#The Sugar Kremlin

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Details: The ISW states that several indicators suggest that the strike was designed by Russia internally(..)

P.S. Long-term personal experience shows that any information spread by the Russians should be taken as BS at first until the opposite is confirmed. Too many things related to this incident look very strange and illogical. First of all, the information did not appear immediately...in the morning. All signs point to another "Ryazan sugar"...

[mariacallous]

April 12, 2019, Updated at 12:22 a.m. ET on April 15, 2019.

In the end, the man who reportedly smeared feces on the walls of his lodgings, mistreated his kitten, and variously blamed the ills of the world on feminists and bespectacled Jewish writers was pulled from the Ecuadorian embassy looking every inch like a powdered-sugar Saddam Hussein plucked straight from his spider hole. The only camera crew to record this pivotal event belonged to Ruptly, a Berlin-based streaming-online-video service, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of RT, the Russian government’s English-language news channel and the former distributor of Julian Assange’s short-lived chat show.

RT’s tagline is “Question more,” and indeed, one might inquire how it came to pass that the spin-off of a Kremlin propaganda organ and now registered foreign agent in the United States first arrived on the scene. Its camera recorded a team of London’s Metropolitan Police dragging Assange from his Knightsbridge cupboard as he burbled about resistance and toted a worn copy of Gore Vidal’s History of the National Security State.

Vidal had the American national-security establishment in mind when he narrated that polemic, although I doubt even he would have contrived to portray the CIA as being in league with a Latin American socialist named for the founder of the Bolshevik Party. Ecuador’s President Lenín Moreno announced Thursday that he had taken the singular decision to expel his country’s long-term foreign guest and revoke his asylum owing to Assange’s “discourteous and aggressive behavior.”

According to Interior Minister María Paula Romo, this evidently exceeded redecorating the embassy with excrement—alas, we still don’t know whether it was Assange’s or someone else’s—refusing to bathe, and welcoming all manner of international riffraff to visit him. It also involved interfering in the “internal political matters in Ecuador,” as Romo told reporters in Quito. Assange and his organization, WikiLeaks, Romo said, have maintained ties to two Russian hackers living in Ecuador who worked with one of the country’s former foreign ministers, Ricardo Patiño, to destabilize the Moreno administration.

We don’t yet know whether Romo’s allegation is true (Patiño denied it) or simply a pretext for booting a nuisance from state property. But Assange’s ties to Russian hackers and Russian intelligence organs are now beyond dispute.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 12 cyberoperatives for Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate for the General Staff (GRU) suggests that Assange was, at best, an unwitting accomplice to the GRU’s campaign to sway the U.S. presidential election in 2016, and allegedly even solicited the stolen Democratic correspondence from Russia’s military intelligence agency, which was masquerading as Guccifer 2.0. Assange repeatedly and viciously trafficked, on Twitter and on Fox News, in the thoroughly debunked claim that the correspondence might have been passed to him by the DNC staffer Seth Rich, who, Assange darkly suggested, was subsequently murdered by the Clintonistas as revenge for the presumed betrayal.

Mike Pompeo, then CIA director and, as an official in Donald Trump’s Cabinet, an indirect beneficiary of Assange’s meddling in American democracy, went so far as to describe WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.” For those likening the outfit to legitimate news organizations, I’d submit that this is a shade more severe a description, especially coming from America’s former spymaster, than anything Trump has ever grumbled about The New York Times or The Washington Post.

Russian diplomats had concocted a plot, as recently as late 2017, to exfiltrate Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy, according to The Guardian. “Four separate sources said the Kremlin was willing to offer support for the plan—including the possibility of allowing Assange to travel to Russia and live there. One of them said that an unidentified Russian businessman served as an intermediary in these discussions.” The plan was scuttled only because it was deemed too dangerous.

In 2015, Focus Ecuador reported that Assange had aroused suspicion among Ecuador’s own intelligence service, SENAIN, which spied on him in the embassy in a years-long operation. “In some instances, [Assange] requested that he be able to choose his own Security Service inside the embassy, even proposing the use of operators of Russian nationality,” the Ecuadorian journal noted, adding that SENAIN looked on such a proposal with something less than unmixed delight.

All of which is to say that Ecuador had ample reasons of its own to show Assange the door and was well within its sovereign rights to do so. He first sought refuge in the embassy after he jumped bail more than seven years ago to evade extradition to Sweden on sexual-assault charges brought by two women. Swedish prosecutors suspended their investigation in 2017 into the most serious allegation of rape because they’d spent five years trying but failing to gain access to their suspect to question him. (That might now change, and so the lawyer for that claimant has filed to reopen the case.) But the British charges remained on the books throughout.

The Times of London leader writer Oliver Kamm has noted that quite apart from being a “victim of a suspension of due process,” Assange is “a fugitive from it.” Yet to hear many febrile commentators tell it, his extradition was simply a matter of one sinister prime minister cackling down the phone to another, with the CIA nodding approvingly in the background, as an international plot unfurled to silence a courageous speaker of truth to power. Worse than that, Assange and his ever-dwindling claque of apologists spent years in the pre-#MeToo era suggesting, without evidence, that the women who accused him of being a sex pest were actually American agents in disguise, and that Britain was simply doing its duty as a hireling of the American empire in staking out his diplomatic digs with a net.

As it happens, a rather lengthy series of U.K. court cases and Assange appeals, leading all the way up to the Supreme Court, determined Assange’s status in Britain.

The New Statesman’s legal correspondent, David Allen Green, expended quite a lot of energy back in 2012 swatting down every unfounded assertion and conspiracy theory for why Assange could not stand before his accusers in Scandinavia without being instantly rendered to Guantanamo Bay. Ironically, as Green noted, going to Stockholm would make it harder for Assange to be sent on to Washington because “any extradition from Sweden … would require the consent of both Sweden and the United Kingdom” instead of just the latter country. Nevertheless, Assange ran and hid and self-pityingly professed himself a “political prisoner.”

Everything about this Bakunin of bullshit and his self-constructed plight has belonged to the theater of the absurd. I suppose it’s only fair that absurdity dominates the discussion now about a newly unsealed U.S. indictment of Assange. According to Britain’s Home Office, the Metropolitan Police arrested Assange for skipping bail, and then, when he arrived at the police station, he was further arrested “in relation to a provisional extradition request from the United States.”

The operative word here is provisional, because that request has yet to be wrung through the same domestic legal protocols as Sweden’s. Assange will have all the same rights he was accorded when he tried to beat his first extradition rap in 2010. At Assange’s hearing, the judge dismissed his claims of persecution by calling him “a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interests.” Neither can his supporters.

A “dark moment for press freedom,” tweeted the NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden from his security in press-friendly Moscow. “It’s the criminalization of journalism by the Trump Justice Department and the gravest threat to press freedom, by far, under the Trump presidency,” intoned The Intercept’s founding editor Glenn Greenwald who, like Assange, has had that rare historical distinction of having once corresponded with the GRU for an exclusive.

These people make it seem as if Assange is being sought by the Eastern District of Virginia for publishing American state secrets rather than for allegedly conniving to steal them.

The indictment makes intelligible why a grand jury has charged him. Beginning in January 2010, Chelsea Manning began passing to WikiLeaks (and Assange personally) classified documents obtained from U.S. government servers. These included files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and U.S. State Department cables. But Manning grew hesitant to pilfer more documents.*

At this point, Assange allegedly morphed from being a recipient and publisher of classified documents into an agent of their illicit retrieval. “On or about March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist [Chelsea] Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Networks, a United States government network used for classified documents and communications,” according to the indictment.

Assange allegedly attempted to help Manning do this using a username that was not hers in an effort to cover her virtual tracks. In other words, the U.S. accuses him of instructing her to hack the Pentagon, and offering to help. This is not an undertaking any working journalist should attempt without knowing that the immediate consequence will be the loss of his job, his reputation, and his freedom at the hands of the FBI.

I might further direct you to Assange’s own unique brand of journalism, when he could still be said to be practicing it. Releasing U.S. diplomatic communiqués that named foreigners living in conflict zones or authoritarian states and liaising with American officials was always going to require thorough vetting and redaction, lest those foreigners be put in harm’s way. Assange did not care—he wanted their names published, according to Luke Harding and David Leigh in WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy. As they recount the story, when Guardian journalists working with WikiLeaks to disseminate its tranche of U.S. secrets tried to explain to Assange why it was morally reprehensible to publish the names of Afghans working with American troops, Assange replied: “Well, they’re informants. So, if they get killed, they’ve got it coming to them. They deserve it.” (Assange denied the account; the names, in the end, were not published in The Guardian, although some were by WikiLeaks in its own dump of the files.)**

James Ball, a former staffer at WikiLeaks—who argues against Assange’s indictment in these pages—has also remarked on Assange’s curious relationship with a notorious Holocaust denier named Israel Shamir:

Shamir has a years-long friendship with Assange, and was privy to the contents of tens of thousands of US diplomatic cables months before WikiLeaks made public the full cache. Such was Shamir’s controversial nature that Assange introduced him to WikiLeaks staffers under a false name. Known for views held by many to be antisemitic, Shamir aroused the suspicion of several WikiLeaks staffers—myself included—when he asked for access to all cable material concerning ‘the Jews,’ a request which was refused.

