i'll let mod-zeppe explain what pees on you in russia.

In Communist Russia, Hooker Pees on YOU!!

To boldly sack

Sep 28th 2010, 9:44 by The Economist | MOSCOW


DMITRY MEDVEDEV, Russia's president, has fired Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, in a bold move designed to shore up his faltering political credibility. In a decree made public this morning, Mr Medvedev said he had lost confidence in Mr Luzhkov, who has ruled Moscow as a medieval fief since 1992, back when the late Boris Yeltsin was still president.

The unceremonious sacking came after three state-controlled television channels mounted a co-ordinated attack on Mr Luzhkov and Elena Baturina, his billionaire wife. The Kremlin-sanctioned onslaught was a hint that Mr Luzhkov defiantly ignored, insisting as recently as yesterday that he would not be resigning.

The programmes, reminscent of the grubby TV kompromat wars of the 1990s, pulled no punches, raking over long-standing allegations of corruption and mismanagement. They also suggested that Ms Baturina, Russia’s richest woman, had built her construction business on her husband’s political patronage.

But Mr Luzhkov’s political star had actually begun to wane earlier in the summer, as Russia struggled to cope with a fierce heat wave and a slew of forest fires. As the crisis escalated Mr Luzhkov made the unorthodox decision to leave Moscow for a foreign holiday. As smog choked the capital and the mortality rate soared, the mayor's officials made a series of nonchalant statements, and he himself appeared reluctant to return to work to deal with a crisis that by then had attracted the attention of the world's media.

Public opinion was further outraged by news that the mayor’s personal bee collection outside Moscow had been relocated to less hazardous climes. Kremlin sources voiced their displeasure and, for the first time in living memory, federal television channels began to report that influential people were criticising the mayor.

The last straw was a newspaper article that Mr Luzhkov published earlier this month. In it, the mayor criticised Mr Medvedev’s decision to suspend construction on a proposed controversial new road between Moscow and St Petersburg. But his real sin, in the Kremlin’s eyes, was to question Mr Medvedev’s authority. He wrote of the need for the government to “recover its true authority and meaning,” a phrase that was interpreted as a call for Vladimir Putin, the current prime minister, to return to the presidency in 2012.

Mr Medvedev’s aides lost no time in accusing Mr Luzhkov of trying to drive a wedge between the president, who has struggled to distance himself from Mr Putin’s patronage, and the prime minister. The mayor, in the words of one Kremlin official, had “overstepped the mark.” Mr Luzhkov then took another holiday, this one sanctioned by the Kremlin, to consider his future, celebrating his 74th birthday there last week.

The expectation was that he would resign on Monday, his first day back at work. But when he stubbornly thumbed his nose at the Kremlin instead, Mr Medvedev had to act in order to avoid looking weak. By acting decisively he has shored up his political credibility, at least temporarily. Not to have done so would have derailed any hopes he might nurture of running for a second presidential term.

Mr Putin, who has maintained a stony public silence on Mr Luzhkov’s fate, still looks like he is considering a return to the Kremlin in 2012, when the next presidential election will be held. He still looks like the country’s most powerful politician, by some margin. But by sacking Mr Luzhkov, Mr Medvedev has tried to show he is an independent political actor.

There are few democracies where city mayors can be removed at the whim of national leaders. But in 2004 Mr Putin abolished direct elections for regional political posts and turned them into Kremlin appointments. On this occasion the prime minister’s role is unclear. But it is inconceivable that he played no role in Luzhkov's sacking, and so there is probably more theatre than reality to Mr Medvedev's elaborate show of independence. The way Russia is ruled shows few signs of changing.

Russia seeks 6 extra years in jail for tycoon


MOSCOW | Fri Oct 22, 2010 11:07am EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian prosecutors Friday demanded that jailed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky be imprisoned for an additional six years if he is convicted in his politically charged second trial.

Prosecutors asked for a 14-year prison sentence but said it should include the eight-year term that Khodorkovsky is currently serving, which is due to end in October 2011.

The requested sentence would keep the former Yukos oil company chief, once Russia's richest man, in prison into 2017.

"For a person who did not commit any crime this is still too much," said Maxim Dbar, a spokesman for Khodorkovsky's legal team.

Prosecutors made the request as they wrapped up closing arguments in a trial that is a test of President Dmitry Medvedev's vows to improve Russia's justice system.

Khodorkovsky has one year left to serve in the eight-year sentence imposed after a high-profile fraud and tax evasion trial that tarnished Russia's image during Putin's 2000-2008 presidency.

In the second trial, which has been grinding on in a drab Moscow courtroom for more than a year and a half, Khodorkovsky stands accused of stealing $27 billion worth of oil from Yukos production subsidiaries in 1998-2003.

Supporters have cast both trials as products of a Kremlin-driven campaign of revenge for perceived political, economic and personal challenges to Putin, who has sought to ensure Russia's billionaire tycoons toe the line.

Khodorkovsky's lawyers say a verdict could come before the end of the year.

(Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Steve Gutterman and Ralph Boulton)

Sometimes I wonder what "the all exclusive Russia thread" would be like.