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Liberal Opposition

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Illarionov Has Done His Duty. He Can Now Go.
•�January 15, 2021
•�1,000 Words •�59 Comments
Natasha Bertrand, writing for Politico, says that conspiracy theories promoted by a "former economic policy adviser" to Putin "raise the specter of Russian attempts to sow chaos and doubt in the legitimacy of US elections." Said conspiracy theories refer to a Jan 8, 2021 blog post entitled "Burning of the Reichstag 2021" on his Russian... Read More
The Rzhev Dementor
•�July 1, 2020
•�300 Words •�139 Comments
New monument to the Soviet soldiers who perished in the Battles of Rzhev (1942-43) during the Great Patriotic War. Putin and Lukashenko attended the opening ceremony in Rzhev yesterday. The lower half of the statue dissipates into a flock of cranes, referencing a famous song that is based on a poem by Dagestani writer Rasul... Read More
Good to Know
•�June 24, 2020
•�21 Comments
"You Are Soros Propaganda!"
•�February 22, 2017
•�400 Words •�8 Comments
The Trump administration is endlessly accused of having had contacts with Russian officials during the election campaign, as if that was a Very Bad Thing. In reality is it not only standard diplomatic practice, but it is something that the US has always done itself - and usually from the other wise of the fence.... Read More
Living Not By Lies in Lithuania
•�March 13, 2016
•�1,000 Words •�21 Comments
Not a month goes by without the Ukrainian nationalists of multinational nationality otherwise known as the Russian non-systemic pro-Western opposition reminding us why they have sub-margin of error approval ratings. Their latest Kunstkamera of a conference, the so-called Free Russian Forum, was held on 9-10 March in Vilnius, Lithuania. Some 250 specimens turned out to... Read More
OPEN DISCUSSION: the Moscow Elections, 2013
•�September 5, 2013
•�100 Words •�5 Comments
A couple of polls to provide the fodder for the subsequent discussions. Feel free to provide an exact figure (to one decimal place) for Navalny's percentage share in the comments and we can have a little competition along the lines of the one we had for the Presidential elections. Background - Sobyanin vs. Navalny in... Read More
A Conversation with Weiss
•�September 4, 2013
•�1,700 Words •�6 Comments
As far as I understand, Michael D. Weiss is one of those neocons who loves Guantanamo but has a special soft spot in his heart for those Muslims who happen to be fighting Russia or some other state that the US doesn't like much. When he isn't chumming it up with his jihadist pals in... Read More
Why Jailing Navalny Is a Great Idea
•�July 18, 2013
•�1,900 Words •�15 Comments
Earlier today, Navalny received a custodial sentence of five years for the theft of 15 million rubles ($500,000) worth of timber from Kirovles. It is simply not true to say that there was "no case" against Navalny, as the Western and Russian liberal media insists on doing. There is wiretap evidence and witness testimony that... Read More
On Guriev
•�May 31, 2013
•�400 Words •�1 Comment
Apparently he fled to France after senior "systemic liberal" sources in the government told him he was not safe staying in Russia. So he played it safe. Interpretations about. The return of Stalinism; a new critical phase in the siloviki vs. civiliki clan war; Putin's vindictiveness against a supporter of Khodorkovsky. The only problem, at... Read More
The Stupid Witchhunt Against Levada
•�May 21, 2013
•�300 Words •�5 Comments
I think the real situation is somewhere in between the Kremlin's position and Mark Adomanis' and the rest of the Western and Russian liberal media's alarmism. So as far as this is concerned, I really do think Gudkov is exaggerating, not to even speak of the inevitable and hysterical comparisons to Stalinism cropping up in... Read More
Translation: the Sociology of Dunces
•�May 21, 2013
•�1,100 Words •�1 Comment
Writing in Novaya Gazeta, Andrei Vladimirovich Kolesnikov argues that the branding of the opinion pollster Levada Center as a "foreign agent" marks Russia's return to the bad old days of Lysenkoism. Levada Center is being destroyed with Stalinist methods. Sociological data is dope for the present-day vlast. She looks at sociological reports just like a... Read More
