I've seen all kinds of news regarding the policy of bitcoin in russia. They threatened with banning bitcoin endless times, they even threatened with putting people involved in cryptocurrences in jail for 4 years... then they backpeddle and realize it's stupid and do nothing. It's pretty interesting to see how governments are struggling to deal with bitcoin in a way that doesn't make them look stupid.

Many news outlets ran a story several times saying that there were effectively regulations in place in Russia regarding capital control and that physical stores couldn't use Bitcoin for their services. Either this was entirely wrong (in which case news outlets were fooled, otherwise they wouldn't run this story so much) or these laws aren't really enforced or these guys are playing with fire. I guess this will bring this discussion up again...

As for the story itself, always positive to see someone accepting Bitcoin!


Either all of them, or just the last two

I would like to think with the current price increase it will dramatically start to have these countries and their stern view on bitcoin become to accept it instead of turn away from it.
This is a step in the right direction for the world wide acceptance of it and I have seen numerous news headlines just like this one all over the world starting to give rise to it's worldwide acceptance and encouraged value to each one's economy.

You know, we should create a similar site for Russia as we did with the Bitcoin obituaries, for every time someone says that Bitcoin is banned

in Russia, because it happens every other week now. I think the Russian people are so confused with all this false reporting that not even they

know what is the truth and what is not. This is not even funny anymore. 

This news is old. There are weeks and even months in which is told about legalising bitcoin in Russia. See here: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-currency-russia-ministry-finance-tax/ and here: http://bitcoinist.com/russia-tax-bitcoin-foreign-currency/

There was a polemic about the bitcoin prohibition some time ago, but it was solved. Now that is very good news. Gyms accepting bitcoin will introduce a new public to crypto currencies, the bodybuilders and all the people going to gym.
It is useful like a marketing for bitcoins, we should thanks russians for this, they gave the first step on this.

well,it is legal in Russsia
please read the articles here,regarding the legality of bitcoin in Russia:
https://bit.news/eng/events-cryptocurrency-world-week-november-28-4-december-2016/
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-legal-default-russia-says-new-federal-tax-document/

also if you want to check the legality of bitcoin in your country you can try this :


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country
http://money.cnn.com/interactive/technology/where-is-bitcoin-legal/
http://www.coindesk.com/information/is-bitcoin-legal/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/01/31/bitcoins-legality-around-the-world/#5cb504ed79b2

I don't think when they say that Russia has banned bitcoin means that everywhere in Russia has banned it.
It is the largest country in the world so their are regions in it that has accepted it and some that do not.
I would say that is safe to assume. Since we are not in Russia and can not say how thinks work there.

when i first heard about bitcoin being banned in Russia i did some googling and the only places that were saying it is banned were shitty bitcoin news sites and they were only aiming to bait some clicks and spread some FUD.
then i checked some more and saw there is one of the biggest bitcoin and blockchain conferences that is taking places in Moscow every year (it was in a month back when i checked it) then i realized how fake the news was.

There is a post published in one of social network addressed to the Russian banking authorities, explaining what is Bitcoin actually. And it says how secure and useful Bitcoin to avoid American attempts to block SWIFT for Russia (what they already did to Iran).
Unfortunately it is in Russian only http://obozrov.livejournal.com/1953.html