Wikipedia Sucks!

According to Meduza Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia's Federal Investigative Committee might be a secret Wikipedian using the fake Polish sockpuppets Tadeush Novakovsky, Wajcieh Jaruzelski, and Komarovsky (Bastrykin has this thing for using Polish pseudonyms). This is for his ru.Wikipedia BLP, not any article on en.Wikipedia.

Link to article.

Some of his poetry, as the literary hoax Stanislav Strunevsky (Polish, descendant of nobility, quiet genius):

Rhyming translation

To get the money from Hodor,

You’ve got years to go, thank you.

Like a pilot hears the engine’s roar,

But needs a takeoff cue.

To lands where freedoms appear.

So stark! And so very glaring!

Like a Greek goddess’ rear,

In see-through starry pants, staring.

Direct translation

To get money from Hodor (Khodorkovsky)

He’s got to make noise for another five years or so.

Like a pilot by the engine,

Waiting for the signal to take off

To destinations where there are symbols of freedom.

So stark! So clear!

Like the buns of Terpsichore

In see-through starry pants.

Or this charming number:

Rhyming translation

And years later I’ll remember your digits

And text you one more time.

But even an iPhone with the latest widgets

Can’t capture my heart’s true chime.

Direct translation

And suddenly through years of love I’ll remember the phone number,

And again I’ll send an SMS into the ether…

But even the best iPhone in the world

Can’t convey all my arabesque love.

***

Yes Meduza is Russian, but to avoid the Politsya (what they now call the Militsya) and the FSB/SVR their country code is in the British Indian Ocean.

Gosh, he doesn't seem like a very nice fellow. Imagine that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Bastrykin

and damn his poetry sucks....

ericbarbour wrote:Gosh, he doesn't seem like a very nice fellow. Imagine that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Bastrykin

and damn his poetry sucks....

According to this slightly-cringeworthy article, he was head of Leningrad State University's Komsomol (the Young People's Communist Party) as a grad student in the early 1980s; he was the guy who expelled Boris Grebenschchikov of the "apartment" rock band* Akvarium (Aquarium) either from the Komsomol or the college, it isn't clear. It didn't matter for Grebenschchikov; he just kept doing music, and he did an album in the US under glastnost', Radio Silence (1989), and I think still performs with Akvarium.

Bastrykin took up a profession that was considered scutwork in the USSR - he became a lawyer, worked as a prosecutor. Mikhail Gorbachev had also gone down the lawyer path in the early '60s, but he climbed the CPSU ladder because he was clean. Bastrykin reached the top slot ten years ago, and its been backstabbing and office BS the whole time. Unlike in Soviet Union, nailing "modern" Russian legal bureaucrats for corruption is hard because the entire state is corrupt and lacks an ideology beyond a watered-down Russian nationalism (unlike under the Tsars they have to make allowances for the Muslim population both because of Chechnya, and all the day laborers doing construction work in the major cities; true Russian nationalism is Orthodox [ROC] Christian, harshly anti-Semitic, disdainful of the Siberian animists and Buddhists, suspicious of Islam. Ukrainian nationalism is a mirror of Russian nationalism, but with the Russians ["Moskali"] replacing the Siberians.) Time will tell if Bastrykin is finally fired by Putin, or if Bastrykin has kompromat on Uncle Vova and they both wind up being pitchforked by an angry mob.

* An underground band not state-sanctioned; they performed in basements and apartments. Thanks to cassette tapes, such bands were known across the USSR. Thanks to young ham radio operators, some of these bands may have hit the radio late at night, thanks to broadcast signal intrusion on the shortwave transmitters State Radio left on after the broadcasting day ended.

Strelnikov wrote:Bastrykin reached the top slot ten years ago, and its been backstabbing and office BS the whole time. Unlike in Soviet Union, nailing "modern" Russian legal bureaucrats for corruption is hard because the entire state is corrupt and lacks an ideology beyond a watered-down Russian nationalism

Having worked for a Russian-American joint stock company, I can attest to this. Doing business in Russia can be a major nightmare. 20 years ago it was still tolerable, and mostly involved someone paying bribes to minor customs officials and such. Since then it's apparently exploded. Putin has insured that the whole vast country runs under Sicilian or Guatemalan levels of corruption. Unfortunately a good chunk of Europe and Asia depends on Russian oil and gas supplies. And people are mystified why the French and British are still so fond of nuclear power plants. They know better.

Time will tell if Bastrykin is finally fired by Putin, or if Bastrykin has kompromat on Uncle Vova and they both wind up being pitchforked by an angry mob.

Sad to say, the peasants don't do the pitchforks anymore. Instead people die in the street or in their own homes "mysteriously" of "unknown causes", or they're just shot in the head by 3 or 4 masked men. That's a mark of REAL corruption.

ericbarbour wrote:

Time will tell if Bastrykin is finally fired by Putin, or if Bastrykin has kompromat on Uncle Vova and they both wind up being pitchforked by an angry mob.

Sad to say, the peasants don't do the pitchforks anymore. Instead people die in the street or in their own homes "mysteriously" of "unknown causes", or they're just shot in the head by 3 or 4 masked men. That's a mark of REAL corruption.

You misunderstand - that was a metaphor for a successful revolt overthrowing Putin and his entire apparat. This cynical game he's been running since 2007 is running out of gas, and patience is frayed badly. When it happens, it will end badly for Vova et. al.