The Economist magazine used to be one of the most trustworthy sources of real information and unbiased analysis of events all over the world.. But this has, unfortunately, changed, and not in a good way.
In its latest issue, it is clear that the editors of this publication were under pressure to produce anything related to the October Revolution, and to link that event in any way possible to the Russian president, and portray everything in the darkest and most negative manner there is.
The contradictions and the obvious ignorance of those who wrote and allowed this issue to be published are clear for anyone to see.
On page 9, the author of the first article about this subject talks about Putin being a tsar, to present the Russian president in a bad image; the image of the dictator and authoritarian leader who is destroying the country, but then he states that "Mr Putin has earned that title [tsar] by lifting his country out of what many Russians see as the chaos in the 1990s and by making it count again in the world." So, the question is: Is Putin good for Russia or not? You cannot say that Mr. Putin is causing all bad things to the country, but then admit that he saved it from the disasters of the 1990s.
The Economist admits that Mr. Putin "enjoys an approval rating of over 80% partly because he has persuaded Russians that, as an aide says, 'If there is no Putin, there is no Russia.'", but then, in another paragraph, the authors state that "the greater threat is not of a mass uprising, still less of a Bolshevik revival. It is that, from spring 2018 when Mr. Putin starts what is constitutionally his last six-year term in office after an election that he will surely win, speculation will begin about what comes next." In other words, the Economist makes it clear that as long as Putin is in power, there are no real problems that Russia is expected to face, the real danger is when he leaves. Interesting, even though totally contradicting the premise of the whole issue of the magazine.
Finally, and in a weird description of a certain area of Moscow, the authors (on page 18) of this incredible issue state that "an exit from the metro station in Revolutionary Square leads to a street lined with designer shops such as Tom Ford and Giorgio Armani. In nearby Red Square tourists and rich Russians sip $10 cappuccinos and gaze at the mausoleum shrouding the embalmed body of Lenin." Simply put: What is wrong with that? Or is it against international norms to "sip $10 cappuccinos"?
