Blog

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for reading!

A police officer stands in front of a blocked off Triumfalnaya Square ahead of the arrival of protesters on New Year's Eve in Moscow, Russia. Opposition protesters, organized by Strategia-31, planned to gather in Triumfalnaya Square on New Year’s Eve as part of their monthly protest but arrived to find it closed and surrounded by police.

I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Running toward the escalator at the Mayakovskaya metro station, I glimpsed a familiar face out of the corner of my eye. It might be more correct to say that I spotted a familiar figure: an elderly woman in a fur hat, leaning on her walker, surveying the station from a bench. Her picture had appeared in a number of news articles about last week’s protests (including my own). “Do you know you’re all over the Western media?” I asked the woman. She leaned in to hear better, her white protest ribbon and her World War II decorations intertwined. Her eyes widened with surprise, then pleasure. We chatted. “I’ve already been to the protest today,” she said, “but I’m not going back. It’s full of police.” Someone might get killed, she thought, if not by the police, then because the law enforcement would be distracted by the protesters.

Half an hour later I was being pushed down the street by a line of riot police who were attempting to clear the sidewalk. As I tried to squeeze into the wall of people, a helmeted officer edged me forward with his elbow. “Let’s go, let’s go,” he instructed me impatiently. As the shoving subsided, I found myself pushed up against another line of policemen. I could not see any protesters around me; it was all journalists, cameras flashing and rolling. I made my way back up the street, climbing up a few steps toward the door of a fast food joint to get a better view. As I settled into my new position, surveying the crowd, I was startled by a walkie-talkie going off next to me. It turned out the people I had assumed to be passersby or fellow observers seeking a better vantage point were plainclothes police.

Protesters and journalists face off with police on the street near Triumfalnaya Square.

A protester is moved to a police bus after being arrested.

The atmosphere was pregnant with anticipation. A couple protesters had been pushed into awaiting police buses. The arrests were amazingly swift: an opposition member would wave a banner or shout a political slogan (mostly in support of Taisia Osipova, an activist who was sentenced to ten years of prison for alleged drug trafficking this week); a few riot police would surround him or her, pushing them toward the bus; the press would follow, blinding flashes in their wake; the police would frisk the activists in a split second, and then the arrested would disappear into the bus, pulled in by the well-trained arms inside.

As I was looking over the scene, another sweep of the street was starting. A group of young riot policemen—they seemed to be in their early twenties, some shy and others seemingly emotionless—were preparing for the march. As they awaited orders, one picked his teeth, despite photojournalists taking pictures all around him; another smiled slyly and waved toward where I stood. A woman in her sixties, with perfect grey curls and a sparkly beret, rushed past the police and toward the metro.

A pedestrian walks through a group of police organizing a line to push protesters off the sidewalk.

Police push back protestors and journalists, in an effort to keep the sidewalks clear for pedestrians.

This time, the police did not overlook those perched on the fast food restaurant’s stoop. Two cameramen, one holding the other, were separated and pushed down, hard; I raised my arms in the air, hoping to avoid the rough treatment. The policeman barely looked at me, but spared me the push-and-pull. In the meantime, the officer leading the charge screamed, “Do not hurry!” to his subordinates.

By the police barricade where I ended up, things were relatively calm. Journalists were debating the number of those arrested. (Twenty-one seemed to be the final consensus.) At the protest as a whole, the number of reporters far exceeded the number of activists; the former were, in turn, significantly outnumbered by the police, who had cordoned off the Triumfalnaya Square where the demonstration was supposed to be held, and who lined the streets around it. The police were asking the “dear citizens” to clear the street for traffic and move along. “Everyone is walking just fine—relax!” an activist shouted while walking by the barricades. “This event is not sanctioned by the government,” was the refrain of the omnipresent loudspeaker announcements.

Pedestrians, many dressed up and carrying gifts on their way to New Year’s Eve parties, make their way through the crowd of police and protesters.

Two men, one wearing a button for the group Strategia-31, watch from a distance as protesters struggle with police. Both men were arrested at a protest on December 5 and feared rearrest.

