I’ll make a confession: the anti-government rallies that broke out in Moscow a year ago really annoyed me. Like Vladimir Putin, I had completely different plans than to worry about protesting middle-class Muscovites.
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lucian in moscow
Everyone was taken by surprise by the anti-government protests that broke out after Russia’s disputed parliamentary elections in December 2011. After watching the number of attendees increase by the hundreds every time I refreshed the Facebook page dedicated to the first organized rally, I jumped on the next plane to Moscow. My blog chronicling Russia’s protest movement was born.
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down
Russian nationalists’ embrace of Nazi ideology might seem especially masochistic given Hitler’s plans to enslave and butcher his eastern neighbors. But on the whole, Russians and Germans have gotten along just fine over the past 1,000 years.
Partying from Dushanbe to Grozny
When Tajik President Emomali Rahmon turned 60, Vladimir Putin gave him a sniper rifle and promised to keep Russian troops stationed in Tajikistan until his 90th birthday.
Face Without a Man
Vladimir Putin’s meeting with journalist Masha Gessen reveals the advanced stage of his megalomania. He is like the magician who bungles a trick and then asks his audience defiantly: “What? You really thought I was cutting the lady in half?”
On the Moscow Witch Trial
The judiciary is the Putin system’s last line of defense. The president stands fast behind the fairy tale of Russia’s impartial, independent courts. Mumbling judges, bumbling prosecutors and crumbling testimonies are the props for due process.
Kafka Is a Moscow Traffic Cop
When a friend had to register her car, I took pity on her and agreed to tag along. Besides providing moral support, I hoped to gain insight into Russia’s most despised government agency: the traffic police. It was a futile undertaking.
Contrarian Redux
Robert Shlegel’s peers contrast Russia’s archaic political system with advanced western democracies. Shlegel compares it to the North Korean-style dictatorship he witnessed growing up in Turkmenistan.
Take Me to Your Leader
Ilya Yashin, who has spent his entire adult life in politics, is one of the Moscow protest movement’s most experienced leaders. Tomorrow he turns 29.
Happy Birthday, Viktor Tsoi
My first visit to Moscow in 1991 was a trip into a surreal world. Amid so much strangeness, I was hardly surprised to discover that the Soviet Union’s greatest rock star was, like me, half Korean.
Between the Present and the Future
Despite police raids on the homes of protest leaders, a new law raising fines for demonstrators and violence at the last big rally, tens of thousands of Muscovites once again took to the streets to vent their anger with Vladimir Putin.