Here are a few short and not sweet articles from the land of vodka and mail-ordered honeys.

Man Goes Ham on His Wife

A Russian pensioner is facing up to two years in jail for accidentally shooting his wife dead as he was preparing to kill a pig, the Investigative Committee regional directorate said on Thursday.

The 60-year-old resident of the Tula region, about 200 km south of Moscow, was loading a homemade firearm to shoot a pig when it accidentally went off, fatally injuring his wife who was standing nearby.

The woman died on the spot…The man has been charged with negligent homicide and ordered not to leave the town pending trial.

Proof is in the Pud-Biting

A woman in Russia’s central Nizhny Novgorod Region helped to catch a man who raped her by biting his penis.

The woman was raped in January 2011 in the grounds of the Dzerzhinsk Municipal Children’s Hospital.

According to investigators, the suspect raped the victim and then threatened to kill her.

The woman bit the man so hard that he had to go to hospital.

The suspect was arrested in January, after police investigators had warned local hospitals that a man could turn up with an injury to his penis.  He could face up to ten years in prison if convicted.

Subway Sandwiched

A young man died early Friday morning in Moscow’s subway when he reportedly opened the door of a moving train inside the tunnel “to get some fresh air,” police said.

“According to eyewitnesses, the young man began feeling poorly inside the car. He opened the doors in order ‘to get some fresh air,’ and fell out of the carriage,” a police source said.

He added that the incident occurred on one of the last trains for the night at 1:00 a.m. Friday morning in the tunnel between Akademicheskaya and Profsoyuznaya stations. Police believe the young man could have been intoxicated.

Krokodil Fears

The average user of krokodil, a dirty cousin of morphine that is spreading like a virus among Russian youth, does not live longer than two or three years, and the few who manage to quit usually come away disfigured…The active component is codeine, a widely sold over-the-counter painkiller that is not toxic on its own. But to produce krokodil, whose medical name is desomorphine, addicts mix it with ingredients including gasoline, paint thinner, hydrochloric acid, iodine and red phosphorous, which they scrape from the striking pads on matchboxes.

It seems to have first appeared in Siberia and the Russian Far East around 2002, but only in the past three years has it spread throughout the country. Since 2009, the amount of krokodil seized in Russia has increased 23-fold, according to the head of the Federal Drug Control Service, Viktor Ivanov. In the first three months of this year alone, the service says it confiscated 65 million doses. “As recently as five years ago, there were only one-off instances of catching this drug,” Ivanov told a meeting on April 18 attended by President Dmitri Medvedev and other top officials.

At the injection site, which can be anywhere from the feet to the forehead, the addict’s skin becomes greenish and scaly, like a crocodile’s, as blood vessels burst and the surrounding tissue dies. Gangrene and amputations are a common result, while porous bone tissue, especially in the lower jaw, often starts to dissipate, eaten up by the drug’s acidity…In 2010, between a few hundred thousand and a million people, according to various official estimates, were injecting the resulting substance into their veins in Russia, so far the only country in the world to see the drug grow into an epidemic. (Full article from Time)

It’s been a struggle over the last week or so because I have been without Internet service, and it looks like that will continue for the next couple of weeks.  When you’re subjected to a life with no cable or Internet, it starts to make you feel like you’re living in a desolate wasteland where information and enjoyment are nowhere to be found.  Which made me start wondering if anything’s been going on in Russia lately…

Chow Time

Russian Interior Ministry troops were fed dog food earlier this year to save money, a former officer in the ministry said Thursday…A rare whistleblower in Russia’s expansive security forces, ex-Major Igor Matveyev said officers tried to cover up the scandal and other alleged wrongdoing at the Interior Ministry troops base where he served in the far east city of Vladivostok.

“It’s embarrassing to say but soldiers here were fed dog food. It was fed to them as stew,” Matveyev said in an interview with Reuters, adding that dog food labels were covered up with labels reading ‘premium quality beef.’  He said he would contest a dismissal order issued by a superior after he posted the nearly 10-minute video, in which he asked President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to intervene.

The Interior Ministry maintains units of troops across Russia responsible for domestic security. They are separate from the army, which comes under the Defense Ministry.

