Sasha Lensky is a pseudonym of a Russian citizen known to The Spectator. He writes anonymously due to censorship laws
The Victory Day celebrations on 9 May have been, under Vladimir Putin, through a dramatic mutation. In my childhood, in the late eighties and early nineties, it was, apart from the New Year, by far the best holiday of the year. You normally spent it outside, in excellent May weather with lilac blooming all over and
In Russia these days, the reintroduction of the death penalty has a grim inevitability about it. There has been a moratorium on capital punishment since 1996, but there are increasing calls for its revival. In December last year, the Head of the Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin wrote that the original moratorium had been a surrender
I was born, grew up and have lived in Russia all of my 45 years. This means that I belong to a state that was established by force, expanded by force and is maintained by force. In this, of course, Russia is not alone: this fact is true of several countries. But the world has
Thousands of Russians who have fled to Georgia in the wake of Putin’s crackdown are receiving a poor welcome. ‘F*** Russia’ and ‘Russians go home’ are scrawled on the walls, and there are campaigns to boycott Russian goods. A Russian girl asked in a local chat about the best way to transfer money, and received
