Russia's August Curse

The New Yorker:

Every August, Russians wait for history, and they are rarely disappointed. On August 31, 1996, Russia wrapped up its disastrous first war against the breakaway Chechen Republic. The ceasefire wouldn't last long, because exactly three years later, on August 31, 1999, a bomb ripped through a Moscow shopping mall, killing one and injuring forty. It would be the first of five bombings--and hundreds of casualties--and it would trigger the second, still somewhat unfinished war in the region. On August 17, 1998, the Russian government devalued the ruble and defaulted on its debt, ushering in a long and painful economic crisis. On August 12, 2000, the Kursk nuclear submarine sank in the Barents Sea.

Read the whole story: The New Yorker

Comments

[TomMartin]

05:58 PM on 08/20/2011

And don't forget that the Russian invasion of the former Czechoslovakia, in 1968, also took place in August.

[jtabs]

09:36 AM on 08/20/2011

Burt and Ernie?

[Vlad Roudenko]

09:20 PM on 08/19/2011

This is by far the most pointless article, if you could even call it that.

[KIVPossum]

03:38 PM on 08/19/2011

Someone stretched a mile for this story