Category Archives: Da Russophile

Far More People Protested FOR Putin Than Against, But You Wouldn’t Know It From The Western Media

The above photo, part of a photo report by Ridus, shows the Anti-Orange protest at Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow on February 4th. Does that look like 35,000 people to you, let alone 20,000 or 15,000?Because those were the most commonly cited figures … Continue reading

Posted in Da Russophile | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Unofficial Early Voting For The Russian President

Posted in Da Russophile | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

Are Russians As Rich As Czechs?

In terms of new cars, they now are. According to 2011 statistics, Russians bought 17.6 new automobiles per 1000 people. This indicator is still quite a bit below most of Western Europe, such as Germany’s 38.5, France’s 33.4, Britain’s 31.9, … Continue reading

Posted in Da Russophile | Tagged , , , | 20 Comments

Translation: Sergey Lukyanenko – I Will Vote For Putin

Courtesy of Evgeny‘s comment at Mark Adomanis’ blog, I found a very interesting piece by Sergey Lukyanenko – the bestselling Russian sci-fi writer best known for his Night Watch series, which was later converted into Russia’s first blockbuster film in … Continue reading

Posted in Da Russophile, Translations | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 30 Comments

New Year Special: 2012 Predictions

It’s been a great year! To recap, in rough chronological order, 2011 saw: The most popular post (with 562 comments and counting; granted, most of them consisting of Indians and Pakistanis flaming each other); Visualizing the Kremlin Clans (joint project … Continue reading

Posted in Coffee House, Da Russophile, Sublime Oblivion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 215 Comments

The Argument For Compulsory Voting In Russia

One of the central (I would argue, the central) conundrum of all discussions about Russian elections fraud at the macro-scale is that the major pieces of evidence simply don’t fit together. On the one hand, you have pre-elections polls that uniformly … Continue reading

Posted in Da Russophile | Tagged , , , | 27 Comments

United Russia Steals Votes, And The WSJ Steals Others’ Work

On December 28th, the WSJ published an article on “Russia’s Dubious Election” by Gregory White and Rob Barry (it’s behind a paywall, but you can read it here). In it they described the most famous argument for the 15% Club (i.e., … Continue reading

Posted in Da Russophile | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

List Of Estimates On Fraud In Russia’s 2011 Duma Elections

Despite Olga Kryshtanovskaya’s disapproval, I thought it would be interesting and useful to compile a comprehensive list of blogger, pundit and “expert” opinions on the extent of fraud in the 2011 Duma elections. Interspersed among these opinions and analyses are results from … Continue reading

Posted in Da Russophile | Tagged , , , , | 33 Comments

Measuring Churov’s Beard: The Mathematics Of Russian Election Fraud

In the aftermath of the 2011 Duma elections, the Russian blogosphere was abuzz with allegations of electoral fraud. Many of these were anecdotal or purely rhetorical in nature; some were more concrete, but variegated or ambiguous. A prime example of … Continue reading

Posted in Da Russophile | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 30 Comments

What They Say After: The Post-Elections Polls

Citing evidence revolving around pre-elections opinion polls and exit polls, in my Al Jazeera article on the Russian Duma elections I made the argument that “the aggregate level of falsifications is probably at around five per cent, and almost certainly … Continue reading

Posted in Da Russophile | Tagged , , , , , , | 49 Comments