I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The Russian Reader is one of the best resources on present-day Russia, and quite possibly the best overall. Most of the posts are translations from Russian independent media, primarily online outlets, with an emphasis on opposition groups and politically-motivated prosecutions.
It takes a lot of work and commitment to keep a blog like that for months and years. Considering the knowledge and understanding that can be gained by keeping up with its posts – by those who can’t read Russian above all – it seems The Russian Reader is deeply underappreciated.
I’ve always been a little puzzled by The Russian Reader…it’s so relentlessly negative that I wonder why the author (who is a US citizen I believe) continues to live in Russia if he doesn’t have to.
It’s hard to stay positive if you read and translate so much from the opposition media, and keep an eye on the persecution of various freethinkers in Russia. (He’s mostly focusing on vaguely left-wing victims.) With his skills and convictions, he probably feels he’s living in the right place now.