The protest was, indeed, one of a series never approved by the government. It was coordinated by a group that calls itself Strategia-31, in honor of the thirty-first article of the Russian constitution that mandates the right to free and peaceful assembly. Strategia-31 largely consists of nationalist Bolsheviks, whose party, headed by the infamous writer Eduard Limonov, has been outlawed in Russia since 2007. This particular demonstration, though, was dedicated to Taisia Osipova, and many thought that it might turn out to be better-attended and more politically diverse than previous Strategia-31 events, following so closely on the heels of two large and peaceful protests. While the police arrested most of those actively protesting—those screaming “Russia will be free” and “Freedom for Taisia Osipova” or waving large banners, including one that proclaimed DEATH TO THE KREMLIN OCCUPIERS—they did not seem interested in being overzealous. A group of women in their sixties holding anti-Putin banners was never bothered by the law enforcement; they gave interviews and chanted freely, to the surprise of passersby, many of whom were trying to get to concerts and New Year’s parties.

Much, if not most, of the protest turned into a game of cat-and-mouse between the police on the one side and the activists and media on the other. Streets and crosswalks would be blocked off, then reopened; the crowd would be directed to the right, then to the left. Thanks to the constant nudging of the riot police, the demonstration proceeded farther and farther away from its original location, until finally only a group of about fifty people was left. They, too, were quickly separated and dispersed. As a few dozen activists and journalists lingered, wondering whether this was really the end of the protest (barely an hour and a half after it got started) a loudspeaker announcement came on. “The event is over,” the policeman said. “The event is over,” he repeated, and then added, “It is time for us to set our dinner tables.” He then wished everyone a Happy New Year, sounding a little taunting.

“It is time for us to set our dinner tables,” an officer called into a bullhorn, as police dispersed protesters and journalists.

Police remove barriers from Triumfalnaya Square after the protest on New Year's Eve.

Next to the metro, where the remaining crowd was directed, a group of policemen were joking around. One was petting a German shepherd, who seemed completely placated by the officer’s touch. Searching his pockets for a treat, the policeman finally offered the dog some gum.

The Maine lobster industry has developed a reputation as one of the best managed fisheries in the world. At a time when fish stocks across the globe are depleting at an alarming rate and natural ecologies are reeling from overfishing, many in the industry believe that Maine is getting it right. By giving the responsibility to self-manage the industry to multi-generational fishing families, Maine has ensured that lobster fishing is performed by small, personal operations with the incentive, in a region with few other economies, to carefully manage the fishery. But few have considered how this ethic is enforced—through a fierce brand of self-interested territorialism that can occasionally turn violent—or how the fishermen’s plan to protect oversized lobsters and egg-bearing females has produced a denser lobster population that may be increasingly vulnerable to a catastrophic die-off.

This multimedia slideshow, reported with photographer Travis Dove in Spring 2011, seeks to explore these social and environmental issues through the lens of the Head Harbor lobstermen of Stonington, Maine.

Click below to watch Jesse Dukes’s audio slideshow “Consider the Lobstermen.”

To learn more, read Jesse Dukes’s essay “Consider the Lobstermen.”

In July 2011, I embedded with Third Squad, First Platoon, Blackfoot Company, 1/5 Marines, in Helmand Province’s Sangin District. While there, I shot diptych portraits of the young men of this one Marine squad—in uniform in color, out of uniform in black and white—and interviewed them, in the middle of their seven-month tour, about their thoughts on Afghanistan, the dangers they faced, and what they had learned about the realities of war. By the time, they returned to Camp Pendleton, California, three months later, First Platoon had suffered 50 percent casualties—including three deaths and a half-dozen traumatic amputations, all caused by pressure-plate IEDs. The slideshows I have produced, with the assistance of Jesse Dukes, document Third Squad, as they coped with the sorrow and stress of war.

* * *

In the first segment, “Life in Sangin,” four of Third Squad’s Marines describe daily life in one of southern Afghanistan’s bloodiest districts.

* * *

In the second segment, “Danger and Death,” four of Third Squad’s Marines reflect on living with the constant threat of death and dismemberment.

