Life in Russia

[Ravenlocke]

MFA Russia 🇷🇺

⚡️ Russia's EMERCOM:

On March 19, a special flight of Russia's EMERCOM delivered humanitarian aid to #Mozambique.

🛬 An Il-76 aircraft delivered food, essential supplies, as well as tents & blankets for flood-affected communities in the African republic.

https://x.com/mfa_russia/status/2034646080772571493

#RussiaHelps

[Ravenlocke]

🎼♠️ Wagner Truth 1W9 🏴‍☠🇷🇺

FROM: RUSSIAN EMBASSY IN YEMEN

🌹A beautiful photo 🌹

https://x.com/WagnerAmb1W9/status/2034713442641137760

[Ravenlocke]

🎼♠️ Wagner Truth 1W9 🏴‍☠🇷🇺

FROM: Sputnik 🇮🇷

Iran's ambassador to Russia published a video of Ali Larijani praying in the Kremlin on his Instagram page

https://x.com/WagnerAmb1W9/status/2034756841939279889

🔸Kazem Jalali, Iran's ambassador to Russia, wrote: Sometimes photos tell a story deeper than thousands of words...

🔸Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, welcomed Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, who was visiting Russia, at the Kremlin on January 30.

Sputnik 🇮🇷

https://x.com/WagnerAmb1W9/status/2034756845936529878

[Ravenlocke]

🅰pocalypsis 🅰pocalypseos 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 🅉

🇷🇺 Thousands of Muslims filled Moscow Cathedral Mosque for Eid, a site with over a century of history that reflects the resilience of Muslim communities in Moscow dating back to the 15th–16th centuries.

https://x.com/apocalypseos/status/2034957281687900167

[Ravenlocke]

Volcaholic 🌋

In the Moscow region, Russia, emergency crews are taking measures to prevent flooding, literally blowing up river ice to protect bridges and nearby towns.

The blasts help break up thick ice before it can dam the rivers and cause water to overflow.

https://x.com/volcaholic1/status/2035099309012918543

[Ravenlocke]

Russian Embassy in South Africa 🇷🇺

🚀 Successful launch of #Soyuz rocket at Russia’s #Baikonur cosmodrome

The photo captures the most thrilling moment — the launch of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Progress MS-33 cargo spacecraft

It will deliver more than 2.5 tonnes of supplies to cosmonauts in orbit

https://x.com/EmbassyofRussia/status...52340376965367

TASS

A Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Progress MS-33 resupply ship successfully lifted off from the Baikonur spaceport towards the ISS, a TASS correspondent reported from Russia’s Flight Control Center:
https://vk.cc/cVKGfR

Video: Roscosmos/TASS

https://x.com/tassagency_en/status/2035721576272781723

[Ravenlocke]

News of Donbass

Mar 22
#VisitRussia
🇷🇺 Tofurious heads to the Northern Kuril Islands — one of the most remote regions in Russia! Earthquakes and tsunamis are a fact of life here, and most of the archipelago remains uninhabited.

🌋 On Paramushir Island, the American traveler climbs the famous Ebeko volcano for its sweeping views across the Pacific Ocean. He then travels to neighbouring Shumshu, where fortifications and remnants of military equipment from the Second World War can still be seen. Tofurious also encounters the true 'masters' of these shores — seals and Steller sea lions!

🌊 While exploring the Kurils, he meets surfers who take to the waves in all weathers, and spends time with a local chef, learning to prepare Pacific seafood delicacies like prawns and scallops.

🎬 Watch the full episode on the RT website https://en.rtdoc.tv/episodes/2677-no...-kuril-islands

https://x.com/News_of_Donbass/status...50009669378195

[Ravenlocke]

I am posting this here but if it belongs elsewhere, Mods please move it, Thank you.

Pepe Escobar

"Planet Earth is not blue /

And there's nothing I can do"

The first image from Russia's brand new Elektro-L satellite - launched from Baikonur in February.

https://x.com/RealPepeEscobar/status...29070178722032

[Ravenlocke]

Brian McDonald

Moscow’s iconic Bolshoi Theatre has taken its act underground, with its dancers staging a shoot across the city’s Ring Line metro.

How do you like that Timothée Chalamet?

