Russia's president has brought Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister known for his liberal views, back to the Kremlin to shore up his own pro-reform bona fides. But no one should believe that he is prepared to lead the economic modernization effort that Russia so badly needs.
MOSCOW – Last November, when the performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky set fire to the central door of Moscow’s Lubyanka – the headquarters of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and formerly of the Soviet Union’s security service, the KGB – the state accused him of destroying its “cultural heritage.” Apparently, the brutal interrogation of world-renowned artists, from the poet Osip Mandelstam to the theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold, amounts to a patrimony worthy of the state’s strongest protection.
MOSCOW – Last November, when the performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky set fire to the central door of Moscow’s Lubyanka – the headquarters of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and formerly of the Soviet Union’s security service, the KGB – the state accused him of destroying its “cultural heritage.” Apparently, the brutal interrogation of world-renowned artists, from the poet Osip Mandelstam to the theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold, amounts to a patrimony worthy of the state’s strongest protection.