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Recent Publications

"A Vision of Russia as a Country That Runs on Violence"
The Atlantic, January 8, 2024"

"A Day Inside Putin's Surreal Television Empire" 

Foreign Policy, May 29, 2023

"Downtown San Francisco had a good run. Can it recover?"
Los Angeles Times, May 21, 2023

"Staring down the Black Hole of Russia's Future" 

Foreign Policy, March 10, 2023-
(watch the follow-up interview) 
 
"A Farewell to Russia"
 Project Syndicate, Feb 22, 2023

"Russia’s identity mirrors its rulers. Putin reflects absolutism, Gorbachev fragile hope."
The Los Angeles Times, Sep 10, 2022
 
"Russia and America Are Parting Ways"
The New York Times, June 9, 2022

"Putin's War is Shattering my Russian Identity
Los Angeles Times, April 26, 2022

"War Between Ukraine and Russia Would be Tragedy
The New York Times Feb 16, 2022

En espanol: "Soy rusa y mi familia es ucraniana. La guerra sería una tragedia" 

"A Taste of Home
The New York Review of Books, November 24, 2021

"What the US Could Learn About College Admissions from the USSR"
The New York Review of Books, April 2021

"The Berlin Patient" 

Foreign Policy, April 2021
 
"The Big Smoke" 
The New York Review of Books, September 2020

"Putin's Constitutional Tsarism" 
The New York Review of Books, July, 2020

"Pandemic Journal, March 17"
The New York Review of Books (print and online) 
 
"A Winter's Night at the Bolshoi, 1985"
The New York Review of Books, March 2020 

"Therapy by Living" 
World Literature Today, January 2020

"The Tired and Poor Who Make America Great"
The New York Times, Sunday Review, August 18, 2019
 
"My Chernobyl Vacation Friend"
The New York Review of Books, July 12, 2019
 
"Shostakovich, My Grandfather, and the Chimes of Novorossiysk"
The New York Review of Books, April 8, 2019

"The Pioneers' Palace Performs in Moscow" 
The New York Review of Books, March 8, 2019

"Walls of Futility" 
Project Syndicate, March 7, 2019

"No, I Won't Take Trump Home to Russia With Me"
The New York Times, Sunday Review, January 19, 2019
 
"The Romanovs' Art of Survival"
The New York Review of Books, July 16, 2018

"My Mother’s Brilliant Career in Soviet Culture"
The New York Review of Books, May 29, 2018

"Down with Tsar Putin"
Project Syndicate, May 16, 2018
 
"The Peculiar Business of Being Russian"
The New York Review of Books, February 16, 2018

"A Soviet New Year: With Mayonnaise"
The New York Review of Books, December 30th, 2017

"Putin’s Russia: Revolution, What Revolution?"
The New York Review of Books, November 7, 2017

"The Bright Tomorrow: Growing Up in the Brezhnev Era"
The New Your Times, Op-Ed, September 5, 2017

"The Remains of Romanovs"
The New Your Times, Op-Ed, July 10, 2017
Red Century Series
NYT "Most e-mailed" and "most viewed"

"Moscow's Real Estate Roulette"
The New Your Times, Op-Ed, May 20, 2017

Interview with Boris Akunin
Top Russian writer and dissident explains how democracy died under Putin and what the US can still do to resist
Quartz, "History Lessons" Feb 15 2017

'The Russian autocrat’s guide to silencing the free press—as updated by Donald Trump'--Quartz, "History Lessons" February 2017 March 2017

"Trump’s power depends on the myth of America as dystopia—but there’s still time to reject it"--Quartz, "Storytelling" March 2017

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