The West's obsession with Vladimir Putin's KGB past often misses the biographical detail that can be captured by a single word: dvor. The word means courtyard in Russian, but to a Russian speaker, it is evocative of a whole universe. It was the space where Putin, like so many Soviet kids of his generation, grew up and learned an unforgiving, often brutal social code. Puck journalist Julia Ioffe introduces Westerners to that universe and explains why it’s critical to understanding the Russian president and what he might do next in the war against Ukraine.
To predict what Vladimir Putin might do next in Ukraine, it’s helpful to remember his first and foremost education — in the dvor.
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Published 10/25/23
Organized crime and violence reign supreme in post-Soviet Russia. In this world, the rules of the dvor prove invaluable — for the men fighting over the jewels of the Soviet industrial empire, and for Vladimir Putin.
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Published 10/18/23