Catalogue of the "In Transition Russia 2008" exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art, Yekaterinburg andthe National Centre of Contemporary Art Moscow

Russian history is first and foremost a history of personalized power. As Russia startles the international community with its assertiveness and faces both parliamentary and presidential elections, Lilia Shevtsova searches the histories of the Yeltsin and Putin regimes. She explores within them conventional truths and myths about Russia, paradoxes of Russian political development, and Russia's role in the world. Russia--Lost in Transition discovers a logic of government in Russia--a political regime and the type of capitalism that were formulated during the Yeltsin and Putin presidencies and will continue to dominate Russia's trajectory in the near term. Looking forward as well as back, Shevtsova speculates about the upcoming elections as well as the self-perpetuating system in place--the legacies of Yeltsin and Putin--and how it will dictate the immediate political future. She also explores several scenarios for Russia's future over the next decade.

Transition Economies provides students with an up-to-date and highly comprehensive analysis of the economic transformation in former communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union. With coverage extending from the end of central planning to the capitalist varieties of the present, this text provides a comparative analysis of economic transformation and political-economic diversity that has emerged as a direct result. It covers differences between countries in terms of economic performance and integration into the world economy. Transition Economies seeks to explain and deepen understanding of these differences, chart the emerging forms of capitalism there, and provide country responses to the world financial crisis of 2008-2009.

Into the Red explores the emergence of a credit card market in post-Soviet Russia during the formative period from 1988 to 2007. In her analysis, Alya Guseva locates the dynamics of market building in the social structure, specifically the creative use of social networks. Until now, network scholars have overlooked the role that networks play in facilitating exchange in mass markets because they have exclusively focused on firm-to-firm or person-to-person ties. Into the Red demonstrates how networks that combine individuals and organizations help to build markets for mass consumption. The book is situated on the cutting edge of emerging interdisciplinary research, linking multiple layers of analysis with institutional evolution. Using an intricate framework, Guseva chronicles both the creation of a credit card market and the making of a mass consumer. These processes are placed in the context of the ongoing restructuring in postcommunist Russia and the expansion of Western markets and ideologies through the rest of the world.

An important Russian economist and politician takes a long view of economic history and Russia's development. It is not so easy to take the long view of socioeconomic history when you are participating in a revolution. For that reason, Russian economist Yegor Gaidar put aside an early version of this work to take up a series of government positions—as Minister of Finance and as Boris Yeltsin's acting Prime Minister—in the early 1990s. In government, Gaidar shepherded Russia through its transition to a market economy after years of socialism. Once out of government, Gaidar turned again to his consideration of Russia's economic history and long-term economic and political challenges. This book, revised and updated shortly before his death in 2009, is the result. Gaidar's account of long-term socioeconomic trends puts his country in historical context and outlines problems faced by Russia (and other developing economies) that more developed countries have already encountered: aging population, migration, evolution of the system of social protection, changes in the armed forces, and balancing stability and flexibility in democratic institutions. This is not a memoir, but, Gaidar points out, neither is it “written from the position of a man who spent his entire life in a research institute.” Gaidar's “long view” is inevitably informed and enriched by his experience in government at a watershed moment in history.

Russia is now once again one of the ten largest economies in the world (representing around 70% of Germany's GDP in purchasing power parity in 2007). In addition, Russia is the third largest trading partner of the EU, the fourth largest trade partner of the eurozone and an essential energy supplier to the EU. This recovery makes Russia an economic - and political - actor that cannot be ignored. In this authoritative new book, Lúcio Vinhas de Souza, desk officer for Russia in the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission, reviews the country's evolving macroeconomic performance and structural policy framework, from the difficult days of the recession in the early transition period and the 1998 crisis to Russia's sustained and robust growth since 1999. He outlines the remaining reform priorities in Russia and concludes with pragmatic policy recommendations for the reform agenda.

Introduction : why Russia matters and how -- Russia's historical roots -- Political development : from disorder to recentralization of power -- Russia's economic revival : past recovery, future challenges -- Policy on oil and gas -- International economic integration, trade policy, and investment -- Challenges of demography and health -- Russian attitudes toward the West -- Russia as a post-imperial power -- Pressing the "reset button" on US-Russia relations -- Key facts on Russia, 2000-2008.

This analysis of Russian science shows how the Russian science establishment was one of the largest in the world boasting a world-leading space programme and Nobel prizes. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the financial supports for the community were eliminated resulting in a 'brain drain'.

In this ethnography of postsocialist Moscow in the late 1990s, Olga Shevchenko draws on interviews with a cross-section of Muscovites to describe how people made sense of the acute uncertainties of everyday life, and the new identities and competencies that emerged in response to these challenges. Ranging from consumption to daily rhetoric, and from urban geography to health care, this study illuminates the relationship between crisis and normality and adds a new dimension to the debates about postsocialist culture and politics.