When we try to understand why Russia, after the turbulent democratization of the late 1980s and early 1990s, arrived where it is now, we usually look for the answer in politics: weak institutions, the 1993 Constitution, presidential power, oil, wars, the security services, Putin. All of that matters. But with this perspective, we miss something no less, and perhaps even more, significant — institutional inertia.

#Analytics #army #archaizationofsociety #ideology #institutionalreforms #KGBoftheUSSR #management #education #aftertheUSSR #Putin #Russia #specialservices #church #school #essay

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On Monday, the book by American journalist Evan Gershkovich, This Cursed Beautiful Land, appeared in U.S. bookstores. In it, the former Moscow correspondent for The Wall Street Journal рассказывает how, as a result of a provocation, he ended up as a hostage of the FSB, was sentenced to 16 years on espionage charges, and was released only thanks to an international prisoner exchange. The circumstances of this story are strikingly reminiscent of a Russian-American spy scandal from 40 years ago, which was resolved thanks to the intervention of Gorbachev and Reagan.

#documentaryprose #journalists #historyoftheSovietspecialservices #KGBoftheUSSR #Putin #repressions #Russia #securityforces #USA #FSB #cia #EvanGershkovich

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If you want to find yourself at the center of Donald Trump’s financial empire, you need to go up 56th Street toward Central Park — and at the intersection with Fifth Avenue, a 202-meter, 58-story skyscraper will come into view. It ranks only 64th in New York by height, but it is no less famous than the Empire State Building. Construction of Trump Tower was completed in the fall of 1983, and since then the skyscraper has been a symbol of the success and power of the man whose name it bears. But this success story did not come without the KGB and its influence agents in the so-called «Russian mafia».

#TrumpTower #agentsofinfluence #America #DonaldTrump #Stories #KGBoftheUSSR #mafia #theproperty #NewYork #aftertheUSSR #specialservices #cia #spies #Emigration

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