| Older: ‘Voters, I Shrunk the Nation’ – A Slogan for Russia’s Elections? |
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, examines an Orthodox relic, the Belt of the Virgin Mary from the Vatopedi Monastery on the Mount Athos, at Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011. Putin was in St. Petersburg on business when the relic was brought to St. Petersburg, the first of several Russian cities where it will be taken for believers to worship. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Pool)
| Older: ‘Voters, I Shrunk the Nation’ – A Slogan for Russia’s Elections? |
James Brooke is VOA Moscow bureau chief, covering Russia and the former USSR. With The New York Times, he worked as a foreign correspondent in Africa, Latin America, Canada and Japan/Koreas. He studied Russian in college during the Brezhnev years, first visited Moscow as a reporter during the final months of Gorbachev, and then came back for reporting forays during the Yeltsin and early Putin years. In 2006, he moved to Moscow to report for Bloomberg. He joined VOA in Moscow in 2010. Follow Jim on Twitter @VOA_Moscow.
