is only after money and power and does not have the Russian people’s best interests at heart. The article also talks about the main ringleader behind encouraging these protests, Alexei Navalny, a politician from the opposing political party to Putin’s. Navalny was barred from running as a candidate in the election due to what some deem to be questionable accusations of a criminal record by the state.

Two young protesters holding the Russian flag- themoscowtimes.com

 

The article also points out that there were other age groups among these demonstrators, though mostly to see what was going on. Several quotes by young people were given, and one young man said he was even prepared to get shot being there.

The article had a link to the live blog of Navalny showing people being detained at a protest. It was worded not against Putin, but did not defend him against what interviews had to say about what they were doing. It shows how the people of Russia are moving, and that there will be more events to come leading up to the election in March this year. One thing that stuck out the most in the article was how some young people wanted to explain their viewpoint on why they no longer wanted Putin in power, but were too scared to give their last names. It shows in more ways than one how oppressive the current administration has been with its citizens on bad publicity and how controlling it potentially will continue to be if Putin is reelected.

International relations between Russia and other world powers have been slowly and consistently worsening over the past several years, and the people of Russia that are the next generations want a reformation to turn that and their domestic policies around.

 

The article can be found here: https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/russias-youth-takes-the-lead-in-countrywide-protests-against-putin-60309

Russia Focuses on Tourism for World Cup

This article is titled “What is More Convincing for World Cup 2018 Fans? Russia’s Edgy New Tourism Logo or Their Governments’ Dire Warnings?”. The World Cup is being hosted by Russia this year at 11 different locations across the country. The article details the intense competition between countries to be chosen as the host country for the 2018 World Cup. Russia’s federal tourism agency launched their new brand for this called, “The Whole World Within Russia” to show the large amount of different cultures within the Russian Federation.

New Logo for Russia’s Tourism Advertisement// russia-brand.com

The article explains that despite the preparation for the masses of tourists for the games, the estimation of the number of people has been lowered due to other countries warning their citizens about traveling in Russia and even showcases several tweets by both the United States and France with updated travel advisories to Russia that get denounced by the Russian Foreign Ministry. The article also includes how the tourism agency looks more towards Latin America for the bigger tourism stays since they are geographically farther away than fans who live in Europe. Even if it is mostly during the month of June, there will indeed be a whole world within Russia for the 2018 World Cup.

The images of the tweets in the article are links to the actual country’s news pages that wrote articles about the travel advisories. Many of the statements made were highlighted as links to the articles the information was taken from, mainly is Russian news. For example, the article explained how Russia was working with FIFA on a visa-free travel regime for people during the World Cup to make traveling easier for tourists. This can be investigated by clicking on the highlighted text which takes you to the FIFA World Cup website that gives details about what is being called the “Fan ID”.

This article was written by Christopher Moldes, a contributor of Global Voices for over a year and a half, who writes selectively about events in Russian and Eastern Europe. The supporting evidence in this article about the countries who updated their travel advisories to their citizens were tweets of people who mostly were against the increased safety risks put out by said countries. There was nothing mentioned on if there was actual empirical evidence that would warrant these updated advisories in the article either. Overall, it was not an opinion piece as much as informative, but there was still some satirical phrases towards the countries who were trying to deter citizens from travelling to Russia for the 2018 World Cup.