Read more at Moscow travel site: en.travel2moscow.com

Even if you shout when you visit Bunker 42 (and you are not supposed to), no one will hear you buried 213 feet underground. It is located in the heart of the capital, which for nearly 30 years was obsessed with the possibility of a nuclear attack. The bunker was manned by 600 officers at all times.

In the 1960s, Bunker-42 was fully equipped with everything necessary to survive a nuclear attack, but today it is a museum. If you survive 18 flights of stairs, you can walk through secret tunnels, see Red Army communications equipment, and the situation room for the country's top leadership. Of course it would not be Moscow if it did not have a club, and it does.

Stereotypes owe much to the Cold War and the Iron Curtain, when only a few people could see for themselves what things were really like "over there." Twenty years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and to quote singer Michael Stipe, it was "the end of the world as we know it."

After talking to many expats, Russia Now found that Moscow has a visceral impact. Rarely did we meet someone who is blasé about the place. It punches them in the gut and woos the imagination. For some expats, their time in Moscow is a very creative time. For all, it is memorable. Living or visiting Moscow is an opportunity to experience and master -- to varying degrees -- a steep learning curve. To know what foreigners think about Moscow, Russia Now interviewed a couple dozen expats and tourists aged between 22 and 50.

Is Moscow More Expensive Than Other Cities?

Many foreigners agree that Moscow is by no means an inexpensive city. Though some agree with reservations:

"Housing is expensive," said Lucie Pokorna of the Czech Republic, who has frequently been to Russia as a tourist. "Transport and culture are rather cheap in comparison to western Europe."

"I think Moscow can be expensive, but there's also a lot of ways to save money as well, especially on food," Brandon Para, 22, said. "Eating street food and eating in places that serve cafeteria-style food like Mu-Mu, helps to save on food costs. The number one piece of advice I would give visitors from America is to eat at places like this, because you can still get a lot of food for the price. Also, using the metro is a lot cheaper than taking taxis, so you can also save on transportation costs that way."

Considering that an average business lunch in a Moscow restaurant costs 300 rubles ($10) and a metro ride costs 28 rubles (about 90 cents), hotels are by far the most expensive part of a trip to Moscow. A recent survey by the hotel.info portal revealed that the average cost of a hotel room in the Russian capital this autumn was 140 euros (more than $200) a day, which makes Moscow the second most expensive capital in terms of hotel accommodations, after Oslo. 

Part of the reason for the high prices is the shortage of hotels in Moscow. There are 215, according to official statistics. Things are looking up though: In 2011, three new hotels were opened in Moscow, four more will open before the year is out and 14 hotels in the center are due to open in 2012. According to City Hall, by 2020 the capital will have 535 hotels capable of accommodating 150,000 tourists. 

The Keys to an Affordable Visit 

Try to save by choosing the right season for your visit: January is considered to be the off season, which includes the three Christmas weeks (in Russia, Christmas is in January and there is a holiday for most of the month). Few conferences are held during that period, and only 10 to 15 percent of hotel capacity is used, according to Moscow's Tourism Committee. 

Another way to save is to find a hostel. They are springing up like mushrooms and are already making inroads in the market. There are officially 55 hostels in Moscow, almost all of them in the center. Twenty were opened in 2011. The average price per night is 10-20 euros. 

Beware of vendors selling fur hats in the Center. To get the best bargain, you have to know the right places. 

"Souvenir shops are to be avoided at all costs, especially in central Moscow, as their prices could bankrupt small countries," Laura Gardner, 26, from Manchester, England, said. "Markets are the best place to look for that cheap, authentic piece of Russian culture that you just can't live without." 

One of the most famous souvenir markets is located at the picturesque Izmailovsky Kremlin. The average prices there are lower than in the shops and, most important, you can bargain. Expats and tourists agree it is a great place to practice your fledgling Russian. Learn to ask "How much?" Then learn to walk away when you hear the answer. The price goes down when they see your back. It works every time.

Dangers at Every Step?

"I am sure it is like any big city," said 31-year-old Tessy McKee, an English teacher from Louisiana who lives in Moscow. "However, I do not feel unsafe at all. I was very cautious in the beginning. I had been warned about pickpockets, etc. So far, I have not been the victim of a crime. I do not know anyone personally who has been a victim."

According to The Village portal, 15 percent of expats interviewed are afraid of nationalists -- and not without reason. 

"While living in Moscow, and since leaving, I have routinely heard disparaging and insulting comments made about people from Africa, the Caucasus and China in particular," said Cole Margen of California. "If you are a minority going to Moscow, don't let the comment I wrote above discourage you. Most Russians I met were very loyal, friendly and generous. However, there are a few bad apples mixed in as well, and you probably will come across them at some point during your stay."

The advice offered by travel agencies and seasoned travellers to first-time visitors to Moscow is pretty much the same as for any other city: Do not stray onto unknown streets after dark and keep away from groups of strangers. 

A Chaotic Sprawl

"As for finding your way around, the Metro is really pretty clear and simple," Elliott Estebo, 25, from Minneapolis, said. "The masses of people can be a bit intimidating if you get lost, but if you're underground you can find your way. Above ground, the streets can be confusing, and they're not always clearly marked." 

Street signage is increasing, and you can always ask directions from a passerby - the younger the person, the more chance he or she speaks English. And one stereotype is true: There are beautiful women walking around in stylish clothes, just as you might imagine. You can even ask them directions. But an elder Babushka (grandmother) is more likely to take you by the hand and show you your train. 

Are Muscovites unfriendly? People do not say "have a nice day" upon departing (unless they just finished their customer training with a Western company). On the other hand, if they say something nice to you, it is genuine. And if they invite you to their home, they don't cancel, and you are well fed. 

"The stereotype is that Moscow is big, crowded, a city of business and that people are always in a hurry," Andrew Close, 48, of Chester, UK, said. "These are all true! However, it is possible to find quiet back-streets to wander through, and some of Moscow's parks are wonderful. I particularly enjoyed Tsaritsyno Park." 

If you try a few words in Russian, you will hear excessive praise and wild applause. No one will tell you your Russian is terrible; instead, you will be encouraged to speak more. 

Free Call Center Aids Travelers 

There is now a 24-hour call center for tourists in Moscow. Operators speak both Russian and English and are ready to answer questions about the capital's places of interest and methods of transport. They can also help in case of an emergency by calling the police or a tourist's embassy. The call center can be reached by dialing 8-800-220-00-01 or 8-800-220-00-02. 

" Housing is expensive. Transport and culture are rather cheap in comparison to western Europe." 

 

Just 20 years ago, most Russians owned their apartments, even if it was the size of a postage stamp, and had no mortgage, a legacy of communism. Their money was kept under the mattress. 