Russia’s security services are at odds with themselves as they undergo unpopular reforms that are aimed at restructuring the military’s officer and troop structure, which critics such as Matveyev say is ridden with corruption…”This doesn’t happen by accident, it is a system. Reforms are ongoing and we have to come out and say these things, we have to pay attention to these issues,” he said.

He added that 18 illegal migrant laborers were housed at the Vladivostok base for a month and a half and were used for clean-up and construction jobs…and also said that property on the base had been sold off without permission to make money for the officers, but did not specify what had been sold or to whom (Full Story).

Headhunters

Russian police have detained a man who was caught eating an acquaintance’s liver. They tracked down the suspected cannibal after a trail of severed body parts including limbs and a head were found across Moscow.

“When the police came to arrest the suspect, he was eating a human liver with potatoes,” a police spokeswoman for the Moscow’s western district said…The cause of the acquaintance’s death was not clear, she said. The rest of the liver was found in a refrigerator in the suspect’s flat.

Meanwhile, in Slovakia, police said information from a computer that belonged to a suspected cannibal had led officers to a grave containing the remains of two women…The 43-year-old suspect was critically wounded last week after a gunfight with officers during an undercover police operation to apprehend him.

Police believe the man used the internet to search for people who wanted to kill themselves and would agree to let him eat the body (Full Story).

Unhappy Hour

An unemployed man from Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region on Sunday wounded a teenager with a shotgun who was riding a noisy motorcycle and “disrupting” him while drinking, a local police source said.

“A resident of [the town of] Sosnovoborsk, aged 52, had been drinking alcohol in his garage on Sunday evening. At the same time a college student, 16, was riding his motorbike between the garages,” a statement by the local police said.

The intoxicated man decided that the noise coming from the motorbike’s engines was hampering his relaxation and took extreme measures.

He did not attempt to settle the conflict peacefully by warning or talking to the young man, but instead took a Saiga 12c shotgun and fired twice at the teenager’s back.

Police arriving at the scene detained the man and confiscated his shotgun. The teenager was taken to hospital (Via Ria Novosti).

Unlike the litres of vodka that are imbibed on a daily basis, there haven’t been too many unusual stories flowing throughout Russia lately that are worth discussing.  After a thorough search over the past two days, there was really only one current story that caught my attention.  So I decided to go through some archives in search of other stories I might have missed since I started doing this, and found one story in particular that fits the underlying, yet overt theme of these posts.

Putin a Beatdown on the Opposition

A veteran reporter who once wrote that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would leave his wife for a 27-year-old gymnast was beaten up Wednesday as he left his apartment in central Moscow, police said.  Two unidentified men attacked Sergei Topol, 55, at about 10 a.m. outside 1 Kotelnicheskaya Naberezhnaya, the Stalin skyscraper where he lives, a police spokesman told Interfax.

Topol was hospitalized with a concussion and multiple bruises, the report said.

Police would not comment on the motive behind the attack on Topol, who published a string of articles in 2008 saying Putin would leave his wife, Lyudmila, for Olympic champion gymnast Alina Kabayeva.  At the time Putin dismissed the reports, telling journalists to keep their “snotty” noses out of his private life. Kabayeva has denied an affair with Putin.

Shortly after the articles were published, Topol’s paper, the Moskovsky Korrespondent, was shut down.

The paper’s billionaire owner, Alexander Lebedev, called Topol’s articles “nonsense” and said he shut the daily because it was losing money.

Topol, who has also written for the newspapers Kommersant and Segodnya and the Itogi magazine, is a well-regarded journalist who famously penned his successful negotiations with Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev in 1995, when he managed to free himself and others from a hostage attack.

Wednesday’s attack comes six months after Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin, 30, was savagely beaten into a coma outside his Moscow apartment building. The attack was caught on surveillance camera, but no suspects have been detained.  To put it another way, Putin is “Epic win.”
(Via The Moscow Times)

Coon Skinned Cap (1/30/09)

A shocking incident took place not so long ago in Russia’s Tver region. A 44-year-old man, named only as Alexander K. attempted to have sex with a raccoon. The predator bit a big piece of the man’s most cherished organ off.

“We could not believe it when we had a call from a hospital inquiring about a specialist to conduct the autopsy of a raccoon who had choked on a man’s penis!” a vet doctor said. “The man has had a hard time, of course, but this story cracks me up every single time I think about it,” he added.

