Archive for April, 2008
Recommended Reading
By Sean at 22 April, 2008, 10:57 am
Two of my favorite magazines, the London Review of Books and Vanity Fair, have two must read articles on Russia in their recent additions. Vanity Fair’s annual “Green Issue” is full of amazing articles, particularly Phillippe Sands’ well researched article “The Green Light,” which exposes how White House lawyers “legalized” the use of torture.
In [...]
Deconstructing Nashi
By Sean at 21 April, 2008, 2:23 pm
My latest article for the eXile, “Nashi: Is it Really the End?” is now online. Here is an excerpt:
This year, there has been much speculation in the Russian print media about the demise of the Kremlin youth organization “Nashi,” which has been as much a darling of the Russian state as it has been [...]
The Face of the “Killer”
By Sean at 16 April, 2008, 4:46 pm
The investigation into Anna Politkovskaya murder took another turn yesterday when the Russian news site Life.ru published the photo of the main suspect. According to the website, the suspect, Rustam Makhmudov, the older brother of three individuals arrested by Russian authorities in August, is said to be hiding in London. Life.ru doesn’t say [...]
Read More >>Gensek Putin
By Sean at 15 April, 2008, 9:58 am
Delegates at United Russia’s 9th Congress voted unanimously to make Putin its party chairman. Putin accepted. Surprise, surprise. This possibility has been buzzing around the Russian media for a few weeks now. And in one fail swoop, what was thought to merely be a shell of a political party, has gained importance. Clearly [...]
Read More >>KPRF takes a stand, Democrats unite, and “Ukraine is not even a state!”
By Sean at 9 April, 2008, 10:45 am
The post election political lull appears to be over as Russia’s politicians gear up for Medvedev’s presidency. As everyone already knows, Medvedev is expected to nominate Putin as Prime Minister. No one expected any opposition to this, since denying Putin dominance over Russian politics is like preventing tidal wave from hitting the shore. [...]
Read More >>“Avoiding this heap of memes”
By Sean at 7 April, 2008, 10:12 am
Michael Idov’s “The Hibernation” has received cheers and jeers from SRB readers. One of the issues Idov’s article raises is the difficultly in reporting on Russia. In Idov’s view the real challenge is to talk about Russia without using the “heap of memes” handed down by decades of Cold War. I couldn’t agree more. Here [...]
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