Translation: the Anatomy of Context
•�May 20, 2013
•�1,600 Words
In which Russian writer Dmitry Bykov compares the Russian opposition to Pugacheva, and God - for that is what most concerns Russians, and not the trivialities they typically discuss. Just about the same thing has happened to the Russian opposition as has happened to the Russian intelligentsia: it has been accused of every mortal sin;... Read More
Translation: A Pity the Nazis Didn't Make Lampshades Out of Today's Liberals
•�May 15, 2013
•�1,600 Words
In one of the most scandalous op-eds of the year, KP's Ulyana Skoybeda takes the liberal Leonid Gozman to task for equating SMERSH with the SS. The original byline was later toned down, and the author offered a partial - and some insist, halfhearted - apology. At times, one regrets that the Nazis didn't make... Read More
Angsty Chechens Come to Boston
•�April 20, 2013
•�400 Words •�7 Comments
Is discussed at the other blog. To add a couple of things that are Russia specific: (1) We now learn that the FBI had interviewed the older brother at the bequest of an unspecific foreign government – almost certainly Russia. Tamerlan had visited it for 6 months in 2011. I wonder if he established links... Read More
Mark Feygin Treating Pussies Badly
•�April 12, 2013
•�800 Words •�26 Comments
Everybody in the Western media seems to have forgotten Pussy Riot. Well, not forgotten, they still wheel them out every so often as symbols of the repressiveness of the Putin regime - but news of actual developments in the affair have come to a standstill. Which is a pity, because they undermine the commonly accepted... Read More
Navalny's Promises to Put Putin In Jail
•�April 10, 2013
•�700 Words •�16 Comments
In a recent interview with the opposition Dozhd TV channel - which is, incidentally, available for public viewing in Russia as part of the NTV Plus satellite TV package - for the first time openly declared he wants to be President. He also speculated about the motivations behind the Kirovles fraud case being brought against... Read More
My Article for Komsomolskaya Pravda On Press Freedoms In Russia and the West
•�February 5, 2013
•�900 Words •�4 Comments
Here it is in Russian: Вверх-вниз по рейтингу свободы. This translation here is of a longer version at my Russian language blog. A version of it also appears on Voice of Russia: Press freedom - on both sides of the Information Curtain. Thanks to Alexei Pankin (who is a regular at Komsomolskaya) for making it... Read More
FINAL POLL: Russia Voices or RossPress?
•�January 31, 2013
•�300 Words •�7 Comments
For background see here, here. Russia Voices is good because it powerfully hints at what the project is all about: Giving the Anglo-sphere some sense of what Russians from all sides of the political spectrum are saying. But downside is it's similar to Voice of Russia (a radio station), and besides, the more "intuitive" RussianVoices.com... Read More
Is Konstantin von Eggert Taking A Leaf from Johann Hari?
•�October 12, 2012
•�400 Words •�17 Comments
In one of his regular columns for mafia state news agency RIA Novosti he wrote (h/t Mercouris): But wait! This sounds... remarkably similar to a Facebook conversation with one Valentina Filippenko on Eggert's wall. (She is a student at the Journalism Faculty of Moscow State University, presumably another democratic journalist in the making). Except that... Read More
Translation: Russia Today Hired You to Talk About the Cynicism and Wickedness of the West (Konstantin von Eggert)
•�October 4, 2012
•�1,400 Words •�58 Comments
This post is a continuation of the last, and can otherwise be called "Konstantin von Eggert: A Case Study In Democratic Journalism (part 2)." Alternatively, one might view it as a refutation of claims that the Kremlin controls or censors the Russian media (Eggert's own protestations, hilarious and Orwellian in the context of what follows,... Read More
Konstantin von Eggert: A Case Study In Democratic Journalism (Part 1)
•�October 2, 2012
•�2,200 Words •�5 Comments
There is a term on Runet, popularized by the satirical "dissident" Lev Sharansky, called "democratic journalist." Of course, this term is every bit as satirical as its main propagator. In the Russian context, it denotes a journalist who is obsessed with free speech, human rights, democracy, the whole turkey. But they are "obsessed" with them... Read More