Alexander K, a native of Volgograd, could never imagine that his outdoor weekend with his friends would have the most terrible ending possible.

It was a men-only party, with lots of vodka and dirty jokes. In the middle of the party the men had a guest from the natural world – they noticed a beast, which looked like a cat, they later said.

“It was a cute black and white fluffy animal with huge green eyes and a gorgeous tail,” the unluckiest of the men said. “We decided to have fun and caught the beast. A friend of mine told me that the raccoon was a kind and caring animal. Since we had no women in the company I thought that the raccoon could take care of me,” the man said.

Alexander pulled out his penis and got down on his knees in front of the animal. The vicious raccoon suddenly attacked the man’s penis and bit off a large piece of the man’s pride.

Alexander lost almost a half of his penis. Blood was gushing out of the lacerated wound. His friends did everything they could to help their wounded brother and called the ambulance.

Surgeons said that they would not be able to do anything to recreate the penis. They only managed to stop the bleeding and sent the man to the Moscow-based institute of urology.

“We were shocked with what we saw. How could anyone ever think of doing anything like that? He was lucky that the beast was healthy. We examined the body of the raccoon and did not find rabies. We told the man that he could have a plastic surgery of the penis to have it recreated. On the other hand, he obviously needs to have his head examined, not the penis,” a doctor said.
(Via Fun Reports)

Today’s Russian round-up features a story involving two parents who should’ve called the Ghostbusters (or at the very least, a priest), an incident that makes Mexico’s water not seem so bad, and a new form of “extreme entertainment” that all the young, stupid kids in the country are doing.

Exorcising

A 25-year-old woman died during a brutal ritual of exorcism, which was conducted by her own parents. The woman’s father and mother trampled their own daughter to death after they decided that the woman had been possessed by evil spirits. The “loving” parents conducted the ritual during the dinner, which they had made to celebrate the daughter’s visit to them.

“Most likely, the gruesome crime was committed when the family started talking about religious subjects at family dinner. The young woman told them that she could hear strange voices in her head sometimes,” investigators said…”They told the woman that she would have to go through exorcism to get rid of the voices in her head. The parents told her to drink five liters of holy water,” a police officer said.

The petite woman could not drink so much water at once. Her father grabbed her, twisted her arms behind her back, and her mother started pouring water into her mouth…When the woman instinctively started fighting in an attempt to release herself from the grip, the insane parents thought that the demons inside her were showing resistance to their efforts. They knocked the woman down and started jumping on her until the victim lost consciousness. They were certain that they had done everything properly, and thought that their daughter would resurrect in three days.

The parents did not even show repentance during interrogation. They told the police that they had killed a demon in their daughter and saved her soul. (Via)

Pas Bon Agua

A large scandal is brewing in Moscow. A woman visited a cafe in Moscow’s GUM luxury department store on Red Square. She bought a bottle of mineral water and was soon hospitalized with serious burns of her food pipe and larynx. The woman, named as Karina Orlova, a journalist, suffered second and third degree burns after she drank some water from a bottle of Bon Aqua. It turned out that there was acid in the bottle instead of water.

“The water burned me immediately, I started suffocating. I realized that they poisoned me with something. It was very scary because I did not know what it was and how I could get that out of me. I spit all out, fell on the floor and started screaming, it was very scary. It was some sort of acid,” the journalist told Kommersant FM radio station.

Spokespeople for Coca-Cola Corporation, which owns Bon Aqua brand, said they did not have any information about the incident, nor did they receive any complaints… The director of the cafe, Suren Mitskhajan, told RusNovosti that his firm was not guilty of what happened because he only supplies coffee to the cafe. All other foods and drinks are supplied by other organizations.

The analysis of the liquid showed that there was alkali in the bottle. Police officers also said that the bottle did not look like other Bon Aqua bottles, so it could be a counterfeit product. (Via)

Loco-motive

Two students died in the Moscow metro on Monday night as they were riding on top of a train carriage. The incident took place at about midnight on Filyovskaya line of the subway. Two young men, both born in 1991, climbed on top of one of the trains and died as a result of their extreme night ride.

