Russia’s image in the world is not just blemished, it displays deep furrows. That is nothing particularly new. Even before the era of Vladimir Putin, the world’s largest country had an aura of being “terrible, inexplicable, incomprehensible and evil”. The West saw and viewed Russia with the same hesitant, unsettled interest with which one would squint into one’s own subconscious. Has Russia got an image problem or a reality problem? The former Soviet dissident and controversial anti-western TV presenter Mikhail Leontjev has the answers.
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The religious landscape in Russia is very varied. Besides the dominant Russian Orthodox Church, Moslems make up a seventh of the population. In addition, there is a trend towards Far Eastern religious techniques of self-awareness. How the Orthodox Church is coming to terms with this fact and how the atheism that was enforced during the Soviet period has been replaced by new religious needs, is here explained by Russia’s most renowned Orthodox missionary, the Deacon of Moscow, Andrej Kurajev, in an interview with “Report”.
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On the role of religion in the former communist countries
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Not only in Poland, but also in Russia, members of the clergy are becoming increasingly involved in politics. Yet this is not a local peculiarity – but rather a dangerous trend of the times.
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Russia observes Europe with mixed feelings. As only few Russians have a passport, the impression of Europe goes little further than a diffuse image. In an interview the political journalist Fyodor Lukyanov describes Europe as an oasis in the international confusion, “a Europe that seals its external borders and leaves non-EU states to wander around outside seeking membership.” Lukjanov very much doubts whether the map will look the same in 50 years time.
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In official Chechnya people who think differently are extremely rare. One last of them has died: Buvadi Dachijev
This article from September 21, 2006 is the last that Anna Politkovskaya published in the russian newspaper “Novaya Gazeta”. She was murdered on October 7 in her apartment building.
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Jewgenija Albaz is one of those journalists in Russia who, like Anna Politkovskaya, her former colleague from her student days, places her finger on the wounds of the state and its regime. During the era of the Soviet Union she conducted research into the KGB for which she received a number of threats. Albaz still receives threats and is on the “death lists” of various groups on the Internet. In addition to printed articles she chairs a political discussion on Sundays on the liberal radio station “Echo Moskvy”. In an interview with “Report” she offers insights into the everyday world of a journalist in an authoritarian state, in which human rights are of little account and representatives of the media can die for presenting the unvarnished truth.
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Russian artist Anna Ceeh and the Austrian sound artist Franz Pomassl about the “rest of the world” beyond the Urals, music making in the turbo-capitalist regions and why laptop music is not the last word on the subject.
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Die russische Autorin und Kuratorin Julia Demidenko erzählt, warum es in sowjetischen Unterwäschegeschäften keine Anprobekabinen gab, wie russische Frauen aus Kinderstrumpfhosen schicke Beinbekleidung für sich selbst schneiderten, und vieles mehr.
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In Moscow at least, Aleksandr Ilich Lyashenko, otherwise known as Petlyura, was for many years an underrated and controversial member of the movement known as »current Moscow art«.
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Tales of unfulfilled dreams in the far north of Russia.
A portrait of the artproduction and artists in Murmansk.
By Seva Dymodel, Kirill Junolainen and Sergey Mombus.
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On the music scene in far-off Asian Russia, an email impression between artist Anna Ceeh, who lives in Vienna, and musician Evgeny Beresnev in which the latter tells about his life as an artist on the fringe of Russia, Vladivostok.
music | Russia | by Evgeny Beresnev, Anna Ceeh | 2005-12
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Viennese market researcher Rudolf Bretschneider, director of the Fessl & GFK - Institute, collects data about eastern Europe. What does his mountain of information reveal about the people in eastern Europe?
Florian Klenk in conversation with Rudolf Bretschneider.
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The ViennAfair art fair was celebrating its premiere this April. Over two dozen galleries from Eastern and South-eastern Europe have come to Vienna for this occasion. Nina Schedlmayer introduces six of the most interesting ones.
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Of passionate collectors in modern Russia and the former USSR. An associative collage of observations by the Lithuanian composer, psychotherapist and collector Richardas Norvila.
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The Fashion and Music Scene in Russia
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The RUS CLUB has been rocking once a month since the end of last year with bands, DJs, art, and fashion from the former Eastern bloc. The motto of this easygoing exchange between East and West taking place at alternating venues: “Kak pa masslu”: Things are going swimmingly!
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