Friday, January 21, 2011

Another Creepy Book about Russia

The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB
by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan
PublicAffairs, 301 pp., $26.95

The New York Review of Books has an excellent review of this book.  "The book’s title comes from an interview given at the end of 2000 by the then FSB chief, Nikolai Patrushev—a longtime ally of Putin’s from St. Petersburg—in which he called members of the FSB “our new ‘nobility.’” Patrushev’s description has proved apt. After Putin, a former FSB chief, became president in 2000, he made changes that substantially expanded the authority and the resources of this agency."  The book's authors, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogon, are both journalists who have shouldered considerable risk in openly speaking about Russian corruption, government and otherwise.  Their website is Agentura.