In Which I Become A Liberast: Criticism of Russia's Expulsion of USAID
•�October 1, 2012
•�600 Words •�13 Comments
The latest US-Russia.org Expert Discussion Panel focuses on whether Russia was correct to expel USAID on the grounds that it interfered in domestic Russian politics to an acceptable degree. Here is my contribution: I have no connection to USAID, or indeed to any American NGO operating in Russia or anywhere else. I do not pretend... Read More
Natalia Zubarevich - the Four Russias
•�September 13, 2012
•�1,900 Words •�14 Comments
Natalia Zubarevich's concept of "The Four Russias" is one of the most reasoned and perceptive political analysis from the liberals, and as such I think it important enough to translate it (mostly I disagree with its core assumptions and conclusions though I do think it is a useful way of envisioning Russian politics). As such... Read More
Russia's New Anti-Corruption Law
•�September 12, 2012
•�700 Words •�7 Comments
Russia is preparing to "nationalize the elites" by forbidding bureaucrats (and their spouses and children) from owning property or bank accounts abroad. (1) This need hardly be said at this point but this does demonstrate that Russia is not the "kleptocracy" it is frequently described as. Why would kleptocrats purposefully make life any harder for... Read More
Boris Releases His Eighth (?) Dud
•�August 28, 2012
•�800 Words •�57 Comments
I can't be bothered deconstructing it as I did with the demographic section of Boris Nemtsov's last (seventh) white paper. But there are some things to be said about its claims as regards Putin's lifestyle and its coverage in the Western media. (1) The definitions of what constitutes one of Putin's "residences" is very loose.... Read More
Mark Adomanis Surprised Russians Don't Hate Jews
•�June 29, 2012
•�700 Words •�46 Comments
From what I generally knew of contemporary Eastern European attitudes towards Jews (in two words “not good”) I expected that the Russian public’s attitude towards Israel would be decidely frosty, if not outright hostile... But what seems noteworthy to me is not the downward blip in 2006 but the generally high level of Russian support... Read More
ECHR Rules 2003 Elections Fair, Derided As Kremlin Flunkies By Liberals
•�June 22, 2012
•�700 Words •�1 Comment
According to the press release (PDF) regarding the recent judgment, the issues considered by the ECHR as regarding complaints about the 2003 Russian Duma elections were the (1) the opposition's access to an "effective remedy" to complain about media bias in favor of United Russia; and (2) that the media's aforementioned bias prejudged the fairness... Read More
Edward Lozansky - America Hates A Russia of Its Own Invention
•�June 3, 2012
•�1,700 Words •�17 Comments
I will be jetting off tomorrow to Washington, but before I do - a translation of Edward Lozansky's interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda (Америка ненавидит Россию, которую сама себе придумала). Lozansky, who used to be a Soviet dissident, is the organizer of the World Russia Forum and has many strong, pertinent views on why it's a... Read More
Hipsters and Democratic Journalists Might Not Support Putin, But the Middle Class Does
•�June 1, 2012
•�400 Words •�7 Comments
Yet another oft-repeated Western trope about Russian politics is that Putin has "lost the middle classes" (Brian Whitmore, paging Kudrin), that it is liberals who speak for the middle class (Fred Weir), or even that it is not just the middle class who are against Putin but the masses too (Masha Gessen). Let's look at... Read More
The "Last Hurrah" of the Liberal Bloggers and Hipsters
•�May 7, 2012
•�100 Words •�27 Comments
For all the hype the "March of Millions" was missing a couple of zeros. [youtube= (In the video above, the left pane shows the march along the Yakimanka on February 4th, where there were about 56,000-80,000 protesters; the right pane shows the "march of millions", in reality about 20,000-30,000, along the same street on May... Read More
Liberals Can't be Appeased
•�April 26, 2012
•�600 Words •�57 Comments
One thing that an observer of Russian politics can't help noticing is the sheer impossibility of appeasing the Russian liberals. Here are two recent exhibits from the Moscow Times. First, coming to the end of his Presidency, Medvedev pardoned some people in a list of political prisoners presented by the non-systemic opposition a few months... Read More
