In a shocking incident, independent journalist Rafiq Tagi was stabbed repeatedly today in Baku, according to this RFE/RL report. Tagi is best known for his thought piece entitled “Europe and Us,” published in 2007 in the Sanat newspaper. In the article, Tagi compared modern Muslim societies to their European counterparts, and argued that Islam had […]
Another Russian March Rally commemorated the recent National Unity Day in Russia. The celebration of accord and reconciliation succeeded former Soviet holiday dedicated to the Great Russian Revolution. The new holiday introduces a tradition of Russian nationalist rally, so called, Russian March, exciting for some, but precarious for others. This year the March gathered between […]
U.S. – Russia political interactions often resemble a swinging pendulum that goes from hardly negotiated consensus to deepening disagreement and swooping across to ‘tit for tat‘ tactics. The Recent Russian response to U.S. ‘Magnitsky list’ is a good example of that. The story began with the accidental death of Sergey Magnitsky, a 37-year old […]
Russia. It’s not all doom and gloom (we’re not Greece, you know!). Sure, in their latest dispatches from Vladivostok and Lake Baikal, the BBC’s Reggie Nadelson and the Atlantic’s Nicholas Schmidle didn’t ask the hard questions. Like, where’s all that money earmarked for preparing for the APEC Summit really going? Or, what about the Baikal […]
After a week of Oligarch wars, Medvedev-Luzhkov sniping, spy-plagiarism and a Victor Bout guilty verdict, it’s good to know we can still lead the world, even if it is in the corruption stakes. It’s unclear how much the Kremlin paid Transparency International to take China’s crown (or whether it was more or less than the […]
As the presidential elections approach in Russia with the vote due in March 2012, media and opinion polls point out at the growing apathy amongst Russian population. Gloomy and grim attitudes stem from widespread perceptions that the positions of president and prime minister are predetermined with Putin’s comeback to the Kremlin is almost sure. With […]
It’s become so fashionable to automatically diss everything Putin does that critics are rarely forced to use their brains. That’s the only way to explain the curious liberal denunciations of the Eurasian Union, a free-trade economic and political bloc of major former Soviet states that Putin is rushing to get started. After all, what liberal […]
A portly man stands covered in glistening crude oil: this visual joke on that iconic scene from Goldfinger sets the scene for British photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews’s exploration of life in post-Soviet Central Asia. This week, she won an international photography award for a series on Naftalan, Azerbaijan, and its crude oil spa treatments. Equally […]
It’s a story that could have been written by Borges. A powerful man publishes a satirical novel under a playful yet obvious pseudonym. The book’s protagonist is a fiercely intelligent, insecure and amoral intellectual, a “‘vulgar Hamlet’ who can see through the superficiality of his age, but is unable to have any real feelings for […]
In a thoughtful and nuanced analysis of the internet’s role in Russian civil society (which just happened to include a few thoughtful and nuanced reflections from your humble blogger:), Radio Liberty’s Daisy Sindelar writes: “The Russian Internet, or RuNet, is the first medium in the country to come without a built-in ideological bent. And along […]
Morally bankrupt movie star Hilary Swank attended the festive birthday party of dictator Ramzan Kadyrov in the Chechen capital of Grozny on Wednesday, accompanied by a number of other celebrities including pop culture oddity Jean-Claude Van Damme and British violinist Vanessa Mae. Reportedly, Ms Mae was paid half a million dollars to attend the party […]
Recent accusations that millions of dollars were funneled from Azerbaijan in exchange for assurances that Azerbaijani boxers would win gold medals at the London Olympic Games in 2012 have led to denials from the world’s Olympic boxing organization, indignation from Baku, and an ad hoc committee that will investigate the claims. Since the the airing […]
Nostalgia is everywhere these days, a far cry from the good old days when we used to live for the future. Woody Allen. South Africa politicians. Even Mad Men are in on the act. But nostalgia for the Soviet war in Afghanistan? “Car bombs and suicide attacks, which have become a permanent threat in today’s […]
Starting Sunday, September 25, the Kyrgyz government introduced a ban on all foreign news broadcasting for the duration of the presidential campaign – until election day on October 30, 2011. During the five week moratorium, Kyrgyzstan’s television stations and cable operators are barred from rebroadcasting foreign news bulletins, reports EurasiaNet. The motivation behind the law […]
Did you know that Skype comes from Estonia? Ok, smartypants. But did you know Skype loves the Soviet Union? Well, maybe not loves exactly, but at least gives credit where credit is due. For some reason, Baltic people are not exactly what you’d call nostalgic for their former Slav overlords. So I was surprised to […]