Consequently, Windows on Eurasia presents a selection of 13 of these other and typically neglected stories at the end of each week. This is the 35th such compilation. It is only suggestive and far from complete – indeed, once again, one could have put out such a listing every day — but perhaps one or more of these stories will prove of broader interest.

1. Putin Tells Lukashenka He Isn’t Sleeping Well Anymore. Having kept so many others up at night, Vladimir Putin tells Belarus’ head Alyaksandr Lukashenka that he isn’t sleeping as well as he used to, getting not the seven or eight hours he needs but rather only five or six. That decline almost certainly is due to age rather than anything else, but perhaps in the still of the night, the Kremlin leader may have to reflect on what he has wrought.

4. EU Says Moscow hasn’t Met Any of Its Suggestions for Fighting Racism. The European Union had suggested a number of things that Russia should do to fight these evils; it now concludes that the Russian government has done nothing to meet any of these goals and instead is attacking the idea that it should have to meet any international standards

5. Duma Wants Those who Suppressed Prague Spring and Chechnya to Have Status Equal to World War II Vets. Some Duma deputies are promoting legislation that would give Soviet and Russian veterans who suppressed the Prague Spring in 1968 and Chechen independence more recently status equal to those who served in World War II.

10. Duma Deputy Blames Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ for Merkel’s Hard Line on Russia. A Russian parliamentarian says that Angela Merkel’s new hard line on Russia is a reflection of the forces that recently published a new edition of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” thus offering one of the more curious pieces of political analysis in Moscow this week.

11. Unknown Persons Topple Lenin Statue in Moscow, Leave Note Saying He was a Hangman. Statues of the founder of the Russian state are coming down all the time in Ukraine and other non-Russian countries, but they have tended to be left alone in Russia. Thus, it is interesting that s omeone toppled a Lenin statue in the Russian capital and left a note saying he was a hangman of the Russian people

12. Mohammed Ali Street to Appear in Grozny. Even as controversy continues to swirl in St. Petersburg over the renaming of a bridge in honor of a Chechen leader, Grozny has announced that it will honor the late American boxed Mohammed Ali by naming a street after him. The Chechen capital already has a Putin Boulevard .

13. ‘You Have Enemies; We Have Concrete to Plant Them In.’ A Russian cement firm has come up with an intriguing as well as disturbing advertisement of how some might want to use its product. The ad shows various foreign leaders Moscow has described as the enemies of Russia and then a photograph of a block of solidifying concrete out of which are sticking two legs.

And six more from Russia’s neighbors:

14. Even in Russian-Occupied Donbass, Lenin Statue Taken Down. People in the Russian-occupied portion of Donetsk have taken down a statue of the founder of the Soviet state , an intriguing spread of the “Leninfall” that has spread across Ukraine. Meanwhile, in nearby Russian Novorossiisk, citizens have put up a bust of Vladimir Putin “in gratitude” for his moves in Ukraine.

15. Georgia Loses More Territory to Russia’s Creeping Annexation. Russian border guards in South Ossetia moved the border markers deeper into Georgian territory, continuing the creeping annexation of Georgia that Moscow has been engaged in recently.

16. Kazakh Activists Call on Russia To Admit It Committed Genocide in Kazakhstan in 1920s and 1930s. Kazakhs have become the latest nation of the former Soviet and Russian empires to demand that Moscow at least admit that it carried out genocide against them in the early years of Soviet power when the sedentarization of the nomadic population and the collectivization of agriculture there cost the Kazakhs a third of their population.

17. Tashkent Bars Men with Beards from Football Matches. In an effort to prevent violence at soccer competitions , the Uzbek government has banned anyone wearing a beard to attend, apparently convinced that all those with beards are likely to be Islamist extremists.

18. Tajikistan to Forcibly Treat Those with Tuberculosis. In an indication of how widespread TB has become in Tajikistan , Dushanbe has ordered that those diagnosed with the disease are to be treated regardless of whether they want to or not.

19. Moscow has Corrupted Gagauz Leaders . A scandal has broken out in Moldova following documented reports showing that Russian officials have used bribes and other incentives to get Gagauz leaders to oppose Chisinau and support Moscow.