The Denim Curtain ... Why was it that Russians couldn’t make jeans? Niall Ferguson, Civilisation: Is the West History? V Consumerism, Channel 4 2011
The West’s ugly sister. Ugly and dumb. Because somehow the communist block failed to grasp the appeal of an item of clothing that could easily have come to symbolise the virtues of the hard-working proletariat. ibid.
With Russia in economic crisis and tensions simmering over Ukraine the world is watching Vladimir Putin. Tonight, the inside story of the Russian president’s rise to power. Frontline: Putin’s Way, 2015
Part of a larger culture of corruption in Putin’s Russia. ibid.
By 1996 he’d begun his rise in the Kremlin. ibid.
He’d [Yeltzin] already hired and fired four prime ministers before appointing Vladimir Putin. ibid.
1999: bombs obliterated four apartment buildings in Moscow and other cities, all blown up at night while people slept. Hundreds died … Putin would point to rebels in Chechnya … Putin’s invasion would be brutal. ibid.
His first act as president was to grant his predecessor Boris Yeltzin immunity from prosecution. ibid.
If true it would make Russia’s president one of the richest men in the world. ibid.
‘He has got so many guilty secrets, so much money’s been stolen, so many people have been killed, that he really doesn’t trust anyone to keep him safe if he steps down from power.’ ibid. Edward Lucas
Obama v Putin: which of the two players in this chess game we are going to support … that is a false dichotomy that has been force-fed into us … There are not just two sides here. The Corbett Report, The Enemy of My Enemy
Has nothing to do with overt anti-gay legislation and yet it is being portrayed that way … ridiculous over-the-top Russian propaganda that is becoming more and more the norm. ibid.
‘Putin dissolves state new agency, tightens grip on Russia media’. ibid. Reuters news agency report
Meet Vladimir Putin: ‘He is very much of a leader.’ The Most Powerful Man in the World, Trump, CNN 2017
‘Vladimir Putin is a thug and a murderer and a killer.’ ibid. John McCain
What does he want from Donald Trump? Just how powerful is he? So powerful he rigged the American election? While Russians celebrate, Americans ask, What does he want? ibid.
Putin controls television. Putin controls everything in Russia. ibid.
An astonishing approval rating – over 80%. ibid.
‘We have to stand up to his bullying.’ ibid. Hillary Clinton
Since communism collapsed in Russia anything can be bought and sold including sex. The super-rich have been running wild. And the high-class Russian call-girl is now a global icon. But is there another darker side in Russia? Stacey Dooley Sex in Strange Places: Russia, BBC 2016
Prostitution is illegal in Russia; running a brothel can get you five years. ibid.
Around three million prostitutes in Russia. ibid.
They have to pay the police every night. ibid.
In Russia there is a saying: ‘If he beats you, it means he loves you’. In February 2017 certain forms of domestic abuse were decriminalised in Russia. Stacey Dooley Investigates: Russia’s War on Women, BBC 2018
Behind closed doors, Russian society has a dark secret. Domestic violence is a staggering problem here in Russia. ibid.
‘In Russia it’s sort of traditional for a man to beat his woman.’ ibid. victim
There’s nothing like a restraining order in Russian law. ibid.
I’m starting a huge journey; this time it’s the big one. I’m travelling across the largest country of them all – Russia. Russia with Simon Reeve I, BBC 2017
The scale of this place is just mindblowing. ibid.
Siberia on its own is one-twelfth of all the land on planet Earth. ibid.
Over half of Russia’s territory is permafrost. ibid.
Lake Baikal: It’s said to be the oldest, deepest lake on planet Earth … The average depth of the lake is nearly a mile deep … 20% of the fresh water on planet Earth. Russia with Simon Reeve II
The Trans-Siberian railways stretches 6,000 miles across Russia and covers an incredible 7 time zones. ibid.
Why do so many Russians young and old love Putin? ibid.
There are around 190 different ethnic groups within Russia’s borders. ibid.
Alcohol abuse in Russia is a national emergency. ibid.
Dagestan has suffered countless terrorist attacks; it’s been described as the most dangerous region of the country. ibid.
One of the most bitterly contested regions on the planet – I’m on my way to Crimea … Crimea is home to nearly two million people. Russia with Simon Reeve III
Putin has had to pledge vast sums to develop Crimea. ibid.
Moscow: It’s more beautiful than I’d imagined. A sense of power … A megacity: home to 12 million people. ibid.
Huge numbers of Russians taking to the streets in anti-corruption demonstrations. ibid.
A forgotten empty Russia. ibid.
Many here support Putin’s core ideology which is nationalism accompanied by anti-Westernism. ibid.
‘I looked into Putin’s eyes and saw a stone-cold killer.’ Facing Putin s1e4, Robert Gates, National Geographic 2016
‘His popularity soars: so this guy goes from no-name recognition … [to] being the most popular politician in the country.’ ibid. Masha Gessen, author The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin
‘Blowing up our own apartment buildings? That is really … utter nonsense!’ ibid. Putin
‘Mr Yushchenko’s condition was caused by dioxin poisoning.’ ibid. doctor’s press conference
To those who began the revolution in Russia seventy-five years ago science was a grand liberating force. They believed Karl Marx had discovered the scientific laws of society which they would now use to unlock the gates to a new world where everyone would be equal and free. But within twenty years the revolution was taken over by technocrats who looked down on the crowd below as though they were atoms. They were inspired not by Marx but by the laws of engineering. They believed they could transform the Soviet Union into a giant rational machine which they would run for their political masters. Adam Curtis, Pandora’s Box I: The Engineer’s Plot: A Fable From the Age of Science, BBC 1992
This is a story of science and political power. How the Bolshevik’s vision of using science to change the world was itself transformed. What resulted was as strange experiment far removed from the original aims of the revolution. From the beginning of the revolution, modern technology was central to the Bolshevik’s plans. Above all, the new power of electricity. ibid.
The aim of the Bolsheviks was to transform the people they ruled into what they called ‘scientific beings’, people able to understand and control the machines of the modern world rather than become enslaved to them. ibid.
The people to shape the future Soviet Union was passing to those who could build the new industrial society the Bolsheviks wanted so much. They were known as the bourgeois specialists, engineers from before the revolution who had the skills needed to master the modern technology. ibid.
At the end of 1930 the engineers’ dream suddenly became a nightmare: Stalin ordered two-thousand of them to be arrested, and eight of the most senior were put on a public show-trial. ibid.
‘Bolsheviks must master technology. It is time for the Bolsheviks themselves to become specialists. In the reconstruction period, technology decides everything.’ ibid. Stalin
He [Stalin] ordered engineering schools to be set up across the country to thousands of the young party faithful. ibid.
The model for this new simplified world was American … Gary, Indiana, is almost derelict. But seventy years ago it was a new kind of model city planned in an ordered way around a giant steel mill. To its builders it was a chance to break with the complexities of the past. ibid.
Those who lived in the American City were the new elite: a mixture of old Bolshevik commissars, foreign technicians and an ever increasing number of young red engineers. By the mid-30s the engineers had become the heroes in Soviet society. Praised by Stalin, they flaunted their new status. ibid.