Volume 48, Number 9 · May 31, 2001
Russia's Free Press Withers Away
By Masha Lipman
President Vladimir Putin is neither a butcher nor an anti-liberal. He is not even an anti-Westernizer. He speaks German fluently (being the first Russian leader in almost eighty years to command a foreign language, if we disregard comrade Stalin, who spoke Russian) and is said to be studying English. Putin is confident that market reforms are necessary for Russia. And he tends to think that democratic institutions are somehow indispensable for the economy to flourish. For him they probably seem like wigs, which are ubiquitous in British courts although their relation to justice remains obscure.
Feature, 1942 words
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