Sunday digest of materials from friendly outlets

Sunday digest of materials from friendly outlets

💜A goldmine for recruitment. DOXA looked into who is luring Africans to fight for the “Russian world,” how they do it, what happens to the new recruits at the front, and why the Kremlin wants this.

💜Russia is spending more and more money on patriotic education. The effectiveness of this spending is assessed using indicators that are supposed to reflect young people’s engagement with the patriotic agenda. “To Be Precise” found out how these indicators are calculated and whether they really say anything at all.

💜The Lavna port was conceived as a key element of the Murmansk transport hub, but after the invasion of Ukraine it proved unable to survive without state support. Arctida and Khroniki looked into who launched Murmansk’s “construction project of the century” and profited from the multibillion-ruble contracts.

💜“It’s as if someone won’t let me go and keeps saying: ‘Sew.’” People of Baikal told the story of Oksana Alkhunsaeva, a woman who was left alone with two children and the need to start everything from scratch. After an unusual dream, she began sewing, opened her own workshop, and now works with clients across the country.

💜“Escort work is normal.” Glasnaya looked into how the market for “relationship coaches” works on Russian-language social media. Who they are, how much they charge for their services, how they promise to teach women to get the maximum out of men, from flowers to apartments, and why they are in demand.

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