A source at Moscow’s law-enforcement agencies told RIA Novosti that the students had not died as a result of an attempt to commit suicide. The men were sporting ski masks and gloves, which means that they had been prepared for the ride, officials said.

This summer, many young Muscovites found a trendy kind of extreme entertainment, train surfing. Young men and women take a train ride while holding onto the back of the last carriage of commuter and metro trains. Some others lie down on the groove between the tracks right before the arrival of a train. Train surfers upload their videos on YouTube and say that their prime goal is to become famous. A related social media community counts over 2,000 members, RIA Novosti reports.

Train surfing in the subway leads to lethal outcomes in almost 100 percent of cases. (Via)

The country of Russia recently made headlines after a riot sparked by the death of a Moscow soccer fan led to attacks targeting ethnic minorities, and thousands of arrests (but only a dozen actual charges).  This civil unrest has prompted an increase in the police presence in certain parts of the country, and has also created some unique marketing opportunities for struggling sporting goods stores in the area.

Rioter Up!

The all-American sport of baseball has a limited following in Russia – but its accoutrements are enjoying a sinister wave of popularity as the current unrest continues…Although some like to claim that the sport has its roots in the obscure Russian game of lapta, baseball has never really taken off in Russia, despite a brief flurry of interest when the USSR sent a team to the 1988 Olympics.

One large sports chain told Moskovsky Komsomolets that it had sold 80 bats across the city, but just 20 balls…Moreover, other essential attributes for the game – the mitts and helmets used by all players and the characteristic masks worn by catchers – are not generally on sale in Russia.

Instead its bats, bats and more bats – and they are as likely to be on offer at a car outfitters as a sportswear store…Online adverts encourage potential buyers to think of their bat as more than just a piece of sports equipment.

“A baseball bat is not only athletic equipment but also an excellent means of self-defence,” one ad reads. “It is recommended to carry a small baseball bat in your car.”

The Russian market has even allowed for a few unlikely customised bats, unlikely ever to see action in the World Series.

Most strikingly, some bats have been fitted with a light at the end – even though baseball is not generally played in darkness…However it can be easily adapted to make a stun gun – although major league gang members are not impressed, according to one seller.

“Stun-gun bats are not very popular,” a self-defence store owner told MK. “They are quite weak. Some people sell them but we refused. There are other stun-guns, which work like a police baton.” VIA

There are quite a few outrageous special days that people across the world observe every year – like International Lefthanders Day – but this new holiday that’s being proposed in Russia could be the weirdest movement yet.

A Shitty Celebration

Russia should institute a National Toilet Day on April 9, National Toilet Association head Vladimir Moksunov said on Wednesday.

“On April 9, Peter the Great signed an edict on the ‘disposal of garbage and excrement,’” Moksunov told a news conference where the quality and availability of toilet services in the Russian capital were discussed.

Public toilet regulations in Russia were adopted in 1976 and have not been modified since…”It is imperative to implement a program so that we are not ashamed or afraid [of our public toilets,]” he said.

The quality of public toilets in Moscow as well as across Russia leaves much to be desired, he added.

He said World Toilet Day is marked on November 19.

Since 2001, it has become a global platform for academics, sanitation experts, toilet designers, environmentalists, etc. to share the latest on rural and urban toilets.

World Toilet Day is also a global day to raise awareness of the global sanitation crisis. Globally, some 4,000 children die every day from diarrhea caused by dirty water and poor sanitation and 2.6 billion people lack proper toilet facilities. VIA

It has been over a month since I last shared some headline stories involving our Russian brethren, but this absence of news has not been for a lack of effort on my part.  I check all my Russian news sources on a daily basis in search of the interesting, unusual, and unbelievable.  I don’t know if their government has caught on to my preoccupation with sharing articles they would probably consider to be a black eye on their culture (much like the one their rugged Prime Minister recently received), or if they’ve been adding anti-depressants to the vodka, but there have really not been any notable tales from the cold countryside worth mentioning lately.  I blame perestroika and/or glasnost – I only remember these terms from a World History class I once took in college, and obviously have no idea what they mean…

Russia Files Charges Against Alleged Penis Pill Pusher (actual headline)

Russian authorities have launched a rare criminal prosecution against an alleged spammer…Igor Gusev, 31, was charged in absentia with running a prolific penis pill (Canadian Pharmacy) spam operation following a police raid on his Moscow home on Tuesday. Gusev is the general director of Despmedia, an alleged partner of Glavmed.com, a key player in the unlicensed prescription drug business reckoned to have raked in $120m over recent years…Gusev himself allegedly made $2m through the illicit trade by allegedly running a site called SpamIt.com, a website that provided website design and order fulfilment service for spammers until its demise last month.