* * *

In the final segment, “What We Know,” three of Third Squad’s Marines and their Navy Hospital Corpsman talk about what they’ve learned at war—and what they’ll share with friends and family at home.

In the 1960s, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya rivers were diverted by the Soviet Union to irrigate cotton plantations. Deprived of its two main tributaries, the shores of the Aral Sea, which spanned from the North in Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan at its Southern tip, began to recede—taking with it the fishing industry, as well as much of the sustainable agriculture of both countries. The damming also left behind miles of desert where fresh water had once flourished, with sandstorms now becoming frequent during the increasingly hot, dry summers. And what remained of the waters of the Aral was turned into an hyper-salinated pool of agricultural pesticides, killing off most remaining fish and surrounding wildlife as well. Health problems and unemployment pushed droves of people into neighboring cities and towns. Such was the case with Tactubek. A once thriving fishing town of more than a hundred houses near the water’s edge, it now rests twelve kilometers away, with just twenty houses occupied primarily by fisherman and their families.

In 2001, though, after years of failed attempts by locals to construct a manmade dam, the World Bank together with the Kazakh government responded with the thirteen kilometer Dike Kokaral, an $86 million project, designed to raise the water level of the Northern Aral Sea by containing flow into the severely diminished Southern part of the Sea. Extirpated species of fish were reintroduced, and a Danish NGO donated fishing nets to local villagers. But catch levels are still very low, with yearly production projected at 10,000 metric tons for 2012. The main fishing plant, a sleek new structure, sits behind a large wrought iron gate, seemingly out of service for the moment. Just across the sandy road, camels graze around a pool of water crested with brown foam. From here the sea seems far from returned.

This multimedia presentation, produced with Paulo Siqueira, asks the question: can a new dam reclaim a lost sea and restore a way of life?

Click below to watch Nadia Shira Cohen’s “The Lovely Sea.”

The image of Canada as an untouched pristine wilderness is a myth. In the world of mining, it is a land of giants—home to massive deposits of almost every mineral and metal bought and sold on commodity markets throughout the world, a global leader in extraction and processing. Nickel, copper, silver, zinc, cobalt, rare earth metals, and the list goes on. The world’s largest gold producing company, Barrick Gold Corporation is based in Toronto, not New York or London. Canada has long been a natural resource pillar in the worlds of production and the trading of commodities. From the hammering of the jackleg and jumbo drills underground to the ringing of the stock exchange bells, corporate empires have been built on the riches extracted from the Canadian Shield. And within that rich geological formation, straddling Northeast Ontario and reaching into Northeastern Quebec, is a region the industry has dubbed the Golden Triangle—a hard rock mining Mecca stretching from Val-d’Or in Quebec, west to Timmins in Ontario, and south to Sudbury, one of the world’s largest and oldest nickel mining capitols. It has attracted just about every mining corporation in the world for over one hundred years. It beckons legions of miners, shaft sinkers, and diamond drillers known throughout the industry for their skill and unmatched determination. It is said they would tunnel to the center of the earth if asked.

The new multimedia slideshow presented here, with production by Jesse Dukes, is culled from thousands of images shot over a twelve-year period, during which I toured more than eighty mines and smelters in the Golden Triangle. As the son of immigrant laborers, I have always been fascinated by the politics of work and commerce. Underground mining of gold and uranium in this region produces high silica content in the air—and an overwhelming number of miners suffer from the severe lung damage known as silicosis—but these communities also have given rise to some of the most militant labor unions in North American history. By examining the social issues surrounding workers and market economies, we gain a clearer understanding of the symbiotic nature of the global economy we all participate in.

Click below to watch Louie Palu’s slideshow “The Golden Triangle.”

To learn more, read Louie Palu’s “The Underground Giant: Life in the Hard Rock Mines of Quebec and Ontario.”

