Joke of the day

Just emailed to me by a Russian friend under the subject line above:

Khodorkovsky has been sentenced to listen to his own sentence for life.

Dark humor, Soviet-style - it's back...

I heard on the radio this morning (Sergei Bountman's monologue on Echo of Moscow Radio) about a new wrinkle in the circus surrounding the Khodorkovsky trial. Anyone observing this event in the media has already heard about the hundreds of police officers at the courthouse daily, the pro-Khodorkovsky protesters beaten and arrested, and the anti-Khodorkovsky protesters installed in their place, not to mention the irregularities going on inside the courthouse. The news from yesterday is that the Moscow city authorities have picked this time to conduct "previously scheduled" road work on the stretch of road just in front of the courthouse. Bountman goes on to criticize the authorities' conduct of the circus surrounding the trial (I've translated this part; the rest is available in Russian at the link above):

But one question remains, and it's not an idle one. Guys, if this is just a regular criminal court proceeding, if this is a clear-cut case of fraud, then why are you making such a fuss about it? Why did you wave your nightsticks a week ago, why did you deploy three cordons of guards and all of those trucks? Are you expecting Shamil' Basayev and his posse? Why do your eyes start darting around when people ask simple questions? And for whom did you set out the so-called [anti-Khodorkovsky] "general public" like hedgerows, for Bush and Schroeder? And if you're so tough and sure of yourselves, really, why do your eyes keep darting around? The way you're doing it looks so petty and pitiful. You can see the threads sticking out. Like blue jeans made in Sovok [the USSR - the last sentence reads even better in Russian: "Блу джинс маде ин совок." ].

Update - the New York Times noted this new development in their story about the trial today as well ("For Russians, a Looming Verdict, and Heavy Equipment," by Steven Lee Myers):

When the [pro-Khodorkovsky] protesters arrived Monday morning, bulky construction machinery already occupied the side of Kalanchevskaya Street where others had assembled each day last week, undaunted by the grit and noise of road repair, to denounce what they called the government's selective prosecution of Mr. Khodorkovsky.

Kalanchevskaya, like most of Moscow's streets, certainly could use the work, but the timing and location of the repairs - directly opposite the courthouse - at least raised the question of selective reconstruction.

"The authorities seem to be afraid," Yelena L. Liptser, a lawyer for Mr. Khodorkovsky's partner and co-defendant, Platon Lebedev, said during a break in the proceeding, "but I do not know what they fear."

The trial, now in its 12th month, has often been called a test of the strength of Russia's judicial system. The rendering of a verdict, now in its second week, is revealing some of the system's absurdities.

The court's three judges resumed Monday, for a sixth day, the task of reading aloud a verdict said to be more than a thousand pages long (though accompanied now by the pounding of jackhammers instead of the chants of Mr. Khodorkovsky's supporters, as happened last week).