Spamming isn’t illegal as such in Russia, but Gusev has been accused of operating a business without registration. Security observers are taking the prosecution as a sign that Russia may be beginning to clamp down on rogue operators that have tarnished its internet operation for years…Gusev’s lawyer Vadim Kolosov told Reuters that his client intends to contest the charges. “He has no relation to these activities,” Kolosov said, adding that his client was out of the country and currently unavailable for comment. (VIA)

Yea, because nothing says innocence like fleeing the country to avoid being questioned by the press and authorities.  Although I can’t really blame him.  Have you ever seen how the Russian police conduct an “investigation“?

Cannibearism

Today’s batch of feel-bad stories include a bill designed to deter corruption among government officials that sounds like a damn good idea, a crazy cannibal, a bad driver and even worse human being, and a sporting event that I never knew existed.

Brand of Bribers

Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party has suggested branding bribe takers with indestructible tags as a way of solving the country’s deep-set corruption problem.  Party Deputies Sergei Ivanov and Igor Lebedev introduced a bill to Russia’s State Duma (lower house of parliament) on Tuesday suggesting changes to the Russian Criminal Code.

The deputies suggested branding the left hands of corrupt officials with the Russian letter K for “bribe taker”.  They also proposed expanding the list of those subject to paying fines for giving or taking bribes to include government officials and local government employees.  They said that those who have served sentences on corruption charges do not have criminal records and so are not restricted when applying for jobs.

“The authors of the bill believe that branding bribe takers with indestructible marks in a visible place to show that they have committed a crime will enable employers to refuse them employment,” the lawmakers said.

The Berlin-based non-governmental anti-corruption organization Transparency International has persistently rated Russia one of the most corrupt nations in the world.  In the 2009 Corruption Perception Index, Russia was ranked 146th of 180, below countries like Togo, Pakistan and Libya.  The United States was ranked 19th. (VIA)

Crazy, Table for One (Warning, next two stories are pretty gruesome)

A resident of Simferopol, Sergey Zhnarev, attacked his own grandmother and brutally killed her with a piece of mirror.  The 60-year-old woman, named Lidia, died a terrible death: her grandson pulled her eyes out of the sockets, chopped off other body parts and ate the human flesh while the victim was still alive.

However, the woman’s neighbors heard the terrible screams and called the police. When the police broke into the apartment, they saw the insane man standing in the middle of the room in his underwear only (Do they ever catch people this crazy who are not just wearing their underwear?).  He was all covered with the victim’s blood.  The man was praying holding a cross in his hands. The maniac was certain that he was conducting a mourning ceremony for his grandmother’s body.

Sergey was growing as a quiet man.  He received a technical education and worked as a software specialist.  However, his neighbors described him as a religious fanatic…The cannibal told psychologists of the mental institution that there were voices living in his head.  The voices supposedly told the man how the old lady must be killed.

The former technician, whose story reached even the British press, does not regret what he had done.  He only said he was sorry he would not eat his grandmother’s cakes anymore.  It is obvious that Sergey is not a Fine Young Cannibal.  I guess his grandmother drove him crazy, woo woo, like no one else, woo woo.  She drove him crazy, and the voices in his head couldn’t help themselves. (VIA)

Hit and Review

Irkutsk police said Wednesday that a driver who showed more concern about her car than two women whom she critically injured in a crash in December faces possible criminal charges.

Public indignation has been growing about the incident after local media reported Sunday that police were treating the 28-year-old driver, Anna Shavenkova, daughter of the Irkutsk region’s election committee chairwoman, as a witness in their investigation.  Shavenkova plowed her car into two sisters on a sidewalk in the city of Irkutsk on Dec. 2.  A security camera on a nearby building taped Shavenkova getting out of the car to look for possible damage to the hood, paying no attention to the seriously injured women lying nearby.  One of the women later died in the hospital.