Protesters roam the streets of Moscow at the end of the December 10 gathering in Bolotnaya Square. (Max Avdeev)

At the end of 1989, when the Soviet Bloc was in its death throes, a miraculous healer appeared on TV. His name was Anatoly Kashpirovsky, a Ukrainian-born psychotherapist and self-appointed guru. His “tele-séances” were broadcast on the main channels in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe, entrancing 300 million people hungry for deliverance. Pirated videotapes of his appearances circulated among friends and neighbors. In Bulgaria, I remember my parents watching him in the evenings in our tiny apartment, highly skeptical of his methods, but nevertheless curious to see the famed man who claimed to cure, through hypnosis, every disease imaginable, including diabetes, tuberculosis, baldness, impotence, as well as cancer and AIDS. Dressed in black, with short-cropped hair and a mesmerizing glare, his voice a smooth baritone, he was the Rasputin of the television age, the last priest of the Soviet Empire.

A screen capture of one of Kaspirovsky's tele-séances in the late 1980s.

“Some kind of power is keeping you glued to your seats and no one can leave, even the skeptics,” he would slowly say, staring directly into the camera, his forehead furrowed. A maudlin soundtrack would play in the background, as if Kashpirovsky was delivering a dramatic movie speech. “Don’t worry if you don’t feel anything… One, two, three, four… For many of you pain has already disappeared. And for many of you, when you encounter pain tomorrow, you won’t feel it anymore… Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen… I’m just counting, so you don’t think about the meaning of what’s being said.” By this point most people in the audience would have closed their eyes, swaying lightly in their seats.

It was a strange thing, the teachings of a mystic healer officially televised in the land of atheism and scientific progress. Could it be that, with the Soviet system morally and financially ruined, with the myths of Communist ideology dispelled, the leaders of the country were eager to keep people stuck to their seats at all costs, even if that meant hiring a medium. Quackery has always been popular in time of calamities and national tragedies, but in turbulent 1989 it was needed more than ever. People felt the need to grab onto something—anything—as they were quickly losing the ground under their feet. All the old doctrines—an entire worldview—was coming to an end.

“At the end of this séance, those of you who can open their eyes will open them. Others will keep them obediently closed,” Kashpirovsky said.

Kashpirovsky’s star disappeared from the Soviet sky as quickly as it was born. Even his soothing voice and unblinking gaze could not avert the impending disaster for too long. Perhaps this is the real reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union twenty years ago: the hypnotic spell was finally broken and people opened their eyes to see they had been cheated out of their money and freedom by a party of charlatans.

The reality, though, proved too cruel to bear for long. The plunder of public funds, the quick and shady privatization of state companies by party apparatchiks and former state-security agents, the bloody war in Chechnya, the collapse of the social system, the loss of moral compass: the 1990s in Russia were a time of chaos, when the wealth and natural resources of the biggest country in the world passed into the hands of a few oligarchs, while the vast majority of the population was left in a state of penniless misery. It was against such background that Vladimir Putin, the most able political hypnotist of our time, rose to the office of the presidency in 2000. Overwhelmed by nostalgia for the “good old times,” Russians were eager to start dreaming once again, and Putin was the man whose voice they heeded.

Demonstrators gather to protest election fraud on December 24 on Academician Sakharov Avenue in Moscow. (Maisie Crow)

Whether the recent protests in Moscow and around the country represent an awakening from Putin’s lengthy séance still remains to be seen. The crowd of 120,000 people (according to organizers) who showed up on Academician Sakharov Avenue on December 24 is perhaps the biggest civic event in Russia since the early 1990s. It is bracing to see Russian citizens finally put behind their apathy and skepticism of the political process to take matters in their own hands. They’ve been manipulated by con men for far too long. The fear of another economic and political vacuum, however, is still great, and many prefer to continue watching Putin perform on television rather than get up from their seats. One term, two terms, three, four… Counting has always had a calming effect on the human psyche, for one does not have to listen to what is being said.

Meanwhile, Kashpirovsky has returned to the stage.

On December 25, 1991—exactly twenty years ago today—Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as leader of the Soviet Union, effectively spelling an end to the most grandiose political and social experiment of the twentieth century. But Gorbachev was merely acknowledging what the Soviet leadership had known, though refused to believe, all along: that the country was fiscally and ideologically bankrupt, that after seventy years of building the bright future of Communism, there were only dilapidated factories and cities with bleak concrete apartment blocks, where nobody wanted to live.

