For many Russian citizens, the Postal system today often looks like the frequently circulated joke that if one wishes to see what Soviet customer service was like, visit a post office.

Even critics admit that perhaps the crowning accomplishment of the Russian Post was the delivery of some 70 million parcels per month under dangerous conditions to Soviet army units during  the Great Patriotic War (World War II). They just wish it worked as efficiently and with the same sense of urgency today.

Postal authorities point to improvements and say that in reality the system is getting better.

According to the Moscow Times, Russian Post has 42,000 post offices, 380,000 employees, 52 million parcels, and processes 1.5 billion letters annually. Meanwhile, the company received 27,000 complaints, 15,000 burned letters, and 7.5 million rubles of fines in the last six months.

In a report from January of this year, Russia Behind the Headlines wrote that the average delivery time for a package from the UK to Russia is two months. As to frequent delays, many of those are the fault of Customs as the Postal Service simply must wait until each incoming package has been inspected.

There are even delivery games created to play “Postal Express.“

Those critical of the service point to a shortage of employees and low pay thereby contributing to a “why should I care?” attitude among mail handlers and those who make deliveries.

Disgruntled customers went so far as to create a website detailing problems at the service, http://anti-russianpost.ru. That website appears to have been closed but not to worry, there are plenty of ways to hate on social sites such as Facebook (I Hate Russian Post) and vkontake.

If things like low wages and disregard for customer service weren’t bad enough, how is your package treated en route? An online video has “gone viral” as the expression goes when passengers on a train filmed this scene of postal packages being tossed from a train wagon onto the concrete platform in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk.

Postal authorities are currently investigating the Novosibirsk train incident. In April of this year then-Chief Executive Alexander Kiselyov of the Russia Post was fired after several scandals surfaced. It remains to be seen what impact the Novosibirsk matter will have on current director Dmitry Strashnov. Russia has seen five different Postal Service Chief Executives since 2007.

Need to track a package online? Here is a tracking tool for the Russian Postal Service.

Until last week.

In a television interview, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted to striking first saying that Russia attacked Georgia because the Georgian government was smuggling terrorists across Abkhazia to the Russian border near Sochi. As columnist and radio talk host Yulia Latynina explains, the part about Georgia smuggling terrorists across a disputed territory virtually controlled by Russia would have been quite a feat.

(photo: Semyon Khorunzhy)

What is surprising however is that Mr. Putin would let it slip that Russia started the fighting.

Here is more from Yulia Latynina:

During an interview on RT television last week, President Vladimir Putin made a truly sensational statement by revealing the real reason for the Russia-Georgia war of August 2008. Apparently, Russia delivered a preventative strike to liquidate international terrorists who were sent by Georgian forces to penetrate Russian territory. Putin said the terrorists advanced to positions 30 kilometers south of Sochi before they were eliminated.

“About six or seven years ago when we had to attack Georgian territories, those were not just strikes on Georgia. We targeted militant groups that came very close to Sochi. … Georgian police vehicles were transporting the militants to the Russian border. So we had to take some preemptive measures. And I informed the president [Dmitry Medvedev] about this,” Putin said.

First of all, Putin’s timeline is all wrong. Russia’s war with Georgia was five years ago, not six or seven. There were no other military conflicts between the two countries during Medvedev’s presidency except the five-day war in 2008.

This is not the first time that Putin has a made a surprising statement intended to show how well-informed Russia’s intelligence agencies are. Instead, however, everyone was left wondering, “What are those people smoking?”

It is comforting sound to know that passengers are warned, “Caution, the doors are closing.” As everyone knows, there is a fail safe feature that the wagons cannot move if the doors are open, right? Right? That is the theory at least but as these passengers in Saint Petersburg discovered, maybe that fail safe isn’t so safe after all!

But that sort of mistake can only happen on the Metro, right? It would never happen on a regular train, surely.

Open doors while dangerous would be nothing if there was a large malfunction on the Metro. Released earlier this year, the film “Metro” depicts a scenario in which construction on streets above the Metro causes a leak that allows the river that runs above parts of the Metro system to plunge into the Metro system.

