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A Strange Corruption Case at Aeroflot

In Russia, nobody is surprised by stories of corruption. Neither is there anything new about the way officials accused of bribery and embezzlement...

The Dangers of Specialization

In 1604, King Philip III of Spain suffered a burn while sleeping near the fireplace because no nobleman could be found with the authority to move...

A Fire in the Vacuum of Space

While seated at the breakfast table recently, I noticed a box bearing the mysterious inscription: "Official juices and nectars." I was astonished.

The Kremlin Benefits From Migrants

Murders stemming from domestic violence occur every week in Russia, as they do elsewhere in the world. Most in Russia go unnoticed by the public and unsolved...

Austerity Measures, Russian-style

It has finally happened: the economic course originally instituted by Yegor Gaidar is now playing out.

Employers, Not Migrants, Are the Problem

If there was even one point on which the candidates in the Sept. 8 Moscow mayoral race were in agreement, it was on the question of migrant workers...

Why Voters Don't Care About Mayoral Race

One of Josef Stalin most-quoted phrases is: "It doesn't matter how people vote. What matters is who counts the votes." This describes Russia's elections...

We Need Debates, Not a Cheap TV Show

Acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin's refusal to engage in televised debates with opposition leader Alexei Navalny was met with a sharp reaction from many...

Kremlin Is Afraid of the Masses, Not Navalny

The authorities made a serious tactical error when a Kirov court handed down a guilty verdict against opposition leader Alexei Navalny last Thursday...

Death Sentence for Russian Science

The government's stated purpose behind the bill to reform the Russian Academy of Sciences was to free researchers from the burden of administering...

A Yakunin Scandal About Nothing

The whole thing started with revelations about a mansion allegedly belonging to Russian Railways head Vladimir Yakunin.

Pseudo-Experts Fuel Popular Ignorance

Most Russian journalists are convinced that an "expert" is any person who has an opinion on a particular subject, regardless of that person's field...

Bolotnaya Farce

The number of political prisoners related to the "Bolotnoye affair" underscores the scope of the authorities' crackdown on the remnants of free...

Putin, Not Bolotnaya, Is His Own Worst Threat

As I walked through the crowd gathered on Bolotnaya Ploshchad for this month's anniversary of the May 6, 2012, rally, I experienced a sudden sense...

The Ponomaryov Principle

State Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomaryov once said, "To steal one ruble, it is first necessary to spend nine inefficiently." That slogan should adorn the entrance...

Tunis, the Birthplace of the Arab Spring, 2 Years On

I first visited Tunis four years ago. I liked its French-Arab feel, the streets that still carried such French names as Lafayette, Jaures and Pasteur...

The Kremlin's Ostrich Economists

Despite evidence to the contrary, the Kremlin refuses to use the words "downturn," "systemic crisis" or "recession." Instead, it has opted for a deceptive...

The Bankrupcty of EU's No-Default Policy

The European elite are more afraid of defaults than Russians are of revolutions.

Chavez Was No Dictator

The Russian blogosphere is sharply divided over the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, with some people expressing vulgar joy at his passing...

Medvedev Taking Russia Down a Road to Hell

There is no harm in dreaming about something — unless the dreamer has access to billions of rubles of public money and has no qualms about using...

Crushing Russia's Labor Leaders

While the public's attention is focused on the 20 suspects arrested in connection with the May 6 protests, we should not forget other political prisoners...

Spain Could Collapse Like the U.S.S.R.

Catalonia has adopted a declaration of sovereignty. To those of us who lived through the collapse of the Soviet Union, this is very much deja vu...

2nd Wave of Crisis Is 2 Months Away

All last year, the global economy teetered on the brink of a major recession. Bullish forecasts that the post-crisis global economy would rebound were...

Between Gaidar and Keynes

Looking at the hordes of shoppers besieging Moscow stores this holiday season, a person might wonder why there has been so much talk of a crisis.

opinion Boris Kagarlitsky

One Year of Protest Turbulence

Summing up the year, analysts generally agree that the political crisis that erupted a year ago after the December State Duma elections has largely...

Why Did the Police Search My Apartment?

Iwas awakened during a trip to Berlin on Wednesday by a call from my wife. "Our apartment is being searched," she said.

A Senseless Abduction in Kiev

Opposition activist Leonid Razvozzhayev's luck failed him twice.

