Many Russian cars are outfitted with dashboard cameras to protect drivers against insurance fraud. These cameras have caught all sorts of crazy happenings — car accidents, low-flying jets, insurance scam attempts, meteors, and plane crashes
— leading many to believe that Russia is a place where crazy shit pretty much happens constantly.
But Russia’s dash cams have also captured many more tender moments — people hopping out of their cars to help old ladies across the street, looking after little kids who wandered into the street, pushing cars out of snowbanks, etc.
1. Mississippi river south of Memphis on the border between Arkansas and Mississippi, taken by Landsat 7 on May 28, 2003. (USGS/NASA)
2. The eastern side of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, taken by Landsat 7 on Feb. 17, 2002. (USGS/NASA)
3. Center pivot irrigation systems in croplands near Garden City, Kansas, taken by Landsat 7 on Sep, 25, 2000. (USGS/NASA)
More: Favorite Images From Landsat’s Amazing 40-Year Record of Earth From Space
Atlantic Cities has a nice short post up about dogs riding the metro in Moscow—more particularly, how the dogs use the subway to “optimize” their panhandling, including this:
Alex Marquardt reports in the ABC News article that the cleverness of Moscow’s strays is not limited to commuting. Indeed, they have been spotted obeying traffic signals (which is more than you can say for the average human pedestrian in New York or Washington) and sometimes sending out “a smaller, cuter member” from a pack, “apparently realizing it will be more successful at begging than its bigger, less attractive counterparts.”
![Moscow at Night
Moscow appears at the center of this nighttime image photographed by the Expedition 30 crew aboard the International Space Station, flying at an altitude of approximately 240 miles on March 28, 2012. A solar array panel for the space station is on the left side of the frame. The view is to the north-northwest from a nadir of approximately 49.4 degrees north latitude and 42.1 degrees east longitude, about 100 miles west-northwest of Volgograd. The Aurora Borealis, airglow and daybreak frame the horizon.
Image Credit: NASA
[via]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2od5ntLKP1qkba5ao1_500.jpg)
Moscow at Night
Moscow appears at the center of this nighttime image photographed by the Expedition 30 crew aboard the International Space Station, flying at an altitude of approximately 240 miles on March 28, 2012. A solar array panel for the space station is on the left side of the frame. The view is to the north-northwest from a nadir of approximately 49.4 degrees north latitude and 42.1 degrees east longitude, about 100 miles west-northwest of Volgograd. The Aurora Borealis, airglow and daybreak frame the horizon.
Image Credit: NASA
[via]
“Никогда и ничего не просите! Никогда и ничего, и в особенности у тех, кто сильнее вас…”
(quote from Master and Margarita scrawled on the wall of Bulgakov house in Moscow)
Vladimir Putin, in response to a new poll indicating that ‘“the majority of Russians have ‘grown weary’ of waiting for [him] to make positive changes in their lives, and many expect little new from him as he embarks on his second stint as president next year”
[via aaanastasia]
Official Takes Puppy as Bribe | News | The Moscow Times
In Russia’s most famous anti-bureaucracy satire from the 19th century, “The Government Inspector,” an official boasts of accepting bribes in puppies, not money.
An official was convicted of the same crime this week.
Army officer Yulai Giniyatov, 27, was found guilty of obtaining various perks from a conscript under his command last year in exchange for passes to leave the unit, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The conscript, Yevgeny Klimentyev, purchased tables and plumbing equipment for Giniyatov’s mechanized infantry company, as well as a laptop and a mobile phone for Giniyatov, Kommersant reported.
He also repaired Giniyatov’s car — and, yes, shelled out 30,000 rubles ($1,000) for a Yorkshire terrier puppy for Giniyatov’s girlfriend.
FINALLY, an [admittedly flimsy] excuse to post this:
Carry on.
