Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia

by Peter Pomerantsev

Sorry, said the dean, though the Institute of Cybernetics was still officially a university, the salaries were so low all the staff were now involved in trading fish.

Political technologists are the new Russian name for a very old profession: viziers, grey cardinals, Wizards of Oz.

The Kremlin’s idea is to own all forms of political discourse, to not let any independent movements develop outside of its walls. Its Moscow can feel like an oligarchy in the morning and a democracy in the afternoon, a monarchy for dinner and a totalitarian state by bedtime.

‘Christ is the precursor to Chaplin and all the other great loser heroes of cinema and television,’

My dad was always my moral compass: whatever he suggested I did the opposite.’