As you can imagine the movie has been a box office hit in Russia as the Moscow Metro carries over two Billion passengers annually, second busiest in the world only to the Tokyo Metro system. Russians worry that such could happen and it already did on a smaller scale in 2006.

Enjoy the full length movie:

I love my homeland and her people, but detest the US government and have for several years. As a registered Independent voter of Libertarian persuasion I take pleasure in disliking whoever is in office at the time, regardless of political party.

This week the Snowden story dominated social media in Russia and predictably Russians came out strongly for the young Mr. Snowden. It is not that the Russian people don’t have an oppressive government of their own, but one can always find escape when dwelling on the problems of someone else, especially when the someone else is the United States of America, a country not very popular in Russia these days.

As you know, disliking the USA is a sport shared by most countries lately. The country that was once a beacon of light to the world has become a fat and bloated cheap trailer park whore bent on drunkenly telling the rest of the world how they ought to live. America could be beautiful again but change will have to be desired by the people and not a campaign slogan by the clueless ruling class now in charge.

Snowden revealed far more than the USA had dreamed and now the White House is in full spin trying to control the damage. The problem is that the American public has been awakened out of their own drunken and drug induced stupor, over-eating at the trough supplied by the Chinese and by “those who can afford to pay a little more” to quote a moronic slogan from the campaign trail.

Thanks to the PRISM revelation, citizens have at least for the moment looked up from the slop bucket and for once are paying attention. That could eventually initiate a painful reality for this government as the average Joe is pissed off aplenty and ole Joe may demand changes the jet-setting vacationers never dreamed they’d have to make.

Snowden has been offered the opportunity to live in Russia and of course Vladimir Putin and his pals at the KGB would love to learn whatever Snowden might be willing to share. One thing is certain as even though he left his girlfriend behind, he won’t have to wait long to get a new one. Just a casual glance at Vkontake, the popular Russian alternative to Facebook shows that young Russian females are dazzled by the young Mr. Snowden.

Right now we’re watching a live ticker as it tallies petition signers calling on the USA to cut Snowden some slack. I can’t tell you the exact number because it changes ever second or so. The count as of this second is 1,075,849. Wait, that just changed to 1,075.866. Okay, now its 1,075,929.

The petition is available in a number of different languages and is addressed to US Vacationer-in-Chief Hussein Obama: We call on you to ensure that whistleblower Edward Snowden is treated fairly, humanely and given due process. The PRISM program is one of the greatest violations of privacy ever committed by a government. We demand that you terminate it immediately, and that Edward Snowden be recognized as a whistleblower acting in the public interest — not as a dangerous criminal.

A link to the petition in English is here.

At this second the tally is up to 1,076,068. Hold on, now the total has climbed to 1,076,121. I must stop watching as this will bring on headaches and nightmares for sure.

I’m predicting that the White House will go on the attack this week, dredging up alleged character faults of the low-life known as Edward Snowden. This is the White House where folk like James Carville, Eric Holder and Rahn Emanuel have walked the halls without being arrested so the attack dogs will be unleashed in corrupt Chicago style on Mr. Snowden’s character. While they’re frothing at the mouth about him, remember than until recently this was a man trusted with a high security clearance.

Now: 1,077,806 and still climbing.

This is a city where accidents are already high and streets usually congested but many other countries use this successfully as a way to alleviate traffic backups at busy intersections and the city hopes that the right on red experiment will lead to increased traffic flow.

Mayor Sergei Sobyanin with Deputy Mayor Pyotr Biryukov inspecting improvements near Triumfalnaya Square.

The experiment will also be tested in Russia’s southwestern city of Belgorod.

Frankly we’re tired of the counting game that goes on with each protest. Police put out one number, which is always far lower than reality while the opposition releases a much higher number than may be realistic. So, it is up to news organizations such as the AP, Reuters and the BBC to offer an accurate count and they do have specialists for such things. For what it is worth, the news organizations place the numbers between eight and ten thousand.