Today, there is a middle class with new potential, and bigger burdens. They have more opportunities for ownership and they are beginning to experience the pressures that large debts bring - a pressure that has reached a boiling point in the United States.

Vladimir Frolov, 28, and his wife Nastya, 22, are both natives of villages located near Tomsk, and they have a young son, Sergei. 

Vladimir's starting salary at the Tomsk Electromechanical Plant was roughly $400 a month, which was not much, even for Tomsk. But in addition to the salary, the company offered the promising young engineer a company loan with no interest for 25 years, which he used to purchase a one-bedroom apartment in a building on the river. But there is a catch-22: If Vladimir is fired or quits, his interest would be due immediately, which is typically in the double digits in Russia. 

Vladimir is literally bound to the company for 25 years, and his family's future seems predetermined. 

Vladimir, however, said he finds the conditions fair: "It makes sense from the perspective of my employer. Otherwise, lots of people would try to get their hands on inexpensive loans through the company. Maybe we are dependent. But that's a small price to pay for our own apartment." 

After paying the mortgage each month, the Frolovs have roughly $670 to spend. Vladimir is the sole earner, because Nastya has started classes for a second degree and also takes care of Sergei. Food costs are somewhere around $200 a month.

"Everything else has to be split between child, clothes, culture and everything else," Vladimir said. 

He does not sound overly confident when it comes to his future. The Tomsk Electromechanical Plant makes, among other things, giant turbines that siphon smoke from subways. Six of these turbines are currently in use in the Moscow Metro. 

"Theoretically, the contracts in the plant could be reduced or disappear at any time. If the higher-ups start making some kind of rubbish, then there are immediate consequences for our working conditions and our wages," Vladimir said.

To have any sense of security, Vladimir thinks he needs at least $1,300 a month, but to receive higher wages, productivity must increase, which in turn can only happen if the equipment in Vladimir's plant is modernized. "If there was a switch to industry produced by locals, that would be half the battle."

Vladimir wants to help the plant produce innovative, Russian products. If the plant is successful, it will help Vladimir achieve his other dreams - a house and two more children. 

Nastya hopes for a second child, but she is more pragmatic about the realities. The government may be pushing its ongoing campaign to raise the birthrate, but there is no infrastructure to support more children. Many preschool buildings from the Soviet era have been leased as office space, and strict regulations for registering child-care facilities prevent the creation of private kindergartens. 

When Sergei is finally in preschool, Nastya would like to get a job in social services. She would like to earn $650 a month, but would settle for $490. 

Nastya dreams of a vacation in Sevastopol, where she has relatives. She said she would like to travel more outside of Russia to a place like Egypt.

What would happen if Vladimir had an accident at the plant? Would the loan be payable? "We do not have to worry about that," he said. "If something happened, the insurance company would pay my loan. To be perfectly honest, I am incredibly lucky. Millions of Russians are probably jealous of me." 

An avid shooter, Alexei Sorokin skipped this year's ultimate competition for rifle fans in North Lawrence, Ohio.

His two custom-made firearms, crafted by an American gunsmith and stored by his American coach, didn't get a chance to fire at the Super Shoot in May.

Keeping him in Russia, however, was the same powerful passion -- Sorokin was putting the finishing touches on the country's only private factory that designs and produces its own brand of hunting, sporting and sniper rifles.

Sales of Orsis firearms began in August.

"We haven't had breakthroughs like this since the Kalashnikov assault rifle," said Igor Korotchenko, director of the Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade, enthusiastic about the new weapon's prospects.

Busy deluging the world with Kalashnikovs, the country left its own market bare to an onslaught of Western brands that sought to please more sophisticated customers looking for hunting, sporting or counter-terrorist firearms.

The idea, Sorokin said, was to compete with imports from Austria, Britain, Finland and Germany by offering "higher quality at a reasonable price." He quit his job as an executive at an engineering company and began looking for investors.

"By virtue of my contacts in the firearms community, I came to know a person who cared about this subject," Sorokin said in an interview. "He brought together a group of investors."

Sorokin called the person during the interview, to ask permission to disclose his identity -- and the answer was no. One of the investors -- Mikhail Abyzov, chairman of the Ru-Com holding company -- came to light when the company showed off the rifles at the Sochi Investment Forum in September.

On a tour of the exhibition, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin fiddled with one of the rifles for a while as he listened to Abyzov's commentary. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has come to see the factory in Moscow. More exciting to the general public was the presence of former spy Anna Chapman as she handled and caressed the rifles at the forum. 

With the capacity to produce 6,000 rifles a year, the enterprise is not a titan of the industry where -- according to Aaron Karp, a consultant of the Swiss-based Small Arms Survey -- annual output of 50,000 is common. But it's a refreshing attempt by entrepreneurs to fill a niche that has always been firmly and indisputably in state hands.

The investors coughed up $30 million to arrange for a building in eastern Moscow, buy Western equipment, design the rifles and train the staff, Sorokin said. He hired recent graduates from the Special Engineering Department at Moscow's Nikolai Bauman State Technical University to work as designers.

Working over the drawing table, the designers kept in mind Sorokin's admiration of the bolt system created by U.S.-based Remington Arms Company and his annoyance with the large amount of small parts -- "as many as inside an alarm clock" -- in firearms from Austria's Steyr Mannlicher, he said.

"These rifles are created from my notion of what a firearm must be," Sorokin said. "Reliability is in simplicity.

"To make a high-precision design that is simple is a good goal for a gunsmith, and it's exciting in and of itself."

The established Russian manufacturers have been too hesitant to move beyond Soviet technology, said Vadim Kozyulin, director of the conventional weapons program at PIR Center, a think tank.

Sorokin declines to name specific companies he sees as his competitors in the hunting and sports shooting markets, saying only that they operate in the same and more expensive price segment. That would mean such manufacturers as Steyr Mannlicher, Finland's Sako, U.S.-based Remington and Germany's Blaser Jagdwaffen.

One of the least expensive of Germany's Blaser rifles, the R93, sells for 107,800 rubles ($3,560) at Kolchuga, an authorized Moscow dealer of many Western brands.

Promtekhnologii, as Sorokin's company is called, charges 84,000 ($2,700) rubles for its least expensive model, simply named Orsis Hunter.

Several Russian state-owned companies also make rifles for civilian use -- such as Saiga, a lookalike of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, from the Kalashnikov manufacturer Izhmash -- but they target the lower-end market. Irina Suslova, director of the Artemida gun store in Moscow, said here, too, Russia was quickly losing out to rifles made in Turkey.

"This comes at a very good time," she said about the new Russian rifle maker. "If we don't start doing something now, we will lose the whole market to foreign manufacturers."

The civilian market, at best, consumes 60,000 rifles annually, with sales worth from $80 million to $100 million, Sorokin said. 

