The nature of the system that has been established in postcommunist Russia is still a puzzle for specialists as well as a broader public. It is hardly a ₁democracy₂ in the Western sense - but neither is it a society in which Communists are still in power. The contributors to this volume, a group of leading international specialists who draw throughout on a wealth of primary data, focus on the issues that are central to any judgment of this kind: whether there is a Russian ₁civil society₂; how autonomous are its media; what kinds of policies does it pursue; and how can the system as a whole best be characterised. These are issues that in turn are central to our understanding of the kind of system that has been established in the world's largest country after a period of far-reaching change from late communism to a form of society we still find it difficult to label.