Shamir soon turned up in Moscow where, according to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, he was offering to write articles based on these cables for $10,000 a pop. Then he traveled to Minsk, where he reportedly handed over a cache of unredacted cables on Belarus to functionaries for Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorship, whose dissident-torturing secret police is still conveniently known as the KGB.

Fish and guests might begin to stink after three days, but Assange has reeked from long before he stepped foot in his hideaway cubby across from Harrods. He has put innocent people’s lives in danger; he has defamed and tormented a poor family whose son was murdered; he has seemingly colluded with foreign regimes not simply to out American crimes but to help them carry off their own; and he otherwise made that honorable word transparency in as much of a need of delousing as he is.

Yet none of these vices has landed him in the dock. If he is innocent of hacking U.S. government systems—or can offer a valid public-interest defense for the hacking—then let him have his day in court, first in Britain and then in America. But don’t continue to fall for his phony pleas for sympathy, his megalomania, and his promiscuity with the facts. Julian Assange got what he deserved.

[usafphantom2]

13 Sukhois in 13 days: Ukrainians are slaughtering more Russian jets because Russia is flying and bombing more often.

Russian losses are becoming unsustainable.

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 03/03/2024 - 17:30in Military, War Zones

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said on Saturday that its air defense troops shot down another Sukhoi Su-34 fighter from the Russian air force: the 11º Su-34 that the Ukrainians claimed to have destroyed in just two weeks alongside two Sukhoi Su-35 fighters and a rare Beriev A-50 radar plane.

The series of unprecedented air strikes by Ukrainians - 14 planes in 13 days - demonstrates the bravery and skill of air defenders and the effectiveness of their unique and integrated air defense system, which combines old Soviet radars and missiles with the latest Western radars and missiles.

Destroying russian jets is a new great tradition!

The Ukrainian Air Force shot down another Su-34 in the eastern direction.

Nice job, warriors! pic.twitter.com/kpOpeq6sGQ

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) March 2, 2024

But it also speaks of a Russian compulsion to inflict as much damage as possible on Ukraine, as soon as possible. One of the reasons why Ukrainians are slaughtering so many Russian planes is that the Russians are carrying out more bombing missions than ever before.

On Thursday, according to Ukrainian analyst Alexander Kovalenko, the Russian air force launched more than 150 missions involving Su-34, Su-35 and Sukhoi Su-25 attack jets. There are 10 more daily sorties than the Russian air force carried out during its previous more intense airstrike, concomitant with the initial advance of the Russian army towards Kiev, in the first weeks of Russia's two-year broader war against Ukraine.

Each Sukhoi carries tons of bombs or rockets and poses a serious threat to Ukrainian troops on the ground. But each Sukhoi is also the target of the same troops. "This intensity of Russian aircraft flights allows us to capture them more often," Kovalenko wrote.

The approximately one hundred Su-34 survivors are responsible for most of the 150 daily missions. A typical Russian Air Force attack package includes two double-seat Su-34s, each carrying four GPS-guided KAB glider bombs, as well as an escort single-seat Su-35 carrying air-to-air and anti-radar missiles.

A segment from a newly published Russian MoD video that shows four UMPKs deploy their wings after being released from a VKS Su-34. pic.twitter.com/NdFeyXUYpb

— Guy Plopsky (@GuyPlopsky) February 26, 2024

The rudimentary KABs - 1,100 and 3,300 pound bombs equipped with satellite orientation and removable wings - are the favorite weapons of the Russians. Flying high and fast, a Su-34 can launch a KAB with reasonable precision at a target up to 40 kilometers away.

This is far enough to keep the Sukhoi out of reach of the lightest air defense weapons, but not enough to keep the jets out of range of heavier air defense weapons such as the American-made Patriots and the former Soviet S-200s.

Most Russian jets drop their bombs and return safely to the base. On average, in the last two weeks, Ukrainians have not sholled more than one in a hundred Russian planes in the air near the front lines on a given day.

Surviving planes together can launch more than a hundred KABs in 24 hours. On Thursday, according to Kovalenko, “an absolute record for KAB use was set: 152!”

Each KAB contains enough explosive charge to demolish a bunker or knock down a building. The glider bomb is an urban demolition weapon. “These bombs completely destroy any position,” wrote Egor Sugar, a soldier of the 3rdª Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Army, who fought in the bloody four-month battle in Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine.

This battle ended with a Ukrainian withdrawal two weeks ago, after the Russian Sukhois launched hundreds of KABs on Avdiivka - making the city impossible to replenish and defend.

What the Kremlin apparently took from its Avdiivka campaign is that even a poorly led ground force, suffering cataclysmic casualties - at least 16,000 Russians died when uprooting Avdiivka from the 2,000 Ukrainian troops defending the city center - can prevail when it attacks under the cover of devastating air strikes with firepower.

We know that the Russians internalized this strategy because, two weeks after Avdiivka fell into the hands of the KABs and infantry masses, they are repeating the strategy.

Today the Russians are trying to take the village of Tonen'ke, eight kilometers west of Avdiikva. They are trying to catch her... flattening her with up to 30 KABs in a single day. “The enemy sweeps the village of Tonen'ke from the face of the Earth,” Kovalenko wrote.

It is difficult to say how many of the 13 Sukhois that Ukrainians have shot down since the fall of Avdiivka were bombing Tonen'ke when a Ukrainian missile reached them. But it is safe to say that the Russians are buying the small Tonen'ke - a cluster with about a hundred houses - at the cost of several 50 million dollar warplanes and possibly their crews.

Perhaps the Kremlin considers this an acceptable exchange. Even so, it is unsustainable. The Russian air force has already lost a quarter of its Su-34s and is quickly depleting the surviving jets and their crews, as it flies them stronger and stronger in a growing campaign of bombings with the KABs.

It is no exaggeration to say that the Kremlin chose this moment to spend a non-renewable energy of military resource - an air force that took decades to be built - in exchange for victories on the battlefield, which cannot be doubled once this resource has been spent.

And that is why more and more analysts are concluding that Russia is on the verge of bankruptcy in Ukraine at the moment: take the territory it can, as long as it can, with the understanding that the conditions may be less favorable - and its own firepower less abundant - next year.

"I would be very optimistic about the potential of Ukraine in 2025, with Russia kind of, in its arrogance, launching constant offensives, losing many people," said this month Max Bergmann, a specialist in Russia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

But Bergmann made his assessment conditional on one thing: the resumption of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. The United States was the main supplier of its best weapons to Ukraine - including Patriot air defense missiles - until Russian-friendly Republicans in the U.S. Congress cut aid from October.

If this aid is resumed, Ukrainians can continue to slaughter Sukhois at a rate of one per day. In a few weeks, the Su-34 force of the Russian air force would be exhausted to the point of irrelevance - and the current storm of KABs... should disappear.

Source: Forbes

Tags: Military AviationRFSAF - Russian Federation Aerospace Force/Russian Aerospace ForceSukhoi Su-34 FullbackWar Zones - Russia/Ukraine

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[campingbagandstuff]

.22/9.33 {Part 2 of 12}; 16

The Yeah Yeahs heads will roll, The Veronicas hook me up, popular, lolita, take me on the floor, this love, Escape the sound let’s go, Lorn anvil, acid rain, VV Brown shark in the water, amerie why don't we fall in love?

