Last weekend, I was at an opening of a new Tibetan restaurant by the Red Square with a bunch of American expats. The new Cold War never came up, but that was because nobody wanted to ruin a good party…
Posted on: September 16th, 2008 | Leave Comment
Last weekend, I was at an opening of a new Tibetan restaurant by the Red Square with a bunch of American expats. The new Cold War never came up, but that was because nobody wanted to ruin a good party…
Posted on: September 16th, 2008 | Leave Comment
You probably didn’t know that CNN censored Putin for being just too darn sensible. Yep, it’s true. About two weeks ago, Putin gave the network an exclusive 30-minute interview. And you know what happened? Nothing. It was never allowed to…
Posted on: September 10th, 2008 | Leave Comment
They drove like people to whom the motorcar was new. They drove as they walked; and a stream of Tehran traffic, jumpy with individual stops and swerves, with no clear lanes, was like a jostling pavement crowd. —V.S. Naipaul Naipaul…
Posted on: August 28th, 2008 | Comments Off
Five days after Georgia invaded and seized the breakaway separatist region of South Ossetia, sparking a larger-scale Russian invasion to drive Georgian forces back and punish their leaders, Russia surprised its Western detractors by calling a halt to the country’s…
Posted on: August 15th, 2008 | Comments (2)
No dramatic photo compositions here, just grim pictures of burnt-out tanks, spent RPGs, charred human remains and columns of Russian armored machinery on patrol in South Ossetia and Georgia. Now updated with graphic photos straight from the battle scene.
Posted on: August 15th, 2008 | Leave Comment
Today, August 14, Dmitri Medvedev celebrates 100th day as President of the Russian Federation. What conclusions can be made about the new president? Well, not many. Other than the fact that Medvedev is trying really, really hard to be the…
Posted on: August 14th, 2008 | Leave Comment
I woke up to discover a weird link to a Digg post sent over by a friend of mine. It was a poll conducted on CNN’s website asking readers: Do you think Russians actions in Georgia are justified? 1) Yes…
Posted on: August 13th, 2008 | Comments (4)
The outbreak of war in Georgia on Friday offers a disturbing and somewhat surreal taste of what to expect from John McCain should he become our nation’s Commander in Chief. As the centuries-old ethnic animosities between Georgia and Ossetia boiled…
Posted on: August 9th, 2008 | Comments (1)
On August 30, on the same day that President Medvedev announced his support of small business, an insane story appeared on Russia’s evening TV news about a corporate takeover raid in the city of Tula, just south of Moscow. Russian…
Posted on: August 6th, 2008 | Comments Off
Some time ago I was having lunch on the veranda at Moscow’s fancy Simachev Bar with my friend Alexei. He recently became the editor-in-chief of a high-end glossy magazine. We were having lunch and discussing my career options when I…
Posted on: July 23rd, 2008 | Comments (1)
Sergei Gorshkov, the political blogger who’s in it for the money, not the politics — and isn’t afraid to say so It was a freakishly warm February morning in Moscow, eight days before Russia’s 2008 presidential election. Green army trucks…
Posted on: July 23rd, 2008 | Leave Comment
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