Building a Virtual Skolkovo

When President Dmitry Medvedev in 2009 announced plans to build an innovation center at Skolkovo, many hoped the idea would not last.

Lawmakers Fixated on Loud Sex and Cats

For a full week, the country watched in amazement as deputies in the St. Petersburg municipal legislature spoke out against sex and noise in their...

Demonstration Deja Vu

The anti-government rallies in Moscow are becoming something of a tradition, as demonstrators take to the streets about once every month, with the exception...

The Pussy Riot Conspiracy

When discussing a scandal in Russia, the first question people are tempted to ask is, "Who ordered it?" The case against the female punk group Pussy...

The Cretins of Amiens

Rioting broke out in the French town of Amiens last week while I was vacationing in France. A few days after the youths clashed with the police,...

Corruption Organically Redistributes Wealth

The relatively strong growth rates that the Russian economy has enjoyed in recent years stand in marked contrast to the acute crisis in the European...

Krymsk Unites OMON and the Opposition

The recent flooding in Krymsk reminded me of the smog disaster two years ago when Moscow and surrounding regions were overcome by summer forest fires...

Media Sadomasochism

Bad news is a very popular genre in the Russian media. Of course, the media in other countries also devote considerable attention to disturbing or...

No More Privatization Scams

At last week's St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russia's new round of privatizations was one of the hottest topics of discussion.

Opposition Fatigue

After Tuesday's protest in Moscow, the opposition has announced a respite from these types of rallies, probably until October.

Putin's Closed Government

There is a hard-and-fast rule on how new laws are passed in Russia: The most important legislation is usually approved with the least public discussion...

Opposition Needs to Reach Beyond Moscow

The Moscow protests on May 6 marked a milestone in the country's political development.

France's Electoral Guillotine

Few people doubt that socialist Francois Hollande will become the new French president in May. His rival, incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy, came to power...

Protest Genie Is Out of the Bottle

Supporters of the ruling regime interpreted the results of the March presidential election as a victory for the once-conservative, loyal provinces...

Labor Protests Pose New Kremlin Headache

No sooner had protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg quieted down than strikes broke out in the provinces. For the most part, these protesters were...

Revolutionary Winds Blowing Across Moldova

While Russians ponder the results of this winter's political crisis, a revolution is shaping up in Moldova.

Artists Sold Out to Putin

Russia's presidential elections have become a confrontation as the authorities lose support and society gains political muscle. The behavior of the...

Putin's Puppet Show

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his team deserve some credit for doing their utmost to conduct a Western-style election campaign. They are even attempting...

A Propaganda Breakdown

Propaganda is not as powerful as many think. You might convince Russians that people in Egypt, Italy and Ukraine are paid or otherwise persuaded to join...

The Left's Broken Clock

Someone once likened the political positions of the extreme left with a broken clock that never shows the right time. But as everyone knows, a broken...

The Protesters' Lull Before the Storm

The global political crisis — a natural outcome of the continuing economic crisis — finally made it to Russia in December before getting derailed...

Politics Without Choice

The surge in street protests this month was the natural result of widespread discontent that has been building up steam for several years without...

Managed Democracy Fails in a Crisis

The crisis is developing exactly as expected. The inability of the authorities to cope with the rising wave of social problems has naturally spilled...

Why Russians Don't Vote

State Duma elections rarely generate much interest among Russian voters. The Duma has no real authority and is powerless to control the government...

Why Stock Markets Cause Economic Crises

The attempt by young protestors to occupy Wall Street found support not only among the majority of Americans and astonished Russians, but also led...

Occupy the Belly of the Beast

When asked where he worked, one of my economist friends from the United States answered, "In the belly of the beast." He meant Wall Street.

Putin Needs to Clean His Pipes

It seems that nobody has learned a thing from the 2008 economic crisis. Now, three years later, government officials are repeating the same lies without...

Useless Money

The history of paper money began with a scandal. When Scottish financier John Law proposed in the early 18th century that French Regent Philippe d'Orleans...

How Russia Resembles Libya

Russia's leaders have searched for the proper approach to the revolution in Libya like a person who hopes to find a picture of reality in a distorted mirror...

The Soviet Collapse vs. an EU Collapse

At the same time that Russia is marking the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West is beginning to talk seriously about the possibility...

