Evening Medusa

“Vkusville” removed an advertisement featuring a lesbian couple. Film director Vladimir Menshov has died. Jeff Bezos is no longer CEO of Amazon

Good evening,

This is Meduza's daily newsletter about the important news of the day. And on Mondays we also talk about what happened over the weekend. Let's start with the most discussed topic of today: the Vkusville supermarket chain first published and then deleted, accompanied by an apology , an advertising article and an Instagram post, one of the heroines of which was a lesbian couple. On social networks, Vkusville began to be actively criticized for cowardice, hypocrisy and a “disgrace”; some called for a boycott of the company and to stop going to its stores.

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Pulse

The main thing is point by point

• Film director Vladimir Menshov has died .
• Moet Hennessy will suspend supplies of champagne to Russia. Because of the requirement to call it "sparkling wine". “If you don’t want it, don’t bring it,” said the Union of Winemakers of Russia .
• Jeff Bezos is no longer CEO of Amazon . On the 27th anniversary of the company's founding.
• Yabloko agreed to nominate the former head of Open Russia, Andrei Pivovarov, for elections to the State Duma.
• The New People party nominated the former captain of the KVN team “RUDN National Team” Sangadzhi Tarbaev to the State Duma.
• The son of a Krasnoyarsk deputy was sentenced to 14 and a half years for the murder of an acquaintance, which he filmed .
• A gay pride parade was disrupted in Tbilisi. Opponents of the LGBT community burned rainbow flags and attacked journalists.
• Putin promised help to Tajikistan in connection with the aggravation on the Afghan border.The Taliban, who went on the offensive after the withdrawal of US troops, are approaching it .

Texts of the day

Report from Meduza special correspondent Svetlana Reiter from the Krylatskoye Ice Palace, which was converted into a Covid hospital

There are bunks installed right in the arena and in the stands. The hospital in the ice palace was opened in May 2020 - but then the first wave of Covid subsided, it was of no use. It was relaunched in October and has been running continuously since then. The strongest increase in the number of patients began in June 2021, and in the middle of the month there was a time when there were only 150 free beds out of 1,347 in the entire hospital.

“Everything somehow became faster because of the new strain - there are many patients, the disease is more severe,” says Oleg Polozkov, head of the hospital’s admissions department .

Vladimir Menshov died. Anton Dolin recalls his films that received unconditional love from the audience

Director Vladimir Menshov died at the age of 81 from the consequences of coronavirus infection. Menshov made several truly folk films: “Love and Doves” (1984), “Shirley Myrli” (1995), “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears” (1979) - the latter received an Oscar in 1981 as the best foreign film language. In 2003, the director became a member of United Russia, and in 2018 - a confidant of Vladimir Putin in the presidential elections. Meduza film critic Anton Dolin remembers Vladimir Menshov and his films .

Some people transition, then change their minds and detransition. What it is? And is it harmful?

Some people who transition decide to transition back. The reverse process of a previous transgender transition is called detransition. There is also double detransition, which is also referred to as “multitransition”. These are several transgender transitions.

People who are close to this topic, and people who hear about it for the first time, often have many questions about how doctors could allow this to happen - and what the risks are for human health. We decided to talk about this in more detail.

On July 4, 2021, Anton Nosik would have turned 55 years old. We are publishing a fragment of a book by Michael Wiesel about the man who created the Russian Internet

In the winter of 2021-2022, the Elena Shubina Editorial Office of the AST publishing house is preparing to release a book by the first editor of the Lenta.ru culture department, Mikhail Vizel, Anton Nosik as a Mirror of the Russian Internet. Its author, based on documents, interviews with participants in the events described and his own memories, reconstructs the biography of one of the main heroes of the Russian Internet - and the most extraordinary person from the period of its formation. Meduza is publishing a fragment of this book dedicated to 1999, the time of the emergence of Russian Internet journalism.

Coronavirus

In Cuba, hundreds of Russian tourists were isolated in a week

Tests done on the island revealed they had Covid. But tests done in Russia are not.

Among passengers on the June 30 flight, the tests that the Russians took at the airport after arrival showed a positive result in 133 people (according to the results of a re-test, COVID-19 was confirmed in 33 people). About 130 more people were isolated in hotels in the following days. Among those who arrived on the island before June 29, 14 Russians ended up in hotels with confirmed coronavirus. Another Russian citizen was hospitalized in Havana due to complications related to COVID-19.

Other news about coronavirus:

• In Moscow, six people were detained who were planning to hold a rally against mandatory vaccination .
• During the day from July 3 to July 4 , more than 25 thousand new cases of coronavirus were identified in Russia - for the first time since the beginning of January.
• Sobyanin promised a partial tax refund to 100 companies that are the first to vaccinate 60% of their employees against coronavirus .
• The pace of vaccination against coronavirus in large companies has outpaced the national average .
• Russia bought 160 thousand doses of the Sputnik V vaccine from Slovakia . The country abandoned its use due to low demand.

Podcast “What Happened”

Putin signed a new national security strategy that lists the West as one of the main threats. What should Russia really be afraid of?

On July 3, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree approving a new National Security Strategy. According to the new strategy, Russia will fight against people who spread the cultural and ethical influence of the West. Scientists are offered to work in collaboration with the defense complex, and foreign specialists will be monitored by security forces. In the new episode of the podcast “What Happened,” we talk with political scientist Pavel Luzin about how this strategy differs from previous ones, whether the screws will now be tightened even tighter, and what threats to Russia really exist.

Listen to “What Happened” on Meduza and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Yandex.Music and other podcast services.

Zuckerberg of the day

Mark Zuckerberg decided to celebrate Independence Day like an ordinary American: he went surfing with a flag in his hands. The Internet is again doubting whether he is human.

On July 4, the United States celebrated its main national holiday - Independence Day. And the head of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, seems to have decided to take the holiday to a new level: he picked up the flag 🇺🇸, stood on his favorite electric surf 🏄‍♂️ and skated to the song “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by folk singer John Denver 🎸

In general, something incredible turned out - and, as Zuckerberg himself seemed to think, as patriotic as possible. But people on the Internet perceived the video as good material for the production of memes... In short, watch for yourself !

We hope that someday Zuckerberg will truly become an ordinary American, and Russia will become a country without hatred. Your "Medusa"