There were no major incidents and anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny and other opposition leaders organized and led the march. Navalny is on trial on embezzlement charges. His defense lawyers say the charges are politically motivated. Navalny recently began a nationwide newspaper called За Навальногo! meaning the “For Navalny Gazette” which has been confiscated in several cities by police authorities.

The government claimed that the march was without incident however closer examination of the video below shows otherwise as police confronted and arrested several leaders of the event.

Marchers held banners and demanded release of 27 persons who were arrested after a protest turned violent on the eve of Putin’s inauguration. Sixteen of those defendants remain in jail pending trial. Witnesses say that several of them were pulled out of the crowds at random in a show of force to discourage Russian citizens from joining the opposition.

Names of the accused:

Andrey Barabanov
Ilya Guschin
Alexandra Dukhanina
Denis Lutskevich
Stepan Zimin
Maria Baronova
Alexandr Kamensky
Nikolay Kavkazsky
Fyodor Bakhov
Mikhail Kosenko
Rikhard Sobolev
Leonid Kovyazin
Sergei Udaltsov
Oleg Arkhipenkov
Dmitry Rukavishnikov
Alexander Margolin
Oleg Polikhovich
Elena Kokhtareva
Leonid Razvozzhaev
Sergey Krivov
Aleksey Gaskarov
Maxim Luzyanin (has already been convicted and sent to a correctional labour camp for 4.5 years).

This trip can be traveled on three different routes and all trains travel using Moscow time which can be confusing when you several times away from Moscow.

June 13, 1891 was the date, 122 years ago, when Emperor Alexander II approved construction of a Trans-Siberian railway,  opening up the east to European Russia.

The journey is long–7 days from start to finish and so we encourage Western passengers to purchase tickets for either Kupe (2nd class) or Spalny (first class).

Here is a great link with very helpful information for travelers.

We should point out that Russian’s don’t view this in quite the same way an American would look at the 4th of July. For Russians alive today their country was the Soviet Union and it is hard to claim independence from yourself. Instead most Russians see this period in history as another incarnation of a state that has existed for over a thousand years.

For some Russians it is a day to travel to the dacha and tend to the summer garden and cut grass & weeds. Others took part in sport and educational competitions or in city celebrations and cultural presentations.

Meanwhile at the Kremlin President Putin presented the annual Russian national awards for achievement.

The ceremony took place at the Grand Kremlin Palace’s St George Hall. The Russian Federation National Award in Science and Technology was conferred to Anatoly Derevyanko for his outstanding research and publications on the earliest history of humans in Eurasia and the formation of anatomically modern humans.

Also receiving awards were Georgy Karzov, Yaroslav Shtrombakh and Alexei Dub for developing a new class of high radiation-resistant materials for nuclear reactor pressure vessels and methods for increasing their lifespan; and to Yefim Mezhiritsky, Sergei Nikulin and Viktor Shurygin for creating the Yars strategic missile system.

National Award for Science & Technology went to Dmitry Pavlov.

Others receiving awards for Science included Gleb Dobrovolsky (posthumously), Dmitry Pavlov and Andrei Adrianov for a series of fundamental works in studying biological diversity and its preservation and environmental safety assurance.

Recommended reading on the significance of the Day of Russia:

http://rbth.ru/society/2013/06/12/june_12_how_declaration_of_sovereignty_saved_russia_27001.html

During the opposition protests one of the most commonplace slogans shouted at protest rallies and seen on signs is “Россия без Путина!” (Russia without Putin).

Людмила без Путина = Lyudmila without Putin.

So it didn’t take long for the first glimpses of graffiti around parts of Moscow to slightly alter the slogan to Людмила без Путина (Lyudmila without Putin).

Toptwit.ru, a service that monitors and counts twitter messages reports that the phrase Людмила без Путина is one of the most common tweets by Russian users today.

Unofficially it has been the reality for several years. Rarely seen together in public, it was usually at Easter in the splendor of Russia’s national Cathedral of Christ the Saviour that the public might see the couple standing side by side, as in 2011 and 2008. Mr. Putin attended services alone, standing by Dmitry and Svetlana Medvedeva in 2010 and 2009.

Easter 2011, Moscow’s Christ Cathedral.

