Country Quote by Masha Gessen

“Probably we’d have been better off born in nineteenth-century Russia. I’d have been Prince So-and-so and you Count Such-and-such. We’d go hunting together, fight,…

— Haruki Murakami

“You couldn’t have established a communist regime in sixteenth-century Russia, because communism necessitates the concentration of information and resources in one hub.”

— Yuval Noah Harari

“Probably we’d have been better off born in nineteenth-century Russia. I’d have been Prince So-and-so and you Count Such-and-such. We’d go hunting together, fight,…

— Haruki Murakami

To put it in plain language, Russia is that country where the name of a writer appears not on the cover of his book,…

— Joseph Brodsky

The problem is Russia is a country that has lost 300 years of its history, in terms of most of what was part of…

— Henry A. Kissinger

Russia has never been an aggressor. Russia has always been a country contributing to global stability and security. A country heavily involved in combating…

— Dmitry Peskov

Russia has done more than any other country to support the independent Ukrainian state, including for many years subsidising its economy through low energy…

— Sergei Lavrov

Russia is a country that has supported, propped up the worst of anti-democratic regimes in the Middle East, that has practiced - mistreated its…

— Mark Shields

Russia is the only country of the world you can be homesick for while you're still in it.

— John Updike

Every time I talk to somebody about Putin, it's like, 'But isn't he vastly popular?' Is that really the most important question? I mean,…

— Masha Gessen

“It all fit. The love of power, the focus on Russia to the exclusion of the rest of the world—with an exception made perhaps…

— Masha Gessen

When totalitarian regimes are established, they at least have the illusion of the single-minded purpose. But once they establish the stature that's necessary for…

— Masha Gessen

Putin set out to build a mafia state. He didn't set out to build a totalitarian regime. But he was building his mafia state…

— Masha Gessen

“every totalitarian regime forms a type of human being on whom it relies for its stability. The shaping of the New Man is the…

— Masha Gessen

Poverty and scarcity are actually very good for totalitarian societies. They maintain that sense of mobilization that's essential for totalitarian societies.

— Masha Gessen