Sheremetevo airport, Moscow’s main international terminal, is located eighteen miles NW of the city’s center. Given the Russian capital’s expansion since the airport opened in 1959 this is now not at all far from Moscow proper, though it seems much farther to downtown by car. (It can easily take over an hour to reach the [...]

Even by the typically monumental standards of Soviet-era memorials, “The Motherland Calls” is an impressive sight. Towering seventeen stories above the Russian city of Volgograd, the monolithic statue depicting a windswept woman holding aloft a sword is a striking combination of neoclassical styling and Stalinist kitsch. A symbolic representation of Soviet victory over Nazi invaders, [...]

Readers interested in commentary regarding the ongoing conflict between Russia and Georgia should head over to The Russian Front. There, Dr. David Stone has posted a thoughtful (and, to my mind, quite accurate) article describing how American foreign policy in the Balkans during the 1990s established (unintentional) precedents for the current Russian actions in the [...]

Just before Christmas I took a break from blogging in order to clear up a backlog of obligations that had piled up. I wrote a couple of book reviews, attended yet another conference, finished a book proposal, and ploughed through a collection of grant applications. [I also spent time in front of the TV watching [...]