Thread: Best Representation of Russian View of Politics

This is somewhat general in its nature, but Alexander's posting of an article on the "What is Putin?" spurred me to ask it. We are usually familar with the Western media's take on the Putin adminstration in the US, but what about from a Russian viewpoint? What book/article and author would you suggest a Westerner read to better understand how the average Russian thinks about contemporary Russian politics?

В принципе я хочу знать какую книгу (или статью) о совремменной русской политке с русского взгляда вы посоветуете? То есть я знаю как
западная СМИ считает политки вообще, но хочу перспективу русской СМИ.

Maybe this?

http://masterrussian.net/mforum/viewtopic.php?t=7025

Originally Posted by Scorpio

Maybe this?

http://masterrussian.net/mforum/viewtopic.php?t=7025

Thanks for the link -- I was aware of this and have been following the thread. However, I'd really prefer something a)in print, b)somewhat established, and c) something that is actually available to me (I have no satellite access). The idea is roughly the same though. Any other ideas?

It's not an the exact thing you look for, but visit this site http://www.polit.ru/lectures/index.html

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/
Here you can find what the Russian papers say, different opinions etc.

Another one:
http://www.untimely-thoughts.com/
The author is American but he's been living in Moscow for 7 years. Often his opinions look like mine .
Here you can find his answers to Russians' questions (last year's interview):
http://www.inosmi.ru/press/214540.html

Hmm.. Actually there is a lot of news sites where you can find analytic articles:
Well. for example:
Left wing - http://english.pravda.ru/
Right wing - http://www.gazeta.ru/
'Pro-Kremlin' site - http://www.strana.ru/

What else..

Different polls:
http://www.levada.ru/

Don't forget to look through Johnson's Russia List from time to time:
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/default.cfm

Russian reader's opinions on foreign article.. rather radical ones :
http://inosmi.ru/forum/themes/listforums

Another one.. but with the 'pro-Kremlin' smell
http://www.rian.ru/analytics/20051213/
I like it anyway.

Here's a little more about "Russia Today":

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/ ... 5914.shtml

One more:
http://www.russiaprofile.org/politics/index.wbp

Thank you for the deluge of links, folks -- my bookmarks runneth over now. Polit.ru looks great, as do the Levada and RIAN analysis. I subscribe to JRL and Russia Profile and I was aware of Gazeta and Pravda (which I tend to pretty much avoid -- their English translations used to be horrible and the articles on UFOs, Bigfoot, etc. didn't make me really take them seriously).

With all this being said -- and I do appreciate all the info you guys have provided -- I was really hoping you could recommend a specific article/book or two. It doesn't necessarily need to be online (although that's definitely good) either. Thanks for all your imput so far and anything else you've got to say on this would be great.