No sex please, we’re communists
Published 12 January, 2009, 16:21
Creating your own search engine may seem a strange project for a political organisation, but for the communists of St. Petersburg it’s the way to promote red ideals and fight capitalism.
The first search website of its kind is named after the German communist theorist Friedrich Engels. The ‘wise and rugged Engels’ will become an alternative to Google, Yahoo, and of course Russia’s most popular search engine, Yandex, which are ‘infested with consumerism, the sex industry and mindless mass culture’, the would-be creators say.
“Engels search will ban pornography, dating sites and obscenity. Engels will be the site for workers, farmers and intelligentsia,” foresee the enthusiastic visionaries. “Friedrich Engels’ kind face with a cunning wink – the logo of the raising top search website – will come to every country cottage, every mountain village, every nomad’s tent, every prison cell of a freedom fighter!”
Vladimir Kremlev for RT. Click to enlarge
In addition to topless photos and commercials Engels search will block information about people like the outgoing US President George W. Bush, the prominent leader of anti-Bolshevik forces during the Russian civil war, Aleksandr Kolchak (who also is the character of a recent Russian blockbuster ‘Admiral’) or the late President Boris Yeltsin. St. Petersburg communists believe people would rather read about Vladimir Lenin or Hugo Chavez and say their approach will win popularity for the new website.
Users will never be able to find the cities of Ekaterinburg and Samara in Engels, simply because shortly after the downfall of the Soviet Union they reverted to these original names, after being named after Soviet heroes and called Sverdlovsk and Kuybishev respectively during Soviet times. The fact that they subsequently reverted to their original names is blamed on ‘the haters of every thing Soviet’.
Despite this dubious approach to searching for information, the organisation hopes Engels will eventually beat its main rival Yandex, which the new engine creators believe is involved in a conspiracy against the international communist movement.
Apparently Yandex was not randomly chosen by the communists for a web attack. A spin firm in St. Petersburg recently suggested changing the name of the city’s Engels Street to Yandex Street on the grounds that the website did more for Russia then the iconic philosopher. The proposition has seen little support so far, but it hasn’t stopped the communists from preparing their retaliation to the PR stunt.
Now they are trying to raise funds to finance the development of Engels search.
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