The Silk Road Railway: Will It Ever Happen?
In June 2022, the governments of China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan announced that construction on the long-awaited Silk Road Railway will begin in early 2023. A…
Read MorePolitical Economy
Political economy is how government policy affects the economy. Some obvious examples of how the government can affect the economy are through infrastructure development, government subsidies, monetary policy, tariffs, and other measures that restrict some economic areas and assist or encourage others.
5G Networks in Russia: Development and Trajectories
Technology is constantly evolving, utilizing ever more bandwidth and making ever more connections between people and devices. Because of this, new cellular networks are needed…
Russian for Wonks: Demographics and Childbirth
Russian demographics have been a major policy issue for the Russian state since its formation in 1991. It has also been well covered in both…
Moscow’s Reopening and COVID Response: A View from the Ground
As of Tuesday, June 23rd, after nearly three months of quarantine measures, Moscow has reopened. The city was able to mobilize phenomenal resources and put…
The Dacha in Modern Russian History and Legislation
The Russian word “дача” is often translated into English as “summer residence” or “cottage,” but the best translation is simply a transliteration to English: “dacha.”…
A Comparative Look at Coronavirus Responses in Eurasia
The global health crisis has changed life around the world, but in often very different ways in various places. Even countries located close to each…
Russian Roads and Rails
Transportation infrastructure is crucial to the economy of any country. At its most elemental level, an economy is a network of goods and services moving…
Anton Siluanov: Russia’s Conservative Minister of Finance
Anton Siluanov is the First Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance for the Russian Federation. A career Ministry of Finance employee, Siluanov has…
Grocery Shopping in Russia: 1917 – Present
In the past century, Russia has experienced different economic systems and many societal changes. One industry that reflects this, perhaps more than any other, is…
Maxim Oreshkin: Young Technocrat and Minister of Economic Development
Maxim Stanislavovich Oreshkin is a Russian economist and former investment banker now serving as Minister of Economic Development for the Russian Federation. At just 36…
How the 2014 Economic Crisis Changed Russia’s Economy
Just about everyone in the United States knows something about the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. That particular crisis started in the U.S. housing and…
Elvira Nabiullina
Elvira Nabiullina and Saving Russia’s Financial System Elvira Nabiullina is currently ranked the most powerful woman in Russia and has been named one of the…
Four Reformers in Russia’s Shock Therapy
In the wake of the 1990’s, the future of nascent post-Soviet Russia was in the hands of four groups of reformers, who were entrusted with…
The Evolution and Dissolution of the Soviet Kitchen
Just as the leadership, citizens, and politics of the USSR changed drastically between 1917 and 1991, so too the Soviet kitchen underwent innumerable changes from…
Kyrgyzstan Prepares to Join the Eurasian Economic Union, Amid Concerns and Questions about the Future
In the two decades since its independence from the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan has maintained close ties with Russia, on which it remains economically dependent, while…
Russia’s Current Economic Conundrum: 2014-2015 Economic Crisis
A large part of Russian society, particularly its political elite, still cherishes the great dream of Russia as a powerful and economically strong global player….
7 Facts about the April, 1991 Economic Crisis
The following text was written by Aleksei Rudevich and originally appeared in Russian on the website “Russian 7.” To read the original Russian, click here….
Agriculture as the Basis of a New Russia
An Open Letter to the Authorities Boris Akimov is a man of all trades. Until 2010 he worked as a journalist for Afisha and Snob,…
Creating a Dam National Space: Rakhmon’s Socialist Realist Promotion of Roghun
What we have inherited is the nation state as conceptualised later on in the Soviet period. It is an ethnic nationalism centered on statehood, the…
Russia’s Forest Sector and International Trade in Forest Products: Export Taxes on Roundwood, Priority Investment Projects, and WTO Accession
Wood, well made into buildings and furniture and well cared for, can last hundreds of years, but it is now routinely manufactured into products that…
