Elena Chinyaeva
Elena Chinyaeva holds a doctorate in modern history from Oxford University and is a writer for Kommersant-Vlast, a leading Russian political weekly.
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Articles by Elena Chinyaeva
The Russian Use of Internet: A Virtual Discourse Shapes Reality
If there is one factor to be singled out which influenced Russia in 2010, it is undoubtedly the role of the Internet in social and political life. In Russia, the...
Putin Markets Russia Globally as his Success Story: International Events Highlight Internal Development
The decision by FIFA to grant Russia the right to host the 2018 Football World Cup was met with enthusiasm within the country and with sobering comments around the world...
Medvedev Addressed the Nation: Children as the Focus of His Presidential Campaign
On December 30, Dmitry Medvedev delivered a national address, his third as Russia’s president (https://kremlin.ru/news/9637). It was also his third major communication session with the population in just one week....
Freedom of the Russian Press: a Story of Lost Trust
The recent attack on the Russian journalist and blogger Oleg Kashin left him severely injured. While he was still unconscious in a medically induced coma, an avalanche of speculation surrounded...
Medvedev’s “Modernization” of Russia: Forward to the Past
In the image contest between the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, and Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, in anticipation of the 2012 presidential elections, Medvedev appears as a tech-savvy proponent of innovative...
Popularity Matters: Russian “Macho” Prime Minister and “Tech” President Image Contest
With the presidential elections in Russia scheduled for 2012, the media presence of President, Dmitry Medvedev, and Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has increasingly appeared as an image contest, as if...
The Court Makes the King
The dismissal of Moscow Mayor, Yuri Luzkov, by President, Dmitry Medvedev, fits neatly in a traditional framework of the center–provinces relations in Russia (EDM, September 28). The rebellious ex-mayor believes...
The Mayor is Gone, Long Live the Mayor!
Although the retirement of Moscow Mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, was widely expected (EDM, September 15, 21), the news that the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, actually signed a decree on his dismissal...
PUTIN’S SUMMITRY
By Elena Chinyaeva Pundits have long argued that the age of summits is over, that in the post-Cold War world there is no need for the leaders of the competing...
PUTIN’S STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS
By Elena Chinyaeva Russian presidents, like their American counterparts, have a constitutional obligation to address lawmakers each year. This address, which in Russia is delivered to the Federal Assembly, has...
MOSCOW: DEATH OF A DEPUTY
By Elena Chinyaeva I was talking to a friend on the phone with the TV on when the news was announced that Sergei Yushenkov had been killed. In disbelief I...
CHECHNYA: THE END IN SIGHT?
by Elena Chinyaeva On March 23, a referendum took place in the war torn Chechen republic in the south of Russia. Voters were presented with three questions, involving: Approval of...
THE POLITICS OF GENDER IN RUSSIA
by Elena Chinyaeva March 8 is still celebrated in Russia as "international women's day," with men scurrying to buy flowers for their loved ones and organizations buying presents for their...
THE RUSSIAN ECONOMY, LOST IN THE DARK
By Elena Chinyaeva At face value, the economic results of the last year in Russia are rather good: The economy grew by 4.2 percent, which is more than the 3.5-4...
RUSSIA’S CAR MARKET–A BIG FUTURE, A BIG CHALLENGE
By Elena Chinyaeva In October, the Russian government raised the duty on imports of foreign cars more than seven years old, igniting a vigorous debate on the prospects of the...
RUSSIA’S ELECTORAL SYSTEM
By Elena Chinyaeva In September, the Russian electoral system was dealt a major blow: The results of two elections, for the posts of Krasnoyarsk governor and Nizhny Novgorod mayor, were...
THE ODD COUPLE
By Elena Chinyaeva Long a staunch proponent of the unification with Russia, Belarusan President Alyaksandr Lukashenka appears now to be its foremost opponent, thus entering into an awkward alliance with...
RUSSIA’S LEGISLATURE SERVES THE EXECUTIVE
By Elena Chinyaeva The political season in Russia is over. Both chambers of parliament have left for summer vacation, the Duma on July 1 and the Federation Council on July...
RUSSIA AND THE FATF BLACKLIST
By Elena Chinyaeva Russian officials made a presentation last month to the Financial Action Task Force, a twenty-nine-nation agency the G-7 countries established in 1989 to combat money laundering. They...
ONE FOOT ON THE GAS, ONE ON THE BRAKE: WHO’S DRIVING THE ECONOMY?
