New microchips will help locate the deer with previously unheard of precision and track it during the long winter nights”. When I switched on the television on Tuesday I could hardly believe my eyes. The rest of the world was watching scenes of riot police and pro-government youth activists attacking pro-democracy demonstrators in Moscow. The name of Triumphalnya Square, where the rally was taking place, was topping Twitter trends. But the main story on state-owned “Rossiya 24”, Russia’s only 24-hour TV channel, was the microchipping of polar deer. It was a testament to the way Russia’s leadership is handling the first real political crisis of the Putin era.
「新型微晶片將提供前所未有的定位準確性，幫助人們在漫長的冬夜裏追蹤北極馴鹿。」週二的時候我打開電視，看到的居然是這樣一條新聞，讓我簡直不敢相信自己的眼睛。全世界其他人都在看莫斯科的好戲——防暴警察和支持政府的年輕活動者與支持民主的抗議者發生衝突。抗議集會地點凱旋廣場(Triumphalnaya Square)已經成爲Twitter上的熱門辭彙。但在國有頻道「Rossiya 24」（俄羅斯唯一的24小時頻道）上，主打新聞卻是用於追蹤北極馴鹿的微晶片。從中可以看出，俄羅斯領導層是怎樣在處理普丁時代第一場真正的政治危機。