modern Russia

Modernisation has sent Russia spinning back to the Stone Age

22 February 2025 9:00 am

Howard Amos portrays a once hopeful country now sweeping the past under the carpet as it alternates between pitying itself and pitting itself against the rest of the world

Putin’s éminence grise: The Wizard of the Kremlin, by Giuliano da Empoli, reviewed

15 February 2025 9:00 am

Modelled on Putinism’s founding father, Vladislav Surkov, the protagonist of this internationally acclaimed novel pales by comparison with the real-life ideologue

Nostalgia and nihilism

4 June 2016 9:00 am

‘Gilded doorknobs,’ spits a Party diehard as she contemplates the blessings of the Soviet Union’s collapse. ‘Is this freedom?’ Dozens…