In this week's Odder News, don't drink and drive your tractor, ticket-taking grandmothers are surprisingly entertaining, and the Russians win the new space race by a hair.

"The president’s website is working. There are no problems.”

– On October 4 Press Secretary for the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov reassured the public that not even Facebook can take down the President’s site.

Meet Khokhulya: he's a Russian desman, the official eco-hero of the Kaluga Region, and now an internet personality to boot. 

After twenty years outside the public eye, celebrated author Viktor Pelevin comes to Moscow to greet fans and sign books. Or does he?

"The App Store portal: who regulates it? Artificial intelligence, people from Mars?”

– Andrei Klimov, seeking to understand what’s going on behind the scenes with Apple’s App Store on September 17.

Roskomnadzor seems to have a funny bone to pick with the Sverdlovsk government publication Oblastnaya Gazeta, blocking their website in delayed reaction to a questionable text.

A young Russian blogger and his accomplice published a video of vehicular hooliganism on September 1.

Pizza-lovers be warned: a new scam in Russia is targeting those with a craving for cheese and pepperoni. 

A very uncharacteristic tweet about a famous Soviet rockstar has many Russians scratching their heads. Apparently, even communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov can't resist a catchy tune. 

“Don't believe it, don't click it, don't pay!”

– Sergey Volodkhin, director of the Russian company “Antiphishing,” explaining how online scammers bait their hooks,

Who needs headlights when you have flamethrowers instead? This Russian mechanic decided to find out. 

Cats and bears are (arguably) Russia's two favorite national animals. What would happen if the two animals were to come head to head? Apparently, not much.