Trash, Taxes, and Trolling

1. You’ve got mail! Siberian activists sent packages of trash to four State Duma members and one senator to viscerally impress upon them the odious and odorous cost of Russia’s continuing garbage crisis. Piles and piles of trash have been stacking up around the country, with little action taken to staunch the stench. In extreme examples, overfilled landfills have led to extreme sickness in children and animals. We suppose these activists are trying to prove the more literal sentiment to the phrase “waste not, want not.”

2. Don’t want to pay taxes? Join a trade union! Such was the brilliant idea of Sergei Dymokin, who claims that by joining his trade union, Union SSR, one can legally evade both taxes and utility payments by claiming they are citizens of the USSR. Sounds great, doesn’t it? All this is allowed because Dyomkin published (the fire background is a nice touch) a contract on behalf of the members of Union SSR that Vladimir Putin has not personally responded to, and because a few technicalities might mean that the Russian constitution never took effect. While people across the country are following Dyomkin’s lead, law enforcement (amazingly) hasn’t yet taken the bait.

3. International intrigue isn’t all fun and games… or is it? A hot new Russian board game has been released that is based on the Skripal poisoning story. The game, “Our Boys in Salisbury” (Наши в Солсбери), follows the path of the two men accused of poisoning former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England. You can partake in the “fun” for cheap, as the game costs less than two dollars! Who says crime doesn’t pay?

In Odder News:

• Russians took on Facebook’s viral “10-year challenge,” and the results are perfection
• A purr-fect ending: animal rights activists bought a lioness that had been seen on the streets of St. Petersburg
• Not their swan song, after all: a rare breed of swans were spotted in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast for the first time in a century!

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