Russian social media reacts to ruble crisis with ‘Arctic Fox Day’

A leading Russian economist likened the public reaction to the falling ruble to the “calm of someone facing suicide.” But on the Internet, it looked more like the “Day of Dark Humor.” Or make that “Arctic Fox Day”: The Russian name (“pesets”) for the cuddly canid sounds almost like an unutterably rude word for “f-ck up.”

Arctic foxes thus became the illustration of choice for social media posts on “Black Tuesday,” including by popular bloggers Ilya “Zyalt” Varlamov, and the satyrical Twitter account KermlinRussia.