Peter Savodnik: Portrait of A Democratic Journalist
•�April 18, 2012
•�900 Words •�15 Comments
I recently had the dubious pleasure of engaging in an extended Twitter exchange with Peter Savodnik. Peter is a consummately credentialed journalist based in New York. He is also a classical representative of the well-paid prostitute class otherwise known as Independent Western Journalists in polite (i.e. doublethink) society, as well as of that emigre clique... Read More
Is Khodorkovsky A Political Prisoner? Read the ECHR Judgments Before Quacking
•�April 12, 2012
•�6,500 Words •�33 Comments
It's one thing if Western journalists and Yukos PR henchmen - if there is indeed any difference - shill for all they're worth about the travails of Khodorkovsky, the former oligarch doing time for fleecing the Russian Treasury to the tune of billions of dollars, charges he sooner boasts about than denies when given the... Read More
Potemkin Georgia: Exposing the Lies of the Saakashvili PR Machine
•�April 9, 2012
•�2,600 Words •�59 Comments
Despite the unremitting hostility of its Russian neighbor, which crescendoed in a military occupation of a chunk of its territories, plucky Georgia's commitment to reform and democratic values will ensure its rapid development into a "booming Western-style economy." Under its charismatic Western-trained President, Saakashvili, it has rooted out corruption, ushered in untold prosperity and freedoms,... Read More
Why Golos' Own Figures Support Only 3%-6% Fraud
•�March 6, 2012
•�2,000 Words •�18 Comments
Since yesterday, the following image from an article by liberal journalist Evgenya Albats has been making the rounds on the Internet. It shows that whereas Putin's official tally was 65%, independent observers put it close to or below the 50% marker that would necessitate a second round, such as Golos' 51% and Citizen Observer's 45%.... Read More
Far More People Protested for Putin Than Against, But You Wouldn't Know It from the Western Media
•�February 5, 2012
•�700 Words •�113 Comments
The above photo, part of a photo report by Ridus, shows the Anti-Orange protest at Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow on February 4th. Does that look like 35,000 people to you, let alone 20,000 or 15,000? Because those were the most commonly cited figures in the Western media, apart from those cases where they ignored them... Read More
Translation: Sergey Lukyanenko - I Will Vote for Putin
•�January 23, 2012
•�1,800 Words •�30 Comments
Courtesy of Evgeny's comment at Mark Adomanis' blog, I found a very interesting piece by Sergey Lukyanenko - the bestselling Russian sci-fi writer best known for his Night Watch series, which was later converted into Russia's first blockbuster film in 2004 - on the recent turmoil in Russian politics. It is a bit dated, from... Read More
Al Jazeera On Elections and White Ribbons
•�December 15, 2011
•�100 Words •�15 Comments
Russia's winter of discontent? from Al Jazeera's Stream. Overall, fairly balanced. I appear at 8:50 to ask a question about the suspicious timing - two months before the actual elections - of the creation of the website promoting the White Ribbon as the symbol of the anti-Kremlin protests. Generally speaking, I'm skeptical about the more... Read More
Kremlin Oligarch Brutally Censors Long-Suffering Russian Media (From Printing Gratuitous Profanities)
•�December 15, 2011
•�1,200 Words •�35 Comments
Imagine a respected American financial newspaper such as the WSJ writes an article investigating elections fraud in favor of the Democrats. To illustrate the rightness of their point, they include a photo of a ballot for the Republicans that - they allege - wasn't tallied by the dodgy Solyndra machines rolled out for use in... Read More
Maksim Schweiz - It's Time to Shove Off to Belarus!
and •�October 2, 2011
•�1,700 Words •�19 Comments
In the vein of my recent posts on the myth of Russian emigration, I am now publishing a translation of Уехать в Белоруссию ("Go Off To Belarus") by Maksim Schweiz writing for Rosbalt news agency. It is a joint effort by Nils van der Vegte, who blogs with Joera Mulders at Russia Watchers and is... Read More
Time to Shove Off! and What Then?...