The slow progress of this rise and fall was documented, as it unfolded, in the pages of VQR. We offer here a compendium of our best and most compelling first-hand reporting from the Soviet era and after. (You can read each full article by clicking on the title at the end of the excerpt.) And be sure not to miss the full text of the Fall 2011 issue, documenting the state of the post-Soviet republics twenty years after the collapse, and Aglaya Glebova’s two dispatches from the December 10 and December 24 protests, denouncing Vladimir Putin and the recent parliamentary elections that protesters believe he rigged.

After yesterday’s massive protest on Academician Sakharov Avenue in Moscow, Gorbachev​ is calling for Putin to resign, just as the former Soviet leader did twenty years ago. If Putin steps down now, Gorbachev says, he might still salvage his reputation as the man who helped restore Russia to international prominence. What will happen next is anyone’s guess. One thing is certain: we stand the best chance of anticipating the future of the post-Soviet era by understanding its complex and fascinating past.

* * *

“We had assembled one evening for a long, long chat in the office of the chairman of the Soviet, a stuffy dust-filled room, sodden with the smells of the crowds that packed it every day. A little lamp was burning on the bare table, casting a faint glow over the portraits of Lenine, Trotzky, Zinovyev, that hung on the walls with their hard eyes upon us as though they were there in their spirits to whisper the proper words to their devoted disciples. We were sitting on the hard benches, smoking my American ‘camels,’ eating fruit and talking. Youths that they were, they could not conceal their exultant feeling of self-importance at the opportunity to talk themselves out to an American journalist.”
Maurice Hindus, “Russia’s Awakened Peasants,” Autumn 1927

* * *

“We took the train from the Kursk station in Moscow for the Caucasus the third Monday in July. I had seen the station last the winter of the famine when its floor had been covered with dusty, sack-like shapes that huddled comatose on the floor, the flow of refugees from the south creeping north for bread. But 1925 had brought a harvest, an old time harvest, surpassing even 1913, so memorable for its plenty. And 1926 was just as good. The station floors attested comfort again for city and for country. They were scrubbed until they shone.”
Ernestine Evans, “South to the Caucasus,” Spring 1928

* * *

“As we sailed east almost into the shadow of the Urals, the Revolution shrank smaller, farther, unreal away. Even in my sleep in Leningrad its beat, bursting the old world, was in my ears and I had waked each morning to its thunderous music. Now, while we stopped at village after village, there were whole hours when I forgot the Revolution, when I knew only Russia. For if the migrating muzhik was a sign of Russia’s deepest move—the proletarianizing of the farm—as yet the hearts of these men and women knew no Revolution, despite the destiny of their bodies.”
Waldo Frank, “Russian River,” Summer 1932

* * *

“One of my sisters wrote to me that all members of the family were alive and well, but that my brother was in jail. He had been arrested by the Cheka in March, 1921, at the time of the revolt of the Kronstadt sailors who demanded ‘Soviets Without Communists.’ Lenin’s government held the moderate Socialists morally responsible. The uprising quelled, hordes of meek Mensheviks and pugnacious Essers were rounded up throughout the republic. My brother found himself in a cell, uncomfortable with too many inmates for the small space, but the crowd was to his liking. The fellow-inmates were moderate Socialists of an ironic turn of mind much the same as his. Almost all were his friends; many had been in the same party local before the legal organization was disbanded. They remembered him, too, as the young man who had once published for them a humorous political sheet. So now, in response to his own mood as well as their approbation, he proceeded to write funny verse about the jailers. Somehow the verse came to the jailers’ attention. The jailers were angry.”
Albert Parry, “My Brother’s End,” Winter 1936

* * *

“After a week at Peredelkino, we boarded the Red Arrow, the midnight train from Moscow to Leningrad. On the way to the train we stopped to see the Red Square at night and to watch the changing of the Guard at Lenin’s tomb, a precisely executed ritual, so swift one’s eye can’t catch the movement as the two new guards, with escort, having stood briefly in silence before the tomb, replace the others. Two of us shared a coupé, a small compartment with two narrow beds. When the train attendant brought us tall glasses of tea in silver holders, with cubes of sugar, I felt like Anna Karenina.”
Bernice Grohskopf, “Moscow Kitchens, Moscow Nights,” Winter 1992