Elliphant love you better, still getting younger, spoon me, (ft. MO one more), lean on, kamikaze, Grimes genesis, idoru, world princess, butterfly, california, (sade kiss of life, king of sorrow, moon & the sky, soldier of love, no ordinary love, everything but the girl missing)

delete forever, scream, Mia hungrigez hertz, MIA hombre, XR2, world town, jimmy, 10 dollar, 20 dollar, Wynter Gordon (ft. FloRida )sugar, stimela, levitate, believer, Diana “ woman, thank you, {{{shakira ft.>> }}}{{the weeknd}}{jennifer lopez}maluma {{{chantaje}}}{{hawai}}{pa'ti & lonely} corazon, procura, {nayer ft. pit bull & }mohombi{suave, }chocola

Men Without Hats safety dance, Sade soldier of love, paradise, cherish the day, the moon & the sky, kiss of life, The Third Realm dance like you wanna die, kiss of the scorpion, invitation to hell, (lady gaga just dance, judas, papparazzi, applause, rain on me, social repose filthy pride)

forever, IAMX stardust, Sirius neon dominion, Ludovico technique dead inside, absence, deeper into you, potential, heal my scars, beyond therapy, wasting, memory, shutting down, dead inside, Shiv-r devil’s night, alpha omega, Psychlon 9 parasitic, as you sleep, lorde magnets, royals, mamamoo ILLELLA, aze gag, Snotty Nose Rez Kids I Got Paid Today

Vanessa Hudgens sneakernight, baby come back, Lionbabe fire, Jetta electrify, ABRA fruit, Kilo Kish, The Internet girl, Doja Cat streets, Vegas, beautiful, nunchucks, Lola Munroe overtime, Exodus 23, you a jerk, Allie & AJ potential breakup song, like whoa, rush, new year's day joker, defame me, CL the baddest female

Ghost little sunshine, cirice, square hammer, he is, Lana Del Rey doin time, kill kill, venice bitch, chemtrails over the country club, hit & run, video game, black beauty, high by the beach, diet mountain dew, summer wine, swan song, say yes to heaven, blackest day, ride, summertime sadness, honeymoon, ultraviolence, carmen, this is what makes us girls, burning desire, off to the races, lolita, million dollar man,Marina & the Diamonds immortal, teen idle, the outsider, (after school BANG, ayu progress, poker face, boys & girls, trust, greatful days, ballad, butterfly, moments, don't look back, momentum, brillante, )

fear & loathing, valley of the dolls, I’m not a robot, mowgli’s trail, handmade heaven, blue, solitaire, family jewels, hermit the frog, superstar, happy, ancient dreams in a modern land, oh no, primadonna, how to be a heartbreaker, are you satisfied, girls, hollywood, valley of the dolls, electra heart, froot, lies,seventeen, just desserts, power & control, radioactive, bubblegum bitch, i am not a robot, can't pin me down, better than that, Mo Cheddah ko ma roll, Solange tony, losing you, cranes in the sky, girls' generation gee, oh!, boys, catch me if you can, galaxy supernova, utada hikaru merry christmas mr. lawrence, nichiyou no asa, tippy toes, poppin, the workout, apple & cinnamon, kremlin dusk, exodus

Tinashe aquarius, bet on it, cold sweat, bated breath, party favours, company, Beach Boys good vibrations, The Pretty Reckless you, miss nothing, medicine, Kalafina magia, sinachi waymaker, wretch 32 {ft. L Marshall} traktor

Birthday Massacre superstition, goodnight, blue, looking glass, Ayria gun song, Okilly Dokilly white wine spritzer, New Years’ Day gangsta [(Kehlani cover)], Nightclub show it to me, your addiction, Nuages dreams, Gunship dark all day, do as infinity inuyasha "poem of truth", nicole scherzinger your love, keri hilson{ft. kardinaloffishall} numba 1 (tide is high), Reol

Nicki Minaj your love, chun-li, barbie tings, pills & potions, superbass, right thru me, Madonna jump, (ft. MIA & Nicki Minaj )give me all your luvin’, la isla bonita, Charli XCX boom clap, you (ha ha ha), sza ice moon, bed, {yung lean ft. }fka twigs measure of a man , meta angel, pendullum, weak spot, water me, hours, hide, give up{, bliss}, 2 weeks, cover drive sparks, twilight, eminem mockingbird

[summeroffice]

Власть vs Влащенко

35:15 Do you watch the Marathon television broadcast [the government-controlled newscast "United News" ("Єдині новини") that is considered state propaganda and a form of censorship by journalists]? 

Yes, of course, I have to for work and in principle, I believe that the telethon correctly places many accents. Not everything is perfect, but nevertheless it's strange for me to hear that during the war it is necessary for the state to somehow refuse the opportunity to have a platform on which to try to correctly place accents and conduct discussions.  

35:40 What has changed in your life since the beginning of the war? Most of all?  

Everything. Everything radically. The impossibility of being with my family, the inability to spend time on what I like, books, communication with friends, and so on.  

35:57 Where would you like to meet your retirement? Well, if you imagine this distant moment when-- 

The place doesn't matter. I don't put it that way. With whom I would like, who I would like to be with. The place doesn't matter. There should be friends nearby, there should be family nearby, there should be favourite items from that life, from past life that create a feeling of existence as such. Therefore, the place never matters. What matters is only the atmosphere in which you will be.  

36:30 About items, how many pairs of shoes do you have? Well, approximately. [He used to have 9 in his office back when we could see it] 

Very-- Well, I don't know, I don't count them, I don't--- Well, enough. I'm a little scrupulous about these things.  

36:42 What do you think Nataliya Moseichuk wanted to say when she said that the SBU will knock on every door? 

She, in my opinion, absolutely has the right to say such things because she feels a great need to worry about her country. This is very important. And in this way, she says that everyone should realise what historical moment we are at, what is the price of this moment and that someone will not be able to hide behind someone else's back. Someone through fear-- Overcomes this fear, protects the country, protects the right to be themselves, and someone simply hides behind their fear.  

And accordingly, it is not that it is a threat, it is an attempt to reach people who do not want to realise the moment in which we find ourselves. And in my opinion, again, emotionally, this is correct. Perhaps logically you can use other words and so on, but emotionally I understand perfectly well, and I think that she has the right to speak quite harshly.  

37:48 Mykhailo, your favourite Ukrainian author? 

[Slight pause] Ukrainian? [Yurii] Andrukhovych.

And your favourite Western author? 

Oh, I have a lot of them. I periodically return to one or another genre literature, right now my favourite is Jean-Christophe Grangé. Well, practically his last novel that I came across, for me, is a little connected with psychiatry. "Le Passager" [2011], I recommend reading it. In principle, there are a lot of authors, I periodically resort to someone, for example, we are speaking about English-language--, the same Jo Nesbø, a very interesting author.  

And in principle, I emphasise once again, by the way, I recommend, you know, the most, if at all, the most favourite in general to which I periodically return, there are 2 of them, Richard Dawkins "Доказательства Бога" [perhaps he means "The God Delusion"], and the same, unfortunately already departed Stephen Hawking, and again, I recommend everyone to read " A Briefer History of Time", an amazing book that talks about who we are, where we are moving and everything that concerns such paradoxes as time, distance, very interesting things. So, there is no such concept as-- 

38:56 What are your favourite authors in Russian literature? Well, modern ones, for example? Pelevin, Sorokin, somebody else? 

[Vladimir] Sorokin of course, his entire cycle about the Sugar Kremlin where is the actual prediction of what we see today in Russia absolutely done. Amazingly, I like, of course, early Chkhartishvili [real name of Boris Akunin], well, Mr Akunin, right, I like it very much.

And I like Dmitry Glukhovsky who again today in my opinion, not only has the man written good fantasies, well, fantastic apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic novels, in my opinion, he very deeply accurately understands the core content of Russia and believes that this country, of course, today looks extremely ugly being a citizen of Russia.  

Also are interesting authors the same [Lyudmila] Ulitskaya, right, that is, as it were, the same [Dmitry] Bykov, by the way, there are his early novels there that are very interesting. Yes, there are enough authors. And by the way, all these authors are clearly disapproving of modern Russia.  

Foreign agents, yes.  

Yes, they are all foreign agents, disapprove Putin, they understand this worthlessness. They just correctly, uh, as highly intelligent people try not to talk about it. I can afford to give harsher assessments, due to the specialties defined there. They treat Putin like nothing, a worthless person who, unfortunately, has nullified the historical chances of the historical reputation, everything that concerns Russia. That is, this is the country of the dead today.  

40:35 When was the last time you were truly scared? 

Fear is an irrational feeling, in principle it also has useful functions and accordingly, periodically you need to be afraid not to lose the feeling of life and so on. But you need to be able to control your fears.  

40:54 For what does it makes sense to sacrifice your life? 

[Sighs] It's a complex question. There are many factors when it is not that it makes sense... When the need to sacrifice arises and many in this war showed this need, that is, they sacrificed their lives in order to have more time, well, so that their friends had more time or more opportunities and so on. It is not that for the sake of what, you don't ask such questions in a crisis at a key moment. 

It is a question of readiness for self-sacrifice, and I would say that Ukraine and as a country and many people who live in this country, the readiness for self-sacrifice is at an extremely high level. And this in principle, these 2, more than 2 years gives hope to Ukraine and accordingly, to other countries that it will be possible to get out of this war with a fair result.  

42:00 Well, in the end, maybe, what gives you the greatest pleasure in life? 

Well, everything. Everything that is a direct reflection of the essence of the human life. Book, good... good wine, good communication with friends, intellectual conversations, all this. We often forget that we live here and now and think that sometime somewhere we will get something and will be able to realise ourselves and so on. And people live their lives often without understanding that even just a short story we have read creates a feeling of richness in life. 

You need to take advantage of the moment and you need to do some things but the main thing here is not to forget that the things that you do should not be to the detriment of other people. That you need to understand that other people may look at life differently, that they may have subjective interpretations completely different from yours, and so on. But you can get pleasure from basic things, when your child looks at you well, well, with a smile. 

[panelki]

Bread Rolls and Dyson Hair Stylers: Russia Lures Voters With Election Day Freebies Local officials across Russia have been doubling down on efforts to encourage the public to vote in this weekend’s presidential election as the Kremlin seeks a historic turnout for President Vladimir Putin's expected re-election.  In addition to pressuring public sector workers and employees of state-linked companies into casting a ballot, officials are also trying to attract residents to polling stations by promising free lunches and concert tickets, as well as raffling off prizes ranging from bags of sugar to a new car.  Read more | Subscribe to our channel

[stargirldiarys]

Update: yesterday I burned 1000 calls at the gym. Super good. Today I came home and slept for 2.5 hours and had a nightmare so we can’t be doing that anymore that was my sign 🫠🫡

Anyways ate quite a bit:

Lunch : brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso 120

Snacks: krispy kremlin dpnut 260 (yikes I should’ve checked before eating it tbh bc I got a nifhtmare right after ward bahahahaha)

Marshmallow: 110

Chicken: 3000

Yogurt with chocolate pieces: 210

Anyways

Tar will be better bc I saw Megan fox pics

[lisboabeat]

#ThisWeek

05.12.22 COLLECT ANDRÉ CX

06.12.22 COLLECT BIN MEN

07.12.22 LUX FRÁGIL DISCO: DEXTER + Dr. RUBINSTEIN BAR: ZÉ PEDRO MOURA & INÊS DUARTE

07.12.22 LOUNGE A BOY NAMED SUE

07.12.22 COLLECT CAROLINE LETHÔ

07.12.22 5A CLUB TERZI + CONHECIDO JOÃO

07.12.22 ASSEMBLE MUSIC: ELEVEN YEARS -MINISTERIUM CLUB BENALES MODUS TAPE FUNK (ZÉ SALVADOR + SOLID FUNK

07.12.22 MUSICBOX 16 YEARS OLD, 16 YEARS YOUNG: HETTA + LEEXO + IOLANDA + COOKIE JANE HORÁRIO: 21:00 - ENTRADA LIVRE

Hetta não têm tempo a perder, por isso só pedem 13 minutos da nossa atenção. O EP de estreia do quarteto do Montijo, ‘Headlights’, é prova de resistência: é impossível ir de Sugar Glass a Prizefighter sem perder o fôlego a correr atrás da bateria nervosa, das guitarras afiadas, dos gritos fartos, do caos. No fim, agarrados aos joelhos, a tentar recuperar o ar, já não há volta a dar: queremos mais e mais, como se acabássemos presos no loop da última canção do EP - IWANTYOUIWANTYOUIWANTYOU. O futuro da screamo não podia estar em melhores mãos.

Leexo é uma mistura de auto-tune e computer music com pop emo reggaeton. Leexo Leesho, o seu primeiro EP, é um tratado emo sobre ser tóxica, negar-se à possibilidade de ser vegetariana e sobre o que todos queremos no fim de contas: não estar sozinhos.

Hashtag sad music IOLANDA Não sabemos se é o timbre singular, os vibratos hipnotizantes, o tom sedutor, se é a produção de R&B que é tanto moderna quanto tradicional, mas Iolanda acerta sempre à primeira. Vejamos: em Junho, entrega o coração numa bandeja e apresenta-se com Cura. Foi imediato – estávamos perante a canção do verão de 2022. Em setembro, dá-nos Lugar Certo, hino certeiro para um coração partido ou prestes a partir-se. A amostra podia não ser suficiente para tirar conclusões, mas as colaborações com AVALANCHE continuam a comprovar a tese de partida: Iolanda acerta sempre à primeira. Afinal ainda se encontram amores destes.

Cookie Jane está a impor uma nova escala. Sem pedir licença, a rapper da Linha de Sintra ganhou tração com Trudumtumtum, cartão de visita envolto em drill. A rima decidida não deixa margem para dúvidas: estamos perante realeza. A autointitulada da Rainha do Drill não está só a fazer caminho – está mesmo na frente da corrida.

16 YEARS OLD, 16 YEARS YOUNG: DEEKAPZ + TRAFULHA + LOVE IN THE ENDZ CLUBING -HORÁRIO: 00:00

DEEKAPZ Paulo e Matheus conheceram-se num b2b improvisado em 2014. O início desta história já diz tudo: desde o começo que é através da partilha dos decks que Deekpaz acontece. Começaram no trapfunk, mas rapidamente avançaram para a dianteira de uma nova sonoridade. Adicionaram mais groove, uns beats mais limpos e uma atmosfera mais clean e envolvente ao Baile, e chamaram-lhe Chill Baile. Ficou. O epíteto albergou a música de uma geração de produtores de SoundCloud contemporânea de Deekapz e levou-os do Brasil para o resto do mundo. Na pista, diz-se que enquanto Deekapz estão na cabine, ninguém arreda pé da pista. Diz-se que os seus sets são uma experiência única, que só estando lá. Pois bem.

Trafulha é uma artista luso-brasileira, de origem nortenha, porém reside em Lisboa atualmente. Começando o seu percurso enquanto beatmaker na sua adolescência, foi divulgando instrumentais soltos durante alguns anos no seu SoundCloud. Desde 2020 que publicou três projetos de maior duração, abraçando o boombap para sonoridades cinemáticas. Agora em 2022, começou a experimentar novos ritmos produzindo instrumentais e fazendo sets com inspirações de baile funk.

Daviaa e Blue Canariñho têm uma missão: dar a conhecer. Fazem-no através do seu programa de rádio e das festas que organizam mensalmente em Londres, através das compilações que editam e das estreias na pista de dança que possibilitam. Daviaa e Blue Canariñho são Love In Endz, uma dupla que surge pelo amor à música e vive pelo amor à música. Com eles, vem Loelash, saxofonista e pianista.

07.12.22 KREMLIN MANUEL POTES BIRTHDAY

Esta noite, cantamos os parabéns ao Manuel Potes! Os Alcântara Dancers e Dub Tiger são responsáveis pela animação, portanto, inibições e preconceitos devem ser abandonados à porta.

08.12.22 COLLECT KIERASTOBOY & GRISHAGREG

08.12.22 LOUNGE SALÓN FUZZ: BBB HAIRDRYER (LIVE) ALEX D´ALVA + MÁRIO VALENTE

08.12.22 MUSICBOX 16 YEARS OLD, 16 YEARS YOUNG: SOPA DE PEDRA HORÁRIO: 22:00

Não é preciso ir a Almeirim. Esta Sopa de Pedra é um exercício de investigação e arquivo de um grupo musical de 10 mulheres, em que a tese é exposta pela sua voz. O nosso legado tradicional tem um repertório imenso, que é aqui trazido para o nosso contexto actual. A lista é interminável: desde cânticos mirandeses de Trás-os-Montes, baladas açorianas, cantigas de adufeiras da Beira Baixa ao Cante alentejano; a repertório de Zeca Afonso, Amélia Muge, João Lóio, Almanaque e GAC. Em Junho deste ano lançaram o seu segundo álbum “Do claro ao Breu” que, com o poder da voz e pouco mais, tem demonstrado que as cores do passado também são aquarela do futuro.

16 YEARS OLD, 16 YEARS YOUNG: MEIBI + DIANA OLIVEIRA CLUBING - HORÁRIO: 00:00

A pulsação do 4 por 4 vive. A vingança do disco expandiu-se e originou um infinito número de variantes que contaminaram a música, a dança agora é outra. Nesta noite de aniversário celebraremos ao som de Meibi e Diana Oliveira, nomes familiares para qualquer habitué de festas underground que se desenvolveram até outro nível. A solidez leva os discos a voar até aos campos mais etéreos, sem nunca perder a ligação íntima com os seus públicos. Do Acid puro à pura melodia, dançaremos algures entre o quarto 303 e o quarto 909.

08.12.22 HARBOUR GEAR + PANDILHA HORÁRIO: 05:00 - 11:00

09.12.22 LOUNGE TROL 2000 + VAHAGN

09.12.22 COLLECT DOUBLE SOUND SHOWCASE

09.12.22 5A CLUB CRUZ

09.12.22 MUSICBOX 16 YEARS OLD, 16 YEARS YOUNG: CAPITÃO FAUSTO

Antes mesmo de "Gazela" já tinham tocado por aqui. A Chifre, editora que (infelizmente) já encerrou atividade, apresentou-se ao mundo aqui mesmo, na Musicbox. Foi por lá que saiu o primeiro trabalho de Capitão Fausto. A energética banda de Tomás, Salvador, Francisco, Manuel e Domingos já chamava a atenção dos mais atentos. Em 2011 tocaram na apresentação da Chifre e em 2012 abriram para os TV Rural. É em 2014, com o segundo álbum "Pesar o Sol" que encabeçam finalmente uma noite na nossa sala, numa sessão recheada de mosh e crowdsurfing.

