A strong party builder, some call the Kremlin’s new curator for domestic politics, Vyacheslav Volodin. ‘An unusual bureaucrat’, others say. ‘When it is said about a gifted person that he was kissed by God, then Volodin must have been kissed by the devil, says Olga Alimova, first secretary of the Communist Party in Saratov. Who is this man, that will succeed Vladislav Surkov? The New Times tries to find out.
Continue reading “Volodin”
Putin’s first decade of the century is over and now Vladislav Surkov lost his role as the main ideologist of the regime Russian politics will change completely. Perhaps the reins will be held by rigorous administrators without sentiments and imagination, perhaps the time has come for proper politicians, who will be able to talk to the people directly and not through the PR tricks of their deputies. Nevertheless, we cannot predict the future of the country without understanding what really happened to them and to us. And to do so we need to answer the question ‘Who is mister Surkov?’.
Continue reading “Surkov”
In December a protest movement claimed the streets of Moscow. but by January its goals seem hard to accomplish as the movement still lacks real structure. Unfortunately, because of the low level of trust between the protesting citizens and the opposition -politicians the odds for such a structure to take shape seem rather small.
Continue reading “Bolotnaya’s children”
‘Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050’. With this title two economists of Goldman Sachs kicked off a report on how four emerging countries would surpass the G6 economies in less than forty years from now. These four countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China, were dubbed as the BRIC economies by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill back in 2001. This article aims to look into the definition of BRIC and how the R, Russia, stands out in this term. In the first part of this article, we will look at what the term BRIC means after which we look more in-depth into Russia and its position in the BRIC bloc. This article will deal with negative and positive aspects of BRIC to answer one question:. Is Russia rightly or wrongly seen as part of the BRICs?
Continue reading “Getting the R out of BRIC?”
Shattered cement and ghostly streets in the Chechen city of Grozny have been replaced by glitzy shops, soccer stadiums and reduced violence….
Via rbth.ru
Sober analysts state unhesitatingly that, with an opposition like Russia has today, Putin as the leading candidate in the March presidential election has little to fear, and that any hopes for an “orange” or Arab-type revolution are sheer wishful thinking and simply nonsense.
Via www.russiablog.org
Last year our country’s population increased, for the first time in 20 years. Although positive growth in aggregate was only enabled by immigration from the Near Abroad, existing trends in rising fertility and falling mortality were maintained.
Via www.sublimeoblivion.com
Yesterday, the town of Lermontov (located in Russia’s North Caucasus) experienced what some are calling “a small revolution.” As the state municipal building was preparing to close for the evening, a collection of townsfolk and former members of the city council gathered and eventually forced their way into the main lobby. Once inside, reporters accompanying the activists took turns interviewing ex-deputies and disgruntled locals.
Via www.agoodtreaty.com
February 1 wasn’t planned out as a special day for Russia’s capital markets. But at 11:00am on an ordinary, frosty Wednesday morning, officials at the Ministry of Finance kicked off the auction of government bonds that are the culmination of more than three years of reform designed to transform Moscow into an international financial centre.
Via www.bne.eu
