Word: putin
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...been a long time since Russia seen such a melee. On Saturday at noon, defying the city authorities' ban on organizing an event, over 5000 people in St. Petersburg joined the anti-Putin "March of the Discontented," launched by the Other Russia opposition movement, a group of improbable allies brought together by Putin's repressive intransigence. The demonstrators marched in St. Petersburg, which happens to also be President Vladimir Putin's birthplace and showcase for his G-8 peers. A showcase Russian city hadn't seen that size of a protest for a decade. The violent street clash not only...
...Confined by the riot police to a downtown square, the protesters, who chanted "Russia without Putin!" "Down with the corrupt authorities!" and "Revolution!" broke through the police cordons and marched down Nevsky Prospect, St. Petersburg's main avenue. Squad cars wedged in the angry marchers ranks, and riot police moved in, wielding clubs and throwing smoke grenades. It took several hours to disperse the crowds and restore police control over the area. The authorities later claimed that 50 protesters were detained. The Other Russia, however, states that at least two hundred protesters were taken into custody and beaten, with hundreds...
...market. Poland’s neighbor and supposed European Union (EU) ally, Germany, hardly came to its rescue. Gerard Schroeder, then Germany’s chancellor, seemingly so idealistic in his opposition to the Iraq War and his shunning of George Bush, cultivated a close friendship with Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president. He never criticized Russia’s brutal suppression of Chechnya and even negotiated an agreement between Russia and Germany to build a natural gas pipeline that punitively bypasses Poland—the Baltic gas pipeline, placing Warsaw in a precarious economic and political position...
...outgoing leader - a communist supporter and strict authoritarian - and those seeking change polarized an already embattled corps of dancers and musicians. Leadership changed hands four times between 1995 and 2004, including a stint by famed former principal dancer Vasiliev, who was unceremoniously dismissed in 2000 by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. The short-lived replacements were all part of Russian ballet's insular old guard. "They were doing Sleeping Beauty the way it had always been done," says Andre Lewis, artistic director of Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet, North America's second oldest ballet company. "The Bolshoi was stultified...
Before Ratmansky's arrival at Teatralnaya Square, the company's relationship with the Russian government had been on shaky ground. Toward the end of Grigorovich's tenure, as the company was consumed by internal squabbles and its touring productions were poorly received, government funding dried up. By 2000, President Putin, frustrated with ever-increasing delays in the Old Theater reconstruction project, ordered the Bolshoi to report directly to the Ministry of Culture, which would keep a tight rein on its finances. By the following year, the Bolshoi's estimated annual budget was substantially lower than other top ballet companies...