O disco confirmou-os, e no ano seguinte marcaram o seu lugar no Natal da Musicbox com o Bailado Natalício, onde se ouviram algumas novas músicas de um disco novo. Esse disco mudou tudo. Nesse ano partilharam o nosso palco com José Cid, assinaram a Festa Moderna, também por cá, e lançaram o já clássico "Capitão Fausto Têm os Dias Contados".  Em 2017, tocaram por cá para o MIL, e a partir de 2018 décimos torná-los os anfitriões permanentes do nosso Natal.  Eles sempre foram da casa, desde o começo, é bom tê-los cá mais uma vez.

16 YEARS OLD, 16 YEARS YOUNG: KO SHIN MOON + CHIMA HIRO CLUBING - HORÁRIO: 00:00

É um encontro entre as mais profundas paisagens sonoras da Índia e o frio dos sintetizadores analógicos. Ecletismo, cosmopolitismo e hibridismo fundem-se para criar o som de Ko Shin Moon. Uma experiência transcendental até ao centro da pista de dança, onde a cítara torna-se elétrica, e tudo o resto parece possível. Uma noite de aniversário, e já são 16, em que estas paisagens são acompanhadas pela mestria de Chima Hiro, cinturão negro da Black Music, DJ dos DJs, e uma garantia vitalícia de uma noite perfeita.

09.12.22 LUX FRÁGIL DISCO: ALIÓS & SUBLIMINAR ASPEN COLLECTIVE VERA TWOFOLD & ANDRÉ CASCAIS BAR: MAFALDA MAIS + TIAGO

09.12.22 KREMLIN DAVEED - PLASTIKS HOSTED By DUB TIGER

Os convidados de Dub Tiger para esta noite, Daveed e Plastiks, são reconhecidos por sets criativos e arrojados. Para eles, tudo revolve à volta de designs sonoros coloridos e cativantes, e arranjos ousados; concebidos para o corpo e a mente.

10.12.22 LOUNGE TELMA

10.12.22 5A CLUB

JOHAN + SCOTT

10.12.22 16 YEARS OLD, 16 YEARS YOUNG: EXTRAZEN + IVAN$ITO HORÁRIO: 22:00

EXTRAZEN É difícil escapar à pop de quarto cruzada com R&B e trap de Extrazen. Por outras palavras: Extrazen é um mood. O produtor e compositor de Santo Tirso domina a mestria de fazer pop melosa e R&B gostosa. Em todos os momentos, a batida cai certeira, o baixo segue determinado e, sem dares por ela, estás a bater o pé e a abanar a cabeça. Não vale a pena mostrar resistência. Depois de uma mão cheia de singles lançados, entre eles CLEOPATRA e Pinewood St., em setembro Extrazen lançou I THINK I THINK TOO MUCH, o seu primeiro EP. A apresentação do trabalho em Lisboa é nos 16 anos do Musicbox.

Primeira parte: IVAN$ITOIVAN$ITO tem um antes e depois de Bad Bunny. Antes – filho de chilenos, cresceu na Dinamarca e foi na Escandinávia que começou corajosamente a fazer reggaeton, ainda nos idos de 2015. A adesão não foi muita, então abraçou as sonoridades mais pop e acústicas. Depois – ouve Soy Peor de Bad Bunny e compreende por fim tudo aquilo que pode ser, tudo aquilo que cabe no reggaeton. O tratado está assinado no seu primeiro álbum Everything is Reggaeton. Resumindo, estamos perante a nova estrela do reggaeton da Escandinávia.

16 YEARS OLD, 16 YEARS YOUNG: NOITE PRÍNCIPE CLUBING -HORÁRIO: 00:00

10.12.22 LUX FRÁGIL DISCO: MUNDO RITUAL TRIKK B2B SANDRINO BAR: LOURNCO LVGS + RUI VARGAS

10.12.22 KREMLIN NEVERDOGS

A música eletrónica é uma cultura que vai além do simples ‘ir curtir’. Os verdadeiros amantes da música vão ao clube não só para ouvir o artista que adoram e a sua incrível música, mas também para se encontrarem e partilharem momentos inesquecíveis. Estas são algumas das razões pelas quais este movimento é tão único.

[alyeen1]

Dirty & Sultry Valoris

It’s Cocktail Time!

@litttlesilkworm and I invented a cocktail each for our beloved Soviet couple for the New Year’s Challenge (thank you for putting the idea into our heads @elenatria 😘).

Valery and Boris brought us all so much joy, and they’ve been through so much - they deserve to have drinks named after their life-giving relationship 💖. And so does the wonderful Valoris Union! 😊💞

The recipes:

Dirty Valoris

(top right corner of moodboard)

Ingredients:

4 cl (1 oz) vodka

0,5 cl (1/8 oz) apple syrup (I used Monin’s granny smith apple)

2 cl (1/2 oz) lemon juice

6 cl (1 1/2 oz) Ginger Ale

Ice cubes

 How to prepare:

Shake vodka, apple syrup and lemon juice with ice cubes in shaker

Strain into martini or other glass of convenience

Add ginger ale, stir slowly once with a spoon

 

Sultry Valoris

(bottom left corner of moodboard)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 oz (45 mL) beet-infused vodka (I used Stolichnaya)

3/4 oz (25 mL) rosehip liquor (I used Koval)

2-3 splashes of lemon juice

Fresh ginger root

Ice cubes

Sugar 

How to prepare:

Shake the mix in a cocktail shaker with ice cubes and a few slices of fresh ginger root

Strain into a martini or a coupe glass with sugar rim

How to make beet-infused vodka (center pic of right column):

Scrub and peel 4 medium-sized beets

Chop beets into small chunks and put into two 0.5 L jars with tight-fitting lids

Add vodka (I used Stolichnaya), 375 mL per jar (one 750 mL bottle total), keep the empty bottle

Close tightly, shake well and keep the jars in a cool, dark place for 2 days, shaking occasionally

After two days, strain the infusion back into the vodka bottle, discard the beets. Store in the fridge.

Enjoy within two weeks 😊.

---

We used ingredients that are either seen in the show or have a direct link to Valoris, and tried to make two very different cocktails for any mood and situation 😍.

@litttlesilkworm ’s delicious sultry cocktail lets us savor the depth and sweetness of their secret passion,

while my dirty one lets us taste how fast they fell for each other and how raw the attraction between them is.

The vodka is without question (who's Valoris-loving heart doesn't jump over the moment when Boris wants to share a glass with Valery when the fire's been out), the rosehip liquor brings us back to the first time they meet in the Kremlin where the rose bouquet between them symbolizes their instant connection. Apples were one of the most common fruits in Soviet Union (imagine Boris biting into one vitally), and while we don’t see Valery eating, the dish untouched next to him on the desk in the trailer tells us he at least considered having some beets! Finally, ginger gives the drinks a unique beauty like Valery’s ginger hair adds to his own.

We hope you like our recipes! 😊 Enjoy! 💚💙

@elenatria @drunkardonjunkyard @attachedtofictionalpeople @shark-from-the-park @green-ann @stellan-pip-69 @johnlockismyreligion @art-is-a-malady @itisa-profoundbond-sarandom @thegreenmeridian @seaweednpeanuts @owlboxes @borislegasov @noirroseate @tanja2377 @the-jewish-marxist @kylos-scarf @kaiserrr19 @ignalina-c0re @lyonyaonthemoon @natasharedfox @starstarship @sunset-and-periwinkle @stellansuperstarlet @jurian-is-cinnamon-roll @arionvulgaris @rbmk-ana @bewareofdragon @viridianchronicle @cinemaocd @gwinny3k @yanafazi1908 @megaladyrocker @potter012 @and-i-coo @boisinberryjamarama @borisboyfriend @antonellachan4567 and everyone else who loves the Chernobyl-fandom and a drink 🍸😊.

[kendrene]

Even though she moves around the breakroom extra slow, arranging the plate of Danish butter cookies takes no more than a handful of minutes. Everything is double checked – Kara adds another spoonful of sugar to each cup, a splash of milk to mask the lack of caffeine. She glances at her watch again – two more minutes have gone by. Too few to make a difference in the war.

In the end there’s nothing left to it but grab the tray and soldier on – back to the frontlines.

The boardroom door is tightly shut – pointless since it’s Saturday morning and they’re the only people on this floor – but Kara doesn’t need it open to picture Andrea’s angry pacing. She can fucking hear it – the click, click, click of Andrea’s heels. Back and forth, back and forth.

Not a blood-soaked battlefield then. A zoo, with a tiger prowling on the loose.

As she puts one hand on the door handle, she begins to think that serving tea at the Kremlin might be an easier job. Perhaps she should inquire, see whether Putin or his latest puppet-in-chief are looking for a personal assistant. After all, thanks to Red Daughter’s memories, the language’s not a barrier.