In the defense and security realm, the Orsis T-5000 model can replace weapons that are now in use by special forces, Sorokin said. The company is in contact with the Defense Ministry about potential contracts, he said.

Military and security snipers employ the Russian-made Dragunov rifle as well as guns made by Sako, Steyr Mannlicher or Britain's Accuracy International, Korotchenko said.

A Defense Ministry spokesman said he couldn't comment when reached by phone. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the armed forces General Staff, said in September that the army would train more snipers and look to substitute the Dragunov rifle with a more up-to-date precision firearm. 

At 160,000 rubles ($5,135)a piece, the Orsis option is quite expensive, but still has a chance, Kozyulin said. Military expert Anatoly Tsyganok said test-firing showed Orsis to be in the same league as its foreign-made rivals. 

The company posted a conspicuous note on its web site in February that the current backlog could cause customers to wait as long as eight months to one year for their orders.

Small enterprises like Promtekhnologii appear around the world at times, although the global gun market mostly remains the domain of old favorites, said Karp of the Small Arms Survey.

Wearing a safety jacket during the interview, Sorokin looked as if he had been momentarily plucked from the middle of the bustle of the day's business at the factory near the Ploshchad Ilicha metro station. "The old industry had lost its way," he said. "This created a window of opportunity." 

Alexei Sorokin 

CEO of Promtekhnologii company, producer of Orsis rifles 

"These rifles are created from my notion of what a firearm must be. Our design is laconic. Reliability is in simplicity. To make a high-precision design that is simple is a good goal for a gunsmith, and it's exciting in and of itself." 

His story 

NATIONALITY: Russian

AGE: 41 

Alexei Sorokin first took up professional shooting in 1983. He was known for sweeping the prize categories at various shooting competitions during his stint in the armed forces, and ultimately, he qualified for the highest Soviet ranking of athletes, "master of sport," six years later. He gave up sport shooting in 1992, but remained influential enough to still hold the title of president of the Russian National Federation of Precision Shooting.

Sorokin quit his job as an executive at an engineering company and began looking for investors. He succeeded in finding funders and soon founded the first private gun manufacturer in 2009, and this summer was putting the finishing touches on the country's only private factory that designs and produces its own brand of hunting, sporting and sniper rifles.

The idea, Sorokin said, was to compete with imports from Austria, Britain, Finland and Germany by offering "higher quality at a reasonable price." 

In December 2010, the Russian photographer Yuri Kozyrev arrived in Yemen and found the country on the brink of collapse. He landed in Sana'a, the capital, without a "fixer," the locals that reporters use as assistants and interpreters. Wandering the streets, unable to understand the language, Kozyrev said he worked "on the constant verge of failure."

He was a strange and suspicious-looking tourist. Yet his images - groups of gloomy men chewing khat at dusk, veiled women swimming and a sad man carrying a giant fish on his shoulders - foreshadow the arrival of civil war that soon followed in Yemen.

The following February, Kozyrev's editors at TIME Magazine, where he is a contract photographer, told the photojournalist to move quickly to Cairo to document demonstrations on Tahrir Square. By March, he had been in Libya for nearly two months following the rebels who eventually toppled Moammar Gadhafi. Kozyrev has become one of the most faithful chroniclers of the turmoil in the Middle East. His reportage, later published in a book, "The Arab Spring - On Revolution Road," captured the ferment of the last year in Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt and Libya.

This October, Kozyrev swept the awards at this year's prestigious Bayeux Calvados Awards, including the War Photographer and Public Choice awards at a ceremony in Bayeux, France. This September, the Russian photographer was presented with the prestigious Visa d'or News award at the annual Visa pour l'image photography festival in Perpignan, France. There are several exhibits of Kozyrev's work this season in Europe, including upcoming shows in Croatia, France and Britain. Another new catalog, documenting the Iraq war, will be published next year. 

"Awards and gallery shows mean nothing," Kozyrev said in a recent interview in Moscow. "The profession is about your opportunity to allow people to have a voice. You take a photo, you name the person, you document the historic events of our time. Everybody can be a photographer these days, but 'I am on Tahrir Square' is a different story from the story about the people of Egypt on Tahrir Square, which requires much more responsibility."

Roaming the world non-stop, Kozyrev is well-known as a an intuitive witness to human stories and events. Just days before the Arab Spring, he was shooting a story about people escaping big cities of Russia to live in Siberian settlements. His ever-lit cigarette, big lively eyes, tactful and sensitive stories - told over cups of tea - traveled from home to home, leaving memories with the friends he makes on his trips. It is this sensitivity, as well as pure skill, that come through in his work. It is work that also puts him in almost constant danger. 

Kozyrev's colleague at the NOOR photo agency, Stanley Greene, said, "Yuri has raised the bar on the reporting of conflicts; he made all of us rethink how we cover stories. He is a poetic war photographer. His images are full of lyrics and poetry that I had not seen before. ... Yuri could become one of the greatest war photographers."

Portrait of the Photographer as a Young Man 

Kozyrev's photographs have depth and a surprising sense of composition, especially considering the conditions he works under. His first teacher, Valiko Arutyunov, was a member of an underground community of photographers in the Soviet Union described in Vasily Aksyonov's novel, "Say Cheese," about Soviet dissidents.

Arutyunov mentored Kozyrev. Then, Kozyrev was chronicling people in small apartments and portraying the creative hum of dissident life in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. "That was a happy time, when my wife, Regina, a talented designer, and I enjoyed our life in the bubble of wonderful underground artists," Kozyrev recalled.

But after the Soviet Union collapsed, Kozyrev moved away from his circle and started photographing a succession of post-Soviet conflicts in Armenia, Moldova, Tajikistan and Georgia. Since then, he has not stopped moving from conflict to conflict. At that time, he said, he was lucky to meet another mentor, Yevgeny Khaldey, a former Red Army photographer who was famous for his iconic image of a Russian soldier raising a Soviet flag above the Reichstag in Berlin, signifying the defeat of Nazi Germany.

"Khaldey gave me the most important knowledge about our profession," Kozyrev said. "No university can teach you the importance of returning to the same places again and again and documenting the history -- to me, that is why we are doing this."

Kozyrev has been a photojournalist now for more than 20 years. He has covered every major conflict in the former Soviet Union, including two Chechen wars. He documented the fall of the Taliban 10 years ago, and then lived in Baghdad for nearly eight years before moving back to Moscow in 2009.

