The New Russia: Difference between revisions

{{tropeUseful Notes}}

{{quote|''"Different name, same friendly service."'' |'''Valentin Zukovsky''', ''[[The World Is Not Enough (Film)|The World Is Not Enough]]''}}

{{quote|''The U.S. gave us crystal meth''<br />

Speech is a lot freer than it was, and private business not only exists, but ''thrives''. Competition between private companies can be intense and cutthroat. ''Literally'' cutthroat. Which is why private security is one of the most thriving industries. [[Vladimir Putin|Putin]] and Medvedev are seemingly popular, but often quite shady. They casually exchange [[Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?|presidency and prime-ministering]].

Russia now has a problem with [[The Mafiya]], general corruption and a lack of money, although these three are being somewhat dealt with. There's also crumbling infrastructure, unemployment, and the problems of the USSR's frankly shoddy environmental record. Chechnya is rather a big issue as well. The far right is another large problem, as fascist gangs attack anyone who doesn't look right on the street. Also, there is grande-sized corruption, terrorism, people with a college education and war veterans literally out on the streets, [[Vodka Drunkenski|more alcoholism than ever before]],<ref>[[In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You|In Former Soviet Union, Vodka consumes YOU!]]</ref>, and a much-bewailed demographic crisis. Finally, Russians, unused to capitalism after 75 years of being [[Commie Land]], manage to get suckered into all manner of scams; one particularly notorious [[Ponzi]] Scheme, MMM, ended up taking in anywhere between 5 and 40 million Russians for the whopping sum of ten ''billion'' dollars. Not rubles--hardrubles—hard, American ''dollars'' (and now - 2011 - [[Only Mostly Dead|it is back!]]). All of this contributes to it being a [[Crapsack World]] and accounts for why Russians writing about this tend to [[Accentuate the Negative]] and adhere to the far Cynical end of [[Idealism vs. Cynicism]].

One particular subtrope associated with [['''The New Russia]]''' is the "Russian Nineties", which is [[The Theme Park Version]] of the Yeltsinist Russian Federation. Everyone except [[The Mafiya|the gangsters]] and [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|the oligarchs]] is starving poor, crime is rampant, the rubles are [[Funny Money]], and the whole place is [[Grimdark]]. Basically, the Great Depression-era USA meets [[Ruritania]]. When [[Speculative Fiction]] extrapolated from this trend, it usually added [[Cyberpunk]] into the mix to create an [[Up to Eleven]] picture of a failed state, where masses do starve in droves, and the whole place is overtly run as a confederacy of mob families. The Nineties ended with Putin coming to power and oil money coming to town, but they surely can make a [[Not Quite Dead|comeback]] because of the worldwide financial crisis. Lots of previous problems persist regardless.

Some political pundits like to compare the modern Russia to the last years of [[Imperial Russia]]. Like Imperial Russia, modern Russia has an economy based on selling raw natural resources. Like in Imperial Russia, most of the remaining modern Russian industries are owned by foreign [[Mega Corp|Mega Corps]]s, and the rest by government monopolies. Putin, like Alexander III, reversed many liberal reforms of the previous reign, and Medvedev even looks like Nicholas II. Like in Imperial Russia, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing alarmingly fast. The pogroms (race riots) are back in full swing, although nowadays they target Caucasians (people from Caucasus, not generic whites) and Central Asians rather then Jews. The army is pretty much at the same redshirt status, the police is the same authoritarian riot-stamping force of mooks, the parliament is the same rubber-stamp body and is even named the same (State Duma) as the Tsarist parliament, the radical opposition is slowly but stably growing. And, like Imperial Russia, it is confronted with a [[MortonsMorton's Fork]] of external politics: ally itself with [[The British Empire|an old superpower that rules the seas]] [[Eagle Land|and was the enemy number one for a long time]], or [[Imperial Germany|a new, rapidly developing land-based]] [[China|industrial powerhouse]]? What will be next? [[World War Three|Second]] [[World War OneI|Imperialistic War]]? [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized|Second]] [[Red October|Civil War?]]

=== {{examples|The New Russia in fiction ===}}

* ''[[GoldeneyeGoldenEye (Filmfilm)|GoldeneyeGoldenEye]]'': most notable for a scene in a park full of removed Soviet statues in this regard and partly shot in St. Petersburg for second unit stuff. Until the bribes got too high.

* The low-budget [[Dystopia|Dystopian]]n sci-fi film ''[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124349/ The Syndicate]'', directed by Tibor Takács and starring Rutger Hauer (!). It is actually set [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]], but its predictions and overall mood are very much based on the Russian Nineties.

* ''[[The Bourne Series (Filmfilm)|The Bourne Supremacy]]''

* ''[[Artemis Fowl (Literature)|Artemis Fowl]]: The Arctic Incident'' features Mafiya and post-Soviet economic chaos.

* [[Age of Aquarius]] is a [[Tabletop RPG]] made in [[The New Russia]], for [[The New Russia]] and about [[The New Russia]]... [[Recycled in Space|with MAAAGIC!!!]]

* ''[[Twenty Twenty Seven|2027]]'' has a good chunk of the game set in the Russian ''Con''federation, which is shown to be little more than a crime-ridden police state.

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