Teletubbies, TikTok Tinder, and TikTok Mayor

In this week's Odder News, we have Teletubbies in Norilsk, synchronized swimmers take gold, and robbers hack an ATM with an ax.

• Google Maps users found a surprise in Norilsk: four people dressed like Teletubbies. Covered in what looks like blue, yellow, red, and green PPE, the quartet could also be employees of Google, each donning the costume of a color in Google's logo. Take a look at the photo and take your best guess as to who the Norilsk Teletubbies are.
• Move over, Russian figure skaters! The country's synchronized swimmers have taken gold as well. At the European Championships, the synchronized Svetlanas (Kolesnichenko and Romashina) put on a perfectly coordinated show. They performed to the song "Kalinka," a Russian classic, but in its ultra-modern version by pop group Little Big – whose every music video packs the weirdest things one can do on camera into three minutes. The pandemic break does not seem to have hurt Russian athletes, who are cleaning house in international competitions right now. No doubt Russia's quick rollout of the Sputnik V vaccine has helped.
• A barn near Perm went down in a blaze of glory when two TikTok-ing schoolgirls set fire to some straw, not quite anticipating what the consequences might be. It was a stranger's barn. The girls' fifteen minutes of TikTok fame came to an abrupt and dramatic end.
• Speaking of TikTok, even the mayor of Vologda, Sergei Voropanov, is a TikTok fan and user. He shoots videos to get his message out to Vologdans who do not read or listen to news. Voropanov said, "Young people live in social networks." He even inserted members of a street gang from Grand Theft Auto into his TikTok video to encourage street art. The times they are a-changin'.
• In Moscow, robbers hacked open a pharmacy ATM with an ax and stole R188,000 ($2,538). The perpetrators were caught on camera but are still at large. We bet they were mad that there were only R188,000 in the ATM. If you find an ax in a strange place, alert the authorities!