ELECTIONS in Russia have long ceased to be a contest for power or a competition between ideas. Instead they play the role of a plebiscite for the Kremlin and United Russia—a special-purpose vehicle designed by Russia’s rulers to ensure that they stay in power.

With the exception of the toothless Communists, all the parties in the Duma are integral parts of the political system set up by the Kremlin. Elections, like much of politics in Russia, are an imitation of the real thing. But the regional polls on March 13th deserve some attention, not least because they are seen as a dress rehearsal for a parliamentary vote in December and a presidential election the following March.

The general outcome was no surprise. United Russia, which has the entire Russian bureaucracy at its disposal, grabbed 70% of all seats in the 12 legislatures that held elections. Yet in terms of votes, the party did worse than in the previous parliamentary election, in 2007. It won over half the votes in only three regions. In the economically depressed region of Kirov, it received little over one-third.

Russian rule has always been tenuous there. The territory, which stretches from the Black Sea to the Caspian, was colonised late and was never fully integrated into Russia’s empire. Its Muslim peoples enjoyed considerable autonomy, both religious and cultural, until the Bolsheviks took over—whereupon the Caucasus was so modernised and Sovietised that when the Soviet Union fell only Chechnya declared its independence.

Two wars later Chechnya is relatively stable under President Ramzan Kadyrov, a former rebel whose patron is Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister. Grozny, Chechnya’s once-ruined capital, is now a surreal place boasting several skyscrapers, the largest mosque in Europe, chandelier-lit streets and a Putin Prospect. The president enjoys something of a personality cult: official licence-plates carry his initials, and banners outside schools thank him for “taking care of our future”. Yet Chechnya is virtually a separate state, where women must wear headscarves in public and the sale of alcohol is restricted.

Violence has spread from Chechnya to other north Caucasus republics and beyond…

IT ALL seemed so clear a year ago. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, tweeted and blogged about modernisation, while Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister and the other half of the tandem, pulled the strings, drove anything that moved and posed for cameras as he prepared to stroll back into the Kremlin in 2012, this time for two six-year terms.

But in recent weeks the picture has become hazier. Mr Putin’s return to the Kremlin is looking less certain, and Russia’s political system seems even less stable. The differences between the two men are mainly stylistic, but the signs of a political struggle are real.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Does the sun revolve around the Earth? One in every three Russians thinks so, a spokeswoman for state pollster VsTIOM said on Friday.

In a survey released this week, 32 percent of Russians believed the Earth was the center of the Solar system; 55 percent that all radioactivity is man-made; and 29 percent that the first humans lived when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.

“It’s really quite amazing,” spokeswoman Olga Kamenchuk said of the survey that polled 1,600 people across Russia’s regions in January, with a 3.4-percent margin of error.

However, people tend to forget what they have been taught at school if it is not part of daily use, she added: “I wonder whether our colleagues in other countries would find any different.”

Now do you believe in the “transition to democracy”?

In light of Khorodovsky’s show trial, the Economist offers a disheartening, though perhaps realistic view of contemporary Russian politics. In doing, the author offers a comparison of Medvedev and Putin and concludes that, “[w]ith Mr Putin in power, Russia may suffer deep stagnation, but a collapse of the system would be all the more dramatic. With Mr Medvedev stagnation may be shorter, but his grip on power would be weaker. This may matter little in the long run, but it makes a big difference for Russians living now—not least for Mr Khodorkovsky himself.”

Read “Frost at the Core”

Here is a short but compelling piece about how United Russia propped up a political party, “A Just Russia”, and is now taking that party down in Siberia. It is also a courageous, if not misguided, Siberian woman who sees hope in a competitive political party system.

Leaked embassy cables show US diplomats are concerned about the growing power of Russian organized crime and believe it has contacts with the highest levels of government in Moscow.

DMITRY MEDVEDEV has been long on talk and short on action ever since he became Russia’s president in 2008. That is why some were surprised on September 28th when he dramatically fired Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow since 1992, citing a “loss of confidence”. The 74-year-old Mr Luzhkov was one of Russia’s most powerful politicians and a senior figure in the ruling United Russia party. He is a household name all over the country; his wife, Yelena Baturina, a construction magnate, is Russia’s richest woman.