What prompts her into motion is the sound of shattered glass. Loud and sudden; a gunshot followed by the hushed, fearful sort of silence that hangs over the crowd when it discovers that the tiger still knows how to use her claws.

Juggling the tray one handed, Kara sets all concerns about survival aside and pushes the door open. One step and she stops, not entirely equipped to make sense of what her eyes convey to her.

Andrea and Lena are staring at one another from opposite corners of the room. The soft light of the morning, which is only now shedding the last traces of dawn does nothing to gentle their sharp edges.

Taut backs, jaws clenched so hard Kara could hear their teeth pulverizing in real time, flashing eyes. All the works.

She observes them a little longer. It’s seconds on her watch, but she feels that time has stopped, and is waiting for her opening gambit.

The whole scene reminds Kara of the trip the three of them have taken to New York months ago. She’d been tasked to write a piece on the Jan Vermeer temporary exhibition at the Met, which Andrea and Lena had taken as the perfect opportunity for a last minute weekend getaway.

Watching them try to stare each other down, Kara thinks of the characters immortalized by the Dutch painter. Lena and Andrea look as deliberate, starkly cast in light. As though, right now, in this space and at this time there is no room for grey, but only black and white.

Neither Lena nor Andrea have noticed her, yet. She’s still in time to backtrack. She could close the door, walk back into the breakroom and brew herself a cup of actual coffee while she waits for the storm to pass.

Breaking their line of sight and setting the tray on the mahogany table feels entirely suicidal.

“About time.” Andrea snaps, glittering gaze shifting from Lena to her. “What took you so long?”

Tiger, Tiger - Andrea has a difficult day at work. Lena and Kara lend a hand (or two) - read now on Patreon

[enterprisemag]

Success of the Sanction Game

Ever since the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, Western sanctions against the country have failed to act as a successful deterrent. While sanctions by the United States, the European Union and the other allies have fallen short of preventing an invasion, they are definitely having an effect on both the Russian government and​​ the people. The primary concern for the Russian Federation is that these sanctions can cause financial mayhem as they target the central bank and may lead to the freezing of its $630bn of foreign-exchange reserves. The West’s deployment of this economic weapon will also be watched with slack-jawed shock in China, which has $3.4 trillion of reserves and which will now be rethinking how to resist Western Pressure in the event of war over Taiwan.

Up until now, Western sanctions have been long on macho rhetoric about crushing Russia but short on clout. For example, the penalties on oligarchs and their offshore wealth have led some tycoons to call for an end to the bloodshed, but not changed decision-making in the Kremlin. Meanwhile, limits on Western technology and industrial exports to Russia will take months or years to have an effect. 

But how do these sanctions affect the common man in Russia? For days now, there have been long lines outside ATMs around the country as people rush to withdraw cash, amid fears of a breakdown in electronic banking. The value of the ruble has plummeted to a record low, less than 1 cent, as many people watched their savings erode in Monday's free-fall of the Moscow stock exchange.The Russian Central Bank more than doubled its key interest rate to 20%, after the U.S. and allies froze much of its foreign reserves that would normally be used to prop up the ruble.The Kremlin has in turn banned all Russians from transfering foreign currency abroad and ordered exporters to exchange 80% of their foreign currency proceeds for rubles. 

Russian shoppers have turned to social media to note the increase for some products, particularly electronics and appliances. Uncertainty over future prices is prompting some people to stock up. "For the past few days, it's been like Christmas for us," one electronics-shop assistant told the Financial Times. "People are ready to buy things even [though] we have been raising prices every few hours based on the forex situation." Several of Russia's largest supermarket chains have agreed to limit price increases to no more than 5% for dairy and bakery goods, sugar, and some vegetables, according to the Russian state news agency TASS, citing federal antimonopoly authorities. Russians were already facing inflation on foodstuffs due to pandemic disruptions of the supply chain.

Tens of thousands of Russian tourists have been stranded abroad as almost all European countries and Canada have banned Russian flights from their airspace. Russian travel companies believe that close to 150,000 Russians may be outside the country, with at least 27,000 in areas directly affected by air travel bans. The U.S. has now imposed its own ban too. VISA and Mastercard have blocked the sanctioned Russian financial institutions from their payment networks. Russian authorities say existing payment cards remain operational inside the country but cannot be used on foreign websites, according to state-owned RIA Novosti news agency. 

Cars and auto parts makers have also pulled back from Russia, including Swedish-based Volvo, British Jaguar Land Rover, and American Ford.  Fashion retailer Asos has reportedly suspended sales in the country. International artists and cultural organisations have also composed their own restrictions. Disney, Warner Bros, and Paramount are pausing theatrical releases of new films in Russia. Musicians and groups including Franz Ferdinand, Nick Cave, and Green Day pulled out of upcoming concerts in the country. The Cannes Film Festival and Eurovision song contest both rejected the Russian delegation from performing this spring.

[stepanchenkoy]

Moscow Capital of Russia

Moscow, on the Moskva River in western Russia, is the nation’s cosmopolitan capital. In its historic core is the Kremlin, a complex that’s home to the president and tsarist treasures in the Armoury. Outside its walls is Red Square, Russia's symbolic center. It's home to Lenin’s Mausoleum, the State Historical Museum's comprehensive collection and St. Basil’s Cathedral, known for its colorful, onion-shaped domes.

Theatregoers have lots of opportunities to spend a wonderful evening in one of the Moscow theatres. Recently renovated Bolshoi Theatre offers world-famous opera and ballet performances. Malyi Theatre, Lenkom, Satirikon, Moscow Art Theatre have wonderful drama plays. You can enjoy one of the modern theatres, such as Practica Theatre, Theatre.doc or Gogol-center, with their contemporary performances.

In Moscow you can travel through ages just walking through the streets. Diversified architectural styles wait for you at every turn. To see the beauty of ancient Russian architecture, visit the Kremlin or Kolomenskoe Museum. These places keep the unique Russian style, original and exceptional. In Moscow you can travel through ages just walking through the streets. Diversified architectural styles wait for you at every turn. To see the beauty of ancient Russian architecture, visit the Kremlin or Kolomenskoe Museum. These places keep the unique Russian style, original and exceptional. The Moscow estates are good examples of the romantic flavor of the XVIII-XIX century’s architecture. The Home-museum of M. Gorky is situated in in a luxurious house built by F. Shechtel, well-known Russian architecture at beginning of the XX century. It is a fantastic example of Art-Nouveau style, one of the few saved places from that epoque, open to visitors. You can find constructivism in architecture, the most striking manifestation of Russian avant-garde, not far from the Arbat Street. The Soviet Empire style can be found on most of the Moscow central avenues and Tverskaya Street. The White Square Business District is a remarkable example of contemporary city building.

Moscow Food & Drink Guide: 10 Things to Try in Moscow, Russia

Pelmeni. Dumplings are popular throughout Eastern Europe, but what sets Russia's version apart is the semi-circular shape and thinness of the dough. ...

Borshch Moskovsky (Moscow style borscht) ...

Blini. ...

Ponchiki. ...

Kasha. ...

Shchi. ...

Pirozhki. ...

Pastila.

Kasha

This staple breakfast porridge is traditionally made of crumbly buckwheat that has been thickened with water or milk and seasoned with butter. It is often served with fried onions, or with sugar and milk.

Where to try: Coffee Piu (Chistoprudny Boulevard 9) is a cute little coffee shop, where kasha is a constant special.

Юрий Степанченко

[avengemebucky]

Acceptance

ACCEPTANCE // STEVE ROGERS X READER

for @redgillan‘s Steve Rogers’ 100th Birthday emotional writing challenge!

AN: I am so sorry but I got way too invested in this, any this may or may not be way over the max word count... i’m really sorry, but I think/hope the story makes up for it... I hope you enjoy this little fluff ball of a piece, I sure did! (not really edited yet!)

Warnings: Kissing, Sugar sweet fluff

WC: 2249

MASTERLIST

Steve didn’t enjoy filling out paperwork about missions and recons, but he made sure to never get behind in his work… meaning frequent opt-outs of fun activities like Friday movie nights or a boy’s night out to work instead. That’s why the mountains of paperwork now placed on his desk felt like a kick to the stomach. Storming out of his office towards Tony’s, he knocks before entering (though he’s angry, our man still has manners).

“What’s up, Capsicle?” Tony sat reclined in his office chair, feet on desk, staring out his floor-to-ceiling windows, doing nothing, as usual (much to Steve’s annoyance).

“Tony, what the heck is that pile of papers doing in my office? They can’t be mine… from the amount of papers I had to do last week, I shouldn’t have to see deskwork for a lifetime.”

“Sorry Cap… Barnes did some pretty heavy damage to the Kremlin during our last assignment… if you’re angry, bring it to him. He thought the best way to infiltrate was going through a century-old stained glass sky light.” Tony rubbed his forehead, feeling the impending headache coming just from recalling last week’s mission.

