Pro-democracy protests in Russia are being organized by writers, journalists, artists and other cultural figures. There are few businesspeople among them who understand the concept of risk-adjusted returns.

The protest rallies in December were a response to two domestic events: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's crude declaration on Sept. 24 that he plans to seek a third presidential term and blatant fraud in the Dec. 4 State Duma elections.  

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said those who participated in recent protests against rigged State Duma elections were encouraged and paid for by the United States. But it had very little to do with anti-government protests in Russia — unfortunately so.

Russian businessman Alexei Kozlov was arrested and sentenced to eight years after falling out with his business partner, former Federation Council Senator Vladimir Slutsker.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was booed at а wrestling match a week ago, and Russia's liberal intelligentsia felt encouraged.

When I came to the United States from the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s, I was a little disappointed. Only when I got to Chicago a decade later did I see the America I had expected.

China's success has been very important for Russia. Of course, Russian leaders find it hard to admit that they envy the Chinese. After all, when Communists took power in Beijing in 1949, China was a younger Communist brother, learning Marxism-Leninism at the feet of their more experienced Soviet comrades. Then, after Josef Stalin died in 1953, there were three decades of hostility, when tensions between the two countries were high. They even fought a seven-month battle along their long shared border during the height of the Chinese-Soviet split in 1969.

Many jaws dropped when Dmitry Peskov declared that the Brezhnev years of stagnation had been a time of great achievement for Russia. But, of course, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's press secretary does not really believe that, as he put it, "Brezhnev was a huge plus for Russia."

Even though Prime Minister Vladimir Putin asserted at the United Russia party convention last month that he and President Dmitry Medvedev had long ago agreed how they would share power, Putin's decision to run for president in 2012 had all the hallmarks of a spur-of-the-moment, haphazard move.

The origins of the Russian state and its early history help explain the country's modern political makeup. According to the Kievan Primary Chronicle, compiled around 1110, Slavic tribes invited Scandinavian prince Rurik to rule over them in the 9th century. But the history of the Viking expansion in Western Europe suggests that an "invitation" was hardly necessary.

Ten years ago, New York lived through the horror of the destruction of the World Trade Center. A sad occasion under any circumstances, this year's anniversary will be all the more disheartening because of the current state of the United States. The death of nearly 3,000 Americans was not only senseless, but in some perverse way it contributed to the country's downfall.

Historians have a theory that democracy in Britain grew out of the state's need for money and the necessity to tax the country's population. In return for paying taxes, British citizens demanded — and received — considerable privileges and freedoms and, ultimately, a say in the way the country was run.

Over the past month, as U.S. politicians busily undermined the country's economy and the global financial system in an ideological fight over the debt ceiling, Russia quietly awaited its fate. The experience of the Great Recession 2008 has sunk in: Russia suffered more in the Great Recession than any other large economy.

Germans rarely treat us to a good laugh, so the decision to award this year's Quadriga prize to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was a precious moment. Although given by a private foundation, the prize is a semi-official undertaking couched in the somewhat clumsy do-goodnik cheerfulness that the Federal Republic of Germany has affected since the end of World War II.

At the height of the Cold War in the 1960s, some political scientists predicted that the Soviet Union and the United States would eventually come to resemble each other.  Strangely, Russia and the United States did become more similar, but only after the end of the Cold War — and in ways those pundits would have probably found disturbing.

Russians react nervously to any narrative about World War II that differs from their own. When the United States, Britain or France pay tribute to their countrymen who fought and defeated Adolf Hitler, it is seen in Moscow as an attempt to diminish Russia's contribution.

Ever since the Bolshevik Revolution nearly a century ago, all Russian leaders have faced a succession problem. It is all the more remarkable because Soviet — and now Russian — leaders tend to be absolute rulers. In the past 20 years, despite ostensibly democratic, competitive elections, the incumbents still anoint their successors.

The Moscow City Court's decision to reduce the sentences in the Yukos case comes just after Amnesty International recognized the two former Yukos executives as prisoners of conscience, equating them with Soviet-era dissidents and thus drawing a direct parallel between Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's Russia and the repressive Soviet Union.

The spread of the Russian-speaking diaspora has been one of the most significant effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union on the rest of the world. When I first came to the United States in the mid-1970s, Americans found it hard to believe that I was born in the Soviet Union. Today, it is almost impossible to walk two blocks in New York without overhearing a conversation in Russian.

Last week, there was an unmarked anniversary: 120 years since the birth of an extraordinary Russian, Nikolai Bruni. The only reason he is remembered at all is because he belonged to an illustrious family descending from a Swiss-Italian nobleman who moved to Russia in the early 19th century.

Divisions in today's Russia are many, but the most important one concerns the attitude toward Stalin and his policies. One side regards Stalin as a butcher who drowned the nation in blood, while the other sees Stalin as a strong leader who built a great nation, admittedly by harsh means.

I recently attended the annual Global Technology Symposium. Although held in California and organized by Silicon Valley insiders, it had a strong Russian component. Russian Venture Company was a key backer, while Rusnano and the Skolkovo project were sponsors. Russians were prominent among attendees, and a Russia Day opened the event.

If the U.S. economy slips into another downturn, it will spread to the rest of the world, just as the meltdown in the U.S. residential mortgage market three years ago nearly brought down the global financial system.

Most holidays either celebrate some achievement or mark an event, like Cosmonauts Day on April 12 or Victory Day on May 9. Women's Day, by contrast, celebrates half the population for nothing more special than having a different chromosome.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is the most successful Russian leader in five decades. You would expect the man to be satisfied, vindicated and mellowed out. But Putin remains an angry man, just as brittle and volatile as when he appeared on Russia's political stage more than a decade ago.

Oligarchs, gangsters and separatists from the North Caucasus seemed to have appeared from nowhere when the Soviet Union collapsed, and over the past 20 years they have dominated the country. What is remarkable, however, is that the three most popular Soviet films of the late 1960s and the early '70s dealt with those three issues.

Terrorism and security establishments have risen hand in hand over the past 60 years. Both are likely to continue to grow.

Since a monumental miscarriage of justice was perpetrated at the end of December, when former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were found guilty of trumped-up charges and sentenced to 14 years in prison, there has been persistent speculation that the Norwegian Nobel Committee will award this year’s peace prize to Khodorkovsky.

It's the Christmas season, and this is a time when you're supposed to tell sentimental stories that end happily and warm the cockles of your listeners' hearts.

On Thursday, the world marked International Anti-Corruption Day. President Dmitry Medvedev, who has declared that combatting corruption is one of his most important political and economic programs, should declare it a holiday for all government officials. This way, there will be at least one day a year in which no stealing or bribe taking occurs.