Friday February 23rd is a public holiday - Defenders of the Fatherland Day. The holiday is supposed to be geared towards those who served in the armed forces, though it serves more as a day to celebrate men in general – a counterpart to March 8th's Women’s Day in the interests of gender equality. Of course, a celebration of men and a celebration of those who served in the armed forces should technically be synonymous in Russia. But with many parents doing everything from doctoring medical records from when their sons are toddlers to paying large sums of money to save their children the rigors of conscription, this is not the case. And, in fact, it's even acceptable for foreigners to get in on the act and reap the benefits of the day.

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Here's one from the archives. May Day 2005: I was taken along to some political rally by an acquaintance of mine at the time. It was something about Alexandr Dugin's Evrazia movement. I don't really know or care what it's about but if anyone's interested you can read about it in seven languages here. But it must be something a bit odd since the people I met there all seemed to be virulent racists or other assorted nuts. There was a young American lad there who gave a speech, warning about the danger of the Orange Revolution spreading to Russia and how terrible McDonald's is among other things. Later he came to join us for a meal at that very same eatery. Overall, the people were unimpressive, disorganised and generally uninspiring. If this is the calibre of people involved in Russia's radical fringe groups then there isn't a whole lot to be concerned about (or excited about, depending on your own views). And now I'm not sure if I had a point to make when I started writing this. At any rate, the photo of the little girl with the flag and the armband is quite cute, in a disturbing sort of way.