•�October 2, 2011
•�2,200 Words •�21 Comments
If I had a cent for every Russia story from the past week that featured the (conclusively debunked) "sixth wave of emigration" meme... And if wishes were fishes. Still, the coverage of Russian reactions to Putin's return does demonstrate the venality and general fecklessness of the Western MSM. As Adomanis correctly noted, it is "negative... Read More
Nikolai Starikov - How Russian Liberals Create Russophobe Myths
•�July 23, 2011
•�2,100 Words •�59 Comments
Do you remember the growing chorus of voices in the Western media speaking of a "growing wave" of emigration from Putin's Russia? Those 1.25 million liberal professionals who have fled that neo-Soviet abyss in the past few years? As it turns out, not only are these stories complete fabrications - in a previous post, I... Read More
A Tale of the Beggar and the Billionaire
•�July 2, 2011
•�200 Words •�11 Comments
Imagine the following scenario. In the US, a black homeless man "robs" a bank. He only takes a single $100 bill out of the wad of cash offered, because he was hungry and had to pay to stay at a detox center. Regardless, he had the good graces to return the money the day after.... Read More
Russia's Brain Drain Abates, Just As Western Media Starts Hyping It
•�June 25, 2011
•�1,500 Words •�43 Comments
Everything's going badly in Russia. Medvedev's reforms are failing. The economy isn't growing. It is moving from authoritarianism to totalitarianism (in stark contrast to civilized Western countries), and the motto "We cannot live like this any longer!" once again becomes an article of faith in the land - or well, at least among "the blogs... Read More
Interview with Mark Chapman (The Kremlin Stooge)
•�June 22, 2011
•�6,900 Words •�14 Comments
Next in our line of Watching the Russia Watchers interviews is Mark Chapman, the fiery Canadian sailor who's been blazing a path of destruction through the fetid Russophobe ranks since July 2010. That was when he first set up The Kremlin Stooge, after being blocked from La Russophobe, who couldn't withstand his powerful arguments without... Read More
Edward McMillan-Scott, Lord of Western Tropes On Russia
•�June 21, 2011
•�1,300 Words •�11 Comments
Over the years, I have come across my fair share of liars and incompetents writing about Russia in major Western media outlets. But rarely have I encountered such heights of self-righteous arrogance and clownish, pathetic ignorance as Edward McMillan-Scott displays in his latest screed for The Guardian: "David Cameron must stand up to Putin", where... Read More
Given Free Publicity On NTV, Khodorkovsky Only Incriminates Himself Further
•�June 11, 2011
•�200 Words •�9 Comments
Following the failure of Khodorkovsky's appeal against his prison sentence for theft and money laundering, state-owned NTV aired a positive segment on his case on national prime time. Most sides of the story were mentioned: Amnesty International's designation of him as a "prisoner of conscience", the Kremlin's view that it was only the criminal justice... Read More
How NOT to be A Whistleblower In Russia: the Case of Yevgeny Starshov
•�May 30, 2011
•�2,500 Words •�7 Comments
In 2009, the UK was rocked by lurid revelations about MP's expenses: home renovations, expensive meals and holidays, and even apartments fraudulently claimed by Parliamentary deputies. Apologies, recriminations, resignations, and even prosecutions followed in the wake of the documented evidence published by The Daily Telegraph. In the past two weeks, an intern at the State... Read More
In Which la Russophobe Interviews the Russophile Sociopath Blogging At Sublime Oblivion
•�May 27, 2011
•�12,600 Words •�23 Comments
Two weeks ago, I received a Facebook message from Kim Zigfeld, she of the infamous La Russophobe, asking me if I was interested in an interview with her. It didn't take long for me to come to the wrong decision! And so commenced our interview. It was a long grind. After ceaseless goings back and... Read More
REPRINT: Is Putin Pitiable, or Is the Financial Times Corrupt?
•�December 30, 2010
•�2,700 Words •�14 Comments
A thundering takedown of the Financial Times transparently one-sided coverage of the Khodorkovsky affair -and Khodorkovsky says Putin is ‘pitiable’ can also serve as a palimpsest for Western media coverage of this topic in general - from Eric Kraus at Truth and Beauty. BTW, do feel free to add his blog Truth and Beauty to... Read More
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Anatoly Karlin
About Anatoly Karlin

I am a blogger, thinker, and businessman in the SF Bay Area. I’m originally from Russia, spent many years in Britain, and studied at U.C. Berkeley.

One of my tenets is that ideologies tend to suck. As such, I hesitate about attaching labels to myself. That said, if it’s really necessary, I suppose “liberal-conservative neoreactionary” would be close enough.

Though I consider myself part of the Orthodox Church, my philosophy and spiritual views are more influenced by digital physics, Gnosticism, and Russian cosmism than anything specifically Judeo-Christian.