December 10, 2007

Putin Lite or False Dmitry?


And so the choice has been made.

Dmitry Medvedev will be the next president of Russia, having gotten the nod from Putin, United Russia and all the other powers that matter.

Now the chatter will begin discussing whether Medvedev is more liberal, how he is the "softer" choice than would have been the candidate of the siloviki, Sergei Ivanov.

Don't believe a word of it.

Medvedev and Putin have worked hand in glove for the past 17 years. Medvedev, in his most recent role of Chief of Staff, has implemented Putin's policies for the last several years, including the crackdown on the oligarchs. He may have been given the "social programs" brief for the last year or so, but don't be fooled. Medvedev is Putin and Putin is Medvedev. They would not have continued to work side by side for so long if they were not mainly of one mind.
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Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

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Murder and the Muse

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Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
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Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

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93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
Survival Russian

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The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

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Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

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The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

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