Putin's Russia [Import] [Paperback]

Anna Politkovskaya (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: HARVILL PRESS (October 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843430509
• ISBN-13: 978-1843430506
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,692,459 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Shock therapy for those who thought Russia is doing OK, February 19, 2005

By 

Dr. K. Filip Palda - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Putin's Russia (Paperback)

Politovskaya is one of the toughest and bravest journalists in Russia but her latest book makes me wonder whether she might not also have a suicide gene that makes her provoke lawless men to kill her. Politovskaya cut her teeth as an apprentice to Vlad Listsyev who was a television personality who fearlessly critiqued Moscow in the 1990's. I say "was" because Listsyev ended his days perforated like a sieve by the bullets of assasins. The American journalist Paul Klebnikov, editor of Forbes Russian edition, joined Listsyev last summer as the latest of high-profile journalists to learn the four fundamental rules of information in Russia: 1) Don't think 2) If you think, don't talk 3) If you talk, don't publish 4) If you publish, don't be surprised.

Ms. Politovskaya takes us on a trip of Russia since Putin took power five years ago. Our first stop is the military. Through several heart wrenching stories she makes us understand that the military is a law unto itself and that as such it is in fact lawless. Officers soaked in spirits beat the stuffing out of draftees on a whim and sell these draftees to private citizens as slaves for their term in the military. Well, at least the lucky ones get sold as slaves. Those who remain in barracks are subject to a brutality that would chasten inmates at the most frightening US prisons.

Politovskaya then takes us on a tour of a certain Russian province ruled by a crime syndicate. If you thought Don Corleone was tough you should look at how criminals have taken over almost every aspect of Russian business. By failing to protect small and medium sized enterprises from extortion Russia's government has wiped out the middle class. Only street vendors and huge enterprises have a chance of surviving in a society of tireless thieving by criminals and the even more powerful government bureaucrats whose dearly bought signature a business needs for just about everything it does.

The most pitiful stories in this book are those of the unlucky spectators caught up in a commando assault on the Moscow production of Nord-Ost a wildly popular musical in 2002. Troops let a narcotic gas into the theater, stormed it, and killed all the Chechen terrorists holding the place hostage. The problem with the operation is that 400 people ended up needing medical attention and this was given only hours later by no more than 50 available medical staff. Families tried to sue the government for incompetence but were insulted by the judge and sent packing.

The feeling you get from Politovskaya's stories is that Russia is ruled by overwhelmingly gross individuals who have no time for manners and no understanding of finesse. A mother comes to the morgue to identify her son and is told by the guard "He's dead. Get out." Example of such crudity abound in Putin's Russia. The great Russian bear that scared Europeans and Americans during the cold war is devouring its own people.

Politovskaya is pretty glum and does not explain to a Westerner why a country beset by anarchy and avarice has been able to grow at a faster economic rate than the US during the last three years or why it is able to launch rockets and rebuild a city like Moscow. There must be a compensating compassion and nobility about some Russians that offsets the worst depredations of criminal and government vampires. What this compensating factor might be, we never learn.

Western readers may be put off by Politovskaya's style. She lives in an environment of coarse repression of the media and her prose has been infected with some of that coarseness. It is hard to figure out whether her stories are true. She give no references, cites no taped interviews, and does not even tell us if she triple-checks her information. Sometimes I thought I was reading anecdotes of suffering such as those written by Varlam Shalamov in his novel Kolyma Tales. You just have to take her on trust. The need to rely on trust is the problem with Russia. People there look either to overmastering leaders or saintly journalists for guidance. Russia is a country of individuals, not of laws. The anarchy in her society that Politovskaya decries snuggles like a tape-worm in her journalistic method. In the West we have lost our mysticism and so cannot put our faith in what someone says because of who that someone is.

For all her bravura Politovskaya is careful not to slander Putin. Putin launched a suit against makers of the Ring trilogy because of the fancied resemblance a digital troglodyte in the movie bore to the great Russian leader. According to her, Putin is touchy, does not understand what it means to debate or agree to disagree, and for that reason this may put Politovskaya on her guard.

