Free Republic

Russian farmers are begging President Vladimir Putin to help them deal with a massive influx of antelopes that are wreaking havoc on crops and water supplies in the Saratov region. Already dealing with his attempted invasion of Ukraine, Putin now has his own 'invader' to worry about - one that threatens his homeland's food supply. Approximately a million saiga antelopes, recognized by their distinctive, bulbous noses, have reportedly invaded the south-western province, many crossing into Russia from neighboring Kazakhstan. The Saratov region, situated along the Volga River and known as Russia's sixth-largest grain-producing area, has been ravaged by these Eurasian...

A massive explosion of ammunition triggering a giant mushroom cloud today hit Engels-2, home of a military airport for Russia's nuclear strategic bomber aircraft. Ammunition warehouses crammed with suspected missiles and a military-linked aviation fuel oil facility were hit and ablaze in the Ukrainian blitzkrieg, and there was damage to a hospital from falling drone debris after it was downed by air defences. Massive secondary explosions of ammunition were reported from the strike with dozens of residential properties nearby suffering damage, and smoke visible from more than six miles away. After the detonation of the ammunition store in Engels-2, debris...

A Russian Navy amphibious landing ship was destroyed while docked in the Russian-occupied port of Berdyansk in southern Ukraine on Thursday, the Ukrainian navy said hours after photos emerged of a large ship engulfed in flames in the region.

A Russian airliner carrying 71 passengers and crew has crashed after vanishing from radar screens as it left a Moscow airport for the Urals, media say. The Saratov Airlines An-148 regional jet was en route to the city of Orsk when it went missing.

An exact copy of the U.S. President - Dr. Zaur Akhmedov - works as a pediatrician and dreams of meeting Barack. Zaur Akhmedov is a pediatrician in the small town of Engels near Saratov, and everyone calls him ‘Doctor Obama’. The fact is, he is very similar to the 44th U.S. president, Barack Obama. When Zaur Akhmedov calmly walks around without bodyguards, strangers who run into him cannot recover until they realize that he is not the real Barack Obama wandering the streets of Engels, but an almost exact copy. Children are no longer surprised, and they enjoy sticking their...

SAN ANTONIO - A team of three students from Russia proved their brainy prowess Wednesday, winning an academic competition in which they had just five hours to solve perplexing computing puzzles such as how to connect gears of a clock when given a specific shaft speed. ADVERTISEMENT "I am pleased with our performance today. It feels pretty good," Igor Kulkin, 21, said after his team from Saratov State University won the 2006 Association for Computing Machinery's International Collegiate Programming Contest. Working in teams of three, contestants in the 30th annual event had five hours to solve 10 problems that would...

US Navy to order unique aircraft in Saratov 13:12 2004-04-23 The US Navy Department intends to subsidize the development of an advanced Russian aircraft, which will eventually be extinguishing forest fires on US territory. This UFO-shaped flying machine is currently being designed by the Saratov aviation concern. The Saratov aircraft enterprise, which is located in Russia's Volga region, started assembling UFO-shaped flying machines in the 1990s; however, this R&D project was then moth-balled because of financial snags. Many aircraft companies all over the world did their best to design similar flying machines. However, Saratov's aircraft designers managed to come with...