"I'm no hero, but it's time to call a spade a spade" — Parfyonov

Leonid Parfyonov 26 November 2010
On Thursday evening, prominent TV journalist Leonid Parfyonov broke with the etiquette of live award ceremonies, and made an unannounced and sensational attack on the state of Russian journalism. Russian TV bosses have become slaves to government bureaucrats, he said, and in so doing are complicit in the recent wave of violence against journalists. Here we publish a transcript of his speech.

The buzz, the rattle and getting clean: confessions of a former drug addict

Mumin Shakirov 26 November 2010
10 years ago former tennis prodigy Viktor Potemkin (not his real name) decided to come off heroin and leave the criminal world. He did this using the detox approach. Now he teaches, and trains future tennis stars. He talked to Mumin Shakirov.

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

Sticks and stones: the blogs of Oleg Kashin

Mumin Shakirov 13 November 2010
Oleg Kashin, a journalist for Kommersant newspaper, was brutally beaten in Moscow last weekend. Unknown assailants broke his jaw, legs and bent his fingers. He remains critically ill. Here we publish a selection of Kashin’s blog entries.

Towards the Rehabilitation of Law: interview with Bill Bowring

Masha Karp 4 November 2010

Bill Bowring is well known to anybody interested in international law, and especially in human rights in Russia. Professor of Law at Birkbeck College and a practising barrister, it was he who in 2002 established the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre, which has since helped many applicants, mainly from Chechnya, to take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights. In 2008 Bowring published his book “The Degradation of the International Legal Order?”. Masha Karp talks to Professor Bowring about this book, about justice in Russia and about the relation between theory and practice in his work.

Outcasts — inmates of the Black Eagle

Ekaterina Loushnikova 27 October 2010
In Stalin’s time there were nearly a hundred GULag camps in Ivdel. Today, the maximum security penal colony FBU-IK 56 survives in their place. Ekaterina Lushnikova travelled there to speak to the inmates — some of Russia’s most hardened criminals.

Ukraine’s constitutional debate: finding the way forward

Andreas Umland 26 October 2010
A vital national debate about constitutional reform is under way in Ukraine. But the debate often takes no account of international political discussions or recent scholarly research. Can the new regime embrace this opportunity to lay down the foundations of a democratic future for Ukraine? Andreas Umland throws down the challenge

Sergei Magnitsky: a death that failed to die

Oliver Carroll 7 October 2010

When Sergei Magnitsky died in police custody last November, few believed it would lead to anything more than a domestic ripple. Eleven months on, however, his case is being discussed by UK foreign secretary William Hague, and his name adorns a Congress bill banning US travel for Russian officials implicated in the death. Here we republish an interview with Magnitsky's former employer and key witness, Jamison Firestone.

Greed, corruption and impotence: Samara battles for its architecture

Clementine Cecil 24 September 2010
A city with a grand architectural heritage, Samara is today under threat, pincered by the greed of corrupt developers and impotence of government agencies. Clementine Cecil, co-founder of the MAPS architecture preservation society, writes on the spirited campaign to save Samara’s buildings.

Tricky business in Abkhazia

Anton Katin 16 September 2010
Since Abkhazia declared its independence from Georgia in 2008, Russian money has been pouring in. But when it comes to doing business there, Russians can find themselves coming badly unstuck, as one investor from the Urals found. Anton Katin reports

Oryol: when the ‘new nobility’ turned terrorist

Elena Godlevskaya 13 September 2010
The sleepy city of Oryol has erupted in terrorism. Investigations revealed how frustration at the state of Russia led security officers — the new nobility as their former boss calls them — to join the Oryol Partisans. Is this a one off or part of a wider movement?

North Ossetia suicide bombing kills eighteen

Oliver Scanlan 10 September 2010
A suicide bombing in the restless north caucasian province of North Ossetia kills at least 18 people. A protest in Afghanistan against the proposed burning of Qurans by Florida Pastor Terry Jones leads to bloodshed. Street gangs shut down El Salvador’s public transport for a third day. A suicide attack against Mogadishu airport claims more lives as militant Islamist group Al Shabab tightens its grip on the Somali capital. All this and more, in today’s security update…

Why the FSB is not the KGB!

Nicolai N Petro 10 August 2010
Last month amendments were passed to the law codifying the FSB’s surveillance of those citizens deemed to be threats to national security. Nicolai Petro, unlike some Western commentators, sees these as potentially making Russia's domestic security procedures among the world's most transparent.

Igor Sutyagin and the price of freedom

Zoya Svetova 26 July 2010
The imprisonment of military researcher Igor Sutyagin for alleged espionage has long troubled Russian human rights campaigners, writes Zoya Svetova. He is now free, but only after agreeing to agree he was a spy. Those familiar with Russian prisons will understand why he acted as he did, but he faces a difficult task persuading others of his integrity.

Khodorkovsky trial: a regime in the dock

Andrei Kolesnikov 7 July 2010

The accusations against Khodorkovsky have collapsed now that two senior establishment figures have testified. He may still be found guilty. But the absurdity of this trial is eroding public confidence in Putin’s regime.

The Russian media

More

Russia-China

More

The new year in Russia

More

Russia's new economy

More

Russian rights at the crossroads

More

Beyond the gastarbeiter: post-Soviet migration

Madeleine Reeves (Manchester University, UK) presents the other side of post-Soviet migration.

More

Regions

More

Russia's year of elections

More

Women, tradition and power in the North Caucasus

More

Project_ID

More

More

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

Syndicate content