Police said in a statement Wednesday that Shavenkova, an adviser with the ruling United Russia party in the local legislature, was now considered a suspect and might be charged with vehicular manslaughter…But local news web site Babr.ru, which first reported that Shavenkova was being treated as a witness, said police had failed to test her for signs of alcohol consumption.  Radio Liberty reported Wednesday that police have not been able to interview Shavenkova because she has sent them a doctor’s note saying she is pregnant.  The video is here, but I will tell you that it was one of those things I watched once, and wished I had never seen in the first place. (VIA)

Link:  Russia unstoppable at Homeless World Cup

It’s time once again to check in with those mercurial Muscovites, and highlight some recent news stories that make our society seem normal by comparison.

Grandmaul-y Hatchet

A 73-year-old woman in Siberia, who hurled – is hurled the right word to describe a 73 year-old throwing an object?  I could see toss or lob, maybe – a hatchet at a city prosecutor general after she was denied a meeting with him, has been placed in a psychiatric ward.

The elderly woman had appeared at the prosecutor’s office in the city of Omsk on April 27, and requested a meeting with him.  After being denied the opportunity of having a talk with him, the woman pulled a hatchet out of her purse (she must have been carrying the female version of a Costanza wallet) and hurled it at the prosecutor.

The prosecutor reacted quickly and blocked the hatchet with his arms, though he was injured in the process.

The woman was initially charged with attacking an official with the purpose of causing bodily harm.

Psychiatrists concluded that the woman suffers from extreme psychosis and is unable to control or understand her actions.  I believe this is the exact same defense Mel Gibson’s lawyers will use when he has his day in court. (VIA)

The Hostess Hoist

A court in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region brought down a sentence against a train hostess who had made a passenger get out of the train after it started developing speed leaving the station, which the man had missed.  The woman simply forgot to wake the passenger up on time and did not want to stop the train for him afterward.

The train hostess was given a ten-month suspended sentence, Interfax reports.

The train hostess of the Abakan-Krasnoyarsk train did not warn one of her passengers about the arrival to his stop, which was done in violation of her duties.

She woke the man up just a minute before the train started moving.  The hostess was aware of the fact that the man would not be able to pack his things and get off the train in only one minute.  However, she did not take any measures to stop the train to avoid possible disciplinary penalties afterward.

“Instead, she made the passenger jump off the train as it was leaving the station.  She was very well aware of the fact that this could cause the passenger severe bodily harm (At least she has a grasp on the concept of physics).  Luckily, the passenger suffered no injuries,” an official said. (VIA)

Waves Turn Into a Wake

A Russian swimmer’s life ended in tragedy after a speeding yacht spun out of control and cut her into half…The accident occurred in the Pirogovskoye reservoir after swimmers asked a passing yacht to create some waves for them. But after speeding up, captain Sergei Marchenko, 57, apparently lost control before running over Olesia Ivanova, 25, cutting her in half with his propeller, Moscow News reported.

Ivanova was seriously injured and died later in hospital.  You wouldn’t think a story like this could get much worse, but you’d be wrong.  When the boat captain was asked about the tragic incident, he showed off some of that world famous Russian compassion.

Although eye-witnesses said Sergei Marchenko stopped briefly before speeding from the scene, he was unrepentant in an interview with Life News.

Marchenko said he had no intention of fleeing the spot and would have called the emergency services if he had known of Ivanova’s injuries .

“Why did I not slow down at once?  Because if I stopped, I would have been carried over and chopped up lots of people.  I knew that I would kill one or two, but would at least save the others,” he was quoted as saying.

He claimed he was an experienced mariner, both at sea and on inland waters.

The man who had rented the yacht was arrested, and could face five years in prison for careless use of transport causing the death of a person.  Let me get this straight.  The captain who willingly acquiesced to do something that he knew “would kill one or two people” doesn’t get into any trouble, but the guy who rented the boat may get five years in prison.  And I thought our justice system was messed up.

