Agora and Russia 10 Oct 2006 1:06 pm
It’s hard to imagine a more cowardly act than the cold-blooded murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. “The pen is mightier than the sword”—and, presumably, mightier than the bullet. Whistling in the dark. Bullets and bombs continue to make the weaker argument prevail, just as in the days of swords and battering rams; continue to [...]
Russia 13 Jul 2006 7:32 pm
I was exploring the hotels of Saint Petersburg on the web and found one called Brothers Karamazov. It opened in 2004 and has 28 rooms with all the modern amenities, including internet access. The hotel boasts four special rooms with 19th-century decor, each named after a female character in a Dostoevsky novel. (I don’t imagine they have [...]
Russia 3 Jul 2006 9:08 pm
In a recent documentary shown on German television entitled “Russia in a Vise,” and in a book of the same name, the German military expert and journalist Peter Scholl-Latour expresses his certainty that Russia will soon cease to exist as a sovereign entity—that it will be “erased from the map.” According to an article at [...]
Agora and Russia 29 Jun 2006 11:02 pm
Stephen Cohen has written an excellent piece on America’s wrong-headed (and dangerous) approach to Russia, well worth reading in its entirety. I’ll cut to the chase and quote the end. After noting areas in which Russia is still capable of pushing back against the US, Cohen writes:
American crusaders insist it is worth the risk in [...]
Russia 2 Jun 2006 7:08 pm
A couple of months ago, we asked (and tried to answer) a few questions about Russian music download services—specifically: are they legit? Yesterday the International Herald Tribune addressed the same issue, again in the context of Russia’s attempt to join the World Trade Organization.
Operating through what music industry lobbyists say is a loophole in Russia’s [...]
Russia 1 Jun 2006 12:36 pm
The Russian online newspaper Kursiv has returned—sort of. (See this post for background.) After a week of “page not found” errors, the curious reader was rewarded with success today at www.cursiv.ru: a single page of text. Here it is in translation, in its entirety:
They certainly descended on us! Like crows! Who would’ve thought that Kursiv [...]
Agora and Russia 31 May 2006 12:45 pm
We have a problem with bacteria. They can make us sick. Sure, we have antibiotics, but it turns out the little buggers are smarter than we gave them credit for. They keep changing, making our medicines ineffective.
We also have a problem with viruses. They, too, can make us sick. But it turns out there are [...]
Russia 24 May 2006 11:07 pm
Salon has passed on a wire service report about a Russian journalist arrested for making fun of Vladimir Putin:
The article was published by Vladimir Rakhmankov, editor of the online newspaper Kursiv in the central city of Ivanovo, said Andrei Galchenko of the regional prosecutor’s office.
The piece poked fun at Putin’s recent state of the nation [...]
Russia 22 May 2006 1:18 pm
Even Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor at large at Sun Myung-Moon’s Washington Times and United Press International, thinks the Putin-bashing is excessive:
Beating up on Russia’s shrinking democracy has become a geopolitical blood sport from Vice President Dick Cheney down to unreconstructed cold warriors who gleefully say, “I told you so.” They see no contradiction in berating [...]
Russia 17 May 2006 12:21 pm
Eleven velorickshaws* currently operate in Moscow, tooling around on Tverskoy Boulevard, Tverskaya Street, and in the area near the All-Union Exhibition Center (they haven’t renamed that yet?**). You can’t tell the driver where to take you—for now, at least, the velorickshaws travel along predetermined routes (sort of like the horse-and-buggies in Central Park). A ride costs 150 rubles.
How [...]
This site uses a modified version of the WordPress theme FastTrack