Putin's Russia

Interesting article in the Spectator (London):

The return of White Russia
Paul Robinson
Issue: 29 October 2005

The most prevalent narrative of Russian affairs in the Western press talks of a return to dictatorship under a former KGB colonel. The Russian President is repeatedly portrayed as a closet communist, eager to suppress freedom of speech and jail any political opponents.

My journalist friend laughs at the suggestion that Putin has suppressed all independent political thought. He should know; he has twice been sacked from newspapers for writing pro-Putin articles. The problem, he tells me, is that Westerners listen too much to the likes of the former oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Incidentally, he adds, Berezovsky still owns a newspaper in Russia — so much for there being no anti-Putin voices. In fact, my friend suggests, there may even be more freedom of expression in Russia than in the West, because there are fewer social and legal constraints on ‘politically incorrect’ and extremist points of view. If you want to be racist, sexist or anything else-ist, you’ll find it easier to get a publisher in Moscow than in London or New York.

This article makes it easy to understand why many Russians hate the Oligarchs. (HT: Steve Sailer)

New Retreat for the Russian Rich: London
Wealthiest Flooding 'Moscow on the Thames' With Cash

I've posted before on the Putin and Russia:

Putin and Khodorkovsky

Putin and the oligarchs

Putin vs. Khodorkovsky

"The Passion of the Putin"