Journalists who covered the second Chechen war remember Yusup Magomadov, a 13-year-old boy heavily wounded in a bombardment of his home village of Novy-Sharoi. Both of Yusup's legs had to be amputated. Yuri Kozyrev, along with a Dutch writer, Wierd Duk, brought the boy and his mother to Moscow for treatment. Photographs published in a Dutch magazine helped raise money for prostheses. "It was the first and only time I saw tears in Yuri's eyes, when he was photographing Chechens saying goodbye to Yusup," Duk said. "They were afraid that Russians would kill the boy."

A freelance Danish photographer, Mari Bastashevski, described Kozyrev's work ethic during their reporting together in the Libyan desert last spring: "He's under fire until 9 p.m. and then editing until midnight. And it is like that every day."

The prize-winning photographer is also now mentoring younger photographers. Among his students are Maria Morina, Olga Kravets and Oksana Yushko, who are working together on a documentary project called "Nine Cities," which returns to a forgotten Chechnya. Kravets said: "Apart from being a great photographer, he has a great eye for the work of others."

Kozyrev is known as a photojournalist willing to cover the front lines. His photos have appeared in a number of publications, including Newsweek Magazine, Russia Beyond the Headlines. Covering the anti-government protests in Arab countries for TIME Magazine was among his most dangerous assignments. In Libya, he was shot at and police beat him. He was detained in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

He has lost colleagues, including his friends Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington, two photographers killed in April while on assignment in Misrata, Libya. One might wonder why the 48-year-old would want to go on risking his life. The chief photo editor of the Moscow-based Russian Reporter magazine, Andrei Polikanov, is a longtime friend. He said that it is Kozyrev's "unconditional, fantastic self-sacrifice and faithfulness to journalism" that keeps him motivated to cover conflicts, and keeps him walking on the Revolution Road. 

NATIONALITY: Russian

AGE: 48

STUDIED: journalism 

Yury Kozyrev was born in 1963 in Moscow. Has graduated from the school of journalism at Moscow State University.

In 1986, he began his career as a news photographer, eventually specializing in war coverage and conflicts in the former Soviet Union. In a recent interview on Russian television, Kozyrev said, "At a certain moment in my life I switched over to news. And that was a breakthrough for me. It's a unique feeling when you are there when history is happening."

He covered both Chechen wars, then Afghanistan and Iraq. Kozyrev lived in Baghdad between 2003 and 2009, were he worked as a contract photographer for TIME Magazine. He has traveled all over Iraq, photographing the many prisms of the conflict. Since the beginning of 2011, he has been following the Arab Spring, traveling in Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen.

Yuri Kozyrev has received numerous honors, including several World Press Photo Awards. 

Tarlan Bakhishev, 14, has waited six hours with his friends to get a ticket to see his local soccer team, Anzhi Makhachkala. The teenagers are bubbling with excitement as they watch a training session. Somewhere out on the pitch is a Cameroonian who just put Makhachkala, the Dagestani capital, on the European football map. 

In one corner of the stadium, a few dozen fans perform their evening salah, the Muslim prayer, and thousands more anticipate the arrival of their latest star -- striker Samuel Eto'o, formerly of Inter Milan. 

Eto'o has signed with a club that one year ago couldn't attract top Russian talent, let alone the world's best players. But this two-time European Cup champion joined the Russian football club this fall on a three-year contract for a reported $30 million a year in wages.

It's nothing unusual for a lowly club to go from nowhere to attracting the best in European soccer in an instant. Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich transformed English club Chelsea after buying them in 2003. Manchester City is basking in the cash of the Abhu Dhabi United Group -- and their recent thrashing of cross-town rival Manchester United. 

Anzhi, it turns out, is more than a club with a stack of cash. 

The club is in Makhachkala, which is in Russia's Northern Caucasus. The region is the site of an intense and long-running conflict between authorities and Islamic extremists, which has seen almost daily attacks. On the day Eto'o walked out onto the home ground for the first time, five people died in a series of attacks. 

That was hardly an extraordinary day for the republic. Hundreds of policeman are killed each year in the republic of 2.6 million people. 

That is why the players and their families are not living in the city, instead flying down for each game from Moscow. Yet Eto'o has dismissed any security concerns. 

"Plenty of people will be looking out for my security, and if I took this decision it's because I don't consider that my life or that of my family are in any danger," he wrote on his Web site. "I'll travel there on the day of the match or the eve of the match and then I'll go back to Moscow." 

After he was presented to fans, Eto'o -- a smooth media operator who is adept at saying very little -- avoided questions about the dangers of Dagestan. 

However, a few days before the opening press conference in September, the entire hockey club Lokomotiv Yaroslavl was killed when a Yak-42 crashed. Eto'o led a moment of silence for those who had died.

Journalists who were flown down in a Yak-42 asked Eto'o at the time if he was worried about traveling to games in Russia. 

"When we sit in a plane, I always give my life up to God. It doesn't matter whether it is a Cameroonian, Spanish or Italian airline," he said.

Club general director German Chistyakov insisted the city was safe, but did admit that he had a different image of the republic before he first arrived. "I thought that there is practically a war going on here, that tracer bullets fly and you have to crawl when you move about," he told Russian news agency Ria Novosti.

The money for Eto'o and the other players all comes from one man, Suleiman Kerimov, a Dagestani, and one of the more reclusive oligarchs even though he has been a Duma minister and currently sits in the Russian upper house. "Kerimov doesn't give interviews, he speaks to Dagestani people through the football club," said Enver Kisriyev, head of the Caucasus section at an academic think tank in Moscow.

Forbes magazine estimated that Kerimov is worth nearly $8 billion made through clever investments in the 1990s. He now owns one of the country's biggest gold producers, but has managed to remain out of the limelight except for when he crashed his Ferrari Enzo into a tree in Nice in 2006. 

He was seriously injured and needed months of recovery. His passenger, Russian TV host Tina Kandelaki, was luckier but still suffered burns. 

Judging by the reception for Eto'o, the club can do no wrong in Dagestan. Close to 8,000 packed into the stadium just to see a training session, and more than a dozen children ran onto the playing field to try to reach and touch Eto'o. At one point, a local Cameroonian student, who is studying medicine in Makhachkala, also ran out and dove to kiss Eto'o's feet. 

Dagestan is one of the poorest republics in Russia with at least 40 percent unemployment. Club officials and Kisriyev said that Kerimov's aim is to give young people another way out, away from the route to extremism. As part of the project, the club will set up seven different football centers for youths in Dagestan, bring in quality football trainers and build a new stadium.

"People are laughing, being ironic [about the project], but you have to understand the social aspect," Kisriyev said. "I'm not saying it is a panacea and that it will get rid of Dagestan's many problems, but it will create some kind of positive movement."

Kerimov tried to take control of the club for at least three years, Kisriyev said, but it was only possible when a new and proactive Dagestan president, Magomedsalam Magomedov, came in. 

Relations between the club and the president remain close -- support of a high ranking official helps soothe the problems in an often dysfunctional republic. 

