Apr

27

Compressing the Spring

April 27, 2007 | 127 Comments

By Nikolay
On Monday Robert Gates met with President Putin and other officials in Moscow to discuss US plans to deploy the US ABM complex in Europe, and most importantly to offer cooperation on the issue: a potential linking of Russian and US systems and the ability for Russia to initiate inspection checks to the newly-built […]

Popularity: 2% [?]

Apr

26

"Nor-r-r-r-r-r-m!"

April 26, 2007 | 413 Comments

Of all the obits I’ve read on Yeltsin in the last few days, Mark Taibbi’s “Yeltsin: An Obit of a Drunken, Bloblike Train Wreck of a Revolutionary Leader” captures the man’s life and career best. I think he rightly sums up the Yeltsin period in this passage:

Yeltsin, in other words, single-handedly created a […]

Popularity: 4% [?]

Apr

26

Nashi Who?

April 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment

It is quite difficult to assess the influence, let alone the political impact of Russian youth organizations. The vast majority are rather small with memberships in the hundreds and, if they are lucky, the thousands. According to estimates from 2005, Nashi has around 100,000 to 300,000 members. The National Bolsheviks claim 15,000 […]

Popularity: 2% [?]

Apr

25

Yeltsin in the Russian Media

April 25, 2007 | 2 Comments

Boris Yeltsin was laid to rest in the famed Novodevichy Cemetery. The funeral was attended by a number of dignitaries that included Putin, Bill Clinton, and George H. W. Bush. Yeltsin was buried about 200 yards from another famed reformer, Nikita Khrushchev. The evaluation of Yeltsin’s legacy in the West has been […]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Apr

24

Kremlin Follows the Money Trail

April 24, 2007 | 6 Comments

Fallout from the Dissenters’ March continues. First, the three MVD officers charged with ensuring “order” during the protest have all received promotions. Putin signed a decree yesterday that promoted Vyacheslav Kozlov to deputy chief of Moscow GUVD, Arkady Gostev as head of the Department for Securing Public Order at Moscow GUVD, and Vyacheslav […]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Apr

24

The Hammer and Sickle Stays

April 24, 2007 | Leave a Comment

United Russia and Putin disagree? Sure it’s nothing major, but Putin shot down the proposal to eliminate the hammer and sickle from Russia’s WWII Victory Banner. As Kommersant reports:

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the leaders of veteran organizations in the Kremlin on Friday to discuss the implementation of his decree on […]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Apr

23

Rusted Archives

April 23, 2007 | 6 Comments

Anyone interested in the status of Russian archives should read the NY Times article, “Iron Archives.” However, some of its claims about the shrinking access to Russian archives should be put in context. For example, anything that is located in the infamous Presidential Archive is off limits, except if you have connections. […]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Apr

23

Putin the Traumatic

April 23, 2007 | 4 Comments

Are Putin and his cohort afflicted with trauma? This is the question Richard Lourie poses in an interesting column in the Moscow Times. Lourie rhetorically asks, why does an administration with 70 percent approval use such force against a small and politically insignificant opposition. Was it yet another sign of the “turn […]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Apr

23

Boris Yeltsin Dead at 76

April 23, 2007 | 4 Comments

Boris Nikolaievich Yelstin is dead. Many are sure to evaluate his legacy over the coming days and years. Almost universally hailed as “democratic” in the West, Yeltsin’s rule was a complicated mix of democracy, authoritarianism, oligarchy, theft, corruption, crime, and gangster capitalism. It was a time of hope and fear for the […]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Apr

21

Unfair Yet Balanced

April 21, 2007 | 37 Comments

The Russian elite’s control over the Russian media marches on. The NY Times is reporting that media executives who are Kremlin allies are instituting a “50 percent” rule on news reporting. The bosses at the Russian News Service have told their journalists that “at least 50 percent of the reports about Russia must be […]

Popularity: 3% [?]

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