Word: russias
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Russia is not a land accustomed to elections--to say nothing of electoral surprises. But last week the country got a big one. Within an hour of the polls' closing in Russian parliamentary elections Sunday night, a new and fairly mysterious party called Unity took the lead and held it for most of the night as results came in from across Russia's 11 time zones. And though in the final tally Unity had slipped behind the Communist Party, it was an astounding upset. A group that was founded just three months ago and that had scarcely campaigned will...
...party leaders, debates or televised appeals. Instead there was what Russian politicians euphemistically call technology: a stream of invective on state TV. Most of this was instigated by the Kremlin and aimed at discrediting the one bloc thought to present any risk to Boris Yeltsin: the Fatherland-All Russia coalition, led by former Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov and Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov...
...technology" worked. While the Unity Party ended up neck and neck with the communists, Fatherland-All Russia came in a disappointing third. It was an expression of what Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev described as Russia's split soul: torn between the attraction of anarchy on the one hand and the desire for a firm ruler on the other. Some past elections have demonstrated the anarchic side. This time, though, Russians opted for a ruler...
...Putin basks in the afterglow of his victory, he may have forgotten some of the threats that still lurk on the path to the presidency. At the moment they seem very remote, but in Russia things change fast. There is the specter of Chechnya, where a single disaster--if it can break through the military's news blockade --could turn public opinion against both the war and the Prime Minister. The other is the truculence of Yeltsin, who tends to fire overly successful Prime Ministers. Putin's aides say this will not happen. But should Yeltsin decide to dump Putin...
Kublai Khan's family rules China. Korea and Mongolia from Dadu (today's Beijing), but related Mongol khanates in central Asia and Russia are virtually independent if not hostile; and the once subservient (and Buddhist) Il-Khans of Persia have converted to Islam. Meanwhile, drawn by the decay of Byzantium, Osman and his Turks germinate the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia...