Charismatic opposition leader Aleksey Navalny is on trial in the provincial capital of Kirov, 900km from Moscow. He is controversially accused of stealing timber worth 16 million roubles in 2009; if found guilty, he will spend his next few years behind bars. Local journalist Ekaterina Loushnikova met some of his supporters and opponents.
THE CEELBAS DEBATE// In 2009 Sergei
Magnitsky died in police custody, causing a commotion inside Russia and
abroad. A year later, theatre company Teatr.doc staged ‘One Hour Eighteen’, a theatrical trial of those involved in Magnitsky's last days.
Today
is International Women’s Day, a holiday in Russia, though possibly with few
celebrations in the penal colonies where the Pussy Riot women are being held.
Open Democracy Russia is proud to publish two letters from the prison blog of
one of them, Maria (Masha) Alyokhina, to Anastasia Kirilenko.
Reports from Moscow of door-to-door passport checks and a proposed new bill criminalising registration infringements are rekindling uncomfortable memories of the Soviet past. Mikhail Loginov reflects on the history. _01.jpg)
A new
Russian law banning US adoptions has been roundly criticised at home and
abroad; a toddler’s unexplained death has been held up as justification. For Daniil
Kotsyubinsky, it is all a case of history repeating: Russia’s past is full of
tragic cases where children have become innocent victims.
Police custody, violence, trials and imprisonment have been all to common features on the Russian protest landscape since December 2011. A grassroots monitoring
Many aging Russian
WWII veterans live in appalling conditions, and some die before they can cash a
government rehousing grant. By law, families should inherit the money, but some
regions deny them it. In Sergei Gogin’s native Ulyanovsk, authorities seem to
prefer spending the money on vanity projects abroad.
Celebrated Russian activist Valery Abramkin has died aged 66. Here we republish extracts from a lecture delivered in 2006, which contains many fascinating insights into the rules of behaviour, hierarchies and relationships within Soviet and Russian prisons. (With a foreword by Mary
A mutiny at a prison camp in the Chelyabinsk region of central Russia has just shaken the country. Olesya Gerasimenko is one of the few journalists whom its director allowed into the penal zone, and to date the only one to interview him.
Last month, a number of slave migrant workers were discovered in the cellar of a Moscow store. It was, alas, just one example of a much a wider practice exploiting vulnerable groups across the country. In a special oDRussia investigation, Grigory Tumanov reports on the worrying prevalence of modern-day enslavement within Russia.
Responding to reports of an activist being kidnapped in Kyiv and then imprisoned in Moscow amid allegations of torture, the newly-formed Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition released a statement. oDRussia reproduces the text in English translation.
Today marks ten years since the start of the Nord-Ost theatre siege, which ended tragically with a bungled special forces operation and the deaths of at least 170 people. Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov, reporters on the scene, reflect on those dramatic days and the lack of a proper investigation since.
We hear a lot about Russian organised crime and its links with the Russian state. But it operates not just at home: its reach is global. Euan Grant explains how it operates and what can be done to challenge its power.
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The draft law currently going through the Duma could definitely be regarded as tightening the screws on relationships between Russians and foreign organisations or individuals. A worrying turn of events, thinks Andrey Soldatov (photo: RIA Novosti Agency)
Rampant corruption among government officials is a given for most Ukrainians. A recent scam involved the purchase of school buses, which were so defective that fatalities were avoided only by a miracle. But without the political will at the very highest level, there is no chance that this case will go to court and the criminals be punished, says Natalia SedletskaRegions
Russia's year of elections
Privatizatsiya, twenty years on
Russian economy: trying to please people doesn’t help, Dmitry Travin
Privatisation, but no private property, Andrei Zaostrovtsev
Is corruption in Russia's DNA?, Pyotr Filippov
The Russian banking system: between the market and the state, Pavel Usanov
Russia’s crony capitalism: the swing of the pendulum, Vladimir Gelman
Russian reforms, twenty years on. Introduction to the series, Dmitry Travin
Russian economy: trying to please people doesn’t help, Dmitry Travin
Privatisation, but no private property, Andrei Zaostrovtsev
Is corruption in Russia's DNA?, Pyotr Filippov
The Russian banking system: between the market and the state, Pavel Usanov
Russia’s crony capitalism: the swing of the pendulum, Vladimir Gelman
Russian reforms, twenty years on. Introduction to the series, Dmitry Travin
Women, tradition and power in the North Caucasus
The new year in Russia
Russia's new economy
Project_ID
Russia-China
Russian rights at the crossroads
Beyond the gastarbeiter: post-Soviet migration
Madeleine Reeves (Manchester University, UK) presents the other side of post-Soviet migration.
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