"You just need to ring him," said Chistyakov about Magomedov. "Even if it is not such a serious question like the selling of water at the stadium. He always listens and tried to help when [activists] and the police do not understand each other."

Few took the club seriously at first, even after they bought Roberto Carlos, the former Brazilan international who won the World Cup in 2002, in August. He's 38 and the assumption was that he wanted one last pay day. 

But the arrival of Eto'o has changed all that.

He is in the prime of his career, and his arrival could attract other great players. The club sacked its Russian manager and has been linked to the world's top coaches, such as Jose Mourinho of Real Madrid, and top players.

"There has never been anything like this in Russian football," said Bogdanov, the football editor at daily newspaper Sport Express. "Anything is possible if the investors are patient and invest in infrastructure."

The club, which is in 8th place, entered its winter break on Nov. 6, before the second part of the season, which will see them fighting to win a place in European competition. 

"It would be great to sign Christiano Ronaldo," Carlos told Spanish television, referring to the Real Madrid striker and one of the best-paid players in the world. Carlos said that he had been trying to persuade other stars to join him at Anzhi. "Our aim is to get Anzhi on the same level as Real [Madrid] and Barcelona." 

-$30 million a year is the estimated salary of Samuel Eto'o in the Anzhi club. The three-year contract was signed this fall. Dagestan's youth clamor for Eto'o. 

Anzhi's big acquisitions: expensive but promising 

Balázs Dzsudzsák 

NATIONALITY: Hungarian

AGE: 24

Position: Midfielder

One of Hungary's most talented players, Dzsudzsak had a great career at PSV Eindhoven, so his decision to sign for Anzhi came as a surprise even to the executives of the Dutch club. Dzsudzsak could have moved to any top league. According to various sources, PSV got between $12 million to $19 million for the player's transfer. Dzsudzsak is currently undergoing treatment - so far he has played few matches in Russia because of an injury. 

Mbark Boussoufa

NATIONALITY: Dutch

AGE: 27

Position: Midfielder 

Boussoufa played for Ajax and Chelsea and was several times named the best Belgian player. He almost signed for Terek Grozny, but the Chechen club failed to meet his salary demands. According to unofficial sources, Anzhi paid Anderlecht about $13 million for the Moroccan national team player and pays Boussoufa $3.3 mlllion a year. Boussoufa has become one of Anzhi's core players and has already scored four goals in the Russian Premier League. 

Jucilei da Silva 

NATIONALITY: Brazilian

AGE: 23

Position: Midfielder 

The 23-year-old midfielder played more than 100 matches for the Corinthians and even made it to the Brazilian national team. 

Anzhi paid about $13 million for him, according to estimates. Russian experts charge in the press that the player is worth only half of this. But the Brazilian player is still young, and, if things go well, Anzhi will be able to sell him to a European club at a significant premium. 

They are no longer the only high-rise buildings in Moscow, but the Seven Sisters remain the most striking. The skyscrapers, dubbed wedding cakes by critics of their neo-classic, tiered appearance, are emblematic of the city's history, at once absurd, terrible and beautiful.

Their reputations have also changed over the years from a grim representation of the Soviet era to buildings seen as an essential part of Moscow's landscape. And they continue to be reimagined. 

The buildings were part of a post-war reconstruction of Moscow. The original plan, conceived before World War II, was to build eight buildings, an oblique tribute to the 800th anniversary of Moscow, which was celebrated in 1947. The eighth, the Zaryadye Administrative Building, was never built.

The Seven Sisters were not the only skyscrapers planned for Moscow. The Palace of Soviets, with a quintessential utopic design, was high on grandeur and low on practicality. It would have been the tallest building in the world at that time with a massive statue of Lenin on top. The 19th-century Christ the Savior Cathedral was blown up so that construction could begin, but the project was abandoned when the war started in 1941. That site later became an open-air swimming pool and is now the site of a rebuilt cathedral.

The Seven Sisters went up within the space of 10 years, a remarkable feat for a country in ruins after the end of the war. When finished, there were two hotels, the Leningradskaya and the Ukraina; two government buildings, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Smolenskaya and the Red Gates Administrative Building; Moscow State University; as well as two residential buildings, the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building down the road from the Kremlin and the House on Kudrinsky Square. 

"It was the first large-scale construction in Europe after the war, and the first to bring skyscrapers to Europe," said Natalya Dushkina, a professor at the Moscow Architectural Institute, whose grandfather, Alexei Dushkin, was one of the architects involved in the creation of the Red Gates Administrative Building.

Stalin's Seven Sisters have drifted in and out of favor over the decades. They began with Soviet fanfare and a brief heyday when they were seen as a symbol of a country reborn after the war, Dushkina said. She said they returned a sense of scale to a city that had been hit badly by the war and by the destruction of the old city under Stalin.

American Connections

Before they were built, Soviet officials famously noted in a decree that they were to be "original works of architecture. They should not be a repetition of the kind of multi-storeyed structures found in other countries." But anyone who has seen them can trace their lineage, or at least some of the inspiration behind them, to the skyscrapers of Manhattan and Chicago. Some students of architecture have even drawn direct parallels for each building, suggesting that you can see the Manhatten Municipal Building in Moscow State University's home; Chicago's Wrigley Building in the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building; and Cleveland Ohio's Terminal Tower in the Kudrinsky Square House. From certain angles, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs resembles New York's Woolworth building.

After Stalin's death, the buildings were seen as representative of his regime and the style and the architects -- who were stripped of their Stalin prizes -- fell out of favor.

Interest is growing again in the buildings. Dushkina said that she will soon supervise a Spanish student who is writing a dissertation on the Red Gates Administrative Building. There have also been calls by Russian and German preservationists for the buildings to be put on the World Heritage List.

The foreign ministry building, best approached from a nearby bridge, is the most imposing in its Gothic appearance. Originally, the building was designed without a tower, but Stalin is said to have insisted that one be added. When Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev came to power, the architect is said to have asked him if the spire could be removed and the new leader reportedly said, "Let the spire remain as a monument to Stalin's foolishness." 

The building does have its advantages: There is a subsidized canteen on the 17th floor, which offers one of the best views in Moscow.

The buildings have their tales of horror, especially concerning the involvement of German prisoners of war, as well as prisoners from the Gulag system, in the buildings' construction. The 22nd floor of the university building was said to have been turned into a mini-camp as prisoners worked on its construction.

French writer Anne Nivat wrote of the fear and spying that went on in the House on Kotelnicheskaya during Soviet times. Nivat, who lived in the building, quoted one resident as saying, "Some of the residents of this monster are monsters themselves." The building housed high party officials and other favored persons.

