Yesterday I had a really interesting „surf“ through Runet which led me from the website of fantasy writer Sergey Lukyanenko to the social network platform “Berloga” of the ruling party „United Russia”. Initially I just wanted to look up the date of first publication for Lukyanenko’s famous “hacker bible”, “The Labyrinth of Reflections” (1996, btw). I entered his homepage and got momentarily attracted by the diversity of web usages and Internet services offered. Would I like to read one of his novels as e-book on my mobile phone? Does his new weblog Dr. Piliulkin differ very much from the previous one he wrote under the nickname Dr. Livsy (which he closed down in July 2008 because he felt himself misunderstood by his readers)? But before I even could make up my mind to visit Lukyanenkos new ZheZhe, I came across an announcement in the news section of the website telling me that on January 19th, the famous science fiction writer has been "on duty" (dezhurstvo) on the social network platform “Berloga”. I decided to take a look. The social network “Berloga”, part of the only recently created web portal of “United Russia”, positions itself as a place “where different political forces, people with diverging opinions discuss the most actual questions and problems. The only thing uniting them is their love for Russia and their aim to take care of her prosperous future.” (sorry for this probably odd translation). "Берлога - это место, где различные политические силы, люди с разными убеждениями, обсужают самые актуальные вопросы и проблемы. Единственное, что объединяет нас всех - любовь к России и забота о её благе." Indeed, the site offers a list of communities and discussion forums dedicated to the different political parties in Russia beginning with the “Communist Party” and ending with “Narodnyj sojuz”. The “berlogery” are encouraged to join the forum of the party they associate themselves with. I am puzzled. Does this make sense: to represent one’s political opponents on the own website? While in “real life” active political opposition is reduced to almost zero? Observers have voiced different explanations. Thus, Vadim Treskin assumes that the aim of the “Berloga” social network might be to integrate the young political elites of the opposition into the “United Russia” movement. To give a more accurate account of the current life on the site would need more time than I have today. What is evident though is the creative adoption of Runet traditions and neologisms: the anagrammatical word play transforming “blogery” into “berlogery” with the help of the party acronym “ER” is an intelligent trick. The same is valid for the community appeal implicit in the web address of the project www.togeth.er.ru. Finally, what did Lukyanenko and his readers talk about during his “dezhurstvo”? A quick browsing showed that questions of literary genre were addressed as well as more directly political topics (concerning corruption, Putin’s strange status as party-leader without party membership). That brings me back to some of our previous posts where we discussed the impact and the significance of such (more or less) open web controversies within a political climate that is more than often determined by intolerance and violence against critics. Is the "Berloga" project only a smart and especially efficient sort of political technology? Or do make controversial discussions on the web a difference regardless of the communication contexts in which they are embedded? H.S. P.S. Sorry for the Pidgin-English. Dear native speakers among my blogger-colleagues, if you feel like correcting the one or the other sentence, please do not hesitate :)