Openspace.ru

This is Russia’s first internet magazine dedicated to culture - art, music, film, theatre, literature. Openspace offers a guide to the best books, films and theatre productions. It also carries news, analysis and articles on social issues and regularly offers its readers the chance to vote on cultural issues (eg Russia’s most influential intellectual). Founded in 2008, it belongs to the Moscow based ArtMedia Group.

Wednesday 14th December

'I am Putin's propaganda'

Polina Bykhovskaya, 14 December 2011
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)
Friday 18th March

Corruption, complicity, careerism: the hydra of Russian justice

Andrei Loshak, 18 March 2011
Once inside the wheels of the Russian legal system, the odds are stacked against you and a guilty verdict is inevitable. What keeps the wheels turning is conformism with villainy: the ability of normal people to adapt themselves to any, even the most monstrous of systems. Andrei Loshak presents a fascinating report on the Russian judiciary.
Tuesday 25th January

Mournful Unconcern: Russia reacts to Domodedovo

Elena Fanailova, 25 January 2011
Desensitised to terror, Russians will not take long to get over the latest attack. Russian writer and openDemocracy contributor Elena Fanailova passed through Domodedovo Airport just thirty minutes before Monday’s bomb struck.

Friday 10th December

The Russian protest movement: why my optimism was misplaced

Oleg Kashin, 10 December 2010
Journalist Oleg Kashin was recently brutally beaten up. To ram the message home, the fingers on his writing hand were broken, as well as his jaw and shins. He had been active in protesting the building of a highway through the Khimki forest nature reserve. Now he reflects on the authorities’ handling of a football demonstration with nationalist overtones and the arrests of the leaders of the punk protest group Voina, ruefully concluding that all this time he has been missing the point.
Monday 22nd November

Parallel worlds: how connected Russians now live without the state

Andrei Loshak, 22 November 2010
Russia’s summer of the wildfires brought about a change in society, says Andrei Loshak. Previously the only possible options for those disenchanted with the system were to take the streets or pack our bags and leave. Now we have another: self-help and self- organisation, much in the spirit of the Anarchist Prince, Peter Kropotkin
Friday 29th October

Khodorkovsky trial: a test for the president

Mikhail Zygar, 29 October 2010
The sacking of Moscow mayor Luzhkov and the continuing debacle of Khodorkovsky's second trial could be seen as tests for the Russian President. Will Medvedev pass muster? Mikhail Zygar considers the options.

Monday 29th March

A Soldier's Tale

Tolya's Letters, 29 March 2010
openDemocracy Russia now puts together in one document the 9 letters written by Tolya (probably not his real name), a private in the Russian army. Tolya preferred to serve in the army rather than study at university. These letters were written some time ago, but few publications give such a clear indication of the state of affairs in the Russian military.
Friday 19th March

Kafka’s Castle is collapsing

Andrei Loshak, 19 March 2010
You can’t reason with the absurd, as IKEA found when it tried to build a model business in Russia. Institutional corruption is out of control. Kafka’s Castle is finally collapsing. This is good news, as Russians, ordinary Russians are losing their fear. Now they’re just angry, says Andrei Loshak.
Tuesday 9th March

A Soldier's Tale 9: changed, but not utterly dehumanised

Tolya's Letters, 9 March 2010
In his final letter home from the army our conscript Tolya “finds” a mobile phone, is pursued by a mad officer and wonders what kind of man the army’s made of him
Wednesday 24th February

A Soldier’s Tale 8: violence is no joke

Tolya's Letters, 24 February 2010
Our conscript Tolya continues his study of violence in his airborne division of the Russian army
Tuesday 16th February

A Soldier’s Tale 7: Hopes dashed, business as usual!

Tolya's Letters, 16 February 2010
Our conscript Tolya had such high hopes of his new posting in the elite regiment of the Russian airborne division, but the bullying goes on – if anything it’s got worse
Monday 8th February

A Soldier's Tale 6: new beginnings? Perhaps!

Tolya's Letters, 8 February 2010
Conscript Tolya has been moved again, this time to a show regiment. Life suddenly looks rather better, but is it for real?
Thursday 4th February

Who is Russia's top intellectual?

Lyubov Borusyak, 4 February 2010
Throughout Russian and Soviet history, the intellectual has played a central and hugely influential role in society. Today, that has changed. A recent internet vote on the country’s most influential intellectual saw instead postmodern ambiguity emerge victorious, writes Lyubov Borusyak
Monday 1st February

A Soldier’s Tale (5): a new life? Not b… likely!

Tolya's Letters, 1 February 2010
Our conscript, Tolya, has left basic training. He hopes that things will be different, but his hopes are soon dashed when he meets his demobbers or dembels.
Monday 25th January

A Soldier’s Tale (4): the army paradox

Tolya's Letters, 25 January 2010
Letters are a life-line for Tolya. The army’s a mysterious entity, unknowable by anyone outside it, the conscript reflects. Awful though it is, he wouldn’t have missed it. He’s learned a lot. And even (possibly) made a friend
Monday 18th January

In memoriam Nastya and Stas

Andrei Loshak, 18 January 2010
Anastasia Baburova and Stanislav Markelov were gunned down in a neo-Nazi contract killing a year ago. In this moving tale Andrei Loshak tells us why he and his friend, who also suffered neo-Nazi violence, will be going on the Moscow march in their memory

A soldier’s tale (3): hospital, then what?

Tolya's Letters, 18 January 2010
In this third excerpt from his letters, our Russian conscript ends up in hospital, with time to reflect on what lies ahead. He reflects on the bullying of the ‘bitches’ by the ‘grandpas’. So deeply entrenched is it, he reckons, that the army would fall apart without it.
Friday 15th January

A soldier’s tale (2): trying to blend in

Tolya's Letters, 15 January 2010
In this second letter home our new conscript Tolya is starting to settle in to his two-year stint in Russia’s army. He tells us about the food and how he has learnt to avoid being beaten up.
Saturday 2nd January

A soldier’s tale (1)

Tolya's Letters, 2 January 2010
A new Russian army recruit writes home about life at a parachute regiment basic training camp
Friday 18th December

Kremlin hand hovers over Russia's internet

Mikhail Zygar, 18 December 2009
So far the Russian government has resisted the temptation of controlling the Russian internet, but this may be about to change, says Mikhail Zygar
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