Following recent bloodshed, the ouster of President Yanukovych, and new elections set for May, Ukraine is at a crossroads. It will probably remain there for some time, inspiring many overwrought...
Well, the holidays are over, and sure enough, more clashes between protesters and riot police have erupted in Kiev. If you haven’t been paying much attention to what is happening in the Ukrainian...
Russian actor Alexei Panin used to be mostly famous for overturning tables in restaurants when he’s in a bad mood. Or for the ugly custody battle he had with his ex-wife over their daughter. Or for...
When you hear the phrase “real estate” you don’t commonly think “thriller plot.” Yet in Moscow, where prices are high, lawlessness in the private sector is rife, and the police are...
The April 11 metro bombing in Minsk triggered unpleasant memories of the March 29, 2010 bombing for those of us living in Moscow. Though the Minsk bombing was not a suicide attack, and although there...
I met an expat lady at GUM, Moscow's fanciest department store, the other day, and wound up horrifying her. She had asked me for directions in Russian, and I had noticed her accent, and spoke to her...
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...
The other day, I saw a pretty classic drunken fight. I was just at the beginning at what I assumed would be a delicious nap - having drunk a concoction that contained heated-up rum, coconut milk and...
A few months ago, I insulted someone horribly. Darting about outside in a helpless panic, I had accosted a young man who was, by the looks of him, just trying to get home after a long day. "Do you...
It was only a matter of time before ousted Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov became re-cast as the victim of "the dark forces that govern Russia" (as one person put it to me in an e-mail, preferring not to...
