Putin's Russia : What is in the Cards?

In December 2011, Russia witnessed some of the largest protests against authorities since Vladimir Putin came to power. In early  May 2012, Putin is to be inaugurated as a new-old president for another 6-year term. He is now governing in a new country in which people are beginning to demand that their leaders be held accountable. This situation creates new opportunities and dangers for Russia’s independent media. In this talk, Yevgenia Albats will discuss what it is like to publish a journal that offers readers a variety of opinions and investigative reporting on current events in contemporary Russia. She will also discuss the role of the Internet and social media in changing the political landscape, in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and beyond.

 

Yevgenia Albats is the editor-in-chief of The New Times (Novoye Vremya), one of Russia’s leading independent weekly magazines, and professor of political science at the National Research University – The Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University. She hosts a radio talk program at the "Echo Moskvy" station, and has written extensively about the KGB and its FSB successor in, among others, The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia (NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994).