Google Analytics supplies me with statistics on the readership of this website—total readers, location by country and city, time spent on the site, etc. I’ve been happy to note a very substantial increase in readership this past month, which I attributed to interest in (and then despair over) the election. Then, a couple of days ago, I decided for the first time in a while to look at the breakdown of readers by country origin. It turns out the bulk of my increased readership is accounted for by a huge surge of readers in Russia. Curious! I’ve had modest numbers of Russian readers from time to time in the past, but none very recently until this past month. Just to add to the puzzle, the large majority of my Russian readers apparently hail from the city of Samara, which is only the sixth largest in Russia. So, I am asking my Russian readers (and anyone else who might have ideas): please explain to me what is going on. You can do so through comments to this post, or if you prefer, please e-mail me: afgreco.ny@gmail.com.   Thanks.