Nothing has changed in Russia since Ivan the Terrible when it comes to the divide between the people and the state. The state demands a sacred willingness to make sacrifices from the people.

The worst thing that can happen to Russia is indifference in the West - that is, if it were interested in nothing but oil and gas.

My television teaches me that everything was wonderful in the Soviet Union. According to the programs I watch, the KGB and apparatchiks were angels, and the Stalin era was so festive that the heroes of the day must still be celebrated today.

The bureaucracy has grown such powerful roots in Russia, and corruption is so widespread, that people from opposition have no interest in changing anything.

Orthodox churches, autocracy and national traditions are supposed to form a new national ideology in Russia. This would mean that Russia would be overtaken by its past, and our past would be our future.

Nothing has changed in Russia since Ivan the Terrible when it comes to the divide between the people and the state. The state demands a sacred willingness to make sacrifices from the people.

I have Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to thank that a Russian writer can not only write anything he wants, but also publish it.