* * *

“The hammer and sickle doesn’t fly any longer over the old capital of Russia. Retreating at full throttle from the proximate past, it is once again St. Petersburg. But rumple-faced men still ply the river in dinghies, and the Neva is still the city’s highway, bread basket, and scourge. Less than 50 miles long, it runs down like a granite chute polished with rushing waters from Lake Ladoga on the east to the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic beyond it. Fishermen take perch, bream, and pike from the river. Armed with murderous teeth, the pike is cannibalistic, like Russia’s rulers from Czar Peter to Stalin.”
Russell Fraser, “Peter at the Crossroads,” Autumn 1999

* * *

For more on Putin’s Russia, check out…

Stephen Boykewich, “Russia after Beslan,” Winter 2005
Hugh Ragsdale, “Will the Real Putin Please Stand Up?” Winter 2005
Stephen Boykewich, “Devilish Forces,” Winter 2009
Steve LeVine, “A Response to ‘Devilish Forces,’” March 17, 2009

Demonstrators gather on Academician Sakharov Avenue in Moscow to protest the December 4 parliamentary elections, which they claim were rigged. Vladimir Putin, whose party won the vote, denies the charge. (Maisie Crow)

Moving my feet felt like lifting blocks of concrete. My toes had gone numb, but my soles burned and throbbed with every step. The gray Moscow slush had found a way to seep through my boots and two pairs of socks. Next to me, a man dressed as Ded Moroz—Father Frost, the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus—seemed immune to the cold. He puffed away on a cigarette, apparently unconcerned about the flammability of his bushy nylon beard. The demonstration was coming to an end, and another Ded Moroz appeared on stage to wish the protesters a happy and free 2012. “Impostor!” the smoking Ded Moroz hollered from the crowd.

Some three hours earlier, thousands of protesters had poured out of the nearest metro. They walked past three train stations, startling some commuters and annoying others. Initially, the organizers had been worried that the entrance to the demonstration—there was only one, punctuated by dozens of metal detectors—would be hard to find; maps were posted and reposted on numerous websites. In reality, it was impossible to get lost: a flood of people moved toward the avenue without hesitation, as though guided by some internal compass.

Despite a military helicopter’s ominous whirring overhead, the mood was light-hearted and festive. As I passed through one of the metal detectors and received an obligatory pat down, the policewoman (law enforcement mandated same-gender frisking) joked with me about fashion. Large garbage bins by the entrance held a couple of flagstaffs, but the police did not show any particular interest in confiscating banners or protest signs. Organizers were freely handing out white ribbons, balloons, and flyers.

Protesters later estimated that 120,000 people gathered along Academician Sakharov Avenue. The government insists that the number was 29,000. (Maisie Crow)

A few minutes after the protest’s start at two o’clock, there was still space by the entrance. People did not seem to rush toward the stage at the other end of the avenue; powerful loudspeakers transmitted what was said on stage all along the street. “If the president doesn’t do it to his wife, he will do it to his country,” a speaker quipped. I could not put a face to the mocking voice; there was no way to see the stage.

Unlike Bolotnaya Square where a protest was held two weeks ago, Academician Sakharov Avenue, where yesterday’s protest was held, is completely flat, with no vantage points. On one side, the avenue is framed by semicircular buildings. The architecture circumscribed the crowd, isolating it from the surrounding streets and virtually ensuring that no passersby would accidentally stumble onto the demonstration. At Bolotnaya the protest had spilled out into the city at large, overflowing onto bridges and side streets, but here the demonstration was contained by its topography, which cut it off from the rest of Moscow and gave it the feel of a well-organized open-air festival. This sense was only reinforced by the carnival atmosphere: a man dressed as an animal trainer stood on a makeshift wooden platform over a poster that, in reference to a popular joke comparing the Central Election Committee to a circus, declared, “Putin, sit!”

