In the first week of May, Novaya Gazeta special correspondent, Elena Kostyuchenko, met with the students of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies on the Monterey campus and with alumni of the Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia online.
Elena Kostyuchenko is a Russian investigative journalist and special correspondent for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper. In the past, Elena was embedded as a frontline journalist with both separatist and Ukrainian troops in Donbas. She also covered protests against the construction of a controversial highway through the Khimki Forest, exposed the ecological disaster of the Norilsk oil spill and profiled doctors fighting COVID-19 during the initial outbreak.
| by Mollie Messick MATESOL '21
The Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies (MIR) hosted Olesya Vartanyan, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, to discuss the impact of the war in Ukraine on the three breakaway regions in the South Caucasus on May 5.
| by Jarlath McGuckin
On April 26, Sam Greene, Professor of Russian politics and Director of the Russia Institute at King’s College London, discussed how citizens of authoritarian regimes respond to the restrictions placed by leaders on their ability to consume news.
| by Jarlath McGuckin
On April 21, Middlebury College professor Will Pyle delivered the lecture, “Exiting Communism’s Enduring Effect on Russian Public Opinion” in McGowan Hall 100. He discussed the lasting effects of Russia’s dramatic exit from communism thirty years ago.
