Eideard

From morning all through the night, tens of thousands of Russians have been lining up since Saturday in the cold with just one aim: to kiss a glass-covered reliquary that they believe holds the Virgin Mary’s belt.

They shuffle along, waiting for up to 12 hours without complaint in a line that stretches for miles. Within a few days, the organizers say, the wait could reach 24 hours. At any given time there are about 25,000 people, according to news media estimates, and as of Wednesday morning, 285,000 true believers had earned their moment before the belt, said the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation, which organized the tour…

Of all the industrial nations, perhaps only Russia outdistances the United States in the religiosity of its people, two million of whom venerated the belt before its final stop in Moscow…

“We came so that we will live well, be happy and healthy, for the sake of our children,” said Anna Kozlova, 68, a pensioner who joined the end of the line late Tuesday night with her daughter Oksana Kulikova, a nurse, wrapped, like her mother, in fur against the cold.

She said she planned to head straight to work after venerating the relic at the towering Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which has been open around the clock…

Moscow’s city government closed streets around the cathedral — causing those Muscovites not so inclined to venerate relics to rant about the even-worse-than-usual traffic jams. Mobile canteens were set up to feed the pilgrims, and heated city buses lined the embankment to offer respite from the cold. A free bus service is shuttling provincial visitors to train stations…

Next – I hear someone is bringing in Jesus’ jockey shorts.

Spring onions can provide a piquant addition

Russian police say they have detained a man who was caught eating an acquaintance’s liver.

Police tracked down the suspect 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 by telephone.

The rest of the human liver was found in a refrigerator in the suspect’s flat. The police spokeswoman said the cause of the acquaintance’s death was not clear.

What’s obvious is that the suspect knows nothing about proper pairing of ingredients in a meal. He was lacking onions.

From Yury Dolgoruky kitted out as Santa Claus to Mikhail Sholokhov donning a colourful woolly hat, Moscow’s monuments are getting an impromptu makeover. A growing trend among pranksters has seen many of the city’s statues decorated with so-called “yarnbombing” (pryazhemetanie) or knitted graffiti. And it seems to be a mixture of official initiative and individual exuberance which has prompted the colourful displays.

But opinion is divided over whether this is just harmless fun, or alarming disrespect.

One of the first monuments to get a makeover was Yury Dolgoruky’s statue opposite the mayor’s offices on Tverskaya. On the orders of Yury Luzhkov, City Hall boss at the time, the city’s founder was dressed up in the red robes of Santa Claus for the festive season from 2006-2008. But while that has since stopped, the idea has caught on and statues across the city have been kitted out in woolly hats or colourful scarves by jokers wishing to brighten up the city.

The designers of the works involved tend to be in favour of these temporary new looks, Noviye Izvestiye reported.
When brightly-striped knitwear or sculpted birds appear on the Gogolevsky Bulvar monument to Mikhail Sholokhov, author of “Quiet Flows the Don”, the creator sees it as a success.

“The author of the monument, Alexander Rukavishnikov, considers it an indication that the monument has successfully been integrated into the urban environment,” said Sergei Polovinkin of the city’s department of culture. But Polovinkin himself warned that such gestures might spark annoyance on other occasions, pointing out that nobody would consider doing this in a cemetery and suggesting that monuments in the city should enjoy the same respect…

Some people think cemeteries are suitable for everything from picnics to sex, Sergei. Although I wouldn’t recommend sex on a statue in front of city hall, a picnic might not be so bad. And bring a scarf for the statue.

I was planning on whipping up some smartass remarks about this dude – since he comes from just down the freeway in Albuqerque. Went and found this video from Clancy’s from an early round in the world competition.

I’m impressed.

A technician for an American telephone company has won the top prize of 1 million Russian dumplings in the Karaoke World Championships.

Edward Pimentel won the unusual prize early Sunday in Moscow after getting the most votes from audience members.

A panel of judges chose two Finns as the male and female champions — Sam Moudden and Maria Saarima-Ylitalo. They were awarded karaoke machines.

Amateur singers from 16 countries took part in the three-day competition.

Pimentel, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, favors the R-and-B genre. For his song in the final round, he chose Usher’s “DJ’s got Us Fallin’ In Love.”

Steve Terrell asked me the question I couldn’t answer – “Is he from the Pimentel family of musicians and luthiers?”

“Zebra” crossing zebra crossing
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

An alleged international credit card trafficker from Russia who sold stolen credit card data has been arrested in France, and the United States will seek his extradition to face charges in this country.

They identified the defendant as Vladislav Anatolieviech Horohorin, 27, of Moscow, an alleged co-founder of the first and only fully automated credit card information online vending site that sold stolen data.

Horohorin, whose online name is “BadB,” was arrested by French authorities on Aug. 7, in Nice as he attempted to board a flight to return to Moscow. He is being detained in France pending extradition to the United States…

According to court documents, Horohorin allegedly used online criminal forums to sell stolen credit card information to online purchasers worldwide. He had been the subject of an undercover investigation by U.S. Secret Service agents.

“The network created by the founders of CarderPlanet, including Vladislav Horohorin, remains one of the most sophisticated organizations of online financial criminals in the world,” said Michael Merritt…

“This network has been repeatedly linked to nearly every major intrusion of financial information reported to the international law enforcement community,” he said in a statement.

Reuters says he’s Russian. Israeli press variously says he’s Israeli – or Ukrainian.

Whatever the flavor – throw away the key!

Hillary Clinton unveils Walt Whitman statue on Moscow campus
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

An impassioned U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking to students at Moscow State University, admonished those in the U.S. and Russian governments who haven’t moved beyond a Cold War mentality.

Clinton said such people are “living in the past” and aren’t able to cooperate on issues such as missile defense because they “don’t trust each other.” She also called on the nations to find common ground, saying they “shouldn’t end all cooperation” just because they can’t agree on everything.

“Let’s be smarter than our past,” Clinton said, offering to bring a “new attitude bring to the relationship.”

Clinton spoke about surmounting historical difficulties in U.S.-Russian relations, changing a relationship “once defined by the shadow of mutually assured destruction into what is based on mutual respect and, over time, increasingly mutual trust.”

“We are different countries; we have different historical experiences, different perspectives,” she said. “But we are planting those disagreements in a much broader field of cooperation, and hopefully we are enriching the earth in which this cooperation can take root.”

Agreed. Overdue.

On a related note, The Cheney Troika is founding an organization to lead American Jihadists further into the past.

Dozens of partygoers at an outdoor rave near Moscow last week have lost partial vision after a laser light show burned their retinas, say Russian health officials.

Moscow city health department officials confirmed 12 cases of laser-blindness at the Central Ophthalmological Clinic, and daily newspaper Kommersant said another 17 were registered at City Hospital 32 in the centre of the capital.

“They all have retinal burns, scarring is visible on them. Loss of vision in individual cases is as high as 80 percent, and regaining it is already impossible,” Kommersant quoted a treating ophthalmologist as saying.

Everyone involved in running the show is very busy blaming everyone else who was involved. Excepting, of course, those who’ve already skipped town.