Less than a half-hour into the protest, the avenue was completely packed. Later, opposition leaders would say that 120,000 people had attended the demonstration. (The government scoffed at this count.) Whatever the number, squeezing through the crowd, with people standing shoulder to shoulder, was no small feat. But everyone joked and laughed, kidding with each other as they tried to get through. Closer to the stage, the crowd was more politically divided. As I made my way from one side of the avenue to the other, I got stuck among nationalists, whose chants were deafeningly loud. There was a sea of black and yellow flags above my head.

A nationalist, carrying the black and yellow Imperial Russian flag, yells at protesters. (Maisie Crow)

Protesters argue with police through a barricade. (Maisie Crow)

Political factions positioned themselves according to directions; the further left I moved, the more liberal the banners around me became. A gust of wind pushed a green flag, which I assumed belonged to the environmentalists, into my face. As I struggled to free myself from it, I glimpsed a rainbow banner stretching behind me. There was almost no breathing room at the very edge of the avenue, which took me a half hour to reach. Protesters were leaning on each other. A man in his sixties, pushed up against a metal divider, seemed to resign himself to not being able to see anything but people’s backs; a bewildered stray dog tried to get a better view from behind the barricade, but settled on curling up in the snow.

Yesterday, the crowd was more diverse than that at Bolotnaya. The metal fence in front of the stage was lined almost exclusively by people in their fifties or older; grandmothers posed willingly for photographers, talking to them in between speeches from the stage. The crowd’s senior members were somewhat baffled by an impassioned hip-hop performance later in the day, but it looked like the opposition leaders, who lined the perimeter of the stage (shifting from one foot to the other in an attempt to stay warm), enjoyed it. At other times, attendees had not hesitated to hiss anyone on stage with whom they disagreed—revealing not only the differences between those who spoke (from socialites to prisoners of conscience) but also the political divisions among those in the crowd.

The turnout of citizens both young and old made the Christmas Eve rally the largest opposition gathering in modern Russia. (Maisie Crow)

A member of the press corps captures the scene on an iPad. (Maisie Crow)

Toward the end of the demonstration, two flag-waving, chanting nationalists—one wearing an Astrakhan hat—broke through a metal barricade and climbed atop a platform reserved for the media. The speakers on stage were appalled, calling upon the police, who had looked profoundly bored throughout the protest, to restore order. After the platform was pulled out from under the trespassers, the two were surrounded by a swarm of photographers and cameramen. Above this scene, journalists on a rickety fire truck ladder—rented out to the media, admission fee a few hundred rubles per person—were taking photographs of the protest from above, having stood in line for over an hour to get to a good vantage.

A man stands draped in a Russian flag at the end of an anti Putin rally. (Maisie Crow)

Aided by a walker, an elderly woman leaves Saturday's rally. (Maisie Crow)

As it got darker, a little after five o’clock, the demonstrators began to disperse. Others lined up to get a cup of free tea from a table set up by the Ministry of Emergency Situations. It was unclear whether there would be more speeches after Ded Moroz had been given a white ribbon and made a member of the opposition. Then, the day’s final resolutions were read; the seventh and final resolution appealed to the citizens of Russia not to give Putin a single vote in the presidential elections in March. “Yes or no?” the speaker asked. There was a momentary pause, as the crowd, numbed by the cold, considered the proposal. A few seconds later, a resounding “Yes!” swept through the avenue.

One of the many pleasures of serving on a magazine staff is the give-and-take of the editing process. You know when a piece is exceptional but not yet in its best form. For the past week, I have been fortunate to peek in on the tireless creation of “Half-Lives: The Chernobyl Workers Now,” a short film by Maisie Crow with production assistance from frequent VQR contributor Jesse Dukes. Their poignant video complements a superb work of narrative journalism, “The Resurrection” by Maria P. Vassileva with Crow’s photographs, in our Fall 2011 print issue. We have made both versions of this story available for free on our website. Such content is the reason I joined the VQR staff.

