Tom Balmforth covers Russia and other former Soviet republics from his base in Moscow.
A new Russian memorial to fabled gun maker Mikhail Kalashnikov unveiled with pomp this week is hurriedly being modified by its sculptor after a rifle depicted on the ensemble was found to be a likeness of a rifle developed by the Nazis.
The Russian capital is getting new memorials to seven Soviet-era leaders, including U.S.S.R. founder Vladimir Lenin, dictator Josef Stalin, and Mikhail Gorbachev, whose reforms hastened the Soviet breakup in 1991.
Russia’s Communist Party is up in arms over the film The Death Of Stalin, while an official at the Culture Ministry has called it a ploy to divide and stir up trouble in the country -- and warned it might be censored.
Moscow is getting a new addition to its cityscape -- a statue of gunmaker Mikhail Kalashnikov cradling an assault rifle.
After a new park was unveiled in Moscow's center, visitors descended on it in droves, reportedly trampling lawns and flowers, breaking a glass dome and floor lighting. The authorities are already having to repair the damage, adding another wrinkle to a project derided for its exorbitant price tag.
Hundreds of fake bomb alerts are sowing fear nationwide. Who’s to blame, what’s the goal, or even what’s going on to begin with is anybody’s guess, five days after they started.
The Russian opposition is claiming success after a grassroots campaign led by Kremlin critic Dmitry Gudkov helped dissenters win a rare toehold in the capital in weekend elections.
The ruling United Russia party has dominated a slew of regional and local elections marked by low turnout and claims of voter suppression, but liberal opposition candidates appeared to gain a toehold in Moscow with a strong showing in races for district councils, according to early results, media reports, and statements by politicians.
Sidelined from big-time politics, Russia's opposition threw its energies into this year's municipal elections hoping to steal a march on the Kremlin from the grassroots up. But as voting progressed on September 10, they were looking with concern at an anemic turnout and "anomalous" home-voting figures.
People across Russia have gone to the polls to elect local and regional councils and governors in the last major vote before a presidential election in March.
Municipal deputies have limited real power, but there is strategic significance in battling to overcome what is known as the "municipal filter."
A Russian campaign to support the beleaguered Rohingya Muslims of Burma illustrates the considerable domestic clout of the leader of Russia's southern, mainly Muslim republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.
The death of a volunteer guardian of a memorial to slain Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov has triggered fresh accusations that the authorities are turning a blind eye to violence against the vigil and its activists.
Russians appear to be taking the new U.S. visa reality in stride, but some can't help sounding slightly annoyed.
The beleaguered Russian community of Jehovah's Witnesses says it will fight in court a ban on its version of the Bible in the latest blow against the religious group.
The innocuous-sounding summer camp for feminists and women’s rights activists, Femcamp, was due to be held in Krasnodar, the conservative southern Black Sea region and Cossack heartland.
This week, the chattering classes were scratching their heads over a newcomer to Russia’s hectic news landscape: freestyle rap battles.
Russian social-network prodigy Pavel Durov has called on his fans to photograph themselves topless and post the pictures online as part of a flash mob poking fun at President Vladimir Putin's penchant for bare-chested photo-ops.
Russia's young Marxists take heart from a left-wing surge in the West but acknowledge it's a tough row to hoe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to use his marathon call-in show to poke fun at Ukraine's tighter relations with the EU and suggest there are more gays there than in Russia.
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