There was no mass uprising there were no civic forums or parties ready to take power as there were in Poland and elsewhere. The events of 1991 which led to the fall of the Soviet Union, Figes states, differed significantly from those that caused the overthrow of communism in eastern Europe. In his new book The Story of Russia the distinguished historian Orlando Figes takes them to task.įiges states that much of the burgeoning punditry on Russia is based on too narrow a perspective, including: “a focus on Putin as the embodiment of the ‘kleptocracy’ or ‘mafia state’ - descriptions of a system that is too complex to be explained by the corrupt pursuit of personal wealth or the machinations of one man and his oligarchic entourage.” The prevailing view, he writes, is that of the liberal Russia of Moscow and St Petersburg, which does not reflect the true situation. To judge from posts on Facebook, Twitter and even in highly regarded newspapers, there are people - and they are not old mountainy men - who are prepared to give emphatic views on today’s Russia based on a similar sketchy knowledge of their subject. There was a picture of her on a tank but she was not Mrs Churchill.

Britain was ruled by a woman but she was not a queen. Her name was Mrs Churchill and he had seen a picture of her driving a tank.

It was, the man said, a country ruled by a queen. In Russia’s Caucasus mountains in the 1980s the travel writer Colin Thubron met an old man who told him what he knew about Britain.

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