The World's Largest Pyramid Scheme

The United States managed to avert a default, and that is good news. But the partisan battle in Congress sent the stock market plunging, and the...

The Religion of Evil

While the left argues with the right and nationalists argue with pro-Westerners, a new ideology has arisen in society that has the potential to win...

A Swedish Fairy Tale About Gay Giraffes

A kindergarten in Sweden has prohibited teachers to use words that would indicate a child's gender. Since "he" and "she" can't be used, children must...

Testing Russia's Corruption Level

This year's Unified State Exam for high school students applying for admission to universities has turned into a national scandal. In some regions...

Blue Bucket Protests Will Fail

According to blogs and the liberal press, the "blue bucket brigades" are one of the most important activist phenomena in Russia's still young and undeveloped...

An August 1998 Default on a Global Scale

For now, there is no immediate threat of a U.S. default on its debt, but the government will have to dramatically cut costs or go back to Congress...

Privatization Follies

A new wave of privatization is getting under way in Russia. Property that until now had been in the hands of the state is being put up for sale....

Russian Capitalism Is More Pure

In Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita," the devil appears as a character named Woland who, when confronted with a man who does not believe...

Europe's Nationalists Waiting in the Dark

Finnish elections don't usually make headlines in Europe. But this spring Finnish voters managed to spoil the mood among Brussels bureaucrats and the...

Prokhorov's Exploitative Emancipation

Ever since Mikhail Prokhorov joined the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, or RSPP, in an official capacity, it has gained unexpected...

Russia Inspired Arab Protesters

In the same way that Russian populists rejected disputes between pro-Western Russians and Slavophiles as meaningless, today's Arab protesting youth have...

Gorbachev the Traitor

The 80th birthday of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sparked a sudden but understandable surge of nostalgia for perestroika among the liberal...

Link Between Capitalism And Hunger

About one-sixth of the world's population — 1 billion people — suffers from malnutrition. Stories about global hunger tend to get ignored by the...

Welcome to Cow Time

Daylight-saving time was invented a century ago to save a few pennies on electricity, but it never justified itself economically.
Now, when society's...

Radical Retirees

Despite age and lifestyle differences, in a social and cultural sense Russian retirees have more in common with Western European university students than...

Dreaming of a Great Russia in A Deep Sleep

According to an old Russian proverb, “The less you know, the better you sleep.” Duma deputies apparently want us all to experience a protracted period...

The Return of Fascism

There was nothing unexpected about the racially motivated rioting and attacks that took place in Moscow and other cities during the past 10 days.

A Presidential Address to the Children

There was far less anticipation leading up to President Dmitry Medvedev’s third state-of-the-nation address last week than there had been for the previous...

Fursenko Is Education's No. 1 Enemy

The Russian educational system has many problems but only one real enemy. It would take hours to list all of the problems but only a moment to name the...

Prokhorov’s Shock Modernization

The State Duma invented National Unity Day on Nov. 4 to replace the Nov. 7 holiday commemorating the Bolshevik Revolution, but it didn’t catch on. Russians...

A Census the Golden Horde Would Love

My family was not counted in the census that was carried out from Oct. 14 to 25. My wife and I were out when the census takers came to our apartment, and...

Norma Rae Would Be Proud

For the past 15 years, Russia’s labor unions have made sporadic efforts to form a unified organization, but they have had little success. One of the...

Proletariats and Potatoes

Despite this summer’s drought, there is no threat of a Russian famine. This year’s crop failure is offset by the large grain surplus from last year...

Controlling People Through Language

While in England traveling with a British friend, I was speaking to a cashier at a railway station when I was dumbstruck by the look of frightened amazement...

Why Medvedev Backed Down on Khimki

Protests alone did not force the government to make a retreat on the Khimki forest issue. There was also the government's loss of faith in its overzealous...

A Burning Wake-Up Call

When the world began talking about global warming, no countries in Europe treated the topic as lightly as Russia did. Even now, in the hottest summer on...

From Greek Scroll to E-Reader

What does the increasing popularity of e-readers means for the future of reading? Not as much as you might think. Pragmatic readers will use books as though...

Drought Fuels Social Tensions

The problem with the tropical heat that has descended on Moscow and central Russia this summer is not so much the high temperatures but the impossibility...