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Articles by Alexei Pankin
news
A Boost for the Kremlin's Soft Power
In 2009, I interviewed former RIA Novosti editor-in-chief Svetlana Mironyuk. Referring to the Russia-Georgia War of 2008 and the fact that most Western...
news
Protect Russian Culture and Language
At a recent meeting of Russia's literary and educational elite, President Vladimir Putin expressed his concerns about the fate of the Russian language:...
news
Dispelling the Smoke Screen
The statement that "smoking is harmful to your health" is only a theory, not a medical fact.
news
Yeltsin's Attack on White House, 20 Years On
I spent the second half of August visiting Japan and kept abreast of events in Russia by reading the local English-language press.
news
Illiberal Ethnic Slurs by 2 'Liberal' Activists
Journalist Oleg Kashin, who was savagely beaten near the entrance to his home, published a commentary piece on the Svobodnaya Pressa (Free Press) website...
news
Trying to Remain Moral Amid 'Dom 2'
President Vladimir Putin deeply offended me last month. On June 19, the Federal Communications Agency suggested that the Pyatnitsa television channel stop...
news
Public Television Says Life in Russia Isn't So Bad
About two years ago, one of the directors of Georgian Public Broadcaster told me that the concept for public television in Georgia was developed with...
news
Celebrating Press Freedom Russian-Style
World Press Freedom Day was celebrated on Thursday, and the Russian press marked the event by opposing censorship, re-examining its own values and experimenting...
news
Putin Is a Gift From Heaven for Novaya Gazeta
April 1 marks the anniversary of Novaya Gazeta, Russia's fearless, opposition-oriented investigative newspaper. The publication was founded 20 years...
news
No One Wants Glazyev at Central Bank
The shock wave from the explosion of the meteorite on Feb. 15 was felt not only in Chelyabinsk but also throughout the Russian media.
news
The Kremlin Needs Smart PR
While I was attending the World Newspaper Congress in Kiev in September, one of the heads of UNESCO asked me, "Aren't you frightened of living in a...
opinion
Alexei Pankin
How Journalists Defend Against Lawlessness
I received an invitation last week to attend the national Restoring Leadership forum to be held on Tuesday. Speakers at the forum were listed as...
news
Zinovyev Aimed at Communism but Hit Russia
The views of Soviet dissident writer Alexander Zinovyev, much like his work and his life, cannot be categorized according to conventional ideas or...
news
Russians Are the Luckiest People on Earth
How lucky we are to live in Russia and not in the West or the East.
news
West Is on the Wrong Side of Pussy Riot
After the failed putsch of August 1991, the democratic West had an opportunity to establish a protectorate over Russia and conduct radical political...
news
A Soviet Manager Will Save Public TV
The creation of public television in Russia reminds me of the financial crisis that hit in August 1998.
news
Putin's Split Personality
Paul the Octopus correctly predicted the outcomes of a surprising number of games in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Likewise, the weekly magazine Odnako...
news
Putin's Sobchak Problem
In a recent article that ran in Russia Beyond the Headlines, a newspaper supplement that is produced by state-owned Rossiiskaya Gazeta and is distributed...
news
How Pensioners Can Make Elections Honest
Vladimir Lenin once said, "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire country." Today, that slogan would read: "Communism is fair...
news
And Now for a Scandal About Public TV
Public television will be established in Russia any day now. The only person who knows the details of this station — which is supposed to be independent...
news
The Public Television Predicament
Responding to efforts to formulate a concept of public-service broadcasting in Russia, legendary television personality Anatoly Lysenko quipped: "The...
news
Russians Want Daylight More Than Democracy
Some members of the Moscow intelligentsia have been working overtime to come up with rather outlandish material for the media.
news
Why Russians Would Vote for a Bolshevik
I recently bumped into an old acquaintance who, without even bothering to say hello, immediately asked, "Are you going to the next protest rally on Feb...
news
Russia's Media More Accurate Than in the West
I spoke with about 100 pleasant young people last week at the monthly meeting that Russian Reporter magazine editors and journalists hold with readers...
news
The Soviet James Bond
Last week, the army ceremoniously laid to rest retired Colonel Vitaly Shlykov with a three-volley salute and an honor guard marching under the Russian...
news
Going From Earthquakes to Elections on TV
The State Duma election television campaign kicked off Nov. 5 by intruding on the usual morning programming. In nonelection times, the programming follows...
news
Medvedev Surfed His Way to Irrelevance
According to a joke that circulated at the recent Russian Internet Week forum, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin did not allow President Dmitry Medvedev...
