Word: medvedev
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...democratic mettle of President Dmitri Medvedev was put to its greatest test this month. Perhaps naively, many of the country's liberals had believed that Medvedev, a doe-eyed and often bashful technocrat, would finally rise up to challenge the unrivaled dominance of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. After all, they thought, he is technically the commander in chief of the country and he has cultivated the image of a reformer intent on bringing true democracy to Russia. But in the wake of rampant fraud allegations in local elections, Medvedev yet again disappointed the hopeful...
...started when Medvedev surprised the nation by initiating a fresh debate over the state of democracy in Russia. In a breach of the usual Kremlin protocol, Medvedev wrote a policy paper - a liberal manifesto of sorts - that was published in September on the independent news website gazeta.ru. It was seen by many to be a groundbreaking document. Although Medvedev did not criticize Putin overtly - that would have been political suicide - he did lament Russia's isolationism, its vulnerable economy and its "negative democratic tendencies," all jabs at the authoritarian political system that Putin cultivated during his eight years as President...
...What's more, Medvedev laid out a bold democratic vision for the future. "Russia's political system will be extremely open, flexible and inherently complex," he wrote. "The leaders of the political struggle will be parliamentary parties, which will periodically take each other's place in power...
...such system has ever really existed in Russia, and none had ever been promised in such terms. Talk-show hosts and columnists nearly lost their heads interpreting the paper. Was Medvedev actually taking a stand against Putin? Were they preparing to face off for the presidency in 2012? In the weeks that followed, nearly every public intellectual responded to the piece, including former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and oil mogul Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who had been stripped of his assets and imprisoned under Putin for fraud. Most of them were skeptical. "It is absolutely clear that one leader cannot modernize...
Russia wishes it were smaller. No, it isn't about to shed any territory, but President Dmitry Medvedev has suggested that Russia reduce its number of time zones from 11 to four, arguing that the extreme time difference - in which western Russia wakes for breakfast just as eastern Russia climbs into bed - "divides" the country and "makes it harder to manage it effectively." Can Russia just change time zones like that? How are time zones determined anyway? (See TIME's Pictures of the Week...