Today, the apartments are some of the most sought after in the city, and if the federal government moves out of the center - as Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin promises - there will be two more Stalin Sisters open to new residents.

The hotels have managed best to adapt to the post-Soviet era. Opened in 1954, the Hotel Leningradskaya with its view of Moscow's three train stations received a major overhaul in 2006-2009. Today, it is a five-star hotel managed by the Hilton chain. The number of rooms has dropped from 330 to 273. The Hotel Ukraina, built on the bank of the Moscow River in 1957, was also given a serious face-lift. Since 2010, it has been known as the Radisson Royal Hotel, and returning foreigners stop by just to see the transformation and recall the old Ukraina. 

 

Take a tour through a reinvented relic of the Soviet Union, which recently re-opened its hotel doors to guests and the general public 

Marina Tsvetaeva, one of Russia's most remarkable poets of the Silver Age, took her own life 70 years ago, on Aug. 31, 1941. In recent years, her poems and her story have emerged as a dramatic chronicling of the first half of Russia's 20th century - a wrenching tale of revolution, exile, émigré life, espionage and the inevitably fatal encounter with Stalin's Terror. 

Two years before her death, Tsvetaeva had followed her husband and returned to Russia from Paris, only to find herself more or less under house arrest. What she may not have known is that her dashing and charismatic husband, Sergei Efron, homesick for Russia, had worked as a Soviet spy in Paris - perhaps partly to show his allegiance after being a White soldier in the revolution. 

When they returned home, they were a marked family. Efron first contracted tuberculosis and then was arrested. Tsvetaeva, ancient at the age of 48, could not go on. She hung herself in August, leaving a note, "to go on would be worse." (Some wondered if the NKVD, the precursor of the KGB, forced her to commit suicide.) 

As dark as her life became, recalling her has become celebratory, perhaps because getting recognition for Tsvetaeva was some sweet revenge for those who kept her light alive. Rediscovering her poems and preserving her life was a life-long project for two women - Marina's sister, Anastasia, and Nadezhda Katayeva-Lytkina. 

I met Anastasia, the author and younger sister of Tsvetaeva, in 1990. She gave me her newly printed novel that she, as she informed me with a mischievous smile, smuggled out of the camp over the years on packs of cigarettes. During Stalin's reign, and after his death, she sat 22 long years in detention and exile, because she was the sister of the famous Marina, and also because Anastasia was an author herself. 

Anastasia became friends with Nadezhda Katayeva-Lytkina. A young surgeon and member of the intelligentsia, Katayeva-Lytkina also lived in what was once the house where Marina lived. 

In the 1940s and '50s, Marina Tsvetaeva's poems could not be found. At that time, Katayeva-Lytkina was assigned a room in a "Kommunalka" (communal apartment) in the center of Moscow, which had one kitchen for 28 people. But the young surgeon felt quite fortunate, as she lived in the dwelling of the beloved poet Marina Tsvetaeva, whose volumes of poetry secretly accompanied her and fortified her spirit. Katayeva-Lytkina vowed to bring to light the secrets surrounding Tsvetaeva despite all the resistance she encountered. She sought out like-minded persons and dedicated her life to the fight of gaining recognition for the poet.

When Tsvetaeva's sister Anastasia was released from the prison camp, the good doctor befriended her. The struggle to save the old house, which was in total disrepair and utterly filthy, initially played second fiddle to the task of cautiously publishing the first volume of Tsvetaeva's work. 

The struggle went on for decades and resembled a political thriller. The Central Committee of the Communist Party threatened Katayeva-Lytkina: "If you publicly speak of the measures taken, your house will be demolished." 

Then Perestroika began. Undeterred, employing civil disobedience and the assistance of friends and fans, Katayeva-Lytkina finally got the museum to add Marina Tsvetaeva's house to its exhibit. In the autumn of 1992, as the country officially celebrated her 100th birthday, the museum finally opened its doors. They were long-awaited days of celebration for Katayeva-Lytkina and Anastasia, who died three years later.

Today, the Marina Tsvetaeva Museum in Moscow is a visual feast for people interested in the Silver Age and the abundance of prerevolutionary culture.

One room is dedicated to Katayeva-Lytkina, who took me to see Anastasia back then. The museum exudes Moscow's colorful past in a way that is palpable for every visitor; it is located on a side street off the Povarskaya, not far from the Kremlin, with the same majestic noble palaces that Tolstoy, among others, mentioned and described in "War and Peace."

It is here, in the heart of old Moscow, that Marina Tsvetaeva lived from 1914 until her emigration in 1922, which led her to Berlin, before reaching Prague, and then her beloved Paris. Here in Moscow she had found "a house that was a world." The three-story villa, with its robust interior design, became her "boîte à surprise" and her ship on a stormy sea. After her initial happiness with Sergei Efron came years of separation during the revolution. She overcame a revolution, subversions, chaos, cold, hunger and the death of a child all by herself, and documented it all in her work "Notes from the Attic." 

All three women - Marina, Anastasia, and Nadezhda - have long since departed this life, but their spirit continues to live on in this magnificent house. 

Ruth Wyneken is a DAAD-Lecturer in Dramaturgy in Moscow and an expert on Russian theater. 

RN launches a column, Read Russia, which will feature reviews of books to be presented at BookExpo America in New York City June 4-7, 2012, where Russia will be the guest of honor. 

TITLE: "2017"

AUTHOR: Olga Slavnikova

PUBLISHER: Overlook/Duckworth Publishing 

I n the mythical Riphean Mountains, gem prospectors, called rock hounds, search for precious stones. On the streets of a Russian city, romance unfolds against the backdrop of the centenary of the 1917 revolution -- seemingly a call to repeated violence. Olga Slavnikova weaves these parallel plots and settings together in "2017," an ambitious, postmodern contribution to a revered literary tradition. Slavnikova's strange, genre-defying novel, winner of the 2006 Russian Booker Prize, finally made it into English in Marian Schwartz's luminous translation. There is a great heritage of Russian sci fi, most of it dystopian. Several recent novels have set their action a few years in the future to create a satirical alternative present: Tatyana Tolstaya's "Slynx" and Dmitry Glukhovsky's "Metro 2033" use post-apocalyptic scenarios.

Slavnikova flirts with the sci-fi genre. She winks at rejuvenating nanotechnologies and flashes a few holographic toys, but a more serious prognosis is found in ecological catastrophe, which is poisoning the Ripheans. 

The anniversary of the revolution reinforces the idea of a recurring national destiny. Many 19th-century Russian artists embraced a rebirth of folk art and Slavic heroes. For Slavnikova, this stylistic nostalgia created a "historical dreaminess in their weak and impressionable heirs." History becomes a virus and then an epidemic. Slavnikova imagines a fake but bloody civil war, as inevitable as it is inauthentic. The striving for authenticity, rejecting the superficial sparkle of wealth and the "culture of copies," is a keynote of the novel.

