Day: November 11, 2021

The Gun Club

Your guide will meet you at your hotel and bring you either by metro or onboard a classic Soviet military van (option) to our shooting range. There, you will learn to master 3 iconic Soviet weapons, under supervision of a professional trainer. Discover the thrill of shooting military grade weapons loaded with live bullets! We bring at your trigger finger: 1) The Yarygin Pistol – Standard Russian military sidearm. Caliber 9mm 2) The Kalashnikov AK-47 – Legendary Russian assault rifle, will surely shake your foundations. Caliber 7.62×39 3) The Dragunov sniper rifle – Iconic Russian sniper, in service for more than 50 years! The Dragunov is a semi-automatic rifle with massive power! Get your adrenaline shot firing its 7.62×54 rounds!

Source: Trip Advisor

November 11, 2021

Imagine there’s an aggressive, martial society that sends its soldiers around the world, intervening here and there, undermining all global democratic institutions and norms for arbitrating conflict, reserving for itself the sole right to decide which governments are legitimate, and defending the wealth of a small handful of nations—its own especially—against the interests of the vast majority.

Imagine further that the government of this nation, which so carelessly throws its soldiers into wars of choice in the pursuit of political and economic power, creates a propaganda campaign to convince the public that it is their civic duty to gush and fawn over veterans, to thank them for their “service,” to honor their “sacrifices,” and to never question the purpose of their missions, because to do so would disrespect the lives squandered in the pursuit of such noble goals.

Now imagine there’s a holiday, exclusively reserved for celebrating all of this propaganda.

What an impressive system that would be, completely impenetrable from outside critique. Global aggression masked as a noble mission, brutal violence reframed as a necessary means to an honorable end. War after war, foreign nations ravaged, one after another, and the public can only wince at the same time it thanks its veterans for their service.

What’s more impressive is that it’s a system that perpetuates itself. Through the celebration of warrior holidays, everyone practices their roles and each new generation finds their place in the pageantry. Civilians’ relationship to the military is basically one of cheerleadership. Soldiers are forever trapped as the sacrificial lambs of their society, sent to die for the wealth and power of their leaders (but everyone is taught to call it “defense”). And those who survive are celebrated as the sacred symbol of the nation itself, who civilians must praise and who children learn to revere.

So, if you’ve followed me through the allegory, obviously this is crazy and this can’t continue to go on like this.

 

11/11

 

“Killer icicles” on the rooftop of a building in downtown Petersburg, 11 November 2016. Photo by the Russian Reader

11 November 2021

The Russian Prosecutor General’s office has petitioned the Russian Supreme Court to “liquidate” the venerated human rights, educational and charitable organization Memorial, reports the BBC’s Russian Service.

A snowy street in downtown Petersburg, 11 November 2016. Photo by the Russian Reader

200 Years Ago

On this day in 1821, Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow into the family of an army doctor who worked at a hospital for the poor. After finishing school in Moscow, Dostoevsky joined the army and studied engineering in St. Petersburg, where he was captivated — or perhaps invented — the city’s dark allure. He published his first novel, “Poor Folk,” in 1845. Four years later he was arrested for being in a literary club that discussed banned books critical of the authorities; he was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted just moments before he was to be shot. He spent four years in a prison camp and another six years of compulsory military service.

A snow-covered Alexander Pushkin on Pushkinskaya Street in Petersburg, 11 November 2016. Photo by the Russian Reader

1 Year Ago

The US correspondent of a newfangled “leftist” Russian website, writing one year ago:

“If you believe the mass American media, former Vice President Joe Biden won the US presidential election. If you believe the camp of the current president Donald Trump and American Marxists (a bizarre interweaving), it was not without machinations. I personally have no confidence in any of the candidates, much less in their parties, or in the American electoral system as a whole.”

 

Corner of Bolshaya Podyacheskaya Street and Nikolsky Lane at the Fontanka River in Petersburg, with a view of the Trinity Cathedral of the Izmailovо Life Guards Regiment in the background, 11 November 2016. Photo by the Russian Reader

11 November 2021

Officials Decide to Send Network Case Convict Viktor Filinkov to Single-Cell Room, Then to Punitive Detention
Mediazona
November 11, 2021

Prison officials have decided to send Viktor Filinkov, convicted in the [Network] case, who was sent to Orenburg Correctional Colony No. 1 in August, to a single-cell room for a month, and then to a punitive detention cell for ten days. His public defender Evgenia Kulakova reported this turn of events to Mediazona.

According to Kulakova, yesterday the prison’s disciplinary commission decided to send Filinkov to a single-cell room [abbreviated EPKT in Russian, this is a prison within a prison for the most “unruly” or “dangerous” inmates] because of razor blades that, as the prisoner noted, had been planted [in his cell] by Federal Penitentiary Service officers on his birthday. The second penalty was imposed on the young man for “inter-cell communication.”

Filinkov was delivered to Orenburg Correctional Colony No. 1 in August after 45 days in transport. Since then, he has spent only three days in the general population. He has spent the rest of the time in a punitive isolation cell or strict conditions of detention.

On October 6, Filinkov received a month-long reprimand for his [alleged] refusal to sweep the exercise yard in the colony and transferred to a single-cell room. He was also put on a watch list as someone “prone to systematic violation of internal regulations.” Kulakova also said that on October 30, Political Prisoners Day, he went on a hunger strike.

Filinkov demanded freedom for all political prisoners and that he be moved from solitary confinement. A few days later he added a new demand — that books, newspapers and writing materials be brought to his cell. He ended his hunger strike on November 9.

In 2020, the Second Western District Military Court, sitting in St. Petersburg, sentenced Filinkov to seven years in a penal colony in the Network case. He was found guilty of involvement in a terrorist community (punishable under Article 204.5.2 of the Criminal Code). Filinkov was the first of the young men charged in the case to report that he had been tortured by the security forces.

Translated by the Russian Reader