While media speculate on supposed Putin-Medvedev odds, London eccentrics amuse the public with a real scuffle

A NEW SIN OF THE RUSSIANS

According to a recent study of a Moscow-based E-Generator research company, The Guardian, a major British newspaper, mentioned the words "Russia" and "GULAG" in the same context 453 times during the last decade. The manner of depicting the Russian civilization as a permanent generator of violence and arbitrariness is as old as the discipline in Western political sciences, traditionally known as Sovietology.

A new tendency, revealed by the researchers, is to apply …