"The crowds gathered from three different directions.  Every route to the square was controlled by police and troops.  I had never seen such numbers of armed forces before; it was like a movie about civil war." Victor is a 21-year-old student in Moscow. In this guest post, he gives us a participant's account of the December 10 demonstration.

Quite often, Russian reality is best illuminated with a joke. 

A couple of journalists are quizzing a candidate: “Why do you want to get elected?”

“Just look what is going on in the corridors of power: officials are awash in debauchery, theft, corruption!”

Where we visit the annual summer Seliger Youth Camp - where the Powers That Be cultivate young activists.

It was announced as a major press conference, and the rumor was that Medvedev would announce his reelection campaign. Not.

What exactly is a Russian liberal? Has this species ever been seen in the wild (by which I mean the Kremlin)? In her spot-on analysis of Russia's ruling tandem in today's Washington Post, Liliya Shevtsova highlights this question brilliantly...

In less than a year, Russia will go to the polls to vote for president, and the winner – for the first time – will be awarded with a six-year term. 

In the spirit of making the Olympic Games in Sochi a truly national event to unite the Russian people, the Sochi organizers last year launched a contest where artists could submit entries to be chosen as the official Olympic mascot.

The beating of journalist Oleg Kashin in November has led many to once again focus on the state of Russian journalism. Guest columnist Alexey Kovalev considers another side of the issue.

The sudden dismissal of longtime Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov marks a break from the quiet politics of the Putin Vertical of Power...

Russians are wearing less and will have to do with fewer mushrooms this year. President Medvedev is Russia's Internet President (while PM Putin apparently does not even have a cellphone)...

There is a Catechism that dominates American discourse on Russia today. Just flip through The Washington Post’s editorials, peruse American political science journals or listen (cringe) to a Joe Biden interview. It goes something like this:

President Dmitry Medvedev says he likes the classics, but that,just recently he made a request for buying about 50 books authored by contemporary Russian writers over the past 5-7 years. "I have read some of them and I cannot say I have been excited," he said. "By and large I have to read all sorts of dull papers the presidents normally read. Draft documents, draft decrees, draft instructions, laws, reports...