Russia

[Witness]

Russia Seizes Kremlin Critic Navalny’s Apartment

Russian authorities have seized Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s apartment days after he was discharged from German hospital where he was being treated for poisoning by Novichok, his spokeswoman said Thursday.

Kira Yarmysh said court marshals came after Navalny’s three-bedroom apartment in southeastern Moscow to enforce a $1-million court ruling in favor of catering magnate Yevgeny Prigozhin. The businessman has earned the nickname "Putin's chef" from his close ties to President Vladimir Putin.

Prigozhin last year won 88 million rubles ($1.1 million) in damages against Navalny and his close associate, who blamed Prigozhin for a dysentery outbreak among Moscow schoolchildren linked to contaminated lunches.

Prigozhin previously vowed to “ruin” Navalny if he survives the poisoning.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/09/ ... ent-a71542

[Witness]

Russian cleaner sweeps to power in surprise village vote

For the past four years, Marina Udgodskaya has scrubbed and mopped the offices of the local administration building in Povalikhino in rural Russia.

Now the 35-year-old cleaner is downing her dusters to move into the boss's seat, after winning an election earlier this month that she only entered to in order to get him reappointed.
When no-one in the village signed-up to challenge Nikolai Loktev, who's from the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, he persuaded Ms Udgodskaya to register as his "rival" to ensure the minimum requirement of two candidates.
That plan backfired when the cleaner beat him by a landslide.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54338785 for the rest.

[Witness]

The 'Caspian Sea Monster' rises from the grave

Beached on the western shores of the Caspian Sea, it looks like a colossal aquatic beast -- a bizarre creation more at home in the deep than above the waves. It certainly doesn't look like something that could ever fly.
But fly it did -- albeit a long time ago.
After lying dormant for more than three decades, the Caspian Sea Monster has been on the move again. One of the most eye-catching flying machines ever built, it's completing what could be its final journey.
In July of this year after 14 hours at sea, a flotilla of three tugs and two escort vessels maneuvered slowly along the shores of the Caspian Sea to deliver their bulky special cargo to its destination, a stretch of coast near Russia's southernmost point.
It's here, next to the ancient city of Derbent, in Russia's republic of Dagestan, that the 380-ton "Lun-class Ekranoplan" has found its new, and most likely definitive, home.
The last of its breed to sail the waters of the Caspian, "Lun" was abandoned after the 1990s collapse of the Soviet Union, condemned to rust away at Kaspiysk naval base, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) up the coast from Derbent.
But before it could fade into oblivion, it's been rescued thanks to plans to make it a tourist attraction right at a time when this unusual travel concept could be poised to make a comeback.

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/ ... index.html details & more pics.

[Witness]

Karachays.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Needs to be re-posted every so often.

[Witness]

Needs to be re-posted every so often.

I approve, but you could vary the pics.