Russia: Then and Now

There is debate over the exact moment the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics began to collapse. Some point to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Others look to the three-day Moscow coup of August 1991. But there is no debate about when the new Russia began. On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union. At the Kremlin the red and gold, hammer and sickle flag was lowered and immediately replaced by the broad white, blue, and red stripes of the Russian flag.

Ten years have passed. And there is little in Russian life which is unchanged.

Is the country better off now or were things better
under Soviet rule?
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