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Stanislav Markelov: Times change but the stagnation remains

Ten years ago this month, activist lawyer Stanislav Markelov was murdered in Moscow. We publish his reflections on Russian society’s nostalgia for the Soviet period here for the first time in English.

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Anatoly Savin / Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.

Ten years ago this January, activist lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova were murdered in downtown Moscow. As it became clear later, this was a pinnacle moment in Russian ultra-nationalists’ campaign of terror. As a human rights lawyer, Markelov defended a series of high-profile cases throughout the 2000s, often connected to police and security force violence.