Kirill Kruglikov is a correspondent for North.Realities, a regional news outlet of RFE/RL's Russian Service.
When a wave of protests erupted across Russia in January and February in support of arrested opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, the government took note of the young age of many of those who took to the streets. In the weeks since, officials have been cracking down hard on many students.
The regions of Russia's north have been hit harder by the current spike in COVID-19 cases than they were by the first wave in the spring. Locals say the health service is struggling to cope and that officials are covering up the extent of the problem.
Nearly 400 people in the picturesque northern Russian city of Veliky Ustyug have been bilked out of over $3 million by an unscrupulous pyramid scheme, prosecutors say. Widely seen as a relic of the so-called "lawless 1990s," such swindles seem to be making a comeback deep in the Putin era.
