Life and Work in Post-Soviet Russia revolves around the professional and personal experience of living and working in Moscow of a Singapore diplomat, beginning in the aftermath of the USSR's collapse and ending in the first decade-and-a-half of this century.The book seeks to provide readers with glimpses of life in Moscow and Russia in the mid-1990s, as well as in the early years of this century. It deals with not only the sociopolitical and economic challenges of Russia's post-Soviet leaders, but also those facing the man-in-the-street. That the man-in-the-street had to personally bear the brunt of the momentous changes in post-Soviet Russia's rush to reforms is made plain in the book, and not so much the trials and tribulations of his leaders.Life and Work in Post-Soviet Russia also looks to broaden the outlook of Singaporeans, in the first instance, and non-Russians, in general, about Russia, a country which has been portrayed in a negative light by most of the Anglo-Saxon and Western media.This book also gives readers some insight into Singapore's relations with Russia, deals with issues from a personal standpoint without any attempt to inject political science theories into its analyses, and concludes with some thoughts on its future role in the world.

For a period of over seventy years after the 1917 revolutions in Russia, talking about the past, either political or personal, became dangerous. The new policy of glasnost at the end of the 1980s resulted in a flood of reminiscence, almost nightly on television and more formally collected by new Russian oral history groups and western researchers. This book is a fascinating collection of life stories and family history interview material collected by the editors and two Russian groups of interviewers.

This book explores the changing nature of growing-up working-class in post-Soviet Russia in a time of economic reform. Based on extensive research, it analyses the strategies of contemporary vocational education graduates and highlights their significance for wider processes of social change and social stratification in post-Soviet Russia.

This collection provides the first comprehensive analysis of the nature of the relationship between the military and society in post-Soviet Russia. It brings together a multidisciplinary group of leading Western and Russian experts to investigate both the ways in which developments in the Russian armed forces influence Russian society, and the impact of broader societal change on the military sphere.

One of the few English language studies to focus on the male experiences, this book addresses the important questions raised by the rise and fall of the Soviet experiment in transforming gender relations. Issues covered include; * the paternal role * women as breadwinners * men's loss of status at work * changing gender roles in the press * the relationship between the sexual and gender revoloutions. Featuring an outstanding panel of Russian contributors, this collection is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Politics, Gender Studies and Russian Studies.

This volume consists of a collection of essays devoted to study of the most recent educational reform in Russia. In his first decree Boris Yeltsin proclaimed education a top priority of state policy. Yet the economic decline which accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union dealt a crippling blow to reformist aspirations, and to the existing school system itself. The public lost faith in school reform and by the mid-1990s a reaction had set in. Nevertheless, large-scale changes have been effected in finance, structure, governance and curricula. At the same time, there has been a renewed and widespread appreciation for the positive aspects of the Soviet legacy in schooling. The essays presented here compare current educational reform to reforms of the past, analyze it in a broader cultural, political and social context, and study the shifts that have occurred at the different levels of schooling 'from political decision-making and changes in school administration to the rewriting textbooks and teachers' everyday problems. The authors are both Russian educators, who have played a leading role in implementation of the reform, and Western scholars, who have been studying it from its very early stages. Together, they formulate an intricate but cohesive picture, which is in keeping with the complex nature of the reform itself. Contributors: Kara Brown, (Indiana University) * Ben Eklof (Indiana University) * Isak D. Froumin, (World Bank, Moscow) * Larry E. Holmes (University of South Alabama) * Igor Ionov, (Russian History Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences) * Viacheslav Karpov & Elena Lisovskaya, (Western Michigan University) * Vera Kaplan, (Tel Aviv University) * Stephen T. Kerr, (University of Washington) * James Muckle, (University of Nottingham) * Nadya Peterson, (Hunter College) * Scott Seregny, (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis) * Alexander Shevyrev, (Moscow State University) * Janet G. Vaillant, (Harvard University)

This colorfully drawn and acutely observed book explores Russia by engaging all our senses. Today's Russia smells different from the Soviet Union. The country looks and sounds different, its touch is different and its food tastes different. Thus, Christoph Neidhart argues, Russia is truly a changed country from the Soviet Union it was, little more than a decade ago. Russian society is rapidly urbanizing and modernizing, as can be perceived by all senses, including the awareness of space and the conception of time. After almost a century, space can be privately owned and freely traded; time too has become commodified. New role models and new ways to express social status are emerging. Russia has become a 'monetized' economy as the old Soviet practice of provision by networking has grown obsolete. Russia thus readies itself gradually to grow into a Western-style, middle-class society with a free market and democratic polity. The author assesses these rapid changes using the evocative metaphor of the carnival to understand the chaotic inversion of the Communist structure of society. He explores the transition's traps and shortcomings—such as the privatization of politics and the looting of the state's assets—and compares this process to the modernization Western society underwent a century earlier.

There is no doubt that “economy” is a keyword in contemporary life, yet what constitutes economy is increasingly contested terrain. Interested in building “other worlds,” J. K. Gibson-Graham have argued that the economy is not only diverse but also open to experimentations that foreground the well-being of humans and nonhumans alike. Making Other Worlds Possible brings together in one volume a compelling range of projects inspired by the diverse economies research agenda pioneered by Gibson-Graham. This collection offers perspectives from a wide variety of prominent scholars that put diverse economies into conversation with other contemporary projects that reconfigure the economy as performative. Here, Robert Snyder and Kevin St. Martin explore the emergence of community-supported fisheries; Elizabeth S. Barron documents how active engagements between people, plants, and fungi in the United States and Scotland are examples of highly productive diverse economic practices; and Michel Callon investigates how alternative forms of market organization and practices can be designed and implemented. Firmly establishing diverse economies as a field of research, Making Other Worlds Possible outlines an array of ways scholars are enacting economies differently that privilege ethical negotiation and a politics of possibility. Ultimately, this book contributes to the making of economies that put people and the environment at the forefront of economic decision making. Contributors: Elizabeth S. Barron, U of Wisconsin–Oshkosh; Amanda Cahill; Michel Callon, École des mines de Paris; Jenny Cameron, U of Newcastle, Australia; Stephen Healy, Worcester State U; Yahya M. Madra, Bogazici U; Deirdre McKay, Keele U; Sarah A. Moore, U of Wisconsin–Madison; Ceren Ŏzselçuk, Bogazici U; Marianna Pavlovskaya, Hunter College, CUNY; Paul Robbins, U of Wisconsin–Madison; Maliha Safri, Drew U; Robert Snyder, Island Institute; Karen Werner, Goddard College.

Grassroots Russian women's organizations faced multiple challenges in the early 1990s. Like their members, they were confronted with both potentially hostile attitudes and numerous practical difficulties. Post-Soviet ideologies of gender difference produced a gender climate which was particularly unsympathetic to female activism in support of other women. This book presents a detailed study of grassroots Russian women's organizations in 1991-96, against the background of a careful analysis of gender relations and attitudes to women's place in post-Soviet Russian society.

A collection of essays first published in Moscow in 1909. Writing from various points of view, the authors reflect the diverse experiences of Russia's failed 1905 revolution. Condemned by Lenin and rediscoverd by dissidents, this translation has relevance for discussions on contemporary Russia.