When you say politics, you conjure a whole bunch of associations: elections, campaigning, debates, fundraising. None of this exists in Russia! We are still fighting not for election victories but for having elections at all.

The handover of power to [Dmitry] Medvedev was rather painless, everybody thought that the waves would calm automatically. By now, it's quite clear that [Vladimir] Putin doesn't want to relinquish the levers of power.

I would not draw definitive conclusions from that. If we look at South and North Korea, it is pretty hard to believe that we're dealing with the same people. Half of the people are forced to live in a concentration camp; the other have created one of the most dynamic economies in the world.

There are many ways of showing your protest and discontent without the actions of Kremlin.

I don't really like discussions about a supposed Russian national character.

At the northern border of Azerbaijan, Daghestan by no means contributes to the democratization of the Caucasus.

Many people think they are too refined, or too rational, to entertain a real sense of wonder in themselves or in others. This is preposterous to me, since the natural world is full of endless wonders, both on Earth and especially in space, no matter how you think it was created.