With the recent inauguration of new president Dmitry Medvedev, how have things changed in Russia? Is the authoritarian freeze of the Vladimir Putin years starting to melt into a glorious new spring of freedom? Mark Ames, founder of Russian newspaper the Exile (and Radar contributor) will provide occasional dispatches in pursuit of an answer to that question ... if the authorities don't lock him up first.

The Exile is shutting down. Last night I met with my Russian publisher to "put one in its brain," as George Romero's humans would say. Except that putting this paper down is not so easy—imagine if Romero's zombies had things like tax bills that can't be ignored, debts to pay off, favors owed to other important zombies—because you never know when you'll run into that zombie again.

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