Putins Russia: Life in a Failing
Democracy by Anna Politkovskaya
Inside The Hangmans Noose
A searing portrait of a country in disarray, and of the man at its helm, from
“the bravest of journalists” (The New York Times) Hailed as “a lone voice
crying out in a moral wilderness” (New Statesman), Anna Politkovskaya
made her name with her fearless reporting on the war in Chechnya. Now
she turns her steely gaze on the multiple threats to Russian stability,
among them President Putin himself.
Putin’s Russia depicts a far-reaching state of decay. Politkovskaya
describes an army in which soldiers die from malnutrition, parents must
pay bribes to recover their dead sons’ bodies, and conscripts are even
hired out as slaves. She exposes rampant corruption in business,
government, and the judiciary, where everything from store permits to bus
routes to court appointments is for sale. And she offers a scathing
condemnation of the ongoing war in Chechnya, where kidnappings,

extrajudicial killings, rape, and torture are begetting terrorism rather than
fighting it.
Sounding an urgent alarm, Putin’s Russia is both a gripping portrayal of a
country in crisis and the testament of a great and intrepid reporter.
Personal Review: Putins Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy by
Anna Politkovskaya
For those who are unsure about what to make of Putin's Russia, this
important little book, that punches way above its weight, will bring you up
to date in a flash.
Personally, I don't understand why people try to undermine the integrity of
this brave woman by claiming she was too subjective or too emotionally
intense in making her case, when the issues at stake are extremely
serious.
There is no independent judiciary in Russia; the State, and its myriad cells
of Mafia thugs that feed off its corrupt munificence, expropriates private
property and jails anybody capable of mounting a legitimate political
challenge; investigative journalism has been wiped out with the death toll
of journalists heading towards fifty; a long and brutal war in Chechnya has
poisoned Russian society; poverty and prostitution is on the rise, while
state infrastructure collapses. The enourmous wealth of this country is
being stolen by a minority of oligarchs, Mafia bosses and politicians that
are turning Russia into a grand Zimbabwe; after all, wasn't that what the
1917 revolution was meant to have achieved, a more equitable distribution
of wealth?
Believe it or not, Russia is not a reflection of Moscow; its affluence does
not rain down elsewhere, and who cares if Moscow has some very
sophisticated night clubs that would make your head turn, it means nothing
to 60% of the population trying to find food.
Surely the missed opportunity for real political transformation must rest at
Putin's door, the man who has been at the helm for almost ten years.
Russia has never known true democratic involvement and confuses,
deliberately, the chaos of the Yeltin years with democracy; it just didn't
happen. Remember the name given to countries of Eastern Europe under
Soviet domination; the so called "Peoples Democracies"; please, give us a
break. Yet Putin has done everything he can to turn the clock back to
those frozen times, change in Russia is a delusion, and the cynical
misanthropic expression on that mans face needs to be removed. He has
successfully steered the ship of state in the opposite direction to where the
people wanted it to go. Now a corrupt, xenophobic Russia that continues to
carry out political assassinations on foreign soil has some serious soul
searching to do. Just to cap it all off, fancy trying to resurrect Stalin's image
into one of admiration! Is it any wonder those very East European
countries are looking nervously back over their shoulder in the direction of

Moscow. What other country in the world hands out passports to people in
neighbouring countries as though they were chocolate bars, as Russia has
done in Georgia and the Ukraine?; no doubt trying to foster the pretext that
the Kremlin needs to be more involved in those countries for the sake of its
citizens.
Taking this into account, I should say Anna's book is restrained, making its
injured eloquence all the more endearing. Let's not forget, she paid a high
price for this testimony, she paid for it with her life!
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