Outside of the occasional greeting of visiting foreign leaders, one could count on one hand the public sightings of the two together. That would include Easter 2011, casting their ballots in the presidential election of March 2012, the presidential inauguration in the Kremlin Grand Palace (followed by the ceremonial blessing in the Kremlin’s ancient Annunciation Cathedral), and the funeral of Patriarch Alexi II in 2008. They usually spent Christmas holidays apart; Mr. Putin spent Christmas alone in a village outside Moscow last year.

2012 Presidential inauguration, Kremlin Annunciation Cathedral.

Journalists knew better than to inquire about family matters, so when President and Mrs. Putina granted an interview last night to state television channel Russia 24 after taking in the first act in a performance of the Esmeralda ballet, the announcement came as a surprise. The Russian people have for some time sensed the end of the marriage, yet conservative attitudes held that the public had come to expect the couple to maintain silence on the issue while in public office.

Vladimir and Lyudmila attended the first act of the Esmeralda ballet in the Kremlin Grand Palace.

There they stood, she watching him intensely as they approached a camera crew in the Grand Kremlin Palace. Mr. Putin spoke first and then Lyudmila. In less in a minute it was clear that the marriage was over. In the words of the gracious Lyudmila, “our marriage is over because we barely see either other…our children are grown…we simply don’t see either other.“

Mrs. Putina’s comments lasted a scant 19 seconds, yet twice she mentioned that they never see each other, a point that while obvious still struck this reporter as sad for both of them.

Lyudmila Putina will fade from view, of this we are certain. The rare days of seeing her at official functions, mostly of Mrs. Putina holding one of their dogs when foreign dignitaries visited the presidential residence at Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow, are over. Both dog lovers, the two pledged to remain friends–but no word yet on what happens to the family pooches: Koni, Yume and Buffy.

Koni wears a Russian global navigation satellite system collar called GLONASS.

Koni is a hit with journalists–so much so that the presidential press office had to issue a friendly but official request from Mr. Putin asking journalists not to feed Koni. “Sometimes, Koni leaves a room full of journalists with a very pleased expression on her face and biscuit crumbs around her mouth…Please don’t feed my dog.”  Koni was born in 1999 and is frequently at President Putin’s side when greeting foreign dignitaries at his office in Novo-Ogarvovo.

Mrs. Putina is considered to be a specialist in Russian language and is expected to continue her work on preserving the integrity of the language.

An airlines stewardess in the early 1980s, Lyudmila Shkrebneva (Putina).

Vladimir Putin and Lyudmila Shkrebneva met in 1980 and dated three years prior to their  marriage on 28 July 1983. He made a promise to stay out of the KGB but it wasn’t long before the new Mrs. Putina, a trained linguist, found herself learning to speak German fluently when they moved to East Germany where Mr. Putin oversaw the East German state security apparatus.

The Putins in the East German Democratic Republic.

Although clear that the two lived separate lives for years and while rumours swirled regarding Mr. Putin’s supposed affairs, he scrupulously wore his wedding band and if Lyudmila was mentioned in conversation his comments while brief have been respectful.

The Putin’s with their older dog, Koni, a black lab.

The couple was last seen together in public for his inauguration of his third term as president on 7 May 2012. Their divorce announcement came at the same place, the stately Kremlin Grand Palace.

2012 Inauguration, Mrs. Putina greets Germany’s Gerhard Schroder.

Some speculated over recent years that Mrs. Putina had “taken the veil” and entered a woman’s monastery–something that might have been a more common form of banishment for royal wives during the years of the Russian Empire.

Russian media in the past has speculated that Mr. Putin maintains an affair with Russian gymnast Alina Kabayeva . The Russian newspaper that first reported the story, Moskovsky Korrespondent, was shut down soon after the story was published.

The Putins have two daughters, Maria is 27 and Yekaterina is 26, and both girls live and work in Moscow although the press is denied access to them. The two daughters attended German-language schools and then studied under assumed names at the State University in Saint Petersburg where Maria studied biology and Yekaterina majored in Asian Studies. Both are rumoured to be romantically involved with foreigners.