(strongly suggest to turn the sound on)

https://x.com/BrianMcDonaldIE/status...75416733122623

[Ravenlocke]

George Galloway

The World-famous Bolshoi Ballet 250 years old today. Happy birthday grande dame.

https://x.com/georgegalloway/status/2037837809533256141

[Tintin]

There are a great many wonderful posts here celebrating the beauty of Russia, and its people. It's a healthy antidote to the Russophobic PR slop we're subjected to in the 'West'

However, my attention was certainly captured by this thread from Nick Hudson, who came to some prominence as a very vocal critic of the COVID lockdown measures, and he certainly isn't anti-Russian.

It deals with not just Russia's creeping digital-ID panopticon but also how various systems are already in place in other countries too - most famously China of course - and how it relates to access to various services. The Russian system is called Gosuslugi.

I'd be fascinated to hear from any Russian members how this applies in their daily lives. Also, as this thread post from Nick isn't exclusively to do with Russia, I may need to find another home for it on the forum. Also Nick could have titled his thread a little better than he did.

Source: https://x.com/NickHudsonCT/status/2037900175876751751

_____________________________

How military conscription happens in Russia—a thread

Gosuslugi (the Russian digital ID system) has become a central hub without which life in Russia is almost impossible. Through it, people obtain documents, schedule doctor appointments, and more recently, receive electronic military summons. If a citizen does not confirm receipt, their rights are automatically restricted (leaving the country, selling property, driving a car) — which is a direct implementation of digitally "switching off" an individual from the system.

This represents one of the most radical examples of a state transforming into a digital control mechanism in modern history. What was once a portal for paying parking fees or booking passport appointments has become a digital cage.

Before this law (2023), a military summons in Russia had to be delivered in person and signed for. People would simply avoid opening the door or live at different addresses. Now, a summons is considered delivered the moment it appears in your personal Gosuslugi account — or, if you do not have an active account, 7 days after it is entered into the "Unified Register of Conscripts."

The travel ban activates immediately upon delivery of the summons — before the 20-day window begins. If a citizen then fails to report to the military office within 20 days, the following additional restrictions are triggered:

- Driving ban: The driver's license becomes invalid in the traffic police database.

- Ban on buying/selling real estate: The land registry (Rosreestr) blocks any transactions. You cannot sell property to leave the country.

- Credit ban: Banks automatically see that the applicant is subject to conscription restrictions and loan access is blocked.

- Business restriction: You cannot register a company or work as a freelancer (self-employed).

In Russia, it is nearly impossible to function without a Gosuslugi account. You use it to enroll your child in school or kindergarten. You receive QR codes through it (as seen during the pandemic).

When people began attempting to delete their accounts in March 2023 ahead of the spring conscription drive, the authorities disabled the "delete account" option on the website. This happened proactively on March 31, 2023—the same day the Defence Ministry announced electronic summonses—rather than in response to a mass exodus already underway.

The system is integrated with a network of over 200,000 cameras in Moscow equipped with facial recognition. In documented cases, the flagging has occurred specifically when a conscript contests his draft order in court—at which point the enlistment office enters him into the system as an alleged evader, triggering a facial recognition alert and enabling police to detain him on the spot. It is not confirmed as a blanket automatic trigger for anyone who has simply received a summons and not yet reported.

The state can effectively cut a person off from the social and economic bloodstream—without the ability to drive, manage money, or use property.

This became reality in Russia faster than almost anywhere else because the state used war as justification to merge all databases (tax, police, medical, and military) into one central system.

Russia no longer uses technology merely as a service for citizens, but as an operational tool of enforcement. 🧵

Moves to integrate databases in the US, the UK and elsewhere should have citizens alarmed. Digital service integration is advanced in Estonia, Sweden, Singapore, Japan, Brazil and Australia.

