The Real Russia. Today.
Culture Minister Medinsky's revenge, a lawmaker can't get his video game crafts straight, and Russia unveils its quantum encryption telephone
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
This day in history: 29 years ago, on May 29, 1990, Boris Yeltsin was elected the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The Supreme Soviet (now of the Russian Federation) was abolished in October 1993 (after Russia's violent constitutional crisis) and replaced by the Federal Assembly.
- Russian scholars who pointed out major flaws in the Culture Minister's doctoral dissertation have been dropped from government posts
- A Russian deputy wants to ban ‘Minecraft’ for its violent influence on teens. He may have confused it with ‘World of Warcraft.’
- Khabarovsk governor says deadly fire aboard emergency landed SSJ100 in Moscow was caused by pilot error, but Aeroflot says baloney
- Following spike in tensions, Kosovo prosecutors request that Russian UN employee's diplomatic immunity be removed to allow criminal charges
- Russian developers present 30 million-ruble telephone with quantum encryption technology
- Russian National Guard spokesperson says actions of troops who injured 30 at hip-hop festival were ‘appropriate’
Nobody messes with the Medinsky 🎓
Russian academic institutions may attract less attention in the news media than their political counterparts, but they have seen their share of controversy in recent years nonetheless. Some of that controversy has stemmed from the fact that Russian political figures often turn to academia for cultural validation. In 2011, for example, Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky received the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences, one step higher than the equivalent of an American Ph.D. After a group of scholars pointed out a mass of basic factual and analytical errors in Medinsky’s dissertation, his work was officially reviewed. The Higher Attestation Commission, a government body that curates dissertation committees and rates already defended dissertations, voted to uphold the minister’s degree in October of 2017.
Read Meduza's report: “Russian scholars who pointed out major flaws in the Culture Minister's doctoral dissertation have been dropped from government posts”
Video game crafts are ruining the youth, gosh darnit 🎮
Vladimir Reinhardt, a deputy in the Krasnoyarsk Krai Legislative Assembly, stated on May 23 that the popular construction video game Minecraft should be banned. Reinhardt, who represents the ruling United Russia party, spoke out against the game just before the deputies were scheduled to hear a speech from the region’s lead children’s rights official, Irina Miroshnikova.
Meanwhile, Krasnoyarsky Krai Legislative Assembly Press Secretary Vladimir Koretsky claimed that Reinhardt had hoped to ban the Warcraft series, not Minecraft. Reinhardt’s aide was unable to comment on that possibility, and the deputy himself has not yet clarified which game he had in mind. Unlike Minecraft, however, the Warcraft games are not available on mobile phones.
Read Meduza's report: “A Russian deputy wants to ban ‘Minecraft’ for its violent influence on teens. He may have confused it with ‘World of Warcraft.’”
News briefs
- 👨✈️ Khabarovsk Governor Sergey Furgal announced on Wednesday that the deadly fire aboard an Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet 100 on May 5 at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport was the result of pilot error. “We’ve received the official findings that the aircraft was technically in perfect condition… The commission’s official conclusion is that the plane was technically fully operational. It was 100 percent human error,” the governor said in an interview with the TV station Guberniya. Read about the war of words here.
- 🇺🇳 Kosovo’s federal prosecutor's office has requested that the United Nations revoke the diplomatic immunity of Mikhail Krasnoshchekov, an employee of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo. Krasnoshchekov was arrested during a May 28 special operation on the part of Kosovo’s military that targeted predominantly Serb-inhabited regions and therefore led to a sudden rise in tensions between Kosovo and Serbia. Read about the diplomatic scandal here.
- 🔒 The Russian technology company Infotex and the Center for Quantum Technologies at Moscow State University have announced the development of the ViPNet QSS Phone, Russia’s first telephone to feature quantum encryption technology. Take the leap into this new tech here.
- 👮 Russian National Guard representative Valery Gribakin said the actions of National Guard police officers at Moscow’s Hip-Hop Mayday festival were “appropriate to the situation.” After a small number of audience members threw tiling at National Guard troops to protest crowd control efforts, the officers began beating those around them at random, injuring 30. Read more about appropriate beat-downs here.
Yours, Meduza