When twelve-year-old Lyosha tried to escape a children’s home to return to his family, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital — an abuse of psychiatry immediately reminiscent of Soviet days. Lyosha was eventually saved only by the investigative curiosity of local journalists, Aleksandr Koltsov and
On July 11, the Russian Duma passed legislation to establish a central register of extremist websites. The new laws are ostensibly designed for child protection; Andrei Soldatov senses the real aim is to take control over the country’s burgeoning social networks.
Condemnation in the British media of racist incidents in Ukraine has moved on from concern into hysteria, says Anton Shekhovtsov. Not only unfair, it does little to encourage those trying to push a progressive agenda within the country.
Vladimir Putin’s swearing-in as President last week was accompanied by protest rallies that were brutally broken up by police, and their organisers imprisoned. But as the Occupy Abay sit-in and organised ‘strolls’ through the centre of Moscow have shown, protesters are gaining confidence and adopt
A month ago today, more than twenty people joined ex-candidate Oleg Shein in a hunger strike against disputed mayoral elections in the regional capital city of Astrakhan, south Russia. As the health of those still protesting continues to decline, Svetlana Reiter spoke to two of the strikers to dis
It is easy to write off the events of the last few months as a predictable prelude to bureaucratic revanchism. But the unanticipated protest movement also brought about a significant change, writes Alexei Levinson. This was the sense that Russians can now become members of an internalised free soc
Plucked from obscurity in the Russian provinces, Masha Drokova was a rising star of the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi. Yet she was also friends with Oleg Kashin, an independent and critical journalist who was later nearly killed by assailants allegedly connected to her movement. Drokova’s evolv
Vladimir Putin may have won Sunday’s presidential election, but his new term is unlikely to be an easy one. Russia has changed: the middle classes surf the Internet, compare themselves not to their parents but to their contemporaries in the rest of Europe, and demand change. Meanwhile, writes Andr
Vladimir Putin’s one great achievement is the restoration of bureaucratic order after its near destruction by Gorbachev and privatisation by Yeltsin. Yet the end game is fast approaching, and the longer Putin clings on, the more likely he will be instead remembered for letting greedy friends and b
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?