Under the guidance of Ted Genoways (and now deputy editor Donovan Webster, as well), VQR is committed to maintaining its print excellence while expanding its digital footprint. We don’t believe in the idea of “either/or”—but rather “both/and”—when it comes to offering rich content to audiences with distinct preferences in terms of how and how often they want to engage with our work. To take one measure of audience diversity: we have print subscribers in twenty-four countries and online readers in more than 206 countries and territories. Some, like me, love words on paper. Others prefer to digest their news on computers, tablets, and smart phones. We plan to serve both groups in a manner that best suits their reading habits. And, as our two approaches to the Chernobyl story make clear, we have not forgotten content omnivores.

But, for a moment, let’s forget readership statistics and the digital revolution and return instead to the work itself. Watch the video below—and click to expand it to full screen, in order to appreciate Crow’s lush and emotional camerawork. During the interview, Viktor Koshevoi, the retired chief electrical engineer at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, says, “I am spent material.” His statement clearly pains his wife, maybe both for its bluntness in front of strangers and because he is so much more than that to her. It is a raw, heartbreaking moment. To gain such access, journalists must first gain a subject’s trust. This is not easily done. Rarely is anything good easily done. And this piece, as is characteristic of VQR, is well done indeed.

It is an honor to have been selected as the VQR publisher. I look forward to peeking in on the creation of more magic over the years.

As editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, it’s my pleasure to announce the appointment of Jon Parrish Peede as Publisher and Donovan Webster as Deputy Editor. Peede will oversee all business and administrative operations of the journal, including print circulation, online and digital readership, business development, and external partnerships. Webster will provide editorial and production management for the print publication and online content, and contribute to thematic content and creative direction.

Jon Parrish Peede

From 2007 to 2011, Peede served as Director of Literature Grants for the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, DC. He directed more than $5 million in annual funding to the nation’s leading poets, fiction writers, translators, nonprofit presses and journals, and literary organizations. During his tenure, literary translation applications doubled, and translation fellowships were increased significantly. In addition to directing the Big Read program for two years, Peede served as Counselor to NEA Chairman Dana Gioia from 2003 to 2007. Peede was the founding director of the NEA’s Operation Homecoming program, which resulted in the largest literary archive of US troop writing from Iraq and Afghanistan, an acclaimed anthology, and two award-winning documentaries. He led literary programs in Bahrain, Mexico, Northern Ireland, and other countries. He co-edited an essay collection, Inside the Church of Flannery O’Connor: Sacrament, Sacramental, and the Sacred in Her Fiction (Mercer University Press, 2008).

Donovan Webster

VQR faithful will recognize Donovan Webster from his recent story, “Cod World,” which kicked off the Summer 2011 issue. A former senior editor for Outside, Webster writes
for National Geographic, Smithsonian, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times Magazine. He is the author of several books, including Aftermath: The Remnants of War (Pantheon Books, 1996), which won the Lionel Gelber Prize for the year’s best book promoting global understanding; The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2003); and Meeting the Family: One Man’s Journey Through His Human Ancestry (National Geographic Books, 2010). Webster co-founded the international humanitarian organization Physicians Against Landmines/Center for International Rehabilitation, which was an early member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

In addition to naming Peede and Webster to the staff, the University of Virginia’s Office of the Vice President for Research has established a distinguished VQR Advisory Board. The board will advise on matters such as organizational structure, editorial vision, thematic content, and business growth models for VQR. The board includes:

• Marie Arana, Writer-at-Large, Washington Post; former Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Post Book World; National Book Award finalist
• Larry Bridges, CEO, Red Car, Inc.; filmmaker and poet
• Jon Fine, Director, Author & Publisher Relations, Amazon; U.Va. School of Law, J.D. ’91
• David Griffin, Visuals Editor, Washington Post; former Executive Editor for e-Publishing and Director of Photography, National Geographic
• Joe Hutchinson, Art Director, Rolling Stone
• Jay Morse, former CFO, Washington Post; U.Va. A&S ’68
• Amy O’Leary, Deputy News Editor, Online, New York Times
• Siva Vaidhyanathan, Chair, Department of Media Studies, University of Virginia

I am delighted to be joined by such distinguished colleagues and advisers. I hope all of VQR’s readers and contributors will join me in extending a hearty welcome to Jon Parrish Peede, Donovan Webster, and our new advisory board.