S novym godom

Happy New Year. I have not been very good about posting to my blog about events in Russia. Mostly because I have been swamped with grading (end of semester in December and start of semester in January). We have been having pretty good enrollments in our online HIS 241 course (History of Russia I) the past few semesters of about 20 per semester--not that many actually finish the course. HIS 242 (History of Russia II) usually enrolls fewer, about 7-10 students.
In the meantime, Russia is experiencing an economic crisis,much like most of Western Europe and the United States, but a recent article pointed out how much of the economy has turned "underground" or non-official or illegal.