By Elena Chinyaeva President Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov are engaged in an unexpectedly vocal dispute over the tempo of Russia's development. The shouting match enlivens Russia's internal politics...
RUSSIAN HOLIDAYS: A PATCHY LINEN OF NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS
By Elena Chinyaeva With half of May in Russia constituting one long holiday, Russian national holidays are perhaps the best illustration of how the ideological foundations on which the modern...
PUTIN MARKS HIS FIRST TWO YEARS IN OFFICE
By Elena Chinyaeva March 26 of this year marked the midway point of President Vladimir Putin's first term as president and, as such, was a convenient date for drawing intermediate...
THE PLIGHT OF INDEPENDENT MASS MEDIA IN RUSSIA
By Elena Chinyaeva In late January the television channel TV-6 was taken off the airwaves after the Press Ministry implemented a court order that the channel's parent company be liquidated,...
RUSSIA’S ECONOMY: AN UNCERTAIN SUCCESS
By Elena Chinyaeva While Russia's leadership remains optimistic regarding the prospects for the country's economy, the statistics paint a less certain picture. Last year's inflation was 18.5 percent rather than...
INTERNAL POLITICAL INTRIGUES
By Elena Chinyaeva As President Vladimir Putin has been making one successful international appearance after another--clear, pro-Western and predictable--Russian internal politics has been developing its own way--murky, Byzantine and incomprehensible...
RUSSIA: NEVER AS GOOD AS ONE HOPES, NEVER AS BAD AS ONE FEARS
By Elena Chinyaeva It looks as if the period of "wild capitalism" in Russia, with its redistribution of property through controversial privatization deals, has ended. The country has entered a...
THE CHALLENGES OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM AND RUSSIA’S CLAIMS TO A NEW ROLE
By Elena Chinyaeva The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington produced a new international reality. The United States, battered by the attack, and its Western allies, who were flabbergasted...
RUSSIA’S MIDDLE CLASS–DOING WELL AND GROWING
By Elena Chinyaeva August 19 of this year marked the tenth anniversary of the failed 1991 putsch, which brought an end to the Communist-dominated Soviet era. Ten years later, Russia...
REFORM’S PARADOXES
By Elena Chinyaeva For the second consecutive year the Russian parliament has postponed its summer vacation to deal with legislation designed to become the basis for structural reforms. The cost...
POLITICAL CHANGES IN RUSSIA: DOES THE END JUSTIFY THE MEANS?
By Elena Chinyaeva On April 27, Russia celebrated the 95th anniversary of its parliament. There was also something to celebrate, given that a fairly coherent political system is emerging out...
RUSSIA IN THE CIS: THE HIGH COSTS OF EXPANSION
By Elena Chinyaeva In 1927, when the transformation of the Soviet Union into a real unionist state was gathering momentum, the Russian emigre historian Georgy Vernadsky asserted that the Soviet...
VLADIMIR PUTIN COMPLETES HIS FIRST YEAR AS PRESIDENT
By Elena Chinyaeva When Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, announced his resignation on December 31, 1999, it came as a shock. Few had expected him to part with power before...
BELARUS AT THE POLITICAL CROSSROADS
By Elena Chinyaeva On November 30, the presidents of Belarus and Russia, Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Vladimir Putin, signed an agreement about the introduction, in 2005, of the ruble as the...
PUTIN TAKES AIM AT THE PRINCIPLE OF NATIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION
By Elena Chinyaeva President Vladimir Putin has used his first year in office to start, among other things, a reform of the so-called "asymmetrical" federation which has developed in Russia,...
A YEAR INTO THE PUTIN ERA–IS HE “PUTTING THINGS IN ORDER”?
By Elena Chinyaeva A year has passed since last August, when Boris Yeltsin, the ailing president, appointed Vladimir Putin as the prime minister of Russia. Given that Putin, who was...
RUSSIAN BANKING SYSTEM: COULD THERE BE AN INVESTMENT BOOM?
By Elena Chinyaeva While observing current tendencies in Russian economy, one thought comes to mind: "Finally, Russia has received a bit of good luck!" Indeed, the financial crisis of August...
DO PRO-DEMOCRATIC RUSSIANS PREFER THE VALUES OF THE LIBERAL-RIGHT TO SOCIAL DEMOCRACY?
By Elena Chinyaeva On April 1, the respectable Russian newspaper Kommersant daily came out with an editorial which would have been a sensation on any other day: It said that...