Friday 3rd February

Russia's liberal-nationalist cocktail: elixir of life or toxic poison?

Young, liberal figures such as Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Milov are building bridges between democratic and nationalist wings of the protest movement. Will this marriage prove a mix that mobilises a nation against the Putin regime, or will it taint the legitimacy of both sides in years to come, asks Nicu Popescu?
Thursday 2nd February

Mother’s boys: conversations with the parents of Russia’s neo-Nazis

Russia’s growing nationalist movement has alarmed many liberal commentators, who wonder how the country that defeated Adolf Hitler could have given birth to so many young men overtly sympathetic to his ideas. Journalist Olesya Gerasimenko, who has covered several neo-Nazi trials, wondered where the defendants came from: how Russian boys could go out and kill foreigners in cold blood. She persuaded three of the convicted murderers’ parents to talk to her.
Wednesday 1st February

Karachay-Cherkessiya: how the Caucasus is feeding itself

The nationalist-populist leader of Russia's protest movement Aleksey Navalny has made much of a claim that the Kremlin has been 'feeding' unruly citizens in the North Caucasus at the expense of 'ordinary' Russians. Mikhail Loginov visited a small Karachay village to see whether such a view has any reflection in reality.
Tuesday 31st January

Anyone but Putin: how Russians should vote in March

Russians keen to punish Vladimir Putin at the polls on March 4 have four opposition candidates to choose from, but all are tarnished in some way by their links to the government. Grigorii Golosov analyses what voting strategy will work best to build on the momentum of this winter’s protests, and cautions against accepting any of the candidates’ claims to be true opposition material.
Friday 27th January

Arda’s flags: a postcard from Abkhazia

The strategic significance and territorial claims on the region of Abkhazia have meant its citizens have become used to a life lived in geopolitical limbo. Following the 2008 South Ossetia war, however, a small number of small countries began to recognise Abkhazian independence. A tailor thought of a novel way to mark the development, reports Oliver Bullough.
Thursday 26th January

Flowers on a dung heap: markets, politicians and the demise of Russian rural life

The economic and political transformations of the 1990s onwards have allowed much of the Russian countryside to die a slow death. Roman Yushkov and Vassily Moseyev ventured out of the city to examine the extent of the dilapidation and deterioration of rural life in their native Perm region.
Wednesday 25th January

Just business: how Russian technology provides the eyes and ears for the world’s Big Brothers

In December 2011, Wikileaks released ‘Spy Files’, a project revealing details of the burgeoning surveillance and interception industry. The list of companies providing high-tech equipment to governments included a number of Russian firms, which are emerging as global leaders in the industry. Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan took to investigate how the Soviet Union’s expertise in spy technology is being adapted to the new reality of global capitalism.
Monday 23rd January

The origins of the Russian revolution: a view from Georgia

The recent experience of neighbouring states suggests that Russia’s rulers will struggle to control future political developments. Make no mistake: revolution of one kind or another is already under way, argues Gela Vasadze.
Friday 20th January

Poking with the human rights stick

Critical human rights reports from Western agencies have long been the source of consternation among Russian officials. At the end of last month, the Russian Foreign Ministry launched a counterattack, publishing a report highlighting supposed violations in the West. Oliver Bullough was surprised at how readily the document conflated issues of rights and common diplomacy.
Thursday 19th January

Another postcard from the edge: life on the Kuril Islands

For many Western readers the Kuril Islands are famous chiefly for being the subject of an post-WWII territorial dispute between USSR/Russia and Japan. Amidst the political wrangling, the Kuril islanders continue to go about their daily lives, reports Ksenya Semyonova, a native of nearby Sakhalin.
Tuesday 17th January

The Akunin-Navalny interviews: part III

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?
Monday 16th January

Young, brilliant and (so far) politically oblivious

The Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) is one of the most prestigious universities in Russia. The School abounds in clever and often rich young students, groomed to be the stars of tomorrow’s elite. Yet this privileged group is also one that has ousted politics from its daily life and — so far at least — has failed to respond to the momentous events currently shaking the country.
Friday 13th January

The Akunin-Navalny Interviews: part II

oD Russia continues publication of a remarkable exchange between two leaders of the Russian protest movement — writer Grigory Chkhartishvili, a.k.a Boris Akunin and politician-blogger Aleksey Navalny. In this part, the discussants compare their forecasts for the year ahead. 2012 will present an historic challenge to the authorities, they conclude, but will Russia's "arrestocratic" class be able to muster anything in response?
Thursday 12th January

Russia’s ‘White Revolution’: why Putin failed and the Russian democrats may follow

By electing to follow an aggressive policy of imperial nationalism, Putin and his inner circle missed the emergence of a serious domestic crisis that threatens the very existence of their regime. These same factors may also, however, subvert the country’s growing pro-democratic protest movement, says Andreas Umland.
Wednesday 11th January

The Akunin-Navalny interviews (part I)

Just before the last Moscow demonstration on December 24, two of the protest movement’s most popular leaders — writer Boris Akunin and politician-blogger Aleksey Navalny — got together for a fascinating public conversation. The three-part interview, published on Akunin’s blog, is arguably the fullest profile of Russia’s leading opposition politician and covers many of the more uncomfortable aspects of Navalny’s politics. ODR is pleased to present the full English translation of the interviews.
Tuesday 10th January

Fishing: Russia’s other civil battlefront

The recent wave of demonstrations against election fraud across Russia were preceded in the spring and autumn by protests from grassroots fishermen’s organisations, who marched to defend their right to fish for free. Authorities soon climbed down from their controversial plans to privatise rivers and lakes, but not before radicalising an estimated 15-20 million amateur fishermen, writes Oleg Pavlov.
Friday 6th January

Let history be judged: the lesson of Perm-36

The collapse of the USSR in 1991 led to historical reconsideration, but unlike in Germany or South Africa, there has been no 'truth and reconciliation' process in Russia, and many of its most shameful chapters are yet to be properly confronted. A museum set up at one of the most notorious Gulag camps attempts to redress the balance, reports Susanne Sternthal.
Thursday 5th January

The Police International vs Russia’s football fans

As Russia’s largest and best organised ‘horizontal’ community in Russia, football fans have found themselves at the centre of governmental attempts to control informal groups, write Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov. Perhaps more surprisingly, they have also become guinea pigs for international data exchange programmes, with Russian authorities picking up the very worst of surveillance practices from their foreign colleagues.
Wednesday 4th January

Ukraine, Europe and the Yanukovych game

Negotiations over the Ukraine's EU Association Agreement were finalised last month, but Yulia Tymoshenko's continued imprisonment prevented the EU from signing off on a deal. Borys Tarasyuk wonders whether the Europeans may have overestimated their leverage in the matter, and whether their approach will turn out to be counterproductive.
Monday 2nd January

Russian provincial life: to be or not to be…single

It’s an age-old adage that things always look greener on the other side of the fence and this is particularly true of married women looking at single women’s life and vice versa. Elena Strelnikova gives a wry account of the problems encountered by single women in the Orenburg Region, where she lives
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