a volcano somewhere. Every story out of Russia quotes the same couple of English-speaking, Western-funded "experts" as every other story, and seldom do foreign reporters speak with ordinary Russians or travel outside of the capital to find out what is really going on. Of course, there is a lot more to Russia than what the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow office will tell you. Jacob Dreizin, a naturalized American citizen of Russian descent and a U.S. Army veteran, has created this blog to convey news from Russia and its "near abroad" that has been overlooked, ignored, or misrepresented by the English-language media, as well as occasional late-breaking Russian headlines before they reach foreign news outlets. He can be contacted at JacobDreizin at yahoo dot com.