Doll ‘protesters’ present small problem for Russian police | World news | guardian.co.uk

Russian police don’t take kindly to opposition protesters – even if they’re 5cm high and made of plastic.

Police in the Siberian city of Barnaul have asked prosecutors to investigate the legality of a recent protest that saw dozens of small dolls – teddy bears, Lego men, South Park figurines – arranged to mimic a protest, complete with signs reading: “I’m for clean elections” and “A thief should sit in jail, not in the Kremlin“.

“Political opposition forces are using new technologies to carry out public events – using toys with placards at mini-protests,” Andrei Mulintsev, the city’s deputy police chief, said at a press conference this week, according to local media. “In our opinion, this is still an unsanctioned public event.”

Activists set up the display after authorities repeatedly rejected their request to hold a sanctioned demonstration of the kind held in Moscow to protest disputed parliamentary elections results and Vladimir Putin‘s expected return to the presidency in a March vote.

Passersby admired the display with giggles, but police took it more seriously, examining its details and writing down each placard.

“The authorities’ attempt to limit citizens’ rights to express their position has become absurd,” said Lyudmila Alexandrova, a 26-year-old graduate student and protest organiser. “We wanted to hyperbolise this attempt and show the absurdity and farce of officials’ struggle with their own people.”

They are not the first. Russia‘s Blue Buckets group, formed to protest officials’ wanton flouting of traffic rules, have run across government cars while wearing buckets on their heads, drawing the state’s ire.

via Doll ‘protesters’ present small problem for Russian police | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Strange Random Doll Quote:

“You know you’ve made it when you’ve been moulded in miniature plastic. But you know what children do with Barbie dolls – it’s a bit scary, actually.” – Cate Blanchett (Australian Actress. b.1969 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)

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Siberia home to yeti, bigfoot enthusiasts insist | Environment | The Guardian

Image via Wikipedia

The vast Siberian tundra holds untold mysteries, from once-secret nuclear installations to alleged UFO crash sites.

Now, a team of scientists insist they are “95%” sure that Russia‘s wintry expanse is home to the mythical yeti, otherwise known as the abominable snowman.

More than a dozen scientists and yeti enthusiasts flew in from Canada, Estonia, Sweden and the US to exchange findings with their Russian counterparts at a day-long conference in the town of Tashtagol, some 2,000 miles east of Moscow in the Kemerovo region. Locals there have reported an increase in sightings of a creature in recent years.

A subsequent two-day expedition to the region’s Azassky cave and Karatag peak over the weekend “collected irrefutable evidence” of the yeti’s existence there, the Kemerovo government said in a statement. “In one of the detected tracks, Russian scientist Anatoly Fokin noted several hairs that might belong to the yeti,” it added. Scientists also found footprints, a presumed bed and various other markers.”

Conference participants came to the conclusion that the artefacts found give 95% evidence of the habitation of the ‘snow man’ on Kemerovo region territory,” the statement said.

via Siberia home to yeti, bigfoot enthusiasts insist | Environment | The Guardian.

Strange Random Yeti Quote:

“There is precious little in civilization to appeal to a Yeti.” – Edmund Hillary (New Zealander mountain climber and Antarctic Explorer Famous for being first to successfully climb Mount Everest b.1919)

Related articles

• Bigfoot: unfound and unfounded (rt.com)
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