From lurid tales of oligarch excess to scare stories about Moscow’s stranglehold on Europe’s energy supplies, the land that gave us Roman Abramovich and Vladimir Putin is very rarely out of the news. But there is much more to modern Russia than billionaire tycoons and political conspiracy. Marc Bennetts’ weekly column, Deeper Than Oil, goes beyond the headlines to explore the hidden sides of the world’s largest, and often strangest, country.
Marc Bennetts is a journalist who has written about Russian spies, Chechen football and Soviet psychics for a number of UK newspapers, including The Guardian and The Times. He is also the author of Football Dynamo: Modern Russia and the People’s Game (Virgin Books).
Deeper Than Oil: A Short Guide to Russian and Soviet Cartoons
Deeper Than Oil: He Who Sobs With Joy
Deeper Than Oil: The Return of Russia’s Savior
Deeper Than Oil: A Day Out at an Iranian Nuclear Reactor
Deeper Than Oil: Odd Times in Tehran
Deeper Than Oil: Chilling Choice for Russia’s Protesters
Deeper Than Oil: The Twitching of the Zhir
Deeper Than Oil: The Red Flag Still Flies High in Russia
Deeper Than Oil: Now even the stars and the heavens turn away from Putin
Deeper Than Oil: Wall on wall battles
Deeper Than Oil: Alternative Reality Russia
Deeper Than Oil: Ripping adventures stories from 2011
Deeper Than Oil: The Skoptsy and striking off the serpent
Deeper Than Oil: Moscow protest fatigue
Deeper Than Oil: I’d have broken the habit of a lifetime for United Russia
Deeper Than Oil: Why I’m still glad Russia got the World Cup
Deeper Than Oil: No, not the road to Nowhere
Deeper Than Oil: The shaman who predicted Putin’s return
Deeper Than Oil: A Minority Of One?
Deeper Than Oil: Good cop, bad Satanist
Deeper Than Oil: Souvenir shopping in Pyongyang
Deeper Than Oil: An evening stroll in North Korea
Deeper Than Oil: The Doctor Talks Of Magic
Deeper Than Oil: FC Russian Cops
Deeper Than Oil: How to annoy people and get paid for doing it
Deeper Than Oil: The Arbat – home to snowmen, sometimes
Deeper Than Oil: The Soviet equivalent of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl tragedy
Deeper Than Oil: Beslan – an inconvenient anniversary
Deeper Than Oil: Eto’o and the most bizarre transfer ever
Deeper Than Oil: A Fun Soviet Place
Deeper Than Oil: Children of the Coup
Deeper Than Oil: All quiet on the August Front
Deeper Than Oil: Russia’s reaction to the UK riots
Deeper Than Oil: What made Russia sick?
Deeper Than Oil: Rasputin’s heirs
Deeper Than Oil: Murdoch and son, Russia and soup
Deeper Than Oil: Calm down, that’s just your wife’s head in the box!
Deeper Than Oil: The Real News Gets Odd
Deeper Than Oil: More smog anyone?
Deeper Than Oil: Russian football slips up on another banana skin
Deeper Than Oil: Does Russia Exist?
Deeper Than Oil: The smell of freedom
Deeper Than Oil: The driest place in Russia
Deeper Than Oil: Some thoughts on Batman and friends
Deeper Than Oil: Altai Bloodsuckers
Deeper Than Oil: Tolerance and Gopniks in Siberia
Deeper Than Oil: Eurovision Song Contest through the eyes of cops
Deeper Than Oil: The Cursed Team?
Deeper Than Oil: The day I met Drugg
Deeper Than Oil: Hushed hellos and no horror films
Deeper Than Oil: The Resurrection of Lenin
Deeper Than Oil: Satan denies rift with God over Earth policy
Deeper Than Oil: The Final Resting Places of Russia’s Flatheads
Deeper Than Oil: Chechen pizza on Putin Avenue
Deeper Than Oil: From perestroika punk to Putin pap
Deeper Than Oil: Can Russian cops kick the habit of killing folk?
Deeper Than Oil: A talk with Dmitry Medvedev
Deeper Than Oil: The eXile - Equal-Opportunity Haters
Deeper Than Oil: Russia Decoded Through Football
Deeper Than Oil: Sh*talin, Lenin’s kittens and Soviet fishcake heroes
Deeper Than Oil: Moscow terminal tramps (bums)
Deeper Than Oil: Nostalgia For Moscow Cop Banter
Deeper Than Oil: Occult Health Solutions in Central Russia
Deeper Than Oil: Hell is an airport
Deeper Than Oil: The winter of juxtaposition
Deeper Than Oil: Satanic Cucumbers Near Moscow
Deeper Than Oil: Christmas Presents in Narnia (Russia)
Deeper Than Oil: One nation under a spell
Deeper Than Oil: World War Three has already begun
Deeper Than Oil: An ode to Russia! or My neighbor Viktor
Deeper Than Oil: Chechen Champions
Deeper Than Oil: Yanka – The Tale of a Siberian Punk
Deeper Than Oil: Very Big in Russia
Deeper Than Oil: Magical Services
