How nice it would be if similar rough and tumble debates on foreign policy were allowed to appear on prime time television in the USA.
Continue reading “Press Freedom in Russia? Tune in to the Political Talk Shows to See for Yourself”
Author: gilbertdoctorow
Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write.
Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975).
After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility.
From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University.
Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.
Postscript to the Mariinsky Theater’s Concert in Palmyra
The Kremlin invited 100 Moscow-based foreign reporters to make the trip to Palmyra for the concert on 5 May. Judging by the column inches which followed in Western mainstream media, the return on this investment was poor though not hopeless.
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An Eyewitness Account of the Immortal Regiment Parade in St Petersburg, 9 May 2016
The notion that the Immortal Regiment is a Kremlin-promoted gimmick could not have been farther from what I witnessed yesterday. It is an initiative fully owned by its participants.
A Gift of Music from the Northern Palmyra to its Sister City: Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra Perform in Syria
In this essay we will examine the remarkable performance of the Mariinsky Theater orchestra in Palmyra on 5 May from three perspectives: at face value, in terms of the objectives set out by its organizer, with mention of all key actors; its political dimension as seen from Moscow; and its political dimension as seen by Western mainstream media
Chaos Reigns at Brussels National Airport-Zaventem: An International Commission of Security Professionals Should Be Invited in to Protect the Traveling Public
Inevitably there are issues affecting the greater world where game playing and incompetence in one country must stop. A major international airport is one such case. Read on…
Thoughts in anticipation of the 71st anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, 9 May 2016
“Realism” has been injected into the ongoing presidential campaign as a guiding principle by candidate Donald Trump. He has no proprietary rights over it, and it would be a good thing if other candidates in the Congressional and not only presidential race gave it a test drive as well, because it is the only approach to international affairs that can save us from needless confrontation and risk of nuclear war
The Empty Seat: William Browder Once Again Takes Charge at the European Parliament
We may take as a given from yesterday’s non-event that one of two charges made against Bill Browder by Russian state television on 13 April is winning support in the West on the basis of independently made discoveries here: that the Magnitsky affair was fraudulent and misrepresented from the beginning….
“Put up or shut up”: the case against William Browder and Alexei Navalny
It would be an understatement to remark that the provenance of the cache of documents underlying the case is murky and that so far no serious effort has been made by the Russian state broadcasters to provide credible explanations of damaging discrepancies.
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Vladimir Putin’s live Q&A with the nation goes corporate: no surprises
If Putin is to be seen as a Tsar, his performance in Q&A, just as his daily performance of his duties 7/7 deserves the very highest grades for intelligence, diligence, reserve, man management skills and the rest. A Tsar of this quality comes along once in 300 years.
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Agent William F. Browder: The Smoking Gun
Whatever the final verdict may be on the documents presented by the film “The Browder Effect,” it raises questions about Browder that should have been asked years ago in mainstream Western media if journalists were paying attention.
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Gilbert Doctorow 