A rather bizarre act of vandalism was recently reported at an art exhibition in Moscow, where a security guard damaged an art exhibit and tried to eat it.

Last week, the organizers of a contemporary art exhibition at Moscow’s VDNKh permanent exhibition center noticed that one of the exhibits was missing its main protagonist. Named “Escape of the Goldfish”, the art piece featured a goldfish bowl with a goldfish sticking out of it right next to a painting of the open sea, with another goldfish stuck to it as if it had jumped from the bowl and into the waves. A thought-provoking concept, and one that caught the eye of the security guard on duty, only instead of admiring it from a distance and doing his job, the guy vandalized the very thing he was paid to protect.

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A 23-year-old Russian man recently revealed that he trained and used ChatGPT to filter through 5,239 girls’ dating profiles and then date the best matches until he found his soon-to-be wife.

Alexander Zhadan first made waves on RuNet – the online Russian-speaking community – a year ago, when he tweeted that he wrote an academic thesis using ChatGPT in just 23 hours. A few days ago, the young Russian IT professional once again made news headlines, this time for using the same AI tool to filter through thousands of online dating profiles and relying on its tips and advice to find the perfect partner and then make her his wife. Zhadan’s story, originally told through a series of posts on X/Twitter, has sparked a heated debate on the morality of using AI tools to find love online, and while the 23-year-old admits that his story could change how others see online dating, he did point out that ChatGPT has its limitations and that he needed to get involved personally to connect with his dates.

It all started with Alexander’s disappointing experience with popular dating apps like Tinder. He would swipe left, then right, then spark a conversation with a potential match and then that person would just disappear. It was a huge waste of time, but having become familiar with ChatGPT, he wondered if there was a way to use the AI tool to make his online dating experience more efficient.

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Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science recently fired the director of the prestigious Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences allegedly for controversial remarks that are incompatible with science.

Geneticist Alexander Kudryavtsev was named director of the General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in June of 2021 and was scheduled to carry out his mandate until 2027, but last month, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science announced that Kudryavtsev had been relieved of his duties and replaced. His sacking was immediately linked to a series of controversial statements made in March of last year, during the 3rd International Scientific and Theological Conference “God – Man – World”. The Russian scientist claimed that before the biblical flood, humans used to live for up to 900 years, but that their lifespan has shortened since then due to “original, ancestral and personal sin.”

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The Amber Yantar, a new electric vehicle prototype from Russia, has been dubbed the world’s ugliest car because of its bizarre, unattractive design.

Car prototypes usually have eye-catching designs that capture viewers’ imagination. Even if the vehicle that reaches the production line turns out to be very different, or if it never actually goes into production, prototypes are an exciting way of showcasing a car brand’s vision of the near future. But that isn’t always the case. Take, for example, the new Amber Yantar, an EV prototype designed by Avtotor, a Russian carmaker based in Kaliningrad, in collaboration with the Moscow Polytechnic Institute. It was revealed to the public less than a week ago, but it has already become the laughing stock of the entire internet, with photos of its unflattering exterior doing the rounds on social media.

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Russian hydrologist Alexander Tsvetkov was detained in February 2023, after an AI system determined that his face was a 55% match to the sketch of a murderer drawn 20 years ago by a witness.

Alexander Tsvetkov, a scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Inland Water Biology, has been living a nightmare for the past 10 months. He was removed from an airplane in February, following a work trip to Krasnoyarsk, and informed that he had been identified as the author of a series of murders over 20 years ago. Investigators claimed that he and his alleged accomplice killed at least two people in Moscow and the Moscow region in August 2002, ignoring the testimonies of multiple scientists that Tsvetkov had been with them at the time of the murders. The state’s smoking gun? An AI-powered system that found a 55% match between Tsvetkov and a sketch drawn by a witness over two decades ago…

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It’s rare for any dog to reach 100 kilograms, let alone a stray one, but Krugets, a stray dog living in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, has become so fat that he can barely get up.

The Great Dane, the world’s largest dog breed, weighs between 300 (136 kg) and 400 pounds (181 kg), but for a midsize stray dog to weigh just under 220 pounds (100 kg) is somewhat of an oddity. Volunteers in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, recently found a stray dog so fat that he howled in pain every night, and barely managed to get up on all fours because of the unbearable joint pain. The dog had to be placed on a large scale by a number of people, and his weight reportedly stunned everyone. Krugets weighed a whopping 99.9 kilograms (220 lbs) and no one could understand how a stray could become so heavy.

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A Russian man was recently arrested after stealing 53 new iPhones on his very first day of work at a Moscow electronics store.

Earlier this month, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs published a short clip of a man “cleaning up” an electronics store in Moscow and filling a small suitcase and several bags with dozens of iPhone cases. The 44-year-old unnamed man doesn’t seem bothered by the surveillance camera and, after trying and failing to change its facing direction with a cleaning mop, he simply carries on with his business. After taking 53 brand-new iPhones and 53,000 rubles ($570) from the register, he casually walks out the front door. Believe it or not, this was the man’s first day on the job as a sales manager at the electronics store…

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A school in the Russian town of Bolshoy Kamen has attracted a lot of criticism both from students and their parents after installing a camera surveillance system inside the girls’ toilet.

