 RFE/RL Russia Report 9/7/2009 4:56:13 PM A review of RFE/RL reporting and analysis about domestic and foreign-policy developments in Russia.For more stories on Russia, please visit and bookmark our Russia page . |
 Russian Parties Say Shut Out Of Moscow Duma Election The leader of Russia's Right Cause Party has called the Moscow City Duma election campaign a farce, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More  St. Petersburg Police Reopen Starovoitova Murder Case Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) is relaunching an investigation into the 1998 murder of Duma Deputy and opposition politician Galina Starovoitova, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More  Vladimir Putin Brings Judo Tactics To Poland In a long letter published on the eve of the commemorations in Gdansk marking the 70th anniversary of Nazi Germany's attack on Poland, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gave a clear and definitive official Russian view on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It is characteristically clever, meriting careful reading to distil out what he was really saying. More  The Rise Of The Patriarch The Kremlin has made him a weapon in its soft-power arsenal. The State Duma has granted him the authority to review and amend legislation. He's a major player in political debates about education, state ideology, and the interpretation of history. Just half a year after his enthronement, Patriarch Kirill has become a major force in Russian politics. More  The Story They Don't Want Russia To Read The decision by a major U.S. publisher to quash the publication of a controversial article in the Russian edition of "GQ" has sparked a lively debate about self-censorship and freedom of expression. The article, “Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise To Power,” broaches a taboo subject in Russia. More  Checkmates A British auction house is offering an etching that purports to show a 20-year-old Hitler sitting down to a friendly game of chess with the founder of the Soviet state, Vladimir Lenin. The etching was purportedly done in 1909 by Emma Lowenstramm, who was Hitler’s art teacher and, incidentally, a Jew. More  Putin's 'Polish Syndrome' Ten years of absolute power and 10 years of unlimited sycophancy have not failed to leave their mark on Russia's Vladimir Putin. He has completely lost the ability to listen to others or to hear himself. More  Why They Flee The North Caucasus The reasons why young people from the North Caucasus seek asylum in Europe are well-known -- abductions and disappearances; persecution on religious and political grounds; and even extrajudicial killings. Journalists, human rights activists, and young people who profess allegiance to branches of Islam outside the mainstream are most frequently subject to such persecution. More  Big Politics In A Small Russian Village The guys in the village where I live can’t decide whether to name a street after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin or Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov. Each proposal has its pluses and minuses, so there is plenty to discuss. More  Aboard The 'Eastern Express' Mumin Shakirov, a reporter for RFE/RL's Russian Service, recently traveled through Central Asia aboard the "Eastern Express" -- the train linking the Tajik capital of Dushanbe to Moscow. During his four-day trip, his fellow travelers tell him of their hopes, their concerns, and their lives as migrant workers in Russia. More  'Watch Me Pull Some History From My Hat' Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's potentially inflammatory remarks against "the rewriting of history" came the same day that Russia's SVR foreign intelligence agency announced that Poland was partly to blame for World War II. More  The Families Whose Wounds Will Never Heal Five years ago, more than 330 people -- including 186 children -- were killed in a botched rescue attempt to free hostages held at a North Ossetian school by Chechen militants. Photographer Maxim Marmur recently returned to Beslan to document the residents whose wounds will never heal. More  Disputed History Poland is marking the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II with a gathering that will include Russian and German leaders. Russia's Vladimir Putin is due to make a speech aimed at boosting Russian-Polish ties -- strained by differing historical accounts about the war. More  Turkey’s Energy Hub: Ignore At Your Peril It behooves Western decision makers to fully appreciate Turkey's energy big picture or risk upcoming surprises such as Armenian electricity exports to Turkey and a Russia-dominated Turkish nuclear sector. More  60 Years After Nuclear Test, Legacy Of Misery Lives On On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, sending a mushroom cloud high above northern Kazakhstan and a shadow of fear over the rest of the world. The nuclear arms race had begun in earnest. That initial blast, and the many that followed, continue to claim victims. More  Revolutionary Shouting And Dead Silence I continue to pay for the events of 1968. As fate would have it, I have lived and worked in Prague since 1995. And all this time I have felt how keenly I am unloved. One stark reminder came last summer, when I was a speaker at the Prague International Writers' Festival. My name and the name of the country that is the home of the language I write in (Russia) were featured on posters promoting the festival. One of these posters was hanging in the city’s main square, and some sincere Russophobe had lovingly blacked them out, presumably not because he objected to my verse. More  CSTO Military Exercises Off To Discouraging Start A military exercise in Russia marks the first official test of the new Collective Operational Reaction Forces, created within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. But the exercises have been overshadowed by profound divisions within the CSTO concerning the new force. More  Putin TV -- Russia's New Reality The Russian journalists who broadcast yesterday's honest political reporting still work for the same TV channels. But those channels are now exclusively propagandistic. More  Whither Russia Inc.? Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's campaign against state corporations is gathering steam. Is this the beginning of the end for Russia Inc.? More  Medvedev Signs China-Style Deals With Mongolia Officially, Dmitry Medvedev is in Mongolia to mark the 70th anniversary of the battle of Khalkhin Gol, when combined Soviet-Mongolian forces repelled a Japanese invasion. But the Russian president's two-day visit has far more significance on the economic front. More |
