Official Russia

The BBC have confirmed that they, and the British Foreign Office, are considering cuts to the BBC Worldwide Service.

The two services thought to be most under threat are the BBC Russian service and the BBC Burma service.

Although the BBC is directly funded by license fees paid by British TV viewers, its World Service is funded by a direct grant of £272 million per year from the Foreign Office. Every British governmental department is under pressure to identify massive cuts in expenditure to cut the UK’s structural deficit as quickly as possible, and the Foreign Office is reported to have been told to identify ways to cut its budget by up to 25%.

Although the BBC’s Russian service is one of the World Service’s most wide-reaching and popular services – it has around 700,000 listeners across the former Soviet Union, and is complimented by the BBC Russian website, which is thought to reach around 1 million people – the cost of providing this service must be high, and presents a tempting target for cost-cutters.

Proponents of the cuts will no doubt argue that, as well as the financial imperative, Russia is a democracy (of sorts) and no longer needs such a large investment. However, this doesn’t cover the millions of Russian speakers who live in other former Soviet countries where democracy is often a distant dream.

I’m sure there will be opposition to this move (there was a petition last year when proposals to trim down the service were announced), but haven’t seen anything yet. If you’re doing something like this, let me know and I’m happy to publicise it here on Siberian Light.

BBC Russian to be closed? is a post from: Siberian Light

Source: Siberian Light

A TU-154 plane flying Yakutsk-Moscow made an emergency landing today at the airport of Izhma. The preliminary cause of the emergency landing was a sudden breakdown of aeronavigation system aboard. According to the eyewitness accounts when the plane was landing it came far out of the heliport deck, breaking trees it went deep into the forest.

The plane of “Alrosa” company had 72 passengers aboard, they all were fortunately evacuated through the emergency exits. The passengers have been taken to the hotel of an Izhma sports complex.
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Source: English Russia

At last the first shore spillway unit of Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP is being launched! Here are some photos of the structure.

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Source: English Russia

It seems we’ve found the creepiest abandoned place! The old dentists clinics - all these pieces of teeth and old medical tools - what can make it creepier?

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Source: English Russia

We have already seen the exterior of this weird vehicle inside one of the previous posts. Now we are going to look inside of it. So, let’s get it started!

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Source: English Russia

Russian media are reporting that the Mir-2 Russian Mini-Submarine may have discovered a treasure trove of the Tsar’s gold, buried at the bottom of Lake Baikal. RIA Novosti reports that:

“…the Mir-2 submersible found “shiny metal objects” resembling gold bullion some 400 meters below the surface near Cape Tolsty. Explorers attempted to grab them with the mini-sub’s manipulator arm but failed to due to the crumbling gravel on the lake bed.”

The location of the find has been logged though, so I doubt it will be long before the submarine’s crew head back for another attempt to retrieve some of the gold/shiny metal objects.

During the Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War huge quantities of the former Tsar’s fortune went missing across Russia. More than 1,600 tonnes of gold was allegedly in the possession of White leader Admiral Kolchak, and legend has it that the gold was lost as his men tried to transport it across a frozen Lake Baikal.

One version of the story is that his men lost their way as they tried to navigate the ice, and froze to death. When the ice melted, of course, the gold sank into the lake’s deep waters.

The more widely accepted version of events is that the gold was being transported across the frozen lake in a train (after all, 1,600 tonnes is a lot to carry!). This isn’t quite as fanciful an idea as it sounds – the ice on Baikal is very thick during the winter and it was quite common for temporary rail lines to be laid across the ice, particularly during times of war. However, occasionally, the ice would collapse under the weight of a train, leading to disaster, and it appears that this may be what happened to one of Kolchak’s trains.

Until now, the stories of lost gold at the bottom of Lake Baikal have been little more than legends. Sceptics have been quite sensibly telling people for years that the gold was probably shipped over to Japan and used to buy military equipment to support the White armies in their Russian Civil War fight against the Red Army. But their version of the tale has been dealt a blow by the Mir submarine’s discovery.

Tsar’s Gold found at bottom of Lake Baikal? is a post from: Siberian Light

Source: Siberian Light

In the Eski-Kermen reserve, right under the Tatar sacred place, Russian Cossacks from Taganrog and Ukrainian Zaporozhye Cossacks set up a camp for preparation of  repelling an attack of Islamites.

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Source: English Russia

This is one of the weirdest exhibit of the Air Force Museum in Monino, the Moscow Region: a Bartini plane that was turned into an ekranoplan. Today we’ll study the exterior of the vehicle.

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Source: English Russia

What do most of us know about Eveni and Evenki? Nearly nothing! Today we are going to pay a visit to the central and eastern parts of Siberia to have a closer look at people who live there.

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Source: English Russia

Here are some awesome illustrations from the Soviet books and papers.

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Source: English Russia