“A reforming liberal leader in Russia is the Holy Grail of Kremlinology...” — Simon Sebag Montefiore Quote

“A reforming liberal leader in Russia is the Holy Grail of Kremlinology, but the search for one is as misguided and hopeless as that for the relic of the Last Supper.”

“Alexander II really used autocracy well to negotiate the freeing of the serfs in 1861.”

“President Yeltsin's instincts were decent: he encouraged the marketplace, the press flourished, and everything started to open - even the KGB archives. Yeltsin reburied Nicholas II. Free from Soviet anti-semitism, he surrounded himself with Jewish capitalists and advisers who returned to public life for the first time since the 1920s.”