[LINK] "Great Leap Forward"

[rfmcdonald]

Over at the Financial Times, Neil Buckley's article "Great Leap Forward" takes a look at how some friends he made two decades ago in Voronezh, a city in southwestern Russia located near the Ukrainian border, are faring under Putin. By and large, they're doing well--so well, in fact, that they much prefer the safety of Putin-Medvedev years to the chaos of the 1990s.

This summer I went back to Voronezh. I wanted to find out what had become of Oleg and other friends, and their hopes for change. As Moscow correspondent for the FT I had watched as Russia's economic recovery gained strength - and as president Vladimir Putin clamped down on political freedoms in a way that seemed to dash the hopes of 20 years ago.

A few weeks after my visit, the sense of the clock being turned back was to become overwhelming. Oleg and Albert's homeland of South Ossetia became the scene of a conflict between Russia and US-backed Georgia. Suddenly, it seemed, we were back in the cold war, with Putin facing accusations of neo-imperialism, of attempting to recreate the Soviet Union.

Voronezh, however, does not look, feel or even smell like the Soviet Union. Two decades ago, arriving there felt like entering a parallel universe. The streets seemed drained of colour. There was precious little in the dingy shops; no fresh meat, no chocolate, no cheese. By the time we left in 1989, sugar and soap were rationed. There were three state-owned restaurants, all dismal, and no bars. Above all, the city seemed cut off from the world. The train from Moscow took 12 hours, international mail took weeks; calls outside the USSR had to be booked 24 hours ahead.

Today, ignore the still-appalling roads and Cyrillic signage and Voronezh, or the city centre at least, could be almost anywhere in Europe. McDonald's, MaxMara, Reebok and Toyota dealerships line the streets - even if the streets are still named after Lenin, Marx and Engels. There are hypermarkets, shopping malls, Irish pubs, sushi bars. Youngsters in skinny jeans go tenpin bowling or watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the refurbished Proletarian cinema, which now incorporates a coffee shop and pizza joint. Angels nightclub advertises guest DJs from Amsterdam. Charter flights from the local airport carry Russians off on holidays to Turkey.

Voronezh now seems so socially and culturally integrated with the outside world that I find it difficult to reconcile my impressions of the place with the idea of Russia being back in confrontation with the west. But talking to friends from 20 years ago, I realise many Russians are so scarred by what they went through in the years after the Soviet collapse that they are in no hurry to resume the experiment with building western-style democracy. Listening to their tales of hardship and bewilderment, chaos and hyperinflation, it becomes easier to understand why Russians in 2000 backed as their president a former KGB man who seemed to hold out the prospect of stability. And why they continue to back him today as prime minister, and his chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, as president, even though they seem to be leading Russia into a new period of isolation.