This week's lunch with the FT features Peter Aspden sitting down for some sushi and a harmless bit of obsequiousness with Evgeny Lebedev, the son of Alexander Lebedev.  The conversation has some interesting points ... such as his potshots at newly wealthy Russians who throw their money at expensive art.  Evgeny strikes me as more intelligent and considerate than your average playboy - but then at other times he seems a bit out of touch.

"I feel very affiliated with Russia, what I see as its soul. Even with its landscape, that vastness that you can't grasp. Our history is violent and bloody: revolutions, war, turmoil. Even Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, they saw themselves as reformers but, on the

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The writer Victor Erofeyev has published an opinion article in the New York Times commenting about what motivations Russians to embrace a familiar if ugly past instead of imagining a reformed future.  His expression of support here echoes what he wrote in Feb. 2008, calling Medvedev Russia's "last hope."

In any case, I -- for all my skepticism about any Kremlin initiative -- declare my support for Mr. Medvedev, because, ladies and gentlemen, we have hit bottom. It all began with the Kremlin's declaration, not long before the financial crisis, that Russia is rising from its knees. But a large body needs help to get up. In this case, the chosen instrument of assistance was imperial crutches. But where were they to be found?

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Adrian Pabst, an academic from the University of Kent, has a well written if not entirely surprising opinion article in The National arguing that a real separation emerging between the Medvedev and Putin camps - "a growing split within the ruling regime on ideology and policy that presages a vigorous contest over how Russia should be ruled." I'm glad to see at least someone found something to talk about from the president's big speech.  Wouldn't it be great if it actually mattered what the president of Russia said he wanted to do?

The question is why Mr Medvedev has not yet delivered on his promising overtures. There are two rival hypotheses. He may indeed be part of a managed democracy and merely provides the liberal cover that helps legitimate Russia's increasing authoritarianism. Or Mr Medvedev does have his own ideas but lacks internal support

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A Dissenter's march in Russia wouldn't be a Dissenter's march if it didn't end in large-scale detentions.  Saturday night's march was no different, with up to 50 protesters allegedly held.  Thanks to la Russophobe, for highlighting this link to activist Oleg Kozlovsky's English weblog, in which he recounts the details of his own arrest:   In order to find a pretext to arrest participants of the action, members of Rossiya Molodaya (Young Russia), a Kremlin-aligned youth group (a part of the so-called Putinyouth), were used as provocateurs. They began lighting flares, chanting slogans and throwing leaflets (mocking the opposition) in the middle of the crowd. The police were ready: they arrested the Putinyouth and many regular ...

TODAY: Opposition activist torture claims; Miliband leaves with no breakthrough regarding diplomatic concerns; meets with rights activists; Putin and Medvedev popularity waning?; President in need of own power structure to realize reforms; Stalin resurrection an identity issue; Gorbachev on Russophobia; alcohol; jokes; artThe Other Russia reports that Konstantin Makarov, a member of the outlawed National Bolshevik Party, and organizer of an opposition rally planned for the 31st October in Voronezh, was detained and beaten by two policeman, one of whom was S. Yemkov of the notorious Interior Ministry's Center for Extremism Prevention.  According to Makarov, his torturers told him that he would face similar treatment after each rally held by the National Bolsheviks.  Foreign Minister Sergei ...

From eight o'clock in the morning I was looking in the window: from it, like in the palm of your hand, you can see school № 1965, which on October 11th was transformed into a polling station. Right until evening I did not uncover a single burst of massness: the people went, but somehow limply, one by one... At 10:30 in the barbershop I asked: speak up, who has already voted. The 10 or so people, including the barbers, were silent. «Why didn't you go?» - I asked a man of middle years. «Fuck it», - said he simply and comprehensibly. 66% victorious unirussians [candidates from United Russia, the "party of power"--Trans.] ...

While my editor was busily working away yesterday, Ariel Cohen had an opinion piece run in the New York Times.  Upon seeing the headline and lede, I was worried that we were going to see yet another one of those "there's a rift between Putin and Medvedev"-type articles which we have seen so much of over the past year, but Cohen is a little more careful than that in his argument.  Of course Medvedev's "Forward, Russia!" article and the quip about the blood tests have clearly illustrated that he feels, or wants us to believe that he feels, that he is a different kind of leader from Putin.  However, as Ariel's op/ed points out, this is all just a rhetorical exercise for the time being, so long as the reformers are without influence.

Some symbolic rifts have also

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Finrosforum has translated and posted the opinion article/open letter by the dissident journalist Alexander Podrabinek, which eventually prompted death threats and harassment by the Nashi, driving him into hiding.

One does not need to blame the owners of the café; their actions are understandable, given that they surely want to hold on to their business. The actions of the authorities in Moscow, who are dizzy with praise to Stalin, do not warrant any comment. I would, however, like to say a few words to the veterans who wrote the complaint [against the café sign].

You are mistaken when you think that you have monopolised patriotism, love for Russia, and concern for her future. You are mistaken when you think that you have earned a well-deserved and honourable rest. You are mistaken when you think that you are held in high public esteem.

This belief is something that you were instilled

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I think it says quite a lot about the freedom of press situation in Russia when a reporter is just as likely to face violence and threats for reporting about the past as they are for muckraking some contemporary politician for corruption, or another breaking news issue.  That's what is happening to the former dissident and political prisoner Alexander Podrabinek, who is getting threats of physical violence and scary Nashi-organized protests outside his apartment door (not the first time he's been targeted).  According to a story in the AP, Podrabinek provoked the ire of the nationalists when he criticized their campaign to have a restaurant change its name from "Anti-Soviet" to something more patriotic.  The article ...

For years I have enjoyed Mark Helprin's novels - "Winter's Tale" is specifically quite good.  What many may not have known is that Helprin is a pretty prolific and uncompromising political opinion writer - and I believe that for many of my readers he may come off as strident and absolutist.  In other words, his writing not the typical dreamy political ramblings of an arts-oriented observer.  This is from his latest in the Wall Street Journal, which is sure to raise some objections among some of you, myself included:

What we have here is an inadvertent homage to Lewis Carroll: We are going to cancel a defense that takes five years to mount, because the threat will not materialize for five years. And we will not deploy land-based interceptors in Europe, because our new plan is to deploy land-based interceptors in Europe.

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