Steve sighs and nods. Typical. He was going to give Bucky a scolding about the importance and integrity of protecting historical landmarks the next time he sees him. He sits down in front of Tony, feeling the weight of work to be done gnaw at him. “Tony… I think I need a secretary, or someone to help me with all of this paperwork. I’m so tired... it’s exhausting working alone. I’ve missed three consecutive movie nights because of it, and I don’t want to miss another.”

A few beats pass before Tony nods in agreement. “Alright, Rogers… It’s your job to hire ‘em though.”

-

Steve never know that accepting your application as his aid would change so many aspects of his life. Sure, he knew that his workload would become much lighter with your help, but he expected your relationship to stop there. He never thought it would grow to so much more…

-

“Y/N… can you help me with my email… it’s so full of stuff that… it doesn’t make any sense.” 

Concerned, you look up from the half completed form towards Steve’s desk to find him frazzled by whatever was on his screen. It had been your third week working for Steve and you couldn’t have been happier for sending in an application. He was kind, fair and wasn’t afraid to ask for help when he needed it, making your job easier and more directed.

 You stands and makes your way towards him. “Sure, Steve! What seems to be the-” 

You interrupts yourself with a chuckle at the sight of Steve’s window. 35,678 unread emails, at least 75% being junk or spam mail advertising weird weight loss products or “investment opportunities”.  

“Steve- jesus, what did you do? Sign up for a Ponzi scheme?” You found the amount of mail he had accumulated quite amusing.

 “Well, I got an email one day from a foreign prince... he needed help, a contribution to a campaign to free him-” Steve looked so innocent trying to explain the situation.

 Silence lingers a while before you respond. “Steve, please tell me you didn’t give them money.” 

You sigh when Steve avoids your gaze.

 “He needed help, Y/N… how could I say no? Of course I did!” 

Refusing to accept that people can be conned online just like real life, you spent the next half hour trying to explain to Steve that there was no “prince that needed help” and that he had been scammed, leading to the thousand other emails that he had received because of his “donation to the cause”. The situation still to this day makes you chuckle; Captain America’s heart is too big and naive for justice. 

“I hate the internet…” Steve huffed as you began to create a new email account.

-

“Steve, you’re just going to have to accept the fact that I’m better than you at Mario Kart”, you said nonchalantly, throwing your controller on the couch after winning you 5th race against him. You and Steve had grown close from your constant working together, seeing your time shared begin to bleed into your personal lives. 

“No, no-hey! Don’t leave yet, we still have one more round of the cup!” trying to grab your wrist before you were out of reach. Unfortunately for Steve, you had dodged his attempt and headed into the kitchen. Bringing back a few sodas and snacks, Steve smiles at your care to bring his favorite (and secret) peanut M&M’s as well as the snack of your choice.

He had let you in on his secret stash of goodies when the paperwork had become especially tedious and kindly shared access to his treats whenever you needed a pick-me-up. When Bucky had seen you sneaking out a Milky Bar one day, he ran to Steve to inform him of the so-called “breach”. Steve brushed it off, saying he let you in on his stash. He would never forget the way Bucky’s jaw dropped.

“Are you serious? You never even told me about your stupid chocolate! The only way I found out was following you around a whole day after seeing you holding a Snickers wrapper” Steve wasn’t ever able to respond to Bucky, even he didn’t know how you had become such a normality in his life. He shrugged at Bucky, continuing to do paperwork, making Bucky stomp off like he usually did.

The sounds of a race starting jumped Steve out of his trance, making him scramble for his controller. “H-hey I wasn’t ready, not fair!” You laughed not even sparing him a glance away from the screen. “Not my fault!” Steve ended up losing the last race of the cup, making Y/N the victor again, for what felt like the hundredth time. You smile beamed as you did a little dance around the living room, basking in your triumph. Steve sat quietly on the couch, taking in your silly shenanigans with a warm smile. If he got to see you like this every time he lost, he could easily accept Mario Kart defeat for the rest of his life.

-

Tony’s call had startled Steve, he had almost dozed off like you had while pulling an all nighter in attempts to get paperwork in on time... though he hadn’t been doing much since you fell asleep. His stolen glances to you occupied most of his time, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of your breaths calming him like no other. 

“Hey Tony, what’s up?” his voice raspy from lack of use.

“I’ve got some good news, Cap! We’re going electronic!” Tony sounded much more excited than Steve could understand.

“Going electronic? What does that mean?”

“That means no more paperwork, pal! I knew that you would want to be the first to hear! Aren’t you siked?”

He wasn’t, not even in the slightest. Though absence of the dreaded filing and writing was going to be refreshing, all Steve could think of what was going to happen to you. His aid to help him complete all the useless crap to wrap a mission, his tech guru (you would always refute him on this), his racing opponent. His best girl.

Tony awkwardly replied to the silence “Uh, you okay Cap? Did the excitement kill you?”

Steve let out a heavy sigh, not playing along with Tony. “No… Tony, what’s going to happen with Y/N?”

“Well… we won’t need her anymore-”

“I need her, Tony”.

Silence laid on the line at Steve’s confession. “She can’t just leave, Tony! We have to find something for her here, she belongs here, I won’t accept this!” Steve’s voice was slowly raising as he became more and more invested in his conversation with Tony, conversing with himself more than he was with Tony. “Tony, if she leaves… I-I don’t know what I’d do with myself. I’d be missing a piece. I need more ti-”

“Steve?”

Steve’s blood ran cold as he turned to your now awake form across from him, looking up confused. “Tony, I gotta go.” “Steve, hold on jus-”

Steve hung up on Tony and looked down on his desk, not ready to meet your eyes. Silent was Steve’s office as you tried to read Steve to the best of his ability. You were always able to read him, knowing when he needed a break, a joke to break the monotony or just some m&m’s to brighten up his day. You had never seen him like this.

“Steve, what’s wrong?”

The storm was evident in his eyes as they finally met yours; clear was the conflict that now raged in that beautiful mind of his. “Y/N… I… I don’t know how longer you’re going to be able to work here. Tony-Tony he made this software and now we won’t have to do paperwork… If I don’t have paperwork, then… then I don’t have you, Y/N.”

Steve had never hated silence more than he did now, having to bear the quiet as you took in every word he had said to you. His heart broke as you began to collect your coat and belongings around his office.

“Y/N, please wait…” Steve silenced when he saw you turn back to him. Slowly you raised your hand to his cheek, letting your thumb run over his strong cheekbones. “Don’t worry about it Steve. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Walking towards the door, Steve rushed after you, refusing to accept your leaving if you hadn’t understood him. “No, Y/N, you don’t understand…”

You had already walked out as he followed, feet planting outside of his office as he sees your lack of pause to Steve’s pleading. “There’s nothing left for us to do now!” He shouted down the hallway. Your attitude confused Steve, quickly turning to walk backwards to throw him a chirpy

“Go to sleep, Rogers! We’ve got a lot of paperwork to do tomorrow!”

Accepting that this might be the last time he will see you, he makes it to the elevator before it closes and kisses you with such force, that you both are pushed into the elevator’s wall. First shocked at the surprise of Steve’s attack, your eyes slowly close in bliss, smiling into the kiss. Steve is about to slip his tongue into your mouth before you push him back slightly to chuckle at his flushed appearance.

“Go to bed, Rogers.” 

Y/N walks out of the elevators, leaving Steve smiling dopily as the elevators close on him, returning him back up to his office floor. Though he doesn’t know what she has up her sleeves, he knows that after that kiss, Y/N won’t leave him. 

She’s accepted him into her life just as much as he had to her.

-

Heavy knocks echo Steve’s room, waking him from his slumber. Deciding to sleep in, Steve felt no rush to get up, knowing that no work was to be done because of Tony’s new software. Getting up, letting the covers fall behind him, Steve opened his door to find a fuming Tony.

“Was this your funny joke? Because NO ONES LAUGHING. You know how much money this took? This was supposed to help you, you idiot! How stupid could you be?”

Firstly confused, Steve quickly finds Tony’s source of anger; in Tony’s peeved grasp was the chip programmed with his new software, now completely destroyed from what seemed to be melted chocolate. Tony’s rampage was quieted in Steve’s mind as he simply connected the dots. Steve chuckled, instantly knowing who the culprit was. 

“I’m sorry, Tony, I’m sure you can fix it…” 

“Well unfortunately, I can’t son, and thanks to your stunt, you’ve punished yourself with even more paperwork… so…. suck on that.” 

Tony stormed off, still mumbling about how stupid Steve was.

Quickly returning to his room to change out of his pajamas, Steve quite literally ran to his office to see if his suspicion was true. As suspected, he saw you and about a hundred or so candy wrappers waiting for him on his desk.

“Sorry Steve, but I had sort of a hankering today…” you joked as he scooped you into his arms in relief, knowing you weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Reluctantly easing his grip on you, he found you shining, smile and eyes beaming up at him.

“You better not let Tony find out that was you, doll… I don’t know what he would do” Steve smirked down at you.