Many people view toilets as one of the few remaining places to enjoy privacy outside their homes, and even in the busiest of places. But if you are a girl studying at School no. 1 in Bolshoy Kamen, Russia, you can no longer enjoy privacy inside the toilet because of a three-camera surveillance system that feeds live footage straight to the security guard’s booth. Granted, the cameras don’t offer a view inside the toilet booths, but simply knowing that someone might be watching your every move in what is supposed to be the most private space in the school is disturbing, according to many students and their parents.

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A 53-year-old Russian woman sparked outrage in her home republic of Tatarstan by tying the knot with a 22-year-old man whom she had raised for the last eight years.

Aisylu Chizhevskaya-Mingalim, a well-known musician in Tatarstan and the niece of famous singer Renata Ibragimov, found herself at the center of a massive scandal after reportedly marrying her adopted son. Eight years ago, while teaching music in the orphanages of Kazan, Aisylu met Daniil, a 13-year-old boy who shared her passion for music, and after a few lessons, the two became a duet. The boy also participated in various reality talent shows, such as the “You’re Super!” project, and sang with popular Russian singer Filip Kirkorov. When he was 14, Daniil became the singer’s foster child, and they have lived together ever since. However, on October 20, the two shocked the world when they legally became married.

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After undergoing a CT scan, an 80-year-old woman from Russia’s Sakhalin region discovered that she had a 3cm metal needle lodged in the left side of her brain.

Photos of the woman’s CT scan results were recently released by the Sakhalin Ministry of Health, along with a shocking explanation. Taking into consideration the woman’s age, doctors believe that the needle was inserted into her brain by her own parents, soon after her birth. As shocking as that sounds, such practices were not uncommon in war-torn Russia. Parents who could not afford to take care of their babies in difficult wartime conditions inserted thin needles into their brain through the fontanelle – the gap in the skull that gradually closes as the baby grows – to kill them. This method left no trace, as the fontanelle quickly closed, leaving no evidence of the murder weapon.

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Russian police are currently on the lookout for a young girl who reportedly stormed out of a restaurant, leaving her date to foot the bill after he asked her to split it evenly.

Handling the bill on a first date has always been a point of contention, as some people believe that men should cover the entire cost, while others are convinced that going Dutch is the only way. Both sides have their arguments, and while online forums are full of endless debates on the subject, there was never really cause for involving the police. Until recently, that is, when one 28-year-old man from Moscow filed a complaint against a woman he went on a date with after she refused to split the bill, leaving him to cover the entire 16,000 rubles ($165) cost.

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A Russian man who had spent the last 22 years of his life in a penal colony for serious crimes, recently escaped on the very day he was supposed to be released.

According to the SHOT Telegram channel, Kamoljon Kalonov had been serving a lengthy 22-year-sentence for a double murder, theft,  and possession of weapons, ammunition, explosives, and explosive devices, but he was supposed to be released from the IK-19 penal colony in the village of Markova near Irkutsk last week. However, the regional department of the Federal Penitentiary Service told RIA Novosti that on the morning of his release day, at around 4 in the morning, Kalonov disappeared from the colony without informing anyone and is now supposedly on the run.

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A 69-year-old man from the Russian Republic of Dagestan claims to have set a new world record for fastest weight loss, after allegedly losing over 11 kilograms during a 2.5-hour race.

Bahama Aigubov had already had his name inscribed in the Russian Book of Records in 2019 when he lost 9.3 kg after a five-hour race, but he recently managed to blow his own record out of the water by losing  11.1 kg in 2.5 hours during a 21 km race in Makhachkala. Aigubov cannot have his record recognized by the Guinness Book of Records, as it does not acknowledge achievements in rapid weight loss so as not to encourage people to engage in dangerous experiments, but the pensioner claims to be the fastest body weight shedder in the world, by far.

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An unemployed man in Russia managed to live out his dream of being a traffic policeman by putting on a fake police uniform and going on patrols with actual traffic inspectors for two months.

Tired of sitting around all day, Viktor, a 48-year-old unemployed man from Russia’s Stavropol Region, bought himself a realistic-looking police uniform and joined the ranks of law enforcement officers in the village of Pyatigorsky. Relying on his traffic inspector attire, great acting skills, and enviable self-confidence, the man patrolled the streets of Pyatigorsky, actively stopping negligent drivers and educating them on various traffic rules. It is unclear why Viktor chose this specific profession, or whether he actually took any bribes from motorists during his voluntary service, but his career was short-lived. Two months after joining the ranks of the Stavropol traffic police, his cover was blown.

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An 81-year-old Russian woman with ties to the criminal underworld of Krasnodar was recently arrested for ordering the killing of a criminal investigations detective.

Lyudmila Ryabykh is not your average grandmother. Not only does the 81-year-old have a strong connection to members of Krasnodar’s organized crime, but she once threatened to kill a paramedic with a sawed-off shotgun and she recently placed a hit on a local detective that apparently rubbed her the wrong way. The pensioner was caught red-handed after ordering the killing of an officer from the Krasnodar police department and paying part of the reward for proof of his death. Unfortunately for her, Ryabykh didn’t know that her criminal associates had revealed her plan to the authorities, and she now risks spending the rest of her days behind bars.

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