Anglophone Russia bloggers have been discussing social and political aspects of the catastrophic wildfires and the ongoing firefighting efforts in central Russia since early August. Below is a selection of their views. In an Aug. 4 post, Streetwise Professor noted that, for a number of reasons, Russia lacked much of what was needed for “effective firefighting” – “a good deal of contingency planning,” significant “investment in equipment,” “excellent communications,” and “trained personnel who can act on the spot in response to sudden developments” – and concluded: Not surprisingly, perhaps, the official response seems as much focused on appearing to be in charge and doing something, rather than actually being in charge and doing something. […] A Russia-based reader – mossy – responded in the comments section: […] It’s really, really, really bad. The most organized, prepared, well-funded and well-organized system wouldn’t be able to cope with this. On the other hand, we don’t have an organized, prepared, well-funded, and well-organized system. And people are idiots. My neighbor has his sprinkler on 24/7 even though he loses water because of it. People start bonfires to burn construction material and leave them unattended. So yeah, the authorities are really f*cking up. But yeah, it really is a miserable situation. There has never been anything like this in the recorded history of Moscow. […] […] On Putin “taking control.” This is a double-edged sword. […] On the one hand, some people probably think: Molodets! Taking control from those local jerks who didn’t do their job. He cares about people. On the other hand, some people also think: So what happened to the power vertical? If you’re on the top with top-down command, why did you let it get this bad? And why is it that the only time problems get fixed is when you show up? Don’t we have any system of governance that works without the prime minister taking charge? So I’m not sure how this is going to play out. I’ve been surprised at the ferocity of government criticism from “average citizen” types who usually support Putin. We had a smaller version of this horror in 2002, and I don’t remember any criticism of the government at the time. I don’t think this is the straw that will break the camel’s back, but I do think people’s general sense of being fed up is being pushed up another notch. […] On Aug. 5, Miriam Elder filed a GlobalPost dispatch from a burned-down village 140 km from Moscow and also blogged about burning her foot severely there: […] I was taking photographs of the remains of Kadanok, a village that had burned entirely, when one wrong step left me sinking into something that felt like a thousand boiling knives stabbing themselves into my foot. Russia is burning. Whatever you’ve heard, multiply it by a thousand and that’s how bad it is. […] […] And there is no one to help. With three colleagues, I left Moscow at 7 a.m. and got to the hospital in Moscow at 7 p.m. Twelve hours and not one moving fire truck, army truck, official emergencies ministry vehicle. These people have been left to fend for themselves. In Beloomut, people, many of them pensioners, are picking up shovels and digging trenches for themselves. This isn’t Siberia or the Far East. This is a suburb of Moscow, incredibly poor and totally forgotten. […] Also on Aug. 5, A Good Treaty translated from Russian the rynda/fire-alarm-bell exchange between LJ user top-lap and PM Vladimir Putin (a GV translation is here) and wrote this about it: […] I’m sure many will read Putin’s response as another installment in his epic book of cool […]. […] The actual content of his letter — its sarcasm and concluding offer to ‘return the fire alarm bell’ — seems to make light of a pretty serious problem, namely the embarrassing poverty of the Russian countryside. […] On Aug. 10, Vadim Nikitin of Foreign Policy Association's Russia blog wrote about the consequences of the disastrous situation for some of Russia's officials: […] So far the disaster has claimed the political lives of just one small and isolated group of mid-ranking bureaucrats: Medvedev sacked a few Defence Ministry officials for letting the fire destroy a top military installation. The Minister himself received only a mild rebuke.