The West should be even more vocal in insisting that the Russians respect human rights.

Putin likes to quote a sentence from Czar Alexander III, who said that Russian has only two allies - the army and the navy. As a citizen, this makes me sit up and take notice. This is a concept of self-imposed isolation, a defense strategy that sees Russia surrounded by enemies.

In Russia only those who are loyal to the people in power can become wealthy.

The word "people" is unpleasant to me. The phrase "Soviet people" was drummed into us from childhood on. I love concrete people, enlightened people who live conscious lives and do not simply sit there and vegetate. To love the people you have to be the general secretary of the Communist Party or an absolute dictator.

In Russia one can be as pure as can be and still lose everything in a flash and end up in prison.

The Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov once said: In a Democracy, portraits of a nation's leader should never exceed the size of a postage stamp. That won't happen so quickly in Russia.

In Russia no one is surprised when an official accepts a bribe while at the same time portraying the state as some sacred entity to which the bourgeois should pay homage. This all sounds absurd. But for Russians it is completely normal.