That sad thing about this book is that it makes you realize that its author may be wasting her efforts. As she says in the last line of the book, people in Russia support Putin. These people will for the most part see her as a miscreant and write her off as the paid stooge of some special interest.

I hope she survives to tell us more stories of this amazing land filled with suffering and potential.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent topic, poor journalism, June 15, 2005

By 

Chapulina R (Tovarischi Imports, USA/RUS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Putin's Russia (Paperback)

While presenting factual problems which beset today's Russia, the book's title is deliberately misleading. Politkovskaya, a controversial contributor to the leftist Novaya gazeta, would have the reader believe all the problems were brought about by current president Vladimir V. Putin. In fact, Putin inherited them from previous regimes. The appalling conditions within the military were already entrenched in the 80's, during the Afghanistan War. And control over business by organized crime, mafiya, and oligarchy arose in the early 90's. Corruption of government bureaucracy defined the Yeltsin era. Until recently, there had never been a Russian economic "middle-class." Even the Chechen conflict, about which Politkovskaya has written extensively, began before Putin's time and had devolved into terrorism and jihad several years before September 11, 2001. These are all issues which Putin's administration has tackled, with varying degrees of capability or success. These are important topics of better books, most notably one sharing the same title, by Liliya Shevtsova. The latter is an associate of the respected, liberal Carnegie Endowment, and can hardly be accused of being a Putin apologist. But Politkovskaya has a political ax to grind, and it shows in her writing. This is, after all, the diva of the leftist press who aspires to being the "Russian Michael Moore." Her unfavorable articles comparing Putin with George W. Bush (see: "Kovboy frendi" - "Cowboy Buddies")have appeared in Novaya gazeta and leftist French publications. Her outspoken sympathy for the Chechen Islamist cause and association with rebel leaders earned her reputation as a "Russian Hanoi Jane." Notorious as Russia's leading radical journalist, her passion is undeniable. So a certain amount of political spin is to be expected. But true journalism comes down to trustworthiness, and that is where Politkovskaya fails. As with "Farenheit 9/11," which she deemed an "excellent" model, "Putin's Russia" is a perplexing mixture of real fact and obvious political agenda. For that reason, it only rates three stars.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Criminal State, August 13, 2005

By 

Pieter "Toypom" (Johannesburg) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Putin's Russia (Paperback)

The brave Anna Politkovskaya reveals the reality of Russia today in this sad, sometimes horrifying book. After a brief window period of freedom under Yeltsin, Russia has rapidly become a vast swamp of corruption, oppression and deception under Putin.

Politkovskaya tells of the trouble and suffering of ordinary people who are humiliated and exploited by the criminal nomenklatura. For example Nina Levurda, who in trying to establish the truth about her son's death in the Chechen War, became a victim of this system that when not cruel, is completely indifferent to the individual. This and other cases are discussed in the chapter My Country's Army And Its Mothers.

In Russia, people imitate the man at the top, thus Putin is the one who shapes Russian society. It is mainly he who is to blame for the brutality and extremism prevalent in the army and the state apparatus. There are sections dealing with war criminals, brutality against privates in the military, government complicity in crime, the corruption in the judiciary, the struggle to survive in places like Kamchatka, and racism against people with a non-Slavic appearance.

Russia's stability is of a monstrous type, where power means everything, few people hold the law in any regard, bribes keep business and the state running, and a free press has almost disappeared. Putin's bureaucrats have taken corruption to new records, unheard of even under Yeltsin or the Communists. As a lieutenant-colonel who never made it to the rank of colonel, he has the mentality of a Soviet secret policeman. The Yukos affair and the imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky demonstrate what a vindictive little man Putin is and how he is steering the country towards fascism.

This process of crushing dissent and stifling freedom has been escalating throughout Putin's first presidential term and shows no sign of abating during the second. The Western press has mostly not showed great interest in this slide to oppression in Russia. It is hard not to write Russia off when confronted by the experiences in this book: the deliberate cruelties, the cold indifference and the manipulation of the media. Mercifully there are still people like Politkovskaya and Lev Ponomarev who are brave enough to speak out. This disturbing book concludes with explanatory notes containing references.