IZO

Old buildings etc

61 photos of a deserted Pioneer camp (Triniksi).

Photos of old Moscow: drill down to your street (oldmos.ru). Below: Vspolny Pereulok in the fifties.

39 photos of Chernobyl (Independent).

Russian-sounding prof Gregory Ryskin predicts end of civilisation, or close, from methane gas explosion arising from BP oil spill (Helium).

Kharkov

On Mikhail Dobkin, former Mayor of Kharkov, now governor of Kharkov Region (Obozrevatel, in Russian).

Background: the destruction of Gorky Park in Kharkov for real estate development (dadakinder, in Russian). More background: Dobkin when mayor (Youtube).

Skinheads shut down democratic process in Kharkov.

Yuri Luzhkov plans liquid nitrogen cloud-seeding because Moscow's snow-clearing costs are too high (LAT) (thanks, MK). This article clears up one mystery for me: the potential snow doesn't disappear, it comes down just outside the area of seeding.

Ex-prez Putin adviser Andrei Illarionov's Cato Institute summary of the current state of climate change knowledge (Zero Hedge).

When mushroomers get lost (NYT) (thanks, MK).

On the partial resurrection of the Aral Sea (AP).

On doing up a Russian country house (NYT) (thanks, MK). There's one problem with the Russian countryside, imo, and that's the mosquitoes.

Moscow Council approves Mayor Luzhkov's "zaniest plan to date" to manipulate winter weather, driving snowfalls out of town (Time).

Susan Richards on Russian eco-settlements, Vladimir Megre's Anastasia ("a young beauty living in the forest"), foreign-power New Age plots and the survival of Russian Cosmism (FT).

Russian climatologist Aleksey Korkorin believes global warming contributed to the violent weather conditions that downed the French Airbus on 1st June. The article also brings up the disturbing thought that the pilots could have turned back from the storm but may not have done so because of the cost involved (RT):

Meanwhile, Russian General Pyotr Deinekin, a former commander of the Russian Air Force, postulated the tempting theory that although the flight crew was equipped with “onboard devices enabling it to see a dangerous situation beforehand” the pilots would have needed “great courage” to turn their planes back to base due to financial considerations.  “Since this (turning a plane around) involves great financial losses for the airline, the captain apparently decided to continue the flight, which ended up tragically,” Deinekin told Interfax.

Recent tornado near Sergiev Posad, Moscow region.

The European part of Russia faces a water shortage because of the low 2009 snowfall (Kursor, in Russian).

Olga of Greece and Denmark tried to study the Parnassius Autocrator in Tadzhikistan (Finch's Quarterly Review).

Russia has banned the hunting of seals less than a year old and Brigitte Bardot has sent a letter of thanks to PM Putin, dubbing him "the president of my heart" (newsru.com, in Russian).

Russian volcanic wilderness (National Geographic) (thanks, MK).