But the craziest part of this story is the lone comment that was found below the article.  This is from someone who posted under the catchy handle “Russia Strong, US-A weak,” and was written this morning:

“Did you not read that, Presi-dent Bush? A Russian woman, strong woman CUT IN .5 AND DIES IN HOSPITAL!!! When can American woman be cut in .5 and not die straight away I ask? Russian women strongest in world, you can cut in half and still they live for a little bit (I have heard of a pissing contest before, but this is ridiculous). All glory to Putin and strong Russian woman.  Down with President Bush and capitalists!”  You hear jokes about how people in Cuba are just now hearing American music from the 80′s, but it doesn’t appear as if the Russians are receiving the timeliest of information either.  I guess those spies they sent over didn’t feel like the outcome of the 2008 election was worthy intel. (VIA)

(This is how Russian kids celebrate the end of their high school career – it looks like this youngster’s graduation present consisted of alcohol and anabolic steroids)

It’s time for me to pull back the iron curtain, and unveil the newest batch of crazy stories from the Kremlin:

“Pancaked“

The winner of a pancake-eating contest dropped dead after gorging himself on 43 of the cream and banana stuffed desserts.

Boris Isayev, 48, from west Russia, collapsed to his knees and died on stage after stuffing himself with pancakes in a competition to mark the end of the region’s “Pancake Week”.  “He had really enjoyed the pancakes but then he started foaming at the mouth and went down like a sack of stones,” one witness said (The same thing happens to me every time I eat breakfast at Denny’s)…“We have seen people fainting [during such contests] before,” she added.

Onlookers tried to revive the man, but he died on the stage.  Witnesses apparently described Isayev as “the most active participant in the contest,” adding that he “ate all the types of pancakes on offer and won fairly.”  I know they are trying to honor Mr. Isayev, but calling him “the most active participant” at an eating contest is kind of like saying Prince Markie Dee was the most active member of The Fat Boys.

The exact cause of death is not clear, but doctors believe he choked after a piece of pancake got lodged in his throat.  I would’ve guessed that he choked on account of the syrup, but I guess that’s why I’m not a Russian doctor. (VIA)

“Walking in a Winter Urineland” (This article is a little old – March 2010 – but apparently it’s not an isolated incident in this part of the world)

The Amur region in Russia’s Far East was hit by yellow snow, Elena Pechkina, a regional meteorologist, told RIA Novosti.

High winds in Mongolia mixed the clouds from a front with dust and sand, crossed northern China, and then dumped the unique-colored snow in Russia.  “This type of precipitation is not harmful to the residents of the area and no additional analysis will be done,” Pechkina said.

She said this type of snow was not rare, however it usually falls in the region at the end of March or early April. (VIA)

It seemed like Ms. Pechkina was being a little too nonchalant about what most normal people would view as an unusual meteorological event, but she was apparently right.  I just typed “russia yellow snow” into a search engine, and was greeted with over 4 million related stories – and the first four articles given were all from different years, dating back to 2006.  While the color of the snow hasn’t changed, opinions regarding the cause and worrying about its adverse effects have:

“Yellow Snow Fell on Russia’s Far East” (2/28/06) – On Wednesday, February 22, heavy yellow snow suddenly fell on Sakhalin, Russia.  Russian media reported that the yellow snow was caused by environmental pollution coming from China.  Samples of the yellow snow have been sent for analysis to a nearby city laboratory.  An official from Russia’s Emergency Situation Ministry stated that the yellow snow emitted an offensive chemical odor.

“Yellow Snow Triggers Environmental Alert in Siberia” (1/2/07) – A public warning was issued in West Siberia’s Omsk Region on Thursday after polluted snow came down, yellowed and oil-stained.  “The snow fell over an area of about 1,500 square meters at around 1:15 p.m. Moscow time yesterday, January 31,” Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said.  People living within the contaminated zone have been warned against melting the snow down to obtain water, and advised to avoid stepping on it wherever possible, he said.

“Yellow Snow!!” (3/29/08) – Researchers have concluded that the yellow snow which fell over Arkhangelsk Oblast, Komi Republic and the Nenets AO this week stems from dust and sand from southern parts of the country, reports the Barents Observer.  According to regional meteorological officials, the yellow-orange coloured snow which fell over parts of northwest Russia March 25 to 26, contained dust and sand which was transported with strong winds from the southern regions of Kalmykia and Volgograd.  Or it could be the result of consuming massive quantities of vodka, and having no indoor plumbing.

