Keith Gessen:
Watching Putin these past few weeks has been unpleasant but riveting…‘There is no question that the age of American power is finished,’ he said. ‘The time when they were a model of democracy, and a leader of the world, is over.’ And you began to think that if the Russian stock market had to [...]

With pumpkins and Johnny Cash music:
Thousands of Russians from the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi gathered in front of the United States Embassy here on Sunday night carrying jack-o’-lanterns inked with the names of war victims and charging that the war in Georgia was part of an American plot to improve Senator John McCain’s electoral prospects.
As [...]

I didn’t believe it at first…yes, the Russians have closed Red Square.  They put up fences around all the entrances to the square, so you can’t walk on it.  How sad is that?  A security guard at GUM told me the government closed it because they were afraid that a terrorist might try and bomb St. [...]

This was definitely a good weekend.  On Friday my class got out at 1pm (instead of 3pm like it usually does).  After class we went to a place called Stockmann’s – it’s kind of like Harrod’s of London, but not as large.  Nonetheless, it is definitely a place where only “New Russians” and expats shop.  [...]

On Wednesday we played basketball at the MGU main campus.  We had a good mix: 4 Americans, 1 Russian MGU student, and 2 Pakastani Diplomats.  We played for about 2 hours and have a game on for next Wednesday…yay!Today in class we learned to sing some Russian songs.  They have this crazy karaoke setup that [...]

The weather today was HORRIBLE.  We were walking back to the metro station after classes ended and out of nowhere it just started pouring rain.  I don’t recall ever being in such a heavy downpour. We had one umbrella between the four of us, and were thus soaked right through. The weather is supposed to be [...]

Have I mentioned how difficult the Russian language is?  Yeah, probably about 20 times already.My teacher is pretty cool, though, and so are the kids in my class – 2 Americans, a Brit, and a Spaniard.  That’s what I like about studying here – the students are from all over the world.  Today we had [...]

We finally made it to the Kremlin today.  Saw all the usual stuff – Cathedrals, Tsar Cannon, Tsar Bell, etc etc.The security around here has been tripled.  There are tons of militia men everywhere due to the suicide bombers.  They stand at the top of the escalators in the metro and pull aside anyone who [...]

Well, we didn’t have any fireworks, but we did have hotdogs, apple pie, deviled eggs, Russkii Standart, and Baltika.  Good times, good times…I finally got my passport back from the registration department, and was thus able to get my cellphone.  Yes, kind of annoying that you have to show them your passport to them in [...]

We’re at an internet cafe on the main campus of MGU.  The building where I take Russian is actually about 10 minutes away by bus from the main MGU campus.  We just came here to buy MGU shirts (smallest college bookstore EVER) and check out the main campus.This pic above is the main campus of MGU.  [...]