You Be the Judge

Sometimes a White Russian is just a cocktail.

There is never a shortage of political-cultural land mines on which to trod when one’s brief is to cover all things Russian. And, given the state of East-West relations, the mines are getting bigger and more tightly spaced with each passing day.

Put another way, it is challenging to write about Russia without offending one “side” or the other. Which is why I keep close at hand two letters from readers, both cancelling their subscriptions within a month or so of each other. One found Russian Life to be “highly objectionable and predisposed to an otherwise discredited regime,” while the other insisted that Russian Life was “an organ for the dissemination of anti-state, anti-president, or anti-Orthodox Church propaganda.”