A couple passes coin-operated newspaper vending machines in the metro in Moscow. (John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images)
Moscow, Asharq Al-Awsat—The way some circles in the West put it, Russia has all but returned to the Soviet era with an omnipresent Vladimir Putin in tight control of the media. Putin, we are told, has built a cult of personality which, though not as brazen as Josef Stalin’s, is at least as distasteful as Leonid Brezhnev’s.
However, a stroll around Moscow, where more newspapers are on sale than almost any other capital, offers a different picture. To be sure a number of newspapers, directly or …read more
Source: ASHARQ AL-AWSAT