The protagonist, a gem-cutter called Krylov, relishes the transparency of quartz; his polishing is an attempt to reveal what he sees inside. Despite this background in a lovingly depicted trade, Krylov's aimlessness nudges him towards the ranks of Russian literature's famous superfluous men. The women in Krylov's life are disappointingly allegorical. His wife, Tamara, is fleshy and glamorous, worldly and cynical, while Krylov's lover, the mysterious Tanya, is slim and spiritual. Krylov and Tanya's poignant and fragile relationship recalls that of Anna and Dmitry in Chekhov's "Lady with a little Dog" mixed up -- in this case -- with a spy thriller. Tanya is a frustratingly elusive character, identified with the legendary "Stone Maiden," one of the rock spirits who occasionally threaten to lead the novel veering off into the thickets of magic realism.

Deep-rooted paganism and folklore are just two of the facets of Russian culture the book begins to explore. "2017" is packed so full of ideas and images it sometimes threatens to explode under the pressure. Its strength is in its linguistic subtlety and ingenuity. 

Preparing our students for the 21st century and its demands is a global challenge. We cannot forget the importance of preparing a citizenry who will be able to work across borders and join with international colleagues in a global society, and we need teachers who are taught themselves to support intercultural understanding. This is a tall order, but these elements are at the center of the international project we are conducting at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

This past year, we have had the privilege of working side by side with teachers and school administrators in the United States and the Primorsky Krai region of Far East Russia to examine effective ways to help teachers bring international learning experiences into their teaching, enriching learning in K-12 classrooms here and in Russia. A primary goal has been to support both U.S. and Russian teachers to develop new approaches that extend beyond the scope of their immediate classroom and develop ways to incorporate a more international focus in their work with students.

The project, funded by the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, involves both Russian and U.S. secondary school teachers of Foreign/World Languages (FL/WL) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Twenty Russian and five U.S. teachers engaged in specialized, hands-on professional learning while spending time in one another's schools in both countries. The Russian teachers spent five weeks in Northern Virginia in the fall of 2010 in the foreign language, science, technology and mathematics classrooms of 16 teachers at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. In May 2011, five U.S. teachers from Northern Virginia and North Carolina spent time in the partnership schools in Vladivostok and the Primorsky Krai region of Russia. 

The teachers have learned from one another's educational practices through on-site visits and continued communication by e-mail. They have compared effective teaching approaches, conducted research in their classrooms and have begun to present the results. At the project's International Teacher Research Conference held at Asia Pacific School, Vladivostok on May 14, the U.S. and Russian teachers presented classroom research and joint projects. This conference made visible some of the results of the exchanges of knowledge and cross-cultural projects. Presentations included such topics as the implementation of multiple intelligences in Russian classrooms, joint foreign language communication projects between English classrooms in Russia and Russian classrooms in the United States, portfolio implementation for both teachers and students in Russian schools, and a field-based biology project that incorporated interactive, experiential learning. A panel comprised of teachers from both countries ended the conference; the group provided additional insights into the teachers' thinking and shared both culminating ideas and plans for ongoing collaboration. It was the overwhelming consensus that the teachers from both countries share many more commonalities than differences: They are committed educators who are focused on their students' learning and want them to grasp their subject's content, they want to reach beyond their classrooms to incorporate new technologies in real life learning and they themselves want to keep on learning through continued collaboration. 

The Russian teachers talked a great deal about the interactive learning approaches in U.S. classrooms and came away with deeper understandings about student-centered, experiential learning. At the same time, the U.S. teachers remarked on the knowledge of strong content promoted in the language classes of Russian schools. The U.S. teachers also expressed their admiration for the strong levels of English-language proficiency displayed in the Russian language classrooms.

Russian schools begin to teach English at a very early age and incorporate it increasingly as students progress through the grade levels, teaching it through content-rich prisms such as environmental science issues, American history, music appreciation and literature. Communication is a strong goal of their language programs. It was an amazing experience for the U.S. teachers to realize that in most of the schools we visited, we were the very first Americans to visit those schools, and yet the students surrounded us anxious to hold a conversation in English. 

Preparing a citizenry that can meet rapid global changes will not happen with the snap of a finger. A well-considered plan calls for new opportunities in teacher professional learning that include up-to-date knowledge in the content areas they teach, as well as in cross-cultural capacity. In this project, we have explored how the realities of far-reaching geography, language and cultural differences among a group of international teachers have become positive enhancements to intercultural exchange. 

The person-to-person components in the United States and Far East Russia have provided a strong foundation for the relationships that could sustain dialogue and explore teaching practices across cultures.

At this writing, new projects are emerging for groups of teachers that we hope will be sustained beyond the scope of our project. We plan to return to Primorsky Krai in fall 2012. In the meantime, we are sharing the current results of our work and implementing it in our work at the university. We are also using the research to contribute to a growing body of literature focused on new ways that educators can incorporate international cross-disciplinary work into designing and implementing meaningful experiences for current and future FL/WL and STEM teachers. 

Rebecca Fox and Wendy Frazier are co-directors of the U.S.-Russia Teacher Professional Development Program. For additional information, please visit the project's blog at http://usrtpd.wordpress.com 

Next year marks the 100th birthday of one of the 20th century's most admired figures: Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution in World War II Hungary only to be swallowed up himself in 1945 by Stalin's Gulag. Although Soviet leaders claimed in 1957 that Wallenberg had died suddenly in the Lubyanka prison on July 17, 1947, the full circumstances of his fate in Soviet captivity have never been established.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, the current chief of the Federal Security Service's registration and archives directorate, Lieutenant General Vasily Khristoforov, emphasized that he, too, considers Wallenberg a hero and that FSB officials are doing everything to uncover more documentation. He strongly denied withholding any information that would shed light on the truth.

Yet it is indisputable that Russian officials for decades chose to mislead not only the general public but also an official Swedish-Russian Working Group that investigated the case from 1991-2001. This group included official Swedish representatives as well as Wallenberg's brother, Guy von Dardel. Russia did not merely obscure inconsequential details of the case but also failed to provide documentation that goes to the very heart of the Wallenberg inquiry.

Chief among these are copies of the Lubyanka prison register from July 23, 1947. They show that a "Prisoner No. 7" was questioned on that day, six days after Wallenberg's alleged death. Russian officials have since acknowledged that "Prisoner No. 7" almost certainly was Wallenberg. Researchers have yet to receive a copy of the full page of this Lubyanka interrogation register, in uncensored form, showing the complete list of interrogated prisoners and other details.

