Lev Rubinstein | openDemocracy

“To live like a tree, lonely and free / To live as brothers like trees in a forest”

The cosmonauts have landed: tales from an occupied Moscow

Lev Rubinstein 8 May 2012

Russia has a newly inaugurated president, but its capital has been shaken by two days of unexpected violence and arrests. Writer Lev Rubinstein was drinking coffee in a downtown Moscow cafe popular with the city’s intelligentsia when riot police arrived, cleared the building, and arrested a number of the customers. This is hardly the behaviour of a confident and legitimate government, he contends.

This week's guest editors

Our guest editors James Ron, Leslie Vinjamuri, Sophie Arie and Archana Pandya introduce this week's theme of:

Emerging powers and human rights.

Nobel Women's Initiative

Europe from the bottom up

A new Europe can only come from the bottom up
Etienne Balibar

Mali: the plot thickens

Remote control war

oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

Stay Informed

Sign-up for a free weekly email

Advertising notice

Cities in Conflict

Social movements and unrest in Mauritania since the Arab Uprisings
Hassan Ould Moctar

Most popular

We take back what's ours!

Gezi Radyo

Syria's war, a new phase

Paul Rogers

Secret Courts: 8 nightmare scenarios now possible in Britain

Jo Shaw

Europe’s twin sisters

Igor Torbakov

openDemocracy on Twitter

Tweets by @openDemocracy

openDemocracy on Facebook

Our Authors

Lis Howell On broadcasting

Dan Hancox Revel, Riot and Rebellion

Martin Rose Bliss Was It in that Dawn to Be Next Door

Vron Ware Up in Arms

Jim Gabour Sunday Comics

James Warner Standing Perpendicular, as books do

Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture

Paul Rogers on Global security

Mary Kaldor on Human security

openDemocracy Ltd, The Print House, 18 Ashwin Street, London, E8 3DL. Tel: +44 (0) 207 193 0676

openDemocracy

Welcome to openDemocracy! We are a digital commons, publishing high quality news analysis, debates and blogs about the world and the way we govern ourselves. More...

Latest from the oD blog.

Syria and Geneva II

Best of the rest:

Arab Awakening | Can Europe Make it? | Drug and Criminal Justice Policy Forum | OurBeeb

OurKingdom

About us
OurKingdom works to investigate and illuminate the crisis of democracy in Britain and analyse how its failings can be redressed.

We encourage original debate untrammelled by party political loyalties.

We ask how we as citizens can secure liberty, human rights, self-government and real democracy. ...more on OurKingdom

Pick of the debates: Democratic Wealth: building a citizens' economy, edited by Stuart White, uses republican theory to explore ideas around how to democratise the economy. Co-hosted with Politics in Spires, a blog sponsored by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

oD Russia

50.50

Recent articles on 50.50

50.50 Dialogues

About 50.50
50.50 is openDemocracy's section dedicated to exploring issues of gender equality and social justice at the global level.

We are committed to promoting human rights and inclusive democracy through dialogue and debate. But a global debate without the female half of humanity is neither global nor democratic. With this in mind, 50.50 publishes women's analysis, insight and views on current affairs.

Can Europe Make It?

Spread the word

Spread the word is a brand new section of openDemocracy's not-for-profit web platform.

This space is for other not-for-profit organisations of all kinds to publicise your activities and spread the exchange of ideas.

You will be able to link to all your publications, and events anywhere in the world. You will have your own openDemocracy page and all new announcements will be ticker-taped to our front page.

This organisation subscription is available for a modest annual fee, dependent on the size of your organisation.

Please contact Jonathan Bowles at supporters@opendemocracy.net if you are interested in joining.

If you're interested in developing editorial projects on openDemocracy, please see our Editorial partnerships page

We are grateful to the following organisations for their support in developing this initiative:

Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre

Rockefeller Brothers Fund

openSecurity

openEconomy

Arab Awakening

In the months following the start of the Arab Revolutions, articles and analysis poured into openDemocracy from contributors across the Middle East and Europe. Gradually, the impact of Tahrir Square began to extend well beyond the Middle East as democratic inspiration travelled from east to west. Arab Awakening tries to capture that inspiration and use it to help us read a rapidly changing world.

"As students of politics is it is vital to study the power of imagination." -Professor Charles Tripp, SOAS

Debates

Columnists | This week's window on the Middle East

OurNHS

AddThis