Russian National Parks

So when I first began to research this topic, my hypothesis was that I would not find any national parks in Russia. Some of what we’ve studied would support this theory. Russia does not have a brilliant track record for environmental care, with disasters like the Chernobyl of the Soviet Union still fresh in our minds, it may come as a surprise to note that Russia has not only national parks, but the best protected parks in the world. Check it out.

Few people realize that Russia has one of the world's premier systems of protected areas, which preserves millions of acres of wild landscapes - important habitat for a vast number of plants and animals. Wild Russia is an international effort to document images of the wild nature harbored in Russia's system of strict nature reserves and national parks. Through the Wild Russia project, we aim to promote worldwide appreciation for Russia's vast network of protected areas and to increase understanding of the opportunities these areas offer for conserving the planet's biodiversity.

Many of Russia's wild lands form part of a network of strictly protected scientific nature reserves called Zapovedniks (Zap-o-VED-nik), the highest category of nature conservation in the world (IUCN category I). The first Zapovednik, Barguzinsky, was created in 1916 on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal. Now, 101 Zapovedniks, covering more than 33.5 million hectares (82.7 million acres), protect diverse wilderness areas across the country. From the tundra in the far north to the steppe (prairies) in the south, from the Black Sea to the Bering Sea, these Zapovedniks cover a tremendous diversity of territory and play a critical role in nature conservation.

Check the link!

http://www.wild-russia.org/

One More Thing To Make Barrett Sad About Russia

So Russian motorcycle sports are struggling to gain popularity. This article explains, but I don’t think it is that hard to imagine. For starters, racers in Russia don’t get paid. They either find sponsors, or pay for things themselves. This is massively expensive. Compare this to the nearly idolized positions of racers in places like Italy for instance, and you’ll understand the struggle.

The riding season is also highly short in Russia, so it’s hard to get a following. Apparently, motorcycles are also atrociously expensive. Hard winters and all that. Imports. Blah blah, sadness.

And finally, why race MotoGP, the most exciting races in the world when you could instead subject yourself to ice racing, something motorcycles should never do.

I just don’t understand…

Check the link. http://rbth.com/sport/2014/07/28/russian_motorcycle_sports_struggle_to_attract_fans_and_financing_38533.html

Momentous Meetings

This historic occasion was first brought to my attention by our good friend Rebecca Shaffer! So this is the gist. For the first time since the schism of 1050 AD, the pope, leader of “western Christianity’s” Catholicism, and the patriarch of the “eastern Christianity’s” Russian Orthodoxy, have met. It’s pretty huge.

Reports say that the two leaders met in an airport in a private room with interpreters. The full extent of what was discussed is not known, but the leaders emerged with admonishments for peace in the Middle East and a call for an end to the persecution of Christians there.

While the moment has become highly politicized, with several different theories as to the extent of maneuvering going on here, it is easy to miss the gravity of this move. If nothing else, it is a move away from violence and towards unity, and that is something that everyone can respect. Check the article for more info!

Правда

            So Правда, meaning truth, is this news source that has been around in Russia for FOREVER. It was first published in 1912! While the NY Times has roots to 1851, this is still an impressive feat and a long time! It is a pinnacle source of the Russian Empire, the USSR, and Russia itself, as it has been around since the Tsarist days and has been controlled by each regime in turn. Censored by Tsars, controlled by Communist party members, today it has no official relations with the party. But who knows right? Check the article below.

PRAVDA

Pravda (the name means "truth" in Russian) was first issued on May 5, 1912, in St. Petersburg by the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party. Its aim was to publicize labor activism and expose working conditions in Russian factories. The editors published many letters and articles from ordinary workers, their primary target audience at the time.

Pravda was a legal daily newspaper subject to postpublication censorship by the tsarist authorities. These authorities had the power to fine the paper, withdraw its publication license, confiscate a specific issue, or jail the editor. They closed the

paper eight times in the first two years of its existence, and each time the Bolsheviks reopened it under another name ("Worker's Truth," etc.). In spite of police harassment the newspaper maintained an average circulation of about forty thousand in the period 1912 to 1914, probably a higher number than other socialist papers (but small compared to the commercial "penny newspapers"). About one-half of Pravda 's circulation was distributed in St. Petersburg. After the authorities closed the paper on July 21, 1914, it did not appear again until after the February Revolution of 1917.

Pravda reopened on March 5, 1917, and published continuously until closed down by Russian Republic president Boris Yeltsin on August 22,1991. From December 1917 until the summer of 1928 the newspaper was run by editor in chief Nikolai Bukarin and Maria Ilichna Ulyanova, Lenin's sister. When Bukharin broke with Josef Stalin over collectivization, Stalin used thePravda party organization to undermine his authority. Bukharin and his supporters, including Ulyanova, were formally removed from the editorial staff in 1929. By 1933 the newspaper, now headed by Lev Mekhlis, was Stalin's mouthpiece.

Throughout the Soviet era access to Pravda was a necessity for party members. The paper's primary role was not to entertain, inform, or instruct the Soviet population as a whole, but to deliver Central Committee instructions and messages to Soviet communist cadres, foreign governments, and foreign communist parties. Thus, as party membership shifted, so did Pravda's presentation. In response to the influx of young working-class men into the Party in the 1920s, for example, editors simplified the paper's language and resorted to the sort of journalism that they believed would appeal to this audience—militant slogans, tales of heroic feats of production, and denunciation of class enemies.

Pravda also produced reports on popular moods. This practice began in the early 1920s as Bukharin and Ulianova played a leading role in organizing the worker and peasant correspondents' movement in the Soviet republics. Workers and peasants (many of them Party activists) wrote into the newspaper with reports on daily life, often shaped by the editors' instructions. Newspapers, including Pravda, received and processed millions of such letters throughout Soviet history. Editors published a few of these, forwarded some to prosecutorial organs, and used others to produce the summaries of popular moods, which were sent to Party leaders.

After the collapse of the USSR nationalist and communist journalists intermittently published a print newspaper and an online newspaper under the name Pravda. However, the new publications were not official organs of the revived Communist Party.