Russia Electing a New Tsar ?

The NYTimes says the only thing Putin doesn't yet control in Russia is culture and the arts and seems to take for granted that he will become the new potentate after todays "election" of a new Duma.

French Papers speculate on whether he will take over the National Security Council (leaving Cunning Condy to wonder why she gave up that post in the playpen) or have himself elected Tsar as in 1613 when the Romanovs came to power or have himself granted plenipotentiary powers as did Stalin in 1937.

Le 2 décembre de Vladimir Poutine, par Marie Jégo
Visiblement, la Russie, tiraillée entre le modèle de pouvoir de 1613 et celui de 1937, a tourné le dos à la modernité. "Tout est fait pour éradiquer les mécanismes européens de transfert du pouvoir au profit d'un système byzantin de succession", explique l'ancien dissident Sergueï Kovalev. L'ancien compagnon de Andrei Sakharov en est sûr : le modèle byzantin est appelé à durer.

LE MONDE 01.12.07

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In any case, Glasnost is over in that vast land, and the world is witnessing the slow choking of a fledgling democracy.

And here, a reproduction of a photo made by Russian artists V. Mizin and A. Shaburov which Putin's Kremlin and National Unity Party have declared an insult to the fatherland and successfully forbidden from exhibitions in Russia and managed to have removed from an exhibition of new Russian art in Paris.



Here a link to their gallery, which was unable to fight off Putinesque censorship, where there are also links to the two artists. At least THIS cannot be censored.