I didn't make it to Gogol Bordello's performance yesterday - for a number of reasons (my laziness is just one of them). Really regret it.
(Regret it even more after I've found these bloggers' photos from the concert: here and here. What an idiot I am...)
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I'm reading these two extremely long pieces on Putin's Russia now: one by Michael Specter in the New Yorker, and the other by Perry Anderson in London Review of Books.
If I ever manage to finish them, I hope to share a few thoughts here. Maybe not.
I'm glad you can get that article online--otherwise I'd have to send it to you!
ReplyDeleteThe article has some serious laziness to it. His take on life in the regions consists of a friend's report on all the Italian restaurants in Perm'. He lumps Klebnikov in as one of Putin's dead critics when, from what I read, Klebnikov was pretty psyched about Putin and his real enemies were businessmen he'd exposed including Boris Berezovsky, the subject of his 2000 book "Godfather of the Kremlin."
But for a general take on the state of Russian journalism, I thought it was pretty good. And depressing, of course!
sorry, I was referring above to Michael Specter's article in The New Yorker.
ReplyDeleteHope, Julie, you still remember that the (pseudo-)Italian Pizzeria/Spaghetteria was the best place to eat (warm up and observe family lunches) that we found in Perm' (at -26 C) !
ReplyDeleteSasha
oh yeah, I'm all for Italiansky in Perm'--I even had a psychic dream about them, remember? But I'm willing to bet that most people in the Urals can't afford to eat out too very much. Life is probably getting better, but a few plates of spaghetti is not a real way to survey the state of the regions.
ReplyDeleteNow, the prevalence of Yves Roche, that's an entirely different story!