Plucked from obscurity in the Russian provinces, Masha Drokova was a rising star of the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi. Yet she was also friends with Oleg Kashin, an independent and critical journalist who was later nearly killed by assailants allegedly connected to her movement. Drokova’s evolv
Vladimir Putin may have won Sunday’s presidential election, but his new term is unlikely to be an easy one. Russia has changed: the middle classes surf the Internet, compare themselves not to their parents but to their contemporaries in the rest of Europe, and demand change. Meanwhile, writes Andr
Vladimir Putin’s one great achievement is the restoration of bureaucratic order after its near destruction by Gorbachev and privatisation by Yeltsin. Yet the end game is fast approaching, and the longer Putin clings on, the more likely he will be instead remembered for letting greedy friends and b
Politician-blogger Alexei Navalny and writer Grigory Chkhartishvili (a.k.a Boris Akunin) conclude their dialogue with an exploration of what their country might look like after democratic change. What should be the priorities for a new and free Russia?
In this educational piece the author describes the neoteny exhibited by the political species
Is it possible to challenge censors without losing your livelihood? Polina Bykhovskaya interviews the men and women who wanted to change the world but ended up in the business of job preservation (their's and Putin's)
Russia’s 9 time zones are often exploited by TV management to pull controversial programmes, but the internet has changed the rules of the game. A recent film about kidnap victims in Chechnya was shown in the Far East, but not in European Russia. The ensuing outcry and internet activity show that
A new series on openDemocracy Russia
Alla Pugacheva has ruled Russian pop for more than 40 years, surviving criticism and change while endearing herself to ordinary Russians. Her recent foray into politics, supporting the billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov and ‘Just Cause’ was less successful, but she will rise above the problems, just as
In Donetsk, Eastern Ukraine, ‘proper’ journalism means asking few questions and communicating few answers. Those who choose not to follow these Soviet rules of thumb are by consequence ‘improper’ journalists, who risk redress for the errors of their ways. In Aleksey Matsuka’s case, this has meant
