Hаше здоровье (To Our Health)
Posted by goodmind on June 25th, 2007
A recent BBC poll revealed a rather startling fact about current realities in Russia. No, it was not that 90% of Russians “regularly” drink anti-freeze to ward of the frigid bleakness of those long Siberian nights. Rather, these “findings” emphasize an interesting trend; Russian bloggers are a force to be reckoned with.
BBCRussian.com ran a story revealing the alcohol consumption/mortality rate correlation in the province of Izhevsk, and featured an informal poll probing readers about their own drinking habits. One thing led to another, and the poll was efficiently spammed due largely in part to the efforts of Livejournal.ru bloggers.
This flashmob is along the lines of a more pedantic Digg-style “revolt,” so you may perhaps be wondering how Russians, of all people, could demonstrate such a lack creativity when it comes to revolution. However, let’s not miss the Katyn forest for the trees here;
“Until recently, Russians rarely ever saw what was said about them in the Western media. When they did, language barriers and scarcity of internet access meant they had no way to respond in a timely manner, and to set the record straight…For the first time in history, the global reach of the internet is allowing large numbers of Russians (and others within the former Soviet Union) to talk to the West directly, rather than only through the filter provided by visiting journalists and pundits.
This means the free pass given by Russians to those who write about them, something that most of us here have long taken for granted, is rapidly coming to an end. We already see the first signs of the new era in the blistering comments from outraged Russian readers that now appear regularly on the web sites of major British newspapers.”
It’s kind of hard to understand why we of “the West” have such a difficult time finding a common ground with our Eastern bloc friends. Given the blistering comments to be found on Park Slope, New York community forums, about as far away from Izvhesk as you can get, clearly there IS a common element of humanity. Unfortunately, it is the catharsis to be found in blasting someone in a heated online argument.
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