Comprising of a collection of reading passages from the Russian press, this book is intended for students of Russian language who are interested in the process of change which took place in Russia in the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its central theme is culture, broadly understood as people's perceptions of themselves, their social and political environment, their personal circumstances, and the ways in which they react to them. The extracts aim to bring out specifically Russian attitudes, as well as those which Russians share with people in the West. The central...