Dash-cam videos of traffic accidents recorded in Russia have become something of a YouTube sensation. 

A new video from Russia, however, features an incident of a different kind. The footage shows what appears to be an employee not so gracefully throwing boxes of mail packages outside of a train car at the Novosibirsk main railway station.

Recorded by a phone camera and uploaded on June 17, the video has garnered more than 46,000 views in just two days.

WATCH: Parcels are unceremoniously unloaded at Novosibirsk railway station



The recording has even elicited a statement from the Russian Post Office, which apparently has a YouTube account.

In a comment posted below the video, it says it will look into the matter to determine the date of the footage and the train’s destination, as well as the owner and number of the railway car which does not carry the Russian Post Office's logo.

The comment also says the Russian Post Office needs to determine whether the boxes are indeed postal packages or cargo owned by a third-party company.

The Novosibirsk railway station is one of the largest in Russia and an important stop along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

There are more videos of this kind online. Videos such as this one (note the color of the truck indicating that it is an official Russian Post Office truck) vary compared to official promo videos by the company, which come with a sentimental soundtrack and voice-over.

Life News recently reported that a pile of parcels and letters had been found in a ditch near a village in the Lipetsk region.

According to an official representative from the Russian Post Office, it was not negligence that led to that unfortunate incident, but rather a robbery by unknown assailants who targeted the post-office train car. 

-- Deana Kjuka and Pavel Butorin

Passengers on a subway train in St. Petersburg were recently treated to something you don't see every day -- a ride with the doors open as they rushed down the tunnel under Russia's second city.

While Russia is not known for its attention to public safety, this is still a bit out of the ordinary.

The passengers on the train seem more bemused than alarmed, however, and even go so far as to stick their heads out to look. Luckily, this is one Internet video that doesn't end tragically.



-- RFE/RL's Central Newsroom

According to a poll conducted by Russia's independent Levada Center, the United States is now the country considered by the greatest number of Russians to be an enemy of their country.

Asked to list the five countries they considered to be hostile or unfriendly to Russia, 38 percent included the United States on the list, followed by Georgia at 33 percent, and the three Baltic states -- Latvia at 21 percent, Lithuania at 17 percent, and Estonia at 16 percent.

Georgia and the United States actually swapped positions from the same survey a year earlier, when Georgia led with 41 percent to Washington's 35. What's clear is how Georgia's rate of inclusion on the enemies list has slowly come down following the 2008 war with Russia over South Ossetia, from a high of 60 percent in May 2009. Georgia appears to be gradually coming to some sort of terms with its big neighbor.

The United States' rise in the poll is somewhat predictable, given the recent frostiness in relations with Moscow over the U.S. Magnitsky Act and the Russian ban on U.S. citizens from adoptions.

What's interesting, though, is that when asked for their general feeling about the United States, 51 percent responded "very good" or "generally good." This is slightly down from the 54 percent of similar responses in May of 2012 and 2011.

And which countries do Russians see as their allies? Leading in the "most friendly" hit parade for the fifth year running is Alyaksandr Lukashenka's Belarus, with a full 46 percent of respondents including it on their list. After that comes Kazakhstan, China, Ukraine, and Germany, among all of the countries.

The survey was conducted on May 23-27 from a representative sample of 1,601 people across Russia, according to the Levada Center.

-- Dan Wisniewski

It survived one of World War II's bloodiest battles, in which some 2 million people are thought to have perished. 

Although it was often pummeled by machine-gun fire and shrapnel, it stood firm as fierce fighting in Stalingrad raged around it for 200 days.

It's little wonder, therefore,that the gnarled,100-year-old poplar, which still stands in Volgograd (as Stalingrad is now known), has a special place in the hearts of the city's denizens. 

The tree has been protected by the local council since 1993 and a special plaque at its base reminds passersby that the hoary old poplar "lived through the great battle." 

Now, however, despite withstanding everything that Nazi Germany could throw at it, the tree seems set to finally succumb to the vicissitudes of old age. 

As poplars usually only survive an average of 80 years, this centenarian is living on borrowed time.

Consequently, moves are afoot to clone the tree so that its legacy can be kept alive. 

"In order to preserve the idea of continuity between generations, we have decided to use this tree’s genetic material to reproduce it," a spokesperson for Volgograd's environmental authority told the RIA Novosti news agency on June 18. 

