The Command Post - Iraq - Frisbees Over Fallujah

The Command Post:

Via The Command Post, we have a very cheerful image from Fallujah. I dropped by the Post to see what they'd dug up on last night's assassination-by-landmine in Chechnya. They have links to several Chechen news sources, which are worth looking over if you're interested in that theatre of the GWOT.

One of those had this interesting article on the importance of prostitution to Russia's economy:

Prostitution has been playing more and more important role in Russia's import of hard currency. In Istanbul, Turkey alone, let alone other profitable cities of Turkey such as Antalia, Marmaris, Adana, etc., several tens of thousands of Russian prostitutes are registered. And all across Turkey there are over 120 thousand prostitutes, who are only registered officially. With the average earnings of $ 100 a day they all earn at least $ 10 million dollars each day, which is about $ 300 million a month.

Three billion US dollars--this is the summary profit of Russian prostitutes in Turkey per year. And these are only the most conservative estimates! But if we add a number of other lucrative regions such as Europe (with about 200,000 Russian prostitutes), Indochina (40-50 thousand), etc., the annual Russian off-budget profits from prostitution will be no less than $ 10 billion US dollars.

The Islamic news service suggests that this is, of course, a sign of the moral worthlessness of the evil Russian republic. They report rumors that the government may be preparing to set up a cabinet-level ministry to legalize and encourage prostitution. Leaving those rumors aside, though, the sheer size of the industry is surprising. Ten billion US dollars is not small change for a cash-strapped nation, even if much of that money can't be getting out of the localities where it is earned.