An ethnic Russian is killed at a Moscow street market, supposedly by a migrant from the Caucasus; the ensuing riot by nationalist extremists leaves one dead, twenty people injured and hundreds arrested. Daniil Kislov looks at what lies behind the hostility directed at migrant workers in Russia.
A look back ahead of the World Athletic Championships 2013, hosted by Moscow, to that of the 1980 Moscow Olympics when Britain tried and failed to boycott the competition. Why and how did we fail to complete this soft power?
Most Russian TV outlets are kept under tight Kremlin control. TV Rain, an independent cable channel, has navigated many rapids in its short existence, but is nonetheless still operating. Natalya Sindeyeva describes her vision to Mumin Shakirov and Zygmunt Dzieciolowski.
Moscow, unlike St Petersburg, is an unplanned city that has grown organically over the centuries, and where new developments can still mean the destruction of older buildings of historical interest. A few traces remain, however, from medieval times and even prehistory. Alexander Mozhayev has been
The ‘March of Millions’ opposition protests in Moscow on May 6 turned into a bloody standoff between demonstrators and riot police. Regional journalist Leonid Kovyazin was one of many arrested still to be released. Ekaterina Loushnikova travelled to a village in Kirov to speak to Leonid’s family,
In Soviet days foreign radio stations were a lifeline for people seeking another point of view. They continued broadcasting after the collapse of the USSR, though the BBC Russian Service programmes went online only in 2009. Now US-funded Radio Liberty is closing its doors. Mumin Shakirov, a specia
As violence in the north Caucasus hits the headlines again, Alexander Cherkasov sees the roots of the problem in the Russian government’s wilful misunderstanding of local issues and lack of strategy for dealing with them.
The murder of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009 looks likely to trigger legislation in the United States which strikes at the heart of Russia’s corrupt elite. Bill Browder, founder of the Hermitage Fund, moving spirit behind the impending Magnitsky Act, tells the story.
On 10th July a Moscow court extended the pre-trial detention of three members of feminist punk rock band Pussy Riot, charged with hooliganism after they performed a ‘blasphemous’ and anti-Putin song in the city’s main cathedral in February. Vladimir Pastukhov believes there is much the case tells
