Christians, Jews and Muslims have lived side by side for generations in Tatarstan. The Soviet period cut a swathe through early 20th century cultural and spiritual developments like Jadidism, but this peaceful form of Islam has since re-emerged. It is more necessary than ever in the current age of religious extremism, says Oleg Pavlov

Russian “political technologist” Gleb Pavlovsky is considered a master of political intrigue and backstage games, yet on April 27 found himself dismissed as a Kremlin advisor. His fall from grace was reportedly linked to indiscreet comments made about the 2012 presidential elections (and supposedly for making his support for Dmitry Medvedev known). A short while before his exit, Tatiana Zhurzhenko and Ivan Krastev took an interview with him, not expecting the conversation would be his last major interview as a Kremlin adviser. That context and the dialogue’s frequently candid nature make for fascinating reading.

A co-publication with Eurozine and Transit

In the second part of exclusive extracts from "Afgantsy", Rodric Braithwaite focuses on the soldiers who served in Afghanistan: their music, the dead, the wounded and the ambiguous reaction of their compatriots on their return. Most soldiers found adapting to life back home immensely difficult; some would later nostalgically reflect on their Afghan years as the best of their life.

Pavel Galitsky spent fifteen years in the brutal labour camps of Kolyma, Siberia. Against the odds, the 100-year old dissident is still alive and Skype'ing, having outlived both his contemporaries and tormentors. He recounts the full horror of his experience to oDR writer Ekaterina Loushnikova.

Ukrainian identity has historically been defined in opposition to Russia, but an anti-Russian agenda is unable to bind together a state with a large ethnic Russian population. With the Yanukovych administration now taking a neo-Stalinist approach to history and education, airbrushing out nationalist heritage, David Marples asks: where does Ukraine go from here?

In the opinion of film director Andrei Konchalovsky the true herald of liberal reform in the Soviet Union was Yury Andropov, not Mikhail Gorbachev. Irina Borogan asks if this is the same Andropov who headed the KGB through two of its darkest decades, who crushed dissidents by incarcerating them in psychiatric wards, and who Putin's propaganda machine has recently attempted to rehabilitate.

For over 30 years the Warsaw Pact was a threatening presence on the European political scene, but on 31 March 1991 it was disbanded with little pomp or circumstance. Alexander Cherkasov looks back over significant events in its history.