“I’ll accept the punishment as long as I get to be with you.”

Steve couldn’t contain himself as he scooped you into his arms once again, spinning you and him around his tiny little office. Both of your laughter filled the air, happiness almost being tangible in the atmosphere of the room.

Steve, in that moment knew that he was yours, you were his and neither of you would accept anything else. Letting you down, you rubbed out the wrinkles that had resulted from your embrace out of your pencil skirt.

Tucking a piece of hair behind your ear, you went to your respected table and sat, before turning to Steve, seeing he hadn’t moved an inch.

“Ready for paperwork?” You asked up at him, quizzically.

Steve smiles warmly before going behind his desk, getting out the work they hadn’t completed from the night before.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

-

-

THATS IT! AGH! My longest fic yet, hope you all liked it! Requests are open like always! 

-j

[kaibutsushidousha]

Artbook data - Kokichi Ouma

Chapter 5 spoilers but frustratingly no chapter 6 spoilers.

Seiyuu’s comment: Hiro Shimono

As Ouma is an emotional rollercoaster of a character, he was very fun-yet-difficult to play. The impression I got from him is that he is really meek if you take away his strong wish to outwit everyone. At first I was worried he was going to be hated because he is the guy says the things no one wants to say, but I’m very happy to hear so many people find him interesting exactly because of that. Please keep a close eye on him!

Kodaka’s comment: The always sensational liar character

His name was made combining the grandious, big-sounding, mastermindish family name “Ouma”(king horse) with the very small-sounding given name “Kokichi”(small luck). His characterization was focused on duality and the name reflects that nature. The keyword on his initial design was simply “shota”, so we made him look like a cute and personable boy. However, we also wanted him to feel creepy, so we made his uniform as white as we could and gave his hair and scarf colors that contrast with this white. We thought of making him as aliar to add to the story’s main theme of lies and, speaking in Mafia terms, the double-agent role. And becaus of this, making him into a trickster stirring up the Trials was indispensable. Looking from this perspective, he would feel more in place as a Super High School Level Liar than a Supreme Leader. As he is the character who personifies this game’s central themes, I put more thought into him than into everyone else.

Besides, his design was popular when first revealed and he got a fanbase fitting of his part after the game was released. I have to thank Komatsuzaki, Ouma’s craziest sprites were completely his idea. “Crazy” is a word with lots of meanings, but Ouma’s case is completely different from Genocider Shou, Junko Enoshima or Nagito Komaeda. You could say his case is more of a line of thought taken to it’s logical conclusion. They’re not overdramatic expressions, they’re instead phisically impossible, or should I say, otherworldly expressions. I think their creepiness express his true nature to some extent. I had my second guesses about them as they are a little overblown and I thought this would be too much but I ultimately decided to keep them.

So far, the DanganRonpa series never had a character who just simply enjoyed the Trials, even if that was just a lie. That’s why we decided that for his final moments, we would have him naming himself as the ringleader and battle against the real ringleader. I managed to make chapter 5′s plot a seesaw back and forth of truths and lies, so I like it quite a lot. He’s not the kind of guy I would want to met in real life though.

Design notes:

Hairstyle: Moderately long black hair flowing to all directions, with the tips moving up and down. A hairstyle resulting of him playing with his hair. He seems not to care about his hair, but Ouma sometimes makes use of the shadows his bangs form to make himself look evil...

Scarf: Black and white spaces alternating exactly like a chessboard. The way its tones also contribute to his clown imagery make it a perfect fit for the incorrigible Ouma.

Buttons: Buttons, all of different colors. There a couple more hidden behind his scarf and it seems hard to close them all.

Ripped uniform: His eye-catching white uniform is in a misterious state, with the hem ripped and big parts of it are fixed with metal clips. The collar part is also completely gone. Is that the decadent fashion style of the evil supreme leaders?

Underwear: Ouma’s favorite pop underwear. He hides his playful heart and true fashion sense in a place no one can see. So vibrant colors hidden inside the black-and-white uniform.

Punk-style pants: An essential piece of punk fashion with bondage belts tied to both legs... Or so it seems, but that’s a lie, they are actually just fake belts sewed to thicker part of the thighs. It’s all about feeling fake here. Nishishi.

Slip-on shoes: Two-colored black and purple shoes that mixed simplicity with an expressive sense of fashion. Wearing 9/10 lenght pants and no socks is trending nowadays, you see. And of course, those shoes are very well polished by Toujou!

Favorite presents:

Electempest: A pop electro-water gun capable of continuously shooting water up to 10 meters for one entire minute. Undoubtly exciting for both grown adults or evil supreme leaders.

Hammock: Everyone’s favorite sleeping tool, the braided thing you hang between trees or pillars, famous for its relaxability. This should be able make Ouma feel like a child again and enjoy himself.

Hated present:

Oil for Robots: Oil used for robot construction, not maintenance. If he ever feels like doing Ki-bo the kind favor of helping his maintenance, it would be a problem to let him have that.

Key phrases:

The Supreme Leader Covered in Lies: As the supreme of an evil secret society that claims to have over 10 thousand members, Ouma was chosen as a Super High School Level talented student. Not unlike his claim of being evil, his speeches and action are always teasing and scaring his friends, plunging them in fear whenever they are feeling too confortable and overall messing around with them. Only someone as plastered in lies as Ouma could look at this killing game enforced by Monokuma with cruel rules like “only someone who commits a perfect crime can graduate” and call it “not boring”. He is heavily burdened with his suppposedly enormous organization that controls the mafia, politicians, businessmen and has underlings in the White House, the Kremlin, Wall Street, City of London and even Kabuto-chou. Does it make sense that he can laugh even when his is life is being threatened?!

Games Should Only Be Played on Hard Mode!?: Using the “Run” command is forbidden and “Continue”s even more. He wants his enemies to be as strong as they can and figure his way out solid lockdowns. Ouma talks about real through references to the videogames he’s been playing his whole life. He came up an original theory that enjoying the extreme thrill of cornering yourself with all exits sealed is the definition of fun. He thinks of even the killing game he has been forced into as life-threatening entertainment. That’s exactly why everyone assumes his line of thought is not just abiding by the told rules, but taking the most enjoyable outcome of outwiting both his friends and Monokuma alike... The nerves of steel necessary to constantly dismiss the abnormal situation with the simple catchphrase “It’s less boring this way” are what you need to play life on Hard Mode!

Lockpicking Victims: One of the few(?) non-lies that come out of Ouma’s mouth: his “evil supreme leader-ish” ability to pick locks. When his friends watch over his actions under the lens of suspicion, he proves the truth by picking a cilinder lock right in front of them. We know it’s an useful skill to have and not something a regular high-school student wouldn’t need, but don’t you think that suits a small-time criminal better than an evil supreme leader?! 

Main Quotes:

“Half of my lies are made out of kindness": The truth will not always spare all living beings from suffering. If you say some people were saved by lies, many will agree. But why does this sound so fishy when its by our matchless liar Ouma?! To completely decieve a person with sugar-coated words and short-lived joy is the truest form of terror... After pulling off many overblown lies just to tease, he’s gotta have a lot of nerve to go around saying half of them are kind!?

“Lies have infinite possibilities, you know?“: Ouma’s Trial method involves frequently toying with his friends with lies and driving the accused into dangerous corners. However, unlike the only one cruel truth, lies have infinite possibility, even ones that can save people. Ouma is an expert on this subject. Despite all his friends claiming that lying for no reason when their lifes are on the line is begging to be killed, some who enjoys the risk wouldn’t pull any punches. Is he serious about this? Is it bluff? The Super High School Level Supreme Leader cares not for such questions.

“Common sense, le sens commun, sentido comun, huh... I wonder who decides what gets to be common sense?“: Starting from the way he calls himself the supreme leader of an evil organization, Ouma is quite scenical when talking about his past deeds and crime plans. His stories are so away from common sense that even Akamatsu, the character defined by wanting to believe in everyone, is always taking him with a grain of salt. “I wonder if what you consider ‘right’ on your definition of ‘common sense’ is the same everyone else considers ‘right’?“, he says. Sounds legit but not when Ouma is the one saying it!? Akamatsu’s lack of patience for his drivel is so relatable.

Final comment: Lying is like breathing to Ouma and that makes him an extreme entertainer who pours all his energy into stirring up his friends. He is giving his all so that no day is ever boring!

[reuelek]

Kremlin Warns In opposition to Panic Shopping for as Meals Costs Rise Quick

Kremlin Warns In opposition to Panic Shopping for as Meals Costs Rise Quick

The Kremlin has instructed Russians to not panic purchase staple items corresponding to sugar and buckwheat as costs rise at a file price and shortages have been reported throughout the nation. “Russians have completely no have to run to the retailers and buy-up buckwheat, sugar and bathroom paper,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov instructed reporters Friday, when requested about stories of panic…