Read more on this power struggle among the Russian elite

A year and a half after Barack Obama hit the “reset” button with Russia, the reconciliation is still fragile, incomplete, and politically divisive. Sure, Russia is no easy ally for the United States. Authoritarian yet insecure, economically mighty yet technologically backward, the country has proven a challenge for U.S. presidents since the end of the Cold War. Recent news hasn’t helped: The arrest in July of a former deputy prime minister and leader of the Solidarity opposition movement, Boris Nemtsov, provoked some of the harshest criticism of Russia yet from the Obama administration. Then last Wednesday, Russia announced that it had moved anti-aircraft missiles into Abkhazia, the region that broke off from Georgia during the August 2008 war. The announcement was hardly welcome news for the United States, which has tried to defuse tensions there for the last 24 months. 
Yet however challenging this partnership may be, Washington can’t afford not to work with Moscow. Ronald Reagan popularized the phrase, “Trust, but verify” — a good guiding principle for Cold War arms negotiators, and still apt for today. Engagement is the only way forward. Here are 10 reasons why

In contrast, the transfer of power in Dagestan, a Muslim republic in the north Caucasus, has been accompanied by murder, explosions and civil strife. The region has seen a surge in home-grown Islamic fundamentalism, increasing lawlessness among the police and security services and feuding between local clans.
Mr Medvedev is expected to appoint a new president for Dagestan in February, but this is unlikely to turn the republic into a peace-loving and lawful place. One explanation for the differences between Tatarstan and Dagestan lies in their contrasting histories.

Read more on Tatarstan vs North Caucasus

Slate correspondent Masha Green offers her reflections from traveling through the parts of Russia that we conveniently overlook.

Russia PM says he and Dmitry Medvedev would take joint decision over roles, raising prospect of Putin era continuing…

From the Guardian…

From Vladivostok to St Petersburg, Russians are taking to the streets in anger over job losses, unpaid wages and controls on imported cars…

Russia‘s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, is facing the most sustained and serious grassroots protests against his leadership for almost a decade, with demonstrations that began in the far east now spreading rapidly across provincial Russia.

More from The Guardian

A bill to extend the presidential term from four to six years has been backed by Russia’s upper house of parliament after regional assemblies endorsed it.

All the Federation Council senators present backed the assemblies’ decision to lengthen the term, the last step in the legislative approval process.

Last month, both the lower house and upper house approved the bill.

The bill’s rapid progression is being seen as a sign Vladimir Putin may return to the presidency soon.

The changes needed the backing of at least two-thirds of the country’s regional legislatures but were approved unanimously, according to Russian news agencies.

Read on from the BBC

MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev replaced the governor of a northwest region on Saturday, apparently seeking to ensure that the ruling party remained in control there after it suffered a surprising defeat in local elections.

Mr. Medvedev’s move in the region, Murmansk, suggested that the Kremlin wanted to clamp down quickly on hints of disloyalty among its cadre of governors as it faces possible discontent at the regional level over the financial crisis.

The dismissed governor, Yuri A. Yevdokimov, is a member of the ruling party, United Russia, but he had been feuding with party leaders lately. And in the mayoral election this month in the city of Murmansk, Mr. Yevdokimov supported an independent candidate, who triumphed easily over United Russia’s nominee.

The loss in the city, which is the region’s capital and has about 320,000 people, was a rebuke to United Russia. It led to a round of recriminations that reached all the way from the Murmansk region, which borders Finland and Norway, to party headquarters in Moscow.

Governors in Russia used to be elected, but are now appointed by the president, under a system that was put in place by Russia’s paramount leader, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, when he was president in 2004. The change was widely seen as an effort by Mr. Putin to centralize power in the Kremlin.

But many mayors continue to be elected, and these elections have become a test of the ruling party’s strength.

At least three well-known candidates, for example, are expected to vie next month to become mayor of the southern city of Sochi, which is to host the Winter Olympics in 2014.

The Kremlin announced Mr. Yevdokimov’s replacement on its Web site on Saturday and, as is typically the case, the statement said he had voluntarily resigned. It seemed clear, though, that if he had not done so, he would have been dismissed.

The statement also said Mr. Medvedev had nominated Dmitri Dmitrienko, a senior federal fisheries official, to serve as governor.

This thoroughly revised and updated edition of the classic text provides the most current and authoritative assessment of Russia available. Distinguished scholars offer a full-scale assessment of Putin’s leadership, exploring the daunting domestic and international implications of Putin”s reign.

Read selected essays (on topics of domestic policy, the economy and foreign policy) from this books for free at Google Books. I particularly  impressed by Petrov and Slider’s essay, “Putin and the Regions”.