Evening Medusa

How the Liberal Democratic Party lost, and the Communist Party acquired the regions of the Far East. Why we no longer resent offshore empires. And why Saakashvili returned to Georgia

Good evening,

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This is Meduza's daily newsletter about the main news of the day. And we decided to start with news that could not be better: a juggler from Australia put on a performance for quokkas, and they could not take their eyes off him and even tried to repeat his movements. Just look at it!

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Pulse

The main thing for the day - point by point

• The head of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Saratov region, Alexei Fedotov, resigned after the publication of a video of prisoners being raped in a prison hospital. The Office of the Investigative Committee for the Saratov region is investigating a total of seven criminal cases of abuse of prisoners. Earlier, the Gulagu.net project received and published on its YouTube channel a “secret archive” with records of torture in Russian colonies.
• has been detained The former deputy head of the Ministry of Education Marina Rakova, suspected of fraud, was also arrested . Her common-law husband, Artur Stetsenko, . According to investigators, his wife fictitiously got him a job.
• Shoigu punished the military who organized the guard of honor at the wedding of Prince Georgy Romanov in St. Petersburg.
• The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Benjamin List and David Macmillan "for their development of asymmetric organocatalysis".
• The human rights organization "Soldiers' Mothers of St. Petersburg" announced the suspension of activities in the field of assistance to military personnel.
• A court in Moscow ordered The Insider* founder Roman Dobrokhotov to pay 156,000 rubles at the claim of a blogger from the Netherlands.
• in Russia over the past day According to the operational headquarters, 929 people with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 died . For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 900 deaths from covid have been recorded in a day.

* Declared a "foreign agent" in Russia (like many other organizations and people). We indicate this at the request of the authorities.

Texts of the day

How the Liberal Democratic Party lost, and the Communist Party acquired the regions of the Far East. Report by Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev from Vladivostok

The Far East has traditionally been considered the political fiefdom of the Liberal Democratic Party: in the elections to the State Duma in 2016, this party was the second after United Russia in almost all regions of the Far Eastern Federal District. But in 2021, the Liberal Democratic Party lost its status as the main opposition force in the Far East: its results fell two, and in some places three times. This year, the communists became the voices of protest in the Far East: if in the elections to the State Duma in 2016 they received 7-18% depending on the region, now they have gained from 12% to 35%. "United Russia" continues to occupy, albeit shaken, but the first places in the regions of the Far East, but the communists are sure that people supported them not only because of the "protest agenda", but also for ideological reasons - and intend to develop success.

Ideas editor Maxim Trudolyubov is trying to understand why secret offshore empires (as well as torture in prisons and electoral fraud) no longer revolt us.

Given the vast amount of data available, another story about the offshore accounts of the international elite ( The Pandora Papers ) or new data on torture and violence in Russian colonies could deafen and outrage the public. But nothing like that happens. Despite the scale of leaks, leaks and the efforts of analysts, there is no discovery in the new documents. There is a lot of new data, but there is no fundamentally new knowledge. Maxim Trudolyubov believes that the problem is in the collective "attention deficit".

It looks like a substance has finally been found that can fight coronavirus

In the past few days, the world, tired of the news about the pandemic, has again started talking about this topic with a certain amount of optimism: it seems that there has been a noticeable progress in the development of drugs for coronavirus infection. The substance, which was named after the hammer of the German-Scandinavian god Thor, molnupiravir (from "Mjolnir"), has the ability to introduce mutations into a multiplying virus and thereby stop its life cycle. According to clinical trials, this oral medicine reduces the risk of hospitalization in sick people by almost half.

Podcast "What Happened"

Saakashvili returned to Georgia, where his opponents now rule, and ended up behind bars. Is this a miscalculation or some kind of trick? Seems like a trick

Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili returned to the country to help his United National Movement party. It was before the municipal elections in the country. He entered Georgia for the first time in eight years. Saakashvili was detained at his party's office in Tbilisi and taken to a prison in the nearby city of Rustavi. The Georgian authorities initiated a criminal case against the politician for illegally crossing the border, in two more criminal cases (murder and beating), he has already been convicted by a Georgian court in absentia.

Why did Mikheil Saakashvili decide to return to Georgia eight years after his departure? Did the former president hope that the elections would lead to a political crisis in the country, which he could use? How can his conclusion affect the political situation in Georgia?

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

Home Netflix sensation

Yes, we are talking about "The Squid Game"! There is nothing new in it. Why did it become a hit in 90 countries?

The South Korean TV series The Squid Game has become another Netflix sensation: the bloody drama topped the streaming charts in 90 countries (including Russia) in just half a month. CNN journalist Brian Lowry joked that trying to explain the show's success has itself become a game in which it is impossible to give a correct answer. Film critic Yegor Moskvitin also decided to play it .

We wish all readers to find someone who will look at you the same way as a quokka looks at a juggler. Your Medusa