Down the road such systems can be expected to be used to limit civil liberties algorithmically, with likely candidates for justifications for doing so including energy or meat consumption limits based on the logic of the climate crisis scam, or "offensive speech" regulations. Let's look at the status of such moves in some countries that are far down the line of moving past integration into the domain of enforcement:

China: Architecturally similar, but less automated than commonly portrayed, China's social credit system is a national framework combining government databases, court records, and regulatory lists to reward compliance and penalize violations, with courts enforcing a "judgment defaulter blacklist" that restricts luxury travel, premium services, and high-value purchases. However, the Western Orwellian framing needs significant qualification: no unified, countrywide system assigns a single score to each person. Instead, various regional pilot programs and industry-specific credit systems operate independently, with their own rules and databases. As of 2025, most local trials have ended. The most advanced element is corporate social credit—agencies already score and list millions of businesses—while a unitary citizen ranking was never actually the central design.

What China does have that Russia doesn't yet fully have is deeper integration between surveillance cameras and enforcement. But the coercion in China's system is largely reactive (punishing known legal violations) rather than Russia's anticipatory model (restricting rights the moment a summons is issued, before any violation has occurred).

India: Aadhaar is the world's most-used digital ID system, with 1.3 billion cards linking identity to biometric data—fingerprints, iris scans, and facial photos—used for subsidies, banking, and mobile services. The architecture for a Gosuslugi-style coercive system exists, but a Supreme Court judgment in 2017 limited mandatory private-sector use of Aadhaar, and strong legal challenges have constrained the most aggressive enforcement applications. The infrastructure is there; the political and legal will for Russia-style rights-switching is not yet fully present.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE: These offer the clearest authoritarian parallels, arguably closer to Russia's model in spirit than to China's. Saudi Arabia's Absher system is a genuine digital cage. It controls women's travel permissions, allowing male guardians to receive alerts when female relatives use their passports, and integrates with border systems and government services. The UAE's biometric national ID is mandatory and linked across health, financial, and immigration systems with limited legal recourse. Unlike China's fragmented pilots, these are fully operational enforcement systems with no meaningful judicial check. Astute observers will note that Saudi Arabia has not been invaded to free its women.

Pakistan's NADRA biometric database is used by police, with citizens required to submit fingerprints or facial captures for identity verification—and the country lacks an adequate data protection law. The conscription parallel is less relevant, but the database-to-enforcement pipeline is real and operates with minimal transparency.

Belarus under Lukashenko has built a near-identical architecture to Russia's, with digital ID linked to travel bans, property restrictions, and political monitoring. It lacks Russia's scale but has arguably moved faster on specific enforcement applications, and the systems are now deeply integrated with Russian databases.

Venezuela, explicitly inspired by China in building its Carnet de la Patria (Fatherland Card), which ties access to food subsidies, pensions, and public services to political compliance, arguably has the most direct implementation of the "digital rights as reward" model in a non-Asian context.

_________________________

Related video filmed by a British resident in Southern Russia last September, 2025:

Russian Bank Account. Obtaining Snils, Gosuslugi and a telephone number

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=PEiTGvKmOEY

[rgray222]

Posted by Tintin (here)
There are a great many wonderful posts here celebrating the beauty of Russia, and its people. It's a healthy antidote to the Russophobic PR slop we're subjected to in the 'West'

However, my attention was certainly captured by this thread from Nick Hudson, who came to some prominence as a very vocal critic of the COVID lockdown measures, and he certainly isn't anti-Russian.

It deals with not just Russia's creeping digital-ID panopticon but also how various systems are already in place in other countries too - most famously China of course - and how it relates to access to various services. The Russian system is called Gosuslugi.

I'd be fascinated to hear from any Russian members how this applies in their daily lives. Also, as this thread post from Nick isn't exclusively to do with Russia, I may need to find another home for it on the forum. Also Nick could have titled his thread a little better than he did.

Russia has been going thru a metamorphosis when it comes to the internet. Major restrictions on internet access in Russia began in May 2025 and have escalated into 2026, targeting mobile internet, VPNs, and major messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp. Widespread "digital blackouts" frequently target major cities, including Moscow, with full restrictions on platforms like Telegram reported by April 1, 2026. Russia is attempting to construct a "sovereign internet" restricting access to foreign platforms and sites which they refer to as "Cheburnet." It is not just about banning social media it is about blocking VPN's. Some protesters claim that, in reality, it makes censorship easier, limits access to global platforms, and gives the state tighter control over information.