news
Common Way to Fight Enemy No. 1
The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper called former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was given a seven-year sentence last week, "Yulia Khodorkovskaya...
news
Kudrin's Wise Advice to Curb Defense Costs
The Russian media discussed Kudrin's dismissal even more enthusiastically than it did the news of the tandem switch announced at United Russia's convention...
news
When People Start to Laugh at Their Leaders
Columnists consider it a major stroke of luck when an important political event occurs on a Thursday. That gives them the opportunity to discuss it with...
news
The Prokhorov-Khodorkovsky Tandem
Soviet communism was ultimately buried by two of its most prominent native sons — Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and Moscow Communist...
news
Why Georgia Has Friends and Russia Doesn't
It is difficult to imagine a greater joy than visiting Georgia. Amazingly, the blood spilled in the Russia-Georgia war three years ago has not cooled...
news
Public Television Is Good for Democracy
During the Petersburg Dialogue public forum held in Hanover in late July, President Dmitry Medvedev posted comments on his blog under the heading:...
news
Farewell to a Great Scholar
When I visited my friend, political scientist Dmitry Furman, on Aug. 18, 1991, our intense discussion of the political situation in the country lasted...
news
Drinking Is a Reporter's Sacred Ritual
Journalism is a dangerous profession. Journalists have a high mortality rate — and not just because of torture chambers in repressive regimes, contract...
news
Izvestia Offers Snapshot of Russian Zhizn
Ever since 2005, when I was the editor of the opinion page at Izvestia, one minor detail has stuck in my memory. The editor-in-chief read a stack...
news
Private Media Fib as Much as the State
President Dmitry Medvedev recently wrote on his blog that he favors privatizing state-controlled media. But Medvedev has a history of flip-flopping...
news
Medvedev's Digital Split Personality
Sometimes I think President Dmitry Medvedev has a split personality. On one hand, he stubbornly fights legal nihilism in public and official life....
news
Saving Russia With a Great Flood
In the years leading up to the Soviet collapse, a friend of mine kept saying the only way to save the country would be to wipe out Moscow with...
news
How the Internet Turns Journalists Into Punks
It seems as if Russia's best journalists have set out to completely undermine President Dmitry Medvedev's stated ideology that "freedom is better than...
news
A Pact With the Devil
The Mikhail Khodorkovsky affair is a classic tragedy — a plot unfolding against the back-drop of modern democratic mass culture. This became clear...
news
The Great Dacha Wars
Russia is headed for some major shocks. I came to that conclusion after reading a news release with the heading: "Yabloko Party Activists Detained...
news
State Television Thumbs Its Nose at Medvedev
If television and the Internet ended their standoff, the result would be a richer and more informative discussion of every subject, from Yeltsin’s legacy...
news
What Kashin and Medvedev Really Discussed
The public knows little about what President Dmitry Medvedev and Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin really talked when they met in Israel last week because...
news
The Return of Glasnost
When President Dmitry Medvedev spoke recently in his video blog about the country’s political stagnation, it appeared that glasnost had returned to Russia...
news
A Future of Foul Language and Worms
At a recent round table on the Internet and democracy, a dispute broke out over the Tver governor's decision to post a blog photo of a worm allegedly found...
news
Sobyanin Joins Ruling Tandem as TV Hero
Until just recently, ordinary television viewers could be certain that there were two perfect people in Russia: President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister...
news
Creating Heroes on YouTube and Boob Tube
The Russian Reporter weekly magazine recently published a list of the 100 most memorable political events of the year. First place went to former Novorossiisk...
news
A True Perestroika Scholar
Georgy Arbatov — scholar, founder of the U.S.A. and Canada Institute and adviser to Soviet leaders from Leonid Brezhnev to Mikhail Gorbachev — died...
news
Emulating Luzhkov
During the past weeks, Russians watching state-controlled television channels were treated to a spectacle as President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister...
news
Smashing Heads and Chopping Off Hands
A recent article in the Financial Times began, “Listen to Russia’s president and prime minister talk about its most pressing political issue — modernizing...
news
Rule of Law in Ukraine and Scotland
As burly border guards took him to their station in a Ukrainian city, one political commentator rued the rule of law. That and a media mishap this summer...
news
Putin Is Out of Touch
For one columnist, the way that Vladimir Putin handled the Kursk disaster was notable. Exactly 10 years later, the country is confronted with another crisis...
news
Fiddling While Russia Burns
A political observer experienced extreme anxiety at the dacha on Saturday while listening to Ekho Moskvy's coverage of the unsanctioned demonstration on...