Written in the form of a diary, a stark account of life in twenty-first-century Russia offers an unflinching account of the plight of millions of Russian citizens and the corruption of the Putin presidency, in a final work by the acclaimed Russian journalist, murdered in October 2006. By the author of Putins Russia. 40,000 first printing. Written in the form of a diary, an account of life in twenty-first-century Russia offers a portrait of the plight of millions of Russian citizens and the corruption of the Putin presidency, in a final work by the journalist, who was murdered in October 2006. Anna Politkovskaya, one of Russias most fearless journalists, was gunned down in a contract killing in Moscow in the fall of 2006. Just before her death, Politkovskaya completed this searing, intimate record of life in Russia from the parliamentary elections of December 2003 to the grim summer of 2005, when the nation was still reeling from the horrors of the Beslan school siege. In A Russian Diary, Politkovskaya dares to tell the truth about the devastation of Russia under Vladimir Putin - a truth all the more urgent since her tragic death.Writing with unflinching clarity, Politkovskaya depicts a society strangled by cynicism and corruption. As the Russian elections draw near, Politkovskaya describes how Putin neutralizes or jails his opponents, muzzles the press, shamelessly lies to the public - and then secures a sham landslide that plunges the populace into mass depression. In Moscow, oligarchs blow thousands of rubles on nights of partying while Russian soldiers freeze to death. Terrorist attacks become frequent events. Basic freedoms dwindle daily. And then, in September 2004, armed terrorists take more than twelve hundred hostages in the Beslan school, and a different kind of madness descends.