Russia is actively attempting to follow China's internet restrictions and censorship model, though analysts note it remains a long way off from achieving China's technical sophistication. China's internet is heavily restricted through a comprehensive system known as the Great Firewall, which blocks access to numerous foreign websites and enforces strict content controls. The Kremlin has adopted a "permission-based" approach using whitelisting technology to restrict content access and is promoting a national messenger, MAX, to replace popular foreign apps like Telegram and WhatsApp. China has a vibrant internet ecosystem, and Russia does not, and there is a real possibility that these internet restrictions could trigger a backlash. Some of these restrictions are just kicking in this month (April 2026).

If this becomes a big issue, it might warrant it own thread.

[Ravenlocke]

Sputnik

🇷🇺🧑‍🔬Russian scientists make WILD geographic discovery in Antarctica

An area at Cape Berks previously classified as an isolated mountain peak has now been identified as an oasis after further research by Russian researchers from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute

"A comprehensive study of 18 previously unexplored lakes in the area revealed that this oasis is a stable, integral formation on the Earth's surface," the official statement read

The area is covered by mountains and valleys, contains a 2.2 sq km ice-free zone, and hosts vast wildlife

https://x.com/SputnikInt/status/2040405020068483236

If you can’t see tweet above try this one,

🇷🇺 ⚓️ 𝕮𝖔𝖒𝖒𝖔𝖉𝖔𝖗𝖊 𝕬𝖗𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖈 ⚓️

Fan account
Translated from Russian
In Antarctica, a new geographical feature has been discovered by Russian scientists—an oasis on Berks Cape.

https://x.com/CaesarGI/status/2040396726620574105

[Bill Ryan]

https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/180755

Vladimir is one of the oldest cities in Russia, founded in the late 10th century and rising to prominence in the 12th under Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, who made it the political center of northeastern Rus’.

Before Moscow emerged, Vladimir was effectively the capital of the region. Its influence declined in the 14th century as power shifted to Moscow, but Vladimir remained an important religious and administrative center, preserving architecture and traditions that predate the rise of the centralized Russian state.

[Bill Ryan]

https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/180899

A tram parade took place in Moscow - in honor of the 127th anniversary of the Moscow tram.

[Ravenlocke]

Brian McDonald

Moscow's Naberezhnaya Marka Shagala in the Danilovsky district:

April 2022 vs. April 2026.

https://x.com/BrianMcDonaldIE/status...82452580479109

[Ravenlocke]

Mats Nilsson


Apr 5
A Dutchman became a Russian in Sakhalin.

Ecologist Peter van der Wolf moved from the Netherlands to a remote corner of Russia and found a home here.

He says he likes everything: nature, living creatures around and endless free space

https://x.com/mazzenilsson/status/2040860223510917508

[Ravenlocke]

Ninel Korolkova🇷🇺 - a filmmaker from the front
@NinelKorolkova
·
Mar 29
I see your great interest in the topic of birch sap!😍 Thank you so much for this!🙌🏻🌿

To be honest, I didn't expect this at all! For us Russians, this is a common thing, someone has been extracting juice since childhood - there is a lot of abilities for this in villages! Urban residents are less familiar with this, but birch trees are everywhere, and many people know about the undeniable benefits of this juice.

🌱Today I visited the Moscow region and specially filmed a video for you about juice extraction.

📹Would you be interested in a detailed video or a short one about the most important thing?


https://x.com/NinelKorolkova/status/2038396025749344501

[Bill Ryan]

This weekend is Easter in the Orthodox Church.

https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/181646

Russian fighters receive special Easter breads for Easter.

Kulich is a traditional Russian Easter bread baked for Orthodox Easter. It’s tall, slightly sweet, and made with butter, eggs, and dried fruits like raisins. After baking, it’s topped with white sugar glaze and often taken to church to be blessed.

Beyond being a dessert, kulich symbolizes the presence of Jesus Christ at the Easter table, as well as His Resurrection and the idea of life overcoming death. It’s also a home version of a sacred church bread representing the body of Christ. The tall shape reflects the transition from earthly to heavenly, and the white glaze stands for purity.

[Bill Ryan]

https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/181727

April 1961: Moscow metro passengers reading newspaper reports of Yuri Gagarin's space flight.