http://www.project-syndicate.org/series/a_window_on_russia <p><em>“A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” – so Winston Churchill once described Russia. Subsequent efforts at understanding that huge and complex country have not made it much more transparent. But <em>Project Syndicate’s</em> special monthly column on Russian affairs offers readers a clear-eyed view.</em></p> <p><em>Project Syndicate's</em> monthly commentaries on Russian affairs and Russian life, edited by the historian and political commentator, Nina Khrushcheva, make the politics, culture, and economy of this often murky country explicable to an outside audience. Written primarily by eminent Russians, they present Russian society "from the inside," delivering to readers the people and ideas that will shape Russia in the months and years ahead.</p> en 2012-02-10T05:55:14+01:00 webmaster@project-syndicate.org webmaster@project-syndicate.org 1994-01-01T00:00:00+01:00 4 hourly http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/piontkovsky9/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/piontkovsky9/English>RUSSIA: La Nausée Russe</a> Authoritarian regimes in Russia tend to die not from external blows or domestic insurrections, but rather from a strange internal disease resembling Jean-Paul Sartre's existential nausea. Today, Vladimir Putin’s regime is atrophying from that same strange disease, despite – or because of – the seemingly impermeable wall that it spent years constructing around itself. Andrei Piontkovsky 2012-01-30T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/guriev7/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/guriev7/English>RUSSIA: Russia’s Inevitable Democratization</a> Twenty years ago, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev resigned, the Soviet Union ended, and Russia began an imperfect transition to democratic capitalism. And yet the recent protests – somewhat similar to those that preceded the Soviet collapse – provide grounds for cautious optimism about the future. Sergei Guriev, Aleh Tsyvinski 2011-12-30T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trenin7/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trenin7/English>RUSSIA: Integrating Russia’s Post-Imperium</a> Twenty years after the loss of its twentieth-century empire, Russia is ready to move toward a new kind of integration with its ex-provinces. This is not a threat; rather, economic integration is a test of how much Russia has learned about the world since 1991, and how much more modern it has become as a result. Dmitri Trenin 2011-11-02T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/etkind8/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/etkind8/English>RUSSIA: No Country for Young Oligarchs</a> This past June, Mikhail Prokhorov, one of Russia's richest men, agreed to lead a political party to contest December’s parliamentary elections, seeming to believe that his business experience would boost his political prospects. He was wrong. Alexander Etkind 2011-10-05T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/khrushcheva45/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/khrushcheva45/English>RUSSIA: The Eternal Putin</a> The sad truth is that, in Russia, history does indeed repeat itself, but, in a twist on Karl Marx’s dictum, as tragedy and farce at once. That principle will be on full display in 2012, when Vladimir Putin returns to the presidency. Nina L. Khrushcheva 2011-09-30T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/weitz9/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/weitz9/English>RUSSIA: Getting to “Yes” on Missile Defense</a> Russian officials need to retreat from their politically impossible demand for legally binding limitations on US ballistic missile defense (BMD), and should instead consider cooperating on concrete BMD projects. Some of Russia’s BMD-related concerns can be addressed through mutually agreed transparency and confidence-building initiatives. Richard Weitz 2011-08-17T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/karaganov16/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/karaganov16/English>RUSSIA: Look East, Russia</a> While Russia needs to integrate itself with Europe’s remaining islands of innovation (Germany, above all), it is the growth potential of the Asia-Pacific region that will determine the country’s future. But Russia has yet to devise a long-term and comprehensive Asian strategy. Sergei Karaganov 2011-07-22T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/khrushcheva43/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/khrushcheva43/English>RUSSIA: Will the Meek Inherit Russia?</a> In his decade in power, Vladimir Putin has consolidated and strengthened the security forces, intimidated and jailed opponents, and muzzled the media and courts. But if he doesn’t step down or aside so that Russia can move forward, the system he has created may turn his own methods against him. Nina L. Khrushcheva 2011-06-30T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/piontkovsky8/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/piontkovsky8/English>RUSSIA: The Caucasian Dark Circle</a> The Russian authorities have recently begun showing off the massive security measures being implemented ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. They have good reason to be worried – and not only for the safety of athletes and spectators. Andrei Piontkovsky 2011-05-31T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/tsyvinski6/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/tsyvinski6/English>RUSSIA: The Purge of the Kremlin Chairmen</a> In recent months, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has moved against some of the most powerful men in the Kremlin: the ministers and deputy ministers who chair Russia's state-owned companies. But the purge may reflect other goals than improving the investment climate. Aleh Tsyvinski, Sergei Guriev 2011-04-11T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/lipman5/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/lipman5/English>RUSSIA: Russia’s No-Participation Pact</a> Unlike in the USSR, which massively infringed on citizens’ private space, today’s Russians enjoy virtually unlimited individual freedoms. But, for those Russians with competitive skills and thus options – and for the many more without much hope for the future – the torch of political opposition is best carried by someone else. Masha Lipman 2011-03-30T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/tsyvinski5/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/tsyvinski5/English>RUSSIA: Prisoners of the Red Army</a> While all other large European countries abolished military conscription in recent decades, Russia continues with a system in which all physically-fit male citizens aged 18 to 27 must serve for 12 months. The system is unfair, inefficient, and unpopular, and should be reformed – for the military's own good. Sergei Guriev, Aleh Tsyvinski 2011-02-22T00:00:00+01:00