The hype over the opening of the Popular Front had barely died down when the Premier’s campaign dealt yet another blow to the positions of his sole potential rival. The President’s initiative to replace government officials with...

The European Court of Human Rights created a resounding political precedent for Russia in April 2011. The court essentially ruled that the dissolution of Vladimir Ryzhkov’s Republican Party was illegal and awarded its representatives 7,000...

Dmitry Medvedev seems fed up with just saying the right words. He is becoming increasingly active in trying to get the bureaucratic vertical power structure built up by Vladimir Putin to heed his words and to do something real. The day...

They forced me to stretch my arms and legs, lean against the wall and stay like that in a cold chamber for a long time. They forced me to squat several times, even though I told them that I had an injured leg, but they would not listen....

The situation that has arisen in Russia now is the opposite of the one originally postulated by Orwell. Big brother is watching us, of course, but we too have been given the same option. The law governing state purchases and the...

It may be a bad thing to quote oneself, but Putin’s creation of the Popular Front is nevertheless a unique occasion that makes it possible to excuse virtually anything. In January 2000, the Izvestiya newspaper retracted my column titled...

Kamchatka has long and justifiably been considered a deeply depressed region with poorly developed industry and low living standards. Several billion roubles in federal subventions and grants are pumped into the region each year. The money...

When a monkey, whose eyes have become weak with old age, whacks a pair of glasses against a rock and makes sparks fly, perhaps it gets some sort of satisfaction out of this. But it doesn’t mean the monkey can see any better. The ability to...

Last week, the General Prosecutor’s Office created a small sensation when it released a statement saying that Domodedovo airport was run by foreign companies, which, the statement further read, poses a threat to national security. Such a...

Today the trial of former Belarusian presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov resumes. He has been charged with organising mass disturbances (Article 293 Chapter 2 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus) and faces up to 15 years in...

The founder of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, has been killed by US Navy Seal forces, but not at all in the place where most people thought he would have been hiding. It took place on Pakistani territory, but not in the mountain caves on the...

Nine years, seven months and twenty days after the most inconceivable news possible – the destruction of the World Trade Centre twin towers in New York – America is reliving the sensation: Osama bin Laden is dead. A joint operation by an...

During the holidays, on the way back from my country house, I pulled into the nearest petrol station, for such was my habit, and all the more so this time since the advertised price (24 roubles 90 kopeks) pleasantly surprised me. On the...

The results of President Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency will be summed up three years from the day of his inauguration, since the final year will be held amidst elections and isn’t very representative in this regard. Therefore, it makes...

On 19 April, dozens of nomad wagons and hundreds of riders and shepherds were still arriving in Sükhbaatar Square, Ulan Bator, the centre of Mongolian officialdom. They were coming from the surrounding regions of Arkhangai,...