Scientists have already taken 10 samples from the tree and they hope to plant the first cloned saplings in downtown Volgograd by 2014.

In this way, it is hoped that this living reminder of the city's resilience and fortitude can be preserved for decades to come.

PHOTO GALLERY: The Battle of Stalingrad in pictures

-- Coilin O'Connor

Russia's dismal safety record was underlined once again this week with the publication of a video on YouTube depicting a horrible workplace accident that has already been viewed by tens of thousands of people just a couple of days after being uploaded.

(UPDATE: The video has since been removed from YouTube as a violation of its content policies.)

The tragic incident was the result of a botched demolition job in the city of Lipetsk on June 16.

According to Russian news reports, as laborers sought to tear down a three-story building in the courtyard of a hardware store with a bulldozer and some steel cabling, a shop employee ambled out and began filming the work with his camera-phone. 

It's clear from the footage that 29-year-old Yevgeny Titov is unaware that he is in any danger and no attempt is made by the workers to remove him or to create a safety exclusion zone around the demolition area.

Titov can even be heard exhorting the bulldozer's driver as the machine grapples with the old masonry. Then, tragedy strikes as a huge piece of the building crashes to the ground, spraying dangerous chunks of debris in all directions.

Titov is quickly engulfed by the flying rubble and chaotic scenes follow as the people around him try to rush to his aid. Another man, much closer to the demolition, can be seen jumping out of the way of the exploding debris at the last second.

Despite the best efforts of doctors, Titov's injuries were too severe for him to survive. He is survived by his wife and a 3-year-old daughter. One other man was hurt in the incident, but his injuries were not thought to be life-threatening. 

The company in charge of the demolition is now facing charges of criminal negligence and, in a cruel twist of fate, Titov's camera-phone footage will be a crucial piece of evidence in the case.

Sadly, the tragedy in Lipetsk highlights the difficulty of establishing a culture of occupational safety in Russia, where work-related deaths and injuries are still very common despite legislative efforts to improve the situation.

-- Coilin O'Connor

On the evening of June 17, for more than five hours, Erdem Gunduz stood motionless on Taksim Square. He simply stared at the portrait of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, that hangs outside the Ataturk Cultural Center in the capital.

The photo quickly went viral, and within hours #duranadam (Turkish for "standing man") and #standingman were trending on Twitter.

To see how the "standing man" protests and ensuing memes evolved, take a look at this Storify timeline by RFE/RL correspondent Glenn Kates:



Gunduz's simple stance inspired hundreds of others to join him in silent protest. However, as Reuters reported early on June 18, dozens of people who had joined Gunduz at the silent protest were arrested.

According to BBC, Gunduz managed to slip away from the police.

"I am just one protester, I'm just one artist. There are many artists and many, many young people on the streets. I am nothing but the idea is important, why people resist the government but the government didn't want to understand, didn't try to understand why people are on the streets [for] 19 days," the "standing man" told the BBC, calling his protest a "silent resistance."

Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist and social-media commentator covering the protests in Turkey, said on Twitter that the "standing man" protest had spread throughout Istanbul and other cities in several hours.

#Duranadam "standing man" protest spread in Istanbul & multiple cities without any TV or formal organization. Bet it will be repeated, too.

— Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) June 18, 2013

Reuters also confirmed that similar protests had spread through Istanbul, Ankara, and the city of Izmir.

Soon enough, however, savvy Twitter users had linked the two most prominent memes of the Turkish protests. So the penguin, which became a symbol of how local media missed the initial protest story, became a "standing penguin."

Turkish humour. Never fails "@zeynep: Here you go! Standing Penguin. :-) RT @leylim @spikylellie see this: pic.twitter.com/yIjS6igJJd. :))"

— Esra Doğramacı (@EsraD) June 17, 2013

Protests arose in several cities across Turkey on May 28 over plans to redevelop Gezi Park, one of the few remaining green areas in Istanbul. Within days, authorities were cracking down and the protests grew into mass unrest.

The silent protest followed a weekend of heavy clashes between police and protesters on Taksim Square as the police tried to clear out demonstrators.

Meanwhile, thousands of people came out to support Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan kilometers away from the city center in Istanbul.

On June 17, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc warned that authorities might deploy the armed forces to help police disperse the protests.

-- Deana Kjuka