Episode 6: Navalny, Transparency, and Political Repression in Russia

03/26/21 • 21 min

In the latest episode of Expert Opinions - Russia, Eurasia, a podcast from the Harriman Institute at Columbia University and Eurasianet.org, Masha Udensiva-Brenner interviews Matthew Murray about recently-imprisoned Russian opposition leader and political activist Alexei Navalny and his transparency efforts in Russia. Murray started doing business in St. Petersburg in 1991 and became involved in business ethics and anticorruption efforts there. He got to know Navalny personally in the mid aughts, and also knows Sergei Kolosenikov, the whistleblower featured in Navalny’s recent video exposing Vladimir Putin’s alleged scheme to build a lavish palace on the Black Sea with Russian taxpayer money. Photo by Mitya Aleshkovskiy via Wikimedia Commons.

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Episode 5: The Trump Organization in the Caucasus

Masha Udensiva-Brenner tells the story of New Yorker staff writer Adam Davidson's two investigations into Trump Organization deals in Baku, Azerbaijan and Batumi, Georgia. This episode is the third in a three-part series on offshore finance, money laundering, and Trump’s real estate deals in the post-Soviet region.

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Episode 7: Authoritarianism and Dissent in Post-Soviet States

In the latest episode of Expert Opinions - Russia, Eurasia, a podcast from the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, Masha Udensiva-Brenner interviews Alexis Lerner about her scholarship on authoritarianism and dissent in Russia, particularly in the context of imprisoned Russian opposition leader and political activist Alexei Navalny. They also discuss Lerner’s book project on graffiti in post-Soviet countries and how the Russian authorities use graffiti as a way to drown out public dissent. Photo by Tamara Malaniy on Unsplash