Researchers also never received important investigative material about Willy Rödel, Wallenberg's long-term cellmate in Lefortovo prison from 1945 to 1947. Khristoforov states that none of the preserved statements by Rödel refer to Wallenberg. That may well be true, but researchers should be allowed to confirm that it is. 

The mere fact that large parts of Rödel's file survive raises serious questions about whether similar documentation still exists for other key persons in the case, including Wallenberg. After all, where exactly did Wallenberg's possessions magically come from after they reappeared in 1989, when Russian officials returned them to his family?

But if Wallenberg's trail indeed broke off in 1947, why this grand effort at deception?

At the moment, only one answer seems plausible: Both Soviet and later Russian officials did not want to complicate matters, which this information undoubtedly would have. If researchers had learned in 1989 or in 1991, at the start of the working group, that Wallenberg was alive six days after his supposed death on July 17, 1947, then an all-out effort would have followed to uncover the full truth about of his fate. 

Khristoforov claims that due to extensive document destruction, the full circumstances of Wallenberg's fate will never be learned. He argues that based on his experience with similar cases, Wallenberg was most likely "helped to die" (read: executed) "a few days" after July 23, 1947.

He also does not explain why document collections directly connected to the Wallenberg case in Russian intelligence archives are completely inaccessible to researchers. These include important files in the archival collections of the FSB and Foreign Intelligence Service, as well as crucial correspondence records between the security services and the Soviet leadership from the decisive 1945-47 years and beyond.

Most important, Russian officials have never revealed the source of a key document in the Wallenberg case, the so-called Smoltsov note, which was presented in an official statement in February 1957, by Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. This note, supposedly authored by the Lubyanka prison doctor, Smoltsov, claimed that Wallenberg died suddenly of a heart attack.

Why do Russian authorities not allow researchers unhindered access to documentation in a case that is 66 years old? Let us conduct an investigation that meets the standards of academic inquiry with original documents presented in uncensored form in their original file contexts -- and with research findings independently confirmed by a formal peer review. Only then can we begin to conduct a meaningful evaluation of Wallenberg's fate. 

Vadim Birstein was a member of the first International Commission. Susanne Berger is a historical researcher and independent consultant to the Swedish-Russian Working Group about Raoul Wallenberg's fate. www.raoul-wallenberg.eu 

A consensus is emerging among Russia-watchers that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's return to the Russian presidency should have little impact on the country's foreign policy and, in particular, on U.S.-Russia relations. Andrew Kuchins, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., has eloquently summarized this sentiment: 

"The possible election of Putin as the president of Russia will not signify a fundamental change in the direction of U.S.-Russia relations. The main reason for this is the fact that no major decisions on foreign or domestic policy during the period of Dmitry Medvedev's presidency have been made without implicit or explicit support from Mr. Putin." 

In other words, Medvedev's foreign policy decisions were always those of the tandem, and the tandem's decisions were always those of Putin. Or, paraphrasing the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky: when we say Medvedev, we mean the tandem, and when we say the tandem, we mean Putin. 

Of course, not everyone is subscribing to this relaxed opinion, especially the most conservative Russia watchers on the Hill. For example, the American Enterprise Institute's Leon Aron, in an article titled "Watch out for Putin, and Russia," points to what he calls Putin's "profound mistrust of the West" and warns "the United States must prepare for...destabilizing developments." Aron predicts that no progress will be made on European missile defense and expects that Russia will be less cooperative on Iran. 

And, naturally, there are always folks trying to find common ground between optimists and pessimists. Thus, Mary Beth Sheridan of the The Washington Post attempted to sound neutral: "Now, [U.S. President] Obama is going to have to get used to a new partner - Vladimir Putin." 

Is he really going to have to get used to Putin? Remember, if Putin is elected, as seems likely, he will be sworn in as the next president of Russia in May 2012. At this time, President Barack Obama will be in the middle of a tough re-election campaign; the last thing on his to-do list will be improving a perhaps personally frosty relationship with his what's-old-is-new-again Russian counterpart. Not to mention the fact that any attempt to cozy up with Putin will be immediately interpreted by Republican opponents as Putin appeasement. 

Obama and Putin met once, in July 2009, during Obama's visit to Russia, and this was a tough one-on-one, according to the people present. Shortly before the meeting, he described Putin as having "one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new." This comment was apparently intended to signal the administration's support for President Dmitry Medvedev's modernization agenda. In hindsight, however, it appears that Obama's approach, and, in particular, his jab at Putin, was misguided, even if cultivating Putin would have had its own domestic repercussions.

True, Obama and Putin will have opportunities to meet face-to-face in 2012: once at the G8/NATO summit in Chicago in May and then at the APEC meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, in November. It is, however, highly doubtful that these bilateral mini-summits will produce anything more substantial than mandatory photo-ops.

And then, in November, the presidential election in the United States will take place. Obama has about a 50 percent chance of winning the election. But if he loses, the agenda and the dynamics of the Washington-Moscow dialogue for the foreseeable future will be defined not by Putin, but by the next U.S. president, a Republican. Incidentally, Mitt Romney, currently the leading Republican presidential candidate -- and, therefore, the likeliest new partner for Putin, remarked recently that the reset in U.S.-Russia relations "has to end."

Of course, Obama may still get re-elected, but his ability to conduct the Russia policy he wants will be further limited by the expected loss of the Democratic majority in the Senate, something that the apologists of the "nothing-is-going-to change" approach seem to overlook. It is no secret that Obama invested heavily in his relationship with Medvedev on the assumption that supporting Medvedev was a way to signal U.S. support for reforms in Russia and, of course, on the assumption that supporting Medvedev will improve his chances to be elected for the second term. Making things even worse, Senate Republicans will most likely be in the majority and will obstruct his every move vis-à-vis Russia, however benign. 

In 2008, Henry Kissinger perceptively observed that when Putin was president, "Russian policy ... [was] ... driven in a quest for a reliable strategic partner, with America being the preferred choice." Regardless of whether Putin trusts or mistrusts the West, he has all the reasons to believe that his offer of strategic partnership to the United States had been rejected by anti-Russian policies of the Bush administration.

Naturally, any speculations on the direction of Russian foreign policy during Putin's third and, possibly, fourth presidential term are premature, yet the very notion that nothing will change because Medvedev's past initiatives were implicitly or explicitly supported by Putin - which is impossible to know for sure - appears a tad naïve. After all, Putin's acquiescing to Medvedev's decisions - or choosing not to veto them - doesn't prove his endorsement of these decisions, much less a willingness to pursue them.

If Obama is re-elected, he may, as Kuchins and other Russia watchers have suggested, pursue a course of pragmatism supported by the likes of at least one Republican, Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN). It could be that all is not lost. 

Eugene Ivanov is a Massachusetts-based political commentator who blogs at The Ivanov Report.