Why the prevailing doom and gloom view of Russia is wrong

Russia is more modernised and westernised today than it has ever been in the past 100 years.

In August 1991, an attempt by communist hardliners to stage a military coup in Moscow led to a democratic revolution which triggered the collapse of the Soviet system. The putschists blockaded the reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at his Crimean residence and moved tanks into Moscow. But thousands of Muscovites, rallied by Boris Yeltsin, the president of the Russian Soviet republic (then part of the USSR) came to the defence of the Russian parliament. Elite troops refused to storm the building and eventually the military turned to Yeltsin’s side. Thirty years later, Russia finds itself at the end of a historical cycle which began when its people rose up against a morally and economically bankrupt regime. These two Russias, the one from 1991 and the one we are observing today, feel many aeons away from each other in terms of politics, economic realities or social dynamics. Led by Yeltsin, 1991 Russia was immensely enthusiastic about embracing democracy and the West. Public protests against communist rule attracted hundreds of thousands and the size of these crowds remains unmatched by recent opposition-organised rallies.