From Russia With Pain VII

Mr. Smith has the morning off while he makes like Judge Dredd, so I am going to take this unwanted opportunity to fill you in on the latest bizarre news stories from our братья and сестры in northern Eurasia:

A Fake Tooth For an Eye

A fight between two medics in Moscow ended with a tragedy.  The dramatic scuffle took place on February 10 when two doctors at the Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry had a fight over the money they had received for an implant.  The surgeon, identified as Hairullah Nigmatov, grabbed a scalpel and attacked his colleague, but the latter was armed with a gun and shot his attacker in the eye.  Nigmatov was hospitalized soon after the incident. The man will have to use an artificial eye.  The shooter, Dmitry Zakharov, aged 31, was taken to a police station, where he told investigators that he was only trying to defend himself. VIA

The Sweet Sound of Smuggling 

Smugglers can be very inventive when they need to ship exotic goods across the border. However, it may often happen that artful tricks do not bring any result to illicit entrepreneurs. That was the case with a Russian woman, who tried to bring 50 parrots from China to Russia. The woman was arrested at an international checkpoint on the border between Russia and China, customs officers said. However, it was not the officers, but the parrots, who did most of the work. To take the birds across the border, the woman put on a special apron underneath her dress and hid the birds in large special pockets on the apron.  The birds obviously disliked such an environment. They woke up in stuffy pockets and began to loudly express their dissatisfaction, and customs officers soon noticed strange sounds coming from underneath the woman’s clothing. The smuggled birds were evaluated at 10,000 rubles ($300), and the unlucky smuggler will have to spend 14 weeks in jail and pay the fine of $3,500. VIA

The shocking picture shows the blade sticking out just above Julia Popova’s shoulders and blood pouring from the wound. Incredibly the 22-year-old, who was knifed by a mugger on her way home from work, failed to notice the appalling injury and managed to calmly stroll to safety.

The office worker had grappled with her attacker when he snatched her handbag as she walked to her parents’ house in the Russian capital Moscow. But she was so shocked by the ordeal she didn’t know that the thug had buried a kitchen knife in her neck just fractions of an inch from her spinal cord. When she got home her horrified parents rushed her to hospital where surgeons managed to remove the blade without damaging Julia’s spine. One medic said: “Shock had kicked in and her body prevented her from feeling any pain. She simply walked home without feeling the knife in her back.” VIA