Famous journalist Oleg Kashin, who works at Russia’s leading business newspaper, Kommersant, and lives in my neighbourhood, was badly beaten over the weekend in Moscow. So badly beaten – that doctors as of yet have nothing definitive to say about his chances of a proper recovery. This is the sort of incident that immediately makes you want to question everything – fate, God, justice, society, the future of journalism in Russia, the future of Russia in general.

In trying to come up with a proper response to this outrageous event, I looked to the blog of another Russian journalist – Alyona Solntseva. Solntseva wrote about how such violence is pretty much a “normal” part of our lives: Continue reading →