“Democracy or No Democracy“  – The hottest new government-run game show in Russia

A new video has revealed that most Russian MPs cannot even be bothered to go through the motions of democracy, but prefer to bunk off and let the few MPs who do turn up vote in their stead.  The footage, shot last week in Russia’s Duma, the 450-member lower house of parliament, showed three MPs frantically running from empty seat to seat in order to vote for fellow deputies who were playing truant after lunch.

The vote, which made it illegal for motorists to have any alcohol in their blood, was passed by a crushing 449 votes even though there were only 88 MPs, or just over one fifth of the chamber, present.  Western critics say the parliament is little more than a puppet chamber that does the Kremlin’s bidding.  But Kremlin-backed politicians insist it is a serious institution and on Wednesday rushed to condemn the incident as “shameful” while conceding, rather oddly, that such practices were a regular occurrence.

“You cannot call a situation where MPs run all round the chamber pushing buttons for absent colleagues anything other than a disgrace,” said Sergei Mironov, leader of the Kremlin-friendly Just Russia party. (VIA)

I could think of a few other things you could call it, namely cartoonish and hilarious.  After watching the video in question, the whole scene reminded me of one of the games that you used to be see on The Price is Right, or voting if it was a game of whack-a-mole:

It has been almost three months since the last edition of “From Russia With Pain” was posted, and the following three stories are really the only ones that I have found to be worthy of the title during that span of time.  I can’t believe nothing out of the ordinary has been happening behind the iron curtain for that long, so the only logical explanation is that Spring is the sane season for Russian residents.

“An Eternal Itch“

An armed 23 year old policeman in Moscow fell victim of his own carelessness. He decided to scratch an itchy spot on his nose with a gun and accidentally killed himself, the Moskovsky Komsomolets reports.

The tragedy happened in the court security facility. At 6pm the officer’s supervisor tried to connect with him over the phone to check on him. The sergeant did not answer his phone and the supervisor had to go see him with other officers.

The police found a locked door they had to break and the body of their colleague behind the door. The policeman’s body with a wound in the head was found under the desk.

The investigation ruled out a murder, and there was no note that would indicate suicide. The victim had been serving in police since 2007. He was single and was not registered with the staff psychologist. He was reported to be in good spirits on the day of the accident.

The sergeant allegedly scratched his nose with his gun and accidentally pulled the trigger. VIA

This next one is probably what the people of Russia would call a heart-warming story…and it’s still pretty damn depressing.

“A 65-Year Wait for an Apartment and TV“

Mikhail Mogilnichenko, 85, does not like to wear his war decorations because he says it would look like he were showing off, even though he has every right to do so as a combat veteran.

A more practical — though belated — reward was finally bestowed on Mogilnichenko a few weeks ago. The veteran is now preparing to move into a new apartment provided by City Hall.  The apartment came as a surprise.  Mogilnichenko said he had not expected the government to fulfill its promise. “Many years have passed, and I have received a present I never thought of receiving,” Mogilnichenko said in an interview. “It’s very good for me. The apartment is nice and convenient, so I’m very glad and satisfied.”

Mogilnichenko was put on the waiting list in 2000, when he moved in with his son’s family in Moscow from his home village, Vorontsovka, in the Voronezh region. The veteran said he would pay his first visit to the new apartment on Victory Day — May 9 — and move there together with his grandson by the end of the month. City Hall also has awarded Mogilnichenko with a 65th anniversary medal and gave him a new television set.

City Hall said it had provided apartments for 1,019 veterans and families of those deceased. This does not mean, however, that the government has provided new housing for all veterans of World War II. A veteran is eligible for a new apartment only if the living space per person in his or her current housing is 10 square meters or less (about 107 square feet). VIA

Verkhovna Rada is the unicameral parliament of the Ukraine, which is composed of 450 deputies and presided over by one chairman (or speaker).  Well back in late April, the group convened to discuss possible ratificatons to a contract involving something called the Black Sea Fleet.  I have no idea what that discussion entailed, but after looking at some pictures from their meeting, it’s apparent that things didn’t go too well:

More photos from the Verkhovna Rada Royal Rumble can be found here.