Is the Soviet Union back?

Just how close is Vladimir Putin's Russia to the old U.S.S.R.? What a great question to close the week. In the decade and a half since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russians, from Kaliningrad to Chukotka, have turned to modernity and, aided by the petroleum trickle-down in the vast majority of cities and towns, even joined the 21st century. Despite the darkest desires of many surrounding Putin, the restoration dream -- the return of the omnipotent totalitarian state -- seems an impossibility. (That said, only fools in Russia dare predict the future: The past, as the locals say, is sufficiently unpredictable.) And yet, Michael, the country does resemble the old empire in at least three pervasive ways.

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