Daily Archives: July 2, 2006

Amid critics accusing the Putin government of “backsliding” from democracy and his officials’ denials crouched in semantic differences between “managed” and sovereign” democracy, the Moscow News brings us back to the “simpler” times of the Russian Presidential election of 1996. The contest pitted incumbent Boris Yeltsin against Communist Party head Gennady Ziuganov. The election was close with Yeltsin receiving 35 percent of the vote and Ziuganov closely trailing with 32 percent. The results produced instant astonishment and subsequent conspiracy theories that Ziuganov’s victory was usurped by the “family”, a group of oligarchs that included now exiled Boris Berezovsky. After all, Yeltsin’s approval rating at the time was a dismal 8 percent. So low that even the fear of a Communist resurgence was viewed as not enough to get him reelected.

That belief proved to be false. The fact that Yeltsin even ..read more

The Library of Congress has an interesting online exhibit of photographs taken by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944). Prokudin-Gorskii’s photos record Russian everyday life around the on the eve of World War I. His subjects include peasants, monestaries, Russia’s many nationalities, agriculture and factory work as well as other subjects that give us an visual impression of Russia before its implosion in 1917. What is more, the Library of Congress took Prokudin-Gorskii’s negatives and turned them into color prints. The colorful portrait on the right of Alim Khan (1880-1944), the Emir of Bukhara, and the serene photo of the Church of the Resurrection in Kostroma are just two examples of an extraordinary collection. Another online exhibit of his work featured at the ?echtl and Vose?ek Museum of Photography in the Czech Republic can be found here.